Disclaimer: Why do copyrights have to exist? They make me sad. Anyway, Naruto isn't mine.
A/N: I don't generally do AU fics. Well…not AU in the sense of completely different reality. But I got an idea for this one. And I don't want to say the couples immediately, cuz I think that takes part of the fun out of it. But that's just my opinion. Enjoy!
-- Sakura Kaijuu
----
Haruno Sakura sighed. This was the most boring meeting she had ever attended. She leaned one of her elbows on the table and rested her face in her hand. Her shoulder length pink hair fell slightly in front of her aqua green eyes as she made another face. Why did people insist on using PowerPoint presentations? Especially when they read EVERYTHING ON THE FREAKING PAGE.
Sakura's life seemed to be on a downhill run. All throughout her school career she had strived to be the best. And she had been. She graduated valedictorian of her class and had received many scholarship offers for college for her efforts. In college she struggled, but in a satisfying way. She had double majored in English and anthropology. When she graduated she had been confident in her abilities to obtain a job to her liking.
Right out of college a major advertising firm had hired her on spec. Between the ages of twenty-two and her current age, twenty-five, Sakura had climbed the ladder almost as high as she could go. She was a top executive within the corporation, renowned for her people skills. But she was running out of things to go for. She was hitting the peak of her performance before she was thirty. And she worried about it.
"—and Miss Haruno will be meeting with the representative from Dragon Industries in order to secure the job for their new toy, Little Faerie Bu," the voice penetrated through Sakura's self-reflection.
She looked up to see every pair of eyes focused on her and hastily sat up. She smiled. "Of course, sir."
The head executive raised his eyebrows and moved on. Sakura looked around at her co-workers to find that she was still attracting amused looks. She sighed again in exasperation.
----
Sakura got home to her upper-middle class apartment that night to find several messages on her answering machine. She hit the play button and walked away into the kitchen to make herself some dinner.
"Hey Sakura! It's Ino. I was wondering if you wanted to get together again sometime. It's been so long since we've talked! And I have something exciting to tell you. But it has to be in person. So nyah! Talk to ya soon."
beep
"I hate answering machines. They're so troublesome. But I guess it's better than nothing. Sakura, it's Shikamaru. I just wanted to ask if you were busy, cuz some people want to get together. And somehow I got put in charge."
beep
"Sakura. This is Danno Ichiro. I'm just leaving the details of your meeting with you for tomorrow. You will be visiting the office of a man named Hatake Kakashi. He's going to go through the basics of his ideas while you treat him to lunch. He may have associates. He hasn't given us that information yet. Remember that we need Dragon Industries."
beep
As the last message played, Sakura sighed again. Her boss was ruthless. And he didn't think much of her. If it wasn't for the fact that everyone else loved her, he would've fired her a long time ago. Like she didn't know that Dragon Industries was a multi-million dollar deal. She shook her head as she sat down on her couch and turned the television on.
She ate her meal of leftover spaghetti and thought about the other two messages. The one from Ino had been interesting. She wondered if Shikamaru had finally proposed. They had been dating since high school. And he was a cool guy. And she wondered what Shikamaru's message had been all about. The tone had been typical Shikamaru, but the content intrigued her. Who wanted to get together? Or was he being cryptic again to keep Ino out of the loop? She'd have to call both of them back. But she'd do it tomorrow.
Sakura spent the rest of the evening watching tv. Between the news, the dramatic comedies and her weakness for cartoons time passed quickly and she suddenly realized it was eleven o'clock and she had to go to bed to be presentable tomorrow.
----
She awoke the next morning right to her alarm. As she stumbled her way to the bathroom to shower she thought about her business meeting today and what to wear to be presentable. She decided on something kind of sexy, since her main focus would be on Kakashi, and that would make the best impression.
Still wrapped in a towel she went to her closet and looked through her possibilities. She wound up picking a deep red button-up shirt with a collar and short sleeves that showed off her bust quite well and a black knee length skirt. After she dried her hair she put on a thick, black cloth headband that added something childish and fun to the outfit. After her finishing touches of mascara, eyeliner, and a light coat of lip gloss, she went back to her closet and picked her most comfortable pair of dress shoes, simple black flats with a rounded toe.
She looked in the mirror and smiled. Excellent. Professional, yet attractive. She glanced at her watch and made a face. Time to go if she wanted to be on time.
----
Sakura arrived at her office right at eight o'clock and smiled at her secretary. "Morning, Kaede."
Kaede looked up from her computer. Her eyes widened as she took in her boss's appearance. "Well, you're out to impress today, aren't you?"
She grinned fiendishly. "Well, the client is a man. And everybody knows what they want."
"Sakura!" the secretary looked mildly appalled. "You shouldn't say stuff like that!"
"Eh…" she shrugged. "You didn't deny it, which means I'm right. I'm going to be busy all day, and I'll obviously be out for lunch, so please don't let anyone disturb me."
Kaede shook her head. Her boss was crazy, but she worked hard to be good at what she did. "Yes ma'am."
----
Sakura spent her morning looking through papers and making notes on how good this company was in comparison to the other advertising firms. She winced when the intercom sounded and Kaede's voice came on. "Sakura, Mr. Danno would like to see you."
"In his office?"
"No, he's right here. He'd like to come in."
Sakura inwardly thanked her lucky stars that she hadn't said anything sarcastic over the intercom. "He can come in. Thank you."
The door opened and the intimidating figure of Danno Ichiro was silhouetted in the frame. He entered and shut the door. Sakura looked at him coolly, "What can I do for you, sir?"
"Sakura, I just want you to understand how important it is that this meeting goes well," Ichiro's dark eyes were boring into her own. She was surprised that he wasn't distracted by her appearance. On her way in every man in the building had turned to stare.
"I know, Ichiro," she replied with a sigh. "I've been working all morning on things to bring up in conversation. I'm taking this very seriously."
He sat in one of the two chairs opposite her desk. "Are you? I'm not sure you're always doing the right thing for the company."
She looked at him in disbelief. "Ichiro, I know you don't like me. Stop trying to get me to quit. This is a good job. Now, if you'd excuse me, I have to go meet Mr. Hatake at the Dragon Industries offices." She stood up, picked up her purse, and left.
"Sakura, if you mess this up, I'll get you fired," Ichiro called after her. All he heard in reply was the slam of the office door.
----
Sakura left the office as quickly as possible and threw her purse into her car. As she drove she worked as hard as she could to control her anger. It was her fatal flaw. Since she was little she had had a problem controlling her temper. The most memorable lapse in control had happened when she was twelve years old. She had punched a boy in the face for making a perverted comment at her.
By the time she reached Dragon Industries she had calmed down sufficiently. She entered the building and went to the front desk. "Excuse me, I'm Haruno Sakura. I'm looking for Hatake Kakashi's office. Could you please direct me there?"
The woman behind the desk looked up at her. "Yes. Fourth floor. Second office on the left."
"Thank you," Sakura sighed and headed towards the elevator. After she reached the fourth floor, she knocked on the office's door. There was a small plaque on the door with Kakashi's name on it.
The door was opened and a tall, handsome man. He had spiky, silvery-gray hair that went off to the side. His eyes were dark and intense. There was a scar over his left eye. "Good morning. Are you Haruno Sakura?"
Sakura blinked a few times before remembering she was supposed to answer. "Uh…Yes! I'm from the Atheia Advertising Agency."
He nodded and stepped aside. "Well, come in, then."
She felt her face turn a little red and she entered the office. "I'm sorry, am I late?"
"Not at all," Kakashi invited her to sit in a chair while he sat behind his desk. "Oh, by the way, we'll be taking two of my associates with us to lunch. It was a last minute arrangement."
Sakura smiled. "That's fine. So where are they?"
Kakashi pressed a button on his phone, "You guys can come in." The door opened again and Sakura turned to see two young men about her own age enter the room. "This is Uchiha Sasuke and Uzumaki Naruto."
Sasuke, Sakura decided, was drop dead gorgeous. He had dark hair that fell into his eyes in the front and spiked out in the back. His eyes were dark and mysterious, and somehow sad. He was tall and lean and looked excellent in his white, collared shirt and black pants.
She turned to study Naruto and as they looked into each other's eyes both their jaws dropped. "NARUTO!" she cried in surprise.
"Sakura!" Naruto looked equally surprised. He had spiky blonde hair and blue eyes. His face also sported three black lines on each cheek. He wasn't entirely unattractive himself.
Kakashi and Sasuke looked at each other and then back at the other two. Kakashi smiled. "Are we missing something?"
Sakura had stood up and crossed the room to look into Naruto's face. "It IS you!"
Naruto smiled in disbelief. "Wow…It's been forever."
"Yeah, high school. And then you disappeared off the face of the earth. Where the hell did you go?"
"College…" he answered sheepishly.
Sakura continued to look stunned and pleased. Then she realized Kakashi had asked a question. She turned back around. "I'm sorry. Naruto and I went to the same high school. I didn't expect to see him here."
Kakashi nodded. "I see. Well, now that you have someone here that you know, maybe you'll be a little less awkward. Shall we go?"
Sakura turned red again. "I'm sorry. Sure."
"It's fine. We'll take my car," Kakashi grabbed his keys.
"But –"
He smiled at her again. He was so gorgeous. "I don't like to play by the rules. I'm going to treat you to lunch. I get the feeling you want to do this about as much as I do."
She laughed. "Yeah, really. If you're not going to give me a choice, then I guess I'll go along with it."
----
The entire ride to the restaurant, Naruto and Sakura talked about what they had been doing. Sakura described her college experience and her jerk of a boss. Naruto told her about how he had decided to go to college after all and then he met Kakashi. "He's only a year older than us. And Sasuke is our age too."
"Man…we're all over achievers, aren't we?" Sakura said jokingly.
Kakashi smiled at her through the mirror. "Yeah. We are. What d'you think, Sasuke?"
"Mm?" Sasuke had been staring out the window. He shrugged. "I suppose so."
Naruto sighed in exasperation. "Sasuke, shut up. You're worse than anyone here. Except maybe Sakura."
"He's got you there, Sasuke," Kakashi pulled into the restaurant. "By the way Sakura, you've got the job. This is just a formality. I've seen the other stuff you've been in charge of. I feel that Little Faerie Bu will be safe with you."
She sighed in relief. "Thank you, Mr. Hatake."
"Just call me Kakashi. The formalities are my least favorite part of my job."
----
Lunch had gone smoothly. Since she had cinched the deal in the car without even trying it was much more enjoyable than her usual business lunches. She got back to her office and packed up some stuff to do at home and told Kaede to tell Ichiro that she had gotten the deal.
When she got home she changed into black fleece pants and a semi-loose t-shirt. She smiled to herself. That had been a good day. And now she needed to call her friends back.
She picked up the phone and dialed Shikamaru's cell phone number. After three rings Shikamaru's voice came through the receiver, "Hello?"
"Hey, it's Sakura. What's up?"
Shikamaru sighed. "Well, Naruto got ahold of me. He wants to see you. And I told him I'd try."
"Really? That's weird," Sakura paused. "Actually, I saw Naruto today. He's working for my new client."
"Huh. Well, then I was put to more trouble than I should've been." Shikamaru sighed again. Sakura heard a female voice in the background. "Ino wants to talk to you."
"Okay," Sakura began to say, but she was cut off by Ino taking the phone.
"Sakura! We need to get together. Do you have time today? We should totally go out somewhere. I think we should go out to dinner. How about today?" Ino rushed.
Sakura smiled. "Ino are you excited about something?"
"YES!" she exclaimed. "We have to go tonight. It's bursting inside me! I invited Hinata too. Please, Sakura? Pretty please?"
Sakura shook her head and laughed. "All right, all right. You win, Ino. Where are we going to go?"
"How about that new place near your apartment?"
"Chez Pierre? But Ino, that place needs reservations! And it's expensive!" There was a brief pause. "Ino?"
"Um…See, that's why it needs to be tonight. Cuz I did make reservations! But you've been so busy and not calling me back!" Ino sounded worried.
"Okay, okay. I'll go. What should I wear?" Sakura gave up. Ino was her best friend. And she obviously had exciting news.
"I don't care. Something fancy. But now I've gotta go. Here's Shikamaru again. Seeya tonight!"
"When?"
"Oh…Uh…Seven o'clock. Kay?"
"Okay. Seeya Ino."
There was some rustling while the phone was passed back to Shikamaru. "Sakura?" Shikamaru's voice came back over the line.
"Yes?"
"I'm telling you right now that Ino didn't really invite Hinata. And I'm coming too. She invited someone else."
"Then why'd she say that?"
"Because she wanted it to look like she was just organizing a girl's night out. Really she's setting you up on a blind date," Shikamaru had lowered his voice.
"Why!"
He sighed. "Because she thinks that you need to get out more. And you haven't been on a date in ages."
"Then your message and Ino's message…" Sakura closed her eyes in order to try to think straight. "…They were talking about the same thing…?"
"Pretty much," he answered. "But it's not Naruto. I asked Ino. She won't tell me who it is though. The most she'll tell me is that it's someone we met in college."
"Great…" Sakura rubbed her temples with her free hand. "Well, thanks Shikamaru. I'll see you later then."
"Yeah. Sorry. Bye," he hung up the phone.
Sakura pressed off on her phone and groaned. "WHY? Why does Ino find it necessary to meddle in my life SO MUCH!" She looked at the clock. It was about three. That meant she had four hours in which to contemplate what she would wear to get ready in general.
She thought of her lunch. That had been so nice. Three cute guys all paying attention to her. And now this evening. She was dreading it a little.
----
A/N: Ha ha! I'm not revealing ANYTHING. Cuz I have so many good ideas! Ha ha ha!
Okay, so that was obnoxious. But that's okay. I didn't know how to make up an excuse for Kakashi to have his mask or the sharingan. So I just didn't bother. And for the record, I think that Sasuke is totally hot in his forehead protector and kinda weird looking without it. And I think the complete opposite in Naruto's case. So for me imagining him with no forehead protector, I'm happy. So anyway, please review!
-- Sakura Kaijuu