pairing: SasuSaku, possible others
summary: "I want you to be my inspiration." And really, whywhywhy did all the pretty ones have to be so impossibly unattainable?
dedication: Annie – plain and simple, though she is anything but. And I hope that came off as a compliment because it's totally meant to be. (babbles and is awkward)
notes: Hmmm. First off, thank you very, very much for all your kind reviews! I'm so glad you guys like how it's going so far.
I'm actually a bit overwhelmed, to tell you the truth.
As far as direction goes, I really don't think this is going to be very angsty. Make no mistake, I am infinitely more comfortable writing in the realm of drama and sadness and tiny, tiny, tears, etc., but I want this to be light, and sweet. And hopefully funny. So please continue to tell me how I can improve. Thank you!
Also,ohwhatsherface has challenged me to write a piece that was SasuSaku and had a ferryboat in it. So, I'm cheating a little and incorporating it into this chapter. And the next.
In conclusion, I fail at fic challenges.
And, a thank you to sadistic dreamkiller, who gave me vaguely wicked ideas. YOSH!
Finally, the chapter kind of…jumps around. The first part of it takes place before the first chapter, and everything else is…er, present-time. Yeah.
PM me if you need any clarification, though if I've done my job, there won't be any need. :D
disclaimer: Naruto and all associated characters, places, names, etc., does not belong to me.
"You want me to do what?"
Hatake Kakashi ignored his sort-of protégé's incredulity with a practiced ease that made Sasuke want to throw a chair at him.
"You heard me."
"…"
"Don't pause at me, Sasuke. You had to know this was coming. You've done everything else there is to be done, and you refuse to go down the road I suggested earlier."
"You wanted me to do erotica, you pervert! There's no way in hell I'm going down that road, as you so eloquently put it."
Kakashi shrugged.
He gestured toward the paperback in Sasuke's tense hand.
"Be that as it may, I think that this is the next best thing. A safer alternative, if you want to see it that way."
Kakashi leaned forward.
"What's really bothering you? This shouldn't be anymore difficult than writing poetry, and you've always loved a challenge."
Sasuke glowered mutinously.
"…"
"There you go with your pauses, again. Honestly, it's a wonder you do so well on your writing to begin with, considering it's a surprise to most people that you even know how to talk."
Kakashi leaned forward, the absurd eye-patch he insisted on wearing, along with his trademark half-face mask only inches away from Sasuke's own face. His one visible eye squinted, and then widened in false realization.
"Oh, I know what this is about." He patted Sasuke's head, quickly moving his hand away before the younger man could do anything too rash.
Like break off his arm and feed it to him.
"You don't have any experience with women, because you're such a virginal—"
"…'mnahrgin."
Kakashi made a great show of cupping his hand around his ear.
"Sasuke, what did I tell you about enunciation?"
In response, Sasuke snarled, and spoke each of his words with tight clarity—and barely restrained fury.
"I said. I. Am. Not. A. Virgin."
"Of course, you're not." Kakashi spoke in his most patronizing of tones.
"Asshole."
"Really now, Sasuke. Are you reduced to pulling out school yard taunts?"
Sasuke remained silent. Clearly, he was not rising to take any (more) of Kakashi's bait. The older man sighed. Ah, well. It had been fun while it lasted.
"But really, Sasuke, if it's the lack of experience that's bothering you, then just…I don't know, meet a girl, and get some."
"I'm not about to use somebody just to write out a stupid novel."
Kakashi smirked, but not unkindly.
"Ah, the ever considerate hero. See, you're fitting the stereotype, already."
A faint buzzing sound filled the room, and Sasuke reached into his pocket to pull out his phone. Kakashi glanced at it with bored interest.
"Sasuke?"
A grunt.
"That moron got passes to a club tonight. He wants me to go with him, but knowing him, I'll probably just end up playing chaperone."
"Well, why don't you go? Maybe you'll find what you're looking for."
Sasuke snorted.
Not likely.
Sakura stared.
Because really, what was she supposed to do?
Some strange blond, blue-eyed
(and yes, fine, absolutely adorable)
possibly homosexual, and probably pissed total stranger had just walked through her doorway and asked her out…on a date?
Maybe. She wasn't even sure. She was still reserving judgment on him playing for the other team.
Really, having this right on the heels of last night, it was a wonder she hadn't fainted yet. She broke out of her thoughts to ask him just what the hell he thought he was doing, except—
He was…gone?
She took back her assumption when she turned around and saw him…
Was he hitting on Hinata?
Hm.
Well, if nothing else, he was certainly invading her personal bubble, what with the way he was leaning into her.
"Hey! So I never got your answer earlier! My name's Naruto. Wanna go out sometime?"
Thump.
Sasuke sighed and dropped his head into his hands.
Writer's block sucked.
He growled and shut off the monitor, running a hand through his hair in evident frustration.
He couldn't do this. He wasn't built for this. This…this was…
Just, no.
He would write sci-fi,
(Magnificently, if the reviews were to be believed. Uchiha writes with a flair for detail, and plots that ensnare the mind!
All this praise, despite his long-standing opinion that the only little green men that existed in this world were resting on the face of American currency)
he would write satire,
("YOU?! Write humor? You with the stick lodged straight into your spine? Won't you blow up and die or something?"
And he snorted, because really, Naruto could be astonishingly simple when he chose to be and it wasn't humor, it was—
"Satire, dead-last. It's humor for the intellectually inclined. Not that I should expect you to understand."
And the blond had snorted, unimpressed, because really—
"Is that a nice way of saying you're writing for your fellow virgins, you bastard? Because it's OK. I won't judge.")
he would even write mini-treatises on Foucault, and Derrida, counter-arguments for Post-Structuralism, and play devil's advocate with critiques of Russian Formalism. The erudite hailed him as one of the few people who effortlessly managed to make literary theory palatable for the masses, without oversimplifying it to the point that it became little more than a For Dummies book.
He would wax poetic in novels—take his readers to 16th century England if they so wished, or by the murky rivers of the Belgian Congo.
Hell, he'd even dabbled in poetry.
He was a jack-of-all-trades, with a fan base that included people from over thirty countries. His works had been translated into over ten languages.
But, this…this was…
For the hundredth time that hour, he damned Hatake Kakashi—his infuriatingly eccentric, undeniably perverted agent—to a world without Playboy.
How in the world was he going to write a romance novel?
"Hinata!"
Without missing a beat, Sakura rushed over to her friend and carried her to the couch. Briefly forgetting the blond standing at the open door, now talking to air—he didn't seem very hostile, right now anyway, and if he tried something she could easily knock him flat out. With a warning glance to—
(What had he said his name was? Naruto? That sounded about right.)
—she hustled into the kitchen to rummage through her small pantry for some garlic. Hinata hated its pungent aroma, and in any case, it was a lot more gentle than slapping her awake.
When she came back into the living room, she found the blond stranger sitting next to her friend, rubbing the back of his neck, a sheepish smile stretched out across his face. Waving him away, she took his place next to Hinata, placed a small glove of unwrapped garlic near her friend's nose, and waited for it to take effect. While she waited, she decided to interrogate the blond a little more. Other than his earlier…bold proclamation, and his rather absent assurance that he wasn't there to scratch her pretty green eyes out for kissing his…
Friend?
Manslave?
Lover?
She still wasn't quite sure she trusted his not-so-vehement denials of…hm, now what was his name again? Oh right, Sasuke.
She was a little surprised she was having such trouble remembering their names. After all, earlier she'd been petrified that the blond—
(Naruto, her mind supplied helpfully. His name is Naruto.)
was there to take rightful vengeance on her after her startling lack of dignity the night before.
And the other, the dark-haired Adonis who she'd kissed without so much as a verbal warning… goodness, she'd even tried to take the man's pants off.
With her teeth.
…
Somehow, Sakura thought dolefully, these things—and the people involved—seemed to be the kind of thing a girl ought to remember with more clarity.
She was startled back into reality—and again, vaguely remembered her original intent to question Naruto—by the sound of Hinata's small squeak.
Sasuke sighed.
Once again, Naruto's cell phone led him straight to voice mail.
He snorted. The idiot had probably forgotten to turn it off or something.
Sasuke hoped that he hadn't forgotten what he was supposed to do. He remembered Kakashi's words from their previous meeting.
"Maybe you'll find what you're looking for."
Back then, he'd been skeptical. True love in the heat of a darkened room, with more alcohol than there was water in the sea? Improbable, to be kind.
However, that girl—woman, his mind corrected him gleefully, all woman, before he silenced it with a vengeance—she had been different.
Maybe he had found his inspiration, albeit in a slightly different way than Kakashi had expected.
Hey, it's me! You know what to do after the beep. And Sasuke, if it's you, I still owe you for last night…wink wink.
…
Moron. One day soon he'd have to remind him to change that message. It wouldn't do for people to get the wrong impression, just because Naruto's immaturity streak and—unfortunately—memory stretched wider than the sky.
One of these days, someone was going to think it was true—
He stopped. Thought back to last night. Groaned, remembering—Shikamaru had said her name was Sakura, right?—the girl's words before she kissed him.
"So Ino-pig was right. You're gay!"
Too late.
"So, Naruto. Do tell. Do girls usually pass out when you ask them for dates?"
The blond pouted, and Sakura almost squealed.
(Maybe) Gay or not, Naruto was adorable.
She stole a glance at Hinata. The Hyuuga was wide-eyed and pink-cheeked and more quiet than usual. Very interesting.
Apparently, she wasn't the only one who'd noticed the blond's charms.
"Ne, Sakura, why do you have to be so mean?"
The pink-haired woman smirked.
"Well, you deserve a little meanness, don't you? After all, you asked me out just five minutes ago, and now here you are, chatting up my friend. And I'm still not fully convinced that you're not gay."
Naruto glowered at her, lower lip still stuck out, but quickly, his expression changed into a thoughtful one. His eyes widened.
"Oh! I forgot! I didn't ask you out for me, Sakura! I was asking you out on behalf of my best friend! The bastard you saw me with last night."
He wiggled his eyebrows lasciviously.
"You remember him, don't you? I'm sure I remember you two…getting acquainted at some point."
He snickered, and on Sakura's other side, Hinata tried to hide her own.
Sakura raised a pink-brow.
"If I remember correctly, he was the one who wanted to come out, right?"
Before Naruto could answer, he sat up with a start. A vibrating…noise was coming from the vicinity of his pants.
If that isn't a cell phone, said Inner Sakura from the confines of her own mind, then I don't want to know.
Luckily, it was just that, and Naruto's eyes widened.
"Seventeen missed calls? Shit, shit, shit I'm so dead, I was dead yesterday. Dead, dead, dead."
Still repeating his somewhat morbid mantra, he ran for the entrance to Sakura's apartment. Before he left, he turned to the two girls sitting in stupefied amusement on her ivory couch and rattled off an address.
"Go there tonight! Seven sharp. And I'll—well, he'll prove to you, he's not gay! I just hope you don't get seasick!"
With those cryptic parting words, he was gone.
After she'd said goodbye to Hinata, with a thank you for taking such good care of her, Sakura wondered what to do next.
She settled on calling Ino for advice.
Ino squeals, even when diluted by a telephone line, had about the same impact on Sakura's ears as a moving train did on dandelions.
"So you have a date, tonight! Oh, I'm jealous, that guy was absolutely on fire!"
Sakura rubbed her forehead, irritably.
"Don't even start, Ino. Whether or not that guy is on fire is exactly how I got myself into this."
Her blonde-haired friend snorted.
"You know what I meant. And, really, like you're not thrilled! This is the first date you've been on since…well, Sai."
"Don't even mention him, right now. I'm tense enough, as it is without adding that man to the mix."
"Oh, you must be. I can practically hear the italics."
"Whatever. Where's Tenten?"
"Probably still asleep. She and I were up late bemoaning our man-less fates."
"And laughing. Cackling. About my misadventures."
"I'm not denying it." Then, her voice softened.
"But, Sakura…be careful, all right? I mean, I know they were cute, but we really don't know anything about these guys."
Sakura smiled softly at the worry in her best friend's voice.
That Ino…
"Of course, I will be. I've packed my Mace and everything."
"That's what I like to hear. But, good luck, yeah? If he turns out to be a winner, I'd better be godmother!"
"Shut up."
At 6:30 PM, in his penthouse suite, Uchiha Sasuke was pacing. He looked at the blond idly reading a magazine on his leather couch.
"You're sure you gave her the right address?"
Naruto sighed.
"For the thousandth time, yes. I even managed to give her the right time, all by myself, like a big kid. Could you relax? Honestly, your paranoia's starting to piss me off."
Nara Shikamaru, who'd just walked in, snorted and sat down beside the blond.
"He can't help it Naruto. It's his first date."
Sasuke, from his position staring out at the city light below snorted. Why did his friends insist on treating him like a confused little—
"—virgin, so it makes perfect sense that he'd be scared."
Naruto nodded in understanding.
"I get it. But still…"
Sasuke gave Shikamaru a dry look.
"Are you sure this girl's…the right one?"
Shikamaru shrugged.
"Can't really be sure until you meet her, Sasuke." Then, he smirked.
"Of course, it might be a little weird for you, using your mouths to actually talk, instead of, well…I'm sure you remember."
Naruto squinted at Sasuke.
"Hey…your tie's crooked."
The dark-haired man waved his comment away.
"I'll fix it later."
Naruto's response was interrupted by the doorbell, and Sasuke glanced at the clock.
6:55.
Well, if nothing else, she was at least prompt.
Shikmaru stood.
"I'll get it." He stood from his seat, stretched and walked through the hallway to the entrance, and out of sight. Meanwhile, Naruto had an Agenda.
"See! You should have fixed it earlier! She's here now, and she'll think you're a moron because you can't even tie your tie straight!"
"And what do I care what she thinks?"
Naruto scowled.
"You'd better be nice to her, you bastard. Sakura's really nice, and if you need her to do you a favor, then you'd better care what she thinks!" Then he smirked. "But then again, she thinks you're gay for me, so maybe you really don't have to care."
Sasuke balked.
Him? And…that blond…Naruto? That girl thought he was gay for Naruto?
He stopped.
Oh, wait. He'd known that. He vaguely remembered her saying something along those lines the night before, at the club.
He wondered why the thought chafed so much, but before he could ponder it too deeply, Naruto dealt him another conundrum.
(which fit, because, after all, Naruto was obviously placed on this Earth to fill the troublesome quota, as Shikamaru put it)
"What made you pick her, anyway?"
Sasuke opened his mouth to reply, then shut it when he realized he didn't have an answer.
Thankfully, he didn't have to explain. Naruto's ears perked up at the sound of approaching voices.
"She's here! Don't worry, Sasuke! I'll fix it!"
The blond tackled Sasuke to the floor, hands heading straight for his collar. Sasuke flailed for purchase, before falling with Naruto on top of him, clearly infuriated.
"Idiot! Get off!"
Naruto, stubborn one that he was, refused.
"Not. Till. I. Fix. This. TIE!"
They rolled around a few times, before finally coming to a stop with Naruto on top.
Sasuke's tie was finally on straight.
The rest of his suit, however, was very clearly rumpled. He growled, before pulling Naruto by his tie, until their faces were only inches from each other.
"Naruto—"
"—not gay, Sakura, a little prickish maybe, but I promise you, he's not…gay…"
And that was how Shikamaru and Sakura found them.
Shikamaru smirked.
Sakura gaped.
Naruto flailed.
"This isn't what it looks like! I swear! Sasuke wasn't following my directions so I had to teach him a lesson, and—"
Sasuke despaired.
The ride to—well, wherever they were going, as Sakura wasn't exactly sure, yet—was silent.
After a quick change for Sasuke, and a few snickers from Shikamaru and a hurried explanation from Naruto to Sakura, they were off.
Sakura felt strangely unworried, despite the day's increasingly odd events. She attributed this her belief that today had been weird enough already and that there couldn't possibly be anymore surprises in store for her today. The karmic gods simply would not allow it.
Or so she hoped. Because really, she didn't know how much more she could take.
The sleek black limo they were riding in pulled up to a dock. A large white ferryboat was tethered not far away.
Sakura smoothed down the ruffles of her deep green, strapless, knee-length dress and stepped out of the limo, careful not to totter in her ridiculous three-inch black heels.
(She wondered why Ino forced her to buy so many, when really, she could hardly walk in them. Perhaps for her own twisted amusement?)
Naruto had waited to escort her up to the ship's deck, and she gasped.
"What a beautiful view…"
She turned to the dark-eyed man whose gaze she could feel on her skin.
Uchiha Sasuke—where have I heard that name before, she wondered to herself—was staring at her.
"Your name is Sakura, right?" At the deep, even, sound of his voice, Sakura suddenly realized that Shikamaru and Naruto were nowhere to be seen.
(and that really, it was such a shame that somebody who looked that hot in a three-piece suit was playing for the other team)
"Yes."
"Aa."
Well, he was certainly no chatterbox, but Sakura had never been the kind of girl who was comfortable with silence, so she pressed on.
"Shikamaru tells me that you were the one who asked me here tonight."
"I was."
"And…may I ask why?"
He turned to her then, his dark eyes almost holding her captive—and, she had to admit, not entirely against her will, and whywhywhy did all the pretty ones have to be so very unattainable?—and said,
"I want you to be my inspiration."
I think I'm getting the hang of this cliffhanger thing.
Thanks for reading, guys. Review, yeah?
(heart)