Disclaimer: All character belong to Masashi Kishimoto.

Sasuke's eyes narrowed as he took in Jiraiya's smug expression. "I knew something fishy was going on when you refused to tell me who I would be working with."

Jiraiya grinned at the two. "I know you two have never gotten along, but I believe you both are immensely talented." He casually waved his hand. "Besides, you two were rivals how long ago? Too long."

Naruto glanced from Sasuke to Jiraiya. His expression softened when he saw his old sensei's huge smile. He looked down at the ground and put his hands in his pockets. "How long would I have to work with him?"

"The deadline is May 31st," Jiraiya said with a grin.

"I can handle that, I guess."

Sasuke glared at Naruto, but said nothing.

Jiraiya clapped his hands once. "I don't think we really need to go over anything else as I've already talked to you both separately. Now go do your magic and call me if you need anything."

Naruto waved to Jiraiya before following Sasuke out. Sasuke walked at a brisk pace and Naruto stayed behind him. He kept his hands in his pockets.

Sasuke looked back at him and slowed down a bit.

"When should we start working?" Naruto asked. "I've never co-authored before so I'm not really sure what to do..."

"Tomorrow at noon. I'm busy today. We can meet at Sakura's coffee shop," Sasuke said.

Naruto slightly frowned at Sasuke's cold tone. "Hey, what Jiraiya said was true. I mean...our rivalry was a while back. Maybe we should let it go."

"You didn't seem to want to let it go yesterday."

"Okay, okay, maybe we both were jerks to each other yesterday, but I still think that what Jiraiya said was true." Naruto shrugged as they both stepped into the elevator. "We can put the past behind us to create a fucking awesome book."

Sasuke rolled his eyes. "You've held onto that vulgar tongue, I see."

Now it was Naruto's turn to roll his eyes. "Whatever, that's besides the point." They both exited the elevator. Naruto stopped in the middle of the lobby. When Sasuke saw Naruto had stopped, he followed suit and stood a few feet away. "We need to make goals to keep on top of things, right? Hm...how about by tomorrow we both come up with a couple of ideas we can use?"

"Yeah," Sasuke said. He looked at the watch on his right wrist. "I need to get going. Remember, meet me at Sakura's coffee shop at noon."

"Yeah," Naruto said and half-heartedly waved in Sasuke's direction as he exited the building and haled for a taxi.

Working with Sasuke was going to be very interesting.

As soon as Naruto walked into Sakura's the next day, he accusingly pointed a finger in her direction and said, "You knew didn't you?"

Sakura giggled and tucked a strand of hair behind her ears. "Of course I did. Both you and Sasuke always keep me updated on what's going on in your lives. He told me the day before you did." She turned away from him and began messing with one of coffee machines.

Naruto threw his arms up in exasperation. "Then why didn't you say anything?"

Sakura looked up at him with a smug expression. "If I told you, then you wouldn't have done it."

"You got that right." Naruto plunked down in a seat at the counter, put down his laptop, and leaned his elbows on the counter. Sakura planted herself in front of him and leaned against the counter.

"I assume you did go through with it, though, since you're here."

"Sasuke told you we'd be meeting here today, didn't he?"

Sakura smiled. "He sure did."

Naruto groaned.

"If you really don't want to work with him, then why did you agree?"

"Jiraiya," was all Naruto had to say before Sakura immediately understood. Jiraiya used to work at their high school before he took a position as an editor for Kadokawa Shoten. He, who at the time was a budding novelist, had taken Naruto under his wing and helped him become the author he was. Naruto looked up to Jiraiya and adored him, finding it hard to say no to him.

"You'll be fine. Sasuke's not that bad at all once you get past all his layers."

"Yeah, yeah, I know. Sure."

Sakura pushed a cup of coffee Naruto's way. She looked up at the door bell dinged. "Speaking of the devil."

Naruto turned around to see Sasuke walk in. Sasuke, who was always dressed nicely, was surprisingly wearing a hoodie and regular jeans. For a minute, Naruto admired how good Sasuke looked in street clothes, but shaking his head at the mere thought. Sasuke may be attractive, but he's also a dick, Naruto commented to himself.

Sasuke sat down next to Naruto and gently put two notebooks and a few black pens on the counter.

A few customers trickled in after him and Sakura straightened herself up to attend to them, but not before placing a cup of tea in front of Sasuke.

"Chai?" He asked.

"Your favorite," Sakura replied with a smile before hurrying over to the line queuing behind the cash register.

"Thanks," Sasuke said and took a sip.

Naruto eyed the notebooks and pens. "Okay, let's get straight to business. I was only able to come up with two ideas." He softly chuckled. "I would have been able to come up with more, but Kiba and Shikamaru wouldn't stop bugging me last night." Naruto opened his laptop and opened a word document.

"You still hang around Kiba?" Sasuke asked as he looked over Naruto's shoulder. "What are you doing?"

"Getting ready to write down our ideas so we can figure out what we're going to do." Naruto raised an eyebrow at Sasuke, as if asking if he was stupid or something.

"I don't type anything out until the story is completely finished," Sasuke deadpanned.

Naruto rubbed the back of his neck. "Well, I just type everything out and then go through it later..."

Sasuke opened one of the notebooks and grabbed a pen. "I can't think while staring at a blank screen. It'd be easier to just write everything by hand then edit it as we type it."

"I'm better with computers. It'll be way easier and less of a hassle to keep track of papers."

"I'm good with computers, too, but that's not that way my brain thinks. Just trust me on this one. It's easier."

Naruto grumbled. "It may be easier for you, but what about me?"

"You'll be fine. Seriously, the only way I write is by hand."

"What's the difference? Come one, Sasuke, we haven't even shared our ideas yet."

Sasuke gave him a firm look. "I think we should write everything by hand first."

"Still stubborn as ever." Naruto scoffed.

"Stubborn as hell, you mean."

"Now who has the vulgar tongue?"

"Shut up. Are going to do things my way or are we going to keep arguing?"

Naruto groaned. "Fine, you'll do things your way. But only because we need to get started."

Sasuke had a smug look on his face as he closed Naruto's laptop for him and pushed a pen his way. "What did you come up with last night?"

"I only came up with basic plot ideas." Naruto took the notebook from Sasuke and began scribbling down his idea. "One of them is set in another world and revolves around an ex-soldier who is recruited by a group of assassins to kill the current king."

Sasuke pulled the notebook back towards him and read-or at least triedto- what Naruto had written. "Hm. Now I see why you type out your stories."

"Does this mean we'll write my way?" Naruto asked hopefully.

"No." Sasuke scanned over what Naruto had written again.

"What do you think of the idea?"

"Not my style, but I think we could work with it."

"Not your style?" Naruto scratched the top of his head. "Come to think of it, what is your style? I've never read any of your books so..."

"I mainly write romantic novels."

Naruto nearly fell off his chair then and there. "R-romantic novels?"

Sasuke's face turned a faint pink. "Yeah, is there anything wrong with that?"

This time Naruto did fall off his chair-laughing. He clutched his sides as tears streamed down his face. "Y-you," he said between wheezes of laughter, "S-Sasuke, the cold dick in high school, write romantic stories?! Oh god, this is great! Wait till Kiba and Shikamaru hear about this!" Naruto's laughter had subdued and he wiped his face off with the sleeve of his jacket and got up.

Sasuke's face had turned hard and Sakura was looking on from the other side of the shop, concerned. "Let's hear about your style then, Naruto," Sasuke said with so much venom dripping from his words it could kill someone three times over. He knew it was surprising that he of all people wrote romantic stories(especially someone who claimed to have no interest in that "romantic bullshit" in high school), but to have someone laugh at him for it was infuriating. God damn it, his novels were fairly popular and he wasn't going to be ashamed of it.

Naruto immediately knew he had hit sore spot. "Sorry about that," he said. "I didn't mean to laugh, it's just...er..."

"Surprising," Sasuke finished his sentence. His face had slightly softened, but he was still angry.

"Yeah, surprising." Naruto rubbed the back of his neck. "As for my style, I really write anything and everything. How about we hear one of your ideas?"

Sasuke gave him a blank look. "I'm not so sure I want to share it with you since you might laugh."

Naruto sincerely stuck up his pinky. "I pinky promise I won't."

Sasuke stared at Naruto's pinky and let out a quiet sigh. "While I was in England, I came up with a couple ideas that I have yet to use. One of them is love story-" he paused to glance at Naruto and continued when he saw Naruto was listening intently, "involving a girl studying abroad in London and a local Uni student meeting in a hidden tea shop."

"I could work with that," Naruto said with a grin. "I have no fucking idea how to write romance, but hey, I'll give it a try."

For a few more hours, the two shared ideas and scribbled in the notebook. To both of their surprise, they didn't fight, only exchanging insults every once in a while when deemed 'necessary.'

They settled on Sasuke's tea shop idea after plotting out what could possibly happen. Naruto agreed because he had never written anything solely romantic and it would be an "experience" as he put it. However, they quickly came to a disagreement on what type of romance it was to be.

"I think a romantic comedy would be best," Naruto said. "Everyone loves comedy!"

"Everyone nowadays goes for angst romance novels. 50 Shades of Grey ring a bell?" Sasuke said.

Naruto covered his ears. "Ugh, don't even mention that book in front of me!"

"My point is more people like angst romance."

"Is that what you write?" Naruto removed his hands from his ears.

"Yeah and girls eat it up, but that's besides the point. Comedy would be too difficult to write together; I think we both can agree that we have varying senses of humor."

"Yeah, I guess you're right on that." Naruto chewed his lip in thought; he didn't like the fact Sasuke had a point.

Sasuke watched Naruto bite his lip and strangely found it attractive. Wait, no. Naruto, attractive? Sasuke quickly shook that thought out of his head. He needed to focus on the topic at hand.

"I guess we can try the idea out to see how it goes," Naruto said, snapping Sasuke out of his thoughts.

"Okay." Sasuke looked at his watch. "It's nearly 6pm, I think we better call it a day. Sakura's supposed to close soon."

"Okay. Wanna meet up here again around the same time?"

"Yeah, that sounds good." Sasuke collected his notebooks and pens. Are we still going to set up goals for each day?"

"Yeah, I think that'd be a good idea. For tomorrow we should come up with possible character names and go from there."

"Alright,."

"See you later," Naruto called over his shoulder as he and Sasuke went their separate ways.

Once Naruto got home, he collapsed on the couch. Today had gone far better than he originally thought. Perhaps the two had out grown their quarreling-for-the-hell-of-it days.

Throwing an arm over his head, Naruto smiled. Maybe working with Sasuke wouldn't be so bad at all. Although he hadn't changed that much since Naruto last saw him, there seemed to be something different about Sasuke. Naruto couldn't quite put his finger on it, but it didn't bother him too much.

His phone suddenly rang, startling him. Digging it out of his pocket, he saw Kiba was calling. "Hello?"

"Yo, Shikamaru and I are on our way over. Just wanted to call you and warn you ahead of time," Kiba said.

"Kiiiba," Naruto drew out his name. "It's Sunday night and I'm tired. Don't you two have work in the morning?"

"Yup, but that's not stopping us. See you soon." Kiba hung up.

Naruto sat up. He loved his friends to death, but sometimes they were a pain in the ass. A few minutes later, there was a knock on his door.

"It's unlocked!" he called and stood up. Kiba and Shikamaru entered. Kiba was smirking as he helped himself to Naruto's food almost immediately.

"How was working with Sasuke today?" he asked.

"How did you know I was meeting up with Sasuke today?" Naruto said, raising an eyebrow in suspicion. "I never mentioned it to you."

"Sakura told Ino and Ino told us," Shikamaru said as he sat down on the couch.

"Ugh, that pink-haired loud mouth can't keep her mouth shut, can she?" Naruto said although he wasn't upset about it. He really couldn't care less.

"Nope and neither can Ino. So how did it go?" Kiba said through a mouthful of chips.

"He isn't that bad to work with at all; he's actually pretty easy to work with. We didn't really argue that much. A lot got done." Shikamaru and Kiba exchanged looks. Naruto glanced from one to the other. "What? Why are you guys looking at each other like that?"

Kiba snickered. "Nothing, nothing."

Naruto narrowed his eyes. "What are you laughing about?"

"Forget it," Kiba changed the subject, "Did you know that Shikamaru is officially dating that Temari chick?"

Naruto instantly forgot what he was trying to get out of Kiba and turned to Shikamaru. "You are?"

Shikamaru awkwardly nodded. "Yeah."

"Good for you man." Naruto playfully punched Shikamaru's shoulder. "How's it going with Hinata?"

Kiba grumbled. "How do you think it's going? I swear she has to be related to you somehow; she's so dense. I can't tell whether she's picking up my hints or not."

"Then you'll just had to be straightforward," Shikamaru commented with a shrug.

"I feel like a bunch of school girls gossiping," Naruto said as he sat down on the other end of the couch.

"That's because we are," Kiba said. "While we're on the topic of our love lives, let's hear about yours, Naruto."

"Yep, we're definitely a bunch of school girls gossiping." Naruto ran a hand through his hair. "I currently don't have one as you both know already."

"Bro, don't worry. Your chances of finding someone is twice as high since you like the ladies and the guys." Kiba perched himself on the back of the couch and ruffled Naruto's hair.

"Like I need your advice." Naruto swatted at Kiba's hand. "All the ladies and guys want some of this." He seductively- or at least tried to- motioned towards his body and wiggled his eyebrows suggestively.

It was easy for Naruto to joke about his non-existent love life because he didn't care that much. However, of course he yearned for some type of relationship. (Don't we all?) He wanted someone he could affectionate and silly with. He wanted company. Despite all the friends he had, he still felt lonely from time to time. It'd simply be nice to have someone.

Naruto looked from Shikamaru to Kiba. These idiots would have to do for now.

A/N: Thank you so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed the chapter!

It'd be lovely if you left a review with you thoughts, concerns, questions, anything! I appreciate each and every review. :)

The next chapter will be more exciting, I promise, and possibly have a little more SasuNaru action. ;)

Once again, thank you so much for reading!

-Bluekit