Please see first chapter for disclaimer, rating, warnings, pairings, etc.
Special Thanks: goes out to Kia-B, Dani Stark, xHinaLovex, Tamani, Kibachow, ariannaisgone, NeverInUrWildestDreams, Hyoyeon, rao hyuga 18, misao97, and xlyphiechanx for all your reviews! Also thanks to everyone for adding this story to their favorites and follows lists!
Author's Note: Ah, so many fun developments in this chapter! I'm still setting up the story and the main themes threaded through, but I promise we'll get to the good stuff soon. Thank you all so much for reading, and I hope you enjoy this chapter!
*~Chapter III~*
~Pretense~
Hinata hummed as she reshelved books after lunch. The few hours between the after-lunch one, and five, when people got off work, tended to be rather slow. A woman and her toddler browsed the children's section; two teenagers sat using computers. Other than that, she had the entire place to herself.
Tsunade still hadn't come back from lunch. Hinata wondered if that was a good thing or a bad one; with her boss, it could really go either way.
Cradling a copy of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice - one of her all-time favorite books - in her left hand, she ran loving fingers over the well-worn cover. If someone came in looking for a classic, she always pointed them toward this one. Though she'd seen nearly every movie and miniseries based on the novel, she still enjoyed the book best.
Why mess with something which was already so good to begin with?
Smiling, she slipped the book into its place on the shelf and pushed her cart along to the next aisle. Hinata was counting the minutes until five, when she got off work. Usually she stayed until closing time at eight, but Tenten wanted to take her out to dinner before they went to the final fitting for Hinata's maid of honor dress. It was cutting it close to the wedding; but there had been a mixup with the order, and she'd been forced to make a last-minute appointment to assure it fit.
If everything went well, she'd be able to bring the dress home with her tonight. Tenten was already stressed to exploding with last minute details, and this situation wasn't helping. If the dress wasn't ready, Hinata had a feeling she'd see the usually unshakeable bride completely fall to pieces. It wasn't something she wanted to witness - or initiate.
She'd just reshelved a compilation of Mark Twain's works when she heard the front door open. Pushing a stray strand of hair off her face, Hinata smiled and headed toward the end of the aisle to greet the newest patron-
-Only to see her little sister barreling across the room toward her. Hinata had just enough time to brace herself before Hyuuga Hanabi threw herself against her sister, arms wrapping around her neck, a squeal nearly piercing the older woman's ears.
"You'll never believe what just happened!" Hanabi cried in a voice far too loud for a library - even a mostly empty one.
Smiling apologetically at the mother with the toddler and the teenager not wearing headphones, Hinata wrapped her arm around Hanabi's shoulders and firmly guided her excited sibling toward the doors. When her sister got like this, there was no getting her to quiet down for at least an hour. "All right, what's going on?" Hinata asked as soon as they got outside.
Hanabi bounced up and down on the balls of her feet, her large silver hoop earrings swaying vigorously with the motion. "Okay, so you know how I've been begging Father to let me move out?"
"Yes." Hinata hadn't been allowed to move out until she was twenty-one; and only then because she and Tenten had gotten the condo together. Now, even at twenty-seven, she felt pretty sure her father wasn't happy about the prospect of her living by herself. But Hinata had bought Tenten's half of the condo once she and Neji got engaged, and now owned the whole thing free and clear. She wasn't willing to give it up. "Don't tell me he changed his mind?" Hanabi was only eighteen. Hyuuga Hiashi surely wouldn't have given in to his daughter's pleas, not when Hinata had had to wait an additional three years...
"Yes!" Hanabi squealed and pumped her fist excitedly. "He said I could move out!" Some of the animation drained out of her expression, and she added, "With one stipulation, of course."
Hinata felt her eyebrows go up. As far as she knew, none of Hanabi's friends had any intentions of moving out of their own homes. Had one of them changed her mind so Hanabi could benefit from much the same deal Hinata had gotten? "What would that be?"
Hanabi grinned widely and grabbed her sister in another exuberant hug. "I get to move in with you!"
...And this was just the kind of thing which would have to happen on a day she'd overslept. Hinata stood absolutely still and silent in her sister's grip, staring blankly over Hanabi's shoulder. What - how? They were the only two words her shocked mind could produce, though her frozen vocal chords refused to allow her to voice them.
Pulling back, Hanabi got good look at her sister's face and visibly deflated. "You - you're not thrilled about this, too?" Tears quickly gathered in the girl's wide lavender eyes, replacing the earlier excitement glowing there.
Wrapping her hand over her forehead, Hinata stared at her sister. "Father hasn't said a word about this to me," she said. Although knowing him as well as she did- This had to be his way of taking care of his concerns about his older daughter's living alone while at the same time washing his hands of his younger's persistent nagging. Aren't you a clever one, Father? Hinata didn't know whether to feel angry, used, disgusted, or all three.
She leaned toward all three.
Hanabi shrugged. "I guess he wanted it to be a surprise," she said. Her tone implied she thought it was a pleasant one. Her enthusiasm returned. "Oooh, this is going to be so much fun! Just think about it, Hinata, and you'll be excited, too. Right?"
Truthfully? No. "Appalled" is the word that comes to mind. But Hinata didn't want to crush her younger sister's obvious happiness any more than she already had, so she said honestly, if somewhat dryly, "It was quite the surprise, that's for sure."
Obviously taking Hinata's words the way she wanted to, Hanabi grinned and nodded. "When's Tenten moving out, again?"
Hinata clenched her hand into a fist beneath the cover of a fold of her skirt. "The movers were there this morning to take almost everything over to Neji's house. I'm going to pack up the last of her things and move them over while they're on honeymoon." While she was going to miss Tenten very much, that didn't mean she'd been on the market for another roommate. Especially not one as wild, unpredictable, and excitable as her younger sister.
Hanabi nodded. "That will work out quite well." Pushing the strap of her purse higher on her shoulder, she said, "Do you want to come over for dinner tonight so we can talk about it more?"
Suppressing a feeling of guilt, Hinata found a reason to be glad for the mixup with her dress. If she came face-to-face with her father right now, she wasn't quite sure what she'd say. She only knew it wouldn't be pretty. "I can't. I'm going for the final fitting and to pick up my dress tonight, after Tenten and I grab a bite to eat. It's one of the last times we're going to get to do so before she marries Neji." Yes, Hinata would miss her and Tenten's many girl's days/evenings out. She knew they'd still find time to have them, but not nearly as often.
"Oh." Hanabi nodded, looking only slightly disappointed. "How about tomorrow?"
Unfortunately, Hinata had nothing pressing on her social calendar. In fact, she had nothing else important going on until the day prior to the wedding, which made a very sad commentary on her social life (or lack thereof). "I suppose tomorrow will work."
Hanabi grinned. "Excellent." Turning, she breezed toward her small, sporty convertible - oddly, a gift from their father for her eighteenth birthday. "See you tomorrow, then, big sister! I'm looking forward to it!"
Waving until Hanabi turned the corner and vanished, Hinata headed back into the library, a sudden headache pounding behind her eyes.
Now what was she supposed to do?
Sasuke slumped in his computer chair and stared at his phone. He couldn't put it off any longer. He needed to call Jiraiya back.
Punching the pre-set for the long-familiar number, he only had to wait through two rings for his agent to answer. "Hello, Sasuke?" The old man's voice was filled with sympathy.
Which was exactly what Sasuke didn't want at that moment. Turning his gaze toward his wall safe, where the jump drives with that cursed manuscript rested, he said dully, "Yeah."
Jiraiya sounded concerned when he spoke again. "Are you all right?"
"No." Not wanting to elaborate, he said, "What do you want me to do? I don't know if I can re-write Checkmate. The story was just so clear in my head the way it is..." Besides, he felt like if he tried to rework it totally, he'd be killing it. Each of his books wound up feeling something like his child, so how could he just go and murder it?
"I'm not going to ask you to do that. Believe it or not, I understand where you're coming from. I've been there myself."
Sasuke didn't think their situations were anything alike. He wrote thrillers, occasionally something that bordered along the horror genre. Before becoming an agent, Jiraiya wrote smut. There wasn't a single similarity between the two. "Hn," he grumbled. "So what else do you recommend I do? I've got a contract to fulfill."
Jiraiya spoke briefly at a distance, and Sasuke realized he was talking to his secretary. When he came back, he asked, "Do you have any idea what your next book is going to be about? I know you usually get the first inklings of your next project about halfway through your current one."
He'd had two, actually. But now Sasuke was starting to wonder if either of them would be any good. "I have a vague idea or two. But I'm not sure I want to pursue either of them. What if...?" He trailed off, unable to voice his insecurity aloud. What if they're just as bad - or, heaven forbid - worse than Checkmate turned out to be?
"You can't let this get you down," Jiraiya said sternly. "How many times was your first book rejected before a publisher finally picked it up?"
"Twenty-two," Sasuke admitted. He'd given up at the sixteenth - his age at the time - but unbeknownst to him, his older brother Itachi kept sending the manuscript out for him. Sasuke hadn't found it in himself to be mad when the confirmation hit the mailbox, though his knee-jerk reaction was to get angry. Through the following eleven novels, half of them done with the help of Jiraiya, he'd been nothing but eternally grateful to his brother.
But now, he couldn't help but wonder if it would have been better if Itachi hadn't bothered. If Sasuke hadn't been published, he wouldn't have kept writing. If he hadn't kept writing, he wouldn't have kept getting published. If he hadn't kept being published, he would have never written Checkmate.
And if he'd never written Checkmate, he wouldn't be stuck in the situation in which he currently found himself.
It was a very vicious cycle.
"Some writers have far more rejections than that," Jiraiya told Sasuke. "Make Out Paradise was rejected thirty-seven times before I finally got it published. And you know how big the series is now - especially in Japan."
That was nice - for Jiraiya. "Have you announced anything about my next book online?" Sasuke asked. He hated the thought of his fans hearing about Checkmate - and then never getting the book.
"Thankfully, no. I've only said you've been working on your thirteenth book, and I'd update whenever you got it finished." A rapid clicking in the background made Sasuke think his agent was tapping a pen against his desk, something he did while he was stressed, or thinking hard, or - in this case - probably both. "You finished the manuscript for Head Shot in just under two months. Do you think, maybe, you could pull out another trick like that now?" He sounded hopeful.
"I don't know, Jiraiya. I'm not sure I have another book in me." Not after this.
Sasuke had to hold the phone away from his ear as Jiraiya let out a shout, then nearly choked. After a painful-sounding coughing fit, he thundered, "Boy, you're not thinking straight!"
Perhaps not, but Sasuke just didn't think he could handle writing another book - at least not in the near future. It felt like Jiraiya's rejection of Checkmate had left him beaten, broken, and bloody along the side of the road. He didn't have anything left to give after that. "Maybe I've run my course, Jiraiya. It's possible I've written all the good material I can, and now I'm bled dry."
"Everyone has their slumps, and everyone writes at least one dud." Jiraiya sounded half-angry, half-desperate. "You're my most popular author, Sasuke. And, more than that, you're one of the most popular authors in the world. You're at the top of the game, the kind of author others in the genre aspire to be half as good as. You can't just up and quit because you've had one setback."
But the urge was so tempting. "So what am I supposed to write now, Jiraiya?" Sasuke was depending on his agent too much, and he knew it. But his agent had been in the publishing world over thirty-five years. He'd been in slumps himself, and dealt with other authors who were in slumps. Who better to ask, if anything were to be salvaged from this?
"The same thing you've always written - thrillers. Horror. Blood and guts and mind-bending plot twists that keep your readers glued to the page late into the night, always wondering what's going to happen next. You've got a gift, kid, and you can't just walk away from that. Trust me, just because you want to be a pansy and run away when the going's gotten tough - the voices in your head won't be quiet. You need that outlet, or you'll go crazy." Jiraiya very much sounded like the voice of experience; which was why Sasuke had asked in the first place.
Maybe I'm already crazy. Ever stopped to think about that? Sasuke knew better than to voice the thought. "All right," he said, feeling tired and defeated. "I'll try."
Jiraiya sounded quite a bit more cheerful when he responded. "To write another book as quickly as you can?"
"Yeah." Sasuke rubbed his eyes with the index finger and thumb of his right hand. He'd only had the barest whispers of ideas for future works come to him, since he'd been so consumed with writing Checkmate. And now it seemed like all the voices and ideas in his head had run away to hide since the rejection, afraid to come out for fear they'd get shot down, too. "I'll work on some stuff tomorrow and get back to you, okay?"
"All right. But while you're doing that, I'm going to be feeling out your fanbase, see what they're thinking, how excited they are - though I can already tell you they're pretty excited. I'll also see if anything has leaked about Checkmate - best case scenario, there won't be anything." Jiraiya sighed loudly, which made it seem like he was expecting there would be. Despite all the safety measures everyone involved in Sasuke's work took, sometimes things still slid through the cracks.
"And if there is?" Sasuke shied away from the thought. The only thing worse than not getting Checkmate published at all would be if his fans were expecting that particular story and then not getting it in the end.
"I'll wave it off as mere hearsay and rumors. Don't worry, Sasuke, I've got your back. We'll get through this." Jiraiya's voice held an almost fatherly tone, one Uchiha Fugaku certainly never used around Sasuke.
"Thanks, Jiraiya. I - well, I really appreciate everything you do for me." How many times had his agent gone above and beyond the terms of their contract, just because he was such a nice guy?
"I'm actually glad you brought that up." Jiraiya cleared his throat, then was quiet for a long, worrying moment before he went on. "There's something I've been wanting to talk to you about, but didn't want to bother you about until after you finished up your newest project."
Sasuke felt his gut clench. I can't take more bad news right now. Not after all this. A thousand terrible things tumbled through his mind - was Jiraiya planning to retire? Was he sick - maybe even dying? Was he planning to drop Sasuke as a client? "What?" he rasped. He couldn't keep the panic from his tone.
"I know you don't do much publicity work; I understand that. You're a very private person, and I'm willing to respect that about you. Besides, I've always thought it makes the few interviews and books signing you do take on all the more special for their rarity." Jiraiya's tone had definitely taken on a cautious note, as if he were trying to talk Sasuke down off the edge of a cliff.
Uh-oh. Sasuke had a feeling he knew where this was going - and it was almost as bad as the scenarios he'd come up with before. "I don't want to do anything more than I do now." He was a writer, not an actor or talk show personality. He didn't relate to people, other than those in his head.
In fact, he had to force himself to do the few publicity things Jiraiya arranged for him the way it was. Sasuke often had to fight off panic attacks whenever he thought about them, let alone did them.
"I know you don't, and ordinarily I wouldn't push the issue. But considering the - ah, problem you're having at the moment, I don't think it's a good idea to let yourself stray too far from the spotlight. Fans are fickle, as you well know. I think you need to do a few more things to keep up appearances while you work on your next project." A distinct cringe manifested itself in Jiraiya's tone, as if he expected Sasuke to explode.
Sasuke was very tempted to oblige. But losing his temper certainly wouldn't help the issue any. "What did you have in mind?" If it was television appearances, he'd veto the idea immediately. A radio interview or two wasn't too bad, as long as he didn't have to appear on screen. He could stand being heard better than seen.
An extra book signing - even a handful of them - wouldn't be too bad. As long as he didn't have to stray too far from home.
"I'm glad you're feeling amenable about this, my boy. I've been getting several phone calls recently from a Senju Tsunade - the head of Konoha Public Library. She wants to have you in for a book signing, a meet and greet, and perhaps a discussion about a few of your books. Seeing as how it's in your home town, I think it's a good idea." Jiraiya hesitated, then ventured, "We could look at it as kind of a trial run, if you will. If it goes well, we could look into branching out from there, perhaps doing more like that in other places. There's certainly not a lack of places interested in arranging such things."
Sasuke closed his eyes against the persistent throb building behind them. What in the world had he just agreed to do? "I guess you should call her back and talk to her about setting it up. You know what I do and don't like to do, so you can arrange everything."
He didn't want to do this. At all. But even he could see the wisdom in Jiraiya's words.
"You won't regret this, Sasuke. I promise." Jiraiya sounded excited as he hung up, still talking - presumably to his poor secretary.
Setting aside his phone, Sasuke pinched the bridge of his nose and hoped to high heaven his agent was right.
*~To Be Continued~*
Author's Ending Notes: So many fun things introduced in this chapter! There are a lot of subtle themes woven through this story, and several important plotlines, and I just introduced quite a bit of both in this chapter. It makes me even more excited about things still to come! I'm actually really enjoying writing Hanabi in this story - usually I try to avoid writing her, because we haven't seen her a lot canonically and I never really liked her. But I'm having fun playing around with her in this universe. And poor Sasuke - things are just falling to pieces. But sometimes we have to be at our lowest to recognize the good things which come our way... I hope you enjoyed this chapter, thanks for reading, and I hope to see you again for next week's update (where interesting things really start happening)!
