Thanks for the reviews ^_^v. Here is ch 4 just for you guys~
Chapter 4
On the way home all Sakura could think of was Sasuke. She did not expect to fall for his charms as she did 13 years ago. Who wouldn't though right? The guy was basically sex on legs. Sakura groaned and nearly thumped her head on the wheel. How am I meant to get back at him! Resisting another urge to hit her head against the wheel she swore and swerved a little to the right when a car beeped past. Concentrate on the road now Sakura, you can slap yourself when you get home.
Meanwhile Sasuke was wondering if his pheromones were still up and running. He was surprised when Sakura had mumbled a "No thank you", got into her car and drove off. No one had rejected his invitations before – apart from Ino nowadays.
Sasuke grumbled as he parked his BMW in front of a 5 star restaurant and coincidentally beside his best friend's orange Mustang. It was a classy restaurant, with glass doors and dark chrome linings. A waiter bowed and opened the door as Sasuke walked up the stairs.
"Welcome." The blond waiter smiled, showing a row of perfect white teeth.
"Hn."
"Usual with Uzumaki I presume."
Sasuke gave the waiter a nod before walking past him; a few women gave him coy smiles as he walked past. Gloomed by Sakura's previous rejection he ignored them and kept walking.
Inside the restaurant, it was as classy and sophisticated at the exterior. Red lanterns and dull lights hummed overhead. The restaurant was separated into two sides. On one side stood a bar with fancy stools and a few intricately designed swinging chairs. On the other side were booths with marble tables and black leather couches separated by bamboo walls. The red carpet that divided the room trailed all the way to the end of the setting, which leads to the doorway to the V.I.P room.
Inside the V.I.P room, Sasuke gave a few short nods in greeting to a few models that he had occasionally worked with. Plush leather lounges scattered around a circular bar that stood in the middle. A tall, skinny blond model started over to him and stopped halfway when he gave her a dismissive nod. She pouted before turning around and walking back to her friends. Sasuke couldn't remember how he had met her, perhaps it had been in a club. Giving a slight shrug, he walked around down the back of the room to a corner booth. Unlike the booths outside, this was more spacious with expensive leather and plush cushions. There was also a personal waiter for each booth along with a small bar.
"Hey Dobe."
"YO SASUKEEEE!!!!"
Sasuke thumped Naruto on the head. "Quiet down, you idiot. We're in a restaurant."
"Owww. That was one bitch slap. What got into ya?"
"Hn."
"Ino reject you again?"
Sasuke took his seat across from the hyperactive blond and motioned the waiter for his usual drink. "How'd you know?"
Naruto crossed his arms and leaned back on the couch. "I ran into her this afternoon and asked her to have dinner with us. She wasn't too happy with you. Care to inform me why?"
"Hn. Where's Hinata?"
"She has to prepare for the catwalk and today she bought me a shirt cause she said it reminded her of me! Isn't that sweet?"
"Yes, very."
"And you're avoiding the subject. What happened with Ino?"
"Nothing."
Naruto sighed. "Seriously Sasuke, if this was over another girl again you've got to stop your immature ways. Try going steady with someone and keep your dick in your pants every time a hot girl walks past."
Sasuke swallowed a glup of whisky and glared at Naruto. "I did try Naruto. With Ino. And its not my problem girls fall all over me. She gets jealous way too easy and please stop with this whole relationship bullshit for now. I just tried to get back with Ino and she rejects me and I even got rejected by a pink haired newcomer." Sasuke rubbed a hand over his eyes. "I don't need this from you Naruto. Let's just eat and discuss another day. We got a few hours before we need to leave for the show and I'm really tired and hungry."
Naruto was shocked. Did Sasuke just speak a whole paragraph? He tried to get back with Ino? Rejected by a girl??!!
"Woah, slow down Sasuke. Did you just say you got rejected by a girl?"
"And what if I did?" Sasuke grumbled.
Naruto's eyes widened and gave a low whistle. "Wow. Who would have thought... Finally, someone has the intellect to resist a guy like you. Have you lost your mojo or something." Naruto laughed out gleefully. "I really can't believe it! I gotta meet her! Who is she? What does she look like?"
"Settle down Naruto. Let's order first." Sasuke signaled to the waiter. The waiter hadn't even turned his back yet when Naruto started grilling Sasuke about Sakura.
"Woah, dobe. Cool it. She's one of the new recruitments. You know how Tsunade asked us to model with the new people for a task. Well yeah, I got this pink haired girl and she's pretty cute."
"What's her name?"
"Sakura, I think."
"Nice. Did you do anything inappropriate?" Naruto glared, "Is that why Ino got up at you?"
"It was part of my job, how am I meant to convey lust without touching her." Sasuke narrowed his eyes. "And besides it's not like I haven't done the same thing to her or any of my partners when duty calls for it."
"Yeah, true. Maybe you just went all out? I donno." Naruto rubbed his forehead, "maybe just tone it down for a while."
"Hn."
The conversation shifted onto other aspects of work, with Naruto complaining about having a photo shoot with Ino in the up coming week and that she would probably annoying the hell out of him by whining about Sasuke. Their meal soon arrived and the two males ate in a comfortable silence, well apart from Naruto's loud chewing.
Once Sasuke had set down his utensils and Naruto was patting his stomach, they paid the bill, gave the waiter a note tip and tried to avoid on coming touches from female parties as they headed out. They still had a few hours left, but Naruto had insisted that they go early as they needed to touch up and he wanted to see Hinata before the show started.
Back at Sakura's cozy apartment, the pink haired model sprawled out on her brown couch in her short pajamas and clutching a white fluffy teddy bear to her chest. Inside, Sakura's brain was in turmoil of what had happened during the day. She wasn't sure she wanted to do this 'Get-Back-At-Sasuke' vendetta anymore. She could still feel his soft touches, strokes, his lips hot on her neck…groaning Sakura bumped the teddy against her head. I'm such an idiot. Why? Why? WHY? Grunting Sakura threw her head back against the handset of her couch and looked up at her ceiling. She lay there and studied the pale ceiling wall before blinking back the brightness of the light bulb and reached for the TV remote on the coffee table.
The commercial that flashed on wasn't helping her any better. It was a car ad starring Sasuke and Ino and the Golden Couple looked better than ever. Sasuke was dressed in an expensive suit and Ino in a stunning purple empire dress. It was a fairy tale advertisement; a handsome rich boyfriend and a flashy sleek Porsche taking his beautiful girlfriend to a ball and envied by everyone there.
Speaking about cars, Sakura reminded herself to get the car door of her trusted Mini-Cooper fixed as soon as possible. Compared to Sasuke's shiny convertible Sakura was sure hers looked like old garbage next to his, but she loved her car as it was something she bought with her own money, something she had so deservingly saved up for.
Sasuke had started to sneak back into her thoughts again. Huffing, Sakura decided to call it a night and sleep everything away. Turning the TV off, Sakura flicked off the lights before heading to her room with her teddy.
The next day seems as though everything was against her again. Sakura's rest wasn't comfortable, having to wake up from every dream that included Sasuke. They weren't bad dreams, per say….it was more uncomfortable than Sakura would have admitted them to be. Everyone one of her dreams had Sasuke touching her much further and boldly than he had yesterday at the induction. Sakura blushed and groaned when an image of Sasuke kissing down her body appeared. As arousing Sasuke may be Sakura had decided that she would go ahead with her plan of revenging for her past and aimed to ignore and be as cold- if she can -to him as possible. Letting out another groan as another x-rated image flashed in her head, she headed to the bathroom to get ready.
Two hours later, Sakura was standing in front of the mirror in a black halter neck, satin ¾ cropped jumpsuit. The top of the jumpsuit clung to her body, outlining the shape of her torso while the bottom clung loosely from her hips and shaping in to finish just above her mid calf. Enclosed on her feet were black 10cm suede pumps. Her hair was tied up into a high ponytail that swung down the middle of her back and her fringe neatly pushed to one side with wisps of short hair falling over her ears and framing her face.
To match her outfit, Sakura decided to go with grey smoky eyes, lined with black eyeliner that winged out on the outer corners of her eyes. Her lower lash line was smudge with a lighter grey colour and her waterline was lined from the inner corner of her eyes right out to meet with the winged tips. Sakura also applied a little white shimmery eyeshadow in the inner corner of her eyes. False, fluttery eyelashes shaped and opened her green eyes even more. Sakura lightly defined her brows with her shades of brown eyeshadows and brushed it with a brow gel to hold the shape in place. Her face was flawless, covered with a light amount of foundation and her dark under eye circles concealed with her trusty concealer. Sakura skipped her blush and instead shaped her cheekbones with a bronzer and highlighted the top of her cheeks as well as her brow bones. Finishing off the look with a pale pink lipstick and gloss Sakura pouted at the mirror before brushing her hair once more and moved out to gather her things.
Transferring her personal items from one bag to another was a hassle and Sakura wished she had done this the night before instead of rushing to do it in the morning. They should design a bag that matches with all outfits too. Stuffing her black and silver clutch with her phone, wallet, lip balm/gloss, tissues, compact mirror, keys, pen, mascara, eyeliner, concealer, q-tips and powder, Sakura grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and her keys from the bowl in the hallway she headed out to work.
Back in Sasuke's lavishly furnished apartment he was sulking about an unscheduled shoot while getting ready. It had been one of his rare day-off-work days and Tsunade had cheerily called him up early in the morning demanding that he turn up to the studio for a shoot. Grumbling about Tsunade's great timing of disturbing his sleep and one of the best dreams he had, he grudgingly pushed himself off the bed and into the bathroom. Tsunade, this better be good.
The studio was different from yesterday; instead of an empty room there was rows of chairs lined across the room, a stand in the front center and a white screen in the wall in front. Sakura hurried over to the third row of chairs where Kiba was waving from.
"Hey Sakura!" Kiba happily greeted, "How ya goin'?"
"Hey Kiba. I'm great thanks and you?"
"Couldn't be better!" Kiba flashed her a white grin. "I'm so excited about today, I heard that we get to start training and stuff!"
"Oh really? That's great! I can't wa—" Sakura got cut off by Tsunade, who had silently entered the room without anyone's notice.
"Good morning everyone! Hope you all had a good night's sleep. You'd be glad to know that I had reviewed the photos from yesterday's shoot and most of you did well so nobody got cut, but remember that you will be monitored for 3 months and if any of you slack off or perform badly you will be excused from this company, understand?"
Everyone nodded or murmured their agreement to Tsunade's question.
"Great, now that we're on the same boat I have a collaboration of the photo shoot which consists of both the good and the bad and I will go through and point out some aspects of it. Please do not question my criticism as I have been in this industry for more than 20 years. Learn from this, learn from your mistakes."
Tsunade pressed a button on a small hand held control and the projector that was suspended from the ceiling hummed to life. The first photo was of TenTen and an anorexic blond girl.
"Oh yes, I forgot to mention weight will be an issue here and I ask you all to eat healthily and keep a constant body workout. You," Tsunade circled a red laser dot around the blond model, "need to put on more weight. I don't want my models looking as skinny as you, but other than that this is a fairly ok shoot. In small advertisements it would be acceptable, but greater billboard ones you'll need to improve on your angles."
Tsunade quickly flashed through the other photos, talking and giving advice about the use of space, angles, partner and camera work. How most of the models were very much overshadowed by the 4 famous ones. When it switched to Karin's picture, Sakura couldn't help but giggle quietly in the back of her palm.
Everyone could see that Karin was all over Sasuke, but it seemed as though Sasuke looked a bit uncomfortable. Sasuke was sitting on the floor with the treasure chest between his legs while Karin was half sitting on him, half crawling up his body with a piece of pearl necklace between her lips.
Tsunade circled the laser around Karin.
"This here is an example of overdoing it and lack of partner skills." Tsunade continued on as everyone tried to stifle their giggles behind their hands. It wasn't a bad shoot but it did seem ridiculous, one could not help but feel embarrassed or sorry seeing the ridiculous hooded gaze from Karin to Sasuke.
"It did portray greed enough, but you need to tone it down a little. Instead of you and Sasuke both being greedy for each other, you make it seem as though you were too greedy, you were making Sasuke uncomfortable and he does indeed look it. I would tone down and control your emotions as god knows what would have happened if you had gotten lust. Also, this is partner work. This to me seems like you wanted to be the center of attention, and for this task I did not want that. I wanted you to work together with your partners. There will be times where you will be asked to perform more than your partner, but this wasn't what I ask for so keep that in mind for next time. Now, I really liked this one." The screen blinked to an image of Kiba and Neji and the laser circle around the whole picture. "This is great, I could see and feel the happiness and the bond between two of you. See, even if they had just met it seemed like they were old best friends."
Indeed, Sakura couldn't help but agree and delivered a soft playful punch to Kiba who was sitting next to her with a huge grin on his face. Sakura turned back to examine the photo.
Both males were smiling and laughing. Kiba had his elbow on one of Neji's shoulder and was pointing across as if what they were laughing at was somewhere off screen in the distance. Neji was looking where Kiba was pointing with a laugh captured on this face.
Like brothers indeed, bet they got better themes then us. Sakura smiled, Kiba and Neji would make such heartbreaking brothers.
"And lastly," the screen switched to an image of Sakura and Sasuke. "I can't say this is the best I have ever seen, but it is the best out of yesterday."
Sakura groaned and sunk lower on her chair. Beside her, Kiba retaliated her playful punch. She could feel the blood creeping up her neck and was sure that she would turn bright red soon. She sunk into her seat further when she felt everyone's heavy gaze on her.
"Great performance Sakura, but you were a bit stiff, would have made such a difference if you relaxed more. Sasuke is a professional; all you had to do was follow his lead. See, here's another tip for you all. If you are working with someone who has more experience than you, don't try to fight for attention. They know what they are doing, and if you are afraid of being shadowed, then you are not up for this job. If they are told to be shadowed by you, used as a prop, they will do it. They know how to do it. Ok, so for the second task, I don't think I'll show any of the pictures seeing as everyone did a terrible job..."
Sakura winced at the memory. It wasn't a pretty shoot at all. The tarantula was nearly squashed under a shrieking blonde's heels and a little boa chucked across the room by another model. For her, she was too shocked to move with the snake around her neck that she must have looked scared to death in her shoots.
Tsunade continued on. "Now, today you'll be meeting with all your supervisors and directors. Let's stop for a break and meet back here in 15 minutes time. Oh and I need to speak to you Kiba and Sakura."
If things couldn't get any better, everyone shot Sakura and Kiba dirty looks as they piled out of the room. Sakura stuck out her tongue at their backs and Kiba chuckled at her childish action. Making their way over to Tsunade, Sakura's mind became more hysterical thinking of the things she might have done wrong to have this talk.
"Kiba, Sakura." Tsunade greeted them. "I have some good news for the both of you."
Sakura sighed in relief.
"The chief director of media advertisements for Levi was looking through the photos of yesterday's shoot with me last night and he requested a campaign shoot with the both of you. Now, you don't have to accept this but I have to say that this is a good opportunity to get noticed. This is an unscheduled shoot on at 7pm tonight so if you'd like to think about it I want you answer after lunch."
"No need to think, I'll take it." Kiba flashed a grin.
"Me too!" Sakura agreed. "This is great. Thanks heaps Tsunade!"
"Great, I'll go contact the company now. Now, you are both not working with each other. The director wants you, Sakura, to do a two-page magazine spread and Kiba to do a commercial. You'll both be working with different partners and have a different feel/theme/etc. They'll give you more details when you get there. Try to be there a few hours earlier, you're both excused to leave early today."
"Do we know who our partners are?" Sakura asked.
"As a matter of fact, they should be here by now. I asked them to come in early so you guys will have the opportunity to meet with your partner and get to know each other before the shoot. Now normally, you will have to do your best with someone you just met, but since this is probably your first time, I'm letting you meet them beforehand. Kiba, TenTen will be a bit late as she has a campaign launch this morning and Sakura your–"
The door opened and a figure stepped in.
"Ahh Sasuke, glad you made it in time." Tsunade turned back to Sakura and grinned. "Your partner is Sasuke."
I hate my life.
Teehee ok that's it~ Sorry for late update but yes next chapter will be full of Sasu/Saku!! So please review.
p.s. Hope everyone had a great Chinese New Year and Valentines Day!
Much love!
Chibza
