AN: Hi lovelies! Enjoying Sasusaku month? The prompt this time could be considered the reverse of the other author / publisher work in this anthology, 'Meeting Haruno-sensei'. I started with this one, got stuck, and then came back to finish it after feeling inspired.

Please be aware there's some hints of Charasuke here... you'll see what I mean!

"Sasuke-sensei, this is your new editor, Haruno Sakura-san," Kakashi says, and Sakura watches as the author in question doesn't even lift his eyes from the desk to greet her properly.

"Hn," he replies, and in that single syllable is all the dislike she knows he feels for the situation.

Kakashi has already briefed her on the uniqueness of Sasuke's artistic temper, how he's managed to successfully drive away several of Leaf Publisher's more experienced editors. There's a bet in the office that Sakura will last no more than three days. She has herself down for a full week, but one look at Sasuke's brooding, handsome, displeased features makes her think maybe I'll make two days at best.

She smiles brightly at the the bridge of his nose before introducing herself as a newbie, ready to help him with whatever he needs. His answering sigh echoes awkwardly around the meeting room, and Kakashi tries not to fiddle too obviously with Sasuke's latest novel while they sit in silence. Sakura knows the publisher cannot afford to lose him: arrogant and difficult though he may be, Uchiha Sasuke is a household name for a reason. He's just that good.

So she grits her teeth, works around his blunt rudeness, and makes plans to visit for a script reading sometime in the next few days.

Next week comes with a motivational cheer from her colleagues, a thinly-veiled threat from Kakashi and a courtesy taxi to the Uchiha estate. Sakura thinks wait, nobody told me he's practically nobility before she's greeted at the doorway by an unsmiling old man who shows her into the main building.

It's… empty. The house is built in the traditional Fire style, with sliding wooden doors and creaking floors that speak of feet who no longer tread their boards, a place gutted and left to stand alone. All at once Sakura understands the setting of many of Sasuke-sensei's novels; bleak, forgotten spaces that still think about the time they were loved.

"In here, please," the man - who must be a servant - commands with clear distaste, as though she's someone who wandered in from the street. But he was there to open the gateway for her, and Sakura wonders whether Sasuke told him to expect a visit.

She sits and waits. And waits. And it's almost two hours before her patience wanes, her tea gone cold and no sign of the wayward author. Taking a deep breath, Sakura steels her nerves and slips through the paper door to roam the corridors beyond. Moving with purpose, her righteous anger finds a target in the discordant sound of typing from a room at the very heart of the house.

Sakura nearly calls out, but something about the sound: the furiosity, the intensity makes her hold her tongue and peer through the small gap in the door. And she is glad of her hesitance, because the sight of Sasuke hunched over his desk, hair in disarray and his hands moving in a desperate dance over his keyboard screams to her of genius at work.

Maybe, she thinks, ashamed, I should've read his novels. It was an unforgivable sin for an editor but she'd been so wrapped up in his rudeness that Sakura had been content to think he was a jumped-up, pompous young auteur. Now, watching him through the gap in the door to his office, she realises that he's probably so wrapped up in the world of his work that he's not always rude on purpose.

"You can come in," a low voice utters, and she squeaks in surprise to realise it's him, "I'm finished."

"Um," Sakura says, feeling like she's intruding, "are you sure?"

Sasuke-sensei levels her with a blunt look, and she realises it's the first time he's made eye contact with her at the same time as she realises that he might have the most beautiful eyes she's ever seen. Crossing the threshold with trepidation - her previous righteous pique extinguished - Sakura takes a prim seat across from his desk, kneeling on the crisp tatami and watching as he reaches behind him for a sheaf of neatly-printed paper. Sasuke is wearing a kimono, and even though she'd just seen him typing Sakura half-expected him to give her a handwritten manuscript like the authors of old.

It's the house, she thinks, reaching out to take his offering with a cautious hand. His fingers brush hers and of course, of course she reddens like a ripe tomato.

For some reason, he smirks.

"I waited for two hours, you know, sensei," Sakura admonishes, and then has to draw her eyes away from him helplessly as he stretches with the languor of deep work.

"That's about an hour and a half longer than the last editor," he replies, and she frowns.

"Did you do it on purpose?" she wants to know. If he did, then her previous generous assumption about his passion for work can take a running jump. As can he, but before Sakura can get too worked up he's shaking his head at her and reaching behind him to where she spies a small mini-fridge, incongruous with the traditional setup of his office.

"I didn't," he claimed. "Wasn't Suzuki-san there to let you in?"

"Yes, but…"

Well, she had thought the old man had known to expect her. "Why didn't he tell me you were working?"

Sasuke shrugs, passing her a bottle of ice-cool water. It's certainly more appealing than the cold tea back in the receiving room, and she accepts it with thanks.

"He stays out of my way," Sasuke offers, and Sakura thinks she understands. He'd looked like a demon possessed, a conduit for the words that had been pouring onto the page. The script in her hands suddenly feels like something she needs to read, right now. But before she can open her mouth to start the overdue meeting Sasuke questions,

"Have you read any of my work?"

Her face gives her away.

"Hmm," he says, contemplative, and Sakura can't tell if that's good or bad because he's already launched into a discussion of the contents of what she's currently holding, sounding to her surprise very much like a normal author. Or as normal as they ever are; writers were, she'd discovered, a singularly strange breed.

Soon, she's bundled back up and ready to go, and Sakura's a little charmed when Sasuke follows her to the door, treading the boards of his lonely house and looking like one of the ghosts that must live in the rarely-visited rooms.

"Same time next week?" Sakura says, hopeful. She really needs him to agree to her as an editor. There's a moment where he looks like he might refuse, and Sakura grips her book bag tighter, but he inclines his head and she can't help the sigh of relief that escapes her.

"Here," he says, dropping a book into her open bag, the movement concealing the title. "It's one of mine. Read it."

All Sakura trusts herself to do is nod. And when she's safely back in the office and away from Uchiha Sasuke's far-too-pretty eyes and ridiculously beautiful face and overwhelming presence the editor is able to take a deep breath, steeling herself for a new reading experience. Reaching into her bag, she pulls out what is most definitely a piece of utterly pornographic literature, and is most definitely not (she hopes) written by one Uchiha Sasuke.

Kakashi's howling laughter follows her all the way through to next week, though he refuses to tell her what's so funny. Armed this time with the payouts of her colleagues - nobody had bet on a second week - and another courtesy taxi, Sakura doesn't wait for Suzuki to let her in, storming straight to Sasuke's office.

He's not there.

"Sensei!" she calls, and her voice disturbs the pensive quiet of the Uchiha Estate. "Sasuke-sensei!"

Suzuki's shocked face appears around a corner, but before he can tell her off the door to the receiving room - last week's scene of patience - slides open and Sasuke leans on the doorway with an innocence she knows he doesn't deserve.

"This book!" she yells, brandishing last week's joke. Suzuki has, Sakura observes in the corner of her attention not occupied with the way Sasuke's eyes follow her, disappeared with the efficiency of a lifetime servant. "It's obscene, it's- I can't believe you gave me this."

She reaches him, noticing with discomfort that the author hasn't moved aside.

"Did you read it?" Sasuke asks.

She had. Provocative cover aside the novel had been very, very good, the kind of book to take into one's bunk, stirring up the kind of feelings Sakura had always tried hard to suppress.

"No." It's a barefaced lie and Sasuke knows it, if his slight smirk is anything to go by.

"I wrote it," he says, and Sakura's confused because it wasn't his name on the cover, it was-

Ah. It makes sense; the author's pseudonym is an alternative way of reading Sasuke's name and now that she thinks about it, really thinks, there were similarities to the new manuscript she's come to discuss.

"Alright, I did read it," she admits, and Sasuke finally steps back, revealing the beautiful lunch spread across the table. It's far more hospitable than her last visit and she spots some of her favourite dishes; it's a meal far out of the reach of her junior editor's salary. Mouth agape, Sakura can only sit down at the low table, her bag sliding thoughtlessly from her shoulder to thud to the floor, weighed down with Sasuke's words.

"What did you think of the characters?" he asks, and although she's in real danger of being utterly placated with the food Sakura manages to scrounge up a true frown.

"It was a dirty book," Sakura says. "I didn't think much of the characters."

In truth, she'd thought, just a little, that the main character was like herself: a young woman fresh out of education, lost and adrift and if she admitted to herself looking for someone to share all the confusion with. Aside from all the gratuitous soul searching, of course, Sakura identified with the heroine very much.

"Didn't you?" Sasuke questions, once more the picture of innocence. "I thought it would remind you of yourself."

She nearly chokes on the dango. If he was saying that... the very first person the heroine had had her way with was a young man, the same age, stuck in a similar situation but for his stubbornness. Sasuke was her age. And she didn't know much about his circumstances, but it felt close to a proposition.

With Sasuke watching her, chin propped on his hand as he ate a perfectly-prepared onigiri, Sakura wasn't sure if she could think straight enough not to say something ridiculous.

So when she meant to say, 'that's a little appropriate, don't you think, sensei?' what actually exited Sakura's traitor mouth was,

"Do you sleep with all your editors, Sasuke-sensei?"

There wasn't enough cold water in the world to calm her raging blush when the author leaned forward over the table, close enough that she could see the individual lashes as his eyes traced her face.

"I don't know, Sakura-san," he said, indolent.

"Do I?"

AN: I got some complaints about this one over on Tumblr actually... ? but I hope you've enjoyed it!