The Social Scene

Chapter 3

I never took you for a trick, but
Sometimes, I don't know what you want
I can take it if you need to,
Take this out on someone

- Marianas Trench

Note: brace yourself for the flashback.

He raised his eyes up to meet her own and answered in a soft murmur. "Because I'd like to get to know you more..."

"I don't get you, Uchiha," she started bluntly. "Out of all the beautiful, rich women that surround your glamorous lifestyle every day, you pick a plain-Jane, average, uninteresting university student, slash part-time waitress. I'm sorry, Uchiha, I'm just not convinced."

12 Hours Previous: 7:30pm

"Dude, let's go, please," begged Naruto with an immature whining tone. "This dinner is boring me out of my mind."

Sasuke and Naruto were currently sitting through a dinner party hosted by Izanami Yamanaka, the mother of a well-known gossip, Ino, and wife to an extremely affluent businessman, Inoichi. Izanami was known all around Tokyo for her extravagant parties, and her daughter was particularly enthusiastic about these events. But this party seemed to lose some of its splendour by the fact that Sasuke and Naruto were surrounded by older people or uninteresting youths. Not even the daughter of the hostess could attend, and he wouldn't admit it, but Sasuke was internally disappointed that his favourite waitress wasn't working.

"Yeah, man," Sasuke agreed casually. "Kiba has a penthouse party going on near Harajuku. Want to go?"

"Definitely. Let's get out of here," Naruto said, relieved that he could be anywhere but where he was.

Walking out the room without a warning to anyone, including Sasuke's parents, they jumped onto the metro and headed towards Kiba's penthouse apartment, where, even stood at the ground floor entrance, they could feel the beating bass and the buzz of people's laughter.

They quickly headed towards the top floor with anticipated grins on their faces, and they weren't at all disappointed. As soon as the elevator doors opened, an onslaught of music, girls and alcohol flooded their visions, and they were instantly absorbed into this sinful world that secretly linked with the advantages of being a part of Tokyo's 'hottest' list.

In the space of a few hours, both Naruto and Sasuke had made out with at least seven girls and had gotten so drunk, it wouldn't be surprising if either one of them ended up paralytic on the floor.

However as the night rolled into the dark early uprisings of the morning, the pair began to get restless at their current party. They made their way onto the dark streets at 3:30am, but even so, the nightlife around Tokyo was still blaring at full volume. Neon signs flashed Japanese symbols promoting clubs, bars and strip joints.

Without much thought, they took a shared car (chauffeur-driven, of course) and made their way to the district they both lived in: Roppongi.

Once there, the two of them found a bench near an isolated park. They sat down lazily and popped open a can of beer each, sipping at it languidly.

Suddenly, Naruto broke the peaceful silence and dwelled on a subject that Sasuke currently found a little sensitive. "Hey, what happened to that pink-haired chick? You seen her since last week?"

At the mention of her, Sasuke instinctively tensed, but thankfully, Naruto was too dense to see it. "No," he replied simply through gritted teeth.

Naruto cautiously flicked his eyes over at Sasuke before looking out again over the park. His voice was carried over through the wind, a low mumble contrasting with his usually louder, rambunctious voice. "I got her number."

At this, Sasuke's head snapped up and he stared intently at his friend. "What?" he demanded, needing clarification as his tone was almost dripping with envious venom.

"I got her number," Naruto repeated, weary of how much pain he would be in if Sasuke took it the wrong way. Naruto knew that Sasuke was interested in the girl. At his tribute dinner last week, Sasuke's eyes almost never left her as she worked her way around the room. After all, Naruto had known Sasuke since they were young and never had a girl looked upon Sasuke with such passivity. However, this posed a problem, as Naruto had also developed a liking towards her. She seemed grounded, confident but not on the point of cocky. And she was funny, a nice relief from all the boring women in the world that they lived in.

"What? How?" insisted Sasuke, instantly dropping his stoic attitude that he showed around most people. Naruto was the only person he trusted enough to drop this facade so easily around.

"I just asked your dad for a list of all the waitresses' contact details. I just made some lame excuse about Ino wanting it for her next dinner party," Naruto replied nonchalantly, shrugging his shoulders like it was nothing.

Damn! Why didn't Sasuke think of that?

"But look, man, I haven't called her yet. I was just... waiting to see what you would say," Naruto admitted sincerely.

Although Naruto had proved himself to be a good friend by stating this, he was also a little conniving bastard!

"Give me her number." Sasuke's deadpan voice resonated clear in Naruto's mind, yet he couldn't completely decipher what Sasuke had said.

"What?" Naruto asked, his brows knitting together in confusion.

"Give me her number," Sasuke stressed again.

"No way, man!" Naruto defended, holding his mobile close to his chest defensively with one hand, the other holding his half-full beer can.

"Give it!" Sasuke demanded, with a hidden threat lying beneath his words. He tried to lean over and grab Naruto's phone, but Naruto held it out even further away from him.

However, they were too busy battling each other for Naruto's mobile that they didn't realise that Naruto's grip on his beer can was starting to loosen, and before they could blink, his can of Sapporo beer was spilt all down the front of Sasuke's top.

They both didn't move for a few good seconds, just watching as the golden liquid slowly stained through Sasuke's white t-shirt.

Finally Sasuke broke the silence. "Dude!" Sasuke exclaimed, holding out his soaked t-shirt to get a better look at the damage.

Naruto apologized guiltily, but couldn't help but think that if Sasuke hadn't been so eager for Sakura's number, the accident wouldn't have happened...

Nevertheless, they both sat down again, the spillage forgotten about as they silently sat a few paces away from each other.

"She wouldn't have gone for you anyways, dobe," Sasuke commented dryly, not removing his eyes from a distant street light, glowing like a firefly in the distance.

Naruto flicked his eyes over at Sasuke, but then grinned, as if to contradict this. "Oh, really? And you think that she would have gone for you instead?" he asked rhetorically, chuckling at the very thought.

Sasuke fully turned around in his seat to glare threateningly at his best friend. "Er... Adonis," he gestured to himself, "versus ugly, moronic idiot." He then gestured to Naruto.

Naruto quickly retorted back. "Er... charmingly playful," he, too, gestured arrogantly to himself, "versus guy-with-a-stick-five-feet-up-his-own-arse." He gestured back to Sasuke with a smug little grin on his face, and Sasuke knew that this back-and-forth abuse would get them nowhere.

"Look, let's make a deal. I'm going to show to you that Sakura Haruno can fall for me."

Naruto's interest was piqued when Sasuke mentioned this interesting deal. However, just one thing bothered him: "And I'm just going to sit back and watch?" he asked with slight apprehension and incredulity.

"You, Naruto, will sit back and learn how it's supposed to be done," Sasuke replied with an overly-confident smirk on his features.

"Interesting..." Naruto admitted, before a smirk of his own appeared on his cheeky face. "But let's spice this up a bit. You have until New Year's Eve to get her to admit that she loves you... And if you don't do it in that time, you have to give her up completely and let someone else, like me, have a chance with her."

Sasuke raised his eyebrows a little at this, knowing full well that he was a sucker for a good challenge. New Year's Eve was approximately another four months away, but was it enough time to convert Sakura from her coldness towards him to actually making her feel something for him? Nevertheless, he never backed down from a challenge, and he gladly accepted Naruto's offer with a shake of the hand. "You're on," he said with a smirk that just screamed 'I'll never lose to this bastard', before he downed the rest of his beer, just for extra confidence.

7am: With Sakura

Sakura wasn't convinced, but Sasuke wasn't going to give up so easily.

"What part of me isn't convincing?" he asked innocently, curious as to what her spitfire personality was going to answer with.

"Try all of you, Uchiha," she retorted back quickly. "There's a reason why you're so notorious amongst the Tokyo scene..."

As much as he wouldn't admit it, she was completely right. She shouldn't have believed him because everything he had said had been because of the deal he had made with Naruto. This wasn't the first time he had shown this Tokyoite skyline to anyone else, despite telling Sakura she was the first; in fact, he regularly used this setting for a romantic picnic, before he lured a girl right into his brilliantly planned trap, behind well-concealed bushes, right on the picnic blanket.

Nevertheless, he wasn't going to let this put him off. Feigning ignorance, he replied confidently, "So would you say that you're unprepared to get to know someone better just because you've heard a load of bullshit, malicious rumours?"

She raised a brow at this. "Never," she replied simply, in which Sasuke was about to internally grin at his victory, until Sakura added, "But I'm also prepared to make an exception... just for you, Uchiha."

She got up to leave him in utter disbelief, but before she could leave the clearing, he hollered at her behind his shoulder with a newfound grin, which spoke of his amusement at how this was all playing out. "See you at the brunch in a few hours, Sakura," he said with confident undertones, fully knowing that he would be the last person on the planet Sakura would have wanted to see again...

Paralytic = brit slang for drunk/pissed, sorry for the confusion.

Yeah, so we had a little flashback in this chapter, which I always hate when I read, but I thought it was necessary. And honestly, I'm really sorry about the whole 'bet' thing between Naruto and Sasuke - it's so cliche! I see it in every story I read, but I write spontaneously, and i never know what I'm going to write next... It just seemed to fit in with what's happened...

But feel free to give criticisms that are fairly justified or to point out my errors, whether grammar, spelling, punctuation, etc. I don't check my work very often, so yeahhh...