Current location:	apartment
Current mood:	tired
Current music:	None! ZOMG!!!!

Whew! So only ONE MORE FINAL!!! Yay! Then summer school starts and I need a job.

DAMMIT!!

Here's the first 2 chapters in case you need a refresher.


The irritating drone of the alarm clock resounded throughout the bedroom. Nothing shifted in the room, not even the drapes billowed from the vent right beneath them. After five minutes of the incessant beeping, the lump sprawled in the middle of the bed finally shifted. A tan arm shot out from under the navy blue comforter and slammed into the clock so hard a loud crack was heard throughout the small apartment. A blonde head poked out from under the comforter, eyes blinking to clear the sleep from them, and then he groaned. Naruto Uzumaki could no longer read the digital numbers on his brand new alarm clock.


“Dammit, I broke another alarm clock, Hinata,” he sighed and rolled over to wrap his arm around his girlfriend only to encounter cold sheets.


He was wide-awake in the seconds it took for his arm to register the cold and why it was that way. A slight headache started to build behind his eyes and he absently rubbed his temples as he contemplated the empty space beside him. It hadn’t been empty for the last six months so he was a little nonplussed at the lack of its usual occupant. But then memories of the night before came trickling back into his consciousness and he pressed his fingers into his temples harder, hoping to ease some of the pain and guilt.


Naruto had forgotten that he and Hinata were no longer together. Naruto had made the mistake of letting his relationship with Hinata become too serious. He’d tried to become serious with her, because he truly did love her, but he’d slowly come to realize this past month that he didn’t love her enough. She deserved more than Naruto could offer her and he didn’t know who that hurt more. He’d spent the last five months convinced that she was the one, but when they’d actually started talking about a future together, a.k.a. marriage, Naruto had started feeling uneasy and Hinata, being the annoyingly perceptive female that she was, had picked up on it.


She had finally confronted him last night and he’d been horrified to find that he couldn’t say he was in love with her and wanted to marry her. He could say he loved her, but it had turned into a comfortable love between friends and nothing more. He still remembered the pain in her light gray eyes when she realized what he couldn’t say. She had refused to cry, she’d held on to her dignity and went to their room to gather her things and leave. That they were over was obvious.


Naruto pulled his knees up and laid his arms across them. What was even worse was the slight relief he felt mere minutes after she’d left. He no longer had to worry about not feeling deeply enough for her. It hadn’t lasted long before the guilt set in. Now he wondered if they could still be friends, though he doubted it. He slowly slid out from his bed and headed to his kitchen so he could see what time it was. He cursed as his microwave clock showed only dashes. Apparently the power had blinked off during the night. He was really getting sick of having to reset the stupid thing.


Stumbling back into his bedroom, he searched for his watch among the mess on his dresser. He didn’t bother turning on a light since the sun was pouring through his windows. He finally found it buried under clean socks he hadn’t folded and put away yet. It was a quarter after nine.


“Oh shit! The old hag’s going to be riding my ass all week now,” he cursed.


As if on cue, the phone rang and Naruto knew for a fact it was his boss. Tsunade never failed to bug him if he hadn’t bugged her yet that day. His other boss, Jiraiya, often remarked on how twisted their relationship was. Naruto raced back into his living room to pick up the phone.


“Yes?” he said as politely possible.


“What are you still doing at home, brat? And why didn’t you call if you were going to be late?”


“Old hag---” Naruto began.


“WHAT was that?” she asked dangerously.


“Tsunade, my lovely boss, the apple of my eye, my second mother---”


“Enough!”


Naruto laughed, hearing the smile in her voice, “Look, I’m sorry I’m late. I didn’t hear the alarm go off---”


“Did you break it?”


Naruto sighed, “You know, I’m going to kill Jiraiya.” The loud-mouthed man couldn’t wait to impart Naruto’s little habit of breaking alarm clocks to Tsunade.


She laughed, “Why didn’t Hinata wake you? She’s better than an alarm clock anyway. You actually listen to her.”


There was silence on the line for a few seconds before Naruto spoke quietly. “We’re…not together anymore. We broke up last night.”


“Oh Naruto, I’m so sorry.” And without missing a beat: “What’d you do?”


Naruto snorted, “Thanks for the vote of confidence…old hag.”


“Hey, hey, hey, enough of that. Do you need the day off?” Anyone listening to this conversation would be catching flies with their mouth by now. Tsunade and Naruto could usually be found arguing, loudly.


Naruto laughed at her instant attitude change. It was just like her to blame him first and then show concern. “No boss, I think it’s best if I come in today. I’d like the distraction.”


“Good, ’cause I wasn’t going to give you the day off. Your team needs you so get your ass here as soon as possible. Oh, and come see me when you arrive.” Then she hung up with a click.


Though it was a waste of sarcasm, Naruto stood up straight with his feet together and saluted her. He hung up the phone right after and went to his bathroom to start the shower. He brushed his teeth while he waited for the water to warm up. He liked his water hot and didn’t get in until his image was completely blurred in the mirror. He studied himself in the mirror before the steam took away his image, noting how messy his hair was and how tired he looked. His gaze moved to each of his cheeks and focused on the barely visible scars on each one. People didn’t notice them unless they were really studying him or he pointed them out. He’d had the whisker-like scars ever since he could remember, but he didn’t remember how he’d received them or why they were shaped the way they were. Hinata used to trace them with her delicate fingers after they lay in bed, sated from making love.


His blurry visage frowned at the thought. He pulled off his boxers and jumped in the shower, sighing as the heat soaked into his skin and massaged his muscles. Naruto moved through his morning rituals with extra speed since he was supposed to have been at work when he got up. He toweled his hair off vigorously and wrapped the towel around his waist while he shaved off the stubble on his face until his cheeks were baby smooth. He was just pulling on some khaki pants when there was a knock at his door. Frowning, he walked quietly to his door and peeked out the peephole. He sucked in his breath through his teeth. Hinata’s cousin, Neji, was standing on the other side, looking pissed. Naruto could see that his eyes, exact replicas of Hinata’s, were angry, as narrowed as they were, and his long black hair was pulled back in a ponytail, which meant he was in business mode. Naruto stood there in indecision, hoping that Neji would think he wasn’t home and would leave.


“Open the goddamn door, Naruto. I know you’re there. Your car is still here,” Neji growled, pounding on the door again.


Well, so much for that thought. Naruto groaned inwardly and pasted a smile on his face as he opened the door. The smile disappeared instantly as Neji’s fist plowed into his face, knocking him flat on his back. Then Neji stepped inside and calmly shut the door behind him, as if he hadn’t just knocked Naruto to the floor.


“What the fuck---” Naruto began, pushing himself up off the floor. As soon as he was on his knees he saw Neji coming for him again and quickly ducked the next punch and rushed forward to thrust his shoulder into Neji’s stomach to throw him off balance. They both fell to the floor with a loud thud, Neji’s head and Naruto’s elbow taking most of the damage. They wrestled like that for a couple minutes, with Naruto trying to keep Neji from breaking his stuff and Neji doing his best to beat the shit out of him.


Naruto felt his back connect with the edge of his very sturdy coffee table and groaned, momentarily stunned by the sheer agony shooting through his body. Neji used this leverage to gain the upper hand. He quickly grabbed Naruto’s arms and stretched them above his head to hold him in place. He straddled Naruto’s waist and hooked his feet over the blonde’s knees so that he couldn’t buck him off. Then Neji glared down at Naruto, breathing hard, trying to calm himself. Naruto just glared right back.


“What the fuck is your problem, you asshole?” Naruto screeched. He struggled to break Neji’s hold, but found himself firmly held.


“You didn’t tell me you were seeing Hinata,” Neji said between clenched teeth. The pressure on Naruto’s wrists increased.


Naruto’s eyes widened in shock, before narrowing in anger again. “It’s none of your fucking business.” You could always tell when Naruto was really angry. If he wasn’t trying to smash your face in, he was cussing.


“None of my business?” Neji said faintly. “You didn’t think that, with our history, I didn’t need to know? I didn’t warrant a simple phone call?”


“Why are you so mad? I thought Hinata would have told you; I didn’t hide anything from her,” Naruto said, looking confused. “And it’s still none of your fucking business.”


“You should have told me.”


Naruto just looked at him, not really sure what to say. He and Neji hadn’t been friendly with each other for two years now. Their relationship, if you could call it that, had been short-lived since it had been during a bad time in Naruto’s life. Neji hadn’t seemed to care much about being a replacement, and they were both pretty aware that that was what he was, but after almost two months, Neji had broken things off saying he didn’t want to be in a relationship like that anymore. He had thought Naruto would eventually stop thinking about the past and truly turn to him, but things hadn’t turned out that way. They stopped seeing each other when they both realized that if they didn’t, they would no longer be friends. And thought they didn’t hate each other, they certainly were not friends anymore. There was no hostility between each other, but they stayed clear of each other; working in the same building made that a little tough. So, given their circumstances, it didn’t explain why Neji was so angry now. Then a thought occurred to Naruto, something that believe it or not, happened more often than once a year.


“Are you jealous?” he asked incredulously.


Neji sneered and released Naruto’s arms so he could sit back above Naruto’s hips with all his weight. Naruto grimaced as he felt Neji purposely place all his weight down on his groin.


“You’re full of yourself Naruto. I don’t give a damn who you’re seeing, as long as you’re not fucking around with someone important to me! Who’s next? Hanabi?”


“I wasn’t fucking around with her. I was serious about her! And ewww, Hanabi is---”


“Bullshit Naruto! You haven’t been serious about anyone ever since Uchiha fucked you up,” Neji retorted.


Naruto’s face drained of all color. “Wha---why are you bringing him up?” he whispered.


Neji sighed, feeling like a bastard for causing that stricken look on Naruto’s face. No one liked seeing such a desolate look on the usually boisterous blonde’s face. Despite his anger over Naruto hurting Hinata, whether intentional or not, he didn’t deserve that. But Neji was saddened by the fact that in three years, he still wasn’t over Sasuke Uchiha. He leaned down and grabbed Naruto’s chin to make the man look at him.


“Naruto, I’m sorry,” he paused then sighed when Naruto’s face went blank. It was something the blonde had perfected over the years, and it was something Neji hated. Naruto never showed anger towards Sasuke, he just refused to talk about him, or even acknowledge his past with the other man. “Don’t look at me like that.” He leaned closer his gaze focusing on Naruto’s lips drawing those blue eyes to his.


“Neji,” Naruto murmured. He sucked in his breath as Neji’s mouth hovered over his, mere inches away, and remained absolutely still.


Neji didn’t close the distance. He ran his hand through Naruto’s hair in soothing motions and realized the blonde locks were still slightly damp from Naruto’s shower earlier. “Are you still that hurt?” he asked, wanting to snap Naruto out of his pity party. “I thought you were stronger than that.”


It had the desired effect. In a flash, Naruto shifted his weight to the side and tossed Neji off of him. Naruto was standing over him glaring by the time Neji pushed his hair back over his shoulder. Neji just sat there, keeping his limbs loose and ready to defend himself if Naruto tried to beat the shit out of him now.


“I am over Sasuke!” Naruto hissed. Then he sighed and plopped down on his sofa, rubbing his hand along his back where the coffee table had connected.


Neji stayed where he was and watched Naruto. The blonde still looked good, especially after he’d just been rolling around on the floor. His hair was sticking out in all directions, but that was nothing new. Neji had to admit that Naruto was still as desirable as ever. He was muscular, without being obvious and Neji watched as his abs clenched as he moved. He licked his lips unconsciously. He hadn’t seen Naruto’s unclothed body for so long that he’d almost forgotten how the blonde had affected him. Neji jerked his gaze away from Naruto’s navel as he noticed Naruto watching him.


“Why are you here Neji? Are you really that upset that I didn’t tell you personally? That doesn’t seem like you, and I still think it was none of your damn business.”


Neji leaned back on his hands and rotated his head in circles, loosening the muscles before answering. “I was doing my duty as her older relative. You made her cry, so I figured I had to at least try to make you cry.”


Naruto stared at him in disbelief. “You’re such an asshole.”


Neji just shrugged. Naruto sighed and stood up to go into his room and finish getting ready for work. He needed that distraction now more than ever. He took a detour into his bathroom to see if he was bleeding from ramming into his coffee table. He cursed when he saw a long slash on the lower right side of his back. There was no blood, but there was plenty of pain. Damn Neji and his over-protectiveness.


He left the bathroom to search for a shirt and pulled on his favorite orange polo and tucked it into his pants. He was busy rifling through his closet for his black shoes---he only had one pair of black and one pair of brown dress shoes---when he felt a presence at the doorway. He chose to ignore Neji until he found his shoes. As soon as he found them he sat on the edge of his bed to pull them on and finally looked up at Neji. The other man was leaning against his doorframe, watching his every move with a thoughtful expression.


“What now?” Naruto asked, resigned. At the rate things were going, he wasn’t going to get to work until lunchtime. And of course the old hag wasn’t going to let him go to lunch since he had been late. It was all Neji’s fault.


Neji moved away from the doorframe and sat next to Naruto on his bed. He rested his elbows on his knees and stared down at Naruto’s floor. The carpet was that universal beige that all apartment complexes installed. Naruto mimicked Neji’s pose, mostly to be an ass and piss the dark-haired man off, rather than to think anything over.


“Maybe…” Neji began. “Maybe I was a little jealous. We all knew Hinata had been seeing someone for these past five months, but she would never tell us who he was. I see why now.” He pinched the bridge of his nose with his index finger and thumb before continuing. “When I found out last night that it was you she was with and that she was crying over, I was upset that you and I couldn’t be like that. You’d obviously gone out of your way to make her happy and it showed. Well, until the end at least. And I remember always feeling the need to be careful around you…because of that damn Uchiha. It was too soon for us then, but now it’s too late.”


Naruto remained silent, not knowing what to say. He thought it was still a little funny that Neji still refused to use Sasuke’s first name. He kind of wished he and Neji had been able to remain good friends; Neji was always a great person to talk to when you had any problems. Naruto shifted his head to study Neji. The dark haired man was still as gorgeous as ever. His chiseled body look yummy in his charcoal slacks and white button down shirt. Naruto looked over Neji’s profile and admired his aristocratic features. He knew that his body would have no problems getting reacquainted with every inch of Neji’s body, but he couldn’t do that to Neji, or Hinata for that matter.


Neji stood suddenly, disrupting Naruto from his thoughts. He reached out a hand to Naruto, but pulled back before he actually touched him. “I’ll go.” And then he left.


Naruto fell back on his bed, releasing his breath. How had things suddenly become so complicated? He lifted his wrist above his face, and was immediately in motion again. Tsunade had already called him once to bitch and he knew she wouldn’t hesitate to do so again. In less than ten minutes he was out his door and in his car on his way to work. What a glorious day it was turning out to be.


----------------------------------------


Naruto’s team consisted of the best and brightest in the industry. Konoha Studios was a small company, with only two separate teams working on their own game. The people Naruto got to personally boss around consisted of Shikamaru Nara, Kiba Inuzuka, Shino Aburame, Chouji Akimichi and Ino Yamanaka. All four of them were gathered in the main conference room on the sixth floor of Konoha Studios. Windows lined one entire wall of the conference room which was dominated by an oval table surrounded by swivel chairs. Shikamaru was the last to arrive, since they’d all heard Naruto was running late.


Kiba, their art director, sat with one of his legs propped up on the table pushing himself back and forth. Ino, their product manager, sat across from him, glaring at his lack of manners. Shino, the lead programmer, sat next to Ino, sunglasses over his eyes that were used to staring at a computer screen hour after hour. Chouji, their lead tester, stood by the refreshment table, pouring himself some apple juice. Shikamaru, their technical director, surveyed the group from the doorway and was happy that the volume level was rather low. Without Naruto shouting all his ideas or opinions, the atmosphere was rather calm.


“Hey Shikamaru, ’bout time you showed up!” Kiba yelled, swinging madly in his chair.


Shikamaru grimaced. Guess the noise level would still be high with Kiba there. Ignoring Kiba he addressed the entire group, “Since neither Naruto nor Jiraiya are here, we’ll make this fast. Everyone, give a concise update of their progress so we can leave. I’ve got a troublesome coding problem to work on, and Shino and I will probably be here all night fixing it.”


Shino nodded emphatically while Kiba snickered, “I thought you just slept in front of your computer screen all day.”


Shikamaru rolled his eyes, ignoring Kiba again, and sitting down. Besides Shino and Shikamaru, everyone worked on separate parts of the game. Chouji was probably the only one that worked with all the other departments at one time or another during the development phase of a game, except the animators. Kiba and his animators did all the graphics and FMVs for the game. He would occasionally get together with Ino so she could pick the best image among his artwork to use for the box and ad design. You could usually find the two of them arguing over which was best. Kiba was an artist and couldn’t understand why Ino wouldn’t choose certain images for their marketing campaign. Ino had quit trying to explain it to him long ago.


“I’ll go first,” Ino said. She opened the folder in front of her and handed a sheet of paper to Kiba. “I can’t use this image. I told you this the first time you shoved it under my nose. The ESRB won’t allow it, not if we’re going for a T rating. I told you this is an M, so it will not work!”


Kiba sat up abruptly and looked over the image printed on the sheet. “What the hell? I made this specifically for the box art and now you’re telling me you can’t use it?”


“That’s exactly what I’m telling you, Kiba.”


“Dammit! I hate ESRB.”

“You tell them that,” Ino responded coolly. “In the meantime, I need you to give me those sketches of Skye and Aaron that you showed me before, completed this time, along with their hometown. We agreed on those two being on the cover, not that.” She flicked her hand to indicate the art in Kiba’s hand.


“But I worked so long on this!” Kiba complained.


Ino merely pushed the rest of her papers back into her folder and tapped it against the table to straighten everything. Kiba sat across from her, pouting. Everyone sighed at their behavior.


Ino then shifted her focus to Shikamaru and Shino, “How’s the game engine going?”


“It’s not, at the moment,” Shikamaru replied. “There’s a glitch in the code that makes the monsters stab themselves with their own weapons. It’s annoying and I know it was that bastard Zaku that I fired last week. Now I’ve got to find the code he wrote that does this AND fix it. The rest of the team is busy with the camera.”


Shino hummed in commiseration; he would be working with Shikamaru, combing through line after line of the code that Zaku had worked on to find the deliberate glitch. He was the one who told Shikamaru to fire the prick. Now he was wishing they hadn’t given the guy so much to work on. Who knows how many other little “features” he had added, before being caught and fired.


“So, no demos yet?” Chouji asked. He and his testers were getting impatient. Though their work was tedious, required tons of patience and they would eventually end up hating the game before it was even shipped to the consumer, they wanted to get to work.


Shikamaru gave him his patented ‘Are you stupid?’ look. “We’re a long way from that, Chouji.”


Chouji was about to reply when the door suddenly opened and Jiraiya waltzed in, white hair billowing behind him, his hands tucked into his jean pockets and whistling. Despite it being January, his work attire consisted of a yellow and red Hawaiian shirt, jean shorts and sandals. Tsunade herself had given up on ever making him conform. Of course he was forbidden to ever say he was associated with the company unless he was dressed the part. No one asked how Tsunade got him into a suit when the time came. They didn’t want to know.


“What’s up younglings? Are we done with the current project? ’Cause I have the greatest idea in the world!” he grinned hugely at the group. They stared at him, expressions blank, waiting for Jiraiya’s next crazy idea.. “Japan has these awesome hentai games where the player first picks the girl he wants, then he does certain activities with her before getting to take her to bed. If we do a game along those same lines, I bet we could retire on those profits alone!” He rubbed his hands together in glee. Shikamaru noticed that his eyes looked a little glazed.


“Are you talking about a porn game?” Ino exclaimed. Disgust was evident on every part of her face and rang clearly through her voice.


“I prefer to call it sensual art,” Jiraiya frowned down the table at her.


Everyone just stared at him, not knowing quite what to say. Ino had covered the main basis of why they wouldn’t even consider Jiraiya’s suggestion with her outburst. A stranger would think he was just joking, but those who had worked for him for the past several years knew better. When it came to women and seeing them naked, his was always deadly serious. This was why Naruto came up with all the game ideas. Jiraiya just nodded and said go ahead, usually allowing Naruto to make many of the decisions the producer was supposed to do.


Shikamaru smirked at him, having thought of something. “Well, you run that idea by Tsunade and if she says ok, we’ll get started on it as soon as possible.”


Jiraiya plopped down in a chair and frowned at Shikamaru. “There’s no need to bother her with this. She’ll just appreciate the rewards of such a game.”


“Yes, but a game that deals with such explicit sex is bound to cause a stir in the media, and you know we’ll all lose our jobs if the president of the company isn’t told about the game, not to mention ESRB won’t allow it.”


Kiba growled when Ino mentioned those four letters again.


Jiraiya rested his chin on the palm of his hand and sighed. “You don’t think it’s possible do you?”


“No!” they all said in unison.


“Well then, I guess there’s nothing else to cover during this meeting right? Where’s Naruto?” he asked. Then, without waiting for an answer he shrugged as he stood up and slapped his hands on the tables surface. “Meeting adjourned.” And then he was out the door with his hair flapping behind him.


The rest of them glanced at each other, shrugged, and decided that the meeting was indeed adjourned. Without Naruto there bugging them all about every little thing they’d been doing, and telling them jokes, the meeting was over fairly quickly. They were all eager to get back to their work anyway, especially Shikamaru and Shino.


Shikamaru was on his way to his office, which was 2 floors below the conference room, when he decided to take a detour to Naruto’s office. It wasn’t like him to be late on the days they had their meeting to discuss their progress. Luckily, Naruto’s office was on the same floor as his. Tsunade had wanted Naruto on the sixth floor with all the other top executives, but he had refused saying he wanted to be near all the action. Shikamaru had a feeling that Naruto didn’t want Tsunade breathing down his neck all the time. And she would be if she knew half the things he got up to in his office.


As Shikamaru exited the elevator he noticed that Naruto’s door was closed, which meant he still wasn’t there. Naruto never left his door closed if he was in it. He said he felt claustrophobic. He also kept his window open, during even the worst weather. It meant some of the forms he gave to Shikamaru and the others were a little messy, or crinkly, or even torn.


He turned back towards his office at the opposite end of the hallway and was suddenly privileged to see his coworker, and sometimes boss, almost smack into the wall as he stumbled through the doorway that led to the stairs. Shikamaru shook his head as Naruto righted himself and started striding down the hall towards Shikamaru. He would never understand why Naruto insisted on taking the stairs all the time. The blonde said it was because he wanted the extra exercise, but since Shikamaru didn’t understand the desire for exercise, they ended up just confused with each other.


“Hey Shikamaru! Is the meeting over already? I was hoping I’d at least make that in time.”


“It just ended. Why were you---” Shikamaru began.


Naruto’s cell phone hooked to his belt started ringing to the tune of ‘Don’t Worry be Happy’ and the blonde glanced at the screen to see who it was and sighed before answering, “What now? I’m here…well, I haven’t quite made it to my office yet so that’s why I didn’t pick up…Do I have to? I have work to do!”


Shikamaru had a good idea it was Tsunade, and that was confirmed when he heard her screaming through the phone for Naruto to get his ass upstairs RIGHT NOW! Naruto chirped that he was on his way, as though he was unaffected by her anger and the president of Konoha Studios had one hell of a temper. With a practiced flick of his wrist, Naruto snapped his phone closed and smiled at Shikamaru.


“Sorry, Shikamaru, but the old hag is calling me. I’ll see ya later. I doubt she has anything too important to tell me. Nag, nag, nag.” And with a wave he turned around and went back to the stairwell to climb the two floors to Tsunade’s office.


Shikamaru quirked his eyebrow, wondering what Tsunade wanted. Despite what Naruto thought, she probably did have something to say if she was so insistent that Naruto come up to her office. He’d probably find out later anyway. He also wanted to know where Naruto had received the bruise just starting to form on the blonde’s cheek bones. He would just have to wait, and in the meantime he would get to go back to his office to stare at line after line of code. Damn Zaku!




Tsunade held back a smile as her favorite designer came barreling through her door, complaining about being bitched at for “no reason at all”. She’d never tell him he was her favorite, but everyone knew it except the one in question. Naruto was a strange mixture of predictability and unexpected ingenuity. She knew by heart how he would react to most things---like her bitching---but he continually surprised her with his creativity. His ability to think outside the proverbial bounding box had pulled them out of many slumps in the past during the development process of some of Konoha Studios’ past games.


From the moment she’d first talked with him, he’d said he wanted to surpass the Two Johns and wanted to work with someone willing to let him work his magic, not impede him because of corporate politics and such. At the time, Tsunade had thought he was extremely brash and rather untalented; she’d wondered what Jiraiya had found so special about him. Jiraiya had insisted quite vehemently, at 2am no less, that she fly to Florida to meet the young man at a gaming conference. She’d thought it very uncharacteristic for Jiraiya to be gushing over someone without double D breasts and a tight, expressionless face from too much Botox, so she’d been curious to say the least. After she looked over Naruto’s portfolio and watched him code in action, she began to understand.


Naruto wasn’t a genius like Shikamaru, but he did understand the gaming world very well in terms of the development process. But even better than that was the fact that Naruto understood his audience. He knew what gamers wanted in their games, what kept them interested. When she had questioned him about his insights, he’d smiled sheepishly at her and ran his hand through his hair before admitting that he’d taken a psychology class at the suggestion of one of his teachers at Full Sail. Tsunade had been surprised by his initiative, and then enchanted by his smile. However, he still had a lot to learn about the politics of the corporate gaming industry.


She’d yet to regret her decision to hire him and help move him out to California where she and Jiraiya were starting their new company. Naruto was consistently churning out ground-breaking ideas that had critics raving and religious underground followings. Naruto himself had gained a little bit of fame as well. The problem was that, even though the games were excellent and received great reviews, they weren’t selling quite enough to keep the company afloat. And now, E3 was coming. She was about to piss Naruto off by doing what she’d said she wouldn’t do. She was smart enough to not say ‘never’. She was about to force him to rush their product even more, under an already constrictive schedule.


“Sit down and shut up, brat,” she growled as Naruto continued with his tantrum in the doorway.


Naruto plopped down on her Italian leather sofa, which was closer to the door, instead of the two chairs right in front of her desk, as she’d intended. She used the sofa and the two matching chairs across from it for her more formal meetings with shareholders. Kissing ass had never been a forte of hers, so she’d decided to add comfy furniture and booze to get her through it. It was mostly champagne, and only Naruto knew where she stashed her best sake in the office. Her left eyebrow twitched when Naruto nonchalantly propped his feet up on the other end of the sofa and settled back like a cat about to take a nap in a beam of sunlight. He even closed his eyes to goad her.


In three seconds flat, Tsunade was out from around her desk and shoving Naruto off her sofa. She smiled sadistically at the resounding thump of his body hitting the floor.


“What the hell?” he shouted, face grimacing as his back gave an indignant twinge.


Tsunade sat down in one of the matching chairs and arranged her skirt around her legs elegantly. She gestured to the chair next to her. “Please have a seat.” Her eyes narrowed as Naruto plopped down in the chair unceremoniously, scowling. He straightened though when he caught her dark look.


Tsunade held back a smile as she stared at Naruto, making him fidget. Her brow knotted briefly when she saw the beginning of a bruise marring his left cheek. Did Hinata punch him? She decided not to remark upon it, figuring Naruto would just clam up anyway. He did that when something was bothering him, and she could tell something was bothering him now. She chalked it up to dealing with Hinata, but his unusually mutinous attitude reminded Tsunade of another time when he’d been like this. The last time was when he first moved to California. He had flat out refused to talk to her about it then, and would probably do the same now. He was a man after all. Tsunade had finally given up trying to pry into his life when her other main designer for her company, Neji, told her that it was just a broken heart. She’d left Naruto alone after that, grateful that Neji seemed to be able to get through to the blonde.


That had been years ago, and though she recognized the signs and knew he would pull through with no problems, she still didn’t like seeing him upset. Their relationship wasn’t your typical employer/employee one. It was more like a mother/son relationship. That didn’t mean she didn’t get serious with him. She was always straight with him. So she wasn’t going to start this conversation by asking how his morning was going. She could take a wild guess and probably hit the nail squarely on the head. And she wouldn’t feed him any of that propaganda shit employers like to imbue their employees in about how to conduct themselves for the company’s image. So she cut to the chase.


“You know E3 is coming soon, right?”


“Yeah, so?” he asked, perking up a little.


“So, I reserved a booth for Konoha Studios.”


Naruto’s brows furrowed. “Why? Is Neji’s game further along than I thought it was?” They hadn’t participated in E3 for the past two years because their games were just getting off the ground and they had nothing to present, and frankly didn’t want to deal with the headaches the expo caused.


“No, we’re going to show off your game.”


“Oh,” he paused for a moment. “But I don’t have anything to show except a bunch of pretty pictures. We could throw together a short trailer, like Square, I guess, but that’s boring and pisses the people at G4 off.”


Tsunade shook her head. “No, we’re going to give them two demos on different parts of the game, three if you think we can.” She imperceptibly braced herself for the coming explosion. It didn’t take long.


“What! Two demos? Three if we can? We aren’t even ready for one!” he exclaimed, throwing his arms in the air before standing suddenly to pace around her coffee table and back. “What the hell! Maybe next year at E3, but not this year. Shit, we’d only have…” he trailed off, trying to remember when the expo was usually held.


“You’ve got five months,” Tsunade said calmly. “Five months to make two flawlessly working demos that will incite rabid excitement this year.”


“You must have lost your mind. It can’t be done.”


“Yes, it can, Naru---”


“NO, IT CAN’T!” Naruto broke in, stopping to brace his hands on his hips in the classic Peter Pan pose.


Tsunade ground her teeth together, reminding herself that he was actually a very valuable asset to the company and it wouldn’t look good if she strangled him right then and there. She decided to quit playing nice. Naruto was still shaking his head, thinking he could convince her otherwise. She was about to remind him who had the final say.


“You don’t seem to understand, Naruto. You don’t have a say in this. It will be done.”


“Tsunade, it can’t---”


“Bullshit!” she said, standing as well and coming nose to nose with him. She jabbed a finger in his chest. “I’ve seen you program and complete a fully functional game in a week…and you’re not even my lead programmer, or even my technical director! I’m not liking all these ‘no’s’ you keep throwing in my face. Right now you have a team of elite professionals, and a game you’ve been working on for almost an entire year, and you want to tell me you can’t make two 15 minute demos?”


“This game is on a hugely different scale from the ones I created in a week and you know it. And this will put a helluva lot more pressure on everyone.”


“So? This is the gaming world. You’re lucky we’re the publisher as well as the developer. There’s nothing like having some suit breathing down your neck to finish the game, bugs and all.”


Naruto looked faintly betrayed at her words and dropped back down in his chair. Tsunade thought maybe she’d been too lenient with him before. What she was asking, well ok, demanding, for wasn’t too unreasonable. She resumed her seat as well.


“But why the two demos?” he asked. “You’re asking me to put a shit load of pressure on my team for something that isn’t even a requirement. Other companies have presented upcoming games without demos at E3.”


Tsunade sighed tiredly. Now they were getting to the crux of the problem. “Those companies have the money behind them to do that. We don’t.” She paused, gathering her thoughts, while wondering how much she should tell him. “The truth is Naruto, we’re losing money. We barely broke even on the last game and Konoha Studios is steadily going under. We have to make a splash somehow.”


Naruto stared at her, shocked. He knew they weren’t making as much money as they should have, as they needed to, but he hadn’t known things were that bad.


“I had an offer from another company to buy us out while I was at the Game Developers’ Conference last month,” Tsunade continued.


“You refused.” It wasn’t a question.


“Of course. But Naruto, this game must sell. I want you, Shikamaru and Ino at E3 giving presentations and interviews to whoever wants them. You especially, since your name’s becoming pretty well known among other designers.”


Naruto nodded faintly, his eyes narrowed in thought as her words sunk in. His brain was already busy formulating plans for making their game a success. He’d spent too much time with this company. Hell, he’d helped get it off the ground and he wasn’t about to let it go under without one hell of a fight. His foot started tapping impatiently on her thick, light green carpet---another comfort Tsunade had added just so she could walk around barefoot---eager to find Shikamaru and discuss tactics. He was drawn from his thoughts when Tsunade placed a hand on top of his own.


“Thank you,” she said, her eyes glistening suspiciously.


Naruto gave her his signature grin and turned his hand over beneath her slim one and gripped her fingers in a comforting gesture. “Don’t worry. I won’t let Konoha Studios die. This game will be a hit for sure. I promise you.” Then he stood up with a burst of energy and smirked down at her. “But you’ve got to tell everyone.”


Tsunade laughed, “No, Jiraiya does. That’s his job as producer.” Then a lump suddenly formed in her throat. “Don’t tell the others about---”


“Of course not!” Naruto broke in, sounding insulted. “There’s nothing to tell. It’s a minor worry that will resolve itself very soon. I know it.” Then he quickly strode out of her office before he got all teary-eyed as well and ruined his manly image.


Tsunade smiled warmly at his retreating back, feeling lighter than she had in months. Naruto truly was the best thing to happen to her. It still kind of galled her to admit that it was all thanks to Jiraiya too.


----------------------------------------


Shino Aburame was well known for his calm demeanor. He was known for never being ruffled by anything and that was a valuable trait for a game programmer. Having over thousands of lines of code made for many headaches when something inexplicable happened. And though Shino had never lost his calm in the years Shikamaru had known him, even the technical director detected a faint tremor in the other man’s hands and a slight tightening of his jaw. Zaku had done a very good job and he was a dead man if either of them ever caught him alone anywhere. Shikamaru had already begun drawing up the paperwork to give to Jiraiya so he could sue the asshole. There had to be a clause in Zaku’s contract that clearly stated he couldn’t do this sort of thing without repercussions.


There was a loud clack of keys that startled Shikamaru out of his pleasantly murderous thoughts. He looked up to see Shino throw off his sunglasses and glare at the screen in front of him with pure hatred. Shino looked up at him briefly, before returning his focus back to the screen. Neither of them said a word. They never needed to; they’d known each other long enough that they could read the other by just a look or even a finger twitch. This nonverbal language between the two of them had been developed mostly through their competition with each other. They were constantly trying to outclass each other with their programming techniques, so they rarely spoke out loud about their practices.


They had actually known each other before coming to work for Konoha Studios. Shikamaru had been deemed a genius at the tender age of 10 and was treated as such for most of his young life. He’d graduated early from high school and had been accepted into MIT the following year. He hadn’t wanted to go to MIT, but had been told by his mother that that’s where genius’s went and she wouldn’t allow her son to go to some community college. He’d decided then and there to not even mention that he had no desire to go to college at all. He was a genius after all and knew that telling his mother that would mean his death. Survival at it’s best.


He decided to go for a major in some form of engineering, figuring that sounded grand enough to please his mother. This was when he was first introduced to programming, and from that day forth he lived and breathed programming languages. His favorites were C and C . It was a well known fact around the office that Java was never to be mentioned around him. His enthusiasm eventually brought him into contact with another programming enthusiast, Shino Aburame.


Thus began their fierce competition with each other. Shino had been programming since he was 12 and it pissed him off that some freshman was getting better and better each week. Of course, no one knew he was pissed. No one knew that he spent extra hours in front of the computer doing his damnedest to beat Shikamaru. He was given a sudden reprieve though when Shikamaru suddenly dropped out of MIT after his first year and ran off to Atlanta to work as a ticket seller at Six Flags. Shino was pissed off even more that he’d lost a very worthy rival just because said rival thought MIT was too “troublesome.” Shino had put him out of his mind after that and graduated valedictorian and then accepted a job with Microsoft and relocated to Bellevue, Washington.


It was a stroke of pure luck that had Jiraiya finding Shikamaru in a small café one hot summer afternoon. The older man had watched the young man leaning close to his laptop screen to study what looked like a foreign language to most, but was quite familiar to Jiraiya himself. He’d watched surreptitiously as Shikamaru clicked on a button in his program and sat back to wait. Jiraiya grinned like a maniac when he noticed a window pop up on the young man’s laptop and a white ball flew back and forth across the screen, being hit by two paddles. Shikamaru was controlling the paddle on the left and Jiraiya looked on with admiration as he watched the right paddle intercept the balls perfectly.


“Did you write the code for that paddle’s AI, or did you borrow it from someone else?” he’d asked right beside the young man’s ear.


Shikamaru had frowned up at him, not startled at all. “I did it. What would be the point of copying someone else’s work?”


Jiraiya had grinned and sat down across from the young man. He patted his pocket for his business card and then dug into his pants until he found one. It was a little bent, but it would do. “Do you want a job?”


A couple weeks later, Shikamaru had been sitting in Jiraiya’s office listening to the old man complain about not having enough programmers like him and had then asked Shikamaru if he knew anybody. “Yeah, one,” Shikamaru had replied. Shino had been only too happy to leave Microsoft to work for the small upstart video game company. Neither of them regretted their choice.


They both winced as a sudden loud knock came at the door right before Naruto barged in. The blonde found himself on the receiving end of two very intense stares. There wasn’t any hostility in them, but Naruto had the distinct impression he’d come at a bad time.


“How’s it going?” he asked, only a little hesitantly.


The squeak of Shino’s chair was like a gunshot in the middle of a forest at 5am. The fact that Shino was making noise at all was unnerving to Naruto. Shikamaru sighed and threw down his pen that he’d been twirling between his fingers until now. It was the only nervous habit he gave into. Instead of answering Naruto right away, he grabbed his mouse and with a few clicks started printing off some papers. As soon as they were out of the printer, Shikamaru handed them to Naruto.


“These need to go to Tsunade.”


Naruto read the top page, his blue eyes flashing to Shikamaru’s dark ones as he read further. “What’d he do?”


“He added an interesting new ‘feature’ to the game,” Shikamaru replied.


A low snort sounded from the other side of the room and all occupants turned surprised looks to Shino. Shino himself looked surprised at his outburst, but he quickly recovered and went back to staring at the screen.


“Zaku cleverly hid some code in the many lines he wrote that makes the monsters in Lagrange start to stab themselves,” Shikamaru continued.


A grin flashed on Naruto’s face, but quickly dissipated when he caught Shikamaru’s look. He could just picture what it must look like and it looked pretty funny, but apparently Shikamaru and Shino found no humor in it. Naruto thumped Shikamaru on the back heartily. “No worries if the two of you are on the job. It will be resolved before lunchtime.”


The two programmers gave the designer their blank stares again. Naruto cleared his throat and was about to retreat when he remembered why he’d barged in there in the first place. “Oh yeah, I’ve got some news for you, although I don’t think you’ll want to hear it now. I think I will leave it up to Jiraiya this time.” With that said, he started to exit the office.


“Naruto, what is it?” Shikamaru asked.


“It can wait.”


“Tell us anyway.”


“Please do,” Shino spoke up for the first time.


Naruto nervously started running his index finger along the edge of the papers in his hands. “Well, it’s not exactly good news, and since you two have this problem to deal with, I think I’ll leave it to Jiraiya, since it’s his job anyway.”


“Naruto, would you just tell us already!” Shikamaru insisted, his bored voice taking on an impatient tone. The look on Naruto’s face worried him a little. There was obviously something bad that they were going to find out about sooner or later. He decided to sit back down in his chair so he wouldn’t fall in it after Naruto’s news.


Naruto took a deep breath and plunged forward. “We need two demos made by May that work flawlessly since we’ll be showing them off at E3.”


Shikamaru leaned back into his chair, far enough that he was almost completely horizontal. He sighed and rubbed his thumb and forefinger over his tired eyes. It wasn’t even lunchtime yet, and already he felt his head starting to ache. Shino leaned forward and braced his elbows on his desk, his chin on top of his hands. Naruto stood by the door, half in and half out, ready to duck if anything came flying his way.


“I had a feeling this was coming,” Shikamaru commented to no one in particular. Shino nodded his agreement.


“Wha---what do you mean, you ‘had a feeling’? I wasn’t expecting this!” Naruto exclaimed.


“Come on, Naruto. We’re not stupid. We know the last two games barely broke even. Konoha Studios can’t last much longer on this course.”


Naruto stood there, surprised. It shouldn’t really have been that big a surprise to him. Shikamaru and Shino had been with Konoha Studios almost from day 1, just like Naruto. They had invested so much of their time and effort into this company. Naruto dropped his arm and patted his thigh, thinking. “So, we’ll hold another meeting this afternoon around 2 to discuss which parts of the game we’ll create the demos for, ok?”


“Around 2?”


“I’ll shoot you an email when I have the ok from Tsunade and Jiraiya for the conference room…if I can find that pervert. Are you guys free for most of the afternoon?”


“Yeah,” they said in unison.


“Then there should be no problems. If push comes to shove, we’ll cram in my office.” Then he quickly switched topics. “Do you guys happen to know where Kiba is? I figure I’ll tell him too, but I didn’t see him bothering his artists in their lab.”


Shikamaru smirked, “He’s bothering Ino.”


Naruto groaned at that answer. “Why, why, why doesn’t he get a clue! Pestering her everyday is not going to make her want to date him. Even if he ever gets up the courage to ask her out!”


Even Shino smirked at that before responding. “He’s pretty smart though. He’s really close to her son.”


All three of them stood there snickering for a few seconds. Kiba and Ino had been snapping at each other since they’d first met. Bets had been placed as to how long it would be before they ended up in bed together, but in the 15 months they’d worked together, nothing had happened. Saying Ino was not fond of Kiba was putting it lightly. However, there was one person in the Yamanaka household that thought Kiba hung the moon, and that was Ino’s 5-year-old son, Kyou. She’d brought Kyou to work one day because she couldn’t find anyone to watch him and had allowed Kiba to teach him to draw.


Naruto smiled as he remembered Ino’s look of horror at finding her son covered in ink from the pens Kiba had let him borrow. Kiba had innocently said that it was all washable. Kiba had gone home with a huge ink stain on his ass that day since Ino deliberately spilled black ink on Kiba’s black chair. Naruto snorted at the memory and Kiba’s howl of outrage. Ino had sweetly reminded him that it was all washable when he’d confronted her about it.


The blonde left Shikamaru and Shino to go find the two lovebirds. It didn’t take him long. He heard them long before he saw them. It sounded like Kiba was trying to talk her into making one of his drawings a watermark in the background of the box art. Ino kept hissing “ESRB” at him and refusing. Naruto was almost afraid to walk into the office. He’d already been hit once today and didn’t want to get caught up in the crossfire between these two.


He poked his head around the corner of Ino’s door and peered inside cautiously. Ino and Kiba were facing off over her desk. He was certain that if the two of them would just have sex, that would solve all their problems, but he didn’t dare mention it to either one of them. Well, ok, he could mention it to Kiba without being gutted on the spot, but Ino was another issue. She’d fry him alive and feast on his liver for lunch. Did Ino scare him? No, he’d been dealing with Tsunade long before Ino, but it was always a good idea to stay on her good side.


“Hey guys,” he greeted, waving cheerily like he hadn’t just heard them fighting.


Ino’s ice blue eyes shot to Naruto with pinpoint accuracy and her face split into a grin. Kiba turned and frowned at Naruto’s intrusion. The blonde smiled at him and shrugged imperceptibly.


“What brings you here? Where’d you get that bruise on your face?” Kiba asked snidely. He usually got along very well with Naruto, but not when Ino smiled so warmly at him.


Naruto glared at him and then smiled sheepishly, rubbing his hand over his cheek. “My depth perception was off.” Then he quickly changed the topic. “I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news, as well, I’m afraid.”


“Oh?” Kiba and Ino said in unison. Then they turned to glare at each other. Naruto held back a snort, but just barely. He was glad that his excuse had been accepted without comment. His notorious clumsiness was coming to aid him this time.


“Yeah. Hey look, do you guys think you can cooperate for a couple minutes and come up with a kick ass presentation for E3?”


“We’re going to E3 this year?” Kiba asked, his eyes gleaming.


“Yeah, and we’ve got to prepare two demos for it, so you’ll need to get your animators on the band wagon as soon as Shikamaru and I pick the segments of the game we want to show off.”


“Are you kidding? We’re nowhere near close to putting a demo together!” Kiba exclaimed.


“Well, you’ve got five months to get there,” Naruto said, trying to make it sound reasonable. He knew he failed when Ino and Kiba gave him twin looks of disgust. He should have left this to Jiraiya. He knew he should have.


“This normally wouldn’t be a problem for me, Naruto, if I didn’t have Kiba in here throwing stuff like this in my face to use for our marketing campaign.” She tossed the paper with the artwork printed on it, on top of her desk, indicating for Naruto to take a look.


“I don’t want it in the marketing campaign! I want it on the box art! He’s the main bad dude. He’s awesome!” he explained to Naruto.


Naruto walked forward and looked at the art. “Hey, this is pretty cool!” he exclaimed. It was gruesome, with dead bodies littering the ground around a monster that looked like a patchwork quilt of different animals.


“Naruto!” Ino protested loudly.


The blonde felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end at her tone. “But it can’t be used, Kiba. You know that.”


It was Kiba’s turn to scoff indignantly, though he wasn’t quite as elegant or threatening as Ino. Before he could say anything more, Naruto continued. “Quit bothering Ino and get to work. You know how the ESRB works. And if you forget, I’ll personally send you the link to their website.”


Kiba flushed and snatched up his artwork. “So what do I do with this?”


Ino smiled nastily, “Post it on deviantart.com after the game is released. I’m sure there’s someone out there willing to say good work.”


Even Naruto winced at her tone. He was suddenly glad he’d taken the bet that Kiba wouldn’t be able to talk her into bed. He seriously doubted these two had a chance at a relationship. Kiba smiled snidely back at Ino and left her office, his precious bad guy in his hands. Silence reigned after Kiba’s departure. Naruto shifted from foot to foot, not sure what to say, so he just smiled.


“Yeah, so, umm, I just wanted to give you a head’s up. Just start coming up with some ideas for displays and whatnot.”


Ino nodded and picked up a pen to make a note on her pad of post-its. “Will do.”


Naruto nodded and turned to leave. He was stopped by Ino’s next question though.


“Naruto, have you decided on a title for the game yet?”


Naruto closed his eyes as she reminded him of that little fact. Oh yeah, that was another issue to resolve. “I’m on it,” he chirped.


He practically ran out of her office to escape to his own office so he could just spend a few moments breathing deeply. I need to start doing Tai Chi or something. His vivid blue eyes widened comically as he almost plowed into Neji walking down the hallway with his technical director, Tenten, by his side.


“Hi, Naruto!” she greeted.


Naruto just nodded and hurried away, avoiding making eye contact with Neji. By the time Naruto slammed the door to his office shut, he was promising any God that was listening that he would be a good boy from now on, as long as nothing else happened that week. Then he took a deep breath, sat down at his desk and started formulating his plan for E3. He had to make this a success.


And I must continue on another post!