Colors

* Yay! Just spent some great times with friends and was inspired to write a bit more, allowing me to put up another chapter. Thanks to those who’ve been following diligently. Here’s a reminder to all to vote or review should you wish to see more. I’m open to suggestions as I would like to hear the varying views people have on my writing and will try my best to improve accordingly.

Once again, enjoy!

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Chapter 4

Itachi looked down at his brother’s sleeping figure. Lying on his side and resting his head on one hand, he took in the ethereal appearance as he traced his fingers across the various marks on Sasuke’s chest. He smiled to himself as the marks served to signify that Sasuke was his own. He loved the boy dearly and maybe, too much, but that didn’t bother him. What was most important was that his brother understood that he was bound to him. He placed a chaste kiss on Sasuke’s forehead.

Tickled by the loose strands of his brother’s hair, Sasuke fluttered his eyelids open to find Itachi’s devilish eyes gazing upon him.

“Fuck, it’s a Saturday. Go back to sleep Itachi.” Sasuke turned to face away from him and tried to drift back into slumber.

“Not going to say goodbye before I leave for France?”

Complying only because he thought better than to go against his brother, Sasuke sighed and turned back to face him. He decided that the only way to get Itachi to leave him in peace quickly was to provide him with what he wanted. He pulled his brother down for a deep kiss and licked his lips lightly before letting Itachi fully explore his entrance gently. Lifting his head and having been satisfied, Itachi got up from his bed. He turned back to face Sasuke and warned, “I’ll be back by Wednesday. Make sure you keep your pants on till then.” Sasuke sat up and glared at his brother, slightly baffled by his remark. But he thought nothing of the comment and gave his agreement in the form of a nod and “Hn,” before lying back down to catch up on much needed sleep.

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Naruto looked at himself in the mirror, analyzing his choice of wardrobe for the night. He had decided to dress in his traditional Japanese male kimono, which was made out of high quality black silk that had embossed bamboo patterns printed on it. A bold orange obi completed the image that was Naruto’s signature color for his attire during all of his gallery shows. The traditional look was perfect for the Sakura launch and not to mention made him appear more poised than he usually did. Leaving his fringe to frame his face, he gathered the rest of his honey blonde hair into a low pony tail. Satisfied with his appearance, he started making his way to the gallery when his doorbell buzzed. Clicking on the video intercom, he was surprised to find Neji standing outside. “Come in before you ruin your white suit,” Naruto greeted and let him in.

“Hey, Naruto.”

“Hiya. Nice attire by the way.” Naruto commented earning him a smile from Neji as he admired the cream colored Hugo Boss suit that his friend had on with a white mandarin collar shirt inside. Neji stepped into the apartment. Naruto observed his friend’s long jet black hair that fell around his shoulders whilst he fiddled with his cell phone. As Neji finished tinkering with it, he snapped it close before pocketing the stylish gadget into his pocket; the snap jolting Naruto from his lingering gaze.

“You’re in the door’s way.” Naruto said smiling.

“Oh, sorry.”

“Wow, its been a while since I last saw you. Why so early anyway? You’re supposed to arrive at the gallery and make an entrance.”

“Its only been over a month. Why… do you miss me?” Neji said sarcastically gaining him a pout from Naruto.

“Anyway, sorry to shatter your fantasy but I’m not a movie star and I thought I’d stop by to run the details with you first before I made my appearance.”

“Oh, drat. I forgot to do that run through with you yesterday, didn’t I?” Naruto grinned sheepishly. Neji merely raised an eyebrow to that comment, which made enough of a statement to indicate Naruto’s lack of professionalism in event management.

“Will get right down to that, meanwhile make yourself comfortable. Want anything to drink?”

“Water’s fine.”

“Here’s a beer. I don’t have water in my menu for guests.” Naruto handed Neji a bottle.

“Err, thanks?” Neji set the drink aside knowing that he’d probably have plenty more to drown himself in later.

Naruto sat himself down next to Neji. “Erm… before I get into the details, how’s… Hinata?”

Neji looked at Naruto questioningly. He briefly wondered if he should ask why they broke up but thought that it would pointless seeing how the boy had drifted from one lover to the next with no end of his behavior in sight. But the fact that he bothered to ask about her showed that Hinata did mean more to him than his previous conquests. In fact, she may have succeeded in causing a slight change in the blonde’s attitude towards relationships. Deciding not to add further to the guilt he knew Naruto had, he gave a joking reply instead.

“She’s fine and stronger than you think. I thought you’d be an expert judge of women by now after what…20 or was it 30 women…”

“Hey… cancel off the zeroes and maybe it’ll be more accurate.” Naruto retorted with a smile.

“Yeah, right. I think I still have to multiply that number by 3 at least.” Neji said sarcastically.

Naruto gave a small laugh relieved that Neji, being one of his best friends, wasn’t angry. After all, Hinata was his cousin and making enemies of the Hyuuga family meant offending one of the richest families in Japan, next to the Uchihas that is, and that could’ve posed some severe problems for his business.

“Ok, back to the event. So the night starts with me welcoming everyone. Then I’ll announce the launch and you drop something into a little pool, which will set a chain reaction and the curtains drop to reveal your paintings. Then I let you make a speech and voila, that’s it.”

“That’s it?”

“Yup.”

“Please tell me you hired some professionals to do this.”

“No way! Why would I want to spend that kind of money on this? Its not like I’m doing an opening event for Van Gogh.”

“Thanks for the insult.”

“Look trust me, it’ll be fine. Its art, keeping it simple always works and I wasn’t insulting you. It’s a fact. People know Van Gogh cause he’s a classic. You’ll get there once you’re dead and gone as well.” Naruto ended his comment with a laugh, earning him a smile from Neji.

“There ya go. You’ve loosened up. Now let’s make our way there quick before the critics arrive.”

“Critics?”

“Yup, I’ve invited quite a few art and fashion magazine editors and critics to the launch as well. They kinda jumped at the occasion after hearing that there’ll be plenty of socialites at the scene.”
Neji raised a nervous eyebrow.

“You see,” Naruto continued, “Your collections were so great that I thought the best way to sell them would be through a private bidding. Means that the people who wanna buy your paintings will note the price they wanna pay on the bidding cards I sent to them prior to the event. Of course the bid price will have to be higher than what’s listed for the paintings tonight. After that, the highest bidder for each individual painting will be contacted and I’ll arrange to deliver the goods from there. So, in other words, there’s gonna be quite a poshy crowd tonight too.” Naruto said with his eyes gleaming.

“And you didn’t hire professionals???” Neji asked in anxiety.

“I hired help to set the place up and catering. Don’t worry, no balloons and streamers. I promise.” Naruto finally decided to comfort Neji as he noticed his friend beginning to pale from worry.

“By the way, since you’re here, I’ve been meaning to ask. What’s with the new love?”

“What new love?” Neji asked confused.

“Come on, the paintings spell it out. Tell me. We haven’t caught up lately and I’m curious to know who the new babe in your life is.” Naruto asked unashamed of the blatant nosiness he was displaying.
Neji paused to look at Naruto, he sighed loudly and got up from the couch he was sitting on. Saying nothing, he started to walk towards the door of Naruto’s apartment.

“Hey, its rude to leave halfway during a conversation.” Pouting, Naruto got up to follow his friend but stopped when Neji turned to face him.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Neji smiled before opening the door to step out.

Naruto froze on the spot, wondering if he was the person Neji had just pointed out. Neji had been one of his best buddies for years and he had never showed any signs of leaning towards being gay. According to his memory, they even went on their first chic pick-up night together, earning Naruto his only one-night-stand. Thanks to Neji, Naruto had learnt from that experience that women were fragile beings and their feelings should never be treated lightly. He briefly remembered the woman who turned obsessive and stalked him, refusing to acknowledge that Naruto just could not reciprocate her love. Then one day, it ended when Neji had told her off in the middle of the street, claiming that Naruto was his gay lover by pulling him close and embracing him in a kiss. The woman had run off crying but she was never seen again. Naruto had thrown an angry fit and Neji promised him that he’ll never use that tactic again, unless another obsessed freak appeared.

“Naruto, are you coming?!” Came Neji’s call.

Giving himself an internal knock to his brain he told himself, “Nah, that can’t be right,” and proceeded to make his way to Neji’s white Diablo having chosen to ignore his intuition.

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*What the fuck am I doing?* Sasuke wondered as he drove himself to the Spiral Art Gallery in his metallic gunpowder colored Porsche Gambella GTR. He was both reluctant and excited about the launch event and because he could not decipher which of the two feelings was more prominent, he decided to just head towards the gallery. After all, his brother had flown off to yet another business trip and he had no other plans for the night. Not to mention the eye candy that awaited him was some what promising.

In reminiscing, he let the memories of the past few days flash in his head. Itachi had by some devious means procured Wind Telecommunication’s actual financial reports and handed them to Sasuke, who delivered it to the press for further scrutiny. Within a matter of hours, a mob of angry business analysts and investors had built up in front of Wind’s head office demanding explanations to the missing siphoned funds. Although the situation had brought about a sudden increase in Red Fan’s market share, Sasuke felt guilty. He hated seeing the Wind’s CEO’s quivering expression as journalist after journalist threw him questions that he had no answers for. Sasuke knew that come Monday the authorities would be knocking on the pitiful man’s doors and if there was no resolution, then he would probably be jailed for fraud. Sasuke cringed as he knew the man was not only a formidable CEO, but also a father and a husband to a family of 3 children.

“Good job brother, you’re learning to be a little better at this everyday.”
Sasuke slammed the breaks bringing the car to a screeching halt. Having been lost in his thoughts and deeply affected by Itachi’s cruel remark, he almost failed to see the passing pedestrian. The adrenalin from the shock of almost killing someone caused him to pant heavily whilst he stared at the passerby shouting angry vulgarities at him. He rested his head on his steering wheel, taking a moment to calm himself until the car behind him started to honk impatiently. Lifting his head, he immediately blocked out all further thoughts, shifted his gear and sped off towards the gallery without further hesitation.

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Neji looked at the surrounding décor in the gallery. He was impressed. Naruto had called for a white themed party and had paid a fair amount of attention to the details department. To start, a luscious red carpet led towards the arch way of the gallery’s main entrance, which was decorated with white trumpet lilies, large white roses and sweet smelling stargazers with generous folds of white satin cloth framing the glass doors at either side. At the foyer above the reception, an elaborate, candle-lit flower chandelier hung from the ceiling 3-storeys high, with ivy leaves cascading around its rim; its radiance illuminating the main hall with a mysterious warm glow. The cocktail tables spaced comfortably throughout the reception area were each wrapped in the theme’s white satin cloth and had a large silver bow tied around their stands.

But nothing compared to the ingenious long water feature that had been specially constructed for the event. With a narrow width of about 30 centimeters, the canal like stream weaved throughout the gallery and passed in front of every feature painting including Neji’s collection, yet to be unveiled in the main gallery’s hall. At first, Neji found the structure obstructive and passed it off as another of Naruto’s meaningless ideas. But he was surprised when Naruto asked him to light a flower shaped floating candle, which was then cast into the canal. The beauty of the water feature really came to light when about a hundred candles had been lit and cast into the stream.

Floating past the paintings the candles provided the images with a strange glow and allowed viewers to see the paintings in quite literally, a different light. Naruto had purposely left his gallery’s main lighting off leaving only the painting’s spotlights on, creating a powerful combination with the candle light’s luminescence and their reflective sparkles from the water. Guests that arrived were also asked to light their candles and everyone was delighted to contribute their touch of magic to the increasing radiance of the venue. Neji smiled to himself as he gazed over the 2nd floor balcony that overlooked the excited faces of the rich crowd below. With Royksopp’s “Only This Moment” playing in the background and a couple of glasses of rich French wine, Neji felt like he’d been transported into a wonderfully magical world.

“The boy does have some brains sometimes.” Jolted from his thoughts, Neji looked behind to find a striking Shikamaru, semi-casually dressed in a white round neck, short sleeved, slim fitting T-shirt and khaki slacks.

“Hey! How have you been?” Neji took Shikamaru’s hand to form their buddy shake.

“The same I suppose. The place looks great.”

“Yeah, I was really fucking worried when he told me he wasn’t going to engage a professional agency to do this but, he did a damn good job. Did you help him out?” Neji asked suspiciously.

“Not this time. Was gonna give him a hand seeing how he was discussing something about blue, orange and red balloons but he refused. I was kinda iffy about the whole thing too especially with his past launch themes mainly surrounding Jiraya-sama’s paintings.”

“Ugh, please, I don’t even want to think of the possibility of leather straps and my paintings in the same room.”
The two men laughed at that.

“Hey I better head downstairs. The crowd’s getting pretty packed and I need to start getting ready for the launch. See you later.”

“Yup,” Shikamaru replied and with that, Neji left in search of Naruto.

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Sasuke stopped his car in front of the main entrance. Getting down, he addressed one of the jockeys and warned, “Scratch the car and you’re fucked”, to which the jockey bowed in compliance. He stood in front of the main entrance and paused, slightly surprised by the sheer size of the 3-storey gallery that could have easily fit 4 of Itachi’s penthouses. He had heard of the gallery’s repertoire but did not expect the building to be larger than a single story old shop house. He took a deep breath and walked past the flower archway and into the reception area. His eyes roamed the façade and he noted the elaborate chandelier and the ingenious water contraption. After lighting his candle he turned to eye the crowd. It was packed, with half of the faces recognizable comprising of the cities top echelons and elite crowd, especially the portion that had loads of cash to spend.

He frowned at the faces and proceeded to weave himself through the mass of sinful spenders. Desperate for a drink, he finally managed to stop a passing waiter. Grabbing a glass of wine, he downed the whole drink before replacing the now empty glass back onto the waiter’s tray and taking another to hold on to. He weaved in further trying hard not to stare too long at anyone for fear of being recognized. Soon, he found a quiet empty corner to station himself in. As he turned he came face to face with an angry orange fox, which startled him slightly.

“A little jumpy I see.” Naruto’s familiar voice spoke from behind him.

“Fuck Naruto, anyone would be scared with that staring at them in a darkened room.”

“Well I suppose you’re quite right, doesn’t scare me though.” Naruto grinned smugly.

“Ok, since I’m here, where’s my payment?”

Naruto remained silent. He tucked his arms into his kimono sleeves and eyed the dark haired man before him who had effortlessly managed to look perfect. Sasuke had on a white collared shirt and over it a black slim fitting sweater with 3 quarter sleeves ending at his elbows, providing emphasis to the well toned biceps underneath. A pair of well tailored Burberry dull grey tartan pants added sophistication to the look. Everything about the Uchiha was as it should be except for one minor detail, which the blonde finally picked out.

“Well, about my payment?” Sasuke asked breaking the silence.

“What’s with the black rimmed spectacles?” Naruto finally spoke.

Slightly taken aback, Sasuke replied, “… What’s it to you?”

“Nothing, its just that I never remembered you wearing them. Are they just for show?”

“No, I try not to wear contacts when I can.”

“Riighht.”

“Why the fuck am I even explaining my choice of attire to you? Back to the topic, are you gonna pay me back?” Sasuke was feeling slightly flushed and tried his best to hide it. The young blonde in his kimono was doing fairly strange things with his mind and he was beginning to have an inconvenient hard on as he unwrapped the blonde mentally.

“Geez, you’re at a party. At least bloody enjoy it first. I’ll get that to you as soon as you view the launch. I promise I won’t make you stay any longer than you want to.” Naruto assured. Sasuke pondered on the proposition for a moment before letting out a short “Hn,” in agreement. With that Naruto grabbed onto the wrist of Sasuke’s free hand and led him towards the main gallery. All the while, Sasuke tried his best to hide a furious blush caused by the unwary blonde.

TBC