Make It or Break It

 

Make it or Break it

 

Part V

Intruding and
Interpreting

 

 

Kakashi loved the idea – not that he said so. He did tell
them that his father had kept asking him to go fishing with him when he was a
kid, but he had thought it was a ridiculous hobby and never agreed. Later, he
regretted it when his father died. While Naruto told him he was sorry and tried
to look apologetic he stirred that kind of sad memories with his story, Sasuke
went to make corrections on the Name.

It was approved immediately by the chief editor himself.
Sakura said it was really good and Sai, even though
he couldn’t understand why would they want the profound experience to be just a
dream when it could be less ambiguous, approved of Naruto’s decision to use a
style that was more realistic than his usual.

They started on actual drawing with more than three weeks
left to the deadline. Things were going much better than anyone expected –
though Naruto and Sasuke, of course, kept fighting.

^*^*^*^*^*^

 

Exactly one week after Kakashi brought Sasuke to Naruto’s
apartment and told them they had to work together or else, they were
interrupted in the middle of the morning by scratching and banging sounds from
the upstairs. Sakura went to investigate. It turned out that the neighbors were
moving out. They tried to ignore the noise – Naruto didn’t mind it very much in the
beginning. Eventually, the irritation of the others got to him. They picked up
the pages they were working on that day and moved to Sasuke’s apartment to
finish them.

As Sakura went right on to make herself
comfortable and Sai cocked his head to the side as he
examined a picture hanging across the hall, Naruto curiously glanced around.
There was a distinct lack of brightness in the furniture. All colors – mostly
shades of blue, really - were dark and rich and somehow exactly what he was
expecting to find at Sasuke’s home.

Sasuke noticed his curiosity and raised an eyebrow in
question, as if actually interested about his impression. Naruto grinned,
“Looks colder than it is – ever thought about throwing around a couple of
orange cushions?”

“Or a picture that makes sense?” Sai
added from behind Naruto.

“No,” Sasuke said. He didn’t clear it up, but it was likely
he was answering both of them.

“I understand that this to the left is a head – human head –
but what is it with that lower part? I don’t see anything,” Sai
went right on expressing his confusion.

Naruto glanced at the picture in question. It was an
abstract, an explosion of shapes and colors. He breathed, “Oh.”

“Maybe someone spilled paint on it,” Sai
guessed.

Sasuke gave Sai an annoyed glare
over Naruto’s shoulder, but Naruto was too busy looking at the picture to
remind him that Sai was simply weird and should be
left alone.

“It looks like – an ocean,” he decided. “The whites…”

“It’s green below those white
splashes,” Sai interrupted. “And
angular.”

It still reminded Naruto of an
ocean, but he tried to see the angles and take color in consideration. “A fire, then. Wildfire, spreading fast….”

“Are you color blind? It’s green,”
Sai insisted. “If it could possibly be anything in
nature it’s be a forest. And clouds above.”

Well, now when he said it, Naruto
could see that, too. “Oh, yeah. Like treetops swaying
in the wind.”

Sai walked
past him, throwing him a look that clearly said that he was done trying to make
Naruto see sense. That puzzled Naruto – they just agreed, as far as he could
tell. He opened his mouth to say just that when he caught the look on Sasuke’s
face. He was frowning deeply at the picture.

“Don’t mind him,” he decided to say
instead. “It’s a nice picture.”

Well, the color in it was
brightening the place up. And it wasn’t exactly ugly, just a little odd. It was
strange how every time Naruto tried to look at it he saw something different.

“It’s not that,” Sasuke said
quietly. Sai was already sitting on the other side of
the desk Sakura was at. They were too far away to mistake him talking to them,
but Sasuke kept his voice low anyway. “That’s one of my grandfather’s
paintings. He was a little – odd.”

Not sure what Sasuke was aiming at,
Naruto tried to give him sympathetic look. “We all have – odd ones. In family. I probably had someone odd, too.”

A corner of Sasuke’s mouth twitched,
in annoyance or amusement. He ignored Naruto’s attempt to comfort him, “That
painting is called ‘The Elements’. I’ve never managed to see anything but a
splash of color and vague shape of human face in one corner.”

“Well, it is a splash of color with
a vague shape of human face in one corner,” Naruto answered, even more confused
now. “It’s an abstract, not an optical play with real pictures hiding
underneath.”

Sasuke looked away from the
painting. “Your first impression was that it represented an ocean.”

Despite Sai’s
insistence on color, Naruto could still see an ocean in the shapes. He
shrugged, a gesture all but spelling out ‘so what?’

“Your second impression was that it
represented fire,” Sasuke said slowly, like it proved a point he was trying to
make. “And even Sai suggested that it could be a
forest – treetops swaying in the wind.”

“Oh,” Naruto caught on. ”The
elements – we really did see the elements in that picture! That’s brilliant –
your grandfather is – was? – brilliant!”

Sasuke shook his head and gestured Naruto to step deeper
into the room, toward the working desks. Naruto walked there still glancing
occasionally at the picture. He was not a fan of abstract art, the sole reason
he was even attempting to dispatch it was because he was used to somehow bridge
over between Sai’s incomprehension and Sasuke’s
impatience. But he got it right – and Sasuke’s grandfather was brilliant for
making a painting like that.

“My grandfather,” Sasuke said, still in that quiet,
confidential tone as he followed Naruto closely across the room. “had once painted a weasel and called the painting ‘The
Moon’.”

That startled a laugh from Naruto. Sai
and Sakura glanced from the papers they were going through, preparing to work.
Sakura had a confused half-smile and Naruto winked at her.

Sasuke nodded toward the only chair at the huge, beautiful,
perfect desk made from dark wood, indicating that Naruto should sit there and
finished, “So I never bothered looking for elements in this one.”

Naruto gave a final glance to the painting while opening the
folder he’d brought with him. “Well, the color would go well with your
furniture even if there wasn’t an ocean and stuff there.”

Sasuke narrowed his eyes at the drawing Naruto took out,
dismissing the conversation, “You’re almost done with that one? Next is the
spread.”

He dragged a chair from another room, and sat at the corner
of the desk, to Naruto’s left. They easily fell into a light argument over
details.

^*^*^

Some hours later, when Naruto was already getting grumpy
with the constant criticism and hunger, the phone rang. Sasuke stiffened so
suddenly and completely, Naruto had no problems detecting it, even though there
was almost two feet of space between them.

“Damn it,” he swore, so softly it was barely audible.

“What?” Naruto asked.

Sasuke glared at him like he was the one calling in the
middle of work.

 “You distracted me
with the stupid painting.”

“What?” Naruto repeated, feeling rather
lost. It was just the phone ringing. Sasuke was acting like he was about
to be trialed for murder. “I didn’t do anything!”

“Aren’t you going to,” Sakura spoke hesitantly when the
phone rang for the third time, “er, pick up?”

But the machine had already picked up the call. Sasuke’s
clear, taped voice demanded for the caller to identify themselves and leave
their contact information.

Naruto looked away from Sasuke’s annoyed expression to
Sakura’s worried face. What was it that she told him the other day? His brother
keeps calling. And Sasuke is not calling him back.

The signal announced the beginning of the message. A voice – lower than Sasuke’s, just as smooth but somehow softer –
called, “Sasuke?”

No one made a sound. Naruto glanced at Sakura as Sasuke’s
brother waited. She was keeping her head low but she wasn’t inking. Sai seemed oblivious to the mood in the room as he eyed critically
a portion of the paper in front of him.

If Sasuke’s brother was thrown off by the lack of response,
he didn’t show it.

“There was an announcement that you are on a hiatus. I think
I will call the editorial department to see what is that all about, as you are
obviously not inclined to dispel my concerns.”

Naruto looked at Sasuke. He was pale and looking at the
machine, but there was no sign that he was going to go over there and pick up.

“I hope you aren’t sick.” Sasuke’s brother continued in an
even voice. He was obviously not expecting an answer… But he was calling
anyway. Often, if Sakura was right. That was… It was
really nice of him.

Well, if Sasuke couldn’t be bothered to talk to his brother,
there was nothing to stop Naruto.

He got off his chair and to the phone quickly. No one had
the time to react before he reached and picked up the phone, interrupting
Sasuke’s brother in the middle of the sentence he wasn’t even listening.

“Hallo?” he said, catching Sasuke’s eye across the room.

He expected anger. The open mouthed surprise and… envy
were the farthest away from it possible. Like he wanted to jump across the room
and grab the phone from Naruto. And maybe eat it.

“Who is that?” Sasuke’s brother asked after a second of
hesitation.

“Hi, my name is Naruto,” Naruto cheerfully introduced
himself. “Um, sorry if I startled you,  
but… Sasuke’s in the bathroom and I thought he wouldn’t want to miss out
the call.”

Well, that was lame. The machine was picking up.

Sasuke’s brother smoothly stepped over Naruto’s clumsy lie,
“Are you my brother’s lover?”

For a moment, Naruto’s throat closed up, making him produce
a horrible, undignified noise. He was still looking at Sasuke and the horror
reflected there made it clear Sasuke had no problems deducing what his brother
was asking.

“A,” Naruto managed, “A coworker, actually.”

“An assistant?”

That sparked Naruto’s pride back to life and he regained his
composure, “No, I have my own manga. I used to assist, but not for a while
now.”

“Naruto, you said? Naruto Uzumaki, then.”

Pleased, Naruto smiled, “Yeah. And what’s your name?”

“Itachi. Uchiha.”

“Pleased to meet you.”

“Is my brother around?”

Naruto raised his eyebrow at Sasuke, whose face was so flat
again it might have as well been a drawing. “Um. In the bathroom?”

He made it sound like a question, but Sasuke failed to show
any reaction. He certainly wasn’t coming any closer to talk to his brother.

“Is he alright?” Itachi asked next, disregarding the obvious
lie again.

Taking it as seriously as possible in such an odd moment,
Naruto scanned Sasuke’s face. “A bit tired and seriously bitchy today, and I suspect planning to strangle me later, but fine
in general.” 

Itachi exhaled on the other side. It sounded like relief. Like he didn’t really dare to believe that Sasuke was alright until
Naruto flat out said so.

“If you’re not an assistant, then what are you working on
together?”

“Oh, it’s a oneshot
the editors wanted us to do together. Punishment, I think. For
fighting.” Naruto frowned. “Each other, I mean. We kinda
fight all the time.”

“For fighting? You were fighting so
they made you work together?”

“Yeah, really stupid, right? But
it’s actually going fine.”

“It still seems like an odd solution.”

“Yeah, our editor is a weirdo,” Naruto cheerfully chatted.
He adjusted to Sasuke’s odd behavior by then and he actually enjoyed talking to
his brother. “A pervert, really. He’s always trying to make me put more boobs
in my manga. He actually said that my ratings went up because of it, can you
believe it?”

“I certainly can’t believe your ratings would drop because
of it.”

“Yes,” Naruto rolled his eyes. “But they didn’t jump just
because of it. They went up because my manga is wicked cool. Because I got better. Not because of – boobs.” Which
reminded him, “Hey, how come Kakashi never makes Sasuke do that?”

He was talking into the phone, but he looked around the room
with wide eyes. How come he never noticed that before? Sakura snorted in
answer, Sai didn’t seem to have heard and Sasuke… well,
he still looked pale and blank.

Itachi was the best conversationalist of them all, after
all. He answered, “Sasuke is not easy to bully into something he doesn’t want
to do. Maybe Kakashi tried and failed.”

“Maybe,” Naruto allowed.

“Thank you for answering, Naruto.”
Itachi said next, wrapping up the conversation. “My brother is very stubborn
and I’m glad I got to hear more about what he’s up to, even second handed.”

“Er, right,” Naruto awkwardly
shifted. “You’re welcome.”

“Goodbye, then.”

“Bye.”

Naruto let the phone down, suddenly self-conscious in the
quiet room. For some reason, he expected an explosion. Nothing happened. Sasuke
simply shifted his weird gaze from Naruto to the paper spread before him on the
desk.

After a second of hesitation, Naruto walked back to his
chair. Sakura’s worried look was heavy on him. He sat down, carefully following
Sasuke’s hand as it moved stiffly over the paper. He bit his lip. Sasuke’s hand
was moving all wrong, rigid and quick. Should he point out that the work
they’ve been doing all day was in danger?

Tentatively, Naruto attempted, “Sasuke?”

“Shut up and do your part or…”

Sasuke didn’t finish. He didn’t look up. And he was
obviously very angry.

Naruto was still trying to make up his mind, but soon he realized
that Sasuke wasn’t making any damage. He wasn’t even working, not really. He
just made a good show of it while simply going over finished lines.

He relaxed a little. Worked up or not, Sasuke was a
professional.