The glass-walled conference room had the acoustics of a confession box. Naruto bit the inside of his cheek, hard enough to taste copper, and forced his shoulders back. Don't fidget. Look confident. He gripped the clicker so tightly his knuckles blanched white against the cheap plastic. Each slide that bled onto the screen behind him made his heart skip: his own name in Helvetica Bold, book covers mocked up in jewel tones, market share pie charts. The Uchiha investment team sat arrayed down the length of the polished walnut table, their suits glinting with the reflected blue of the slides.
At the far end, directly opposite Naruto, Sasuke Uchiha sat with the composure of a sniper on a rooftop. His suit was a shade of black that made everyone else's look like funeral home knockoffs. Naruto inhaled through his nose—one, two, three, four—and exhaled silently through slightly parted lips the way his therapist had taught him. He advanced to the next slide, which promptly crashed the layout and tiled a cluster of corrupted image files across the screen. His rehearsed smile froze in place as he swallowed the urge to curse, his prepared speech fragmenting in his mind.
...with projected growth outpacing the comparable titles by, uh, twenty percent in the twelve-to-eighteen demo, we're expecting—" The room tilted sideways. Naruto's collar suddenly strangled him, sweat trickling between his shoulder blades like ice water. His laser pointer illuminated 'EXPOENTIAL' on the screen, the missing 'N' pulsing like a neon sign announcing his failure.
A grunt from the third seat down—a hedge fund guy with a hairline retreating by the minute—sent a ripple of polite snickers down the table. Naruto's lungs compressed. He tried to swallow but his mouth had turned to sand. The pointer trembled so violently he clutched it with both hands, knuckles white, a drowning man grasping driftwood.
Across the long, gleaming expanse of walnut, Sasuke's dark eyes pierced through him. Unblinking. Unforgiving.
Naruto's voice fractured as he choked through the financials, the phrase "upside potential" scraping his throat raw. Black spots danced at the edges of his vision as he clicked to the next slide: Worldbuilding and Magic System. The words on the screen swam together, meaningless hieroglyphics. His heartbeat thundered in his ears, drowning out his own thoughts.
Just when Naruto thought he might pass out, a hand clapped around his shoulder. The weight of it anchored him back to reality, and his lungs suddenly remembered how to fill properly. He looked up to see Jiraiya's familiar grin—his lifeline in a sea of judging eyes. Naruto's shoulders sagged an inch under that steadying grip as Jiraiya turned to the investors. "We are going to take a 15 minute break if that is ok, then when we get back we will go over the concept art."
As the Uchiha contingent filed out, Sasuke paused in the doorway. His gaze locked onto Naruto's, and Naruto's stomach dropped as if the floor had given way beneath him. For a second, Naruto's pulse hammered so loudly in his ears he was certain everyone could hear it. Sasuke's lips parted slightly, and Naruto's breath caught in his throat—but then Sasuke turned and disappeared into the corridor, leaving Naruto's skin burning where those eyes had touched him, fingers trembling as he counted the sweat rings on the conference table.
Naruto burst from the conference room and stumbled down the corridor, eyes stinging with the chemical burn of fluorescent light. He navigated past frosted glass and motivational posters with the precision of a wounded animal, until he found the single-occupancy bathroom at the end of the hall. He locked the door behind him and sagged against the sink, both hands gripping the edge hard enough that the porcelain cut into his palms.
The mirror above was an indifferent observer: it showed a man with bloodless lips, eyes huge and rimmed in red, skin sheened with a cold sweat that had nothing to do with the room temperature. Naruto's chest lurched as he sucked air in short, staccato bursts, but it only seemed to amplify the sense of drowning. He watched his own mouth open and close, a puppet with the strings frayed.
He ran the faucet and splashed water on his face, hoping the shock might break the cycle. Instead, the cold only made him shiver harder, droplets clinging to the points of his chin and lashes. The hum of the ventilation system filled his ears until it became a single, high-pitched whine. His breath rasped, echoing in the small, tiled chamber.
"Fuck," he hissed, low and desperate, as the memory of Sasuke's stare replayed in his head. Every second of that meeting—every syllable, every pause—looped until it felt like he was being disassembled, cell by cell, under a microscope.
A knock startled him so badly he almost dropped to the floor. He whipped around, heart threatening to punch through his chest.
The door eased open, hinges groaning. Jiraiya's wild, salt-and-pepper hair entered first, followed by the rest of him—imposing even in a navy suit that didn't quite disguise his ex-athlete bulk. He took one look at Naruto, assessed the blown pupils and death-grip on the sink, and closed the door with a gentleness that felt out of character.
"Hey, kid," he said, voice pitched soft enough not to trigger an alarm. He leaned against the wall, arms crossed.
Naruto's stomach twisted. The way Jiraiya wouldn't quite meet his eyes. The careful casualness. Had he known? All along? Naruto studied his godfather's reflection in the mirror, searching for tells—the same slight twitch at the corner of his mouth that appeared whenever he was holding back information. The same careful distance in his eyes. "You knew he was coming," Naruto whispered, the accusation hanging between them. He swallowed hard, waiting for denial, confirmation, anything.
Jiraiya's reflection watched him with the same appraising look he gave manuscripts he was about to reject. Naruto's stomach knotted. That look. It was the same one from when he was twelve and Jiraiya knew he'd broken the window before Naruto had said a word. Had he known Sasuke would be here? Had he deliberately kept it from him?
"Hey, kid! No, I didn't—" Jiraiya's hands flew up, palms out. "I swear on my entire collection. I only found out when I got here and saw the attendee list." His eyebrows pulled together, creating deep furrows across his forehead. "Would've warned you if I'd known."
Naruto whirled around, pulse thudding in his ears. "You were here a whole hour before me."
Jiraiya's shoulders slumped. He rubbed at the back of his neck, gaze fixed on a water stain in the corner of the bathroom ceiling. "Look, you did good in there. Better than half the editors I've thrown to those wolves." He leaned forward, voice dropping. "And that Uchiha guy—he hasn't blinked since you started. Laser-focused."
"Why didn't you tell me?" Naruto's fingers curled into his palms, nails leaving half-moons in the flesh.
Jiraiya's face softened. "Kid, I found out at 8:15 when the attendee list hit my inbox. By then you were already on your way." He spread his hands. "What was I supposed to do? Call and have you turn the car around? Watch you spiral for an hour before the biggest pitch of your career?" He sighed. "Maybe I made the wrong call."
Naruto's throat went tight, his next breath catching on something sharp. He nodded once, jaw still clenched but shoulders lowering slightly. "I just—I can't do this if he's going to sit there like some human lie detector, dissecting every word."
Jiraiya unfolded his arms and stepped forward. He placed a heavy, warm hand on Naruto's back—the same way he had when twelve-year-old Naruto won his first writing contest, when sixteen-year-old Naruto graduated early, when twenty-year-old Naruto sold his first manuscript.
"Listen to me," Jiraiya said, his voice dropping to that rare tone he reserved only for moments that mattered. "That book—your book—has kept me up three nights straight. I've published two hundred authors, and maybe five had what you have." His eyes locked onto Naruto's, refusing to let him look away. "You think I'd risk my company's reputation on someone who wasn't extraordinary? You were extraordinary before he showed up, and you'll be extraordinary long after he's gone."
The words slid beneath Naruto's armor like a key turning in a lock. His lungs expanded, air filling spaces that had been collapsed for minutes, maybe years. Jiraiya's weathered hand moved to grip both his shoulders, forcing Naruto to meet his eyes.
"Listen to me," Jiraiya said, his voice gruff with something that wasn't quite anger. "That boy out there? He doesn't get to decide what you're worth. Not today, not five years ago." His fingers tightened. "You've got readers who sleep with your books under their pillows. You've got talent that makes grown men weep. Don't you dare let him take that from you again."
Naruto's mouth opened, closed, opened again. "I won't," he managed, the words small but solid.