Naruto's reflection in the glass wall looked nothing like the wreck that had nearly passed out at the podium half an hour ago. The suit still hung loose on his frame, and his hair, predictably, had reverted to maximum chaos, but there was a new angle to his jaw—less cornered animal, more cornered animal that had accepted its fate and was prepared to take a few fingers with it. He steadied his breath, squared his shoulders, and strode back into the conference room with a gait just shy of a march.
The room hummed with the low electrical drone of wealth and expectation. The investors, freshly caffeinated, gathered in a loose huddle by the buffet where pastry crumbs and residue of a high-stakes breakfast lingered. Their voices pooled in currents—some polite, some jagged, all converging as Naruto stepped to the head of the table. At the far end, Sasuke already sat, fingers drumming a silent metronome on the lacquered walnut. His gaze swept up, pinned Naruto with a clean, surgical focus, then flicked away to the projection screen as if he'd already moved on.
Sai emerged from the adjacent corridor, tie crooked and shirt sleeves rolled to precisely the right degree of artistic disarray. He carried a flat portfolio case and the confidence of someone who'd survived worse than a room full of finance vampires. He stationed himself at Naruto's left, so close their elbows grazed when Naruto tapped his laptop. The gesture looked casual; the effect was chemical, adrenaline and embarrassment surging in equal measure.
Jiraiya materialized behind them, clap on the back for Naruto, a playful squeeze to Sai's bicep. "Showtime," he muttered, then faded into the periphery where he could observe with both detachment and pride.
Naruto cleared his throat, the taste of blood and citrus still clinging to his molars, and hit the spacebar. The first slide splashed across the far wall: a hand-painted map of the Shadow Fox's world, half watercolor, half fever dream, its gold-leaf rivers twisting like veins beneath a skin of parchment. Sai's artistry never looked better than at five feet tall under cold LED light. Even the investors drew in, conversations stilling as the map resolved.
Naruto's voice started low and shaky but gained altitude with each bullet point. He outlined the book's premise, careful not to read from the slides, throwing in a joke here and there—sometimes they landed, sometimes they didn't, but he refused to flinch. Sai advanced the next image: a fox, its fur burning in jewel tones, eyes a bright, unnatural yellow. Naruto caught himself wanting to look back at Sasuke, to see if he'd recognize the echo of his own gaze, but kept his attention locked on the table's edge instead.
Sai took over for the visuals, fingers dancing on the remote, punctuating the presentation with sketches and color studies. "We drew on Eastern and Western mythologies," Sai said, his voice a perfect monotone except for a razor of mischief beneath each phrase. "But the core is always Naruto's: an outsider, a disruptor, forced to play by rules he never agreed to. We amplified these themes visually, pairing traditional brushwork with… kinetic digital overlays." He flicked to a slide of an in-progress character sheet, then another with a rendering of the Fox's main adversary.
The room was silent except for the soft shuffle of investors jotting notes. Naruto felt a bead of sweat crawl down his ribcage, a single drop committing to gravity. Sai leaned in, his shoulder pressing against Naruto's, lips almost brushing his ear: "Relax your shoulders. You're hunching."
Sasuke's pen clicked shut. "Why the fox?" His eyes flicked from Sai's proximity to Naruto's face, then back to his notepad. "It's not the most relatable protagonist for your core audience."
The room looked to Naruto. He inhaled—one, two, three, four.
"In a world built on conformity," Naruto said, "the fox is the only animal that won't be tamed. It adapts by defiance. It never apologizes for what it is."
The hedge fund guy nodded, stroking a chin that looked spray-painted. "Market research backs that. Edgy's trending, especially with gen Z."
Sai's hand settled on Naruto's forearm, steadying. Sasuke's gaze locked onto the point of contact.
"Your target demo doesn't want edgy for edgy's sake," Sasuke said, voice cooling several degrees. "They want to see themselves in the story." He leaned forward, fingers steepled. "Your protagonist chooses isolation. Why should anyone root for him when he pushes away those who try to get close?"
The words hit, but not like a punch—more like a tuning fork that made Naruto's nerves vibrate. He'd written those sentences in a hundred drafts, reworded them until they stung less. Now, forced to defend them in front of the only person who'd ever really read him, he felt an odd clarity.
"Because some of us," Naruto said, feeling the heat crawl up his neck, "grow up believing it's safer to be hated for what you are than loved for what you pretend to be."
For a split second, the silence in the room doubled. Sasuke's expression didn't shift, but his eyes did—a flicker, a flash, something softening then hardening again. He nodded, once, conceding the point.
Sai hit the next slide, fingers a whisper against the remote. "Let's look at the magic system," he said, leaning closer to Naruto until their shoulders touched.
Sasuke's pen clicked again, sharply. "What's the protagonist's relationship with his mentor?" he asked, gaze fixed on where Sai's arm pressed against Naruto's. "Seems... inappropriately close in the manuscript."
Naruto cleared his throat. "It's complicated. The mentor sees potential where others don't."
"And exploits it?" Sasuke pressed, eyes narrowing as Sai's hand settled on Naruto's forearm.
The rest of the presentation continued this way—every time Sai moved closer, adjusted Naruto's notes, or whispered something in his ear, Sasuke would interrupt with another pointed question, forcing Naruto to step away from Sai to answer properly. Each question was a trap, but also a territorial marker: Sasuke was digging beneath the plot, yes, but also creating distance between the two men standing at the podium.
By the forty-eighth slide, even the junior investors looked won over. The room's tension had shifted, no longer predator versus prey, but rival packs sniffing out a deal.
Naruto closed the deck with a single line, bold across a black background: "The world isn't changed by heroes. It's changed by the ones who won't stop fighting for it."
The conference room held the breath for two beats, then released it as the hedge fund guy clapped, a quick bark of sound. The others followed, Jiraiya beaming with paternal pride. Even Sasuke's face softened at the edges, his lips curving in what could be mistaken for approval.
As the last of the investors bled out into the hallway, their laughter and bluster echoing down the tiled corridor, a new silence flooded the conference room. The air felt charged—less like a vacuum and more like the pause between lightning and thunder.
Naruto lingered at the table, collecting loose pages, tucking stray pens and battered notes into his backpack with a precision that bordered on obsessive. Each minute detail kept him from acknowledging the black hole at the other end of the room: Sasuke, alone, sleeves rolled, jacket slung over one shoulder, gazing at the floor as if plotting its destruction molecule by molecule.
It was just the two of them now, no audience, no buffer. The expanse of glass and walnut suddenly felt like a fishbowl, the kind where the predator never stopped circling. Sasuke took his time approaching—he had always taken his time, as if savoring every second of someone else's discomfort. His shoes made no sound on the carpet, but Naruto could sense his presence as the shadows warped and the air pressure rose.
When Sasuke finally spoke, the voice was low enough to make Naruto's skin twitch, meant for his ears alone.
"You changed the ending," Sasuke said, each syllable pressed and folded like origami.
Naruto stacked another handful of papers, hands trembling only slightly. "Yeah. Readers didn't like the old one."
Sasuke's mouth curved into something not quite a smile. "I liked it," he said. "It was honest." His fingers twitched forward across the table, stopping just short of Naruto's papers.
Naruto kept his head down, shuffling the pages. "Not everything has to end in disaster."
"But sometimes it does." Sasuke leaned in, close enough that his breath warmed Naruto's ear, then immediately pulled back when Naruto's shoulders stiffened. He straightened, drumming his fingers on the table. "Your main character. The way you wrote his betrayal—" His voice softened. "The aftermath—"
"It's just a story, Sasuke. That's all." Naruto's voice was flat.
Sasuke's eyes flashed, then dimmed. He opened his mouth, closed it, then tried again. "That's not what it read like." He looked away, throat working. "You always did write best when you were angry."
The room vibrated with a dozen things unsaid. Naruto chewed the inside of his cheek, tasting metal. "You're not my muse," he said. "You're just the cautionary tale."
Sasuke flinched as if struck. His jaw flexed, and the tendon in his neck jumped. He took half a step forward, hand rising, then froze. For a heartbeat, he looked on the verge of reaching out—but before he could move, the door whispered open behind them.
Sai entered, portfolio tucked under one arm, his smile an impeccable mask. He clocked the tension in the room instantly—Naruto halfway hunched over his backpack, Sasuke radiating nuclear-grade animosity. Sai moved to Naruto's side, placing a palm on his shoulder with proprietary ease. "All done here?" he asked, squeezing gently.
Naruto flinched at first but didn't shake him off. "Yeah. Just packing up."
Sai's fingers lingered, thumb stroking the back of Naruto's neck with clinical precision. "The art team is already celebrating. We should join them." He glanced at Sasuke, his smile unfaltering. "Unless Mr. Uchiha has more... questions about inappropriate relationships?" The words were velvet-wrapped barbs.
Sasuke said nothing, only observed the hand on Naruto's skin with the intensity of a predator sighting a rival. His face went still—too still—like the calm before a dam burst. The muscle at the corner of his jaw ticked, and Naruto realized, with a thrill both petty and cathartic, that Sasuke hated this.
The realization was a key turning in a lock. After years of being the one who flinched, who fled, Naruto let himself lean into Sai's hand, just a little, just enough to make sure Sasuke noticed. Sai bent his head closer, breath warm against Naruto's ear, and murmured, "Let's get drinks. You deserve to celebrate." His eyes never left Sasuke's, a silent claim staked in plain sight.
For a fraction of a second, Sasuke's composure fractured. His mouth parted, then slammed shut, as if the words had betrayed him at the last moment. He turned away, shoving his hands deep into his pockets, shoulders squared in a way that was more shield than posture.
"My team will contact you when we come to a decision," Sasuke said, jaw set in a tight line.
Naruto didn't reply. His fingers fumbled with the zipper of his bag, betraying the tremor he fought to hide. He stood, throat tight with words he'd never say, and let Sai steer him toward the door. At the threshold, something pulled at him—that same magnetic force that had always existed between them—and he looked back.
Sasuke stood alone in the center of the room, backlit by the washed-out sunrise, his silhouette sharp against the glass. The sight hit Naruto like a physical blow. His chest constricted, old wounds tearing open as easily as tissue paper. He wanted to hate this man—god, how he wanted to—but beneath the anger lurked something worse: the memory of loving him so completely that even now, years later, the echo of it left him hollow.