My Ex Want To Marry Again

Part - XX

8th Nov, 2023
21:00

"Actually, I heard from Suigetsu that you were having a showing here tonight." Sasuke smiled as Naruto was startled out of his mask of indifference. If it was a game of emotional control and mind fucking that they were playing, Sasuke had a clear advantage in this arena. "Oh, you didn't know? He works for us now. The new head of creative marketing. Started last week."

Naruto processed what the loud-mouthed Suigetsu knew about his new life, and the probability that he had told the entire office once he found out Naruto used to work there. Naruto was able to keep the stream of cursing internal rather than giving it voice, but the amused look on Sasuke's face showed that the man clearly knew what Naruto was thinking anyway.

"I hear you are into taking interesting wagers at bars now," Sasuke continued, watching as Naruto's posture shifted slightly into a subtly aggressive stance, his eyes were narrowed. Sasuke could feel a coiled tension pumping off Naruto's body, and his own body's immediate response as he mirrored Naruto's aggressive posture. God, Sasuke had missed this. Just this. Everyone else in his life always deferred to him, paid lip service and agreed to whatever he wanted. But never Naruto. Naruto would just go headlong into a conflict with him, never batting an eye to things like 'station' or 'deference'. It had always been this way between the two of them. This instant combat readiness and battle for dominance between two equals. When they were young, it had been physical. Then they matured, and it became verbal. Then they became lovers, and it became physical again, but in a different way. No matter who won, the arguments they had ended in the same way. Sex between them was always amazing, but the sex when they fought was... unbelievable. Sasuke had to remind himself forcibly that this was not going to end that way, but he couldn't help the jump of pure lust that shot through him as his body remembered this feeling exactly. God, it had been too long since anyone had made him feel so alive.

"Yeah, well. I've found a lot of new things to entertain me over the past two years. The freedom has been amazing and... liberating." Naruto said and smiled, seeing he had scored a direct hit with this comment. Sasuke visibly tensed and his onyx eyes narrowed dangerously. Naruto was barely able to contain a wolfish grin, but he knew that this type of battle with Sasuke was dangerous... neither of them were fully rational when it came to the other. They never had been. Which meant he needed to bring this to a close quickly and get the hell out of here.

"But I'm sure you didn't come here to discuss my sex life, or my other new hobbies. And clearly the art here would be below your standards. So let's cut to the chase, Sasuke. What do you want?"

Sasuke blinked at the direct but controlled verbal assault. Naruto had evidently been working on self-control if nothing else since they had been apart.

Sasuke smirked as he thought about ways he could answer Naruto's question completely truthfully. But he held back on actually voicing it, knowing that it would just put Naruto's defenses up even more. He settled on another truth that Naruto might find more compelling.

"Itachi told me you are planning on selling your share of the business. We have had a difficult time finding suitable replacements for the roles that you had played in the business, given that you left so abruptly and there was no time to transition someone in properly.

Before you sell, I was hoping that you could come back and spend a few months training your replacements so we can have the business nerforming optimally again That way you can get ton dollar for your share. And of course, the employees who also have shares in the company will benefit."

Naruto didn't know what to say. Of everything that he had expected to come out of Sasuke's mouth, this hadn't even made the list. Fucking bastard. He always knows how to get what he wants. But the problem was that Naruto really didn't know what Sasuke wanted anymore. He had seen the flash of lust when they had been verbally sparring earlier. But he also remembered the way that Sasuke had looked at him that last night they were together, when he had completely broken him. Even if Sasuke still wanted Naruto in that way, it by no means meant that they didn't simultaneously want to destroy him. Naruto searched Sasuke's face, trying to read his motivation for this. But he couldn't be sure. After everything that had happened the last time they met, he no longer had any faith that he had ever really known how to read this man in the first place.

Sasuke saw the hesitation on his face, and simply waited, knowing that once he had put it in terms of him being needed to help the employees that Naruto had befriended and supported, Sasuke had won. It was now just a matter of waiting for Naruto to acknowledge it.

"We'll see. I'll call Kiba and discuss it with him," Naruto said noncommittally, hating the smug look that appeared at his words. Sasuke clearly knew that this was already a done deal.

But Naruto was going to make it clear exactly what he was coming back for. A small, cold smile ghosted across Naruto's lips, the expression again seeming so foreign on his face. Naruto walked the three steps that brought him just alongside his former lover, resting his hand on the man's shoulder.

"But just to be clear Sasuke, if I come back for a bit it's not going to be to play secretary and the boss with you, nah? If you don't like the replacements that Kiba hired, just go and have him update the profile and find someone more to your taste," he spoke low, directly into Sasuke's ear.

Sasuke felt the heat from Naruto's breath against his neck go straight to his groin. And then Naruto was gone, walking across the room to speak with a man with red hair and multiple piercings. Yahiko God, how Sasuke hated that name. Sasuke slowly smiled. He looked at Naruto, who just happened to glance up at that exact moment and smile at him. He raised a single black eyebrow in response. Two could play at this game. Naruto might remember all his buttons. But he remembered Naruto's. He would bide his time. He knew he'd be seeing Naruto again soon.

Sasuke didn't want to seem as though he had been 'dismissed by Naruto. And he had some real curiosity to see what his friend had painted while he had been gone. Naruto's paintings, like his expressive face, had always been amazing works of art that reflected the depth of his emotions and experiences. In the past, most of his pieces had involved Sasuke. He was curious, and a bit hesitant, to see what Naruto had focused on without him.

The first painting he saw appeared to be some sort of cityscape. It was bright and colorful, but somehow managed to be disturbing and surreal at the same time. As though the cheerful colors were somehow mocking the observer. Sasuke frowned a bit and moved on to another one. He froze, staring into a pair of eyes in the center of the canvass that he recognized instantly, their onyx hue being the same he saw in the mirror every morning. But these were filled with hate and disgust, set not in a face but in a dark eddy of black and brown and red that made Sasuke feel almost dizzy with its subtle swirling effect. Sasuke looked at the title of the piece. The Ending. He stood there, unable to move. Had his eyes really looked like that? He supposed they had. He felt a little queasy about this vision of himself being so embedded in Naruto's memory that he had been able to paint it like this, even if he had felt Naruto deserved it. The pain of that night was captured so completely in this painting that Sasuke almost couldn't look away. He didn't notice the two pairs of eyes that watched his every reaction. He took a step back from the painting, and drew a breath, trying to gather himself.

He walked to the next one. It was simply titled 'Tired'. It seemed at first to be a fairly innocent scene of a bedroom, but in the same way that the cityscape had been disturbing, this one also had undertones that bothered the observer. The very bright but somehow out of focus and disorienting view from the window, the heavy darkness that seemed to hang in the room. But what had the hair rising on Sasuke's arms was they way that the painting drew the eye to a small bottle of pills on the nightstand in the corner of the painting. They seemed somehow sinister. Sasuke looked closer, and saw that the label had been painted to clearly show that they were sleeping pills. Several scattered across the table.

Sasuke jerked as he felt someone standing along side of him. He turned, expecting to see Naruto, wanting to demand he explain what the sickening feeling was that he had sensed in this painting. He was met with jade green eyes, looking at him measuringly. Gaara. Sasuke glanced around the room, looking for Naruto, but not finding him. He noticed Yahiko watching him from a few feet away, his expression similar to Gaara's. Sasuke forced himself to take a deep breath. He needed to know what had happened. Itachi had told him to ask Gaara.

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TBC..

Well, don't forget to check out my other stories as well 😉
I'll be back soon with the new chapter..
Take care and stay healthy and hydrated. love you all 🥰❤️

Cr: NaruLove11
Dt - 08/11/2023 - 21:00
1687 words