Body Heat

2 | ready, set, go

{naruto}

Naruto was in his fancy little banged up red bug of a car. Parked in the parking lot of the studio they were to meet at. His palms were sweatier than his third-grade professor, Mr Mizuki, when he got caught leaking question papers for money.

He took a long, chilling breath of the cool morning air and breathed out, trying for some light meditation but he was just about ready to vibrate into another dimension if that's a possible occurrence.

This would be his first long-term project, his first TV show, his first script with a story arc; so many firsts. More than he thought he could handle right now. He was early as well, another first. He glanced at his watch and huffed at the stubbornly slow, crawling pace time had decided to move at. Call time was still two fucking hours away!

He'd been woken up at the asscrack of dawn by Sakura and her slap-happy wake-up technique she calls 'Up and At 'Em no Jutsu.' A technique that was simply her karate chopping his head till he cracked open an eye to glare her away. After that, he spent a good hour and a half at the gym with Rock Lee. A lounging in the sauna and a shower later, Naruto was too awake and wired to complain about anything.

So there he sat, in his car, a latte and a cheesy bagel awaiting him as he simply flipped through the script, looking through the lines and scenes they had done read-throughs and blocking for over the last week. He was not worried about much; Naruto had spent enough time fooling people into thinking he was an absolute moron to worry about expectations, that's not to say he didn't have any of his own. It still alleviated six kinds of stress when nobody else held him to any sort of standard.

If anything all, he was worried about one thing since the mixer at the Uchiha manor.

At the manor, he'd met Uchiha Junior.

While Naruto had done his best to avoid looking at the dark-haired man, the way he'd looked at Naruto from the moment he'd descended those stairs had Naruto on the verge of squirming.

The intense gaze pinned him and the look in those eyes was torturingly familiar. While his face had looked disinterested and even mildly irked, those eyes spilt secrets like a traitor. He'd seen it all, loneliness, self-loathing, a...a hint of arousal and a desperate flicker of hope in the dead black eyes of the younger Uchiha.

He hated it. Who did the lily-white boy think he was anyway? Probing at his mind silently from across the room like that. It was cause for great discomfort later that night, in his dreams, when the man seemed to try and use his eyes to delve into Naruto's eyes, as though diving for hidden treasures, trying to collect pearls.

Naruto huffed then reached for the steaming cup of coffee, taking a slow sip of the sweet drink. He had no idea who Sasuke thought he was, but the emo dude was not allowed to look at him like that... in a way that was almost desperately pleading. By the questioning black gaze, it was clear Sasuke didn't remember him.

Whatever.

Naruto put his coffee cup back and flipped through the script, reading up on what was to happen in scenes to come, making notes with a pen of orange ink. He streamlined his thoughts, noting character emotions he can let slip in early scenes so as to form a base for emotions to come later on.

Naruto was halfway through the season when his phone rang.

"Hello?"

"Ah, Naruto! Ino here! Kakashi asked me to ask you if you could come to set a bit early today, like as early as possible." Naruto sighed. Cradling his cell phone against his shoulder he picked up his coffee, bagel and script and got out of the car. He headed for warehouse number 7. "Itachi and all were talking and we figured we could go through a few styles to see what suits your character, gather a closet that looks good on your skin tone and run through a few hairstyles—"