Chapter Text
When Sakura came home for the evening, after a long day at her office job, she was surprised to find her single-room apartment decidedly less vacant than she had left it that morning. The man lounging in her home didn't even glance up as she entered, a bored expression plastered to his face as he lay on her bed, perusing a fashion magazine that Sakura had left sitting out when she left. "You're back late," he intoned, flipping a page and half-heartedly blowing a stray lock of black hair from his face. "The boss make you do overtime?"
The woman threw a quizzical look at her longtime friend, but placed her groceries on her small kitchen counter. "Yeah, he did. So what brings you here, Sasuke?" It wasn't the anniversary of anything she determined with a surreptitious glance at her calendar on the wall. He hadn't brought Naruto along either, which was rare. Whenever the two decided she needed company, it was almost always together. Sakura could count the number of times she'd hung out with either of them alone over the past decade on her fingers. They were a group of three, and that's how it was always meant to be.
"I need a favor." Sasuke shut the magazine and stretched out further on Sakura's bed. He made no move to stand, however.
When he didn't elaborate further, Sakura paused in putting away her groceries, and fixed him with a pointed stare. "Breaking into my apartment doesn't exactly endear me to your cause, you know." As an afterthought, she added, "And you could offer to help me out over here if you're planning to freeload tonight."
"You can hardly charge me for the crime of using your poorly hidden spare key to get in. Which you need to learn to hide better. Seriously, Sakura, don't use a fake rock in front of a second floor apartment. That's just asking to get burgled." He waved a hand at her apartment in general. "Aside from which, I already cleaned this apartment top to bottom before you got back. I've done enough."
Now that he mentioned it, it did look significantly less hazardous now. Sakura had assumed the sparkles of cleanliness were mild hallucinations brought on by overwork and stress. Any gratitude she might have felt, however, abruptly dissipated at the next words from Sasuke's lips.
"So technically, you owe me two favors."
Sakura groaned and rolled her eyes. "Fine, fine. But I'm only letting you call in one favor tonight. I'm dead tired and I just want to crawl into bed. Which you're still occupying, by the way."
Finally sitting up, Sasuke regarded her with his dark eyes and patented uninterested expression – the same features that had made her swoon when she was twelve, but which now only dredged up irritation in the woman. "Better?" he asked her with a sarcastic drawl.
"No," Sakura informed him. "You're still on the bed."
Sasuke narrowed his eyes at her. "…Stingy." With that conclusion, he flopped back over and waved a limp arm in the direction of Sakura's low table. "I need your input on that thing."
Finished with putting everything away, Sakura sighed and walked over to the table. Kneeling down at it, she reached for the centerpiece – a plain disc in a white sleeve. She turned the object over in her hands, reading the name out loud. "Ninja Life II." Looking up, Sakura raised an eyebrow at Sasuke. "Two?" she questioned. "What happened to the first one?"
For the first time since she'd come home, Sasuke looked uncomfortable. "…I would rather not talk about that."
Shrugging it off, Sakura set the disc back down. "So is it corporate espionage again? You need me to hold onto this for you, or something?" As a game developer, and head of a small yet somewhat successful company, this wouldn't be the first time he'd fallen victim to this sort of underhanded play by his competition. "Sure you want to waste your favor on this, though?" Sakura was accustomed to this sort of request from him by now. It was hardly worth a whole favor. "Because honestly you could have just hidden it while you were cleaning the place, and I never would have even noticed."
Sasuke shook his head. "No, that's not what I need from you this time."
Now he had her interest. "What, then?"
He didn't answer right away, instead he glanced around her small apartment, his eyes resting on the photographs, her television, her kitchen, the doorway to her toilet, the table, the fashion magazine… everywhere but at her.
Suspicious.
"You're off for Golden Week starting tomorrow, right?" he questioned suddenly. His gaze still had yet to return to Sakura. "And your parents are spending it traveling, right?"
She was a little concerned that he knew that. "Are you stalking my family on social media again?"
Sasuke ignored her query. "And most of your friends are out of town as well."
Now she was worried. And he was definitely stalking her social media circle again. Damn rich kid and his ingrained boredom and nosiness. She'd have to get Naruto to help her stage another intervention. Apparently the first didn't take quite as well as they'd thought. "What are you getting at, Sasuke?"
He finally looked back at her, jerking his chin at the disc. "I want you to playtest it for me."
The apartment fell utterly silent, Sakura rendered dumbfounded and mute by his request.
Sasuke, nonplussed by the quiet, simply waited her out. Knowing that eventually she'd make some kind of move.
He didn't expect that move to be her throwing a book at him.
"What the hell, Sakura?!" he snapped, narrowly dodging the projectile – a hefty volume the title of which he couldn't make out. "I haven't done anything to warrant that reaction!"
"Uh… yeah, you have!" she informed him, satisfied with having made the attempt. "You're trying to get me to give up my Golden Week! My only real time off! And as a favor, so you don't have to pay me for it!"
"Tch." Sasuke clicked his tongue.
"I was right, wasn't I?" Sakura observed, a vein throbbing on her forehead. "Well you can just forget about it and find some other patsy to work on this for free. Naruto, maybe." At which point Sasuke could say goodbye to his game, as Naruto would find a way to unintentionally break it because that was just who he was as a person.
Her friend grumbled under his breath.
"Sorry, what was that?"
"Fine! I'll pay you!" The concession looked like it physically pained him. "I'll pay you whatever you want! Just please playtest it for me!"
He must have been desperate. Sakura could respect that. "Alright. So what exactly do you want me to look for? Bugs?" With her extremely poor playing style, she did tend to find a lot of them very easily.
Relief suffused Sasuke's body. "You can keep an eye out for regular bugs, but I'd prefer it if you… proofed the storylines."
"Storylines. Multiple." Oh boy, just how long was this going to take? Sakura was not super quick at picking up new videogames. Especially not the first person action games that Sasuke and Naruto had been into growing up. "Couldn't you just… I don't know, give me a script or something to look over?"
Sasuke shook his head. "No, I want your reactions to the authentic experience. Which means playing the game."
"I'm not sure what the story benefit of me playing it will be. I'll be too busy trying to figure out the controls to pay attention to the story. Who pays attention to the story in these types of games anyway?"
"Ouch," Sasuke commented. "You really think that little of the games I like?"
"Yes."
"And I'll have you know that people love the stories in most games, regardless of what kind they are," he persisted. "Gameplay is fun but the story is what keeps people coming back for more." Then he paused and gave her a half-shrug. "Besides which, this style of game isn't what I normally do, so your argument is meaningless from the start."
Now that surprised Sakura. Last she recalled, the only hit to Sasuke's company's name had been a control-intensive one. With the word 'ninja' in it, Sakura wasn't holding out too much hope for this one, though. "What sort of game have you made this time, then?"
A smirk crawled across her friend's handsome features. "You'll just have to play it and find out."
She considered the offer. On the one hand, she didn't want to give up her much coveted vacation time. On the other... she was starting to become very curious about just what type of game and storyline that Sasuke had poured his heart and soul into this time. The potential money was also an enticing prospect.
"I can see that you want to try it out." Glee suffused Sasuke's voice, as he clearly knew he was winning this bout.
"Fine." Sakura sighed as Sasuke's face adopted a rather smug expression. "But only a trial run, and we do this right now. And you get to order pizza and grab the beer from the fridge."
"I'll take that." Sasuke stood up, already taking out his phone as he headed for the refrigerator. "Usual place? Also, I already set your laptop up for you so go ahead and start the game. I think you'll like the opening cinematic in particular."
"You were that sure I'd cave, were you?" she grumbled under her breath. Well, he hadn't been wrong. "Also… how did you get my password?"
He turned and gave her a look. "Really, Sakura? You haven't changed it since we were twelve." Clearing his throat, he pitched his voice into a falsetto mockery of Sakura's. "Sasuke-kun's #1 Fan!" In a normal tone, he concluded, "Please. You're so predictable. Why do you still keep using that for everything?"
A heavy flush rose in Sakura's cheeks. "It's meant to be ironic." At least at first. She barely registered it as anything other than a series of characters now, though. "Besides, we all know that your real number one fan is your brother."
He scoffed lightly but didn't deny it, and opened the fridge in search of the beer she'd promised.
Sakura turned on her television and awakened her laptop. It was a newer one, which she had saved up for and gotten custom made. This would be the first time a game had been run on it, though. The device hummed softly as it booted up from its sleep mode. As she typed in her password, Sakura vaguely wondered if she should change it. She put the question aside for now, opting to insert the game disc instead.
The screen darkened as the cinematic started up automatically, and Sakura leaned in to watch it unfold. Starting off low, the music rumbled from her speakers in a rising tempo. Just as the lyrics entered, the first visuals danced across the screen.
"We are fighting dreamers~"
"Is that… Is that Lee? Neji? Hinata?!"
"Fighting dreamers~"
"Sasuke! Why am I seeing people I know?! Holy shit, I think that's one of our old high school teachers."
It was at that point that Sasuke dropped the verbal equivalent of a bomb on her. "It was easier to work with personalities we already knew!" he called from within the depths of the fridge. "It is a dating sim, after all."
"I'm sorry, it's a what?!"
"Right here, right now, Burn~"
She let out a muffled screech as a pink haired girl with a very familiar face appeared on the screen beside a blond boy in a far too recognizable orange jacket as the song began to reach its conclusion. "Sasuke. Why are Naruto and I both in this?!"
Sasuke sat down beside her, and placed a beer in her hand. "Because you're the protagonists."
"Get the fire, BAM~"
He clinked his beer against hers. "Cheers."