note: should I really be starting a new project? Probably not. But inspiration struck me, and I'm not one to refuse it's beatings. Happy ssmonth! Any quotes/plot belongs to me, the characters, to Kishi!

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chapter one - white canvas

"A blank canvas is like a new beginning, you see. You can create an entirely new world with it, if armed with the right tools."

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It's late morning on the beach when I remember I'm supposed to be at work.

Shit, I inwardly curse, mind reeling to invent some sort of excuse that would explain being a half hour late.

As I gather up my paintbrushes, staring longingly at the inviting, open sea that just begs to be painted, I sigh. The sky today is a really unique palette. Purples and blues and reds and yellows that can't quite be described properly, and it won't look the same as this ever again. A wasted opportunity, I think miserably as I reluctantly wipe off the sand from my blanket and walk to my car. I'm a trapeze act with all my canvases and brushes and paint tubes, but I wouldn't have it any other way. I'm in my element here, much more than when I'm at work.

I don't have the time to stop for breakfast, so I climb into my car, throwing everything into the backseat, and blast the radio. Pulling out onto the main road, I come across a mile-line fifty car traffic jam. Looks like an accident up ahead.

Make that an hour late to work.

No use getting upset, because now I might actually have a real excuse for being late, so I turn the volume up a little higher, and hum the lyrics to songs I know I shouldn't like, but do. I know how terrible it is to listen to the Top 40, but my car doesn't have an iPod jack, and the CD slot is broken. So the only way for me to listen to music is to turn on the radio. And I'd much rather listen to something than nothing.

I'm pretty much living paycheck to paycheck, waiting for my grand opportunity to kick start my art career. Major in art, they told me, you're so good you'll find a job in no time. Even in this economy.

Even in this economy.

I laugh at how wrong they were.

It's been a little over two years since I graduated college, top of my class, with a fine arts degree and a hopeful smile. I no longer wear that hopeful smile, because I've seen what this world really is, and I know that the only hope left is one that I can't afford to have anymore.

I work at an office, now. It's all I can do to avoid living on the streets, and even though I hate it more than I hate math, money is money. Part of me loathes what I've become, but no one really gets much out of art these days, so chances of me getting noticed for what I really want to do are slim.

My apartment is a two bedroom, one and a half bath piece of shit.

My guest room is filled with all the paintings I know I'll never sell, and because I'm not confident enough to hand up my own art, they sit collecting dust. If I see it hanging in the living room, I'll start to critique it. And a painting I may have once loved would soon become my worst nightmare. So once I finish a work, I bury it in that room, never to be seen again until I present a portfolio to the next hopeful employer.

The last time that happened, it was still illegal for me to drink.

Through my musings, I begin to think that the wait in traffic wouldn't be so bad if only I had a cup of coffee. I don't sleep much, so my caffeine addiction fuels my energy almost twenty four seven.

If I remember correctly, today we're supposed to be getting a new employee. A girl, I think. Yesterday, my best friend was bragging about it to me for an entire hour before I gathered up the nerve to tell him to shut the fuck up.

You see, my best friend has this tendency to try and hook me up with any new girl he meets. He thinks I'm lonely, being alone, but he doesn't really get the fact that I like being alone, or at least, that's what I've been telling myself for the past five years since my last girlfriend. What an awful breakup that was.

Of course, no one really wants to be alone, but my perfect girl just isn't out there. My expectations are a little too high, and rather than suffer through another disappointing relationship – or lower my standards – I find myself eating alone at diners at half past three in the morning with no company other than caffeine, pancakes, and Aunt Jemima.

I'm about two blocks away from work when the traffic finally starts to clear up a bit.

"Thank god," I mutter to no one, speeding the rest of the way and pulling into my parking spot. The only perk of working in an office is you get your own parking spot, and mine is the second best one next to the CEO of our office, so I'm not complaining. You see, I'm rather good at what I do here. A valuable employee is what they call it. An asset to the company is what they'd call it.

A waste of time, is what I'd call it.

As I walk into the office nonchalantly – even if you're late you never act it – I'm immediately interrupted by my pathetic excuse for a best friend.

"Sasuke," he greets excitedly, a little too excitedly even for ten thirty in the morning, "you've got to see her."

"Who?"

"The new girl! She's smoking hot. She'll be perfect for you, I swear. She just – "

"Naruto," I interject calmly, "stop."

"But Sasuke, she's really great, I promise."

I stare at him a blink of a moment before placing my things on my desk. Sitting down in the chair, I pull out a piece of paper and a pen, and begin to work. "If she's so great," I say in between scribbling down notes, "I'm sure I'll meet her eventually."

And with that, the discussion is over.

During our lunch break, I meet her.

She's a five foot nothing, pipsqueak of a woman, and she's got pink hair.

Pink hair.

Before I can even analyze her, I'm wondering how the hell she landed this job with that hair color. I deduce that she's either A) really good at what she does, like I am, or B) her father owns the company. Because those are the only plausible explanations as to how she could be working for Konoha United with pink hair.

She annoys me already and I haven't even spoken one word to her, or looked at her longer than two minutes.

She annoys me because as much as that pink hair is an eye sore, it begs to be painted. My fingers itch to run a brush along smooth canvas, or at least get a closer look at each strand so that I could see the individual shades of each piece. See each color with accuracy and precision. Create each color, paint it. I haven't even seen her face yet, so the moment she turns around I'm dumbfound.

Not only is she a five foot nothing, pipsqueak of a women with pink hair, she's got green eyes to boot. She is perhaps, the most awkward combination of exotic colors that I've ever seen, and yet I want to paint her more than I've wanted anything for a very long time.

And still, I haven't spoken a word to her.

I'm drinking my coffee – black with no sugar – when I hear it.

"Oh, you don't put milk either?"

I don't recognize the voice, so I turn out of curiosity. It's her, the pipsqueak, standing next to me with a bright smile. When I don't respond, she smiles sheepishly and takes a step back, bowing slightly.

"I'm sorry, I didn't introduce myself, did I? I'm Sakura Haruno. I'm new here."

Sakura Haruno, huh?

Her name fits her.

I nod in her direction, because as much as I want to just ignore her, it'd be rude. "Sasuke," I reply, leaving out my last name purposely. If she's offended by my rudeness, she doesn't act it.

"Sasuke-san," she tests.

"Just Sasuke." I manage to grunt out. I never liked formalities much. I guess that's what made me so different from my father.

There's a twinkle in her eye as she smiles and answers, "Okay Just Sasuke, I guess I'll see you around."

She's gone before I can even process what took place, but I already I don't like the feelings she's managed to swirl within me in the matter of minutes.

I spend the rest of the day typing out letters to other companies, making phone calls, writing essays, working numbers, and absolutely refusing to think that maybe the dobe was right when he said that she was great.