Coffee Boy

by gaaleex

Summary: AU. When you're a powerful businessman, you shouldn't have time for love – especially not with the attractive young man who spilt coffee over your expensive suit. Naruto's trying to make it in the business world and unexpectedly receives help from the man who annoys him the most: Uchiha Sasuke, CEO of Uchiha Powers. SasuNaru. One-sided NaruHina. ShikaTema, ChoIno, KanKiba.

Chapter One: Routine

Uzumaki Naruto groaned as he heard his alarm beeping incessantly. His eyes felt like lead and his mouth tasted dry. He really shouldn't have stayed out so late last night with work in the morning, but it was his friend Sakura's birthday so all in all it was her fault this had happened. With one lurching movement, he turned off his alarm and sat up in a daze. A wave of dizziness washed over him and for a second he thought he was going to hurl. Thankfully, the moment passed. Or perhaps that wasn't such a good thing after all – he didn't really want to go to work today.

Naruto worked in a large building for businessmen holding meetings and various office workers. He wasn't sure what he did exactly, other than getting people coffee and delivering messages. Sakura had gotten him the job as she worked as the secretary in the main entrance, so he spent quite a lot of his time talking to her. Today they were sure to both be hungover. He stumbled into the shower and shuddered as the initially cold water enveloped his body.

"Morning, Naruto," he heard as he eventually made it to the fridge dressed in orange trousers and a black woolly jumper. He made himself some toast and a glass of orange juice, and then sank into the chair next to his roommate.

"Morning, Hinata," he said with an easy smile. "No work today?"

Hyuuga Hinata had been his roommate for over two years now, ever since he put up an advert in the paper for someone to share this two bedroom apartment with him. There was something Naruto liked about the kind, shy woman. She was always lovely to him, making him dinner, asking him about his day, even offering to iron some of his shirts (a skill Naruto sadly lacked, and a favour he gratefully accepted). Naruto couldn't understand how after all this time together she was still so nervous around him, blushing whenever he spoke to her and twiddling her thumbs together. She didn't seem to have that many friends – occasionally two men back from her school days came over, Kiba and Shino, but when he inquired as to whether one of them was her boyfriend she looked like he'd just told her she'd been evicted. He accepted she was probably always going to be like this, but did try every now and then to bring her out of her shell. She worked as a teacher for nursery school children, so surely she had to have some backbone somewhere.

"I have a late start this morning." She answered, turning red and not quite meeting Naruto's eyes. She was in her fluffy white dressing gown, and her hair tumbled like a dark waterfall around her shoulders. Her own eyes were a wondrous lavender colour, as though she had contacts in. She was, Naruto eyed appreciatively on occasion, curvy in all the right places and a very beautiful woman. Not that Hinata herself seemed to realise this.

Naruto took a sip of his orange juice. "Sounds good to me. Why aren't you having a lie-in? I'm pretty dead right now."

"Oh, um," Hinata mumbled, suddenly embarrassed, "I am used to getting up at this time. That's all. I should go get dressed."

"Okay, wait a second though." Naruto raised an eyebrow at his friend. "You should really come out with us all sometime. We're going out on Friday, nothing special, not a birthday like last night or anything. Just to a bar and then maybe a club, even if we are getting too old for clubs now." He laughed. "But seriously, come along. You can invite Kiba and Shino so you don't feel awkward. They can crash here if they live far away."

Hinata looked surprised. She had started to shake her head when Naruto began talking, but now she wanted to pull herself together. She had to stop being so embarrassed around him! Did he really want her to hang out with all of his friends? What could this mean? "Okay, I'll come." She told him, meekly.

"I won't take no for an answer this time!" Naruto replied. "You always come up with some excuse or whatnot for not coming, but I've given you like five days' notice here if you count today. In fact, I'm going to call Sakura right now and tell her – you're coming?" He blinked, registering what she had just said.

Hinata giggled. "Yes, I am. Though I will invite Kiba and Shino, if that's okay. Your friends are very…intimidating."

"No they aren't!" Naruto defended them automatically, even though what Hinata was saying was kind of the truth. He had a strange bunch of friends, but he was fiercely loyal to them. He counted Hinata as a friend though, so he wanted her to meet them. His best friends were definitely Sakura and Sai; though he got the impression Hinata didn't like Sakura much, because whenever he mentioned her a strange look crossed her face. Still, they would learn to get along. He was growing very excited for this otherwise uneventful meet-up this Friday, but first he had to get through five days of work. He could guarantee that nothing exciting was going to happen at all today.

In fact, he was already off to a bad start. He checked his watch and saw the time was 8:32am. "Bollocks," he muttered, "the way traffic is in the mornings I'll be late. Do you want the rest of my toast, Hinata?" He asked.

She seemed positively delighted at this prospect, and even offered to wash his dishes for him. "Thanks, I'd appreciate it. I can do them when I get back though." When she insisted, he shrugged and decided to let her do them. After all, why look a gift horse in the mouth, right? He downed the last of his juice and was out the door, yelling goodbye moments before he ran down the hall to the lift.

Please don't be raining, he thought, realising his umbrella was sitting by the door waiting for him. As the lift doors opened and he was in the lobby, he peered through the windows and saw, to his dismay, that indeed specks of rain were falling to the ground. Man, can I catch a break here or what? He scowled as he darted outside for the bus, scrambling in his pockets for the right change. At least the bus would most likely be here soon.

Eight minutes later, he was sat on the bus next to an overweight, coughing man who didn't feel the need to cover up his germs. Today certainly wasn't shaping up to be a good day, despite the initial great start he had with Hinata agreeing to go out. He was already wondering if he could set her up with anyone, but the large majority of his friends already had relationships. Perhaps he could have a word with Kiba or Shino about her – he was pretty sure they didn't have girlfriends.

Why didn't Naruto have a girlfriend? He wondered this as he sat there in the traffic, kissing goodbye to being early for work for once. It wasn't like he was interested in anyone – well, okay, perhaps he wasn't. But was that such an issue? He was clearly waiting for the right girl to come along. He knew that when she did he would know straight away. The feeling would hit him like lightning.

He was so invested in the dissection of his love life he almost missed his stop, breathing a word of thanks to the woman with the pram up front who had pressed the button and was taking a while getting off. With a cheery wave to the bus driver, who barely looked at him, Naruto stepped off the bus and craned his head upwards to view the entire scale of the building in front of him. If there was another thing he was thankful for, it was that the bus stopped right outside his work. It was a building that dominated the area, radiating a presence and power that made Naruto feel insignificant and stupid. He was never going to be like the hotshot businessmen who worked on the upper floors. Hell, he was never going to be like the average everyday office workers who worked on the middle floors. His place wasn't even on the bottom floor, where Sakura was located as the general secretary for the building. He travelled everywhere, seeing the businessmen (there were women too, and they scared him even more so he often decided to forget about them) take their coffee from his hand and then turn around without even saying thank you, behaving as though he was a table to take things off of and put rubbish on. The amount of crap he got loaded with was unbelievable. He made at least three trips a day to the dumpster around the back.

Another glance at his watch – 9:04am – and Naruto hurried inside, his hair and clothes wet but fortunately not soaked through. Sakura was already there, of course. She started earlier than almost everyone, beat only by the janitor who opened the building up at 6am every weekday morning, and closed it at 11pm each night, and occasionally some people in a business meeting that couldn't seem to wait for normal person hours. Having turned twenty three yesterday, she was now the same age as Naruto. He was secretly pleased to see the faint bags under her eyes and her overall peaky demeanour. At least he wasn't the only one hungover going into work today!

"You're late." Sakura informed him as he strolled over to the desk. Her dyed pink hair was tied into a loose ponytail that crept over her right shoulder. In front of her were a computer and many folders and piles of paper. There was never a dull moment for her, especially first thing in the morning when everyone wanted details of certain things from the night before.

"Less than five minutes late – that doesn't count!" Naruto grinned. "I'm pretty proud of my time actually. Half an hour ago I was still having breakfast with Hinata."

"Oh yeah, she didn't come last night, did she?"

"You know you had a good night when you can't even remember the people who came." Naruto chuckled. "Yeah, she didn't come…er, come to think of it; I think I forgot to ask her." For a moment he felt bad, then he shrugged the feeling away. She would have said no anyway, surely. "She's coming out with us on Friday though."

Sakura looked surprised. "That'll be a first. At least we're going out on a Friday this time. Remind me never to celebrate my birthday on a Sunday again…I think this is the worst Monday morning I've ever had."

"And yet you still look as dazzlingly beautiful as always." Naruto said with his face deadpan.

Sakura narrowed her eyes at the blond. "Always a charmer," she remarked, deciding to take his comment at face value. She shook her head. "You're distracting me, as always! I have to sort out a mountain of forms for the new lead CEO for Uchiha Powers."

Uchiha Powers was on the top floor of the building. It was the most powerful and successful energy company in the country, focusing purely on renewable energy and making it work in ordinary everyday homes for a cheap price. There were hundreds of workers on that floor, all who had literally worked their way to the top to be there. It had a great reputation and was somewhere everyone wanted to work. Founded by Uchiha Fugaku, his son Uchiha Itachi had taken over after his death. Everyone was shocked to hear three weeks ago that he had died suddenly from an illness that proved to be terminal. The illness had been hushed up so no one was really sure what it was. His brother was the last Uchiha left.

"He's here already? What was his name again?" Naruto asked, only vaguely interested. He didn't really care about the business of people who treated him like he wasn't even there.

"Uchiha Sasuke." Sakura replied. "He walked past here earlier and didn't even glance in my direction. He expected to have someone else push the button for the lift and all. One of his assistants dropped the forms on my desk without even a word. It was quite rude." She lowered her voice and looked around before whispering, "I will say though, he is one fine looking man for an asshole."

Naruto groaned. "Sakura, can you stop chasing after unsuitable men! If he's such an ass, I'd bet he'll never even talk to us."

"That's true." She conceded with a sigh. "Anyway, we lowly folk still have work to do. Everyone's probably wondering where their coffees are, coffee boy, so get to it."

With that, she turned to her computer screen and started typing; clearly indicating it was time to get on with some work. Naruto pulled a face at her and grinned as he saw she was trying not to giggle and then pushed the button for the lift. Thank goodness for lifts, he thought, as he considered the prospect of carrying trays of tea and coffee and biscuits up ninety six flights of stairs to Uchiha Powers. Of course, he wasn't the only 'coffee boy' in the entire building. His floors were eighty six to ninety six, right at the top. Stupidly, the communal kitchen area was on floor two, which meant a lot of his time was spent in this lift. It smelt faintly of aftershave this morning, like someone hadn't had time to shower and so sprayed it desperately to rid them of any foul stench. There was a poster on the wall opposite to the doors saying 'Working Hard or Hardly Working?' which Naruto supposed was meant to be amusing.

The doors pinged open on floor eighty six, and Naruto's work day began.

A couple of hours later and Naruto's head was still pounding. He had just finished telling a Mr Watson that Miss Smith had cancelled their meeting on Tuesday at 5pm and had rescheduled to Thursday at 1pm and had gotten a whole load of abuse for it. That wasn't good enough, that wasn't professional, you tell her this, you tell her that, and then after all this yelling in the end he decided to go and see her himself. Well, if more people did that Naruto would be out of a job. Or at least some of his job. People always wanted a cup of coffee at least. Whatever happened to don't shoot the messenger anyway?

Now, he was delivering coffees up to floor ninety six again. This was always the busiest floor, and the floor he was treated like dirt the most on. These people may be doing well for the environment and giving him cheap electricity bills, but man were they rude in the process. He was carrying a particularly loaded tray aswell. As he entered the floor, there was the usual buzz of voices and phones ringing and keyboards clicking.

He marched forward (he had learned early on that if he waited for someone to let him walk past, this would never happen and he'd be left standing for ages) and placed coffee after coffee on desks, never once hearing a thank you. Then, just as he was about to turn a corner, someone pushed backwards on their chair, hitting into him. He stumbled, tripped over one of the chair's legs and crashed into someone, spilling coffee all over them and smashing cups to the ground.

All at once, there was silence. Everyone turned to look, in horror, at the scene that had just played out. A phone was ringing continuously in the background, but for once no one picked it up and shouted into it.

Naruto realised he had actually landed on top of the man he had basically just assaulted by accident. He picked himself up gingerly and then offered his hand, a blush creeping over his face as he saw he had humiliated himself in front of the most reputable people in the entire building. Why couldn't this have happened on floor eighty six at least!

The man was tall, with raven dark hair in messy spikes and piercing black eyes. His face had well-defined cheekbones and a strong jaw and it was twisted into a scowl. He was wearing what was clearly an expensive designer suit, all black and a white shirt, stained brown with all of the coffee spilt over him. He ignored Naruto's hand and picked himself up, standing at least three inches above the blond.

"I am so, so sorry," Naruto spluttered, "I didn't see you there. I tripped over the chair there because she pushed it back and I was right behind it –" The woman who was sat in the chair looked terrified suddenly, her eyes widening, as she hastily tucked her chair in again and faced her computer screen rigidly. "I'll – I'll buy you a new suit. I'll clean up this mess right away." He regretted offering to buy a new suit – that suit probably cost more than a month of his wages, but what else was he supposed to do? Everyone was looking at him.

The man looked Naruto up and down, and then raised an eyebrow. It arched perfectly, showing a pure look of contempt. "I highly doubt you could afford to buy me a new one. Just clean this mess and then get back to doing your pathetically easy job right – if you can even manage that." The words were cold, and cut deep into Naruto, making him feel angry and hurt at the same time. The man clearly didn't care, because with that he stalked off towards a room, dripping coffee behind him.

But Naruto wasn't going to let this slide.

"Hey!" Naruto shouted at him. He was not going to be spoken to like that and just allow that guy to get away with it. Who the hell did he think he was anyway? Some kind of celebrity? "Where do you get off talking to me like that?" He demanded to know. "I apologised, there's no need to talk down to me like that."

A few people gasped. The man stopped dead in his tracks and turned around. There was some kind of glint in his eyes as he scanned Naruto again. Then he carried on walking in the direction he was headed.

"Asshole." Naruto muttered under his breath.

Everyone sprang back into action at that point. And to Naruto's horror, a man ran after the rude guy shouting, "Mr Uchiha! Mr Uchiha are you scalded? We can get you a new suit pronto!"

I just spilled coffee all over the new CEO for Uchiha Powers. I just shouted at Uchiha Sasuke. Naruto thought, as he walked over in a daze to get a mop and a dustpan and brush. He closed his eyes and groaned. Yep, he knew today wasn't going to be a good day but that just blew his expectations out of the water. What a brilliant first day Sasuke was having.

As he cleaned up the mess, he couldn't shake the feeling he was being watched. His neck tingled with it, as though someone was whispering onto it, their breath tickling him. He turned around, but no one was watching him. Everyone had returned to their daily routine. The scene was over; it was as if, without Sasuke there, Naruto no longer existed.

Sakura was laughing very hard when Naruto told her later, back at his apartment. He had invited her round for dinner just to tell her the story as she'd been so busy for the rest of the day they'd barely been able to talk. She'd heard a rumour that Uchiha Sasuke had been pushed over and had boiling hot coffee poured over him, causing him to scream at the culprit. And then the culprit screamed back at him! Naruto rolled his eyes at the exaggerated story, and set her straight. Did office workers really have nothing to better to do than gossip? He supposed not.

"It wasn't even boiling hot!" Naruto protested. "It was just warm. He wasn't hurt or anything. And I didn't do it on purpose!"

"I can't believe you!" She cackled. "Sasuke's here one day and already you've made him an enemy for life. Still," her laughter died down, "it wasn't fair of him to say those things to you. Still, I can't believe you talked back. I bet that's never happened to him before."

"I didn't realise he was bloody Uchiha Sasuke, did I?" Naruto sighed. "I mean there should be a photo of him up in the front lobby so people know who to avoid!"

Sakura giggled. "Deep down I bet he's not so bad. He may even have a heart."

Naruto shook his head vehemently. "No way. I hope I never see that tool again. Man, he irritated me. It ruined my day."

His friend patted his hand. "Hey," she murmured, "don't be so down. You're great at your job. You know that. Today was just unlucky."

"Yeah, but he's right. My job is pathetically easy. I'm not being challenged, am I? I don't look forward to work."

"Not many people do. Today, for example, I didn't want to get out of bed."

"That's just because you were hungover. You enjoy sorting out everyone's business and seeing to people. You're bossy, it's your thing." At this joke, Naruto smiled, but Sakura sensed there was still sadness within him. "I don't know…maybe it's the second glass of wine talking…but sometimes I wish I was one of those businessmen I give coffee to. I want to be a big shot one day. Everyone knows Uchiha Sasuke's name."

Sakura said gently, "To be fair, he was born into the right family there."

"He's smart though…maybe he's not like his brother Itachi – he's certainly meaner – but it's not like he'll be a fish out of water as CEO. He'll be great, just you wait and see." Naruto shrugged. "Listen to me moping. Tuck in, Sakura. I ordered some food for Hinata too, but she hasn't come home yet."

"If you're really serious about wanting to make your mark in the business world, why not see if there are any openings on floor ninety six?" Sakura asked him. "In fact, I can check tomorrow for you."

"Whoa, floor ninety six? Reaching a bit high there aren't we, Sakura? I wouldn't even be able to work on floor one. I don't have a degree, remember? I wouldn't last five minutes." Naruto told her with a frown.

Sakura wasn't deterred. "Okay, you don't have the right qualifications, but don't you want to prove Sasuke wrong? You are worth something. Why not just try?"

"Fine. I'll make an even bigger laughing stock of myself tomorrow." Naruto said wearily, just as the front door opened and Hinata came in, looking just as tired and defeated.

"Evening, Hinata, how come you're back so late?" Naruto greeted his roommate, after casting a look at Sakura that clearly meant to keep quiet about their conversation beforehand.

Hinata rubbed her eyes as she kicked the door shut and sat at the table to join them. "A kid swallowed a crayon. An ambulance had to be called and I had to fill in a lot of paperwork."

"Christ, was the kid okay?" Sakura asked.

"Yeah, he was fine. He didn't actually choke on it, just swallowed it straight down, but it was enough to frighten the assistant who had just seen him do it." Hinata answered. Then she seemed to remember herself, and retreated back into her self-conscious ways. "Um, is there any food here for me?"

Naruto handed her a paper bag. "In there. We've only just started eating really, so you're just in time."

Hinata smiled. "Wonderful. I'll just go and get changed into something more comfortable and then I will join you both. If I am not intruding on anything, that is." The last sentence she spoke was very difficult to get out, but she had to clarify this. She chewed her lip anxiously.

"What? No!" Naruto burst into laughter, his earlier sadness forgotten, for now. "Hurry up, Hinata, I'm starving."

As she left the room, Sakura turned to Naruto. "I will check the job openings tomorrow. There's bound to be some – Sasuke will surely be opening up new posts and swapping people around to suit his own way of working."

"Whatever, Sakura. I don't want to think about Sasuke or work anymore. Let's just enjoy our ramen, okay?"

"Okay."

She didn't say a word more about it after that, even when Naruto ended up telling Hinata about him spilling coffee all over Sasuke. It was pretty hilarious, and she found herself laughing for the second time at this story. She couldn't shake the worried feeling she had about Naruto's despair with his job though. Somehow she'd sort this out for him. It would all work out okay.

Later that night, after Sakura had gone home and he had bid Hinata goodnight, Naruto lay in bed staring up at his ceiling, thinking about the day's events. Dinner had turned out to be pretty fun, and Hinata and Sakura seemed to be getting along brilliantly, which was a relief. He just wished he hadn't crashed into that stupid Uchiha Sasuke. He could still feel rage boiling inside of him when he thought of the words he said to him. The man was clearly arrogant. Of course he was. He was born into luxury and probably didn't even know how to make a cup of coffee. And Naruto did make a damn good coffee, so he was wrong insinuating Naruto wasn't even good enough to do that.

That damn man. Why did he keep coming into Naruto's head, when he wasn't invited? Naruto turned over with a force, as though to knock the Sasuke thoughts straight out of his brain. Eventually, tiredness overwhelmed him and he drifted off to sleep, ready to start the whole routine of the daily grind again tomorrow.

His dream was strange. He was making coffee but each time he made one it vanished, until eventually he gave up and threw a mug away from himself. It hit a man in the back, and then all of the coffee he had made appeared in a huge brown fountain, covering the unsuspecting man he had hit, drenching him. It was Uchiha Sasuke, and the sight of him caught Naruto's breath. But no sooner had he turned around, had the dream shifted itself and veered into another subject completely, where Naruto was late for work because Hinata was shaking him…

…and then he realised the latter wasn't a dream after all as he woke up to another gentle shake from his roommate.

"Naruto, it's almost nine! Wake up!" She cried.

Naruto sat up in bed, almost colliding with her. He had forgotten to set his alarm clock. The clock almost grinned at him, proudly showing off the time as 8:49am.

"Bollocks," Naruto cursed. He was going to be late again.

Author's Note: Thank you for taking the time to read my new story! It has been the first thing to inspire me in a long time. I would really appreciate some reviews from you readers out there to let me know there is interest in this. I will try to keep the updates for this regular, so keep an eye out for the next chapter.