Chapter Text
“We should skin him alive,” Ino Yamanaka says, slapping the coffee table with a glossy-paged tabloid, the magazine open to a colorful gossip column.
The words go spilling down the page in voluptuous black ink, but Hinata barely reads them. Instead her eyes focus on the damning photo center-page: her soon-to-be ex-husband, ducking into a red corvette with a pink-haired actress named Sakura Haruno.
To make matters worse, Hinata forgot to pick up her anxiety prescription that morning, instead choosing to meet with her best friends who had decided, today of all days, to be active causes of the panic attack that had been brewing under Hinata’s gentle disposition all week.
Deep breaths, her therapist said to her, just the night before. Name five things you can smell—
“Fuck that,” Tenten spits, disrupting Hinata’s mindfulness activity with a hearty slam of her matcha latte. “I’m way past skinning. We need to fray him.”
“It’s hard to say which would hurt more,” Neji, Hinata’s cousin, comments. He wasn’t even supposed to be there, but he had spent the night with Tenten and decided to use that as an excuse to check on Hinata. Tenten, ever considerate, had asked Hinata if she was okay with it, first.
Well, Hinata said yes, of course. But that was before she had known about The Article.
“It’s alright,” Hinata says, just to stop her favorite group of Volatile Adults from becoming more Volatile. “I–I already knew about Sakura, remember?”
It is true. While the up-and-coming-in-hot actress is not the sole reason for Hinata and Naruto’s split, she certainly has her place in the quickly unraveling divorce proceedings. Naruto, being the handsome son of the beloved Hokage, is already—and constantly—the center of attention. Add a supermodel, pink-haired, triple threat and now you’ve got pure cinema.
Of course, it doesn’t help that Hinata is—-formally and returning to, presumably—-Hinata Hyuga, of the Hyugas, the owners of a media conglomerate so large that their lawyers have lawyers. Hiashi Hyuga, President and CEO, is none other than her father, a rigid man with high standards who hated Naruto from the start.
Currently, he is not speaking to his eldest daughter. He’s pissed that she never made Naruto sign a prenup. Which is…fair.
Naruto, who has wealth of his own, never made her sign one either—-the two had eloped on an island in Okinawa one day, half-crazy, and without the prying eyes of their friends and families to intrude and beat some sense into them.
And so, as one might expect, the divorce spiraled like a web. What was supposed to last two months has been going on for a year and Hinata is completely at her wit’s end.
“No, fuck her,” Ino says, pulling Hinata back into the conversation against her will. Ino, to her credit, actually knows Sakura. “Her PR manager is good. She probably paid for this shoot.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Neji says, leaning back to put his coffee cup to his mouth. He has his arm draped across the back of Tenten’s chair, looking pleased and so in love that Hinata gets a bit nauseous. “It makes just Naruto look worse in the divorce proceedings. Sorry, Hinata.”
She doesn’t know why he is saying sorry. She cuts her eyes at him, but he’s too busy fussing with the edge of Tenten’s shirt when he thinks no one is looking, pressing the pads of his fingers against her briefly exposed skin.
Some check-in this is. He’s just using Hinata as an excuse to be closer to his girlfriend.
Tenten, unbothered by his touching, leans forward. Between them is a plate of cinnamon rolls being eaten only by Hinata. Both Tenten and Ino are on diets—-Ino in calorie deficient, Tenten trying some new fitness thing that requires you to cut carbs and ingest only red meats and broccoli.
“Yeah, duh, but it makes Sakura look better,” Tenten says. She leans forward conspiratorially, and all their heads converge—-they are sitting in Hinata’s favorite cafe downtown, not too far from her lawyer’s office; its lowkey with a corner that is perfect to disappear into—-- “She’s getting the fucking sympathy edit! Remember when people were saying that Hiashi dropped her from that recent superhero movie because of this? What was it called….”
Hinata leans away from the circle, her temperature spiking.
“Not that it matters,” Ino says tersely. “She was just auditioning, anyway. As if Hiashi Hyuga has time to check on menial casting directors for boring-ass films. Her fans are dumb as fuck. They’ll do anything to give Hina the villain treatment. Doesn’t make sense—our Perfect Princess has never even had a bad hair day in her life.”
“I’m really not sure what that has to do with anything,” Tenten says.
“It’s just genetics,” Neji agrees, shaking his fingers through his luxurious brown locks. “In any case, you’re right about one thing. They’re trying to get you to take the bait, Hinata, flaunting themselves like this. Just stay the course. It’ll all be over soon.”
They all turn to look at her, as if expecting her to say something. She blinks, eyes flickering back and fourth—blue eyes, brown eyes, lavender eyes—-before she shoves a cinnamon roll into her mouth and grabs her purse from the back of her chair.
“I’m going to be late!” She says through bites of her delicious roll, eyes filling with tears she desperately tries to hold back. She leaves them with a trail of crumbs, the sound of her high-heels stomping across the tiled floors, and the bell ringing over the door as she departs.
-:-
Itachi Uchiha’s office is always startlingly clean and bright, with every glass surface glinting against the overhead fluorescents and gleaming sunlight through the tall windows. His office is on the twenty-somethingth floor—-a floor Hinata always forgets immediately after she hits the button and the doors open up to a sprawling, modern play-pen.
It makes her office look like a flimsy newsstand in comparison. Hinata, as you can imagine, works within her father’s company as an Account Executive. It's boring, monotonous work consisting of answering calls and sending 5-20 emails a day. She performs well, always reaching her quotas, but doesn’t have much of a taste for the endless negotiating that comes with it. Everyone expects her, as eldest, to take her father’s position one day—but it's clear, within the family, who that role will be for when the time comes.
Still, she’s humble about the multi-million dollar partnerships she’s brought in. She doesn’t even brag when she hits send on the email before she opens up her word document in her separate window. She’s trying to finish her novel and get the hell out of there.
Her dreams are like faraway planets—mild, sometimes you can see them in the right conditions, but almost always mythical. She’d like to publish a book and possibly direct a film. Perhaps if she ever built up the courage to talk to her family about it she could nepo-baby her way through, but it didn’t seem very fun or very endearing in that way.
People will call you one anyway, Ino had said once Hinata finally divulged her dreams, one night, while they painted their toenails. And besides, Isn’t that how you got your current job?
That’s different, Hinata said.
Ino, a proud Instagram and Tiktok Influencer/Socialite/Fashion Girlie/Fitness Inspiration/Purse Designer/Brand Ambassador/Occasional award-show host, just eyed her and said nothing.
She’s right. She always is.
Hinata sniffs as she gargles water outside of Itachi’s office door. She’s trying to get the cinnamon-roll taste out while she waits for the man to be done with his meeting. She is early—by an entire hour—-because she desperately needed to get the hell away from her friends. They were making her hands all sweaty.
She ditches all thoughts of her dreams as she listens to the sounds of the office coming to life—the phones ringing, the keyboard clacking, the small-talk happening around the corner. At this point, her dreams are frivolous—--her novel paused with lack of inspiration, her head cloudy with divorce proceeding, her stack of movies to watch shoved in some faraway corner in her condo.
Which makes her think about her house. Her beautiful house. She’d found it herself, nestled in a lush part of the city, its red-bricked charm, its lawn speckled with spider lilies. She’d detailed all of the renovations she and Naruto hired other people to do. She and Ino hand-picked all the furniture. And when Naruto finally had his lawyer serve her the divorce papers—--she was the one who left it.
“Ugh!” She groans, head falling into her hands as she tries to rid herself of these horrible thoughts. Today was proving to be long already and still she had to go to the office after this to close a deal—-
“Surely, it can’t be so bad,” a deep voice crooned.
Embarrassed, Hinata slowly looks up. She starts with shoes: brown, patent leather, expensive. Then pant legs—stark straight, also expensive. His hands, resting casually at his sides, are large, with rings made of heavy metal. He has a matching watch on his wrist, which he flicks up towards his gaze—-causing Hinata’s eyes to jump to his handsomely delicate face. Much more delicate than she expects.
He has a long, auspicious nose. Dark brows, and long eyelashes framing equally dark eyes—seemingly endless. His jaw line is sharp and twitches when he flickers his gaze down at her, clearly expecting a response. His mouth—-what a mouth it was—-sits full and impatient.
What a fucking face.
Hinata feels her pulse increase. She opens her mouth to respond but has no idea how. She flounders lamely, like a fish out of water, all thoughts of Naruto evaporating as if he never even existed.
And thank god for that, Hinata thinks, blinking. The man, looking down at her, twitches his mouth as if hiding a smirk.
Then the door opens. Her lawyer, Itachi, steps out in a crisp suit, looks at Hinata before turning to the man in front of her. He is a quick smile—matching, Hinata realizes with a start.
“Pestering my client, Sasuke?” Itachi asks lightly as he gestures to Hinata inside.
“I wouldn’t dream of it, brother,” Sasuke says, voice smooth mahogany as Hinata ducks into the room, her eyes flickering towards him as Itachi shuts the door after them, her eyes on his glorious, opulent mouth.
She flushes as she sits in her usual leather chair in front of Itachi’s desk, mind racing, despite the task at hand.
Frivolous, she thinks. What a frivolous mouth.
-:-
Sasuke typically doesn’t ask for much.
A nice suit. A well-chilled office. A bar with the whisky he likes.
Since returning to the cesspool that is the Great City Konoha about a year ago, he’s actually started to ask for less—-and still, that manages to somehow be too fucking much.
For example: he’s recently reunited with his childhood best friend, Naruto, whose new girlfriend, Sakura, has made something of a name for herself. Where Sasuke should be proud of their combined accomplishments, instead he feels a festering sort of dread every time he gets a drink with the couple, on account of the camera crews that follow them every single fucking step.
“Don’t mind them,” Sakura says, touching his shoulder. She is always touching him. Since childhood. And while he has no doubt that her teenage attraction to him had left with him when he went abroad for schooling, she still has the same sticky habit—-like a dog who pees in the same spot every morning.
Naruto, as he learned, had eloped while Sasuke was getting his law degree. Then, after two years, was already onto divorce. Sasuke, who didn’t indulge in tabloids, social media, or anything of that sort really, to this day has no idea what sort of voluptuous reporting the apparent divorce proceeding was getting, and did not care to check, either.
Instead, Sasuke remains confused about the elopement and lack of a prenuptial agreement—-as Naruto had painstakingly explained to him one drunken night at the bar that keeps Sasuke’s favorite whisky—-and Sasuke remembers drinking down his liquor, thinking, what kind of idiot fucking does that?
Sasuke, himself, coming from a well-off (see: gluttonously wealthy) family—-and, by account of that, knowing several other well-off families—-knew this to be a critical error that could only spell a messy, damn-near disastrous divorce. The least Naruto could have done was stay for at least five years, get something out of it for God’s sake. But no, the bastard was always known to be impulsive, bad decisions following him since high-school, which Sasuke had been a hesitant witness to since what feels like a Dawn of Time.
So now he gets to wonder that million-dollar-question that anyone with a social media account could’ve found out already, Who’s the lucky girl?
Now he’s staring at the name, printed atop a clean document. On the right side: UCHIHA & ASSOCIATES, his grandfather’s legendary high-brow law firm; on the other side, the client name: UZUMAKI HINATA.
He furrows his brow, looking through the case and all of its annoying intricacies. He isn’t Hinata’s lawyer, but Itachi had asked him for a favor. He needed a second opinion on what to do with the woman’s surmountable assets and how to divide them. Naruto’s dumbass was asking for alimony.
Sasuke feels too close to the case, but he is confident in his ability to give non-biased advice. Itachi is a high-profile family and divorce lawyer—God bless him—while Sasuke sticks to corporate law. He can’t deal with all the emotions.
In any case, his corporate background gives him an edge in cases like this. Determining things like asset division and wealth allocation is something that gives him a sick sort of pleasure. Sometimes, he dreams of changing practices, thinking about ways he could drain his opponent dry, leaving them with nothing but the shoes on his feet.
However, in this case, this person would be Naruto.
Sasuke shrugs to himself, continuing the slow comb of Ms. Hyuga’s assets. He still has no idea who she is or what she looks like but phew, she’s got a lot to fucking lose.
His phone rings, taking him away from his documents. He answers with a short, “Yep.”
“It’s Karin. Itachi wants you in his office.”
“Fine.”
He hangs up, annoyed. He saunters across the office, hands in pocket, and within minutes knocks on his brother’s door. Itachi, a Senior Partner here, has a much better office than him. Bigger. With a view of the river. Greedy bastard. He knocks.
“Come in.”
Sasuke enters. He blinks. Itachi is with a client, the same dark-haired woman he had seen over an hour ago, groaning loudly into her hands. He looks at her with his head cocked to the side. She avoids his gaze.
“This is Uzumaki Hinata,” Itachi says by way of introduction. “We just wanted to hear your thoughts on her wealth assessment. It’s complicated, so I thought I’d bring in a separate opinion so that we can most accurately access the particularities of her invest…”
Sasuke’s mind frazzles—blank. Itachi’s voice fades. This is the idiot’s wife?
She’s small, but not tiny. Her hair is long and dark—almost blue—and falls around her body like a wave. She’s wearing a tidy little dress—baby blue with short sleeves that flares subtly at the waist, a couple of buttons undone at the stop, but not enough to show cleavage.
His eyes stop on a sliver of creamy skin where the golden button is undone. A plain necklace rests there, golden, too. Her neck is long and elegant, framed by her strands of fine hair. He slides his eyes up, just taking her in—uncaring about his brother’s droning voice as he discusses this or that relating to the case—-her mouth, plump, but small, is trembling.
Trembling. As if she is hiding a laugh, or smile----or even a frown. He can’t tell as he traces her rounded nose, up and up until he reaches her opalite eyes. He pauses there. They stare at each other for a beat, Sasuke’s mind finding an easy blankness as he traces her long eyelashes from top to bottom, his pulse beating in his ears, watching her blink, her face—curiously—-open.
Her cheeks—rounded, pale—--go pink. Her pink mouth pops open.
“I’m Uchiha Sasuke,” he says, once he becomes aware that Itachi has stopped speaking. He extends his hand and she shakes it, wrapping her small fingers around his. Her skin is soft, warm where he is firm. “I’m here to serve—”
Itachi coughs. Just once.
“---Results.”