"Metamerism" 2/? Naruto.

[fireun]

Title- Metamerism 2/?
Naruto
AU

            “There are times I wish you weren’t made of money.” Naruto fought the urge to wipe at his eyes, knowing the gesture would merely serve to amuse his friends further. There were a handful of paintings settled around Hinata’s living room, resting here and there, giving Naruto the strange feeling he had somehow wandered into the mirror room of a funhouse. He grinned, smirked and sulked back at himself from every angle. “Did you…have to buy so many?”

Hinata shifted a blush into a frown that could almost have been cute in that split second before she pursed her lips and looked away. “The artist is very popular.”

“Huh,” was Naruto’s eloquent response.

“Hey, check this one out.” Shikamaru’s voice had a twist of intonation that was somewhere between amused and appalled, and really never boded well.

Naruto turned, expecting horror and being hit instead with fascination. He was poised in the painting, looking over his shoulder at the person reflected in the slightly crooked mirror he was standing in front of, sock dangling from one hand, forgotten for the moment. It was the figure in the mirror that snagged Naruto’s attention, urged him to step forward and run a finger across matte paint, catching a healing paper cut on a raised bit of acrylic hair. Dark eyes glared up and out at him, a rendered reflection in a painted mirror seeming to take note of and be irritated by his presence. He hunched his shoulders slightly, straightening with a snort as soon as he realized he was mimicking a bit of his doppelganger’s posture.

“Anyone you know?”

Naruto opened his mouth to say no, but the words caught somewhere, resulting in a sort of strangled exhalation as a response to Shikamaru’s question. “I don’t think so.” Naruto managed to mutter, stepping back from the insistently irritable demeanor of the phantom in the mirror. “Where did you get these?”

There was a note of aggression in Naruto’s voice, and Hinata suffered a moments wilting before straightening her spine. “The artist has a show in a gallery downtown this weekend. I saw the paintings while I was shopping, and…”

Naruto didn’t notice how she flushed as she trailed off. He had fixated on a possible explanation for this bizarre bit of exhibition. The painting over by the sofa was the worst. He had never in his life owned a pair of pants that rode that low…

He almost shook the gallery name out of a flustered Hinata, pretty much forgot to toss a parting wave at Shikamaru before dashing out.

Shikamaru settled onto the couch, slouching pleasantly and propping his feet up on an immaculate coffee table. “Hey, Hinata, I didn’t know you liked this type of painting…”

Hinata fumbled through a tattered explanation involving phrases like “artistic intention” and “fair representation” before giving up and just stuffing the painting in question into the hall closet.

Personally, Shikamaru felt the artist was engaging in some wishful thinking. Naruto was a well-built guy, but there were proportions regarding realistic anatomy that any artist really should keep in mind.

 

Sasuke hated attending his own shows. It seemed to give patrons the wrong impression, encourage them to chat with him and toss around lingo with all the frantic finesse of melee weapons. Arrogant bastards, all trying to get the best of or win the admiration of the young artist. All at the same time.

Sasuke glared at a painting, blaming the blue eyes crinkled in a smile, the only expression in the room that didn’t seem to be asking something of him. The only face that wasn’t shifting through expressions like flashcards, trying to sort out what would win the most ground.

He hated the smile that struggled to surface in response. He had painted in a bit of attempted exorcism, and it had backfired. He was haunted by a stray bit of his imagination, his own brain turned traitor.

Sasuke turned to glare out the window, perhaps to discourage any stray passerby from entering the gallery, and froze.

Blue eyes peered in through the window, forehead furrowed in lines of concentration his fingers remembered coaxing out of paint, an expression he had caressed. Sasuke fumbled toward coherency, struggling to decide whether to flee or hit that face until it stopped bothering him.

The decision was taken from him. Blue eyes looked up, and locked with his.

And the world seemed to slip sideways out of reality and into something not at all in Sasuke’s control.

.

Comments

[jessibot.livejournal.com]

*comes out of lurker mode* It's not right that nobody has commented on this. It's a fascinating AU concept, and I loved the details of Sasuke painting in the first chapter. Overall there's a very smooth and mesmerising tone. I adore how subtle your writing can be, and am definitely looking forward to more.

[animegoil.livejournal.com]

YES, OMG, they meet! Sorry it took me so long to get around to reading this, but aaaaaah. I'd forgotten what the general concept of the story had been at first, so the first paragraphs confused me until I remembered that Sasuke had been painting Naruto, and then the imagery in the first paragraphs made sense. <3 <3 They meet! So excited! And lolz at Shikamaru and Hinata. She -would- have bought all those. Can't wait to see more!