Fic: The Misfortunes of One Christmas Hiatus
Title: “The Misfortunes of One Christmas Hiatus”
Author: Shaitanah
Rating: PG
Summary: The Author wants to sleep. The Author’s Brother, Wife and Character have other plans. [semi-RPS, crack, implied KishiSasu, implied SasuNaru] Please R&R!
Disclaimer: Naruto belongs to Kishimoto Masashi. Kishimoto Masashi obviously also belongs to Kishimoto Masashi.
A/N: I’ll never get tired of this, and no way in hell am I sorry! You hear me, Kishimoto-sensei?))) Anyway, this piece of insanity offers, among other things, an explanation of why the promised hiatus was prematurely over. I have little idea of how comics are actually published (especially in Japan), so nevermind any inaccuracies.
Dedication: for artsatalex and industrialgirl1. You two are the patron saints of insanity!
THE MISFORTUNES OF ONE CHRISTMAS HIATUS
I was sleeping.
No big deal, someone might say. So it may be; however, not for me. I get three hours of sleep a day (average), and when I do fall asleep, I tend to dream of the plotholes I might have made in my storyline and possible yaoi doujinshi I could draw anonymously after Naruto was over.
(Cough. You didn’t hear that.)
I was sleeping amidst the half-finished sketches, my head tilted backwards to rest on my desk. The monitor of my computer shimmered slowly and regularly somewhere above my head. I was beginning to see a pretty strange dream about a Christmas tree decorated with Uchiha fans dancing salsa in my editorial when a shrill sound burst in the close proximity of my ear and ripped me out of the mind-boggling dream and thrust me brutally back into my infinite, timeless reality. I kept from falling out of the chair by chance and, being rightfully proud of myself, picked up the phone.
“Hey-hey!” the receiver yelled in my brother’s voice. “I got this super awesome idea! What if-?”
I rolled my eyes. he couldn’t see it of course, but he probably knew I was doing it, what with the magical connection between twins and all, because his pitch grew louder and his excitement was spilling all over me.
“I hope I didn’t wake you up, did I?” he blurted out. “Well, anyway, how about there is a new upgraded variety of a Mysticker? It boosts your power like whoa, but when a female Blazer sticks it on… Listen, now’s the best part: Her clothes DISAPPEAR!”
If I rolled my eyes any further, they would fall out. Seishi - and naked women. I should have known.
“Great!” I said. Try as I might, I couldn’t fit more fake enthusiasm in that exclamation. I wondered if he would take the hint and let me sleep.
“You’re so gloomy because you don’t have enough naked women in your manga,” Seishi declared suddenly. Riiiight, and here I was wondering… “Really, brother, you’ve got such awesome material - with far too much clothes on.”
“I have Konan,” I mumbled sleepily. “She’s very obscene.”
“Yeah, it’s just that you have to possess X-ray vision to see through her cloak!”
Unwilling to put another trial of Eyeroll of Doom on my tired eyes, I got off with wishing my brother to find some naked woman and get inspired and hung up decidedly.
Ah, blessed silence!
My head dropped back on the pillow of papers. Then I remembered something and pulled the phone plug out of the socket to prevent another disaster like this from happening. I also switched my cell phone and was off to dreamland in no time. This time a huge bowl of miso-ramen was waiting for me. I made a go for it but I was forestalled by a vaguely familiar orange blur that grabbed the bowl and pranced off into the sunset, laughing happily.
Once again, I should have known.
Someone pecked me on the cheek. I groaned and muttered something in my sleep, trying to get the tormenter to understand that I had deserved more than a few precious seconds of rest that had been ruined by Seishi anyway. After all, I had deliberately gone on hiatus.
“Masashi!”
My wife. Ouch! I flashed her a look of a martyr, but she was too busy fussing about the room to notice it.
“I’m going out to buy a cake for tonight’s party,” she chirped. “You do remember that we’re having a Christmas dinner, don’t you?” No, I didn’t remember that, thank you very much! “I’d be much obliged if you cleaned up your mess before the guests arrived. I don’t suppose you want everyone to see… uhm, spoilers to your…”
I knitted my eyebrows and craned out my neck to see why she was suddenly making those strange, long-drawn-out pauses. And then I gaped at her, feeling like my mouth was full of cayenne, for she was holding a few of my not-so-G-rated sketches of Sasuke.
“That’s… not what you think it is,” I forced.
“I don’t care what it is,” my wife said with her stern ‘household queen’ grimace. “I just know that it’s not something I want to see on my Christmas table.”
I jumped up, snatched the sheets away from her and tucked them into a file-folder, wishing I could draw thick chains all over it and preferably a huge lock. My wife chuckled at that.
“I’d be much more resilient if the sketches featured Naruto,” she winked at me. “Instead you just keep piling more tasteless clothing on him.”
My jaw dropped again. I could never get used to her insinuations. As she left the room, I planned to lay myself to rest again, but her persistent, “Cleaning!” reached me through the closed door, and I started running around the room, shoving my stuff elsewhere. My wife had always been a role model for Shikamaru’s mother.
At last the room was flawlessly clean. I even wiped a layer of dust off the bookcases. Content with myself, I moved to a more comfortable arm-chair, curled up in it and prepared to drift off to sleep yet again. The flat was empty, the phones were off. What more could I wish for?
This time my dream revealed to me a giant Christmas cake. It was as big as myself. I took a huge knife to cut off a piece of it, but the cake started shaking to some dance tune. I took a step back. The cake exploded with a salute of strawberry, whipped cream and pastry crumbs, and a slender naked shape with nothing but a purple waistband around the waist began to appear…
I felt I was being watched and woke up promptly.
I sat up and - oh, a dream come true! - faced him. Why did such things always have to happen when I didn’t want them to happen? Not to mention, he looked pretty furious.
“How do you explain this?” he hissed in a low, very frightening voice, tossing me a magazine issue.
I blinked sleepily. Geez, and here I feared he had found those drawings I’d hidden from the guests.
“This is… well… an explosion.”
Sasuke’s face remained unreadable. I knew him well enough to suspect he would gladly use his Mangekyou Sharingan on me if he could.
“I’m not blind… yet,” he said very deliberately. “How do you explain this explosion?”
“Well, you see, Pein… he’s nuts. He had a complicated childhood and he always wanted to blow something up, but the excessive amounts of water pouring from the sky in Amegakure would have ruined any explosion-.”
“Now I’m perfectly convinced you’re doing it on purpose,” Sasuke cut me off. “I have said it many times: no one will stand on the way of my vengeance. Not even you. If I were in your place, I would think carefully about what I did.”
What have I come to! Being bullied by the product of my own imagination!
“He-ey, you should be thanking me!” I scowled. “Less work for you. Now you can go straight to being pretty during one-on-one combat with Naruto which is scheduled to take place in… five years from now! Besides, if it’s any consolation, Danzou is alive. He was underground. Not so sure about the Elders since I’ve lost my storyline notes. But Danzou grosses more people out, so you can start with him.”
Something flashed through Sasuke’s eyes. To my relief, he said nothing. I followed his gaze and found it directed at the table of each character’s eyes above my desk. He surveyed the newest addition: Naruto’s ‘Sage mode’ eyes.
“How did he take it?” he asked quietly, referring to the events of that misfortunate chapter he had come to threaten me about. ‘He’, I took it, was Naruto.
“Kicking and screaming as usual,” I shrugged and then corrected myself: “Well, kicking and badass quiet actually…”
Somehow I found it sweet that he deemed it easier to travel all the way here to ask how Naruto was doing instead of asking Naruto directly. Voicing that thought earned me a deathly glance.
“Mind if I see?” Sasuke asked and moved towards the drawer where my freshly done pages were stored. I jumped to block his way hastily.
“SPOILERS!!!!”
Sasuke eyed me like it was the dumbest thing he had ever heard (in a way it was since we were talking about his life now, and I imagined myself to be some warped fortune teller that had seen into the future and was yelling “SPOILERS!!!!” at her client because she didn’t particularly like what she’d seen). Unfortunately for me, I was never a match for him. He reached the drawer despite my strong efforts to hinder him and pulled it open. I winced.
Sasuke took a scrap of paper out of it. It was covered in sloppy columns of writing - clearly not my own. I leaned closer to read the message. It went as follows:
‘Ku-ku-ku!
I found out you were on holiday and I decided to take care of things myself because I can’t wait for everyone to see my Awesomesauce!
Yours,
The Guy Who the Manga Is Named After (and finally you remembered it!!!).
P.S. Don’t I just pwn everyone?
P.P.S. Thanks a bunch for the cloak and the scroll; they make me look really badass!
P.P.P.S. Tell Sasuke that I’ll find him as soon as I totally pwn those six dudes, and drag him back to Konoha.
P.P.P.P.S. WHERE IS KONOHA???????’
“He stole the new chapter,” I drew out weakly. I rushed to the computer. Ditto; he had it leaked to the net. My own character! I was ready to start banging my head against the desk.
“You should know by now not to underestimate us,” Sasuke commented lightly. Oh, he wouldn’t be so light-hearted if anyone stole the chapter about him!
Pouting like a resentful schoolboy, I clambered into my arm-chair, pulled my knees up to my chin and sat there, radiating universal sorrow. It was okay, though; I was already planning my revenge that would take place in chapter number 1389 titled Sasuke Develops Sexy no Jutsu (that would totally kick them both in… ahem, yeah).
“So about that explosion,” Sasuke breathed in my ear. I shivered because I hadn’t heard him approach. “I’ll pretend nothing happened this time, but if you ever do this again, I’ll…”
“What?” I asked, with a lump in my throat.
“Start choosing my own wardrobe more carefully and wear jumpers.”
I spun around in vertigo, grabbed him by the shoulders and yelled:
“Not as long as you’re my character!”
Clothed Sasuke - huh! The kid would totally destroy my career!
The issue finally settled, I turned Sasuke out of my (rapidly going to hell) Real World and proceeded to resume my sleep, secretly happy that I had no kids - otherwise, they would have definitely burst in to succeed the noble cause of not letting me go to bed, started by their uncle and mother and Daddy’s imaginary object of desire friend.
Finally! Free to sleep and dream my pervy dreams as much as I want! I crawled under the table (they would never find me here!) and stretched there, smiling to myself. No one at home, phones off, imagination clouded, even Santa Claus wouldn’t break in because a) too early; b) no bloody chimney in my flat!
Sweet dreams, Masashi.
* * *
The doorbell woke me what seemed to be a few seconds later. Predictably, I bumped my head into the table and, rubbing the throbbing bump, dragged myself to the door. Whoever came to visit me now was absolutely going down.
I swung the door open and nearly lost my balance. It used to be just Sasuke; but obviously he told them all how to reach me.
“Our meeting was scheduled for yesterday,” my new guest said, coming in without a preamble, “but I got seriously lost on the road of life. And on the subway too.” His open eye curved cheerfully in a crescent and his lips formed a smile beneath his mask. “So, Creator-san, how about we discuss my life and death situation now?”
The Eyeroll of Doom was suddenly back.
January 3, 2009
Author: Shaitanah
Rating: PG
Summary: The Author wants to sleep. The Author’s Brother, Wife and Character have other plans. [semi-RPS, crack, implied KishiSasu, implied SasuNaru] Please R&R!
Disclaimer: Naruto belongs to Kishimoto Masashi. Kishimoto Masashi obviously also belongs to Kishimoto Masashi.
A/N: I’ll never get tired of this, and no way in hell am I sorry! You hear me, Kishimoto-sensei?))) Anyway, this piece of insanity offers, among other things, an explanation of why the promised hiatus was prematurely over. I have little idea of how comics are actually published (especially in Japan), so nevermind any inaccuracies.
Dedication: for artsatalex and industrialgirl1. You two are the patron saints of insanity!
THE MISFORTUNES OF ONE CHRISTMAS HIATUS
I was sleeping.
No big deal, someone might say. So it may be; however, not for me. I get three hours of sleep a day (average), and when I do fall asleep, I tend to dream of the plotholes I might have made in my storyline and possible yaoi doujinshi I could draw anonymously after Naruto was over.
(Cough. You didn’t hear that.)
I was sleeping amidst the half-finished sketches, my head tilted backwards to rest on my desk. The monitor of my computer shimmered slowly and regularly somewhere above my head. I was beginning to see a pretty strange dream about a Christmas tree decorated with Uchiha fans dancing salsa in my editorial when a shrill sound burst in the close proximity of my ear and ripped me out of the mind-boggling dream and thrust me brutally back into my infinite, timeless reality. I kept from falling out of the chair by chance and, being rightfully proud of myself, picked up the phone.
“Hey-hey!” the receiver yelled in my brother’s voice. “I got this super awesome idea! What if-?”
I rolled my eyes. he couldn’t see it of course, but he probably knew I was doing it, what with the magical connection between twins and all, because his pitch grew louder and his excitement was spilling all over me.
“I hope I didn’t wake you up, did I?” he blurted out. “Well, anyway, how about there is a new upgraded variety of a Mysticker? It boosts your power like whoa, but when a female Blazer sticks it on… Listen, now’s the best part: Her clothes DISAPPEAR!”
If I rolled my eyes any further, they would fall out. Seishi - and naked women. I should have known.
“Great!” I said. Try as I might, I couldn’t fit more fake enthusiasm in that exclamation. I wondered if he would take the hint and let me sleep.
“You’re so gloomy because you don’t have enough naked women in your manga,” Seishi declared suddenly. Riiiight, and here I was wondering… “Really, brother, you’ve got such awesome material - with far too much clothes on.”
“I have Konan,” I mumbled sleepily. “She’s very obscene.”
“Yeah, it’s just that you have to possess X-ray vision to see through her cloak!”
Unwilling to put another trial of Eyeroll of Doom on my tired eyes, I got off with wishing my brother to find some naked woman and get inspired and hung up decidedly.
Ah, blessed silence!
My head dropped back on the pillow of papers. Then I remembered something and pulled the phone plug out of the socket to prevent another disaster like this from happening. I also switched my cell phone and was off to dreamland in no time. This time a huge bowl of miso-ramen was waiting for me. I made a go for it but I was forestalled by a vaguely familiar orange blur that grabbed the bowl and pranced off into the sunset, laughing happily.
Once again, I should have known.
Someone pecked me on the cheek. I groaned and muttered something in my sleep, trying to get the tormenter to understand that I had deserved more than a few precious seconds of rest that had been ruined by Seishi anyway. After all, I had deliberately gone on hiatus.
“Masashi!”
My wife. Ouch! I flashed her a look of a martyr, but she was too busy fussing about the room to notice it.
“I’m going out to buy a cake for tonight’s party,” she chirped. “You do remember that we’re having a Christmas dinner, don’t you?” No, I didn’t remember that, thank you very much! “I’d be much obliged if you cleaned up your mess before the guests arrived. I don’t suppose you want everyone to see… uhm, spoilers to your…”
I knitted my eyebrows and craned out my neck to see why she was suddenly making those strange, long-drawn-out pauses. And then I gaped at her, feeling like my mouth was full of cayenne, for she was holding a few of my not-so-G-rated sketches of Sasuke.
“That’s… not what you think it is,” I forced.
“I don’t care what it is,” my wife said with her stern ‘household queen’ grimace. “I just know that it’s not something I want to see on my Christmas table.”
I jumped up, snatched the sheets away from her and tucked them into a file-folder, wishing I could draw thick chains all over it and preferably a huge lock. My wife chuckled at that.
“I’d be much more resilient if the sketches featured Naruto,” she winked at me. “Instead you just keep piling more tasteless clothing on him.”
My jaw dropped again. I could never get used to her insinuations. As she left the room, I planned to lay myself to rest again, but her persistent, “Cleaning!” reached me through the closed door, and I started running around the room, shoving my stuff elsewhere. My wife had always been a role model for Shikamaru’s mother.
At last the room was flawlessly clean. I even wiped a layer of dust off the bookcases. Content with myself, I moved to a more comfortable arm-chair, curled up in it and prepared to drift off to sleep yet again. The flat was empty, the phones were off. What more could I wish for?
This time my dream revealed to me a giant Christmas cake. It was as big as myself. I took a huge knife to cut off a piece of it, but the cake started shaking to some dance tune. I took a step back. The cake exploded with a salute of strawberry, whipped cream and pastry crumbs, and a slender naked shape with nothing but a purple waistband around the waist began to appear…
I felt I was being watched and woke up promptly.
I sat up and - oh, a dream come true! - faced him. Why did such things always have to happen when I didn’t want them to happen? Not to mention, he looked pretty furious.
“How do you explain this?” he hissed in a low, very frightening voice, tossing me a magazine issue.
I blinked sleepily. Geez, and here I feared he had found those drawings I’d hidden from the guests.
“This is… well… an explosion.”
Sasuke’s face remained unreadable. I knew him well enough to suspect he would gladly use his Mangekyou Sharingan on me if he could.
“I’m not blind… yet,” he said very deliberately. “How do you explain this explosion?”
“Well, you see, Pein… he’s nuts. He had a complicated childhood and he always wanted to blow something up, but the excessive amounts of water pouring from the sky in Amegakure would have ruined any explosion-.”
“Now I’m perfectly convinced you’re doing it on purpose,” Sasuke cut me off. “I have said it many times: no one will stand on the way of my vengeance. Not even you. If I were in your place, I would think carefully about what I did.”
What have I come to! Being bullied by the product of my own imagination!
“He-ey, you should be thanking me!” I scowled. “Less work for you. Now you can go straight to being pretty during one-on-one combat with Naruto which is scheduled to take place in… five years from now! Besides, if it’s any consolation, Danzou is alive. He was underground. Not so sure about the Elders since I’ve lost my storyline notes. But Danzou grosses more people out, so you can start with him.”
Something flashed through Sasuke’s eyes. To my relief, he said nothing. I followed his gaze and found it directed at the table of each character’s eyes above my desk. He surveyed the newest addition: Naruto’s ‘Sage mode’ eyes.
“How did he take it?” he asked quietly, referring to the events of that misfortunate chapter he had come to threaten me about. ‘He’, I took it, was Naruto.
“Kicking and screaming as usual,” I shrugged and then corrected myself: “Well, kicking and badass quiet actually…”
Somehow I found it sweet that he deemed it easier to travel all the way here to ask how Naruto was doing instead of asking Naruto directly. Voicing that thought earned me a deathly glance.
“Mind if I see?” Sasuke asked and moved towards the drawer where my freshly done pages were stored. I jumped to block his way hastily.
“SPOILERS!!!!”
Sasuke eyed me like it was the dumbest thing he had ever heard (in a way it was since we were talking about his life now, and I imagined myself to be some warped fortune teller that had seen into the future and was yelling “SPOILERS!!!!” at her client because she didn’t particularly like what she’d seen). Unfortunately for me, I was never a match for him. He reached the drawer despite my strong efforts to hinder him and pulled it open. I winced.
Sasuke took a scrap of paper out of it. It was covered in sloppy columns of writing - clearly not my own. I leaned closer to read the message. It went as follows:
‘Ku-ku-ku!
I found out you were on holiday and I decided to take care of things myself because I can’t wait for everyone to see my Awesomesauce!
Yours,
The Guy Who the Manga Is Named After (and finally you remembered it!!!).
P.S. Don’t I just pwn everyone?
P.P.S. Thanks a bunch for the cloak and the scroll; they make me look really badass!
P.P.P.S. Tell Sasuke that I’ll find him as soon as I totally pwn those six dudes, and drag him back to Konoha.
P.P.P.P.S. WHERE IS KONOHA???????’
“He stole the new chapter,” I drew out weakly. I rushed to the computer. Ditto; he had it leaked to the net. My own character! I was ready to start banging my head against the desk.
“You should know by now not to underestimate us,” Sasuke commented lightly. Oh, he wouldn’t be so light-hearted if anyone stole the chapter about him!
Pouting like a resentful schoolboy, I clambered into my arm-chair, pulled my knees up to my chin and sat there, radiating universal sorrow. It was okay, though; I was already planning my revenge that would take place in chapter number 1389 titled Sasuke Develops Sexy no Jutsu (that would totally kick them both in… ahem, yeah).
“So about that explosion,” Sasuke breathed in my ear. I shivered because I hadn’t heard him approach. “I’ll pretend nothing happened this time, but if you ever do this again, I’ll…”
“What?” I asked, with a lump in my throat.
“Start choosing my own wardrobe more carefully and wear jumpers.”
I spun around in vertigo, grabbed him by the shoulders and yelled:
“Not as long as you’re my character!”
Clothed Sasuke - huh! The kid would totally destroy my career!
The issue finally settled, I turned Sasuke out of my (rapidly going to hell) Real World and proceeded to resume my sleep, secretly happy that I had no kids - otherwise, they would have definitely burst in to succeed the noble cause of not letting me go to bed, started by their uncle and mother and Daddy’s imaginary object of desire friend.
Finally! Free to sleep and dream my pervy dreams as much as I want! I crawled under the table (they would never find me here!) and stretched there, smiling to myself. No one at home, phones off, imagination clouded, even Santa Claus wouldn’t break in because a) too early; b) no bloody chimney in my flat!
Sweet dreams, Masashi.
* * *
The doorbell woke me what seemed to be a few seconds later. Predictably, I bumped my head into the table and, rubbing the throbbing bump, dragged myself to the door. Whoever came to visit me now was absolutely going down.
I swung the door open and nearly lost my balance. It used to be just Sasuke; but obviously he told them all how to reach me.
“Our meeting was scheduled for yesterday,” my new guest said, coming in without a preamble, “but I got seriously lost on the road of life. And on the subway too.” His open eye curved cheerfully in a crescent and his lips formed a smile beneath his mask. “So, Creator-san, how about we discuss my life and death situation now?”
The Eyeroll of Doom was suddenly back.
January 3, 2009