AN: I hope you enjoy the remake of my old unfinished story (more info on this in bio). I do plan to finish it this time!

warnings (do people still do that?) : sasunaru fluff and fun! And very slow updates...

DAMN ELEVATOR

Chapter 1.

It was all the damn elevator's fault...

Once upon a time in a small city of Tokyo lived a young man that disliked elevators. To be more precise, he hated them with all his being, and if something ever went wrong, he never hesitated to blame it on some poor elevator. The name of that young man was Naruto Uzumaki.

One beautiful December morning, while running through covered in white streets on his way to work, Naruto felt that something was about to change in his life. Light flurries of snow landed on his flushed cheeks as he smiled at the thought and continued his journey. He ran past local shops and wished a good morning to a bakery owner that came out to hang the open sign. Indeed, the morning and the day ahead looked promising, but just as Naruto was about to reach the bus stop, he was met with an all too familiar scene. If there was anything about to change in his life, it of course that was not it.

"Dammit" – the young man swore at the leaving bus. He was just a few seconds late, but no! Public transport never waits.. Dammit. This means that Naruto was going to be late for work again - another thing that remains unchanged. Of course, it was all because of the elevators in his house! He never liked those metal boxes that were supposed to help people, prevent them from being late, but the ones at his house were just pissing him off every day!

The case was much worse than anyone can imagine. Naruto lived in a high-rise condo building, but on the second floor. One would assume that he didn't need an elevator to reach it. He could always use stairs, right? Wrong! The security policy of the building he lived in did not allow tenants use stairs in any cases except emergency - a tiny detail that was not mentioned when he signed the lease.

"The hell?" was Naruto's exclamation when he first noticed the big red letters on the door to a staircase (that was coincidentally right next to his apartment door). Thus, he was forced to use elevators to come down from the second floor to the ground floor, which took forever and caused him to miss his bus everyday. Every. Damn. Day.

For the next eighteen minutes, the young man was trying not to freeze in the cold by walking around the bus stop and chanting "damn elevator". When the bus finally came, Naruto jumped in and found a seat at the very back where it was the warmest. As buildings and streets flew by outside the window, he thought about his life and wondered what could possibly be changed in it. He already knew that not being late for work, though would have been nice, was not it.

Naruto's day-to-day life was pretty uneventful for a 23 years old and filled mostly with several jobs he had to do to afford the apartment he lived in. It was small but comfy and almost perfect for him alone. The only imperfection was inability to use stairs... Uzumaki lived alone but loneliness rarely bothered him. This feeling used to be the only thing he knew being an orphan without any known relatives, but not anymore. Now, he had friends, though not many, and a wonderful person who he could lovingly call "dad" – Umino Iruka.

They met when Naruto was only 6, as an elementary school teacher and a lonely kid-student starving for attention and family. Being a person with a huge warm heart, Iruka welcomed the little boy to his home and offered him love and tenderness the kid knew nothing about. Forever grateful, Naruto didn't want to be a burden to his wonderful foster father and after the later opened a café, he started helping there. Later he took some more odd jobs here and there and by his 14th birthday, he had enough saved up to move out. He still remembered how with bags packed, he proudly declared to his father that he was fully independent. Of course, Iruka didn't let the teenager leave and after a few slaps in the back of the blond's head, decision was made to put the money aside for his education.

Since that time he was doing everything to make Iruka proud: despite continuing working part-time, Naruto finished school with honours, graduated from UofT, and now was working on a science research for his PhD in Astronomy. In addition to all of the above, he finished one year post-graduate course in interior design and also had a job at a prominent architectural and interior design firm. For which he was very late...

"Oh, shit!" – Naruto suddenly realized that the bus-driver was already preparing to leave his stop. Lost in thought, he completely forgot where he was! The young man almost slipped on slushy snow running out of the bus – winter in downtown was not a pretty thing. After a couple of minutes of fast-walking through crowded streets, Naruto finally arrived to the building he worked in. Great, it was only ten past nine and with a bit of luck, his boss won't notice.

There was only one last thing to do before work – just go up to the 15th floor using an elevator. No big deal, but let me repeat that:

Elevator.

E-L-E-V-A-T-O-R.

It was once again too slow for Naruto's liking. Of course luck was not on his side as all six of them were now somewhere between the thirtieth to fortieth floors... Still going up, not planning to go down. He was waiting, and waiting... And waiting... sighing every two seconds in impatience. 'Urgh..Damn elevators...'

To distract himself from the objects he hated so much, Uzumaki looked around searching for something interesting. The lobby didn't have too many people, just some passers by. It seemed he was the only one late for work. 'Just great' He sighed again in impatience, but then saw a young man that was standing not too far away from him, talking on a cell-phone and waiting for an elevator as well. Now, that was way more interesting than elevators..

Naruto felt his stomach drop at the sight. It was like a slow motion scene from a movie that just takes your breath away. The man looked well-build and simply gorgeous, or maybe it was a long black and definitely rich coat that made him look like a sex-god reincarnation? His hair was dark, even darker than coat, two long bangs framing the face. The colour was not just dark brown or something, but pure black with some blue highlights in it (from the ambient light of course, but it looked just like a raven's wings!) However, a more stylish haircut would be better, Naruto thought smiling at how spiky it got at the back.

Looking closely at the man, Naruto noticed that his features were perfectly sharp and at the same time smooth – elegant jaw-line, chin, and accurate lips on pearl-white skin. His face and body provoked desire to caress it and be caressed by it. 'Wow' Naruto swallowed to help his suddenly dry mouth, not understanding where these thoughts were coming from but feeling the attraction to the man before him that was just too perfect to be true. The only thing left to be known was colour of the stranger's eyes which were now closed shut in annoyance at whatever conversation he was having on the phone.

'Please be black' Naruto thought.

He was pretty sure that the eyes weren't blue or green, because the man was truly Japanese. However it would be very disappointing if they were brown. Simply because brown was too ordinary for a person with such extraordinary features. The man was a piece of perfection, and as a designer, Naruto thought about black eyes. Pure black eyes with neither long nor short eyelashes. However, eyes of this colour were very rare in nature. But so was every other feature the man possessed.

Uzumaki swore to himself that if the man before him was an owner of black eyes, he would do anything to know him better! Maybe even become a friend..

Lost in thoughts, Naruto didn't realize that he was actually shamelessly staring, until:

"Can you please stop looking at me? It's disturbing."

… OH. MY. GOD. … was the last rational thought in Naruto's mind before he lost himself completely in the eyes that were looking right back at him.

They weren't brown, blue, or green, or any other colour Naruto knew. They weren't even black as he was hoping for just moments ago. They were staring back at him like the bottomless midnight sky on a moonless night. So deep, dark and mysterious, he could swear he saw stars in there!

"Seriously, do you mind?" the man stopped talking on the phone and was looking back at Naruto with a soon to be very angry expression.

If someone were to pass by the elevator bank right at that moment, they would have found the scene rather suspicious: a young dark-haired man was simply waiting for an elevator so he could go up to his office and start a new day at work; and another young man was shamelessly eating him up with glittering eyes and a slightly open mouth...what was he thinking? Luckily (for Naruto), there was no one nearby.

"Sorry, I was lost in thoughts.." the blond mumbled in response, slowly returning to his senses. He felt his temperature raise from embarrassment but also excitement. It wasn't the best of beginnings, but Naruto was certain the two of them can become very good friends!

"Idiot."

…or maybe not… Naruto suddenly felt the urge to strangle the other person and that's why…

"Bastard!"

… all hopes for a good friendship were lost.

"Moron."

…probably forever…

"Duck-butt!"

…entirely…