BH: Heyo! So, originally Naruto and Hinata were going to reunite as the summary describes. But a new idea came to mind! Does it mean the summary event is null and void? Nope! Plot twist! Lol

Better Off Naive

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He overestimated himself.

At twenty years old, he was just beginning to see how much of this tendency played into his numerous failures and disappointments.

His living room is a nest of rejected manuscripts and balled up pages. His kotatsu is covered in his thirtieth rough draft, and he's ripping through a yellow bubble package containing a USB.

He plugs it into his laptop and he stared at the file drive. The stress has blanked his mind, if only for a moment, and several thoughts and feelings hit him at once.

What is he doing with his life?

Is he just kidding himself?

Even if he pulls it off, what if it doesn't sell well?

What if he lets down Jiraiya's number one fan?

They won't sell his stories like they were lost drafts of the late Jiraiya. And he's a nobody coat-tailing on his legacy.

What is he going to have after this if it doesn't pan out?

He willed himself to tap the touchpad and open the file drive.

Roughly a hundred photos blinked into existence, the scrollbar shrinking by the milliseconds; photos of high school girls, college girls, office ladies, outdoors, indoora, all eventually seduced into a love hotel with the photographer.

There were girls who were thin on top and curvy at the bottom. Red-faced office workers who were the complete package. Some slender and a bit tall, others were short-stacks, and some others were decently in-between.

He thought back to his first sit-in with his editor, the way his face slanted in scrutiny.

"'Her hair is long, black, glossy, like a silk scarf he'd love to feel around his neck.'" His face scrunched up as if that sentence refused to go down nicely. "Is this supposed to conjure up an image of erotic asyphixiation or suicidal ideation? What made you think this was a good sentence? And what about this?" His editor started in on him, picking apart every single thing line by line.

Naruto's been beat up, ridiculed, betrayed, excluded, dumped… but never before has he experienced shame to this degree.

It's the first time he's made something and it's trash.

He's in those pages and it makes him feel like trash.

His editor had given him back copies of every Icha Icha Paradise volume they published, and had encouraged him to really read everything, five times if he had to.

It took him four weeks to understand that he and Jiraiya had completely different tones.

Jiraiya's humor and tendency for self-deprecation was everywhere, it was like a comedy of a blundering fool, chasing skirts and love at the same time. The salacious aspects were tantalizing more than intrusive, even if the old man's ways were nothing but intrusive.

Naruto didn't even want to think about how melodramatic his prose read.

He recalled the fifth sit-in with his editor.

His editor, who was no older than Jiraiya were he still alive, threw down Naruto's manuscript with a weary sigh.

"You're writing about one woman. Why?"

Naruto reared back, his ears burning. "What?! No, I'm not!"

"You give her a different name but somehow they all look the same. Uzumaki-kun, you're a man, aren't you? Haven't you ever wanted more than one woman at a time? It's not shameful, it's human nature. We're not swans."

He went home later that day, forcing himself to rekindle the feelings he had for Sakura, but they wouldn't come. It was like a cold draft blowing through an empty room.

Sakura was firmly tied to his feelings for Hinata and to think about either of them only amplified his situation.

He needed to look at other women. He needed to want other women.

So he had taken to people watching wherever he could, spotting pretty faces in the crowd and giving them names.

Then he thought about how he would introduce himself.

He'd bump into the girl walking opposite of him through the pedestrian scramble. She'd drop her phone and he'd pick it up. They'd lock eyes…

His sixth sit-in went like so:

"Are you writing for tween girls or are you writing for grown men?"

He rewrote the scene to where he, no his protagonist, had walked straight into her, his palms perfectly landing to cup her breasts.

And Naruto still remembered what touching Hinata's breasts still felt like.

His editor had approved of the scene and pushed him to go further.

The next woman he chose had actually been beside him on the train station one evening.

When her face reddened but her expression went unchanged, Naruto found a foreign hand tracing down the back seam of her pants. He had glanced up at the perpetrator, a man a whole foot taller than himself, and he grinned knowingly back at him.

And the woman, she knew he was looking, that he was aware. She straight at him! She locked in him place with her caramel eyes like… like she wanted him to look.

And he did.

He became complicit, an accessory to their perversion.

Somehow, without touching her, he felt like he was the one giving her pleasure.

He pictured this woman as his - no, his protagonist's first win.

But then there was a problem.

His editor was slumped over, his face buried in his palms. "Kid, you copied this love scene word for word from volume fifteen, didn't you?"

How was he supposed to tell him he's never had sex?!

"Alright, look… I won't suggest losing it with a prostitute, but you gotta figure this part out, otherwise this," He gestured at the ninth rotten draft. "Is not happening."

A week after that visit, Naruto had run into the perverted pair at an Izakaya.

Or perhaps, they had found him.

The woman never spoke, but her leery gaze was loud and clear. Her partner did all the talking. Offered Naruto his services.

"Tons of women come to me for my help," He began. "When they want the thrill and none of the risk, I'm the expert. You're trying to revive that ole smut series are you?"

Naruto bolted upright, his face red to the point of bursting. "Shhh, shhh, shhh! Don't say that aloud!"

The man tsked with a smirk. "Oh, you'll never pull it off with that attitude. You have to be shameless, little buddy. Embrace your work!"

Naruto slumped down, determined to avoid further scrutiny from the other bar-goers.

Maybe the pervert's right. Maybe this is why he keeps failing.

"Tell you what," He said, and Naruto perked up. "I'll share my clients with you, for your 'research'. All I ask for is five percent of the proceeds."

"Five percent? Seriously? That's it?"

"Pretty generous, am I right?"

Naruto's finger hovered over the touchpad, the cursor floating over the circular play button of a video file. His anticipation burned him from inside, it constricted his breathing (and his pants), and began to dot along his temple.

He tapped it.

"Mmm, you like that, don't you baby?" His voice rasped as he slid his cock in and out of her smooth, shaven pussy. Partially dressed in her school uniform, her bra had been pulled down below her heavy breasts, and her tight blouse unbuttoned down the length of her chest and nothing more.

She nodded, moaning softly yet hungrily.

"Tell me, how many times have you cummed today?"

She raised up both hands and flashed a double-peace sign with a drunken smile.

"Four times?"

She nodded.

"And where was the first time, baby?"

"Mmm! Behind the bus stop."

"How did you cum there?"

She threw her head back, her mouth opening wide with a gasp. "You… played with my… my…"

"With your what?"

"My,My clit!"

The camera zoomed down to where their genitals connected, glistening from her sopping juices. He pressed his thumb against her swollen button and she cried out, bucking her hips.

He strummed her and pounded her mercilessly, her screams building one on top of the other.

These private school girls are so thirsty, they take anyone's cock.

But this girl, his special girl, she chose his over anyone else's.

He's no longer seeing from the camera's perspective, but his own.

Her long dark hair is splayed along the pillows like ribbons of midnight and her large, inviting eyes are lined with unshed tears.

She extends her arms towards him and smiles.

"Naruto-kun…"

Naruto's forehead smacks against the keyboard as he pumps his member furiously, his breathing sawing in and out through the fence of his teeth.

He knows he's not supposed to picture her, but he can't help it.

She's his special girl.

She was his special girl.

"More! More! Give me more!"

Naruto slammed his forehead over and over again, the sounds of her voice driving him to the edge of insanity.

He can't help but picture that she's writhing underneath another man right now, that she's loving another man.

He spasms the moment she cries out her orgasm and he slumps against his kotatsu, utterly spent.

Past the edge of the kotatsu, he stares at the mess that he made in his hand.

It's watery.

He used it all.

Every last drop of happiness.

It's like a negative feedback loop.

There's euphoria for all of a second.

Then the emptiness slams back, stronger than it was before.

What is he doing with his life?

BH: Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this? Can one even enjoy shit this depressing? XD