Master's Sun
by Diana-san

Author's Note:Based off of 2013 South Korean drama, Master's Sun.

A low growl rumbled in the far distance as a sharp pierce of lightning flashed through the night sky. Dark clouds rolled in and the sky shows an ominous tale of dread and fear. Down below on earth is an even darker situation. A widowed man by the name of Teuchi sits in his home as he faces the most despicable man on the face of the planet.

"So you are telling me that a dead spirit resides in this house?" the man asks Teuchi with a questioning raise of the eyebrow.

"Yes, my dead wife still lives in this house," Teuchi affirms. "For my daughter, I thought about selling this house. But my wife doesn't want that."

"So you're going to be the obstacle to my golf course," the man says quietly as he glances at the house. "Fine, let's negotiate."

"If my wife is here right now, how can I possibly drive her away?" Teuchi exclaims.

"She's here?" the man asks. "We can negotiate together then."

Teuchi points at a flower on top of a dresser. "My wife treasured that flower. When I had thoughts about selling the house, the flower suddenly wilted. But when I decided to not sell anymore, the flower suddenly came back to life."

The man nods as he listens. "So your wife expresses her opinions through this flower?" he asks. Teuchi nods. The man smiles as he knocks a fist on the table. "That means I have to negotiate with the flower," the man declares.

The man stands up as he walks over to the flower. Noticing a pair of pruning shears besides the flower, the man picked up the shears from the top of a dresser. The man looks to the left of the flower as he nods at the photo of Teuchi's late wife. "Flower Wife," he addresses the flower. "Your husband does not want to sell this house. I want to buy this house. Can you really not sell this house?" the man says as he holds up the shears in his hand. "If so, please nod your flower neck. If not, then I will cut your flower head."

"What are you doing?" Teuchi asks.

The man raises a hand at Teuchi. "Can't you see I am negotiating?"

Slowly, his hand itches towards the rose stem as the shears edge closer to wrap itself around the stem. "I'll give you three seconds to decide," the man continues to talk to the flower.

"3," he starts to count down as he glances at the photo of Teuchi's wife. Her smiling face stares back up at him.

"2," he continues on. The photo of Teuchi's wife continues to smile up at him.

"1," he finishes. A look of horror flashes across the photo of Teuchi's wife's eyes as the man glances away to look back at the flower.

In one swoop, he closes the shears as it clips over the stem and the rose on top falls to the table top."I guess your wife wants you to sell," the man states as he places the shears back down besides the fallen rose.

"Are you crazy?!" Teuchi shouts.

"The crazy one is you. Trying to overturn a deal made by the living because of a dead person… does that make any sense?" the man questions as his secretary hands a file of forms to Teuchi. "Please sign and honor the request of your daughter to sell."

Teuchi clenches his fist as he shakes in anger. He reluctantly signs as the man takes back the paperwork and turns to leave.

"No matter what you say… my wife is here!" Teuchi shouts.

Before the man exits the door, he turns his head and gives one last piece of advice to Teuchi. "Stop living for the dead but start living for those who are still alive now."

"Don't look down on things that cannot be seen. My wife is still alive in spirit," Teuchi exclaims.

The man laughs. "I am successful because I ignore things that are intangible. I am not tied down to the beliefs of ghosts or spirits."

The man steps outside to the drizzling rain outside as his secretary runs out with an umbrella. The man ignores the umbrella as he stretches out his hands and shouts to the sky. "If I am wrong, then strike me right now with lightning." Nothing happens and the man laughs once more as he walks towards the car.

Teuchi frowns and grumbles at him. "If ghosts exist, they will surely come after you."

A woman stands in the pouring rain in a white raincoat as she stands outside of a funeral wake. In her hand is a bankbook and a seal. The woman watches as a family of three siblings cries in front of a picture of an elderly woman. The woman sighs as she walks inside the wake and kneels down to pay her respect. Her hood comes down to reveal slightly wet pink tresses as her green eyes blink up at the three siblings.

The siblings stare back at her in confusion. "Uh, who are you? Are you a friend of my mother?" the eldest sibling asks. The woman nods as she hands over the bankbook and seal to him. The other two siblings, both sisters, huddle around their older brother as they peer over his shoulders to see the contents of the bankbook.

"Your mother left you some money to take care of the funeral costs and pay off any debts or loans," the woman tells the three. The older brother gasps. "There's $10,000 in her account!" he exclaims. "That old hag had been keeping all this money from us this whole time!" The woman twitches at the lack of respect the son was showing to his late mother.

She stands up as she bows to signal her leave. As she turns around slowly, she could hear the discussion behind her about what to do with the money. None of them sound responsible in any way as the three siblings begin to argue about how big each of their share was. A deep flash of anger passes through the woman's eyes as she whirls back around and grabs the collar of the older brother's shirt. "AND IF YOU GAMBLE ONE MORE TIME, I'LL COME BACK TO HAUNT YOU AND CUT OFF YOUR HAND YOU SCOUNDREL!" she shouts.

The older brother shakes in her hands as he recalls the same tone and language that his mother had always used on him in the past. The woman releases him and turns back to leave as she steps back out into the pouring rain.

A ghastly figure greets her outside and the woman recognizes the ghost to be the elderly grandma she met earlier in her room. The ghost nods and points to the road before disappearing. The woman sighs as she turns back to look at the photo inside of the funeral wake. The woman on the picture matches the ghostly figure just now. Putting her hood back on, the woman runs out towards the main road as she stands and waits.

"Sasuke, you shouldn't curse the spirits. You might anger them," Kakashi says as he squints at the road in front. They were driving along the empty road and the rain was continuing to fall freely, making it difficult to see well.

Sasuke grunts as he flips through the pages of the contract in his hands. The words on the contract swirls and jumbles in his eyes and Sasuke shakes his head to shake away the feeling. Feeling frustrated, he tosses the papers back in the folder as he places it aside. "I don't believe in spirits, Kakashi. You know that."

Kakashi smiles as he continues to drive. "Hm, it looks like there's someone up ahead trying to hitch a ride…" he murmurs.

"Don't stop. Don't even look at her. She's probably a crazy woman," Sasuke instructs.

Kakashi nods as he turns back to look at the road in front. Suddenly, a terrifying face with grotesque features pops up on the road. Kakashi slams on the brakes in fear and the whole car lurches as it stops right in front of the woman on the side of the road.

The woman smiles widely as she runs to the back door of the car and opens it. "Thank you so much for stopping!" she shouts happily as she pokes her head in and climbs into the seat next to Sasuke. Sasuke stares back at her in shock as he turns back to look at his secretary. Kakashi only looks in shock back at the road as the ghastly figure he just saw was no longer there. Kakashi shakes his head and wonders if he was seeing things.

The woman closes the door and Kakashi turns and shrugs back at Sasuke. "My name is Haruno Sakura. You can just drop me off in the city. You're heading back to the city right?" she asks. Kakashi nods in response.

"Just drop her off at the first chance you get," Sasuke grumbles. Sakura smiles as she buckles her seat belt. "This grandma told me that I would find a ride if I waited here. She said that you can avoid a lightning bolt but not me," she pipes up. Sasuke stares at the woman at the plain irony.

"Wow, your car is so fancy. You must be rich, huh?" Sakura wonders as she inspects the interior of the car.

Kakashi chuckles in the front seat. "Our young master is Uchiha Sasuke, CEO of Kingdom Mall."

"Ohh, that big mall in the center of downtown?" she asks.

"It's not just a big mall," Sasuke grumbles. "It's the biggest mall in all of Konoha," he boasts.

Sakura nods but doesn't seem to care about that fact as she stares at the front of the road to watch the pouring rain continue to pelt the car in large drops of rain. Suddenly, she sees something and she screams in fright. The car comes to a second halt as Kakashi stops at the sound of the scream.

Sakura's eyes widens as a grotesque-looking ghost passes through the car and comes face to face with her. She shuts her eyes as she leans her body left to clutch onto the closest thing she can for comfort. That comfort turned out to be Uchiha Sasuke. The ghost disappears in a poof of a whisper as Sasuke stares at the woman clinging to his left arm. With a finger, he places it on Sakura's forehead as he pushes her off of him. "Don't touch me," he says in disgust as he dusts off his arm.

Sakura whirls her head around as she tries to look for the ghost she just saw. "He's gone," she murmurs in slight confusion. She turns back to look at Sasuke. "Did you feel something just now?" she asks.

"Besides you touching me?" he grumpily asks.

"No, there was an electricity when we touched. Like magic!"

Sasuke scoffs and shakes his head. This woman was definitely a crazy wack job.

Kakashi pulls up to a gas rest stop. "I have to fill up gas. But we will be back in Konoha in an hour."

Sasuke nods as all of them stepped out of the car. The rain had finally let up and Sasuke stretches after having sat in the car for two hours already. Sakura had wandered off earlier but he sees her again as he takes a brief stroll towards the convenience mart.

He sees her sitting with two paper cups out on a bench as she pours out sake into one of them. He shakes his head at the sight. It appears as if Sakura was talking to herself as she holds up a cup in her hand and laughs. Sasuke surmises that the woman was indeed crazy. "She probably ran away from a mental institution," he murmurs as he observes the outfit she was in. Sakura had removed her raincoat from before and was now dressed in a simple plain white dress. Sasuke nods. "Definitely a mental patient."

He backs away quietly as he turns to head back to the car. This was the perfect opportunity to leave the woman there and head back before she noticed.

Sakura laughs as she raises her empty paper cup in the air. The ghost in front of her smiles and motions for her to drink.

"Oh no," she laughs as she shakes her hand at the offer. "I can't drink. It'll be very bad if I drink." She gestures to the ghost at the cup. "But I guess you enjoy drinking? You must miss the smell of alcohol if you kept following me to ask me to buy a bottle of sake for you."

Sakura hears a quiet sound of footsteps and turns slightly to see Sasuke turning to head back to the car. Quickly, she gets up from the bench as she runs after him. "Sasuke-kun!" she calls out and Sasuke stops in his tracks as he realizes that he was caught. But he continues to walk ahead as he ignores the sound of Sakura calling out his name again.

Sakura glances behind her to see that the ghost was following her. "Go away," she shoos at the ghost. "You can't follow me still. Go back to your alcohol."

Without knowing it, she stops abruptly as she walks into Sasuke's back. The ghost that was following her just now also disappears. Sakura stares in shock at the spot where the ghost once was.

"You know, I was going to give you the benefit of the doubt that even though you look crazy… that perhaps maybe there was a slight chance that you weren't crazy," Sasuke says as he turns around. "But hearing you talk to yourself again, I can say for sure that you are DEFINITELY crazy."

Sakura turns to stare at Sasuke as she reaches out her hand to touch his arm. Her hand runs along the length of his arm as it feels up and down the fabric sleeve of his suit jacket. Sasuke's eye twitches as he watches her before grabbing her hand off of him and throwing it aside.

He holds a finger up as if reprimanding her for something. "You know there are two things I hate most in this world," he tells her. "People who touch my money and people who touch my body."

"I'm sorry," Sakura apologizes. "I was just…" Sakura turns back to look around the area but the ghost was no longer there. "…scared of this guy but he's not here anymore." Sakura glances curiously at Sasuke's arm as her hand reaches out once more to touch it. "He just vanished when I touched you," she murmurs.

Sasuke could feel himself reaching the limit of his patience. "So you want to know how to get rid of unwanted people?" he asks her. Sakura nods in reply. "Then wait here," he says as he points down at the ground to instruct her to not move anywhere.

He quickly turns around as he walks back to the car, climbs in, and closes the door. Sakura watches in confusion as the car starts up and begins to drive away. Quickly, her feet learns to move as she runs towards the car. "Waiiiiiiiittt, you forgot about meeee!" she shouts as she waves at the back of the car.

Sasuke glances at the rearview mirror as he smirks. Kakashi glances back at the mirror as well. "Are you sure we should leave her here?" Kakashi asks.

"It's a gas station. Some other person will come along and take her back," Sasuke replies. He glances at the empty seat besides him as he realizes it wasn't empty after all. Lying on the seat was the white raincoat that Sakura had left behind. He stares at it as he glances back at the rearview mirror. Sakura's reflection in the mirror was getting smaller and smaller. Without a second thought, Sasuke shoves the raincoat to the floor of the car as he leans back in his seat and closes his eyes.