Synopsis: Climbing the corporate ladder is dangerous business. Especially when the corporate ladder you're climbing belongs to the equally prestigious and infamous Uchiha Corp. And when Haruno Sakura is hired, she finds herself trapped on a rollercoaster of love, lust, and power games. Because the corporate ladder isn't about how long you've worked there or how well you do your job, it's all about your connections. AU, sasusaku.
"God, Sakura. You got another red bill!" A girl with platinum blonde hair shouted exasperatedly as she let herself into the tiny one bedroom apartment with the key she had taken from Sakura when she had first leased the place. She stomped down the hallway with her heels clicking menacingly on the linoleum flooring. She nearly threw open the door to the left, and winced when it banged off the wall sounding like a gun. Hopefully her landlord wouldn't notice that.
The room was entirely pink, from the walls to the bedspread to the array of stuffed animals thrown childishly across it. The only thing that wasn't pink was the carpet and the wood of the furniture, which was white.
It looked like a six year old lived there.
The room was entirely pink, but her pink haired friend was no where to be found.
"SAKURA!" She roared, stamping her feet in indignation and kicking over a mountain of pillows and stuffed animals that had sat near the floor. They rained over the room, and a tiny whimper could be heard from the closet.
Her blue eyes flashed and she stalked over to the door, before opening it and peering into the darkness to see a cowering, small figure.
"Yes, Ino?" Sakura asked, adding cuteness and politeness to her tone. She was dragged out of the closet by her upper arm, yelping like a beaten dog with a look of horror on her face.
"I thought you said you paid these bills!" Swatting her in the face with the dreaded red envelope, Ino began another scolding session with her debt-ridden friend.
Sakura plopped herself down onto the bed, sighing innocently. "I said that last month."
"What happened to this month?" Ino joined her on the bed, rubbing her forehead worriedly, wishing that she could hit the short rosette girl that sat across from her. She couldn't keep down a job, was struggling to pay the rent on the shit hole she was currently living in, and was already falling into debt at the young age of 21.
"What happened to conquering the diner girl industry?" Ino asked. And every time she got a new job, she'd claim that this was the one she'd use to climb to the top… Wherever the top was in the diner industry.
"I quit. Too many guys hitting on me. One even ordered what was underneath my uniform! To go!" Her face resumed it's horrified expression from before. "I'll never go back! You can't make me!" She pleaded desperately. She didn't care that it was her 22nd job this year, she would not go back to the groping, lecherous men, who would drop their forks just to get a glimpse under her skirt. Just the thought made her shiver and want to cry like a baby.
Never.
Never.
Never.
She was done with that stuff.
"But I was thinking about going into the garbage truck driving industry." Sakura threw in conversationally. Ino met this with a look of disgust.
"Garbage?!?" She shook her head violently, as if trying to get the very thought out of her head, "You're kidding, right?"
"I wouldn't kid about my dream job!" She looked appalled, "I'd have so much fun, driving that big thing around! I could even wear a hat that says "I take out the trash!""
"You'd have to touch garbage!" Ino shuddered. "And besides, no friend of mine is going to continue this job hopping you've fallen into. Don't you remember your dream? You wanted to be a doctor! You got accepted into Tokyo University! Tokyo!" Tokyo U. was one of the most prestigious schools in Japan, and though Sakura always seemed to give the impression of an air-head, her marks said that she was anything but. Sakura had worked her ass off to get into that school, than hadn't had the funds to stay in it, even with scholarships. Yes, it was that expensive.
"Tokyo University?" The pinkette tapped her finger on her lips thoughtfully, staring up into space, "That does sound familiar-" She was cut off by a pink elephant being crammed into her mouth and a fright inspiring glare. "Alright, alright! I remember!" She frowned at the memories of wanting, "but you know I wouldn't be able to afford going there even if my parents sold their house and I became a prostitute!"
"That's why you have me!" Ino said excitedly, bouncing up and down on the bed, making it tremble and more stuffed animals tumble down onto the floor.
Sakura gaped at her, "I'm not going to let you pay for me!" She shook her head quickly, dismissing it.
Ino laughed hysterically, clutching her sides as if she was going to burst at the seams. "You wish I loved you that much."
Sakura pouted cutely, "Of course you do. In fact, you love me way than that, don't you?"
"Enough to get you a job." Ino reached into the designer handbag that had been resting on her shoulder to pull out an expensive looking smart phone that Sakura wouldn't be able to name for the life of her.
"Get me a job?" Sakura bounced up and down just as excitedly as Ino was, if not more. "Can I be a super model?!" Ino eyed her wearily.
"You're too short." She deadpanned.
"Thanks for trying to save my feelings." Sakura replied sarcastically back.
"You're welcome. And you don't get to choose. You're going to come work with me! It'll be so much FUN! Don't you think?" She began to dial a number with such speed that Sakura knew she must dial it quite a lot.
"… With… You?" Sakura's face turned a deathly shade of purple, "No! No! That's even worse than the diner! I don't wanna! It's so depressing and scary!"
"Oh, shut up, Sakura." Ino waved off her protests with a flick of her wrist.
"But I don't have a degree in marketing! Or business for that matter! Why?!? Why must you torture me?" She wailed helplessly, lunging for the phone but was held back by the palm of Ino's other hand.
The phone began to ring, and her protests grew even more frantic. Ino laughed, "In the medical career you might need degrees, but in this business, it's all about who you know. And lucky for you, I know quite a few people."
"No, no, no!" She struggled to snatch the phone, "And Shikamaru doesn't count, I know him too!"
Ino was currently under the employ of her boyfriend, Nara Shikamaru, a very lazy genius who was head of the marketing department of the Uchiha Corporation.
"Hey, Shikamaru." Ino began as he picked up, clapping her hand over Sakura's protesting mouth, and keeping out of range of her swinging fists. "Fire the new girl. Sakura wants her job." She ordered him. It was always obvious to Sakura who wore the pants in the relationship. Shikamaru was much too lazy to fight Ino's wishes.
"Yes, yes. It's totally consensual this time." Ino waved off his unheard accusations of force with a wave of her hand, much like she had dismissed Sakura.
"See you tonight." Ino finalized the deal with a sensual goodbye to her boyfriend.
"Noooo!" Sakura shrieked, falling to her knees and curling up into a ball in the most dramatic and outrageous way possible.
"Come on, you baby." Ino rolled over the pile of limps that was Sakura with her foot, "Now you can't work there with the clothes you already have." She pointed her thumb at the piles of brightly colored clothes that filled her closet. "We need to go shopping. Get you something more… Professional." She grabbed her arm and tugged, "And don't worry, that is on me."
Sakura remained on the thinly carpeted floor, twitching before she heard the word "shopping", followed by "on me."
Because, come on, what girl doesn't like to shop?
"As long as you're paying." She leapt to her feet, grin returned, and previous events forgotten.
"Actually, Daddy's paying." She waved a plastic rectangle in her direction, "But who cares? Money is money!"
"Stupid trust fund baby..." Sakura muttered under her breath.
"Did you say something?"
"Nope."
An hour later, they stood in a mall changing room, Ino seated on the bench with a pile of clothing in an array of muted colors stacked next to her.
"That makes you look so sexy!" She gushed, as Sakura uncomfortably adjusted the skirt of the short sleeved black dress featuring a scoop neck. It was a bit short for her tastes, however, reaching only her mid thigh. Ino had paired it with plain black heels with squared toes.
"I… I think it would look better on you." She frowned at herself in the mirror. It just looked so out of place on her. She was so different from Ino. Ino was tall, around five and a half feet, while she so much shorter, standing at only five feet. Ino's hair was a pretty shade of blonde and hit her waist, while her's was colored an outrageous shade of rose pink and just barely hit her shoulders.. And then there was their eyes: Ino's were blue and a lot smaller, but had this shape that gave her perpetual bedroom eyes. Her eyes were huge, huge and spring green. They gave her this wide eyed innocent look, fringed with godly eyelashes that were so long that seemed epic in proportions. But her eyes were too big for her face, making the rest of her features seem smaller in comparison.
But apparently, it was pretty. What did she know?
Even with all their differences, Sakura did realize she was pretty. Hot, even. Just in a different way.
Different in the way that you would describe Sakura as adorable and cute, like the stuffed animal you slept with, and how you'd find girls that looked like Ino on an adults only site.
"God no, Sakura. My chest is too big for that dress! If I wore it, I'd look like a hooker!" She jumped to her feet and looked over her shoulder at her reflection.
"But yours isn't!" She probed her hands around the neckline and adjusted the sleeves, "It makes you look classy, elegant!"
And then, Ino being the pervert she is.
She grabbed her chest.
And squeezed.
"Nope! Just the right amount of cleavage! I mean, they barely fit into my hands!" She said cheerily and informatively, bouncing them testily.
Let's just say that she didn't leave the changing room without a black eye and a bloody nose.
Later that day, when the sun had long disappeared beyond the urban skyline Sakura sat awake on her sofa, arm crossed and glaring futilely at the sky.
She'd always imagined the sky that the sky was supposed to be black, black with twinkling stars illuminating it. Here though, you couldn't see any stars.
None at all.
And the sky wasn't black. It was brown, poop brown.
The books had always described it so beautifully, she had often dreamed about it being that way.
There was, supposedly, a reason for the sky being so ugly in the city. Something that concerned pollution and lighting, something she had read out of a book back in the second grade. She never forgot things, ever.
Either way, pollution, lighting or not.
She hated the poop brown, starless nights of the city.
And as soon as the night ended, she'd be awake heading to her new job, which she apparently could not get out of. Or else face promised consequences by Ino, something that she did want. Because not only did she possess a key to her flat, but she also drove her places, and when I say places, I mean everywhere.
She'd be stuck in this hellhole, with no way to get anywhere.
Well except public transit… But we all know what happens in those places.
So what did you think?
Fab? Drab?
Hold nothing back!
What happens next? Pain, gain, both?
Or will she be driven suicidal by her new co-workers?
Reviews help stir my creative side! So please! Please! Please!
Review.
I will love you, forever and ever and ever.
With candy and sugar and more love on top!
I promise.