Rated T for language. May increase in the future!


BUTTERFLY


prologue


Sakura fiddled with the strap of her deep cocoa-colored leather and gold bag, a little anxious about the ride to school. She turned, staring blankly up at the ceiling of her limousine. But the anxiety, it wasn't anything new—she was anxious about going every single day.

It wasn't that she was bullied when she got there. Gathering the future of the elite in one school made it less about education, more about social competition.

Prissy, the lot they were. Toxic, sometimes, full of fraudulent smiles and gestures of friendship. That was the social ladder built by the spoon-fed and gold-raised.

Left and right, designer labels and top of the line technology was tossed from wall to wall. It was the pinnacle of elitist education; there, at Konoha Academy.

Despite the lack of bullying, it still wasn't the nicest of places, and rather than go, she wished she could stay home and tend to the many books on her bedside table. Unlike the rest of them, there wasn't the incessant urge to participate in the competitive cash complex—girls always fought over who had the latest fashion and boys fought over the latest shoes or phones or laptops. But there was no physical bullying, only status rankings among the students.

Fighting was sugarcoated almost. So sweet, it gave cavities, and ulcers, and sometimes required whole, figurative stomach-pumps combined with a root canal. This, Sakura was not particularly interested in. Though her family was fully capable of nabbing that Chanel purse that came out two minutes ago, she preferred not to. Occasional indulgence suited more than constant indulgence. Worldly possessions only had so much meaning.

Things like that mimicked her deepest wishes to become a doctor than the head of her family's company. Materialism was a vice and a temptation that she'd found immunity against.

Although...

Although she was built for things greater than that.


In minutes, cutting through her thoughts was the sight of the campus buildings. White, tall, marble buildings, designed with patterns made of nearly pure gold. She could barely spot the tall, lavish entry gates and the water spouting from the fountain in the center of the front.

Heaving a very low, very quiet sigh, our protagonist leaned deeper into the comfort of her seat, brushing aside flyaway hair. Her chauffeur, hearing those vague sounds of contempt, glanced at her through the rearview mirror.

"Haruno-sama?" he quipped, continuing to switch his eyes between the road and the reflection.

Sakura redirected her stare down to her shoes as she gave a quiet, polite murmur. Kotetsu didn't mind the action much; an introverted thing she was. She'd been that way since meeting her all those years ago, tasked with driving the young heiress wherever she wished.

But unlike the many women her age, she asked very few of him.

Though she was quite rich and well off, since birth, her family taught her to love everyone and everything equally. The Haruno clan, a curious entity, was highly reserved and shied away from the limelight that richer people craved. High class families loved grand parties and press coverage, and the Haruno clan preferred warm celebrations at home combined with the occasional massive bash.

Yet, it was sometimes hard to believe it wasn't like that from the start.


You see.

Master Kizashi Haruno inherited a large sum of money from his wealthy grandparents, who made their fortune through hard work and labor since young. As a result, he had more than he knew what to do with, and being young, handsome, and rich, he spent his days doing nothing but tossing bill after bill out the window. He could burn piles of money, and it didn't matter.

With the money his grandparents gave him, combined with both his parents upholding the companies that his elders once started, he had cash that he could shred.

Oh yes—young, handsome, rich, and unfortunately, incompetent.

Because he was born spoon-fed, he refused to work for anything, and it didn't help that his parents were rarely at home because of their jobs. They weren't there to reaffirm the lessons once given to him.

It was his grandparents who raised him in his youth with the correct message. Losing them at eight years old meant he had no reason to continue trying in earnest, and the things he was taught loss relevance. He turned to thinking life was a game that he could win with the right amount of zeroes in the bank.

Years after high school graduation, he only grew in arrogance, in crudeness, in behavior considered disrespectful, uncaring, ignorant. If Kotetsu remembered the story correctly, it was the current Mistress Haruno—Mebuki-sama—who appeared at one of his many parties, that brought him out of the constant nightlife.

It was she who taught him to cherish what was lost, not try to numb it with booze and sex. Years of being together, him chasing her in complete obsession, she claimed she didn't like pompous men who spent their lives doing nothing for the world.

He changed thereafter, and had also found that he had a knack for persuasion, thus becoming an extremely capable business man.

"It was better late than ever," he would always say when he told the story, cradling his wife in his arms.

When it was time, he asked for her hand in marriage. He loved the powerful, hard working, generous woman that taught him how to both love and lead.

Together, they took over his parents' companies and built a beautiful empire, of which was surrounded by zero scandals and zero employee dissatisfaction from that point on. They created their business with big hearts and strong hands, doing the same in the household.

Kotetsu and his brother, Izumo, fell in love with the family dynamics inside the estate, and found that they weren't the only workers who felt the same. No worker had quit or been fired out of anger; people were let go or left when opportunities brought them elsewhere. Always did they say that should they return, they would seek work in the estate again, and the Harunos time and time again would welcome them back. It was the job of a lifetime finding work with people who didn't treat you like you were below them when the social ladder deemed it so.

When out popped Sakura, Master Haruno left the last of his past behind and completely sobered up, teaching his daughter what his wife—and his grandparents, fondly—taught him years before. He showed her the beauty of humility, power, love.


So here she sat in the back seat, and Kotetsu stared at her reflection in the mirror. She was looking down at the floor of the limousine, quiet and still, and he internally sighed at the guarded expression.

Age lessened the shyness, but the introverted nature stayed.

Yet it was still pure blessing she took after her parents' humility and kindness.

The workers might've been used to the way the Haruno heads would treat them, but the fact that their daughter took after their humble ways was incredible. People born into the high class tended to behave waving around a pretty, gold spoon.

But like the rest of them, she dined with regular silverware and glasses. To her, they were still eating all the same—still human all the same.

A diamond in the rough.

"Haruno-sama," he called once again as he separated himself from his musings. He saw her blink, then glance up towards him beneath lashes, behind a pair of glasses. He'd only seen her eyes clearly once before, when she attended a business luncheon a few months ago, and it was probably the closest thing to Mother Nature's trees he'd ever come close to.

"Yes?"

His lip quirked. "We are nearing the school."

"Right." Her little nod and smile was rather sweet. "Thank you."

With that, Sakura smoothed her black pleated skirt, brushing long fingers along the back of her knees to ensure that it fell down rather than be folded up. She chose to wear the longer skirt, the one that cut below her knees, because it was getting chillier in mid-September.

She then adjusted her black button up at the collar, tugging on the edges of the red bow tightly, then continued to pull the sleeves of the white, black-lined blazer down to cover her wrists properly.

"We're here."

The pinkette pressed on the buttons of her bag to make sure it was closed, then scooped the strap over her shoulder. She tucked braided pale pink hair behind her ear again, taking Kotetsu's hand when he opened the door and offered it to her.

He bowed slightly, and she returned it, pushing slipping glasses up the bridge of her nose, then began walking in the direction of where all the other students were moving, past the golden gates, past the marble fountain, right into the great oak doors.


Fourth period adjourned, Sakura found her way to her favorite spot somewhere in the back of the grand academy, underneath a patch of trees. There was a wooden bench present there, and she chose to sit there nearly every day.

The moment she rested, her entire body made gratuitous rumbles of satisfaction. She exhaled deeply through her nose, digging black Mary Janes into the grass and pushing forward so that her body sunk against the bench.

She was now nearly laying, neck and head on top of the back of the bench, staring absently into the sky. It was a cheerful blue hue, dotted with wispy white clouds and shrouded by the thicket of auburn leaves she peeped through.

There was a very faint, omnipresent buzzing of people chattering somewhere (anywhere, really) from and around the school—the entire academy had lunch at the same time. The campus was big enough for such a thing, and even teachers needed a good break. Eight periods with snot nosed rich brats was enough to make anyone want to kill anybody.

Sakura chuckled at that thought, closing her eyes.

She was stressed out.

A junior at Konoha Academy, the most prestigious, high class school for the top ten percent of the population. The richest of the rich were here, and it was purely by pay to attend.

Against her wishes, her father insisted she attend the school. He knew she was highly capable of something one day, and though the school implied lives in business careers, it was open to anything and everything for the purpose of concentrated companies (such as the Inuzuka and their veterinary hospitals). There was even a French Cuisine class taught by members of the Akimichi clan.

Personally, her stress took root on her first day to school. It was about two years ago and at the time, she had absolute fear in coming. Prada bags and Vera Wang heels click-clacked around every corner. The entire place had reeked of pretentious disregard of the world outside of the ten percent.

Being taught to be humble, only preferring to indulge occasionally, caused her to be extremely outcasted from the many heirs and heiresses that were in attendance. There was a rift between the superficial and the real.

And if it wasn't already hard enough finding common ground, she didn't care about inheritance. No sir—she'd help advise her parents maybe, but pretty much cared little about becoming the company's head. Not when she could be a doctor for the main, Haruno-owned hospital in the chain. Help people, she'd tell herself, rather than order them around. This further divided her and her more business-savvy peers, despite that natural talent for company work.

Luckily though, she was rarely ever noticed. She was shy as a turtle on first day icebreakers when they introduced themselves, but by thirty minutes into the period, teachers and students alike usually forgot who she was.

Some members of the staff praised her for her intellect, but she had little regard for academics with Nara, Uchiha, and Hyuuga topping the charts. She stopped trying as hard after the second test that freshman year and settled for top ten rather than top three.

You would think she would be singled out by the way she wore her uniform longer and cleaner, but many upperclassmen did that. The hair would've rung an even bigger alarm.

But with people having blue, green, orange, purple hair—well, pink tended to just be another color in the rainbow.

So she sidled by unnoticed.

Sakura inhaled deeply and fought a deep groan or the urge to slap her forehead, unnerved by even being here and not being elsewhere—maybe at home among her books ranging between Shakespeare's plays and Plutarch's pieces, to medical texts on the human body.

Luckily, this place—the spot she sat in—was a small, secluded area. It helped pull her away from the artificial smiles in school and felt a little like home.

The back of the campus wasn't particularly opulent compared to the rest. Yes, the tall marble buildings and golden outlines were right before her, but there were no windows and no statues and no fountains like the front. Only a shaded walkway supported by marble columns.

The patch of land she sat at was simple and reminded her of the gardens at home. It was the only place that didn't look like it cost five billion just to look at. She loved it.

A high, shrill sound broke through her blank train of thought and she glanced in the direction of which she came from. That was the bell that ended lunch break, and so she gathered up her belongings and tossed the wrapper of the melon bread she forgot she ate in her absent ponderings.

Getting up, little Haruno dusted the autumn leaves off her skirt, and made way to art class.


Spend time being forgotten.

Live discretely, for soon, there would come a day where the name "Sakura" would be tacked onto the Haruno clan legacy right with her parents', and then running from attention would prove fruitless. Even if she wanted to work as a doctor for Haruno-owned Konoha Hospital, that surname wouldn't protect her from spotlights.

"Doctor Haruno" would still be associated with "Master Haruno" and "Mistress Haruno."

Enjoy it now. Enjoy peace now.

For two years since entering the academy, going by unnoticed, things rarely ever took turns in her life. She was always walking in a slow, straight line towards the inevitable, content with the pace.

So.

When a certain blond boy—hurriedly on his way to class after lunch with his ramen cup in hand—had barreled into her head on, she knew walking in a straight line wasn't going to keep happening. She eventually was going to take a turn, yeah

—but she didn't think that she would make a complete one eighty.

The most important thing following the collision was after the realization that his ramen was warmer than warm, not scalding hot, but enough to leave a red mark on her leg and some broth stains on her white blazer. Apologizing with the force of a thousand suns, said blond thought nothing of anything, dropped the cup, and scooped her up bridal style.

Sakura didn't even have time to protest, instead stuck on being in extreme shock. The boy, all the while still screaming apologies, carried her up to the aid office. It was different from the nurse's in that it was a room where medical supplies were readily available for things like bumps and bruises and not checkups.

She groaned as she was dropped unceremoniously onto the table while the blonde—whom she barely could identify—shuffled throughout the entire medical supply to locate the cotton swabs and bandages.

"I-I'm so sorry! I can pay for dry cleaning and pressing- Actually! No, how about I buy you a new uniform?! I can buy you a whole years' worth- just don't tell my dad; god he'd probably kill me-"

He babbled hurriedly, knocking over boxes and bottles of antiseptics in a frenzied rush. Man, if his dad ever found out he spilled ramen on someone again, he'd lose his gold card privileges.

Meanwhile, Sakura wasn't listening. The room was covered in beefy brown stains and she touched her face in empty confusion.

Oh, that's what it was.

Ramen broth aaaall over her glasses. No wonder why she couldn't tell who he was.

"Oh! Here it is!"

Now, imagine the surprise on Naruto's face—he just found the swabs, the disinfectant, the bandages, and was rushing to help the person he hurt, when he froze.

She removed her glasses, steadily wiping off the muck stuck to the frames.

But all he could see were the deepest, richest, most mesmerizing shade of emerald he had ever seen.


Aaaaand there you have it, folks

I tend to see "poor girl, rich school" stories literally everywhere. They're not bad, but I wondered what it would be like if she was rich too, with the same upbringing as everyone else but a different approach to the wealthy class. I wanted to explore a dynamic where there is no social divide, only a personal one. A place where a classic school story can be ventured into, all on even playing field.

Thus, this was born.

I'm not looking for many plottwists or drama or anything beyond what's romance-based. Expect this to be a lighter read built on interaction and affection and all those classic fanfic tropes (for pure fun, of course).

This day, 11/19/18, I've edited this chapter and turned it into a prologue. Not the nicest, but perhaps I can integrate some of my newer writing skills into this and manipulate the direction of the story.

- burrblefish