~ Cherry Blackness - - Chapter One - Halloween Roses ~
~ Sakura's POV ~
I wouldn't say I'm the sort of worst teenage bitches who has nothing else to do all day but whining, and I do love my mother above anything else, I really do, but sometimes, I just don't understand her. It just seemed like I'd been blessed with the most naïve adult ever found as a mother. But that didn't necessarily mean that she was easily deceived.
Downheartedly, I stared at my copy of Breaking Dawn, as if I'd expected some support from it. None came. "Please, mum. We've been here barely a week, no one expects you to throw a party. Especially not at Halloween. Why don't we just wait for Christmas?"
My mother looked at me slightly critically. "Sakura, we've been here for two weeks, almost three", she replied. I just rolled my eyes. "They're friends of mine, I'm not gonna cancel this now, honey."
So what if even I could tell it would be kind of weird if she called the whole event off three hours before. "But then please keep me out of it, okay?", I pleaded. "I'll stay in my room and be really quiet, but I don't wanna hang around with your colleagues, mum." Yeah, what an exiting Halloween night, alone in my room. But it was better than having to chitchat with her new friends, and after all I didn't know a soul around here yet anyway, so I probably didn't miss anything.
She returned to cutting the pumpkin into small pieces which she heaved into the pot next to her, and gave me an amused look over the table. "Don't be silly, sweetheart, you're not gonna sit around alone in your room when there's a party."
"Yeah, well, it's not a party, it's a Halloween Dinner", I replied dryly. "Your Halloween Dinner. With your friends that I wanna have nothing to do with."
"Well, let's then just say that I asked my dear colleagues to bring their kids", she suggested and smiled down at her pumpkin. My heart sank even deeper. Oh joy, my mother's friends' kids. I do believe my kind of decent evening just threw itself down a cliff. Why on earth would she believe that I needed a welcoming committee to do well with making friends at school? "Some of them might even be in some of your classes on Monday."
Okay, I did know she only meant well. But she was missing the point fatally. "Oh mum", I sighed. "I didn't … I don't wanna meet them now, Monday will do just as fine." Yeah, Monday … Then I'd be the new girl again. I just couldn't wait.
"Honey." She wiped her hands off on her apron - lightening pink with the text "The best Mum in the World", that I'd given her for Christmas two years ago - and took mine on the table. "I know you've been going through a tough time lately, with all this moving around, and I'm sorry, but …"
"Oh no, mum", I interrupted her quickly. "It's alright, I'm fine, I promise. I'm just whining. I'm a teenager, I'm supposed to be like this, remember?" I squeezed her hand and made myself smile as reassuring as I could manage. She still looked worried, and I got up to give her a kiss. "And it's not your fault, so don't worry. I'm perfectly fine. I'm gonna take a shower, okay?"
She smiled softly, the honey-colored eyes filling up with an amazing warmth. "Okay. Good girl." She softly kissed my forehead. "And go pick up the stuff on your floor too, please." I grabbed my book, ditched my teacup in the sink and went to my room to put the heaps of CD:s, DVD:s, books and clothes into their right places before I made my way to the bathroom. She did let me shower in peace, which made me think about starting to forgive her.
As I was rubbing fruity smelling shampoo into my strands, I heard her knocking on the door over the rushing sound of the streaming water. Frowning against a bright blue fish on the shower curtain, I begged it was nothing too annoying. "What?", I asked loudly, trying to sound as nice as possible.
"I'm hanging some clothes on the door knob", she replied. "I'd love for you to wear them tonight, they'll match the decorations perfectly."
Match the what? The decorations? The very orange Halloween decorations? Oh great. "Okay", I just called, sort of curtly. More worried than I wanted to admit, I hurried to wash the last shampoo out of my strands and wrap myself into a towel and then peek out the to grab the bag that was hanging on the knob. It wasn't just the fact that I hated orange from the bottom of my heart, but also it would look bloodcurdlingly horrible against my pink hair. As I unfolded the, thanks god, blackish fabric in the bag I had to admit that I was almost joyfully surprised. It was a dark grey and black checkered, plaited skirt, and a black shirt.
I quickly dried up, grabbed a tank top, underwear and a pair of black knee stockings in my room and dressed before I returned to the bathroom to do my make up. I carefully shaded my eyelids blackly, added some light lip-gloss and then found a couple of silvery bracelets and matching necklace with some small crosses, heart-eyed skulls and even bats attached to it.
My mum was busied with arranging red, orange and black candles on the table as I joined her in the pretty small dining room, which was separated from the kitchen with its kitchen island by a sort of bar counter. She had draped a big black sheet over the table and placed two big, grinning pumpkins on it, and had alternated between orange and black serviettes. On the counter as well as on the cupboard in the corner, the cupboard in the hallway and in some of the shelves in the living room there were more of the candles. It did look pretty cool, I had to admit.
She smiled as she saw me. "Did you like it? You look gorgeous."
"Yeah, I did", I smiled back. "But when did you buy this? You shouldn't have." After this last move, we were even more far away from any kind of financial beauty than ever. Not that we were poor, really, but I was going to get myself a job quickly, even if she'd of course never ask me to.
"I found it yesterday, it was on sale", she replied, which did calm me a little.
"Okay, thanks", I nodded. She placed a big vase with black and red roses on the middle of the table and then looked expectantly at me. I had to smile. "It's perfect, mum."
"Really? I didn't overdo it?" I shook my head pointedly. "Very well then, I'm gonna jump into the shower. In the kitchen there's a plate with sandwiches, could you be so wonderful and do some more of those?"
"Sure." She hurried away and I had to laugh quietly as I saw the sandwiches. She'd cut out ghosts in the cheese, cats and bats of cucumber shell and pumpkins of carrot. I worked quickly. I had counted to at least twelve plates, and then there probably were those kids too, and in spite of everything I wouldn't want my mother's evening to end up poorly in any way at all. As she returned, I had to smile again. She had stuck up the blond strand elegantly and was dressed in quite flattering black dress. My mother was younger than any other mothers of friends of mine, and she'd been just 18 as she gave birth to me. I often wondered if that had anything to do with the kind of friendship-alike relation we had.
"You look stunning, mum", I said.
She smiled beamingly. "Well, you don't look so bad yourself", she winked. "Okay, they'll be here any minute, go light the candles, would you?" I nodded, hiding my regretful nervousness, and grabbed the lighter from the counter. I'd no more than just let die flame die away after the last candle in the hallway, as the doorbell rang.
Well, here we go now. The devil's before the door. "Mum!", I squeaked, "they're here."
"Coming!" The bell droned again. I heard her shuffle around in the kitchen.
"Mum! I am not opening!"
More shuffle. "Breathe, I'm right here", she then said and hurried to my side. "Okay, ready?"
No way. She smiled and opened the door. I'd done this before, I knew how to smile as sweetly and politely as possible. That didn't mean I liked it. I shoved the displeased grunting within me away and concentrated on my mother introducing the new faces to me.
Mrs and Mr Yamanaka were first in. She was wrapped up in a furry coat that made me want to place her mingling at an exclusive gala rather than nursing bloody wounds side by side with my mother in the hospital. They were both blonde and blue eyed, and did look good together, greeting my mother with warm smiles rather than arrogant faces as I almost expected them to. Next in was a brown-haired woman with almost squirrel-alike brown eyes and a small girl hiding behind her coat and peeking up at me beneath equally nut-brown bangs. Thinking worriedly about my mother's words about her colleagues' kids, I heard her calling them Shime Inuzuka and Hana.
Before the four of them even had gotten out of their coats, the next two couples entered our hallway. The first couple were both black haired, and seemed to be pretty quiet characters to me. The woman was pale and had a mild face with pretty fair eyes. Her husband looked sort of severe and strict, but he smiled politely as he greeted my mother, and she introduced them as Mr and Mrs Hyuuga. After them followed Mr Nara, a man with a somehow thoughtful look in contrast to his spiky ponytail, and his wife, slightly tanned and with thick, black-brownish locks.
The couple and their friend after them were younger and didn't quite seem to fit into the rest of the group. Kakashi Hatake had, for a start, a silvery colored, spiky mane of hair and wore a brightly red tie to his black shirt and blue jeans. Asuma Sarutobi, grinning and in his twenties and with a short ponytail and brownish beard, had topped that with the small ghosts and grinning pumpkins on his tie, which perfectly matched the similarly designed scarf of his girlfriend, Kurenai Yuhi, a very pretty woman with envy-awakening thick, dark hair and big eyes. Briefly I wondered exactly whom of those were working at the hospital, because I had a hard time imagining any of them in those bluish nurse-shirts.
As the last group entered through the door, however, I had a hard time hiding my deep disbelief. Mr and Mrs Uchiha made me quickly taking back any thought I'd had about the obviously wealthy Yamanakas, about them so not belonging either in our hallway nor at the hospital. Mrs Uchihas face beneath the raven black hair was sort of mild and even nice, though, but there was a heavy layer of richness and arrogance lingering over them like a scent - and almost as touchable as a scent would have been. Mr Uchiha on the other hand had nothing that even tried to dispute against the arrogant edginess; his face was set and strict and there were grey sprinkles in his once coal black hair. All in all he somehow made me picture him as an honor-obsessed general of the Navy or something like that.
With them arrived also Mrs Amaki and her daughter Akane. They were both blonde, the about six-year-old slightly more leaning to the brownish, and her mother had long side bangs that almost shockingly youthfully hang before her right eye. And as quiet and drawn back as the Uchihas, as open and cheerful did she seem to me, and confusedly I watched her chat ruefully with them, but very scarcely greeting the other adults. What was this? The Romeo and Juliet-family fight awaken to life? It was almost creepy to watch the two groups chatting cheerfully amongst each other and at the same barely looking across the all but touchable wall between their fronts. I mean, these were highly educated adults, and if that wall was even too thick for empty pleasantries, then it had to be some sort of serious.
I'd very much liked to ask my mother if she was blind or if she just thought it was interesting to invite a family-feud into our, suddenly very fragile seeming, apartment, but I managed to keep it to myself. "Was that all?", I just hissed as I grabbed my mother.
She looked amused. "Yeah, honey, I know it's a lot."
"I'm fine", I replied. Yeah, if nobody ends up with our kitchen-knife in their throat tonight, then I'm definitely all fine. "But, uhm, you are aware of that these, Akane and Hana, or whatever their names are, most probably wont be in my class, right?"
"Oh, and Tsunade, the kids should be on their way, I talked to Ino just before we left", Mrs Yamanakas sort of pleasant voice drifted to us over the calmly chatting that now filled the much too small hallway, as if she'd heard us talking, which I hardly doubted.
"There you go", my mother concluded beamingly.
Asuma chuckled next to me. "You invited the kids, Tsunade? Hope you don't got any valuable furniture then", he said amusedly and scratched his beard while winking slightly.
I stared at him, obviously much more touched by his words than my mother, who just laughed warmly. "Don't worry, honey", she said to me. "Here, why don't you put these in a vase while you're waiting?" She handed me the two bouquets of red, orange-alike and blackish flowers, one with roses and one with tulips, wrapped in silky black and red paper. As far as I could recall, she'd received them as a thanks-for-the-invite-gift from Mrs Inuzuka and the Uchihas.
Murmuring something, I stomped into the kitchen, dug out a vase from under the sink and started to put the flowers into it. With almost ridiculous much care, I arranged them and then wrapped the thin, rustling paper around it before placing it on the table in the living room, all while I watched the group of adults - or rather the two groups - slowly drifting into the dining room, admiring my mother's decorations and the fact that it was so oblivious that we'd moved here just two weeks ago; it didn't look untidy or chaotic at all, did it?
The same moment as I let go of the vase in the living room, the doorbell rang again, and my mother called; "Sakura, honey, go get the door, would you?" I took a deep breath, threw a brief look at my reflection in the mirror in the hallway, and reached out for the door.