Reach:
I.
A debt-ridden college student and a passionate artist gone rogue from his family's expectations find their lives becoming intertwined. She was a cute idiot. He was an infuriating attractive bastard. AU. SasuSaku.
He found himself growing to admire this young woman who fought every little thing with every fibre of her being. She was an idiot. But an idiot that he couldn't help but want to protect.
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"I think...if I just manage to scrape by with this paycheck I might have a little extra for groceries later this week. Enough even to get some steak this time."
Chipped dark blue fingernail polish attached to small thin fingers currently tap the front granite counter. A hefty, dusty, register is placed in the center.
A notebook is propped open.
A pros and cons list is scribbled hastily in cursive handwriting right in the middle.
A list that apparently keeps stacking up with more cons than pros.
Sakura sighs very heavily as she pokes the tip of the pen against one of her temples. Disarranging one of the braids she had pulled back into a small ponytail at the nape of her neck earlier that morning.
Pale rose gold strands are slipping down to caress the sides of her cheeks. Little curls.
She chews on the corner of her bottom right lip.
Never had she imagined life was going to be this difficult.
Sakura Haruno.
Twenty-six years old.
Currently in her last year of college.
Drowning in debt and without a current residence to inhabit.
After many failed attempts at finding love and trying to find her passion in life she had moved from her hometown of Suna to Konoha. An even bigger city with not just the sweltering heat of summer.
Through many internships and college courses she had made it to her final year of college.
But.
That had also cost her.
She had moved away from her home.
She could barely afford food each week. And that in itself was a huge disappointment. She loved eating. Especially meat. But she couldn't even barely afford two heads of cabbage.
Ino Yamanaka. Ino from 'Yamanaka's Flowers.' It had been a family business. A business, her bestfriend from her childhood, would inhabit.
Just as soon as she got back from her honeymoon.
Ino had recently gotten married to her college sweetheart, Sai. And they were off on this long honeymoon to some tropical island that Ino had been gushing about for years.
She was happy for them.
She was.
However...it meant that with Sakura's expertise in business, she was left to keep the records and day to day basis of the flower shop up and running.
It wasn't that it was hard.
It was just that issue of it meaning she didn't have a lot of time left to look for an apartment.
And running out of time, she was.
Autumn was fast approaching and with that it meant apartments would be a little cheaper, but Ino had told her that there weren't always a lot of listings left.
She had help with the shop.
From fellow university students of the University of Konoha. The university that had crippled her with a tremendous amount to pay back.
But even that didn't mean she could just leave the job to someone else. To wander around the city.
She had made her friend a promise to look after her shop.
Ino had reluctantly agreed, knowing that the apartment above it wasn't much. Sakura had insisted she let her stay there, after all it was free and it meant she had a place to sleep.
But Ino knew as well as she did it wasn't really somewhere she could live.
It was just one bedroom.
A bedroom that was more like a storage space.
There was a pull out couch though. A couch where Sakura usually slept when she didn't constantly fall asleep at the downstairs little bistro table in the corner window.
A table where she always spent her nights.
Going over the day's expenses and her own. Recording everything down and trying to figure out her next steps. Along with her own paperwork.
Paperwork which was more essays that she struggled to concentrate on.
She was tired.
So, so tired.
It was dark outside.
She hadn't even realized it had gotten so late.
Rain had come earlier that day.
Gray pallor smudged the whole sky.
A wide range of inky flattened clouds.
Droplets had stained the floor to ceiling glass windows. Little ledges that occupied small hanging potted plants. She tended to change the potted plants that sat there every morning.
A little variety for each different day.
Wide and curious bright jade eyes stared out the window now.
The wind had picked up a lot.
She could hear the way it whistled through the streets. Rattling the windows. Trying to slip through the small cracks in the pale oak wood flooring.
Her gaze rested to the clock by the front register.
Eleven p.m.
She groaned heavily.
She supposed to she might as well get upstairs and try to get to work on one of her essays.
Tomorrow was another day after all.
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The stars were spread across the sky like peanut butter on a sandwich.
It was a wide expanse of white specks in this dark navy blue abyss.
Sasuke's face was pulled into a perpetual state of disbelief as he walked along the sidewalk.
Stuffed into his mother's side.
On the outer side of the walkway, so she wouldn't get drenched by cars stumbling along the cobblestone pavement, spewing water from their rotating tires.
His father was a few paces ahead, growling into his cellphone about the early business meeting, and data this, launch that, fire this, can't afford that.
He resisted the urge to ground his palms into his eye sockets.
They had been meandering the streets for hours.
It wasn't like this wasn't a common occurrence.
Their family nights out to dinner were always side railed with his father taking company calls and just simply talking all night long.
His mother never minded.
Of course.
She was a saint.
It was one of the reasons why he tried to keep his temper in check around her.
Tried.
"Sasu, hun, how was your day?" His mothers kind dark eyes look up at him, imploring.
He knows she's only asking this now that his father is out of earshot.
Sasuke Uchiha.
A twenty-eight year old man who had just quit this top of the line profession of being a pilot. It had always been his father's dream for him to work for something big.
His own company, perhaps. Him having become a pilot had been something big.
Considering his other son, his own big brother Itachi, was his business partner. Co-operated another section of his father's company in another city.
Sasuke was now dawdling from job to job but had finally settled co-running his friend Naruto's restaurant. A small homely mum and pa shop that he had taken over.
It had been huge on ramen, but Naruto had adapted it to adhere to other cuisines.
He had quit being a pilot to focus on his artwork.
Artwork his father made clear he disapproved of. His father wanted him to go back to being a pilot. He had been so close to becoming Captain.
His mother on the other side, just wanted her son to be happy.
She wasn't angry like his father, but wanders what he plans to do with his life now.
It's a conversation they try to have often, but his mother doesn't like getting in her husbands' way. Claiming that they'll work out their differences someday.
He always scoffs at that.
Right. His father on his side.
Like that'll ever happen in his lifetime.
"Sasu-chan?" He stares down at his mother's small frame, his expression deadpan at her endearing nickname. A small gleam sparks in her eyes as she winks at him and tugs him closer to her side.
"It was - " He takes a sharp pause as they take stop near a small flower shop.
His tall frames is frozen to the spot as his dark gaze perches on a petite young woman yanking hard on her front door. His dark eyebrows draw low downwards as he tries to figure out the current situation.
The shop has a small fire-escape beside the front door that leads to a second floor.
A second floor the woman is currently standing on.
However.
A suspicious man is towering below her beneath the fire-escape.
He's hooded and is shifting from foot to foot, glancing up obviously at the woman dressed in a tight black business skirt and ruffled white buttoned up blouse.
He inwardly groans.
Is she really that oblivious?
He glances at the shop. "Yamanaka's Flowers."
He tries to connect the name Yamanaka with the townsfolk. It's a big city but considering his father owns one of the largest companies in the vicinity, it was his job growing up to learn who he lived around. That included names and specific fact checking.
The Yamanaka family.
Inoichi, father. Mother's name unknown. She tended to be kind of reclusive. Ino, daughter.
Ah. Ino Yamanaka. She should be about his age.
He decides to take a chance. "Mum, how about you join father and get him to actually choose a place? I have an early morning. I'll join you after I make my own call."
His mother's eyes flicker over the to the flower shop and a small smile appears and then dissipates from her lips as she starts to head towards her husband. "You'd better call me tomorrow, sweetheart."
He nods in affirmation and sighs heavily as he decides to take a chance.
His dark leathered shoes head in the direction of the woman.
He stops as he crosses the street and is standing in front of the quaint flower shop.
A single streetlamp is a few paces away, casting the road in a hazy orange glow.
"Ino, sweetheart. What is taking you so long?" He calls out to the woman.
The young woman freezes in place and turns very slowly in his direction, her gaze locking with his first.
Confusion flickers across her face before it slowly trickles into fear when she finally seems to pick up on the fact that there's a heavily labored breathing man below her.
Peering right up between her legs.
She seems smart enough to pick up on the fact that he, at least, is trying to help her with this sudden predicament. Her voices comes out a little shaky. He can tell she's scared.
"Babe, my arms are so full with this flower pot. Do you mind coming up here and opening the door? Silly clumsy me can't get my arms around this." The man turns in his direction and his eyes flash with malice as he quickly dashes off rather fast.
Sasuke slowly approaches the fire-escape and hoists it down. His long legs help him easily climb the distance to reach this cowering young woman.
When he finally approaches her, he can see that she had used her arms which were full of small notebooks as a prop - a prop which she claimed was a flower pot.
Thankfully it had been too dark for anyone to notice the difference. Especially that man.
He takes a moment to appraise her.
She's small.
Barely reaches the top of his chest.
She has hair such a faint shade of red.
So faded - it's pink, he realizes. Her skin is so pale but it glows faintly in the moonlight. She has small, almost fairy-esque features.
Tiny nose.
Full, blush stained, lips.
Her hair seems short. He can't really tell for it's pulled back in braids on each side and touches the nape of neck in choppy little strands.
He disapproves the notion he finds her faintly attractive as a scowl suddenly overtakes his features, "You fucking idiot. Do you always not notice lechers peering up your skirt this late at night?"
The woman's nose scrunches in distaste and her jaw drops slightly at his tone, "My apologies, Your Highness. I don't usually schedule appointments this late. I tend to let lechers peer at me when I'm showering."
His lips quirk slightly as he takes the keys from her grasp.
Jiggling the door handle, he slides the key into the lock, managing to shove his shoulder against the wood that seems to be too tightly wedged in on one side.
Making it a little difficult to get it open.
His dark eyes appraise what is obviously not an apartment as the woman tries to take a step inside. His fingers are still gripping the door handle - and he effectively slams the door shut, making it smack into her whole body.
"Why you..." Her shoulders are shaking with slight anger.
"You must have dementia. Miss? Miss, are you sure you really live here? HELLO, 911 - "
"Gah! I do! It's my friends' shop. I just...my lease went up recently. I'm living here until she gets back from her honeymoon."
Sasuke sighs rather loudly.
Right. Ino Yamanaka. Recently married to a Sai.
This must be the childhood friend Ino had gotten to help take over her shop for a bit.
"You call this a place to live?"
"Well...not exactly. But I'm poor, college is expensive you know? And I haven't even been able to eat real food in a really long time. Do you know how expensive meat is? I just went to buy groceries last week and cabbage was like five dollars! And then don't even get me started on steak. The prices just creep and creep and creep up and how can I even afford to eat? I want Ino and Sai to have the best honeymoon and not worry about anything but money is scarce and I'm using up the last of my pennies to help with their bills...and then I try to keep up with her finances but she has a really tricky system - "
"Miss? Breathe, please." She pauses, her cheeks flushing with a faint splatter of a pale red.
He resists the urge to pinch her cheeks, and takes a moment to consider.
"Did you say you were hungry?"
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"I...couldn't possibly."
"Don't worry. I'm putting it on your bill. It's already tacked with a service fee for your rescue, a maintenance fee because you can't quite stay in that dingy room you call living space. Oh and let's not forget the room I've arranged for you."
He notices the way her eyebrow twitches in response to his taunting.
The two are currently perched in a downtown restaurant that Sakura knows she could never afford in her lifetime. It's very posh and she remembers reading about in on her television. Well. Back when she had an apartment with a television.
The man, whose name she had yet to find out, had offered to buy her dinner. He had even gone so far as to tell her he had managed to find her a room for the night so she could get her bearings together until the morning.
She finds her gaze lingering on him for quite some time.
If he weren't so arrogant she might even claim that he's quite attractive.
Dressed in a fitted business suit as bleak as his apparent soul.
His hair. Dark as midnight blue. So lush looking. Thick wavy strands that are pushed more towards the right side of his head. Disarranged bangs fall over his right eye, the dark color peeking through layered strands.
A tiny splattering of freckles cover the tops of his cheekbones. Very faint but she can see them every time the ray of the ceiling light hits his face.
Illuminating the way his hair flickers from black to this rich shade of navy dark blue.
His chin is decked with a very light trace of dark black stubble.
Glasses he had fixated on the bridge of his nose once they had sat down, glasses that he peered through to glance at the menu. Glasses that were now pointed in her direction.
She swallowed thickly.
What was she to do, really, in this situation?
This man had saved her life in a way.
Now here he was probably buying her dinner.
"So, Miss, Yamanaka Flowers, was it?"
"My name is not Yamanaka Flowers."
A smirk affixed itself to his thin lips.
Thin lips that looked so smooth. No trace of bite marks like her own. Bites where she had irritated the skin.
"Haruno. Sakura Haruno." She outstretched her hand in front of his face.
He blinked once.
Twice.
Before he lifted his hand that had been set on the menu, grasped the plastic clear straw and batted her hand away with it. He chuckled faintly at her outraged expression and the little huff of air that escaped her in frustration.
She muttered darkly under her breath. Profanities. Curses.
"Uchiha. Sasuke Uchiha." He gave in response.
"Demon bastard, more like it."
"What was that? A hundred dollars for a steak combo? My oh my, someone sure is hungry. I wouldn't want to have to pay for that on my own."
They settled into a small pause of silence.
She tried to fumble with the knowledge that a handsome man was in fact trying to help her out of a sticky situation, "Thank you." She mumbled meekly.
"Hn, what was that?"
"Thank you. For helping me. I...really appreciate it."
She noticed the way his eyes seemed to soften.
Just barely. A smidgen.
Before he resumed his position of sitting upright in his cushioned dining chair. His fingers were lightly fanning the folds of the menu, back and forth.
"Well. The middle aged woman of this society need to be protected as well,"
She noticed the way he almost snorted with laughter as she took her menu and lifted it upwards to try and smack him in the face with it.
"Think of it as a favor to Ino. She helps a lot of the businesses around here with atmosphere. Sort of a community service of hers."
"She donates flower pieces? I thought she stopped arranging pieces after..." Sakura trailed off quietly, her voice going soft as she resisted the urge to outburst in front of this stranger again.
He seemed to take notice not to ask, "How about this, Miss Yamanaka's Flowers," Her fingers twitched with the urge to slap the glasses off his face. "Let's wrap your dinner to go. I'll let you settle in my apartment and we'll resume the notions of getting to know each other another day."
"I'm sorry, did you say your apartment?"
"Relax. I'm barely there."
"Like that matters." She grumbled under her breath.
"Yes, waiter, I'd like to add a few more items to the bill..."
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Uchiha. Sasuke Uchiha's apartment turned out to be a really fancy penthouse.
Wide windows offering multiple perspectives of the city.
Sloping ceilings and a huge fireplace.
The kitchen was what made her swallow her urge to cry right then and there. It was top of the line. Marble counters and center island. It was fully stocked and she didn't even want to really touch it. Let alone move anything out of place.
His penthouse was scarce. It wasn't exactly stocked with furniture or even anything remotely homely.
It was all brick and dense hues.
Lots of gray sans little cute sparkly framed photographs affixed to his fireplaeces' mantel.
Mr. Uchiha had left her after dropping her off at this 'apartment.' With regards that he would get her in the morning to return her to Ino's flower shop.
She wasn't really sure why he had been helping her so much.
But she wasn't going to knock his kindness.
Since despite all his teasing and sarcasm, he had bought her dinner after all.
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After a really long and sweltering shower, having changed into a pair of too big baggy sweatpants and just simply removing her blouse to sleep in her white camisole that had been tucked underneath she blinked at the counter.
She had only brought her notebooks from the shop along.
She didn't have her dingy laptop.
Nothing of her own, not her suitcase full of clothes that she had never unbothered to unpack back at her apartment for there wasn't really any space.
She had borrowed a spare toothbrush she had noticed in the medicine cabinet after her shower. Had dabbed at the thick smudges of her eyeliner that had gone askew.
As she sat at the kitchen island counter and returned to what she had been doing hours prior, she sighed as she realized she was succumbing back to her old habits even with this nice place to settle in for the night.
Her head flopped onto the counter and she let her eyelids flutter shut.
Who the hell was this Uchiha?
Uchiha. Uchiha...Sasuke.
Her eyes flashed open as a surprised yelp escaped past her lips.
Uchiha. UCHIHA.
Uchiha Corporations. A company that owned a lot of the business that ran this city.
She groaned and let her head slam back down on the countertop.
Shit.
How was she supposed to repay a man of this caliber?
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So.
Hi.
I will be slowly returning to my other stories. Just have taken a really long break. Life has gotten so uproarious.
This is something that has been festering in my mind for a while. As well as many other ideas. Hence not being able to focus on my other stories that went awry.
I hope you enjoyed.
I don't own Naruto. Nope.