Disclaimer: I bow down before the almighty Kishimoto sensei and present my respects. Characters are not mine; I'm just borrowing them for awhile.
AN: Please read and review to support this newbie (Dokutenshi). I will try to update the story regularly. Enjoy =3
Prologue: Running
Japan.
At 1 o'clock in the afternoon as class resumed after lunch, a lone hysterical scream resounded from the back of the school.
It drew everyone's attention, and Sawada sensei's class was no exception. Speculations abounded regarding the reason for the screams - a prank, a ghost, or perhaps armed intruders! Amidst the noise, several adventurous students snuck out of the room, presumably to find out what happened. Sawada sensei strained his voice hoarse trying to calm the class down, and it worked to a degree. As the noise lessened, yells of "she committed suicide!" could be heard coming from the back courtyard. In a clamor of knocked-over chairs and crashing objects, everyone dashed toward the door and squeezed through except for one straggler. Uchiha Sasuke walked out of the class somewhat leisurely - he wasn't all that interested.
The name of the girl who hanged herself on the sakura tree in the middle of the courtyard was Sugimura Michiko. Her body in death was fascinating in a grotesque way. The neck twisted in a way impossible in life, deep purple bruises and fraying ropes marring her formerly pristine throat. Everyone stared at her neck with eyes affixed until a girl noticed something clutched in her hand. It was a sheet of paper, colored pink and lightly perfumed. It read simply "Sasuke-kun, I will love you even in death." When she had read it aloud, the crowds parted silently before Sasuke as he arrived late, thousands of eyes staring, contemplating, and piercing through him.
Nothing showed up on Sasuke's face, but his heart clenched. Despite his seemingly apathetic attitude, largely due to childhood neglect and a cold environment, he wasn't a heartless bastard, especially when it's someone he knew well, and cared for. Sugimura Michiko was an extremely shy girl who has always tried to make herself as small and unnoticeable as possible, but this only made other girls shun her because she was too shy to make any attempts at friendship. Girls sometimes bullied her, and it was so easy considering that she would never speak up. For some reason, Sasuke felt some sympathy for this girl, and she was quiet, unlike the annoying girls who shrieked his name all the time and confessed their "love" to him constantly. So over several months, he helped Michiko gain some confidence, and surprisingly, she confessed to him this morning – he said no, but he should've known that it would be different from rejecting a girl with confidence, and guilt began to swallow him.
He barely registered being pulled away by the police, and being asked questions that were intercepted by Hatake Kakashi, one of the lawyers who worked for the Uchiha house and a close family friend. Sasuke wondered why Kakashi would be here already – wait, of course he would, Uchiha Fugaku is the police chief after all. Ushered into a private conference room at the police station, most of the Uchiha elders have already gathered. Without courtesy, the questions came.
"Who is she?"
"A classmate -"
"Not girlfriend? What is her relationship to you then?"
"Who I helped out, well, to help her gain confidence because she's so shy that-"
"Good. Contact our publicity agency, and inform the media. We'll hold a press conference immediately to strike first, emphasizing that stupid girl's personality and it was none of Sasuke's fault. There's a possibility that Uchiha Shuji might become prime minister this year, nothing must taint the Uchiha name!" An elder interrupted Sasuke.
With a conspiratorial grin, another elder turned to Sasuke and said, "At least the reason wasn't you cheating on her, eh? But even if you did, house Uchiha has too many contacts and too much money, hah, no one would ever know." Sasuke began to feel sick, violently so. All these years of emphasizing the clan, the clan, and the clan!
He didn't attend school for several days. The media portrayal of him was sympathetic of course, how terrible it must have been for him to have unwanted attention from a silly girl. When he heard that Kakashi was going to be working as a long-term intermediary between the American branch of one of the Uchiha businesses and company headquarters in Tokyo, he packed a simple suitcase and told Kakashi that he was going no matter what, and damn house Uchiha for all he cares. So he boarded the plane with Kakashi and ran away.