Chapter 1: Life Isn't Easy

Let's put this straight, Sakura didn't hate her life. To an outsider, like yourself, her life might look bad – perhaps, even terrible. But she didn't mind that and she most definitely didn't care about it either. She knew the truth and that's all that mattered in her mind. There was a sturdy roof over her head every night. She was in the kitchen, cooking up a delicious meal. Her father, Fujitaka Kinomoto, wasn't abusive and he wasn't in prison either. That basically put her at a huge advantage in comparison to the rest of the kids who lived on her street. Most importantly, she had Hiro. He looked out for her, and, for the most part – albeit, in an unconventional, fucked-up way – she felt loved.

Most of the time.

But feeling loved didn't translate to mean that she was happy with her life. It didn't mean that she was pleased with the street she lived on that managed to taint every single man, woman, and child that was unlucky enough to land there. It didn't mean that she wouldn't try to run away at the first chance she was given.

She lived in Tokyo, the city that sucked out your soul and spat out whatever's left of you. Your job is to pick up the pieces and find out who you are.

She was about to do that. She was planning on doing that. Sooner or later.

Sakura flipped and tossed the chicken that was searing in the pan. It hissed with delight. She stirred the boiling rice in the pot two steps to her left. Teriyaki, just how Hiro liked it. She walked over to the sink and washed her hands. Looking out the window, the screen was hole-ridden and the frame rusty and eaten by the scorching heat and age. Then she smiled. Hiro was kneeling on the yellow overgrown grass, in front of the cracked, bruised asphalt of the road, working on his Harley. As if he sensed that she was watching him, he lifted his gaze to meet hers.

Possessive. Strict. A little on the crazy side. But, he's her family nonetheless.

Hiro wasn't her biological brother. Her mum, Nadeshiko, died in a car accident when she was only two years old. Sakura doesn't remember her, and although she's a bit miffed at the fact that she never got to know her own mother, it was her dad that she was truly worried about. The only thing that Sakura has of her late mother was an old, beat-up camera from the nineties, and she held on to it like it was her lifeline.

She used to use the high school's dark room to develop the film herself, but now, she would have to figure something else out. Sakura is auto-didactic. Self-taught, if you will. That doesn't come without a price, because she's probably no good, but taking photos is what she loves. Her father always said that Nadeshiko had a camera in her hands at all times. It's funny how things can be passed down without even meeting or knowing the person. In a way, Sakura felt a connection to Nadeshiko.

A few years after Nadeshiko passed away, Sakura's dad took another stab at dating. Enter Emiko and twelve-year-old Hiro. She knew Emiko was bad news for her dad. Even at the tender age of six. She smelled like cheap perfume and smoke and she always went out of her way to make Sakura feel like a burden. But Fujitaka seemed happy – at first, anyway – and she got Hiro. So, it wasn't all bad. Over the next six years, however, things deteriorated, along with their relationship. Emiko started skipping out on them for days at a time, and even flaunted other men in front of Sakura's dad. After more than a few knock-down, dragged-out fights, Emiko had finally bailed for good. When Fujitaka found Hiro, who was only sixteen, packing his things up, he told him to unpack his shit and go set the table for dinner, and that was it. Emiko was out, and Hiro was staying for good. When Sakura asked her dad why she left, his response was something along the lines of, "Emiko's a slut. Don't be like her."

The night Emiko left was the first night Sakura snuck into Hiro's room. It was innocent, of course. Sakura had only wanted to comfort him, even though he showed no signs of being particularly saddened by his mum's absence. At first, he stiffened when he felt the bed dip under her weight. But her intuition had been right, because that night, Hiro held her and cried himself to sleep while she rubbed his arm and sniffed quietly. He never cried again, and they never spoke about it, but he still sleeps with her on occasion. Except now, it was Hiro who snuck into her room.

And it wasn't innocent. Not anymore.

The years passed, as they always do, while Hiro still lived at home, neither her dad nor Sakura wanted to see him leave. Maybe it was because her dad was rarely at home. He made the Tokyo-Tomoeda route twice a week, and occasionally he took longer trips that had him on the road for weeks at a time, which left him very little time for actual parenting. Since sleeping be herself in this rundown house, in this horrific neighbourhood was pretty much a death sentence, she was happy to have Hiro by her side. With his tall frame, bugling tattooed muscles, uniform of wife beater and don't-fuck-with-me expression plastered to his face, you'd have to be stupid to break into their house.

And it wasn't the only reason she was happy to have him around. She needed him. They needed each other. It has always been them against the world. Not that the world was particularly against them. The world just didn't care for people like them.

She started making the sauce for the meal. Soy sauce. Honey. Water. A shit-ton of garlic. Sakura had read the receipt on the internet somewhere after she had seen it on some cooking show that she always watched with Hiro in the afternoon.

Maybe it would make him crack a goddamn smile for once. He had always been a bit of a ticking time bomb. The homemade, highly unpredictable type. But as of late, she had been feeling like he was seconds away from exploding.

Tick, tick tick.

For the rest of the meal prep, she was on autopilot. She chopped, stirred, drained, flipped and arranged everything on two plates. She took out bottles of Sake from the fridge and placed them on the table. Then she proceeded to kick the whiny door and bang her fist against the screen a few times to draw his attention.

"Dinner's ready," she yelled.

"Two secs." She could hear the clink of heavy tools dropping onto the concrete near the yellow grass he was kneeling on. His bike had been fucked for two weeks now, and he can't take it to the shop because he spent his last few bucks on bailing out his best mate, Saito. Not that having a broken-down bike had slowed him down anyway. The guy was never home anymore.

"Food's getting cold. Get your ass inside or I'm eating without you," she muttered and slammed the screen door with a bang.

She waited for him, slouched on the chair in front of her plate, scrolling her thumb along the touch-screen of her phone – it was one of the three things that her dad made sure we'd always budget for: the rent, the food, and her phone. Most kids would be pissed to have an older mode, but she was just happy that the thing had internet capabilities. Hiro sauntered in and collapsed on the chair opposite Sakura. He didn't bother to wash his dirtied, greasy hands.

She chanced a glance at him. Hiro looked like a man. He had looked that way for a long time now. His arms were ripped – not in the gym rat way, just in the way of a guy who does manual labour – and his body is big, wide, and commanding. Long, dirty black hair that almost touched his shoulders, brown eyes, cut bone structure – the only good thing he inherited from his deadbeat real dad.

Every time they hung outside the house together – which, admittedly, wasn't often nowadays – girls that went to Sakura's school would throw themselves at him. He screwed half of them – even though they were underage. It was half the charm about him. Other than the fact that he was inked from head-to-toe. It was that slightly unstable, dangerous vibe that he gave off. Every girl wanted to be a good girl until a bad boy whisks her off her feet and corrupts her.

And every girl hated the one who stood in their way. That would be Sakura. At least in their minds. Sure, Hiro would fuck them, but that's all they ever got. He always stood a little too close to Sakura, stared a little too long. They noticed. And they were ruthless. So, she was deemed the brother fucker. She didn't really care. Hiro didn't help mattered by forbidding the entire male population of Musashi High School to stay far away from her. He was out of high school before I even began, but he was somewhat of a legend around there. No one in their right mind would willingly cross him.

"How's the chicken?" she asked, keeping her eyes on her own piece of meat as she sliced it carefully.

"Juicy." He laughed, his mouth full. From her peripheral, she could see a trail of liquid traveling from the corner of his lip to his chin, but he didn't make any move to wipe it.

He took another bite, his eyes honed in on her. "So, when are you turning eighteen?"

"You're her brother," she grinded out. "Shouldn't you at least pretend to know this kind of crap?"

"I'm a shit brother," he retorted, his voice as dry as his chicken is juicy. "And when asked a question, you fucking answer. It's really that simple, Kura."

He called her Kura. Her name was Sakura, and her friends called her Saks, but Hiro, much to her dismay, had been calling her Kura since day one.

"April first," she groaned. Hiro moved his eyes up and down her body as much as he could with the barrier that was the table between them.

"What's two more weeks?" he mumbled as he rubbed his lower lip with his thumb.

"Until what?" she asked, playing dumb. He knows she wasn't dumb. In fact, he resented the fact that she wanted more out of life than her high school diploma. But his comments have become increasingly inappropriate over the past few months, and even though it was flattering, sometimes alarm bells go off in her head.

"Until your big brother can show you just how much he loves you." Hiro chuckled sinisterly. She let loose a nervous smile.

She knew Hiro wanted to get her into bed, but more than that, he wanted to own her. Own her thoughts, her actions, her body. He thought he already did. In his twisted mind, he called it love. Why wouldn't he? It's not like Hiro had ever seen a good example of it. Hell, neither had she. In his mind, he protected her, took care of her, and he needed her. In a way, she needed him, too. But, she just couldn't ever see them happening. This – what they were doing at the moment – was what the rest of her life would look like. Sakura cooking dinner, wishing she was anywhere else, and Hiro being perfectly content to work on his bike and get tanked with his shitty friends every night. No, thank you. She was going to have to pass on that one.

It wasn't like the attraction wasn't there. She had a major crush on him when she was younger. She thought he hung the moon and the stars, making everything brighter in her dull universe, and she thought she did the same thing for him. But if he were the one, it wouldn't feel so freaking wrong every time his throbbing dick "accidentally" pressed against her ass at night.

Getting up from her seat, Sakura took the plates to the sink and sauntered back with a new beer, cracking it open in front of him. When she did this, he snaked one arm around her waist and grabbed her in one swift movement so that she was straddling him on his lap. She could feel the seam of his zipper grinding into her crotch. She wasn't gonna lie – it felt nice.

"Hey," he breathed into her mouth, always a whisper from a kiss, but never there. Where he wanted to be.

"Hi." she swallowed visibly.

"So." His hand travelled into her inner thigh, and she felt something stiffen underneath her. She took a deep breath. The room was dark and dingy and small, cluttered with old furniture, with their pasts. It wasn't exactly romantic, but she couldn't deny the heady feeling coursing through her.

"You a virgin, Kura?" he whispered into her lips again, and this time it could qualify as a kiss. A part of her wanted it to. The other part begs her not to go over that invisible, fragile line that she was straddling just now. "You saved yourself for me? Kept this untouched?" His fingers hovered over her groin, barely touching.

"No." The word comes out more like a groan. Never mind the fact that she had only done it twice. She didn't need to tell him who it was. He knew. Ryosuke Ikuta. Eleventh grade. The only guy she dated for more than two months before she got bored. They actually made it through a whole semester before she dumped his ass. She didn't care that she had given him her virginity. She wasn't waiting for "the one". To be honest, she had never really thought that one person putting their body part into another person was that big of a deal. It's probably a good thing she didn't have high hopes, because both times were pretty anticlimactic.

There's something in Hiro's already-hooded expression that becomes even darker and more severe, and for a minute, her heart beat faster for the wrong reason. Not because she was excited, but because she was unnerved. She waited, studying his expression carefully, before his hard stare turned into a half-assed, placid smile.

"Good," he said and squeezed her butt a little too hard, indicating that he didn't think it was good at all. "I don't think you could handle me without a little practice, anyway."

Then his lips weren't hovering anymore – they're kissing – not slowly either. He didn't ask for permission. He is not tentative or unsure. His tongue invades her mouth in an instant, and it caught her off-guard. As she sucked in some air, he takes the opportunity to deepen the kiss. Sakura placed both hands on his cheeks to ease him away, but he threw her hands off.

Possessive. Hungry. Angry.

"You taste like heaven, little sister," he hissed into her mouth. Nothing about this felt right. People knew them as brother and sister. The fact that they weren't blood-related was only somewhat consoling. Hell, even the kiss doesn't feel right. Like they were doing it all wrong. She felt him squeezing her ass harder, digging his dirty fingernails into her flesh, and winced.

"I've been waiting so long for this." His words not only pierced – they penetrated her – along with his fingers that are now dragging themselves slowly, roughly toward her sex. She breathed out harshly.

"Hiro," she dropped her forehead to his, "you're hurting me."

"I know." His tongue continued attacking her mouth, his hands even more aggressive on her than before.

Panic. It trickled into her slowly. She knew Hiro. Knew him well. He wasn't a bad guy – definitely not a good guy, but not a rapist either – and he knew damn well her dad would kill him if he ever seriously wronged her.

"You're starting school tomorrow," he said, licking his way down to her chin and neck. She let him, and even though she didn't want this, she couldn't help her body's reaction to his touch. It's humming, singing, asking for more. And why not give in to feeling good with someone she knew and trusted with her life? Still, something held her back.

"How you gonna get all the way to Tokyo Private every day?"

"Take the bus," she answered flatly. She wasn't giving up on this opportunity. Her dad somehow came up with her tuition to one of the best high schools in Tokyo. Private. Top-notch. Said he had been saving for years, and only just now – her senior year – saved enough to send her. Not that she was complaining. She had a feeling that her dad secretly felt guilty about being gone so often. That, and he had heard what the kids at school were saying about her. That Sakura's a whore. A slut. A brother fucker.

After her best friend, Tomoyo, moved away, they got worse. She was a lone ranger. An easy target. The boys were all afraid to interact with her – pussies – but the girls? Girls are vicious and sneaky. Like the boys, they're also afraid of Hiro, but they did shit on the down low. Stashing shit – literal shit – in Sakura's locker. Stealing her clothes when she was in the shower after P.E. Stuff that couldn't be directly traced back to them, even though everyone knew who did it. And while Sakura honestly never really cared what other people thought of her, she was being offered a golden ticket out of this shithole town, and she wasn't giving it up. Especially not for something as miniscule as transportation.

"The buses don't run that early, baby girl." Hiro laughed, and why did she think he was that attractive in the first place? His smile is too big, his teeth too pointy, like a wolf's, and the scent of his sweat is too sour.

"Nice try. I checked, Hiro. They're twenty-four hours."

"You can walk, my ass." He pulled his head back, laughing. "You're not taking the bus alone. I'm giving you a ride back and forth, got it?"

She hated depending on anyone for anything. She may not have a car, but she has worked since the day she turned fourteen. Her dad signed a waiver, much to Hiro's dismay, and she got a job at the 7/11 around the corner – where she reluctantly quit once she found out she wouldn't have time to work when school started. When she need to be somewhere, she walked or rode her bike. Sakura despised being dependent on anyone, but if there was one thing she hated more, it was mornings. Specifically, early mornings. And to get to school on time, she'd have to wake up at an ungodly hour.

She wanted to say no.

She should've say no.

But as his rock-hard erection grinded into her violently, she said something else entirely.

"Fine."