As the Waves Crash In
Sakura Haruno should have been the perfect daughter. Her father, Hisashi Haruno, was the owner of a large shipping corporation known worldwide, and as such, she was expected to always act in a perfect manner befitting a noblewoman. However, she had always been a wanton and crude little girl, always playing with the boys, and never understanding why it should be wrong. Everything was better in a boy's world; there was no whispering behind backs- everything was straightforward, and there weren't as many rules. She didn't feel like she had to hold her tongue and not say what she truly felt when she was around them, because they never judged her, no matter what she did. But the best part of spending time with boys is that they shared the same interests. Ever since she was a little girl, and her father gave her her first tour of his company, she had fallen in love with sailing. When she saw all those beautiful, sleek boats, she felt something stir inside her that had never stirred before. She begged her father relentlessly to let her take a ride on one, and when he gave in, she felt like she was in heaven. There is nothing like the feeling of the wind blowing your hair, carrying the salty smell of the ocean. Nothing can compare to the feeling of being on top of the world when you climb up the rigging and hang on for dear life to the mainmast and look out across the ocean in all its glory. She knew from that moment that she would be the happiest person alive if she could just spend every day of the rest of her life on a ship. She shared these thoughts with her boys, and they fully agreed with her, so they spent every day after that planning their lives on the open ocean. Oh, how naïve she was; it could never be.
"I will not have my daughter have a reputation for being a harlot!" She heard her father say to her mother one night while sneaking in the kitchen to get a glass of water. "If I see her hanging around those boys any more, I'm going to send her to Miss Lillian's School for Young Ladies, so she won't be such an embarrassment to me!"
That was her first awakening. She had never noticed that none of the other young ladies spent so much time with men; she thought everybody could be friends with anyone they wanted. However, in high society, males and females are strictly separated, but being only fifteen, she hadn't been told that yet, and her father had only started to notice. After hearing what her father said about her, she listened more to the conversations between the women of high society. They said such nasty things. "I doubt she's even a maiden anymore, what with hanging around those young men all the time. She practically belongs in a brothel; I can't even imagine the diseases she's ridden with." Hearing that shocked her to her core. How could people who had seemed so nice be so cold and heartless? She didn't know it was wrong! After that, she ran home crying and locked herself in her room, until she made a decision about what to do.
The following day, she steeled herself, and went down to the usual meeting place for her and her boys by the dock, and forced herself to say the words that she knew deep inside her she did not believe to be true. "I have seen the error of my ways, and now realizing the impropriety of our friendship, I believe we should never speak again unless in a social setting with our parents there to watch over us." She knew in her heart that this was wrong, so wrong, but what she wanted more than anything at the time was her father's approval, and the only way she could receive that were if she no longer had any connection to her best friends. For the days that followed, all she could think about was how much she missed her friends, and wishing she could go to the dock just one more time, to talk about sailing and fighting pirates and carrying cargo across the seven seas. She forced herself not to, though, as she feared her now-important reputation more than she ever had.
However, her father noticed her sudden change, and he was rather pleased. As a reward for the fantastic behavior befitting the daughter of a man with such prestige, he bought her a gorgeous dress in the latest fashion, and got tickets to the horse races later in the day. It was the most beautiful dress she had ever seen in her life; the bodice was an olive green that complemented her light green eyes and pink hair, and the skirts were cream with pink flowers, and lace edged the cuffs of the sleeves and the bottom of the dress that brushed across the ground delicately when she walked. She had never felt more beautiful in her entire life.
As she walked proudly with her father into the stands of the track, all eyes were on her, and a sudden hush went across the entire crowd. Her father, now with a smug smile on his face, proudly led his daughter to their seats in their private box near the front row. From the beginning of the race, young men would continually request to speak with Sakura and her father. They brought her roses and daffodils and every other flower you could possibly imagine. Her father grew more smug as the day went on, knowing without a doubt that he had the most beautiful daughter in all the world, and obviously it was all thanks to him. Throughout the proceedings, though, Sakura felt herself growing more and more bored as each man passed by her with sweet nothings and promises of more flowers to come. How can women handle this all the time? I'd rather be drawn and quartered than sit here any longer, she thought. She was nearly asleep with boredom, when suddenly behind her, she felt a piece of cloth wrap around her neck, and a man whispered in her ear "Make a single noise, and I can assure you, you'll be dead before you can even scream." She felt her heart beating faster than she thought possible, but bit her tongue so she would survive for at least a little bit longer. Looking quickly to her left, she could see her father had been drugged and was completely out, and everybody else was gone. Apparently she had fallen asleep after all. Suddenly, she felt the man pick her up as he placed a cloth over her mouth that smelled rather funny, but before she could think of what it could mean, she was out.