When I was young, I remember my mother always bringing me to a wishing well. I'd look over the top of it, and into the water. Laughing at the reflection I saw. For a reason I didn't know, this event was a weekly thing. We went to the wishing well, I stared into the water, laughed, and then, after a few moments of my mother looking up at the sky with blank eyes, we'd leave.
Since I was only five, I would hardly have noticed that my mother's eyes were not filled with vacancy, but quiet despair. Despair I was not yet prone to.
That all changed when I turned 8. After years of going to the wishing well with my mother every week, without question, I finally asked her.
Why?
Why did we go to such a strange place?
Why did we treat it like some holy ritual?
Why did we only stay a few minutes?
And finally...
Why did she always look up at the sky like that?
I got my answer, when she smiled down at me, squeezed my hand, then leapt into the well, dragging me with her. She would have sunk down immediately, but I was abnormally strong for my age, and managed to hold onto her for longer than any other girl, as young as me, would. But she didn't want me to hold onto her, tying her to the world. She wanted me to hold onto her while I left the world with her.
"The one with the Burned Heart won't ever come for us, Sakura. It's hopeless."
Holding back tears of confusion and sadness and pure, utter anguish, I let go of her.
On my 8th birthday, I killed my own mother.
...
...
wishing well
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...
Sakura Haruno was tired of moving around so much. It was like her father had dragged around the entire world, for Pete's sake! She supposed that every teenager wished to travel as much as she had in her lifetime, but nobody would have enjoyed being ripped away from all their friends, right after they made them, only to go to some new place, where you'd disappear from right away. Again.
God. It was only 3 o'clock in the afternoon and a headache was already forming. To prevent it from growing she rested her head against the headrest of the passenger seat, and looked longingly at her earphones. Unfortunately, she had been listening to her music a bit too loudly, and both buds had blown up.
Which meant she had to try and survive a car ride with her dad. Who liked to rant about his business deals and complain about his co-workers a lot.
This was really not what she wanted to do with her time.
"Uh-huh," she said, as she did every once in awhile to act like she was listening. Her father never noticed the difference.
"Sakura," he said, cheerfully, and it didn't seem to be about work so she decided to listen, "we're almost there. I know you'll like it in the Village Hidden in the Leaves. It's a quaint area; populated by some genuine people." As he turned on the road, he repeated, "You'll like it."
Sakura restrained herself from pointing out that that was what he had said about every other place they moved to. It was her dad's fault after all. It was her dad's job's fault. And that was why she would always and forever hate That of The Career Her Dad Was In Which She Totally Knew The Name Of But Was Blanking on At The Moment.
"Okay, dad," she tried to say in an upbeat way. It came out forced but her dad didn't seem to care, so she just lay her head back down and continued to stare at her earphones, as he resumed talking about Bleh.
And then they entered Konoha.
Sakura had moved to many towns before and thus she was well-versed in seeing all kinds of places. From ugly villages to beautiful kingdoms, from farms to factories, from mountains to oceans. Sakura had seen it all.
Konoha was the exception to the rule.
It was not as quaint as her father apparently thought it was. There was a large mountain, with faces carved onto it in the very entrance of the town. The houses ranged from big to small, and the rich and the poor seemed to be very much in unity.
Suffice to say, Sakura was shocked speechless.
Her father was obviously not sure what her gaping silence meant and kept scratching his head nervously as he continued to drive. She didn't ease his fears; it didn't really matter. No matter where they moved, she never complained. If she did, her father would probably do something drastic and end up without a job.
When they reached their new house—not a mansion, not a hut, a nice, calm, in-between—her father shut off the engine and turned to her.
"Sakura," he said, his eyes serious and a tiny bit desperate. Desperate for acceptance from her, because he didn't want to be a horrible father and just take her everywhere on a whim, she thought.
But he would never be a terrible father. "It's perfect, dad." She smiled to drive home her point, and he sagged against his seat relieved. Then he reached out and pulled her into a hug.
"Thank God," he murmured against her hair.
She reached up and patted his head.
Sakura was the new girl.
She had been the new girl dozens of times before. She knew the routine. Get in, talk to people in a civilized manner—maybe, make some friends—and get out as quickly as possible.
She knew the routine and she knew how to be the new girl. But that didn't mean she liked it.
"Hello," she said to her first teacher, a man by the name of Iruka, with gentle dark eyes, dark hair, and a curious and painful-looking scar across the bridge of his nose. "I'm the new student: Haruno Sakura."
He looked up at her from his desk and smiled. "Ah, yes! Haruno-chan, I'm glad to have you in my class. I've looked over your previous records and I must say I'm impressed. You have excellent math scores."
She didn't smile back, merely stood there and waited. Iruka-sensei's smile slipped after a second, perhaps because he hadn't expected someone so dull for a new student. But it wasn't that Sakura was dull. Her mind was just preoccupied. The classroom was loud and bustling with activity and her short attention span couldn't concentrate on any one thing.
It may have been late, and Iruka probably missed it, but Sakura smiled back.
"You can go sit next to….TenTen! Yes, TenTen. She's having a little trouble in math, and I usually have you work with the person sitting next to you, so if you don't mind….?"
Sakura shook her head. She was good at helping people out with school work—when she wasn't getting distracted by every breeze of wind that whooshed by.
TenTen looked up, when she came nearer. "Hey! You're the New Girl right?" At Sakura's face, she laughed and said, "Well, 'm just callin' it like I see it. 'nless you prefer Pinkie?" Her face was so devilish that Sakura couldn't help but immediately like her.
"No, actually, I prefer The Girl Who Really Does Not Wanna Be Here Right Now."
TenTen snorted. "Get in line, sweetheart. We aaaaall wish that." To emphasize her point, she gestured towards a boy at the back of the classroom, who was snoring his way through the worksheet on his desk.
"Didn't realize that person was a she," Sakura mused. "Guess I should pay more attention to those body parts, huh."
TenTen chuckled—because it was a chuckle, Sakura noted. Not a giggle or a laugh—TenTen didn't seem like the type to be capable of such girly, high-pitched noises. It was a low, throaty chuckle, as husky as her voice was.
"You're funny," TenTen decided. "So. Pinkie. What's your story?"
"There's no story," Sakura replied, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear and sitting down.
"There has to be a story," the bunned-girl declared. "There always is."
Sakura's lips turned up at the corners. "Guess I'm just not interesting enough to have a story." Then, she took out a pencil from her bag and started working on the problems in front of her.
She didn't catch the look TenTen gave her—clearly, one that disagreed with her last statement.
TenTen had apparently taken it upon herself to get Sakura situated into school. She took the pink-haired girl with her to lunch and introduced her to her friends. Sakura wasn't sure she could remember all the names but some stood out.
Like, when TenTen pointed at a boy with long brown hair and opaque eyes and said, "That sissy over there? That's my boyfriend, Hyuuga Neji." And Sakura couldn't help but laugh.
TenTen's friends were just like her, in the sense that they were all strange and different and stared at Sakura like they were waiting for something to happen.
But nothing did.
One boy, a pretty dark-haired boy with dark eyes, by the name of Sasuke sat next to her the entire day and she couldn't help but keep glancing at him. Not, despite what others may have thought, because she thought he was pretty—though, she did—but because he seemed to be intensely staring at her as well, when he thought she wasn't looking.
The others noticed. A whisker-cheeked boy named Naruto slapped Sasuke on the back and said, "Teme, why are staring at Sakura-chan like such a creep? You're gonna scare her off!"
She opened her mouth and said, conversationally, "I don't scare easily, thank you very much."
And then the entire group started talking about scary movies and ghosts and all their most ridiculous fears and Sakura giggled and giggled the entire time.
But Sasuke did not stop staring at her.
A/N: TWO STORIES IN ONE DAY OMFG WHAT AM I DOING I'M SORRY BRAIN.
ALSO. Sasuke has...reasons for staring at Sakura. IT WILL ALL BE EXPLAINED IN DUE TIME, YOUNG JEDI.
Please reviewwwwww~
edit: I JUST HAD TO CHANGE THE LAST PART OK OTL.