Disclaimer : I don't own Naruto

Chapter 2

From as early as I can remember, until the age of 12, I used to be a pageant princess. Elegance, poise, stature. Point your toes. Tilt your head. Walk around the stage and hit your marks without looking down. Blow a kiss to the judges. And smile, smile, SMILE. The perfect hair, smile, teeth, complexion. Of course I had to wear a wig because my own natural pink hair was too unseemly for serious competitions. Putting on glamorous dresses that would be considered OTP and cheap at one of mother's events.

Ironically enough, it was my mother who decided to introduce me to that lifestyle, trying to instill some of the ladylike qualities that my older sister Danika never had.

Every child wants their parents to notice them to some extent. For Danika it meant becoming a drug addict. For our older brother Aiden it meant spitting in our parents faces by declining the position as head of the company and cutting off communication with our family.

But I was different. I craved nothing more than to please our parents. I used to be so hopelessly optimistic. Every morning I'd go to my father and smile and wish him well as he headed of to work. And every morning he'd just stare at me impassively and walk away, never looking back as he left the house.

"Your father is a very busy man," Yuri, my nanny used to say.

Danika used to just roll her eyes. I was too young to remember Aiden, who'd left home when I was just 3. But Danika had been 8 at the time - old enough to understand that while all three of us may have been their children, as the oldest and only male, Aiden was the one they cherished the most. He was expected to inherit the the family business and continue the family name. After he left, our parents seemed to distance themselves even further from us. It hurt knowing I'd always live in my siblings shadow, but still I hoped that if I tried hard enough that they'd eventually love me. Or at the very least see me.

Pageants were the only time my mother noticed my existance. Usually her days consisted of swarees and meetings with other businessmen's wives, the occasional charity event. She lived the life of a socialite and she enjoyed it. But I'd like to think the pageants somehow brought us closer together...

I loved the rush of getting on stage and becoming someone else - different hair, make-up, dressing. Even my teeth and eyelashes were fake. Being in pageants taught me composure. I learnt to mask my feelings and instead portray a girl whose biggest problem was the length of her skirt.

It was fickle and vain and not something alot of people know about me. But pageants did end up teaching me how to cover my disappointment.

I'm not sure when it happened, but around the age of 12 my mother stopped entering me in pageants completely. It made no sense considering how well I performed in them, but I didn't complain. By that point I'd learnt not to expect anything from either of my parents.

You can't be disappointed if you never had any expectations in the first place. That was my motto. I'd say it over and over and over again. Every time they'd miss a school concert, or a parent-teacher conference, or a birthday.

Fake a smile. Maintain eye contact with the judges - of course in this case the judges were my classmates. Posture - don't look down when you walk. And most importantly, don't let anyone see your flaws.

I was too proud to let anyone see the inner turmoil going on within me.

And then, around the 16th summer of my life, I was assigned a project with none other than Uchiha Sasuke. He saw the pain I had tried my whole life to conceal. He was the only one who saw. The only one who understood.

As the second son of successful businessman he could relate.

He broke through my defenses with his snark and cynicism, and not even the fact that our families hated each other was enough to deter us.

We were both selfish; using each other to fill the emptiness within ourselves. We had no illusions about how wrong it was, but we were too reckless to care.

You can't be disappointed if you have no expectations.

I tried to convince myself that I had no expectations towards Sasuke. Nevertheless, I was still caught totally of guard by his engagement.

Thanks for reading it. Please review. Next chapter will definitely be longer and it won't be from Sakura's POV