"Mom...are you okay?" Sakura whispered. The seats under them jostled slightly with the movement of the train. Her mother didn't look up, only stared straight ahead and didn't answer. Sakura sat back, deciding to let it go. She leaned her pink head back against the headrest and closed her eyes.

"We're going to Konoha," her mother said suddenly, making her jump.

"What?"

"Konoha. That's where we're moving. I didn't tell your father. And you shouldn't either."

"Mother," Sakura said, indignant, "we just escaped near death because of him. What the hell would make you think I'd tell him where we live?"

"Just being careful, love." Her mother was quiet again.

"Arriving at: Suna," the train's PA said, and many passengers around the two women bustled and gathered their things. "Next stop: Konoha."

'That's our new home,' Sakura thought to herself. She drew her knees up under her chin and wrapped her arms around her legs, burying her face in the skin of her knee. Another twenty minutes and they'd be there.

Everything in her life would be different. She didn't have to deal with the people at her school, those people who thought she was their "friend", when really; they just wanted to use her to get popular. People who were jealous of her, or hated her for turning them down. She was finally free from the rumors started about her every other day.

But she'd take it all back if it meant going home.

This was a scary new prospect. A new house—that was one thing—but an entire new city to live in was something different. At least she had her mother, and she wasn't going to boarding school. She hoped.

"Arriving at: Konoha." The train's PA said again. Sakura's mother got up and started getting their things together. Sakura followed suit.

"We're going to my sister's place," her mother said. "She said she might be able to get us an apartment." The train screeched to a halt and the doors opened slowly. Sakura followed her mother off the train and onto the platform, made of sand colored stone. It was the biggest train station she'd ever seen. She gaped at the number of people she could see, and almost didn't see when her mother walked away. She hurried after her, not wanting to get lost.

Her mother led her through the streets, both carrying bags on their backs with barely anything other than clothes in them, until they reached a small house with a red door. There were shutters and an old-fashioned knocker.

"Knock, please, Sakura, I can barely reach it." It's true. Sakura was taller than her mother, but only by a few inches. The pink haired girl reached up, grasped the knocker and banged it twice against the door. The sound seemed to echo and reverberate; filling Sakura with a kind of nervousness she'd never known.

The reality of the situation hit her then and there: They were running away. From home. From their family. From everything they had. She shrank back from the door and allowed her mother to take the lead from there.

Footsteps and the creak of the hinges made her pay attention as the door opened, and out peered a woman with piercing green eyes, just like Sakura's. The woman looked first to Sakura's mother, and then back to the girl who shared her eyes.

"Yuko?" The woman said. Sakura's mother nodded. "What are you doing here?" Her eyes were wide in surprise. She opened the door and invited them in.

"Well, uh...I emailed you, but I don't know if you got it...I need help, Mayu." Sakura's eyes flew between the two women in front of her. Mayu and Yuko. Sisters who hadn't spoken in years. Women who hadn't seen each other since god only know when, and here they were talking like it hadn't been more than a few minutes.

Mayu served tea, and sat down at the table, preparing herself. "You're not pregnant again, are you?"

"Oh, God! No! No!" Then in a lower voice, she whispered, "he hasn't touched me in months." Sakura winced, not wanting to hear such things. That was her parents' sex life--which was now over, by the way--and she didn't need to know what went on. "Actually, we ran out." Mayu covered her mouth at Yuko's confession.

"Really? Oh, good, that guy was a bastard if I ever saw one." She made a disgusted noise from the back of her throat. "Anyway, what can I do?"

"We need a place to stay. At least for the night. Until we can get an apartment or something more permanent." Sakura could almost see her mother biting her lip nervously in the hopes that they'd be allowed to stay there for a night, maybe two.

"Well...it might be a stretch, but..." Score. My mom knew we were staying. "I've got a pull out couch in the basement. You two would have to share, but..."

"That's fine. We don't mind at all. Thank you so much, Mayu!" The door closed and the two women were left alone. Sakura gave her mother a look.

"What?" She asked. "Okay, it's small. We can't stay here for long...but we won't! I promise! I'll go out tomorrow and look to see if someone's subletting an apartment. And then we'll move out. I promise." Sakura shrugged and sat down on the lumpy bed, covered in dust, coughing when said dust rose into the air and swirled around her.

"I'll take the floor," she said, and beat one of the pillows until it was clean.

The next day, Sakura woke up with a stiff back. Her mother woke a few minutes after her and together they set out looking for apartments, Sakura coming along more because she didn't want to stay in that house with the aunt she'd never met alone.

"What about this one?" Her mother asked. No matter how big, or beautiful, or reasonably priced it was, Sakura would always find something wrong with it.

"It's too cramped in here," she'd say, or "I don't like the living room layout." She really just missed her old town. She'd had friends there. And it took her a long time to make those friends.

By the end of the day, Yuko had had to pick one herself, because Sakura wasn't cooperating. It was one that Sakura did like, but refused to admit, because it had a nice view and spacious closets. It was also very cheap. If Yuko got a job, she'd be able to afford it easily.

"Alright, then let's move in."

"One problem, Mom."

"What?"

"We have no furniture."

"We have beds. And a couch. I had a friend of mine get them from the house and send them over. But we'll have to eat on the floor for a while, at least until I've saved up enough for a table."

"Alright." Sakura sighed. Then she stayed outside the house on the steps while her mother ran back to her sister's house and retrieved their things. She put her head in her hands and sighed loudly while staring at the setting sun. It turned the sky a pinkish orange color that she'd never seen before. She found it mesmerizing and repulsive, and eventually turned her head, deciding to watch the people pass by on the streets.

And that was when she saw the most gorgeous man she'd ever laid eyes on.