AN: Hi! I'm finally uploading a new chapter on this fic, only three more left! I also changed the name of this fic after a bit of deliberation. I felt like the other title didn't do this work complete justice, but please let me know what you think. I'm thinking about uploading a oneshot, but I'm definitely still editing it. With school starting again updates are going to be really sporadic.
In this life, Sakura Haruno was born into a family cursed with grand misfortune. Her daily life consisted of working arduously every day but only barely getting by. Her years of education were trying for both her and her young parents. Her inability to focus in class and the way her mind constantly mixed up letters had landed her at the back of her class. Even with the abundance of parent-teacher conferences, the girl could never manage to keep up with the rest of her peers.
Her childhood was a blur of warm smiles from her mother, hearty laughs from her father, and a cloud of poverty that hung over the Haruno household. The small family never had enough money, and while her parents had always managed to get food on the table, extraneous things were never found in their tiny household. Her childhood house, a small building in a working-class neighborhood next to a busy highway, had chipped white paint, a heater that was didn't work and at least two broken windows at all times. To this day, she was still frequented by the scarring memories of the taunting she had ruthlessly received as a child for always having ripped clothing and never having lunch money.
By some stroke of dumb luck, the pink-haired girl had managed to graduate from high school on time.
However, what her family lacked in material wealth, they made up for in an abundance of love.
Birthdays were always happy celebrations filled with smiles and a cake that her parents managed to scrape up enough money for, Christmas was always spent volunteering at the soup kitchen and at orphanages and New Year's Eve called for a voyage out to the city's river to watch the fireworks. Her mother would always pull up her rose-colored hair in an elaborate hairstyle for each celebration and she remembered feeling like the princess of a small kingdom.
Her father died of a heart attack on her eighteenth birthday and gone were the small but joyful celebrations. The girl's other family had slowly dwindled over the years and now she was left with a grief-stricken mother and an elderly grandmother. She had only been on the earth for nineteen years and yet she had already lost one of her most beloved people and had no goals and no hope of ever getting out of the dark hole of hopelessness she inhabited. In her darkest moments, she speculated that her short, miserable life had been a giant mistake.
Each time she began to follow this train of thought, she would force herself to stop.
Her father had always told her that negativity bred more negativity.
At the age of twenty, she worked two jobs, one at a small coffee shop on the bottom floor of a business office and another at a convenience store down the street from her house. When she was younger, she had wanted to go to medical school and become a doctor, but she had long since given up that dream knowing that her academic performance and her family's socioeconomic status wouldn't allow this delusion of hers to come true. Her father's untimely death and her mother descent into nothingness, had engendered her to attempt to support what was left of her small, broken family.
"One medium skinny mocha latte please," Sakura felt her world shift as she looked up to the girl standing in front of her, "Oh, and a sunrise sandwich on wheat bread." Sakura nodded, a polite smile on her face and she began to work on the order. The girl continued to stand at the counter, texting on her phone and twirling a strand of her blonde hair in one hand. Sakura stopped her work for a second to look at the woman in front of her, noticing that the stranger had the most beautiful hair Sakura had ever seen; her own hair, a rosy hue, was frizzy and thick and the short haircut only made her look more like a child. The woman in front of Sakura had silky, platinum blonde hair tied up in a long pony tail that fell in waves and side bangs that framed her sharp face.
"Name for the order?" Sakura asked as she grabbed a styrofoam cup off the rack.
"Ino," the woman replied without looking up from her smartphone. When she looked back, Sakura finally noticed the designer bag hanging off the arm of the blonde woman, as well as a diamond necklace graced upon her elegant neck. The rosette wondered for a moment if this in front of her woman was a model, she certainly was beautiful enough.
Sakura finished the order quickly and efficiently, her mind already preoccupied by the fact that tomorrow was the beginning of the month and bills will be due. The evening was still early, only a little past six, but the sky was dark today due to the impending thunderstorm. The barista cursed as she recalled that she had forgotten to bring an umbrella to work today and she now was subjected to walk in the rain to the metro station.
"Here you go!" Sakura announced as she brought out the sandwich and coffee. The blonde woman finally looked up and Sakura felt her body freeze as she was suddenly struck with an odd feeling of déjà vu. Light blue eyes made contact with her own. Sakura felt like she must know this woman from somewhere-
"Do I know you?" The blonde woman, Ino, asked as she tilted her head. Sakura continued to stare, entrapped by the odd feeling that she should know this woman, but racking her brain and finding no memories.
"Did you go to Sand for high school?" Sakura finally asked, furrowing her eyebrows in thought.
"Nope, Leaf," Ino supplied with a shrug, "Did you go to Konoha University?"
"No, I just graduated high school last year actually." Sakura informed with her own shrug.
"You don't look that young…" Ino trailed off, lost in thought as Sakura blushed at the compliment. Most people who met her still thought she was a first year high-schooler...
"Ino!" Another voice called from across the shop and Sakura turned her head to see the most handsome man she had ever seen in her short existence sitting at a table in the corner. She resisted the overwhelming urge to blush ("that man is so handsome with aristocratic features and his voice had sounded so smooth and-")
"Coming, you impatient asshole," The woman, Ino, replied with a cheeky grin before turning back to the awestruck barista, "Oh well, you look really familiar. Anyway, hope you have a great night, thanks for the coffee and sandwich!" The woman smiled before turning away and for a second Sakura felt so drab and frumpy it was nearly unbearable.
Ino's beauty was almost as unfair as the fact that she went to sit with the unbearably handsome man.
Sakura caught a glimpse of the smirk that he directed at the blonde woman and Sakura was sure that her stomach had filled with butterflies at that moment.
The barista continued her work nonetheless, stealing glances over at the table where Ino talked excitedly and animatedly while the man listened attentively. As time wore on, Sakura began to look more closely at the handsome stranger and out of boredom, cataloging his appearance. He had dark hair that looked soft and fine and even though it was a little mussed it still looked neat. Sakura surveyed the paleness of his skin to be almost white: not a sickly shade the way she had seen on her dying father, but the kind of pale that glowed in the right lighting and made him look ephemeral. The rosette could tell that he was graceful by the way he discretely and casually stole sips of Ino's coffee and his straight but strangely relaxed posture.
Boredom consumed Sakura as the hours wore on and the cafe became less and less crowded.
When the coffee shop closed for the night and Sakura had finished her duties, she was surprised to see the handsome man standing alone by the entrance of the shop, smoking a cigarette. The sky was dark now: the air thick with humidity and the glow from his cigarette made the mysterious and handsome man's skin glow, just like Sakura had suspected.
He looked up when the door to the shop closed and Sakura was confronted by his deep and dark eyes. In middle school, Sakura's friends had always ranted and raved about men that were "tall, dark and handsome" and for the first time in her short life, Sakura understood that saying. As he continued to look at her, she found that her feet had turned to lead and her body was frozen. The feeling of familiarity continued to pound into her chest with such force she began to fear it would knock her onto her back.
-I KNOW YOU I KNOW YOU I KNOW YOU-
"Are you going to walk home in the rain?" he finally asked, breaking the impenetrable silence. Sakura's eyes widened in embarrassment as she realized that she had been staring in awe at the man in front of her for an indefinite amount of time. She tore her eyes away from him only to realize that he was right and it was pouring rain now.
She nodded, not trusting herself to say the right thing. Sakura had been confronted with the undeniable fact that the stranger was even more handsome up close. He had a sharp nose and a defined jawline that she had only seen on models in fashion magazines.
"Here, take it," he supplied, handing her a small umbrella, "I have someone coming to pick me up and you need it more than I do."
"Thank you," she managed to squeak out as their hands brushed.
"Do I know you?" he asked as she turned to leave.
"I don't-" she stopped herself, turning back around to face him again. Their eyes made contact and she found herself comparing the color of his dark iris's to the color of the night sky. The pitter patter of the rain offered background noise as her thoughts ran rampant in her mind.
"You look so familiar," he continued, realizing that she was struggling for an answer, "It's really strange, I've never had this strong of a sense of deja vu."
"I'm sorry," she murmured with a small, sad smile, "I don't think we've met before." No matter how disappointing, it was true.
"I must be going crazy..." he muttered to himself as headlights from a car illuminated the man's face. There was a small moment that passed before she spoke again.
"You- um- you don't have to give me your umbrella, I'll be okay I just have to walk to the metro station a few blocks away-"
"Like I said," he answered as he dropped his cigarette and proceeded to crush it with his shoe, "my friend is picking me up, I really don't need it and you obviously do. Just take the damn umbrella." He suddenly turned to look at her with such intensity she felt her world stop.
Her bright green eyes widened as he leaned in, his eyebrows furrowing and a small frown pulling down his lips.
She felt the world tilt on it's axis.
The moment was broken as a car puled up in front of the small coffee shop and honked. He pulled back quick and sharp, like something had burned him and she exhaled in a breath of air she wasn't aware she had been holding.
"Thank you!" she yelled as he opened the passenger side door. He looked up to meet her eyes again, giving her a small smile, before ducking his head into the car.
Her world was a little brighter after that rainy day and although he never came back to the café again she still kept that black umbrella for years to come.