Chapter 6

I.

Don't you notice how helplessly I'm lost
That's why I'm following you

-Garner

II.

Hinata was wandering around the city and crying when she sat on a nearby bench and watched as a girl beside her ate tacos. This girl had long, flowing blond hair and a determination in her eyes. She noticed Hinata staring at her, so she asked, "Do you want a taco?"

Hinata shook her head.

"Quit staring at me," She said, and Hinata quickly averted her eyes.

After Ino finished her taco, she wiped her mouth roughly with a napkin in her pocket and asked, "Why are you crying?"

Hinata shook her head again, and Ino sneered, "probably some rich girl problems."

Again, she shook her head, and as if to prove her wrong, she said, "I'm in love with a boy, and I chased him all the way to this city, but I just found out he likes someone else."

Ino raised her eyebrow. "Stab that bitch."

Hinata blurted out, "I can't. I know her, and she's really quite kind."

"Huh," Ino said wiping her hands, "Oh well. That's how life goes. What are you going to do now?"

Hinata didn't know. So she said nothing.

Ino glanced at her cellphone. She has nothing to do for the rest of the day anyways. She just got off work and she didn't feel like going to the nursing home to visit her mother. Each time she went, she grew sadder, knowing the woman didn't even recognize her anymore. So she plopped down beside Hinata and asked, "Well, tell me the entire story."

"I-I don't know if I sh-should," Hinata stuttered.

Ino waved, "Just use letters. You're A, and you're in love with this boy, B, and B is in love with another girl, C. Is that right?"

"…Yes." Hinata thought about it, and nodded.

"What about C though, does she love B back?" Ino asked.

"I don't know. But I don't think so," Hinata whispered, "She... she loved D."

"Whoa, this just became really complicated." Ino frowned, and then realized her head can't comprehend this many letters, so she pulled out a piece of paper from her backpack and a pencil. "Here, I'll draw a chart. So, A loves B, B loves C, C doesn't love B, C instead loved D. Wait, you said loved. Past tense?"

Hinata thought about it, and then said, "I don't know if she still does , but she loved him six years ago."

"Six years ago? Why doesn't she love him now?"

"Well..." Hinata tried to put this as logically as possible, "D's family brought down C's family, so C had no where to go..."

"Oh, so C is a girl who fell from the riches." Ino said, drawing a broken crown beside C, "Is D rich now?"

"Yes."

Ino examined the diagram she drew, then asked, "Who else is rich in this love rectangle?"

"Well, B is, sort of." Hinata thought hard, because this stranger of a girl is helping her sort out all her problems, she felt obligated to tell the truth and nothing but.

Ino drew a crown on B, while she looked at Hinata from top to bottom, "Yeah, you're rich too. I'll draw a crown on you too."

Then they stared at the diagram again. After a while, Ino deduced, "So basically, everybody's rich except for C."

"Um..." Hinata wordlessly agreed.

"Whoa. It looks like B and C are having a Cinderella tale." Ino said, "Well in this case, it's all up to C's personality. If she's a bitch then she's a gold digger. If she's nice then she's just a regular nice girl who has been roped into all this mess."

Hinata began to sob a little, " C is the nicest person ever."

"Well, shit." Ino drew a heart right next to C, and then looking at Hinata commented, "I think you're nice too."

"Thanks," Hinata said, blushing slightly at the kind words.

So, Ino drew a bigger heart beside A.

"This is such a mess." Ino glared, "This B guy must be worth it."

"He is the nicest guy ever." Hinata whimpered, "he can't help but help everyone who comes across his path. He is so just and kind, and he treated me with respect too..."

"Mhmm..." Ino thought about it more, then drew a heart next to B, "he must be a really handsome guy."

"Do you want to see a photo of him?" Hinata scavenged in her Burberry tote.

"Sure," Ino looked over, and what she saw almost made her cough up blood, "That? That?"

"He's the best." Hinata said defensively and shielding her phone away from Ino's scrutiny.

"Uh..." Ino refused to argue. "Do you have any pictures of C or D?"

"Not really," Hinata replied, scrolling through her phone. There were pictures of her kitty and her sister, but that was basically it.

Ino suddenly had an idea, "I think you should seduce D."

"Wh...what?!" Hinata's eyes widened, "I can't! He's very scary!"

"Scary, huh." Ino pondered. "Well, you should make C get away from B and into the arms of D."

"I doubt anyone would get into the arms of D." Hinata grumbled.

"Do you mean he's very mean and scary?" Ino asked.

Hinata nodded.

Then Ino drew a big "X" beside D.

Both girls examined the diagram for a while, until Ino declared, "This is hurting my head, do you want to come and visit my mom with me?"

"Your mother?" Once more, Hinata's eyes grew in curiousity, "Where is she?"

"Just across the street." Ino pointed, "In that nursing home."

"Oh." Hinata had never been in one, but she knew what they were and she doubted that she would encounter danger over there, so she nodded. "It might be good to visit the elderly every once in a while."

"Right." Ino rolled her eyes, "Come on, let's go before I change my mind."

Hinata thought that statement was a bit weird, but didn't bother to ask as they crossed the street and reached the other side, where "Green Pines Elderly Home" has been painted on top. Hinata looked around once they entered and commented, "This place looks nice."

"For three grand a month, it better be." Ino commented dryly.

"Wow." Hinata felt as if a sound of amazement was in cue. In truth, she has no sense or value of money, and objectively speaking, her entire outfit and accessories she has on at the moment could comfortably pay for Ino's mother to stay there for three months, and then some.

"Yeah." Ino said, and then checked in with the front desk. The girl working there handed her the check-in form and said, "Ino-chan, you should go in and see your mother now, she has been asking for you, and she's in one of her clearer states."

Ino nodded, her eyes grew a little brighter as she motioned behind her, "This is my friend. She's here to visit too."

"Of course, sign here please." The girl pushed the form to her. Hinata looked at the form and asked, "Will a stamp do? I brought mine today."

"Yeah it's fine." The girl nodded.

Hinata pulled out her little Hyuuga crest stamp and pushed it down. Ino had already begun walking down the hallway, so Hinata had to follow quickly.

They walked a bit further until Ino knocked on a door to the right. There was a voice, "Come in."

They entered, and Hinata saw a very clean room and a woman sitting on a rocking chair. Ino knelt down in front of her and said, "Mother, are you ok?"

The woman caressed Ino's hair, and said, "I'm fine. I want to tell you that I don't need to be here. Just send me back home, I can manage by myself."

Ino shook her head, "I can't do that. Remember how you got lost once?"

The woman's eyebrows knotted together, as if trying hard to remember, "Really?"

"Yes, mother." Ino said and then sat down on the floor, tired, "I'm just making sure you're okay here. I don't want you to wander off again."

Hinata bowed to her as she introduced herself, "Hello."

Ino's mother ignored her completely as she stared into the distance for a while, and then she suddenly grabbed a hold of Ino's hair and screamed, "Where is my husband? Where is my husband? What did you do to him?"

Ino scrambled to get up but it's hard with her mother kicking on her stomach, Ino tried to shake free of her grasp while getting away, "Calm down, mother, calm down!"

"You killed my husband, didn't you? You killed my husband!" She screamed louder and louder, until the nurses came rushing in. All the while, Ino argued stubbornly, "I didn't kill him, I didn't kill him! it wasn't my fault. It wasn't, it wasn't!"

Hinata stared at the entire scene, horrified, until the nurses ushered them out. One of them apologized, "I'm sorry, Ino-chan, she was completely lucid this morning."

Ino straightened out her hair and said, "It's fine. I'll visit next week."

Hinata followed Ino outside, and saw her wipe her eyes and tie her hair back into a pony tail, then she smoothed over her shirt and jeans. She flipped her hair around and said, "My father was killed in a car crash when I asked him to take another route to buy me a present."

Hinata didn't know what to say.

"I didn't kill him," Ino insisted, "I wasn't in the car."

"No, you didn't," Hinata immediately said.

"I'm sorry you had to see that," Ino sighed.

"It's alright," Hinata tried to comfort the other female.

Ino walked to the bus stop, and Hinata followed. When Ino got on the bus, so did Hinata. She then got off the bus and walked into a shabby neighbourhood. Hinata followed her like a little tail.

Ino pushed open the door to her apartment, and walked straight into the kitchen, "What do you want to have for dinner?"

"Anything is fine." Hinata replied.

Ino stewed rice porridge on the stove for a long time, then boiled some beans along with seasoned cabbage. She pulled out fish fillets she gutted and prepared several days ago from the freezer, allowed it to defrost in hot water and then coated them with a layer of starch and flower after dipping them in egg wash. She then pan-fried them on a skillet, while sprinkling a little salt and pepper on top.

Hinata set the table, and the two girls ate in complete silence.

It was the first time in a while that Hinata felt so satisfyingly full. She ate a lot, and Ino sometimes laughed aloud at her.

After dinner Ino abruptly announced, "I'm Yamanaka Ino."

"I'm Hyuuga Hinata," Hinata replied.

"Cool." Ino cleared the table and the girls sat together for the rest of the evening on the couch to watch a re-run of Bleach.

III.

Perhaps because Hikari was not conceived in exactly loving circumstances, it's the reason why he wasn't born with perfection.

This thought has entered Sakura's mind countless times, and each time she watched Erika, so happy, her heart bled a little at the comparison between the two cousins.

Almost seven years ago, Sakura forced Sasuke to marry her. It was done through a series of blackmail, threats, intimidation, punishments and brutal force.

It was a grand wedding... Well, as grand as it could be. It's bogus, though, because the bride was willing but the groom wasn't.

He didn't touch her that night, nor did he touch her months after. Sakura didn't bother to think more of it, she was just content that he was beside her.

It wasn't until one day when she caught Sasuke talking with Karin that she lost it. Her worst fear was to lose Sasuke to her, and at the time she naturally deemed Karin to be in a status that's beneath her own. She wanted desperately to ask him why is it that he loved Karin instead of her, and whatever she did wrong, she would change. She was willing to get plastic surgery for him: she was even willing to hide her face in a bag if she had to. Her love for him went beyond her morals and values, and was so strong it became her obsession and completely possessed her mind.

She didn't know, back then, what the definition of love should be. She didn't know and she wouldn't know because she was spoiled and she has been living a life without worry. She didn't know how to play games or how to perform tricks. In contrast to Karin's cleverness, Sakura was like an innocent baby.

Karin was naturally perceptive. She knew exactly what to say at exactly the right moment. She had been trained by life to roughen up her edges and turn her into a society flower that is adored by everyone. She possessed a tact and sensitivity that, of course, pleased Sasuke. Sasuke was only a hot-blooded young man with an extraordinary pride and arrogance back then. He was not fit to take care of, or even interact with a spoilt princess. He wanted things she could not give, and he worked very hard to strive for those things, but Sakura came somewhere along the way and diverted his path in completely the wrong way.

If one would blame someone, one could only blame fate. Those two should be meant for each other, but they met at the wrong place and the wrong time. Sakura's love was suffocating him, making him more anxious and annoyed at her, and it eventually turned into hatred. Sakura didn't know what to do to make him love her, and with each interaction he had with Karin, Sakura realized the urgency to bind him to her.

Her mind had yet to comprehend how to please someone like Sasuke. She inaccurately assumed a mindless love with no sense of direction would do it. She was dead wrong. But she had to try, because there was one thing she understood that was right: If she didn't do something -anything- she was going to lose him.

In a conniving but desperate move she fed him a very strong aphrodisiac and, on top of that, she tied him to the bed post.

It was perhaps the most humiliating thing that had ever happened to him. Sakura was crying when she enveloped him within her. She asked him over and over, "do you love me now? Do you love me at all?" Her response was silence.

That was, perhaps, the moment that decided Uchiha Sasuke's intent to kill her. But before that, he vowed to put her through the exact same humiliation that he had been done unto him, and make her pay with everything she could afford. She was going to live in disgrace, in poverty, in suffering and pain.

It was the only time Sasuke had touched her, and apparently, that one time impregnated Sakura.

The rest came so fast, as if they were all a dream. Suddenly, Sasuke's elder brother, Itachi returned to Leon with immensely powerful connections and an army of mafia behind him. Everybody knew that he made his mark in York and extended his influence out to other cities, but he concentrated in Leon because, as it turned out, he had a baby brother working in the hands of the Haruno's. Sato Haruno was busy dealing with Itachi, and did not realize that his enemy and his right handed man were closely related until it was too late. By that time, his entire estate and power were like a house of cards, and with the tiniest push, he fell, and everyone following him fell along with him.

The story of how Itachi and Sasuke reconciled was also a long one, and it shall be told in its time later. The point is, with Itachi's help, Sasuke easily pushed down Haruno's reign in Leon. It ended, therefore, while Sakura was still married to Sasuke.

It was also around that time that Sakura realized that she was pregnant. She was clueless with everything then, but she happily skipped over to where her father worked, and found Sasuke sitting behind the desk that belonged to her father, with a divorce document placed on top, and a crystal pen lying beside it.

She begged him, cried in front of him, asking him to listen, but his response was, "Pregnant? I've only touched you once and you dare claim you're pregnant? Perhaps I haven't made it clear before, but I hate those who play games with me and who treat me like a fool, Haruno. Leave, before I'm tempted to kill you."

Sakura stared into his eyes, and realized they were empty. She stood up and laughed so hard tears almost fell, "You got me, I was lying. I thought you'd fall for it. I was wrong."

She signed the documents and walked out of there with nothing but the clothes on her back. All her accounts were frozen, she has no money, and she was not allowed to go back, because she was barred against going into her own house. She sold the accessories and bags she had been wearing at the time for a few hundred dollars in order to go to the doctors and check on the fetus. The doctor told her it was healthy, and she should be happy.

She left smiling and weeping.

A little later, she found a job as a waitress, and a small room that cost three hundred dollars per month. Without a college degree, she couldn't even get a desk job. Life had been the hardest for her in those first few months, when she was tossed into this world of poverty and was forced to push her way through.

Then she met Hinata, who gave her everything she had at the time, and by that time Sakura was very close to her due date. She sold Hinata's gifts and received twelve hundred dollars. At the times of her labour, she did not have insurance or health care, and Hikari had difficulty coming out. The doctor advised her to take medication, and then begged her to go into surgery, but she bit her teeth and shook her head. She knew with the money in her pockets she could not possibly cover the surgery or the medications. After almost thirty-six hours of painful labour, Hikari appeared in this world.

She used the rest of the money to get some shots for Hikari, and used all her savings to ensure Hikari was provided for, but a couple of years later, his seizures and diagnosed autism hit her like a lightning bolt to her forehead. She was just barely covering her basic living costs when Hikari's prescription costs came crashing down on her, almost squeezing the air out of her lungs.

There were several things in this world that taught her how to face life, as reality hit her squarely. Hikari's illness was one of them, and she almost believed that Hikari shouldn't have been born after all. But that thought dissipated when Hikari climbed into her arms and wrapped himself around her neck, saying with such a tender voice, "Mommy, mommy, mommy..."

He came at the worst possible time, but he was best gift she could ever receive.

XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX

TBC

A/N: Edited by K-chu, reupload. Oct 16.