Payment-5

I.

Sakura was never too close with her parents.

Perhaps it was the fact that her parents focused entirely on their new baby boy when Sakura was just going into her teens. On top of her rebellious acts she became more estranged and distant with them. It wasn't an issue with ego, she has long outgrown the idiotic idea of pride and rejecting the people whom she was closest to. It's more due to a fact that whenever she was with her parents, they look at her with such disapproving eyes that she wasn't able to bare it. She doesn't know exactly when she was infected with such shallowness that she started to pick out the crudeness within her mother or father. Probably when she remembered that when she was young, she was swimming in luxury.

She remembered she had a toy tortoise made of the whites and smoothest marble, and each jewel encruted on its shell are dreams embedded in the purest background. She remembers holding onto the tortoise when her father had to sell most of their furniture and book, antiques and decorations, including the tortoise, and also she remembers hiding it under her bed but they found it anyways.

She doesn't blame them, a family has got to eat at some point. Right now both her mother and father are working stable jobs and led the most unordinary life a family could lead. Sakura, however, could not forget the moment when they fell from the clouds down to earth, and she was forced to eat the most common cereal, and drink the most generic soup from a can. Wearing the same old clothing day after day, while Ino had the prettiest lace and softest pink dress to decorate her rosy cheeks.

Is it human nature, to naturally care about how others looks at us?

Sakura was wondering about this when she was sitting in her brand new Lexus that Sasuke bought for her. After Sasuke went to work, she rolled out of bed and had breakfast prepared by the house keeper at 11, and then got in her car and drove to the nearest clinic.

As expected, she's pregnant.

She has never thought about the possibility of it until now. Suppose it's bound to happen sooner or later, as they're both very healthy individuals. On top of that, he didn't exactly use protection.

It's not that Sakura rejected the idea of protection. It's that Sasuke knows her so well and in the heat of the moment she's constantly being swooned by the sight and presence of him. He isn't a man to be taken lightly, and to face it Sakura has to muster up her entire attention and focus it on him. He's like a dream that isn't really real. Whenever she touches him she wonders if her fingers will simply go through and she wakes up in that cold and damp bed in the smallest and darkest room and realize she in fact has nothing and is nothing without him.
Now, holding onto this piece of paper issued by her physician, she seriously considered the possibility ahead of her for the first time.

Well first of all, she needs to get married.

In her clever little mind, all she could think about was the future of herself and the baby. She did not gave regard to the happiness of being a parent, because she's too fearful of giving birth to a baby that doesn't have the best of everything handed to him or her on a silver platter. She wants to have a baby that's born in the happiest family in the world, and wants the baby to grow up in a bubble of protection. She wants to weave a dream for the baby and spoil him or her until it's time for them to be forced to face reality. She wants to start preparing for a life she never get to finish living, buying all the unneccesary luxury items for the precious little child solely because she wants to make up for the saddest childhood she had.

Which was why when Sasuke came home, she asked him.

"Sasuke-kun."

Sasuke, who is already dealing with his own problems, was not in the best of moods. But he forces himself to restraint it when he's around his lovely girlfriend. On that particular day, he just returned home from a day of working and a phone call from his family. His patients does not go unrewarded, as Sakura was making the most flavorful peace cobbler and cut him a piece.

"I know you don't like them being too sweet, so there's not a lot of suger here." She said, carefully arranging fresh fruits around the delicate looking piece of pie on top of a fine china plate decorated with painted hummingbirds.

He pulls her in and kissed her on her lips, soon she lost all feeling in her legs and she collapsed on his laps while biting his lips lightly. The kiss ended after a couple minutes, with Sasuke holding her in one arm and scooping up the cobbler in the other. The two cuddled together in front of the TV watch the recent news. Nothing exciting or pleaseant was on, it's one disaster in the world after another; nevertheless, both felt satisfied.

"I need to ask you something." Sakura said, her arms snaking up around his neck, nuzzling against his cheek.

"Mhmm?" His half hooded eyes glanced at the fuzzy pink hairs she has, and while stroking the ends, he sounded like a fulfilled sleek panther.

"When are we getting married?" She asked.

He froze, but immediately came to, and asked with a half joking tone, "What bought this on?"

"I was at the clinc this morning." Sakura sat up a bit to look at him in the eye, "and I found out that... I'm pregnant!"

Sasuke wasn't surprised.

"I see." He said, sitting up at the same time.

The entire thing went from being messed up to being fucked up.

II.

The next morning Sasuke took the day off, and drove Sakura to the hospital. At first she thought he was taking her for a routine checkup, but after entering the 3rd floor and past the ICU, she realized it wasn't that simple.

She saw Ino again, but this time she's paler than ever, and breathing through a machine.

Ino was not awake, and Sasuke made sure they both were very quiet, before holding onto Sakura's hand and forcing her to look at Ino.

Sakura's heard wasn't made out of stone, when she saw someone she knew her whole life is on her deathbed, or close to it, she felt scared, naturally.

"What is wrong with her?" Sakura asked, and for the first time she felt that Ino was actually sick, instead of pretending to be sick to get the attention of adults when they were both little.

"She has ... leukemia." Sasuke begin, when they were both outside of Ino's VIP hospital room. The quiet sound of machine white noises was making Sakura anxious.

Sakura wasn't surprised. She knew Ino must be sick with something quite awful. Nevertheless her heard throbbed a little, enough to make her clutch it in front of her chest. She remembers how quiet Ino was whenever they were in front of others. Despite how Sakura was the loud and out going one, they always shared everything equally. Is this the day where she has to share her future husband with Ino? Sakura was oddly bemused about her fate.

"Is she recieving treatement?" Sakura asked quietly.

"You and Ino... are related." Sasuke said, without much emotion. He didn't bother to answer that question. "Your father once had a brief affair with a very distant relative of mine. My mother's cousin, three times removed...my aunt, and my aunt gave birth to Ino when she was 17, and because of this birth out of wedlock, she was disgraced and was banned from ever seeing her child."

Sakura was numb at this point. She isn't an idiot. It's not that she doesn't suspect it, but rather when it was exposed crystal clear to her, it still took her a few time to digest the information.

"But we were a rather large family. Ino was not a direct descendent of the nucelar family, thus she was tossed in a boarding school with paid guardians to look after her general health and studies." Sasuke continued, his voice emotionless. He was not making any physical contact with Sakura.

"Fifteen years ago," Sasuke continued, "Something tragic happened to our family that most of the important members were dead."

Sakura has heard about it. She read it on Wikipedia.

"And my aunt was forced to look after our massive empire and the two boys my parents left behind." Sasuke pronounced each syllable robotically, as if he has rehearsed for this speech millions of times. Each sound fluently jumping out into the air, cutting Sakura to pieces and pieces.

"When Itachi grew up and begin to take over, she finally had enough power to take Ino backa couple years ago. I was prepared to marry her and take care of her for the rest of her life, and only to find out recently that she was deeply sick, and needed treatment right away."

A horrid realization dawned upon Sakura.

Sasuke could not bear to look at her. He looked straight ahead through the glass into the sleeping girl whose breath was as light as a feather, up and down, up and down. As if one pinch or a squeeze is able to end her life, he felt such fear-becuase something he was sure he was able to control, has gotten out of hand.

Sakura was by his side, and there was one breath that was pushed right up to the top of her throat but she could not breathe it out. It's stuck in her lung, and she felt like drowning.

Sasuke continued, "She has T-cell prolymphocytic leukemia, and the doctor suggested stem cell transplantation on top of the alemtuzumab she's already taking. Each day is painful and difficult for her, which is why..."

Sakura felt her whole world collapsing at the word "stem-cell."

At the same time, a huge burden has lifted off of Sakura. Her mind and body became clear and clean, and finally everything in her life made sense. Before she started pitying herself, before she make the decision about he baby, and before she able to logically process everything, she looked up at Sasuke, this god of a man standing in front of her, looking ahead at the girl that Sakura has been best friends with all her life, and realized all along that she was in a state of self loath for being selfish and dirty, while Sasuke was the master of manipulation and tricks. She wondered if he felt any remorse or hurt at all, when things has escalated up to this point; this particular point when he has done all he could to her, breaking her heart and soul into crumbs.

Sasuke turn to look at her and with the softest voice, "I want you to make this decision. You are at the point in which it's not too late to have an abortion."

"Why... are you telling me this now?" Sakura breathed, she could feel tears swelling from the back of her eye and urging to rush out.

"Because I'm in love with you." He whispered, raising one hand to touch her shoulder, but she avoided unconciously due to her curling herself in a embrace of her own arms, and withdrawed to a ball like position kneeling on the floor, sobbing.

Sasuke's hand touched nothing but air. His figure stumbled slightly as he closed his eyes in sorrow.

Her whimpering was all that could be heard in the empty and lifeless hallway of the hospital.

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A/N: I've been away and I'm so sad :( I will try to update Apathy soon!

It occured to me I typed this whole thing on a notepad instead of word, so no spelling editing. Sorry, I'll post a polished version soon.