Handsome, well spoken; his heart can't be broken
First came the strong and disgusting stench. It smelt as if a family of four had been killed and left down in the basement to decay. Then there was what the room actually looked like. The light bulb must have died a while ago because there was no light source apart from one ugly and half used candle at a girl's feet. All around her and scattered in no particular pattern on the floor were bugs, some dead and some alive. The smell, though, was mostly coming from the area directly around the girl. There was a toilet, which Neji hoped was actually a working one as he looked around, so that wasn't the cause but, from the look of her, the girl hadn't had a decent wash in months, possibly longer.
The door was opened for ten minutes and still no one moved, or even made a sound. Finally, Shikamaru said something,
"Wow." He said emotionlessly.
"Holy shit!" Kiba exclaimed.
But I think Naruto best described the mood when he screamed,
"GOOD FUCK! IT SMELLS LIKE BIG FOOT AND HIS FAMILY DECIDED TO TAKE A HUGE FAMILY SHIT TOGETHER IN THIS BASEMENT!"
"You get used to it after a while," The girl, Sakura, said quietly. She was sprawled out on the floor and looking up at them with big, expressive, green eyes, brighter than anything Neji had ever seen.
"Sakura?" Neji asked, starting to walk forward not stopping even when the smell got stronger.
"Yep that's me. Well, it has been for ten minutes, but we won't talk about that. I mean her." She held up her sickly thin arms. "Anyway, can someone help me up? Then you can all tell me your names which I will most likely forget almost straight away upon you telling me."
Shikamaru, Kiba and Naruto looked at each other, none of them knowing what to say to her. Neji simply stood there, one step away from her with everyone else, too busy staring around in disgusted fascination to open his mouth to talk to her.
"Well hello!" Sakura barked, glaring at them now. "I asked one of you to help me up!"
Neji looked over at her and rose an eyebrow at how quickly her tone and expression had changed but walked over to help her up, nonetheless.
"Thank you!" She said happily but quietly. The volume of her voice didn't ever seem to increase at all. She looked up, the top of her head barely reaching Neji's shoulder.
"Let me guess, you're Naruto?" She asked Neji.
"No, I'm Naruto and you're really short." Naruto, stepped in and held his nose.
"Well I used to be the tallest thing in the room. So, who're you?"
"Neji."
"Huh, I wouldn't have guessed. You look more like a 'Kiba'."
Kiba snorted. "No way does he look good enough to have my name!"
"So, you're Kiba?"
"Yes. I would hug you but, and I'm being honest here remember that, you kind of smell. Only not 'kind of' and more 'alot'." He gave her a sheepish smile but she didn't mind hearing the truth. Besides, she was busy inwardly giggling at him. "I think you may need a shower" Kiba finished.
"We think so too."
"I think I should show you to where the bathroom is, then," Neji suggested, placing a hand on her shoulder as he lead her out of the basement with the others following. "Shikamaru can you please go get some clothes you think will fit Sakura from the attic? I'll show her where to clean up and, Naruto and Kiba, could you go and get something to eat for Sakura. Maybe some coffee."
Sakura let out a short and loud laugh which sounded more like a bellow. "Coffee! We would love some coffee!"
"Okay, I'll go do that," Naruto agreed. "I'll give you your ramen when you smell better, Sakura."
Neji noticed how he was smiling rather smally, and blushing ever so slightly, and rolled his eyes.
"Uh-huh," Sakura answered absently, distracted as she looked around. Nothing much had changed.
Slowly she smiled.
As carpenters, transporters, electricians and plumbers came around over the next few days to fix a few problems and to talk to the four men, Sakura sat on the bed in her old bedroom. She didn't leave it once.
Finally, after much debate over who should do it, Neji was pushed by three pairs of hands into the hallway right outside of where Sakura was keeping herself locked up in.
"I fucking hate you, you fucking bastards! Don't expect me to cook for you ungrateful bastards tonight because I might poison it!"
Neji shook his head when Naruto called back, "We appreciate it, Hyuu-chan!" and, running his hands through his chocolate hair, faced the closed door which was painted a chipping off-white color.
What the hell am I meant to say to her! He thought frantically as his gaze travelled unseeingly over all the cracks in the paintwork. 'No offence, Sakura, but we didn't save you from your basement where your crazy fucking Mom locked you up just for you to go and hide in your room. Kind of defeats the purpose, you know'?
He sighed and raised his fist to knock. He didn't know what to expect ; none of them had seen her after she'd closed the bathroom door behind herself to have her first shower in God knows how long. The bowl of ramen had gone though with a little 'thank you' scrawled messily onto the wooden surface of the dining room table which was where Naruto had left the food.
Just check how she is and get out as soon as you can.
"My door opens, you know, but you'll probably have to do more than stare at it." Sakura called.
Neji rolled his eyes but muttered 'right' before trying to turn the doorknob and open the room. Oh come on! You knew it was locked.
"Sakura, I can't open it."
"Well, why not, Mr. Hyuuga? You have opposable thumbs, work them."
"It's kind of locked."
There was a loud amount of giggling and then a shuffling of feet but no reply from the girl inside. Neji got sick of waiting but, when he tried it again, the door swung open when he turned the knob this time. He looked around when entering, hands shoved in his pockets and very quietly humming Drain You under his breath. The furnishings of the room were very simple with a plain simple bed; a huge window with no curtains or blinds; a gold-plated framed mirror, opposite a small wooden desk and chair, on the wall; and a closet. He looked down when the toe of his shoe hit something and saw a pile of books, as high as his knee, set there. Similar piles were all around the room.
Sitting under the desk, in the space where a person's legs would go when sitting in the chair, Sakura cleared her throat as she pushed back some hair and looked over at Neji. He really was a rather pretty specimen.
Neji turned one way and then the other, looking for her. "So, um, how are you?" He was looking directly at the closet.
"Overwhelmed, blinded, anxious, tired, nauseous and I have a headache."
"'Blinded'?"
"It's so much brighter up here than what I'm used to. But the sunsets are pretty and it's not as hot as it is in the basement."
Neji took a step closer to the closet. "Are you scared of me and my friends? I mean we don't know each other but, trust me, we are very nice strangers."
"Scared of you, why would I be-"
"Then you don't like us," Neji concluded. He reached the closet and cocked his head at it's door, hand reaching for the handle. "Because you're not scared of us yet you haven't come down and talked to us since you got out" he opened the closet door and stuck his head inside, "okay. Where are you?"
"Well, since all three of us have finally gathered that I don't currently hold position amongst the musty contents of my wardrobe, I'd say I'm either under the bed or under the desk."
He pulled back the chair from under the desk a little and she scooted closer a little bit. "What the hell are you doing?"
She held up the dictionary she'd been skimming through. "Educating myself. You know, you shouldn't just casually cuss like that."
He gave her a confused look. "But I didn't."
"Not by today's standards, no, but you did say 'hell'." She set down the dictionary and scrambled to get out from under the desk. Neji moved back to allow her more room. "Why are you staring at me like that?"
"Didn't you have black hair before?"
She pushed both hands through her long,petal colored hair. "Shampoo does wonders, so I'm told. Turns out my natural hair color is pink not black, eh?"
"I like it."
There was an awkward silence as Sakura completely ignored Neji, instead more interested in the two-sided musings in her head, and he tried to think of something to say before quickly exiting. Hands again in pockets, Neji moved to the window and looked out. After awhile, he murmured something too quietly for Sakura to pick up.
She leant forward. "I'm sorry, what?"
"When you were in the basement. Did you miss the view?"
She looked over his shoulder at the clear, unclouded blueness. "Yeah I did, actually. I miss the ocean too even though I never learnt how to swim. But, I figure, since I'm considerably smarter than most fish that it can't be that hard, right?"
"Or you could be like me. 'God didn't give me gills, well, fuck him. I didn't want to swim anyways'."
Sakura gave him an admonishing look but it didn't last very long before she giggled a little at the seriousness of his tone and expression despite what he's said.
"It is a bit discriminatory, isn't it? I mean, I was born to fly but He decides no. Now I have to watch all the moron birds have all the fun."
"What about ostriches?"
"Ugly monsters that they are, they don't count. They probably don't even care that they can't fly, they're too busy gloating over how they're taller than all the other aves."
Neji grinned inwardly but didn't know what to say, instead turning to look back out of the window.
A while later, Sakura asked, "So why did you come in?"
"We were all worried about you. You're up here all by yourself with no food and water and stuff to do."
"If she doesn't make too much noise I can manage to sneak out for supplies every night."
"Sakura, we leave here every evening, you don't need to sneak."
"Okay, I'll remember that if I can remember to." She studied her bare toes. Her toe nails were too long but , at the very least, she was clean now.
"You're disrupting my education."
Neji looked at her, now studying the floorboards, and leant forward. "Sorry, what did you say?"
"Um, you're kind of disrupting my learning."
"You want me to leave you alone with your dictionary?"
She nodded. "Yes please. I mean, if it's not too much trouble. And not that I'm being rude - I'm actually alot ruder than this in normal circumstance. So you shoul-"
"Sakura, don't worry about it, I'm gone." He walked over to the door, which he'd left open and Sakura had been wanting to demand him to close. "So, uh, I'll see you downstairs sometime soon?"
"Um," she hesitated, not making eye contact. They seemed like nice enough guys but they could turn out to be bug-hating assholes who laughed at her for having written out the entire Oxford Dictionary a total of eight times. And those bugs were Sakura's only friends for years, she was very fond of them, "maybe."
"But don't count on it, right?"
She nodded and he nodded back before leaving and closing the door on his way out.
As soon as he was gone, Sakura crouched down on all fours infront of her bed from where she pulled out a pile of paper. Turning to a page which was blank, apart from the scribbled definition of 'phylum' in the top left hand corner, she picked up one of those old, yellow lead pencils, you know one of those ones with the pink rubber on the end, and started a new sketch.