Rated T for language. May increase in the future.


BUTTERFLY


two


Sakura corralled her mussed, still slightly damp long hair into a messy french cord, securing the whole thing with a clear elastic one inch from the bottom. When most of the flyaways were smoothed, she pressed her skirt down, snatched that school bag, and headed down to breakfast.

Kizashi Haruno, head honcho of both the home and the corporate Haruno business, sat at the start of the table, all coffee-smelling grogginess and bored eyes skimming the daily paper. At catching sight of his only daughter, he let one wing go to reach out and grab her in a half bear hug.

"Morning dad," she greeted, squirming to pat his shoulder. He grinned affectionately, much resembling a massive chimpanzee clinging to a tree.

Mebuki came by to bop him on the head with a pan she'd been helping the maids wash and put away. "Don't go scaring your daughter so early in the morning, dear," she reprimanded, looping arms with her flustered baby in a hug of her own. The nearby servants laughed quietly behind hands, used to but still entertained by the morning antics of their dear employing family. "You act like she'll suddenly disappear from you one day."

The patriarch sighed rather dramatically, folding away that (damn annoying) newspaper to pout. Ah yes—the party animal young heir had grown into a giant, fatherly big bear of a man. How the years have treated him. "But she's already so close to turning seventeen, Mebuki. That means I've got only a little over a year until she starts getting seriously courted." He grabbed his daughter's hands with his own, determination aflame in his eyes. "Promise me you'll find a good boy, yeah? Or girl even! Anyone to treat you properly—but not before I approve, yeah? Only the best for my pumpkin after a- ow! Mebuki!"

He cowered away when his wife raised the damnable pan once more.

"H-Hey, as a father I'm just—"

"—being a giant ass-crack?" Mebuki supplied, and he spluttered. Sakura had to stifle laughter by drinking from her glass of orange juice, struggling when she spotted the two maids washing dishes shake with difficulty trying to hide their own snorts. "Surely you know that that's not a very convincing argument."

"B-But she's my daughter! I can't just have some sniveling weasel try to put his filthy paws on m—"

"Dear." He fought the urge to gulp. "Surely you trust our daughter—smart, reliable, trustworthy Sakura—and her judgment, right?"

"W-Well," he meekly began, but nearly choked stopping himself at the fierce smile overtaking his wife's er, beautiful visage. W-What a scary look on such a pretty face...

At his responding silence, Miss Haruno swung the pan rather ominously and he flinched, swiftly turning to his daughter with a strained passive look.

"My darlingwonderfulbeautiful daughter, your darlingwonderfulbeautiful mother and I trust you c-completely." Kizashi prayed slightly that his little voice crack would be enough to satiate the bloodlust in his wife and (fucking thankfully) it was. At least, judging by the newly made bright smile on her face.

Note to self: talks like these, keep only between me and Sakura. When dragon-mom isn't around.

Aforementioned petal haired girl only swallowed down her laughter with a bite of waffle, grinning slyly to her dad and snorting at her mother's winks. Really, quiet little Haruno owning two insane parents and you'd think she'd somehow catch the "crazy" gene. "Yes, dad, thanks for trusting me."

"Y'know Kizashi, it sure is a good thing that you've decided to finally trust our daughter and be open to her love life. She won't stay young for long; give her room to experiment."

"Yes well I—wait, when did I give permission to—"

"Because after all, you're a smart man."

"Well, yes, that's tr—"

"And besides, that was a rather sweet boy yesterday; kind of him to drop you off, eh, Sakura?"

"Mhm, yeah and I—WHAT"

And so Sakura proceeded choking, violently hacking up the offending piece of waffle when a servant reached out to thump her on the back. She nodded gratefully, gulping down mouthfuls of orange juice.

Kizashi all but slapped the glass away, frenzied.

"Sakura, please tell me your mother's just screwing with my head," he panicked, ignoring Sakura's withered look as her cup tumbled into the arms of an awaiting maid.

With juice and glass intact, she replaced it back on the table but the young heiress couldn't nurse her breakfast drink again. Not with her dad looking like a lunatic and shaking her silly by the shoulders.

"What is this about a boy?" Filth! Absolute filth! When I get my hands on that little basta

"Minato's son gave Sakura a ride home yesterday."

I'll delete his kneecaps!—yes, a fitting punishment f— wh— I—

"Minato's son?"

Kizashi blinked owlishly.

Minato Namikaze? The Minato Namikaze?

The Konoha born politician known for his damn amazing, progressive, white-tactic policies—his son? The man himself was a respectable entity; not underhanded, not questionable—a true gentleman's man when it came to the game. He was running for mayor in the upcoming campaign and already had more than seventy percent of the country's projected vote (Council was a different story, but they'd be stupid to not let the country's vote talk louder than the electoral one, really).

And well, he's met his son before, a few times when business dinners required family attendance. Boyishly charming, boisterous, a little odd in the head—though he looked the spitting image of his father, his mother was the true personality playing there.

No, not a bad kid at all.

Ah, hell. She just checkmated you, buddy.

Kizashi narrowed his eyes at his breakfast bagel.

Oh no, but he's still a boy with hormones.

Unfortunately, one look at his wife sent him into another coughing fit, taken aback by the look of pure threat in her eyes. I dare you, she seemed to say, to fight me on this. Really... did she know how downright terrifying she looked?

"...Er... well... that's um. Good boy, that—er heis. Heart is in the right place..." he trailed, piecing together the little dusty remnants of his pride and sipping his coffee delicately. Miss Haruno looked pleased, handing off her pan to be put away (or more like relinquished her weapon, much to the patriarch's relief). "So you've... been hanging out with this boy a lot?"

"Oh, he's been dropping her off home the past few days!" Mebuki chirruped, cooing when her daughter seemed to flush behind her glasses. "Poor Kotetsu nearly thought he was getting laid off since she asked to stop getting picked up."

Sakura fiddled with her tie. "I didn't want to burden him about it..."

"Well it's been handled dear." And then there was this sly smile and Kizashi instantly wondered how and why he married this terror of a woman. "Sooo, when did... hm, y'know. You and Naruto...?"

And yes, she frankly did cackle when Sakura's face reddened, much to Kizashi's horror.

"Mom it's not— I'm— we're friends!" The pinkette's fingers tightened around the tail of her french braid, unused to raising her voice. Low volume speech usually came out of young Haruno and it was a true blessing seeing the normally passive girl react with such vigor. "He just... spilled some ramen on me last Tuesday. I've been having lunch with him at school lately."

Mebuki nodded. So that was why a fresh set of her uniform was shipped to their front door over the weekend—they hadn't ordered a new one prior.

"Is he nice?"

"He's... funny?" Sakura shrugged a little bit, hesitant. Naruto was good company when it came to banter; well he was a good guy in general. Just a little weird. And stared a lot, too, whatever that was all about... "And nice. Definitely nice."

"Hm. Like 'nice' or like... nice?"

It was Sakura's turn to choke on her drink and Kizashi shook his head, having given up on completing his breakfast now that Mebuki's mind had turned to flying everywhere at once.

"J-Just—mom— friends!" she frantically insisted, pushing aside her glasses to cover her eyes. Screw family bonding—maybe she might like having quiet mornings to herself more.

Wait.

So why wasn't she having it alone today?

"Dad, why aren't you in the office this morning?" she asked, adjusting her spectacles and glancing to her right. The Haruno patriarch smiled broadly.

"Gave myself permission to come in a little later," he said a little smugly, earning a snort from Mebuki. "The company's just waiting for the sponsors on the proposal for some of those new children's clinics up in the north. All the formal agreements and yadda yadda—so I can get the go-ahead to talk to the contractors."

"What about the healthcare stuff?"

A maid had come by to give Mebuki her morning cup of jasmine tea, and the woman delicately stirred it with the small accompanying spoon. "I'm handling that. Minoring in law sure comes in handy." She sighed. "Healthcare isn't the easiest thing to handle."

"Mm," Kizashi agreed. "Insurance companies can be spineless little rats sometimes." And then he crossed his arms, irritated. "Of course, we could team up with a couple other companies—y'know, finally give that a try. Attempt to push a healthcare act and minimize some costs."

"Medical bills are rather high," his wife quipped. "Unnecessarily so, at times."

"Well if Naruto's dad is running for office," Sakura offered after finishing one of her strawberries, "then maybe you can talk to him? Push for some kind of change on the existing health policies?"

Her father stroked his chin. "Good point."

"What do you have in mind, Sakura?" her mother questioned, a little surprised that her daughter chose to jump in on a company conversation. She—afterall—hadn't been very keen on inheriting the business for most of her life.

The pinkette shrugged. "Well, to push for a new act, you'd have to go through a bunch of the government offices. That'd probably take too long." She picked up another strawberry. "But if you talk to Namikaze-san about shooting suggestions to the higher-ups, they'd investigate current laws and maybe tweak them."

Luckily, the Haruno matriarch covered her husband's gaping expression with a happy squawk. "That's brilliant! Oh, honey, how—actually no, scratch that. It seems pretty sound to me—I mean, launching a new regulation certainly requires way more approvals. An amendment would take time too, but if we can compile the proof against unfair charging—and goodness, it's great proof, too! And certainly, Minato would be on our side. Isn't that perfect, dear?" she gushed hurriedly.

Mebuki'd been a little stumped trying to find a workaround, stressed when she heard her husband was already waiting for contractors. What good was erecting more medicinal buildings and wonderful care if no one could even afford it?

Who knew her saving grace would be her own daughter?

"Uh..."

Oh yes, way to go, dear husband of mine. Intelligent as always.

Mebuki thought for a moment on the next course of action, gears a-running in the head. And then she hit eureka. "Oh!" The older woman at the table clapped her hands. "I can speak to Yoshino perhaps? The Nara are fantastic advisers, business or otherwise. And maybe even chat it up with Kushina! Ah!—sweetie, there's that luncheon this Saturday, right?"

"A luncheon?" Splendid. Kizashi had recovered enough from his dumbfounded reaction (when in all seven hells did his daughter gain such an intuitive, business-savvy brain?) and gave both the women in his life a quizzical look. "Did I miss something?"

Sakura's lip quirked a bit. "There's another one of those meetings at school," she explained, helping one of the kitchen maids pile together the empty dishes for better transport to the sink. "The Hyuuga hosted ones. Most of the people in school are going."

"Great news, huh Kizashi? We can start looking around for a little backup on these projects!" his wife cheered, smiling to Kotetsu hovering in the kitchen doorway. "We'll discuss more later, alright? Go on, you'll be late if you don't go now, Sakura."

"Have a good day at school, pumpkin!" Kizashi bade, grinning as his daughter dropped kisses on both her parents' faces. She pushed her glasses up her nose with a little smile, then headed past the kitchen threshold. Kotestu had given a parting tip of the hat as greeting to the three-man family before following after the young lady. Seconds later, the front doors thumped shut behind the two.

"...Quick thinker, eh?" Mebuki mused, lips on the rim of her tea cup. She shifted, fingers on the handle, peering at her husband, all pretty, knowing, deep green eyes. "Looping politics in with business like that. It's foolproof since Minato's practically a shoe-in for mayor."

Kizashi's resulting grin stretched wide and prideful. It truly wasn't often that their quiet little daughter would show open interest in any of their business dealings, what with her originally bent on separating from the name and becoming a doctor for their main hospital instead of CEO for the whole company.

Although lately it's been changing. It'd be advice here, tidbit there, and each little piece proved an invaluable morsel of information. Smart and tactical was she. Perhaps there was hope of the Haruno Corporation's family-owned longevity after all.

He chugged down his coffee and waved a maid down to get his briefcase.

"She'll make a fine leader one day, hm?"


Fourth period advanced calculus with Ibiki wasn't exactly the highlight of anyone's day. Maybe the only good thing about it was the fact that it was right before Sakura's lunch hour, although sometimes it made the lecture drag on more than it should.

People would call it boring, irritating, or annoying, but no one fell asleep nor dilly-dallied.

For one, you'd miss half a test's worth of material if you so much as fall sick a day; two, because everyone was convinced that Ibiki used to be some type of torture specialist or prison warden in a past life, and would certainly gut you with his dryerase board marker if you were caught not following directions. It surely didn't help that he was a veteran in the Third War rumored to be decorated with all kinds of awards (including a whole Medal of Honor).

In short, the man was too terrifying to peeve.

Although in Sakura's opinion, he seemed fairly companionable underneath that brusque, rough exterior. She'd once asked him for help with a particular lecture on antiderivates (the fucking rules—they kicked her ass so bad in the beginning) and rather than "shooting her head off" as some people might say, he patiently flipped through the book and retaught the lesson carefully. Albeit intimidatingly.

So to be one of the very few slightly immune to that scary man made the period a little more bearable.

But certainly not any less droll.

Ibiki shut down the projector, ending the daily powerpoint lecture before taking a seat at his desk. "Students," he gruffly remarked, sending people spine-straight in their seat, fearful of being called up and solving a problem on the board. "Because today's lesson's shorter than usual and you're ahead of my other classes, you may begin on your homework assignment now. Use this time wisely—partner up, ask questions, and then come to me. Anyone not working will be assigned more work. Are we clear?"

Mumbles of "yes sensei" circulated the room and he made a noise of approval.

"Pages four fifty-three to four fifty-five, numbers twenty-seven to sixty-three, all odds, due tomorrow. This is just a refresher on infinite limits for next week's quiz. Show your work, circle your answers—you know the drill." He turned to his computer monitor. "Begin."

Flipping open the pages of her textbook, Sakura adjusted her glasses and clicked a black pen to life. Already she fought down a sigh. Infinite limits weren't really a problem but the fucking tests for the limits were a pain to recall sometimes. Damn—when the hell did math go from numbers, to letters, to theory so fast?

It was then she concluded that math had to be a mood, otherwise all attempts were fruitless and a nasty headache would be left.

"Haruno-san."

The quiet girl popped out of her self-pity party and glanced sideways, spectacles nearly sliding down her nose in the process. Inquisitive, she looked at the young man sitting next door.

Ah...? It's

"Yes, Hyuuga-san?"

The pretty, moonstone-eyed male tapped the face of his book, opened and ready on the designated page. "Would you like to work together?" he asked lowly, leaning a little bit to drop his words better. He waited patiently for a response.

Strange.

He'd never really spoken to her over the years, let alone this year, where they've been sitting next to each other in calculus.

She recalled last week, oddly seeing him standing in the doorway of her homeroom , but shed the thought in favor of deigning him with a reply. If someone could possibly help bear the weight of stupid theoretical math, it'd be one of the men topping the school charts.

"Sure."

Neji nodded, sitting at an angle to better push his desk closer to hers. Once the two surfaces touched, he flipped her book closed, then nudged his in between their papers, pointing.

"I will handle the top half, you handle the bottom, we switch on the next page and complete the assignment faster. I assume you're proficient enough with limits?"

"As proficient as I can be," she muttered a little sarcastically, and his upper lip twitched in surprised amusement.

"Well," he mentioned, casually getting to work. "Let's hope it's enough to get us a good grade."


He'd blame it on impulse. And curiosity too, if his pride wiggled enough to let him.

It felt like sound reasoning in the spur of the moment.

Sakura Haruno.

Yes, he knew the surname well enough.

The famed Haruno Corporation, a powerhouse where the medical industry was involved. They owned a glorious chain of medicinal buildings—the list included hospices, hospitals, clinics, and health wards just to name a few. Top notch was their care, with only the best teams of doctors, nurses, practitioners and specialists in the entire country. The couple was no pair of doctors; instead they turned a business into something beautiful and meant to help the people.

Hell—it was common knowledge that a little before the current generation was born and the last was thriving, Headmistress Tsunade entrusted her precious building (the original Konoha Hospital) to the Harunos and retired from medicine.

She then moved on to continue her family's history of principality in the Konoha chain of education (and she was one of the world's greatest medical gifts, despite her hemophobia). That put the Harunos right in the limelight when they were already a flourishing, trade company, thus shifting their interests into medicine. What a hell of a move that was.

It's a shame they never searched for partnerships, really.

So yes. Yes he knew a little about Haruno. As much as public knowledge would allow.

But Sakura?

No, he didn't know her.

He was aware that the Haruno couple had a daughter, had even met her a few times at family functions. But she was such a turtle, he'd never heard a word. Just like her parents—actually, somehow even more so—she was reclusive and a tad mysterious. You'd wonder how a full head of bright pink hair could possibly get lost in the crowd, but that was sometimes what unsettled him—she simply just could.

Only last week was he reminded of her existence—and what a surprise, he'd also heard her voice for the very first time in—what—the near eleven years he'd known of her?

Even the Uchiha and the Hyuuga, famous for their icy demeanor and standoffish behavior, were more open to the public than her and her family.

What a treat it would be to understand the makings of a Haruno—the powerhouse family that shied away from the spotlight and built itself all the way up without alliances. Even better if her, the future heiress (he assumed at least) would allow a company partnership to happen one day—that'd certainly be beneficial if he initiated a friendship with her, yeah?

Imagine his honest surprise when, last week on that same day she accidentally ran into him, he also realized she was his calculus neighbor. Since then, he'd been a little extra attentive whenever she passed by in the halls, trekked outside with the Uzumaki idiot. How on earth had he never noticed her—seriously.

Just say hello, he figured. How lucky was he to hear Ibiki would give them some freetime?


Neji sat there, discreetly shooting glances sideways in between work (bless his quick thinking for putting the book in the middle of them; he'd be able to pass off his darting eyes for checking the problems).

She was a rather sprite-like thing—built sort of small and sweet like a pack of strawberry candy, though meek and devastatingly quiet despite the loud colors. There was an overall simplistic beauty stronger than the sum of her parts—each individual trait was quite plain when inspected one at a time (like braided hair, wide eyes, a button nose), but mash them altogether with her palette and it made for an aesthetically pleasing view.

Pretty—in an unconventional, unique sort of way.

A glimpse at her paper showed him exactly where she'd be in the educational ranking of the school, somewhere up in the top one or two percent with him, the Uchihas, and the Nara. So she's certainly intelligent too—that made him feel better about taking her half of the work and handing his over.

Nice.

He flicked his pencil to tap against the spiral of her notebook, indicating he'd finished just as she circled her last answer. In only the remaining thirty minutes, they'd completed their assignment, all productive, comfortable silence.

Neji drew out his cellphone and she picked up the hint, following suit. They exchanged papers, discreetly snapping photos while Ibiki helped a pair in the opposite corner of the room. Once done, the Hyuuga prodigy began his routine packing up.

As he glanced back to give his thanks, he paused at the look of disappointment flashing across her face, eyes peering down at her cellphone.

"Is something wrong?" He raised a brow when she looked up, eyes obscured by the mild glint in the glasses.

"...No." And then as an afterthought: "Thank you for working with me."

She set down her phone and slowly began to pull her belongings together. Quickly, so very quickly, Neji took a glimpse lower and caught the message on the screen (contrary to popular belief, the Hyuuga had rather sharp vision).

From: Naruto

Sakura-chan I can't make it to lunch today. Got a little light-headed in bio when we were pricking our fingers for the blood tests, ehe...

I'm gonna head home early so I can't take you, I'm sorry D: Remember to tell Kotetsu so you're not stranded at school! Seeya tomorrow!

When she turned to reach for her last personal object—the phone—he abruptly stopped her by touching the upperside of her wrist.

Now or never.

"Would you like a ride home?"


"Hey Sasuke, heard about Naruto?"

Sasuke's gaze flickered sideways as he threw his locker shut, catching sight of Kiba and Shikamaru sidling up next to him from opposite directions. He shifted his bag onto the curve of his shoulder, bypassing dozens of female—and the occasional male—admirers in favor of heading to the front doors, friends in tow. Blessedly, the final bell had rung minutes ago and home was calling his name like a siren.

"Yeah, left early. Couldn't handle pricking his stupid finger in bio."

"Wimp." Kiba snickered. "Dude gets battered all the time during football season. What happened?"

"Apparently, forcibly sticking a needle into his skin isn't the same." Sasuke scoffed while Shikamaru shook his head disappointingly, only fueling Kiba's cackles.

"So what—he fainted during class?"

"Nearly," Shikamaru quipped. "Shino said he practically passed out on the table and had to get escorted to the nurse."

"Pfftso how did Orochimaru-sensei react?"

"By poking his unconscious body with a meter stick."

Kiba let out another bark of laughter, nearly tearing up at the image. "Bet the only one Orochimaru-sensei would want to be poking with a different stick would be Sa—"

"Finish that sentence and I'll chop you up and feed you to your own dog, mutt," Sasuke threatened. And though the Inuzuka's mouth snapped shut, that damnable grin wasn't going away any time soon. Although the resulting glare did minimize said smile, causing Shikamaru to roll his eyes.

"Well anyways, where's Neji?" the Nara heir asked. "I haven't RSVP'ed for Saturday yet."

"Dude, why didn't you do it last week?" Kiba shot a dazzling smile at passing ladies, half attentive for an answer.

"Forgot."

"Forgot or fell asleep?"

"Same thing."

Sasuke snorted. "Figures." He scanned the front quad and caught sight of lengthy cocoa-tinted hair, past the fountain, just before the golden gates, then nodded that way. "There he is."

"Ah."

Kiba leaned over Sasuke, cupping his mouth and hollering a, "Hey, Neji—"

But no, he hadn't finished, for he noticed that the Hyuuga male certainly wasn't paying attention and certainly wasn't alone. Kiba stopped, both brows raised.

"Who's that?"

Sasuke glanced over. Almost immediately, he fought to keep the surprise off his face, reeling.

For there, trailing behind and conversing with Neji Hyuuga, was the very same girl he'd been hearing Naruto babble over for the last damn week.

"Oh," Shikamaru had said from somewhere to his left, but he wasn't quite registering anything.

No, there was an odd itch Sasuke was feeling—something like confusion and something like this irritating-as-hell curiosity. He wanted to know what was so damn great about Naruto's precious "Sakura-chan" that even little Lord Hyuuga was chatting it up with her.

What was up with that? Was she just interesting or something? Just look at her—the only thing honestly special would be that weird hair, and that's if you looked enough to notice.

He'd seen her a couple of times before maybe, that little oddball in the corners of the room reading books and writing papers. Maybe if he even dug deep enough, he'd figure out she'd been in the Konoha chain for some time now... but...

Who was she?

"You know her?" Kiba asked the Nara, audibly befuddled at seeing Ice Prince Number Two having relatively easy conversation with a female. What was next—Sasuke sprouting wings and sprinkling pixie dust on him?

"That," Shikamaru drawled with a bit of a quirk in his voice, "is the school's smartest and richest female. Little Sakura Haruno."


Damn. It was weird the way I shifted the tone out of the first chapter jdsfhks.

Initially, I didn't know what direction to take this story towards (business AUs are just so damn fun to write, but hard to find endgames for sometimes). So I can't really pick up from the original vision I had because I don't know what it was.

I know I didn't want this heavily business based—most of the exploration of that falls into AAOP (the company types/focuses are similar here and there). The business-talk is just the grounds for how and why the characters are wealthy, mixed in with initial intentions (like Neji here, for example, who befriends our protagonist in hopes of future ties). The rest is classic high school AU (for the beautiful and rich, of course).

Instead, I've decided to jump straight into banter so that we can make way for the romance and touch into the wealthy life/common ground of the boys and our heroine. Any more stretching and the pacing would be all sorts of slow. So do bear with me a little while I try to re-cultivate what once was. Ah...

And as always, thank you for coming to my TED Talk. Hats off to ya; hope you had a splendid Thanksgiving.

- burrblefish