I think it's been a month…yeah…about month…

Mom is gone.

Dad is sad.

And I'm….here in the Sohma compound, sitting under the shade of a newly blossomed cherry blossom tree. The small light pink flowers were falling apart…just like me…

"Sakura…"

I ignored the familiar voice and kept my head down staring at the ground. I was gingerly trying to smash the fallen sakura petals into the ground.

"Sakura!" the voice said more sternly.

I wanted to ignore him again but I knew that would result in him grabbing me by the shoulder and shaking me. It wasn't always like this….not since….

"Sakura!"

"Sara!" I growled back, eyes still aim towards the spring soil beneath me. "My name is Sara"

"No, it's not."

I lowered my head deeper not wanted to hear anymore.

"Your name is Sohma Sakura and you need to except that…"

"Mom called me Sara…"

"Your Mother is dead, Sakura. She dead, and you are not in America anymore. Sara is not your name"

"You want me to except it? You want me to except it like you have, Sohma Kennichi?"

I stressed his full name in disgust. Not Kenny like my mom used to call him.

"So what is it you want me to do, Otoosan?" I growled out the Japanese name for Father. Hating the language almost as much as I hated him. "Roll over and die? 'Cause you seem such an expert at that!"

I heard him sigh slightly and sensed his presence leaning over me. I couldn't help but look up. He was looking at me….so sadly…

He then put his pale hand on my cheek. So much different from my own….

His thin lips frowning…my full lips trembling

His face of ivory white and mine of tinted milk chocolate.

Short straight hair un-kept from long nights of no sleep.

My own, curly and robust pulled back from my face and tamed with only one lone spiral dripping down from my face.

I looked nothing like him…….

"I hate it here"

"I know, honey"

"Why can't I go home?"

My father was silent for a moment.

"Because….he wants you to be here…"

I looked him straight in the eye, tears burning for release.

"But he hates me! You heard him in there! He called me an abomination and Mom a savage! You're the one he called to come back home, not me! I want to live with Grandma and Grandpa!"

"He wants us both"

You know…I really think that my heart stopped right then. I felt so cold all over. Just like when I was in that room only moments ago.

"Why….?"

Only a week after my mother's funeral, my dad got a call from Japan. He told me that our family needed him as the family accountant. A job his father had before him.

'Sohmas are very private' my father had told me and preferred to have employees who were related. From doctors to lawyers. Maids and handymen. They were all Sohmas. And Sohma Kennichi was no expection. But why couldn't his daughter be?

I really couldn't help but shrink back from my father's touch. I looked at him with eyes unbelieving that he would EVER hurt me like this. Not my Daddy who always picked me up when I cried even at the current age of 15 ½ . Who would swing me around and tell me that I was the most beautiful thing ever created. Who broke down and cried to dirty ground at Mom's funeral.

That couldn't be the same man that allowed a sickly young man named Akito, degrade and insult me and his dead wife. And let him concluded that if I was too dumb to speak Japanese then there was no point to me going school.

I stood up quickly as my traitorous tears ran down my face.

"Well I don't want him…" I said decisively turning my back to him. "I don't want him…or you"

I think I ran then. I say "think" because I wasn't really aware of what I was doing. Rage and sorrow filled me so much it was unreal. It was like a dream really. One that I knew I would never wake up from.

But I must have ran, because my lungs burned and my legs ached and I could no longer hear my father calling out to me. Also I was lost. Not that I really knew my way around that strange place. It was practically a mini town. Yet I could honestly say that I had no idea how to get back to where I was before.

"Oh shit….."I sighed, leaning against a tree for support. I really was falling apart…just like the sakuras under my feet.