Hi everyone!

So, long time no see! It's been...ah, 9 months? Ehehehe...my apologies! But I've got another chapter almost ready to go after this one! And I think that will be nice to know once you get to the end of this. Honestly, I should have combined them, but this was really the best stopping point I was going to get if I was going to post anything tonight at all. And since it's basically just "update everything" today (or so I hope it will be, two stories down now), I wanted to get this one done. At least it's...something? Right? *sweatdrops*

Feel free to crucify me in the reviews section. But...this is a very important turning point in this fic. I don't know how much longer we have left here, but things have taken a rather sudden change in direction. Maa, we'll see. Anyways, enjoy!

15

-Idle Mistakes-

Sunday came and went in a daze. Sakura had no contact with anyone, not even her otou-san. She sat and Madara worked, and occasionally he would speak to her. When spoken to, she'd respond as though she were a willing participant in the conversation, in her situation, but she made no effort to initiate conversation herself. When it was quiet, she'd sit and stare at the floor, or the ceiling, or wherever her eyes drifted to. She was in too much pain to do anything other than listen, stare, and eat when Madara prompted her to.

This pain, it was like a physical thing in her chest. It was at the point where her emotions were so powerful that they affected her breathing, her heartbeat, her very being. Sakura always made sure that her eyes never drifted to Madara, because just seeing him made the ache intensify.

She'd never felt this before. It hadn't even been this bad at the peak of her unrequited love for Sasuke. She had never been so hurt by one person that she couldn't so much as look at them without feeling like she was going to have a heart attack.

Eventually, around seven in the evening, Sakura finally willed herself to open her mouth. It was a bit difficult to speak without him have spoken first, but she pushed through it, because her question might allow her some freedom from this hellish situation.

"Tomorrow is Monday," she said meaningfully after a moment.

Madara looked up at her and she could tell he was pleased that she had spoken first. "Yes, it is."

"I…normally have school on Monday," she went on.

"Yes, you do."

A slight blush of frustration rose in her cheeks and it encouraged her to be less vague and come out and say what she meant. "You suspended my schooling career. Am I going to be able to go back to school now that I've agreed, or is that just-" another lie? She cut herself off before she could say something offensive.

"You won't be able to return tomorrow, but I'm not going to keep you a prisoner in your own home," he said, and somehow she knew that he was referring to his house as her home. She dutifully ignored this implication because she wasn't quite ready to think about it. "Everything will return to normal Tuesday."

Sakura sighed and felt tears prick her eyes. The ache in her chest had abated somewhat at these words. She had been afraid, so, so, so afraid that he would unfreeze the bank accounts and she would technically be allowed to return to school, but Madara himself would disallow it for whatever sadistic reason he could come up with.

"…Thank you…" she replied, relief filling her. Nothing would be normal again, but with school there, she would at least have something to throw herself into when she wasn't being forced into her husband-to-be's company.

"You're welcome," he said, and she could tell he liked that she had thanked him. It made something painful rile within her, but she said nothing, just averted her gaze to the ground and waited for the pain to go back to what it was.

She realized she couldn't be around him anymore when the ache continued like it was. "I'm…I'm going to go to bed," she told him.

"Mm," he acknowledged. "I'll see you soon then."

Sakura nodded, secretly hoping that his work would keep him up all night long and he would never come back to bed. She knew well enough that he wasn't going to let her sleep in a bed other than his and she didn't have the energy to fight over it right now. At least she had the security that he wouldn't rape her until their wedding night.

Speaking of which, when was that? The thought made her physically ill though, and she wasn't ready to ask it. Not right now, and perhaps not until she was told that it was the next morning.

She stood up and left the room, and a detached part of her was fascinated at how her body instinctively relaxed once there was a wall between them. She had no other clothes than the ones she was wearing, and she felt showering was pointless if she was just going to have to wear more of his clothes—fresher ones, in fact, that smelled even more like him—so she was happy to just crawl into the gigantic bed in his bedroom and curl up in a ball.

As soon as she was tucked tightly under the covers, she felt tears greet the back of her eyelids. No one was here to see them, and she'd make damn well sure Madara didn't hear her, so she allowed herself to cry out some of her pain.

The release was wonderful, but the pain wasn't going to go away completely and she knew that. She let herself cry into exhaustion, and then she embraced unconsciousness when it came.

Tuesday finally came. Monday had been long and hard, and even when her father was allegedly taken off probation, she wasn't allowed to talk to him. She had wanted to call, but Madara forbade it, and she was still too tired, and perhaps too scared, to argue. So she slept the day away, acknowledging the signs of depression as they appeared, and then Tuesday arrived without fanfare.

As soon as she awoke she knew she'd overslept. She shot up and looked at the clock, vaguely noticing in the background that Madara was gone and hadn't even given her the courtesy of waking her up in time for school. It was 11:15am, and she had already missed the first two classes of the day.

She felt like crying. If Madara had chosen to just take the time to shake her shoulder—nothing that would make him late for anything, nothing that would have affected him negatively in any way—she wouldn't have missed them. Now she just looked truant.

Sakura hastily got out of bed and froze when she realized that not only did she have no clothes to wear or any of her school supplies, but she also didn't even have a way to get home.

She was threatened with overwhelming resignation and wondered if going to school was even worth it. It was a fleeting thought, of course school was worth it, but in that moment it felt like too much.

She took a moment to attempt to figure out how she was going to manage to make it to school with everything she needed and in the end, her mental calculations told her that in her situation, it would ultimately be pointless. By the time she reached the school, her last class of the day would be long over.

It was hard not to start crying all over again. She felt so…defeated. "Everything will return to normal on Tuesday," he had said. Well, Sakura was now very aware that that had only been one more of many lies already said and to come.

A fit of rage came over her as she realized Madara had absolutely done this on purpose—not just neglecting to wake her up, though. It was very much her responsibility to have remembered that she needed to go home to get her school supplies and a change of clothing, but she wondered that if he wouldn't even let her call her father, how on earth was she to expect to be able to return home to get what she needed? And of course Madara had had no interest in reminding her of any of these things, nor even doing something as simple as waking her up. If he'd been inclined, he could have even kissed her awake, and since he hadn't even attempted that, she knew that it was more than just not picking up slack for her.

She could see it now: he didn't want things to go back to normal, even though he had promised it. Something told her that he wouldn't say no or forbid anything directly, as per the agreement, but subtle sabotage like not waking her up was the perfect way to get around his end of the deal.

There was also a strong intuition that she would be responsible for getting herself to school like never before—she didn't actually even know the address of her new "home." She had no cellphone or computer, no way to interact with the world beyond.

And she wasn't stupid enough to think that that wasn't completely on purpose.

Sakura took a hot bath. She soaked for what felt like hours, draining the tub partially and then refilling it with scalding hot water over and over again. Her skin turned a bright, near blistering red and her limbs trembled and wanted to flinch from the heat, but she kept herself still until she was one with the water and the steam.

At first, the bath had been about relaxing. She had loved the way her muscles untensed in the heat, how her entire being just seemed to unfurl and become loose like the liquid she was surrounded in. Then, when it grew too cool, she sought out that same feeling again and drained a little water, refilled it with hotter water. In the process, she opened her eyes, and she saw them.

They were more readily apparent with the dilation of her blood vessels in the heat. Where most of her skin was a bright pink just from the general elevated temperature, there were places where what had once been not as noticeable were now a garish purple, almost black. Hand prints on her wrists and hips, spanning her thighs. Bruises.

Dirty.

She was dirty.

And then it became about cleansing, getting the filthiness off her. It became an obsession, until tears came to her eyes with every addition to the water, until she was almost sure there would be actual burns from the temperature.

And then she had the abrupt realization that the water wasn't hot anymore. Sakura opened her eyes at the sudden sensation of coolness and looked around her, but the moment she moved her head, the world spun like she had been twirling in circles for minutes straight. Confused and slowly becoming panicked, she turned to the other side and the jerky sensation sent her whirling again. Something short-circuited and she vomited suddenly, without any control.

Her muscles spasmed as adrenaline shot through her. Had she seriously overdone bathing? Could that even be done? A flash of disjointed memory called up the term "heat illness." Her brain short-circuited again. She vomited, again.

With all her frighteningly miniscule might she heaved herself over the lip of the tub and crashed down on the tile floor. She cried out weakly, her world spinning so badly that she couldn't tell up from down. Her medical knowledge tried to kick in, but nothing was making sense, nothing connecting.

She could feel her vision darkening around the edges. Phone. She needed a phone. But where? She didn't have one. She didn't know where any were. Communication. She needed help. How? No phone. No talking. Text? No phone. Words? Help. 119. Emergency. Death. Die? No. Words. Email? How? Computer? Where? Office. Moving. Hurts. Die? No. Death? Maybe. No. Cold. Where? Halls. Carpet. Cold. Chair. Hurts. Chair. Dizzy. Hard. Fingers. Don't. Try. Stop. Too hard. Die? No. No. No. Die? Help. Communication. Type. 119. Help. Who? Doesn't matter. Him? No. Die? Anyone. Send? No control. Hurts. Die? No.

No.

No…

Die?

I, ah, I'll just go over here and hide in this hole now...