AN : Hello everyone! Cinnabunnbunn here! Here's a new story!
So, MultiSaku is kind of a guilty pleasure of mine. I'm not explaining why, you can have your own theory.
I had this idea out of nowhere actually, and I was not feeling like writing another chapter of Espionage and ecstasy, so here we are. I just wanted a break alright. But anyway, I hope you like this new story.
Onto the chap!
"Your Majesty! The queen is not going to make it at this rate!"
The frantic voice of the medic barely registered to the King, his form hunched over his table in deep concentration. He looked up from the many papers covering his whole desk.
"She will make it." The king's eyes were dark and bloodshot, "she has to."
"Bu-but it's not possible!" the medic cried again, "Her body isn't strong enough. We can't just rush her process. She needs to recover in her own time."
The king hissed low before slamming his palms on his desk. The medic flinched as the king whipped his head to glare at him with red, swollen eyes, "The people are getting restless. They want to see their queen. We cannot keep her behind the iron doors anymore. She will have to pull through."
As the medic shook from the harsh glare he was being subjected to, the king hissed out his final order.
"Put her on the surgery."
As all this was going on, a princess sat in her cushioned bed in her room, staring at her vast collection of soft toys in concern. She heard the worsening condition of her mother's health when she snuck out of her room to sneak in a chocolate from the kitchen the night before.
"What're you thinking about?"
The princess looked at the new voice, her older brother leaning against the doorframe with a plate of cookies in his hands.
Normally, she would just sass him and rile him up, but since the last week or so, she just couldn't find the strength in herself to do anything. So she gave him the truth.
"Is mumma going to be okay?"
The older prince knows that he should probably remind her to call her their 'mother' and not any other endearing name, as per the instructions of their father, but when he saw the sincere worry in her eyes, he decided to let it slide this time. He closed the door behind him and plopped on the bed, setting down the plate of cookies on the bed.
"She is strong, you know that, right?" he looked at the girl as she hesitantly picked up a cookie from the plate to nibble at it.
"She will be alright." Seeing she didn't seem any lighter, the prince roughly messed up her hair. That got her riled up enough to slam herself of her brother to wrestle him. A light laughter filled the room as the pair play wrestled on the soft bed, momentarily forgetting about their ever present trouble.
But unbeknownst to the young royalty, their beloved mother was not very strong.
And the next time they saw her was during her last breaths.
The sun was setting, the sky painted in warm red and orange, the warm filter of newborn sunlight streamed through the glass windows into a cozy café. the viridian walls took on a warm glow and the light colored furnishing shone starkly against the background. The hanging plants and pixie light decoration sat prettily after having just been cleaned. The warm wooden floor, just cleaned and still unmarked of visitors' shoeprints and the sign on the door still flipped to 'Closed'.
The ambiance of the room, so still, so quiet, so calm. Nothing but soft music distantly filled the quietness in the café.
A figure sat at one of the tables, a cup of hot chocolate in her hands, a soft blanket wrapped around her shoulders, sitting in the warmth of the still rising sun. Head full of rosy locks thrown back over the back of the chair, quite exhales of breaths and nothing but a sense of serenity in her mind with the soft music almost lulling her to sleep, intent on making the making the most of the quietness of the time before the rush of the day makes it anymore impossible for her.
"Sakura."
A quiet voice broke her trance, as she picked up her head to look at the new presence at the bottom of the stairs, leading up to the staff lounge. The tall figure of her friend and co-worker greeted her, his long, chestnut hair neat and uniform crisp.
"Neji." Sakura greeted back, "What's up?"
Neji Hyuuga nodded to her once, "Boss said to check the pastries batch and call on the vanilla and coffee bean shipment."
Sakura nodded at the command and took a sip of her hot chocolate. She saw Neji take a seat in a chair beside her at the table, not saying another word, afraid of breaking the stillness in the room. It was a rare occurrence to have such calm in their café.
After another fifteen minutes, the pair saw that it was seven AM already, time to start the day. Sakura went back in the kitchen to bring out the fresh batch of cookies and pastries and lined the on the shelves and went back behind the counter to put on another batch into the oven while Neji checked the coffee station and took his place as the barista with his assistant.
The day started on as it usually did. A few college and highschool students, desperate for their daily dose of caffeine and sugar. A few people on their way to work stopping by for a cup of coffee or tea. As the clock hit ten, more people started pouring in, children eagerly following the sweet scent of fresh pastries and cakes, older customers lounging around with a cup of tea and a book, artists occupying tables with their sketchbooks, teens shyly buying cookies and chocolates to present to their crushes.
When days were so innocent and warm, Sakura just could not bring herself to miss the life she left behind. If she got to live her life with such simplistic and uncomplicated routine, she could not bring herself to care about the storm slowly creeping nearer and nearer.
She looked at the clock and saw that it was noon already, she needs to check on the batch of butter cookies and perhaps also start on the batch of raspberry pastries. Calling on of the waitresses to handle the dessert bar in her absence, Sakura put on her apron and retreated back to the kitchen once again.
It has not been five minutes when the disturbance in force arrived at the café.
The bell above the gate ringed as the door was opened wide to let in the large group of people. Six in total, all men, looking so starkly out of place in their dark business attires against the warm and colorful interior. The one in the front, the one with his long mess of hair and broad shoulders, took off his sunglasses, revealing dark crimson eyes. He motioned for one of the men toward the counter as the rest followed him to one of the larger tables.
As the man approached the counter, he looked instantly annoyed at the empty spot. He ringed the bell on the counter a couple times, each time increasingly angrier than the last. He slammed his hand on the bell one last time, and was about to very well stalk behind the counter to grab a waitress when someone finally acknowledged his presence.
Neji has been watching the man with dark hair simmering at the dessert bar for a minute. He vaguely recognized his kind of people as he looked at the group of men he came in with. He quickly whispered to his assistant to handle the coffee station and rushed over to the raging man.
"Sir, do you want to order something?" Neji managed to ask in a polite voice. The man turned toward him with steam practically blowing out of his ears.
"Fucking FINALLY!" he ground out in exasperation, "the service here fucking shitty. I've been waiting for fucking forever. Do you even know how important our time is?"
The man looked like he wanted to continue ranting, but Neji had neither the time nor the patience to continue to listen to his complaints. "I'm truly sorry about the wait. The attendant seems to be out. I will get someone to take your orders." That seemed reasonable enough.
However, the man seemed to think differently. He roughly grabbed Neji's collar and brought his form straighter. "No, you're going to fucking take my order right now."
Neji grabbed at his hand, trying to make him release his shirt, they were starting to attract attention from other customers. He saw the group of men standing from their seat to walk toward the pair. "Sir, I've left my station unattended, I will need to get back. I will get someone to take your orders shortly."
"No, you will take my order right now!" the man, started to threateningly shake him, his short fuse already blown off quite a bit. He really needs to check his anger issues.
Neji had enough of being manhandled, "Sir" he addressed firmly, his voice no longer polite or courteous "Release me right now. Violence is not tolerated here."
The man's eyes turned red in anger at being addressed like this, "How fucking dare you talk to me like this?! You fucking know who I am?" He raised Neji by his shirt and promptly threw him down on the floor with a harsh slam.
Neji grunted as he tried to raise himself on his elbows. Did he say something wrong? He thought he was being reasonable. Was waiting for a minute more too much to ask for?
"I'll fucking show you how to talk properly." The man raised his fist, moving to punch Neji, only for him to be flung back from an incoming kick.
Neji opened his eyes against the bright light streaming from the windows, only to widen them at the figure that stood in front of him. Poised protectively over his sprawled form was Sakura, her pink hair open and blowing from her rapid motion as she pushed the man off with shocking strength. Sakura narrowed her eyes at the grunting man, ready to block him if he dared to attack again.
Sakura has been hearing shouting and impatient bells for a minute or two, but didn't pay it any mind until she heard Neji trying to bargain with the angry customer. Neji hasn't always been the best at handling rude customers, and she came out just in time to see him getting thrown to the floor.
"We do not take kindly to unnecessary violence, sir." Sakura said in a low and firm voice and rushed towards Neji to help him up.
The man grunted as he stood up in an instant, ready to tackle the pair to the ground again. Neji and Sakura looked at him wearily, the customers are getting scared from the volatile temperament of this man. She will either have to remove him fast or get yelled at by her boss later.
Sakura watched as he readied himself to swing at them again, intent on atleast hurting one of them, only to freeze as a cold command was heard throughout the quiet room.
"Kawarama, that's enough."
Sakura looked at the man that just uttered than order, that she previously didn't even notice. Which was strange because she wouldn't have missed such an odd group. A tall man stepped up from the center of the group, garbed in crisp black business suit and a long black coat thrown over his shoulder. She has to admit, the coat looked really soft.
"You, girl."
Sakura snapped out of her gaze at the coat and focused on the man's face, and finally noticed the features of such an intimidation. Pale skin, a strong jaw, sharp eyes and dark, messy, long hair.
"Who are you?" The guy asked, his eyes narrowing at her form.
Sakura straightened her form under his scrutiny. She will not have herself looking intimidated and meek under this guy's gaze. "I'm a baker here." She added nothing more.
He stared at her, waiting for more, and Sakura stared back, as silent as a wall. At last, the man in black cocked his eyebrow and asked, "What's your name?"
Sakura remained silent, hesitant on giving away any information. She may not know too much reading people and their kind, but this man and his group reeked of danger. She could see the red flashing light screaming 'beware' from a mile away. And giving away any kind of information about yourself will only have you shoved into the back of a car, never to be seen again.
But as she saw his eyes narrowing dangerously, irritation rolling off him in waves, and decided, for once, a little name wouldn't hurt. So, she closed her eyes and prayed to god that she won't be found in a ditch the next day.
"Sakura."
The man stared at her for a second more before motioning to the guy who was fighting with them. "And where did you get the audacity to attack my man?"
Sakura sharpened her eyes, her temper instantly flaring up. She was ready to start shouting at him, forgetting all about the dangers of dealing with his kind, for having the nerve to say that to her even when he knew who started it. But then as she was readying to stalk up to the asshole, she felt Neji's hand squeezing hers, reeling her back from blowing her head off.
She breathed deep once, squeezed his hand back and released. She turned back to the man in front, face blank and voice cold, "Your man started it. He attacked our staff first. Mine was simply self defense."
He took a step towards Sakura, but she held her place, her spine steel and eyes trained on his face. "Because your staff is incompetent. Why was the station empty?"
"The attendant was out for an emergency. It wouldn't have taken her two minutes had he just waited."
"And why wasn't she on her job like she was supposed to be?"
Sakura had enough of having to explain a simple mishap to this asshole.
"Shit happens."
The man glared sharply at her but she didn't give him a second to say anything. "My friend asked your man to return to his table and a waiter would've been provided in less than a moment. Having to wait for a minute more wouldn't have caused a catastrophe for your precious time."
The man glared even more harshly, his eyes moving up and down her form, sizing her up to while Sakura stared straight into his dark eyes.
After a long moment of holding her breath in anticipation, the man backed up, a strange glint coming to his eyes and turned his back to the gathered crowd. He waved for his posse to follow him out of the door but stopped and turned just shy of going out to the road and threw a glance to her over his shoulders.
"We will coming here often, so have better service next time." A pause, "Sakura."
And with the last address, him and his group were out of the door.
The crowd inside the café stood in a stilled silence of a moment more before dispersing in hushed murmurs. The customers defrosted as they resumed in their previous tasks, some taking their goods, some moving on to place orders or get their coffee. The waitresses and baristas also resumed their work at serving and taking orders.
Sakura, finally out of her shock of the disaster that just passed by, found herself slightly weak in her knees, her adrenaline running out and suddenly hit with the realization of what the fuck just happened. She did NOT just go one on one spatting match against who likely is not a person someone would like to piss off.
"Oh this is bad…" Sakura moaned in despair. Neji looked at her and tentatively patted her shoulder. Sakura sniffled and looked at her friend with glassy green eyes.
Neji blushed under her misty gaze and coughed up his words, "T-thank you. For sticking with me."
Sakura, even with the sense of impending doom on her head, smiled brightly at him, her eyes creasing at corners. "Don't mention it. We're friends right."
Neji, despite his previous fluster, gave her one of his rare warm smiles, a fuzzy feeling diffusing in his chest. Suddenly, his eyes straightened as something came to his mind, "Hey, weren't you in the kitchen?"
Sakura looked confused for a second before her eyes widened in horror, "Ah! My cookies!"
She rushed to the kitchen, attempting to save the cookies which she was sure must be burned to a crisp by now.
Even as she was busy salvaging her cookies, her mind still reeled with the current events. She could only hope and pray to Gods that she hadn't just signed her death certificate.
But she could allow only a very small, recessed, secret part of her mind to admit, that even though he was an egoistic, entitled, absolute asshole who she wishes to never be associated with in her life, he was a fine looking specimen.
But looks didn't do shit to make him any more tolerable.
The addressed man in black stalked to his sleek black car and sat down on the warm seats with a grunt. His thoughts were still pointing towards the daring pinkette he just encountered. She was one brave (or stupid, he wasn't sure) soul for standing up to him so reverently for a guy.
He could maybe agree that his man was kind of at fault for the commotion, but he would never admit that to anyone else but himself. But he has seen men lavished in power, cower in his presence and follow him like dogs, readily agree to all his actions whether they were right or wrong, no one questioned him.
But that girl, Sakura, faced death himself and spat in his face with his open green eyes and petite frame. This girl, who looked like she wouldn't dare hurt a fly, hard kicked one of his men to the ground and braved herself at his face.
And even though, had someone else dared to pull such a stunt in front f him, their body would've been disposed off within the day, surprisingly, he couldn't bring himself to mind this cute little pixie.
She has piqued his interest, in some form or other.
"Madara." His brother called out to him. Madara looked at him getting in the car beside him. "You didn't say anything to that girl."
"Izuna," Madara addressed him back, "Get me all the intel you can get on her."
Izuna looked at him worriedly, wondering just the hell was going through his head, "What are you planning?"
Madara gazed out of his tinted windows as the car began to roll on the road, "She's kind of strange. And don't think she's going to be off hook so easily."
A look of realization dawned on Izuna's face, "You're interested in her." When he didn't hear any rebuttal from his brother, "Why though?"
"She's brave. Perhaps even a little stupid. I'm just curious."
Izuna was a little weirded out by his brother's sudden interest in a girl he saw for like five minutes and got into a spat with, but then he thought about the pinkette, "I'll have to say, she's quite cute, in an exotic way."
Madara made a face at his brother's weird description for the girl, "Just get the intel."
"Roger."
"And also," Madara added as an afterthought, "Have a chat with Kawarama about handling his anger issues a bit better."
Sakura heaved a deep and exhausted sigh as she stepped into her small apartment and dropped her heavy bag on her doorway. Today was a mess.
First she got into the fight, then got threatened, burned her cookies, had to handle the dessert counter because the waitress she appointed on the bar (the one who went MIA and caused the whole fiasco in the first place) had to leave because of an emergency, all the while pulling batches on batches for the desserts, and getting yelled at by her boss for causing a scene was just the cherry on top.
She wanted to do nothing more than just collapse on her bed and never get up.
Sakura roughly shoved off her shoes and stalked to her bed before flinging herself onto it like a flying squirrel. She sighed for the nth time and decided to atleast freshen up and change her clothes before knocking herself out.
Heavily dragging through the night routine of taking a quick shower, brushing her teeth and changing into her nightwear, she checked for the schedule for her university classes for the next day and cursed when she saw it was at eight in the damn morning. She'll have to do the closing shift tomorrow.
Sakura looked at the clock and saw it was around six PM, she wanted to sleep so bad, but she steeled herself as she pulled out her history book and looked over the topic that will be on the lecture tomorrow. She reminded herself every second that her future self will thank her for working ahead, as she stared longingly at her guitar sitting in the corner of her bed. It's been so long since she had written a song or strummed her guitar, but then she shook her head and determinedly stared at her book.
She studied about events and dates and who killed who until it was nine PM and getting physically impossible to keep her eyes open. She closed her book with a heavy slam and dragged herself to her bed and dropped down on it like a deadweight.
Just as her eyes her were blurring, she reached out her hand to turn her night lamp off, only to see something very strange. A small paper was sticking out from under a book kept on her small bedside table. She frowned and pulled it out, only for her blood to run cold.
It was an envelope, ivory white and scented with lavender and cinnamon, the fragrance registering itself in her brain like a painful memory. But nothing terrified her more than violet seal on the top, engraved in it a design of blooming lotus.
Sakura dropped it in a shock, fumbling her hands as if it burned her somehow, the piece of paper landing on her bed softly. She scrambled to grab it and roughly shove it in her bedside drawer before closing it with a slam, never to be taken out again.
Sakura breathed shallowly, curling into a ball under her weighted blanket, as if desperately trying to disappear. She repeated in her mind, don't panic, don't panic, don't panic, you saw nothing, it was nothing, don't panic… She forcibly took deep breaths to calm her nerves and stop her limbs from shaking.
She hated feeling like this. She promised her mother that she will be strong no matter what situation arises, that she will take it head on and never crumble, but look at her now, shaking like a withering leaf at the sight of a simple letter.
Oh, if only the letter was simple.
Sakura forced her mind in a state of relaxation, focusing on how exhausted she was and wanted to sleep. After a few minutes of begging to feel the same sleepiness she did a few moments ago, she finally felt the welcoming weight on her eyelids.
But even as she drifted into the blissful unconsciousness, she knew that this night, and the nights henceforth, will never be truly restful.
But something her slumbering form failed to notice was the tiny red light of a floating projectile outside her window, peeking in through the tiny crack in her curtains.
AN: So, how was it? I decided to start off with Madara. He's… interesting to write. Also, Neji is adorable. I have an idea on who I want to have as romantic choices in this story-
Choices – Madara, Izuna, Itachi, Sasuke, Shisui, Naruto, Sasori, Deidara, Gaara, Neji, Kakashi
Maybe? – Pein, Shikamaru, Kiba
Tell me whether you want to add or remove any romantic interest (Cuz honestly, I'm not exactly feeling some of the pairings.)
So, that was for this chap, see in you in the next one.
Bye!