Hi! It's near the end of my Spring Break now and just so you know, I've been working on all my other stories. They're not quite done yet, but since I feel like I haven't posted or updated ANYTHING this break, I've decided to just publish this new project I've been working on. The story's not exactly all throught through yet but I figured the first chapter was ready.

Read on! Tell me what you think about it in the reviews please! I'll answer any questions or comments or, uh, whatever else you guys can think of. Happy Easter!

Update: 2015
Also working on a comic version, with original characters. In progress.
Tumblr: sammakesamess
DeviantArt: MemorySoul

Step 1: THE 'FAKE DATING' Pt1

Sakura discovers from her mom the Haruno tradition of getting engaged on your 18th birthday via Arranged Marriage. Unable to cope with feeling so cornered, Sakura lies and says that she already has a boyfriend. Meanwhile Sasuke Uchiha, leader of the rebellious badass gang of Leafville High, has just broken up with his latest girlfriend. When fate has it that the two finally cross paths, will they work together to achieve their individual goals? Even if it means putting up with one another as a fake couple?

It was like any other start of the day when my alarm clock woke me up with the irritating sound of contant beeping. Of course, this was routine for almost anyone. Kind of a boring start for a story, but hey - a person's gotta start somewhere.

My family is how people would call it 'filthy rich', all in accordance with my extremely wealthy family line. I never really looked into the history of it all, but we supposedly struck riches a couple generations back when my great great something grandfather won the fortune somehow on a stroke of luck. And instead of spending it like every other darn fool on the world would, he contributed to investors, charities, and ended up making more to last future generations and uh, well, here I am.

Unlike most people, I had the expense of having my bedroom within my bedroom. Sounds funny the way I put it, though. See, being wealthy, means having wealthy stuff. And within that 'wealthy stuff' category my overbearing mother provided me a decently big room holding a light canopy bed with elegant walls and furniture fit for a princess. Heck I even have a couch in my room. What teen now a days have couches in the room from what I know?

And so, like I was saying, my bedroom is within my bedroom. Conveniently along with the big master bedroom I had a half as big closet, which was pretty big if you can imagine. Even when I was little I didn't really take much to the whole 'debutante and exclusive' living style my mom put into the entire house, let alone my entire bedroom. So eventually once I hit my teenage years, I got the nerve to convert my closet into real living space. It's pretty easier than it sounds.

Mom was throwing out a couch once. Seemed perfectly fine, sitting out on the curb waiting for the garbage truck to pick it up. So in the process of converting my closet into my new secret bedroom, I stole the seat cushions of the couch and hid them away in the said closet. There's my new bed. I took out all the clothes inside and put them in the vanity dresser I had outside the closet- not like I had a lot to begin with. I put up a small lamp on the floor, built some shelves on the walls, hung small drawings and posters, and bam - new (normal) bedroom.

And the cool part of it all is that Mom still doesn't know. She thinks I sleep every night in the comforts of my overstuffed canopy bed with it's priceless covers and goose feather filled pillows. Please.

"I'm up," I announce, coming down the stairs and into the kitchen with normal jeans and and a sweater. I can still feel the coolness of the white marble tiles underneath my reused socks.

"Good morning, Sakura," greets my mom, sitting at the table eating breakfast as she reads her weekly fashion magazine.

"Morning mom," I greet nonchalantly. "Morning Kakashi."

The man smiles through his mask as he cooks some eggs over the frying pan. "Yo." Kakashi Hatake, he's my new official dad (as of a couple years ago). Real Dad left us a long while ago. He divorced my mom, and said goodbye to me. And with my mom being my mom she kind of bounced back quite easily, as hard as that would seem to believe. However still being her in the life of the rich and prestigious, she went for the most tasteless men. Sure greasy combed hair and champagne seems nice and all, but they're all business men. Quality bank people but no real father. I left it to myself to steer Mom clear of those men, otherwise I would chase them out myself.

I didn't think she'd ever find a reasonable smart man, until Kakashi came. Not extremely 'rich' as she'd put it, but not completely a douche either. He's actually pretty good at the job of dad. He cooks, he cleans, he sarcastically jokes - all the things Mom doesn't even do. So I let her marry the keeper, and now I can easily retire as the infamous 'daughter-who-chases-out-rich-men'.

"What's for breakfast?" I ask over the counter, setting my school bag down.

"Bacon, eggs; nothing special."

"Just making sure it's not pancakes. You always seem to burn those."

"Hm, I wonder why," he accuses calmly at me. I smile a little with a laugh before taking the plate he gave to me, holding real homemade food, fresh. Not one of that extremely fancy stuff that sounds cool but tastes horrible. It's like snails. Rich people eat them all the time. I don't see the big deal. I don't see the taste, either.

"Here Sakura sit down sit down," mom calls. I sit across from her. She motions her French-manicured finger towards a page she has in the magazine. On it is a pink, regal ball gown I don't even think exists anymore this century. "What do you think of this one sweetie? Think it'd look good on you?"

"Um," you know the drill, Sakura. "I, think it looks fine Mom." I can feel Kakashi staring at me from the stove. I bet I know his face: with a look in his eye I know says 'liar'.

"Are you sure? Actually you know what just take the whole thing. Look through it yourself and find a dress you wanna get."

After shoving the magazine across the table to me I give her a questioning look. "Not to sound like the clueless one Mom but, why are you making me get a dress again?"

"Your mother will be hosting a little get together for the Sentei Ambassador," Kakashi informs from his cooking space. "It'll be held here in the house."

"Another ball?" I repeat, trying not to sound to whinish. It's just that the last time Mom hosted a big fancy party for her so called 'important people', she had me primped up like a princess from dawn to dusk. The whole ordeal is more work than it's worth. You wouldn't think it'd take that long to just 'get ready' for a party, but apparently to my mom that's the minimum. Now it appears there's going to be a repetition. "So when is it?" I asked as a forewarning.

"Tomorrow! Oh this is going to be such a great opportunity for you, Sakura."

"Opportunity for what exactly?" I bite into my eggs.

"To find you a suitable boy!" I spit out my breakfast back onto my china plate, almost in a chocking sequence. "The ambassador has a charming young man for a son just your age! I think you two would get along quite nicely if I do say so myself. "

Once I recover, I sit in a silence of awe at what she just said. Kakashi watches with an eerie and somewhat embarrassed look from the stove. "Um, Kana don't you think that's more or less up to Sakura to decide?"

Mom turns to Kakashi with a stern expression, hands on her hips and ready to argue. "Kakashi would you just look at your daughter? She is finally blossoming into a young debutante!" With arms extended out pointing towards me me Kakashi did look. And sitting in a chair is a somewhat hunched girl with choppy short pink hair wearing clothes suitable for a skater boy with some egg on the side of her face. Then if not to worsen the look, a decently loud burp erupts from my mouth. Kakashi sweatdrops as Mom frowned, her eye twitching.

I gave another sheepish grin. "Excuse me."

"Yes, I totally see the inner-lady in our daughter," Kakashi replies with his trademark tone. Mom doesn't laugh but I manage to stifle a chuckle or two.

"I'm serious Kakashi!" rebuts my mother, coming over to me with her hands on my shoulders. "Just look at her! She finally has her womanly features showing through her rugged boyish look!" As she motions to my chest, I have no idea whether to react weirded out or offended when she said I had a rugged boyish look. Crazy mother or otherwise, that isn't exactly what any daughter really wants to hear from her mom.

Once again Kakashi pauses before going back to cooking. "... I have nothing to say to that."

"Um, hey I think I hear Ino calling outside bye Mom, bye Kakashi!" Swallowing whatever's left on my plate I dart out of the kitchen. Anything to escape my mother's freakishly awkward scenes.

"Bye-Bye sweetie! Have a nice day!" she calls with a bright grin over her face. "And come home early today! We need to talk okay?"

"Yeah mom bye!" And a door slam finishes it.

Kakashi looks at his wife with the same stoic look under his mask. "Kana don't you ever think you may be embarrassing Sakura by all this?"

"What ever do you mean, Kakashi?"

"...Never mind."

Outside my house s the elegant green lawn out front. Our house or, mansion really, takes up about a whole acre of land in this seemingly suburban terrain. In actuallity it rested on the left side of the end of a culdesac, along with a normal sized smaller looking house across it. Mine however stands out like, a lot, so I try to go by unnoticed.

After walking down the gardens and past the front Haruno gates and onto the plain sidewalk, I notice across the street Sasuke Uchiha, the local pretty-boy of Leafville City, aka boy who lives in normal house across from mine. He's about as stereotypical as any teenage boy in high school could be. He has the 'cool' hair, the thin but muscular build, he skateboarded, he liked all the 'cool' music, and, well, everything. I don't know why or how but everyone just seems to idolize him, whether they liked him or not.

I, am one of those who barely knows nor likes the guy at all.

Cool or whatever he's still the biggest troublemaker I've ever known. EVER. Being neighbors like this I should know Sasuke half-way better than most people do, and I don't even like him. He takes one glance at me before taking his skateboard and riding off down the same route I'd be taking on foot. We've never gone to school together. And we probably never will.

At Leafville High I feel more at home- more normal than I ever can back at the house.

"Hey, Sakura," greets Ino, the only other friend I have in this entire place. She's the kind of person who is pretty academic in school, so I have to admit she's a little more motivated than I am at that. "You feel like coming over tomorrow? My mom bought a lot of cake mix for us to mess around with."

I close my locker. "I wish. My Mom wants me home tomorrow because she's throwing some big party for somebody."

Her face looks sour. "Geez, your mom must really have a lot of free time from her job if she's always planning this kinda stuff."

"Believe me, planning is her job." Hearing a crash we turn our heads and find a group of boys walking into school across the hall.

One of them was on a skateboard and just racing ahead, forcing others out of the way. Echoes of yells from the skateboarder reaches across to some teachers as they run to find the felon. It was probably Naruto, one of the guys in Sasuke's little posse of friends. Just about all of them are skaters, I think. All admired somewhat by the school's female population too, but their reputation as school hooligans ruined that kind of. Naruto for example.

Naruto is one of Sasuke's supposed friends. He's kind of like Sasuke's right-hand man. The two are almost always hanging out with each other so I can guess they're pretty good friends. Kiba's only second to Naruto when it comes to levels of wild uprisings and rebelling. People say he has fangs like the dog that's rumored he sneaks around, though no student ever really has the guts to tattle that little detail. Neji Hyuuga is more or less the silent one of Sasuke's group, but I sometimes catch him in his cruel behavior with the others. In a way he also came from a wealthy well off family like me, so he has connections he actually puts to use I bet, unlike me who tries to stray away from the world of money and business. Shikamaru is the total lazy bum of their gang. He has the worst grades and falls asleep in just about every class I have with him. And if that doesn't make it, his sarcasm matches that of Kakashi's one hundred percent it's scary.

Then there's Sasuke, the boy who has complete control over the school. He is almost always walking around with his girlfriend Karin, the (excuse my vulgar vocabulary) 'school slut, whore, bitch, etc'. No seriously. I'm not one to curse, but that title suited her perfectly. She's the stereotypical old style cheerleader who wore her skirt too sort, hair too long, and extremely too much make up. I for one don't really use the stuff, but Ino does and I see no harm in it. But on Karin, she takes it to the extreme that even I have no idea what Sasuke possibly sees in her. It's girls like her that give cheerleaders a bad name.

With one little glare at their by passing I turn the other way and stomp off to homeroom, Ino following shortly after.

Life in high school passes by reasonably fast, sometimes slow. Two years too slow. It's the start of Junior year now and on days like this it is extremely slow - possibly because I'm dreading tomorrow.

"So do you have any idea for what you'll be doing for your eighteenth birthday?" Ino asks me as we sit outside at the local fast food joint near school. Classes finally ended, and we came here.

I eat by burger in peace as I think about her question. "Not really. After all the things my mom does to me I don't really think I want to celebrate a Sweet Sixteen at eighteen."

Ino sent a sympathetic smile. "I understand, but that doesn't mean we can't do anything special." I smile a little. "Come on think! You're going to be eight-teen girl! Isn't there anything you want to plan on?"

"No Ino. Gosh what is with you with me being eighteen? It's just a number."

"Come on. Sixteen, eighteen and twenty-one are like the 'big' birthdays."

"Ino I just turned seventeen like, how many months ago?" It feels like yesterday.

The blond frowned and she crossed her arms. "You're no fun."

I looked at my watch. "Feel like coming over? I promised Kakashi I'd be home today to watch the house for him and Mom."

As I gathered my stuff Ino watches. She remains unusually quiet I notice, until she starts speaking again with this question. "You still call Kakashi by his name?"

I zip closed by bag and plac it on the table. By the look on her face I can tell she had the same thoughts as me. "I just find it weird to call him Dad, that's all." Pushing aside my distracted look I show a bright smile and stand up, shouldering my bag. "Come on. Let's take the long route. We can buy a pizza for tonight."

"Okay but you're buying."

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

From my house to school there are two routes you can take: There's the long, totally safe suburban route. Then there's the park way. It looks appealing to take at first, but for a small fact of difference going it isn't worth what's in between them. At the end of the path is a skate park and then a harbor, where a lot of dangerous activities according to Kakashi take place. Gangs and stuff he says. But hey, this is the city. It's only expected.

The long path home is alright. There aren't a lot of cars in Leafville City so walking places isn't generally as annoying as I'd normally think. It's actually pretty tranquil.

Once we arrive at the mansion with a hot box of pizza, Ino and I walk up the short cobblestone pathway and past the plants and bushes, where a gardener is trimming our overgrown bushes into new shapes to surprise me in the morning. I can remember the first time I took Ino over in Freshman year, but that's another story.

Opening the white painted corridors of the house I nonchalantly unlock it with my key and walk the two of us in. "I'm home!" I call into the big mansion. From the front door we end up in the ballroom. There's no furniture in it. Just space. This was also where Mom hosted her extravagant parties.

"I'm in the parlor, honey!" echoes back my mother's voice. Ino and I leave the pizza and our school bags over by the white marble steps across the room and go to follow her voice into the parlor. The parlor is a particularly olive green and brown room, slightly bigger than my bedroom. It has chairs for tea, a sleek black grand piano, and as of now, my mother with over a dozen mannequins with gowns...?

"What the..." I find my mother amidst the dresses, her fixing one of them up before seeing me.

"Sakura! Oh and you brought Ino! That's good."

Ino doesn't hesistate to embrace the sight and runs right over to a velvet blue dress, admiring its beauty and elegant appearance. "How you ever get tired of this Sakura is beyond me," he grins, lacing it's sleeves around her neck.

"Mom what is all this?"

"It's to pick out your dress from tomorrow," she smiles, clasping her hands together. "Do you like the choices? I looked into your closet and tried to pick out ones that fit your taste." My closet has nothing like these over sized bath robes.

"But... why?"

"Hon you never picked out a dress from the magazine this morning. If we want the ambassador's welcoming party to be a success you need to look your best without any signs of hold backs. So I just ordered all of these for you to pick!"

Ino still continues to explore the parlor's various mannequins as I stand there, staring with a stoic face. "I'm going to my room."

"No way young lady you're picking a dress NOW!"

I stand my ground with my glare. She steps up to me, but I stay: Shoulders back, posture straight and firm. "No." My resentment of her orders starts a dramatic stare-off between mother and daughter.

With the tension rising Ino turns her head around and finds the two Haruno girls glaring daggers at one another. She can practically feel a drum in the background to enhance the tension. "Hm?"

"Don't worry," Kakashi speaks out of the blue, spooking the blond as she almost knocks over one of the mannequins, if she hadn't caught it first. "Sakura and her mother disagree a lot like this."

"Dammit Kakashi do you have to sneak up on me like that?" Ino says.

Within a matter of seconds my mother and I start off on our temperamental argument-turned fight. As business lady-like as Kana Haruno seemed, she's pretty aggressive when it comes to parenting me, if you want to call it parenting. By now the woman has me in a headlock. "YOU'RE PICKING OUT A DRESS RIGHT NOW WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT!"

"NO now LET GO OF MY HEAD!"

"YOU WILL BE LADY-LIKE SO PICK A DAMN DRESS ALREADY!"

"LET GO!"

Ino watches the scene with an estranged expression while Kakashi sweatdrops, letting out a sigh of exasperation as he rubs his hand behind his head. "Why don't we head over to the kitchen and prepare some tea to calm ourselves down huh?"

Ino distractedly nodded. "R-Right..."

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

Eagerly into the afternoon we are all sitting around the coffee table in the parlor, Kakashi having brewed tea for us as it lay on a tray beside the still hot pizza Ino and I bought earlier on. (what a funny combination; tea and pizza) Ino and I are sitting on the couch as Mom and Kakashi sit on two separate couch chairs across from us. The atmosphere's calmed as the pizza box emptied half way. Two slices remain, but I still wear a bitter look from Mom's antics earlier.

"Well," Kakashi begins, finally breaking the silence. "Your mother did call you home early for a reason, Sakura."

"Clearly," I mutter, leaning my elbow on the side of the couch.

"Not becuase of the dresses," Kakashi straightens out, making me at least glance over towards him and Mom.

Mom begins to speak as she takes one last sip of her tea before setting the cup down on its saucer. By the air around her she appears to have a now serious outlook. "As you know Sakura, you will be turning eighteen on the twenty-eighth of March, which will take place in about a month from now. Not that much time when you think about it."

Hadn't Ino and I talked about this just a couple hours ago? "What is there to think about? It's just eighteen mom. Nothing special compared to when I turned three or five. I don't want a party or whatever you had in mind okay?" I wait for her to backfire at me with some temperamental remark, but she just remains seated on the couch, staring at me with this imploring look.

"I'm afraid you won't have much of a choice in this, Sakura," Kakashi says with the same amount of seriousness as Mom. It's strange and scary in a way, Ino and I notice. We rarely ever see Kakashi so serious in anything. "I advise that you listen carefully to your mother."

I don't say anything, but I look back at my mom, whose seriousness still clouds over the atmosphere. "... As you probably may have predicted, we will be having a ball in your honor, for your coming of age."

"But I don't want-"

"Let me finish," she interrupts. I quiet down. "You're having the ball, because it's a tradition in our family." Ino out of respect remains quiet herself, munching on her crust, but hearing the words out of Kana Haruno's mouth only continues to amaze her. For it to be a family tradition to have a royal ball for an eighteenth birthday is almost every teenage girl's dream.

"Yeah like all the other fancy pants celebrations we've had in this house weren't traditional?" I say skeptically.

"Oh those are just in my nature," Mom smiles with a wave of her hand. What happened to the seriousness? "But really you're having that ball."

"Well I don't want one," I reply stubbornly, crossing my arms. "Besides, Ino and I have plans."

"No we don't," Ino dazes, only for a vein to pop over my head.

Mom takes another sip from her tea off the tray. This is insane! "As you know our family has been one of the wealthiest in Japan for many generations. We're no different. And it has been our custom for Haruno girls to be presented in their coming of age in a debutante ball. No one has skipped this tradition."

"Well I'd volunteer to be the first."

"No you won't," Mom snapped.

Kakashi clears his throat, in an attempt to prevent the upcoming fight. "Getting back to the point."

Mom calms herself down again. "As you probably already know, when you hold these kinds of celebrations, it's customary for one to come another boy. An escort, if you will."

"What are you getting at?" I say sourly. This is not happening. This is just another fight.

"Isn't it obvious Sakura? You're going to your birthday with a date!" Ino exclaims beside me, as if she hadn't taken into account the last couple things mentioned.

"I know what it means but I don't really see the point in it. All this is is just wasting money and socializing for adults while the birthday girl sits in the background looking pretty. No thanks."

"It's more than just a party we'll be hosting, Sakura," my mother continues. "We have had stories passed down in our family. I don't know precisely when, but it seems long ago when the tradition first began, the debutante has always ended up marrying her escort in her future. After the first time, it happened again, and again, and again."

"How weird," Ino comments.

"How mad," I furrow.

"Eventually it just somehow became custom for these debutante balls to just be engagement parties and-" Kakashi pauses his wife with a hand on the shoulder, and with that Kana looks at me, seeing glowering green eyes, and the two parents sweatdrops out of pure nervousness of their daughter's appearance.

"Engage...ment..." I repeat in a hushed tone. Had I heard right?

My mother retains her calm demeanor. "We hope to find you the right escort before your birthday."

"You mean the right husband," I correct, standing up off the couch with Ino about to pull me back, but she doesn't. To be told something like this... To be told that your life had already been set for you and you never even knew it? "Why didn't you ever tell me?"

"Do you think it was easy for me to come out and tell you this today?" my mother says from the couch. "For all you know I could've told you on the day of. But instead I tried to do things this way." She grips her tea cup with a slightly stronger grip. "This was how I ended up with your father." My head sat up as does Ino's. Kakashi remains by my mother's side as she keeps the same calm smile she's been wearing for the past five minutes. "Your grandmother, my mother, held my debutante ball on my eighteenth birthday, and ever since I was little I knew that I would meet my fiance when I turned that age." She looks up at me, her smile now gone. "Your father and I met at my ball. We danced, got to know each other, and eventually we married when we became of legal age."

I stare ridiculously at my mother. I always figured my original parents had met each other out of love and became a decent couple. I wonder now what it was like for my overbearing mother. Married off in such a way that disgusted me completely. "Did you even love dad...?"

"... I tried to," she admits solemnly. "When it comes to arranged marriages, two people being brought together because of what someone else says... All those two people can do is learn to live with each other or..."

"Or divorce like you and dad did," I finalize for her. "... Your marriage didn't even last. Why should I have to go through this? What if I don't like the guy I go to my birthday with huh? Am I going to have a kid with a husband who'll leave me with a messed up life because you wanted to follow tradition? Is that what you want from me-"

"No Sakura," she finally retorts, halting all of us to a stop. "We follow tradition, because we are family... It's just how things are, that's all," she says with a smile and a slight shrug, as if she didn't even know the answer herself. "But it's because I love you I want you to find someone right. This is what tomorrow is for-"

My eyes widen once again in anger. "So that was what you meant this morning wasn't it! You wanted that ambassador's son to be my escort!"

"He's a good guy, Sakura-"

"I don't care if you think he'll take care of me! I'm not going tomorrow," I finalize, rushing out of the parlor without giving her a second chance to speak.

As I speed off, Ino begins calling and rushing after me out of the room, leaving Kakashi and his wife to themselves. My mother exhales and falls back down onto the couch. "That did not go well."

"Well I wasn't expecting it to," Kakashi comforts. "Give her some time. Sakura's a strong girl."

Meanwhile I had run upstairs, opening the two white doors that lead to my bedroom. I ran over to the closet door and jump inside, locking it from the inside and sitting myself down on the make-shift bed on the floor. I want to cry as I try thinking through what had just happened. My mom can't do that can she? I mean there's only so much she can make me do. All I have to say is 'no' right? Like always? But at the same time, I fell like that isn't an option.

"Sakura," Ino calls, knocking on my closet door outside. "It's me Ino. Please open the door Sakura."

She calls my name a few more times before I finally catch my breath. I unlock it and she finds me, shutting the door and locking it again for me. Sitting beside me against the door she looks around. "Wow, sometimes I forget how big this closet is." Her attention returns to me, pulling my legs up. She rubs my back. "You okay?"

"...No," I reply, somewhat calmer now. "I feel pissed off if that counts."

Ino makes a little chuckle to me before giving a sympathetic smile. "And I thought the life of the rich and fabulous meant everything would be perfect."

"Well I thought it'd mean no problems," I comply as she sits back upright. "What am I gonna do, Ino? Marrying someone? Even the mere thought of that freaks me out, let alone meeting the person tomorrow..." I sigh and ruffle my hands through my hair. "Maybe I should just accept it and go along with it? I mean, at least it's the son of that ambassador guy... at least we'll be fine financially. That's what my mom wants, right?"

"But knowing you it's not what you want, is it." I have nothing to say to her. "Personally I'd be up for it too but... I think whether or not you accept all this is up to you."

I pick up my head to look at her, almost smiling. "Since when did you start giving deep advice about stuff?"

Ino replies with a laugh, which in turn spread over contagiously to mine. I find it miraculous how such a simple choice of words can easily sway one person's mind from one dramatic subject to another. I suppose that's where the term 'that's what friends are for' comes in.

Ino and I decide that we will pick up the problem first thing tomorrow so that I can get a good night's sleep tonight. Leaving me to my night time dreams, elsewhere in the culdesac a certain Uchiha across the street is having social problems of his own.

"Yeah?"

"..."

"So you're pinning the blame on me now?"

"..."

"You think I care, you bitch? Whatever, we're done." Angrily Sasuke hangs up his phone, tossing it across his bed and in a clearly pissed off manner. The popular teen has just broken up with his just as popular girlfriend. Clearly to him, the situation mattered just as worse as a bankrupt city. In the society of a high school such as theirs, social standings in relationships put teens at their highest point in view.

Karin, the popular cheerleader who ran the female student body, dated Sasuke to shall we say, 'enhance' her appearance as a girl loved by all, even the rugged, lone Uchiha. Meanwhile Sasuke otherwise did it for rather the same purposes, with slightly less contrast than one would think. The school's greatst badass dating the school's hottest hooker made an almost all out number pair that would almost always seem unstoppable, intimidating almost as it should. But the only real reason Sasuke dated the said girl, was for the sake of having a girlfriend in the first place. Her boobs, her lips - he just saw them all as perks. But having a reputation as the school's most attractive and 'coolest' male student, it's only mandatory that he have a just as worse girlfriend by his side at all times.

And now she's gone.

Next door down the hall, having heard the crash from Sasuke's phone, Itachi knocks on his little brother's room, opening it nonetheless to look in. "Someone's having a temper tantrum. Cute."

"Go away, Itachi."

Itachi remains quiet, but he decides only on saying the necessary. "Dinner's ready downstairs." Saying no more, he leaves Sasuke to ponder over his worries.

It's not so much that he was upset over the loss of Karin - Karin was one of a million more where she came from. What Sasuke needed, was another girlfrined, and fast. If he knew Karin well enough, word would spread quickly about their super recent split up, putting him in a bad light with at least half of the school's popoulation unless he found a replacement that would overshadow even Karin. Any girl could, just because she would be with Sasuke.

Placing his ear buds into his ears to drown out the silence, Sasuke's dark eyes narrow to his ceiling as he trird to think of a way out of this predicament. After a long period of time, hunger brought himself to go downstairs. Through the kitchen he passes his mother at the sink, washing dishes from another dinner he has skipped, not that it was that unusual. Sasuke rarely ate with his mother and brother, often taking simple leftovers from the fridge after a meal.

Hearing Sasuke begin to raid their fridge, Ms. Mikoto Uchiha turns her head over her shoulder. "You're still up, Sasuke?"

He closes with the fridge with a soda can in hand. "Homework," he replies in a lie, though not to directly deceit her but to assure her of any problems that would otherwise cause her worry. "I see you're still up as well. Aren't your early morning shifts moved to tomorrow?"

Sasuke's loving mother put up a warm smile for her son. "Don't worry about it. I just need to finish cleaning up the kitchen before tomorrow. Knowing me I'll probably get too tired by the time I come home tomorrow so I might as well just do it all now-" Her words stop upon the touch of her son's hand on her arm. Sasuke then humbly takes the dirty dish from her hand and the sponge from her other hand. As she moves aside to allow Sasuke room to do the dishes, she watches in amazement once more at her son's kind heart.

"Go to sleep," Sasuke says, gently scrubbing the white glass. "I'll finish up here for you."

Mikoto stares for two seconds more before giving up another smile. Stepping up, she takes her son's face in her loving hands and kisses his forehead goodnight, leaving him alone in the kitchen. At her leave, Sasuke gives a secret and silent smile of his own. Unlike their neighbors the Harunos, Sasuke and his family lived in poverty, his widowed mother running multiple jobs to support her two sons. And despite Sasuke's outward personality to others, he always held a special compassionate mind for his mother's health.

PREVIEW:

"'Like him'? We absolutely ADORE Sasuke Uchiha!" one screams. The entire crowd together, still growing, squeals in delight at the statement, further creeping me out beyond measures.

This is not a normal school.

x-x-x-x

"Maybe this time you can actually find a real girlfriend you can actually stick with for the long-run," Neji suggests to the Uchiha.

Shikamaru notices Sasuke stifle a laugh from Neji's suggestion. "Me settle? Don't you get it Neji - Chasing as many girls as you want is the perks of being us. We never have to settle and can do as we want. Is it a crime to want choice?"

x-x-x-x

x-x-x-x

"B-But I can't!" I say out of the blue. A glass-breaking silence erupted through our small gathering. Well Sakura, go on. "I, I already have an escort," I lie. Lying. Lying is the best I could come up with after all this time?

"Do you, now..." my mother gritts through her teeth beside company. You did it now, Sakura.

"Y-Yeah! My boyfriend! From school! I've already asked him personally and I can't very well turn him down," I explaine convincingly.

x-x-x

What. the hell. have I just done.