Inside the first class cabin Sasuke was waiting for the plane to take off.

He took out his phone to searched for someone's name in the instagram. Couple of suggestion names came up, but he could recognized it right away by their small circled profil pictures.

After clicking the follow button he sliding into the DMs.

"Hey, how are you doing?
By the way, I just got back from DC, and my mum gave me something to give you"

To his surprise, the message was read instantly.

"Heeey, it's been awhile, I'm good.
Wooow your mom is the best, I'll make sure to take it myself, thank youuu (smiley emoji)"

"My mum insulted me for not following you on Ig. So, here I am"

A few minutes passed, she had not reply to his message. So, he took his ten minutes before the plane take off to scrolling through her feed. She did not post that much besides her work's life.

Sasuke's corner lips lifted when as soon as he read her replied.

"Reeallyyy???
You should be glad she doesn't insulted you for another reason, such as how dusty your account is (Double laughing emoji)"

Indeed. Sasuke had neglected his personal Instagram account for God's know how long, the last one was years ago; it was a photo of him wearing a graduation regalia stood tall between his proud parents whom smiling from ear to ear.

"(Rolling eyes emoji)"

"Your welcome, Sasuke-kun" she jokingly wrote back.

Sakura's respondgave a heaps of relieve filled up his chest. He was glad he reached out to her.

/

h E R e • a F t E R

13

/

Tokyo, 2021
Summer.

When Nishimiya Akemi at the last minute said that her boss would also joined the meeting about their annual fundraising event and their exhibition projects, everyone was so excited they looked nervous at the same time. This projects meant great deal for the new team which most of them was content creators and influencers. It would beneficially affect their career, the confirmation they needed of their professionalism as well as owning the spotlight in their volatile world of social media by gaining the trust from a huge name like the Uchiha.

Eventhough Madoka was not included, she could not hid the fact that she was also excited to finally meet Sasuke. The last time they met was at Uchiha Fugaku's funneral—just a brief talk to showed her condolences—only to watched him taciturn and morose throughout the funneral.

Behind the glass door and windows of the exclusive meeting room where they could see what was on the outside—but not the other way around—everyone sat straight upon their seat. Uchiha Sasuke walked his ways through the hustle and bustle of the restaurant toward the meeting room.

As if his aura did not intimidating enough, he scanned the room the moment he arrived. "Good afternoon," he said while calmly walking to the chair right across Madoka.

"Good afternoon, Sir," everyone replied.

Without further ado Sasuke talked to the point in which throwing numerous questions and clarifying concerns to each divisions. Talking about business he was as strict as usual, even for his much eccentric (read: scarier) brother could pull up a smile and make small talk every now and then.

Madoka tried her best not to keep her eyes straight to Sasuke throughout the entire meeting. While Sasuke on the other hand, in the middle of their discussion his coal-black eyes were glancing toward her. Not once, but thrice.

Is there anything he wished to tell me? Madoka thought.

Most of the team members knew exatcly who Madoka is, even if it was just as a fellow artist or as her piece of art's enthusiast. And her connection to the Uchihas was a common knowledge, specifically with both of the two young masters. They could simply overlook those insignificant act, instead they understood to why Uchiha Sasuke would doing it.

However, they all turned out to be wrong.

"As our initial purpose that this projects are expected to be the starting point for changes of the hotel's image to be more shopiticated yet elegant as it always been. But, we hoped it shouldn't lessen the core values that have been embedded in the hotel for years."

"You've concluded that quite right. We might change the concept, but, please keep only to that matter. No one not even me should take any advantage of this charity. Any charity."

"Y-yes, Uchiha-san."

"Overall, everything's went perfectly on point. I'll bring this matter to the boards as soon as possible, and making sure we got everything we need."

Sasuke nodding his head in appreciation toward his team. He also back and forth glanced to Madoka and the team. Then he suddenly said, "Can we take a break for a moment?"

Nishimiya widen her eyes. She even unintentionally glared to her boss out of shock.

"Fifteen minutes," said Sasuke nonchalantly.

"Sure, Sir," she blinked back her eyes.

Another person who was in shock; frowning her forehead deeply was Madoka. Her eyes couldn't help but to follow the said boss's movement when he quicken his long legs toward her seat.

Few steps before her, he had both of his eyebrows raised looking at Madoka, swiftly he reached out his right hand only to grab the knob of the glass door which was right behind her. From the moment he closed the door Madoka came to realization, all this time those glances were not directed toward her. It turned out he was focusing way beyond her, through the glass door and windows to somewhere in the restaurant.

Madoka had to twist her waist for her to be able to witness what Sasuke was doing. He was rushing toward the restaurant's front door, but, immediately halted not too far from there.

He was then talking to a woman. A pinky haired woman.

What the—

Madoka looked around the meeting room she was relieved no one was noticing it. Most importantly no one saw her, how she felt embarassed and in shock.

Only Nishimiya who was as stupefied as Madoka; witnessing the same scene and wore the same expression.

Sasuke initiated the conversation with the woman who looked very young probably due to the bright hair. Even from such distant, Madoka could tell the disparity of Sasuke's eyes when he held upon the woman than to his peers in this room.

They talked short while outside the restaurant before they waved to each others, and then the woman left. Sasuke walked back into the room; switching back to his usual stoic expression.

"Shall we continue?"

/

The pinky haired woman unexpectedly showed herself again at their open-meeting dinner at Sasuke's apartement, a few days after the succession of their fundraising event.

She wore pink pastel maxiskirt with a simple green turtleneck. The outfit matched her perfectly.

This time not only Madoka and Nishimiya who were noticing the unfamiliar appearance—as if she was a unicorn came out of the enigmatic realm of Uchiha Sasuke—people got bemused and started to whispered to each other. Something even more riveting when Uchiha Sasuke walked her down the terrace. He introduced her to the team; turned a blind eye to the whispering behind their back.

Eventually half of them dropped their speculation, saying the lady was possibly just another one of his bussiness partner, like the other guy with his peculiar hair at the bar. But, still curiosity got the best of Madoka already. The one who knew about Sasuke longer and better was her after all, not even Nishimiya who started working for him barely few months ago.

She could not just overlooked the expression on Sasuke's face when he checked his phone dozen of times before the pinky haired woman finally arrived at his door. She was aware of one obvious thing, the woman was more than just another one of his bussiness partner.

And what could be more important to Uchiha Sasuke rather than his business?

/

A lady in a soft pink flowery skirt stood at the entrance of a penthouse. Tried to shrug off the nervousness, all smiley and tone cheers. "Hey, sorry I'm late."

A man was pleased to see it. "Please, come in," His gaze lingered on her cherry cheeks which matched her lips. She smelled like the fresh cherry lime rickey cocktail in the middle of summer heat.

Sasuke's penthouse was very typical regardless the fact that Sakura never went to one before this. She knew the moment she step off of the elevator then she faced its front door that it would be a large quarters for living as it usually portrayed in every ads.

Not too surprising that it had an exclusive terrace at the left side of the building—decorated as an open garden with Tokyo's Tower as its landscape view—where he held his open-meeting dinner. Tall gorgeous men and women sat in the middle of the open space, Sakura noticed.

"Guys, this is my friend Dr. Haruno Sakura," they said hi to Sakura who clumsily bowed her head, "Sakura, this is my team," Sasuke told Sakura they were here as his partners in social media publication purposes.

"And this are my managers and my secretary," then Sasuke introduced Sakura to another group which was his team from the hotel. The ambience was too bright and high it could had been a party.

Sakura noticed the big screen placed at the end of his small garden that Sasuke's creative team had put up for their presentation. Sasuke asked Sakura to sit wherever she felt comfortable because of course he still need to supervises the meeting.

"You can take a look inside if you want," he said before leaving her. "Gaara's here by the way. I asked him to do me a favor.

Sakura saw Gaara's bright hair from inside the apartment. He was tending at the bar. Of course, it wasn't surprising at all if he has a bar inside his house. The bar was placed not far from the kitchen island.

"I'll go see him then."

She walked back inside the apartment to see Gaara, passing the spacious living room where a fireplace was installed on the left wall beneath the staircase.

"Heeey," Sakura lean at the bar, took a surprise note on Gaara's usually apathetic-face. She looked around to see the dining room was spacious as well, combined with the bar and the two broad liquor cabinets.

"I didn't know you're coming too," said Gaara after pouring out his mixing into the two guests's glass in front of him.

Sakura smiled to them. "I actually came to pick up something. Sasuke told me there would be like a dinner party here, but, he didn't mention about you."

"Because we made the deal at the last minute I guess. What do you like to have?" He shifted closer to her.

"I leave it to you, I suppose."

Gaara nodded his head lightly. He immediately opened the cabinet behind him, "This is from Sasuke's brand," to snatch one of the already-open red wine bottle.

"Aaah."

Gaara poured the beautiful liquid into a rounder wine glass, then slid the glass's foot using two fingers in front of Sakura.

She was amazed at how clean and soft the red wine tasted. She remembered the wine she had at the hotel's banquet. Although, it had the same bitter-sweet after taste and the same smell out of it, but they had different acidity and level of alcohol.

"He has a fine range of drinks for sophisticated palates," Gaara made a remark, "This one contained the least alcohol, should be fine for you. Or do you want anything else?"

Sakura waved her hand, "This is great." She really wanted to enjoy the red wine. Specifically because Sasuke made it himself.

Each and every things that surrounded Sasuke had a strong masculine yet delicate ambience—right to very corner of his apartment, and to the bottom of his liquor's bottle—just like Sasuke would be if he ever was an element.

/

She stood on the other corner of the terrace. Stuck to the cold concrete wall of the balcony where she could witness the bustling roadways and the colorful lights of Tokyo's city.

Instead, there she was worrying about the wind. It would be a disaster if the rain's falling.

As the presentation began to talk about rebranding the hotel to be more sophisticated—yet kept the hotel's root of its earthy milieu—Sakura felt mesmerized how they tried to liven up the idea through delicate designs and methods. They brought all of their best resources to the table.

Isn't it cheating to be gorgeous and smart and creative at the same time?

"Hi, there."

Sakura jumped as she felt a tap to her left shoulders. "H-hi."

Speaking of the devil. It was one of the gorgeous women from before.

"Madoka or Maddy, whichever you prefer," She smiled passing Sakura a glass of red wine, "So, need more drink?"

Sakura just realized her glass was near empty. Although it was her second glass, "Well, that's very kind of you. I'm Sakura."

"Sure, please enjoy. Sasuke told me about you already."

"Oh, does he?" Sakura looked in disbelief.

"Yeah, you know I was curious because he kinda kept looking at his phone before you came. I jokingly asked him if he was waiting for someone, because that's very unlikely," Madoka sipped her blue martini. She was smirking, "But, then, he said he was waiting for some friend."

"We are friend, Madoka-san." The suffix was there to drew a line.

Madoka pulled up the right corner of her lips. "That's great, you know maybe we all could hangout together sometime. By the way, I'm close with Itachi as well."

Sakura gave another nod, "Sure, I'd love to."

The meeting was almost reached to its end, when Sasuke took a step in front of his team. Sakura was wondering did Madoka had finished doing her task so she had free time to talked to her.

"Are you one of the hotel's team, Madoka-san?"

"No, no, I'm just like you, I'm here to support, Sasuke-kun," Madoka waved her hand, while the other stayed comfortably on her hip. "I brought a few friends of mine who had strong influence on the creative media industry."

"That's great. And what about you? What do you do for living, Madoka-san?"

"Oh, please, just Madoka. Anyway, I do paints, Sakura. I held an exhibition at Uchiha's hotel every year."

"So, basically you're the one who own the exhibition for this project? I always wanted to see an art exhibition like that."

"Then you should come to mine at the beginning of this September," Madoka took out her card inside her silver satchel.

They kept talking about Madoka's paintings until Sasuke called her back to gave a brief talk or a comment to add to the presentation.

Sakura put down her empty glass, then headed back to the bar. She felt she needed to sit after taking her third glass.

Eventhough the meeting was over, Sasuke and his whole team were still engrossed in their enticing conversation. Looking from the third point of view, they seemed could really doing it for the entire night.

Sakura tried to enjoy her drinks with a little snacks that Gaara had put on the plate for her. She sigh deeply watching from afar.

The red wine started to kicking in. Contrary to that, Sakura did not, or could not stop sipping to her glass.

The Tokyo tower was never been this beautiful for as long she had lived in Tokyo. The clear endless sky seemed somber without the stars. Sakura started to feel a little bit melancholy. And there was this tiny twinge of envy.

As she absorbed in her own thought, she kept filling up her glass. This wine is damn addicting. Does he really made it himself?

e P i L o G u E

Gaara watched as his long friend came back with her another glassful of red wine. Despite her low-level tolerance of alcohol, she was stubborn when she asked him to fill up her forth round.

She sit there quietly with drowsy eyes. Gaara looked worried, "Are you sure you could handle that?"

Sakura smirked. "I really had no idea."

She put her head down while she kept her hands holding onto the glass. Her forehead would soon be numb from the cold marble counter.

"I think you're being drunk here was no good, Sakura. It would probably left a weird impression toward Uchiha." Said Gaara after seeing people were started to leave the terrace.

Sakura immediately responded, "Yeah, you're right."

So, she trudged her way behind the bar counter. "They won't see me here," she looked at Gaara while sitting on the only chair inside the bar.

Gaara merely nodding his head, confused to what was happening to used-too-strict Sakura toward alcohol. She was pouting when Gaara asked her, "You looked terribly wasted. Something's wrong?"

"Do you know that Neji used to hated me when I get drunk? He would gave me that look, the one you giving me right now," she said almost whispering.

"Huh?"

"Yeah, something just popping inside my head."

Gaara raised his left eyebrow, made his 'love' tattoo looked smaller on his forehead.

"Have you met Neji's dad lately?"

So, it was about Neji then. "Last time I saw him was around December last year."

Sakura heaved a deep sigh. "I met him a week ago, and he told me that I should stop meeting him, taking care of him. He said he wanted to go back to his hometown."

The air between the two became suddenly cold. The whirling sound of the wind from outside making its long way to the dining room. As dead silent prolonged, Sakura dropped her head to the narrow table inside the bar.

"This year, he's supposed to get his master degree, he could get a job at the ministry, or maybe just anywhere he wished to. Looking at how passionate Sasuke and his team makes me think about him. He used to living his life to the fullest just like them. He always involved in various public projects, volunteers, donation. Always talked about wanting to be a lecturer and getting his phD," Sakura sucked her breath; stop only to let her tears pooling upon the table.

"Poor his dad, Neji was his only hope," she restrainted herself from sniffling.

This was the first time Gaara ever heard Sakura telling him her honest feeling. It made him wondered whether she ever sees him as her friend or not. But, tonight was not the right time nor the right place to confirmed his thought. Gaara looked at her with such pity.

"Do you want me to tell Uchiha that you need to go home?" was the only respond Gaara could gave her.

Meekly she said, "I think... I'm fine," her voices were shaking at the end.

Indeed, stubborn. Maybe that's why Neji hates it if she gets drunk. Gaara kept his apathetic stare; watching as the guests started leaving through the front door.