Chapter Text
Life in the US was very different from life in Japan.
The technology wasn’t as great as back in her homeland but it was somewhere there. Everything was expensive with a loaf of bread costing almost two dollars. The people weren’t as strict and formal but they weren’t that much friendly. One night stands were so common that she wondered if any of the people ever had any form of self respect. She heard and knew enough from her neighbour. The air was always heavy with smoke, perfume and sweat. When night came, it was a different story. The skyline was her favourite thing to watch when a few of the stars managed to make their light known.
Life in New York was very different from life in Kyoto.
Everyone was always late or rushing somewhere in the morning. The subway would be packed to the brim and taxis were hard to get by. She often ended up walking to school. The coffee was whack and the food was so greasy and junky, it was no wonder that a lot of people here were overweight. She wasn’t hating, no, just making an astute observation. Of all mixed races, Wasians were the favourites. Sakura didn’t understand why they were treated as more superior than actual Asians. Was it because they had a little bit of white in them? She didn’t known, and honestly, she wasn’t interested to find out. There were bigger things to worry about.
Like how her mother brought home a new boyfriend every single month. They were usually white. On few occasions, she would bring over a Latino or an African. Sakura wasn’t racist, no. She just wondered how her mother managed to string such godly looking men. They were unfairly attractive. Her mother wasn’t all that. Mebuki was visibly aging. She had wrinkles on the corner of the eyes and mouth. She also had age lines around her nose. But she had this ability to make someone attracted to her. She wasn’t performative, no. She was genuine. Perhaps that’s how she had managed to get all those men. But they never lasted.
Sakura didn’t get to try to know them because she knew they would be gone soon. They didn’t bother either because they would be too busy gawking at her mother as if she were the most interesting thing in the world. As such, she didn’t mind the ‘family” dinners. Being made everything so much better.
Sakura’s father died when she was thirteen. He worked at the local library and was caught in an unfortunate robbery at the store across. Being the self proclaimed hero he was, he quickly went over when he heard gunshots. It had been for naught. He got shot. It turned out that the robber had been part of a yakuza gang. The saleswoman was his girlfriend and they had gotten into a lover’s spat. Kizashi was unfortunate enough to get caught up in it.
Her father used to tell her that with great power, came great responsibility. Sakura didn’t understand what he meant by that. He hadn’t had the power to stop the yakuza and he ended up dying for it. Not only had he left behind a broken wife, a debt with a fancy bow had been the cherry on top. The Haruno family wasn’t as well off as the Uchiha or the Uzumaki. Sasuke’s dad was Chief of the Police. Naruto’s dad was the mayor. Naruto’s mom was the niece of the First Lady. Sakure knew them because they had grown up in the same town. Her father took debts to take care of his family and send Sakura to school. His job at the library helped with day to day expenses. Her mother was a seamstress but without a degree and formal education, a lot of companies hesitated to hire her even when she displayed her awesome skills. She ended up being the town seamstress, paying off their debt bit by bit.
After her father’s death, everything was hard. Her mother spiralled and she couldn’t work. Sakura ended up taking two part time jobs. She went to work before school and after school, coming home close to midnight. Three hours were spent on homework and studying. By four o’clock, she had to start preparing for her morning shift which ran from five to seven. By eight she would be at school. Her night shift started from six until eleven. It paid well and she managed to clear off the debt within two years. Her father’s family helped but they could only do so much. They weren’t better than the others. Her mother was an orphan and so she didn’t have any family members.
Sakura got a scholarship to study in New York after winning a science quiz last year in middle school. By then, her mother had been somewhat better and had started working again, covering day to day expenses and paying off the debt whenever she could. When she was given the scholarship, Mebuki was ecstatic. The scholarship also covered her mom since she couldn’t live in a foreign country alone when she was still a minor. Mebuki auctioned everything they had, keeping a few souvenirs of her father’s so that they could start afresh in the US.
Naruto had been sad to see her go. Sasuke was neutral, it was hard to get a read on him. Ino had been devastated. They had been friends since kindergarten. They would keep in touch however. And so, at sixteen years of age with a dead father and a healing mother, Sakura went to live in New York. The two cities were vastly different from one another. She wasn’t used to seeing so much English everywhere. She was used to seeing kanji at every corner.
Her new school, Osborn International School of Technology, was situated on the outskirts of city centre, away from the public eye and granting them much needed privacy to conduct experiments of all kinds. It wasn’t a boarding school and Sakura was grateful for it. She didn’t know how she could live in a foreign land away from her mother. Even though they didn’t see eye to eye on some things, Sakura loved her mother. Whereas she had her father’s side of the family, she was all Mebuki had.
Sakura had been doing research before coming to New York, intent on seeing if she could get part time jobs for herself and her mother. Before leaving Japan, she had asked Ino to send her all pictures of her mother’s works so that she could set up an online store for her. Mebuki wasn’t really interested in technology which is where Sakura came in. Soon after arriving in New York, after settling down and arranging furniture, Sakura was quick to set up Mebuki’s Designs Fashion Store. She designed the website, put it up on Shopify and even created a Tiktok account where she also put up a TikTok Store.
Mebuki insisted on making Sakura’s uniform from scratch. She was good at it though. Sakura documented the entire process and posted it on her account. The result was instantaneous. Almost every week, she had at least three orders. Whenever Sakura wasn’t busy with schoolwork, she would be filming her mother or sewing a stitch or two. Mebuki told her that it wasn’t necessary to get a part time job. She would cover all expenses. Sakura was grateful because she really didn’t want a repeat of the last two years.
School was interesting and boring at the same time. Interesting because of what they learned and boring because she had no friends. Wasians were the preferred species. Sakura wasn’t a social butterfly. In a land surrounded by foreigners, she kept mostly to herself even though she knew that she had to make friends at some point.
“Sakura, can you drop off this package by Ms Harris’ on your way to school?”
The pinkette groaned. She hated Ms Harris. She was just so nosy. “Can’t I do to after I come back from school? I’m going to be late,” she called back as she put on her uniform. She wore a navy blue blazer, a checkered pleated skirt and a white shirt. The skirt ended above her knees. She wore white socks which reached past her ankles and black shoes. Her hair was cut in a bob with bangs on either sides of her face.
“You won’t be late. I checked the time. You’ve still got plenty of time,” Mebuki said as she appeared in the doorway. “But mom, she’s always trying something with me and it’s annoying. Last time I went there, she asked me to speak to her in Japanese. She doesn’t even know what konnichiwa means!” she replied.
“Now now, Ms Harris’ has been a big help to us. I just need her to have it so that she can show it to her friends. I might get another job offer,” the redhead explained. Sakura sighed deeply. “Okay fine,” she grumbled unhappily.
Mebuki squealed and gave her a hug. Sakura resisted the urge to roll her eyes. It was going to be one long day.
By the time Sakura arrived at school, she was on the verge of tears. Ms Harris had asked her if she was an anime waifu then proceeded to ask Sakura to translate what was written on the new hair dryer she bought. It was written in Japanese. After that, she went to the subway only to have a random guy drop his entire cup of cold coffee on her shirt. He didn’t even apologize, instead he blamed her for sitting down and not giving up her seat to him.
She arrived at school in time but with her uniform wrecked, she had to change into the hideous school sweater that everyone hated. She received a lot of stares and whispers. Sakura already stood out with her pink hair and Asian features. And now she was wearing that damned sweater. She took her seat at the front of the class and waited patiently for their homeroom teacher to arrive. It wasn’t as loud as her class back in Japan but they had their moments. She took out her phone and doom scrolled on TikTok before their teacher, Mr Boris, made an appearance.
“Good morning students. I trust you had a great weekend. We were supposed to have a pop quiz today but there had been a change of events. We are going to a museum today so everyone pack up. We’re heading out now!"
The trip to the recently opened Osborn Technical Museum was boring because again, she had no friend to talk to. Three classes were going, two first year classes and one fourth year class. Sakura was in the first class, obviously even though she was older than most of them. She stayed close to the fourth year class because at least she could actually pay attention to what was being said instead of pretending.
“I hope everyone pays attention because you will be quizzed on everything you’ll learn. Our guide will take us through the entire museum and explain the lore behind everything you’ll see,” Mr Boris spoke.
“Even that menacing spider over there? What’s the lore behind creatures which look like they can kill you?” a first year spoke up.
“I didn’t know you were afraid of spiders Nancy,” Mr Boris stated. Nancy, tall and brunette with curves that every first year envied, smiled in distaste. “Everybody hates spiders. They’re just creepy and weird,” she replied as she flicked her hair.
“Spiders, like any other animal, are only creepy because you don’t understand them. Those ones have silk which is stronger than steel,” a guy said, walking up to Mr Boris.
“Nothing is stronger than steel,” Nancy argued. “I can name five materials off the top of my head which are stronger than steel, spider silk included,” he replied. Nancy had the decency to look embarrassed.
“Hello everyone. My name is Peter Parker and I’ll be your guide today,” he introduced. He had dark brown hair, equally brown eyes and he was very tall. Sakura thought his head looked bigger than the rest of his body. But it didn’t matter because it didn’t change the fact that he was gorgeous. He was wearing a pair of huge gigantic glasses but she wasn’t buying his nerdy persona. He smiled, revealing a row of perfectly arranged teeth and sharp canines. He was wearing a white lab coat with the Osborn logo on the pocket.
“What kind of spider is that?” Sakura found herself asking.
Everyone turned to her, giving her odd looks. She wished the ground would just swallow her. Sakura’s accent stood out a lot. It was very Asian. It was better than when she had first arrived but still, she hasn’t mastered that American accent just yet. Plus she was wearing that ugly sweater.
“That was the Northern female Black Widow, common to New York but only in specific places. They do not bite unless crushed or their eggs are threatened. Its poison is fifteen times stronger than that of rattlesnake poison. They’re known as the widow spiders because they eat their males after mating,” Peter explained, watching in intense satisfaction as some student faces started to turn green.
“Is it really true that their silk is stronger than steel? Has it actually been tested?” Sakura asked again, unable to help herself. She found it absurd that such a small animal could make something so strong.
“Black widow spider dragline silk has a tensile strength of about 1.0 to 1.4 gigapascals, making it pound-for-pound stronger than high-grade steel. Its tensile strength is measured around 1.09 to 1.4 GPa, which surpasses many forms of structural steel. Because steel is much denser, black widow silk is roughly six times stronger than steel per gram of material. The silk combines high strength with the ability to stretch significantly before breaking, absorbing a large amount of energy similar to Kevlar,” Peter explained as he walked over to the glass cage containing the tiny spider.
“Has it already mated?” a fourth year asked. “Yes though the male spider managed to make it out alive. You see that ball of silk over there? Those are the eggs and we expect them to hatch within a few weeks,” Peter replied. “Are you breeding spiders?” another fourth year asked. “Kinda. We’re looking to mix different spiders of the widow family and create hybrids. Plus we’re experimenting to see if we can make something useful out of spider venom,” Peter said.
“Like cancer cure?” a first year asked. “Not cancer exactly but something along those lines. Which is why we’re breeding widow spiders to see if we can actually get something out of them,” he stated.
“How do you extract the spider venom? Will you get bitten and extract it? Or will you kill the spider?” a fourth year asked. “Black widow venoms travels too fast for it to be harvested from a human being. Plus it would be hard to extract it since it causes muscle cramps and pain. We do have specialized processes for the poison extraction,” Peter said.
Sakura sighed, grateful that the attention was no longer on her. Feeling eyes on her, she turned to find Nancy giving her a dirty look.