Dedicated to Mozelle.

{ Kidnap My Heart }
the stars lean down to kiss you—

CHAPTER I
—Hearts

Kito Sai — clad in immaculate white polo shirt, which was a great contrast to his black hair and black eyes — grinned as he drove his way towards Konoha Medical Home, one of the best-serving hospitals situated in Tokyo, Japan. His coal-black eyes shifted from the road ahead to the bouquet of red roses that sat on his car's passenger seat. He decided that this day, he would take his time to finally and officially make Haruno Sakura his.

They were special — his feelings were. They started from the moment he first laid his eyes on her during their college days (— Was it what they call "love at first sight"? he thought absently —) in Tokyo University, and furthered when they proclaimed each other as best friends. Sai thought it was mere physical attraction towards the girl — with her hair uniquely pink and her eyes tantalisingly green — but it changed somehow. Unknowingly, Sai wormed his way into Sakura's life and, eventually, into her family's.

Who would not want the Kito Sai for their only daughter? He was an over-achiever, an athlete, an artist, and, most of all, a business tycoon. At twenty-seven, Sai managed to expand his company into a series of branches that never failed to amaze the world of entrepreneurship. His name was present in a number of industrial revolutions that exceptionally improved Japan's economic repute.

To have Haruno Sakura, the prodigious doctor famed for her innovative ways in the medical field, for a girlfriend — much more a wife — would make Sai's life perfect. At the thought, Sai's smile stretched even further into a bright, blinding happiness.

They were never together, and they never really set a label on their relationship — but they did love each other and they did have what anyone could refer to as mutual understanding. Sai and Sakura would often call each other despicable names and would mock each other, but all these were done with affection that only the two of them would understand.

The feelings were uncalled-for, but somehow, they remained stuck in there. They were inviolable for some reasons.

The familiar ringing of his phone snapped Sai out of his reverie and he shifted uncomfortably on his seat to get it off from his pants' pocket. He stared at the caller ID and grinned dumbly when he saw the name.

Incoming call . . .
— Ugly Sakura

His smile remained intact as he pressed the answer button and spoke, "So . . . how is my Ugly do —"

The light ahead turned red, and he failed to halt the car just in time.

The haunting screeching of tires against the wet, asphalt road boomed into the atmosphere, the deafening car honks dimming into the background as Sai manoeuvred, horrified, with the stirring wheel. He saw his world turn around as he tried to gain control of the stirring wheel but when he thought he managed to avoid the incoming car from the other side, another huge truck came into view . . . and all that Sai managed to see was red.

Memories flashed before Sai's black eyes as the snowy road and the massive truck flanked him and his dark blue Lexus car. And somewhere, in a building where walls were white and where lives were saved and taken, a certain pink-haired doctor felt her heart plummet to the white-tiled floors.

It had been going on for half an hour already and Uchiha Sasuke knew he would not be able to work properly this way. The painful thudding of his chest urged him to grip on it tightly, still trying to make sure no one else noticed. He flinched when he unconsciously made a heavy step and furthered the heated pain. As he walked his way towards the laboratory, a few workers greeted him, to whom he merely nodded his head in acknowledgment.

He was a rather influential person in the office of the Anbu Black OPS Forensics Division where his older brother, Uchiha Itachi, was the commandant. Anbu Black OPS was a subdivision of Japan's Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) that worked directly for and most trusted by the government. It held the best among the best workers and successfully closed infamous critical cases.

The Uchiha clan had had a long history in the development of the stealthy organization, thus the authoritative positions.

As Sasuke took his seat in front of the laboratory counter, he heaved a heavy breath and reached out for the files sent by his older brother. He concentrated on reading the descriptive details, looking up occasionally to check how his fellow workers were doing. The report was regarding an asphyxiation incident on the five-year-old grandchild of the new Prime Minister that cost its young life. There were a number of scenarios played into the incident, and it was his job to figure the truth out along with his team.

His job was not easy — he had to be objective, critical, and open-minded. It required all sense of rationality and meticulousness. What conclusion could be gathered from the investigation would always matter.

The dark-haired man placed a grip on his chest as he set down the folder, and sucked in a heavy breath. He flinched when he felt something in his chest twist and heave, like a heavy metal was placed upon it.

"Nara," he called out to the black-haired man sitting across him in the lab, breathless and flinching. The aforementioned man looked up from his work and raised a weary eyebrow on his colleague. "Could you" — Sasuke grimaced, pausing to breathe in deeper — "could you head over — t-to the — ugh!"

Nara Shikamaru bolted upright when Sasuke swayed and fall sideward, face contorted from the deep pain.

"Uchiha!" Sasuke vaguely heard the man call out. Shikamaru's hasty voice caught the attention of the other workers in the laboratory as he kneeled beside the prodigy and looked up for help from their fellow scientists. "Inuzuka, go call an ambulance. Oi, Hozuki, get his pills from the counter in his office and hurry!"

The other forensic investigators in the laboratory mobbed around the Uchiha, all helping out to gather him up.

Five hours had passed since Haruno Sakura witnessed the doors to the emergency room swing open, the bloodied and battered Kito Sai presented to her care. She had hyperventilated at the scene, panicked, and almost collapsed. Frantic, she helped the nurses stroll the gurney towards the operating room.

Had she not phoned Sai at that fateful moment — had she known he was driving — none of this would have had happened! She knew it. She heard everything — the thudding of the phone against the car's floor, the loud car honk, the deafening screeching tires. . . .

Sakura was connected to Sai during the accident, and, somehow, she felt as if she was at fault.

Sakura removed the mask off the lower half of her face, her eyes teary and red.

Outside the operating room, the young doctor could see, sat the Kito family, apparently hoping that everything could go all right. For the five hours that the operation had gone on, Sai was slowly falling apart, and it made things harder for Sakura to tell his family. Senju Tsunade, the famous doctor known in not only Japan's medical field but also worldwide, remained finishing the operation on Sai, having asked Sakura to go and report Sai's condition to his family.

Kito Kasumi, Sai's mother, stood up, staring imploringly to Sakura when she saw the young doctor. It broke Sakura's heart how the dark-haired woman had so much faith in her when, inwardly, Sakura knew she could not do anything.

"Dear, how is he?"

Sakura gazed at her for quite a while, hesitating. She turned to the rest of Sai's family — his father and older brother.

Sakura averted her gaze back at the weary woman and said, "Auntie, I — I have done my best. He's . . . he's still being tended by Tsunade-shishou right now, but. . . ."

The roseate-haired woman blinked back grieving tears when, unblinking, Kasumi's lachrymal glands produced the unwanted tears. How much would this woman be able to take when Sakura would finally relay Sai's real state?

"I'm sorry, he's —" Sakura paused, a lump forming on her throat. She cleared her throat and said, in a tone an octave higher, "He's brain-dead."

Tears broke free and uncontrollably plummeted down from Sakura's green eyes as Kasumi sunk down to the tiled floors, eyes wide in heart-breaking shock. It was painful to see a mother hurting for her fallen son, who would never wake again, smile again, and hug her for numerous times.

"I'm so sorry . . . ," Sakura repeated, her voice drifting into a mere whisper. She walked away in heavy atmospheres, Kito Akira and his older son holding up the Kito matriarch her parting sight. Along the way, she kept muttering the same apology, apologising more to Sai than to his family.

There was something in her heart beating only for Sai. It was something strong, something that only the man could hold. She loved him? That could be it, considering all those times they spent together, the sweet yet annoying name-callings. . . .

She had no idea what would happen if Sai's heart stopped beating. Would hers do as well?

Sakura's blind musings were cut off when her pager went off, and a message calling for assistance in the emergency room flashed before her eyes. She debated on whether she should go on or not, but remembering the picture of Sai's dying soul, Sakura thought she should forget the torturous things even for a while, be a hero even when there was nothing about her that could pertain to her as such.

She ambled slowly to the emergency room.

When Sakura opened the door to her office after an hour of defibrillating on a man caught by cardiac attack, she did not expect to find the black-haired mother of Sai who sat on the pink-haired doctor's red couch.

"I'm not angry at you, you know," explained the woman as Sakura closed the door behind her. She watched as Sakura convulsed into frenzied sobs, a result of embarrassed and ashamed persona — every emotion she kept bottled up pouring out. Kasumi stood up and walked towards her, embracing the doctor into a loving engulfment. "I know you did your best. I'm painfully aware you love him too much to fail him."

Sakura hugged the woman tighter, afraid that if she let go, she would shatter into a million of pitiful pieces. "It's my fault, Auntie," she sobbed, "it's my fault. I should never have called him. Had I known . . . had I known. . . ."

"Shh," whispered Kasumi, stroking Sakura's pink hair, "had you known or not, either way, this would still happen. Fate has its way; it just so happens it involved you in."

The pink-haired doctor shook her head as they went to sit on the couch Kasumi was previously sitting on. Sakura's office was simple — a waiting lounge was separated from her office desk by a thin screen and the walls were painted white and pink. Behind her office desk was a ceiling to floor window, and a tiny refrigerator stood at the near corner beside the air conditioner.

"But it is a hopeless case and I can't even do anything!" Sakura bit her lower lip as she continued, "He's been sent to the ICU to just — just —"

"To just die?" supplied Kasumi, a sad smile forming on her lips. Sakura's head snapped to the woman. "It's painful to have your loved one taken away from you, much more your son, but this is what happens to every human, after all."

"I'm so sorry!"

There was silence as the two women just sat there and stared at each other. After a few more haunting seconds, Kasumi spoke again.

"He won't completely die, Sakura," she said. "He'll be here" — she placed a hand on her chest — "in our hearts. Besides. . . ."

Kasumi paused, and Sakura cocked her head to the side in confusion. Her bright green eyes had dulled into momentary confusion, her tears long stopped from falling. There was something that Kasumi had been implying, and Sakura wanted to know.

The older of the two women sighed before finally breaking the perplexity. "Sakura, dear, our family has decided that the moment Sai's breath breaks, you transplant his heart to a family friend's son."

Sakura's eyes widened at the revelation. Her pulse thudded against her ears as she tried to speak, but her voice box had a lump against it. Transplant? Heart transplant? she mused. It was not that she had not done the operation before — it was a costly operation for the part of the patient — it was just that she thought it was . . . weird.

"B-But why?"

Kasumi's face softened into a sad smile. "This family friend's son is of the same age as you and Sai. We considered him and his brother a family already — because their mother is my best friend — and since they were children they'd been constant guests at home. I heard he had been undergoing heart transplant assessment and is in need of the perfect donor."

"I —"

"I heard from my best friend that a certain Dr. Haruno was tending to her son and I knew then that it's only you I can trust in this critical operation."

Something in Sakura clicked. If she was not mistaken, two hours prior, she had been talking to a tall man whose black hair was tied into a low ponytail — the brother of her patient, she assumed — and an aging yet deeply gorgeous black-haired woman. She found out that the patient had been undergoing transplant assessment for six months already, until his recent attack. It was risky, but it was the best they could do.

The doctor could see the older woman's eyes moistening in unshed tears. Kasumi continued, "Sai has a donor card. And we're willing to —"

"But it's risky, Auntie!"

"But you've done this before."

That statement silenced Sakura.

"And I trust you, Sakura," supplied Kasumi, tears welling up in her grey eyes. "I know Sai's going to leave soon, but knowing his heart beats inside a person whom I considered a son already makes me feel like everything's going to be OK."

"Auntie. . . ."

Kasumi was smiling and mourning at the same time, biting her lower lip to keep herself from caving in to the temptation to fall apart. Sakura watched as the lady gazed away so distantly, seemingly recalling intangible memories with her son.

And Sakura knew then that she was going to miss Sai's teasing smiles, the "Ugly" reference, the jokes. She was going to miss how her heart beat whenever she was around him and how she felt secured at his presence. She was going to miss the love that transpired between them and the trust . . . the sound of the beating of his heart whenever she hugged him — everything!

Heart thudding loudly against Sakura's breastbone, she finally said, "I will see, Auntie."

Tears soon kissed Kasumi's cheeks as her lips formed a grieving smile.

"If this means Sai's going to live and see the future, then I'm willing to do anything."

—and i lie awake and miss you
{ to be continued }

author's notes. edited many times, re-posted. comments? it's been a while since i last published/updated anything.