What Went Wrong For Us?

Chapter 16

After carefully considering the ethics of hinting at, or playing a secret recording of, her boss explicitly saying that he was discriminating against her because of her name, Sakura still didn't know if she should play it during her interview.

Okay, let's back it up a little.

Scheduled to make an appearance on one of Konoha's top morning shows, Sakura was getting ready for a mostly soft interview about the Boruto Incident, but she planned to make it clear that she was getting the short end of the stick from the hospital. Perhaps during a possible question that the interviewer could ask, about what things were like at the hospital when Boruto arrived. Playing the recording could help, but it would probably be blackmail, since it's best reserved for a civil suit (that's what the lawyer said. And since she's a doctor, not a lawyer, it was best to let him take care of that, like a lawyer is not a doctor).

It was early morning. She had to get up early because the interview was scheduled early on an early-morning show. She didn't quite care about this show because it could be quite vapid, and she had little patience for vapid TV shows. Sarada wasn't even up yet. Of course, she hadn't gotten up early in days, thanks to the presently temporary suspension of chunin and genin missions, which allowed kids to sleep in. That could change in the coming days. Yesterday at the flower shop, she'd overheard a mother grumbling about how her son had nothing to do while the missions were suspended. Things must not have been cleared up at the Academy to allow the chunins and genins to return to normal schooling just yet. Again, that was likely to change at some point in the future.

Anyway, it was early morning, the sun was just peeking over the horizon, blah, blah, blah... Sakura yawned, glanced at the clock and remembered that she needed to be on her way to the station ASAP, but she had just enough time to think over the pros and cons of revealing the chief of medicine's reasons for discriminating against her... but she already had the Hokage and a lawsuit on her side.

And just like that, the cons overweighed the pros. She could still talk about it, though.

Someone knocked at the door. She looked at the clock, noticed it was time to go, and concluded that it was the rickshaw driver she'd hired. Before leaving, she wrote a note for Sarada, then got up, put her shoes on and opened the door. The rickshaw driver bowed. He looked like a young kid, what with his gangly frame and more than a few pimples dotting his face, but he couldn't have been younger than 18 years old. "Are you Mrs. Uchiha?" he asked. She ignored his subtle disgust at saying her family name.

"Yes," she answered. The rickshaw driver stepped aside and she stepped outside to the rickshaw. When she was seated, the driver hopped in and drove away from the Uchiha residence.

The show's producer had already given Sakura a pre-interview, so she had a good idea of what to expect, which is why she was expecting a soft interview; it would be a heart-warming, feel-good story to help the housewives, who made up most of the show's viewership, start their day. Sakura didn't have anything against housewives, of course, but that's the show's nature, which probably said more about the show's producers instead of the audience. Or the audience could be just as vapid as the show itself. Who cares, it's just a TV show.

The trip itself went by pretty quickly, since the streets, or at least the streets the rickshaw driver took, weren't filled with pedestrians and other vehicles yet. Sakura wasn't relieved, but pleased. She had a little extra time to prepare for the interview, which was supposed to be during the show's second half hour. The show started right when the Hour of the Dragon began and ended during the Hour of the Snake. It was the Hour of the Dragon right now. In fact, the show had just started, but she would be waiting in the green room and in make-up.

The rickshaw pulled up in front of the Konoha TV studio, stopping. Sakura hopped out and paid the driver before he pulled away. She walked up to the doorman and the doorman let her in. Then she walked up to the receptionist's counter and gave her name. The receptionist took a few moments to inform the producer that she had arrived, and when she was informed, sent a page down to collect Sakura. As it would be a few moments, she stepped aside to wait, but she didn't have to wait long. The page arrived after those couple moments, sooner than Sakura expected.