Okay people, the reason I haven't updated for a while is because I was working on this. It's a short story! There's only gonna be about 5 chapters, and I'm currently working on the third. ENJOY!
He wasn't sure how long he had been watching her.
He didn't even know why he kept wanting to watch her. But for some odd reason, one that confused him beyond his understanding, he could not find the will to look away.
Every time she passed him by on her way to school, whether she with her friends or alone, there was something, something about her that he couldn't look away from.
Perhaps it was her defiant personality, her strong will, or maybe it was the fact that she was just…different.
After all, Sakura Haruno was not like most girls. Not in the least.
Her hair was the shade of a flower, abnormal to everyone else, and her body was petite looking, but still had a powerful majestic glow about it that radiated strength. Then there were her eyes. A girl's eyes were to be soft and average, yet feminine and warm. Hers were not. They were a deep liquid emerald, catching the sunlight and swallowing it up for their own selfish purposes. They were not soft and warm. They were serious, calculating, and were as cold in appearance as ice.
She had not chosen to have those eyes, or to have that beautiful hue of hair, but she did not loathe her looks. She did not regret her appearance. She did not find it as disgusting and terrifying as the others did.
So they stared, everyone stared.
She was just too odd not to notice, too…wrong.
No, even that may not be right.
Maybe she was the model of perfection, and it was just everyone else that could not reach such a superb level of being.
It was because of these noble traits, these reasons, that Sabuku no Gaara could not look away.
Slowly, the continuous sightings of her started taking its toll.
He found himself depressed without her in his eyes. He could find nothing as interesting, as beautiful, and he was slowly starting to lose his grip on his control.
He had to see her.
Always.
He did not want to live without her. After all, she was just like him.
Alone, unloved, and dangerous.
Her parents had died in a car crash when she was nine years old. The one that killed them was a drunken under-aged teenager that got away with only three weeks community service and a small juvey record that would be wiped clean once he turned 18. She felt the pain. She drowned in the hatred. She understood now that there was no such thing as justice. No one will help you. No one will be there to avenge you. No one will be there for you to rely on. There was only yourself.
And she accepted it, because somewhere in the back of her mind…she had always known.
Her life had been spent traveling from foster home to foster home, family to family. Everyone wanted her, for she was beautiful, but once they saw that she wasn't the warm little child that would call them mom and dad, they threw her away.
After all, grown ups are just like children. Selfish, greedy, demanding the toys they want, only to discard them when they realized they didn't like them after all…
He had seen it, the deeper coldness her eyes adopted, the ever growing hatred she had for others.
And she should.
It is in human nature to think of only yourself. It is an instinct. Humans pretend that they're taking care of others out of good will and best intention, but deep down they knew they were lying. They were always lying. The one who takes care of the helpless would be seen as a good person. Others would follow their example, making them the leader of the group.
Selfish.
Not many people can see this flaw, this instinct, and those that do have eyes that are incredibly cold, incredibly alone. After all, eyes reflect what they see of the world, and if they saw the true cruelty of the world, wouldn't they too be just as cruel?
She was not the only one, however, that had such eyes. He did too. Both of them, different in appearance, yet alike in pain.
They were both alone, both by themselves. Perhaps that was why he needed to always see her. After all, one who is lonely seeks out the lonely, so they too can have a companion like everyone else.
They were different. They had different ways of avoiding other's notice. For her, she talked to girls her own age. She acted the way girls were supposed to act in high school: talking about boys, listening to the latest music, complaining about homework on the phone… But this was not her. She had calculated. She had known that if she acted out on her true feelings than others would notice her. Others would question her beliefs, her knowledge, and who, out of anyone that asked her about them, would believe her when she said that the world was wrong?
Her grades were high on the academic scale, for no one questions a good student, and her classmates took no notice of her because she did not cause a ruckus and kept to herself. Yet each day the lie she was living got bigger and bigger. She felt like screaming. He could tell. Her face would put on a fake smile and her eyes would seem to shine in pretend innocence. This was just a precaution. She was trying to make her face seem normal. If she contorted it into one of hatred and pain, others would see. She had to make up for her hatred with a lie of happiness. It was the only way they wouldn't notice.
And nobody did.
During assignments that allowed partners she would always sit by herself and work alone. Always alone. Sure, she had the illusion of friends, but deep down, deep in her heart, she knew they were title alone. He saw it in her eyes. That doubt. That illuminating shine of knowing. She was fine with that too. What would getting close to others get her? No, she needed to be strong. If being utterly alone would be her strength, then she would bare it.
And she did.
He was not as thorough in his façade. He found no reason.
If someone ever asked him if he was feeling okay or if something was wrong he would simply glare at them, or start a fight, or do something that would scare them out of wanting to know. He didn't always make them fearful, most of the time he just ignored them or told them he was fine. After all, humans will only ask a person so many times. The truth was, no one really cared.
So he lived life with a wall around himself, warding off others who wanted to come close.
He would walk home to an empty house. His two siblings were the only ones to take care of him so they had to quit school and work two full time jobs each just to make ends meet. It hadn't always been like that. They used to go to school as well. They used to pull large pranks on the school staff, all three of them together, but that was the closest they ever got to being a family. His brother and sister played the part of responsible older siblings well. They helped him with things he didn't understand, they made him PB&J when he was hungry, and they took him to the park on a regular basis. But they always knew something was wrong about him, that something was off. They just didn't know what it was.
Their dad was the president of a local chain of businesses in their small town. The business was just on the verge of begin spread out into a country-wide company due to it's success, but that never happened. A competing business did not like the idea of a new enemy in their territory, so they arranged for an "accident" to happen. A terrible, terrible accident.
He had only been seven. His brother had walked him home and dropped him off at the door because he was going to a friend's house to play video games right after. It was not an odd occurrence and it was common for his older brother to do so. So Gaara walked up to his house.
Right away he knew something was wrong.
The door was unlocked when he tried to handle. It swung open with the slightest of ease, disappearing into the dark gloom of the house.
He stepped inside.
The house was cold and the air was stale. The shoes usually left by the door in neat pairs were strewn throughout the hallway next to the door. Pictures were ripped off of walls, the wallpaper itself seemed to be sliced for a large gash was leading all the way from the door down to the hallway, the wall located beneath it was marked with a slight crack, as though a sharp object had been run across it, scarring the material behind it.
He was scared.
His father was not a nice man. Not to him at least.
His brother and sister knew that their father was unusually cruel to him, but they never saw anything happen, so they remained silent and uncaring. After all, what child could possibly fear an abusing parent if they pain did not belong to them?
In truth, his father had abused him so severely that once, when he was around five, the excuse was made up that he had gone to a young children's summer camp, when he was actually in a hospital. The lie his father had told the doctors was that he had gotten into a fight at daycare because he would not move out of the way for the older children. They had retaliated against him and began to attack him. Being children, they did not know when it was enough. By the time the manager had gone to see what the ruckus was about it was already too late.
An obvious lie, but a believable one.
That is why, when Sabuku no Gaara saw the damage done to the house, he was afraid.
His father was a drunk, not that he could have understood that at the time, but he knew when it was dangerous to be around him.
But that was not the only thing that was wrong.
He could not find his sister.
An eleven year old was more able to avoid an attacking father, but even this Gaara was unsure of, so he went to find her.
Throughout the house glasses were smashed, the TV was laying broken on the floor, and the windows had all the blinds closed.
He was passing a half opened closet when he heard a noise from upstairs.
"Temari?" he had called for his sister, and he turned toward the direction of the sound.
But he never made it, two strong hands had pulled him deep within the closet, closing the door nearly closed behind him.
Frozen, too scared to move, he stood there, the figure behind him pulling him closer against their body. A strange odor filled the air. Gaara recognized it from when he had wet the bed once when he was younger. His father had been furious and smacked him across the face so hard that he fell to the floor.
Gaara's fear increased.
'Father' he thought, 'father's going to think I wet myself again. He's going to be so mad!'
It was because of this that he started fighting against his captor, trying desperately to get free from their grasp.
"Let go!" he had demanded.
A hand was clamped painfully tight against his mouth.
"Shhh! They'll hear you!" came the harsh whisper of a familiar voice.
It was his sister that had grabbed him, not his father.
A sense of relief came over him and he was no longer afraid.
That is, until he heard someone coming down the stairs.
Gaara looked, though he did not want to, through the small opening between the doors of the closet, the dark living room being exposed to him.
That's when he saw him.
An unknown man was in their house, and being pulled behind him was the nearly unconscious body of their father.
The man was tall, clothed in dark black, with an even blacker color of hair tied back into a long ponytail.
"Who would have thought that that the great leader of the Suna Company would be such a blubbering idiot? All I did was cut off your pinky."
Gaara shivered.
The man's voice was cold and filled the space between them like a hiss, forever ringing off his ears.
He did not like the voice. He did not like the man, but he could not voice his complaints for his shaking sister was still clamped to his mouth.
The man threw their father onto the floor in front of him, quickly jumping over the body, he grabbed his dust brown hair and forced the crumpled man to his butt, his back resting against the chest of the intruder.
Gaara watched. The eyes of his father were drowsy with death, nearly rolling back into his head, barely being able to stay open. His mouth was dripping with a smalls stream of saliva. He appeared so weak.
His youngest son swallowed.
Seeing his father in such a weakened state, in such a vulnerable sate, Gaara could not help but feel…something. It was not anger. It was no longer fear. The nearest thing he could think of to describe such a feeling was joy.
Finally, someone was showing this man what pain felt like. He was glad.
Leaning down, the intruder whispered sweet phrases into their father's ear. Something shiny was pulled out from the coat of the man. It was a blade, like the ones Gaara had seen on their kitchen knives, but it was smaller…sharper.
Reaching over, the man placed the edge of it against their father's neck, and he sliced, slowly dragging the blade across his throat.
The victim's eyes widened with shock, his voice giving out a gurgle of protest, but all that was soon unimportant.
All Gaara could see was the blood.
Trickling down his father's throat in gushes and pluses, the ruby liquid fell. Sometimes it squirted, sometimes it just sputtered. But it was red, vermillion, crimson, all different words describing the same beautiful color, and Gaara found that he liked the color. He found that it suited his father perfectly.
Time no longer mattered. Their father was strewn across the floor. Dead. The man had cleaned off the blade and then started cleaning the house, wiping it of all evidence that he had been there, and then he left.
The closet door opened. Temari burst through it crying, giant drops of salty tears sliding down her round little face. She was wailing, screaming out their father's name as well as chants of "Father! Father! Wake up! Father!" as she tried in vain to wake him.
Gaara stood there, just barely out of the closet.
He could not look away from the body, no matter how hard he tried.
It was like an addiction to him, the sight of his father's blood covered corpse.
After all the pain, after all the torture that man had put him through, the bastard was finally dead.
He kept replaying the scene over and over in his mind. The man, his father, the blade, the blood. Again and again. He needed to relive the experience. He needed to relive the emotion he felt when he first saw the blood.
When the man's retreating figure entered his mind, he found that he did not hate him.
He found that he was not angry with him.
He found that, instead of being sad and terrified of the killing…he was happy.
As soon as he recognized the feeling, the emotion, the truth, he couldn't help but smile.