As of Five Days From Yesterday

by Drinking Acid

You will die, your dog will bite the dust, your cousin will get mugged, your brother will rape you, you will fall down an elevator shaft, your life will forever be better than you ever expected. Good thing this isn’t all for the same person [AU]

As of Five Days From Yesterday

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Warnings: cussing, sexual content, death, cussing, mugging, cussing, and suicide. And more cussing.

Disclaimer: I own nothing except the plot.

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EDIT: So, yeah, I kind of accidentally uploaded the WRONG VERSION of this story. This is the prototype, without the EPILOGUE, and so is kind of skewed. You might be asking why I didn't fix it sooner, if it wasn't the right version, but I've been gone for a while, and only managed to post this the day I left for my trip. I got back just a few days ago, checked my mail, and proceeded to gape in horror at the story-without-an-epilogue.

Sorry about that.

Anyway, all that shit means is that this is the real version of As of Five Days From Yesterday, and for all of you who wondered "WTF? How come the Hyuuga's can see him?" and the squeamish shonen ai people, this is the real version. Oh, and in regards to the later, Gaara and Lee are not lovers. They're friends. As in, platonic and shit. And as far as Gaara's total OOC-ness? Well, I like cursing, and I like Gaara, so I mixed them together. And got this.

So yeah, anyway, that's all I wanted to tell you about. Most of the story isn't all that different (went through and did some grammar/spelling checks, though I probably missed, like, half of them), so the only thing you really need to read (if you've read this before) is the Epilogue, which is a long scroll down. But yeah.

Anyway, thank's for reading this, and the story, and I hope you like it. The story, I mean.

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I died yesterday. Yeah, sounds weird doesn't it? I thought so too. Funny how things like this happen just out of nowhere without any planning or anything. Well, maybe funny isn't the right word to use, but it sure was a little humorous. In that "I can't believe something so freakin' stupid just made me die" kind of way.

You might be wondering why I can be talking to you if I were dead. Well, I'll let you in on a little secret: I don't know either. Not really, anyway. It's kind of complicated in that I'm not all that sure what's going on but I do know there's something I need to do. I couldn't for the life of me (ha ha! Life, get it?) tell you why I need to do it, I just know I need to. Yeah, yeah, that's incredibly corny and I must be reading it off a script. Well screw you. I meant what I said. I've got to do something so I'm going to do it, dammit!

Oh, and for all of you who still don't know who I am, I'm Gaara.

Bet that was a shocker, right?

Yeah, I'm not as nasty as I used to be. At least, I don't think I am. Couldn't tell you, really, I'm just going by what Lee-kun always tells me. He's a nice guy, you know? I can't believe I tried to run him over with my car— I feel bad for that, by the way. He forgave me, of course (he wouldn't be Lee-kun if he didn't) but I still feel bad about it. I paid for everything (eventually) and I gave him an apartment to stay in after he was kicked out of his old one (though I think I was pretty mean about that, too; this was back when I was still an asshole, so anything's possible), but I'm still kinda guilty about running him over with my car. I'm glad he didn't die, though, or else I'd still be one nasty motherfucker.

Which gets us back right where we started.

I'm dead.

And I'm bored.

You're probably wondering how I died, right? That's something I can tell you, so shut up and pay attention 'cause this is important.

All right, so I walk into my office just before work starts, all prepared to sit through another god-awful meeting in the rep room with the other company mangers and there, behind my desk, is this girl. She's got bubble gum pink hair and a sort of "fairy" outfit (not gay, like you jerks seem to think, I'm talking Tinkerbell here) with wings and a wand and the whole getup. Of course, I don't realize she's a Grim Reaper until later, so I glare my patent Glare of Doom and Death and demand to know why the hell she's in my office.

"Because today's the beginning of your afterlife," she said in this happy, giggly, girl voice.

God, I hate that voice. It made me want to take my briefcase and chuck it at her, just to see if her head would fall off, and then throw her out my window. But then I realized what it was she said.

I don't believe her for a second.

"Get out of my office," I tell her, stalking over as my door slams shut behind me.

"First I have to do by job, then I can leave," she says, smiling like a fucking Barbie doll. I wasn't gonna punch her, 'cause I'm not supposed to hit girls anymore, but I sure as hell was going to get her out of my office, so I grabbed her arm so I could haul her out.

And then I died.

Okay, so I'm not really sure what happened, but then all of a sudden I was floating about two feet in the air, staring down at my own body which looked freaking dead to me (the spurt of blood coming out of my mouth helped speed the process along, truth be told). She was still laughing, but she wasn't looking down at my dead body like I was— she was looking up at me in all my transparent glory. It pissed me off, but I was a floating spirit and she was as solid as my mahogany desk. What was I gonna do about it?

"There we go! All spirit-y and ready to do your duty!" she chirped. I glared.

"What. The. Fuck."

No one said I was good with words, you know.

She tilted her head and looked all innocent and "puppy-ish" before giggling again. "You're a spirit. I'm something of a Shinigami or a Grim Reaper, but it really depends on what universe you're from. Dress code says I've got to wear a kimono but I kind of wanted to try something new this century. But that's not really the point. The point is:" She took a dramatic pause. "You have an important assignment, Sabaku Gaara!"

I swear a cricket chirped.

"Yeeeeeeaaaaahhh," I said. "I don't give a shit. Return me to my body. Right. Now."

"Sorry, no can do!" she smiled. "If I return you to your body then you'll be one fo the Undead and I'm already on parol because of the last time I did that. Anyway, your hair is impossible to get right when you're Undead, all fizzy and whatnot. You'll like being a spirit much better."

"Okay, wait a minute. I'm a spirit? Aren't I more like, I don't know, a ghost? And if I'm dead, where's that stupid light everyone talks about?" I demanded. The girl just laughed.

"If everyone who talked about it was supposed to die, to you think a light would really be the thing you'd see when you finally did kick the bucket? No, the light is just a detour. We already know who's going to die and who isn't, so there's no point in taking the people who aren't going to die to the afterlife if they aren't going to stay there, right?"

"So this is the afterlife?" I looked around my office with mounting disappointment. "Well this sucks."

"No, silly!" she laughed. "This isn't the afterlife! This is still your office, just with an extra dead body and an unattached spirit. No, you won't go to the afterlife for a while yet. We have a job for you."

"I already had a job," I said sourly, glaring at her and then to my dead body. "But then you had to go an kill me. Dammit."

She ignored me. "You have five days to find Uzumaki Naruto and tell him this: Say yes." She smiled, pulled out this stupid looking wand-like thing, and just before tapping me on the head, she said, "Good luck!"

And now I'm sitting on a park bench, the day after, not any closer to finding Uzumaki-san than I was yesterday. I had five days as of yesterday, and now I'm down to four. This mission wasn't going very well. I remembered the message, since it was such a short one, and I remembered the guy's name, but that was it; I had nothing else to go on. Part of me worried over what would happen if I couldn't get the message to him in time. I was sure I'd be sent to Hell (though I was probably going to go there anyway), though that wasn't set in stone, and I still had today and three days after to get the damned message to Uzumaki-san.

If only I knew where to start.

Sitting on a bench in a park on a Tuesday was boring. It just was. And telling you that story only relieved the boredom by about three percent. Hell, that guy throwing a frisbee to his dog time after time was more interesting than you. You're just not good company, you know? Oh look, the dog got tricked AGAIN. Jeeze, how stupid is that dog? The kid threw the frisbee again and the dog just stands there before tearing after— of all things— a bicycle. The kid yelled and ran after the dog.

"Hey you stupid dog go get the damn frisbee!" I roar, just for the hell of it. No one could hear me, so it wasn't like I was going to get glared at. I'd found that out by going into a deli shop and trying to order a roast beef sandwich only to be utterly and totally ignored. I even when to Shibuya station and stood on Hachiko to yell at everyone and they still didn't notice me. To everyone else, I was invisible and mute. Just like the spirits in the movies.

But then the dog looked at me and stopped. Wagging it's tail and panting— staring strait at me! It freaked me out! I mean, I wasn't supposed to be seen let alone heard. What kind of freaky ass dog did that kid own?

The dog took off, running at me with his owner right behind, and tried to cross the sidewalk between us. Except, he didn't see the biker's coming. He was a small dog, the size of a Boston Terrier, so when those bikes hit, they hit. Hard. There was a yelp and a spurt of blood and then there was just a lump of fur on the concrete, a cluster of bikers trying to apologize to the kid who'd stopped dead in his tracks when he heard the squeal. I watched as the kid stumbled over to the dog, dropping to his knees as he started crying.

Now, I'm not saying that this wasn't a tragic moment (I mean come on, watching your dog die because of some blind bikers must suck hairy balls) but I'm not all that sentimental. So I wasn't feeling nearly as bad as I did after running Lee-kun over with my car. I did feel bad, yes (I'm not that heartless), but not as bad as I might have if I actually knew the kid. Or the dog. But whatever, it wasn't my problem.

"I never really liked bikes, you know."

I whipped around, jumping in my seat as the voice spoke. Next to me, sitting all proper and curious and shit, was the dog that had just gotten run over. And he was talking. To me. Holy fucking shit.

"Who the fuck are you?" I yelled. The dog looked at me.

"Akamaru. Who are you? You've been hanging around for a while now. Is there someone you're waiting for?"

"I— no, not really, I—," I stuttered, trying to get my mouth to work properly again. "Uh, My name's Sabaku Gaara. I've been dead since yesterday, and I'm kind of looking for someone."

"Really? Who?" asked Akamaru. As if being dead was normal for him. Stupid furball.

"His name's Uzumaki Naruto. I kind of have a message for him."

Akamaru nodded. "Oh, I've heard of him. He's a friend of a friend of Kiba's."

"And Kiba is . . . ?"

"The one holding my dead body. My "master", I guess you'd call him, but he was more of a friend than anything." Akamaru shook his head and wagged his tail, a doggy grin spreading over his face. "Anyway, I can help you find this Uzumaki person. I can only give you directions, though, and the person I'm sending you to isn't Uzumaki, but she'll take you to him by tomorrow, at least. Her name is Hyuuga Hinata. You'll notice her almost immediately when you see her. Smells nice, you know? Go to the east side of the Shibuya Prefecture and you'll see her waiting for Kiba at the payphone on the corner. Have an nice afterlife!"

And then the dog disappeared.

I stared openly at the bench where the dog had sat, mouth hanging open and my eyes unblinking. That sooo could not have just happened. It just wasn't . . . I was about to say "possible" but this whole situation wasn't "possible" so that sounded stupid. Instead I shook my head as hard as I could, hoping to dislodge any illusion that might have remained from the time I tried to jump off one of the many office buildings in the area (I'd harbored the hope that, since people woke up from bad dreams by falling, if I fell off a building I'd definitely wake up. I ended up just sinking through the concrete and floating up to the sidewalk, perfectly fine. Well, dead, yeah, but otherwise fine). And then what the dog said registered in my head.

"Fuck, Shibuya!" I jumped up and ran (I could fly, but I just felt faster on my own feet, despite how unrealistic it was) towards the east side of the district, the name of the girl running through my head at warp speed. How was I supposed to recognize someone I'd never met? Fuck, this was not good. I quickly realized that there was about a hundred million corners with about a hundred million payphones. There was no way I was ever going to find this girl in time.

I was screwed.

Again.

By a dog.

Time passes weirdly for me, now that I'm dead. If I'm not paying attention, it just slips by without me even realizing it and then I'm standing outside a bakery at 11:23 a.m on a Wednesday morning. It's freaky, I tell you. Had I been more solid I would have fallen hard on the sidewalk; as it was, I just sort of fell through it and reappeared at the corner.

The cool part about being a ghost (spirit, whatever) was that I never had to wait for the traffic signal to turn. I could just walk through cars. It's awesome, I tell you, and so totally makes up for not being able to eat. I found that out (well technically I knew it all along but I needed to find out for myself, you know?) when I smelled this perfect cheesed pretzel as I passed a food stand and I wanted to eat it so bad. When I tried to pick it up, though, I couldn't, and I realized that, even though I could smell and hear and see and all that shit, I couldn't eat and, honestly, I didn't want to. I was dead, what good would food do me now? So that pipe dream when down the drain (haha, get it? Pipe? Drain? Ah, screw you, that's funny).

The girl, though. I need to find the girl. Hyuuga Hinata. Akamaru said she knew Uzumaki-san and could lead me to him. Today. Shit, this was all some really sick practical joke, wasn't it? God, I hate . . . this situation. I was about to say "life" but that would be stupidity I couldn't handle at the moment, so I spat out something else. If Lee-kun hadn't taken my knives and I were solid, that bubble gum girl would be so dead, Reaper or not.

My temper was short, my patience shot to hell, and my homicidal tendencies only partially controlled. I'd taken an anger management class back before my dad kicked the bucket and I had to take over the business (weird old bastard had made me the owner of his business in the will; I still can't understand what was going through his rock-filled head when he did that when he succumb to his ragging insanity). It'd worked, sort of, but I still had to tone it down after I realized Lee-kun wasn't going away. Lee-kun was thick-headed like that.

For a while I just stood at the curb, as if by staring at the little convenience shop across the street I'd get all the answers to my problems. That was optimistic to the point of insanity, but still— I had nothing else to do. Without knowing what that girl looked like, I was stranded in the city, totally and utterly at the mercy of the next ghost who happened to pass by. Which weren't that many, considering just how many car crashes I'd witnessed in the past fifty or so hours. I gave a sigh, running my hand through my hair and hoping to whatever piss-ass god was up there that he give me some fucking slack.

How the fuck was I supposed to find someone I'd never met? Get out a phone book with my intangible hands and flip through the pages until I found them? Fucking shit, this wasn't working.

If life was hell, there was nothing for those bastard Emo's to complain about. Death was a lot fucking harder.

It had to be well past noon when I saw her. Around two-thirty or so, I figured, but that didn't linger long before I started to follow her. Something about her was . . . odd. Just odd. I didn't quite catch what, exactly, only that it was weird and unusual and my stupid curiosity made me trail after her like Akamaru might have done to Kiba-san. At the analogy I almost stopped moving, glowering spitefully at a trash can, until she turned her head.

She had pure white eyes.

And that's when I recognized her: one of the prestigious heirs to the huge bank stem that ran throughout all of Asia and even into Europe and the United States. They had a fucking huge amount of money, enough that they could probably by a small country off a coast somewhere and use it as their private vacation site. They were filthy rich and loved it. What was that company called? I knew it was something to do with the surname, though I couldn't quite place what . . . .

Then it clicked. I felt like kicking myself, and if my body bent that way, I would have. Several times.

Hyuuga.

The company's name was Hyuuga Financial Inc.

How fucking ironic.

I chased after her, catching up with her just as she crossed another busy intersection. We were still in the Shibuya district, though I couldn't claim how I knew, but that didn't mater to me anymore. I'd found a Hyuuga, and even if it wasn't Hinata-san, it was a start. She couldn't see or hear me, but I kept pace with her and did my best not to loose her in the crowd, not bothering to check her out or anything. What could I do about it anyway? I was dead! That would be, like, necrophilia, or something. I was weird, but not that weird.

She did a bunch of errand type things, went to lunch with some women who were quite a bit older than her, then hung out with them for a while. By about four, there was a whole group of girls all hanging out and chatting like a bunch of ducks. Odd analogy, but it worked. A few particular women, I noticed after a while (an amazingly long while considering just how close they'd gotten before hand) were lesbians. Not that I had a problem with that or anything, but when it starts glaring you in the face you kinda start feeling squeamish, you know? So I backed off for a bit, trying to keep an eye on the Hyuuga without actually having to watch a few of the girls go at it like rabbits out of prison. Lucky for me she said goodbye to her friends before I had to spend too long looking-but-not-looking at the lesbians and headed home.

I realized her mistake before she did. No girl should ever walk home alone this close to night with no one around to act as back up. It just wasn't safe. I kind started to feel nervous, though the lack of a car to run people over with coupled with the physical incapability to do so were a big part of that. Around the time she cleared the third block she seemed to become aware of her mistake and hurried to the curb so as to hail a taxi.

Only she didn't get that far.

Someone from behind me shot out suddenly, going strait through me as they grabbed Hyuuga-san's coat and dragged her down an empty alleyway, throwing her against the wall. I acted on instinct, yelling angrily and trying to punch him, but my fist went straight through him and my words never got farther than my own ears. It pissed me off even more when he started hitting her, demanding her purse "or else" and I knew what that "or else" meant well enough to get my blood boiling. I may have been a jerk back before Lee-kun, but even I wouldn't be so crude as to rape someone. No matter how pissed or messed up I was.

Hyuuga-san didn't stand a chance.

He didn't rape her, which I was fairly glad for, but he beat her up something nasty and took all the valuables she possessed along with all the money in her purse. Personally I though she got off well, but when she didn't move right away I got worried. I mean, the mugger had left some time ago, right? That meant she was free to move. So why wasn't she? I hovered around her, hoping she'd move on her own but knowing with that horrible sinking of my gut that she wasn't going to. The only reassuring part was that her ghost was nowhere to be seen; if she'd died, she'd be talking to me like Akamaru did.

Right?

Crap, now I was getting angry. Angry at the mugger, angry at her, angry at all the fucking morons walking past the stupid alley and not even noticing her lying there so fucking still. I was pissed. I wanted to break something, or someone, but I couldn't and that just made me more mad. Seeing her just lying there I tried to move her, shake her, even kick her. My limbs went straight through her and she was none the wiser. Panicking and pissed I lashed out at the wall and dumpster, then tried to wake her again with a hard push at her shoulder. On a last ditch effort, I went to the end of the alley and screamed every cuss word I knew, hoping beyond hope that somebody heard me.

I jumped about a foot in the air when her phone started to ring. The stupid little device was hanging out of her pocket weakly, glowing as it rang some stupid little jingle. I'd thought that mugger took everything, but apparently not. The phone kept ringing, long and unbroken, but she didn't move at all. Everything told me to answer the damn phone, and even though I knew I couldn't, I reached to take it from her pocket.

It didn't budge, which I was expecting, but the ringing stopped almost instantly, replaced by a male's voice that sounded quite a bit more worried than I'd been expecting.

" —hurt? She said she'd be back now, and I'm really starting to get worried. This isn't like cousin Hinata at all. Why isn't she picking up the phone? I really am getting worried, Tenten. Why don't you go to Naruto-kun's or Kiba and Shino-kun's? Maybe she's with them —"

I swear my heart went into overdrive when I heard the kid's name. Fucking shit, they knew him! And then I remembered the girl; Hinata-san. Shit, I couldn't just leave her here. None of the stupid morals Lee-kun and Temari-neechan instilled in me would allow for it. I had to stay, even if I had a perfectly good lead. I still had a few days, right? I could wait with her.

The male's voice (whom later was identified as "Neji-kun" by Tenten-san) continued to speak, even though I was sure he'd hung up. It was weird, yeah, but somehow I didn't find it all that strange. Maybe it was a freaky sort of ghost power, or something. Which sucked, because all the ghosts in movies got cool powers that could freak people out, but mine could only let me hear people talking through a phone. Wow, how extraordinary was that? Hearing voices from a phone! Shocking.

"He's always been so protective of me," said a soft voice. I looked around, realizing with a start that Hinata-san was siting beside me, even though I was facing her body. "When we were younger he would follow me around and make sure I didn't do anything dangerous. Kiba-kun liked stealing me away so that Neji would flip out, but Shino-kun would take me back before he tore apart the mansion." She giggled, smiling fondly at the memory.

I just stared at her. Because, seriously, this was messing me up. I mean, up until about a minute ago I was perfectly justified in saying that she was unconscious and would wake up in a few days' time, but now that she was seated next to me, the dumpster behind us visible through her body, I couldn't pretend. She was . . . .

No she wasn't.

I got up, grabbing her wrist because— because she wasn't dead. She wasn't. No way in all the fucking levels of hell was she dead, not when that kid on the other end of the line was freaking out so bad at her being missing. No way. No, fucking, way.

"What are you—?" she started to say, but I cut her off as I started to shove her into her own body.

Looking back on it, that was a very risky move on my part. A million things could have gone wrong by doing that, but I did it anyway. She could have gotten more hurt, her soul could have been damaged, or some other weird ass monstrosity could've occurred, but I didn't give a rat's ass about that. Not when I was so sure I could save her. Not when I could do something to help. Even if I didn't know exactly what that something was.

She was flailing around wildly, shouting at me, but I didn't pay her any mind as I continued to shove her back into her body, pushing until my arms went through her solid form and I was sent pitching into the concrete. I reappeared a moment later at the end of the alley, but by now Hinata-san was stirring, her body jerking to life as if something had hit her. Watching, I sort of just gaped at her ('cause I really hadn't expected that to work, but now that it did I was kind of thunderstruck) and barely managed to close my mouth before she looked over at me.

I stared. Wait a minute . . . .

She was looking at me!

That thought got through with a striking amount of force and I sort of jolted, backpedaling onto the sidewalk and away from her. Hinata-san's eyes followed. I moved over to the dumpster, feeling sort of stupid but no less freaked. She followed with her white eyes. Holy shit. Holy fucking shit.

"You . . . you can see me?" I asked blankly.

There was a moment of silence (or mostly silence, since this was a heavily populated city) before she blinked slowly, giving me a really weird look. "Yes. Why wouldn't I?" she said hoarsely. I had the sudden urge to ask if she remembered anything that had happened when she had been mostly dead. The thought was fleeing and I opted for a better question.

"Do you know where Uzumaki Naruto lives?" She gave me an even stranger look.

"Why? What do you want with Naruto-kun?"

"I, uh, I have to give him a message," I said uncertainly, not sure if she could help. "It's very important."

"What's the message?" she asked quietly, trying to sit up. A flicker of pain crossed her face and I moved without thinking, trying clumsily to help. I managed to stop short of touching her, knowing it would just pass through, but I stepped back all the same, eyeing her warily.

"Are you alright?" I asked finally.

"I'm fine," she said with a weak smile. I didn't believe her, but there wasn't much I could do anyway. Even in the dark I could see bruises on her skin and a little blood trickling out of the cuts on her face and arms. I felt really guilty for what I was about to do, but I was so freaked and I had no idea how to cope with a wounded girl in an alleyway who could, apparently, see ghosts.

"Um, I have to, I have to go find Uzumaki-san to give him his message. Are you gonna be alright if I leave?" I asked. She looked at me, leaned up against the wall, and then shuffled shyly.

"I think, I mean I don't," she paused. Took a deep breath. "I'm— I'm not going to tell you Naruto-kun's address. But I'll give you his friend's, so that he can decide whether you can see him or not." She stammered off an address in the Shinjuku Prefecture. Was I never going to get a rest? "You're in Minato Prefecture now. And Uchiha-san won't let you in so late, so you'd better just go home."

"I've got lots of time," I said distractedly, trying to remember the address. Shit, I had too many things to remember. Wasn't I supposed to be peaceful and relaxed now that I was dead? I felt like an errand boy (although I was surprised to find I wasn't in Shibuya anymore; when had that happened?). But at least I was going back into Shinjuku. I was perfectly ready to just walk out, but then I stopped, cursed my stupid conscience, and mumbled, "You should call Neji-san. He's flipping out over you not answering his call."

I didn't stop to wait for her response, peeling down the street as fast as I could. For a fleeting moment I contemplated taking the train, just for the hell of it, but decided that I didn't have the kind of time to go fooling around. If anything, I had to move faster than a train, not waste time seeing if I could just waltz right in and stretch out while everyone else was cramped (I'd wanted to do that when I was younger but never had the will to go through with it; now I had a chauffeur to drive me everywhere, so the train wasn't an issue). I just kept running.

Somewhere along the time I started flying, time decided to slip by again until it was pitch dark out and I was floating through the walls of an apartment complex. The sheer abruptness made me fall through the floor again and appear in the lobby. Which sucks, because I was pretty sure I was a few floors above this one before I startled. The building was really extravagant, the sort of thing really, really rich people only got to use. Like me. Before I died, that is. At any rate, it was upscale and frivolous, which made me wonder just who this Uchiha-san was to afford a place like this.

Finding the room wasn't that difficult, since each door had a surname and I could float through floors and walls (which was sooo much better than taking the elevator) all the way up to the third-to-the-top floor where I located Uchiha-san's dark, quiet apartment. Looking around, I found a guy that couldn't have been older than me lying in the gigantic bed— fast asleep. Well fuck. How was I supposed to find Uzumaki-san when the guy who was supposed to take me to him (somehow) wasn't even awake? I settled for cursing colorfully.

Bored out of my mind and not really in the mood to wait around, I started looking through the kitchen and living room, searching for anything that might give me a clue to where Uzumaki-san might be. Of course, I couldn't actually touch anything, so I had to find something that didn't need to be opened or moved or pressed in order to get information. Which left me, predictably, screwed. The universe was out to get me. And if the universe wasn't, fate sure as hell was.

I was cursing loudly and attempting to throw and break anything I saw when I felt a shudder. It was weird, like when Dracula appears or when a tsunami was coming. Ominous. Dangerous. Annoying. I turned around.

"Hey! Having fun?" It was the bubble gum fairy girl. She was giggling, floating off the ground just like me, wings flapping like crazy. Like an insect. I glared.

"What the fuck do you want?" I snarled. Forgive my bad mood, but I was pissed. And it was pretty much all her fault. She just smiled sweetly and batted her eyes.

"It's Thursday morning, you know. That means you have until midnight on Friday to get that message to Uzumaki Naruto."

I glared, clenching my fists so hard it hurt. "I'd be done by now if you'd just take me to the damned guy and stop making me run all around fucking Tokyo like some sort of stupid courier!" I roared.

She blinked at me, then smiled brightly. "Aw, are you frustrated? You know, when you get mad you don't look cuter, you just get more scary. If I weren't a Grim Reaper I'd so be running away by now. Not to mention the fact that your face doesn't move at all unless you're angry."

While that was comforting, I really didn't give a damn what she thought. And besides: I already knew I was scary.

"Anyway, what I came here to tell you is this: Don't leave this apartment."

I blinked. Okay, this wasn't making any sense at all. "What? I thought I was supposed to talk to Uzumaki-san. Is he coming here or something?"

"Oh, no, nothing like that," she said with a laugh (which still bugged the crap outta me). "No, the Higher Ups were talking and apparently something interesting is going to happen and we need you to stay longer. To be a sort of, guiding voice, so to speak. Don't worry though, we'll give you a chance to find Uzumaki-san."

"I don't fucking believe this!" I yelled, storming around the apartment as if that would actually help. This was so fucking annoying. Nothing could be easy, could it? I had to go through hell before I even got there! I glared over at the girl. "Why should I wait here? What's in it for me?"

She gave me this knowing look that forced me to repeat Lee-kun's mantra over and over so that I didn't wind up hitting her. Don't hit girls, don't hit girls, don't hit girls, don't hit girls . . . .

"Well, if you stick around you could save a few other people as well," she smiled a little wider, eyes glinting with knowledge I didn't have, "people you might actually know. Oh, and thanks for saving Hinata-chan tonight— the Reaper keeping an eye on her was off on another assignment. But seriously, stick around; you could find yourself in the position you wanted to be in the whole time."

With a pop she vanished and I was left staring blankly at where she'd been just seconds before. And again, like with Akamaru, I was left in dumbfound shock. Everyone was out to get me, weren't they? Fuck, this afterlife sucks. I ran a hand through my hair (which was already short enough, thank you very much) and tried to calm myself down. In the past four days I'd cursed more than I had in about two years. If I weren't dead, I might have died from insanely high blood pressure.

Uchiha-san woke up really late, mostly due to the phone ringing for the past three hours, but whatever. I touched the phone at one point, just to see if I could make the voices come out like I had with Hyuuga-san's phone, but it didn't work and I was left to just float around aimlessly while waiting for the deadweight to get his lazy ass out of bed. When he did get up, he took a shower, ate a banana, turned on the TV, and then, after he was settled in the couch, answered the goddamn fucking phone.

"What?" he said.

"Uchiha-sama! We've been trying to reach you all morning, are you alright?" I could hear the other person's voice loud and clear, as if they were standing in the same room, and I wondered how the hell I'd done that.

"I'm fine. What do you want?" He didn't seem all that interested in the girl's concern. It kinda pissed me off, actually, but not as much as some of the other things that had happened to me recently.

"Oh, w-well we just wanted to know if you were coming to work today, Uchiha-sama," said the girl uncertainly. Uchiha-san glared at the TV, changing the channel as he answered.

"No." And then he hung up.

The phone didn't ring again and the morning passed by in utter boredom. At least for me it did; I couldn't tell you what Uchiha-san thought. He was stoic to the point of making me think that he was made of marble, but then, Kankuro-niikun said I was pretty unreadable myself so I guess I had no room for complaints. Whatever. That didn't change the fact that I was bored.

Uchiha-san had to be one of the most boring people on the planet. Seriously, it had to have been hours before he finally turned off that goddamned television and even then all he did was draw. Draw. I was this close to pulling some serious ghostly voodoo on his scrawny ass. If I could do anything that was even remotely close to what those ghosts in movies could do. Damn, being a ghost should be so much more fun! Stupid Hollywood.

It was as he got up to eat another banana that I realized just how sucky his diet was. "Jeeze, if you eat nothing but fucking banana's you're going to devolve into a damn monkey, short stuff," I laughed. I was sitting on the couch, so I had to twist around to sneer at him when I spoke. Which meant I had a very good view of just how badly he startled.

"Who said that?" he snarled. I stared at him. Did he—? Did he hear me? What the fuck? If ghosts had a rule book I sure as hell wanted to read it. This was just getting annoying. And confusing. But mostly annoying.

"I did," I told him, because it was true. His eyes were really wide and he was looking everywhere, nearly killing his poor banana. Oh well. It was just a stupid fruit anyway. "I'm over here, dumbass."

"Where?" snapped Uchiha-san. I decided to have some fun.

"On the TV." He looked at the area just above the TV, leveling a nasty sort of glare when he didn't see anything and I couldn't help but laugh. "I can't believe you fell for that! No, I'm on you're couch. And don't bother looking, I don't think you can see me." Uchiha-san just got pissed.

"Who the fucking hell are you?" he demanded. "And why can't I see you?"

"I'm dead, dipshit," I growled. He didn't seem to believe me. "My name is Gaara, and I died Monday morning. I'd be lying if I said it was a pleasure to meet you, so I'm not gonna say it."

"What are you doing in my apartment?" he said, disregarding the whole "dead" thing.

I wished he could have seen the glare I sent him, but as it was, I had to settle for letting my voice convey my point. "I need you to take me to Uzumaki-san. Now would be nice."

"Why do you want to talk with the Dobe?" he asked, eyes still looking for me. "Where the fuck are you?"

"You can't see me so stop looking!" I snapped. Jeeze, how stupid was this guy? "Look, can you just take me to him? This is kind of important."

"No."

I nearly growled, but managed to stifle it before he heard. "What do you mean, no?"

"I mean no," said Uchiha-san darkly, glaring in my general direction. "Whoever the hell you are, you aren't leaving here until I see you, or at least beat the shit out of you."

"Did you not hear me earlier?" I snapped. "I'm dead. You can't do anything to me. Now, why the hell won't you take me to Uzumaki-san? This is important, dammit!"

"Screw you, I'm not going anywhere," was his response. He was lucky I couldn't pick things up, otherwise he'd be one severely bruised motherfucker. I glared anyway, getting up and stalking right up to him, fists clenched at my sides and standing in a way that I hoped masked the fact that I was smaller than him (damn my height! most everybody I knew was taller than me and that was not an ego booster, let me tell ya!).

"Look, you pansy-assed midget," I hissed, "my afterlife rests on me getting to that little punk and if you're gonna mess that up for me I might just have to drag you down to hell with me."

Okay, so I was lying through my teeth, but come on! How else was I going to scare the kid? I was a ghost, I had no power over the physical realm, and it wasn't as if I knew the rules of the ghostly world. So I was taking liberties; what are you gonna do about it?

Uchiha-san glowered at where my voice had come from, face twisted in a snarl that seemed quite at home, actually. I wouldn't be surprised if he snarled like that often. Though I very much doubted that snarl was normally directed at something he couldn't see. Which made this whole thing all the funnier. Until the little bastard smirked.

"Fine, take me to hell, see if I care. You're not touching the Dobe." He was leaning back all relaxed like, crossing his arms and glaring with that infuriating smirk. Oh I was so going to get him for this.

"What, are you in love with Uzumaki-san or something?" I demanded haughtily.

I didn't actually expect his eyes to widen or his face to color like that. Holy shit, he did! He loved Uzumaki-san!

I laughed. "You love him? Holy shit, this is perfect, isn't it? I have to go through his pissy boyfriend before I can give him his stupid message? Fate is one sick bastard, eh?" I laughed again, moving back a bit so I could really dish out the humor. Laughing wasn't something I did often (or ever, before Lee-kun), so this was a real treat for the blushing bastard trying to glare me down. He'd better enjoy it.

"Shut the fuck up!" roared Uchiha-san, arms lashing out as if to hit me. He fell through empty air and my stomach, crashing into the carpeted floor. I laughed again, though now I'd filled my laughter quota for the day. After a chuckle I just hovered around the arm of the couch, looking down at the fuming Uchiha.

"I told I was dead, moron. What'd you think you were going to do? Punch me in the stomach? Choke me?" I shook my head, even though he couldn't see it. "You're dumber than I thought. And I never had a high opinion of you from the start, so that's quite an achievement."

He lunged for me again, though he missed by about a foot and I sneered. "Aren't you paying attention at all? I'm dead. As in, 'not of this world'. You can't touch me, you retard."

His face didn't let up on the fury, but at least he wasn't lunging for me any more. Now he just glared at me, sort of, and clenched his fists at his sides. I half waited for him to try and slug me but apparently he was finally starting to use that brain of his and refrained from attacking me. I took this as a good thing, though that assumption remained to be proved.

"Get out." He sounded stern, as if he didn't even think twice that I might disagree with him. I loved proving people wrong, even more than I did running people over with my car (Lee-kun didn't count because I ended up feeling bad about that).

"No."

I swear that glare of his dropped the temperature of the room by about thirty degrees. For a moment I wondered if this kid was supper human but then I just rolled my eyes and figured it was some sort of freaky illusion type thing.

"Get. Out."

"Not until you tell me where Uzumaki-san is," I said with a shake of my head.

"I'm not telling you anything," he hissed.

I shrugged. "Then we're at an impasse."

"Fuck."

Uchiha-san didn't talk to me the rest of the day. He quite diligently ignored my existence, even when I did try talking to him or commented on a drawing of his. After about the fifth attempt at drawing something and listening to me do a cometary on it, he gave up and turned the TV on. I, being the son of a bitch I am, talked over the TV until I got bored (well, that and he turned it up so loud I couldn't hear myself think) and went to sulk in the bedroom. Time slipped by in that weird way again and I was suddenly not staring blankly out a bright and sunny window but a dark and gloomy one, with no moon to shine any light anywhere (for the record, I'd like it to be stated that I'm a hell of a lot more bitchy on a full moon, so I was pretty lax tonight).

I drifted into the kitchen, where Uchiha-san was glaring angrily at a packet of ramen. Almost like he wanted to kill it, but was just trying to decide the best way to do it. Kinda creepy, actually, but whatever. I spread myself out on the couch while he microwaved the ramen, watching whatever weirdo programing the Uchiha had been watching before, and half waiting to see where Uchiha-san would sit to eat (I figured it'd be freaky weird if he sat on the couch and I could watch my body just sort of fade in and out of him).

Uchiha-san finished making his ramen and headed for the dinning table off to the side when a knock came at the door. I, of course, paid no attention to it, but Uchiha-san cursed and stormed over to the door, stopping just feet away and shouting at it.

"Who's there?" he demanded.

There wasn't any answer.

"Announce yourself, dammit, or I'll call security!"

"Jeeze, are you paranoid or what?" I asked snidely. I smirked, though he couldn't see it, and raised a nonexistent eyebrow. "What if it's Uzumaki-san? Don't you want to let him in?"

Uchiha-san looked absolutely livid, glaring back at me with the most hateful look I'd ever seen on his face, but before he could speak, the person on the other side of the door made himself heard.

"Open the door, Sasuke."

There was a horrible moment of silence, one I couldn't possible fathom the reason for, and then, throwing a last loathsome look in my direction, Uchiha-san opened the door.

I swear, the person on the other side could have been his twin, they looked that much alike. Obviously one was older, what with the lines on his face, but otherwise they were mirror images of each other. The person came right in without Uchiha-san's permission, coming into the living room and looking around in a discreet sort of way. I think he was looking for me, but somehow I felt that talking to him would be a bad idea; I had the feeling that if Uchiha-san couldn't touch me, made this person could, and I'd rather not get hurt while dead as a doorknob.

"Who is here?" asked the intruder with a quiet voice that settled in my head like dark chocolate, rich and bitter. I hated him instantly. Something was just so wrong about him, there was no way around it. Although . . . on a level I didn't like to visit often, I felt a sort of . . . admiration towards him. He was the sort that commanded respect and attention and obedience, and that was the sort of person I used to be. Not anymore, but at one point I was, and that recognition was unnerving at best. I didn't like it.

"Get out, Itachi," ordered Uchiha-san. Itachi-san didn't seem in the least bit disturbed by Uchiha-san's tone, simply continuing his scour of the apartment.

"Now, now, Sasuke, is that anyway to speak to your aniki?" hummed Itachi-san. Sasuke-san's eyes narrowed to slits and I suspected that they were not on very good terms. Not the most brilliant of observations, I admit, but with Itachi-san's godforsaken eyes staring right at me, it was all I could do to keep from freezing up. Lucky for me I doubt he actually saw me, but still . . . that was just creepy.

"Get out!" said Sasuke-san, though he didn't move away from the door. Itachi-san strode to the bedroom, then the bathroom, and finally returned to the living room, eyeing Sasuke-san with a very blank look. Not in that he was stupidly uncomprehending, it was more like— more like he was trying to figure something out and felt no need to share his emotions on the matter. I guess. If that makes any sense. Scared the shit out of me, anyway; I'd retreated to the dining table, since it was the farthest piece of furniture from Itachi-san.

Itachi-san took the door out of Sasuke-san's grip (forcing the other boy to skirt away), closed it, secured it with all three locks, and then turned to his little brother. Something was said between them that I couldn't hear over the blare of the TV and against my better judgement (what was left of it, anyway) I got closer to them.

"—In here without even a warning? Fucking shit, Itachi, I told you I never wanted to fucking see you again!" snarled Sasuke-san with all the venom of a king cobra. His eyes glittered with red and I wondered what the fuck was going on.

"I remember what you said, Otouto," said Itachi-san, taking a step closer to Sasuke-san, "I, however, chose to disregard it. I've missed you very much, Otouto."

The way he said it made me shiver and Sasuke-san went rigid against the wall. With an icy voice he said, "Get out. Now. Just get out."

"I don't think I will," said Itachi-san and then something happened I really wished I hadn't seen.

Itachi-san kissed Sasuke-san.

I almost freaking threw up. I mean, come on! Incest? Isn't this supposed to be the kind of thing that happens in weirdo porn or horror/angst stories? As far as I knew, this was neither, and it was freaking me the fuck out. Horror, repulsion, fear, and anger were the main things running through my mind, along with a few screams of "WHAT THE FUCK?" and I had to clap my hands over my mouth to keep from yelling at the top of my voice. And then I realized just how stupid that was.

"HOLY FUCKING SHIT! WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING, GODDAMMIT? GODDAMN YOU, YOU BROTHER KISSING HOMO, GET THE HELL OUT! FUCKING SHIT! HOLY MOTHER OF FUCKING SHIT—!"

I kept shouting, but the only one who heard me was Sasuke-san, and his mouth was pretty occupied at the moment. Itachi-san kept pressing, and then he started dragging Sasuke-san into the bedroom. I got the most horrible inkling as to what was about to happen. Oh, good god no. Something started to strangle my stomach, and if I'd been alive I would have thrown up, but all I could do was stumble back and just gape in horror at what was going through my head and outside it. Rape. Incest rape. That had to be a felony, right? I mean, this was just sick. . . .

Don't panic!

Okay, okay, what to do, what to do. I had to do something, of course! I mean, I couldn't just leave him in there to get raped or whatever, especially not by his much older brother. That was just mean. And horribly, horribly damaging to my conscience. No, I had to do something. Anything, I didn't care. I may be a ghost, but I could still affect the physical world to a degree, right? So what could I possibly do in a situation like this?

I could influence electronics, to an extent, but unless the phone started ringing right now that wouldn't do much good. And I still wasn't sure if my power worked both ways, so that the shouting going on in the bedroom would be heard over the TV blasting and into the caller's ears.

Floating through floors to find help wouldn't work because as far as I knew Sasuke-san was the only one who could hear me, and even though Hinata-san could see me, I didn't know where she lived, so I couldn't go to her for help.

To save Hinata-san all I had to do was shove her soul back inside her body. That wouldn't work here, since Itachi-san wasn't exactly dead by any means (though if I ever got a hold of him, he sure as hell would be, and with the way things were going, we were bound to meet up in hell at some point), so that was out. Unless . . . . An idea formed in my head, a really crazy, possibly dangerous idea, though I'd only managed to get the jist of it before I heard Sasuke-san scream in the next room. And then I lost all sense of rational thought.

The closed door didn't hinder me at all as I flew straight into Sasuke-san's bedroom. I made a point of not looking directly at what they were doing, but I was very, very glad to note that not all of their clothes were gone. With as much force as I could muster I shoved at Itachi's back, focusing as hard as I could at shoving his soul out. It didn't work, and I went falling straight through them and the bed, reappearing on the other side of the room in time to hear Sasuke-san scream again. I didn't think this time, I just shoved, and then I felt as if I'd been lit on fire.

"AAAARRGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" I balked away, stumbling and crashing into the wall. My head burnt like a raging inferno, my whole body on pins and needles, and I wanted so badly to throw up. There was a pressure in my lower abdomen, but once I recognized it the feeling went away and I was left drained and deflated on the floor. Oh fucking shit! That hurt like hell! I pressed my hands to my face trying to beat back the horrible feeling of being chucked into a fire.

Wait.

Something wasn't right.

There was a shuffling and then the quite buzz of a zipper being pulled up. Movement, the squeak of bedsprings, the carpet under my feet. I could sense the wall behind me, my back aching for some unknown reason, and then the pounding of my head. Long black hair (that's not my hair that's not my hair mine is red and short) fell over my shoulder as I leaned over, and I had the strangest impression of being bigger than ever before. And then I looked up.

Sasuke-san was staring at me from atop the bed across the room, eyes wide and scared and shaking like a fucking leaf. He looked freaked and shocked and probably confused out of his mind. I think— I think I felt scared too, but I wasn't too sure, because it was hard to tell the difference from all my emotions right then . . . I felt so sick. As if I were on a boat on choppy waves (I hated the sea; land was so much easier to navigate, even air, but not the sea) and had nothing to hold on to.

I did the first thing that came to mind— curse. "Holy shit." My voice sounded funny, sort of a mix between Itachi-san's low rumble and my own flat voice. It was creepy to listen to, but I didn't think to hard on it; it hurt too much to think, what with that fire raging in my head and all.

Sasuke-san started a me, blinking, before he narrowed his eyes. "What—? What's going on?"

"U-um," I started, not sure how to explain. I didn't even know myself, so how I was going to explain it to Sasuke-san . . . I had no idea. I took a shaky breath. "I think I just took over Itachi-san's body. I don't know how though. . . ." My head started to hurt again and I pressed my hands closer to my temples.

"Why?"

Of all the things he could have said, that was the last thing I expected. So it took a minute for me to realize that he actually said it. "What the fuck are you talking about? That dumbshit was gonna . . ." I decided not to voice what he was trying to do, and plowed on, "He's a bastard and it wasn't like I was just going to let it happen. I'm not heartless, you dipshit."

That seemed to snap him back to normal (sort of, anyway), and he glared. "Are you that voice I heard before? What are you . . . ?" Then he looked horrified. "Y-you saw that? Fucking shit! I can't believe—! Shit!"

"Hey, be thankful I was here at all! And the least you could do is say thank you for having me rescue you're sorry ass!" I snapped. A flare of pain tried to split me in two but I fought it back, focusing as best I could on Sasuke-san. I needed to do something— I just wasn't sure what. I shook my head hard, clenching my hands as tight as I could and then glared off to the side while another burst of fire lit my brain. I saw a window. I got an idea.

I'm pretty sure what I did next was extremely stupid. But then, I wasn't exactly in a sane man's body, so I think I was perfectly justified in my actions.

The glass cut my skin to ribbons, even more so when gravity took hold and I fell faster than the shards. I could see the ground rushing up at me, could see all the lights and the cars and people and I wanted to scream by my voice wouldn't work. My body kept tipping and I felt as if I were on a roller coaster without a seatbelt and no tracks, twisting and spinning around until all I could see was concrete and then it was cold. Just cold.

And then I woke up.

Sort of. I was standing in the lobby of the apartment complex that Sasuke-san lived in, staring blankly at the front desk. When I turned to look outside, I could see a whole crew of police and crime scene investigators roaming around, bright yellow tape blocking off an area that disappeared out of view, and traffic guys guiding the cars around the tape and cones. There were a few reporters with cameras and there were some people hovering outside the building's doors, trying to get in only to have the apartment building security send them back. The calender on the front desk said it was Friday and the clock on the opposite wall told me it was ten-thirty in the morning. It took me roughly ten minutes to realize all of this (at which point the clock's big hand had moved to hover around the eight) and by then I was trying to figure out why I was so fucking dazed.

I remembered last night with the sharpness and blurriness that one remembers a car accident. Basically, only the defining moments. I wasn't sure if I'd talked to Sasuke-san at some point after possessing Itachi-san's body (because that's what I'd done, in a nutshell) but I did remember willingly jumping out a window. I think I yelled a bit too, before hand, though nothing came back very clearly.

Finding Sasuke-san's room wasn't hard at all, and I stood in his kitchen for a while until I noticed his head poking up from where he was seated at the couch. I didn't move or say anything, mostly 'cause I didn't know what to say, but then, after a while, he moved. The first thing I noticed were his red eyes (from crying, I guess, though I couldn't really understand why right then) and he was shaking a little. I guess he was still reliving last night. If something like that had happened to me, I would have wanted revenge before breaking down like that, but since I'd pretty much stolen away that opportunity, I figured he was justified in bawling his heart out. Whatever. I was too tired to deal with this shit.

Which was weird, seeing as how I was dead and all. I shouldn't be feeling tired. But then, I guess it was a sort of payback for possessing someone else's body and then making them commit suicide. Pretty easy punishment, actually, all things considered. I mean, I could've easily been sent to the deepest recess of hell for doing that, but all I got was a diminished energy supply and a drop-off in the lobby. Yeah, things could've been worse.

Time slipped by again and I was starting to feel kind of glad for it. It made staring listlessly at a fruit bowl seem a lot less stupid. It must have been around five in the evening or something when I noticed Sasuke-san storming around the apartment, a pounding of fists ringing from the doorway. They were reporters, from what I could tell, and with the way Sasuke-san was grumbling, they'd been there a while. I wondered vaguely if the police had been here, too, but then the raven-haired kid grabbed up an empty vase and sent it hurtling at the opposite wall. It hit the barrier with a crash and landed in pieces on the floor.

"Jeeze, angry much?" I grumbled despite myself. Sasuke-san whipped around, eyes wide but not scared, frozen in place. Then he sort of stood straighter, eyes moving around as if looking for me, before speaking slowly.

"When did you get here?" he asked.

"Before eleven, I guess. I've been kind of spacey since I took a swan dive out your window. Hard to keep myself focused. Guess it's punishment, or something." I was tired and talking made my head swim. Why was it so hard to keep myself focused? Damn, that jump must have messed me up more than I realized.

"What's your name?" he asked a little quieter, though much more relaxed in his posture.

"Gaara. But I told you that before," I said.

"How did you die?"

I swallowed a sigh, saying, "I have no fucking clue. What's with the third degree all of a sudden? I thought you wanted me out."

"You came back," pointed out Sasuke-san. "How come?"

"It was convenient. That's all you need to know, since I'm shipping out of here tonight." I blinked, remembering something that hadn't occurred to me for almost twenty-four hours. That seemed so long ago, and now it was hard to make myself believe it was important, even though I knew it was. "I'd be gone faster if you'd tell me where Uzumaki-san was."

Sasuke-san spoke clearly, though with little enthusiasm or energy. "The Dobe should be at Hyuuga-san's house in Koto. She got hurt pretty badly from that mugging on Wednesday, and he's been with her ever since."

"What's the address?"

He seem to stare in my direction for a long while before saying, "Why did you kill him?"

What kind of stupid ass question is that?

"What, are you objecting?" I snorted, shaking my head, "Because fuckers like him don't learn their lessons quick enough to satisfy me. Besides, what else was I supposed to do? Walk him out the door and into traffic? That would've taken too long. Now, can you give me that address?"

"You said you died on Monday. What's your last name?" said Sasuke-san instead.

"Are you ever going to answer my damn question?" I snapped back.

"What's your last name?"

"Sabaku! There, ya happy now?" I glared at him. "What's the address?"

He was silent for a moment before giving me a rather detailed description on just how to get to Hinata-san's house. I bid him an informal farewell before dropping right out of his apartment and to the lobby, soaring out into the street and heading for the nearest station. He'd only given me directions revolving around the train system, which in a normal circumstance would have been extremely helpful, but now was just a hindrance, so I had to board trains instead of soar through buildings. The clocks I passed help keep track of time, so I knew it was exactly 8:06 p.m. when I arrived before a rather nice-looking house in the Koto district.

Going inside found me in a nice, warm sort of place, with lots of light and overstuffed furniture. There was a chandelier and cabinets full of silver and gold trinkets, expensive china sitting in the dinning room and crystal glasses scattered along the wooden table and lace table cloth. Oh yeah, this was definitely a Hyuuga's home. Wandering around, I came to the second floor bedroom, where I found Hinata-san arguing with another Hyuuga (at first I thought he might be her husband, but then I recognized his voice as Neji-san's), trying to get her coat on while Neji-san continued to take it off.

"You can't go anywhere!" Neji-san was saying, again trying to remove Hinata-san's coat.

"But what if something bad happens? What if he actually goes through with it this time? I can't just let Naruto-kun handle this alone!" she cried. She pulled the coat out of his hands and threw it on, giving him a defiant look that he returned.

"He's not! Shikamaru-san and Tenten-chan are with him, they'll take care of everything," Neji-san said with waning patience. They continued to fight over the coat, going on about someone named "Sai" and a suicide attempt, and I had to wonder just how many people I was supposed to see die this week. This was seriously starting to become an epidemic.

"Please, Neji, I have to go— Oh my god!" she yelped, jumping back as her eyes landed on me. I froze in place, staring blankly at her because— holy shit! She could still see me? What the fuck? "W-wh-what are you d-doing he-here?" she stammered, eyes so wide it was scary.

"You're not supposed to see me!" I yelled back, and immediately realized my mistake. Neji-san could see me too. And hear me, apparently.

"What do you mean? How stupid do you think we are? You're not even hiding behind anything!" snarled Neji-san, turning to face me with a threatening look on his face. I didn't bother stepping back, just kept my expression glaring and steady as I tried to think of something to amend the situation.

As was normal in these types of problems, I came up blank.

Well shit.

"Look, can you tell me where Uzumaki-san is right now?" I asked quickly, hoping to divert the conversation from a nose dive into a canyon to a nose dive into an empty swimming pool. Pick your battles, right? Or something like that.

Hinata-san seemed to understand first, and while Neji-san opened his mouth to shout some more she said quickly, "He's at Sai-san's apartment in Shinjuku!" She gave me more details, and I had to bite my tongue to keep from cursing aloud. Shinjuku again? Why couldn't everyone just agree on a Prefecture and let me rest for a fucking moment? "Please hurry!" she said, "I don't want Sai-san to hurt himself!"

"Right. See ya!" I fell through the floor and went to the nearest train station, retracing my steps from the directions Sasuke-san had given me just hours before. I had no idea of the time until the second stop, when I had enough sense to look at the clock, and then I cursed loudly and colorfully. It was almost eleven and I still had to find that godforsaken apartment complex. Fuck. I just had to push the envolope, didn't I? Make it the last minute to reach Uzumaki-san and give him his message; yeah, I had serious thrill issues.

I tore through Shinjuku like a demented bloodhound, repeated the address in my head and aloud as I flew up and down the streets. Fuck if I was going to let this go any farther than it had already I had no intentions of finding out what would happen if I didn't get that message to Uzumaki-san! I actually wouldn't mind going to hell now, what with all the shit that had gone on in the past five days! Fuck, I've got to find that damned apartment!

It was with the blare of a delivery truck and an unneeded jump to the sidewalk that I found the building I was looking for. The structure itself looked shabby and unreliable, as if it were going to fall down at any moment, but it was tall enough to compete with the other buildings around it and to show just how many lights were on at this time of night. I went straight through the doors, going up a dozen floors before finding a group of people wrestling in the hall. They were shouting and bellowing like a bunch of pissed of buffalo and I stood back to watch for a moment before daring to get closer.

"—Fucking shit! Shit, Sai, what the hell were you thinking? You insane idiot!" roared a blonde, blue eyes blazing with fire. A girl with her hair in buns was trying to restrain the blonde while at the same time hold up the lax boy held up by three others. One I recognized as Kiba-san, the other a guy with round sunglasses and spiky black hair, and, of all people, Lee-kun. I hadn't expected to see him here, and it shocked me into a light stupor. I came out of it as someone walked through me from the opposite end of the hall, someone with a spiked ponytail.

"I hit the elevator button and I've called Asuma-sensei. He'll be here with Gai-san in about ten minutes." The others thanked him and then they continued to haul the persistently fighting Sai-san to the elevator doors. Lee-kun switched positions, putting his back to the elevator doors and grabbing a hold of Sai-san's arms.

"Alright, youthful Sai-kun! We must take you down to the lobby, where Gai-sensei can help you find the true path to youthfulness! Abandon the ways of the un-youthful and embrace—!"

We never got to hear what Sai-san was to embrace. When the bell tinged and the doors opened, Lee-kun stepped back into the box. Only, the box wasn't there. The elevator hadn't worked, and Lee-kun fell off the edge of the floor. Down.

He didn't even scream. Just fell, fell all the way to the bottom and I think I panicked because then all I could see was the elevator shaft and the wires going down down downuntil they reached to bottom and I fell too. Maybe I screamed, maybe I didn't. I didn't care. All I could see was Lee-kun, falling down the tunnel, and my ears straining in hopes of catching the sound of him hitting the bottom. Waiting and waiting and I couldn't tell if it had come but I knew that he had landed because now I could see him lying in a heap that was too unnatural to be safe.

I was beside him in less than a second, hovering over him as I'd done with Hinata-san but with much less certainty and a hell of a lot more fear. I was scared, I admit it. I was afraid he'd never wake up and would never do those stupid push-ups in my office or run around the building a hundred times or make me eat sweets when I got too withdrawn. I was afraid he'd never drag me to the park again and make us build sand castles and that he wouldn't ever make Temari-neechan's temple vein throb or make Kankuro-niikun laugh until milk came out his nose. As I listened to his heart beat and his breath get slower and shallower, I started to feel my own chest seize up; I could feel it tighten and twist as if something were wringing it out like a damp cloth, and then all I could feel was that empty fear that had swallowed me whole.

I didn't want Lee-kun to die.

Some might argue that if I let him die, let his soul disconnect with his body, then we could both be dead together, ghost roaming the afterlife as one. But I knew Lee-kun would hate that. He loved being able to work out and talk to people and to eat and have fun. As a ghost, he'd be nothing but a shade of gray in a sea of black and white, and even if everything I knew about Lee-kun was a lie, that one fact was all that I needed to make my decision.

There was a glow, so slight it wouldn't have even been noticed if it weren't so dark in the elevator shaft. A shape took form from the glow, a face and eyes and legs and arms and everything came up, floating above the body before standing itself and hovering. Lee-kun blinked owlishly at me, bowl-shaped head tilted to the side as he regarded me in confusion.

"Gaa-kun? What's going on . . . ?"

I didn't bother waiting. Even as he spoke, I grabbed his arms and shoved him back into his body. I was reminded of Hinata-san, the way I'd forced her in, and how mad I'd been when I'd done it, but now . . . mad wasn't what I was feeling. Not extremely, anyway. It was a horrendously sad feeling that controlled me, and I let it do so, forcing Lee-kun back even as he screamed in protest. He didn't understand what was happening, so he wanted to stop it— that was to be expected. But it still hurt, to see him so scared. The one person who hadn't been afraid of me, who hadn't cowered in fear when I glared or yelled at them; to see him so scared was infuriating and wounding beyond belief. But I didn't stop. I couldn't let him die. So I didn't.

Lee-kun's body gave a mighty jerk and then his eyes were opening slowly. He groaned, moaning in pain as he tried to move himself but found that he was broken all over. I was panting beside him, watching him to make sure he was alive. I had to make sure. He moaned again, face screwed up in pain, and then someone's voice filtered down to us.

"Lee-kun? Lee-kun, are you okay? Can you hear me?" It was the blonde, from what I could tell, and that's when I realized just how far Lee-kun had fallen. By all accounts he should have died, and from the tremble in his voice, the blonde thought so too.

"Na . . . uto?" breathed Lee-kun, eyes glassy and unfocused. I felt my breath catch in my throat. Naruto. Uzumaki Naruto. He was here, at the top of the elevator, staring down at us. I had to give him his message. But . . . . I looked to Lee-kun. I didn't want to leave him. Not now, when he was so vulnerable. For a moment I forgot I was intangible, and hissed threats of bodily harm to whomever tried to harm Lee-kun in his state. But I couldn't stay here forever, and there was really nothing more I could do. Lee-kun was alive and I was dead. I was quite useless to him now. I let myself get carried up the tunnel, reaching the open floor far too quickly for my taste.

Uzumaki-san was standing by the edge, Kiba-san holding him back from the edge, while the girl with her hair in buns and the one with sunglasses held tightly to Sai-san. The one with the spiked ponytail was on the phone with the fire department and ambulance, talking angrily and loudly. I didn't pay them any mind though; I had something to do.

When I stepped into his line of view, Uzumaki-san shook his head as if trying to get rid of water. I waited for a moment, then looked him square in the eye, pinning him where he stood.

"Uzumaki Naruto, correct?"

He nodded mutely, staring at me with wide, blue eyes.

"I have a message for you." I took a breath. "Say yes."

I didn't get to see Naruto's reaction, because all I wanted to do was get away. Slipping through the layers of floors, passing through identical hallways with varying amounts of people, before coasting outside. Now I was standing on the sidewalk just outside the rundown apartment complex, blinking at the wailing and flashing lights as a fire truck turned onto the street. I didn't give a fuck what happened to me now; I wanted to see if Lee-kun made it to the ambulance alright, that he wasn't going to die on me any time soon so I could pass on worry-free.

And then I heard a giggle.

No. Fucking.Way.

Turning, I found myself face to face with the bubble gum fairy girl, green eyes glittering in the red and white lights. She was hopping around in the air, waving her wand while she seemed to be bursting with laughter. I felt hate for her, like I always had, but now I was just too exhausted to truly voice it.

"What the fuck do you want, baita?" I snarled. She pouted, fingering her wand.

"That's so mean!" she whined. "And here I was going to be nice and let you come back to life, but then you go and call me a whore—!"

Whoa, whoa, wait. Hold the phone here (did I seriously just say that? Have I devolved in the last five minutes or am I just brain dead?)— what did she say?

"Wait, wait, wait," I interrupted, holding up my hands as I narrowed my eyes. "What did you just say?"

"Hm?" She smirked deviously. "Well, see, none of us expected you to put Rock-san back in his body. We were certain you'd make him a wandering soul like you, and then we'd separate you so that you could do your time in hell while Rock-san went on, but then you brought him back to life. So we're kind of not sure what to do with you now."

"But I'm dead!" I yelled, unable to help it. They can't be serious, right? "I thought you said you couldn't return spirits to their bodies without turning them into the Undead!"

"That's what happens when I do that without permission," corrected the Reaper pointedly, winking as she smiled. "I got the approval, however, to return you to your body if you want."

Holy shit. This couldn't be happening. Return to life? Was she serious? After all this shit, after this whole week of bad experience after bad experience, and now it was all just some sort of fucked up vacation? What the fuck? Could I seriously come back to life? Just come back, waltz around as I please with no strings attached? That would be awesome. That would be so fucking awesome.

"Wait," I said, shaking my head, "what do you mean by 'if I want'?"

"Well, you don't have to come back if you don't want to. Hell always has room for more, though Heaven did say they would accept you if you really wanted."

I stared at her. Clenching and unclenching my fist as I just stared and tried to figure this all out. Because it couldn't be true. I mean, come on. An opportunity like this? It had to be a trap. There was just no other reason.

But what if it wasn't? What if I really could come back, rejoin the world, and start living again? Would I want to? I turned to look as the doors banged open and a Lee-kun was carried out on a stretcher, oxygen mask over his face with restraints and blankets covering him. The group of people who'd been with him in the hall were hovering around, trying to ask questions or help or who knows what. I watched them carry Lee-kun into the back of the ambulance and take off, and then I knew.

"How do I come back to life?" I asked the bubble gum girl. She grinned brightly, clapping her hands together happily.

"Yay! Gaa-chan wants to live! Okay, here's what you do," she said, assuming the lotus position and crossing her arms over her chest matter-of-factly. "Right now, your death has been classified as a homicide, though they aren't sure just yet who killed you. So, what that means is, your body is being kept in a morgue at a police station."

"I'm in a morgue?" I said incredulously, staring at her. "I have to come back to life in a morgue?"

"Hey, be thankful they classified it as a crime at all. Otherwise you'd be a pile of ashes right about now." She cleared her throat and floated down closer. I leaned away instinctively, glowering at her inherent lack of understanding the term "personal space." "Now look," she said, "I really don't have to do any of this for you. But, seeing as you did something shockingly selfless, I'm being extra nice. Don't ruin it."

"Fine," I growled. "Just— tell me which police station."

"Um. . . ." She frowned. "Well, I think it's the one to the east, but it might be to the west. . . ."

"You mean you don't know?"

"Well, uh, no."

I felt like kicking something. "Fucking shit!"

"Okay, okay! Look, we can fix this, I just need you to keep calm," soothed the Reaper quickly. "I do know that the station is run by Morino Ibiki. Do you know him?"

"Yeah," I said slowly, "yeah, I know that guy. He's been at a few meetings I had with some politicians. Are you saying his police station has my body?"

"Yep!" she answered, smiling with giddy relief. "Wow, close one, huh?"

I had the location, I had the means, I had the motive. But I didn't move. I stared at the girl, eyeing her with a mix of contempt and gratification. She was a pain in the ass, but she was restoring me to life, so. . . .

"Thanks," I said stiffly, "for doing this."

She looked elated. "You're sooo welcome Gaa-chan! Now, you'd better hurry before time runs out."

"Time? What do you mean?" I asked, feeling my gut drop to rock bottom.

She stared at me quizzically. "Didn't you know? You have until 1 a.m. to get to your body and merge; it's the ultimate witching hour. After one, you pass on to Hell. Or Heaven. Like I said, you have the choice."

I barely waited for her to finish, cursing loudly as I blazed down the street and through the maze that called itself Shinjuku. All the lights flew by, creating the freakiest images yet, but I didn't stop to admire any of it, checking the first clock I came to for the time. 12:38. Fuck.

Reaching the station was easy. Getting in was easier. Finding the morgue was not. Morino-san was well respected in his field, having served the military before his wife made him retire and then taking up the position as chief of police after having their second daughter (don't ask me how I know this shit; I just do. I blame my secretary, personally, since she can't shut up about the guy). Because of his fame, he was give control of the biggest station, and thus had more rooms for me to search through. Which sucked because goddammit I was on the clock! I didn't have the freedom to just wander around without a care in the world! I just didn't! This was seriously not good.

On the very bottom level, with the autopsy tables and various medical instruments to go through with an autopsy, I found it. A bunch of doors, small and box shaped, lined the walls, and I watched as the coroner filled on of them with a newly documented body. In one of those cases was me, and I hoped to fucking god all my organs were still in place. If they weren't. . . . I shuddered, not really in a gory enough mood to find it amusing.

My time was running out, and I still hadn't found my body. Which was a creepy thing to think about, but I shoved that thought away and focused on looking. Walking through the walls was the most obvious way, even if I didn't want to go walking through a bunch of dead bodies, so I took a breath (even if it did absolutely no good) and stepped into the wall.

Dead bodies aren't as creepy when they're freshly dead. They just aren't. Maybe it's because they're still warm, or their face is all limp, but they aren't creepy. Afterwards, though, when the coroner has had a knock at them and all that's left is for the permission slip to be signed, they look ugly. Pale and grey with cold skin and stiff muscles— it was unsettling and once again I was glad I couldn't throw up. I knew none of these people, which helped, but it was still disgusting to go wading through a sea of cold, grey, dead people. And then I found my body.

There were the cuts and stitches where the coroner cut me open, and I was just as pale and cold as everyone else. My eyeliner had been cleaned off, the dark bruising from years of insomnia showing through, and my tattoo looked frail on my papery skin. Though it was still naturally spiked, my red hair was lank and lackluster; my face was gaunt and my bones stiff. I stared at myself, not quite sure if it was me, before I noticed the glow. It was soft, not nearly as bright or warm as Lee-kun's had been, but it was there. And when I reached out to touch it, the flare brightened, reaching back. With a deep inhale, I lay down inside my body, feeling an icy chill wash over me, wrapping all over me and inside me, as if I were drowning in a pool of frigid water. There was a moment of utter darkness, coming in from all sides like pressure in firefighting hose, before I landed like a deadweight.

I took a breath.

And opened my eyes.

Laying down, I didn't have the kind of view I'd had before, but I knew for sure that I was in my body now. Curiously, I lifted my arm, noting the delay as it scrambled to move. When it did, it hurt like hell, but at least it was working. My head was sore, and my chest was near throbbing with pain, before I finally noticed just how cold it was. Damn, it's like a refrigerator in here! I slammed my fist on the ceiling of my box, opening my mouth to shout only to find my lips and tongue too dry. Licking my lips, I hit the ceiling again, and then the floor beneath me moved as the coroner pulled me out.

"My god . . ." breathed the coroner, eyes wide as the openings of a martini glasses. I stared back, a bit dazed, and then glared. Feeling the vibration in my throat, I managed to get out in a gravely voice:

"Give me my pants back, dammit."

The man stared for a moment longer, to which I answered with a harder glare, and then he managed to croak out, "A-a-are you f-for real?"

"Of course I'm real, dipshit, now get me my pants. And a car, so I can go to the hospital and get some proper stitching." When he didn't move, I growled, making him skitter away in shock. "You'd better not have removed any of my organs or I'll sue."

I got up very, very slowly. I wasn't entirely sure if I could, so having my body jerkily force itself into a seated position wasn't fully expected. There was a shift in weight as all of my organs left their lax positions along my spine and settled to where they were supposed to be. I kept the flimsy paper sheet around my waist, not in any mood to go flashing people just after coming back to life, and took a shuddery, rattling breath. It hurt and I winced, my hand coming up to grip my chest. When my skin touched, it was wet, and I looked down to see small trickles of blood seep out of the cuts made by the coroner during my death.

Okay, that can't be good.

The coroner came back with a pair of pants and about half the night staff, every single one of them gaping stupidly at me when I turned to look at them. I swear, it's as if they'd never seen a dead body just suddenly come back to life or something. Oh wait . . . . I laughed in my head, but my face remained impassive as I took the pants from the coroner. Then I glared at him.

"Did you get the car? I need to go to a hospital immediately. You fucking cut me open, retard," I snapped. I heard someone dial on their cell phone, and then tuned them out as Morino-san himself came storming into the room.

"What's going on down here?" demanded the commander, glaring around at all of them. Then his eyes landed on me. "Sabaku-san? What the hell, I though—?"

"That I was dead? Obviously, or else I wouldn't have woken up in a morgue." I looked over at the man on the phone, watching him nod vigorously before hanging up. "Did you get me a car?"

"An ambulance," said the man.

"Good. I want to get the fuck out of here." I shivered. It was so fucking cold. Morino-san snorted, glaring at me as he took off his police jacket and draped it over my shoulders. It smelled like doughnuts.

"Don't move and don't go to sleep. You'll be at the hospital in no time."

Time didn't slip by like it did when I was a ghost, but it went by fast enough, and by the next afternoon I'd gotten drugged, unstitched and re-stitched, slept, eaten and checked over for any other injuries. They kept saying how lucky I was that the coroner hadn't removed any organs, how the cuts in my skin might cause infection and kill me, how the fact I'd woken up at all was a pure miracle. The police came by after I'd eaten, asking about who it was who'd killed me. I told them point blank that I hadn't died, that it hadn't been a week, and that the motherfucker messing with my calenders was going to get his ass handed to him in a handbasket if he kept it up. I wasn't sorry that my comment spelled the end of their questioning sessions.

I had decided early on (on the way to the hospital, in fact) that I wasn't going to admit to my ghostly escapades. It just sounded too fucking weird and insane that no one would believe me, plus I didn't want to find out the hard way if Sasuke-san, Hinata-san, Naruto-san and Lee-kun actually remember any of the shit that went down while I was with them. I hadn't run into any of them yet, and I was kind of hoping to keep it that way (except Lee-kun, for obvious reasons) but if I did run into them, my plan involved denial and frosty glares that'd send them running for the hills. Or Mt. Fuji. Whichever came first.

Hospital food, by the way, tastes horrible. I will never be eating that filth again. Temari-neechan and Kankuro-niikun brought me chilled soba to pacify me after I tried to drown the nurse with jell-o. Thank god for siblings. Not that I'd ever tell them that. They don't need any more prompting for a "sibling night" than they do already. And that was when I was still a bastard fucker who didn't give a shit about anybody or anything. Go figure.

Lee-kun was, surprisingly, recuperating in the same hospital as I was, so once I was fairly sure I wouldn't bleed from sitting up or talking, I had Temari-neechan wheel me (they wouldn't let me go anywhere unless I was in a wheelchair, the fuckers) down to his room. He looked awful, I wasn't going to lie about that. I did happen to have enough compassion not to say it to his face, though; Lee-kun looked depressed enough as it was, having been told he couldn't do anything strenuous for the next eight or so months. This was a huge blow for him— he loved doing strenuous things.

We talked (he did most of the talking because, despite my chattiness as a ghost, I was actually pretty quiet normally) and ate and then I started to notice something. In the way Lee-kun looked at me, anyway. He seemed kinda weirded out, but in that good way that doesn't make me want to rip the heads off Barbie dolls.

I had a lot of patience for Lee-kun, but even I had my limits. "What's the matter, Lee-kun?"

He gave me a guilty sort of look, shifting in all his bandaged glory, before replying. "Um, it's just . . . I know this sounds weird but . . . I saw you. That night I fell down the elevator shaft."

Okay, so I wasn't entirely shocked by this, but still. It made things harder for me in the long run. "Oh yeah? Like a coma dream or something?" I asked with as much indifference as I could muster. I always found it harder to lie to Lee-kun than most other people. I have yet to figure out why.

"Well, no." He paused, huffing as he tried to collect his thoughts and assemble his words. "It was more like you were a ghost, or something. I think I died, Gaa-kun. And you, I think you brought me back to life. That's what it looked like to me, anyway."

I eyed him, containing a smile, and shook my head.

"You have one hell of an imagination, Lee-kun."

Lee-kun smiled, and everything was alright.

---

Epilogue

Once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far away . . .

(Okay, yeah, sorry about that. I know some Star Wars geeks and couldn't resist.)

. . . (cough) . . .

(Anyway, here's the real Epilogue)

---

Paperwork was pointless. Utterly and entirely pointless. Who the fuck cared if some building on 23rd wanted to put up a lamp post to the right of the street sign instead of on the left like it was? Better question: why the hell do they think I care? Fucking shit, these people are stupid! Seriously, I hate my job. If it weren't such a cash cow I'd have left ages ago, just to spite that old carcass six feet under. Well, I would've done it either way, but Temari-neechan can be such a hard-ass that it just isn't worth fighting her on it most days. But that's not the point.

The point is: paperwork sucks. Royal. Ass.

And then the door opened. Sweet merciful heavens: a distraction!

"Gaa-kun!" cried Lee-kun as he bounded into the room. I swear he was nearly bouncing off the walls in his excitement.

(If you dare ask me whether I smiled or not when he runs around like a sugar-crazed maniac, I will beat into a bloody pulp with a spiked club and then run you over with my car. Several times. Because I may not be as messed up a motherfucker as I was, but I do not smile. Ever.)

I just rolled my eyes at him.

Five months ago he'd would've rammed into my door with his wheelchair, calling through the thick wood to get my attention (not that it was hard to do, considering the volume he could get his tone up to), but now he was better. All his bones had healed, the skin repaired, and all visible signs of trauma gone. He still had trouble going into elevators, but he didn't avoid them altogether, which, according to one of the many doctors I'd hired to see to Lee-kun's full recovery, that was a huge psychological step on his part. Or something. Once he said Lee-kun would make a full recovery I pretty much stopped listening to him.

"What is it, Lee-kun?" I said, looking up from all of that crappy-ass paperwork still scattered over my desk in heaps. I swear my secretary was trying to kill me slowly through a paper avalanche. She thought I didn't know, but I was onto her, and if she kept it up she'd be fired faster than a marshmallow over a campfire.

"Naruto-kun has invited us to the youthful enjoyment of ramen on this joyous afternoon!" boomed Lee-kun with his constantly elevated tone of voice. I wanted to roll my eyes again (as if I could forget something that would free me from hours of mind-numbing paperwork), but decided against it, stretching out in my chair before getting up.

"Well, we wouldn't want to be late, now would we?"

Lee-kun grinned wider, unnaturally large eyes gleaming brightly as he danced in place. "I can't wait! Naruto-kun said he Sasuke-kun are going to pay this time, and he even managed to get the rest of our old friends together for lunch! I'm confident that you will find great reason to applaud their youthfulness!"

Okay, so I rolled my eyes this time. "I'm sure I will." Lee-kun just kept smiling.

We left my office building, passing my secretary (may she burn in hell, the stupid witch), and Kankuro-niikun, who gave Lee-kun a high-five and a smile, asking him about the martial arts competition we'd gone to that weekend went. Lee-kun ended up retelling the whole contest down to the last detail, lasting nearly twenty minutes before he glanced at the clock and let out a screech about how un-youthful it was to be late. I nearly laughed when his eyes bulged out of his sockets, mouth dropping like an anvil in a cartoon. He even ran off like some sort of anime character, legs a blur and arms like right angles attached at the shoulder. Lee-kun could be pretty entertaining.

The noodle place wasn't too far from the office building, though walking makes everything seem farther than it really is. Long story short, we got to the noodle place just in time to watch Naruto-kun scarf down his fourth bowl, Sasuke-kun eyeing him like some sort of circus animal while several other people I didn't know and some I did laughed and talked over their first serving. We sat next to Naruto-kun, Lee-kun at the blonde's elbow and me next to Hinata-san.

Hinata-san smiled politely at me. "Hello, Gaara-san."

"Hinata-san," I replied, glancing briefly at Neji-san (who was trying to burn holes in my head, the bastard). Neither of them seem to remember me from that brief period I'd been in their house, and Hinata-san was blissfully unaware that she had been mostly dead for about three seconds. Which was good, believe me, but with the way Neji-san always glared at me as if I were some sort of vulture with a tip about a recently mangled carcass, I wouldn't be surprised if they were just lying. I kind of hoped they weren't, but you never know. And it's not like they're easy people to read, to tell you the truth. I mean, have you ever been in a staring contest with them? Freaky, I tell you (I won of course, but still; it's the principle of the matter).

"Stop eating so fast or you'll choke, Dobe," deadpaned Sasuke-kun, watching Naruto shoved a fist-sized ball of ramen into his mouth. The blonde gave an grunt of annoyance, casting the raven-head a look before chewing feverishly.

"Aw shut up!" he said thickly, spitting out bits of ramen onto the counter. Sasuke-kun rolled his eyes while Lee-kun attempted to clean up the mess.

"If you get any sloppier I'm giving you your food in a bowl on the floor with the other mutts."

If anything, this made Naruto's table manners worse, fists knocking over all the empty bowls that were piled up hear his place. I lost interest in their argument and ordered a small bowl of chilled soba.

Lee-kun and Naruto-kun were friends in high school, along with the Hyuuga's, someone named Nara, another person named Shino, Kiba-san (surprise surprise), Sai-san, Tenten-san, and a few other people I hadn't really been paying attention to. Apparently they're also going to the same college (I took all my college courses during high school, so when Daddy Dearest bit the dust I was free from educational obligations to take over the big office), and are in a few of the same classes. Lee-kun is good at making friends, the multitude of people coming to visit him proof enough of that, but he attracts some fucking weird people (I'm proof enough of that, but that's kinda beside the point). Anyways— Case in point: Gai-san. Fucking weirdo.

"Stupid bastard!" snarled Naruto-kun, jabbing at Sasuke-san with his chopsticks. "I oughtta kick your ass!"

"Like you could," scoffed Sasuke-san. Naruto-kun sputtered indignantly, flailing about as if he wanted to launch himself at the Uchiha and strangle him. Kiba-san laughed, him and Lee-kun reaching over to hold the blonde in place. I ignored them completely, accepting the bowl of chilled soba placed in front of me.

So I bet you're wondering: What was with that weird-ass message I had to get to Naruto-kun? I wondered about that too, and now I know. So I'll tell you:

It was all just so that the stupid blonde would go out with Sasuke-kun.

Yeah. That's it.

Trust me, I was pissed as hell when fairy girl told me that, too.

Oh yeah, about her. Well, about six months ago, I found out through a near heart attack and an early death-by-coffee to my clean white shirt that I can still see her. And hear her. Good gods can I still hear her. I swear, that giggle made my blood run cold before nearly tearing my nerves and making me break the door handle. Luckily I didn't kill the door handle (though I sure as hell was close to it), but I did give her a nasty glare that sent her cowering behind my desk.

"You're so mean!" she'd whined. I didn't give a fuck then (I sure as hell didn't before, and definitely not now), and I'm pretty sure she was aware of that ten seconds later.

"What the fucking hell are you doing in my office?" I snapped. She poked her head up from behind my chair, blinking at me stupidly.

"I wanted to make sure you got out of the morgue okay," she said, as if that were obvious. And then she giggled. Stupid fairy.

"How come I can see you? I'm not dead again, am I?" If I was dead again, I was going to murder that stupid fairy. And roast her over an open fire and then toss her into a pit full of starving sharks. And then coat her remains in gasoline so I could burn her to oblivion.

All the fairy did was laugh. "No, silly! It's just, what with you having been dead for a week, now you have the power to see the other Grim Reapers and Shinigami. Just like the Hyuuga's and —"

"Whoa, wait," I cut in, giving her a look, "what is this about the Hyuuga's?"

She blinked. "Didn't you see their eyes? That white isn't natural for someone who isn't blind. It's actually an extra film over the human eye that can distinguish other-worldly shapes from the solid world. I figured you knew that, since Neji-san could see you even though you hadn't brought him back to life or anything."

"If they can see me without needed to die," I growled, "then why didn't she notice me before? And how come both Uchiha's and Uzumaki-san could detect me?" This was getting so annoyingly complicated.

"Well, about that," she said, taking a deep breath, "— I have no idea. Uzumaki-san was given the power to see you before hand, so that you could definitely get the message to him, but the Uchiha's were kind of a wild card. We didn't exactly know they could hear you. We just sort of found out about it when you talked to him that morning. Oh, and be prepared for him to remember you— if he could see you without us knowing, then he probably remembered you without us knowing."

"WHAT?"

She winced. "Um, okay, so that didn't go over well . . ."

Oh shit. Ohshitohshitohshitohshit. And I gave him my name, too. He knows my name, he knows my voice—! Shit! I glared at that stupid pink girl, in her stupid fairy costume, with her stupid Reaper powers. I really should chuck something at her, just to see if it hits. Sasuke-san remembers! He remembers all the shit that went down when I was in his apartment and he remembers— holy shit! He knew about the message! Oh crap.

But wait! If he doesn't recognized me as the ghost, then there's nothing to worry about, right? Right. I mean, come on! You can't seriously recognize someone by their voice alone. That just isn't possible.

So for the next month or so after that little shock to my heart, I was perfectly content in thinking I was safe from the Uchiha's, Uzumaki's, and Hyuuga's possibly retained memories. I payed for all of Lee-kun's hospital bills, told him to move in with me once he left the hospital to avoid him breaking his neck on the stairs at his place (then moved him back into his apartment once I was sure he wasn't going to go falling down stairs anytime soon), and continued to eat nothing but chilled soba on my lunch breaks at the hospital. Everything was okay.

But then Uzumaki-san came for one of his usual visits. And he wasn't alone.

Him and Sasuke-san had been, apparently, infatuated with each other since fucking grade school, but were both too thick headed and prideful (respectfully) to actually admit it. At least, that's what I got out of that shouting match and fist fight Uzumaki-san, Sasuke-san, and Lee-kun nearly got into. And that message? Well, apparently, Sasuke-san had been preparing to ask Uzumaki-san out for, get this, three months, and one week after Lee-kun's trip down the elevator shaft he asked the blonde to go out with him. Said blonde answered "yes."

Because I told him to.

What. The. Fuck.

So now they're the love of each other's lives, living together in Sasuke-san's monster apartment with regular fights and plenty of ramen (according to the complaints made by Lee-kun after going to their place for lunch and unable to have his favorite teriyaki dish).

They live near Kiba-san and Shino-san too, who'd gotten another dog to replace Akamaru (I was not stupid enough to bring up the dog in front of Kiba-san after only just meeting him; too weird). The dog in question was a monster of a thing, with a big slobbery tongue and freakishly large feet that left the dirtiest stains on my favorite shirt. Dumbass dog. Stupid thing didn't know what was good for it.

Lee-kun leapt up in great show of youthfulness, and I deftly reached over to catch his bowl before it fell of the bar. Naruto-kun and Kiba-san laughed at his antics, Nara-san nearly falling off his chair as he was woken from his nap at the jolting noise. I snorted at him, setting the bowl back down and jerking Lee-kun down on his stool.

"Don't go dropping crap, Lee-kun," I told him with a sigh. He grinned at me, nearly blinding me with his pearly white teeth.

"Not to worry, Gaa-kun! I won't break anything!" he said, waving around his arms.

CRASH!

Lee-kun looked up from the broken bowl guiltily. ". . . Oops."

I sighed.

"So Gaara-san," hummed Hinata-san, smiling brightly at me as I angled my head in her direction, "how is Temari-san?"

I took a breath, idly poking at my noodles. "Well, apparently she's got this new secret boyfriend . . ."

(I will neither confirm nor deny whether Nara-san jumped at that statement or not. However, two days later I saw his number show up on caller ID after Temari-neechan had been talking on the phone for two hours. He has been issued a warning of bodily harm and possible murder should he prove to be a lecherous pervert. I will not say by who.)

(Though, seriously, if you don't know who it was, then I have legal rights to getting you a brain operation. As in, give you the brain you so obviously lack.)

I spent the rest of the afternoon at the noodle place, immersed in conversation and spectacular story-telling by the combined efforts of Lee-kun and Naruto-kun, totally forgetting about the mountain of paperwork sitting idly in my office.

Chilled soba, by the way, is awesome. I will never tire of eating it for as long as I live.

Lee-kun stood up again with a brilliant smile on his face and another monologue prepared, his newest bowl nearly falling right off the counter with his oblivious arm-waving. I caught it, of course, but gave Lee-kun a wack on the head for good measure.

Yeah, chilled soba is good. Real good—

He apologized, rubbing the back of his head good-naturedly. Hinata-san giggled behind her hand, Naruto-kun and Kiba-san barking out laughter like a pair of dogs, and Sasuke hid his face in his hands with a vanquished sigh.

—Among other things.

Lee-kun's smiling again, laughing brightly. And I hate to admit it, but . . .

. . . I'm smiling too.

(But you already know that.)

---

The End