The Bad Place

A stroy by Songstone

Songstone: . . . Well . . . I have no explanation for this one. It's been swimming around my mind for some time now, and I just now settled down to write it. This chapter actually didn't give me any trouble. I sat down in bed, started typing and just didn't stop. XD I got the title from a book I'm writing and I'm thinking of changing the name's of the people and maybe someone's gender in this fic so that I can have this story published. Wouldn't that be awesome?

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

Chapter 1: My life, in a nutshell

Konoha was a really lovely place to live. At least, in the the daytime. At night on the 'wrong side of town' there were some bad people wandering around. Drug dealers, theifs, and maybe even murderers. One could never tell.

But, among the 'bad people' slithering through the streets of Konoha, there was me. A small male, standing only five feet tall with hardly any muscle at all. I was also an unflattering color of white. I was constantly told that my skin color made me look sickly, but there really wasn't anything that I could do about that. It was just how I was. Besides, the ashen color of my skin made my hair stand out better. My hair was a rather odd color for Konoha since I had yet to see anyone else with hair like mine. It was a flaming red in color, swooping low to cover my forehead, a bit above my eyes. I had no eyebrows (No, I don't shave them off. I was born that way.), so my forehead looked a bit larger than it really was.

I had a bit more room on my forehead, so when I had turned sixteen, I had decided to get a tattoo. Instead of the rather unappealing and distubing imagry that I had seen on other people, I opted for something less than traditional. It's etched into my skin in red ink, permantly written over my left eye. It's a Japanese kanji meaning 'love.' It's a long story as to why I chose to give myself that tattoo, so I'll save that for later.

Another thing about me that earned me strange looks from people in town; My eyes. Actually, I found them to be my best feature, but other people didn't seem to think so. They were slanted up only slightly, the iris' a pale aqua-ish color, and they were surrounded by a thick line of black. I honestly looked like I had been punched and was recovering from black eyes, but that wasn't the case. The black around my eyes were rings that I had acquired from all of the sleepless nights that I spent out on the streets.

All right, I've spent enough time beating around the bush about why I'm out on the street everynight when there is obvious danger. I might as well get it out.

To put it very bluntly, my profession is that of a prostitute.

It wasn't the most flattering choice of life, but it was all I had. I had run away from my home when I was twelve, away from my drunkard of a father but also abandoning my older siblings. I cared for them both dearly, but I just couldn't stand to be in the same house with that terrible man any longer. So, as a child I ended up as far away from my father's home as I could get and was sleeping huddled up on a park bench or on the playground. It was pathetic, I know, but it was my life at the time.

At least, until I met him. He was the one who was kind enought to let me stay in his home. Granted, his home was the top floor of a bar, but it beat sleeping out in the snow, let me tell you.

Jaraiya was a rather kind man despite his appearance and attitude around attractive women. He took care of me, fed me, clothed me and gave me a warm home to stay in. I was more than grateful and vowed to him that I would find some way to pay him back for all that he had done for me. He owned a well visited bar in what is considered the 'wrong side of town' and I would often help him out at nighttime, when the coustomers would start to arrive. But once it would start to get roudy, Jaraiya would always send me upstairs to bed, not wanting me to get into any trouble. I had a horrible temper and a very blunt way of speech, so he was always fearful that I would say something offensive to an intoxicated coustomer and get myself into a scrap.

All was well for me and Jaraiya, actually. We were very comfortable with our lives. The bar was successful and he was settled financially, so it seemed like there really wasn't anything to worry about. But of course, what kind of story would this be if I had ended up happily ever after? A very bland one, trust me.

When I was sixteen, another bar opened up further down the road from Jaraiya's and it was larger, held more variety and even had women dancers for the male customers. From then on, it just started to go downhill for our bar. The customers deserted us and business slowed down. Jaraiya mentioned that he was thinking of closing up and selling the bar to someone else who would want to make it an antique shop or something, and I just wasn't having that. I kicked and screamed and threw a fit, but I finally got the older man to keep his shop open though it was excruciatingly slow.

Then, that one day . . . One day was all it took. I was sweeping the bar just like I always did, when a tall, lanky man with jet black hair and a sicker color of skin than my own came slinking in from the streets. He ordered a bottle of beer and sat at the bar stool, drinking slowly. It was when I moved behind the bar counter to put away the broom and cleaning products that he noticed me. I can still remember his voice so well . . .

"Hey, kid. What's your name?" He watched me move with such piercing, golden eyes and I remember being a bit weirded out by him. He seemed so much older than I was, maybe around Jaraiya's age.

But, the Old Man (I had started calling Jaraiya that not long after I had arrived.) was always trying to pound some manners into me, so I cleared my throat and answered carefully.

"Gaara. My name's Gaara."

The older man watched me for a while longer, looking over his shoulder and then to both sides of himself. I think back now and I believe he was looking for Jaraiya, making sure that he wasn't anywhere near him. The Old Man had stepped out of the shop just then, so it was just me and that stranger in the bar. Finally, he looked back to me and smiled. It was so eerie that I got chills up and down my spine. I had never believed people when they said 'my hair stood up on end' but at that moment, I knew what they meant. It was just a very bad feeling of dread.

"How old are you, Gaara?"

"Sixteen."

His breath hissed in sharply, like he had been expecting another answer, but he only continued to smile that too-large-for-his-face smile at me, nodding. "I see. So, you're a big boy. You ever . . . you know . . . 'serviced' a customer before?" I had only stared at him blankly, wondering what he meant by 'servicing.' I worked at the bar and cleaned, surely he knew that since I had just been sweeping. But he only chuckled when I mentioned that to him. "No, kid. Like . . . in bed." Following that statement had been some very crude comments that I would like to leave out, but at last, he leaned back in the bar stool and pulled out his wallet. "Tell you what. I'll hand over the money for this drink, plus one hundred dollars for a good time." He winked at the end of his sentence, and I suppressed a shudder.

But when I saw the money thrust out in front of me, I blinked up at him, my mouth falling open slightly. "You . . . you would pay for something like that?" I was horrified. The thought of using my body to get money was mortifying and it appalled me. But at the same time . . . I knew that Jaraiya was having trouble paying the rent for his bar and that he needed more customers. If people were willing to pay for something that I could give them then I would gladly do it! Just to help the Old Man.

That night, I found a new way of life. I realized that what I could do with someone in bed would earn me money. The stranger payed me extra money for a 'fabulous job' and I made a deal with him. If he were to come back to the bar every weekend and buy a beer, then I would preform for him again for the same price that he had payed me the first time. It was a bit degrading, but I had to think about what I was doing. The money I would be raising would help out Jaraiya! That was all that mattered to me.

But, when I offered the money to the Old Man, he of course inquired how I had earned so much since it was more than enough for the rent and even some groceries. When I let it slip what I had been doing, he couldn't believe it. He gaped at me for a long time and in a way that I thought his eyes were about to bug out, but at last he spoke, telling me that I shouldn't have let that man have his way with me. What happened after that was a very long and embarrassing discussion about my self respect and how I shouldn't do such improper things just because I felt that I was obligated to help out with the bills or something along those lines. I don't remember much since I wasn't paying attention through half of it. I had already made up my mind. This was helping out. I was being useful to the Old Man.

In the coming months, business picked up a bit more, some of that stranger's friends coming to the bar to seek me out. But I always had one condition; Whoever wanted to get with me had to buy a beer or whatever beverage they wanted from Jaraiya so that I wasn't the only one with the money.

This routine soon became normal though Jaraiya never accepted it and I knew that he was dissappointed in me. That fact alone made me want to sob. The man who had been so kind to me and who had treated me like his own son wasn't pleased with the way I chose to help him out. But it was all I could do for him. And I was making generous amounts of money, so it was working out rather well.

Of course, there were the times that I would be lying in bed after the last 'customer' had left my room and I would just feel so insanely dirty and disgusted with myself. How could I be doing this to myself? I would often wonder that, though I already knew why I had to keep on doing what I was doing. If I wanted to stay with the Old Man and keep our bar/house then I needed to make money for the rent. It was as simple as that and it got rid of all the doubts that I would sometimes get.

I wasn't happy with my life, but I was content. Jaraiya and I were settled again. Business was picking up more and more for him and for me, so we were slowly but surely catching up on the rent and buying whatever we needed. I was pleased, actually. Pleased with myself for helping out as much as I had been and for my idea to start doing what I now did. As said before, it wasn't the most flattering life, but it was all I had.

And I was more than happy to keep it the way it was. But . . . that was before He came walking into the bar. It was the spring after my twentieth birthday, and as soon as the small silver bell above the door rang and signaled another customer, my life suddenly became a whole lot more complicated.

Songstone: Okay, by a show of hands, how many people would read a book like this in real life? I'm going to go ahead and just change Gaara's gender and name (appearance too, of course!) and mix things up a bit. Then maybe if I ever finish this fic, my book will get done too. XD Wish me luck guys! Tell me what you thought of my story!

P.S. The guy that propositioned Gaara first was Orochimaru in case I didn't do a good job at discribing him. XD

P.P.S: I had to repost this because I got kicked out of my old account. I hope that you guys could please, please review and tell me what you think. I hope you enjoy this story the second time around.