To everyone who thought that the next thing I was going to write would be another chapter of my Bleach story, sorry. The Naruto bug bit me :)
I hope you enjoy my first attempt at writing a Naruto story!
Title: Meetings in a Sandstorm
Author: MeteorLeopard (HoneyBadger)
...
The wind outside was horrible and cutting and the sand swirling everywhere was just serving to make her feel like she was being showered down with sandpaper. It was rough, it was unpleasant and it got into her eyes and made her cry. As though she didn't already cry enough.
The little girl shook her head furiously. No, there was no way that she was going to think about that. She clenched her little fists and nodded once enthusiastically to herself, furrowing her brows in determination. Yes, the whole reason that she was here to get a break. That's why she had begged her mommy and daddy to let her go with her aunty on a week-long trip to the desert. Though looking outside her small window cut from the rock, Sakura was wondering if enduring this sandstorm was perhaps worse than the teasing.
The desert was a truly dismal place.
"Saku-chan?" The head of another pinkette peeked around the corner of her doorway, her much longer and much glossier hair falling around her shoulders despite it being pulled back just a few hours before. Evidently her aunty had just gotten back inside from the howling wind that had dislodged most of her ponytail.
Her aunty, a fairly young and attractive lady in her late thirties with laugh lines and kind eyes stepped into her niece's room and sat down beside her on the bed. "Are you alright, sweety? Not homesick or anything?"
Sakura shook her head. No, she wasn't homesick per se. She wanted to see her mommy and daddy, obviously, but all the other people in the village she could do without. Well, there was that one blonde boy who was nice enough company at times when her parents weren't telling her to stay away from him. Of course, Sakura had never exactly been the most obedient little girl.
"I'm okay aunty."
Her aunt gave her a kind smile, though her eyes were lined with a tad of worry. The woman gave her normally cheerful little niece a once-over and noted the undercurrent of broodiness around her. An idea came to her.
"Come on, Saku-chan! I have an idea on what we can do!" The little girl's eyes lit up.
...
Sakura stared, horrified, at what lay before her. A room, warmly lit by lanterns and a few lights with a colourful rug decorating the floor and a couple of cheerful toys littering the area. The atmosphere of absolute joy and laughter radiating from it even through the doorway was reaching her along with the sound of raucous and happy laughter.
And Sakura hated it. Her small hand clung onto her auntie's larger one tightly and she stepped behind the older woman's leg, her second hand reaching up to bunch tightly in the black material of her auntie's pants.
There were children on the other side of that door.
Above her, Sakura could hear her aunty finalizing some arrangements with the lady in charge of the daycare center. Sakura sneaked a peek at her. The lady looked nice enough, even if her skin was browned and wrinkled from the sun. But it was a nice kind of wrinkled. Sort of like an apple that had been left in storage for too long. And she was smiling as she looked down at the pink haired girl.
"So little lady, are you Sakura-chan?"
Sakura nodded.
"It's a beautiful name."
"A-arigatou."
Motioning with her hand, the lady directed her attention towards the doorway. "The other kids are just through that door there, Sakura-chan." Sakura pressed her lips together and tightened her hands on her auntie's clothes. "Don't worry, they are all very nice." The lady's appeasing voice fell on deaf ears.
Just then, Sakura felt her aunt move and saw her kneel down in front of her. "Saku-chan," her voice was kind. "You're not normally this shy. Don't you want to try and make a friend over here?"
Sakura looked at her feet, a crushing feeling settling on her chest. She remembered words. Those words that the kids she knew back home had said. What they had called her. She clenched her teeth.
Her aunty placed a hand on her niece's head. "I have to go and take care of a bit of business and if I took you with me you'd be very bored. I have to stand in queues and loud, noisy halls full of people for hours. You'll be much happier among other children instead of me." Sakura tried hard not to let the stinging sensation behind her eyes develop into anything more.
"Besides," her auntie continued. "By the time that I come back you won't even want to leave here." Sakura gave a stiff nod, trying hard not to let her true fear show.
Her auntie stood. "I'll be back in a few hours, so don't worry Saku-chan. Enjoy yourself and make lots of new friends, okay?" she called the last part over her shoulder as she left the building.
The caretaker lady's hand came down lightly on Sakura's shoulder. "Well, shall we go?" Sakura wasn't exactly given much of a choice in the matter as the lady's hand firmly but gently led her towards the door. Sakura was petrified.
As she stepped through the door with the larger, attention-grabbing adult, Sakura wished that she could have gone in by herself. All of the children close by turned their attention to her now, unabashedly staring.
"Everyone, this is Sakura-chan. She's visiting here from Konoha for a few days." Sakura, already on edge, noticed the glances that were exchanged between some of the children. Two whispered voices with words exchanged behind secretive palms made her cringe.
"Everyone be nice to her!"
A collective, "Yes" sounded from the class of kids before they quieted down again and resumed staring at her. Sakura couldn't meet their gazes. She quickly let her eyes drop to the ground, letting her fringe cover her eyes as she normally did.
Slowly everyone went back to their games, ignoring the strange new girl. And Sakura was all too happy with that. Keeping her head down, she carefully made her way over to the nearest corner and huddled there. She pulled her small legs up to her chest and wrapped her arms loosely around them, her large forehead resting against her knees. How much she hated her forehead. Even her fringe, that she had let grow to abnormal lengths so that it almost hung in her eyes, could never hide it properly.
Muted and dulled voices reached her ears.
'…pink…' They were probably talking about a girl's clothes.
'…big…' That was most likely one of the boy's new building blocks.
'…strange…' Just a bit of gossip in the village.
Sakura huddled into herself tighter. She shook but suppressed the motions. She was being stupid. She was being weak. And she was being irrational. There was no reason that the kids were talking about her, none at all. It was probably all in her head. Yes, in her head. She bit her lip.
'…weird hair…' Perhaps it was some other girl that they were mentioning. Her heart clenched.
'…see her fore-' Sakura snapped. Grimacing and grasping fistfuls of her ragged pink hair between her fingers, she bolted. She didn't even stop when the lady's voice yelled after her to stop. The lady was a civilian, not a ninja. There was no way that she'd be able to catch her. Not if she ran fast enough.
Leaving her coat and just bolting straight outside, Sakura ignored the sandstorm raging there. The whipping winds and grinding sand hitting against her felt more welcoming than they had ever been and Sakura ran down the street, her little arms held high to her face to shield her stinging eyes.
She'd had enough. Enough. Enough of the stares, the whispers and the looks. The looks were the worst. Because they spoke more than any words could. They told her plainly that she was weird, that she was strange and that she was alone.
Alone and sad.
Turning a corner, Sakura continued running – until her small red shoe caught on a jutting rock and she tripped, falling face-first onto the sand with a dull thump. She'd gotten some of the fine sand into her mouth and she tried to spit it out. It wasn't working however, since the moment that she opened it even more sand blew in. So instead she closed her mouth and settled for swallowing the sand.
The wind wasn't as bad in this alley, Sakura noticed, and it only blew in at times when the wind direction shifted. And the sand was warm and, at the moment, soft. She lay there for a little longer, growing used to the soft sand beneath her. Her tiny hands bunched in it, letting the grains run between her fingers. She smiled slightly when it felt like water to her.
She could sleep here…
"You're sitting in my spot." A quiet voice announced and Sakura's head shot up to look for the owner, her defensive instincts rearing.
He was small, she noted, and hidden inside a large brown cloak. Through the haze of the sand she couldn't quite discern many of his features. Only rust coloured hair stood out in the shifting tan sand. And there was an aura of brooding and something forbidden about him. She hurriedly lifted herself up and used her arm to clumsily wipe away the semi-dry tear tracks left on her face where sand had already stuck.
She noticed that he hadn't moved yet and she was glad of that, both because of his formidable aura and the fact that he hadn't seen her properly yet. She figured that if she couldn't see him properly then he couldn't see her properly either. She buried her head on her arms with her knees pulled up towards her small frame.
"Sorry." Sakura noticed that she didn't sound in the least bit sorry. It was a standard response that her mommy had hammered into her. To always mind her manners, no matter who she was talking to. That was important.
The boy studied her prone form huddled on the sand. Why anybody other than him would even think about braving a sandstorm right now was a minor point that he set aside to maybe think about later. But she was in his spot and he wanted to be left alone.
But, judging from her position on the ground, it seemed as though she wanted that just as much as he did. He looked away from her, frowning. He wasn't going to leave. If anybody was, she would. He knew she would leave soon enough, given that he was a monster and all. She had surely heard of him and would run, crying out for her parents, at the sight of his face.
So he resolutely stepped forward and sat down a good few paces away from her, pulling his legs up in a similar fashion. He noted that she had her face hidden.
The silence stretched on between them and the boy shot the girl beside him an odd look. She hadn't run screaming yet.
Sakura, feeling a stare on her back, carefully turned her head so that half of her face was exposed and her hair still hung over it.
"Ne," he noted that her voice sounded soft and timid. "Why are you here?"
He was taken aback. Was she… trying to start a conversation with him?
"Why are you?" His tone was probably more gruff than it could have been but he didn't care very much. No matter how he spoke to people it always turned out the same. He was always left alone.
Sakura averted her eyes. She didn't like that he'd just thrown her question back at her. She frowned a bit and chewed on her bottom lip. "People talk too much," she mumbled.
He cast her a questioning look, despite himself. He was intrigued. Somewhat reluctantly, but intrigued nonetheless.
She blinked once slowly, keeping her lids lowered to prevent more sand from entering them. "My mommy told me that if you don't have anything nice to say, then don't say it." She sniffled a little, hinting at her earlier tears. "Don't the other mommies tell their kids that? I… I'd rather be ignored than hear what they say."
She looked absolutely miserable as she hugged her knees closer to herself. "I hate being weird." Her little voice sounded so bitter.
When the boy next to her didn't say anything, she turned her green eyes back on him. "Ne… are you going to make fun of me too?"
He held her gaze and Sakura noted the black rings around his eyes. Heavy, dark black rings that made him look like he was wearing a mask of sorts. She thought that it suited him.
"No. Are you going to run away?" he replied.
"Run?" Sakura was curious and lifted her head a little. Why did he think she would run? "Don't people like you?"
The boy's eyes hardened immediately and he grimaced, his own small hands clenching at his sides in the sand. His teeth ground and his muscles tensed. "Humans are mean. They're selfish. They're stupid." He shook. "They're all the same."
Sakura listened, slightly thrown by his harsh words and then reacted like any six year old would. She pouted and tried to withhold her temper tantrum. "I'm not stupid! And I'm not selfish either."
Deciding on impulse to prove her point, she plunged her hand into her pocket and clumsily pulled out its meager contents. It was mostly sand. It got everywhere in this place.
Shrugging the fact off, she selected two little round sweets and carefully dusted them off before reaching a hand out and taking a hold of his, frowning when he put up resistance to her touch and slipping the two sweets into his palm.
He stared at her, shocked. She had touched him without even batting an eye. She was looking at him expectantly, as though she were waiting for something. When he didn't react she gave a small and somewhat irritated sigh and reached over again to take one of the sweets that she had slipped into his palm. She held it up in front of his eyes. "You eat it. Like this." And the popped the red sweet into his mouth before putting the other into her own mouth. He stiffened as she once again made contact with him. She was so casual about it.
As he grew accustomed to the sweetness on his tongue, an errant thought entered his mind. Yes, she had touched him, but he hadn't felt it. His sand armour was up and he hadn't felt a thing. To his surprise, he felt a twinge of regret enter him. He quickly brushed it off.
"Well, how is it?" She asked him, her voice somehow happy.
He thought on the red sweet for a while longer, trying to put a name to the taste. "What is it?"
Her face puckered into a confused frown. "Strawberry flavour. Don't you know?" He slowly shook his head, sucking on the sweet slower. He wondered why he hadn't had something like this to eat sooner. It tasted delicious.
And then he froze up while his eyes widened. She smiled. She. Smiled. At him. He half wanted to turn around and make sure that it was really him that she was smiling at. But there was nobody else besides for them outside in the sandstorm. Not in the alley anyway. She was smiling at him. Him.
He was stunned. She was so naive. How could anybody cause this girl, this nice girl, to cry? The evidence of her tears was still visible on her cheeks. And he could smell the salt. He had never really liked the smell of salt. It reminded him too much of tears. And tears were usually caused by other people being mean.
"Why do others hurt you?" he asked.
Her eyes, so warm a moment before, reflected the suddenness in her change of mood. They turned away and she pulled herself back into a tight bundle. She pressed her lips together again; a nervous habit that she had acquired. "My forehead," she mumbled.
It seemed like she wouldn't elaborate on the topic, though he felt confused. Her forehead? Her doleful eyes were trained ahead of her while she worried at her bottom lip. For a moment he fought with himself, his hand already half raised in front of him. He wanted to, he truly wanted to. Yet he was lingering. He wasn't sure if he should. He might scare her.
Then he remembered the twinge of regret that he had experienced just a while earlier at her fleeting touches. Steeling himself, he willed the sand armour around his hand to disintegrate. The sand was blown away in the wind, not even noticed.
Slowly, his trembling fingers came into contact with her fringe and she stiffened, turning her eyes onto him. He paused but didn't withdraw. Focusing again, he pressed his fingers further until his fingertips felt her skin. Sparks of warning shot through his system but he ignored them. The fascination of actually feeling another human being after so long was his only focus. So warm…
He resisted the urge to let more of his small hand touch her, just to remember the feeling for longer, and focused instead on what he had intended to do. Carefully, and for the first time in a long time taking care not to hurt a person with his movements, he pulled her long fringe to the side.
Her eyes stared at him as he looked her over. He narrowed his eyes, tilted his head and frowned. Then he scowled.
"There's nothing wrong with your forehead," he decided firmly, dropping his hand and twisting his mouth into a grimace at the thought of others teasing her over nothing.
Sakura stared at him openmouthed, not even caring about the sand still swirling around them. That had been the nicest thing anyone had ever said to her. "It… it's not big?"
"No." he was quickly growing irritated with anybody who might have told that lie to her.
Sakura's mouth wobbled as she suddenly felt the traitorous stinging behind her eyes again. But she blinked it away and settled for beaming at her new friend.
"Thank you."
The sincerity of that statement drove into him deeply and made his whole being ache. He grimaced again. This situation was way out of his comfort zone. He should leave.
As he shifted, her small hand caught his sleeve. "Ne, what's your name?"
He stared at her, wondering whether if he told her she'd run. But perhaps she hadn't heard of him. No, everybody had heard of him. After all, he was the reason that people trembled in their beds at night.
But her open and honest green eyes shone up at him and he found the answer slipping from between his lips before he could think twice. "Sabaku no Gaara."
He waited for a tense moment, his breathing and heart stopped. And then a small smile spread over her face. "I'm Sakura!" she exclaimed.
He wanted to breathe a sigh of relief. She hadn't shunned him.
As he stood, her hand didn't let go of his sleeve and she helped herself up with it. She turned to face him fully. "Are you going to go?"
He leveled her with a flat glance, though she surprisingly didn't flinch. She adapted quickly. "Yeah." He thought he saw a trace of disappointment flash over her eyes but quickly dismissed it as his imagination. There was nobody, not even this girl who seemed oblivious to Shukaku's murderous intent rolling off him, who would miss his company.
Sakura averted her gaze to the entrance of the alleyway where the sand was still whipping around madly and her face fell. "Ahh…" she sighed. "I ran in here without looking where I was going… How am I going to get back to auntie?"
Gaara looked at her incredulously. She had gotten herself lost? Why in the world was she running about during a sandstorm in the first place?
Glancing at her worried face, it only took a moment for him to make up his mind. He wondered why he was being so charitable and the answer wasn't hard to find. She was the one-in-a-million who hadn't run screaming for their lives, or mothers, at the sight of him. "Where do you stay?"
"Uhm… next to that carpet-weaving place."
Gaara nodded. "I can take you."
Her big green eyes turned on him, somewhat disbelievingly. "How?" She was genuinely puzzled.
He turned his back to her. "Grab onto this," he said, indicating towards the large gourd strapped to his back. In comparison to his small frame it seemed far too large and as though it could tip him over backwards at any given point.
She cast him a look that clearly said, 'Are you serious?' and he only shrugged to it. Hesitating a moment, she finally stepped up and looked to try and find the right spot to hold onto. However, with her short arms, it wasn't possible.
"It's not working, Gaara-kun." He felt an odd sensation at hearing his name being spoken so kindly. He turned towards her disappointed face and debated with himself for a moment before quickly coming to his decision. Just before he reached out to her, he disintegrated the sand armour along both of his arms and kept the satisfaction of her warmth locked up inside him. He would be sure to remember this in the future. How warm she was.
Without giving her warning, he evaporated them both into sand, earning a small surprised shriek from her as her hands clamped down on his arms tightly.
When they materialized on the street in the middle of the raging sandstorm, which Sakura was sure of had gotten worse, she immediately turned her head towards Gaara to use him as a shield against the sand. He didn't seem to mind in the least.
"Over there?" he asked and Sakura peeked a glance from underneath her arm. Spotting her temporary living quarters where she and her auntie were staying, Sakura gave a nod.
It didn't take long for them to reach the doorstep and then hoist themselves through the windows. Inside, Sakura breathed a huge sigh of relief. "Thank goodness… no more sand in my eyes…"
"Don't you like the sand?" he asked with a bit of trepidation. After all, he was as good as the embodiment of it.
She gave him a curious glance. "Not in a storm. But to lie down in it's nice and soft and warm." She remembered how at ease she had felt earlier in that alley lying on the sandy ground. She had almost fallen asleep. At the thought, she yawned a little and blinked twice, sleepily.
"I've got to go." He said again, turning towards the window again. The door was, after all, locked.
Giving him a lazy smile, with her green eyes glittering, she raised her hand. "See you, Gaara-kun."
He kept his eyes on her for a second before turning away. "Yeah." And he disintegrated into sand.
Sakura. What an interesting name.
...
Ta-daa! Well, what did you all think? I have to admit that I am not particularly far in watching Naruto yet but cut me some slack, I only started on Monday.
And to my usual readers who might have made it this far (and if you have, I take my metaphorical hat off to you) I WILL be continuing my story. Never fear!
So, comments on any of this?