Green on Green
The teashop was silent as Gaara observed the contrast between himself and the…object sitting next to Uchiha Sasuke.
Red was the color of blood and danger, death. Pink was the shade of little girls and delicate things. Next to him, Sakura was like a pale imitation.
She didn't deserve her spot with the Uchiha, not when he had fought off Orochimaru's encounters so valiantly. She didn't even deserve her spot with Naruto.
…The Leaf headband that gleamed in her hair? He wanted to crush it.
She smiled, and it took everything he had not to squeeze his sand around her pretty throat. The gourd on his back pulsed with pressure as he held himself back.
He stared into his teacup desolately, and the face that he saw there was twisted and worn, wise to the world and bitter, cracked.
He took a sip and frowned. …His tea tasted like sand.
(Another thing she'd ruined for him.)
Gaara laughed—the sound was so hollow he could have buried himself alive and hidden in it—and set his cup down on the table quietly. He fished in the depths of his pockets for some spare change and tried to ignore the sinking feeling he had that there were monsters waiting somewhere deep down, ready to devour his hands in an instant.
Honestly. Two minutes around that pink haired slip of a girl and she was instilling fear in him like he was a student that belonged at the academy.
Pathetic.
He watched as she stood up—his heart began to beat quickly, thrashing against his ribcage and then suddenly it had leapt to his throat—and he clenched his fists in envy as she swooped down to leave a kiss on Sasuke's cheek, and then one on Naruto's, too.
Their eyes met for the first time, then, amid the rush of waitresses and customers and stray shinobi, and he noticed, with a small pang of irony, that their stares were exactly alike.
Her expression, instead of being fueled with killing intent, was stirred with soft emotions meant for hospitals and gravesides and best friends and lovers. Their feelings couldn't have been more opposite, but…her eyes were the same color as his.
Jade green.
She smiled at him, at his awe, and even though it was a bit lop-sided and made her look completely and utterly brainless, he accepted it, working a little bit of tenseness out of his jaw in attempts to look…friendly.
Her grin grew wider. She spun on her heels to turn and wave at her bewildered teammates, and then she was off and running across the floor of the small restaurant.
Gaara stared after her, amused, and watched as the world outside swallowed her whole.
Fin.