Title: DREAMLESS
By: Born of Starlight
Disclaimer: Gomen, demo… It's not mine. Atashi wa Naruto totemo ga suki desu. Demo… Yeah. Just… Yeah. My Japanese is less than perfect, but…that gets the idea across. Sometime I really think I should kick myself… Trying to become trilingual… What was I thinking? English, my first language, followed by Japanese, followed by Mandarin. Yeah, yeah, yeah… You'd be trying to learn Mandarin too, if you were heading to Taiwan in August! (So, if I seem to vanish off the face of the earth in August, it's because I'll be in Taiwan as an exchange student…)
oOo
At first, Sakura had been decidedly confused when she'd seen Gaara approach Naruto. She didn't know entirely what the fierce red-head had been through, knew only that Sasuke's older brother had been involved somehow, but she knew something about him had changed.
So when she heard what he wanted from Naruto, she started to see that -- possibly -- Gaara was, in fact, just human.
oOo
It was with arms crossed defensively that Gaara came to Naruto with a question. Both teens were unaware of their silent observer, though it was odd -- especially for one of them -- to be so off their guard.
"Naruto?"
"Hm?" Turning, the blond ninja grinned at the young man shadowing him. "Oh, hi, Gaara. Getting used to sleeping yet?"
"Actually, that's…what I wanted to talk to you about."
Naruto paused, going completely still for a moment. Then he turned full around.
Green eyes were locked intensely onto blue.
"Trouble adjusting…?"
"What are they?"
"Huh?"
"The…the people at night. In my mind. Is that…normal…?" The word seemed almost foreign to his tongue.
"The people in your…? Oh!" Naruto gave the read-head an odd look -- something closely akin to pity, though it was masked. "Gaara, that's what we call a dream. Or, sometimes, a nightmare…" The blond's face momentarily darkened, but the shadow passed easily. "Dreaming is completely normal. People almost always dream."
"What is it though? Your 'dream' to become Hokage. That's different than this. What makes them both dreams?"
Naruto closed his eyes for a moment, thinking hard. When he met Gaara's eyes again, there was a large grin on his face. "Because! See, a dream is something that hasn't actually happened. Usually the kind of dream you mean is just stupid, pointless stuff.
"Sometimes it's not.
"Sometimes it's something you're actually wishing for, deep down. You don't even have to know you were wishing for it! Like, two nights ago I dreamed that the Ichiraku Ramen Stand came out with a new flavor of Ramen! I didn't even know I wanted a change of pace in my diet, but I mentioned something to someone, they said 'if it'll make our finest patron happy,' and now they're hard at work, as we speak, developing something new!" He looked hard at Gaara, trying to see if he was still following. "Gaara… Dreams are things to be realized. If you ignore the weird ones ant the bad ones, you're left with something…something good and meaningful to you, and you alone. It's your dream, Gaara, and you've finally seen it." Smiling, Naruto turned to leave. Casually, he tossed one last remark over his shoulder…
"A dream is something to be realized. Go do something about it."
oOo
Sakura leaned her head up against the tree where she was hidden.
'A dream is something to be realized.'
Sometimes Naruto managed to really surprise her.
Then the young kunoichi snorted.
Trust Naruto to drag Ramen into it, somehow…!
THE END