Chapter 2: It's Not Like That

Naruto opened the door to his and Jiraiya's two bedroom apartment, still a little glum about the whole Gaara situation. He hadn't meant to offend the guy, he just wanted to know what was wrong. Sure it was probably nothing, the guy was probably just a little clumsy and he fell down somewhere or something like that. But the way Gaara was so jumpy about it made the blond feel like it was something else, but then again he was the one who was always quick to jump to conclusions-very often the wrong conclusions. There was still blood on the bandage, Naruto had noticed, so when he reached to grab the red heads arm and he snatched it away it was probably because it was a fresh wound and it still hurt. Yeah, it still hurt, that's why Gaara didn't want him to see.

"Hey, I'm home."

He kicked off his shoes and stepped into the spacey apartment, looking around for the man in question. The living room was open but not really filled with anything accept the essentials, a maroon leather couch propped up against the wall, dark wood end tables scattered everywhere with a matching coffee table. The TV stood in the center of that and the kitchen, which was relatively clear of dishes for a change. Naruto dropped his bag near the couch and walked down the hall to his room.

"Hey Ji, are you home old man?" He knocked on the third door of the hall-because his room was the first door and the bathroom was the second. The response he got was a light snore from the room of his guardian. Naruto opened the door, peeking inside at the man resting on the floor, bottle of sake in hand, snoozing lightly. The blond made an exasperated sound as he stepped into the room and kicked the sleeping senior hard on the back. The man made a painful grunt before he lifted up, squinting his eyes at the teen.

"Naru-kun, you're home." Jiraiya lifted up, opening and closing his eyes tight, trying to see through his drunken stupor. Naruto growled.

"Don't Naru-kun me, you drunk. What are you doing here? Why aren't you working, or doing your 'research'." He lifted his hands and gestured the quotations of the word. The elder just lifted his lips into a wide smile and waved his hand, obviously still a little tipsy. Jiraiya always was a diluted drunk, always understanding but never absorbing what was going on around him. Naruto wondered how the heck he was able to survive with a guardian like him still sober. Jiraiya was definitely a bad influence but he was there when it really mattered, when he was sober at least.

"Naw, i ain't drunk, I finished my research and decided to come home and celebrate, but you weren't here. Where have you been." he asked, no drunken slur traceable in his voice, but Naruto doubted that his guardian wasn't in fact a little tipsy.

The blonde crossed his arms over his chest as he watched the old man stand from his place on the floor and walk out of the room. He followed closely behind, kind of like a lost puppy would do to a stranger with food. "Out with the guys."

"Ah." Jiraiya said knowingly. "Those bunch. You certainly have been fitting in with that lot, Naruto-kun."

Naruto's eyes narrowed at the diminutive 'kun' again. He pouted and glared evilly at his guardian's back. "Yeah, well every since I've been back things have been different between us. They're my friends now."

Jiraiya turned his white head around and smiled at the teen. "That's good Naruto." He turned into the kitchen and rummaged throughout the fridge taking out an old box of pizza that Naruto had no recollection of ever ordering. Naruto turned around and plopped down on the couch, grabbing for the remote control. "Hey Naru.." Jiraiya called from the kitchen. Naruto gave a grunt to show that he was listening. "Is that Tsunade still the principal there."

It was something in the mans voice that made the blond cringe. "Eww, I'm not answering that."

"Come on Naruto."

"Of course she's still there, unfortunately, its the stubborn ones that wont die." the last was mumbled as he flipped through channel after channel, deciding there was nothing worth watching.

Jiraiya's cackle was loud, shaking the boy a bit. "What cha get in trouble for this time?"

Naruto sighed and cut off the TV, laying back on the couch with his arms behind his head. "The crazy old bat said i was defacing public property. Grandma Tsunade needs to lay off, seriously."

"Well did you?"

"I was just riding my skateboard." He nearly shouted. Jiraiya said nothing, assuming that wasn't the whole story.

"Uh huh.." He prompted.

"Through the freshly painted steps of the main building." It was Jiraiyas turn to grunt, knowing exactly how destructive the teen could be. "It's not like i did it on purpose, I was halfway through the hall before i noticed the paint on the wheels." He said distressingly, looking up at the ceiling, making little patterns out of it's bumpy surface.

"How much time did she give you this time?"

"A week."

"That's not so bad. Last time it was three."

Naruto shook his head. "Last time it was three weeks detention. Nothing else, that's all. This time it a weeks detention and community service."

Jiraiya tried to hold back his laughter. "Doing what?" He desperately tried to keep a straight face, Naruto wasn't the type to clean up his messes.

"Cleaning up the graffiti off an entire hallway. Stupid lady has a grudge against me or something." He kicked one of the maroon pillows onto the floor and watched as Jiraiya stepped out of the kitchen, arms folded, a serious look on his face.

"What's wrong Naruto?"

The blond's eyes rose in shock. Hadn't he heard him this whole time. He had to clean up the work made by dozens of other kids that attended that school-himself included- all by himself. He wondered if the old man was really losing it in his old age, either that or there was something else that those black eyes of his saw in the teen that Naruto didn't know.

"What are you talking about?" Turning his head towards the white haired man he saw a smirk lift his lips.

"The only time you get this frustrated is when you like someone you cant have, like Neji. You remember that? I couldnt say anything to you without getting into an argument. So i'm gonna eliminate the confrontational phase and just ask you straight out: Who is it this time?"

"You're crazy old man." He turned away, looking back at the ceiling.

"OK, but don't say I never asked. I might not be a very good father, but I've got instincts Naruto-kun. And judging from your reactions, you really like this one."

The frustrated teen lifted up from the couch and stormed to his room. "It's not like that you perv!" He slammed the door for good measure and lay down on his bed, thinking how the hell could he pick up on that so quickly. While back in the living room Jiraiya sat with a satisfied grin, knowing that he was in fact right.

Naruto sighed, he didn't know how right the man was.

Naruto tossed over onto his side and tried to clearly think about Gaara and his situation, but found it difficult when the distracting voice of Jiraiya filled the air, singing horribly a song that Naruto didn't have any intentions of ever knowing.

"You and me, baby, ain't nothin' but mammals, so lets do it like they do on the dis-cov-ery channel...!"

The blond growled and pulled a pillow over his head to try and stifle the noise. It didn't work. Then he tried the next best thing, got out his CD player and headphones and turned it up full volume. While listening to the soothing, but more importantly loud screaming lyrics of Linkin Park's Numb, his mind went back to what Jiraiya said. Was he always confrontational every time he wanted something he couldn't have? He supposed it was true when he first started to date Neji, but that was different and they're cool now. What was more important was why does the perv think he like Gaara? Naruto's frown deepened, he didn't like him like him, he was being friendly is all. Sure he was surprised by the way the guy snatched away from him, but that doesn't explain his mood. He was pissed that grandma Tsunade made him do community service, that's all. The old man was just jumping to conclusions like always.

Gaara made a small sound in his throat as his back made contact with the wall, and the back of a very strong hand made sharp contact with his face, no doubt leaving yet another bruise, contributing to the gallery of scars and wounds littering the rest of his body, The most current still bandaged and throbbing on his arm, the blood running down his fingers. But his face stayed calm, he wouldn't show any emotions, he couldn't give the bastard the satisfaction.

"What the hell are you doing here so late? I told you 3:30, are you trying to piss me off?" Gaara's green eyes searched through the darkness and found the face of his angry father. Of course he knew what time he was supposed to be home, and of course his father knew it was only 3:17, but that wouldn't keep him from trying to ruin the boy even further. And Gaara wouldnt tell him otherwise, he just answered the man with a blank bored expression. His father's eyes grew darker.

"The next time you come in here this late, I'll do more than break your goddamn arm...got that?" Gaara said nothing, didn't nod, didn't even make a move to turn away, he just stared at his father. The one true being that truly hated him, the reason clearly ridiculous in his hazel eyes. Gaara's dad released him-not too gently- throwing him onto the clean sandy brown carpet. "Go to your room, I'm tired of looking at your face." Gaara made a move to get up, stilled when the brute walked past him, then trudged his way up the stairs, hoping his father had enough torturing him for one night.

He entered his room and threw his bag on the floor, he didn't slam the door, but closed it gently because truthfully he wasn't angry. He had no reason to be; his father was insane. Perhaps not clinically, but he was unstable, Gaara saw that every time he looked into his eyes. Every time he hit him, every time he beat him, every single time he saw that look in his eyes, he knew. He blamed himself for it, it was his fault after all no one but him could be blamed, that way he sort of felt he deserved it. His father was angry and filled with hate and he did the only thing logical: expressed it towards the one responsible.

Gaara took off his jacket and inspected his bandaged arm carefully. No major harm done. He washed and re-bandaged the wound. At the hospital he refused to get a cast because then people would get curious and suspect things. He didn't like other people butting into his business. It would seem odd that a 17 year old kid that does nothing but write in journals and read old books and poems about authors long since dead, would just up and break is arm all of a sudden. So no cast, sure it was painful and he had to take a lot of antibiotics and painkillers, but it was worth the privacy. That is until Naruto Uzumaki.

Gaara showered and put on his night clothes, even though it was only 4:21, he had no intentions of going out tonight. Besides he had no friends, he was alone most of the time, accept for at school, but that made no difference seeing that nobody even acknowledged his presence. He looked into the bathroom mirror, his red hair still wet clinging to his skin, covering half his face, his pale skin almost translucent, and his teal eyes turned blueish-green from the steam in the bathroom rimmed in black, the evidence of night after night without sleep. He lifted the hair out of his face to see the bright red mark on his forehead, put there himself years ago, it almost looked like a tattoo, but if one looked close enough, one would know better. But you couldn't see the lines of the scar unless his hair was out of his face, and it was always in his face so few people actually knew it was there. Gaara hated the way he looked, he was pale and skinny, but not sickly skinny. Skinny enough to see the bone poke out of his hip. His father complained about his weight all the time, but no matter how much he ate, he just couldn't seem to gain any weight. He figured he must have a high metabolism, and told his father so, which resulted in a slap in the face and a busted lip. He learned not to speak out against his father again. Aside from the thinness, the boy was covered in scars and blueish-purple bruises, all donated too him by his father, no fee necessary. A gift of love, from father to son.

Gaara snorted, turning off the light and heading out of his private bathroom. He sat at his desk and opened one of his many journals and started to write. He paused, shaking his head, then started to doodle on the edge of the page. He drew a hand, a small dainty hand with it's palm upturned. On that hand he drew an eye, an eye rimmed in black, thick black, so dark the white iris seemed to stand out. Then he took his pencil and traced the kanji that was so delicately written on his forehead, the mark that was a symbol of everything he didn't believe in. He wrote: love.

Sighing, the red head leaned away from his journal to look over the drawing in thought. For some reason, it made him think of Naruto. He frowned, why on earth would he be thinking of him. He shrugged and stretched out the shoulder of his right arm, wincing a little when he strained his hand a little too much. Damn Naruto Uzumaki and his brute like grip. There it was again, the goofy blond on the skateboard. Gaara lifted his hand to his face, remembering the way the blond tugged at his cheeks in an attempt to get him to smile. He felt the corners of his mouth tweak a little. Then suddenly he shook his head.

"What the hell am i thinking." He mumbled and looked at the clock, it was already 8:29. He closed the book in front of him and stared at the sticker of a raccoon playing in sand on the front. For some reason, that made him think of Naruto too. Gaara frowned and stood up to look out his window. It was a beautiful night and he wasn't close to tired, which he should be seeing as he hadn't got a full nights sleep in weeks. Sometimes he would just stare out the window, that or write in his journal. Neither sounded more tempting, Gaara didn't know what it was but everything he did seemed to remind him of Naruto Uzumaki.