Previously...
"...I'd like to believe that, but it seems too uncharacteristic...too good to be true, you know?"
"See?" Kankuro muttered to Temari, who frowned and elbowed him.
"So what exactly happened in Konoha?" Kyoko asked.
The two Sand Siblings shared a glance before shrugging in unison.
"All I know is that something happened between him and this blonde Leaf genin named Uzumaki Naruto," Kankuro said.
Temari nodded. "Yeah, after Gaara knocked me aside and released Shukaku, Uzumaki somehow knocked Gaara awake. When Kankuro and I found him afterwards, he was just…" she paused, fishing for the right words. "I don't know, different?"
Kankuro snorted. "At any rate, Suna really needs to improve its information-gathering. Uzumaki Naruto wasn't even mentioned during the debriefing. The only genin that were worth mentioning were Hyuuga Neji and Uchiha Sasuke."
"That's not even the most ludicrous part," Temari added, rolling her eyes. "Hyuuga, their supposed top genin, was defeated by Uzumaki in the finals, and the Uchiha, their other supposed top genin—though I suppose he should get some credit for being the first to make Gaara bleed—was hardly a challenge for Shukaku."
Kyoko arched a brow. "So a kid who wasn't even important enough to be mentioned in the debriefing defeated the top two genin of his village and Gaara and apparently positively impacted Gaara to the point that he apologized to us?"
"Pretty much," Kankuro drawled.
Suddenly feeling the urge to laugh, Kyoko leaned her head back and grinned up at the cool night sky. "I take back everything bad I've ever said about Leaf ninja. Uzumaki Naruto, you may have just become one of my heroes."
Chapter 3
Tadaima : I'm Home [Japanese Phrases Pt.1]
To someone who had never truly slept in his life, waking up was an odd experience for Gaara.
Blinking up at the white ceiling, Gaara waited patiently for the black spots in his vision to fade as he tried to remember where he was. Although it was his first time injured, he had already grown used to the sensation of losing consciousness and regaining it. During the trip back from Konoha to Suna, he had been drifting in and out of reality, like slipping in and out of a blank void, where hours flashed by like seconds.
This time, his regaining of consciousness appeared to be permanent, for Shukaku, sensing that his host was awake, had already began a long rant.
About time you woke up! Shukaku snapped, sounding as irritable as always. Do you know how bored I was this past hour? You don't even dream when you're unconscious! Can we go kill someone now?
"You're not helping my headache," Gaara muttered under his breath, closing his eyes briefly as he tuned the demon out. Once he had successfully reduced the demon's aimless rambles to white noise in the back of his head, he opened his eyes again and, more alert, took in his surroundings.
He was in a small cubical room with white walls and a slight sterile smell in the air. A sink was in the corner, the counter beside it piled up with various medical equipment. Centered on the wall was the only decoration: a framed calligraphic painting of the Hidden Sand's village symbol.
Through the window, partly hidden by white shades, was the evening sky. The sun was already gone, but had evidently set only recently, for the heavens were still painted in deep watercolor jewel tones.
Though the view of the sky was breathtakingly beautiful, Gaara carelessly turned his gaze away and slowly sat up, brow furrowing slightly in response to the pain and soreness that flared up in his body.
It was clear by now that he was in a Suna medical room, but looking down at himself—still sticky from dried blood and dressed in his ruined clothes—it was also clear that whoever had put him in the room had made no efforts to tend to him. Honestly, he would have been more surprised if someone had properly taken care of him while he was out.
He carefully leaned back down again, not bothering to cover himself with the blanket. Like the brief moments he'd surfaced to reality during the return trip, thoughts of Naruto immediately sprung to his wandering mind.
Sabaku no Gaara understood the cruelties of life very well. He understood loneliness and grief; he understood hate and fear. In fact, it only took one glance into someone's eyes for him to tell if that person had suffered at the hands of fate as well.
It had taken one look to know that the Uchiha genin from Leaf knew pain.
But it had taken an entire battle to notice the pain in Uzumaki Naruto.
Somehow, that orange-clad loudmouth had managed to fool even Sabaku no Gaara with his cheery grin and attention-grabbing antics. Despite hatred, fear, and ostracization being the natural fate of jinchuuriki, Naruto had managed to leave such negative feelings in the past. He didn't have to kill to prove he existed; people willingly acknowledged him and even gifted him with their presence and smiles. He fought with teeth gritted against pain for the sake of others, completely disregarding his own self-preservation.
There was something in Naruto's broad, vulpine grins that brought to mind the laughing, wolfish ones of the last and only person to have ever considered Gaara a friend.
"Kyoko," muttered Gaara, his eyes narrowing slightly in concentration as he recalled an old memory.
A small, pale boy sat alone in a silent playground. His hands were curled loosely on the swing's chains, his eyes staring unseeingly at the empty space before him. An hour ago, that very empty space had been budding with laughing, carefree kids. Until one of them noticed Gaara the Freak sitting silently on the swings nearby.
The small hands tightened on the swings. Unsurprisingly, they had all run away.
With a small sigh, Gaara half-heartedly pushed himself, downcasting his eyes as his swing gave a long, old creak. His chest was hurting again.
As he lifted his hand to clutch at the fabric over his heart, he bristled at the sudden sound of soft footsteps crossing the canyon. Lowering his head even more, he hunched his shoulders inward, trying to appear as nonexistent as possible. His eyes stared down at his feet, unbudging even when the footsteps came to a stop before him.
After a moment, the person shifted, and Gaara squeezed his eyes shut anxiously.
"How long are you going to sit there and cry?"
The voice sounded faintly familiar. Gaara blinked, feeling several tears slip down his cheeks as he did so; he hadn't even realized he was crying. Sniffling quietly, he solemnly pulled the collar of his shirt up to dab at his eyes before he lifted his head.
In front of him stood a girl several inches taller than him, wearing black shorts with a matching loose-fitting tank top; strips of linen cloth were wrapped around her bare arms, bandaged tightly from her shoulders to her wrists. Ink black hair flared from her face wildly in a wind-swept fashion, brushing along her shoulders.
Though she was staring at him with ice-blue eyes, meeting his gaze almost challengingly—though he had no idea why—it was still beyond Gaara's comprehension that she was speaking to him. Slowly, he glanced behind him; perhaps she was talking to someone else while coincidentally looking at him?
Finding no one else around, he looked back at the vaguely-familiar girl and pointed to himself. "A-are you talking to me?"
The girl rolled her eyes. "Yes." Without warning, she suddenly stuck her face in his, grinning when he jerked back in surprise, falling off the swing only to be caught in a bed of protective sand. As the sand set him down on the ground, Gaara stared at the girl, who appeared completely unfazed by his unintentional show of power.
Instead, she offered a hand and said, "Kankuro says you don't look anything like him, but I think you do."
At the mention of his brother, who avoided him just as cautiously as the other neighborhood kids did, Gaara suddenly realized why this girl had seemed so familiar.
"You're Kankuro's friend," he said quietly in realization. With the realization came a flood of vague memories of the girl and Kankuro, both scowling as their fathers pushed them into the same room. Gaara had often wondered why the two were always together when they appeared to hate each other so much.
The girl scrunched up her face. "I wouldn't say Kankuro and I are friends. But yeah, that's me."
Gaara tried his best not to look too confused. Instead, he asked the question burning on his tongue. "W-why aren't you...scared...um, of me?"
"You're younger and smaller than me," the girl said, rolling her eyes. "You don't even look scary. Why should I be scared?"
"B-because I have sand," Gaara meekly replied.
She stuck her tongue out at him, much to his confusion. "Who cares? We're in the Sand Village."
Her words stumped him, and all he could do was stare at her in stunned silence.
She suddenly frowned, wiggling the fingers of her outstretched hand. "Come on, my arm's getting tired."
Gaara stared at the offending hand. "W-what do I…?"
"Oh yeah, I forgot you don't know how to do a lot of stuff," the girl sighed. She bent down at grabbed Gaara's hand, much to his surprise, and yanked him up to his feet. Instead of releasing his hand, she pumped it up and down a few times. "I'm Kyoko. A hundred times better than Kankuro, just for the record."
As soon as she released his hand, Gaara slowly withdrew it, holding it close to his chest as he stared at Kyoko in confusion. She stared back expectantly. After a few seconds, Gaara shifted, uncomfortable under her stare. What was she doing? Her blatant attitude and apparent fearlessness unnerved him.
Though he had spent countless days wishing for a friend to talk to like all the other kids, now that he was suddenly given the opportunity, Gaara was utterly speechless and, quite frankly, rather scared.
Suddenly, Kyoko sighed, shaking her head with a small smile. "Looks like I have a lot to teach you."
Gaara shifted again, unsure of how to respond.
"After I introduce myself, you should introduce yourself too," Kyoko lectured with a well-natured grin. "Ready? Hi, I'm Kyoko!"
Gaara blinked.
"Um," he said hesitantly. "H-hi, I'm Gaara?"
Kyoko grinned and nodded approvingly. "Nice to meet you, Gaara!"
Before he could dwell on the past any longer, Gaara abruptly shook himself out of his thoughts, a familiar twang appearing in his chest. It throbbed in time with the wound in his shoulder, but he fought back the urge to wince at either. Eyes darker than usual, he swallowed back the pain.
How long had it been since everything changed? Had it really only been six years since she turned away from him? Since she labeled him a lost cause and cast him out like everyone else in his life did? To Gaara, his childhood, briefly blessed with grins and laughs, seemed a lifetime ago.
Too sore for his usual nocturnal activities, Gaara closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and tuned in to what Shukaku was raging about. Absentmindedly, while he listened to the demon talk on and on, he wondered—not for the first time—if things could have been different if only he hadn't given up so soon.
It was with a horrible migraine that Kyoko wearily climbed the stairs to the apartment she shared with her remaining three family members. After an entire day spent traveling across the desert nonstop, they'd managed to arrive in Suna by sunset. The Sand Siblings had been whisked away immediately, leaving Kyoko to politely decline medical treatment to go deliver an oral report to the council.
Had she known they would grill her for impeccable details for over an hour, she would have gladly accepted the medical treatment offered to her earlier.
Stopping before a wooden door with a "four" carved neatly in its center, Kyoko sighed again and shoved a hand into the pouch strapped behind her hip. Her fingers pushed aside shinobi wire and a stack of exploding notes before finally closing on a small metal key.
Mindlessly unlocking the door, she grabbed the doorknob and pushed the front door open.
"I'm home," Kyoko called out wearily as she crossed the threshold of her apartment, absently disabling the small traps in the doorframe with her chakra.
There was no pattering of feet, no clattering of objects, no cheery "Welcome home, Kyoko" called back.
The apartment was empty, filled with an unsettling silence and completely lacking its usual warm cheery atmosphere.
With a sigh, Kyoko closed the door, reset the traps, and kicked off her sandals. She'd forgotten that her usual roommates were out, one on the invasion force and two assigned to the retrieval team aiming to bring them back. Marching grimly to the bathroom, aiming to wash away nearly four day's worth of grime, she mentally prepared herself for a quiet night.
She never really liked those.
It felt like Kyoko had just closed her eyes for a moment when the sudden slam of the front door jerked her out of her deep slumber. Instinctively reaching for the kunai stashed beneath her pillow, she quickly relaxed as her lethargic mind recognized the chakra signatures of the two intruders.
Yawning, she pushed herself up, noting as a half-eaten granola bar fell from her chest. She blinked at it owlishly, realizing that she must have fallen asleep as she was eating it. With a shrug, she picked it up and stuck the remaining half in her mouth before dragging herself out of bed.
The two intruders were already raiding the fridge by the time she stepped out to greet them.
"Welcome home!" Kyoko exclaimed with a wide albeit tired grin as she watched a pair of identical black-haired boys rummage through the refrigerator and cabinets, all of which were mostly empty.
"We're home," one of the boys replied dryly.
The other sighed, closing a cabinet door. "Any food, Kyoko?"
Rolling her eyes, Kyoko strode past him to a different cabinet, pulling out one of the granola bars she had eaten for a late dinner the previous night. "Here. We need to go grocery shopping soon."
"Thanks, cousin," the boy said casually, tossing one to his brother before peeling off the wrapper on another one. "When did you get home?"
"Last night at about sunset," Kyoko replied. "How about you two? You didn't really just get in, did you?"
"No," the one by the refrigerator said. He rubbed at his silvery blue eyes sleepily. "We got in a few hours past midnight. One of the jonin we brought back was in critical condition so we stayed at the hospital to help out."
"I see," Kyoko murmured, nodding sympathetically. "You two should go catch up on some sleep then."
"Yeah, we will," one yawned.
"Oh," the other exclaimed. "I almost forgot; we brought Kazuo-nii back too."
At the mention of her brother, Kyoko's eyes lit up. "Really?"
"He was almost dangerously low on chakra, but otherwise uninjured," said one.
The other nodded. "Yeah, you could probably visit him now. He should've had several hours of rest by now."
In unison, the boys yawned and started to plod out of the kitchen. "We're off to bed."
"Good night, Taizo, Saburo," Kyoko called after them, smiling affectionately at their backs.
Taizo and Saburo, identical twins only a year younger than Kyoko, were her cousins on her father's side. After the deaths of their parents and Kyoko's mother on a particularly dangerous mission nearly ten years ago, they had clung to Kyoko and Kazuo as tightly as true blood siblings would have, and thus tight bonds tightened further.
Suddenly, the twins' door opened again and Taizo stuck his head out. "Oh, by the way, Kazuo-nii's should be in room 304 on the third floor."
"Okay," Kyoko called back, grabbing a granola bar of her own for breakfast as she ran off to her room to get dressed. "Thanks for the heads up."
Taizo nodded and retreated back into his room.
After donning her shinobi gear and hastily pulling her unbrushed hair back into a ponytail, Kyoko grabbed her wallet and keys before running to the living room window, throwing it open and leaping out with an excited grin on her face. After nearly two hectic months of patiently living with the twins without Kazuo there to mediate the three troublemakers, she was relieved and glad that her older brother was finally home.
Outside, it was evident that the entire village had already stirred though it couldn't have been later than nine in the morning. Already, street merchants had already set up little booths, grinning and making small talk with familiar passer-bys. Kyoko grinned at the sight of one particular merchant setting up a table.
"Sachiko-baa-chan!" she called out.
The woman, round and lively, whirled around, a smile appearing on her friendly, slightly aged face. "Kyo! Good to see you! How have you been?" As Kyoko neared, the woman squinted at the girl's face. "I see you've been well. Finally getting some sleep, eh?"
"I've been well," Kyoko chirped, avoiding the woman's observation. Sachiko and her husband were Kyoko's favorite merchants in the village. The friendly couple didn't specialize in one particular type of merchandise and thus was never out of interesting stock; not to mention, they were always willing to haggle to a price that both seller and customer were satisfied with, making them popular with the folk of Suna.
"What can I do for you this morning?" Sachiko asked. "More jelly candies? I saved a bag just for you."
"Well, I would like the candy later," Kyoko laughed, "today, I actually wanted to buy some flowers. Irises, to be exact."
"Oh? Planning to spruce up the apartment?" Sachiko asked, eyebrows rising in surprise.
Kyoko shook her head. "No, nii-san was admitted into the hospital last night. I was planning to go visit him and bring some flowers to cheer him up. You know how he hates hospitals."
"Oh, the poor thing!" the merchant exclaimed. She turned in her seat towards the storehouse she was set up in front of. "Yoshio! Honey, bring out a bouquet of iris flowers, will you?"
"Sure," an old male voice called back.
As Sachiko turned back, Kyoko pulled her tattered wallet out of the tools pouch on her hip, biting her tongue when she felt how light her wallet already was. "How much?"
"Nonsense!" Sachiko snapped good-naturedly, having already sensed that Kyoko didn't have much money to spend in the first place.
"But flowers are expensive!" Kyoko argued back.
Sachiko waved away the younger girl's hand. "Since it's our dear Kazuo hospitalized, it's on the house. Just tell him to stop by once he's all better to say hi, alright? I'm serious, no money, Kyoko. Stop giving me that look."
With a laugh, Kyoko dropped her affronted pout and conceded defeat. "You're the best, Sachiko-baa-chan!"
Sachiko laughed and reached out to ruffle Kyoko's hair affectionately. Just then, Yoshio, a smiling man with a receding hairline, came out with a fresh bundle of iris flowers, their beautiful ivory petals looking smooth, delicate, and velvety soft.
"Kyoko," Yoshio exclaimed, handing the flowers over. "Haven't seen you in a while. Doing well?"
"Of course she is," Sachiko cut in playfully. "Look at how well-rested she looks compared to before."
Before the conversation could take a dip in an uncomfortable direction, Kyoko quickly cleared her throat. "Well, I'm off to the hospital. Thanks again!"
"You're welcome!" the couple called back as she leapt off, starting to hop along rooftops as she made her way towards Suna's main hospital.
Luckily for her, the hospital wasn't too far away, otherwise her flowers might have suffered from the speed with which she was racing over the tops of people's houses. Soon enough, she'd landed in front of the sandstone building and had dashed inside, throwing a quick greeting at the receptionist behind the desk before shooting up the stairs and bounding up entire flights of steps in two chakra-enhanced leaps.
As she stepped onto the third floor, however, her sharp ears picked up on a name that made her stop in her tracks.
"Sabaku….demon….what do…"
Curious, Kyoko jogged over to the corner in the opposite direction she'd been heading in and peeked around. A trio of nurses was grouped around a closed room, each wearing a nervous and frightened expression. Just then, two turned and gestured to the smallest of them, patting her shoulders.
The girl, small and dainty with rosy cheeks, wrung her hands together and wailed, "But I don't want to treat Sabaku no Gaara!"
The iris bouquet nearly slipped from Kyoko's suddenly numb fingers.
The jovial mood induced by the prospect of seeing Kazuo again after months evaporated instantly. The bouquet hanging limply in one hand, Kyoko stepped around the corner towards the nurses. They looked up as she approached.
Stopping a few feet away, Kyoko pinned them with a stunned, incredulous stare.
"Are you three saying you left Gaara completely untouched since he arrived?"
MHJ: Soooooo it's been a lot more than 2-3 weeks...no hard feelings right? :) But GOOD NEWS! ED/EA college apps are done so I can write more! :D Yayayayaayy~~ Anyways, hope you guys enjoyed the chapter! ^_^ I'll try to get the next chapter up within 2 weeks! Seeya~