"No! I don't want to leave!" Yoko wailed, clinging onto a wooden electricity post with her arms and legs while Temari tried to pry her off.

"We're going back to Sunagakure! You've healed enough to leave and we've finished with our business here, so let's go!" she snarled.

"But I don't want to leave! I haven't even thanked Neji-san properly yet!"

As soon as she said those words, Gaara and Kankuro passed by her, heading for Konohagakure's entrance. Yoko's eyes widened and she called out to them, "Gaara-san! Kankuro-san! Tell her we don't have to leave so soon!"

Kankuro looked back and waved to her with an apologetic expression while his little brother bluntly ignored her. Tears welled up in her eyes and she sniffed, "How could you... I trusted you guys..." However, her crying instantly stopped when her target was spotted. She smiled and looked back at Temari who was glaring down at her.

"Sorry, Temari-san... See you later!" Yoko said before reaching into the bag strapped onto her thigh and dropping a smoke bomb. A dark cloud of smoke rose almost immediately after the gadget struck the ground and Yoko quickly raced out of sight.

"Yoko...!"


"How are you doing, Neji? Lee?" Tenten asked.

"I'm fine. I'm glad that I was finally released from the hospital. This way, I can get back to training..." Neji replied.

"Ooh! So you're as excited as I am, aren't you, Neji? Let's get started right away!" Lee exclaimed, flames of motivation burning in his eyes. The three of them had just exited the Konoha Hospital and were heading to the training grounds.

"Give him a break, Lee! Anyways, how was the fight, you two? I heard that the Sand Siblings were sent to help you guys!" Tenten demanded.

"They weren't the only ones that came," Neji said, "There was this odd genin girl who carries a scroll around like you, Tenten, and summons weapons from it... I've only seen one though."

"But how's she odd?" Lee questioned.

"Well, after the whole incident happened, I always hear somebody calling my name from a distance..."

"Neji-san!" Yoko called out to him, running towards the three of them at top speed. When she tried to skid to a stop, her foot got caught on a stone and she went vaulting over it. The girl spun around in midair before landing on her face, her left hand holding a bouquet of flowers over her head so that they wouldn't be damaged.

"Uhm... are you okay?" Tenten asked, approaching the girl.

As soon as the question was asked, Yoko jumped up to her feet, her right arm in a sling around her neck. "That's great..." she sighed as she gazed down at the flowers, "They weren't ruined..."

She looked up at Tenten, who was a bit taller than her, and shook her head, "Nope I'm fine! I just tripped a bit! Hehe..."

"Um... Is there something you need?" Neji said and walked over to her.

"Neji-san!" Yoko exclaimed with a grin. She held out the bouquet, "These are for you! Thank you so much!"

"Flowers..?" Lee questioned.

"Yeah! They're bluebells which symbolize gratitude! You were so cool when we were fighting Spider-san! I mean, how could you think in that situation? While I was in state of panic, you were, like, a genius, Neji-san!"

He accepted the bundle and said, "...Thank you."

Her entire face flushed and Yoko stammered, "N-no! I should be thanking you! I mean, I'm so inexperienced and e-everything... If it wasn't for you, I w-would've been dead by now-"

Her words were cut off by a violent tug on her collar. A hand made out of sand was dragging her away. Yoko didn't even need to look back to see that it was Gaara. "Well, bye then, Neji-kun!" she said as she waved goodbye. The Sand Siblings and the troublesome girl left the village.

"Was it her who helped you on the mission? I can understand why you would say she's odd..." Tenten commented. "Quite the womanizer, aren't you?"

"No, I'm not!" Neji sighed. Since when did she call me Neji-kun?


"Ne, Kankuro-san! Let's go training!" Yoko said. It had been two months since the Sand Siblings had been sent out to help Konoha's team with retrieving Sasuke Uchiha and a week since they arrived back at Suna. The two of them were in Kankuro's room, where he was working on a puppet.

"Uhm... I think you should go patch things up with Gaara..." Kankuro suggested. "Also, your arm and ribs just healed, so I don't think we should start training so soon."

The girl's eyes widened and she whispered, "But... Gaara-san... is a bit scary."

"Huh?" He muttered. Now she's scared of him?

"He started to reject my cacti again."

That's why?! Kankuro sighed and shook his head. "Uh... Yoko... I heard that you called Neji with -kun instead of -san..."

"Yeah...?"

"Well, I guess it kind of makes us a bit annoyed considering the fact that we've known each other for years and you call us with -san..." he explained.

Yoko stared at him with a blank look, not really understanding it.

"You know, you call people with -san after their names when you don't know them very well..."

"Yeah..."

"And it seems like you know Neji Hyuga better than us, so..."

"Ooh! I see!" Yoko grinned, slapping her fist onto her palm. "So I should call you by something else now!"

"Well... sure," Kankuro said, "If you want... I'm not forcing you."

"Okay... What about Kankuro-nii?" She suggested.

"Sure... wait, what?"

"Kankuro-nii!" Yoko repeated and ran off, "Bye, Kankuro-nii!"

The boy just sat there, in the middle of his room with a wooden puppet in front of him and tools in his hand. The tools dropped to the floor and slowly rolled away while its owner gazed out the door with a look of surprise on his face. Then, Temari walked in with a frown.

"Hey, am I just hearing things or did Yoko just call me 'Temari-nee'?" she asked. "I'm fine with just Temari... Kankuro?"

The boy had fainted with shock frozen in his expression. I would normally feel annoyed with any other kid, but this way, I might just turn into a lolicon!


Yoko quietly climbed up the plateau where Gaara was meditating upon with agile movements, trying not to disturb him. They were out in the desert around a kilometer away from the village, but the place was very open, with only a few other elevations and rocks. There weren't many places for enemies to hide, so it was fairly safe.

"Yoko... what are you doing?" he questioned, opening his eyes.

"G-Gaara-san!" She squeaked. "I'm just trying to... get... up.. there!" She sighed in relief when she finally made it up. "Um... are you mad at me?"

"No," he replied softly.

"Then why did you start to reject my cacti again?"

"...There's nowhere to put them," he said. "Look down."

"Huh..." Yoko muttered and obeyed him to see the sand from below clear away to reveal filled holes of potted plants. "Oh... Oh... Oh!... Um... Sorry. I guess giving you one a day just pushed the limit..."

"It's alright..." he answered and returned to meditating.

The girl walked over to where he was sitting, at the far end of the plateau, and asked, "Can I sit next to you?"

She took his silence as a yes and sat down, hugging her knees to his chest. She looked over at him and couldn't help but start to stare at the kanji for "love" on his forehead, finding nothing else to do. The afternoon sun from above them somehow made the symbol look a bit brighter than usual. Feeling a bit uncomfortable under her gaze, Gaara looked over at her to see that she had quickly turned away. He closed his eyes again and as soon as he did so, he could feel her gaze on his temple again. When Gaara glanced at her, she turned away, and when he wasn't looking, Yoko stared at the mark. They played this "game" over and over until Gaara finally caught her off guard and their eyes met. When he glared at her, she giggled and waved her hands.

"Okay, I'll stop, I'll stop," she chuckled. "But now that I think about it, you didn't use to have that mark, right? How did you get it? Is it a tattoo? Hey, your father was the Kazekage, right? Do you want to be Kazekage someday?"

Again, Gaara didn't reply.

"If you become Kazekage some day, I'll support you!" Yoko exclaimed, punching her fists in the air.

"You're... not afraid of me?" he asked.

"Of course I'm not! I mean, you're scary sometimes, but everyone is scary at times, you know?" she blabbered on, her grin still frozen on her face. "I mean, like if I can't tolerate the bad sides of you, how can we be friends?"

Friends? Gaara thought to himself.

"Well, the thing is..." Yoko scratched the back of her head, her cheeks growing a bit red from embarrassment. She continued, "I've kind of been watching you ever since I came into the village and I thought you were pretty interesting. You're still interesting by the way! But... you always look so lonely and sad most of the time, and maybe even heart-broken, even now."

"That's kind of why I started giving you the cacti. You see, my mother and father never really came home and I was alone most of the time... I barely even realized that something was weird when they stopped coming. Anyways, cacti are really easy to take care of because they don't need a lot of water, so I bought one and started to treat it like my friend because I didn't have any siblings or pets," Yoko paused for breath.

Her parents... are dead? Gaara glanced down at her to see that the girl was still smiling.

She trailed on, "So like, at first, I thought that it wouldn't grow and there weren't a lot of changes to it, so I kind of gave up on it. But then, on the top, there was this little round thing that was like this big."

She curved her index finger and placed her thumb over it, making a little circle, and raised it towards the sky. Yoko said, "And it was a pale pink. So, I thought it was pretty weird that something so colourful would grow on that dull cactus, but after someone I knew told me it was a bud, I started to talk to it."

"You must think it's pretty stupid, for me to be talking to a plant, but I did. It helped me to move forward in my life, every single day in that abandoned house. And finally, one day, the flower bloomed!" She exclaimed and opened up her hands above her. "It was one of the best things that ever happened to me in my life!"

Suddenly, Gaara pushed himself up to his feet and raised a platform of sand to the edge of the plateau where he was standing. He stepped onto the sand.

"Eh? Gaara-san? Where're you going?" Yoko asked, her arms still stretched out in the air.

"Back to the village. We've been out here long enough."

"Oh," she muttered and got up, brushing the dirt off her clothes. She walked over to the side of the plateau and prepared to climb down but the feeling of Gaara's gaze on her stopped her in her tracks. He just stared at her, his eyes questioning what she was doing. Yoko stared back at him, not really getting it then approached him and asked, "Wait, you want me to come down with you?"

Gaara turned away and the sand platform slowly started to descend. The girl squealed in alarm, "Wait! Me too! Me too! I don't want to climb down!"

She jumped onto the platform with a soft thud, but she tripped over her own leg and fell. Yoko immediately got up and made the peace sign to show that she was okay. Soon, they arrived at the ground and the two of them got off and started to walk towards the village.

"Yoko..." Gaara said.

"Yeah, Gaara-san?" she replied.

"You talk too much."

"Eeh!? I don't talk that much!" Yoko huffed and crossed her arms over her chest, starting to pout.

"Oi! Yoko! Gaara!" Kankuro called out as he ran towards them, Temari following close behind him.

"We just got a B-rank mission! Let's go!" Temari yelled. "We already told them that we would be going with you!"

Gaara nodded and turned around. "Let's go," he said. His siblings finally caught up with him and the three of them started to walk off when they realized that Yoko was not accompanying them. The girl stared at them with narrowed eyes.

"Hm.. I wish I got to go too..." she sighed softly.

"What are you doing, Yoko?" Kankuro laughed and looked back.

"We're not going to wait for you if you're going to stay frozen like that," Temari said, also turning to her.

"I... I can go too?" Yoko questioned.

"Well, yeah," Kankuro said.

"Yay!" The girl exclaimed and jogged over to them. "Wait for me!"

I really wish that we can all stay like this forever, Yoko thought to herself.


One year later...


"Sorry, Kyo-kun, I have to leave a bit early today. I promised Gaara-san and Temari-nee that I would help train the academy students," Yoko apologized. Her black hair was now extremely long, reaching her waist, and when she tied it up for her missions, she sometimes had trouble because it kept getting in her face. She hugged her boyfriend's arm tightly.

"Again?" he groaned, running his hand through his own black hair, "Geez, what's so special about Gaara anyway? You're always saying 'Gaara-san!', 'Gaara-san!' like he's your lover or something. Besides, he's nothing but a weapon. He's too dangerous and he shouldn't be allowed in the village-"

Suddenly, a sharp pain came from between his legs and he collapsed on to his knees. He glared at the girl who had just attacked him and growled, "Why, you... Yoko..."

"Sorry, but my black hair-fetish won't save you from the crime of insulting Gaara-san in my face. Also, we're over. Bye, now!" Yoko smiled and skipped off.

"Chet! Who wants to date a flat-chested hag like you anyways?" he yelled, but was awarded with cactus prickles stabbed into the side of his face.

Yoko approached him again and said, "You know what, I don't want to talk to you anymore, at all." Then, she stomped off.

"God, what's wrong with that girl? I thought she was the cute and innocent type..." her ex-boyfriend muttered.


And the cliche "something bad is going to happen" line and time skip appear! yay! XD

Please review! :3 Thanks for reading!