Chapter 7: Secrets.
HAPPY EASTER EVERYONE!!!! =D (sorry, I'm mildly chocolate high at the mo.)
Disclaimer: Oddly enough... I don't really wish I owned Naruto, so I'm not going to pretend I do.
If I did own Naruto, I would know how it was going to end, who was going to die and I'd change that so no one died- I would say only the "baddies" but I like some of the Akatsuki members so I'd be keeping them . I'd also make sure-
...
You don't really want to listen to me rant on now do you?
On with the story!!! =D
"We have a mission for you," one of the younger village council members began, "it involves those 'special abilities' of yours."
"W-what special abilities?" you lied, not really liking where this was going, "I don't ha-"
"There is no reason to lie to us, we already know everything." I doubt that. "Konoha had given us all of your records before we had even allowed Uzumaki Natsuko-san to know of your existence. The council believe that your 'special abilities' could be of great help to us with our little 'problem'."
There wasn't really any point in denying anything now. If they had your records then they definitely knew about the 'incident'. No point in lying if no one was going to believe you.
"OK, fine. Let's here the mission, but these 'special abilities' have only ever brought pain and suffering- there's no actual controlling it other than me not letting my emotions get the better of me." You sighed.
"Your powers don't just bring pain and suffering- if you learn how to you could use them for other things. We have found many books with examples of great ninja in the past that have been able to exhort great control over the jinjuriki; which is what we need you to do. Gain control over the ichibi demon. Of course, we're not planning on making you go near to it just yet. Learn from the books first and the actual practice will happen later. But you must understand- this is for the good of the village and its people,"
You thought things over for a moment inside your head. So they were asking you to control and manipulate Gaara? But he hadn't done anything to deserve that sort of treatment- well maybe he had done in the past, but most of the people he killed were actually trying to assassinate him so he was only defending himself. Or at least that's what you had heard from the rumours you'd been told so far. You took in a deep breath and gave the five council members your responce.
"To be perfectly honest, I couldn't care less about this village or the majority of its people" you began, your voice which was full of anger now and beginning to get louder, "I don't accept your mission, instead I'm going to do it to prove to you people that Gaara isn't a monster; he's a human, just the same as anyone else in this town. The only difference between him and everybody else is that he's made- no, he's been forced into making the sacrifice of having a monster stuck inside of him and being lonely for the whole of his life just for the sake of this village. You want to know why I'm getting so defensive? My brother's a jinjuriki, and he still has hopes and dreams, friends and enemies just the same as any other person because he is the same as any other person. If you insult Gaara because of anything to do with him being a jinjuriki then you're insulting my brother and therefore offending me and I will not stand for it! Good day."
And with that you strode out of the room. Your aunt Natsuko must've heard everything as she was standing just outside of the room and you were speaking fairly loudly. She said nothing as you past her and made your way up the stairs and to your room. You closed the door silently behind you, locking it. There was no need to slam the door and show them all how irresponsible you could be- no, there was no point in doing anything reckless- you weren't Naruto. But you still didn't want to be disturbed, you weren't in the mood.
You collapsed onto your bed in exhaustion; the only thing keeping you awake was your rage. Great... too angry to sleep yet to tired to vent your anger out by training. There was only one cure for moments like this; music and art! You took out your ipod and started playing to your favorite song (I'm not telling you what your favorite is- I mean it's your favorite, how should I know?). As you listened to your music you began to draw on a piece of paper from your sketch book.
You liked to draw. In a way,it was fun. You drew some of the buildings in the village that you could remember rough sketches of the market place, a couple of carton strips of your new friends here in Suna. Soon you found yourself drawing pictures of your old friends from konoha and you realised just how much you still missed them. In just over a week you had already sent them at least one letter each. You sighed, pushing all of the drawings to one side. You began to sketch again. This time you drew some eyes- piercing cold ones with dark rings around them. Gaara's eyes.
"Camika-chan, are you alright?"
It was obasan. She was standing in front of the closed bedroom door, leaning against it slightly. You hadn't heard or sensed her come in as you were too wrapped up in your work.
"Yeah, I'm fine," you said taking out your earphones and turned them off; it was rude to take to someone with them in and still playing.
"That's good to know, just checking. What are you doing?" she asked coming over.
"None of your business, Gaara." You said with a smirk on your face and utter confidence.
She looked confused for a moment, "I'm not-"
"Yes you are, don't lie to me. My bedroom door is locked- my aunt wouldn't have been able to get in. Also, your chakra aura is hidden really well- too well. Obasan never does that; first reason being she doesn't need to, second probably being she doesn't even know how. And another thing," you stood up, grabbing the cup of water that you kept by your bedside table and chucked it over the impostor, "my aunt's skin doesn't do that when water is added."
The false layer of what was now wet sand crumbled off and fell to the floor, revealing behind the mask a rather stunned and confused Gaara.
"I- I still don't get it. How'd you know it was me and not some other ninja?"
"You've got a special aura that you can't cover up and that only I can sense as well," you said simply, "Naruto's got one too... only if this aura was on a colour chart; his would be more reddy-orange. Yours is more tanned/yellow."
Gaara stood there staring at you, still not quite knowing what to say. So you continued the conversation for him.
"Why were you sneaking into my room, pretending to be my aunt?" you asked suspiciously
"Well, I was... uhhh...-"
"And no more lies!"
He let out a sigh.
"I sensed the council members' chakra inside your house when we were walking up the road. I was sort of worried and a bit curious as to what they wanted, so I decided to stick around."
Ah...
"So what did they want?" Gaara asked, taking a seat at the end of your bed. You sat back down on the chair by your desk- where you were before Gaara had entered.
"Do I have to answer that?"
"Well, it would be nice, seeming as that's why I asked" Gaara muttered, "but you don't have to if you don't want to- if it's private I won't butt in."
You sighed, "Well, it is kind of about you, so it's only fair that I tell you."
Gaara looked shocked for a moment, as you tried to figure out inside your head what you were going to say.
"It is kind of complicated, and a lot of it very personal- stuff that only Naruto really knows about. Basically; I've got these powers that can do 'bad things'. They were trying to convince me that I could learn how to control them I could learn how to use them for 'good things' instead. They didn't have me too convinced though. Naruto knows the details on the whole 'bad powers' thing..."
Gaara thought for a second, "I don't see how that has anything to do with me,"
"I might tell you what the 'special powers' are someday.... maybe" you continued "but it does have something to do with you, trust me. I declined the mission, but I don't think they'll give up. They seemed pretty keen on 'controlling you' or something like that... That's what they wanted me to use my powers for."
"Oh..." Gaara looked down for a moment, sadness filled his voice.
He then looked up and stared at you in the eyes. It felt as if he were seeing into the back of your mind, reading your every thought. You could see in his eyes the sadness that he felt; that the village council didn't trust him and didn't think that he was safe for people to be around.
Quick, change of subject!
"So how'd you find out where was my room exactly?" you asked. Come to think of it, you did have the curtains shut and the windows closed, so how did he see you and how did he get in?
"I saw you in this room the other day when you went to bed. I don't know why but when I saw you yesterday, you really interested me, so I followed you around. I wanted to see what you were like. You seem quite a normal person... but I guess now that there's more to you then what meets the eye." He said this with no shame or embarrassment, without even taking his eyes off of yours. "I suppose you want to know how I got in too; well I got in using my sand."
"I knew I was being followed!" you almost shouted covering your mouth with your hands suddenly remembering to turn your voice down. There were still other people in the house.
"Don't worry; no one is going to hear us." Gaara explained, "I sound proofed the room using my sand."
"Oh, phew. Your sand does a lot of useful things..." You relaxed a bit, knowing that it was safe. "Hey, do you know if the council members are still downstairs?"
"Yes, they left a while ago, when you began drawing those pictures."
You paused for a moment. Just how long had he been watching you?
"Can I see them?" he asked. You saw no harm in letting him look.
You handed him your art work and lay down on your bed, stretching out. The rage was all gone now, but you badly wanted to stay up and get to know Gaara a bit more. He was strong, good at hiding his aura, quite shy round lots of people but when it was just you and him it seemed he was beginning to open up more and more. You liked that he was opening up to you; you really wanted to know more about him. He flicked through your art work stopping at one for a moment, before moving on to look at the next. You closed your eyes and relaxed, listening to the sound of the rustling of paper as he rummaged through your work. There were a lot of drawings; you could draw quite a lot in a short period of time, and at a high quality too! You noticed that the shuffling noises had stopped and opened your eyes to look at him. He was sitting there staring at one piece of paper.
"What? Did I draw something weird? He's staring at this one for quite a while now..." you rolled over to face him properly and then realised what bit of paper he was holding. It was that last one you had drawn of his eyes.
He looked up at you and you smiled sheepishly.
"You drew my eyes?"
"They're pretty," it was the only real excuse you could think of, and it was the honest truth. Gaara went back to staring at the paper.
"You know, it doesn't matter how much you stare at it; it's still going to look the same. It's not an optical illusion you know." You said sarcastically before yawning.
"You look tired, you should get some rest."
"I could say the same for you."
"I can't sleep."
"I can see that. Those circles round your eyes are so dark looks as if you're wearing makeup, has anyone ever told you that?"
"Yeah, your brother."
"Oh... Well you know what they say; great minds think alike and fools seldom differ. I guess we're a bit of both really. A lot of the time it's as if he can read my thoughts, or as if we're thinking the same things..." you wittered on, yawning again, "Come lie down next to me. Get some rest, you need it."
Gaara shook his head, "No, I told you I can't sleep, even if I really wanted to."
You sensed that there was a secret meaning behind that, "tell me."
Gaara shook his head, "Shukaku will break lose."
"Ah.... okay then. You can't really call it rest if you know that that's going to happen." You got up off of the bed and grabbed your pajamas. "I just gotta get changed and ready for bed. You can leave if you want; no one's forcing you to stay, but I'm really curious... I want to get to know you better, so I'm inviting you to stay the night, even if you're not going to sleep."
That way, I'll be able to spend as much time possible getting to know him.
"Curiosity killed the cat," Gaara quoted, folding his arms with an expressionless face.
"But the answer brought it back to life again," you retorted, "besides; cats have 9 lives."
"Then how'd you know it wasn't one of the nine lives that brought it back?"
"Because this cat that we're talking about said so, that's how we know."
A hint of amusement slipped across the red headed boy's face for a second in the form of a small smirk, "But what if the cat didn't know for certain and this other cat that's curious only has one life."
"Are you calling me a cat?!"
"No, no one is calling you a cat. I'm just saying that this cat that we're talking has a friend cat with only one life and a lot of curiosity that could get it into a load of trouble" Gaara couldn't help but smirk as he said this.
Unlike Sasuke's smirk, this one didn't annoy you- in fact you were finding this whole situation rather entertaining. It was a fun game.
"Well I'm sure that that kitty can take care of his or herself. Now if you excuse me for a moment, I'm going to the bathroom" you said unlocking the door and sneaking across the hall not wanting to disturb your aunt, whether she was asleep or not.
You came back to your room after you had got changed into your pjs, washed your face and brushed your teeth. You were extremely pleased to find Gaara sitting up on your bed under the covers. You grinned.
"Nice to see you've decided to stick around."
"It's only till you fall asleep, I've got to be home before morning. No one knows I'm gone."
You nodded, getting under the covers and wrapped your arms tightly round his waist, holding him there still so he couldn't. You couldn't help it; he was nice, warm and surprisingly cuddly, you really wanted to hug him. He smelt good too, you couldn't actually decide what the smell really was; but it smelt good. Gaara blushed as you snuggled up even closer to him, closing your eyes. He lay down next to you, resting his head on the pillow. Good thing that your aunt had given you a big bed- not that it mattered because you were probably close enough to fit on a small single bed. You breathed deeply and relaxed.
"Hmm... Nighty night, Gaara-kun." You whispered, as the drowsiness overwhelmed you and was pulling you into yet another deep and peaceful sleep.
Before you lost complete consciousness you heard Gaara murmur one last thing to you:
"Good night and sweet dreams."
Sorry, had to put the fluff at the end there ^-^ 3
I think I cured my writers block for now.... Still a bit clueless as to where I'm going with this story... I think I know what I'm going to do next though =D
Wow... Over 250 hits and over 110 visitors from all round the world =O I'm actually so amazed!
I'm mostly getting reviews from the USA (no problem with that thought =D). I'm from England btw, that's sort of why I found it odd ^_^
Michy-chan
