Frozen in my tracks, I descried an unknown woman going about in the kitchen, stirring a pot of food. Her back faced me, oblivious to my presence.
I screamed bloody murder, my gold dust automatically unfurling, preparing to assault and counter any possible threat.
The woman instantly sprung back in shock, nearly knocking the pot over as she rotated to face me, dropping the wooden spoon on the floor in the process.
"Alright! Who the hell are you and what are you doing in our home?" I screeched in fright.
Gaara immediately appeared at my side, his arm obstructing me as he eyed the woman dangerously. "Get out." he demanded, voice hoarse.
Gaara?
My expression twisted in surprise, blinking frantically. When had he gotten here? And how the hell did I not hear him come in? Hell, I must've been so engrossed in my thoughts, that was all I managed to hear at the time.
Either way, I felt relief flush through my body at his presence.
The woman stared on in shock, dubious of how to respond. "Please, I'm—"
Gaara's voice hardened. "I'm not going to ask you again."
In panic, the lady stammered, "I-I'm..the maid."
"Bullshit," I spat, my eyes narrowed in suspicion. Since when did we have a maid? Surely Yashamaru would've at least informed us about it. Father taking the liberty of informing us about anything —let alone this —was out of the question.
"Today's my first day, I swear!" she replied, holding her hands up in defense. "Yashamaru-san saw a local advertisement I'd placed and met with me yesterday afternoon. He requested that I start today."
"..I'll call him to verify that." Gaara's voice calmed as he reached for the kitchen telephone, still eyeing her skeptically.
If there was one definite characteristic of Yashamaru, it's that he never left anybody hanging. He was just that man. Within an instant, he was on the opposite line.
"Hello, Yashamaru...Yes, we're home safely...They're not home yet...I don't know...No, nothing..." Gaara's face twisted in irritation at the thousand irrelevant questions, clearly wanting to get to the point of the call. "...Did you hire a maid?...Okay...Yes...Yes...Bye." he finally hung up, face relieved as he sent me a nod. "It's true," he averted his gaze towards the stranger woman. "We apologize for the misunderstanding, Miss.." he trailed off, ignorant of her name.
"I understand. You stumbled upon a complete stranger in your own home. I'd have freaked out as well," she chuckled. "And please, call me Ildiko." the woman managed a small smile.
"Right. Well, I'm Akane and this is my brother, Gaara." I smiled awkwardly whilst Gaara stood idly next to me in silence.
"Please to meet you both." Ildiko smiled sincerely, and a pang of guilt hit me again.
Fuck, what must she be thinking? She probably thinks that the behavior we displayed a minute ago is the norm. Ugh, it's not like that, lady. She should understand as she claims to.
Gaara turned to leave without another word.
"Once again, I apologize for our outburst, Ildiko-san."
Ildiko nodded in assurance. "I should probably get back to the food." she chuckled before retrieving the tomato- stained spoon from the floor and rewashing it.
"May I assist you, Ildiko-san?" I offered an olive branch, for some reason not feeling completely rid of guilt.
Another high pitched chuckle came from Ildiko. "No, dear. I'm nearly finished. It's only the potatoes that still needs to cook, thank you."
I nodded. "Well, Ildiko-san may buzz my room if anything is need." With that, I ascended to my room to complete my Calculus homework. Easy enough, it took me approximately forty minutes to complete.
My stomach barked at me for food. This entire day so far had left my mind jammed all over the place. I'd even forgotten that I hadn't ate anything since returning home, despite my intention to do so earlier. Unfortunately, I'd been thrown off balance instead.
What's with me today?
I briefly greeted Temari and Kankuro as I passed them lounging on the couches along with Gaara.
In the kitchen, I searched the cupboards frantically, my patience running low as the search progressed, unable to locate the blueberry muffins my taste buds yearned for.
In irritation, I recalled Kankuro with the last pack yesterday.
Don't tell me.. I can't believe him. The nerve.
Ildiko surveyed my frantic rummaging curiously before piping up, "Akane-chan, perhaps you're looking for the blueberry muffins?"
Instantly, my rummaging came to a halt, cocking a brow at Ildiko. "Yes, I am. How'd you know?"
Without a reply, Ildiko set the wooden spoon between the pot's handle and retrieved a pack of blueberry muffins from a cupboard in close proximity that I hadn't searched yet.
"Thanks," I raised a brow as Ildiko handed the pack to me, noticing the closed seal, the condition of the wrapping confirming my suspicions. "Let me guess, Kankuro finished the last pack yesterday, huh?"
"Apparently so," the honey-haired woman chuckled. "Yashamaru-san requested that I purchase some groceries this morning, including a pack of those muffins. He said he didn't want you having a.. bf when you noticed the last pack finished."
Just as expected from Kankuro. He needed to lose his selfish habit of thinking with his stomach. He'd been reprimanded about it before. Apparently, he misunderstood.
Fucking inconsiderate.
"What a pig," I scrunched my nose up in disgusted irritation, shaking my head as I lazily began exiting the kitchen.
Ildiko called after me, desperate to know the meaning of the abbreviation.
A smirk formed on my lips, dubious of whether I should tell her. Ironically, Ildiko's mature physique seemed to carry a rather innocent mind.
"Bitch fit." I responded bluntly as I continued away, the corner of my eye catching Ildiko standing in the threshold of the kitchen, mouth hanging open in shock.
Such strange innocence.
"Where have you guys been?" I inquired as I plopped down onto the couch next to Temari. "And where the hell did you disappear to after Physics? I couldn't find either of you, so I had to walk home alone..almost completely." I directed at Temari specifically.
Gaara and Temari stared at me, hungry for an elaboration.
"I encountered a friend along the way. Well, a new friend, to be entirely honest." I explained.
"Who, Akane?" Gaara inquired, seemingly brooding his own suspicions mentally.
"Yeah, who is it?" Temari grinned, eager to know.
"Kiba Inuzuka," I paused. "Turns out he's in our class. The one who carried the dog on his shoulder during our walk on our first day. They walked ahead of us. I'm sure you remember." I concluded, reluctant to elaborate further.
"Hn." Gaara averted his attention back to the television, though his eyes indicated that his mind was absent.
"Ooooh, Akane. Already?" she wriggled her brows at me, causing me to chuckle at her obvious mental assumption.
"No, nothing like that. Get your mind out of the gutter, Temari."
Temari barely took her eyes off of Shameless airing before us, having forgotten about her joke a second ago. "Anyway, I left class with Shikara. We watched cheerleading practice, is all."
I nearly choked on my muffin. "You're interested in cheerleading?"
"Don't get it twisted, hon. I simply spectated," my sister replied, reaching for a muffin. "Shikara's the one who relishes in poking fun at how troublesome cheerleading is. She's been trying to convince me all afternoon to try out. I just won't have it."
I chuckled. "Seems they even have the same trademark, eh?" my eyes averted to Kankuro after Temari shrugged.
I aimed a crumpled muffin paper at the perpetrator's forehead.
"Gah!" Kankuro looked up from the television, sending me the stink eye, his voice annoyed. "What'd you do that for, huh?"
"That's for abusing the muffins. You just can't do that, Kankuro man," I replied coolly. "You should be more considerate, honestly."
Temari smirked in agreement. "You tell 'em sister."
He rolled his eyes. "You're such a hypocrite, Akane."
"Not in the least. I'm enjoying them, not killing the entire pack, there's a difference."
"Can't help that I'm a cookie monster." he winked slyly.
I automatically scrunched my nose up, disgusted that he'd let me in on such vulgar business that had absolutely nothing to do with me. "Gah..you sly dog! That's your business."
The thought of Kankuro engaging in such fuckery openly...
Gah! No, no! That's fucking disgusting!
That's my brother. There's no way in hell I'd want to think of him —or either of my siblings —engaging in such activities, normal or not. The possible visuals that come along with it.. It's horrifying to say the least. Traumatising. Racks my fucking brain.
Kankuro repeated his eye roll, so far back this time, I could've sworn his brown orbs stayed in the back of his head for a second or five, albeit his sly smirk remained fixed.
"Cut it out." I shot him a glare, and instantly, to my relief, that was the end of it.
Temari took a bite from her muffin, brows furrowed in disbelief at the scene of Shameless before us. "Are you fucking serious?" she screeched, clearly unimpressed with the series' plot. "Why would Fiona just take that dirt bag back with open arms after he fucked up their lives and went AWOL?" her bites became furious in clear annoyance.
"I know right. It's disappointing, really. I thought she'd finally moved on from him. He's lied about his identity way too many times. She probably doesn't know his tenth name yet." I shrugged in mutual disapproval. "I ship her with Gus though. He was a pretty decent fella, handsome as well. Literally though, she's always stirring shit for herself."
Temari sighed, feeling obviously emotional about the series' plot. She suddenly turned to smirk at me ignoring her personal emotions towards Shameless for a minute. "Gaara said your freak got out with Ildiko-san earlier. Did it get back in?"
"It did," I shrugged, finishing my second muffin. "I felt bad after, but she was cool about it. I taught her something too."
"That so?" Temari prompted, smirk still present. "What exactly?"
"She didn't know what the other bf stood for." I answered, my lips unwittingly formed into an amused smirk as I recalled earlier.
Temari burst out laughing, Kankuro cracking up as well. "You're serious? That's—"
The slamming of the front door cut any tensionless atmosphere short the second Rasa strided in, arms crossed as he bore a hard, illegible expression. The patriarch strided pass us wordlessly, disappearing through another threshold as swiftly as he came.
We sat wordlessly, and I immediately pondered what the hell could've possibly been roaming the recesses of Father's mind courtesy of his musky mood. I think my siblings wondered too. Well, our guesses were as good as one another's.
Then again, Rasa's icy demeanor never took anybody except strangers by surprise. Sabaku Inc. could've profited all the capital in the world, our clan usurp all of the Five Great Nations with perpetual power at our fingertips, nevertheless, his frigid demeanor would never fracture. Like anything regarding Rasa, that icy demeanor of his was rigid as fuck.
I never admitted it to anyone, but I bore ineffable deference for my father. We may not have an intimate relationship —Rasa just wasn't programmed like that —but in my eyes, he is more important than anything.
We'd been raised to follow in his footsteps and practice his desired principles. Although, naturally, his genes —in his opinion, unfortunately —didn't dominate in all four of his offspring, but that didn't obstruct him from training us —specifically, Temari and Kankuro —to follow him artificially.
There was none whose opinion and advice I valued more than my father's. Albeit it was difficult and even possibly intimidating to ask my father the daughterly things I'd desired all along.
Hell, I could practically anticipate Rasa's cold, disinterested aura should I dare ask him anything he considered insignificant or trivial. Nevertheless, Rasa was exactly that —Rasa.
The next day during Calculus, Ino emphasized her dreaded mood by sighing repeatedly in Calculus as Asuma-sensei asked the correct answers at random. When I checked her about it, I noticed that Ino had barely calculated any answers correctly. In fact, she hadn't calculated any of the answers correctly.
I sighed internally, flabbergasted as to why Ino hadn't just asked for help. Calculus clearly wasn't her forte.
Ino, obviously cognizant of my thoughts on her homework, deliberately ignored my reaction.
Her mind seemed preoccupied today, her deep scowl patently emphasizing that whatever may have been roaming her mind at that moment was presumptively troubling her.
I yearned to ask her what was perturbing her, but I postponed the thought. Whatever was unsettling Ino, was in all probability not something she'd prefer to discuss publicly.
I faced Shikamaru beside me, who was resting his hands behind his head as usual, pretentiously unaware of the tension.
I arched a brow at him.
He twitched his own, "What?"
I repeated an arching brow.
Shikamaru sighed, pretentiously catching on then only. "It's outta my hands, really."
I expected —and I'm pretty certain Shikamaru as well —because of the obvious personal tension between the two of them, a comment from Shikamaru to set her off, but nothing. No reaction whatsoever.
Hours later, after school, Ino's mental isolation remained solid. As far as I knew, she'd barely said anything to anybody the entire day. There was something different about Ino's blue glint today.
Should I ask her?
I was itching to. This wasn't like Ino. Her behavior was out of character.
I opened my mouth to speak as other students passed us as we left class, eager to return home.
Suddenly Sakura appeared, her high pitched voice severing my train of thought. "Hey girls," the cherry blossom smiled sweetly.
In the blink of an eye, Ino was grinning at Sakura, any signs of disturbance vanishing. "Hey, Sakura. What's up?"
What the fuck, Ino?
Sakura seemed oblivious to the premature expression Ino bore practically the entire fucking day. "I hope you girls are free this weekend. I was thinking that we should all hang out. It'd be fun, just us girls, y'know? And also, Akane's first time at my house. I really want you girls to come over!"
"That sounds great! I need to rejuvenate after all these assignments we've been swamped with recently." Ino nodded frantically with a smile that didn't reach her eyes.
My eyes automatically narrowed, and I shook my head subtly, them being oblivious to my actions. They were too preoccupied with smiling at each other.
What the fuck? Something's definitely up. She may be fooling Sakura, but that facade isn't fooling me in the least, Ino.
As if Ino caught onto my train of thought, she avoided eye contact with me.
Sakura turned to me then, oblivious as ever. "How about it, Akane-chan?"
Shrugging Ino's strange behavior off for a minute, I nodded automatically, genuinely excited to spend the weekend with the two of them at Sakura's house. I also bore in mind that Ino clearly wanted to conceal her troubles from Sakura, so I wouldn't sell her out even if I knew what the source of her mental disturbance was.
"Great!" Sakura grinned, latching her arm through Ino's free one. "Come on, Ino-chan, let's get going. See you tomorrow, Akane-chan!" she sent a last sweet smile my way before they turned on their heel to leave the premises.
"Yeah! ..Yeah, of course!" Ino waved subtly, her eyes barely meeting mine as they departed, leaving me somewhat disturbed.
--
What the hell could be going on with Ino? And why does she seem so adamant about concealing it?
