DISCLAIMER - Despite this being a Naruto rewrite, I donot own Naruto. If I did, Shikamaru and Kiba would wear their mesh undershirts every episode. Mmm, mesh undershirts.
Rated 'M' for sexual situations and lemons, violence and of course, bad language (I blame Naruto)
What have I gotten into this time around?
I know that I had sworn I'd never trust
anyone again but I didn't have to,
You had me at hello.
- A Day To Remember, You Had Me At Hello
Aimi's POV
The next couple of weeks brought with them a strong concentration of happiness that I'd never experienced before. Gaara and I found our moments to experience a couple of chaste kisses and suggestive looks around corners and over the living room table. We did as much as we could to not draw suspicion from his siblings. Undoubtedly, they must've known we had feelings for each other but they did not yet know we had acted upon them. However, that night after the dance had been our only chance at true passion since at least one of his siblings was always in the house. It seemed a little like they were keeping an eye on us, preventing us from damaging the mission by letting our personal feelings get in the way - the true mark of a shinobi.
We attended meetings regularly to discuss the future of the Sand and Leaf. Gaara and I proposed that the two countries carry out more joint missions to cement trust between shinobi and encourage international friendship. Our suggestion was "noted" and widely praised.
I wrote to Sasuke every other day, telling only him of my indiscretions with Gaara and of that kiss. I told him about the heat and how he'd hate it here because he hated sand. I told him about Kankuro's teasing and Temari's class. I took the letters to the jonin council room and they agreed to send my letters home to my brother via Takamaru.
And then I waited for a response from him that never came.
"It's just so frustrating," I grumbled one morning, punching the kitchen counter with my fist as I awoke to another day without a response from Sasuke.
"Aimi, careful!" Temari chided as I nearly spilled the tea.
I ignored her and carried my own cup of tea into the living room and sat beside Kankuro. Gaara was in his room having just had a shower for a fifteen minute period in my life that I spent trying not to imagine him in that shower and the soap suds sliding down his body, his head thrown back into the stream of the water. "I mean, I send Sasuke like a thousand letters," I over-exaggerated, "and I get not one response. Why's he being like this?"
"No idea, Aims. Maybe he's mad you've gotten so close to Gaara; he must've seen the video of you two dancing. He and Gaara did pretty much hate each other's guts the last time they met." Kankuro theorized.
"You're probably right. Still, it doesn't give him a reason to ignore me. We're all each other has!" I exclaimed exasperated.
"Hey, you have us!" Kankuro contested.
"You're not my brother though, you douchebag."
"As good as while you're here! I've always wanted a little sister!" he said, grinning.
"Awww, really?" I said, grinning.
"Yeah." I gave him a high five.
"Hey wait, my favorite show's coming on," he said, getting to his feet and... dancing?
"I'LL BE THERE FOR YO-OU."
"Kankuro, what're you doing?" I asked, cringing.
"When the rain starts to fall!" He crouched down, wiggling his fingers on the way as if to represent rain.
"Kankuro, stop, you're embarrassing me," I muttered over his incessant dancing. "Stop that! Just stop it," I demanded, throwing a cushion at him which he dodged easily.
"Cause you're there for me tooooooo," he finished, giving a bow. "Hey, at least I do it behind closed doors. What about you and my little brother dancing in full view of everyone, hmm? I mean, did you ever consider how embarrassing that was for me? Did you ever think of my feelings?" he teased with a mock self-pitying tone to his voice, sitting down.
"That's different," I told him, not looking at him but watching two characters in a chapel in Vegas.
"How?"
"We were actually good at dancing, moron."
He didn't respond but rather leapt to his feet. "ROSS GOT MARRIED AGAIN?!"
"Temari! Kankuro's getting too into sitcoms again! He just did an interpretative dance to the theme song!" I called over the top of Kankuro saying in a shocked tone, "and to Rachel?!"
Temari laughed from the kitchen. "Just leave him to it. We're not responsible for his madness. Aimi, can you go get Gaara for breakfast?"
"Okay," I replied, getting to my feet and walking down the short corridor that led off the main hall to where I knew Gaara's room to be, to the sound of Kankuro talking seriously to the television - "You're right, Chandler. Is everyone getting married? That is the question." - I knocked on the door tentatively and waited for a response.
"Come in," I heard Gaara instruct. I opened the door to his bedroom to be greeted by an incredible sight. His room was much like my spare room, except with grand golden bedsheets and a well cultivated cactus on a desk. It was lit by a huge window on one wall, allowing the sunlight to pour in like it did in my room. Gaara's gourd was leant against his bedside table upon which a lamp and his forehead protector had been placed.
He stood with his overalls up to his waist and a mesh undershirt over his torso. I froze, taking in the sight of him and how defined the undershirt made him look, staring at his shoulder blades, visible through the mesh, and the drops of water tracing a path down the nape of his neck.
"Errr, G-Gaara?" I stuttered. He turned halfway to me then, his chest distinct through his shirt. I could clearly see his chest, his biceps and a light six pack. While he was muscular, he was lean enough to not look stocky or like a body builder. He was perfect. Little diamonds of water dripped down his collarbone from his hair, which was drying in messy crimson spikes.
If he knew I was melting on the inside, he gave away no sign. He gave no sign that anything was out of the ordinary as his eyes slid sideways to me. "Yes?"
"Breakfast is er, ready," I said, unable to tear my eyes away from him. He nodded and I moved to turn away and get out before I drooled or attacked him.
"Gaara! Aimi! Breakfast! Stop loafing around!" Temari ordered from the kitchen.
I giggled nervously and said, "I'll see you in there, I guess." He nodded again and I left the room, taking a final glance at his near half naked form. Temari laid out breakfast in the living room and I knelt next to the table. About five minutes in, Gaara arrived, fully dressed into his usual maroon outfit.
"What're we doing today then?" I asked, sipping more tea.
"We should do some training probably. Can't let some easy mission get in the way of me kicking ass, can I? I really wanna practice more of the Crow and the Black Ant's combo moves," Kankuro suggested, finishing up his cereal.
"I'd love that! I never got the chance to battle any of you. Well, except Gaara but I had no chakra and he kicked my butt," I said.
Thirty minutes later, we had arrived at the Sand Village's training grounds. Kankuro challenged Temari to a battle and it ensued with vigor. Gaara and I sat by, watching, Gaara's sand swirling around him.
"Hey, Gaara. How come you've never smoked?" I asked randomly, after letting my thoughts drift off while Temari unleashed her Cyclone Psych Jutsu on the Crow.
"You ask such strange questions," he remarked, sounding bemused.
"I'm just asking because you're that cool, silent type. You act like a smoker," I stated, my volume dropping at the end as I realized I was sounding silly as I thought of Asuma-sensei back home. Home.
"I don't smoke. I'm Gaara of the Desert. I just kill anyone who threatens the people I care about," he told me, without looking at me.
"Would you kill anyone who threatened me?" I asked, despite myself.
"Yes," he replied stoically, still not looking at me.
Just then, Temari and Kankuro's match was over with Kankuro having won.
"Hey, Aimi, come out here, I wanna battle you!" he shouted to me. I stood up and hurried over. I took a defensive stance watching carefully. He already had his puppets out from his battle with Temari and seeing them both with that eerie dead look in their eyes, trained towards me was a little terrifying. "BEGIN!"
It happened just as Kankuro threw his hands forward to allow the puppets to fly at me and attack. I was about to make a handsign to create a fireball and burn his puppets to cinders. Suddenly, as they came far too close, too close for me to be able to resist, a wall of sand came up in front of me, causing both puppets to crash noisily into the impenetrable defense.
"Gaara, you can't do that! That's cheating!" Kankuro yelled aggressively to his brother, as the sand fell away.
Gaara face was dumbfounded. "I'm not doing anything!" he spluttered. His eyes were wide as he looked from me to his brother.
"What do you mean? That wall of sand just came up and stopped Kankuro's attack on Aimi! It must've been you," Temari argued next to him.
"I swear it wasn't," he promised, getting to his feet.
"What so the sand just did it all by itself?" I asked satirically, folding my eyes. "I don't need protecting."
"The sand disagrees obviously," Kankuro muttered under his breath.
"Kankuro, attack Aimi without your puppets," Gaara ordered in a strong, quiet, steady voice.
"What?"
"Just throw a kunai at her," he demanded, his voice getting sharper.
"But-"
"Kankuro, just do it," he snarled. "Aimi, don't react."
Kankuro pulled out a kunai reluctantly. "Are you sure about this? Are you okay, Aimi?"
"Yeah, just aim for my legs. If it hits, we'll go to the medics," I murmured, trying to process what it meant if Gaara's sand was protecting me...
Kankuro threw the kunai then, with all his might and I kept my eyes trained on Gaara's gourd. Within the blink of an eye, as the kunai reached a three meter range, the sand spilled out of his gourd and flew through the air stopping directly in front of my body and compacting... exactly like Gaara's sand shield did.
As the kunai hit the shield and the shield thereafter dissipated, we were all silent. Kankuro was breathing heavily, Gaara and Temari frozen staring at the sand at my feet.
Is it because of how he feels? I thought to myself, feeling victorious and very surprised. Gaara's eyes caught mine and our gaze look.
"Wh-what?" I asked, pointing at the sand at my feet.
"I don't know. I have no idea what's happening," Gaara rasped, sounding utterly perplexed and very exasperated. Suddenly, he got to his feet and walked out of the training grounds holding his head in his hands and quivering a little.
"Is he going to be okay?" I asked Kankuro who was staring at the gate Gaara had exited from.
"Yeah... I think so. I don't know what's going on either... Maybe he did it subconsciously?" Kankuro pondered, more to himself than us.
"It might be Shukaku. Gaara used to talk about your blood when he was more... you know," Temari said, unable to refer to her little brother as 'demonic'. "It might be Shukaku protecting his prey."
"I have no idea what just happened..." I whispered, crouching down to touch the sand at my feet.
After a few minutes of speculation, we continued training. Or rather Temari and Kankuro continued training. I was deemed an unfair fight since I had my own jutsu and Gaara's sand shield for some reason. Regardless, I was too shaken up to train anyway.
Gaara and I would be having a long discussion about the reasons for it later if I could corner him.
Someone's POV
The kids were completely oblivious to a silent figure watching them from the shadows, observing as the Sand Demon's ultimate defense leapt to the aid of the Uchiha girl.
And then that look between them. Watching that girl's slender body, seeing her hair tumble over her breasts which nearly spilled out of her crop top several times, her legs as long and powerful as they had been at the ball, it made something twitch inside my pants.
The Demon had stalked off and a few minutes later his weaker brother made a joke at the girl who beamed at him, albeit with a nervous look in her eye.
But I would make sure to wipe that naïve grin right off her young, innocent face.
Author's Note: WHO DO YOU THINK THE SOMEONE IS?! WHY DO YOU THINK GAARA'S SAND IS PROTECTING HER? REVIEW, GALORE! What do you think has happened?!
Also, I may or may not be posting tomorrow. Have a check tomorrow night but just to be sure, add me to your alerts so you get an email when I've updated if you're reading and not signed in? :)
Until, next time, beautiful people! Review :) I love reading your thoughts.
