Arashi: Starting to work on my own chapter for the story so sorry for not updating it. ^^' Thanks for the reviews and everything on the story. ^^ It's rather encouraging as I'm working on this one. Well there is several more chapters from Boom left still so let's get started then.

"Wait… Can you say that again?" Gaara asked for the third time in a row. Sasuke, the initial speaker, was ready to tear Gaara's eyes out. Sasuke had been explaining this whole boyfriend thing to Gaara in Neji's absence, and the boy was still having trouble grasping the concept. Sasuke began his lecture once again.

"Okay, so a boyfriend is kind of like a normal friend, except you are romantically involved. So then-." Sasuke was cut off by Gaara's rough voice asking what being "romantically involved" entailed for the second time that day. Also for the second time that day, Sasuke's face colored drastically.

"You know… like kissing, touching… and hugging, and other things like that. It means you care for the other person, and… umm… you show it with that sort of affection." At Gaara's faltered nod, Sasuke continued with his original train of thought.

"So then when somebody asks you to be their boyfriend, they are… umm… requesting your companionship… in a… more… sensual way than friendship. Uh… it means they like you enough that they are willing to be close." Sasuke stumbled through his explanation, however Gaara could, for the most part, understand.

To Gaara it seemed that to be asked to be someone's boyfriend, it was a compliment; because it basically meant that the other person wanted to be near you—according to Sasuke. But this was the part that confused Gaara. Why one earth would anyone want to be near him? It was odd. Who would want to be "romantically involved" with Gaara? The idea was foreign and weird to him in his mind. It made him nervous. And not the good, tense nervousness he felt in art class today. It made him feel slightly nauseous, and worried that he would mess his possibly only chance for somebody to like him enough to "kiss and touch and hug" him— and by default, the only opportunity to do that to somebody else. However behind all the worry and confusion, Gaara was generally excited about this whole new development. He couldn't wait to see Lee again. But then again, that was a whole other set of questions.

"I… I think I get it now… But what am I supposed to do next time I see him?" Gaara asked softly. Sasuke's brow crinkled at this question. Usually one would hug or wave to their boyfriend in greeting, but this was Gaara, Lee might get frightened if Gaara did something out of character— Sasuke knew he would be scared.

"Just… follow Lee's lead. If he hugs you, you hug him back— just watch and see what he does."

"O…okay…" Gaara replied, before turning his head at Neji's entrance, the boy in question looking considerably happier than when he left.

"Uhhh… are you alright?" Naruto asked suspiciously at Neji's cheerful disposition.

Naruto may be stupid, but he wasn't stupid enough not to realize Neji's radical change in mood. The boy in question just plopped into his seat with a very satisfied "yup!", popping the 'p', and was quiet for the remainder of lunch.

Gaara sighed as he walked into his History lesson, taking a seat all the way in the back. His history teacher was a very skinny, very sickly looking man that always took up at least ten minutes of class with coughing fits. His name started with a 'g' or 'j', Gaara couldn't remember it for the life of him, and the teacher in question always wore a small blue beanie hat. Gaara didn't know why, but every time he saw this particular teacher's beanie, he became irritated. It wasn't as if the hat insulted him, it just made him irrationally angry—thus, his immense dislike for this class. When the teacher shuffled into class, Gaara's grip tightened on his pencil. He was wearing his stupid hat again.

At this moment in time, Gaara decided to no longer focus on the lesson or its beanie-clad teacher, but on his notebook. He was very fond of his notebook. Ever since school started, Gaara just drew in his notebook; he was intending to fill up all four notebooks he had been given with his elaborate drawings. Today he was working on a very large, very fearsome, tiger, crouching low in tall grass. He was becoming slightly irked because the shadowing wasn't going well. Just as he was about to chuck his prized notebook across the room, the bell rung, and it signaled poetry was going to start; he had three minutes to get there.

Stuffing his notebook into his netted backpack, he made his way to poetry. Gaara hated this class. Not because of obnoxious head gear worn by a nameless teacher, but because he didn't understand meter and because of stupid, useless rules. Who cares if a word is iambic or trochaic? It bothered him. And when they said "open topic" it meant write about puppies and kittens underneath rainbows—not what he wanted to write about.

Hardly any real poetry was about frivolous things, real poetry was about, emotion, loss, happiness, passion… none of which he was allowed to write about because they weren't 'appropriate topics'. It irked him greatly. If you can't write a poem about what you want to, then why write the goddamned poem!? Sometimes, Gaara outright refused to write a poem because of this stupid 'appropriate topic' rule. It was a damn good thing that they were just taking notes today about poets of the past, Gaara would just refuse to participate in these 'writing exercises' they liked to torture him with.

Gaara sighed with relief when the bell rang, meaning he got to go to his second favorite class—Japanese. In this class they would read books written by great Japanese writers. Sometimes they would be recently written, and sometimes they would be so old, that the vocabulary was slightly lost on him. He liked it because all he had to do in this class was read—something that was quite enjoyable to him. It made him slightly angry though whenever people would grumble about how long the reading assignments were. Only stupid people hated to read. At least, that's what Gaara believed.

Today they were reading a book called Chanshaoshi no hanashi, which was written by a Japanese woman named Anzai Atsuko. Gaara rather liked it. As the class sat in silence with there in-class reading assignment, Gaara looked out the window. He had already finished the book, and was horribly bored.

Now, horribly bored and Gaara just don't mix; because Gaara began to think about things that didn't need to be thought of. However, today Gaara could only think of a bright green individual with unusual speech patterns, and a can-do attitude. He briefly wondered why Lee had said he wanted to date him. Seriously, Gaara had just met this boy, and only observed Lee when he had been making a fool out of himself in P.E. with his bright-green jumpsuit gym clothes. Gaara had learned from Naruto that Lee had to get special permission just to wear that hideous green thing during P.E, as they had to wear uniforms. The reason why Lee would want to wear that while exercising, Gaara couldn't even imagine.

However, Gaara had to admit, Lee looked alright in normal clothes. Sure, all the green was a little off putting, but Gaara could handle that. But, Lee could never beat Neji in looks or… anything else. It was too bad he didn't like boys. For some reason, Gaara was really, really sad when that blonde-haired chatterbox told him that. Gaara didn't know why. I mean, it wasn't as if Neji would actually like Gaara even if he was partial to boys. Sure, Gaara could clean up, but he couldn't clean up nearly as good for him to be with Neji. Gaara sighed. What he really wanted was Neji, but since that wasn't possible, he supposed he could just kick it with this Lee kid. He was nice enough.

Gaara felt a warm feeling start to sit in his stomach as he moved to go to his very last class—English. He couldn't wait for this class to be over because that meant he could go and seek out Lee to talk to him. Or whatever it was couples do. By the time Gaara's class let out, Gaara was practically humming with excitement and curiosity.

"Hey lover boy! You actually gonna talk to us today?" Anko called from behind him, startling the fucking crap out of him. Suddenly, guilt washed over Gaara. Ever since Lee had asked him out, he had been completely ignoring Anko and her pink-haired comrade (read: slut).

"Uhm…" But on seeing Anko's face, the guilt lifted. She was just teasing him. Her bright smile quickly turned into a 'kissy face' as soon as she realized Gaara was looking at her.

"Your maturity levels go down with age, don't they?" Gaara said flatly, not amused with her antics.

"That has nothing to do with you wanting to have 'man-shecks' with that green kid!" Anko shot back, dancing around Gaara. She knew her job was to encourage this kind of behavior in Gaara, but man, this was way too juicy to pass up. Gaara raised a non-existent eyebrow at her.

"Can you wait by the van? I would like to have a word with the… 'green kid'." Gaara said in a very tense monotone.

"Awww! Why can't I watch?!"

"Because it's private!" Gaara shot back.

"Oh psh. Who needs privacy anymore? Privacy's for weenies! Let me come too!"

"No."

"Please?" Anko whined. Gaara just shook his head angrily and stomped away, in search of Lee.

Gaara realized after twenty minutes of walking, that it was almost impossible to find someone you knew in a crowed of 800 kids. Though it was a little easier for him because people liked to give him a pathway in fear of touching the strange kid. But still. It was hard to find someone in this goddamned crown. It was as if the fucking point of the crowd was to hide people you wanted to talk to! Growling, Gaara pushed past someone, trying to look for a very, very snaky green-clad bowl-cut kid. No such luck. Gaara was about to knock out some unlucky bystander, but before he could vent his mounting irritation, he spotted his target… er… friend… er… boyfriend?

"Uhm… hello?" Gaara timidly said, tapping on Lee's shoulder. The charming boy turned around and smiled weakly.

"Oh! Uhm… Hello Gaara-kun! I… uhm… would like to talk to you in private." Titling his head curiously to the side, Gaara accepted Lee's offered hand and began to walk into a more secluded area—a.k.a. the cliché empty classroom. Once they arrived, Lee began to fidget and Gaara became more and more curious.

"What is it?" Gaara asked in his usual monotone.

"Uhhh… well… you see… I…" Lee started haltingly. Gaara made an impatient sound and Lee just spit it out.

"Idon'twanttodateyouanymore!" Gaara jumped back as if Lee had spit poison.

"Huh?" Gaara couldn't be hearing Lee correctly!

"I… I don't want to date you anymore…" Gaara was at a loss. How could he have screwed up already! He didn't even say two words to Lee! Maybe that's why… maybe it was because Gaara didn't talk to him afterwards. But, it was the first day! Gaara was confused. What did he do wrong? It couldn't have been the talking thing, the rational part of him said. Then what did he do? Gaara steeled himself.

"W-why?" Damn the stuttering! He was trying to look indifferent here!

"It… it was a mistake." Lee said quietly to his feet.

"Oh." What could you say to that anyway? Gaara's gaze dropped from Lee's form to stare at a wall to his left.

When Lee looked up, he felt like kicking himself. He had honestly wanted to date this red-haired boy, but… Neji said he couldn't. The look of pure anguish on the boys face when he had first said it nearly made Lee change his mind; however a flash of Neji's face had made him repeat himself. Before Lee could say anything on the matter to his red headed companion, Gaara walked out of the classroom without another word.

The second the door shut, Gaara broke out in a sprint. Skidding around corners and dodging people, Gaara ran all the way out to the rumbling white van. Yanking the door open, Gaara jumped in without a second glance to the school.

"Awww! Gaara finished with his little alone time with his boyfriend? Did you guys kiss!? I bet you did." Anko teased from the drivers' seat, pulling out of the school parking lot and into the busy street. Pinning his nurse with a glare from hell through the rearview mirror, Gaara ground out:

"No. Because he dumped me before the fucking day even ended." Anko's grin melted off her face within an instant.

"What?!" She screeched, nearly ramming into someone on the road. "Where the fuck does this kid get of-."

"Why?" Sakura questioned, cutting off Anko's tangent.

"Why do you want to know?" Gaara spat at his pink haired, brainless substitute nurse.

"Because I care about all my patients. Now tell me… why?" Sakura replied calmly. A long silence ensued. Just before Sakura sighed and gave up, Gaara spoke up.

"…All he said was that it was a mistake." Gaara mumbled into his lap. He was truly miserable. Sure, he didn't really have any attachment to Lee… but it was the most he had ever had. It was the closest thing he had ever been to affection or love. Even if most people would consider it just a split second relationship with someone they hadn't even thought of like that before, Gaara felt that it was special. It was the first time he had ever been in a relationship. It was the first time someone had said that they had affections for him, well… more like implied… but still, it was more that Gaara had ever had. Gaara agonized about what he had done wrong. What had he done to push away the cheerful boy so quickly?

When they had pulled into the parking lot of Gaaras 'home' Anko didn't have the heart to tell him to wear his restraint. She just shuffled him into the building, giving a negative shaking of her head to anyone that tried to question her or Gaara. She led him to his room and left swiftly after a soft 'goodnight'.

Gaara knew it was only four at night, but he felt so heavy and tired. He ambled over to his stark white bed and stripped completely before falling into a tumble of sheets and pillows.

Sighing, Gaara grasped a pillow tightly and wiggled under thin sheets and began to shake. He wished someone would hold him. He wished he had a real home. He wished he wasn't so messed up inside. He wished he had a family. He wished he could walk around without two shadows. He wished he didn't have to take a sedative everyday just so he could pretend to be normal. He wished… he didn't know what he wanted anymore, but 11 years of pent up emotion flowed out of him as he lay shaking on his bed, clutching his pillow so tight, it was threatening to tear.

He didn't sleep that night.

Or the next.

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Arashi: Poor Gaara! Please read and review.