Chapter 13: Creating a Sense of Balance

"Dad!" Naruto hollered to the living room from his bedroom. "Turn that Mindless Self Indulgence shit off! I'm getting a headache."

"Ignore him, Kyuubi!" Sasuke chuckles. "He's just being a spoilsport. Turn it up instead!"

"I hear that!" the russet-orange haired man says with a smirk in his reply. Of all things, why did Sasuke and Kyuubi have to have the same taste in music? The current song, 'Shut Me Up', was killing off the blonde's brain cells bit by bit. After a while the noise subsided and Naruto sighed in relief. To his dismay, the pause was only a break in which another song by the same artist was being chosen. A song Naruto found much more aggravating came on: 'Stupid MF'. Then, somehow, a worse song to play while having a headache: 'Bitches'.

The boy moaned and stuffed his pillow over his head, wishing that Kyuubi and Sasuke never lived here, and that he owned this home alone. Or, at least, that Sasuke had never run away and that Kyuubi was off on a business trip; that sure as hell would work in the blonde's favor. At the moment he wished for anything to make his headache disappear faster.

The last thing he needed were the next few songs that played like fingernails on a chalkboard in his head. 'Kill The Rock', 'Faggot', and 'Straight To Video' being the nails to do the job.

I swear I'm going to murder them in their sleep for this, Naruto grumbles to himself. It feels like my skull is splitting in half! Why aren't those pain killers kicking in yet? I want this migraine gone NOW, dammit!

Trying to ease the aching, the blonde rubs his temples in small circles. What he wouldn't give for earplugs right about now… Not that Mindless Self Indulgence is a bad band or anything; it just wasn't what Naruto preferred. Especially not presently.

It didn't alleviate the situation that it was pouring cats and dogs outside. Iruka had been right; 'a great amount of rain' came and hasn't stopped since 3:00. Thunder boomed outside and shook the walls of Naruto's bedroom. The thunder also seemed to reverberate inside his skull, sending dull waves of pain throughout. "What the hell brought on this headache, anyway?" The blonde moaned. "I drank plenty of water, so it's not dehydration… I ate plenty of food today, so it's not hunger… the music really isn't that loud… Uhg, so what is it?"

In truth, though he didn't know it, the headache is due to stress. Stress migraines are usually caused when your heart is entirely fretting over one specific thing. The one 'thing' should be relatively obvious, but Naruto couldn't put his finger on it. The pain made his mind process things at a slower rate. At one point the blonde simply fell asleep, the pain killers and exhaustion kicking in. Unfortunately, he forgot about the small amount of homework he had left to do. It hardly mattered now.

Hazily, a dream crept into the recesses of Naruto's mind. It started off much too bright and blurry to tell what it was, but eventually recognizable images were produced. It was that yellow canary again, only it was wandering (more like flying, come to think of it) around aimlessly in the earthquake-barren land for the cardinal-like bird. 'Where have you gone, Resshin?' the bird asked, water forming in it's beady blue eyes. 'You haven't been reborn without me, have you?' It did not cry, because birds cannot cry, yet it was filled with sorrow. In his sleep, Naruto frowned with worry like the golden yellow bird. Shippuuden continued to wander, searching endlessly for the other bird he cared so much about. For the other bird he loved. 'Resshin, please return to me…' it murmured, a mournful whistle escaping it's beak at the end. Suddenly a drop landed on the tip of it's wing, and it looked up to see it's hurricane breaking up and turning into storm clouds. Steady rain, chilling but calming, began to drizzle down upon the canary-like bird. It sighed to itself and walked over to a gap in the rock made by some previous earthquake. It took shelter there and waited. Waited. Waited. The bird waited for the rain to cease, waited for a sign of red or flicker of a wing, waited to perhaps see Resshin's human form. Anything… it waited for anything that gave it hope.

The dream remained like that until the end, where someone came up behind the canary in the rain and covered it's eyes. 'Guess who?' a voice asked, an unfittingly playful tone highlighting it. 'Resshin!' the golden bird gasped in reply. 'Correct,' replied the other. He scooped the bird up in his pale hands to make it face him. 'I apologize for dying again without you. I ought to stop doing that,' his rich, lovely voice says sheepishly. The canary cannot see the human Resshin's face through the rain, but he is able to catch faded red hair in the dim lighting. 'It's quite all right,' Shippuuden chirps. 'I'm glad you found me again. Perhaps now I can join you…'

Naruto stirred awake and rubbed his groggy eyes, trying to open them. The sky was dark through his window, although his alarm clock displayed 6:30. Technically he had overslept, but the blonde hardly cared. It was Thursday… which meant he'll be meeting his e-pal in one more day!

This thought excited him. Naruto jumps out of bed and heads for the bathroom, intending to take a quick shower. Soon he is donning his school uniform and racing out the door to catch his bus, a Pop Tart dangling from his mouth (the other wrapped in it's foil bag in his pocket).

On the bus ride, his mind drifted back to the dream he had had the in the night. With all these weird dreams I'm starting to feel like a narcoleptic. Because don't they, like, fall into deep sleep or sometimes have hallucinations? That's what those dreams feel like; they're so realistic-looking, but so unusual… He thought while the headphones connected to his iPod made his eardrums vibrate.

When first and second period blew by like the last dregs of rain from last night's storm, Naruto was almost surprised to find himself sitting at his computer in third period Technology. Where has the morning gone? Was he really so lost in thought that he hadn't noticed what his teachers had been saying and what his classes had been doing for the passed few hours?

With a shake of the head the blonde logged onto his computer. Iruka started to say something, although Naruto was hardly paying attention. "We lost some information during the sudden power outage, so a few files may be missing. Don't fuss over it, though; everything is backed up all the time, so we should have all those files back by the end of the day or by tomorrow."

Relieved sighs filled the room, but Naruto was too intent on sending an e-mail to Resshin. His earthquake never really sends letters first, and hopefully he hadn't gotten the accident from yesterday. If he had he would have said something, right? But then again… what do you say to a thing like that? It would (more likely than not) cause for pause; it was an uncomfortable topic of sorts to receive an e-mail of.

…If it was sent at all, that is. Naruto still had no idea if his meant-to-be-a-draft letter was sent to Resshin. Sadly, it had been; we all know that. But the blonde does not.

Originally, Naruto didn't know what to say. He started typing randomly to free his fingers, trying to get out his 'writer's block'. Resshin asdfjkl; 123ABC hey guess what nowaitnevermindI'mjustkidding; haha heehee hohoho. oh noes! no way! qwertyuiop zxcvbnm, gahhh… xXxXx yours yours yours – Shippuuden

He held down the backspace key and watched the entire script wipe from the message screen. Naruto cracks his knuckles, an irritated hum buzzing in the back of his throat. "Okay… okay… I think I know what to write now…" he whispers to himself, but Iruka had been walking by as he did so.

"Everything all right, Uzumaki?" the tan man asks, tugging on a lock of blonde hair.

"Yip!" he yelps at the sudden tug. He turns to look up at his teacher, his eyes falling on the long horizontal scar across his nose. "H-hi Mr. Umino… what's up?"

"I asked if everything was all right. No troubles on your last couple days of the Faceless-and-Nameless project, correct?"

"Er… no! No, everything is just fine! I was just about to write something to Resshin, in fact." He informs the man, a grin stretching out his face with vigor.

"Resshin, eh? I see you both chose natural disasters as pennames. How charming!" Iruka chortles. "Well, keep writing, then; don't let me interf–"

"How did you know that we both picked natural disasters as pennames? I don't remember telling you mine…" the blonde frowns.

"I talked to him about it, of 'course," he teacher grins. He said it as if Naruto should have already guessed, because it was apparent.

His blue eyes light up noticeably. "Really? You did? When?!"

"Oh, recently… I think it was last week? No, maybe not so recently… it could have been during your second week of this program…"

"Arhg, Mr. Umino! I need to know!" Naruto grunts exasperatedly.

"Why does it matter?"

"I… um… want to see if he had said anything else, you know, about me…" he says, turning back to his computer screen so that the teacher couldn't see the tiny blush that began to envelope his cheeks.

The brunette scratches his head and tightens his ponytail. "Well… it was nothing much, really. He asked about failing if one of you figured the other out –"

Naruto interrupts him and looks over his shoulder. "Yeah, he mentioned that in an e-mail… you said we wouldn't fail."

Iruka smiles vaguely. "That's right. I also asked him to keep writing even if he found you out. Could you do that for me, too, Naruto? If you find out who Resshin is, will you promise to keep writing to him? No matter what face and name he wears?"

"Why wouldn't I? I… I really like Resshin. I don't care who he is." The blonde says immediately.

"That's all I need to hear. Thank you. But other than that, he really didn't say much. He's normally a quiet student."

"So I've noticed," Naruto murmurs, a twinge of a smile on his lips.

"I'll leave you to your work now, Naruto. Keep making connections!" the teacher says cheerfully.

Naruto gives the man a thumbs up. "You know I will!"

He now had the perfect inspiration for his e-mail.

o0o0o0o0o

Gaara did not at all like last night. The storm had kept him awake, although he was pretty alert to begin with thanks to the medication messing with his head. Well, messing with his sleeping patterns at least. It was helping his head otherwise.

For the other portion of the night he thinks he must have been asleep, because he recalls having another bird-related dream. It had been a dream out of guilt for abandoning his e-pal. It's only been about a day since that e-mail had been received, which is not really any time at all to not reply to something, especially if that something wasn't meant to be transmitted in the first place. Still, the redhead thinks his dream was out of guilt for even trying to abandon Naruto. The guy hasn't done a single thing wrong, technically; and he was oblivious to so much… Gaara certainly can't blame him, can he?

The dream had proceeded as such: Resshin had been running, running… he was human again, and he didn't like it. Why couldn't he have stayed a bird after dying once more? Unlike the phoenix which is reborn from it's very own ashes and becomes the same fiery, magical bird all over again, Resshin was the sort that was reborn in a flurry of it's own feathers, and was born a human after dying as a bird, and when he died as a human he solidified into stone and was hatched a bird. Shippuuden was nearly the same, although his human body dissolved into water vapor and became reborn a bird in the clouds. That aside, the dream had started off with nearly nothing but running, although Resshin did not pant and his heart rate did not quicken while he scored across the land, heading away from everything. He was sick. He was terribly sick. Sick of being reborn again and again, of experiencing death again and again, of losing his dear Shippuuden again and again. He was so sick of it all… so he ran. He ran and ran and ran, escaping the rain (which Gaara guessed came from the storm actually raging outside of his sleep) and his thoughts, his death, and his life.

Resshin's sprint began to slow, however, when he realized that in running away, he was abandoning the one thing he loved. Shippuuden. (Gaara was confused by this part of the dream, because he was nearly positive that he did not love Naruto, who in this case was being represented by the canary, Shippuuden.) So he turned around back to his earthquake-barren land he called home. He ran all the way back, the rain pouring into his eyes and blinding him.A sort of cave could be seen, and within it a petite yellow object perched upright, staring off into space for something it could not find. Shippuuden is waiting for me, Resshin thought. He came to the bird and snuck around it, lacing his hands in front of it's face. 'Guess who?' he asks, the smallest of smiles on his lips. 'Resshin!' the bird chirps. Resshin turns it around and cuddles the warm, golden bird to his chest. 'Correct,' he smiles. 'I apologize for dying again without you. I ought to stop doing that,' he tells Shippuuden, adding in his mind: and I apologize for running away. 'It's quite all right,' the canary informs him with a happy chirp. 'I'm glad you found me again. Perhaps now I can join you in rebirth?' Resshin holds the bird up to his eyes, confused. He peers deep into their overly blue depths and inquires, 'What on Earth are you asking?' There is a pause and all that can be heard is the whoosh of rain. Then: 'Kill me.'

There was a crack of thunder which shattered Gaara's dream at that point, but distantly Gaara thought it had been part of the dream… a part that meant the noise had come from the crack of the canary's neck as Resshin killed it. It hadn't been, though; thankfully.

And this brings the redhead back to reality in present time, lunch hour. His food sat ahead of him, staring up at the redhead, begging to be eaten. He suddenly lost his appetite. With a sigh, Gaara shoves his tray in front of him, getting the attention of the upper half of the lunch table. In Konoha High, no one had many manners, so Gaara knew his food wouldn't go to waste. Someone would eat it.

The Sabaku boy stands and lifts his over-the-shoulder bang off the floor to go sit on the carpeted steps outside the cafeteria. He would much rather be outside, but it was wet and muddy, not to mention horribly bleak. No one would want to be out in that sort of whether.

He sets his bag down on one stair and sits below it, his elbow making contact with the ledge of a window. Gaara places his chin in his hand and stares out at the gray sky, finding it tremendously ironic that a sparrow should be cleaning it's feathers right in front of him. More bird references, he thinks dully. Does the universe like to remind me of my actions? I know I abandoned Naruto, but I cannot go back. Not when I could get hurt. I've been down that road before, and I am not planning on going down it again. I'm glad I live alone now. And I will do my bets to be glad that I don't have any friends or relationships, at least not any longer. I refuse to get more involved. So fly away, you silly sparrow, because I do not want to see you. I don't want to be reprimanded by your presence or my dream.

It wouldn't leave him be, however. He pleaded with his brain, urging it to stop thinking about Naruto and the birds. It also refused to let him forget other things, like their first phone call…

'Then I guess we balance out,' the blonde had joked. 'You're a listener, and I'm a talker. Perfect match.'

He would like to think so. Gaara honestly would like to be a match with someone – anyone – but he denied it. A sense of balance is another thing he wished for at the moment. For right now, as the lunch bell rang in his ears and echoed off his skull, Gaara wanted nothing more than to cancel out all his thoughts and feelings and memories an return to the sense of balance he had before this Faceless-and-Nameless project.

His mind, as he walked down the hallways, also would not allow him to forget their second phone call…

'But my cousin figured out that his friend has a sort of… er… crush on him.'

Which meant that Naruto already had someone who liked him, which Gaara knew could come to a bad close. And it could be awful for either of the three of them: Gaara, Naruto, or this 'friend'. A sick feeling deep in the pit of his stomach told Gaara that he would be the one to get the short end of that stick.

Another thing from that second call came to his mind, however:

'Want to meet up after this whole month is over? That way we can be real friends.'

At the time, he remembers his e-pal sounding so hesitant and insecure, to the point of adding lots of '…'s and 'uh's and 'um's in the middle. As he had recalled the line, however, it didn't sound as unsure. It fact, sounded definite, promising, and kind. Sincere.

When he reached his locker, Gaara checked his message device, not at all surprised to see an e-mail from Shippuuden waiting for him. He winced inwardly, not certain if he should read it or not. It would be unwise to leave it there… although possibly unwise to read it … hmm; decisions, decisions, decisions.

In the end, Gaara read the e-mail. As much as he tried not to, he couldn't resist; he had been lying to himself earlier when he said he didn't hold any feelings for Naruto. He even thought when he received that not-meant-to-be-read letter that he might feel the same… truth was, he did feel the same. The redhead couldn't wrap his mind around how or why, but there was some kind of connection he felt towards his hurricane. It was subtle, but for the passed two and a half weeks, Gaara had been silently eager to get those letters in his inbox. It was something different from the usual, and needless to say it was something he liked. He barely wanted t admit any of it to himself, because Gaara had sworn long ago to never fall in love; it would cost too much. Yet here he was, feeling guilty for trying to escape, tingling with anticipation on what the blonde had to say in this next e-mail, all to the point where his once barricaded heart was beating faster.

Once opened, the letter read:

From: Addicted2Ramen(at)yahoo(dot)com
To: CatastrophicHeart(at)yahoo(dot)com
Subject: uh, hey…

Resshin,

Hey, uh, how are you? You didn't by chance… you know… get some weird e-mail from me, did you? Something… er… out of the ordinary? I'm just curious.

Weirdest thing… I had a dream last night that was really similar to a dream I had just a couple weeks ago. It involves some birds, too, which is even weirder. Remember when I asked you what birds to draw? Well, that's when I had had that first dream and doodled one of the birds in art class, which made Miss Kurenai ask me to do more for EC. Bleh, I'm rambling now. Sorry. I'm nervous. If you accidentally got some freaky letter, you probably know why I'm so nervous…

I better stop talking now.

See you Friday at 8:00!

– Shippuuden

P.S. Mindless Self Indulgence is not good music to have someone be playing when you have a killer migraine. TRUST ME.

Gaara blinked a few times down at his lap, which kept his device hidden from the teacher. So he had been right: Naruto didn't know that he had sent that embarrassing letter. He also didn't know that Gaara was trying to avoid contact with him. The redhead sighed to himself, closing his device shut and slipping it into his bag. He tried to focus on what the teacher was lecturing about, yet his mind refused to obey. His blue-green eyes darted from one object to another throughout the room, eventually landing on the pen on his desk. The redhead picked it up and began scribbling out random lines that came to his head on a scrap piece of paper. He noticed that they were lyrics from Placebo's 'Drowning By Numbers'.

Open up your heart, let me slip inside.
Such imagination always helps the feeling slide.
Open up your soul, falling back into
The big, big blue.

That has always been his favorite verse from the song. Those lines used to be, for the longest time, Gaara's signature on DeviantART (which an account he uses to submit his poetry and lyrics). The second he wrote those lines down, however, he did not think of DeviantART or Placebo or anything else besides Shippuuden. As pathetic as it sounds, when he had remembered those lyrics he thought of Naruto's 'big, big blue' eyes. And when he looked again, he thought of said blonde (as his less-goofy internet self) saying to him the first line. 'Open up your heart, let me slip inside…' It sounded like something his hurricane would say, although a bit less poetically. Also, the part 'falling back into' reminded him of his first dream about the birds in which Resshin – or himself? – had fallen from the skies due to the stone that had stuck a blow to his breast.

Gaara shook his head slowly, trying to rid his mind of his thoughts as if his brain were an Etch 'n' Sketch. The fib in thinking he could erase his thoughts as such became quite clear when the last sentence (before his signed name and postscript) of Shippuuden's e-mail came to mind: 'See you Friday at 8:00!'

You won't be seeing me Friday. I'm so sorry, Shippuuden… I mean: Naruto. I simply can't handle the possible rejection. It would kill me. But then again, not responding to this e-mail seems to also be 'killing' me. Though, I fear, I'm killing you worse instead. Like the end of my dream… Gaara contemplated. Regretfully, the redhead knew he was no longer the hardened stone he used to be a month ago, all thanks to Iruka and his imprudent program, and more specifically his injudicious choice in partners. Why? Why had things turned out this way? Gaara was much more comfortable with his life – and his own emotions – prior to this whole fiasco. Why had all of this happened? Why couldn't things be simpler like they used to be? Why?

When Chemistry came around, the earthquake was more than glad that Naruto didn't know his identity like he knew his. It made things at least a tad simpler like they used to be and always have been. The thinning truce also helped. The blonde hardly looked at Gaara, but Gaara didn't mind because he tried his best also not to look. He failed miserably at this, however; honestly, he could never look at the blonde the same way again, and seemed to look at him more often than not as of late. And why was this? Because Naruto had been there to talk to Gaara for a whole month, agreeing and disagreeing and being open and sincere, all of which are things the redhead was not used to but slowly welcomed. Also because of the playful phone calls and interest/flattery for his poetry, this was in fact a sensitive spot in Gaara. What's more, he couldn't see him the same way as before due to the fact that Naruto had (accidentally, but nonetheless) confessed to holding feelings for him; as well as plagued the redhead's bird-like dreams. Apparently he has even had similar dreams, since birds were mentioned in his last e-mail.

All of this information swirled around Gaara's mind as his eyes wandered the room, frequently coming to rest on Naruto's profile and mop of spiky blonde hair beside him. He began to grow anxious; can he really keep ignoring the blonde? One e-mail and already he was beginning to break down his vow to abandon the thing that could hurt him. No, no! That's not possible! He will stand strong in his vow. He was Gaara Sabaku, a loner since birth, a boy who has always stood strong, even through his tears, bruises, and nearly (thought never quite fully) broken bones. He has made it through his past, and was determined to make it until his senior graduation and into his future. Alone.

So why was his heart clenching in his chest?

o0o0o0o0o

Hmm, that's strange. It's after 10:00 at night and Resshin still hasn't replied yet. Normally he does long before now.

Naruto shrugs to himself and tries not to worry about it. He felt sick to his stomach anyhow, despite his attempts at not worrying. Maybe he just had a busy day and couldn't check his e-mail, said a reassuring voice in his head. The 'angel on his shoulder', if you will. But another voice, a much more pessimistic, 'devil on his shoulder' sort of voice told him: Or maybe he got scared off by your accidental letter and refuses to speak to you any more.

That last thought troubled him greatly. What if it was accurate in it's guess? Sure, Resshin was someone Naruto didn't know very well yet, but he felt oddly connected to the other boy and without a doubt wanted to get to know him better.

The blonde frowned to himself and decided it was best not to think. He slipped on his earphones (so not to disturb his friend or adoptive father with his stereo) and played Three Days Grace at a reasonable volume. He focused on the lyrics and mouthed along with them, singing the lines proudly in his mind. He needed to create a sense of balance within himself, and what better way than to clear out your mind and fill it with mindless rock music?

It's essentially easier done than said, instead of vice versa. How convenient music can be at times.