There was always at least one new rumour about Gaara once a month, when he became the topic of conversations of almost every group of students at Hinata's school. Rumour had it that Gaara, a boy with crimson hair, black rings around his eyes, and no eyebrows, was crazy. That his own family wasn't brave enough to send him to school suitable for people like him. They said that he had screamed to their faces yelling that he wasn't crazy. So, as the rumour said, his own family sent him to a boarding school in Konoha because they didn't want to deal with him. Said that his family cowered under his stare, that his father was crazy rich to pay whoever ran the school to let him be there, that he was an asylum-worthy crazy but his politician father didn't want his reputation ruined by a son like him.

Honestly, nobody knew how the rumours about Gaara had started. Hinata remembered that Gaara had already been the talk of the entire school since the day he transferred in their first year. On his first day, he almost sent a third year to a hospital when said third year bumped to him and he refused to apologize. When the principal asked him why he beat him bloody, the redhead only said that he bumped to him on purpose. Well, nobody liked that third year. That upperclassman was a self-appointed rank 1 fighter in the whole Konoha and he harassed girls, especially underclassmen, on the daily. How did someone like Hinata even come to know about this? Well, everybody talked about him for the rest of the day, at the classroom, cafeteria, even the hushed whispers in the library. Now that she thought about it, it was most likely the third year who first spread rumours about him because that was the only thing he could do to take revenge on Gaara, for he knew he couldn't win against Gaara in a fight.

So, he was a delinquent? So what? Nothing new.

Another crazier new rumour, fresh of this month, as Hinata had heard, Gaara was a mentalist, said that he could hypnotize people who dared enough to look directly at his sea green eyes. Rumour said that the dark rings around his eyes were what held that power. He never once denied nor confirmed those rumours. Hinata doubted that he would go such length to do either of those. So the rumours were always updated, there was always at least one new rumour about him once a month.

Even if the rumours were untrue, Gaara was downright terrifying and Hinata didn't want to cross paths with someone scary like him, ever.

But it happened sooner than later.

Hinata was out on Sunday afternoon for sightseeing. She was thankful for the freedom that the students got to go out even on weekdays, although they did have curfews, 9 pm on weekdays and 10 pm on weekends. Some used it to go home to their real homes on Friday and came back on Sunday to resume their school schedule. Unless her family specifically told her to go home on some day, Hinata never willingly did. She hated home. She would only go home during the summer and winter holidays because the dorms always went eerily lonely and quiet as everyone was gone.

Planning to take a break from her afternoon walk, she approached one of the benches overlooking the basketball court and free skateboard arena she frequented, located near the neighbouring public schools, simply to sightsee and watch people play when she caught sight of one Gaara already sitting on another bench across the court. It was both near enough for her to be able to observe him and far enough for her to do it without being caught. She kept her eyes on him as she approached her favorite spot. She couldn't look at his eyes but there was a moment that she somehow knew they just made an eye contact when he looked up.

Gaara was sitting comfortably, leaning on the backrest, twirling something in his hand and not at all watching the boys play. It looks like a small knife, she thought. No, it couldn't be. Something made of metal, for sure, for it caught light and reflected it.

Nothing happened for ten minutes (yes, she counted) until the basket ball bounced out and right to Gaara's direction. The redhead caught the ball and stared at it. When the boys saw that Gaara didn't give it back immediately, someone took a step to approach him but stopped in his track when Gaara took out his knife (oh, so that was really a knife) and stabbed the ball. Her eyes widened at the sight.

"Hey man. What the fuck?"

He finally threw the ball back and left. He really left just like that.

The strange thing was that the boys only threw curses at him but didn't seem to want to actually fight Gaara, even though the boys were all taller than him and some were much bigger. Gaara was lean, and he was not that tall, he was not short too, just of average. It was a strange sight and from that point Hinata knew he definitely was not a boy someone from her upbringing would want to associate with.

0o0

For the past few days, Hinata had tried to forget what she saw that day but thinking about it would only make her thoughts spiral to his past rumors. Maybe they were right, maybe he was as dangerous as they said.

She had been sitting in the crowded school cafeteria, as today's menu was her favorite. As always, she sat alone. She had always been alone ever since she came to this school, well she wasn't planning to, she had few nice acquaintances in her first year, until last year before her second year started, her family engaged her off to Uchiha Sasuke. Knowing the countless number of girls fawning over the school prince, including her acquaintances, Hinata deemed it dangerous to be friends with the girls while hiding the fact that she was engaged to their favorite prince.She had already pictured the worst scenario: her friends finding out and ending up hating her and leaving her alone. Being alone since the start was the safest idea she could think of.

It wasn't that bad, being alone. For so long, loneliness had been her only companion so she was used to it. And being alone meant that she could observe people and (sometimes) overhear people gossiping. The girls on the table beside her were talking about, of course, Gaara (no surprise). It was rare for groups of people not to talk about the school's lone wolf. Even if they were originally not talking about him, his name would still sometimes make it into their conversations. Her ears perked up. Yes, she was trying not to think about Gaara but at the same time, she wanted to hear anything about him. Gaara was such an enigma.

'Hearing about him is fine, what's not fine is interacting with him,' she decided.

"What happened was he mixed those dangerous chemicals during chemistry and ended up blowing up the school's laboratory," said the girl closest to Hinata's current position.

"What? Are you sure this isn't hoax?" asked the one across the first girl.

"Yeah, the incident made it into that year's local newspaper. My relative who lived in Suna still has that newspaper. But his father did some damage control and stopped the distribution and circulation of the newspaper immediately. Luckily, my relative who works on the local newspaper still has the original copy."

"Did he do that on purpose?" asked the third girl.

"Of course he totally did that on purpose. You know he's smart, right? We see his name always making it into Top 5 in this whole school every midterms and end of terms. There was no way he didn't know what kind of chemicals would make an explosion."

"And he was just an eighth grader when that happened? Is he a psycho? Psychos are usually smart, right?"

"Maybe he's practicing dark magic?"

Hinata had come to a realization, it seemed that eavesdropping people who were gossiping about other people had become her new hobby. Now it was as though she knew about Gaara more than she knew about her own family, even though nothing said about Gaara was ever confirmed to be true. Deciding she had heard enough, now that they were talking about Gaara being a dark wizard or something, she got up and left for her classroom.

Sometimes she wondered how it was like to be in the same class as Gaara. His class was actually 11-B, just the neighbor of her own class, 11-A. Now that Hinata thought about it, both she and Gaara were a lone wolf with totally different level of popularity. Everybody knew Gaara, the youngest son of Rasa, the governor of Suna the capital city of Kaze no Kuni province and everybody Hinata, the eldest daughter of Hiashi Hyuuga, the wealthiest man in Konoha, but nobody paid Hinata any mind nor attention and she was thankful that people treated her like she was invisible. She couldn't even imagine being in the center of new rumours every month.

0o0

There she was, sitting at the big table that united two big rich families. One certain Uchiha sat across from her. Sometimes family meetings like this reminded her of her inevitable, inescapable fate. Earlier on that day, Sasuke, your pretty boy next door, had come to her classroom, earning her glances from her classmates, and requested to talk to her, when he could have used a phone, so much for being discreet and subtle. He was jeopardizing the secret she'd held for almost one year by being a loner by choice. She really hated this guy.

And yes, they were engaged before the start of their second year, a decision that was made without her consent. Nobody in the school knew about it. If they knew, well, Hinata didn't want to talk about it. She loved being invisible, and if this news got spread, all attention would be on her and they'd hate her for something she didn't have control on. She couldn't be like Gaara who was unfazed and unbothered no matter how ridiculous his rumors got each month. And if they knew she wanted out of this engagement, they'd hate her even more for being an ungrateful girl. Why would someone throw Uchiha Sasuke away?

Soon her father and his parents would talk about the union, would talk about Hanabi, the new heiress, and her future position as a leader, while they were marrying Hinata off to someone rich (Sasuke) because she wasn't fit to be a leader and it was a great shame to the Hyuga for not raising her 'correctly', despite all the extra lessons she got at home for almost her whole life; languages, piano, sports, and martial art lessons, even basic business lessons tutored privately.

'Newsflash, not everyone wants to be a leader', she said angrily, in her mind, of course.

Sometimes she wished her family weren't so noble and old-fashioned. Hyuga was one of the original thirteen sacred families in Konoha along with Uchiha whose lines went so far back to centuries ago. It was not uncommon for the members from these families to marry each other.

If only they knew, people could still get rich, families would still get richer without uniting two big families together. She hated Sasuke. She hated both the Hyuuga and Uchiha. She hated that she was the only one who wanted out of this soon-to-be marriage. No, Sasuke didn't love her, he only looked at this future marriage as a convenience so he wouldn't have to search a wife on his own, and so that he could get the full inheritance from Uchiha Fugaku. Simply, he wanted power. And if he could get that by marrying Hinata after they graduated, he would do it.

She remembered Uchiha Itachi, Sasuke's older brother, whom she only saw twice during her childhood. As far as her memories served her, Itachi was so much kinder than his younger brother and even much more competent in everything he did. They told her that Itachi didn't want any inheritance and left his home to find job and success on his own. Nobody had seen him ever since.

'No no no no no,' she repeated it in her mind like a mantra.

Time was running out. Before she knew it, it'd be graduation day. She would only be seventeen going on eighteen after she graduated, very young and inexperienced, but was legal for marriage. It looked like their families were rushing it to prevent the meek Hinata from gaining courage to get out of this marriage as she got older. They had planned it sometime during or after college but they knew that if they waited for a little bit longer, Hinata would have gotten too much outside influence and become independent enough to try something funny, like leaving, cutting ties off, and surviving on her own.

So Hinata decided she must do something now. She thought of running away, like Itachi did, but she still had one year left at school and Hinata knew the importance of education. She knew nobody really cared for her well-being anyway, so if she went missing, they'd look for her to depths of the oceans only so that her family wouldn't be shamed even further, only so that their plan on marrying her off would succeed.

Just run away, she thought. See if they cared for her well-being, see if they were ever worried about her at least once. 'This would be a big mistake and would only worsen the whole situation but it's still better than doing nothing.' Hinata had finally decided something on her own.

…

—to be continued—

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A/N: thought of writing this after listening to Big Chance by SuperM :D

p.s. Your review is my oxygen :)