Hate Me

A Naruto fan fiction

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

Scar 2: Insomnia

"HE CAN'T LIVE WITH SAKURA-CHAN! HE'D KILL HER!" Naruto yelled, standing and pointing an accusing finger at him.

"Naruto, settle down! I have his word that he will not kill Haruno-san."

"AND YOU THINK YOU CAN TRUST HIM?"

"Shut-up and sit down Naruto."

Everyone looked at Sakura, who had suddenly become quiet and very serious.

"But, Sakura-chan-"

"Sit down, Naruto."

Naruto cocked his head in disgust. "No. I won't. And I won't let him stay with you. Want to know why? Because he's a murderer, and I won't let him even try and kill you."

"What do you care?" Gaara asked.

Naruto looked up, and walked up to Gaara until their noses almost touched. The two were equal in height. Despite Naruto's effort to intimidate him, Gaara never moved nor flinched.

"Want to know why, you crazed murderer; because Sakura-chan is special to me. She's like my sister! And if you even so much as lay a hand on her I swear I'll-"

"Naruto, stop!" Tsunade ordered, her voice stern.

"Oh, shut-up, you old hag!" he shouted, "It's not like you even care about Sakura! You just want someone to help a killer!"

Sakura stood, and walked over to Naruto.

"We're all killers, Naruto. Just because he's killed more and in a different way doesn't make him any worse than us."

The entire time, Gaara had watched the three leaf ninjas, his mind trying to figure out what was going on. What did Naruto care about her? What does she care about him? The whole thing was stupid.

"Right," Naruto hissed, "but we kill to protect. He kills for pleasure."

"Then let this be my test. I'm strong, Naruto, you know that. So stop worrying, and go home. I'll see you for training tomorrow." Sakura's words were hard with stubbornness and finalization.

After her speech, Naruto realized that she wasn't backing out, and he resigned silently, scowling. He grabbed his coat, and then turned, and glared at Gaara.

"If you kill her, I'll find you, I'll slowly torture you, and then hang you on a cross so the vultures can slowly eat you alive."

Then he slammed the door and stomped off.

Sakura rolled her eyes.

"I can't tell who's the horrible killer anymore." She joked, "Even Ino and Rock Lee give disgusting death threats."

Tsunade nodded. "Yes. Ninjas tend to be quiet graphic, especially the boys."

Gaara just stood there in a never-ending silence.

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The silence was deafening.

Sakura walked through the crowd, Gaara close behind. She couldn't believe her mission, but after all of Naruto's protests, she was filled with determination. No one said she couldn't do something, no one. Although this was only one reason, it was the only privet one, and one of her temporary burning forces. Later she would consent to something nobler.

Finally, since she was sick of taking the long way without anyone to talk to, she stopped and turned. Her green eyes met his green eyes, and she stifled a shiver.

"How fast can you run?"

"How fast can you run?"

With a slight smirk, Sakura took off, hopping off of the cloth roof of a fruit stand. The two were only visible for split seconds, where they hopped from the branch of one tree to another. Turns out, Gaara was just as fast, and ran along side her.

The two took glances at each other, and over and over, Sakura had to stop herself from shivering.

Finally, Sakura leaped down from an extremely high tree, and landed in front of the red door to an apartment complex.

Gaara appeared behind her.

Sakura turned to the intercom, and then remembered her joke with Rock Lee. She giggled, and punched in his room number, 556.

Although Sakura was never one to be around the raving lovesick lunatic, she had trained with him quiet often as of late; as well as Neji. The three had had quiet the days with Lee, which was for sure…

Smiling, Sakura pushed the button, and said, "My darling, my dear, dear darling, will you open the sparkling gates so I can enter my castle?"

There was static, and then Rock Lee answered, "Oh, my goodness! Is this the fair Princess?"

"Why, my darling, it is! So open the gate!"

Then she burst out laughing, while Gaara just lifted an eyebrow.

"Of course, but first, my dear Princess, you must agree to go to on a beautiful, romantic moonlit walk with me, and I will treat you to the fanciest of all restaurants!"

Sakura rolled her eyes.

"Lee, please just open the door for me."

"Oh, fine, fair princess. I shall wait for when thee is ready for my romance."

Then the door buzzed, and it unlocked with a short click.

"Thank you ever so much, my dear."

She laughed, and walked, followed by a confused Gaara.

"What the hell was all that?"

Sakura stopped cold, and then smacked herself in the head. She had forgotten Gaara was there, and in less than a second too! 'Well, that's a really stupid record.'

"Oh, it's, uh, a joke with Rock Lee. It's nothing!" She shook her head, and then turned away from him and started bounding up the stairs. "Come on! My room is up here!"

Gaara had silently followed, his eyes narrowing. She was very strange; no one had ever been so casual around him, not even his uncle. He just wasn't used to people being so carefree.

With his bag tossed casually over his shoulder, he walked up the stairs behind her, each one taking casual steps, and with her always looking ahead. The halls of the stairways were most intriguing. They were covered in graffiti, but instead of looking trashy, it seemed to give color and an artsy look to the blank, metal stairway. Some of it was spray painted on with bright color; some of it was crayon or marker. In huge red letters on the second floor was STOP, in thick crayon. All of the words were all different phrases; one, in blue spray paint, was the Japanese kanji for 'killer'; another was in pink paint and said, 'REAL MEN WEAR PINK', which he smirked at, wondering just how many gay men were in this apartment building. (A/N: personally, I don't mind it when guys wear pink. But Gaara's very masculine)

Finally, Sakura opened a large green door with the silver mailbox number six hanging off of it. She pushed it open with a heave, and waved him in after her. Gaara just followed, his face stony as always.

The door shut behind them with a slam, and the two began to walk down the hallway, which was narrow and covered with graffiti like the stairway, with a long line of green doors on the right. They passed by apartments 688, 689, and so on, until Sakura stopped at 692, and shoved her key in the lock, turning it until it opened with a click. She then turned the key and jerked it out with a ruunnnk sound, and shoved it in her pocket again. As she opened the door, she looked back at him and smiled lightly, just as a way to lighten the suffocating silence.

Of course, Gaara was used to that kind of silence.

Without saying thank you to Sakura for opening the door for him, he walked inside, and looked around the apartment.

It had bright colored walls, white ceilings, hard wood floors, a little living room in front and kitchen the right, and one door on the left, and two on either side of the TV and stereo in front of the couch.

"You're room's this way." She said, and walked to the door to the left in front of the door. She pushed it open, and said, "It's my training room, so it's really messy right now, but I can clean it up before you go to bed." By now the door was open all the way, and Gaara lifted one curiously perfect eyebrow at the mess.

There were blood stains on the wall, a rack of shuriken, a rack of swords, a stack of weights in the corner, another rack with kunai in it, some of them not even clean, a set of knobs on one wall that had a towel and a weapon polishing kit hanging on it, a set of mats, a training schedule taped to a wall, and a final cabinet with one door open, revealing it to be full of scrolls, probably with all kinds of jutsus in them.

"I hope the blood doesn't bother you too much." Sakura said sheepishly, as she kneeled down and started to roll up the mats. Gaara just stood behind her, looking around the room, and watching her pick up everything.

After a few minutes, the floor was clear, and Sakura walked up to the one wall that was wood panels, and grabbed a string that was hanging from it. As she began to pull it down farther and farther, he began to realize that it was a full size bed. It made a large zip sound when it finally hit the floor, and then a click.

"Make sure not to jump on it or anything; it might pop back up." She instructed, and then walked to the closet and opened the sliding door. Then she removed a stack of sheets, a blue blanket and two pillows. Under Gaara's watchful eye, she made the bed neatly, and then turned to face him for the first time in an almost six minutes.

"Well, that's it. If you need anything, let me know. You can keep your things in the closet, and if the bed pops back up, just pull the string." She smiled lightly, and then brushed past him out of the door. He looked behind him at her, watching her walk over and into what he assumed was her bedroom, her feet silent on the wood floors.

XXXXXXXXX

The apartment was so silent and dark, and the only comfort seemed to be the stars shining from the sky behind the glass window. Everything near the window cast a shadow from the moon, and tiny dust particles floated in the air. He would swipe his hand through the dust, making it fly everywhere. At first, doing this seemed interesting enough, but not long enough to last all night. Sighing, he laid back on the bed, staring at the dark, black nothingness that should've been a ceiling. For now, it was just a pit, ready to suck him up into its nothingness, and then spit him out in another universe. He blew air out of his mouth, and turned to look at the wall, where he could faintly see through the darkness one rack of kunai and one rack of swords. He didn't have a lot of weapons, or much of anything for that matter. It was all about what he could carry on his back, and the sand was normally enough anyway.

At the thought of his sand, he looked over at his gourd, sitting in the corner. These days, he thought of his sand as a part of him, the only real thing anyone had ever given him. The chunin exams still haunted him; torturing him and making him wonder what was going on. Why did Sakura care so much? Why didn't someone care like that about him?

He sat up, and rubbed his face. 'I've got to stop thinking about stuff like that.' He told himself, and pulled his knees up to his chest. Crossing his arms over his legs, he put his face in his arms, and tried to think of something besides Sakura standing before him, bloody and beaten and tired, defending Sasuke's helpless body and Naruto. He hated that picture, that mental image burned in his mind. She seemed so different from him, so innocent and loved, yet so strong and determined; the best of both worlds. In raged at his inability to drive the image out of his head, he growled and stood. What was wrong with him?

As if like a child, a chill ran down his spine as he looked up at the ceiling, imagining himself being sucked up in it. Everything would be gone in an instant, and nothing would matter; not Shukaku, not his past, not his eyes, not even the chunin exams. Nothing. For a moment, it seemed welcoming. Nothing was better than the things he got; but nothing meant nothing to help you feel alive, to keep you in contact with reality and life. You would just float and forget, and probably die because you forgot to breathe in the complete and utter nothingness. With a tired sigh, he sat on the bed, and buried his face in his rough hands, and rubbed his face. He wasn't tired, but he was frustrated and annoyed. Of all the things that could happen, he had to be here, in Konoha, rooming with a girl he tried to kill. It had been bugging him all night that she seemed so confident about taking him in and teaching him the ways of a leaf ninja; wasn't she afraid, or at least angry? He had tried to viciously murder her precious comrades, and even her, but she had taken him in without fight or objection. Was it because Naruto thought she couldn't do it? He doubted it. That hardly seemed the reason-if it was, she would've approached him and laid it out on the table. She seemed too straightforward to be beating around the bush or hiding something.

He continued to hold his face in his hands and think, his mind wandering on all kinds of topics and things; there truly was no end to what one could contemplate.

"Gaara, are you awake?"

He looked up to see Sakura standing in the door way in her pajamas, her fingers laid casually across the wood of the doorway, and the side of her leaning against the doorframe. Her green pajama pants covered most of her feet and fell low on her hips, while her tank top was less than an inch above her pants and was loose enough to be comfortable and yet tight enough to hug her curves. Pink hair fell around her face, and her eyes looked drowsy and tired.

"Are you?" he asked.

Gaara was caught off guard by her visit; didn't she sleep? Wasn't she tired? He sat up right and looked at her, giving her his usual glare that he didn't even know he gave people any more; it was automatic.

"Couldn't sleep; I think I've got a bad case of the chills."

"What are the chills?"

She looked at him with a puzzled look, and then explained, "Gaara, the chills are like a cold, where your body temperature goes from really cold to really hot. People get it in the winter and fall all the time."

"We don't have winter and fall in the Village of the Sand; just dry and wet seasons." He replied. The last thing he was going to let Sakura think was that he was stupid.

"Okay," she said, and just shrugged. "Well, if you can't sleep either, you're welcome to come in the kitchen with me for some green tea." Then she walked off, letting the door close behind her.

Gaara was immediately enveloped in the darkness again, and he glared around at everything, contemplating whether to follow her or get sucked up by the ceiling. After a moment, he stood, and followed her out, his footsteps quiet and his face normal again.

He found her in the kitchen, waiting for two mugs of water to finish heating up in the microwave. Her back was to him, and she was reaching up in the cabinet for a jar of sugar.

"I knew you'd come." She said, and turned to face him after placing the sugar on the counter. Giving him a soft, tired smile, she asked, "So, why couldn't you sleep, hm, Mr. interrogator?"

Gaara didn't say anything. He just stared off through the bar to the living room, and wondered if he should answer her or not.

Finally, after a long silence, he said, "You should know that answer."

"Well, I don't." she replied, "And I hope it isn't that my training room isn't comfortable enough, because you're only other options are to find someone else or sleep on the couch."

The microwave beeped, and she opened its door with a pop and pulled out the mugs. He watched her place a tea bag and some sugar in each mug with her dainty fingers, and then brush some hair behind her ear. She was so delicate, so tiny and sweet compared to all the other ninjas. How could she even be a ninja, a killer? She was too innocent, too simple! His mind raced with questions, diving into pits of complete and utter curiosity and wonder at how such a dainty creature could kill people for a living.

So, he asked.

"What rank are you?"

She passed him the mug and said, "I'm a jounin. And watch the mug; it's really hot."

He nodded, and started to stir the tea with the spoon she had given him.

"What rank are you?" she asked. Her lips rounded as she blew the steam from the top of the mug. She rapped her hands around the warm mug, trying to get warm in the winter's chill that a heater could hardly save you from.

"Jounin, a few months after the chunin exams." He replied, and looked away from her and at the small living room again. Her? A jounin? Things were getting strange; this small creature, a jounin? How? Why?

"Naruto and Sasuke entered the month after the exams, but I waited. I was barely ready for the chunin exams, so I knew I needed to study and train before the jounin ones. Of course, both of those knuckle heads made it a month after the exams, and they're in ANBU now, and competing for a slot as a captain."

Sighing, she stirred her tea with a long silver spoon, making quaint clinking sounds, sometimes joined by Gaara's.

He had felt himself flinch at their names, and flashes of their battle in the forest would appear in his mind almost randomly.

The two sat in silence for the longest time, sipping tea and letting time float by. Gaara leaned against the counter, on hand on the edge of it with his elbow up, one leg bent and the other slanted, and his mug held in one hand. The whole position seemed to scream to Sakura how much he had grown up. He was so much taller now, with his body showing it's days of hard training and his eyes and face harder than before. His hands were more masculine than round like they were when he was twelve. It had been four years, and now he was sixteen, and he seemed even more threatening and mysterious than he did before. Like Sasuke, he carried a kind of mysteriousness that was enticing yet very strange at the same time, only his came with the spice of insanity, like something wasn't right, or he was just scary.

"Why are you letting me live here?"

Gaara's question piercing the silence like a silent arrow, and unnerved Sakura for a moment.

She looked at him, her bright green eyes meeting his cold green ones.

"Because it's my duty."

"That's shit. Tell me the truth."

"It's not shit. Unlike you, I do have a sense to duty and pride towards my village, and I do what my Hokage says."

Gaara's eyes widened a moment at the comment. Nobody ever talked to him that way; they were too scared!

"How dare you!" he exclaimed, "Why should I have a sense of pride to a village that hates me? Why should I have a sense of duty towards my bastard father? Do you even know why that idiot didn't want me living with you?"

"Yes." She replied with a kind of finality to her voice, which seemed to shake the world. "Naruto told me, and I heard some of it. That doesn't mean you call my reason shit. I love my village, and I obey my Hokage until death. I took an oath that I would, and I will." Despite her tiredness, she now seemed fully awake and annoyed.

"There has to be more than that."

"Why do you want more?" she asked, "Are you that desperate for a negative reason?" Her eyes bore into his dark green ones, her face a look of concern and confusion; something he didn't ever see. Then, she suddenly smiled a soft smile, and said, "You know, if you really think about it, you're not a bad person Gaara; people just make you out to be that way."

Gaara was stunned. His eyes were wide, and his hands gripped his cup and the edge of the counter until his knuckled turned white. 'What is this? What is her motivation? What happened? Does she just not fear me?' The last thought struck him as the pure truth, and his eyes narrowed in anger. How dare she not fear him!

In a swift movement, Gaara pinned the smaller girl against the counter, his nose touching hers as he sneered. "You think that I am not a threat to you? I could snap you in half like a twig." Sakura was shocked, and she grit her teeth at him.

"I'm not stupid, Gaara. I could sense your chakra. I know you're stronger, but so are Sasuke and Naruto, and I still compliment them. But obviously, you just can't handle someone being nice to you." She sneered the last sentence right back, and her fear was vanished. Naruto and Sasuke would avenge her, and that was enough.

Smack

Gaara's hand flew across her face, and without another word or glance, he let her go and began to walk to his bedroom. Sakura just stood there, shocked, holding her cheek with her hand, her mouth open and her eyes wide.

Some how, she knew things were going to be a lot harder than she imagined.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Hey ya'll!

Here you are, scar two…and, contrary to popular belief, this isn't going to have a funny ending…although humor will litter it. And no, there won't really be romance…it depends on how you take it all, really. The truth is, I wrote this, trying to make it real. In real life, we don't just fall in love or anything…so that doesn't happen.

Thank you, my kind reviewers!

Broken Angel, Forgiven Devil (I'm glad you liked the dark humor…I hoping it will appear more later; I'm not even sure if its there! But no, Sakura and Gaara don't share a room, and it's from here on that it gets more serious. I tried to make this story very serious, but I guess I'm not serious enough to right all serious! Let me know what you think of this update!)

Rowan (I saw your email address! Gaara is my favorite character too! I'm assuming he's your favorite, but I jump conclusions! Glad you think of highly of this story, and let me know what you think of this update!)

Valindon Warrior (I'm so glad you have such high hopes for this! I hope I meet all those high hopes! And don't worry…this story has six scars, plus interludes between each one, and an epilogue!)

Queen Cow and Steak (I take it you like hamburgers…or are you more of a vegetarian? Anyway, thanks for the awesome comments! It means a lot! I guess you could say this is Gaara and Sakura…but I don't want to give anything away!)

Thanks,

Review,

Love,

IHearVoices