Title: From Winter To Spring
Disclaimer: I don't own any characters from the anime, Naruto, but they are superb story fodder, aren't they now?
Summary: After the first time Sakura took part in the chuunin selection exams and failed, she tried once more before undergoing intensive training to better herself, while Naruto and Sasuke both passed and moved on. Their team split, but now that Sakura's all alone an unlikely antihero steps up to make her exam taking team complete: Gaara of the Desert. (GaaraSakura as best as I am able, which may not be very promising, because it is my first fanfiction piece ever.)
Author's Note: This chapter is up so soon because my best friend kept hounding me for an update, even though she's only seen a few episodes of Naruto and barely knows what I'm talking about in this mad story. (She probably thinks I'm insane for liking Gaara, and rightly so, since he's such a crazy character.) For the Mims- I'll work hard on my original story too... and all my art.
Chapter 3: Mood Swings
The next morning, Sakura awoke under two blankets, still shivering from the cold breeze of the dawn. Throwing her blanket over her head, she curled deeper into the bed's warmth under her covers as she groaned. Ugh… what a dream… maybe I shouldn't push myself so hard during practice. It's making me hallucinate. Really, Gaara and I on a team… we aren't even from the same village!
"How long are you going to stay under there? Is sleeping that fun?" a mockingly low voice demanded from the window. "Perhaps I'll join you then."
There was a rustle of icy wind and a rasping, shifting noise as a tiny breeze managed to creep under the layers of blankets carrying a stream of sand with it. Sakura's eyes snapped open in time to witness the sand return to the form of Gaara inches away from her face, his heavily ringed, pale eyes blank while his fists loosely gripped the blanket beneath him. He stared at her, not blinking, for nearly a minute as he lay on his side facing her. Sakura's mind went numb from the coldness of his body and the oddness of his actions.
His breath was dry and burning on her face, strangely contrasting to the lack of body warmth he possessed. His void of emotion continued though he demanded out loud, "It's warm under here. Is that why people sleep for so long? Because it's warm?"
Innocent. Creepy, but clueless. He doesn't know that people don't normally climb into each other's beds. He's curious because I'm not a threat. Perhaps it was the numbness that refused to leave her body, perhaps she thought she was still dreaming, but regardless, Sakura failed to succumb to her normal burst of righteous indignation that she was prone to whenever someone pissed her off. Instead, she couldn't resist a small smile as she answered his questions. "People sleep for so long because their bodies need rest. While they rest, their bodies continue making heat for self-preservation. Now I have a question. Why are you so cold?"
"It's a full moon today…" he began, but paused as if to collect his thoughts. He leaned his head to the side, listening intently for something.
Suddenly his eyes narrowed and his breath escaped his teeth in a quiet hiss. He disappeared from the nest of blankets, surprising Sakura and making her wonder what had triggered his reaction. A half-second later she got her answer when a loud knocking from the front door prompted her to throw off the blankets and brave the icy bedroom in her pajamas. She slipped into the warm slippers she kept beside her bed, shutting her open bedroom window as she went. Did I open the window? Weird, I don't remember. It's too cold for open windows in the winter.
Pushing the thought to the back of her mind, she stumbled through the bedroom, passed the front room to the door. She halted dumbfounded when she found Gaara standing with the door open, facing her visitors with his normal scowl plastered across his lips. He looks pissed…
And for good reason, she soon discovered as the voices of Rock Lee, Naruto, and Sasuke demanded to know why Gaara was at Sakura's apartment acting like a bouncer at a night club. "Gaara… san… please let them in. They're my friends."
He shot her a sidelong glare that basically spelled out his what he thought of these "friends" and what he would do to them if they pissed him off. But he took a half-step backward, allowing them access to the apartment.
Naruto was the first to rush forward, worriedly grabbing Sakura by the upper arms as he examined her for bruises. "Sakura-chan! Are you okay?!" He pulled a plush, UFO doll of Sakura out of his pouch on his waist and thrust it into her hands instructing, "Show us on the doll where he touched you!"
A few seconds later, Sakura was brushing her hands off indignantly and preparing to greet her other guests as Naruto groaned in pain from his final resting place on the cold, unforgiving floor. Gaara smirked at her reaction to his stupidity. At least she still knows to use force when dealing with idiots.
"Sasuke-kun, Lee-san, please come in. Make yourselves at home in the living room. I'll make some tea after I get dressed," she smiled as she turned to go back to her bedroom, stopping in the kitchen to put a kettle of water on the stove to boil.
Once in her room, she shut the door and locked it before slowly falling to her knees with her back against the door. Burying her head in her hands, she slumped forward, biting her lower lip to keep from crying out. Her heart was a jumble of confusion, anguish and relief at seeing her best friends and former teammates for the first time in more than half a year, anger at their nonchalance with leaving her behind, rage at herself for being left behind. Confusion, pain, blossoming self-hatred… and Gaara.
Blinking the tears from her eyes, Sakura mentally backed up and reconsidered that train of thought. "Gaara? What?"
He stood before her, staring down at her with his arms crossed. "Your eyes are leaking. Look at yourself, you're a wreck. I won't have such a burden as a teammate. You're a liability with all this self-doubt."
"Like you're the model of mental stability!" She snapped, hands balled into fists that rubbed the tears away angrily. "Who gave you permission to be here anyway?! This is MY apartment! You're not welcome here unless I say so!"
In a flash, sand was around her, lifting her up off the ground by the neck and pressing her painfully against the wall. She scrambled at the sand around her neck, the chakra manipulated hand composed of grains of sand squeezed tighter to obstruct her breathing. Gaara stood with one arm out, his hand grasping the air in the same gesture the sand was in around Sakura's neck, his eyes narrowed slits gleaming with bloodthirsty joy at the pain he was making her experience.
"Give me a reason," he dared, excited at his loss of control. "Your friends would find you dead in here and I would be long gone. Better yet, I wouldn't be long gone."
Her mouth worked in rage and helplessness as she tried to call out for her friends or do something remotely useful. Suddenly, she remembered that her hands were free. She pressed them together, forming a hand seal, then another and another, completing the jitsu. Two clones of herself appeared in the room, one leapt at him from the right, but met only a sheet of sand, the other dove at his feet managing to slip under his sand barrier long enough to grab hold of his lower leg and desperately sink her teeth into his ankle before he could kick her away. The pain distracted Gaara enough for him to loosen his chakra grip on her.
Before the situation could escalate into a full fledged fight, a knock sounded at her bedroom door. Lee's concerned voice asked, "Sakura-chan, are you alright in there? The kettle is going off in the kitchen."
Gaara smirked at Sakura and waggled his index finger in warning before dropping her to the ground. He knelt close to her, whispering into her ear with warm breath and an uneven voice. "Not a word, unless you don't want to pass the Chuunin exam this time and end up falling further behind your precious teammates. Just remember: I don't need your permission for anything."
Her eyes widened and her mind reeled at the drastic mood swings Gaara seemed to be capable of. Is he the same person from before? The innocent boy who wanted to understand sleep so he crept into my bed? He's psychotic… Something snapped in her mind and she laughed under her breath, surprising both Gaara and herself. Of course he's psychotic. You knew that already.
"You still don't understand. But you will. I'll make you understand," he murmured before sand engulfed him and he was gone. Sakura stared in the spot he had stood and questioned how long her sanity would remain intact with a partner like Gaara.