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Chapter 8: The Lonliness That is Being Surrounded by People
Notes on School - Since I don't know much about Japanese schools, we're going with a common system here in North America. Elementary school is kindergarten through grade six, Junior high, where Gaara and Neji are, is seven through nine, and ten through twelve is high school. They don't have uniforms, because I can't think of one that wouldn't look incredibley weird on Gaara. And, like in NA schools, they have Saturday and Sunday off. Eight periods a day, classes are on rotary (so Neji and Gaara have all the same classes).Disclaimer: Keh.
o
Step by step in a dreary silence, the trio walked as fast as was possible over the sidewalk. It was no surprise that they were late again. The older two had gotten very little sleep the night before, and had been avoiding making eye contact all morning. Gaara was just Gaara; unspeaking and cold. Yet even he seemed dimmed, the scrape on his forehead still enflamed and easy to see.
On the brighter side of things, Temari now had an excuse to get out of gym class, but could still keep up with her other classes, since the injured hand was her left, and she wrote with her right. Kankurou had even admitted that it was a good idea for them to walk all-together to and from school. It was most certainly safer…. But Temari didn't even smile when he said so, no 'I told you so!', or 'See? I'm always right, little brother.' Just a nod, as she trudged along, head down and golden hair hanging carelessly in her face. She hadn't even bothered to put it up, looking as if it hadn't been combed, and her face was missing it's usual dosage of mascara and lip gloss.
'Everyone has bad days,' Kankurou told himself.
That cannot be denied, of course. But looking at the past while, one could say that having a bad day was almost becoming a habit.
The two eldest siblings watched Gaara from a short distance, as he made his way over to his white-eyed friend, who was again standing by the gate, looking uninterested in the world. It was only then Kankurou let himself ask her, in hushed, uncertain tones.
"Temari…" he began, "Are you alright?"
She forced a grin, but it was pained. "Why wouldn't I be?"
Kankurou was about to push her for more, except it was then they were interrupted by whom else but the boy Temari had tripped over the day before.
"Oi!" he walked up to them, a sour look on his face, his arms crossed over his chest, "Girl!"
Temari turned to him, displeased. "Oh, it's you."
He reached into his pocked, grumbling quietly, and proceeded to bring forth Temari's lost earring, much to her surprise.
"You musta lost it yesterday," the boy said, handing it to her, "I accidentally laid on it."
She accepted it, but said nothing in return, eyes still locked with the ground.
"What, no thank you?" the boy shook his head, "How troublesome…."
"So," Kankurou interjected, "How do you two know eachother?"
"She stepped on me."
"I see…."
"Do you have a name?" the boy again turned to Temari, studying her appearance pensively.
"Temari."
"I'm Shikamaru," His eyebrows furrowed as her face refused to lighten, "Are you alright?"
Temari paused, as if the answer required thought. Kankurou was about ready to knock this 'Shikamaru' person out cold.
"No," Temari said finally, and pivoted so her back was to the two males as she walked away, leaving a confused Shikamaru, and a Kankurou who didn't know quite what to say.
o
Neji's eyes widened as Gaara approached, the red-head refusing to meet his gaze. As soon as he was within reach, Neji extended his arm, fingertips lightly brushing the ends of Gaara's hair aside to fully reveal the abrasion. His sharp inhalation was audible, causing Gaara to raise his head, looking tormented.
"What happened?" Neji's hand flickered over the wound, before promptly removing itself.
"Nothing…." Gaara breathed the word, trying to turn away, but Neji caught his wrist.
"Gaara."
Emerald green eyes stared emptily away, his mouth set in a thin line. He opened his lips a second, pausing, before answering. "Just a little fight. That's all."
"With who?"
Gaara shrugged. "I didn't know them."
Neji's hand stayed firmly clamped around Gaara's arm, as he drew him nearer, looking at the laceration once again, while his fingers danced lightly on Gaara's temple, sweeping back locks of crimson hair. Gaara felt his heart speed up a little, as Neji's breath lightly touched his ear, their bodies close, closer than he'd had been to anyone in a long while. It was almost to difficult to breath. His face was growing warm, even with the chillyness of the autumn air around them, and he found himself at a loss for words. Usually he would push the person away, if they were that close…but it was never like this. Out of concern, was that it? Neji was concerned for him? Gaara's mind couldn't exactly capture it.
Pain shot through Neji's chest as he felt the texture of the newly formed scab, compared the the regular smoothness of Gaara's skin. It seemed unlike him to care so much, and for someone he didn't know all that well... but it hurt him, especially Gaara's coldness. There was still much that remained unsaid between the two, and the more Neji learned about Gaara, the more he wanted to know. The boy was a locked door without a key, it seemed. And for some strange reason, something in the back of Neji's mind urged him to
wrap his arms around his friend, to hold him…
To make everything okay…
But reality isn't okay.
Tentatively, Neji took a step back, the warmth of his hand leaving Gaara's forehead. Silence dropped on them like a nuclear bomb, and Neji suddenly realized he still held Gaara's wrist, quickly releasing him, but neither moved farther apart, as if clinging to the moment. Neji couldn't believe it, but he could almost feel himself blush, and was too unnerved to look to Gaara's pale cheeks, to see if some colour had shown there as well. And both boys had vague looks on their faces, as if wondering 'What the Hell just happened…?'
Eventually, Neji shattered the uncomfortable calm, that made the air about as thick as it would've been right before a summer storm, the kind that makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up straight with anticipation. The kind that fills the air with electricity, telling you something it going to happen.
"Your cold is gone," Gaara commented, a little boldly.
"Oh, yeah. I took something for it last night." Neji said in regular tones, "I'm not using the art room today at lunch, so we can eat outside, if you want."
Gaara nodded. It sounded a lot better then eating in the cafeteria, and it wasn't like he had anything else to do.
Besides, it was a Friday. Everyone loves Fridays, right?
Right.
o
The day proceeded as usual, class being boring, people argueing and just generally being annoyances. In the hall, Neji had pointed out a boy named 'Rock Lee' (Gaara raised an eyebrow at the name, causing Neji amusement), who walked down the hallway with a rather courageous look, considering his frightening haircut and eyebrows. He stopped outside the locker of the girl with pink hair, and got down on one knee, as a small crowd formed around them, obviously knowing something was up.
"My lovely Sakura!" he exclaimed, his eyes beginning to water, "So wonderful and fair! You are the only sun in my sky, your eyes the greenest of green! Please!"
By this time, that section of the hallway had silenced, and people were either snickering, or shaking their heads. Gaara heard the black-eyed boy mutter 'Not this again' as he trudged by, the chains and belts on his outfit clanging with each step, along the with metal blaring from his headphones. The pink-haired girl had turned around, and was staring at Lee with a look that lay somewhere between horror and bewilderment. He continued nonetheless, producing a bouquet of flowers from behind his back.
"I would die a happy man, if only you were to be my date for the Hallowe'en dance next Friday!"
Some of the onlookers were almost bursting with laughter at this point, and Gaara could hear Neji chuckling slightly to himself.
"He's so damn overdramatic," the white-eyed boy said, "Sometimes, I think she almost says yes ut of pity."
Lee stared up at Sakura, the look in his eyes fierce and determined. Sakura closed her locker, and sighed.
"I'm sorry, Lee, and the flowers are beautiful…. But I have my eye on someone else."
Lee's face fell, as Sakura pushed through the wall of people, dashing after the goth boy. Not that it was hard to find him, they could hear him practically at the other end of the hall.
Gaara found it strange, that these things happened so often, every day, yet he'd never really noticed them before. Life had been dreary, and anyone outside of a square metre around him had no importance whatsoever. It was peculiar, and he could almost feel he world opening to acknowledge him, instead of merely leaving him to watch. Whether he wanted to join or not, he wasn't sure. After all, that Lee boy was pretty scary…
Neji found himself smiling as he caught Gaara's expression, confused and somewhat perterbed.
"Have you ever felt like that?" Neji asked quietly, "So strongly about someone, you'd go to those lengths to get them to love you back?"
Gaara shook his head, still puzzled. "Why would he do something like that?"
"He claims to love her."
"Love…" the word seemed foreign in Gaara's mouth, coming out almost accented. He decided he didn't like this word, decided it was a synonym for weakness. Love was what caused people to do foolish things, and created only more wounds on hearts…. Love was vulnerability.
Love what was caused people pain…. Love caused their hearts to bleed…
"Do you believe in love?" Neji questioned, and Gaara's eyes hardened.
"I…don't know."
"Neither do I."
If love existed, why was the population of the earth in so much pain, and misunderstanding? Persecution still stained the pages, refusing to fade away, even in the most recent of chapters. True enough, love does not exist without its opposite; hate. But the balance just seemed off to Neji. Way off.
He knew he believed in hate. Hate he felt often, something he was all too familiar with and unafraid of. Love was something different altogether.
But secretly, he disagreed with what Lee had said back there…
Gaara's eyes were most definitely greener than Sakura's.
o
All through class, Neji kept peeking back to make sure Gaara was alright. He didn't know why, really, it wasn't like him at all. And it wasn't like Gaara was in any immediate danger, now was it? Even so, he found himself looking back every ten minutes or so, just to make sure. Gaara seemed fine, though his eyelids were often nearly half-closed as he skimmed through their readings.
Lunch came as a relief, and sent Gaara and Neji outside, first stopping at the cafeteria so Neji could buy an iced tea. He wasn't the soda type, of course, and Gaara got the oppurtunity to watch some more people, which was almost becoming a hobby of his.
The majority of their classmates had managed to pack themselves into two tables. This group included the pink haired girl, and her blonde haired nemesis, among others. A black-haired girl sitting at the end looked up, staring fearfully at Neji for a moment, before dropping her eyes back to her lunch, and giggling politely at a joke Naruto had told. Neji brushed this off, popping his money into the vending machine.
"Come on, you piece of shit…." he glared at the machine, a glare that scares all animate, and even some inanimate objects into submission, yet the vending machine refused to cooperate, instead spitting his money back out. He kicked it, then tried again.
Meanwhile, Gaara was busy studying a staring contest that had commenced between the black haired boy (Sasuke, he presumed, since that was the name the pink haired girl had been squealing as she chased after him) and Naruto. Everyone at the table seemed to be ingoring it, discussing a bitchy teacher, or the upcoming dance. Kiba was taking bets on how many girls would ask out Sasuke, much to Ino and Sakura's annoyment.
Ever so quickly, when no one was watching, Gaara saw Sasuke reach over and wipe a bit of sauce from Naruto's lip, then stick the end of his finger in his own mouth to get it off, smirking all the while. Naruto stared a few seconds, blushing, but not protesting, before giving Sasuke a grin, and turning back to Kiba to ask him again what about dog biscuits he found tasty (Kiba actually claimed them to be nutritious, but no one believed him). Sasuke just turned up the volume on his discman and continued eating his salad. And that was that.
Gaara whirled around as a hand landed on his shoulder, prepared to attack whomever had just touched him, but relaxed as he found Neji staring at him. "You looked as if you were about to kill me," the taller boy commented, "Come on, it smells awful in here."
Gaara nodded, shoving his hands into his pockets, glancing back at the table, behind which there was a window, displaying the street, lined with firey coloured trees in front of a pale grey sky. Leaves danced by in a whirlwind, the wind howling, and scratching at the glass pane that separated inside from out. Gaara didn't mind the cold. In fact, he favoured winter, of all months. Everything was cool, and white, and silent.
Standing outside, in the middle of a blizzard, you can almost hear death ringing in your ears…
Quietly, so quietly…
o
Lost from the world, the blonde sat at her usual lunch table, swinging her legs so that her right ankle hit a metal support, and a faint, empty ringing sound could be heard under chatter. Her whole body was in that slow distressed rhythm, as gently, she traced the line over her hand, where thick black thread bit into her skin. She had broken, and she needed to be sewn back up…
"Temari?" she glanced up, pushing her bangs out of her face to see the grin of one of her new friends.
"Oh…. Yes?"
"You haven't even touched your salad!"
'Someone noticed….'
"Can I have it? I forgot my lunch money today."
"Sure…." Temari pushed her tray over to the girl, bowing her head once more. Friends…. They weren't friends. Temari had been very reluctant to even talk to anyone, but she had settled in with the small group of girls, that weren't at the peek of popularity, but weren't uncool. She enjoyed spending time with them, most of the them anyways, but it just wasn't… like the friendship she wanted. It wasn't that.
Not that she'd ever really had many friends in the first place. She'd had a few in her old town, of course, and there were people she talked with, went to a movie with. But none of them really knew her. She was a bitch, and that's the way she liked people to view her.
After all, when people hate you, you can't hurt them as much as you could if they liked you. And they can't hurt you either.
She licked her lips, vaguely tasting orange juice, and closed herself to the world. She just needed to get through it. It was just a bad day….
Some people think they are alone. Some people want to be alone but can't quite manage it. Being alone to that extreme is enough to break someone. The emotions building in Temari made her just want to scream, to tear open her body, and demand 'why?'
You never really know how alone you are, until you get to there…
And 'there' can be a very lonely place.
o
"Hey…" Gaara said quietly, as they settled under a large tree, one of the many that decorated the yard, "Are those two boys…together?"
"Which ones?" Neji opened his fruit drink, the over-sugary smell of watermelon wafting out. The machine had refused to give him an iced tea, so he'd opted for that in its place.
"Naruto…and Sasuke."
"Those two?" Neji shook his head, cautiously reading the ingredients of his beverage, "I don't think so. They kinda seem to hate eachother. As different as night and day, really."
"Oh."
"Why?"
"Just thought…." the red-head shrugged.
"Do you believe, Gaara…" Neji asked quietly, "That it is wrong for two boys to love eachother?"
Gaara noticed the world 'love' sounded much better when Neji said it. What exactly was different about it was hard to say. It just sounded a little less painful….
"No," he answered in his slow, icy dialect, "It is not…wrong. It just is."
Neji was a small bit delighted at this information, as he bit into a carrot thoughtfully.
"Love is love," Gaara said, "Whatever that is."
He took a piece of plastic wrapped pizza from his plastic bag serving as a lunch pail, noting mentally that the bottom was burnt. Temari couldn't even microwave pizza properly… He took a bite, feeling his head begin to bow with his exhaustion. Neji looked over with a frown.
"You awake?"
"What?" Gaara's head snapped up, his eyes opening wide.
Neji leaned over, eyeing him. "You seem really tired. Did something happen last night?"
Gaara pursed his lips, swallowing before answering his friend. "Sorta…"
"Can you tell me?"
"My sister cut herself while cooking," Gaara explained, using the story Kankurou had thought up in case anyone asked, "It was pretty bad…. We had to go to the hospital."
"Gaara?"
He could no longer avoid Neji's gaze, clear white eyes transfiixd on him. His stomach began to rock, and his temperature rose, all symptons of guilt.
"You're eating pizza, Gaara. It looks like microwaveable stuff. And I don't think your sister cut herself cooking."
Gaara winced and stared at the ground. Never before had he had to deal with such things. Lying to councillors and adults was one thing, but lying to Neji was another. He felt them, his lies and faults, so very many of them, weighing on his shoulder, threatening to crush him right then and there. It tightened around his heart, squeezing, threatening to cut the ever so thin strings that attached him to the world.
"I'm sorry…" he whispered, but it didn't feel like nearly enough.
Neji sighed, not angrily though, setting down his drink. "I'm not demanding you tell me," he said, "But I don't want you to lie to me. If you don't want to talk about it, just say so."
He let the words sit, while Gaara debated them, breathing in and out slowly, hands playing with the strands of grass by his feet. Dead, and yellowing, thin and easily breakable. As soon as he pulled on them, they came out of the earth, leaving an ugly splotch of dirt where there before had been dried gold.
"After school…" he began, "Three guys tried to jump me, or something …that's what the scrape is from. And I just…couldn't sleep last night, so…"
Neji said nothing, waiting until Gaara felt ready to continue. Slowly, Gaara lifted his arms, lightly touching each fingertip of a hand with that of the other, before going back across.
"With a knife…" Gaara mumbled, expression weary.
Neji grabbed Gaara's hand in an instant, pulling up his sleeves to check. There was nothing there but smooth, creamy skin, that Neji had the temptation to kiss, to thank them for being unscathed. Gaara let him check the other wrist as well, alone with his calves. Nothing.
"I don't do that sort of thing," Gaara told him, as Neji ran his fingertips over the veins visible through Gaara's skin, head bowed and eyes misty.
"Have you ever wanted to?"
"Yes."
"Thank you," Neji looked up, pulling Gaara's sleeve back down, "For telling me that."
Gaara leaned back against the rough trunk of the tree, closing his eyes, and letting out his breath.
"Temari tried to get it away from me…and cut across her hand, by accident," Gaara took Neji's hand, tracing a line where Temari's lesion would've been, "We went to the hospital, so none of us got very much sleep."
Neji nodded, watching as Gaara's breathing began to slow, eyes slowing drifting shut. Sitting dangerously close to the boy, Neji pulled a book out of his bag, and started reading, the soft rhythm of Gaara's breathing almost like music. When it came time to turn the page, he hesitated, noticing Gaara's hand still lay over his, growing pink with chill. He gently slid his away, but found he could barely take his eyes off Gaara. What was it about watching someone while they slept that was so entrancing…?
For about forty minutes they stayed as such. Gaara was still dreaming, but had shifted unconciously, so that his arm was pressed against Neji's, head just inches from Neji's shoulder. Warmth so near.
"Gaara…"
The red-head stirred, chocolate brown lashes opening slightly, emerald orbs out of focus and misty. He righted his posture, drawing away from Neji slightly. He nodded, though still half-asleep. Neji couldn't help but smile at him.
"What…if I may ask…were you doing with the knife?"
Gaara's face stayed calm, as his brain worked itself through the question.
"I….I'm not sure, but…I just…" he bowed his head, "I couldn't sleep."
"It's fine. I was just wondering," Neji rubbed his neck, sore from reading, "You can go back to sleep if you want."
"That's okay," Gaara looked up, as another flurry of gold and amber came down, floating like butterflies on the wind, before they died from the frost, the icy hands of winter. Beautiful lies, that became bitter in his mouth. So delicate, fragile, and easy to see through, though glorious and elegant to watch. It seemed beautiful things never lasted…. And within the butterflies' black and lustrous bodies, there was blood, flowing just like in every other being, black legs sticky and clinging to your skin. Truth, dirty and foul, darker than the world becomes on a night without the pale white moon that watches over all. It was there, it was real, and it wouldn't go away.
No, no it's not okay…
End of Chapter 8