Knee Deep in Sand
Chapter Two
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto; Japanese food definitions courtesy Japan-Guide(dot)com; beta-ed by wingedrivers in the livejournal community NarutoBetas.
A/N: So I wasn't going to make a chapter two, but dammit, after seeing all the requests and story alerts I was getting, I couldn't help it. I'm pretty sure this is the last chapter, but then again…I said that about chapter one, too, so…we'll just see how it goes.
Also, I am not, I repeat, not a Japanese culture guru, nor am I anything near it, so I had to go on a website to look up some popular Japanese foods. Definitions are below.
Gyoza: Japanese-style dumplings.
Korokke: Japanese croquettes.
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There was a word for this kind of torment—that much Sakura knew. Sand in her hair, sand in her shirt, sand in her sandals, in her pants, in her mouth, in her pouches, sand everywhere!
What was it—Sand Torture? That had to be it. This was why nobody ever talked about going to Sunagakure for a leisurely visit—why no one ever came back from the village with a smile on their face and a bounce in their step. It was because of all the damned sand!
It was only dusk, but the Village Hidden in the Sand was as hot as ever. A few crude lamps lined the market streets, illuminating whatever they could. Most vendors had brought their own sources of light, though, and were desperately attempting to attract customers with fancy displays that belied their otherwise faulty and degenerate products.
Sighing, she fingered a trinket on a little stand in front of her. It looked like some kind of ceramic doll, maybe a collectable from an expensive line of dolls? Before her thoughts could get carried away with how the people in Suna were generally the same as the people in Konoha, a voice stopped her.
"You going to buy it or just stare at it?"
She looked up to see a burly man wearing overlapping, layered black clothing staring at her. "Uh…no, just looking."
He huffed and turned away.
Yes, this place was definitely not a place she'd like to visit again.
A tuft of yellow hair in the otherwise dull, brown and black-haired crowd of people caught her attention, and she waved Naruto down. The boy strolled over to her, hands in his pockets. "Hey, Sakura. Having fun?"
She supposed that was sarcasm. "About as much fun as I can have. Are we finished yet?"
He shook his head, leading her over to a spot in the shade of the painfully slow-setting sun. It was an outcropping of a building, and two crates were provided for them to sit on. "No, I talked to Kakashi. He says we might have to stay overnight. Maybe even longer."
"Longer than a night? Ugh, I don't think I could handle that." She let her head droop and wiped some sweat from her brow. For a few seconds the two teammates sat in silence, mourning their imminent premature deaths by suffocation of the heat, and trying to find a way—any way—to talk Kakashi out of staying for a night. Finally, Sakura sat up straight, taking in a deep breath of the dry air. "I guess we'll just have to make the best of this, right?"
Naruto nodded, smiling in his own little goofy way. "Right!" He turned around and pointed to a food stand off in the distance. "I checked these guys out and they sell some pretty good stuff! Do you want to have dinner with me?"
For a second she had been prepared to hit him on the head for asking her out on a date in such an inappropriate time and place, but then she realized that he wasn't, in fact, asking her out. He was merely asking if she wanted to wallow in self-pity with him over a nice plate of whatever Sand had to offer. She grunted a half-laugh and rubbed the back of her neck, feeling it sticky with sweat. After a while she smiled at Naruto weakly. "Sure."
His grin widened, revealing his too-sharp-to-be-normal canine teeth. But then again, Naruto was far from normal by anyone's standards. She stood up and walked with him across the marketplace, his hands shoved in his pockets and hers swaying by her sides. "Oh, by the way," he began, eyes squinted in his trademark "I'm being casual" look, "have you seen Sasuke? He split up with us when we got here, and I haven't seen him anywhere since."
She nodded. "I saw him a little while ago filling up his canteen at a water station, but I didn't talk to him because he looked angry about something." It was as much of a question as it was a statement, and she looked at Naruto expectantly.
He just shrugged, though. "Who knows? The weather here sucks, so I guess I could understand if he was mad about it."
They reached the food shop, which actually turned out to just be a sort of odd-ended concession stand, and approached the man serving. He waved at them happily and motioned to wait just a minute as he finished cooking whatever it was that he was cooking on the stove. Smoke billowed from a pipe in the roof, floating up into the darkening sky where it slowly dissipated among the stars that were already visible.
"Naruto, look," Sakura said, pointing upwards. "Does it seem like there's more stars out here for some reason?"
He looked up. "Yeah, it does. But I think Sand doesn't have as many lights as Leaf," he mused, attracted to the abundance of stars, but not captivated entirely. He was currently salivating over the smell of food drifting so close by, anyway.
Finally the man was finished, and the sound of a plate clinking on the wooden bar top made both Naruto and Sakura stop staring at whatever had interested them. A woman approached the bar and took the plate, and for the first time the two Team Seven members noticed that it was just simple gyoza.
The cook smiled at them. "Sorry about the wait. What will you two take?"
"Ramen!" Naruto instantly declared, grinning. It faded, though, when the man shook his head.
"I don't serve ramen here, sorry. Anything else?"
"I'll go for some meat and potato korroke," Sakura chimed.
"Great! And you, little blond boy?"
Naruto pouted, but ordered the same thing as Sakura. The two, after being informed of the fifteen-minute wait, ambled to a nearby bench and took their seats. "So…" the orange-clad ninja said, swinging his feet back and forth. "After this, we should go check with Kakashi."
She agreed, nodding her head to show this fact. In time, she heard the telltale sound of plates being slapped against wood, and she and Naruto rose to collect their food. It wasn't fancifully prepared, but it didn't look too rudimentary, either. On the contrary—it seemed simple yet delicious. They took their food and returned to their benches, eating in silence.
After Sakura's second bite of the first fat dumpling, she noticed a figure in the crowd ahead of her that looked awfully familiar. The gourd probably gave it away the most who exactly it was. She watched him as he weaved through the crowds—though he more of just walked in a straight line as people stepped out of his way—and as he pulled the canteen from his belt. She blinked when she saw the bandages still hanging limply on it. Why hadn't the dope replaced it?
"Naruto," she said, setting her plate down. "I'll be right back, okay?"
He looked up at her and cocked his head to the side, unable to speak through the mouthful of dumpling he was chewing.
"I…I think I saw Sasuke. I'm going to go get him and bring him over here, so you just wait here." She lied and lied pathetically. But nonetheless Naruto was instantly impartial to her declare and nodded, focusing once more on his food.
She walked with an important air over to Gaara. But the closer she got to the glare-prone boy, the more her gait was reduced to meek tip-toeing. Finally, she was close enough to speak to him audibly. She folded her hands behind her back, smiling gently—cautiously.
He didn't look up, but kept digging in his pockets as he stood in the middle of the street, obviously looking for something.
They stood like that for a while, Gaara searching through his jangling pockets and Sakura rocking back and forth on her heels, arms crossed behind her, until she couldn't take the silence anymore. Her Meat and Potato Korroke was probably cold by now, and Naruto…well, as long as Naruto had food, he wouldn't argue. But his supply was surely running low. Awkwardly, she began to speak. "Uh…hello. Do you remember me?"
The only change in his expression was when he blinked, and even then he didn't even acknowledge her.
Inner Sakura snorted and balled her fists, shouting for Gaara to stop being a brat and listen to what she had to say, while Sakura just frowned a little. "I guess you don't. Well, I'm Haruno Sakura—I fixed your canteen for you." He still didn't look at her, and then she began to outwardly grow a little annoyed. "Do you remember now?"
An inaudible mutter slipped past his lips, and she had to strain her ears to try and see if he would say anything else. When he didn't, she said, "What was that? Sorry, I didn't hear you."
He finally looked up at her at that moment, and it felt as though an immensely thick fog had been lifted from the air. He stared at her for a while, his hands still in the process of finding whatever it was he was looking for, but then he just continued his mission, saying "I wasn't talking to you," in a flat tone.
"Oh," was all she could manage to reply.
At last he pulled something out of his pocket, and she realized he had retrieved a money pouch.
Sakura opened her mouth to say something, but she heard a grunt at the same time some massive force slammed into her from the side and knocked her down. She fell to the sand-covered walkway on her knees, skinning them in the process, and gave a half-groan, half-whine. She looked up just in time, though, fists raised, to see a burly man walk away mumbling a short apology. And then she looked over, once again just in time, to see the fleeting beginnings of amusement lightly decorate Gaara's dark-rimmed eyes and face. Quickly, she tried to right herself, a blush scattering across her cheekbones and the bridge of her nose. "What a rude person," she said as she stood, brushing the sand from her knees and such. When she brought her hands from the wounds, blood covered them, and she scowled at them. "It looks like I'm bleeding a little."
"So it would appear," he said, staring also at her hands. If Sakura didn't know any better she'd say he was losing it maybe, but the fact was that she did know better. Gaara may have been a bloodthirsty, insane little horror, but he had more of a grip on his self-control than that. She highly doubted someone as aloof and haughty as him would lose his cool over something like a few drops of blood on her hands. So instead, she started a new conversation, trying to rid herself of her embarrassment. "Were you going to use the money to replace that canteen?"
He didn't answer her but walked forth, to a little store that sat almost unnoticed in a building shrouded with the smaller vendors' false promises of quality products. The sign above the open door read "Kenji's Canteens" in bright red letters.
Absently, Sakura noticed that the name sounded familiar, and she followed Gaara as he walked inside the shop, setting off a small bell as they passed through the doorway. The place was small, cramped, and filled to the brim with various shapes, sizes, and colors of containers. There were flasks, large plastic barrels, bottles, and thermoses, among other things.
Gaara marched straight to the man at the front desk, and Sakura was startled to see that it was the man who she had escorted from Konohagakure to Sunagakure. He looked at her and seemed just as surprised.
He laughed. "Why, hello!" His voice was different than what she remembered it, and the bag that he had once carried slung over his shoulder lay dormant and empty in a corner. "We meet again! I can see you've found my little shop."
She nodded, though kept her distance from both the man and Gaara.
Kenji looked from Gaara to Sakura before apparently making a connection. "Is this your friend, Sakura? Or maybe your boyfriend?" He laughed at his own joke, sounding much like an old man though he didn't look a day past forty. "You make quite the odd pair!"
Sakura threw up her hands in defense. "No! No, that's not the situation at all! I was just…kind of…"
"She was following me," Gaara said in that monotonous way he spoke, finishing her stuttered sentence. His eyes were closed as he set the bandaged canteen on the counter before the man. "I'd appreciate it if you could get me a new one."
Kenji bent down for a second before reappearing with the exact same canteen, only newer and unbroken. "There you go!"
Gaara handed over the money as Kenji threw away the old one into the back, muttering something about discount prices. After he was finished doing that, he beamed once more at Sakura.
Sakura blinked and took a small step back. "What is it?"
"I just wanted to thank you for escorting me and all those water containers I had to carry! Surely I would've been attacked and robbed had not a team of ninjas from Leaf been accompanying me!"
Sakura raised a brow. "But you were just carrying canteens. I don't think anyone would attack you to get something like that."
But Kenji just waved her off as Gaara left the shop, holding the new canteen in one hand as he shoved the pouch of money into one of his pockets. And Sakura followed after him, waving goodbye to the man.
When they stepped outside into the street, Gaara stopped suddenly, causing her to almost knock into his back. He stayed stock-still like that for a while, facing away from her, until the hand holding the canteen clenched suddenly. "Why are you following me?" he asked, slightly turning his head so that he could glance at her from his peripheral vision.
She swallowed at this. She hadn't really thought about it… She had just started to go after him, determined to talk to him, and it had all led to this. In a horrifying moment of realization, she gasped, clasped her hands to her head and whispered "Naruto!" loudly.
Gaara narrowed his eyes at this, blinking as he did so. "Naru—?"
"Oh, no! I completely forgot about Naruto and Sasuke and…Kakashi!" She released her head and began looking around frantically, searching for her teacher and teammates in the ever-thickening crowd.
The red-haired boy began to walk away, his gourd moving in time with his body as he left her panicking to herself.
Finally, she managed to hear someone calling out her name, and she turned towards the source of it. She recognized Naruto's blond hair as he bounced through the flood of people, as well as Kakashi's tall, lean form and Sasuke's dark outfit—hands in his pockets as he walked with the two. "Sakura!" Naruto called again, making eye contact with her. He finally parted through everyone and appeared before her, holding a doggie bag out to her. "You didn't come back so I had your food boxed." He continued on as Sakura took her food, "It's kind of cold, though… You sure took a long time! And hey, what happened to your knees?"
"I tripped and fell," she quickly replied.
"Where did you go?" Kakashi asked, placing his book into his chest pocket as he spoke.
Sakura glanced between the three of them—Naruto's bright smile, Kakashi's dubious eyes, and Sasuke's indifferent, yet slightly curious stare. "Uh…" she began, trying to quickly formulate some grand lie in her head. "I…got lost!" She laughed nervously, shrugging.
Sasuke raised an eyebrow. "You really are an idiot, aren't you?"
"Hey!" Naruto shouted, balling a fist in Sasuke's direction. "She got lost looking for you! You don't have to be such a jerk about it!"
Sasuke replied with a "whatever" and a snort, which inevitably sent both he and Naruto into a small spat. As Naruto and Sasuke argued, Kakashi turned to Sakura, smirking behind his mask. "Did you have fun getting lost?" he asked.
"No!" she lied again. It was actually quite entertaining to follow Gaara around for a little while. "I was knocked down by someone, I couldn't see past all these stupid stands, and I didn't get to finish my dinner." She was getting a little better at lying, at least.
Kakashi just stared at her for a moment before pulling apart Naruto and Sasuke. "Alright, you three. We're staying here in Sunagakure for the night, and then we'll set out for Konoha early tomorrow morning, so get your rest everyone." He looked once more at Sakura. "And get your knees cleaned up once we get to the inn, Sakura."
Naruto, forgetting at once his fight with Sasuke, groaned loud. "I don't want to stay here! It's too damn hot!"
"Stop whining, Naruto," Sakura said, pulling at her collar.
Sasuke merely huffed and crossed his arms as Kakashi led them all to a nearby inn, passing by the colorful vendors, tiny little shops, and numerous crowds of busily chatting people.
Even at night, Sand was alive, but this didn't come as much of a surprise to Sakura. After all, the heat of the day was far too much for anyone to bear, so it only made sense that the citizens would become the most active when it was coolest. She glanced up once more at the sky, smiling at the stars that twinkled despite everything that was so very, very wrong with the world.
She put her hands behind her head as she walked. "Yeah," she whispered, agreeing with herself and making sure none of the others could hear her. Then, quite suddenly, a smile spread across the sun-burnt, heated features of her face. "It's really not so bad, anyway."