Chapter warning: implied/referenced self harm and panic attack. Please proceed with care.

"Stay clear of the closing doors please."

Haku alighted from the stuffy train with a thankful sigh. He had taken a seat next to an insufferable toddler that just decided that his hair was her next play thing. The boy straightened his long dark hair and fastened the strap of his violin case on his shoulders.

Many eyes followed him because of his recognisable school uniform. What was a KSA student doing in a subway? They glanced away after realising that he was probably on scholarship. Only the richest of the rich can afford the fees for such a prestigious school so it would make zero sense if one of them humbled themselves to take the subway.

Haku was an orphan on scholarship but nobody knew that. Nobody except Neji, that is. The two of them met at middle school and bonded over violin. They were the only ones in their grade playing the fiddle after all. It didn't take too long to realise that Neji was not as haughty as he let on. He was nice underneath the cold demeanor he often wore but only to a select few.

The two of them shared secrets with each other so it was safe to say that they were best friends or violin buddies at the least. Haku stopped short in the middle of the platform when a smooth melody reached his ears.

It was the graceful sound of a violin's bow gliding across the strings in flawless progression. Something about the song felt familiar. He knew this song but the memory of it was hazy. It was at the deepest part of his mind that he could not place his fingers on.

Haku's legs followed the tune till he reached a small crowd that had gathered in front of a guy. While some stayed to listen, others dropped tips into his open violin case and left. The guy should be around nineteen or twenty, as Haku deduced. He was wearing cow print pants on a white shirt and some bandages were wrapped around his face.

His strange dressing didn't stop the beauty of his playing though and strangely, Haku felt like he should join in. The song felt like it was a duet and he wanted to join in. The guy started upon hearing a higher pitch of the piece he just played coming from his left. Turning around, his eyes slightly widened at the sight of the boy in front of him.

The way he played the violin was beautiful and soothing, and best of all the boy knew– no still remembered the song. Zabuza, the older teen, played along with Haku. Their music blended in perfect harmony that drew people towards them. An applause followed the end of their rendition and their violin cases were filled with coins and spare cash.

Haku wasn't after the change though. He was exhilarated that a crowd applauded him even though it was just a subway crowd. The moment was nerve wracking and Haku was happy. He turned around to talk to the man that played the violin with him but he was already leaving.

"Wait!" Haku hurried to pack his violin but the money was obscuring it. The boy groaned and shut the case, opting to carry the violin in hand instead and ran after the older teen. "Wait! Wait please!"

The guy only walked faster though. Haku didn't relent and chased him until they were out of the subway where he finally cornered the guy.

"I said– wait!" Haku said between lungful gulps of air. "Why did you run of like that?! I only wanted to ask a question!" The guy didn't seem impressed by his interruption if the slanting of his eyes were any indication.

"What?" The older asked in a gruffy and mutterish tone.

"This might sound really strange but do I know you?" Haku asked. "I feel like I've met you before and that piece we played, I vaguely recognise it. Do you know me?"

"I just arrived in Konoha yesterday so unless we met before that, then no. I don't know you. Now scamper off to your rich parents' home."

Haku allowed the guy to pass this time.

Zabuza gripped his violin case tightly as he stiffly marched out of Haku's sight. Seeing him out of nowhere shocked Zabuza but he controlled his emotions. He was thankful for the bandages that masked his face otherwise the boy might've recognised him. He was glad though. He was glad that the boy was okay.

'Haku...'

All the way to his foster home, Haku kept pondering on the strange guy's words. Despite what he said, Haku felt that he knew the bandaged teen. But from where? Was it the orphanage? In a foster home?

"Hmm, where have I heard that song before?" He muttered to himself. Haku chose not to fret over it though. The answer to his questions would come one day or another.

Haku didn't find the cow print guy at the subway the next day or the day after that or the next after that. Haku deflated. He was sure that the cow print guy held a key but he was gone before he could know him.

"You would meet him again if it's fate that planned it." Neji told him when he ranted to the fellow violinist. "Do you really think he holds a key to finding your family?"

"I believe so, Neji-chan." Haku was the kind of person that called everybody 'chan' regardless of age or gender. "I just want to know more about my parents and why they abandoned me at the orphanage doorstep."

"Oi." Neji poked his friend with his bow when he noticed the drop in his mood. "Fate would lead you to the answer one day but for now, let's practice." Haku smiled at his attempts at cheering him up.

"You're still bad at cheering people up, Neji-chan. By the way how's your girlfriend doing?"

A perfect brow raised at that. "Who?" Neji voiced his confusion.

"Panda-chan from class D of course!" Haku had to laugh at the way Neji shuddered at the mention of Tenten.

"She's a nightmare."

"I don't hear you denying the girlfriend part though. Is something there?" Haku teased with a wag of his brows.

"Shut up. She's too klutzy to be my friend talk less girlfriend. We only talk because we are both class representatives." Neji didn't know why he even bothered defending himself from Haku's assaults. He couldn't picture Tenten as his girlfriend. Not at all.

"Riight." Haku drawled in a tone that showed his disbelief but thankfully, the subject was dropped and the two of them began actual practice.

Xxx symphony xxX

Winter break was drawing near as well as the first term/semester examinations for that year. While everybody was happy about the break and animatedly discussing their Holiday plans, Gaara sat by himself at the far end of the class.

Everyone in the class had gotten the memo to leave him out of their group discussions. Even Naruto didn't dare to speak to the brooding redhead during times like these.

Unlike everybody else, Gaara hated the holiday period. Christmas was not something his family celebrated although he was certain Kankuro and Temari did their own forms of celebrations with their friends. There was nothing note worthy about Christmas or New Year, it was just the end and beginning of another year in his life after all.

For the winter break, Gaara and his siblings were going to their homeland to spend the time with their father. It was mostly courtesy to please the society and media though. If anything, Gaara wanted to stay as far away from his family as possible.

They acted like the perfect family with him being the black egg outside but on the inside, the Sabakus were a shit show. Gaara's nails dug into the skin of his arm as he scratched a non existent itch there. The pale flesh was breaking under the assault but Gaara didn't care– more like – he wasn't aware that he was hurting himself with his nails.

"Sabaku-kun!"

Gaara's eyes snapped awake at the alarmed shout. Izumo-sensei had entered the class while he was out of it and was looking at him with an horror stricken face– all of his classmates were. Following their gazes Gaara looked down at his arm only to be met with the sight of his blood streaming down his skin in thin trails.

Angry red gashes marred his flesh and his fingers, the ones he used to scratch his arm, was covered in blood. Gaara looked back at his classmates' faces. Their expressions spoke the unsaid things in their minds like they were meant for his hearing.

'How horrible!'

'Creepy, he's mental?!'

'What a creep!'

'Nobody loves you, young lord Gaara.'

'Your mother died cursing you.'

'I told Karura to abort him but she didn't. Look where it got her!'

'Is it true?! You killed uncle Yashamaru! You're a monster!'

'I don't want anything to do with you.'

'What is the meaning of love?'

'Wounds of the heart?'

'You are a self loving demon incapable of feelings, young lord Gaara.'

The voices echoed loudly in Gaara's head, causing him to groan and grip his scar in pain. He needed out. He wanted to get out of this suffocating environment. And so he did. The class had to be stopped as Izumo ran after the redhead. He would need to report this to Iruka and principal Tsunade later but for now he needed to see to the redhead's wellbeing.

Class B was silent after Gaara and Izumo promptly ran out. Everyone's gazes were on Gaara's askew seat. Kiba finally thawed from his frozen state and broke the silence. "For once in my life, I have no words to say." Everyone was surprised at his statement.

They were kind of expecting the brunet to start mouthing off some unpleasant words about the new side to their classmate they just discovered. Kiba in particular had always found ways to badmouth their volatile classmate and while they agreed with most of his words, nobody was as confident to say their thoughts aloud as Kiba was.

To see him silent and not jumping at the opportunity to slander Gaara behind his back was a surprise.

"Do you think he harms himself?" Matsuri voiced out.

"Why should he? He was obviously getting rid of an itch but his nails were too long." Karui knew that her words were not as convincing as they sounded. The look of fear and vulnerability was something she never thought she would see in her usually stoic classmate. To put it frankly, it unsettled her.

"Is he going to be okay?" Tamaki's whisper was heard throughout the class.

"Why? Pitying him now that he's shown a vulnerable side?" Tenten quipped from her seat. "Don't be kidding me. You are scared of him and that doesn't change just because he had a panic attack in front of you." Tamaki shrank at Tenten's words because it was the truth. Everyone else felt the same too.

"Don't be like that Tenten. Tamaki-san is just concerned for a classmate, isn't that right?" Lee, the ever optimistic classmate defended. Tenten scoffed.

"It's strange that Naruto hasn't said anything all this while-" Choji's words were cut short with the blond's absence. "He's gone." The chubby one observed.

"The idiot is just going to get himself killed by talking to Gaara in the state he's in." Shikamaru muttered under his breath but did not move from his haunched over position on his desk. He was certain that nobody would find Gaara because he had seen the redhead run out of the school.

Tenten's words were right. If he didn't have any concern for Gaara before, why should he suddenly worry over him because he let a panic attack slip in class? It was hypocritical and more of pity than empathy.

Xxx symphony xxX

That day was fast approaching much to Gaara's chagrin. He and his family put on a show for the public for the New Year crossover. As the Kazekage family, they were to light up the beacon of hope for Suna. The fire would burn for the whole day to commemorate the new year as per tradition.

Sunagakure's leaders unlike other Hidden states were chosen hereditarily and are called Kazekages. Gaara's father was the fourth Kazekage. He and his siblings were sent to school at Konoha as a symbol of their alliance with the great state.

The siblings spent every break and holiday at Suna with their father though and that was something Gaara hated more than anything. The only good thing about the stay at Suna was Gaara's unlimited access to sand.

Call him childish if you want but Gaara loved feeling the coarse grains of sand against his hands, loved playing with it even. The sand was his only friend. Gaara had a gourd where he poured in all kinds of smooth soil for cases when he was detained in his room and he also had a collection of sand from all the places he had ever been but that was for only him to know.

The redhead had not left the confines of his room since new year's day mostly because he was hiding away from Rasa, his father. On days like this one, it was best to keep his distance from his father as much as possible. Not like that helped anything, Gaara scoffed inwardly, once it was that day nothing could keep Rasa away.

Gaara had spread a nylon mat on the floor of his room and emptied the contents of his sand gourd on it. He set to work in sculpting some figurines out of it.

Memories of Temari, Kankuro and himself came unbidden to his memories. That was the time his siblings could bear his guts and actually stomach his presence. A time where Gaara had the illusion of his family being perfect.

It was just outside this very mansion he was staying at. Seven years old Gaara and nine years old Temari and Kankuro were outside the mansion, playing in their extraordinarily large sand box (aka that desert). They were sculpting sand figurines but the twins were not as good at it as Gaara was so they opted for telling him what to create instead.

"Make me some cherries!" Temari exclaimed happily. She watched her baby brother's skillful hands move to create two cherries on a stalk. Temari giggled, proud of her brother's skills. He was like their mother.

"Hmm, I know!" Kankuro yelled loudly with a cheeky grin on his face. "Make poop!"

Temari's face scrunched up in disgust. "Ew Kankuro– Gaara don't make that!" The blond swatted her youngest brother's hands away from the sand in alarm when she saw that he was actually going to make something that gross.

Kankuro started laughing at Temari and the girl also started laughing. A smile reached Gaara's face, happy that his siblings were playing with him.

"Kankuro, Temari, come here." Rasa's voice permeated the gleeful atmosphere between the siblings. Gaara's smile broke. His brother and sister were leaving him alone.

"Bye Gaara!" Temari waved and ran towards their father as if she was bidding her kindergarten friend and not her own brother bye and in their own house.

"Let's play again tomorrow!" Kankuro ran after Temari with a wave. Rasa cast Gaara a look of disapproval before leaving with the twins in his hands but Gaara was too young to understand the meaning behind that look. He was stuck instead on the promise of a play date tomorrow. A play date that would never come to pass as he would soon discover.

Gaara scattered the sculpture he created and began pouring the sand back into his gourd. Sculpting had been his mother's speciality when she was alive, the gourd he personalised was his mother's creation even, and that was why he didn't specialise on it.

That aside, his father would never let him go scot free if he took on his mother's speciality. He was not worthy of it according to him. Gaara didn't mind. He loved rapping and music producing anyway.

A knock reached his ears followed by Temari's voice. "Gaara, lunch's ready." What happened to letting a butler bring the food to his room? Oh right. The day was approaching so all the workers were dismissed for a week.

Their father was absent for lunch which Gaara was thankful for. The trio ate in choking silence as usual. "Thank yes for the food." Kankuro was the first to leave the table. Temari was already done with her food but she lingered around the table as if waiting for Gaara to finish or contemplating something or both.

Whatever it was, Gaara could care less about it. He could feel Temari's gaze on him, his arms especially. What was she thinking? Gaara stood up from the table after emptying his food plate.

"G-Gaara!" Said boy turned around with an internally raised brow. What was she planning now? "Can I–" Temari hesitated a bit before taking a breath in. "Can I cut your nails?"

Gaara looked down at his nails. Claws would be a better word for them. The redhead had a tendency to hurt himself when scratching his skin during panic attacks but why Temari was suddenly concerned about his well-being was what puzzled him. Usually it was their grandmother, Chiyo that cut his nails and that was once in a while.

The redhead nodded once and left for the kitchen.

Temari sighed with relief and happiness when Gaara gave his consent. She was aware of how crappy a sister she had been to her brother all these years. Maybe it was because she was growing and maturing, but Temari suddenly realised one day how much of a bad sister she had been.

The blond wished she could blame her father for her coldness towards Gaara but she also had her faults. She was two, going on three when Gaara had been born and her mother died. Growing up, all Rasa told her and Kankuro whenever they asked for their mother was that Gaara killed her.

A picture was painted in their heads by their father that their brother was a monster that took the life of those precious to them. They didn't know why they kept away from their brother but a subconscious fear was ingrained inside them to avoid their brother at all costs.

Their uncle, Yashamaru, took Gaara in when he was four so there was a three year lapse in the siblings' relationship or lack of thereof. Gaara suddenly came back after two years without Yashamaru and a big plaster on his forehead. Temari didn't know why the boy looked so gloomy and sad or why he was hurt.

He spent hours outside playing with sand and conversing with himself. Temari and Kankuro watched him do that everyday. Nobody would call him in for lunch or dinner like they did for her and Kankuro whenever they played outside for too long.

One day, Temari went to the playground to play with the redhead along with Kankuro. They tried to sculpt the sand like him but failed so they chose to tell him what to make instead. Yashamaru said that their mother used to make things out of clay like this too.

Temari could not help but feel proud of this boy. He was no monster!

"Kankuro, Temari, come here." Their father's voice interrupted their playtime. He looked really mad for a reason. It was that evening that the twins learned that Gaara killed their uncle with a knife.

That was the last time the siblings ever interacted together.

Gaara grew rebellious over time. He suddenly came home with a tattoo on the left side of his forehead that made their father ballistic when he was twelve. Who even drew a tattoo for a twelve year old?! If Temari was remembering correctly, that was when the hitting started.

Every now and then Gaara would do something to disgrace their family name and their father would beat him up for it. Temari had been indifferent to the beatings, chalking it up to correction but as she grew older, she realised that what her father was doing was not correction, it was abuse.

She could do nothing to stop it though. No. She was too cowardly to do anything. She used to feel that Gaara deserved it for being a killer but what could a five year old say in his self defense? She was a crappy sister, that was what she was. She was responsible for making Gaara who he was now. Her and Kankuro both.

And Temari wanted to change that.

She wanted to stop being indifferent towards her youngest brother.

She wanted to stop being cowardly.

So when Gaara allowed her to cut his sharp nails she had been so happy. Temari saw the scratch marks on his arm that day before the winter break. The first thing she wanted to do was to make sure that Gaara didn't hurt himself and to make sure that he went for his appointments with his psychiatrist.

Part of her motivation to be better came from Namikaze. When the blond first went to sit at Gaara's solitary table at the cafeteria at school, Temari was convinced that he was seeking trouble until he wasn't. Gaara left the table at first but after weeks of persistence from the Uzumaki, he began to stay at the same table with him.

Temari observed how Namikaze would wave and greet Gaara every morning like they were friends and talk animatedly with him every lunch break even though her brother was no-doubt not listening to him.

Something in Temari stirred after watching their interaction for weeks upon weeks. If Namikaze could keep talking to Gaara despite his stagnant progress with the redhead, why couldn't she? It would be a slow process (that much she could see from Naruto's attempts to get him to talk) but she was determined to move Gaara out of his shell.

"Why are you suddenly fussing over him?" Kankuro was leaning against the door of his room. The expression on his face was unreadable partly because of the traditional face paint he wore.

"Are you against it?" Temari threw back. Kankuro was aware that the question was a trick question so he danced around it instead of giving an answer.

"Tomorrow's the day...again." In actuality Kankuro didn't know what to feel towards his brother. He didn't hate Gaara, he just didn't know how to place his emotions towards the younger.

Temari had a forlorn look on her face. Tomorrow was the day.

Yes, Kankuro and Temari are twins in this fiction. I didn't want Temari graduating before she could even talk to Shikamaru in the book so the only way I could fix that was making her a second year student. If she were older than Kankuro, that would mean that she was held back a grade and I didn't want that. Making them twins was my best option.

Thanks for reading!