To Me:

I know you'll get this letter when you're seventeen, but this is you speaking to you now.

Like, right now.

I am twelve years old and am a legal serial killer. I've been put under probation by my sister and brother and am forced to wear a bugged collar day and night to make sure I'm not doing anything slightly murderous. The only reason I haven't gotten the death penalty yet was because I'm a minor. I'm not stuck with a life-sentence either because my super-rich father bailed me out big time with some bribe.

Stupid judges. Stupid Father.

I don't ask for much in five years-- there is nothing in this world to live or hope for. But there is one thing I want to be desperately sure of:

By the time you read this, is Father dead? If so, I'm guessing you, Temari, and Kankuro have moved together in another city somewhere else. I'm betting this is going to happen just several months from this year. It's all because there's some weird political conspiracy going on, and I wouldn't be surprised if my old man dropped dead.

Happy (or not happy, if you're dead) Future:

Sabaku no Gaara

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Breaking the Music

By FlightAngel

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Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, but I do own this story: so you steal, I kill

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At home I plug my iPod into my little iDog and watch it dance and sing or do some weird lame tricks that even a real dog would consider stupid. I'm sitting on my little cot of a bed with only a pair of dark burgundy pants sagging around my feet, singing along quietly to the songs the iDog was dancing to.

I have a whole collection of iDogs: White, Black, Gray, Red, Blue, Green, and Purple. I didn't buy the Orange or Yellow ones since they looked like vomit or pee. Or both. Mixed together. Like the lemon-flavored snow-cones that you could buy at that stall that only opened in the mornings Monday through Friday. I wonder if they really use vomit/pee to flavor their snow-scones. Imagine all those children eating them… not knowing the truth… ok I'm just being ridiculous now. I can't believe I was just thinking about lemon/pee vomit-snow-cones. Ew.

If Temari could read minds she'd have thought I was being too graphic.

But of course, she already knows I'm graphic, so that's not a surprise, is it?

As I watch my little Red iDog dance (my favorite iDog since my favorite color was red), I suddenly get an unimaginably un-Gaara-like idea that makes me want to giggle. Damn I've been hanging around Sasuke and Naruto too much.

I take out the battery and wire set I received as a Christmas present last year from Kankuro (trust him to give me the thing I hate the most), and start getting to work on my iDogs.

Insert massive amounts of instruction-reading, temper tantrums, short-circuits and getting electrocuted.

"You know," Temari says loudly as she's baking brownies in the kitchen (or attempting to make brownies. I've already told you about my sister's cooking abilities), "I haven't heard Gaara's music for some time."

"So?" Kankuro is nervously biting his nails as he IMs all his friends on his laptop, even the ones back in Suna, "I'm glad. I hate Heavy Metal."

How did I hear this conversation when I was busy fixing my iDogs?

Well, my room has a mirror. Right in front of my door, which was open. Right across from my door was the kitchen, where Kankuro and Temari were. And since we lived in a small flat, I could hear every bit of their conversation and watch them at the same time through the mirror as I tampered with my iDogs.

"But don't you think he's up to something?" Temari says, finally finishing making a mess out of the brownie batter (there was more brownie on the floor then in the bowl, if that gives you a clue) and attempting to dump it into an ungreased pan (hey, she forgot).

Kankuro finishes bitingthe nails on his left hand and starts to work on his right. God, I hate nail-biting. It was stupid, disgusting, and made this little 'click-click-click' sound that would get on anyone's nerves. I glare at the mirror-reflection of him, knowing full well that he probably couldn't feel my glare unless mirrors could transmit evil auras.

"Maybe," My brother mumbles.

That's when I finish.

If I had been Naruto, I would've jumped straight up in the air shouting, "Done! Yah! I'm the best!" Then I would've done a little 'victory dance' before calling up everyone I knew to tell them my awesome accomplishment.

But, since I wasn't Naruto, I didn't do any of that. I sat there smirking at my creation and slowly started plugging wires into my iDogs.

One… Two… Three… Four… Fi—

"YOU GOTTA 'XEPT IT CAN'T DENY THE TRUTH THAT LIES BEHIND THOSE EYES!"

Temari and Kankuro jump out of their skins in fright: Temari, burning herself with the oven and Kankuro almost knocking his precious laptop off the kitchen table. The music was terrifyingly, horrendously loud. It wasn't even one voice singing—it was like a dozen voices roaring the same words all at once, a bunch of mini-singer clones singing along to the song.

"What is that?" Temari screeches over the lyrics, sucking her burnt index finger and thumb as she stumbles out of the kitchen, right into my bedroom.

And she stands there, gaping at what sits before her.

"Ne-chan? What's up? Why are you—" Kankuro appears behind my sister, mouth open. "Gaara… what did you do?"

There was an army in my room.

An army… of iDogs.

Each one had a wire connecting each of them back to my iPod, which I placed on my screwed-up two-decade old desk. They were all dancing at the same time, moving at the same time, singing at the same time. I could even get them to form a heart, or a star, or any other shape. Maybe even my name.

"Watch." I say solemnly. I take out a badly-taped together remote control (Hey, I couldn't find any of the screws in the set and all I had was tape) and press a badly colored in red button (with marker. I have as much artistic talent as Naruto). All the iDogs are caught frozen in position.

I click another (blue) button. The iDogs get onto all fours, turn around, and look straight at my siblings.

Temari and Kankuro stare back.

I press a (green) button.

All the iDogs open their mouths.

"Hello – Temari – Kankuro"

Temari and Kankuro stare at them in silence.

And then, they scream.

"AGH!" Bolting out of the room, I can hear Kankuro running into the study room and locking the doors while Temari just runs out, then pokes her head in again.

"Shut those things off!" She hollers, "It's freakin' creepy!"

I laugh hysterically on my bed for a good five minutes before shakily pressing the 'off' button on the remote control.

I may have had a good time scaring the crap out of my siblings, but deep inside pretty close to where my deep, dark, angry, pit of a hole at the bottom of stomach was, was the thought that echoed in my mind after I'd turned off the lights and gotten ready to sleep—I wouldn't have done something like that five years ago.

No way. I would've been too busy devising up plans and reasons on how and why Temari and Kankuro were going to be killed-- slowly and painfully. It would never have crossed my mind to just scare the wits of them, not kill them.

I stare at the white glow-in-the-dark star glowing right above me, taped onto the ceiling. Does that mean Naruto, Sasuke and Neji have really changed me that much? I mean, I don't get as angry as much, as lonely, or as frightened compared to what I was like when I was twelve.

I'm seventeen now, and am starting to really think about my future.

Do I have a future?

I glare at the glow-in-the-dark star as I feel the beginning of the familiar insomnia creeping on.

--

It's three in the morning, and I'm sitting in the middle of my kitchen, holding a flashlight over my head as I'm shoveling cookie-dough ice cream down my throat. Crouching down like some sort of barbaric beast, I continuously wipe the dribble of ice cream trickling down the corner of my lips with an already sticky napkin in between gulps.

I don't know why I get like this, but I do. Temari says I do know why, its just that I won't 'accept' it and that cookie-dough ice cream was my 'comfort food'. Like Chouji and his 'comfort food' chips. I stop eating and look at my stomach. Poking it, a terrifying thought comes flying through my mind— what if I get fat?

The whole concept is so immediately unfamiliar, the only thing that could satisfy the emptying feeling at the pit of my stomach is to stick more ice cream into my mouth. I never worried about my weight before. Naturally skinny and pale, I never ate much anyways when I was a child. Until, of course, Kankuro introduced me to God's greatest creation ever—ice cream.

I was about fourteen at the time, two years after we'd moved to Konoha. It was summer vacation then, and that particular day was like living in the hottest, sweatiest sauna alive. It really didn't help that the air conditioning was broken, either. Temari was sprawled all over our family couch, bra threatening to fall off her shirtless chest and legs spread wide open skimpily covered by hip-tight short-shorts. She was actually using one of her martial art fans to fan herself, and she was sipping an almost-completely-iced strawberry smoothie she'd bought from down the street.

Kankuro was no where to be found.

Feeling the heat burn me up as well, I had decided to take a cold shower that morning. Even if the city we came from, Suna, was situated in the desert, it didn't really mean we liked the heat. I hated it, actually. The only thing I had really liked back in Suna were those thousands and thousands of acres of sand, piled up in artistic mounds and molds that changed shape and size every hour or so, if you watched close enough.

I shrugged off my shirt and pulled out a wooden chair from the dining table and seated myself in it. Staring at Temari's smoothie, I could almost feel my mouth water. She caught my look at gave a strangled, half-dead gasp.

"No way," She croaked out, "Mine." I growled a little before placing my head onto the table in defeat from pure heat-torture. We laid there for around ten minutes before the front door opened and Kankuro came in, dressed in a very rare pair of navy jeans and dark blue t-shirt. In his arm was a pint of something very, very cold. I stared at it.

"Hey, sorry!" He said happily as he dropped the pint on the table, "Went to get some more cereal and decided to get some ice cream while I was at it."

I hesitantly poked the pint. Examining it for poisons, lead, traps or any other sort of foreign material, I finally deemed it safe to eat. Kankuro dead panned.

"Gaara… it's just ice cream. You can have some if you want."

Thus, he opened my world to the cold, melt-in-your-mouth sugary goodness that will haunt my life forever.

And, possibly, make me fat.

I almost put my hand in mouth to bite my nails when I realize that that was a very Kankuro-like thing to do. I feel anger swell up at the pit and I hastily put both my hands down on my table. Ever since I met Naruto, Neji, and Sasuke, I've also gained a multitude of bad habits.

I'm starting to say 'Like' a lot in my sentences, similar to how Temari talks to her girlfriends on the phone for two hours at a time. I've been persuaded to take interest in rap due to Naruto's bad, bad, influence and Neji's trying to teach me etiquette. Something about sitting with your back straight, only use your right hand to lift your cup and you have to place it exactly three inches away from your plate. Or something around those lines—I can't remember half the things he say; after a while, it just flies over my head and my mind just shuts down for a good four fifths of the lecture.

As I far as I know, I can't spot any habits or hobbies I've picked up from Sasuke or Kankuro. Until now.

Argh! I hate nail-biting! No, no, no, no, no!

I'm going to write a post-it note to myself about killing Kankuro tomorrow when he wakes up and stick it on my forehead.

I lap up the last of the ice cream in my bowl and stare at the emptiness, forlorn. I knew I couldn't have anymore ice cream, since Temari would probably find out otherwise. Also…

I'm going to get fat. My eyes bulge out as I realize the seriousness of those words. I wobble a little on my chair as I stare at my empty bowl. I'm going to get so fat I can't fit into the doorway of the school. I'm going to get so fat I can't even move. I'm going to get so fat the students at school will use me as a new trampoline. I'm going to get so fat Temari and Kankuro are going to kick me out of the house because I'm spending too much money on ice cream. I'm going to get so fat I'm going to die of starvation because I can't open my mouth to eat because it's surrounded by fat. I'm going to get so fat I'm going to get a heart attack and die. And then no one would go to my funeral because Naruto, Sasuke and Neji left me because I got too ugly. The only people who would go would be the families of those I've killed, to laugh and kick my dead corpse around like a soccer ball. I'm going to get FAT!

As my thought process ran overboard, I swear I felt tears swelling up at the corner of my eyes. Don't ask me why I was getting so upset over being fat and abandoned and dying of a heart attack—I just felt this sudden pang of fear and it scared the hell out of me. Stumbling off the chair and causing it to fly backwards with a crash into the refrigerator, I ran to Temari's room.

"Ne-chan!" I wail as I threw myself onto the little blonde form huddling on the bed.

And then, at that exact moment, I swear, she punched me right in the face and into the wall without even looking up. Normally, I would've been able to dodge such a weak attack, but I was panicking over the thought that I was getting fat. I touch the place where she punched me—my cheek—and wince.

My sister blinks a little, dark green eyes screwed up tight in the dark. "…Gaara?" She crawls over to me from her bed and looks down on my shivering form, "what are you doing in my room?"

I sniffle (I swear, five years later, I'm still in absolute horror. Why the heck was I acting so weak, feminine, and childish at three in the morning?) and jump into Temari's lap. She yelps a little as all a hundred and nineteen pounds of me collide into her, partially out of the weight and partially out of shock. I don't remember ever crawling into Temari's lap before. She hugs me awkwardly.

"Gaara?"

"I—I," I sniffle again, "I'm getting fat!"

Temari looks at me like I had just told her I was secretly a girl and had gotten pregnant with Lee's love child and was planning to elope to the North Pole with him together so we could live in harmony with the nice, cuddly polar bears.

"Gaara," She says slowly, pulling my shuddering form away from her, "Are you ok?" I shake my head 'no' and suddenly start rambling.

"I-I-I was b-being bad and ate ice cream even though you have a no-ice-cream-after-ten rule and I-I was eating and I-I remember that you said that I ate i-icecream because it was comfort food and that made me think of C-Chouji a-and," I took a deep breath, " I j-just knew I was g-going to get fat!"

Temari stares at me as I shudder again. She tries stroking my back in circular rings, but it just makes me feel colder, less attached. I keep on feeling like I was going to cry.

You can't cry.

I shudder harder.

You've used up all your tears already.

Temari looks at me, concerned. "Gaara?"

That day… you gave up all your tears…

I knew I was being troublesome again. I remember, ten years ago, sitting in someone's lap like this—though it wasn't Temari and I wasn't scared like this.

You monster! Beast!

I suddenly stumble out of Temari's grip, and she follows me with her slanted, concerned green eyes. I look at her over my shoulder, at how she looked so generally worried about me and how that feeling at the pit of my stomach was on fire, so harsh, taking over my body.

All your tears are dried up, washed away, sacrificed. What do you have in its place? What do you have in place of your dry well of tears?

"Sorry," I speak softly, clutching myself as I feel an old sensation of calmness wash around me, embracing me, protecting me in an excitingly dangerous fashion, "I won't wake you up like that again."

An endless hole, at the pit of my stomach.

"Gaara—" Temari gets up, tripping over her nightgown, "Wait!"

By that time, though, I was already out of her room and hurrying into the bathroom, slamming the door behind me.

Threatening to take me over.

I look at the toilet and did the first thing that came to mind.

I threw up.

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Author's Notes: I'm SOOOOOOOOOO sorry about this chapter! I forgot to cut off the first two chapters, making this one super long... (cries at mistake) I can't believe I was so stupid... FIXED!