Breaking the Music Chapter 4: Name: Artists Block, a naruto fanfic

Kiba:

I really really really like you and I hope we can date:heart:heart:

I've been watching you for SOOOOOOOOOO long and I hope we can live happily ever after!

:heart: Tee hee:heart: I love your deep husky voice and carefree attitude :coos:

I won't say what my name is, but, if you want a clue ask Sabaku no Gaara.

Yes, that emo-kid with the love-tattoo, ask him. :kanji love:

He'll probably guide me to you immediately:heart:heart:

I :heart: you Kiba-chan:Tee-Hee!

You Future Wife :Heart:Heart:

Breaking the Music

By FlightAngel

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

In art, today, I drew my imaginary friend, Shukaku. Alright, it was my old imaginary friend, because Shukaku went away when I was around thirteen, when I woke up and he wasn't there anymore.

The art assignment was to design and illustrate a 'monster' from our imaginations, and we were given approximately an hour and a half to complete the task. Naruto, Neji, Sasuke and I share the table situated right above the steps towards the football field, giving us a good glimpse of the athletes at their finest.

Neji, being the artistically inclined one out of the four of us, designed a beautiful swan-like creature with the wings of a white-bat instead of feathers, and a tail of glistening thorns and roses. He is intently painting it now with some translucent watercolors, mouth full of two brushes that looked almost exactly the same to me, though he insists that one is square and the other is triangular, as he's painting in the fine detail of the web of veins in the swan's wings with a small, pin-sized brush held between his fingers.

Sasuke, who was a rather decent artist if he cared for it, is drawing a more cartoon-like monster, contrasting Neji's gracefully mythical one. It had large, egg-shaped eyes that bulged out of its large, misshapen skull, and a wide maniacal grin that stretched from ear to ear. It was covered in scaly yellow skin and had the horns of a ram, the torso of a bear, and the lower half of a man. The ebony-haired Uchiha is slowly coloring it in with pigmented inks, for the cartoon look he was aiming for.

Naruto and I were both equally bad artists, with the art skills of a slug trying to draw with a piece of bread twice its size. I couldn't even draw a closed circle. I'd start at the left and loop upwards, then downwards, then back up again and… oops, I missed the line there, heh…

Naruto is frustratingly drawing and erasing, drawing and erasing his monster on his paper, left hand clutching his hair in anger, elbow holding the picture down as he attempted to draw a straight line.

"Ugh!" He growls deep in his throat as he erases his squiggly line, "Dammit all!"

Neji shoots the boy a cool, annoyed look that speaks of shutting up and acting mature, but the blonde is too occupied trying to draw his line. "C'mon, c'mon… c'mon… nooooo!"

Sasuke looks up. "Someone, shut him up, please."

"Naruto," I suggest, "Why don't you use a ruler?"

Naruto stares at me blankly for a few minutes, then bangs his head on the table. "Argh!" He moans, getting up from the table and holding his head, "I'm so stupid!"

"Baka."

"Stupid Sasuke-teme, shut up! Don't rub it in harder then it is already you frickin' retard!" Naruto hollers all the way across the room and the teacher (I can't remember her name… name-blankness catching on again…) looks annoyed.

"Naruto," She says coolly, crimson eyes glinting in the light, "If you want to verbally insult someone, go on ahead, but keep it to yourselves." The other art students snicker, and Naruto shoots them all a defiant look.

"Yeah, yeah," He mumbles as he takes the ruler and puts it on his paper, "Whatever…"

I watch him draw for a few moments, before I return to my own drawing. Shukaku looks more cute then ferocious, and he's even got his back arched up like a cat or something. Compared to Sasuke and Neji's drawings mine's looks like something a kindergartner had drawn on the wall with a crayon using the hand they were weakest with. I sigh, and look over at Naruto's drawing again.

He's having trouble drawing a line parallel to the edge of the paper, and is cursing rather loudly. I put my hand out.

He looks at it.

Slowly he takes my hand.

I slap it away.

"The ruler, baka," I sigh, and he hands me the ruler. Was Naruto's brain permanently shut down or something? I try to draw a line, but since the paper was right in front of him I ended up looping my left arm around his shoulder. I'm so close I can feel him breathe in and out, soft skin rising up and down with his chest. His dusty blonde hair's tickling my nose and I resist the urge to sneeze. The longer I fondle with the ruler, the familiar heart-speeding takes place and I narrow my eyes. He smells faintly of strawberries and I'm overwhelmed by the urge to just snuggle with him and coo at how cute he is. But, since I am Gaara and not my cooing sister, Temari, I promptly ignore the urge and my speeding heart and show him the ruler.

"Watch." I take the ruler and line up the '0' mark at the top left edge of the paper, keeping it away from the top enough so I could make a mark. "Where do you want the most left part of your monster to be at?" Naruto shifts a little, leaning forward as he points towards the three inch mark.

I take my pencil and swiftly make a mark at three inches, then move the ruler down towards the lower left edge of the paper. "You just make the same mark—watch." I make a mark at the three inch mark again after lining up the edge to '0'. I turn the ruler vertically, and show him how, if you connect the two marks together, you get a perfectly straight line. I withdraw my hand from his shoulder and he happily thanks me.

"Great, Gaara! Where'd you learn that?"

Sasuke looks up, annoyed, "You dobe, anyone with brains could've figured it out."

"Shut up!"

"No, you shut up. You're interrupting everyone's train of thought and focus on their artwork and causing the whole class to slow down."

Naruto tugged his hair with both hands, "Just shut up! You stupid bastard!"

I look down, concentrating on Shukaku again. That instant where I felt like hugging Naruto had passed. It was just a small fancy, and it was obvious he was totally oblivious of how I sort-of felt towards him. A faintly familiar pain pinches at my heart, and I wince.

Unaware, I put my hand in my mouth and started biting my nails.

I'm walking towards my flat when I spot a man trudging up the street behind me. It's around three in the afternoon, a little after we'd been let out of school, and I was weary from carrying a twenty-pound backpack full of textbooks and notebooks up a sixty degree slope uphill. Why is our flat situated at the top of a damn hill? It wasn't much of a problem for Temari or Kankuro, since they drove up and down the hill in the Chevy, while I had to drag myself up here every day?

I turn around and boldly stare at the man following me. He spots me staring at him and stops.

He's dressed in a heavy brown overcoat and some dark gray slacks. Looking to be around twenty-one, twenty-two, his soft, well-taken care of hair is tied back in a tight high ponytail with a black band. He has large, solemn brown eyes that shone a little too knowingly for a man just in his twenties, and a deep faded scar ran from the bottom of one eye to the other, across the bridge of his nose. Slung across his shoulder is a dark green tote bag, slightly faded from use and age.

He's staring at me, contemplating something, a finger at his lips. Finally, he shifts his bag into a better position and walks towards me.

"Excuse me," he murmurs, softly, "But are you Sabaku no Gaara?"

I stare at him.

"…yes…?"

I can't seem to shake the feeling that I've seen this man before.

His face breaks out into a small, forlorn smile that spoke more of sadness then of joy, and he reaches into his tote bag. "I have something for you… a note… here." He hands me a thick package of papers (a note? What kind of 'note' is this?) and bows a little. "It's sent by someone who should be very important to you. And, pardon me, I have to be going now—I'm already late enough as it is."

He adjusts the strap of his bag again and waves a silent good-bye. I look down at the 'note' and see a frilly, valentine-esque envelope sitting neatly on the stack of papers. Alarmed, I looked up. "Hey you forgot—"

I pause.

There was no one there, and, when I looked down the hill, no one walking down the hill either.

I feel my arms prickle in alarm.

There was no way someone could've walked that fast down a two mile sixty degree slope downwards. Unless they tripped, but then, they'd be dead.

Feeling a little spooked, I finish my ascent to my flat, head in, shut the door, and lock it tightly closed.

"Hey, Freak." A boot collides into my head and stays there. I barely wince at the pain, and I grab the foot and lift it off my crimson hair, turning around to face the invader in the process. He's lean, and a little muscular from the way his biceps flexed a little every time he moved his arms, taller then I am and had long, black hair just a tad lighter then Sasuke's. Two cold silver rings looped through both of his ears, and I notice, faintly, the boot I'm holding was made of real leather and looked to be handmade.

"What do you want?"

He tugs his boot away from my grip and crouches down to my level, elbows in his lap as he leans closer to examine me. His hair is tied up tightly in a high ponytail, which seemed to be as stiff as steel as it barely moved while the boy turned his head from side to side.

He looks pretty familiar. Oh, yeah, that's right. He's in my Physics class, sitting next to that annoying dog-obsessed boy that had jabbed me right in the head with his mechanical pencil.

"Nothing much," The boy informs me in monotone, "I was just wondering why you're sitting out on the curb in front of school in the wonderful cold." I think he was being sarcastic about the 'wonderful cold' part of his statement, but I wasn't too sure.

I glare at him. "None of your business."

"Nonsense." He finally untangles himself from his crouch and plops down besides me, two legs stretched out before him as he leans back, "Everything I deem my business is my business. Now spill."

I can feel my annoyance bubbling up inside me as I stare at the dark-haired teen. Shifting his weight to his hands, he was looking rather bored, as if he was just asking me my secrets just for the sake of filling up his boredom. His tone, too, sounded almost creepily like Neji's. Especially that 'your business is my business' crap he was trying to imprint on me. I dig my headphones out of my backpack and place them carefully over my ears.

"Hey," He says, looking at me, "Don't ignore me."

I take out my iPod and scroll down my list for just the right song to tune out Shikamaru.

Shikamaru.

Holy crap! I remembered someone's name!

I stare at him with my mouth slightly open, and he stares back. "What? Is there something on my face?" I immediately shut my mouth and shake my head. Pulling a knee towards my chest, I rested my elbow on the joint as I flipped through some more odd songs.

Was Kankuro messing with my song album again? Or maybe Temari?

I swear I would never, in my right mind, download 'Bad Boy' by Cascada onto my iPod. I stare at the song then decide to move on. Damn, what were all these weird songs doing on the (almost) most important thing in my everyday life?

'Since you've been gone', by Kelly Clarkson.

'Invisible' by Ashlee Simpson

Random songs sung by… Jesse McCartney?

I examine my iPod screen blankly. Yup, Temari's been hacking into my iPod.

I suddenly feel a large, heavy, furry thing land on my back and squawk in surprise. Later, I'll be kicking myself in the face for squawking but now, I was just worrying about this giant thing crushing my chest, face, and (no!) iPod into the concrete.

"Hey," I hear Shikamaru's voice faintly above me, "Nice job, Akamaru."

Akamaru? Why won't my brain come up with name-people recall? Wait, Akamaru's a dog, right? That explains the furriness…

I struggle to lift the giant mutt of my slim form, finally resorting to turn around onto my back and kicking it into the air. It gives a huffish bark at my rude conduct and jumps off me, miffed. Whatever, I don't care what a stupid dog thinks—it's just a dog. I cough and roll up into a little hunched ball, trying to regain the breath that had been knocked out of me when that insane beast had tackled me.

After dutifully regaining my breath, I pick up my iPod and attempt to slip away.

Attempt fails.

"Hey, you ain't going anywhere," Dog-boy, who was obviously very close by anyways due to his dog being here, grabs my arm roughly, "Shika and I want to talk to you about something."

I look at the boy's hand on my arm for just a moment before I felt my whole body being tugged down to the gates towards P.E. My eyes widen—"Hey!" But the other boy didn't seem to care about his violence towards me and continued to drag me, no matter how I skidded or scrambled.

In the back of my mind, I knew I could just easily grab a hold of his other arm and twist it out of its socket. But then, my mind answered for me-- I'd get in trouble.

When did I use to care about getting in trouble?

The P.E. is blinding, with its harsh bright lights and sweaty atmosphere. I can see the current gym coach, Maito-Sensei, yelling at the huffing teens to hurry up—two more laps! I surprised myself again; how in the world did I remember his name too? Maybe I was regaining my ability to remember things like this. But then, I could barely figure out the names of the students running around, so…

Kiba takes my shoulder and slams me up against the wall. Shikamaru, whose hands are in the pockets of his dark black pants, sides up next to the brown-haired boy and peers into my face. I glare at him defiantly.

Kiba raises his hand and I wince, expecting a blow to the face.

However, no blow came.

"Please!" I feel surprised as the taller boy suddenly clasps my shoulder and shakes me, "You've got to help us!"

"You," Shikamaru drawls, "Not me."

Kiba shoots a dirty look with the other boy, then looks back at me—all puppy-eyes and goo-goo-ga-ga. "Alright fine—Please! You've got to help me!"

I stare at him.

"Help you with what?"

I want to watch TV but I can't.

Kankuro's big ass is in the way.

He's sprawled all over our couch—all a hundred fifty-seven pounds of him stinking up the red leather with his horrible B.O. I look down upon his form (I note his hairy back, his saggy boxers and his fat, probably hairy, ass) then stomp off to the bathroom.

After finding what I needed to be sufficient in chasing my brother off the couch, I come back, weapon on hand. "Kankuro," I say in a low, gravely monotone, "Get off the couch. Now."

He sort of wiggles, flipping his head over to the other side as he hugs my teddy-bear shaped pillow and shifts his feet into a better position. "Numph." He mumbles, drool dribbling down his chin. I can feel my already thin patience snapping. Why had he slept on the couch yesterday instead of on his own bed?

I then remember Temari and Kankuro's argument the other day—something about how irresponsible Kankuro had been and how he could've maybe caused me to go into severe trauma if I had been at home at the time (which I wasn't, thankfully) and how Kankuro had forgotten about the soup and it had all burnt up, and instead he was too busy screwing around with this girl in his bed and it had gotten all dirty when he —ew, I won't talk about it.

Let's just say that Kankuro had been fooling around, and was kicked out of his room.

"Kankuro," I threaten a little louder, voice higher pitched, "Get off now."

He doesn't move, except for a little twitch of his butt, which causes me to lose my temper.

"Kankuro!" I roar and attack him with my weapon.

He doesn't do anything at first, and then his eyes fly right open, shocked and horrified, as he scrambles up out of the couch. "Shit!" He bellows, doing a little dance around the room trying to wipe the smell away, "Gaara, you little brat!"

I point the bottle of perfume closer to his face.

"You want me to spray again?"

He stops, though his arms are still trying to caress and massage the sickening smell of magnolia and vanilla away from his normally sweat-smelling clothes and skin. His eyes narrow in this way that causes him to look like a fat bulldog (I am so serious, swear to God). "You are in so much trouble once Temari finds out you've been wasting her two hundred dollar perfume using it as a water gun to attack me when I'm sleeping."

"I'm trying to watch TV." I say, teeth gritted, "And you wouldn't move your fat ass."

He grabs the front of my shirt, and I almost faint from the smell of magnolia, vanilla, sweat and testosterone mixed together, "What did you say about my ass?"

Cue evil sister-interruption time.

"Kan-kuro! Gaa-ra!" Temari happily kicks open the door and then stops, mid sentence, smile plastered on her face as she feels the impending doom surrounding us violent and half naked brothers (Kankuro's wearing a white manly tang-top and boxers while-- I admit-- I'm not wearing anything besides my boxers and a large baggy white tee that goes down mid-thigh). He has me by the shirt, there's drool on the couch, and I was aiming her favorite perfume at his face.

Her eyebrow twitches.

"Kankuro," She drawls, slowly, deliberately, setting the groceries on the counter and placing her hands on her hips, "…What's going on?"

Note that she does not say my name. Even though she's verbally blaming Kankuro, I can just feel her gaze burn me up. I believe Kankuro's just as scared of her as I am right now.

"Ne-ne-chan…" He stammers like an idiot, "Um… what are y-you doing home?"

She looks at both of us, eye peeled open with green irises drilling holes into our faces, "Alright, if Gaara puts my perfume," her eye twitches a little, "back into the bathroom and both of you get clothes on, I'll forget everything that just happened and won't say a word." We stare at her, then bolt.

Ten minutes later I'm in a long red-sleeve under a black tee, navy jeans hanging loosely by my ankles while Kankuro has on his black turtleneck, black sweat-jacket-thing, black beanie, black drape-over hat, black artist's pants and black socks. I narrow my eyes at his fashion sense and he growls at my bare neck.

Kankuro has this belief that no one should have a bare neck. He makes this point by wearing a dozens of sparkly 'bling' things, three chokers, two black cross-skull-things that look like they're going to scrape off all his skin, and two chains doubled over his neck. Every year for Christmas he sends Temari at least three ornate necklaces and me two dog tags. I give the dog tags to Neji, who needs them for his dog tag art project (self-employed and he's been working on it for at least five years).

Temari puts her hands on her hips and smiles. "The reason I was so happy when I came in…"

Kankuro and I lean forward, Kankuro jingling as all the necklaces bang into one another on their descent downwards because of gravity, "is…"

She throws her hands up in the air, "I've gotten Yuki's ok to come to our house tomorrow to visit!"

I can feel my jaw drop to the ground.

Kankuro coughed. "Um, Ne-chan, sorry to burst your bubble but our house is a mess… you don't want us to make a bad impression on your boyfrie--, sorry, fiancé, right?"

Temari grins and I can feel goose bumps rise up at the extent of evilness plastered onto her face.

"That's why today," She announces happily, "Is Clean-Up day!"

Kankuro and I groan.

"But Ne-chan—"

"Temari—"

"—I have a date today with Mina, I can't possibly—"

"—Naruto, and I promised I'll be there so I can't—"

"make it—"

"Does it have to be today--?"

Temari bangs the coffee table and we all jump at least three feet into the air. "SILENCE!"

We stare.

She grins, baring her teeth. "You are cleaning the house. You are cleaning the house now."

I sort of timidly raise my hand. "Um… Naruto?"

She considers.

"Ok, fine. Gaara, you can go with Naruto."

Kankuro complains, "Hey why does he get to shirk cleaning duty and I have to stay home?"

"Because Gaara is a serial killer!" My sister roars into his face, "And we are cleaning! NOW!"

I grin.

"Wait, what? Give me that!" An irritated hand tries to take a hold of a thick package of well-worn papers from another.

I have found that an extensive examination of hands can tell you many things about a particular person.

Naruto's hands are a little large and soft, dark tan with calluses from guitar-playing and intricate grooves all over his white palms. They're always slightly dirty—but not disgusting oily dirty—a dry, soft sort of dirty, like a layer of soft sand covering every inch of the skin around his fingers.

Sasuke's hands are white all over, smooth and slender and just a little clammy. They're as big as Naruto's, but not as wide. Every nail is carefully buffed and done over with clear nail polish so they shine like dew drops in any light, and the hands are always clean. If they were pushed under an examination table without the examiner knowing it was Sasuke, they could have been mistaken for girl's hands.

Neji's hands are actually quite small—smaller then mine, even. When resting, they're always closed together—not tightly, like Sasuke, but casually. Never spread wide-open like Naruto, or half-curved like mine. The back of his hands are slightly tanned, and the way his skin sort of rests upon each finger tells most people that these hands are always in good use. Never as clean as Sasuke's and never as dirty as Naruto's, Neji keeps them clean enough so that he could eat food with them, but never clean enough to make them smell like alcohol. He wears a small green-jeweled ring on the index finger on his left hand—announcement that he is the only one out of the four of us who actually wears jewelry (charm-necklace, green-jeweled ring, topaz anklet, sometimes barrettes in his hair).

My hands? A cross between Neji's and Naruto's hands. I'm a little tanner the most, but definitely not as tan as Naruto. I have calluses as well, from playing guitar, and the skin on the back of my hands is filled with deep welts and scars of old memories long past. I sometimes wear gloves to school, because people stare at how grotesque my hands are—especially how I always keep my nails painted white, black, red or all. They are bony and small for my age, but not as small as Neji's, and sometimes I hate my hands for looking the way they do.

These hands belong to a forty-year old, while I was only seventeen. How would my hands look thirty years from now?

Naruto's finally gets a hold of the papers and lifts them above his head triumphantly. "Yes!" He shouts, happily, "I, Sir Naruto, have finally surpassed the Dragon Gaara in the fight for love and justice!" Neji, who's slurping a vanilla malt and chewing peppermint gum at the same time, rolls his eyes. I am still amazed at his capacity to chew gum in any situation.

"Naruto," the brunette orders in a surprisingly clear and tenor-like voice, "Sit down."

Since Neji is our residence bass, most people are actually surprised when they find his natural voice is actually a light tenor, higher pitched then Sasuke's. Of course, since Neji is musically and artistically talented in all aspects except for tattooing, he has an unusually high vocal range, from deep bass to what can even be considered as soprano. Of course, don't tell him I said that or he'll smack me.

"What?" Naruto goes all pouty-lipped and puppy-eyed, "I'm just sharing my joy." Neji sighs, takes out his gum, and sticks it into his napkin.

I know he only does this when he's about to lecture.

"Naruto," Neji says, flatly, fingering his charm necklace habitually, "The world does not revolve around you. I know it is important to share your work with other people, such as us, but is not necessary for you to announce your accomplishments to the whole world. Most of the said world does not care. Only we," He points to all of us in succession, "Will probably be the only ones to give you useful feedback. So please refrain from shouting out for everyone to hear, and instead, chose to talk in a normal voice such to avoid everyone else from hearing our conversation."

We all stare at him, and he adds, "Thank you."

"Damn." Naruto sighs, slouching back into his seat, "Neji, you're way too high-strung. Relax. This is a café. Have fun." The older boy shrugs and digs into his backpack for another stick of gum.

We're all sitting down by a really expensive café shop right next to the Hyuuga Mansion, around two blocks away in this really fancy shopping strip right separating the rich (Neji, Sasuke, Naruto) from the poor (Me). The four of us usually trickle in here one at time at around one to two on Saturdays, and have become our favorite friend-connected tradition. It's our official 'catch-up' time, where we can gossip as long as our parents allowed us (which was late, since almost all of us own a car except for me, but I have a motorbike, so it's ok).

"So you got a letter…" Naruto drawls, slowly as he examines the stack of papers he had so presumptuously stolen from me, "From your dad?"

I can feel Neji and Sasuke's gazes drill holes into my skull.

I take another bite of my banana split (my all-time favorite ice cream dessert besides Caramel Turtles). "Uh… yeah."

Sasuke's pale complexion, paler then mine when I was still in sixth grade (I've tanned up quite considerably since moving here) stands out stark white against his black hair, blue headband (he still wears that dorky thing no matter how many I times I tell him its stupid!) and black turtleneck. "You said," He says, "Your father died."

I sighed, eating another bite of my banana split, "Yes, Sasuke, you are so smart. The reason I moved here is because of my father's death in the first place."

He narrows his eyes. "Then how can he send you letters?"

"His will," Naruto speaks up, "It's his will."

"What?" The ebony-haired boy turns around in his seat to look at the blonde, who is intently staring back. "How do you know that?"

"It's right here?" Naruto holds up the sheets of paper.

I sigh.

Dear Gaara:

I am not going to bother with formalities, rights, or laws with you. I have known you ever since you were born and you have not cared for either of the above any time in your whole life. I have to say, I am disappointed.

This is just a letter to tell you that they (they being the justice system) have (finally) found your father's will. That smart old guy had hid it in his fourth diary smack dab in the middle, folded up five times so it was almost undetectable. But anyways, we found it, and now we're here to read you what you got, right?

Well…

I've included a copy of your father's will below… you knows, it's filled with all that junk about 'I dedicate my fifth contract of blah to blah' and 'I must say I encourage the use of blah for my blah so blah, my blah…' Yeah, you get the point.

But the most important point for you and your siblings is on page 43.1.2.b. Read it. You'll be SO shocked.

Happy Family, Happy Health, Happy Living?

From:

Your (wonderfully and ever so kind) Lawyer, Pre-Family Guardian and Wonderful Mentor,

Baki.