People ask me why.

I don't know. I never give them a straight answer, just a glare, a sneer, a turn-of-the-head, silence.

Before I said it was the brilliant smile, the happy-go-lucky attitude, the beacon of light he was to people like me so lost in this world. It was a very good excuse too. It was so good that I even fooled myself for so long, believing this well-woven lie, this heart-aching jist that everyone believed.

But it's not the real thing. There is more to it, deeper levels, layers and layers, of anger and loneliness and all-out passionate moments that my mind is too terrified to comprehend, instead, burrying those memories, those emotions, deep into my soul, where they can never be touched, never be remembered again.

However, I'm pretty sure its time to start digging up those ancient volumes up now, time to face my past, look at what happened, and, ultimately, believe.

Believe what had happened was real and that I was the one that caused it all.

--

Breaking the Music

By FlightAngel

--

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

--

When I finally arrived home with my siblings after the party, I dump my prizes from the "fish stuff out of the tank with your mouth" game Sakura had insisted we all participated in (I am surprisingly good with my mouth) onto my bed and quietly slip into the study room. Kankuro immediately flops onto the couch, unbuttoning his jacket as he does so, obviously satisfied.

"Dude!" He shouts at Temari, who was riffling through our refrigerator looking for some healthy treat to counteract the chips she had consumed during the party, "Damn, I miss high school parties! Too bad the only thing we did was drink alcohol, and not even everyone did that. But it was fun!" He sighs, belching, content.

"Uh huh," Temari answers, obviously not listening to our drunk-dump brother, "Yeah, whatever. Gaara, did you see that Carrot-and-Apple Jell-O I made two days ago?"

"Kankuro ate it." I answer shortly. Said brother yelps aloud.

"Gaara! Argh, you little tattle-taler!"

I just inwardly shrug, carefully maneuvering myself through piles of notebooks, binders, textbooks and novels littering the floor of the study room, piling onto Baki's neatly made bed, the dusty bookshelf, the old cedar desk that used to be in Kankuro's room until it broke out of sheer oldness. Of course, with a little super glue and duct tape, anything became useful in our household.

Gently hefting piles of short stories Temari probably wrote while biting her nails in nothing but her panties and purple nightdress onto an empty space on the desk, I sort through some of the gunk now almost glued onto our floor from the weight of everything else pressing against it. I find old reports Temari and Kankuro wrote while they were still in high school, I find documents and bills Temari had signed or paid and had just hurriedly filed away the extra copies in random folders and dumped into the study room, I find old photographs of us siblings in Suna, I find letters Temari received from friends in Suna, the first two years after we moved, I find a bunch of useless but interesting things that just wasn't what I wanted.

As I was shuffling everything about while searching for the documents I wanted, I habitually started to sort things out. All creative writings Temari and Kankuro had furiously written go in a file labeled 'Creative Writing by Sabaku no Temari and Kankuro' sitting on the shelf. All contracts go in a hanging folder to go into the file cabinet. All bills go into another hanging folder in another file cabinet. All letters and personal notes go into another file on the shelf. I spent about an hour stuffing all the photographs, sometimes piled high still in their photograph package, sometimes tucked in between documents, into our family album, trying to put them order, which later also went on the bookshelf. The more things went into folders, the closer it seemed I was to finding the papers. Admittedly, the floor was definitely actually coming to view.

I find Temari's Diaries and Kankuro's Logs, which I don't bother to read because I am a good brother that way (not, I'm just not interested in what they thought of me. No, correction, you can say I was afraid to find out what they thought) and put them, in chronological order, on the bookshelf on another shelf from the previous folders. I find a whole lot of romance and mystery novels that Temari has brought home over the years along with Kankuro's action and adventure ones and my short realistic fiction ones tucked everywhere, which I placed onto the last two shelves on the bookshelf.

Hot, sweaty, and tired by the time I was done almost cleaning up the study room, I finally find what I want. Under piles and piles of papers and books, there, on the floor, a small file clipped together with a silver paperclip, a doctor's scrawl on its sleeve: Sabaku, Gaara. Medical Records.

Slowly extracting the thing from its hiding place, I tuck it under my arm and creep out into the hall. Both Kankuro and Temari have gone to sleep, as it was almost one in the morning, so I was safe from their prying eyes and ears. After safely reaching my bed, I carefully turn on my desk lamp and set the file onto its hard wooden surface.

Flipping through the papers, I skip all my normal, annual check-ups reports from my various doctors, skip my shot-record, blah, blah, blah, until I get to a thick set of papers at the back, paper clipped. This is what I want.

Spring Forth Christian Treatment Center: Sabaku, Gaara; Medical Records; Clinically Insane

Hands slightly shaking, I attempt to open the first page, to peek at the doctor's point of view on my rampage of insanity, craziness, but I can't do it. Because I really didn't want to cheat, to see what I was forgetting, to remember what I have purposely forgotten for five years, because in truth that was what I was looking for—that important memory, the last piece of my complicated puzzle of a mind, the thing that breathed life into the empty pieces of remembrance in my head. Silently staring at the packet of documents, I slowly remove them from the safety of their medical file, slip back into the study room put the slightly lighter bundle along with its brethren.

After safely creeping into my room and shutting the door, I take out a tack and pin the packet of papers onto my corkboard-thing on my wall next to the will. I then shut off the light, will the nightlight at the corner of my room on, and stare at the ceiling as I patiently wait for the ever-so-slow sleep to take me, all the while feeling the presence of the paper near me.

Just in case.

--

When I emerged from the shower this morning, I stumbled into a full-fledged real true-to-true fight that could have shaken the earth twice over with the amount of screaming and stomping it created. I stare with a towel thrown across my head, totally bare except for some boxers I had grabbed from the laundry (Kankuro's… the waistline is too wide and its too tight down there) as Temari picks up a plastic plate from the cabinet and throws it, not very friendly, at my brother, who ducks and continues bellowing.

"Who the fuck do you think you are you frickin' bitch! You think you can just run away from the family like this, huh? Every morning, every night, going out to those night clubs seducing men—what the hell do you think you're doing, you freak? Get a hold of yourself!"

"Get a hold of yourself!" Temari shrieks back, face already blotchy with anger, "Shut the fuck up about me going to night clubs, just look at you! Bringing a bunch of sluts into the home, fucking in Gaara's bed, being a drunken bastard loser all the time, you're the one that doesn't care about anything! All you care about is yourself you little brat don't think you're all so big now you're grown up, deep down you're still that creepy kid with your fucking obsession with those fucking dolls of your—"

"Don't you talk about my dolls!" Kankuro roars, picking up Temari's thrown plate and throwing it back at her, "Don't you even dare bring them into this! And don't scream at me about my hobbies, I got them from you anyways!"

"How'd you get them from me—"

"—SHUT THE HELL UP YOU WHORE YOU HAVE NO SAY IN WHAT I DO!" Kankuro's voice is so loud even I have to take a step back if I didn't want my eardrums to burst, "You fucking hypocrite I'm sick of you! When the hell are you going to move out, you bitch, you're twenty already and still living with your family! Get out of here! For God's sake, get the fuck out of here!"

There are tears streaming down Temari's face as she slams a fist into the table, finally, after years of expecting it to, shattering it into a flurry of splinters that fly every which way and I stare at the mess of what had been our old probably centuries year old table with an odd sadness. Poor table. Oh well, it was past its time anyway.

"I hate you." she whispers, quietly, fist slightly trembling in her fury, "can't you see the reason I stay is because this family's already fucked up enough as it is? If I leave all you'll ever do is get drunk and have sex all the time and Gaara'd… Gaara would…Gaara'd…" she stops, lips trembling, then, with one swift motion flies out of the room, out the door, out the flat, and into the biting cold of March. I stare as Kankuro stomps past me, pissed, slams the door to his room and screams, loud and muffled, through his pillow which really wasn't enough for my brother's booming voice chords.

I am still a moment, contemplating what to do. As I am not exactly dumb and I knew better then to go off and look for my sister, I turn around and head back into my bedroom. And lock the door.

'Cause I didn't really want to deal with Temari coming home and realizing that she had just broken our table which would cost more then two hundred dollars to replace.

--

I head into the kitchen the day after, black hoodie, black pants, black socks, black headphones gripping my unfortunately not black ears, the image of Kankuro on any normal day because I didn't feel like making up my own color scheme today, cautious when I spot my sister sipping tea on a new table she had brought when she came back from her rampage yesterday. Even if I am capable of decapitating her and hiring a maid to replace her duties, I still feel my face go white every time she gave me that look that said 'I know you ate my cookies yesterday and I know you know you ate my cookies yesterday so if you don't want to be slowly tortured with a frying pan and a thong, just do what say'. Needless to say, I did not appreciate those kinds of looks.

As I stiffly come in and pour myself a cup of tea, Temari continues to read one of her favorite romance novels with a blatant poker face pulled on, looking at me once and saying, "Hi."

I don't reply, just pull up a chair for myself and stare at her with large, almond-shaped green eyes, expecting her to be snappish or angry or something at any moment possible in a spontaneous spasmodic fashion as she often is. She just continues to sip her tea.

"No school today?" She asks, curt, flipping a page and giggling over something she had evidently just seen or read. I continue to stare, sip my tea, decide that I am very, very hungry and slither to the refrigerator. Finding a bowl of rice and some burnt soup that was pretty edible if you didn't eat the black bits, I heat it up with the microwave as Temari continues to, scarily, giggle her way through some more pages of her obviously, awesomely amusing book.

"Gaara," She says, suddenly serious again as she turns another page, lifting the cup to her mouth and realizing that there is no more tea, "Neji's coming at ten to pick you up. Make sure to bring suntan lotion, a hat, and a plastic bag. Understand?"

I stare at her—why the heck do I have to bring a plastic bag and why is Neji picking me up in the first place—at the tip of my tongue, and, instead of answering, push a large spoonful of mushy rice-and-soup into my mouth and chewed. "Mm." Temari looks at me above the cover of her book; probably pondering on whether that was a yes mm or a no mm.

It could have been taken either way.

"Good," Temari finally says, obviously deciding that my 'mm' was a yes, "Now please go away." She's never been so curtly rude with me before and I subconsciously toy with the idea of taking a hold of her head and cracking it upon the floor before hanging her body up to dry on the clothesline. No, that would be too messy.

I hate messes. Habitually cracking my knuckles with one hand—something I do when I get aggravated—I finish my rice-soup, put it in the sink, and go into Kankuro's room. Speak of the devil—his room is in its entirety a huge mess itself. The paint he'd used to cover the walls and ceiling with odd words and pictures is a little chipped off, posters plaster almost everywhere where there weren't black smudges, clothes, books, novels, porn, candy, trash, piling up everywhere so that there isn't an inch of floor seen to the human eye, Kankuro himself a mass of flesh on his bed, snoring.

"Gu…" he snorts suddenly, smiling drunkenly before hugging and, possibly, groping his pillow, "You're so nice and sexy down there, Pu-chan…"

I shut the door, head into my room, and decide that my brother is absolutely insane to think girls are 'cute'. I have never, ever seen a girl in that way and I never, ever will because… they're so… bumpy it causes shivers to go up and down my spine. And, possibly, because Temari is a girl and every other girl I get 'affectionate' with I just see them like another Temari. Ha, ha. I guess gayness might be a genetic thing and Temari's recessive gay gene has rubbed off on my recessive gay gene making me extremely, explosively gay.

What kind of logic is that?

Remembering that Neji is going to come pick me up to go who-knows-where I straighten myself, put away all my black clothes (I had pulled them on this morning just to piss Temari off… obviously, not using my head) and stand totally naked in my room. Wonderful. I pinched my slightly muscular arms and legs, looked at the flabby thing I called my butt (Temari once shouted at me one day when I was being particularly self-conscience that I had a very cute perky butt and I should stop fussing over it), glanced at my nether regions (making sure I didn't lose my dick in my sleep… ha, ha, bad joke) and stared at my face in the mirror.

After some sort of screwed up thought process I conclude that I am a gangly, red-headed, partially-freckled, googly-eyed freak with stick limbs, a fatty butt and a manhood that isn't even worth mentioning. I swear, this is all true.

I will now step aside from my body a moment and consider myself without any bias (I must say I am purposely harsh on myself just for the sheer pleasure of feeling better when people compliment me… yes, I know I am an absolute dork) and I can faintly feel a ghostly shiver as my whacked-up inner workings tear themselves away from my freezing physical being and stare at me blandly. You can tell I do this a lot, when no one's looking, of course (I have a reputation to maintain, you know).

Young, lithe boy, a pained expression flickering on his face, red tufted hair roughly poking in every which way in this 'I-combed-it-already-don't-bug-me-about-it-dammit' fashion that lied through its teeth, eyes and skin fiercely contrasted by a thick line of mostly black eyeliner surrounding each eye, nice, half-slender, half-set neck that connected to shoulders that were just a little on the feminine side. A chest that is well-built but not muscle-man like from practice at Aikido, which I am still doing, by the way, slightly muscled arms and legs that are a little skinny but had enough meat on them to look good in the right clothes. Legs are long, nice, and slender, muscled, of course, set firmly on surprisingly small feet that curled femininely beneath him in this heart-agonizing way. And he can be considered 'big' though I wouldn't know because I really don't go around asking guys how big their dicks are. I'm not that much of a weirdo.

I try to imagine this body having sexual intercourse or the like and just can't. Maybe because it's my body? Of course, there are men at school who brag of having wet dreams and masturbating all the time, which I find mutually disgusting and abnormal at once, having never experienced that kind of thing before. I am apparently the only guy at school that has never bodily gone through something sexually, whether it is really, tong-tied kissing, hugging-in-a-not-sisterly-fashion (Temari…), groping, touching, sex itself, wet dreams, 'getting hard' all those other random things that guys all like to stereotypically talk about. I know because it's what Kiba talks about when there is nothing else to talk about when he probably just wants to piss Shikamaru and me off in Drama class. That, and Kankuro sometimes, randomly, drags me into one of his 'let's watch porn!' sessions.

"Not God," I think to myself as I stare at my motionless body, "I don't think anyone would want a non-active partner…"

Thus… began my revelation to become more interested in sexually related things.

And Neji wonders why I am giving him that certain look that spoke of furious interrogation, awkward questions that demand answers and a lot, a lot, of blushing.

--

"G-Gaara…kun…" Neji's ever-so-shy, pig-tailed cousin shyly curls her fingers at me in a frightened little wave before instinctively stepping behind my older, taller, stronger friend, "Y-you look w-well…" I raise a brow at her hesitant and bland compliment that was a more of a please don't kill me! comment then a my you look nice comment.

If I was any other straight guy I would have thought that she was adorable—firm perky breasts tucked tightly under a too small shirt with some logo imprinted on it, short jean shorts practically cupping her butt up in this nice… round shape and showing lots and lots of thigh. Of course, she ruined the whole 'sexy' look (I will never be turned on by girls… I mean, they have these mounds everywhere and its not like it's not attractive, it's just not attractive to me) by adding some stockings and some buckled shoes which were probably chosen by her. The rest…

"I didn't," Neji says curtly as we walk closer and closer to the Gate of Doom, "want her to come to the carnival dressed in a plaid skirt, navy vest, and long-sleeved white girly-girl blouse that made her look like a nerd." His eyes wander disapprovingly to the stockings and his cousin squeaks, "I, unfortunately, couldn't do anything about those awful socks…"

"S-stockings," she says frightfully and her cousin rewards her with a twisted glare. We are at the last place I want to be in the world, a place where horrors are revealed and people scream and die of bloody murder. We are at… a carnival.

"Hey kid!" A white face looms at me, my own face paling and trying to hide behind my sister's skirt, "You want a balloon?" Before I can answer I feel a hand on my butt, why was there a hand on my butt? and I turn around and see this aging man with stubble smiling down at me.

"If you come with me, I'll give you candy," he coaxes, but before either he or the white face man can steal me and keep me forever and ever Temari comes to my rescue, whacks the two with some of her handy-dandy fans and runs off with Kankuro and me at top speed in the opposite direction.

After a whole day of cotton candy in my hair, fighting with Kankuro, throwing up after numerous rides, getting chased by more pedophiles, almost getting kidnapped by some old lady who thought I was her grandkid, getting scared by more white face men and basically screaming my head off because I couldn't find Bunny I decide that I will never, ever set a foot in a carnival again.

Never.

I can't believe I am setting my feet in a carnival again. And I can't believe Temari had set this all up with Neji beforehand at that blasted party.

"T-three adults, please," Hinata (Neji had tried to knock that name into my head thousands of times and only now am I responding to this 'treatment') speaks through the small black speaker thing situated between a glass sheet separating us from a fat looking secretary woman who was buffing her nails as she spoke to us.

"That will be thirty dollars, please."

I can feel my brow twitch. Thirty bucks? I mean, that's pocket change for the ever-so-rich Hyuuga family but for me it was like, with that money I can stock the refrigerator for another month or two. Yes, our family is, but will not always be, pathetically poor. I added the 'will not always be' because after finishing therapy I will, whether I want it or not, inherit my father's fortune, making me and my siblings really, very rich. Probably just as rich as the Hyuuga or Uchiha families, almost.

Thankfully Neji is such a good friend he paid for my ticket (plus I glared at him from the side of my eye when he asked me if I had the ten bucks needed to get in) and we were soon on our merry way into the carnival, surrounded by bright, twirling lights, the sounds of laughter and slurping and throwing up as some unfortunate people stumble off their rides, the smell of burnt sugar and too-much-human contact, trash littering the ground, little brightly colored tents blooming in the middle of a cut-away forest shadowed by large, enormous rides. People are bustling, shopping, dating, talking, fighting, pushing us this way and that as Hinata shamelessly clings to Neji, who looks faintly annoyed at his cousin's proximity, my eyes locking on to Neji's bright green scarf (guess who gave it to him? Lee) and keeping it in eyesight at all times.

After much pushing and shoving, gasping and huffing, we finally pull ourselves out of a current of shrieking tourists and locate a small, slightly sticky bench where Neji takes the sticky area in a very manly fashion so that Hinata, the girl of this odd threesome, can sit in a dry area, resting. We haven't even gotten ourselves on a ride yet and there is sweat already beading down my cheek.

As I regain my strength and breathe without showing any outward emotion (I pride myself in saying I look absolutely composed throughout the whole pushing-pulling crowd ordeal) I remember my new determination in sexual things.

"Neji," I say, so low that Hinata squeaks, huddles near Neji instinctively, squeaks again at what she just did and tries to huddle with the air next to her (very odd moment) as the long-haired brunette just looks slightly annoyed, "I need information."

"Now?"

I stare at him with my eyes open wide, and he can read the 'yes, now you freak why else am I asking you' in the glint reflected by the hovering sun attempting to dazzle us all with its brightness.

"What?"

"Do you have a sexually transmitted disease?" Neji stares at me like my head had exploded and I was tearing through the tents at a hundred miles per hour looking for it, eyes wide in disbelief.

"Excuse me?" He squawks in a very Hyuuga way (which meant narrowing his eyes and sort of raising his voice a couple octaves), "I-I—are you accusing me of sleeping around? Because, no, I don't! What gave you that idea in the first place?" I shrug, as if carelessly slipping off questions, which I am.

"Ok. Are you pregnant?"

"What?"

"Do you masturbate?"

"That is very priv—"

"Have you had a wet dream and if so who was it about?"

"Gaara—yes, everyone has but the person is disclosed information—"

"Gone on a date before?"

"Yes, you have too."

"Are you sexually active?"

"Yes—wait, what does that have to do with—"

"Are you top or bottom and do you do blowjobs or do you prefer to take it anal?"

Hinata's face is a beet red and Neji looks very, very tormented as he stares at me, mouth opening and closing like a fish. Finally sort-of calming down the flush in his cheeks, he snaps, embarrassed, "I believe that I have a right to refuse to answer."

"Fine then," I skip over it hurriedly, "I'll assume you are all, now—"

"OH!" Hinata suddenly cries out, as if she couldn't stand this conversation anymore and is pointing very, very nervously at a tilt-a-whirl spinning dazzling blue and green colors all around as ecstatic screams ring from within, "Look, N-Neji-niisan, looks like f-fun! W-want to go ride?"

"Sure!" Neji shouts, suddenly so happy that he was about to spend some quality time with his baby cousin and possibly totally ignore my deeply personal questions, "C'mon Gaara, let's go!"

And they prance away in the sunset (not really, but you know what I mean), as I trail behind them. Ok, so maybe Neji wasn't the best person to ask. There's only two more people left to interrogate and one of them is my last, last resort, which I am never planning to use.

But back to the tilt-a-whirl.

Hinata immediately latches onto Neji's arm and refuses to let go, no matter how many twitching glares he throws at her, looking up at the spinning machine with a frightened glint in her eye though trying to pull on a determined face in the presence of her intimidating cousin and his even more intimidating friend. The line is short, thank the Lord, and we immediately find ourselves filed at the entrance gate to the ride. I am always fascinated by the entrance gates, the mechanic whirring of the huge metallic being that swirled and spun, the anticipating building in my stomach though I truly wasn't all that excited, probably even the cold air waiting to be blown across my already ruffled hair as I spun.

"Three?" the man-at-the-gate says, bored, sighing as he unlocks the chain hung across the red, metallic door and let us climb aboard this dizzying disk-like structure, black surrounding us all around as we go in, "Ok, listen up kiddos, those over at the wall are your seat belts, pull them across your chest like that, see, that's right. During the ride I must instruct you to keep your hands at your sides against the wall because it will be very dangerous if you do not have your hands against the wall. If you are pregnant, have high blood pressure or wear any dangling accessories please place them in this bag…" I zone out as he lists the safety procedures and, finally, steps out of the disk-UFO-thing and shuts the door so it is suddenly pitch black.

I feel my voice plunge into my stomach. Black. No light, no escape, no area of comfort, no anything but squeezing me relentlessly, wanting to tip me over, back under the cliff, into my own insanity, drowning, dammit, let me out, I have to get out, but the damn safety bar's over my lap and I can't see anything, can't hear anything but Hinata's heavy breathing, and then—

Twirling. Who knew such twirling can twist my head this way and that and cause me to suddenly explode in a fountain of new found giddiness that scared the heck out of me, bubbling up from my throat and giggling to itself in this freakishly insane way that makes Neji whisper, "A-a-a-a-a-a-are you o-o-o-o-o-k, G-g-g-g-g-aara?" Because we were spinning so fast his voice is outstretched, each note a second behind us. I don't respond, can't respond, just find myself spinning, wildly, out of control, the white room coming up towards me—"The mind plays tricks—itself, protection against—patterns—"—as I stare up as the top of the dome lifts itself, suddenly revealing piercing, startling light, so bright, so sudden I let out a little strangled scream before everything went black.

Again.

Dear not God, I am such a loser.

--

According to Temari, my adventure after the great darkness swallowed me up went something like this: the ride attendant panicked and called the doctor, who woke me up while I was in a daze and took me home while Neji and Hinata stayed at the carnival, ate cotton candy and had a jolly good time. Of course, they did come back and brought me some souvenirs and another ticket to the carnival which would still be open next week, so I wasn't that bitter, but I was still pissed that I had fainted on a frickin' carnival ride. I am losing my cool. There has got to be some way to regain my composure.

And I haven't had any of sexually related questions answered either, dammit.

--

"Gaara, if you want to get clearer chords try to keep your fingers in a sort of block grip."

Itachi is leisurely stretched over his leather navy-colored couch, hair spilling over his shoulder and hands, loose from its usual tie. He's wearing a collar shirt and some jeans, proudly displaying a hickey on his collarbone exposed because of the way his collar shirt was buttoned. He seems smugly satisfied as beside him sat a quiet bulky form of a man with the oddest blue skin I have ever seen.

"Kisame!" Itachi had introduced Neji and me to when we first arrived to Uchiha Manor to get ready for our twelve-hour practice on the last Saturday before the Battle of the Bands, "This is Neji and Gaara. Neji's a year older then Otouto and Gaara's got a crush on Naru-chan!"

All I did was twitch at the way he introduced us, carefully taking the…fish guy's hand and shaking it. Neji just stiffly bowed and dragged me to the living room. Thus ending with the two adults hanging about our practice area, Itachi shouting 'advice' from the sidelines and Kisame just sitting there like a boulder. I don't know him, he doesn't know me, we avoid each other like the plague. The art of talking-but-not-out-loud has its charms.

"Kiss the rain / upon the lips / the cooling dew / sweeping away / the tears / cried within / me, kiss the rain / kiss it like you'd / kiss me if I was still here / upon the lips / the cooling dew / sweeping away / the tears cried within"

Neji sang beautifully and sadly, soft tenor fluttering about the ears of the occupants sitting in the room, words strung together—an art of speech. Though I admit the lyrics were pretty cheesy by themselves, I greatly admire Neji's singing. Everyone does.

"Try to stay in one key!" Itachi shouts, "It's cool that you can switch keys but it's better on the ears if you stay in one!" Neji stops singing and looks very, very indignant. No one has accused him of something so… ridiculous before about his singing. I just stare at Itachi like he is mad. What the heck did he think he was doing, criticizing the senior boy? I mean, he'd already picked on Naruto's voice, Sasuke's beat, and my chords, but that doesn't mean he has to pick on Neji just for the sake of being able to say at least one bad thing about each of us 'younger children'.

Before I can say anything, however, Neji answers, icily, "I will take your advice to heart, Itachi-san." He smiles a tight-lipped smile, "But I prefer to sing my own style, if you don't mind. Going through several keys is, really, part of the music."

Itachi just shrugs an okay-but-it'll-definitely-hurt-you shrug and leans back into his couch.

Relieved that the Itachi-attack seemed to be over, I let my thoughts wander as we continued to practice our song. Again. And again.

It was exactly one week from the Battle of the Bands. Naruto is hysterical.

"Crap! Neji! Did you remember to mail in our application form?"

"Yes, Naruto."

"Are you sure it didn't get lost in the mail somewhere?"

"Yes, Naruto."

"Are you positive?"

"Yes Naruto," Neji had replied, gritting his teeth, "If you want I can log onto the website and show you our name under the 'entered' list."

Naruto seemed to get the hint.

He just tackled another subject. "Is Gaara's Chevy big enough to carry the equipment? Do we have extra strings? What if we freak before the Battle? Do you have to wear makeup? How many people are going to be there? Do you our new t-shirts ready?"

Basically, he's been like that all day and it was starting to get on all our nerves, even mine.

"Hey, let's all take a break," Sasuke suddenly says, out of the blue, and everyone stares at him, even his own brother. Before the CEO can properly say anything snotty, however, drumsticks find themselves on the music stand, two guitars are propped up against the wall and a bass is stranded in the middle of the carpet while four tired-out high school students teeter into the kitchen in less then two seconds flat.

Said brother is huffy. "Don't touch my spiritual-hummus ok? Or my yoga-cookies! Sasuke! SASUKE, did you hear me?"

"Just leave it, Itachi," I hear the rumbling blue boulder of a man say from the living room, "Stop being annoying."

Itachi says something snide, though it is lost in my mind as I spot Sasuke starting to unload part of his refrigerator in preparation for some odd delicacy he probably learned in the process of being dragged into Itachi's random bouts of insaneness. A jar of cinnamon,, white flour, brown sugar, white sugar, butter, sour cream, nutmeg, and, probably in defiance, two of Itachi's forbidden yoga cookies which he stuffs into his mouth. No, Sasuke does not have an incredibly big mouth. Those yoga cookies are just really, really small. Naruto rolls his eyes and, irises suddenly lighting up in excitement, out-of-nowhere grabs my arm and swings me over. Dazed, I barely register what's going on until I find myself elbow-deep in a pile of dough that had seemingly appeared out of nowhere with Naruto beside me booming out the lyrics to The Tears Cried Within, the song we are planning to sing at the BOB (battle of the bands) in a seriously off-pitch voice.

"THE TEARS! KISS THE RAAAAAAAAAAIN!" He shouts at the top of his lungs as he, very vigorously, cuts the dough into little equal-sized pieces to be molded by Sasuke, who is wincing at the blonde's singing, "Upon the lips! Sweeping awaaaaaay!"

"Stop stealing my lines!" Neji snaps loudly above Naruto's din, "You're the accompaniment singer! You're just supposed to ECHO!" I grit my teeth and focus on the dough beneath me, inwards, outwards, inwards, outwards, flip over, start again, ignore insane friend…

"Gaara!" Naruto belts out, suddenly placing my name in his wildly edited song (Neji's getting pretty pissed because he was the one that had wrote the lyrics and didn't like the younger boy changing his hard-thought words), "Kiss the rain; kiss it like you'd kiss me if I was still heeeeeeere!" I immediately cast my gaze downward so the other junior couldn't see the slight pink dusting that had risen on my face. It was just a song, a song that my best friend had written no less, but why did the blonde just have to incorporate my name in there?

After, rather difficultly, trying to make whatever we were making (Sasuke ordered us around, me and Neji, while Naruto, who obviously knew what we were making, did everything without being asked) with Naruto bursting into song every few minutes (much to everyone's annoyance) and Itachi sometimes storming in and out under the excuse of going to his room but really just trying to figure what we were up to and shouting at us for eating some of his precious yoga cookies (we all pointed at Sasuke and he was like "Guys!") we were all pretty tired. A quick glance at the clock confirmed that it was about two in the afternoon, approximately, and Sasuke had just put the plate of sad-looking sour cream cookies into the oven.

We all crowd around a small kitchen table in a corner of the kitchen (there are many corners to the Uchiha's horrendously oversized kitchen), Neji sitting huffily next to me smelling faintly of nutmeg because he had spilt the jar all over his clothes, mostly because Naruto had crashed into him while spinning to his edited rain song. Naruto had his sleeves rolled up to his elbow and a smudge of cookie batter on his cheek, which Sasuke carefully wipes off with a napkin.

Naruto stares. "Huh?"

"There was batter on your face."

"Oh."

'

I seethe.

Sasuke himself looks slightly battered, partially because he's been trying to control the creation of the cookies and ignore his crazy brother at the same time and deal with Naruto's singing, which he was doing off-pitch on purpose and try not to have a staring contest with Gaara right now.

There is an absolute silence for a brief moment, Naruto sighing and staring up at the Uchiha's rather nice ceiling, Neji looking over his shoulder and looking out the window, into the garden, thinking about something deep, me, crossing my arms and trying to look brooding, even if my mind was blank and Sasuke, looking at the kitchen door as if he was contemplating doing something but decided in the end not to. Eventually, however, the silence is broken.

"Sasu-ke!" Naruto whines, emphasizing the name's last syllable, suddenly twirling out of his rather expensive looking wooden seat and almost crashing into Sasuke, who looks slightly annoyed that the blonde had interrupted his contemplate-if-I-should-do-this thought tirade, "I'm bored! Let's go practice some—"

"NO." the rest of us says loudly, then look surprised at how insistent the other two were. Naruto pouts a little, cutely, so his natural blush stands out blatantly from his cheeks in this not-beautiful-but-still-attractive manner, crossing his arms and looking at the oven timer, which said in large red numerals that we still have seven more minutes to go before the cookies were ready to take out of the oven. Stamping his foot on the floor a little, he paces about before finally taking a tight grip on my bare arm, exposed because I had been wearing a jacket over my red tang top and had earlier in the day removed the jacket.

His hand feels warm, and my eyes flicker a moment in memory—gripping them with his own, slightly dry ones firmly and carting him towards the therapy—before I feel myself tugged upwards and an arm sidle him around my shoulder. Neji and Sasuke stare as Naruto, being the ecstatic young man he was, bellows out, quite flatly, "Let's play—Gaara's Many Emotions!"

"Um," Neji coughs into his hand, white turtleneck looking very, very blinding in the particular light he is caught in, "sorry to break your bubble… but Gaara doesn't have many emotions." Sasuke raises a noble eyebrow in distaste. The blonde—who smells good, like strawberries and the sun, if the sun had a smell, all warm and yellow and… Naruto-smelling (does this seem familiar?)—seems totally unfazed and, instead, is beaming.

"Exactly!" He shouts so that Itachi, who had retired to his room along with Kisame for who-knows-what ("Sex," Sasuke had said curtly and Neji had covered my ears before I can hear his rather detailed descriptions on what exactly his brother and almost-brother-in-law were up to), could probably hear him, "That's the point! The point of the game is to reveal the most you can of Gaara's emotions!"

Neji and Sasuke exchange bemused glances as I turn a slightly paler shade of white. Excuse me?

Naruto's arm is fluid as it glides from resting at the top of my shoulder to a little over towards me chest, so I was anatomically forced to suddenly get pushed up next to Naruto's cheek as his other hand started to test me out. "First… Gaara's laughing emotion!" The other two are very engrossed in watching us and I can start to feel my face involuntarily heat up in response to the close contact I am having with the other boy. But before I can fully turn a shade of crimson the shade of hair (which I do when provoked, to my utter embarrassment) I sudden feel this jolt as Naruto's hand reaches the side of my waist…

"Crap!" I burst out in a fit of un-Gaara-like giggles, stop immediately in horror, and then start up again as Naruto continues to attack me, "Stop that! You—tee hee! What the--?" Giggling. Sabaku no Gaara does not giggle. I do not—ha, ha, hee—I DO NOT GIGGLE! No! Sto—ha tee hee hee! …dammit.

I finally escape the blonde's stronghold, slap a hand over my mouth and stare at him from a safe distance, face as red as a beet. I am safe to assume that Sasuke and Naruto would think the red came from my embarrassment over giggling, not from almost cuddling with Naruto. Neji, however, has this wicked grin stretched over his face and I know immediately that he knew. I tell him too much.

"Score!" Naruto says triumphantly, doing a victory dance, "One point for Naruto! Now, what other emotion should I make him express next…?" Neji looks like he's about to suggest something along the lines of Gaara's-smexed-up-emotion but stops when he feels the two holes I have drilled with my glare through his skull. The blonde seems to reach a conclusion, grins, and then comes towards me again. I look at him suspiciously at the corner of my eye, body stiffening up in a defensive pose. What was he going to do…?

"Gaara!" he suddenly shouts out in a very defiant voice, "You are a girl!"

I gape at him blankly as he steps forward and pokes me in the chest, "See! Definitely boobs! You think you can bind your chest when you are that size?" Neji and Sasuke look just as bewildered as I do. We've been in the locker room together before, we've seen each other practically naked that time we were at that hot spring and we've swum together a multitude of times. Girl?

Naruto continues his tirade, "Plus, your voice is so fake! You think you can really copy a guy's voice just by lowering that feminine tone? Ha! I can't believe you've been lying to us all this time! Don't you trust us?"

I can feel panic bubble in my stomach. What?

He looks at me, eyes a dark blue, totally serious. I stare at him like he has totally gone over the edge of sanity, as if he's become as messed up as me and contemplate anxiously on how to bring him back. Suddenly, however, a smile shoots across his face and he starts laughing hysterically, doubling over and turning away from me so I can't see his serious and laughing face mixed together, "Ha! GOT YOU! You fell for it! Score two for Naruto! I got to see Gaara's bewildered face!"

After a moment of ingesting this newfound information, my eyes narrow in a dangerously murderous gesture, hand suddenly snapping up and suddenly in a pretty good grip on the just-a-second-ago-laughing blonde, who stops abruptly when he feels my fingers on his trachea.

"Uh… Gaara?" He squeaks meekly, face suddenly contorted into one of suppressed fear. Neji and Sasuke's eyes are round as saucers, frozen because of what they just saw—a friendly tumble suddenly turned into one "friend" at the edge of killing the other.

I can feel the vein in my temple throb as my whole expression darkens, eyes glinting in a rather malicious way in the dim light, mouth twitching habitually into one of a sickening lust for blood, "Don't. Ever. Do. That. Again."

He squeaks.

I slightly increase the pressure I had gripping his neck and he sort of coughs, eyes bulging, fear, Neji's chair flies backwards as he suddenly decided that he has to do something and my smile gets larger, wickeder, the evil expression settling permanently on my face, he's almost here, there's tears in Naruto's eyes—

I suddenly let go, turn around sharply and smack Neji upside the head. He lets out a small grunt of surprise as he topples backwards and I wait for Naruto to regain his breath and composure. I smile again, but this time it's normal, kind, friendly as the blonde looks up, eyes still wide with fear.

"…Got you."

He stares at me a moment, eyes wide as he fingers his slightly red neck, before flying at me in an uncontrolled fury. "GAARA! That isn't funny! I seriously thought you were going to kill me, you IDIOT!" There are tears in his eyes and even Neji is looking as if he's on the edge of laughing and screaming at me too. Sasuke just looks vaguely relieved, though it changes into one of alertness when I lean down and carefully wipe away the other's tears.

Naruto gapes at me.

Before he can ask the obvious 'what the frick' are you doing?' question, however, there is a 'DING'. We all pause.

Sasuke smiles in his own Uchiha fashion.

"Cookies are ready."

Great, the mood was just totally ruined…

--

Author's Notes:

Cover Page for Fanfiction: Gaara and his Guitar (Which I drew myself, bwahahaha): http:// www. deviantart. com /deviation / 44860818 / just take away the spaces and off you go! Yes, the guitar is backwards, but who cares? XD

GAAAAAAAAAH! And after all that suspense last chapter I switch back to easy-going life XD. Well, shows you how life DOES go on... its not like they REALLY pause and play sad music for a good hour before the heroine and her hero make up. So while Gaara's being emo life is still being horrendously unfair towards him (pats Gaara). And yes, I wrote those lyrics myself, and yes, I am an awful lyricists so don't rant on and on and on about how sucky my verses are, deal with it, pretend its good, everything's fine. And yes, there is excessive cussing this particular chapter. Lots and lots of excessive cussing. Ok, so I can't say how much I love those reviewers/alerters/favoriters out there right now. I'm afraid I'll never finish this and never post an afternote that lists all my supports ;-;. So just for the sake of that I WILL FINISH THIS FANFIC! YOSH! XD Thanks for reading! R/R but no flaming!