This chapter is pretty dull and uneventful, but the next one will be great. Hopefully.

I do apologize for the ridiculously long wait.

As expected, sleep was a treat in which Neji failed to indulge. Instead, he laid awake in his lonely queen-sized bed, the soft, inviting warmth of its one-thousand thread count sheets failing to lull him away to dreamland. His mind was filled with a repetitive recap of the evening, memories jumbled together in a horrid mess as though they had occurred years ago instead of just hours before. In fact, he could not find a concrete recollection because he was too desperate to remember everything at at once, seeking the one detail that made such a search worthwhile at all. And, finding nothing, he eventually donned his clothes and ventured into the office at four in the morning. Thankfully, the management had supplied a greatly appreciated gift the previous Christmas – a coffee maker that magically brewed a cup in less than a minute. It was one of those fancy ones, with a name that sounded like Katie Couric's.

He drank his coffee black, and its bitterness was yet another reminder of the man he had encountered the night before. Leaning back in his chair, he wrapped both hands around the warmth of his mug and closed his eyes in remembrance of his – Gaara's – beautiful, rich red hair. He wished that he had thought to touch it while he had had the chance so that he wouldn't have such yearnings and aches to do it now.

But, he hadn't, and this fact proved to be near fatal as the hours ticked by. His desk, once neat and orderly, quickly became disheveled as he rummaged through every nook and cranny in a steadfast attempt to find something else to occupy his time. However, despite his various pursuits, only thoughts of the vibrant redhead remained.

At last, in submission, he yanked his keyboard onto his lap and glared at the computer. It was his enemy – a being that likely contained unknown information about his dangerous infatuation. Licking his lips, Neji hesitated before opening the browser, palms beginning to sweat above the wireless mouse. The Google toolbar, which had yet to disappoint him, lay waiting with a cursor blinking at the ready. One deep breath, two – he effortlessly typed in the two words: "Gaara Sabaku," hitting 'enter' and praying for nothing while simultaneously wishing for everything.

Your search – Gaara Sabaku – did not match any documents.

Neji felt a mixture of relief and despair escape in a single breath. Perhaps he had spelled it wrong? After all, they weren't particularly common names...

His fingers danced on the keyboard for several minutes, restless. For a moment, the near-forgotten image of his mother teaching him "Heart and Soul" on the piano played in his mind.

"Ah!" A new idea emerged without warning and immediately, his posture became erect and his eyes focused. His sister. He had said it once – no, twice – damn, what was it? It started with a T, didn't it?

Tina? Teagan? Ten-something? Tyrannosaurus Rex?

Evident failure.

Twisting his long ponytail around a lengthy finger in a rather girlish fashion, Neji twirled around in his chair and frowned. Surely, there must be some other way of locating the younger male. Unfortunately, his train of thought was lost when a doggish coworker appeared over the top of his cubicle.

"Neji, have you seen my flash drive? It's black and red, with this rubber thing around it..."

"No."

"...Okay.. Um, do you realize that your phone keeps going off?"

Neji quirked a brow, glancing around his now-cluttered desk.

"There." Kiba pointed out the blinking device, which immediately began playing Beethoven's 5th Symphony as if in response to an accidental conduction.

Picking it up, Neji studied the outer screen. Unknown caller. Odd, no one called him, let alone an "unknown caller." Shooing Kiba away, he flipped the phone open and brought it to his ear.

"Hello?"

"Hi." A brief pause. "My name is Temari Sabaku-" That's what it was! "I believe my brother used your phone to call me last night."

Sitting a little straighter, Neji silently wondered why he hadn't thought to browse his phone's history of outgoing calls. Cursed technology. "Yes- yes he did." He thought about adding that he had been trying to contact her or to find information on Gaara, but he didn't want to reaffirm his status as a creep.

There was a long silence, where many blistering questions might have been asked, typical of an over-protective big sister. Yet such an interrogation did not occur. Just, simply: "Do you have any idea where he might be?"

The pure, genuine tone of her voice nearly shattered the heart whose existence he often doubted. "I really don't. I figured you would have a better idea than I would," He admitted.

A reply of sniffles made his heart further weaken. How could Gaara treat his poor sister so horribly? She obviously cared a great deal about him. "I just – I don't know where he could be. He never does anything that makes sense..."

Neji simply listened on, having no clue as to what comforting words to provide. He wasn't good at helping others, and he especially wasn't good at supplying reassurance.

"Please... let me know if you see him. Or hear from him. Anything."

"..Sure." He honestly didn't know what else to say.

"Thank you." She sounded relieved, despite the fact that he had actually solved none of her problems and could, in fact, be the creep that he seemed to be the night before.

"It's no problem."

They exchanged quick goodbyes before Neji lifted his mug to his lips in thought. Never does anything that makes sense, eh? Well, that was made obvious last night... Smirking, he recalled Gaara's shoelessness as he sipped his now lukewarm coffee. Odd indeed.

"Okay," He finally said aloud, returning the mug to its previous spot. Where would a blind person go that wouldn't make sense?

A museum... not that they had any... some other kind of gallery... none of those either. Hmm.

A movie theatre? That seemed plausible. Going to the movies was one of the few activities available in the small town. Then again, it was a bit of a long shot, wasn't it? But which one?

Neji again grabbed his keyboard and began typing with remarkable speed. There were really only three theatres around that he could have gone to, and a worker would likely remember a blind redhead buying a movie ticket, right? Buzzing with an excitement that could not be detected from the expression on his face, Neji slid his phone into his pocket and lifted his set of keys off of a conveniently placed hook. He had technically already worked an eight hour day, what with being there so early. He didn't bother acknowledging the questions that met him on the way out, too determined in his mindset. By the time he made his way outside, however, he was already beginning to doubt his seemingly ingenious plan.

What if Gaara wasn't at any of the theatres? Really, it was pretty illogical. The theatres had only been open a few hours. And what if he wasn't right at all? He had only been with him for a couple of hours, anyway – what were the chances that he had a better idea of where he would be than his sister?

Sighing, Neji slammed his car door shut and unlocked the glove box compartment, extracting a half-empty pack of cigarettes from the back. He opened the box, withdrew his lighter, and puzzled its sea-green color as he lit himself a stick. Figures. He threw the items back into the glove box, re-locked it, and started the ignition. The smoke quickly settled, seeming to coat the leather interior with a layer of the sweet menthol scent that befuddled his senses. He cracked the window before clicking in his seatbelt and jerking the car into drive, heading to his first destination: Regal Cinemas.

The brick building was dilapidated and far past the term "run-down." For a moment, Neji believed the place to be closed, but he quickly noticed a young teen sitting in the booth, fiddling with a cellphone. Pulling up to the curb, Neji left the keys in the car – no one was around to steal it, anyway – and hopped out. As he approached, he realized that the prospect of finding Gaara here seemed less and less likely. They only had one movie playing: Sense and Sensibility. Still, it couldn't hurt to ask. Unfortunately, the kid paid him little attention and he had to bang on the thick, tinted plastic to get his attention.

"What, what? What do you want?" The boy queried, shifting nervously in his seat – it appeared Neji had given him quite a fright.

"I was wondering... have you seen a short redhead today by chance? He's about this tall, with green eyes."

"Uh, we haven't gotten any customers today, man." He picked the inside of a nostril with his thumbnail. "Sorry."

"Thanks anyway," Neji muttered, somewhat disgusted by the other's lack of decency. He headed back into his car and studied the other two addresses. Starlight something or other was twenty-six miles away. He had thought it a possibility at first, but really, how would Gaara have gotten that far over a single night? Looking back, the Grand Theatre seemed to be a more feasible choice. It was only eight miles – probably built in an attempt to finally shut down the dingy Regal. If Neji had actually gone out once in a while like a typical human being, he might have known this beforehand.

Irregardless , he was off again.

This time, there were definitely customers. The Grand Theatre was located in the middle of a shopping outlet, and as thus, the parking lot was completely packed. However, this also meant that there would be less of a possibility of anyone remembering one particular redhead.

"Hello, how may I help you?"

"Hi, I'm looking for a redhead yay tall with green eyes.. he's -" He paused, realizing that he didn't know how old Gaara was, but that it would be kind of suspicious if he was asking for someone whose age he didn't even know. "Twenty-two, and he's blind." A guess mixed with a somewhat pathetic description, but it seemed reasonable.

The woman inside raised a brow, seeming somewhat irritated that he was wasting her time when other customers wanted tickets. "No, I'm sorry..."

Neji cursed under his breath. Yes, he shouldn't have expected to find anything, but still – it was frustrating. He mumbled a thank-you before turning to walk away, but when the woman spoke again, he instantly turned around.

"Hey, wait-" She held up a finger, expression showing that she didn't enjoy keeping the other customers waiting. "My shift just started ten minutes ago. I'll ask the girl who was here earlier, if you want."

The relief Neji felt was enough to render him speechless. "That would be great," He managed. It took such strength to be a civilized human being...

The woman pulled out her cellphone, repeatedly looking around as if to ensure that her boss wasn't around the corner. "Emily, hey. Yeah, good, look – there's this guy here asking if you've seen a redhead with..." She glanced back at Neji.

"Green eyes."

"Yeah, green eyes. But he's blind, so I guess he'd have one of those stick things?"

Resisting the urge to physically smack some common sense into the blond, he simply nodded.

"Huh. No, he's short and twenty-" She pulled the phone away from her ear as Neji distinctly heard the other girl exclaim something in excitement. "What? Ok, ok. Apparently she thinks she sold him a ticket to part one of the Planet Earth marathon a couple hours ago, so it should still be running... shouldn't it? Yeah..." The girl rambled on, but Neji was already inside the doors. He had forgotten about the ticket ripper... but there were plenty of people around, it wasn't as though he were the only one to have entered. If he walked straight past, it would probably look like he had just gone to the bathroom or something.

Taking a deep breath, Neji pretended to dry off his hands on the back of his pants and cavalierly walked past the rather threatening-looking man, quite glad that this particular theatre did, in fact, have bathrooms outside of the theatre area. Convenient.

Indeed, his plan worked! That would certainly be helpful on the rare occasion he actually went to the movie theatre... well, actually, that was never, so perhaps it didn't work out too well.

Incidentally, Neji immediately spotted out the screen – number 13 – located on the other end of the hall, of course. Intent on withholding some self-control, he managed to refrain from bursting into a run and soon reached the door with a brisk, yet inconspicuous walk. Upon entering, the room was... quite black. The light from the screen really only seemed to reach the first few rows, which wasn't exactly helpful given it had stadium seating. So, he did what any brilliant man would do and removed his cellphone from his pocket, using its lighted keys to guide his ascent.

Finally, near the back, he spotted the redhead whose voice and wit occupied his thoughts. Now, what would he say? He supposed he could sneak up behind him and blow in his ear, but that'd be a bit.. well, odd, however amusing. Instead, he shuffled down the aisle and took at seat next to the younger man, whose face immediately turned to his.

"Yes?"

"Uh.." For some reason, he had forgotten that Gaara was capable of hearing.

"Neji," Gaara stated, easily recognizing the voice. "Are you stalking me?"

Neji was amazed by how blasé he seemed upon asking such a question. "No.." Luckily, he was capable of the same calm tone. "Your sister called and asked me to find you."

Gaara's eyes narrowed at this and he turned back to face the screen.

"Look, I realize that something is going on and you don't want to deal with it, but somehow I'm not enough of a heartless bastard to let you sleep out in an abandoned warehouse or something where you'd likely get killed or kidnapped or something."

"Christ, you whine a lot," Gaara said in a flat voice, regarding Neji with his unseeing eyes once again. "So what's your proposition?"

Proposition? "What?"

"How do you propose to keep me out of an old warehouse where I could get stabbed or mugged what have you?"

Well, Neji hadn't thought that far ahead. What could he propose, anyway? If he took Gaara back to his sister, he would undoubtedly disappear again. He certainly wasn't going to pay to keep him at a hotel for the next few days. "I suppose you could stay with me," He thought aloud, instantly regretting this proposal and wincing as he realized that it had actually been spoken.

"Okay."

"Excuse me?" Alright, his head was spinning. Had he just heard correctly?

"I said, 'O-k-ay,'" Gaara enunciated. "You have HDTV, right?"