Twirlygigs and Gizzards

Chapter 11: Fall

A/N: Sorry about the wait. This is a short chapter, but I planned it that way.

I'm leaving for college this fall, which might have a lot to do with the way I introduce this chapter. (Sorry, I just realized that.)

Three months later. The leaves were just beginning to tint themselves orange, red, and yellow, the first suggestion of the spectacular autumn just around the corner. The maple trees had once again begun sending twirlers down, coating the roadways and paths with a thin layer of paper that turned into showers of wings when kicked at.

The Konoha bunch, that is to say, Naruto, Hinata, Sasuke, Kiba, Shino, Ino, Chouji, Shikamaru, Tenten, Neji, Lee, and Sakura, were all out on the stretch of street that separated Sasuke's property from that of the Sand Sibs. All were wearing their swimsuits, as they had planned.

You could tell by looking at them that they had spent the summer hanging out, swimming, partying, doing teen stuff. They were all tanned and/or sunburnt (let's face it, some of them have skin types bordering on albino), their hair was visibly lighter from the time in the sun and chlorine, and they all had the muscle tone that comes not from training but from being active for fun.

But, try as they might to postpone the inevitable, summer was over, and the Sand Siblings had to return to their home until next year. The pool was drained for the winter, the ice cream in the fridge had been eaten the night before, the doors and windows were locked up, and Temari and Kankuro, their suitcases on their backs alongside the weapons, were outside saying their goodbyes.

"I'm going to miss you guys so much!" Ino was telling Kankuro.

"Yeah, don't forget to write! You have all our addresses, right?" Chouji asked.

"Of course... but only if you promise to write back."

"Don't write to Shikamaru, then..."

It wasn't one of those sad goodbye parties. For one thing, they knew that they would see each other again soon. For another, everybody except the two from Sand were wearing swimsuits, and it's really hard to feel sad when standing around in a swimsuit.

Sakura was doing a good job with it, though. She kept staring at the house, waiting for somebody to come out of it. But nobody did. And finally, she just had to ask. "Temari? Is Gaara coming out?"

Temari shook her head. "He left last night."

"What? Why?" Sakura began to balance on the thin line between anger and depression.

"He doesn't like long goodbyes. Or sitting around a house with no food in it, for that matter."

"But..." Sakura stared at her feet, which had occupied themselves kicking at the twirlers on the ground. "He could have said goodbye to me, at least..." she whispered.

Temari smiled wisely and led Sakura away from the others. "Sakura-san," she said kindly, "Gaara sometimes does stuff that... doesn't make a whole lot of sense."

"But, he forgot about me... I wanted to see him," she sighed, aware of the little gift sitting in her leg-pouch, the person it was meant for long out of town.

Temari shook her head sympathetically. "I'm sure he wanted to see you, too, but it would have been very difficult for him to say goodbye to you."

Sakura blinked back tears. "Yeah, well, goodbyes are always tough, but it's better than not saying anything at all! What if I never see him again?"

"You're not letting me finish. Sakura-san, you know how when you don't use your foot for a long time, it falls asleep? And then it hurts to wake it back up again? So much that sometimes you don't want to bother with it, you'd rather just leave it where it is?"

Sakura nodded.

"Well, Gaara's heart has done something like that. He didn't use for a very long time, so it fell asleep. And now that it's waking up, it hurts him... so that makes it hard for him to be as affectionate as someone like you, whose heart is in perfect working condition. So, he may want to tell you goodbye, but right now it hurts too much for him, and he's afraid that he'll just give up and stop trying to wake his heart up... But I know he loves you very much, because when he's with you, I see him smile, like he's really happy. I haven't seen my baby brother smile like that... for years and years. I didn't know he still could until he met you."

Sakura raised her head. Temari smiled at her. Sakura smiled back. Then Sakura stopped smiling, puzzled.

"Wait a minute. Did you just compare hearts to feet?"

"Got a problem with it? Come on, let's go back to the party." Temari left, with Sakura still mulling over the bizarre metaphor she had just been comforted with.

"Sakura?" Naruto asked. "You OK?"

"Yeah, I'm great," Sakura assured him. "Say, after this, you and Sasuke want to get some ramen?"

"Let me see if Hinata wants to come..."

"No," Sakura grabbed his arm. "We three haven't been spending enough time alone. We've been letting our stupid 'outside relationships' get in the way. Well, they aren't worth it!"

"Are you sure you're all right, Sakura?" Sasuke asked, backing away from the glint in his teammate's eye.

Temari looked at her watch. "Kankuro, we should go soon. How many different ways can you say goodbye to everybody?"

"I don't know, that's what I'm trying to find out!"

"Haha. Come on, we can't leave you-know-who alone in the house too long."

"All right, fine. I guess I'll see you guys around, then..."

"Not so fast. We're walking to the gate with you!" Naruto exclaimed.

"Yeah! We didn't wear these swimsuits just to stand around!" Tenten said. "We're gonna show off our kickin' bods."

So they walked down to the village gates for their final final farewells. These said, there was an awkward sort of silence as the Sand Sibs worked up the resolve to start walking away.

"Well... goodbye, then," Sasuke finally said slowly.

"Goodbye..." Kankuro said, equally slowly.

The brother and sister turned and began their journey home, just as the others began the walk back into the heart of their village.

The Sand Sibs managed to get a few yards in silence when suddenly, Rock Lee, who hadn't said anything to Temari during the party, ran up to them, out of breath.

Temari smiled. During the past three months, she had come to like Lee (and everyone else in Konoha) and was a little relieved to see that the young romantic would come to wish his swimming student goodbye. She waited for him to say something.

But he didn't. Rock Lee blushed crimson, walked up to her shyly, and kissed her on the cheek before running off in another direction.

Kankuro and Temari stared after him.

"He's so..." Kankuro squinted at the space where Lee had been. "Sweet."

Temari nodded thoughtfully. "Yeah..."

Kankuro looked at her sideways. He knew her too well, and had seen the parade of boyfriends and would-be boyfriends with hopeless crushes on his ice-princess sister. "You going to break his heart?" he asked, a mocking tone in his voice.

Temari, contrary to expectations, sighed. "I haven't decided yet."