((So... we left off with Gaara coming into Chi's room to see what's taking her so long... won't that be exciting? if you haven't read the last chapters, I'm not going to tell you to go and do that. you know to do that. I'm also not going to tell you that I have another gaara story (Bloody Acquaintance) that you could go and read...

... yes, I'm advertising my other Gaara story on this one... a bit pathetic, I know but hey... I could be more pathetic and tell you to check out my other stories and send me lots of reviews with ideas of what you wanna see and stuff like that... but I guess I just did. Wow... I need help... or reviews. Reviews are always needed. ))

Chapter 9: Dang Hormones

Gaara didn't know his way around the house. He just knew the general location of the girl's room... that was his excuse for why he wound up in her closet. He looked around as her clothes, some lacy, some silky, brushed the top of his spiked head. The door was slightly ajar, letting in a little bit of light from her room. He went to move out of there when Chikage came out of her connected bathroom, towel wrapped around her damp body. Her legs shone brilliantly, having just shaved quickly (no nicks). Her reddish brown hair clung to her shoulders and she breathed in the cool air of her room... goosebumps speckling the visible parts of her body.

Gaara felt no better than a peeping tom-- which he was at this moment since he had yet to try to escape. He just couldn't find it in himself to go away. He'd never seen anyone like this, let alone a woman. This was the first time he was in a girl's room, well, her closet, anyway. Her skin looked soft. He wanted to touch her... but first, he had to find a way to get out of this perdicament. So he did what any sand-manipulating 15 year old boy would do-- he disappeared in a puff of sand and reappeared right behind her.

Chikage still hadn't seen him as she slipped on a pair of black panties under the towel before removing it all together and bending over to pick up the bra that lay on her bed. He watched her soft full breasts hang then mold against her chest when she stood back up and slipped her bra on. Now clad in her black undergarments, she turned to go to her closet-- too fast for Gaara to hide.

The sand god stood still as Chikage turned and faced him. His pale sea green eyes fixated on her lavender. She stopped all movement-- and maybe even her breathing-- as their eyes stared deeply into eachother. The room faded away and they became the only two that mattered. At least to them. But of course... there is always that one little line that ruins it for all virgin men. A saying so funny and so cruel, that young ladies usually smack them or run away screaming. "Nice panties..." Gaara said, breaking eye contact.

With the "spell" broken, Chikage became very aware of her surroundings... and the situation she was in. Like a wild boar, she raced passed Gaara, knocking him on his ass, and jumped into the sanctuary of her closet. "GAARA-SAN!! WHY DIDN'T YOU SAY ANYTHING BEFORE?!" she screamed, trying in vain to dress herself in the darkness of her closet.

Gaara listened to the various crashes that came from her closet then all became quiet. He waited for a moment before he walked to the closet and flung it open to find a shirt-clad Chikage on the floor. She was on one knee and was touching a pale coarse powder that lay on the bottom of her closet. "This is... sand... Gaara-san...?" she murmured, looking up at him with hurt in her eyes. "You were peeping at me?" Her voice sounded so far away.

"It wasn't on purpose. I was trying to... your brother just commented... we didn't know what took you so long." Even as he said it, it seemed as though the honorable Gaara of the Desert was making excuses for his actions. But he knew that what he said was the truth. So he didn't need to appologize, right?

Wrong. Dead wrong. Chikage stood up and just ran. She ran out of the room, out of the hall, and out of the house. She wanted to get as much space away from Gaara as possible. Hito tried to stop her when he saw that she was only wearing a shirt but the little boy was no match. Neither were Temari or Kankuro, not that they really tried beyond calling out for the young lady to come back. Her parents didn't say a word. They just called back their guests and Gaara when he came out of the hallway.

"Don't worry about Chi. There are times when she just needs to run. She does it maybe once a week...?" her mother replied, unsure about how many times her daughter became "rebellious."

"She was half naked this time... and it's all Gaara-san's fault," Hito said, giving Gaara the best damn evil eye he could muster. "Go after her!"

"Why should I listen to you?" the more advanced death glare-er asked challengingly.

"Because you hurt her feelings," Kankuro replied. He'd seen the tears on her face.

"Because you did something wrong!" Hito answered. He'd never seen his careful sister run around ANYWHERE without proper attire.

"Because she likes you?" Temari replied as though it were the most obvious answer. She had seen the blush upon her features. It wasn't a crying-blush.

((Now that the cat's out of the bag, what will Gaara do? Will he go after her? Will he ignore Hito and Kankuro and call Temari crazy? I guess he'll just do the most obvious thing of all-- whatever I make him do. At any rate, we'll just see if Chi can get that cat back into that bag... next time, in "Gaara's True Light"! Please review!!))