I'm sorry this took me so long to update. D: My aunt and uncle got me a mahogony piano and I've been completely obsessed with it. ^^;

Oh! I want to thank bloodyrosesx for her support and the suggestions she's sent me. :D They've helped a lot!

Enjoy and review, please! ^^

"The heart was made to be broken." - Oscar Wilde

Rain began to pelt the cover we'd set up above us, just as we thought it would. Fortunately, I'd learned to be prepared for any sort of weather, including rain, so I naturally packed a medium-sized tarp in my backpack.

Kiba seemed unable to move, so Kankuro hooked the edges of the tarp to the trees surrounding him. The sky was growing dark, so I told Shizune our location. I also told her not to expect us back until morning, unless she could send backup to us.

"I hate the rain," Serisu told me, fumbling through her pouch. I refused to undress from my Courier-Nin suit, so naturally, nobody except Kiba and Akamaru (both were asleep now) knew who I was.

From her pouch, the blonde pulled out a compact mirror, checking her hair obsessively. I stared at her in silence. This was the girl who had been Kankuro's first? The girl who cheated on him, then made it out to seem like he was the bad guy for breaking up with her? The girl who…well, who was now his girlfriend again?

Speaking of the puppeteer, ever since Kyan lied to him and told him I was dead because of his actions, he hadn't said a word. Actually, he didn't seem to be all there.

I turned my attention away from Serisu and watched him. He sat on the ground, close enough to the edge of the tarp above him that rain was falling onto his open palms.

"Isn't he the cutest?" Serisu mumbled, demanding my focus again. She was also watching Kankuro, a dazed look on her face. "Want to know how we met?"

I felt my eye twitch with annoyance. In my imagination, I was shoving a kunai into both of her eye sockets. Deeply.

"Sure," I whispered in a strained voice.

"Our mothers were friends," she started, a small smile on her face. "He and his sister, Temari, would always come over to my house with Karura before his little brother was born. I never really played with Kankuro. He was always more interested in taking things apart and putting them back together. Then, we enrolled in the academy together a few years later and I guess you could say it was love at first sight."

She sighed dreamily and closed her eyes. Oh, I hated this girl. I wanted to ask her so badly about the part where she cheated on him, but I kept my mouth shut.

I noticed a small tear in the tarp right above her and smirked to myself. Before she could open her eyes, I grabbed a spare kunai and threw it at the split, opening it wider. The pool of water that had been accumulating on the top of the tarp spilled over through the hole and splashed on her head.

She gasped and cried out, moving away from the hole. "What the hell?" she screeched, covering her hair.

"Oh no," I mumbled halfheartedly. "Serisu, you're all wet. How did that happen?"

I stole a fleeting look at Kankuro, who was glancing back at us. I could've sworn I saw a small smirk on his lips.

()()()

Half-way through the night, the rain had let up some. Kiba and Akamaru hadn't woken up once. I checked their heartbeats every half hour to make sure they were still alive.

As I sat under the tarp, listening to the dog and his boy (no, not Serisu and Kankuro) snore, I also kept a close eye on the couple. Serisu lay comfortably by herself, wrapped in a restful ball. Kankuro lay somewhat near her (I noticed he distanced himself from her) on his back. His arms were behind his head and he stared upward.

"You can sleep, you know," Kankuro suddenly said, jolting my body awake. I was trying my hardest not to doze off, but it was harder than it seemed.

"No, thanks," I replied. I spoke in a deeper tone, just as I did before. "Even though Konohagakure and Sunagakure are allies again, I still don't trust you."

He was silent for a few moments. I struggled to keep my eyes open, but when he spoke again, I was wide awake.

"Did you know Haketa?" he questioned, tilting his head to look at me.

I fumbled my thumbs nervously. "A little," I lied. "I went to their restaurant a lot."

Kankuro glanced over at Serisu, who had mumbled a different guy's name along with some noises I don't feel comfortable with sharing, and shook his head.

"I went to that restaurant pretty often when I was there for the Chuunin Exams. They have the best soba noodles I've ever had."

Yeah, that's right. The best.

"Her mother and grandfather loved me, I think," he continued. "Kyan, not so much. I don't blame her. I wasn't really the nicest person when I met them." He paused and bit down on his lower lip. "I think that's why I liked started Haketa so much. Even though I was a jerk to her in the beginning, she didn't put up with my crap."

My stomach felt funny. I resisted my urge to crawl over to him and lay my head on his chest like I did that night he fell asleep at my house. When everything was perfect.

"I don't know why I'm telling you this," he went on. "You don't even know me. But I guess that's a good thing. You can't really judge me."

My hands doubled into fists. I wanted to tell him that I did know him. I knew almost everything about him. I knew about his mother's death, about the two parallel scars on his left elbow that served as birthmarks, about how he lost his first tooth because Temari had punched it out. I even knew about him and Serisu.

"What about her?" I asked, looking toward the sleeping girl.

"Serisu?" There was a hint of disgust in his voice. "We've had a bad past, but I guess I forgave her. I think…I think I'm only with her because she keeps my mind off Haketa."

Akamaru's whimpers caused Kiba to stir awake. He gazed down at his unconscious and wounded companion, whispered reassuring things to him, and fell back to sleep without acknowledging the rest of us.

"I don't know why I'm letting her death affect me so much," Kankuro said in a much quieter tone. "As a Suna Shinobi, I went through plenty of emotion-control exercises when I was at the academy, but…I don't know. I really don't. I mean, I've watched tons of people die. I've killed a lot of people. I just never intended to…Haketa was…I-"

"Kankuro," Serisu whined, scooting closer to him. She rested her head on his chest in the same way I used to.

Kankuro's jaw tightened and he gently placed a hand on her hair, stroking it like he did to mine. My body suddenly felt heavy and painful. I stood and, ignoring the drops of water falling from the sky, left the shelter of the tarp.

I couldn't continue to watch that.

()()()

It felt like years until morning finally came. Even though I was mentally and physically exhausted, I couldn't fall asleep. Images of Serisu and Kankuro filled my mind every time I tried.

Just as the sun's rays started to shine through the trees, Kyan, Gaara, and Lee found their way to our little camp. Lee carefully hoisted Kiba onto his back while Kyan held Akamaru's small body in her arms.

After taking the tarp down, letting all the water run off it, and folding it back up, I turned to face Gaara, who looked a lot different than when I last saw him at the Chuunin Exams. Even though that was only six months ago, he looked years older. He didn't have as much hate in his eyes.

"You have a radio on you, am I right?" he asked.

I nodded and held it out to him. "Yeah," I replied, "but its water-damaged. I can't get it to work."

Gaara took my radio from me and flipped it over, removing the back from it, which he handed back to me. He slapped it against his palm, holding the batteries tightly. After a few moments, he placed them back in their place and clicked the cover back.

"I used the sand to drain some of the water from the batteries," he told me. "It may not last long, but tell Lady Hokage who we have in our party."

I stared at him in amazement for only a moment before raising the radio to my lips. "Lady Tsunade? Shizune?" I asked loudly.

"Haketa, is that you?" Lady Hokage's voice replied.

Kyan's gasp made my heart plummet into my stomach. She locked gazes with the hooded Shinobi behind me. I closed my eyes tightly, wishing Lady Tsunade wouldn't have said my name.

"Lady Hokage, we're bringing back an injured Inuzuka Kiba and Akamaru," I told her quickly. I could feel Kankuro's eyes on the back of my head.

I opened my eyes to see Gaara's confused face. I hooked my radio back onto my waist and turned around to face Kankuro. Without making eye-contact, I looked at my sister.

"Kyan, go back to the village. I'm going to look for any more injured." Before she could answer, I took off in a random direction, praying Kankuro wouldn't follow me.

I wasn't sure how long I was traveling, but the entire time, scenarios constantly ran through my head. Kankuro knew who I was. He knew Kyan had lied about my death. He knew just who exactly he'd spilled his feelings to.

There were many things I expected him to do next. The one that worried me the most was him being so angry for being lied to, that he hurt Kyan. That thought made me halt on a sturdy tree branch.

"He wouldn't do that," I whispered to myself. But then again, he had fought me during the attack on Konohagakure. He'd poisoned me and left me for dead.

"Haketa?"

I pulled out my final kunai and threw it behind me. I heard it hit something solid, but not fleshy. Turning around, I saw that I had lodged it into Temari's oversized fan. She stood, watching me with a concerned expression, and motioned her head back toward the way I came from.

"Come on," she told me. "It'll be fine."

I grabbed the part of my outfit that covered my face and pulled it back, taking a deep breath of fresh air. I hadn't even realized my eyes were full of tears until they spilled over. I never went through those emotion-controlling exercises.

"I don't want to see him," I whispered to the Kunoichi in front of me.

"I know. I personally don't think it's a good idea for you two to see each other, but sooner or later, you'll have to go back to report to Lady Hokage."

Temari was right. I had to go back.

Dragging my feet, I followed her back to Konoha. She had informed me on her teamwork with Shikamaru. Other than a broken finger and a few scratches, he was perfectly fine. He was just worried sick about Choji, Neji, Kiba, and Akamaru.

"I'm going to go see Shikamaru at the hospital," she told me once we arrived to the Hokage's office.

"Right. I'll be here or at my house. You do remember where that's at, right?"

"Of course. I'll stop by later."

And with that, she was gone. I opened the door to Lady Tsunade's office to find her sitting behind her desk, like always. Gaara was sitting on a nearby bench, bent over a piece of paper with a pen in his hand. Whatever he was writing, he was concentrating furiously on it.

"I've come to report my mission status," I told her quietly, as not to break Gaara's focus.

"There's no need," she replied, standing up from her messy desk. "Kyan already stopped by and took care of it." She grabbed a medical book and blew the dust from the cover. "I'm on my way to the hospital to help with the wounded." She looked over to the redhead. "Gaara, when you're done, just place it on my desk and I'll mark it for approval. Haketa, I have another mission for you, but it'll have to wait for now."

She hurried past me, leaving me alone with Gaara. After a few seconds, he glanced up from the paper. "What's your sister's name again?" he asked.

"Kyan," I told him. "Why?"

"Report," he answered simply. I watched him write down her name, then hold the paper out to me. "Does this make sense to you?"

I took it from him and blinked furiously, trying to read the messy handwriting. In my entire life, I'd never met a boy with semi-decent calligraphy.

What he had written was a status report. A very intelligent one, too. Most of the words he used were ones I'd never heard. It seemed he wrote down the success of the support request Lady Tsunade had sent to his village. At the very end, he credited Kyan's medical abilities, saying she was advanced for the number of months she'd been studying.

"Yeah, it makes sense," I finally told him, returning the paper to his outstretched hand. "Um, do you know where Kankuro is?"

Gaara stared at me for a long while. "Yes," he eventually said. "You don't want to see him now. Kyan explained everything to me. Its best if you two go your separate ways."

"I guess," I mumbled, my gaze following his body as he slipped the paper onto the desk.

"But," he continued, his back facing me, "that's what Temari thinks. I don't care much for Serisu. She's…annoying, to say the least."

My eyes narrowed in a confused way at the boy. I didn't know quite what he was getting at.

"I think Kankuro mentioned he was going to your family's restaurant. Haketa, I don't care much for Serisu," he hissed.

His subtleness finally hit me. My mouth fell open. "Gaara, are you trying to tell me she's flirting with you?"

Gaara faced me again and gave me a stern look. Even though he didn't say anything, I knew the answer was yes, and she wasn't getting anywhere with it.

"Well," I told him, bitter revulsion boiling in my gut, "it was nice talking with you. I think I'm going to go see if my mother needs help at the restaurant."

I slammed the door on the way out of the office.