The Game of Cheat

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Sakura sighed and shook her head over the events of last night. She had brought home food from the market and found Gaara sitting patiently on her front steps. He was patient, but not happy. The first words out of his mouth demanded where she had been and why she took so long. Her excuse was the unrealistic time span she was given, and the fact that she didn't really care what time she got home, it was her house, therefor she could come home whenever she damn well pleased. This amused him to say the least. She tried to keep her pissed off façade but she were fully truthful she was getting used to him being around. Well, at least showing up out of the blue. He wasn't bad company per say, he was quiet and content with just sitting around. Towards the end, however, he had been reluctant to leave yet again. She had convinced him that going home and not distracting themselves before the first exam would be a good idea. Something had happened though, there was a look in his eyes when he walked away from her house. It reminded her of a puppy, confused at why it's being kicked out of the house and put outside. To her, for just a split second, when he looked back at her one last time before disappearing in night, the lost look in his eyes made her want to go with him and not leave him alone. She felt for him, and she could feel herself getting soft, succumbing to the way he made her heart ache with pity and sympathy. He was special, she didn't know how quite yet, and he seemed hell bent on keeping most everything about himself very vague, but she knew that he was. It drew her to him and it seemed to be exactly what he wanted.

Shaking the thoughts from her head she looked down the street towards the testing facility. It was the first day of the exams, she was to meet upon with her team and wait for everything to finally begin.

"Sakura!" Naruto called to her from across lawn of the testing building. "Over here!" He motioned for her to join Sasuke and himself.

Sakura smiled and waved to him. Greeting her team they walked through the doors of the building.

Gaara was leaned against one of the desks in the testing room with his siblings slouched beside him. Though no match for him, his siblings were ninja to be feared across the Wind Nation, everyone knew the Sabaku family. Being children of power they were trained very young and very well. They held and air of confidence around them and it was easily distinguishable from the confidence of power and the confidence of ignorance. Many of the people in this room were ignorant. He looked around at all their smug faces and cocky grins. They had no idea what they were up against, absolutely no clue. He was able to find amusement in this especially with the knowledge that in the end he would get to concur something they could never even imagine. As he scanned the crown, however, he did not see Sakura. He hadn't seen her since he arrived. It had been a matter of importance the night before to ensure her participation in the exams, it was a choice after all. Not much had been said in way of what he wanted with her. But he could feel himself become addicted to the way she tested his temper and flared the spark of annoyance at his comings and goings. She said that he could count on seeing her there and that it would be perfectly fine if he left for the night. He scoffed at this thought.

'Fine for her maybe…' Gaara fummed to himself.

'You know,' the demon spoke quietly. 'We should go look for her.'

'No,' he replied after a moment's thought on the idea. 'She said she would be here, she still has time.'

There was a quiet growl of frustration but all persistence on the topic was gone.

But now Gaara was itching to find her. He looked toward the door upon hearing it open yet again. A group of Sound Ninja walked into the room and found themselves a spot against a far wall. He snorted and went back to watching the door.

"Waiting for someone Gaara?" Kankuro joked from beside him.

Gaara did not turn to face his, well…"brother" and kept his gaze on the door. "Yes," he replied simply, his voice flat and dull with boredom.

Temari and Kankuro shared a look of surprise between them before their gaze turned back to their little brother.

"And who might that be?" Temari spoke in her smooth voice, a hint of amusement evident in her tone.

Gaara glanced over at her, not bothering to even move his head in her direction and shrugged. "I want to fight the Uchiha. Just making sure he shows up today." He lied, and by the looks of it they bought it.

It was then that Gaara sent out his sand, a tiny ribbon swirling undetected around the feet of those in the room. Slipping out the door it moved down the hallway toward the way Gaara remembered was the entrance. He couldn't wait for her to show up, he would just have to make sure she was here. So - yet again - he searched for her.

Sakura was excited for the exams but at the same time could deal without all the people. Some punks from rival villages had already tried to sabotage them and make them miss their tests by redirecting them the wrong way. She smirked to herself, too bad she could sense an illusion a mile away. She shook her head, a little proud of herself for telling them off, and thought of how inexperienced they were at covering their chakra signatures. There was one signature, however, that seemed impossible to cover up. He was here, she could feel his presence. It was like a magnet, pulling her to its epicenter, to its source. Gaara. No one else seemed to notice the river of energy that poured through the hallways. She looked up at the clock, she had 20 minutes until they were supposed to gather in the test room for instructions.

"Hey Naruto?" she spoke to the blonde strutting down the hall in front of her.

He turned to look at her. "Yeah Sakura?"

"I'm going to run to the bathroom and have a look around. I'll meet you guys in there. Okay?"

Naruto nodded and smiled at her, Sasuke just looked at her for a moment before turning and continuing down the hallway. She waited for the hurt to come, the pain of being ignored and feeling unimportant. But it never came. She just watched him walk down the hallway with Naruto and found, with much surprise, that she didn't give a damn whether or not he cared where she was, it didn't matter anymore. Instead she wanted to find Gaara, that part of her mind that wanted to take away such a sad look of loneliness from his eyes wanted to wish him luck and tell him to be careful.

She felt something brush against her ankle. Looking down she saw a small pool of sand around her feet. She looked back down the hallway, Gaara wasn't anywhere to be seen and his aura still felt a ways away. The sand shifted then and floated up to bump against her back. She swirled around to inspect and it darted back to her feet, brushing past her and tugging on her sandals before slithering along the ground down the hall. She looked around at the faces in the hallway, no one had seemed to pay her much mind and she quickly paced after the trail of sand. It darted around a corner and she chased after it just quick enough to see it disappear under a door down the hallway. She couldn't help but smirk at his little antics, apparently he was finally getting sick of chasing her all over the place and thought it was time for some pay back. She looked around to see if anyone was watching and slipped into the deserted hallway unseen. Turning the handle of the door slowly to try and not make too much noise she pushed it open and snuck her way inside before quietly shutting it behind her. After she heard the latch click into place she turned around. Gaara stood closely behind her, closer than she had anticipated. She jumped at his proximity and sent him an exhausted glare.

"You're late," he stated coldly.

She sighed. "If I'm correct, I still have 15 minutes until the exam starts." She placed her hands on her hips and smiled proudly. "So actually, I'm early."

"That's not the point," he said a hint of exhaustion. "I needed to talk with you, and now there's not a lot of time to do that."

She was slightly taken aback by this and became curious. "I'm sorry, I didn't know. What did you want to talk to me about?"

"Sakura these exams can get dangerous," he said surly. "And I'm going to be in this thing until the end."

"Yeah?" she said skeptically, urging him to continue.

He paused for a second, unsure of exactly how to word what he wanted to say. "Well, I just need you to be careful so I don't have to keep an eye on you the whole time, okay?"

Sakura couldn't help but let out a scoff at his words. "Like that's going to stop you."

He made the choice not to reply to her remark, it was true, and he was still going to keep an eye on her.

"Regardless," he said with a bite in his voice. "I feel it would be easier for the both of us if you stayed out of trouble as much as possible."

She rolled her eyes. "Alright Gaara, I'll be sure to be a good girl."

"Good," he said shortly.

Sakura paused for a moment and seemed to become fidgety and nervous. "Hey Gaara?" she began before looking to the ground for a brief moment.

"What?"

"The same goes for you too you know." He seemed puzzled at her remark so she tried it again. "I mean like you have to keep yourself safe too."

Gaara was shocked – on the inside at least – and couldn't really sort through the words she had said. Did she want him to be careful? Why would she want him to be careful? His thoughts sort of just spilt together into a one word question and then tumbled out of his lips. "Why?"

"Because," she said with a shrug. "I don't want anything to happen to you." She looked around and wondered how long they had been in the room talking.

She turned to leave, expecting the exams to be starting soon. Gaara reached out before she could grab the door and snagged her wrist. She looked back just in time to see him raise her hand up to his face. He turned it over so her palm was facing him and pressed his nose gently to her wrist, taking a slow breath and inhaling her scent. His eyes had slid closed and his chest heaved as he breathed deeply. She tried to fight back a blush at his spontaneous action.

Gaara held her wrist in his hand and for the first time realized how frail it seemed. Even as he placed it to his nose he could feel it stiffen with a tentative caution. As he breathed her in, however, he felt himself relax. The demon purred in his head and cooed at the fresh sweetness that pulsed from her veins. He locked the scent away in his memory, along with the way her skin felt – much softer than he would have imagined, and let her fingers slip past the grip of his hand.

He saw the confusion in her eyes, along with the flush of color in her cheeks he had remembered from the first night he visited her, and shrugged casually. "Just in case I need to find you."

"Right," she said slowly as she nodded her head, she wasn't really buying it. "That totally makes sense."

"Good luck, you might need it."

She laughed. "I heard the first round is a written test, if anyone here needs luck, it's you."

Sakura turned and disappeared out of the room. Gaara stood alone, a smirk on his face as well a devious grin from his demon. He had seen her chase after his trail of sand down the hallway, his sand was just another way for him to see, and what he saw surprised him. All it took was a little nudge and a tug at her feet and she was on her way to find him. She seemed to find fun in her game of chase, a smile graced her lips as she saw it slither around the corner away from the crowd.

'She came to you,' whispered the demon. 'Of her own free will.' He could feel it slide to the bars of its cage and look towards the door. 'She will do it again.'

Gaara then adopted the devious grin of his demon and a low, villainous sounding chuckle echoed from his chest. 'Yes,' he agreed surly, knowing full well the beast was correct. 'She will…'

Gaara looked down at the question laid out on his test. The first one didn't seem to work in his head so he tried the second, no luck. Then the third – still nothing. He had no idea, absolutely no clue how to answer the problems. He had given up trying to answer the questions and instead thought of why they would give such impossible material to students of their rank. It was then that he knew; they were supposed to cheat. Somewhere, someone in this room knew the answers, it was just a matter on if you could find them. Gaara chuckled to himself, this was going to be easy.

His sand eye had been successfully created without so much as a glance his way, however, attempting to find the person that knew the answers was proving quite difficult. No one seemed to have the answers around him. He would give them a few minutes… He decided to travel a few rows down to where Sakura was seated. The third eye floated silently next to her, peeking through her paper from under her arm. She seemed not to notice and continued to scribble at her paper. She was already at question five, half done, and all of her writing seemed neat and easy, most everyone else had scribbles and smeared eraser marks cluttering up the page. A quick glance at her face showed that she wasn't even breaking a sweat, in fact, there even looked to be a faint smirk on her lips…like it was easy…

To say the least he was very surprised that she had caught on that quickly, she expected her to take a little while longer at least. But a longer look at her face, at her eyes, showed him that she was thinking. She analyzed the question silently repeated it to herself, and wrote down a confident and sure response. She was really making it look like she was answering them herself. Whatever technique she was using it was very effective.

'What if she's not using one…' the Shukaku questioned quietly. 'What if she knows them?'

It didn't take long for Gaara to take the initiative and start writing down her answers, only a few others in the room and begun writing as well.

Before he knew it, he was done. Every answer had was worked out and solved. Could she really be that smart? He had picked up that she liked to read but he never thought she would be this good. He had no idea where to begin with the problems on the page, and if he did, he didn't know how to continue on. But she seemed to glide through it. After he had finished writing down her answers he leaned back in his seat and watched her as they waited for the time to be finished. She was becoming more and more interesting as the days went on. Even her scent, it reminded him of her life in the forest. The scent of trees thick in the air and the constant bloom of wildflowers. Not like his. His was rough, it was dry like the desert he lived in. She seemed to smell softly of what he would imagine a spring in the forest would smell like; fresh, gentle, and full of life.

The demon in his head remembered wafting the fresh scent of her through his nostrils and once again sucked in a breath through his nose. 'I want it,' he spoke, sighing in frustration. 'It smell so good…'

Gaara listened the demons whines of and groans of desperation. He wanted this girl in ways that he had never wanted a stranger before; Alive. He thought for a moment, the idea wasn't all that disagreeable.

'Patience.'

He felt the beast nod and sink back into itself, all the while watching Sakura through his eyes. The last echo of his voice, a whisper that he could feel resonate from the deep corners of him mind, played through his ears. 'Patience wears thin.'

He made a point to remember that.

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