Hinata could finally say that she didn't feel like she was alone in the house anymore. It didn't feel like she was living with a ghost. Even if Gaara still refused to come out into her view. She came to his door for meals. He came to hers before she went to bed.

"I don't know what that is." Gaara was getting more comfortable telling her directly.

"Uhm…" And Hinata didn't always know how to explain when it is something so normal. "Maple syrup is cooked tree sap."

"That sounds disgusting." Gaara recoiled.

Hinata giggled on the other side of the wall. "It's sweet. You wouldn't like it."

"But you do?" Gaara wanted to know her opinion on everything. Maybe it wasn't odd that he would want to know, but it was like he was worried about being wrong if he didn't ask.

Hinata hummed. "Yeah, it's good on pancakes and even on dango."

"What is a pancake?" And the cycle continued.


Pans clanged, bowls clicked, and food sizzled. It made the house feel like those few days his family came to stay. Full. Having her here was comfortable. Hinata's presence filled the empty house with her quiet steps around and absentminded noise-making in the kitchen like she was now.

Gaara closed his eyes to listen to the ruckus she made as he waited. Shukaku had even become more patient, if only to not push her away again. The beast couldn't hide that he was just as desperate to not be just stuck with only his vessel as a company. Shukaku became less vicious as boredom set in over the years they were trapped here as tormenting Gaara became less fun over the years. They still didn't like each other by any means, but they knew they had no choice but to live with each other.

Hinata wasn't here by any more choice than they were, but it wasn't like someone would have volunteered. Even his own siblings didn't do that.

A surprised shriek followed by shattering made him and all the sand in the room jump.


Hinata hissed, holding her hand to her chest as she crouched down to the mess she made. She reached out to pick up the biggest shard, and her hand stopped short as a paler hand reached for hers. Her eyes shot up to a pair of green eyes that looked like they were screaming terror from just being seen.

Gaara was out of his room?

Hinata didn't know what she thought he looked like, maybe more like Kankuro, but he was smaller with a rounder face and blood-red hair. He looked like a pale spooked raccoon that was caught digging around when you opened the back door in the middle of the night. His hand twisted into a fist away from hers as he second-guessed helping her.

Gaara wobbled in their stare of tension. His hand came down to stabilize himself in his crouch and fell right down on a shard, he hissed, and Hinata shot out to grab his hand. Gaara reeled back at an alarming speed, falling back and scurrying away from her like she was more dangerous than the sharp ceramic that littered the floor.

"Sorry." Hinata put her hands up to show no harm as Gaara closed his fist around itself. "I'll get the first aid kit." She stepped around her mess to dig in the cupboard. Gaara opened his hand to watch the blood drip out of the jagged cut in his palm, then stiffened as she crouched down beside him. She took a moment to dig in the kit. "Can I have your hand?"

Gaara hesitated but forced his hand out in front of her.

"This is going to sting," Hinata added antiseptic to the pad and held out her hand, letting him make contact by putting his hand in hers. She waited a moment for him to prepare before she placed the pad in the middle of his hand. Gaara tried to jerk his hand back, but she held on, and he stopped fighting just as quickly. "Sorry." She soothed.

Gaara slowly softened as she took the pad away and replaced it with another pad and a bandage. His eyes burned through her like he was expecting something else. What did he think she was going to do? Scream? He looked like a normal man. With all his hiding, she was starting to think he was deformed and worried she would be disgusted.

"Try not to move it too much. It will open back up." Hinata took a moment to clean the blood he let run down his hand.

Gaara's other hand came to hover over hers. "Doesn't this hurt?"

Hinata blinked at the burn that blotched red across her hand. "I'll put some cream on it."

"Does it hurt?" Gaara repeated. His face was twisted in discomfort, looking at it like he could feel the pain. Was he that worried?

"A little, but it more just surprised me. Sorry for screaming." Hinata pulled her hand back into her chest as she dug for a burn cream.

Gaara looked down at the bandage on his hand. "Your hands are… rough."

Hinata blinked at him. What? She dropped the cream in her lap to looked her hands. "They are callused."

Gaara held his hand up next to hers. He didn't have a single callus on his hands. Hinata had years of abuse of training gentle fist, she wouldn't have thought about it, but her hands probably did feel rough.

"My fighting style uses my hands." Hinata held her hand out for him to examine. "If you use it enough, the skin will thicken and harden to protect itself."

Gaara's hand twitched. He wore his internal struggle of wanting to explore her hand and not wanting to make contact on his face. Hinata waited there until he managed to fight himself into sliding his hand over hers. His hands were incredibly soft. It made sense with this sand fortress. He probably had no reason to ever be in a hand-to-hand fight or even be trained for one.

Hinata took a moment to use his distraction to take a better look at his face. His eyes were rimmed with a heavy dark line that Hinata assumed was like Naruto's whiskers and other than that, he didn't have a single mark or scar from time.

Had he ever even fallen into something like a child?

Gaara turned her hand over to show the burn again.

"Oh, I'll put something on it. It's not that severe." Hinata opened the jar in her lap with one hand. "I've spilled a lot of hot liquids on myself over the years. This is nothing." She dipped her finger into the cream and smeared it over the burn. Gaara watched intensely, but if it kept him from running, Hinata wasn't going to question it. She closed the pot and dropped it back in the kit. "That will help."

"Does this hurt?" Gaara pointed to her forehead.

Hinata's hand shot up to her cursed mark as she realized she didn't have it covered. She didn't think she needed to if he never saw her. "Uh… no, not currently, but it could."

"What is it?" Gaara wondered.

Hinata felt her stomach twist into a knot. "It's a cursed seal to keep my bloodline limit safe."

"Why would that hurt?" Gaara's curiosity felt so genuine it was hard to blame him for asking such painful questions.

"Uhm… well." She might as well explain it.

Hinata sat there in the middle of the kitchen floor, ignoring the drying spill and broken shards to explain her clan and the cursed seal and what it might do to her.

Gaara's face shifted uncomfortably when she explained that she had to have one to come at his request, which she didn't really want to explain in that way, but otherwise, she felt like she was being dishonest.

"We are." Gaara suddenly agreed to nothing she had said. Was he replying to his beast?

"Huh?" Hinata asked.

Gaara tilted his head as he realized his mistake. "We are the same. Sealed out of fear."

Was that Shukaku's opinion? Hinata never thought that someone would equate the cursed seal to tethering a beast to a person, especially not the beast itself. "I think that your situation is far more severe. I may not agree with the use of the curse seal in my clan, but I think what we've done to beasts is far crueler."

Gaara's face went flat as he considered what she said. Maybe she shouldn't have said anything. "You're very forgiving."

"I've just seen what it can do to a person." Hinata's eyes fell on her hands in her lap.

"You know another beast?" Gaara wondered.

"I was in love with him." Hinata snapped her hands over her mouth. Why would she say that!? "I am so sorry. I have no idea why I told you that." She backtracked as her face burned. Hinata forgot how horribly embarrassing she could be after weeks of barely having contact with anyone.

"You loved a beast?" It was curiosity that it could happen, not devastation that he hadn't experienced it. Like he didn't know it was possible.

"I…" Hinata pushed out a breath and reminded herself that he didn't think of this conversation like she did. "I don't see someone with a beast any different from someone born with a family power that they need to learn to control." She was starting to see more of the parallels Shukaku may have been thinking of when he compared it to the cursed seal. No one asked to be born into these positions. "I don't see you as any different from two people stuck in one body."

Gaara's eyes glazed over as he thought or possibly listened.

"Why don't we sit down to eat." Hinata desperately wanted out of this conversation. She stood up and offered her hands to him.

Gaara looked at her hands curiously before accepting the help up.