Granular

Disclaimer: Characters and universe are not my own, but I hope you find the storyline original!

Summary: He was curious how she knew herself to be in love and asked her how it happened. Not the gushy details, but the mechanisms involved, the genesis of the feeling known as love. "Love…" she said, "it's like this desert made of grains of sand. It's filled with small and almost insignificant moments that you never really notice… until they all come together."

This story starts just before the Sasuke Retrieval Arc and makes several jumps from there.

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Chapter 1: Those He Couldn't Understand

The Chunin Exams had been a turning point in Gaara's life, one he would simultaneously learn from and struggle to live down. His own people, the people of the Hidden Sand Village, had always seen him as a monster. The sole purpose of his birth had been to create a monster after all, one powerful enough to house a demon and ruthlessly defend the village. It was an expectation that he would one day destroy the rival villages, so no one in the Sand batted an eye at the invasion of the Village Hidden in the Leaves, or at least not at his role in it. The same could not be said for their reaction to the aftermath of the situation, learning they had been swindled by Orochimaru and that their leader was long dead. Where would they go from there?

They had no permanent leader and that was sure to lead to instability, and times were already more uncertain than they had been years prior. Then there was their relationship with Konoha. Having conspired with Orochimaru and aided in the assassination of the Hokage, the village could have been subsequently destroyed in vengeance. Only that didn't happen. As Lady Tsunande, the reigning 5th Hokage, saw it, they were all just victims of her former ally's ploy. The Leaf Village didn't need a new enemy, nor did the Sand who now had unfinished business with Orochimaru and his Hidden Sound Village. Tensions between Sand and Leaf could be handled diplomatically, with reparations and treaties.

Peace.

It wasn't a word Gaara was well acquainted with. There were many words and feelings that seemed unfathomable to him until his stint in Konoha. The people of that village were unusual, he found. Friendship and loyalty seemed to triumph over duty and victory. He initially found them to be weak and pathetic, but realized they were simply beyond his understanding.

There were three people in the Hidden Leaf Village whom he could not push out of his mind for the way they intrigued him and pushed him to reevaluate who he was and what his purpose could become. Naruto Uzumaki was at the very top of this list, which would come as no surprise to any. The boy was much like himself, a vessel for a demon full of rage and hatred. Their villages despised them both through no fault of their own—they were infants with no choice or consent in the matter. Loneliness and despair had filled them both, but for Naruto, that was only a starting point. Somehow, he managed to form bonds with others who saw him as something other than a demonic host. He had chosen not to give in to what many may have considered his destiny and with that acquired strength, defeated Gaara.

Then there was Rock Lee, a boy unable to use either ninjutsu or genjutsu. He had been the very first opponent to touch as much as a hair on Gaara's head, but in the end, he too was brutalized by Gaara's sand. Miraculously, the bushy-browed boy in green had managed to survive. It was unlikely that he would ever resume the shinobi ranks, but those were the inherent risks he had assumed by not forfeiting.

'I'd like to understand what made him keep going.'

If he were given the opportunity, Gaara would like to ask him that and see if he held any regrets, though he knew that to be unlikely.

In line with refusing to forfeit, the last of the people who left an impression on him was Hinata Hyuuga, a girl with whom he never spoke. Coincidentally, their paths had consistently overlapped throughout the exams. He was seated five rows behind her for the written test and watched as she had risked elimination to offer answers to Naruto. It had perplexed him then, why someone would freely offer information and boost their enemy's chance of success. Competition was supposed to be eliminated, even if they were from the same village. He wouldn't have paid her any further mind, ruling her out as simple minded, but her exam was mostly completed, and she had some answers that he needed.

He had nearly forgotten her, until he saw her at the entrance to the Forest of Death. She was trembling—a coward he deemed her, with no place in these exams or violent world. Yet she chose to compete and entered the grounds with her team. Gaara was certain she'd be dead by nightfall, but to his surprise, she hadn't died and was behind his party as they made their way to the tower. Not yet knowing the power hidden in her mysterious white eyes, he wondered how her team had completed their objective so quickly with predators like him on the prowl. He could feel the fear radiating off her body and practically smell it in the ear. Shukaku thrived off fear. He could have killed her and her team just after he slaughtered members of the Hidden Rain, and it was a thought that crossed his mind.

Why he spared them, he wasn't quite certain. It could have been because his siblings were eager to move on. It could have been because the fear he felt from her wasn't toward him, at least not him specifically. She was just terrified and mousy all the way around and a waste of his time.

He would later watch her refuse to forfeit a match with her own blood—a brother or cousin, he couldn't recall. She fought—and not very well, though he expected far less—and ultimately lost, her own family member ready to kill her on the stop. Had it not been for the intervention of several jonin, death would have been inevitable.

'Why did they save her?' he wondered. Weakness wasn't needed among the shinobi ranks. Why all the bleeding hearts? His own match with Lee had followed and, at the time, he idly wondered if someone would rescue Lee, too.

He saw her twice more just before he departed the village, first in the hospital when he sought after Lee, though she was unconscious and hadn't even known, and again at the second phase of the tournament rounds. She would wind up unconscious again at the start of their operation.

Unlike with Naruto and Lee, she didn't impress him with her skills as a shinobi. She had merely perplexed him with her juxtaposition. If he ever saw her again, he just might ask her about her reason for fighting.

-End Chapter 1-