TW: acts of violence featured in this chapter

The thing about life was that it continued on, regardless of what a person was going through. All Xin wanted to do was hide under her blankets and feel sorry for herself but she simply couldn't. She had to get up and go to work and quietly feel sorry for herself at her desk. Realistically, she knew her reaction to the loss of friendship was a bit dramatic. They weren't friends that long and she even rejected the friendships in the beginning so why was she taking it so hard?

Maybe because she couldn't even sustain a friendship with a criminal? It was pathetic, really, but the fact that he was a Yakuza leader didn't bother her as much as it should. Realistically, it should. She fled in the middle of the night from violence and now here she was, agonizing over the absence of someone who used violence in their everyday life.

But he'd been so kind to her, so careful to keep her away from the violence in his life. Did that count for something? She wasn't sure, it sounded like a paltry excuse to her but she couldn't deny Gaara's sudden absence in her life affected her more than it should. She was fucked in the head, she surmised, the more she thought about it. After taking so many punches to the head, her brain was a little scrambled.

Was it because she missed his causal affection? That could also be it, she considered. The nickname, the softness, the fact that he showed he cared for her wellbeing when she clearly didn't.

She supposed that it was a myriad of reasons as to why she missed him but then again, why did she have to justify the fact that she missed him? Wasn't missing him because she wanted to enough?

"Hyuga? Are you alright?"

Xin blinked out of her stupor. She'd been zoning out more often than not these days, often found staring blankly at the computer screen. Usually it was Seiko or Masaru catching her but when she looked over, it was Manager Umino. She paled at the sight of him, knowing she was in deep shit for spacing out on the job.

"Uh, yes?"

Manager Umino frowned and shook his head. "Can I talk to you in private, Hyuga? It'll only take a second."

Well. She was going to get fired.

Seiko gave a worried grimace and even Masaru gave her a look. Xin followed their manager into his office, frowning when he closed the door behind her. Closed doors were never a good sign. She was going to get fired. Fuckin' fantastic.

"Are you sure you're okay, Hyuga? You've been acting off for these past couple of weeks," Manager Umino said, rounding his desk to sit down. "You can have a seat," he motioned once he realized she was standing stiffly at the door.

"Please don't fire me." That didn't come out as smooth as she wanted it to.

"What?"

"I've been off a little, yes but I can get my shit—I mean, my act. I can get my act together. Oh dear God, I didn't mean to curse."

He watched her flounder for a moment, confused and sympathetic. She was an awkward young woman but she was a hard worker, whatever she was going through was throwing her off but he had no intention of firing her. "I'm not firing you."

She paused, her mouth pinching. "You're not?"

"No, of course not but I have noticed you've been off."

"Well, um, yeah, I guess I have."

Manager Umino nodded and sat back, folding his arms across his chest. Xin tried to not shift uncomfortably. "It's a slow day and you've worked hard since the day I hired you, why don't you take the afternoon off?"

"Unn?"

"And tomorrow. Tomorrow's Friday, take the day off and have a three day weekend, okay? And when you come back Monday morning, maybe you'll be in a better mood."

She stared at him.

"Full pay," Manager Umino added. "You're a good worker, Hyuga."

"But I—"

He held up his hands and shook his head. "Go on, Hyuga. I mean it. Just take some time for yourself. I'll see you on Monday."

She floundered for a moment, unsure if this was some test he was putting her up to. She squeezed her hands into fists against her knees, frowning. "You're being serious?"

"One hundred percent serious, Hyuga."

That's how Xin found herself walking down the street at eleven o'clock on a Thursday morning. It felt…somehow illegal for her to be out and about when she would normally be at work but Manger Umino insisted. Seiko had been more pleased than Xin when she told her she was leaving for the day, gushing that she deserved some time to herself.

Masaru only grumbled under his breath.

She wasn't sure how a free day was supposed to make her feel better. It was even more obvious that she didn't have any damn friends to call and hang out with. She considered visiting with Yuri but thought better of it, she didn't want to go straight home yet.

So she boarded a bus and went to downtown Tokyo. The city wasn't as crowded during the day and for the first hour, she simply window shopped. It was nice to turn her brain off and wander aimlessly around, perusing the shop windows. She continued wandering until she came across a familiar bakery.

Anko's bakery.

She perked up immediately and hurried over, ignoring the fact that buying anything out the bakery would be a massive splurge. She deserved it, dammit, after the last couple of miserable and lonely weeks. Maybe Anko wouldn't be in and she'd be able to get a treat without the woman wondering about her involvement with Gaara.

Of course, with her luck, Anko was manning the cash register. Xin considered fleeing the bakery, her treats be damned but Anko spotted her almost immediately. "Oi, long time no see! Where's your guard-dog?"

"Guard-dog?" Xin grimaced.

"Gaara."

"Oh," Xin bit her lip, a little confused as to why Gaara would be considered her guard-dog. "We're..um…not friends anymore, I guess."

Anko frowned. "Wasn't expecting that, he seemed to like having you around."

Xin smiled but it was touched with sadness. "I liked having him around too." It was too bad he wasn't around to hear that, maybe he would have reconsidered the choice he made to cut her off. But then again, if his lifestyle clashed with hers the way he said it did, it wouldn't matter what was said. His mind was made up.

"How'd a girl like you get tangled up with him anyway?" Anko asked, straight to the point. "He's not exactly your regular boy-scout guy, you're not somebody I'd expect to be around him," she leaned against the counter, smiling. Xin had a feeling Anko had been waiting for the opportunity to ask her that question ever since they met.

Xin perused the sweets, purposely holding off on answering. She did the math in her head, making sure the splurge wouldn't cost her too much. "Ah, well, he was hurt and I ran into him."

"Hurt like how?" Anko asked.

"Someone stabbed him. I have some medical training so I stitched him up. We've been friends ever since. I didn't want to be friends at first but he and his siblings kind of wormed their way in." She was smiling again, not that she even noticed.

"What happened then?"

Her smile fell immediately. "His lifestyle, I guess. Um, you know he's…" she made a vague motion with her hands. Anko chuckled but nodded, she knew all about Gaara's lifestyle. "I got caught up in a couple incidents and he decided it was better to back off."

"For your safety," Anko said. "Was it bad?"

She tapped her fingers idly against the counter, wondering if it might be worth it to include the fudge brownie. It looked especially chocolatey and though she loved all sorts of sweets, she loved chocolate the best.

"To him, it was. I didn't die and barely got hurt but I think it made him really uncomfortable." Well, that wasn't the whole truth, was it? It was more so the fact that she didn't care about herself. That's what threw him off, her readily accepting anything bad done to her. It made sense why he and Temari had been so weirded out when they apologized and she simply shrugged it off.

Why would she care? She'd had her face shoved through a glass window, been burned, had been strangled and not to mention all the kicks and punches she'd taken. She'd gone through much worse and there she was, still alive and breathing.

"Figures," Anko shrugged. "You're just a girl, you've never known violence like he's introducing you to."

"I have." She said it before she could stop herself. She paused with wide eyes and a pinched mouth, daring to glance up at Anko. The older woman was staring back but her expression was mostly unreadable.

"I have too," Anko said after a long pause of just staring at one another. "Women usually don't join Yakuza families but it's not exactly unheard of."

Xin blinked. "You?"

"How do you think I know Gaara? That's not the type of man you meet normally. I knew his father, a real asshole, that guy."

"I've heard."

"He told you about Rasa?"

Xin nodded, surprising Anko. Rasa was clearly a sore subject for Gaara. Yet here was Xin, well aware of the asshole and his doomed fate. She didn't even seem to think too much of it.

"Interesting. Miss having him around?"

She nodded again and then frowned. "His siblings too and Jura." It was true, she even missed Kankuro and his crabby ass attitude towards her. "They were…nice to me."

Anko studied Xin, and really looked at her. She was a small person but she could tell Xin was going the extra mile to appear even smaller. She hardly ever kept eye contact and she didn't seemingly worry about her safety the way Gaara did. She frowned and shook her head. "You know, the man I once looked at as a father figure turned out to be a terrible guy, I didn't realize until much later that he groomed me."

Xin's eyes popped open and she nearly gaped at Anko. "I had to do a lot of growing to realize he was wrong, not me. Eventually when I did, I left the sort of life behind and made a new one. A life I like much better," Anko began to wrap Xin's picks out, tucking them into the box. "One where I can spend it doing what I love." Anko slid the box across the counter to Xin. "Your total's 2300.33."

Xin handed over her due. "How…how did you get here?"

Anko smiled and shrugged. "I asked for help."

Xin thought a lot about Anko's words. She had a feeling Anko pieced together some of her trauma without having the full story. It might have been women's instincts because Temari put things together and had been the first one to verbally reassure her that things were different.

She paused, clutching her parcel of sweets to her chest, biting her lip. It was better to stop thinking so much of Temari and her brothers. They were gone out of her life as quick as they came and romanticizing their presence wouldn't help things.

The fact remained that Xin would survive without them around. Was that what she preferred? No, not necessarily but she would if she had to. She'd crawled her ass out of that cesspool of abuse and toxicity once and maybe she slipped and fell a couple times but she soldiered on. She'd keep fuckin' soldiering on.

Her mistake had been that she'd been too wrapped up in her thoughts to notice the two men watching her walk by. At first glance, they seemed like typical men. Except that it was the middle of the day and they were just loitering. And the tattoos.

They very casually followed behind her, their longer legs slowly eating up the distance. As paranoid as she usually was, she made the mistake of spacing out, too busy considering the idea of catching a movie by herself to pay attention to her surroundings. She never got to see that horror movie so maybe now she could—

Xin froze as an arm slipped around her neck. She glanced up, almost convincing herself that whoever was being so casual with her could only be Jura, maybe even Gaara.

No. She didn't recognize this man. Or this other one who closed in on her other side, boxing her in against the first man.

The one with his arm around her neck offered a grin but it made her stomach turn. "I was right, this is her."

Her? Who the hell was her? She was a nobody.

"You're that girl that's been hanging around the Sabaku bastards."

Ah.

Oh.

"Umm…" she laughed nervously. "No, I'm not—" She felt something pressing into her side then. She blinked owlishly and glanced down to her side. The other man was armed with a box cutter, it looked like. That seemed kind of low-level to her but maybe whatever gang they were from, this was their initiation?

Low level or not, it was still a blade pressed to her side. Dagger, box-cutter, bowie-knife, it didn't make a difference. She'd bleed either way.

"Just come with us." The box cutter pressed harder into her side but the blade hadn't ejected yet.

"Um…"

The arm pulled back from her neck but grabbed her arm in a death grip. "Just come with us, sugar and we won't need to make that pretty face of yours bleed."

She floundered, looking around. She realized that others were taking notice but chose to stay out of it. They noticed the tattoos too. Low level or not, these men were dangerous and they were leaving everyone else alone. Xin took a stuttering breath. No one would step in to help her. It was the bystander effect, wasn't it? She read about it once, the idea being only introduced in the sixties, which really wasn't all that long ago—

"Are you fuckin' stupid or somethin'?" The man shook her hard. She felt how deep his fingers dug into her arm and frowned. She bruised easily.

'Yes,' Kazuya's words slithered through her mind. 'You are fuckin' stupid.'

She was, she agreed. Leaving a public place and going with these men wouldn't be a good idea but what was she supposed to do? Fight back? One had her in an iron grip and the other was just waiting to stab her.

It was ironic, she thought numbly as she felt herself being led off. Gaara wanted to stay away from her because he didn't want the guilt of her getting hurt to fall on him.

She had the sinking feeling she was going to get hurt.

They forced her into what she assumed was an abandoned office building. They took her shoes and forced her out of her blouse, leaving her in her skirt, stockings and camisole. She was mostly sure they did it to make her feel vulnerable and it worked, unfortunately. They dragged her to the very back of the building and into a small room. She was forced into a chair and subsequently tied to it. It was rather cliche, she found herself thinking but decided to keep that to herself.

She considered asking what they thought they would achieve by kidnapping her. Huh. That's strange, she thought, to come to the realization that she'd been essentially kidnapped. She wasn't worth much, barely had anything special in her bank account to use as leverage. The two men mentioned Gaara, referring to his inner circle as the Sabaku bastards. This was clearly gang-related but she didn't quite see where she would fit in.

"Um…" Xin cleared her throat, prompting the two to turn around to face her. She shifted uncomfortably but the ropes bit into her skin, halting any further movements. "Why….why am I here?"

The one who wrapped his arm around her neck squinted down at her, his thin lips pulling. "You are fuckin' stupid." That was unnecessary, she thought blandly. "Those Sabaku bastards can't ignore us since we've got you."

Xin squinted at them, weighing her options. She could tell them the truth and risk getting hurt immediately or drag it out and getting hurt later. God, if she did drag it out, how long would they keep her here? It was Thursday afternoon and she had until Monday until someone might notice her not showing up.

How the fuck did this even happen? She'd just been at the bakery, having a normal conversation with Anko and now she was a victim of kidnapping. What the fuck.

"Yeah, they can?" Xin found herself saying. If this was the way she went out, she didn't want to drag it out. "I'm not Gaara's girlfriend or even a fling. Why would they care that you've got me?"

"You are the little bitch that's been hanging around with him, aren't you? And his brother and sister?"

She frowned up at him, taken aback. "I'm not a little bitch, you are!"

In retrospect, that clearly wasn't a very smart thing to say and she wasn't all that surprised when he slapped the living shit out of her. Tears instantly began to well up in her eyes. She blinked, a couple of tears rushed down her face and she took a shaky breath.

"Answer me," her attacker demanded, taking her by the chin and squeezing painfully. "You're her, aren't you?"

"Yes," Xin said through gritted teeth. "But you're wasting your time, I'm telling you, I'm not important to him! I haven't talked to any of them in weeks. He—they don't care about me like that!" Admitting out loud that Gaara didn't care for her was both embarrassing and painful. "If you just let me go, I won't tell anyone about this—"

He hit her again, this time a backhanded slap to shut her up. It hurt, more tears rushing down her face, hot and quickly swelling. And for what? Why was she going through this? Because some up and coming wannabes wanted a quick way to get Gaara's attention?

She scowled, gathered spit in her mouth and aimed right for his eye.

He hadn't the time to really think of Xin. In the oncoming weeks of icing her out, Gaara had busied himself with tracking the fuckers who shot Kankuro down. It was a nice distraction but there were moments in between, the quiet moments when his mind couldn't help but to wander to Xin.

There was a small piece of him that assumed she'd barge her way back into his life like last time. But last time it was a misunderstanding. This time, he told her to her face that he had no business coming around her.

And…he regretted it.

Yes, his lifestyle was dangerous and she probably had no business being involved but…he missed her presence. They joked about how they wormed their way into her life but she had done the same thing, burrowing herself in their lives in her own special way.

And now she's gone.

Every time his phone vibrated, a small part of him hoped that it would be Xin, forcing her way back into his life like the first time. But it was different now. Her feelings were hurt, he practically watched her heart break before she fled his car.

It was a little surprising, he remembered thinking, that her feelings would be so hurt. Did their friendship matter that much to her? It must have since she made such a big deal the last time he took a step away from her.

But how could she expect him to stick around? She'd been caught in the crossfire of a drive-by aimed at his brother and roofied while out with his sister. She'd only been put in those situations because of her involvement with them, it wouldn't have happened otherwise.

And for some fuckin' reason, she just didn't care. She shrugged it all off as if they'd been discussing the weather. Her only answer to her strange blase ways was the simple fact that nothing happened. She'd been drugged but Temari came to her rescue. Someone shot at her but Kankuro pulled her down before she could be injured. What would she do if they couldn't come to her rescue? How could she shrug it off then?

Somehow she convinced herself that she was a bad person. She made bad decisions and was selfish and couldn't do anything right. Those were her words and in her eyes, she probably deserved all that mayhem their involvement caused her. What the hell had she done in life that had her convinced she deserved to be roofied or shot at?

Gaara rubbed harshly at his face, trying to will the thoughts of Xin away. He glanced at his phone but it remained silent.

"Jesus Christ," he muttered to himself. What the fuck was this? It was just a woman, for shit's sake. He's dealt with women before, pretty women but none of them made such an impression on him the way Xin had.

"Something bothering you?" Temari suddenly appeared at the door. He glanced up at her, irritated that she'd probably been there long enough to witness his mini temper tantrum.

Again, he rubbed his face. "Nothing's bothering me, what's up?"

Temari eyed him suspiciously, clearly not believing him. She wanted to press him but his tolerance was running low and risked poking the bear. "Mom called."

He pulled his hands away from his face, his face drawing in concern. "Is something wrong?"

"Nah, she's fine. Someone probably told her about Kankuro getting shot, Rasa's old connects calling her, maybe. She wants us to drive to see her today, maybe have lunch."

Gaara considered it. Every so often they strayed from their usual scheduled visit, usually when Karura wanted to see her children. Seeing her today wouldn't hurt, it might actually help, seeing as how they were all under stress for the last couple of weeks.

"Sounds good," Gaara said, standing up. "Jura can keep an eye on things while we're gone."

Temari grinned. "Great, we can stop by Anko's bakery and get some of her favorite treats."

Neither of them noticed his phone light up, an incoming call from Xin.

"He won't fuckin' answer!"

Xin slowly picked her head up, her eyes dark. Her mouth and nose were bleeding, blood staining her camisole. Her legs were full of bruises after being kicked at, the shape of boot prints stamped into her, all purple, black and blue. Where there weren't bruises there were cigarette burns, they'd been snuffing out their cigarettes by using her skin as an ashtray.

It wasn't looking too good for her.

"I told you," she said, blood coating her teeth and lips. "We aren't what you think we were. We were friends and now we're not!"

Isn't this the whole reason they weren't friends now? So she wouldn't get mixed up in shit like this? Well, now she'd been kidnapped and Gaara was nowhere to be found.

"I can't have that on my conscience."

And he fuckin' wouldn't because he had no idea she'd been kidnapped in the first place.

Great.

Ateru, the so-called brains of the duo, this had been his plan after all, glared down at her. He reached behind her and took a chunk of her hair in his hand, painfully jerking her head backwards. She cried out in shock, gritting her teeth as fresh pain bloomed from her scalp.

"You expect me to believe he wasn't fucking you?"

"He wasn't!" Xin said through gritted teeth. "We were just friends." And barely that, apparently.

"You're lying," Ateru pulled harder and Xin wondered if it was possible to snap her neck this way. "You're not the type of girl guys want to be friends with."

Well, hell, way to kick a dog when it's down.

"You're not the type men want to date seriously. You think someone would actually take you home to meet their parents? Don't get me wrong, you're a knockout but you've got the type of face men want to ruin and a body to dump their cum in."

Her eyes widened. She wasn't sure if Kazuya had ever said something so heinous to her before. Sure, he mocked her body but he'd never said shit like that to her.

Good Lord.

Ateru tutted. "Don't tell me I hurt your feelings, pretty girl. No one's ever told you that? That your cunt is what makes you worthy of some attention? C'mon, be for real."

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" Xin scowled up at him. It wasn't her brightest of ideas but she couldn't stop herself. "This is the best you could come up with? Terrorizing a random woman because your man crush won't pay any attention to you? And why would he anyway? What do the two of you have to even offer Gaara? He's a fuckin' crimeboss, you think he's gonna hand his entire empire over to two losers because you kidnapped me?"

Ateru yanked her hard enough to tip her backwards, slamming her head into the floor. She was dazed but she wasn't dead and that meant she could continue to talk her shit. "I mean," she said with a hysterical laugh. "You said it yourself, I can only spread my legs for him and he doesn't even want that! You two bozos aren't doing shit but wasting everyone's time!"

He kicked her hard in her side. She gasped, sucking in a painful breath and couldn't even turn on her side. He kicked her again. Harder, threatening to break something.

"Oi!" His partner, Hayate intervened. "Ease the fuck up, she could break something."

Well, her dignity was already broken, that's for damn sure.

Hayate grabbed her by the shoulder and yanked her back up, roughly settling the chair back on its legs. "I don't believe you don't mean shit to him. He kept you around longer than he ever has any other girl. He'll pick up the phone."

Ateru leaned over and roughly grabbed her by the face, forcing her lips into a bloody pucker. "You watch your fuckin' mouth. I can put it to better use if you don't behave."

This time when she aimed for his eye, her saliva was mixed with blood.

Karura was ecstatic to see her children. She reached for them each, pulling them down to lay kisses against their foreheads and cheeks. She especially paid attention to Kankuro. "I heard you were shot!" It was well known that Karura did not approve of their lifestyle. She loved Rasa but she assumed that his empire would go down with him, hoped even. Instead, her youngest was now headlining it.

"Who told you?" Temari asked as Kankuro floundered under Karura's look of disapproval.

"Doesn't matter," Karura huffed. "Are you alright, dear?"

Kankuro rubbed the back of his neck guiltily. "Course I'm alright, ma. It wasn't even that bad, it's healing fine."

"Chiyo took care of it?"

"Well, sorta."

Karura clucked her tongue at his botched grammar. "If she didn't, who did?"

"We made a new friend," Temari said. "She was actually Gaara's friend first. She worked in a clinic and helped Kankuro out."

Karura looked at Gaara, her eyebrows raised. "A new friend?"

"It's not like that," Gaara said quickly.

"Is she pretty?"

He rolled his eyes. "What difference does that make?"

Before she could answer, Temari was handing over her phone to show her a picture of her and Xin. Karura whistled. "My, more than pretty."

Gaara let out a loud sigh. "I don't want to talk about Xin right now."

Karura blinked and glanced at her daughter. "Things are a little…complicated right now." She leaned closer, whispering into her mother's ear. "I'll tell you about her later."

"Alright," Karura gave in with a shrug. "Let's go to the garden then, hm? The flowers are starting to bloom. Did you bring lunch?"

They easily fell into conversation, Gaara pushing Karura's wheelchair. His phone, still on silent, went unanswered.

Xin was tougher than she looked. Sometimes she prided herself on that but now wasn't the time. For hawking blood and saliva at Ateru, he punched her so hard in her stomach, she thought he might've broken something. He didn't break anything but Jesus Christ did it feel like it.

She was well aware that antagonizing them wouldn't help but at this point, why the fuck not? No one was coming to get her, Gaara wouldn't even pick up the phone. She considered suggesting that they try Temari but what if she did pick up?

The thought of that scared her for some reason. What if they saw her and lost all respect for her? It wouldn't be that hard, bloody and bruised as she was.

She took a deep breath, wincing as pain bloomed from her ribcage. They hadn't broken anything, which was good but she was positive there was severe bruising. "How does this end?" Xin suddenly asked, glancing tiredly over at Hayate. He seemed less inclined to use violence against her. Of course, that didn't mean he wouldn't. "I have a job to get back to." Not family or a loved one or hell, even a pet. She had no one to get back to.

Hayate stared at her with blank eyes. "A job?" he repeated. "That's what you're worried about, your job?"

She cut her eyes at him. She liked her job, it wasn't a bad thing. "They're going to wonder where I am if I don't show up." She hoped anyway. Seiko would worry, she told herself. Maybe Masaru would notice her strange absence first if she wasn't around to sexually harass. It could be too late by then, she reminded herself.

Hayate lounged casually on the ratty old couch. "Well, better hope Sabaku answers the goddamn phone then."

"He won't," Xin insisted, her eyes big and confused. "Why won't you two listen? He's not gonna fuckin' answer you two losers."

Hayate sat up, fixing her with a nasty glare. "You got a lot of shit to say despite the circumstances."

Xin sighed. "What are you gonna do? Hit me again?" They'd been hitting and kicking and burning her for hours and she still had the gall to insult them. She'd done the same with Kazuya, practically goading him into hitting her. That was the problem, Kazuya's voice bounced around her mind, she never knew when to shut her big ass mouth.

Hayate hit her.

She slouched over in pain, gasping for breath as new pain bloomed from her stomach. Her stomach and sides probably looked worse than her legs by now. "He's not coming," she managed around her gasps. "He won't answer the phone. Please…"

Please what? Please just let her go? Please just kill her? Please just stop hitting her?

She knew better by now that saying please would get her nowhere. Saying please never stopped Kazuya, not when she was screaming it, not when she was sobbing and it wouldn't stop these two men. She must have been made for pain, she thought numbly. She'd been put together for men to beat her down, pick her apart, break her into little pieces. She was strong like that, she could take it.

She could take it.

"You know," Karura began, her children sitting around her. "I have this friend who has a daughter about your age, Gaara." She said it casually, ignoring the face he made. "I told her about you, she'd love to grab dinner with you."

Gaara regarded his mother with a blank stare. "Did you tell her about the Yakuza affiliation?"

Karura sighed heavily. "That's a minor detail, you know! How could I casually bring that up to her?"

Gaara rolled his eyes. "You don't need to. I don't need you to set me up on dates, mom. I'm not interested in that right now."

Karura raised her eyebrows and leaned forward in interest. "But eventually you will, won't you? She's a really nice girl, Gaara. I think you might like her if you give her a chance." They had this conversation several times now, his mother always trying to convince him to go out on a date. There was always a nice girl willing to overlook what he did.

His mind nearly wandered to a certain dark-haired woman. He thought about her crooked smiles and witch-like cackles. He thought about her sweet-tooth and her penny-pinching ways and the white blouses and black heels. But he also thought about how small she made herself, how she always seemed braced for something to go wrong, about how she walked blocks and blocks in black heels with her head bent and shoulders tight.

Wasn't Xin willing to overlook his lifestyle? If his mother really wanted him to date, would it be so bad if…

Yes. It would be bad.

He made his choice, he reminded himself. He made a choice to stay away from that woman. It was for her own good, for her safety. It was better this way.

Gaara noticed Karura's doctor and used that as a reason to get away from his mother and her meddling. Temari and Karura watched him go before simultaneously turning to look at Kankuro. He squirmed uncomfortably and quickly fled after his brother.

"Why don't you ever try to make me or Kankuro go on a date?" Temari asked, wasting no time. She'd noticed a while ago that their mother tended to badger Gaara the most.

"Because I think the only thing that would make him fully give up the Yakuza lifestyle might be love," Karura answered rather easily. "If you or Kankuro fall in love, he'll make you leave the lifestyle behind. But if he gives it up first…"

"We would too."

Karura nodded. It was her last hope to get her children away from their lifestyle but Gaara was stubborn. Either love or death would force him to renounce it and she feared love was out of reach.

"The girl we mentioned earlier," Temari began slowly, still somewhat unsure. Gaara made it clear he didn't want to talk about Xin but he was busy with Karura's doctor. "I think he likes her."

"Oh?"

Temari smiled and scooted closer next to Karura's wheelchair. She told Karura all about Xin, about her meeting Gaara and eventually meeting the rest of them. She told her about Xin's strange sense of humor and her adversity to their wealth and her antagonistic ways with Kankuro.

She told her about Gaara's soft smiles and his quiet compliments to Xin. She told her about the rides home he gave her and how he insisted on taking her out to eat or treating her to Anko's baked goods.

"She sounds like a sweetheart," Karura said with a smile but it was tinged with some sorrow.

"She is," Temari agreed. "You'd like her mom, she's a little…lost though." She paused, letting herself think about Xin for the moment. They never got to see that movie Xin had been so excited to invite her out for. She wondered if she still bothered to go or decided against it. She understood Gaara's stance but there's a small part of her that wished her brother wasn't so…noble.

Temari felt her phone vibrate in her pocket, surprising her. She usually had it on silent when visiting Karura, a sort of unspoken rule between the three of them. Sliding it out to silence it, she blinked at the name.

Xin.

Why would Xin be calling her now, all of a sudden? Had she decided that Gaara icing her out had nothing to do with their friendship? She grinned at the thought of Xin being rebellious. A little rebellion might do her some good. The phone stopped vibrating and she decided that she would call her back after they finished visiting Karura.

Her phone vibrated again but only once this time, a single text. A picture.

Temari tapped it open and squinted at the screen. Was that a…person? It was a picture of a person sitting, slouched over. She frowned, studying it. A long curtain of dark hair hid the face but the person was dressed in a white camisole and a black skirt and….

She stiffened.

That wasn't just dark hair. That was dark blue hair.

That was Xin.

"Oh my God."