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Chapter One:

My favorite thing is to go where I've never been. -Diane Arbus

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Monday - 13/8/18 – Writing from Suna.

The 9:45 to Suna arrived late on Monday. It got there at seven. The sun was up by then, and so when I stepped onto the platform there were many bronze-skinned, mainly male, people crowding around to get on the train. There were few women, and they were all covered in huge lengths of fabric from head to toe.

When I had raced up the stairs, I came face-to-face with Suna, and the thing that knocked the breathe out of me was the sheer hugeness of it. It was massive. I had never been in anything bigger then Konoha, which was tiny. But this was a city. It had huge houses, small houses, shabby houses, apartment houses, mansion houses, hotel houses, building houses, houses so tall they would have privately owned elevators, houses so long they would have those flat escalators you find at airports to make people walking from one side to the other move faster, houses with heli-pads, and then from my view at the top of the hill in which the railways were situated under, I saw the poor district. It was houses that were more cardboard then brick. This huge infestation of desert-dwelling people went on forever. And I shook, how the hell would I find one little insignificant individual in this mass of humanity and housing material.

I walked numbly to a bench and sat down. Where would I start? Would I spend my entire life knocking on doors until I found some trace of where he had been? I didn't have enough money to last my entire life. I had left with only PJ's, jeans two packs of gum and 400.

There was no way I'd ever find him here. Here in this huge, huge mass of buildings and people. My mouth felt dry, I was a small country girl, infact, very very small. Most people here towered over me, maybe even taller then Naruto, or even Kimimaro.

Their names burned my mind. Naruto's burned with anger, of so much hurt. He betrayed me and kept letters I had longed for from me. He had kept me from Gaara. All I had to trace him with was a P.O. Box address. Hardly even a starting point, seeing I don't even know which post office it would be in. Kimimaro… somebody who needed me, I've never left anyone who actually needed me. Either they've left me, or I've stayed until they didn't need me anymore. But he needed me. And I still left.

I tore my thoughts away from Sound and back into the hot dry city of Suna. Fuck. This place is big. I must have looked thoroughly lost, since I got some sympathetic looks from the eyes of many passer-byers's.

I put my head in my hands, rubbing my eyes with the palms of my hands. Maybe when I look up again the city will just be one house. And in that one house will only be one person. And that one person will want to see me and I him.

I opened my eyes and sighed. No, of course not. Not that easy. The vast city remained. I decided that I would put to use possibly the only useful thing I had brought, and chewed on a stick of gum.

Fuck. This place is big.

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7:43

I spent 2 hours on that park bench. Two agonizing hours in numb shock over how hugely big Suna was. Two long, long thoughtless hours staring at the ants on the pavement. And in that two hours I think I only noticed one thing.

Even in winter, Suna is hot. And so, for another hour after that two hours I spent in a small coffee-shop in numb shock of how hot a place in winter could get. I blame the body-heat from the millions and billions of people who live here. That's why. It was probby really nice once, then all these people came and made it hot.

I drank four cups of coffee. I am now down too 382.25. And I really don't care. Why should I?

So after spending two long hours wondering at how huge this place could actually be, and the following that up with another sixty-minutes of being shocked over how hot winter was here, I eventually got of my ass and went to find someplace to stay and not get weird looks from people.

I walked, and I walked. And I don't know how long I really did walk, but eventually I walked enough to find a small shabby apartment approx. 3 hours hot walk from the train-station. And in that small shabby apartment I realized the rent was too high, so I walked another hour or so in the hot until I found one I can afford for a month. And it's was even worse then the last one. But really, as long as it had a fan I was fine. And a fridge. It was practically empty, all I would use was the things I ate and a directory and phone book.

I have one month. One small tiny month to comb the entire city of Suna for one person. One month to find Gaara, how? I have no freaking idea. I think I'll start asking around here first.

Jeans are too hot. Hot hot hot. People around here wear long-sleeved gear like its cold. It's hot. Hot hot hot. Too hot for me.

Fuck. This place is hot.

And big.

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11:03

I miss Gaara. Being in Suna does nothing when I don't know where the hell he is. I hate this room. On one side the people next door just have sex. And that's it. I tried plugging my ears with everything in the entire room but nothing blocks out the ugliest noises I've ever heard. And what's better? On the other side there is an insane person who appears to have a dog and snores really loud. He can obviously sleep through the people two doors down from him having vicious orgasms. WELL I CAN'T!

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Tuesday 14/8/18

I spent all last night pouring over a phone book. There is nobody under the entire 'S' section (which is 102 pages long) that has the name Temari, Kankuro or Gaara.

I'm tired. My ears hurt from having tampons in them as make-shift earplugs. I ate a mixture of those mini travel cereal packs and condensed milk. Healthy.

Today I wandered about Suna like a lost puppy, and I bought many smoothies. I spent most of the day asking people if they knew Gaara, I asked the lady at the counter of the ice-cream cart if she knew somebody called 'Sabaku No Gaara' She laughed in my face. Not that I could really tell since her face was covered in the head-dress most native women wore here. She may have just been coughing violently. But if she was laughing, it's understandable, I mean, asking for one person in this huge city.

I got mainly the same reaction from the other people I asked too. I will try again tomorrow. And will check the 'S' section of the People! Directory (Suna edition). One even just shook his head and walked away muttering 'Damn Tourists, don't know anything.'

But the one that really pissed me off was the guy who pretended he couldn't understand me and then I followed him to his shop and bought something and when he asked if I wanted a receipt I cried 'AHA! YOU DO UNDERSTAND ME DAMNIT!' and he told me to get out and stop asking stupid questions.

But I met lots of interesting people. There was one who was deaf so I drew a picture in the sand beside the pavement and it wasn't THAT bad but eventually he got fed up and shrugged and walked off. I'd even taken the trouble of getting some redder sand for his hair. And he would be easy to recognize if you knew him, I'd only seen a few others with red hair here. I'd even drawn angry lines to show his personality. I mean, most of the time he's scowling? Maybe I over did the eyebrows and he looked more like Lee, but I think I got it pretty damn close.

And I met another Land-of-Fire person who had dyed her hair purple. She got the same dirty looks as me for showing her face in public, she laughed too, but in a more polite way since I think she guessed I was new and kept walking.

Another thing I hate about Suna, besides the hugeness, and the hotness is the face no woman shows her face. Why? They all wear long light but dark pants, slipper-like shoes, a long flowy-sleeved top and a strange criss-crossy sash running around the shoulders and waist with the veil over the face. Most wore dark blue or deep reds or purples. There was no green here. At all.

And damnit! It's people like me and the girl with the purple hair who pay! The guys probably just laugh at me because they can see my face. I don't go 'HAHAHAH! I can see ya faaa-aace!' when they ask me something.

Not like they do…

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8:29

This list of people and numbers and addresses sucks. Why the hell don't they put Gaara in these things? Hasn't he been here long enough?

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8:34

Shit. What if he's not here? What if I have to go back to Sound to get my credit card to get into my bank (which I should've brought but didn't) so I can go somewhere else to find him?

What if I have come all this way for nothing?

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8:50

No, no. he's here. Temari said so. And the P.O. Box on the back of the letter matches the P.O Boxes here. Well… the post code does.

Well, I don't know. But he must be here, because if he's not why would he come all the way to Suna just to check his P.O. Box.

I will write a reply. I don't think he'll check it. But it's worth it, maybe the person who probably owns the P.O. Box now will tell me his new address?

He's here. If he's not, I shall go back to Sound and tell Naruto to go and damn well fix what he's broken on pain of Sasuke's balls being cut off. No, actually. There's no point in even joking about that. I'm not going back, and I'm not getting Naruto to even try to fix this. I don't trust him anymore.

And if I go back, who says I can leave Kimimaro again?

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1:09am

I can't sleep, I went out onto the tiny itsy bitsy balcony and look up at the sky. You can't see much. Only the moon and the brighter stars, thanks to all the lights in Suna.

I wonder where Gaara is.

Also wonder if the people next door (I'm beginning to thing it's a hooker) will ever shut up.

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Thursday 16/8/18

Nothing interesting happened yesterday. I am running low on my food-money. And I'm out of mini-cereals. I just ate the rest of the condensed milk today.

Today I continued walking and asking. I made it to the richer districts today, where I was treated worse then ever for showing my face, I got so pissed off by the end of it I yelled 'AM I REALLY THAT REPULSIVE?' to the guy who had ignored me. He threw me a dirty look and swished away in his winter suit.

Which, if I wore, I would melt since I only just survive in rolled-up jeans and the same T-shirt (which has a few smoothie and condensed milk stains on it by now) in the sweltering heat.

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10:23

I'm such a hobo. Living on condensed milk.

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I AM. SO. SORRY! Really, I had posted the A/N and then was in the middle of filling out the 'new story' thing and then my mother rushes in and is all 'HELP WITH THE HORSES!!' and so I do, and then when I get back it's like 11 and I have to go to beddybies. I. AM. SO. SORRY!

Also, hello to people too! I am to-love-is-to-lie! Sometime I don't make much sense, I kinda ruin somber sad chappies with insane happy author notes…. But I guess you get used to that. Hope you liked it, love me. :D

(P.S. Hello all familiar names, glad to be back after a whole FIVE/SIX DAYS! :o !! hehe. QuickSand is up, and I had left over quotes so I'll use ze quotes again. Plus, I learned more life lessons from them then I do from school. But I guess that's obvious when you think about it. )

Haha, love youuu.

Love-love-is-to-lie.

P.S. LOVEEEEE YOUUU!