Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. Kishimoto and whoever liscensed it does.

A/N: I'm moving all my old author notes to the bottom of the page. Now, I've added an appearence to Shai. HAH!

Chapter One: Meeting him

No one would tell from justher appearence that she was a genin. If her teacher hadn't been walking next to her, she would have looked like a normal teenager. Except for the fact that she looked terrified. Her light brown eyes were wide, tears threatening to spill over onto her fair cheeks. She was wearing an open,light green, summer jacket over a pale purple, low neckline t-shirtwith afishnet shirt under that. Her jeans were loose-fitting boot cut and brown. Her hair was almost the same color as her eyes, butit was sun bleached. Cropped to fall just past her shoulders and done up in a messy half-up half-down hairdoo. Her shoulders shook, completing the frightened school-girl look.

Just this morning she was told that she was going to be an assistant to Gaara. To a monster.

All her friends had wished her luck, and gave her a small present. It seemed everyone else had known that it would be her next.

'Except me' She thought gloomily as her teacher, Kuruki-sensei, led her to the Kazekage's office to meet the monster, and his older siblings, whom she was to share residence with.

As Shai and Kuruki-sensei neared the building, they could make out four seperate people standing at the door. The very tallest looked pressed for time and he kept glancing around impatiently. Obviously the Kazekage's wouldn't be out there to greet them -- he was very busy at this time of year.

"This is where I leave you Shai." Kuruiki-sensei bowed to the other group before begining his short journey back to the sand's ninja academy.

Shai bowed, followed by the blond haired girl, and the guy with the red-purple face colorings. The red-haired boy just nodded. The man that had been waiting for her sighed and waved an impatient hand.

"I really must be going now.. Good luck.." With that, the taller one took off to where ever he was needed.

"Hi, you must be Shai. I'm Temari." Temari shook Shai's hand and stood back for the others to introduce themselves.

"Kankuro." Kankuro nodded in recognition and looked at the last boy.

Gaara!

He just glared at Shai with his pale green eyes.

Shai blinked and looked away.

"Gaara, do you always have to be this way?" Kankuro snapped at his younger brother.

"Ah, uh...um..." Shai just stared at the two brothers.

Gaara stared down his brother, and Temari sighed heavily, trying to signal to Kankuro that picking a fight would not be wise.

"Answer me, little brother." Kankuro's voice dripped with venomous hate, and his eyes never waivered from the glare he was receiving in return.

"I will never recognize you as my brother." Gaara spat back at the older boy. In one fluid motion, Gaara's arm pointed towards Kankuro, palm out.

"Gaara, Kankuro... Don't fight... please not now...?" Temari asked timidly, only to receive a cruel glare from both brothers.

When Kankuro didn't recognize the threat he was receiving, Gaara pointed his arm at his new assistant and raised his other arm to his chest to form a hand seal.

Temari inhaled sharply, struggling with something inside her mind before she spoke again, "Kankuro, look what you did! You're both acting like little kids!"

Shai could feel something creeping up her legs. She looked down and let out a squeak of fear. There was sand forming around her ankles and it began to snake up her legs menicingly.

"Gaara! Don't! Please, just stop it you two!" Temari pushed Kankuro away from Gaara. Temari received another sharp glare.

Gaara lowered his arms and the sand scattered.

Shai stood, fighting back tears. 'It just keeps getting better and better!' She thought bitterly.

"L-lets go..." Temari said, motioning for Shai and her brother's to follow.

Shai followed Temari at two steps behind her, Kankuro only a few feet further and Gaara was following a good two yards behind. Shai kept glancing behind her suspiciously.

Soon, they arrived at a medium sized brick home. It looked almost exactly as the other houses down the entire street, except for the numbers that hung above the doorframe. Above that was a sign with the sand's ensignia emblazened upon it. Temari motioned for the girl to stop gawking and get inside. Shai closed her mouth - 'when had it fallen open?' She asked herself - and nodded, following her inside before Gaara could reach the gate.

The front entrance room was small. It could only fit three or four at a time inside, and it only held a small picture of the Kazekage and some children. Shai guessed it was a family portrait, but noticed that there was no Mother figure, nor was there a jade-eyed monster.

The hallway leading to a branch of two other hallways was just as bland as the front room. Nothing adjorned the walls here. Temari pulled Shai into the first room on the left, what looked like a living room or dining room. A low table was situated in the middle, six green sitting places at equal intervals between themselves. The far wall had a window, and Shai could see the street outside. To Shai's dismay, there were no curtains. Before she could take in the rest of the room, Temari pulled her out into the room across the hall.

This room was the kitchen. To the right was a sink and the refridgerator - Kankuro had already begun to dig through it. In the middle was an island, and on the left was a door. Shai guessed that the door led to a pantry. The kitchen too had a curtainless window.

Instead of the veiw of the street, the got to see the sand-filled allyway behind their house. Shai saighed in dismay, the house really needed redecoration..

Temari smiled bitterly andshowed her down the hallway that ran off to the left.

It led to the washroom and her room. Her room was the worst room she had seen so far. to the right wall was her bed. on the far wall was a closet. On the wall opposite to the bed was a window. A dingy yellow curtain hung there, and Shai almost gagged. The room was horrendus!

Temari had left Shai to explore the rest of the house on her own.

She had walked down the other hallway and peeked into the three rooms there, but was almost bludgeoned to death when she'd entered Temari's room without knocking.

Temari claimed she thought Shai was Kankuro, and that he'd barged in again. Shai shrugged it off.

It was her fault for not knocking first.

Temari's room was bland, but it had a brown curtain in her window, a vanity, a deskand a shelf of books. At least it had some furniture..

She knocked on Kankuro's door, and with no reply, she peeked in to see his room was almost as horrible as her own.

His room was on the shady side of the house, so it didn't need a curtain. Against the wall, under the window, was Kankuro's bed. He too had a closet, but it was open and completely bare; his clothes were heaped in a pile in the corner.

Shai sighed again and closed the door.

"Oi! What were you doing looking in my room?" Shai jumped and turned to face Kankuro. She'd been caught poking around.

"I.. Uh.. I'm sorry.. I was just looking around.." Shai turned sevral shades of crimson and looked at her feet.

Kankuro laughed and ruffled her hair, "I was kidding. Don't take everything so seriously.."

Shai nodded and Kankuro brushed past her to go into his room, not bothering to close the door.

Glancing down the hall, she realized that the only room left was Gaara's. Curiousity won out the battle in her head and she knocked tentavly at the door.

"Gaara-san..? Uh.. Are.. Are you in there?"

No reply.

Shai let out the breath she didn't know that she'd been holding and turned the knob. She nearly jumped out of her skin when she heard Gaara's voice drift down the hall.

"Don't go in my room."

"Shai, when's dinner?" Someone was trying to get her attention from inside the kitchen.

Shai had been in the pantry to take stock of what they'd need for canned goods. She glanced out of the room and saw Gaara standing at the kitchen doorway.

"Y-yes, Gaara-san?" Shai swallowed the lump in her throat.

"When's dinner?" Gaara repeated.

"It's.. Uh.. I'll start right now.." Shai rushed back into the pantry and began to grab some things that could be made into a proper meal. When she rushed out into the kitchen to grab some vegetables, Gaara was gone.

The girl could have wept at how little food they kept in the house.

Pulling out a pot and a pan Shai boiled some water and fried upthe remainingvegetables.. The ones that hadn't gone bad anyways.

She dumped a few packs if instant noodles into the pot of boilingwaterand took off the vegetables. When the noodles had finished cooking, she put it all together.

"Dinner's ready!" She called, setting the pot of noodle's onto the dining room table.

"What are we having?" Asked Temari and Kankuro simultaneously as they entered theroom and sat at the table.

"Noodles!" Answered Shai as she set up four bowls and placed chopsticks next to them.

Gaara entered last and sat first. Shai served the noodles and sat down two seats away from the monster. When no one offered conversation, they began to eat their share of food and left Shai to clean up.

When she'd washed, dryed and put awayall the dishes, Shai plopped down the hall and sank into her bed.

'I hope tomorrow's better...' thought Shai before she drifted off to sleep.

A/N: (After the revamp) Alright, now that I've finished with the horrible task of re-organizing the chapters and stuff.. The explination of what I did... First, I made the paragraphs more discriptive.. And no, Shai still has no appearance... In case you noticed that too.

I merged a few chapters, and I rewrote a lot. I had to rewrite all that because Gaara was WAY too OOC and it was bugging not only me, but my readers.. And the only reason he was so OOC is because my beta-er was kinda forcing me...

I know that's no excuse but it's true. And she's the one that's writing the little bit at the bottom with Gaara and stuff... I just fix it so it has proper grammar and punctuation. Now, ON WITH THE STORY!