just a quick interval :D

so where's Naruto? what's happened to Sasuke? And oh lordy, what has happened to Gaara? :O

all will be answered.

just hang in there! :O

-Chapter 16-

As Gaara bolted on ahead of the team of ninja behind him, tears edged their way to the surface. Gaara shoved them back, and moved even faster. Insanity riddled his mind, made him ignorant. Everything was a mess. But, of course, Gaara paid no mind to it. Memories floated around him like a thousand pictures, forcing themselves on him as he ran.

"Stand up straighter".

Cold hands rest, one on his spine, one near his navel. He lets out a small grunt and complies.

"Do you ever laugh?"

A forced chuckle grates like metal; Gaara winces. Soon there are fingertips on every inch of his skin, lightly fluttering over his sides, his neck, his stomach. He lets laughter bubble up instead of a deep moan.

"This is how you kiss".

Such gentle touches. Any gentler, would probably mean nothing to anyone normal. But ever since arriving in Konoha, Gaara knew he was not normal. Or, at least, he wasn't anymore.

It was moments like these that Gaara wished he could treasure forever, grip tightly and lock away, store safely in the back of his churning mind.

Pink lips ran down his collarbone, sweeping down to the tip of his shoulder, and, for just a moment, Gaara felt them shivering. He couldn't explain the way he was feeling, there was too much to deal with. He kept his eyes on the blonde in front of him, tracking his movements like an assassin. Long after their kunai had been put away.

"You're a piece of work," Naruto declared one day, in a voice that splattered the canvas of his closed eyelids with colours too bright to see, and in the face of such a forceful personality Gaara found he had to hold back a slight blush from tinting his cheeks.

"See? That's what I mean!" The blonde proceeded to throw his arms up in exasperation; hands wave like free-falling. Curses are barely audible over the whisper of his breath. Gaara reached down and took hold of the ninja's chin and turned his face up to meet his, cool, shining blue orbs locking with his own sea green eyes.

Forceful, but gentle.

Gaara's hands were freezing. The ice travelled from his fingertips, spreading across Naruto's cheeks and infiltrating his defences until even his heart is afraid to keep beating.

Naruto could never keep that kind of stare for long, glancing as far downward as he can in his position. Unfortunately, that leaves his gaze to settle somewhere around Gaara's chest. There is no safe place anywhere. He blushes deeply, much to the amusement of Gaara.

"Why are you so shy?" Gaara whispered softly, but even then, sounded like a demand.

Naruto blinked, looked up, tied in place by Gaara's eyes more than by the power behind his thin wrist. "I-I don't..."

A sigh, and Gaara relinquished his hold. Warmth returned with a force like rain. Naruto brings a hand instinctively to his jaw, and lightly grazed over invisible bruises. A small smile escaped the red head, and then departed.

Smiles come so easily to Naruto: flitting across his face, so quickly you'll miss them if you blink for too long. They're fleeting but they're strong, conveying brilliant emotion in a half-second.

He doesn't have that gift. His smiles are half-hearted feeble things that spend most of their lives convincing themselves they exist.

Naruto's vibrant personality, in no other better term, completed him. Gave him something to believe in.

As the blonde ran on ahead, waving to the villagers, chasing after the little children that playfully mocked him from every side, Gaara took the time to think things over. Tanned skin. Blue eyes. Blonde Hair. Innocence. And in his senses, running wild, he finds he just can't resist that sweet, sweet smile.

Will he forgive me for feeling this way?

Would he mind if I showed him my soul? If I came right out and said "You're beautiful".

Gaara snarled, and pushed forward, the world around him looking like a wet canvas, green and brown smudges, blue and white, swirling madly above his head. But, Gaara did not notice this, or the fact that he was moving far too fast. There was only one mission, one priority, one word.

Naruto.

A bird swooped in front of his face, cawing loudly. Gaara's heart skipped a couple of beats and his legs buckled beneath him.

He dropped from the tree tops and hit the ground below.

A revolting crack resonated through the forest.