The Beginning

The heat, I can remember, was so unbearable. It remains so vividly ingrained in my memory as the hottest I can recall, even now. It was so hot that every parent closed their doors and tried to lock their children inside. When that failed miserably, we were all given enormous, swelled water-skins to carry with us. One parent decided to give a child a water balloon, unleashing our youthful havoc upon the village as an all out water-war ensued, all of us using our water skins when we had no water balloons.

I remember how unfortunate I was that day, drenched head to toe in water and barely any of my water depleted. Just as the sun first began to disappear far out behind the distant sand, a truce was called, everyone else's water was gone. Now that the temperature was much much cooler with the disappearing sun, we all decided it would be a good idea to build something out of the damp sand we created all around the village as our war took us all over.

As 99.9% of all the children there wanted to become shinobi, the natural choice was sand fortresses.

Rin, my best friend was as dry as I was damp when I found her, or rather she found me. Eagerly she wanted to make the best fort out of all the students. That's how it was with her, always wanting to be the best out of everything, and just about always, she was. She was working on a monstrosity of a pillar and I a moat when I first noticed him.

A flash of dusky red in my peripheral vision.

I could hardly make out his shape. The glow of the waning sun seemed to make him entirely crimson, but I hardly noticed. The only thing my mind could really comprehend was that he was all by himself. Alone. He didn't look to be wet at all, drier than even Rin and no one was playing with him, not even playing near him. He was all by himself. He was hunched over, looking away from our group and towards the dimming sun.

"Hey, Rin?" I called the attention of my friend, she looked up to me from her masterpiece. "Can you wait here for a second?" I asked, still looking at the lonely crimson silhouette.

"Um... why?" She sounded somewhat disappointed. I whipped my head towards her, pulling on a smile.

"Because I wanna go ask that boy over there," I stated and moved my eyes back to his somber figure "if he wants to play with us." If I looked to her, I surely would have seen the horror that conquered her face. "He's all by himself," I continued, brushing sand off my hands and knees as I stood up. "I don't think that's very fair." I finished and started walking over to where he was, only to be stopped by Rin's cold hand gripping my wrist.

"Maybe you should just leave him alone." She whispered out. I cocked my head to the side, not comprehending at all why I should.

"How come?"

"Maybe he wants to be alone." She responded without hesitation, voice sure and icy. I couldn't help but smile at her. How silly she was.

"Don't be silly, Rin. No one wants to be all alone. No one. And if he really did want to be alone, why would he come sit by where we are all playing?" I asked. "Why wouldn't he go somewhere else, where he really would be alone?" Rin looked at my smiling face for a long stretched second, eyes hard until it they crumpled in defeat. My smile grew bigger as she dropped my hand and I began, once again to meet the boy, oblivious to the dozens of eyes watching my precision.

As I drew closer, I could make out features more clearly. That flash of dusky red I had seen had been the shade of his unruly hair. From the size of his small body, I figured that he couldn't be any older than I could. He had dark circles around his dazzlingly cerulean orbs. They were the purist, most gorgeous eyes I had ever seen. His face was blank and undeniably beautiful.

"Hello, do you mind if I sit next to you?" The boy slowly, almost cautiously, turned around. His face turned over in surprise as he took me in. I sat down. "My name is Hana, Hana Isano." I said with a bright smile. The boy was staring at me still, in shock.

"... Isano?" He whispered out after a stretched pause.

"Mhmm. Hana Isano. What's your name?" My smile didn't drop. I couldn't help but be exuberant, I was making a new friend.

"Gaara." He stated shortly after staring at me for a minute longer, almost as though he didn't believe I was real.

"Gaara? That's different. Whatcha doing here all alone?"

"Uh-" I hardly gave him breathe to answer before I plowed into my next question, getting more and more excited as each second passed. Surely with three people working on the Fortress, we'd have the best. That'd make even Rin happy.

"Do you wanna come play with me? We're building sand forts over there. You could help me and my best friend, Rin, finish ours! Rin's right-" I was about to show him Rin, yet when I looked back to where we had been, she had disappeared. I turned back to Gaara, it's not like she would have went far.

"Um-"

"It's really fun. I was just making a moat, you could help with a bridge, or the towers! I promise it will be great fun. Much more fun than sitting here all by yourself, anyways. Oh! I do you want some water? It's not that hot anymore, but I have a whole bunch left."

"Didn't you use that already?" He asked, the first full sentence a question. "In the water throwing?" Heat immediately flooded my face.

"Well, uh... It's not that I didn't try, but um... I wasn't so good. But that's okay, I mean it's not like I'll need water-throwing skills for anything! Plus it just means that I have more to share with you now! It's still really cool, my dad is a shinobi and he-" I voice was over-ruled by a piercing shriek in the air. I looked towards the sound. First I registered that Rin was back, but she wasn't looking at me, she was glaring at Gaara. My mother was in front of her, horror written on her face.

I remember thinking what could have made her scream.

"Gaara, that's my mom! She looks really...scared." However the word did not do the emotions on her face any justice, she was beyond scared, far beyond terrified. So frightened that she held a mixture of desperation, fear and hopelessness on her face. I turned back to Gaara and couldn't help but notice the pain that was in his eyes and soon all over his face.

"Hana!" She cried out shrilly, her voice edged with hysteria. She looked like she was going to cry. I stood up and took a step forward. A step away from Gaara and towards her. "Hana!" She cried out and bounded towards me.

"I'm sorry Mom, I'm sorry for scaring you, I didn't mean it!" I was completely oblivious, but then again, I was so young. "I just wanted to talk to my new friend Gaara. Don-" Before I could finish, the wind was knocked out of me as my mothers arms locked around me. She was running the other way before I could even blink. I struggled in her arms, she was holding me so tightly I could just barely breathe.

"S-stop mom!" I gasped out wriggling vainly in her constricting grip. "I didn't get," I paused, trying to breathe. "to say... goodbye." I managed to turn myself around in her arms, my face towards my newest friend. His back was to me, his face to the sunset, his silhouette ablaze with red.

It was just as I found him.

Just as if I never came.