Gaara’s eyes shot open. His sleepless senses, although nearly exhausted by the day’s work told him that something was coming. The person was traveling recklessly, with no attempt to conceal the sound of their foot steps as the sound rebounded from the rocks. Either the person in question was an idiot, or they were unaware that he was there. He stood and readied himself to pounce on the intruder.
Hinata gasped when her feet hit the sand, and kept going downwards, threatening to imbed her up to her calves. Before she could be held fast she flipped backwards and somersaulted to a new position, but to no avail, the cold sand of the desert ensnared her. It could mean only one thing. Sabaku Gaara had been waiting for her. She shivered as the cold sand clenched her form tighter, slithering upwards to encircle her hips.
Arms crossed, Gaara stepped out from the shade of the cliff and into the fresh moonlight that now lit the dunes. His trap had caught the intruder. But the figure he saw before him did not map onto that of the missing-nin that he had been expecting. The young woman ensnared in his trap had skin that glowed like a pearl in the moonlight. Her hair was dark, its color indistinguishable in the moonlight. Her body was slight, bird like, and she stood no more than five-feet tall. It would seem that he dwarfed her, in every possible way.
She panted in the grasp of the sand and stared at him. Her eyes--he was surprised to see, were nearly colorless. They seemed reflect as much of the moonlight as her skin did. They glowed, and as they did they showed neither fear nor defiance, but a sort of calculating resignation that surprised him. Not many who found themselves in the clutches of his sand were so reserved. He wondered what on Earth he would do with her now.
“You are trespassing on Sand territory. Who are you? Why have you come here?” Gaara asked.
“My name is--Hinata. I made camp on the desert’s edge because…” she hesitated, she did not want to admit that she was a deserter, but to tell him that she was on a mission would mean that she was trespassing on the Sand’s land without their permission, and that would hurt relations, she didn’t want to cause Tsunade more trouble than her departure already had.
“Well,” she continued. “I guess I’m here because I had no where else to go.”
“No where else?” Gaara smirked. “I can imagine a million other places that a normal human being would rather be. You must be running from something. Are you a criminal?”
“No! I’d say it doesn’t concern you, but under the current circumstances, I guess I don’t have a choice but to tell you, do I? I’m not running from anything. I left Konoha of my own will. My name is Hyuuga Hinata. I’m came to the desert to be alone.”
How dare he ask her these things? She was fuming under her skin, but Hinata knew better than to express her ire, as her best bet was to simply tell him the truth. If he knew how pathetic she really was, then perhaps he’d become disinterested in her and go away.
Hyuuga…the eyes. That’s where he had seen them before. Konoha’s Hyuuga clan was legendary, and now one of its members was abandoning it?
“So you are running, then,” Gaara said as he released the sand hold that he had used to restrain her legs.
Hinata was a bit startled by the silken feeling of the sand as it retreated from her body. Although she was relieved, she was also irritated that she had been trapped so easily, and now dismissed so casually as something that was no threat to him. She was surprised to find that she didn’t feel threatened by his presence either, although he was obviously more powerful than she.
It was something, a quality in his eyes, that seemed hollowed in the shadows of the night. It was a sort of sadness, so deep and close to her that she felt like she could breath it in. He looked so tired. May be he had “mellowed out.” She realized with a start that she had been staring, she tried to cover up the embarrassing silence.
“Aren’t you going to introduce yourself?” she asked him.
Gaara’s forehead wrinkled as a hairless brow arched upwards.
“Do I really have to?” he asked.
“No,” she replied. “I just thought it might be refreshing. A person like you probably doesn’t get the chance to do it very often.” Neither do I, she thought. At least not in the village. I wonder if he knows who I am? Undoubtedly he’s probably heard of my family. But me, does he know that I’m the heir?
The corner of Gaara’s mouth turned upwards, slightly, at this. She wasn’t afraid of him. Or at least not so afraid that it stopped her from communicating with him. Even teasing him? A part of him was grateful for that.
“Sabaku no Gaara-desu” he said. And then as an afterthought, “Douzo yoroshiku.”
To his surprised, the girl smiled, her eyes cast downwards, shyly. His brows nit again, that sort of reaction, was not one that he usually received from strangers. He didn’t know whether or not to trust it.
“What should I call you then?” she asked, still looking at the sand. “Sabaku-san? I guess so.”
The both stood in silence for a moment, neither really looking at the other.
“Are you going to make me leave this place?” she asked him.
“No. At least not immediately.” he replied.
“Were you,” I mean, “Are you spending…planning on staying here…tonight?” she asked, uncomfortably.
“I was,” he said, waiting for her to ask him to go away.
“Oh, okay,” she said as he watched her carefully, waiting for the other shoe to drop, mentally steeling himself for the rejection. To his surprise she smiled.
“Alright then…I don’t have much…but I was going to eat something…you can join me, if you like,” Hinata offered. She wondered if it was inappropriate for her to do so. Her father certainly wouldn’t like it. She was fraternizing with a man, a foreign shinobi even, that she hadn’t been properly introduced to. But as she saw it, it made more sense to invite him, Hinata would rather have him in front of her face, than in the same area, where she couldn’t see what he was up to. Besides, she was curious. How many people get to talk like this with Gaara of the Desert?
She waited for him to respond. When he did not, she began walking towards her tent to survey the damage. Turning her back to him sent a thrill up her spine. He had seemed relatively benign when he was speaking with her, now that he was silent, she felt that he might do anything.
To her surprise she heard him shuffling towards her across the sand. They both stopped and stared at the remains of her tent. It didn’t appear to be damaged, just sand-logged, if such a thing existed. Hinata noticed that her pack had been dragged out from under the tent and the contents rummaged through. She couldn’t help but feel a little violated by the realization that he had gone through her things. But then again, what could she expect him to do? She would have done the same thing in his place.
“Are you a shinobi?” he asked.
“I was one, yes. As of about two days ago.”
“Why did you dessert?”
“Do you really need to know?” she asked.
“No.” he replied, flatly.
Hinata sighed.
“Would you turn around?” she asked.
“No,” he answered.
“Fine, then.” Hinata had stuffed her weapon’s pack with as many ground nuts and tree mushrooms that she could. But the pack was small, and didn’t give her enough room for everything she had gathered. She had solved her space problem by wrapping up the remaining tree ears in the bindings that she used to hold down her breasts. The binding was long, and covered most of her waist as well, stuffing the mushrooms there had been easy. Her shirt was loose so it provided ample room for extra bulk. But she hadn’t planned on having another person around to prevent her from retrieving them.
Gaara watched as Hinata, with her back turned to him, brought one arm after the other awkwardly back through the armholes of her shirt without removing it.
“What on Earth are you doing?” he asked. Is this some kind of ploy?
“I didn’t have enough room in my pack to take all the food I gathered today with me. So I bound it up. There…” Hinata said as she succeeded in undoing the knot that tied the bindings to her chest.
Gaara watched as a length of white cotton dipped below the hem of her tunic, followed by a shower of tree mushrooms. He wondered how she could manage to look both erotic and ridiculous in the same moment.
She picked up the mushrooms at her feet and turned towards him. Gaara tried to ignore the way her breasts looked unbound beneath the cloth of shirt.
“Ano…Sabaku-san.” her soft voice broke his careful scrutiny of her knee cap.
“What?”
“Do you think it’s safe to have a fire?”
“No one comes out here,” his eyes flickered over her face as he said it.
“I had stopped myself from having one because I was afraid someone might find me.”
“Someone like me?” he asked.
“Yes…but now that the worst has happened. I think I’d like to have some tea.” There it was, that smile again, it made the back of his throat suddenly dry in an unexpected way.
“I’ll go get something to burn, then. You can stay here, if you like.”
“No,” he responded. “I’ll come with.”
* * *
Gaara wondered why he had followed her into the woods. Was it because he was afraid that she was in fact a spy? Or simply that she’d disappear if wasn’t there to stop her? And if she was simply a deserter, as he suspected, why would he care? He could see now that she was a ninja. It was the way she moved, quiet speed, with a sort of lightness and economy of movement that even Temari didn’t have. Gaara wondered what had caused her to be so reckless earlier when she approached the campsite. It must have been the prospect of being alone in the wilderness without her supplies that had made her so frantic.
It took them little time to reach the forest. There was a dead tree, whose trunk would have taken five men with arms held wide to encircle, mounted precariously over the edge of the rock field. Dried broken branches littered the ground on its far side. He stood and watched her as she gathered an armfuls of brush and sticks.
“Are you going to tie those to you chest too?” he asked.
Wow, did he just tell a joke? Hinata was surprised. Everything that she had heard about Gaara had been so negative. It was hard to believe that the man that people in Konoha had called a monster and the Demon of the Sand could be, well, could be…a human being, after all. She thought of Naruto. It was the same thing with him, wasn’t it? The thought warmed her a little. She turned to him and looked at him, her arms full, and smiled.
“I don’t know, I was hoping you might help me…I can’t really carry much like this,” she said indicating the relatively small amount of wood she could carry in her own arms. He smirked at her. Alright then, he thought.
Hinata watched agape as Gaara’s gourd uncorked itself. The sand slipped down to the ground and fanned outwards as Gaara remained motionless. Branches and other debris on the ground began to dance, as if by magic, animated by the particulate matter that flowed around Gaara. She felt it slither over her toes and suppressed a shiver. Was he trying to frighten her? Or impress her? Maybe both, she decided. Either way, the goose-bumps on the back of her neck told her that it was working.
The wood gathered itself into a neat pile seemingly of its own accord, and then levitated upwards. Hinata, hypnotized by what had just happened, jumped when she heard his voice.
“Shall we go then?” he asked.
“Yeah…sure…”
They launched themselves into the night, guided by the bright, gibbous moon, Hinata with her awkward load, and Gaara with his pile, trailing behind him like a persistent stray.
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