Welcome to Gaia! ::

Gaara could feel his heart skip over a beat as Hinata’s thigh brushed against his when she sat down. Suddenly the jealousy he had felt just moments ago was washed away, replaced with a feeling of being cared for. He had seen her gaze linger on him just for a few seconds and that had invoked something inside him that he had no name for yet. She didn’t hesitate to sit down when Naruto told him to move so she could join them at the table. Perhaps it was her non-hesitant way that did it for Gaara, he was not sure. He had been feared all his life and this little shy lily just smiled at them, blushing a bit as she did, and then she sat down next to him.

Sasuke and Naruto looked at them and then at each other. Hinata had done something very simple and they were pretty sure that she had no clue what so ever to what she just had done. But the slightly stunned look on Gaara’s face told them that he had turned from jealous to confused in two seconds flat.

“Hinata-chan does not judge others until she personally knows them. She’s a good girl Temari-san,” said Naruto as he placed a couple of coffee mugs on the table. “If she have found something to care about in Gaara, she’ll treasure that like something you can not put into words.”

“How do you know this Naruto-kun?” asked Temari as she looked at the blue eyed boy.

“Because she loved me for a very long time. But she changed the crush she had into something more precious and she will stand by me and now Sasuke until the end of time. Don’t ask me how I know this, I just do,” said Naruto as he smiled gently.

Gaara was sure that there was a conspiracy against him. Where ever he went he always ended up in the same space as that white eyed girl, Hinata. When ever he went training, she was there already, training to be better at her Gentle Fist Style. When ever he went to the café, the ramen stand or any other place, she was there or she would come just minutes after him. The way his older brother was smiling, the way h is sister’s eyes were glittering. Heck, Gaara was sure that the Hokage with the overly large bosom was in on the whole thing too. He growled as he saw the amusement in Tsunade’s light brown eyes.

Gaara walked through the streets of Konoha this night, wanting to find a place where he could sit down and just relax. The room that the Uchiha had given him at the mansion was good, but it felt as if he was intruding in something very delicate. It was as if the walls wanted to tell him something, wanted to tell him a story about terror and sorrow. And Gaara didn’t need that, he had enough of that without being dealt more. He sighed and looked up at the starlit sky. It was a full moon. He could feel the Shukaku move restless, wanting to taste blood. Not that he would feed the gruesome spirit unless he was forced too of course.

He found a secluded and very dark corner of the park and sat down; he placed his gourd next to him and leaned back against the tree trunk. He closed his eyes and tried to relax enough to get in to that special meditative state where he could get some “sleep”. But he couldn’t find that special state, instead his mind was invaded by images and memories from the past week. Hell, nothing was as he had expected it to be. Not even Uzumaki kept his usual thing going, the guy even began to smell funny.

His eyes opened when he heard footsteps close by and he looked around without seeing anyone. ‘Odd, I can hear someone, but I can not see anything.’ he thought as his sea green eyes scanned the area. He got up and placed the gourd on his back again. But even now he could not see anyone. A soft voice began to sing and this made Gaara a tad uncomfortable. But then he saw her move through the park and he wanted to snarl. Not even now could he be left alone.

Because there in the middle of the park, in the middle of the pond, stood Hinata. She moved gracefully as if she was dancing and she sang softly as she moved to sounds only she could hear. Gaara’s eyes widened a bit when he realized that she wasn’t dancing. The woman was actually practicing some form of taijutsu, but it was not like anything else he had seen before in his life. He had been impressed with Rock Lee’s skills in the matter. But this was much more graceful. She moved as she danced on air.

But as he took a step forward he stepped on a twig and the magic was broken. A loud splash could be heard and Gaara looked up and saw Hinata sit in the middle of the pond, wet from head to toe. ‘Oops…’ he thought and felt bed that he had disturbed her.

“G-Gaara-sama?” stuttered Hinata when she saw the figure with the familiar gourd on his back. He came into the park light and he nodded towards her. “W-What are y-you doing h-here?” she stuttered as she got up. The pond’s water was cold and she began to feel that coldness seep into her bones.

“I was trying to get some rest, but obviously someone is out to get me. Why can I not have a moment of peace without you dropping by?” he bluntly asked as he held out a hand to her to help her out of the water. He was mildly surprised that she actually took his hand without hesitating.

Hinata blushed and tried to apologize but he silenced her with a light shake of his head. So she was not the only one that began to think that there was a force out there that tried to set them up together. Not that she minded, she liked spending time with Gaara. He wasn’t that talk-active and they could just enjoy silence together. But this was beginning to be ridiculous. She had thought that she could have time to train her special move here in the park. At this time of the day it was always empty. But she had been wrong. And now she really began to feel cold. The autumn was beginning to turn to winter and she could feel the icy air turn her wet clothes into stiff ice-packs. This was not good, she would be very sick unless she could change clothes. And yet she felt bad about disturbing Gaara so there was only one thing to do.

“Uhm… Gaara-sama?”

“Yes?”

“I… I must go home… c-cold. Y-you can come w-with me… tea p-perhaps?” mumbled Hinata through her clappering teeth. She hugged herself with her arms as she began to walk towards her apartment.

“You are cold,” stated Gaara almost emotionless when he saw her shivering and without thinking about where he had learned it or anything, he had removed his brown jacket and placed it over her shoulders. Her eyes widened a bit but then she nodded in acceptance.

They walked away but none of them was aware of the three pairs of eyes that were watching them from a far.

Neji couldn’t help but smile a bit when he saw the two siblings fight each other, but without knowing it, he was thinking the same thing about Hinata as Kankurou did about his brother. Hinata needed a good man and…. and that other thing… She had refused to date anyone after her crush for Naruto transformed into a friendship with depths that not even Neji could comprehend. What he had witnessed this night was beyond anything he could have hoped for. For one – his cousin had developed a style of fighting that resembled dancing. An ordinary person would have thought she was dancing on the water’s surface, but Neji was not an ordinary person. He had seen the moves and he acknowledged them to be lethal if they would hit another person. It was a style he never had seen her use before and he was stunned by the fact that she must have developed it by herself. Second – Gaara had acted like a gentleman, offering his jacket to a woman who was cold and needed help. That counted for much in Neji’s book.