Home Is Where The Heart Is || Naruto Fanfic

Chapter Fourteen

Upcoming chunin exams eyyy

sasuke naruko reunion soon???? pog???? :))

nightmare village re-introdction??? not pog??? :))

Ready for the upcoming chapters? :)

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They'd returned to Uzushio a few days later, and the day after that was the day Sasuke finally communicated again. Naruko had been tempted to go over and strangle him for making her worry so much. Instead, she had sent back a message telling him that she was glad he was okay and that she'd found Itachi. 

It was maybe two weeks back in Uzushio that she got Sasuke's message of the upcoming chūnin exams he was going to be participating in, and, considering they were in less than a week, Naruko was just about ready to take off.  

She was currently packing her things for the trip she was about to take, running over a mental checklist every few seconds almost religiously to make sure her mind didn't wander and she wouldn't start thinking about where she was actually going. 

"How long do you think we're going to be there?" Gaara asked from the other side of the girl's room, checking his bag to make sure everything was in there. He'd seen Naruko begin acting differently since a little before she'd told them that she was going to go to Konoha. Frankly, Gaara was not okay with her going back there, no matter the reason. Just the sheer mention of the village was enough to put a dampener on her mood and quieten the usually-rambunctious girl. Gaara also knew how she'd wake up from nightmares, if the quiet, muffled screaming and subsequent crying was any indication. He'd woken up each time and, at first, would get up to talk to her as she retrieved a glass of water from the kitchen, choking it down and then slamming the glass back down on the counter. She'd crouched down to the ground, clutching the edge of the counter roughly as she cried. Gaara tried to comfort her, only to force her into a full-body flinch that flung her away from him when he touched her shoulder. 

"Hey, it's just me." Gaara whispered, offering a small unsure smile to Naruko. He was crouched in front of her, palms up. He slowly sat back, still keeping his palms up, to give her space. 

"Keep talking to her." The now-calmer Bijū in his mind advised. So he did. 

"It's quiet tonight, isn't it? Pretty, too. You can actually see the stars here, and the waves make a nice noise. What do you think?" Gaara whispered, pausing for a few seconds for the other to respond if she wanted. She remained curled up – silent. "That's- that's okay." He didn't what else to say. "Y'know, in Suna, you couldn't really- um- see the stars? The sand; it- it kept blowing up into the air from the wind. Covered the sky, 'n all. It was the best I'd get, though. Sometimes when I went outside and there was a lot of wind, my sand would protect me kind of, I guess? It- uh- it formed, like, a half-shell around me and all the sand kind of just- went around me. It was weird but kind of nice, actually. Maybe I could show you sometime. Not with sand, since we're not in the desert and, ha, we probably can't really go back to Suna, but, uh maybe with rain? Or- uh- the sea? If that would work. My sand would probably crumble, though, either way, so we'd have to figure something out, but- yeah." 

Naruko continued to tremble in her spot, watching Gaara with haunted eyes above her knees. Her heavy breathing steadily slowed over the next few minutes and Gaara continued to ramble about anything that came to mind, pointedly avoiding things that may remind her of Konoha, or its people. Naruko eventually let out a loud final shaky breath, squeezed her eyes shut for a moment and then looked back up. Her misty eyes watched Gaara's seafoam-green ones and she pressed the heels of her palms to them, breathing shakily. In, out. In, out. She cursed quietly to herself.