The Flower Shop [A Gaara Love Story]

39: Men Like Him

*Violence and Gore*

"Momoko," Someone whispered, soft and quiet, and she felt a hand on her shoulder.

The feeling of his skin on her raw flesh made her hiss, and she curled further into herself to get away from the touch. She didn't care that it wasn't Yoshio's voice, all she cared about was sparing herself this new pain on top of the ones that already shot through her tired body.

"Momoko," He called again after pulling his hand away, but she stayed with her back turned to him and facing the cool stone wall.

She heard the sound of something being set down, then the sloshing of water that made her body go stiff as she dared to raise her head and look over her shoulder.

Hikaru was sitting on the other side of the small burrow she lay in, a bucket of water between them and his hands folded neatly in his lap. Had she the sense or care for modesty, she would have hesitated before scrambling as close to the bucket as she could. But it had been days since she had food, and the water rarely came, so she had forgone the point of humility. The chains that were held to the stone wall only allowed her to go so far, reaching the bucket but not the man on the other side of it. She didn't pay him much mind as she drank, cupping the water in her hands and taking the largest drinks she could. The water tasted metallic, likely due to the dried blood on her hands being rehydrated, but she didn't care. It was nourishment of some kind and it was the only thing she could think about.

Usually it was Yoshio who brought her things, who even came into the burrow he had thrown her into. Momoko had realized after being dragged out of his tent the first night that they were in a cave of some kind. The walls were high and the natural light was dim, and the space was large enough to house what looked like a small lake of sorts. She had just gotten a glimpse of the various tents that littered the rocky shore, but her attention was more taken with the angry shinobi who called her harsh names and spat her way as they passed. Whoever they were, they all seemed to hate her, and the things they said as she was dragged along made her cheeks burn red despite how drained she was. He had taken her to a small hole in the wall just a little ways away from the cluster of tents and chained her to the wall, where she had been for the last few days. She wasn't sure how long it had been, it would have been two days or five at this point in time. Momoko tried to keep track of the light that grew and dimmed in the cave, but it was hard to focus on the passage of time when her attention was drawn to the shinobi who paid her visits.

It didn't take long for her to realize that everyone here had their own hatred for Gaara, because she heard it in every word and saw it in every cold eye. It had started out as harsh words, name calling and spitting in her direction, but then a young woman with pure rage in her eyes had slapped her so hard across the face that Momoko saw stars, and that set the precedent for what was to come.

When she was young, she had sprained a wrist during one of her flower deliveries. It had hurt enough to make her cry, but it wasn't more than she could handle. It healed quickly with the help of a medical nin and by the end of the week she felt as good as new. But this wasn't Konoha; there were no flowers to deliver or healers to tend to her wounds- and this certainly wasn't a sprained wrist.

No matter how many ribs they broke or how much blood splattered the stone walls, Momoko never grew numb to this pain. She felt every punch to her stomach, every blade against her skin, and each drop of blood that seeped from her wounds. For days she had woken up to a sharp kick in her side, to the feel of caked on blood covering her body, before the cycle would start again and she could only sit and weep the few tears she had left. They would spend their days hitting and breaking and digging their knives into her skin, and when the night came around Yoshio would come and heal her just enough to mend the broken bones and close the cuts that instantly turned to scars, and it would be a nearly clean slate for them the next day.