A Painful Life

Yumi’s POV

That was… Alright, that Shii is going down. I can’t watch her ruin my best friend AND steal her boyfriend-yet-to-be !! Ugh, I wish I never met her in the first place. First she goes after me, now my best friend. She will pay, oh yes she will. Then I remembered the bigger drama; Kim is leaving… I looked down as we were walking.

“You alright?” Kimura asked.

“I’m fine”, I said suppressing the tears.

“Awww, you know that bitch isn’t worth your tears”, she said with her hand on my shoulder.

“It’s not that… I just can’t believe you’re leaving”, I said. We reached the house and Kimura quickly got inside to change. Five minutes later, she came out.

“I’m sorry Yumi-chan, but I’ve been a burden for a long while now… and I think it’s time for me to be with Sasuke. You know he needs someone with him, it’s too risky to be on his own like that. Especially after what Orochimaru did”, she said.

“I understand”, I nodded.

“But it’s not like we won’t see eachother… You know the house is across the block and I’m not going until Sasuke is out of the hospital so I’ll be staying a couple of days”.

Author’s POV

Meanwhile, at the Sand team’s temporary residence

“So, what now?” Asked Temari.

“We stick to the plan that’s been given us”, answered Kankuro

“What about Gaara?”

“What about him?”

“I don’t know, he seems… changed all of a sudden”.

“Changed?”

“Yeah, ever since that red head girl we ran into before the Chunin Exams”.

“It’s none of your business”, said Gaara startling Temari.

“Wait, where are you…” Before she could say anything, he was gone.

Later that day

Yumi’s POV

It was a very, very long day. I mean we spent 5 cruel days in the forest of death, fighting for our lives then on the fifth day we get to go through a preliminary round where we get to fight (again) and now a well-deserved rest for a month. We’ve been through a lot, not just me but Kimura as well. But, her stolen clothes are so not the worst case scenario after what we’ve been through. Believe me, we’ve been through worse.

Ah, as I rested my head on the pillow, I started thinking of everything; Orochimaru, Sasuke, the Sound team, the final round that’s coming in a month… and Gaara. It’s hard to see how things will ever go between us… I’m so not like Kimura, I don’t have that charisma, I don’t have the ability to flirt and worst of all, I don’t know how people see me. I do look weird, don’t I? But, I can’t just go dye my hair and wear contacts. That would be really freaky. Ugh, why did that stupid writer make me look like that? Couldn’t she have just picked a normal look for me?

Damn, I wish I had more self-confidence. That’s the worst part of it, I don’t. I don’t know if I’m good enough for anything. I keep saying vows and vows and I have no idea if I’ll be able to fullfil them. As all these thoughts clouded my head, I started drifting slowly to sleep.

Dream

I was in a wide, empty field of sand. I started looking around for a sign of living but suddenly, two hands formed from sand emerged from the ground and grabbed me from the feet, pulling me under. I started looking for anything to grab, it was just a plain field of sand. I was sinking like a helpless dog in wet sand. Before I fully drowned, a shadow with something heavy on its back was looking at me from above. I only got to see his left eye; filled with no expression. Just the normal look he always gives; the death glare. It was Gaara.

End of Dream

I felt that I was choking on sand. I suddenly sat up, gasping for air. I took a quick glance around as I felt Gaara was standing there, watching me. I rubbed my eyes and looked again. Nobody was there. Okay, this was weird. Kinda like Bella’s first dream of Edward and she wakes up to think he’s watching her and when she looks again, nobody is there. That was disturbing. The writer of that chapter is disturbing. I wanted to open the night lamp, as I put my hand on the bed for support, I felt sand. There was sand on my bed…

Next Day

“I’m telling you, there was sand on my bed when I woke up”, I told Kimura and Sara as I pointed to the sand-drenched bed.

“Do you have any idea where it came from?” Asked Sara.

“No, I don’t think it was a dream. I dreamt that I was sinking in sand and when I woke up, I found this sand”, I explained.

“This is really disturbing”, said Kimura.

“Tell it to the writer of this chapter”, I said. “I don’t even know if what I saw afterwards was real or a hallucination…” I sighed. “I think that… that it was Gaara”.

Sara sighed. “Look, what matters now is that you’re alright. Now go wash up. You need to get ready fast for your visit at the hospital”, she said as they both got out.

I gave out a sigh of relief. I got a bucket from the bathroom to clean off the sand from the bed. Suddenly, visions of sand coming from Gaara’s gourd… and killing various people mercilessly haunted me all of a sudden as I touched the sand. I was just too disturbed. I quickly dusted off the sand into the bucket, took a quick shower and got ready. I took the bucket with me downstairs.

“What the?” Looked Kimura in surprise.

“This sand needs to go back where it came from”, I said.

Kimura’s POV

Yumi looked almost… crazy. I mean she was actually thinking of returning the sand to wherever it came from… Okay, this is really weird. I don’t think they’ll allow that bucket in the hospital.

“Alrighty, let’s get going or we’ll be late”, we both waved Sara goodbye and got out. We made our way to the Yamanaka Flower Shop. To be honest, I was really worried about Yumi. I mean it seems like a worse version of Twilight. Edward doesn’t leave blood on Bella’s bed after she dreams of him. She looked really anxious. Maybe Gaara isn’t a good match for her after all. I mean, if this is his way of ‘attention’, I hope he doesn’t end up killing her.

As we entered the flower shop, we heard loud, annoying voices. It was Ino and Sakura… fighting as always.

“Let me guess, Sasuke?” I asked.

“Guys, hey”, said Sakura. “You’re just in time”.

“Uhh, for what? Beating the crap out of eachother?” Said Yumi. Typical, she didn’t lose her sarcasm. Good.

“I’ll wait for you outside”, said Sakura as she headed outside the shop.

“Right, what would you like to buy?” Ino said in a usual florist tone.

We both picked decent bouquets in case we give unexpected visits to others and went to the hospital with Sakura, Yumi still insisted on uh, the sand bucket thingy. We reached the hospital and of course Yumi had to leave the bucket with the nurse before entering a room. We entered Sasuke’s room and he was sleeping… so peacefully. I smiled as we placed the flowers beside him.

“Oh my god, he looks so peaceful”, said Yumi with her hand on her mouth.

Sakura kept looking at him for awhile. The memory of Orochimaru just flowed through my head again… as if it was 5 minutes ago. After that, Sakura went home and I wanted to check on Lee. We bumped into Ino as she was also visiting Choji. We went into Lee’s room and… something unexpected was going on. There were other visitors. This is exactly what we saw: Gaara next to Lee’s bed, Naruto and Shikamaru were at the door; in a fighting stance.

“Hey… What’s going on?” I asked.

Gaara and Yumi exchanged uneasy looks. He was giving her death glares and she was just glaring; as he was the cause to the disturbing night she had. He passed by her coldly and walked out.

“Wait”, ran Yumi after him.

Yumi’s POV

I just had to get this over with. I would also, like, ask him what he wanted from me. And what was last night all about. I got the bucket quickly from the nurse and handed it to him.

“What is this?” He looked at the bucket.

“It got out of your gourd last night”, I said almost convincing. “And onto my bed, almost choking me to death”.

He looked at me with no expression. “I don’t know what you’re talking about”, he said in his medium-pitched voice. He turned around to walk out of the hospital but I stopped him. “Don’t act like you don’t know, you were there last night. I wasn’t dreaming”, I said. He just ignored and walked out, leaving me standing there in the middle of the hallway…

To be continued…