Hiraeth

Sasuke felt the breath leave his lungs as Gaara started screaming, shock taking over his body as he grabbed Naruto and sprinted out of there as fast as he could. When they had gotten outside of the bathroom he heard the screaming stop for a second and an unsteady “Shukaku...” be whispered almost pleadingly, and the shock was replaced with a horrible, horrible, gut wrenching guilt. He didn’t have much time to reflect on it though as the screaming abruptly started again and Naruto tugged on his arm to get him moving again. Sasuke looked down at him and nodded, beginning to run after their friends and get away from the awful noise.

——-

Sasuke payed no attention to his class, lost in thought as he stared out the window.

Why the hell was Gaara here and why the hell did he let him get beat up?

Sasuke grit his teeth and tightened his hold on his pencil. He didn’t need to get worked up on this, the little creep had abandoned him without so much as even a goodbye, abandoned their relationship, the one thing that made him happy, the one thing, the one person, who kept him going had just left and-

He felt the pencil snap in his hands and looked down at the splintered piece of wood before quickly gazing around to see if anyone had noticed his outburst. Thankfully no one seemed to be looking at him, not even the usual crowd of girls who fawned over him were sparing a glance his way, everyone too busy and focused on scribbling down notes about the upcoming semester.

Everyone but him.

He sighed and leaned back in his chair. It was going to be a long year.

——-

The cafeteria was obnoxiously loud, people exclaiming overly loud greetings to old friends and recounting tales of what they did over the summer. Sasuke frowned. He was never fond of loud noises but he knew Gaara absolutely hated them-

Sasuke bit his lip and mentally slapped himself. He needed to stop thinking about that piece of shit (but he’s not and you know it-) and find his friends. Get back to normal. He looked over the tops of people’s head and saw a tuft of brown hair that could only be Shikamaru’s and smirked, immediately heading over to them and sitting down next to Naruto who was still whining about his hand to anyone who would listen.

Sasuke rolled his eyes and grabbed Naruto’s hair, pulling on it softly to get him to shut up. “Oi, quit whining idiot. At least you don’t have a broken nose like Kiba. Never thought his face could get even more fucked up.”

Everyone at the table erupted in laughter except for Kiba, who glared at everyone with a mass of gauze and medical tape from his trip to the nurse’s office fixed on his now disfigured nose.

“Shut up! It isn’t funny, I swear to god when I get my hands on that little-”

Sasuke had tensed up, growing uncomfortable as the group quickly encouraged the threats against Gaara, almost incriminating himself by standing up when thank god, for once he was glad Sakura decided to come up behind him and drape herself all over him.

“So who’s fingers are we going to ‘break one by one’?” She asked innocently, not so subtly adjusting her position so her chest rubbed up against Sasuke’s back, the victim of which rolling his eyes. Naruto glared up at Sakura, eyes narrowing.

“Hey, get off my boyfriend!” He barked, huffing through his nose. Sakura only laughed and winked down at Naruto.

“He won’t be for long,” She said, sticking her tongue out as if teasing but they all knew better. “Anyways, who are we talking about again?”

“This kid named Gaara or something, found him on the bathroom floor scratching his skin off and messed with him a bit, you know no big deal, but then he decided to break Kiba’s fucking nose and screw up Naruto’s hand,” Shikamaru recounted, nodding at Naruto who held out his arm and showed his badly bruised appendages.

Sakura gasped, about to say something when the boy continued. “Anyways we find out Sasuke used to be friends with the kid out of pity when they were younger ‘cause he had no friends and shit and then all of a sudden he just starts freaking out, clawing at his head hard enough to draw blood and screeching like a goddamn banshee so at that point we decide to just split, don’t want to be there any longer.”

Sakura seemed ready to speak again when a blonde appeared at her side, resting her elbow on Sasuke’s shoulder and laying her chin on her fist.

“Ino!” Sakura squawked indignantly, glaring at the girl beside her.

“Sup?” Ino just grinned at the pink haired girl, sticking her tongue out and narrowing her eyes before diverting her attention to the group of boys. “What’s all this juicy gossip I hear? Tell me what’s going on.”

Shikamaru groaned but repeated the story, going into a bit more detail about what they did to the boy this time before finishing with a glare at the blonde. “Happy?”

Ino stared down at Shikamaru, an unreadable expression on her face as she stayed silent a moment before speaking. “So... this kid was having like a mental breakdown or something and you decide to beat him up?”

Kiba squared his shoulders and banged a fist on the table, eyes flashing with anger, “Ino, do you see my face?! do you see Naruto’s arms?! What we did was justified, aight?”

Ino looked down at him with thinly masked disdain, a scowl threatening to overtake her usually cheery features. “It sounds like he wouldn’t have done that shit if you hadn’t insulted him, pushed him to the ground, tried to punch him, and fucking choked him all while he was having a mental breakdown. I usually don’t mind you guys getting into trouble and shit but actually what the hell this time.”

“No one’s forcing you to be here, Ino,,” Sakura snapped, and a general murmur of assent was passed through he group with the exception of Sasuke. “Why don’t you go hang out with that kid then?”

Ino looked down at the group before standing up straight and getting off of Sasuke’s shoulder. “Yeah fine, maybe I will.” The group all stared at her, Shikamaru opening his mouth before being cut off by the blonde. “What’s he look like?”

To everyone’s surprise, Sasuke, who had been silent up until now, spoke up. “He has red hair, really short, shorter than Naruto-”

“Hey!-”

“Kanji for love tattooed on his forehead, dark circles. That enough?”

And the most beautiful person to ever roam this earth.

Ino smiled sickly sweet at all of them and nodded, waving her fingers in goodbye as she turned to leave.

“Oh, and Sakura,” She said, tilting her head to look at the dumbstruck girl. “Maybe this means I’ll get a boyfriend before you~”

Amidst Sakura’s yelling and the laughter at the table no one noticed Sasuke’s features darken.