Chapter 4
Ino was lowkey fuming as she searched the halls for this mystery boy, glaring at any unfortunate soul who happened to catch her gaze. She was used to them pulling pranks, used to them teasing and picking on people, and okay, maybe they occasionally roughed some people up but they always had a reason before at least, but this just didn’t make sense. They had found a kid... hurting himself? And just decided to fuck with him? Yeah, no. She was not here for that kind of shit.
She combed the whole school and couldn’t find anyone matching the redheads description, even popped her head into all of the boy’s bathrooms, and ew, she was never doing that again, grimacing when she found one with a broken mirror and blood speckled shards of glass littering the counter and floor and okay, if she wasn’t pissed at them before now she definitely was.
She was nearly about to give up when she passed the stairwell to the roof and grinned. That was where people who wanted to be alone always went, right? She made her way up the stairwell and emerged onto the roof, smiling slightly as a light breeze fanned across her face and pleasant sunlight enveloped her in it’s warm embrace. She almost forgot what she was here for until she heard a small cough. Opening her eyes she looked around for the source of the noise and saw a head of red hair.
Bingo.
Grinning she walked up silently behind him, crouching down next to him and tapping his shoulder.
She wasn’t expecting for the boy’s bowed head to startle upright and for him to flinch so violently away. She frowned, withdrawing her hand and opening her mouth to speak when she caught sight of his face.
He was absurdly cute.
Ino stared at him transfixed for what felt like forever but was probably no more than a second. She had never seen such a pretty boy. Sure, some guys were hot as fuck (Read: Sasuke, Neji, etc.)
but she had never met a boy so enticingly beautiful.
“Who are you?” He whispered, voice deeper than she expected and slightly raspy.
And filled with undeniable fear and suspicion.
Ino blinked and put a warm smile back on her face. “I’m Ino. You’re Gaara, right?”
The reaction was immediate. Gaara’s eyes widened and he shot up from his sitting position. “H-how do you know my name? Who told you? Who?!” He backed up, and only then did Ino realize what an understatement Sasuke made about the boy’s dark circles. He looked like he hadn’t slept a night in his life. She also noticed with growing concern that his hair was slightly wet, still matted with something dark red like he had desperately tried to wash out but couldn’t get it all, realized that when he had gotten up the glimpse she had gotten of his back showed tiny holes in the back of his shirt that revealed scratches from what could easily be glass, seen how there was blood caked under his fingernails, a faint imprint of finger shaped bruises on his neck, and with a surge of white hot anger fully recognized the fear in his eyes like something akin to a wounded and cornered animal.
But she also realized with horror that the boy was unwittingly about to back off the edge of the roof.