Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ Art of the Angel ❯ Chapter 7 ( Chapter 7 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

couldn’t move at all, his body was just completely immobile at the sight of this girl. She had run into him after taking a quick run to places he wasn’t so sure about. The girl was just a few inches shorter than him. She had light brown hair that was loosely tied back with a purple ribbon, she wore a lavender jacket with a white shirt underneath and a necklace with this blue stone, and a long light blue skirt. Her eyes were looking right into his. Her big, blue eyes that could have been mistaken for ice seemed to just look at him with such shock. There seemed to be this silence for a while. Why did he feel like… he knew her? Something about this girl was so familiar. Her face.. Every feature of it reminded him of someone he saw. The girl’s mouth was hanging slightly open, and she cocked her head a bit.

“E-Excuse me, I’m sorry for running into you but… Do I know you?” The girl asked. The softness of this girl’s voice.. It reminded Gaara of someone. But who? This girl seemed to be thinking the same thing he was. He didn’t know how to answer the girl at first. He was just trying to recollect her somehow. Where had he seen this girl? Was it on a mission? Years ago at the Chunnin exams? A passing glance at another village? It was bothering him badly. He slowly raised his hand, but lowered it immediately. He wasn’t even sure what he was about to do with it. The girl took a sep back, he cheeks a little pink, most likely from embarrassment. “I-I’m terribly sorry. I must have just had you mistaken.” She took a bow and was turning to leave. But now curiosity was getting to him. He didn’t want the girl to leave.

“Wait.” He said in a calm tone. The girl turned her head slightly. Why did her icy eyes look so familiar? It felt… strange to be stared at with them. It was strange in a different way, not good or bad, just… different. He slowly walked toward to the girl to a couple inches away each other. Gaara’s eyes averted down for a split second, and back to her. “I think I know you.” He answered. The girl looked at him unsurely. “Are you sure? I could be mistaken, like I said.” She looked down. “I’m sorry for staring.” She said. “Your eyes, they’re.. Nice.” Gaara’s expression turned questionably at her words. It wasn’t what he expected to hear. The girl continued. “The color is nice, and they look for familiar.” She paused for a second. The girl’s widened a slight bit. “A-are you from Sunagakure?” She asked. Gaara did have his village headband on his sash holding his gourd giving away that he was from Suna, also a good number of people know who he is because he’s the Kazekage. This girl, however, had not looked down enough to see the headband. So that was a little unanticipated for her to ask. Gaara nodded slowly.

The girl walked slower and closer to him, studying him farther. She had put her hand on her chin, and rubbed it in thought. Gaara just wanted answers now. He just wanted to figure out what made her so familiar. But he didn’t get that chance to answer that. He didn’t need to, for the events that happened next would give him enough information at that apparent moment.

She stared at his eyes once more before a gasp escaped her lips. “G-Gaara?” She found his name. A smile formed on her face. It was a smile of so much joy. Gaara unexpected the sudden embracing of the girl’s arms around his chest. She laid her head in it, laughing softly. It was a sweet, happy laugh. “I-I can’t believe it!! It’s been like, forever!” She cried out joyfully. She let go of him, her eyes were starting to well. “Don’t you remember me Gaara?” she asked. From the girl’s reaction, he did wonder if the girl had him mistaken for someone else. The way she had just hugged him felt almost unreal. He had not felt that kind of touch with someone in a long time. He had not felt such a delicate touch and heard such sweet laughter since… since…

“Hikari?” Gaara finally understood what was going on. This girl… was Hikari. She nodded happily and put her head against his chest again. She was still holding him so closely. Her warmth felt very good. It kept Gaara warm in the autumn wind. But inside, he felt amazed. Hikari was here. He had not seen her in a decade. But sadly, he nearly forgot her at first sight… except for her eyes. Hikari had grown with age, she looked a little different, but she still had her friendly soul. He had changed so much compared to her. He had gone through the bad road, and was now trying to redeem himself. So many years of change, and yet the same girl he knew long, long ago was before him. Was his attempt to do good bringing hope back to him?

Hikari let him go and pulled at his arm lightly. “How have you been doing? What are you doing here?” She shot all kinds of questions all in disbelief. Gaara had never seen anyone so excited about him forthcoming. It was almost a little unnatural to see someone act like that about him. “I… I just came here today.” Gaara was able to answer out of Hikari’s flood of questions. Hikari stopped talking for a second and blinked. “Really? I just came back here in Konoha yesterday. I’ve been on a art trip for three years.” Hikari held out her hand in beckoning. “Please, come with me Gaara, we must talk. I would love to talk to a great friend.” She said, smiling when she finished. Gaara almost wanted to smile when he heard her say this. But why she wanted to do this was completely unknown to him. He could remember only a few things about her, and one of those things was that their long-ago friendship was very brief. But shad had just greeted him like he was a family member who had returned from war, or something in close relation like that. Gaara walked up to Hikari’s side. He didn’t really had much more to do. And besides, a moment like this was once in a lifetime.

Hikari told Gaara of the trip to the Land of the Waves and the other places she visited. Gaara had remembered Hikari being an artist. Even way back then, Hikari’s artistic talent in drawing had surpassed most art he had ever seen. Her detail was very exact, and now after all this time, who knows how well she is now. “I have a store with my Aunt.” Hikari was explaining. “I don’t think you’ve met her. She’s very sweet, She’ll love to meet you.” Gaara could believe that completely. People in Hikari’s family-or most of them- had to be nice in some sort of manner. There was someone else Hikari talked about years ago who seemed to treat her well. But that thing seemed to be a blur in his mind. It was strange, like a missing puzzle piece to the whole board. “She’s you’re Aunt? Which parent’s sister?” He asked. It came out in a tone that sounded almost uninterested, but that wasn’t how he really felt. He noticed Hikari slow her pace a bit with a soft smile forming on her face. “My mother’s sister…” Gaara didn’t say anything after, he felt a bit sorry he asked.

Hikari’s face seemed to change as she pointed out to the right. “There’s the store! Follow me!” Hikari seemed really energized at the sight of her shop. She opened the door and held it for him. He walked in and took a look throughout the store. He saw a middle-aged woman at the middle of the store that Hikari was rushing to. People were also browsing through the store. Hikari looked a little busy when Gaara looked back at Hikari talking with the woman, so he decided to look at the pictures on display. Hikari had changed her style remarkably since he last saw Hikari’s last works. Long ago, they were only mere, but very detailed sketches with graphite pencil in a simple pad. Hikari had now gone to the use of oil and watercolors. Some colors with oil paints had more stronger tones with the coloring, while the watercolors were leaning more to pastel colors and not as vibrant. Detail had become much more exact and Hikari had gotten better with scenery pictures. He saw one of a large bridge in the winter. Snow was delicately on it, while the water underneath was partly frozen. The sky was a mix of grays and light blues, while the picture had a peaceful, yet sad kind of feel to it. Gaara saw in the bottom left corner pen writing that had Hikari’s initials and “GREAT NARUTO BRIDGE-WINTERTIME” in small, but still noticeable writing. It was a little surprise to know Naruto had a bridge named after him. Bravo, Naruto. This particular picture was one that was to Gaara’s liking, and made him wonder why Hikari would want to sell it.

“Sorry about that. I had some deals with Aunt Izumi to talk with.” Hikari said from behind Gaara. He looked at Hikari, who was now accompanied with the middle-aged woman. She smiled and held her hand out. “Hello, my niece here explained you’re an old friend of Hikari’s. Very nice to see you, I’m Izumi.” Gaara took a swift glance at Izumi’s hand and held his out to shake her’s. Izumi smiled and looked over at the bridge picture. “I noticed you were gazing at this with interest. You do know Hikari made that, do you?” Gaara nodded in reply. Izumi started to pick the sides of the picture up. “Do you want it?”

“I don’t have any money.” Gaara said. Izumi smiled. “Well, Hikari’s the artist. How about she decide.” She looked at Hikari. Hikari looked down, looking very nervous. “Well… I-if you want it… It’s yours.” She said. “It’s alright. I don’t really want it that much anyway.” Gaara said. Izumi tilled her head. “Why not?” Gaara looked at the picture one more time. “It’s nice, but I don’t know what I’d really do with it. I don’t collect art or anything like that.” Izumi remained silent, but rested the picture back on the display. “Well, it will be here until you change your mind or someone buys.” She said, and walked off, turning once more and looked at him. “Nice meeting you. Come here whenever you like.” And she went back to work.” That left Hikari and him right there in the part of the store. Hikari looked at the picture and then at her feet. “It’s really nice. You’ve improved.” Gaara told her, trying to sound polite. It looked like Hikari was hurt because he didn’t accept the picture, but he just didn’t want to keep something he didn’t believe he would do much with.

Hikari raised her head, a smile on her face. “That’s okay. Your compliment is enough.” She said. Pink still seemed to be tinted on her cheeks as she looked at him. She turned around and head across the store. “I’ll be with you in a moment, Gaara. P-please care to look around for a while.” She offered. It didn’t seem to extremely busy, so it wasn’t quite understandable why Hikari seemed to move in such a hurry. Gaara kept his eyes on Hikari as she ran to a table. It had lots of kids sitting in it with all kinds of drawing supplies scattered across the table messily. All the children seemed to have a huge sensation as Hikari drew near them. One young blonde girl, possibly four years of age, waved at her with a big smile. “Miss Hikari!! We thought you’d never come this morning!” she called. Hikari knelt down near the girl and patted her head. “Sorry guys, I took a walk today. I haven’t seen our village in a while lately.” The girl nodded as an answer. “That’s okay, Miss Hikari. As long as you’re here, we can always start our lesson.” Another boy, about the girl’s age with brown hair and a mess of freckles leaned up his chair. “Yes, Miss Hikari! So what’s our lesson today?” he asked excitedly.

Hikari beamed at the children and picked up a graphite pencil. “Well, do any of you have something they want to draw?” One girl raised her hand. “I wanna do my puppy, Shizo!” Hikari smiled. “Well, you can do your puppy, what does your dog look like?” The little girl took out a small photo of a small black puppy with pointy ears and a curved upward tail. Hikari took a hold of the picture and looked at it for a couple seconds, the handed it back to the girl. “Okay everyone, ready to try doing a dog?” All the kids nodded with smiles or small cheers. Hikari laid her pencil on the paper and began saying things to the children. Gaara couldn’t hear the words from where he was standing, for Hikari was speaking to softly. Inconspicuously, he began to get closer to see what Hikari was doing. On the paper, a good detail of the puppy was already on the paper, and all the kids were watching Hikari draw in amazement.

“Wow! Miss Hikari you draw fast!” One of the boys at the table said. And it was true, her hand seemed to move very fast, getting all the details down. Still looking focused on the picture, Hikari grinned. “All you got to do is practice, and soon all your art will go by fast with great results.” She explained. One of the kids groaned when she said that. “That will take me forever, Miss Hikari! I’m just not that good.” Hikari stopped moving her pencil and looked at the kid. Her face turned a little serious. “Well, you need to be sure you can do it if you want to do it. It takes time and practice to master some things.” she said. The kid didn’t say anything for a second, and then looked down. “I.. I’m sorry.” he mumbled sadly. Hikari’s face softened. “You don’t need to be sorry. I’m just telling you don’t give up so quickly.” She said. She reached out and ruffled the kid’s hair. He giggled a bit and smiled.

Gaara could only watch at the moment before him. Hikari is still a friendly, sweet type. She treats children so well in this little craft table. He remembered that was how she was with him those years back. It felt so good those times with her, and now… here she is. The same person, only older. He wished he could have been with Hikari longer. But then it hit him, it sent a strange chill through his body. What did cause Hikari to leave anyways? He thought hard, but it all just wasn’t clear to him. He tried to review what he could remember… but it just was not coming. He tried to think of who she live with…. He mother? No… That wasn’t who she talked about…. Gaara seemed to freeze all thoughts when it came to his mind.

Her father… Hikari talked about him a lot… A caring-sounding guy, who he believed Hikari said told her how to draw.. So many other things that weren’t coming to him. Something bothered him on this inside when he thought of Hikari’s father. He began to hurt inside. It was this aching pain, mostly in the chest. Gaara started to walked a little strangely to grasp something. He felt like he was going to fall down. Gaara reached the wall and put both hands on it, his head looking down to the floor. W-What’s going on? he asked himself mentally. Why did his body hurt all of a sudden… Did something bad happen to him? He took a glance around his leaning body, still having head down. Nothing looked any different, what happened? What about Hikari’s father that seemed to get to him like that?

“Are you okay?” A worried face behind Gaara asked. He turned his head slowly. Hikari was behind him, looking at his slightly bent body with concern. “Did you hurt something?” Gaara pushed the thoughts out of his head and leaned back up. “No… It’s okay.” Hikari didn’t look convinced. “Are you sure?” she asked. “Yes.” he answered He turned around to face her. “You treat those children well.” He said, trying to get off the subject of him. He like to stay away from inner feelings… they usually led to some kind of trouble with him. Hikari smiled and looked over at the table. “That’s my art class, I guess people can say. I love teaching kids, there’s something about them I just really like.” She looked back at Gaara. “So what do you do for a living now?”

“I’m the Kazekage.”
Hikari’s eyes widened. “You’re Kazekage?” She asked in amazement.
“Yes.”
“Wow..” Hikari put her hand to her head, “That’s a huge role Gaara. You need to protect so many people.” she paused for a second and looked at him. “You’re sixteen or so, right?” “Yes.” Gaara was sixteen, and to some, that age may be pretty early for a role like the Kazekage, but it was what he chose to do. Like Naruto, it did seem like a good was to be respected and let people acknowledge your existence. It had it’s up and downs, but altogether it felt good to have a big role as the Kazekage. “What’s it like?” Hikari asked. “It’s a lot of work.” Gaara said. He didn’t feel very much like explaining, but Hikari seemed very interested with the whole thing. He explained a little about his job, like the paperwork he needed to fill, along with ensure of who can go and leave the village, check security, look at the condition of the economy as well. Hikari nodded like she was a student learning a valuable lesson. “Sounds like a big thing to do.” Hikari said after hearing all she needed to. It was a big job.

Hikari looked around the store. “Well, this shop here is about as far as it will get with me. And I’m just fine with that. She walked to the door nearby that had “EMPLOYEES ONLY” on the door and opened it. The two walked in the room. Turns out the room was an art studio Hikari and her Aunt made a couple years ago. Despite some old paint stains and a couple yellow pieces of paper on the floor, the room was quite clean and put together. There was paints in tubes and cans all over different places, arrange pretty efficiently. Paintbrushes were in one red can on this desk, along with a blue one that had regular pencils, then a yellow with other art utensils. There were some drawers under the desk that seemed almost jammed with all kinds of art objects in a random order. There were three easels in the room, two of which had a white canvas resting on them. The one other easel had a giant drawing pad resting on it. There was also a brown couch in the room with a television a couple feet away from it and a large window that let in lots of sunlight. Hikari took a seat on the couch. “Well, here’s my little art room. It’s here I do my work. I like coming here a lot. I kinda missed this place on my trip.”

Gaara looked around the room, it did have a nice, quiet feel to it. There was lots of sound on the other side of the art store, but it was practically soundproof in this room. He could only hear Hikari’s breathing in this room, it was so silent. He liked it. “It’s a nice room. Very calming.” He said. Hikari smiled. “Yeah, I think there’s nothing like this room. You should see it in the night. The moon is a great view from out that window.” She pointed at it. The window was large, a view of the night sky would look nice there. Hikari got out of the chair and walked to the window. The light and her body seemed like opposites. Her body was dark with shadows, while light shined around. It looked.. Rather beautiful. “I even painted a picture of the night sky through this window…” She turned around. “You wouldn’t believe how much money it sold for.”

“Do you keep any of your art?” Gaara asked. He noticed throughout the whole art studio had no paintings at all. Hikari shook her head. “No, I haven’t made any I really want to keep.” She walked closer to him. “But, that reminds me. I’d like to ask you something Gaara.” She looked down nervously. “I.. I know this will be a little sudden, b-but…” She looked up and walked to the easel with the drawing pad. “Since I got back here, I want to start using my wonder art studio again. And, well, now that you’re here. I came up with something while I was having my children’s art class. It could be a good way to communicate, and I can still be in this studio.” She picked up a pencil and put it on her chin. “Gaara… will…. You.. Um… model for my next painting?”

Gaara stared at Hikari for what seemed a long time. “You… want me to what?” Hikari smile nervously, the pencil she held staring swing back and forth, tapping her chin softly. “Model. All you need to do is sit in a chair and I’ll make a practice sketch of you. It shouldn’t take me long. Then I can move on to the painting. While I sketch, we can talk about things…” She said. “But why do you want to do me?” Gaara asked. He didn’t seem like the model type in his opinion. Most guys that modeled for things were…different. Just not his type, really. Hikari stopped tapping the pencil on her chin and smiled. “I thought you’d make a great model, that’s all.” Gaara looked at the easel. It didn’t seem that bad, just sitting there while she draws. There’s no way she’s going to take a long time doing him, from the speed he saw her do that kid’s puppy. Gaara closed his eyes and sighed. “Okay. I’ll do it.” Hikari’s face brightened up and she rushed to throw her arms around Gaara’s chest again, like when Hikari made her realization of him. She looked up at him with that big smile of hers… Gaara began to remember it more back when he first met her. “Thank you Gaara.” She said so sweetly. “When will we begin?” He asked her. Hikari grinned. “First thing tomorrow. I need to figure out when everything is before can start. This is going to be so much fun!” Gaara still wondered why she was so excited about this. He was still a little surprised she wanted him to model for her…