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Searching for Something	By : jellybelle21 Category: Naruto > Yaoi - Male/Male Views: 1063 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

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Neji rushed out of the room, down the hall, and out another door, leading him to the raised pathway he’d found before. He needed to cool down, and regain his control. He had kissed Tenten, groped her, and if she hadn’t resisted him, he would have likely done much more.

Twenty-one and still a virgin. No wonder I can’t stop these thoughts from taking over. My body wants something more than fantasies and masturbation. I do need to get laid.

Sadly, his body had not been that interested in Tenten. He was sure that even though she had resisted, he could have had her if he really wanted to. Maybe not that night, but after a while, she would have given in. Why it should make any difference who he was with made absolutely no sense to him. Perhaps he should return to Tenten…maybe with practice he could learn to enjoy a woman’s body, and then these fantasies of Sasuke would stop tormenting him.

I should stop chasing things I know I can’t have. I’ll never have access to the secrets of the main family, and I’ll never be able to have Sasuke. Why must I crave those things most difficult to reach?

It made him consider whether or not the reason his desire had flagged when presented with Tenten was due to the fact that she wanted him, and was so clearly ready to belong to him. She was his for the asking, and it would be a simple matter to establish this much more acceptable relationship. Maybe the reason he was attracted to men was because it was taboo. Not expressly forbidden, but not universally acceptable. He was almost positive that his uncle would not approve of him carrying on with another man. With his talent, everyone in the Hyuuga clan expected him to produce some children that would be powerful ninja as well. He did not like to do as he was told. He hated the caged in feeling, and he dreamed of the day when he would answer to no one but himself.

I wish that I could control my destiny. So many others around me are able to do it so easily…they ignore all expectations and do exactly as they wish. I’ve promised myself to overcome my own destiny, but it is not as easy as I hoped. I cannot even say for sure what I wish my destiny to be, and all my friends are so sure of themselves. No wonder I am stuck here.

There was a creak of boards, and Neji looked up to see that on the other end of the pathway, Gaara, who had been missing most of the night from a party that was partially in his honor, had been lounging against the railing of the balcony on the neighboring building. He had shifted away, and Neji could see that the Kazekage was looking in his direction, but in the dark, it was impossible to see his expression. Of course, Gaara was not one to show a lot of emotion on his face, much like Neji himself.

“Hyuuga Neji.” The younger man addressed him. He almost always addressed others by their full names. Neji wondered if he considered anyone his friend. It must be a lonely existence, ruling Sunagakure at such a young age, having so much power, being a former Jinchuuriki. Perhaps he felt comfortable with his siblings, or even Naruto, but the redhead was very private, and extremely reserved. Unlike Sai, who seemed to think that he needed to make up for lost time by making friends with as many people as possible, Gaara seemed very cautious with his trust. “Do not tell them where I am.”

“I hate parties.” Neji felt an instant understanding with the other ninja in that moment. Neither of them relished these social situations. Both of them could not help feeling like outsiders. “I won’t force you to be around people.”

“I enjoy their company.” Gaara admitted, looking out at the dark horizon. “But I find so many people at once to be…overwhelming.”

“Yes,” Neji walked down the pathway so that he was close enough to speak to the Kazekage. “I doubt I’ll ever have Naruto’s enthusiasm for being surrounded by friends.”

“I appreciate that he wants me to feel welcome,” Gaara told him, and Neji noticed that even though the Shukaku no longer lived within him, he had retained the dark circles around his mint-green eyes. “Naruto likes for me to know that people care for me, but I find it exhausting to have them all demanding my attention. I do not know what to say, and I usually want only to escape at the first opportunity.”

“Naruto cares about everyone.” Neji agreed. “He spent so long being excluded, he was starved for attention, and now he never seems to be able to get enough. I don’t think he could understand the way that we seek solitude.”

“But right now, we aren’t alone.” Gaara told him, and Neji thought the other man was smiling, though it was hard to tell in the dim light.

“I can leave if you want.” Neji offered, and Gaara didn’t answer, he just looked at the Hyuuga impassively, not letting him know what he was thinking. Neji found his eyes wandering to the kanji tattooed to Gaara’s forehead. He wondered what the story was behind the marking, and wondered how someone who was constantly protected from harm by sand had been able to receive a tattoo at all. Neji knew very little about Gaara, even though he’d been a part of his rescue three years ago. No wonder Gaara addressed him as though he was a stranger. He practically was.

Then again, many of the people I consider friends are like this. I know very little about Sasuke or even Naruto. I never ask them personal questions. I probably know Hinata better than any of my friends by far, and that is only because we were raised in the same family.

Maybe that was the reason he felt uncomfortable around his friends. He did not know very much about them. Most of them had gone to school together, but he had been a year ahead of the main group. Even though Tenten and Lee had been in the same class as him, he had not even known their last names until they were put on the same team. He had tried, ever since he had learned the value of friendship from Naruto, to make more friends, to be more open with people, but he realized now that really all he had done was stopped pushing away the people that surrounded him. He knew certain things about them all, things they had volunteered, or things his other friends had told him.

He supposed he did not inspire confidence. Even Hinata had never confided in him or asked him for advice. He had thought he was very close to Sasuke, but that was because they were similar. He knew the story of the Uchiha family, and he knew basic things about Sasuke that everyone in Konoha knew, but just being close to someone didn’t tell him that person’s thoughts and dreams and feelings. He had never thought of it before, but he had no idea what Sasuke’s ambition was now that Itachi was dead. He knew Naruto’s ambition was to be Hokage, but he was sure that since Naruto always introduced himself by stating his dream, there were people in all five of the great nations who knew that. Hinata…he assumed she dreamed of being stronger, of having her father recognize her. That was a safe assumption from the fact that her father had always ignored her when they were younger, and how sad she had seemed because of it. He racked his brain, trying to remember Lee and Tenten’s dreams…he knew they had mentioned them when they all met Gai-sensei for the first time, but he had ignored them at the time. Back then, he hadn’t cared one way or the other about people around him or whether he had companions he could count on. He seemed to recall Lee’s was something about being a ninja…possibly also he dreamed of growing up to be as weird as Gai-sensei. Tenten…maybe something about throwing things? He didn’t know. The rest of his friends were the same. He had no clue what they dreamed of. He wondered if any of them knew what his dreams were. Possibly Naruto. He seemed to remember telling the blonde ninja his ambitions, and it would be very likely that he had paid close attention. He knew very little when it came to book knowledge, but Naruto knew all about other people, what made them the way they were, what they cared about and wanted. That was what made him a good friend, Neji realized.

I am not a very good friend at all, by those standards. The things I know about my friends are almost all things that anyone in Konoha would know. Their ninja abilities, their techniques, their relationships with each other, their rankings…No wonder I feel like an outsider. I call these people my friends as though it will make me less alone, but I do not bother to learn anything about them. Even Sasuke. I thought I was in love with him, and I don’t even know what his favorite food is.

He sighed softly, and noticed that Gaara was still watching him patiently, as though waiting for something. They had been standing in silence for several minutes now, and he felt as though he should say something. “Gaara,” he began, considering his words before saying them. “Could I ask you a personal question?”

“What’s the question?” Gaara’s eyes narrowed a bit, and Neji smiled slightly. He really didn’t trust anyone, did he? He wondered what had happened in the Kazekage’s life that made him always on guard.

“Was it your dream to become Kazekage?” he asked, not really expecting Gaara to answer him. But if he was going to learn more about his friends, and try to be a better friend himself, he’d have to start somewhere. Maybe if he could make his friendships more fulfilling, he would not feel this unquenchable thirst for something else, and maybe he could stop lusting after Sasuke, and also spare his other friends, such as Tenten, the side-effects of his sexual frustration.

“No.” Gaara answered, turning away to face the dark horizon again, not elaborating at all. Neji was surprised he even answered, and he was also intrigued by the response. He had thought that anyone who became Kazekage so young must have wanted desperately to attain that position; must have had to fight to attain it.

“How did it happen?” he asked, not meaning to voice the question, since it was obvious that Gaara didn’t trust him, or know him well enough to feel comfortable sharing private information with him. He would have better luck with his other friends. Hinata, for example, would probably not hesitate to answer any questions he could possibly think of. He felt Sasuke would be more reserved, but then again, Neji wasn’t sure he trusted himself not to ask questions like, ‘Could I fuck you?’ or, ‘Would you suck me?’ Clearly, if he had learned nothing else from what had just happened, it was that he was not in control of his libido as he would have liked to be.

“Why are you asking all these questions?” Gaara responded with a small frown, hunching his shoulders slightly and looking down at the railing he was leaning against. “I don’t know you.”

“I guess not.” Neji shrugged and felt foolish. He really didn’t know Gaara. He had met him several times, he had even helped bring him back when he was captured and killed by Akatsuki, but he didn’t know much about him. “I was just interested.”

“Why?” Gaara asked, turning to glance at him, his expression guarded.

“I don’t know.” Neji answered, feeling that his first attempts at being a better friend were not working out very well at all. Maybe he should just go back to being in lust with Sasuke and stop caring about all these other people. There was so much effort, and it seemed so pointless. Did he want to be liked by other people so badly? He got along well enough with his team, and he was willing to bet most of his other friends knew more about them than he did. “Never mind, forget I asked.”

Neji was sorry he had even shown any interest at all. He was sure that most people saw his aloof and silent demeanor as very intriguing and elite, but Gaara now knew that he was at least a little insecure, and was not so separated from the world around him as he tended to appear. This annoyed him. He had done a great job now of ruining his mysterious image with Tenten, Gaara, and most disappointing of all, Sasuke. He would soon have no reputation at all, and he would have to simply be him, and the biggest problem with that was, Neji was not really sure who he was.

He was determined to repair any damage he had done by now seeming even more distant than ever. The next person to talk would be Gaara, and he would not even respond. That would surely reestablish his image. It was like a battle, and Neji was sure that if there was one thing he was excellent at, it was winning a fight. Even against the already legendary fifth Kazekage, Gaara of the Sand, he was sure he would win. It didn’t matter if Gaara didn’t realize there had been a challenge laid down. Certainly anyone so practiced in being silent and cool would be able to recognize the battle for what it was.

The silence between them stretched out endlessly, and Neji began to worry that he would lose this battle even by looking at Gaara, so he stared at the horizon, trying to find it fascinating. He knew that was what Gaara was looking at, and he seemed to find it interesting enough. What was he looking at, anyway? Was he even looking at anything, or was he just standing there and thinking about whatever it was that Gaara thought of? Possibly important Kazekage business, or perhaps something more mundane. Maybe he was just trying to calculate how long he would need to wait out here until the party wound down enough for him to leave without anyone trying to keep him there or talk to him. Neji was determined not to leave until he did, or until someone came out and broke this up. That might happen. People liked him. Apparently Tenten liked him, he had learned, although now she probably thought he was a sexual assaulter. But maybe she liked that sort of thing. And even if no one came to look for him, eventually someone would look for Gaara. This was supposed to be a party for him, anyway. And his siblings were sure to miss him eventually. He was the Kazekage, it wasn’t like you could simply forget that he was there.

Neji began to feel bored and tired, and he wondered if Gaara was sleeping with his eyes open. If so, he was cheating, and it would not be considered a loss if Neji were to leave right then. Neji had a sudden malicious hope that Gaara had fallen asleep, and that he would fall and hit his chin on the railing and land on his ass and be forced to be embarrassed in front of Neji. That would even the score, certainly, and then Neji might not feel like coming to this party was nothing but a mistake.

“I wanted to be like him.” Gaara’s words came as such a surprise that Neji forgot that he wasn’t going to respond at all, and looked over, blinking at him and furrowing his brow in confusion.

“What?” he asked, and immediately cursed himself for reacting. At least he hadn’t been the first to speak. He would call it a partial victory.

“Naruto.” Gaara explained, glancing down at his hands, folded in empty air over the edge of the balcony. “I wanted to change the way I lived. After I met him, I saw that there are more choices than the path you first see before you. Naruto fought against his destiny, and even though he was hated and shunned, he did not accept that fate. He’s surrounded now by hundreds of people who he cares about, who care about him, who need him. I decided then that I wanted someday to be the sort of person who others would need. I thought the quickest path to achieve this would be to become Kazekage, to protect my village so that they would need me.”

Neji was sure he was meant to say something at this point. Gaara had just shared something with him, something personal as though they were friends. He had trusted Neji, despite the fact that he probably knew as little about him as Neji knew about Gaara. He probably should have considered this before asking a question at all. Naruto would know the right thing to say at this point. He was an idiot about so many things, but he always understood people’s dreams and their pasts and how they felt and what they needed to hear. Neji didn’t know anything about those things, and even if he pretended to, if he tried to say something understanding, it would sound hollow. Maybe if he just lapsed back into silence, that would be okay.

“Nobody asks me questions like that.” Gaara spoke again after a few minutes.

“Like what?” Neji frowned and studied Gaara’s profile. His features were not as finely chiseled as Sasuke’s, but his skin was paler, possibly paler than Neji’s own skin. That struck him as odd, considering Gaara lived in the desert, but it was quite possibly because his clothing covered almost every inch of skin. Neji wasn’t sure that was the wisest way to dress in horribly hot weather, but he supposed Gaara would know better than him. The black circles around his eyes only accentuated the paleness of his skin, and drew more attention to the unique shade of his eyes. Even his hair was a color that Neji had never seen anywhere else, and he thought it was unfair for someone who was already set apart because of his power and position, even from birth, to look so different, in a way that set him apart from everyone else.

Neji thought his own eyes useful, of course, for the power they contained, but he knew their lack of color scared some people. He envied Sasuke his deep, ebony irises, and Naruto his brilliant blue, and Gaara his striking mint green. Everyone in the Hyuuga clan was born with the same eyes as Neji, and while there were many people with dark eyes, or even blue eyes, green eyes were rare to him, and even though Sakura’s eyes were bigger, either the fact that he found the pink-haired kunoichi to be a bit irritating at times, or the fact that her eyes looked approximately the shade of grass, while Gaara’s looked like something much finer, something he could not place made them superior in his mind. Gaara’s eyes were the color of Gaara’s eyes, and nothing else.

“Sometimes Temari or Kankurou will ask me about my plans, or they will ask my opinion.” Gaara spoke again, his eyes closing so Neji could see the darkened lid drop down and lift back up again slowly. “Most of the time it’s about the village, because of my position, there are many choices to be made. Sometimes they ask about simpler things. They don’t ask about my past, they don’t see the point. They know how I lived, what I did. They were there. I think it bothers them. I know they care about me more now, but in the past, they did nothing to protect me, nothing to comfort me. No one asks about things I’ve done and why I did them.”

“But you did what you planned to,” Neji answered that time, carefully, not wanting to ruin this confidence he had been given. “You became Kazekage, and you protected your village. The people there need you now.”

“Yes, that is true.” He frowned slightly, and Neji wondered if Gaara had ever smiled, not in the horrific way he had while fighting Lee, that homicidal, unstable way, as though the Shukaku were pleased at the destruction it was unleashing, but just smiled because he was happy. Neji wondered how that would make his face look. Hinata once told him that everyone looked better when they smiled, but he had ignored her comment at the time, thinking that it was a ploy to get him to smile more often. But now that he thought about it, he would be interested to see Gaara smile, to see what difference it made. “But do any of them know me? Do any of them even want to know me? I am surrounded by people who need me, and I feel completely separated from them all, as if I’m in a box, and none of them will bother to look inside.”

“Or set you free.” Neji’s tone was wistful, and Gaara looked over, his brow furrowing.

“Do you know that feeling, too?” his voice was soft, and for a moment, Neji saw Gaara in a light that was completely different from the way he had always viewed him. In that moment, he saw that he was not perfect, and that was alright. Gaara was not perfect either, and he had many regrets as well. He wondered if Gaara felt the way he did, like he was searching for something that he could not name. He wondered if Gaara had ever felt that he was trapped by his destiny, and had struggled to find a way of breaking free. Was Gaara happy? Neji did not think he was. He felt a certain kinship with him, and in that moment, he wondered if this feeling was what he had been looking for. Someone who knew what he felt, someone who felt the same way, who wouldn’t judge him or reject him.

He didn’t know what to say, and instead, he found himself leaning forward, his lips brushing over Gaara’s. This was nothing like the way he had kissed Sasuke or Tenten. Those kisses had been violent and thoughtless and without any emotion behind them, only the impulsive lust that had filled him on both occasions. But he did not feel a burning lust at that moment. He did not feel the urge to do anything sexual at all. He just felt…that it was the right thing to do. He felt that it was the only way of telling Gaara that he understood what he had been through, and that he had felt that same feeling of being separated, being trapped, and wanting desperately to escape.

The kiss was brief, lasting only the briefest of moments, but the look on Gaara’s face was of complete shock and alarm. Neji knew instantly that Gaara had never been kissed before. He now knew less than before what he should say, what he should do, and he felt a heat in his cheeks that took him a moment to place. He was blushing. Luckily, it was dark, and he did not think that Gaara’s normal eyes could see the tint. Gaara himself looked paler than ever, and completely speechless. Of all the things that could have happened, that was clearly the one he expected the least. Neji felt a twist in his stomach as he realized that he wanted to kiss Gaara again, but it was clear that Gaara didn’t want him to. Neji didn’t exactly want to have the alliance between Sunagakure and Konoha broken because he couldn’t control himself. He stepped back and bowed sharply.

“I apologize.” He breathed the words in a harsh rush of air and turned sharply, not wanting to see that look on Gaara’s face anymore. Why couldn’t he find whatever it was he was searching for? Why did he have to push himself on others, alienating everyone who could be his friend, and leaving himself more alone than ever before? Why couldn’t he control himself better, and behave in a way that would be more fitting to an elite ninja?

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To be continued…
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