The saying goes: tragedy is the destruction of beautiful things for others to witness.
Applied to this mont, the description may not be perfectly fitting -- because strictly speaking, the beautiful thing being destroyed had never truly belonged to him in the first place.
But for Gaara, no description had ever felt more vivid, more precise, more... heartbreaking.
He felt his heart actually shatter.
Not as a figure of speech. Not an exaggeration. In the most literal sense -- a fracture he could genuinely feel, as though sothing had been seized by an invisible hand and crushed without rcy.
Crack.
Into pieces.
He stood there with both hands cradling the still-warm bento box, his entire body frozen as though rooted to the floor.
His pupils trembled violently.
He saw Satsuki cup Naruto face in her hands.
He saw Satsuki's lips press against Naruto's lips.
He saw the person he had longed for more than anything in this world -- the person who had just appeared before him in the most perfect form imaginable -- being kissed by soone else. Casually. Naturally. Right in front of him, as though it were the most ordinary thing in the world.
It was no exaggeration to say that if Gaara had been an Uchiha, he would have awakened his Sharingan in that very mont.
The sheer force of it. The agony of watching the most precious thing he had ever known be claid by another. The despair of wanting to step forward, knowing with absolute certainty that he had no right to -- all of it surged inside him, roaring and crashing, with nowhere to go.
He didn't know that in another world entirely, there was a specific term for this feeling.
NTR.
The suffering of having your loved one taken away.
But if he thought about it carefully, that description wasn't quite accurate.
Because Satsuki and Naruto were husband and wife. Because they were the ones who had grown up side by side since childhood. Because they had loved each other since they were small, and each had made the other the most important person in their life.
If anything could be called NTR here... Satsuki would be the one it applied to.
After all, she was Naruto's lawful wife. She was the one who was supposed to have him entirely to herself. She was the one who actually possessed all of him.
And Gaara -- what did that make him?
Just a friend.
Just soone who had been saved once.
Just soone who could only ever stand at a distance, watching that light from afar.
"Well, I think that's everything wrapped up. We'll be heading out."
Satsuki's voice broke through the suffocating silence. She released Naruto's face and turned around, a satisfied smile on her lips, her dark eyes curving into soft crescents.
"We are still on our honeymoon, after all."
Her gaze settled on Gaara, carrying just a faint trace of mockery. "Getting to see Naruto in a different form today -- that was quite a treat."
She took Naruto by the arm and began walking toward the door.
"Then farewell, Kazekage. I hope you and that puppet of yours..." she paused at the threshold, smile never leaving her face, "...have a wonderful ti."
Gaara's body swayed like a small tree battered by a violent gust. He used every last bit of strength he had to keep from collapsing to the floor.
A soft rush of displaced air -- the quiet signature of Flying Thunder God -- and those overwhelming presences were gone from the room.
Naruko. No. Naruto was gone.
Gaara stood with both hands cradling the still-warm bento box. The box was still warm. It was filled with ran Naruto had made with his own hands. It was everything Gaara had ever quietly wished for -- and yet every part of him, from his fingertips to the soles of his feet, had gone completely cold.
From his fingers to his toes. From his limbs to his heart. All of it, cold.
"I... Gaara, are you..."
Temari's voice reached him, careful and hushed, laced with worry and heartache. She had stopped caring about puppets and secrets and all the chaos of the past hour.
All she could see was her little brother standing there, pale as a ghost, like a statue that had lost its soul.
She stepped forward, wanting to say sothing comforting, wanting to reach out and touch his shoulder, wanting to do anything that might ease even a fraction of this.
But she opened her mouth and found she had nothing to say.
What could she say? "Don't be sad"? He couldn't possibly not be sad. "She didn't an it"? Satsuki had very clearly ant every word. "You still have us"? They were not the person he needed.
Kankuro reached over from beside her and caught her arm gently, shaking his head. His eyes told her to let it go.
Right now, words would only make it worse.
Whatever comfort words might offer in this world -- it was useless here. The only thing that could possibly reach Gaara right now... Kankuro's gaze drifted past his brother to the figure seated quietly on the edge of the bed at the far end of the room.
The puppet.
The puppet built in Naruto's likeness, sitting there in the dimness, exactly as she had been.
Kankuro took Temari's arm and led her toward the door. Neither said a word. They stepped out together, and the door closed softly behind them.
The room went quiet.
Only Gaara remained.
And the puppet.
And the bento box.
And the feelings pressing down on him from every direction -- the ones he had no words for, the ones that threatened to crush him completely.
A sob broke the silence.
It was a small sound, a throttled sound -- the kind that cos from soone desperately trying not to cry and failing anyway.
Gaara's legs gave out beneath him and he sank to the floor.
He set the bento box down beside him with great care, as though afraid of breaking it.
Then the tears ca. They slid down his face and dropped to the floor one by one, soft as rain.
He didn't wail. He didn't collapse into heaving sobs. He simply knelt there, head bowed, shoulders trembling faintly, tears falling without end.
Like a child who had suffered a trendous injustice and didn't know how to speak of it -- retreating to a corner to cry where no one could see.
Like a child who had just had the thing he loved most taken away.
No.
Worse than that.
What had been taken wasn't a toy.
It was sothing he had only just glimpsed -- the most beautiful dream he had ever been allowed to see -- snatched away in an instant.
Then.
Warmth. From behind.
Arms wrapped around him from behind -- gently, carefully -- and drew him close.
"Don't be sad..."
The voice ca close to his ear, full of a gentleness he could have lost himself in entirely.
"If there's anything weighing on you, Gaara... tell ."
The voice continued, soft and steady. "I will always be by your side."
"Always."
Gaara went still. He didn't dare turn around. He was afraid that if he looked, it would be nothing -- just his own desperate imagination breaking down under the weight of what he wanted. He was afraid that if he turned, the warmth would vanish. He was afraid that turning around would prove his longing had finally driven him mad.
But the warmth was so real. The arms holding him were so steady. The heat pressing against his back was so vivid and clear.
Like an actual living person.
Not like a puppet.
Not like cold machinery.
It was warm, and soft, and it carried the feeling of sothing alive.
It was Naruko. The Naruko who had existed beside him from the mont of her creation. The Naruko he had never dared to touch, never dared to reach for -- the one he had only ever held while sleeping. The one who was now, in this mont, holding him with such quiet tenderness.
Gaara didn't know whether he was simply too desperate. He didn't know whether this was a hallucination. He didn't know whether it was real, or whether his mind had finally broken under the strain.
He only knew --
How warm.
How warm.
How warm.
He turned toward her -- the way soone reaching for comfort has no choice but to turn -- and buried his face in that warmth, and let the tears fall.
The sobbing continued. But it was different now. Not so filled with despair.
Because soone was holding him. Because soone had told him they would always be there. Because soone had given him the one thing he needed most.
At the very edge of consciousness, one thought surfaced before he could stop it.
When everyone had first entered the room -- in that initial mont -- Naruko had been seated on the edge of his bed.
But... Gaara had not made that kind of mistake.
He rembered it clearly.
Very clearly.
The instant he heard the scream from downstairs -- the mont he understood sothing had gone wrong -- the very first thing he had done was hide Naruko.
He had pushed her into the hidden compartnt beneath the bed. The one he had built specifically for her. The one no one would ever find.
Only then had he rushed out of the room. Only then had he gone downstairs. Only then had he faced everything that followed.
So --
How had Naruko gotten back to the bed?
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