Adopted: Book 1 Refracted Sand [REWRITING]

Adopted Ch. 20 Returning and Amending

"Temari, explain it to me so I can understand."

"Explain it to you?" Temari repeated slowly. "I said enough already! Why won't you get it?"

"How am I supposed to know what I did wrong if you won't tell me?"

"It's because you don't know what you did that it's making me frustrated!"

"Then what should I do about it?"

"Figure it out! And once you do, do us all a favor and cut it out!"

Gaara, cut it out! Please. Don't say something so cold. As a favor to your sister. Okay?

Temari stood there panting. Gaara had his lips pressed together and his eyes were slightly affronted and confused.

"Gaara-sama?" Suzume's voice announced her before she rounded the corner. "Is everything okay? I heard yelling."

Temari glanced at her sister and looked back at Gaara in time to see him cover up the look of shame and wretchedness he'd have whenever he'd see her wrapped up in bandages. She sneered darkly at him and like a robotic recording said, "This really bums me out. It really bums me out."

Five Weeks Later

"Shiro, do you know how to solve this question?"

"You know," Shiro looked at her through slitted eyelids, unamused, "usually people greet each other with a 'good morning' before immediately asking them how to do homework. It's sort of good manners."

Suzume lifted her gaze to meet hers and Shiro was exasperated by her unchanging passive expression. "Good morning. Do you know how to solve this question?"

Shiro sighed and sat next to her friend on the bench and leaned over to see what she was talking about. Her eyes widened. What the chakra points? She didn't understand half of what the question was asking.

"You should ask a teacher," she said, standing up again. The sound of the bell signaling the start of lessons added finality into her suggestion. "I'll see you later, Suzume."

Suzume watched her walk away before closing her textbook and shouldering her backpack and heading for her classroom.

Dear Hisoka, I never thought I'd encounter a more uncomfortable atmosphere like Kankuro and Gaara-sama's spat.

But that was only because I forgot about Temari.

Gaara's been out for several days on a mission but the stretch of acres between him and Temari didn't stop the tension from saturating the Kazekage's household like smog. Temari acted normally enough around and with Kankuro and Suzume but it only made them more on edge. It was how one would feel if they were strapped to a bomb they knew would explode with no idea when it would set off and no way to stop it.

"How obstinate can they be, jan?" Kankuro expressed out of his frustration one day. "Can't they swallow their pride and make up already?"

"You're one to talk, Kankuro," Suzume responded mercilessly.

"Hurry back, Gaara!" Kankuro sent up to the heavens.

It looked like their prayers were heard since Gaara came back to the mansion shortly after.

Suzume was sneaking back into the house through a window when Gaara's voice startled her.

"I never thought you'd be one to miss curfew, Suzume."

The brunette picked herself up from where she'd fallen out of the window frame out of fright. "You were home already."

Gaara caught sight of something and took a step forward.