The Greenhouse [A Gaara Love Story]

4: Glass and Earth

Happy Valentine's Day everyone! I looooove you guys!!

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"Hey, Slinki!" Kankuro called from the living room and the child appeared in the doorway with a displeased frown on his lips.

"Shinki." He corrected him, and the man waved him off.

"Yeah, yeah- hand me those nails, would ya?" Kankuro gestured with his shoulder to the box sitting on the table beside the couch, where he sat with his hands full of the small puppet in his lap. He had spent the afternoon tweaking with the small mechanisms inside of it, ignoring him completely, much to Shinki's pleasure.

It had been nearly a week since Shinki first arrived and still the house felt like little more than a temporary place for him. Meals were silent on his end and he was excused the moment he finished. Gaara had given him access to the books in his study and so Shinki ventured out of his room in the early mornings to select new reads before shutting himself away once again. Neither of them tried to coax him out, as Gaara was patient and his wife still hesitant to interact, and so it had been a quiet and rather uneventful time.

That was, however, until their weekly therapy appointment came around and Kankuro barged in through the front door.

He was every bit what Gaara had warned him to be, ("Loud, and a bit...obnoxious.") and didn't fit his 'Lord' title in the slightest. Kankuro had bid the two a noisy farewell before plopping down on the couch and pulling the puppet he worked on now out of the tool box he lugged in with him. He had called for Shinki- or Slinki, Stinki, Swinki- no less than five times already, and if it weren't for the obligation he felt towards the couple who had taken him in, Shinki wouldn't have helped him a single time.

With a huff, the boy all but marched forward and snatched the box off the table, holding it within reach for Kankuro who managed to shift things around for just a moment so he could grab a couple of nails from the box. Shinki went to put it back down and return to the spare room, but Kankuro had other plans.

"Stay here a sec," He grunted, fixated on the puppet, "This may take a minute."

Shinki gave a heavy sigh but Kankuro paid him little mind, his focus being entirely on the puppet he was trying to piece together. With the adult's attention elsewhere and a task that kept him in place, Shinki begrudgingly settled for looking around the room as means of some sort of entertainment. He was quickly disappointed, as this room was just as unfortunately decorated as the rest, and he was nearly ready to drop the box in Kankuro's lap before something sitting on the table the nails were on caught his eye.

At first he didn't realize it was Momoko, thinking perhaps the picture was just of friends they liked enough to have their photo, but the longer he stared the more he realized that it was a younger version of his caretaker. She was hugging a pink-haired woman that Shinki didn't recognize, the smile on her lips so wide it looked like it hurt and her eyes bright with a happiness he had never known before. There were no scars that marked her skin, no kanji carved into her forehead, her arms were bear of any intimidating ink, and blonde waves flowed down her back like a curtain of pale gold. It was a stark difference from the haunted stares and pursed lips Shinki had become acquainted with, and the boy couldn't help but stare.

"Hard to believe it's her, huh?"

Kankuro's words pulled Shinki from his thoughts, but when he turned to him he found that he was also staring at the picture of her with a look on his face that the boy wasn't old enough to recognize. He let go of the puppet to reach out and grab the picture, bringing it closer for the both of them to see.

"It's one of the only pictures left from back then," He said, a fondness in his words as he looked over her smile.

Shinki could not help his natural curiosity, and so he found himself asking before giving it much thought, "What happened?"