Rabbit Princess [Gaara] [3]

☾ 2 ☽

February was pulling through steadily but given how much busy Tsukiko had been the last few weeks, she felt like it was dragging very slowly. She felt like she was losing a lot of weight from running all over the place and not getting to eat very much. And she knew that if she lost even a hairline of the baby-fat on her cheeks, Gaara would be on the case.

In order to avoid putting Gaara into yet another of his weird concerns regarding her health, Tsukiko decided that she would do her best to not get sick or even look sickly. She made strict schedules for her meal breaks and for the most part, she stuck to them.

However, much to Tsukiko's disappointment, she could no longer go to the Dango Shop as much as she would've liked to – and it wasn't that she had rescinded her sweet-tooth.

Ever since that the Fourth Shinobi World War had ended, Tsukiko had found herself in the centre of a very unique sort of attention. One that she had never received before, or at least to this degree: people were seeking her affections and showering her with gifts.

It wasn't a secret in Konoha that Tsukiko loved sweets and cute things, especially if they resembled rabbits. And now, she was constantly and unnecessarily hoarded by such things.

There was nothing that she could think about herself that would elicit such a response by the opposite gender but Tsukiko was not having a good time. Shikamaru had come to the conclusion that it was due to the fact that she was the most prominent Hero, even midst Naruto and Sasuke, from the War. On the other hand, Sakura told her that it was due to her features.

"You've grown up now," Sakura told her as they had their lunch together in the hospital, sitting in Tsukiko's office since the girl was always hoarded by other Medics. "You're tall, you're very pretty, you're easy to talk to, strong and come from a good family. And your hair! Everyone loves it,"

"But I haven't talked to more than half of these people before," Tsukiko muttered, stabbing her fork into her fruit salad. "Besides, I'm dating Gaara, they all know that,"

"People are weird, they think they can win you over Gaara," Sakura replied and Tsukiko scrunched her nose up like a rabbit. "You're the only girl out of the three main players of the last war,"

"You would imagine that it would be the one thing that'll stop them," Tsukiko said, frowning. "I feel bad whenever I turn them down, several times for some, and I don't like it because I don't want Gaara to feel uncomfortable with all of this, you see..."

Lunches were easy since Tsukiko mostly had them with Sakura, and breakfast was at home so she didn't run into people. Dinner was tough because she had separate schedule from Sakura in the evening, and there were people who would invite themselves upon her whenever they would see the white-haired girl sitting on her own in a restaurant.

Thus, Tsukiko would often join some of her friends – usually, it was Shikamaru, who was usually with Choji and sometimes Ino. If they were busy, Tsukiko would go have some with Team Eight or with Naruto, if he was not fooling around or on a mission around the village.

Tsukiko had fixed up Naruto with his prosthetic arm and he was already getting used to it. She had helped him with it, and she was happy to see him using it.

One such evening, Tsukiko found herself having her dinner with Naruto, who had picked up Ichiraku as per usual. She didn't mind it much as long as she was with Naruto since men would not dare to approach her while she was with one of her male friends.

"Thank you, Ayame-San," Tsukiko said gratefully as she was served her favourite ramen. "Today's cold weather really calls for something nice and warm,"

"No problem," Ayame replied. "You know, we've been getting a lot of your admirers coming in and asking what sort of ramen you like to eat,"

"Tell them I change every visit," Tsukiko proposed, pulling her chopsticks apart.