Kaze no koibitō

6

Lunch with Gaara was always a blast, one way or another. Usually Naruto would just talk and Gaara would listen while doing paperwork, but occasionally he would ask Naruto's opinion on a document. That always brought a smile to his face. Currently, however, said blonde did not have a smile on his face and was quite displeased with how Temari's report was going. Apparently none of his friends thought he was cut out to be a teacher. That didn't make his day any better and from the sour look on Temari's face while she was relaying it to Gaara, she hadn't appreciated it either.

"And that's that Gaara. The exams will be in Kumogakure this time and any eligible students are welcome. I'd personally rather not send any genin to Kumo. I don't trust them."

"Yes, I quite agree with you. I think we'll withhold from sending any teams this go around. Naruto, I'm sorry, but I think you need to return to your class now. I might come over this evening, but more than likely I'll be stuck here."

Naruto nodded and left to finish out his day. He had plans for this weekend, plans that included Temari and reading some more of those scrolls. Hell, he needed to learn how to do the rasengan one-handed, so he'd send a couple hundred clones out to the desert to work on that. Hell, he'd make clones to read those scrolls while he was on his date with Temari. He had so much to do here, why not utilize his greatest advantage? And why the hell hadn't he thought of it sooner? He'd lost over two weeks that could have been put to use. The two siblings heard him growl in frustration as he left, but chalked it up to having to deal with the students the rest of the day.

Temari turned back to Gaara and sighed. Hopefully Naruto would be in a better mood by the time their date rolled around.

"I think you deliberately left out some of your report while Naruto was here Temari. Care to explain why?"

"Well...I wanted to tell him those parts personally. They don't really affect the mission...it's more what his friends told me what they thought of him personally. Several of the people in that room caught me at different times during my stay in Konoha to ask about his development here and what I thought. I'm going to have to get a different hotel next time. They wouldn't leave me alone."

"I see. Well, Konoha is of no consequence to Naruto anymore. He is of Suna now. I'm sorry Temari, but I have other matters to tend to. If you'll be so kind as to write up your report and turn it in later, you are excused."

Temari nodded and left out the door, headed to the compound. Her thoughts were running to her date with Naruto and what she should wear. She didn't have anything beyond her normal clothes really. Well, she had a couple exquisite kimonos but aside from that she didn't have anything. She was never one for formal dresses or suits. She didn't like pants, they constricted too much of her movement with the fan. Battle style kimonos or her old battle dress were her favorite clothing. They allowed her full range of movement and in her opinion, made her quite the looker.

She sighed as she walked through the compound's gates. Suna was her home and she never wanted to live anywhere else, but she loved the flora of Konoha. If only they had a garden in Suna, a park, something green. Her own experiments with gardening had ended on a low note. Even the desert flowers hadn't been able to grow under care. She laughed lightly at her misfortune. She was less nurturing than the desert. Yeah, that would attract the guys...

Opening the door, she was greeted by the sight of two of Kankurou's puppets swiveling their heads to look at her. She raised an eyebrow in annoyance at her brother's actions. He knew he wasn't supposed to bring his 'toys' into the living area.

"Hey Kankurou."

He peeked around from a new puppet he was building and grinned at her.

"Hey sis. How was your trip?"