Forevermore ~Gaara~

Chapter 9

It was finally the weekend. Gaara was up before everyone else as usually. Sleep is not something that came particularly easy to him, and even when he did sleep, it didn't last long. Before anyone got up tough... he had to check in with Kaita. It was wrong of him, it really was. But he had asked Kaita to keep an eye on Honiji before she started her first day. That... and gather information about her. Honiji couldn't know. For all she knew right now, Kaita was an ordinary school librarian she had met by chance.

He opened his computer and began to look through a list of information Kaita had sent him. It was all stuff he already knew though, like her employment with the Konoha public library and connection to the royal family and Hokage. She had sent him a quick message as well. "It's the weekend. Spend time with her. Get her to open up. The smallest details are all I need to blow her mystery wide open."

Gaara wasn't extremely happy with how they were going about this. But he had a very limited amount of time with this girl, and he need to know about her at least a respectable amount if he was going to convince her to stay after their grace period was over. The alliance has to stand.

Several minutes later, Temari was awake and walking around, doing her usual weekend house work. Laundry came first. She had his under her arm and was getting ready to take it outside to hang on the line. "How in the hell did you get this thing dirty?"

Gaara glared as Kankuro sleepily stumbled into the kitchen, groping the air for the coffee pot. "Ask him."

Kankuro was instantly awake then and laughed nervously when he saw the now clean object in Temari's hand. "Bad prank idea. Very bad."

Temari only shook her head and continued outside with the laundry. Her brothers antics are something she has come to basically ignore in her twenty four years. But she thought at some point Kankuro might actually grow up. No such luck in that department.

Honiji was the last to bounce into the kitchen, hair down for the first time that week since she didn't have to go anywhere. "Isn't a little early for him to be in trouble?" She asked, noticing the nervous Kankuro and glaring Gaara.

"Hey, I am not in trouble. He's just over reacting!"

"I only made you clean it up. That's being very forgiving in my book."

"But you won't let it go!"

Honiji grinned to herself as she poured herself a cup of coffee. "That's not over reacting then, that's holding a grudge."

"Ooh, she told you." Temari said as she came trough the back door.

"There's no way you could hear that conversation!"

"The window is open block-head. Go get ready, I need you to come with me in town."

Kankuro grumbled and slunk off around the corner. Honiji put her hand over her mouth and tried to keep from laughing. This family. Gaara glanced at her from the corner of his eye, happy to see her doing better since yesterday. She was quiet and reserved the rest of the day after Paku asked her about her casting abilities.

That was another area he had asked Kaita to look into. From her transcript, Gaara knew that Honiji was a very talented magic user and studied hard. So why did she try to convince them they didn't need to see her magic? And why did she only demonstrate using light that already existed? Something was up. But he knew if he wanted to get anything out of her, she needed to trust him first.

He would have to think of something for them to do together when he got back from the office today. Gaara continued to watch Honiji as she stood at the counter and looked out the window. Something back there caught her attention. "Hey, do you guys have a dog?" She asked.

"No, Kankuro's allergic. Why?"

"Because there's one tearing something up in the back yard. It looks like a stuffed animal."

Gaara felt all the color drain from his face as he bolted from his seat and out the back door. Honiji followed and stopped in the doorway, sensing some severity in his actions. The dog dropped what he had been beating around and ran off when he saw Gaara coming. Gaara kneeled down and started to collect the object. But how his shoulders now slumped and the sound of his sigh did not go unnoticed by the young girl.

"Gaara?" He turned with a mass of something in his hand, walking back to the door. His face was down cast and somehow sad. Moving around her, Gaara simply tossed the mass in the trash can and picked up his cup from the table.

"I have to go into the office for a few hours. When I get back, how about we take a walk around the village?"

He didn't look at her. Only focused on washing out his cup. For some reason, it made Honiji's heart hurt. He's obviously saddened for some reason. And while he generally doesn't show much in the range of happiness, Honiji could see the change. "Sure. It sounds like fun." She tried to put a little more hype in her voice to fan the cloud of back away.

Gaara looked to her with a small sad smile and collected his papers before heading out the door. She couldn't help but be worried about him. Sure, she's only known him for a week, but she likes to think that they've become friends in that time. Maybe she could do something nice for him. That's exactly what she was going to do!

Honiji ran off to her room and grabbed her sewing supplies, planning to shang-hi the kitchen table for a little bit and make something that would bring at least some joy to Gaara. Looking through her patterns, she wondered what he might like. Her elbow hit her seam ripper, pushing it off the table and causing it to roll across the kitchen. Oh darn, she thought as se got up to chase after it. It finally came to a stop when it hit the trash can.

..... What was it that got torn up? Generally speaking, Honiji is not a curious creature. But this time, she can't seem to stop wondering. Quickly looking around to make sure no one is really around, Honiji opens the trash can. Is that... a teddy bear? Stuffing was everywhere and strips of torn brown fabric made a sad sight. She quietly collected the pieces and lined them up on the kitchen table.

Oh boy, Honiji thought. It was really torn up. But this is a challenge she had been looking for. Her hair was pulled up in a pony tail and pushed back with a thick cloth headband in no time. She threaded a needle with some quilting thread and set to work.

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It had taken Gaara longer than originally thought to finish his work. It was getting kind of late by the time he started for home. He hoped Honiji wasn't to bored by herself all day. But then, maybe she needed the day to herself. He remembered hearing about her from Tomoe. She's anti-social and often holes up by herself for awhile. But she's been spending all week with at least someone by her.

Gaara walked in the house and could hear the wrr sound of a sewing machine coming from the kitchen. Looks like she found something to do. Walking in, he found her, completely concentrated on what looked like a dress, hair pulled back and a sucker stick hanging from her mouth. She looked up briefly. "Oh hey, welcome back."

"You look like you kept busy."

"The girls at school became very interested in me when they found out I can sew. I'm making good money fixing their clothes." She went back to work and Gaara let a small smile form on his lips. She seems to be doing very well here. He moved to the fridge to get a bottle of water and looked back over to her. But not before something very surprising caught his eye.

On the counter... was his teddy bear. The very one that had been destroyed earlier that day. But how...?

Honiji got up from her spot to hang up the dress and make sure the hem was even when she noticed what he was looking at. "I found it in the trash. It took awhile to figure out where everything went, but I think it came out alright."

He couldn't believe it. Picking it up, he ran his thumb over one of the seams and gazed at the young girl again. She was still inspecting her work on the dress. "Honiji... thank you." She turned a smile to him and nodded. Now... he was more than ever that he wanted her to stay with him.