Romancing the Kazekage- A Gaara Love Story

The Rain in Nikko

So I am headed to Nepal for about two months (it's sad I don't have any readers in Nepal...I always notice that I have lots of readers in Romania though- hi everyone in Romania!).

ANYWAY. This means no updates until April so I'm updating for the second time this week. I will see if I can get anything written up in Nepal but I doubt it.

Enjoy the chapter!

***

"Have you seen the Kazekage?" The older sister to the Kazekage was growing weary of what was becoming her weekly task; it seemed her youngest brother had taken a liking to playing hide-and-seek with palace officials. The blonde kunoichi walked into the gardens and addressed a group of gardeners. Holding onto their sun hats, faces red with fatigue, fingernails black with earth, the men and women all looked around at each other and shook their heads.

"No, Temari-sama," they recited in unison. Temari tried to not let her brow furrow or her lip twitch in a nervous frustration; she had been looking for twenty minutes and there were no signs of Gaara anywhere! Walking back into the shade of the palace, the woman entered the library. Staff and students looked up when she entered as loudly as possible in a bid to catch their attention. From the dark wooden desks and bookshelves, they peered over to her anxiously.

"Have you seen the Kazekage?" Temari asked the room at large.

"No, Temari-sama," came the expected reply. Leaving the library, Temari could think of no other place Gaara would venture...unless he had gone to the kitchens? Why on Earth would he do that? While she was pondering over her brother's whereabouts, her other brother, the middle sibling, approached her. Temari, hands on hips, utterly fed-up with Gaara's antics, waited for Kankuro to reach her before she asked:

"Have you seen-!?"

"Have you seen-!?" Both were cut short as they asked each other the same question. Kankuro, usually so calm and patient, had his face painted; the purple line around his lips seemed grey and flat as he stared at his sister with discontent. "Where has he gone to now!?" The puppet master exclaimed only to have Temari sigh in exasperation.

"The Kazekage?" Both sand siblings looked over as a student of Gaara's, Sari, spoke as she was about to enter the library. Temari nodded at her. "He's in the palace temple; I saw him walking to it around ten minutes ago," the girl answered hurriedly as she noted the frustrated air around the Kazekage's brother and sister. Once the sand sibling's heard their answer, they turned on their heels and walked swiftly towards the temple. Neither said it, but both thought it: of all the places Gaara could be, they never would have thought it would be the temple.

***

Months ago, this palace temple had been brimming with life. Like a lake at dusk; you could never see what was stirring beneath the water but you could feel its presence. If you concentrated you could sense the vibrations in the cool, cold waters and see the ripples on the surface caused by what slept in the deep. At least, this is how Gaara felt about the palace temple when the women of the Tea House had been staying at the palace.

Before he met Ai, the Kazekage was familiar with both the temple and the Tea House as places other people went to. It was odd to him that these places, made for such opposing purposes, could leave him with the same impression; the temple and the Tea House were strange, guilt-inducing paces where he felt like he did not belong. He would pass the Tea House when leaving Suna and from his carriage would feel the whole building moving, as though it were breathing; he could hear and feel signs of life from within those glass walls. When he had first entered there, he felt utterly at odds with the place; he was not the kind of man to sit in dark corners, drinking with women vying for his attention and watching revelry unfold.