Desert Flower

Shit, It Might Be a Date

(A/N: I thought it was finally time to show off older Sayuri in her chompy glory!)

  "Hold this." Kankuro dropped a puppet head in my lap as he was tinkering inside the body of it. Holding up the head, I curiously tapped at the wooden teeth. The mouth ended up popping open, and I turned the head as quickly as I could when a needle shot out. "Yeah, watch out for the mouth."

  "A little late for that." I popped off, and Kankuro snickered.

  "You'll be fine."

  "Anything else I should watch for?"

  "Nah, most of the weapons are in the body." Even though he said that, I wasn't going to risk it and left the puppet's face towards the ceiling.

  "Sayuri." I looked up to see Gaara standing in the doorway. "Ready to get ramen?"

  "Hell, yeah." I grinned while hopping up from where I sat and tossed Kankuro back the puppet's head. Kankuro fumbled to catch it, and I could feel him shooting me a look as I walked toward Gaara.

  "Oh, I see how it is. Leaving me all alone to go on a date." Kankuro teased and, without saying a word, I threw a shuriken in his direction. He cleared his throat while turning away to pull the weapon out of the neck of his puppet. "Have fun."

  "Ignore him, Gaara. He's just teasing. So, ramen? Let's go." I quickly walked out of the room as Gaara followed me down the hallway. It was rather quiet as we went through the village to the ramen restaurant.

  "I'm....sorry. About Kankuro, I mean. Sometimes his teasing can be a bit....much."

  "Ah, it's fine. He's probably just jealous he's not getting ramen." I smiled while walking into the ramen shop and plopping down on a stool. Glancing around, I didn't say anything when I noticed no one was giving Gaara dirty looks or talking negatively about him in hushed tones. They honestly seemed to appreciate his presence there.

  Even the cook acknowledged the redhead in a positive manner.

  'My, how things have changed.' I thought while breaking my chopsticks apart.

  "Your hands don't hurt, do they?"

  "Huh? Oh, no. Not really. They just aren't fully healed yet." I waved the boy off while pulling my bowl closer. "You should see Naruto, though. The other day, he came back from a mission and had to get an entire cast! Also from his own Jutsu." I scoffed while picking up some noodles.

  "A cast?"

  "Yeah. Came with a good scolding from Sakura." Blowing on the noodles, I then stuffed them into my mouth. "We're both in chakra time-out."

  "Chakra time-out?"

  "Can't use chakra until we're healed. Though, knowing Naruto, he probably won't listen."

  "And you?"

  "I'm going to listen to those particular orders. It's not a big issue for me, though, since I trained specifically for any instance I might not be able to use chakra."

  "Why don't you just heal?"

  "Mm, I don't actually like taking chakra unless I'm fighting or have no other choice. I can heal for a bit on my own this time around. So, what about you? What have you been up to?"

  "Same as before. Signing documents, checking mission reports, assigning missions, filing paperwork."

  "I honestly don't know how you could sit through that." I chuckled while shaking my head.