Hello! This takes place right after the Chunin Exams. Not meant to be taken seriously, of course. Mainly a sort of odd bonding fic…
Disclaimer: I do no own Naruto… so there! –hides from lawsuits-
Temari yawned as she stretched. Her bed squeaked loudly in protest.
She grimaced, remembering the previous night. She squinted, trying to remember what had happened. Ah, yes, they had decided to keep pushing on into their village, even though it was well past midnight.
Now she was seriously regretting that decision. A migraine drummed her head in a rhythmic tattoo.
Rubbing the sleep out of her eyes, she got out of the bed. The old, rusted springs sighed loudly in relief.
"I don't weigh that much, you know." She told her bed. Blinking, and wondering vaguely whether she was going insane, she folded the dusty old sheets.
Temari dressed quickly and walked downstairs. With each step, the carpet gave off clouds of dust and sand, and she sneezed.
Stupid Chunin Exams. Stupid furniture. Stupid Baki. Their month-long absence from the house had been more than enough to send everything into deterioration.
She glanced into the hall mirror. Her hair was rumpled and lank, her eyes were red, and she had puffy, dark bags under her eyes. Seething inwardly, she continued on.
Temari clomped into the kitchen, floorboards groaning loudly in protest, where her siblings already were. "Oi, Temari!" Whispered Kankuro.
"What?" Muttered Temari, taking out a coffee pill and plopping it into a cup of water. The water darkened as the rehydrated coffee grounds took effect. She sipped her caffeine fix gratefully.
"Gaara cooked breakfast!" He mumbled urgently, looking frantic. Temari spat out the mouthful of coffee onto Kankuro.
"WHAT?!"
She glanced over to her other little brother, who was calmly reading the newspaper, seemingly oblivious to what was happening around him.
"Shh!" Shushed Kankuro, looking a bit worried. "Yeah, I know! Can you believe that they had to nerve to price those oranges like that?" He said loudly, obviously hoping to remedy her previous outburst while mopping coffee and spittle off of his face.
"Kankuro… face… face… paint!" She mouthed to him. He picked up his spoon, rubbed the rust from it with his sleeve, and peered into the murky depths.
"…Censored!" Off to reapply his makeup, he left Gaara and Temari behind.
Temari now looked at the breakfast apprehensively. She was now seriously regretting telling Kankuro about the paint. He could have survived one day without it. Out of the corner of her cerulean eyes, she glanced at her insane little brother.
He was still reading the newspaper, face expressionless. Glimpsing the front page, she winced.
ATTACK ON KONOHA: HOW WE FAILED MISERABLY!
Ah yes. Very typical of the reporters, the expert vultures they were, to blame it all on Sunagakure. She took another sip of the coffee, and pulled a face.
Temari walked over to the stove. Apparently, it had survived pretty well! She smirked. Poured her cold coffee into a pan, she put it on the stove and turned the fire on.
Bad idea.
"Urk!" A solid ring of fire flared up from the stove all the way to the ceiling. Gaping in disbelief, she watched helplessly as her coffee, pan and all, melted away in the almost cheerful blaze.
When the flames were gone, she plodded over to retrieve the twisted, bubbling, charred remains of what had been some perfectly good coffee and a perfectly good pan.
The ceiling creaked ominously. Looking up, she saw that the fire had actually managed to burn through part of the ceiling. It groaned again.
"…Censored."
Temari leaped away agilely as the ceiling tumbled down, wood supports giving as well as weakened stone. Landing by the doorway, Temari coughed, squinting to make out what had once been a kitchen.
"Gaara?"
He was in excellent health, a barricade of sand keeping the plaster and wood from harming him, and was still calmly reading the newspaper.
"Hey, Temari! What happened?!"
Kankuro thumped heavily down the staircase. As he reached the bottom step, the poor stairs gave way, and his foot broke through. Kankuro fell on his face.
"…"
Gaara had somehow managed to choose just that time to fold up the newspaper and glance at the destruction around him.
Kankuro, with some difficulty, pulled his foot out of the hole in the stairs and sat down rather unwisely on the second step to pull the splinters out of his feet. The unfortunate stairs, not used to such strain, decided to die at that moment.
"ARGH!"
Kankuro, having somehow managed to break the already weakened supports, fell backwards as the stairs collapsed. Splinters flew everywhere, mixing with the cloud of dust. When the dust cleared, the scene revealed Kankuro stuck in the shattered remains of the staircase.
Temari glanced at Gaara. He was poking the remains of his breakfast, covered with plaster and dust, with his chopstick.
"Erm…Gaara…?"
No response. Well, at least I tried. Eye twitching, she walked over to her trapped little brother. With the help of her fan, she eventually managed to ease the banister off of Kankuro.
Kankuro, being the extremely grateful younger sibling he was, scrambled to the relative safety of the living room as soon as he was free. Temari's eye began to twitch again.
It wasn't that she expected a 'thanks, Temari-neechan, you're the best big sister anyone could have' but her little family could do with being more...well…family-ish.
Temari started to rummage in her pack for another coffee pill. Finally, her fingers grasped onto one. The last one! Well, maybe this day isn't so bad after all. She thought, smiling. Deciding that water was overrated, she opened her mouth and in slow motion, started to insert the pill.
"Oi, are you guys ready yet?"
Baki slammed open the door. The door hinges, not used to such violent treatment, were pulled right out of the wall, and the door collapsed.
Baki-sensei, obviously not expecting this, lost his balance as his hands held onto the doorknob. Fortunately (Or in Temari's point of view, unfortunately,) his shinobi training came into play and he let go of the door and rolled away expertly.
The door, however, not being a shinobi and therefore having to follow the laws of gravity, fell down onto Temari.
Temari heaved the old door off of herself, letting it drop down and shatter.
"…"
Gaara, of course, then chose this opportune moment to look up at the increased devastation of the house.
After dusting herself off, Temari took in deep breaths and attempted to calm herself. One, two, three, four…She smiled in a strained, twitching way. Her right eye jerked at irregular intervals.
"So…what the heck happened?"
Baki asked, frowning at the ruined kitchen, staircase, and more recently, the door.
Temari then realized that something was wrong. Very wrong. Her coffee pill was gone!
The dark brown coffee pill was in the shards of the dark brown door! Kneeling down, she anxiously brushed away the shards, searching for her caffeine. Finally she found the smooth brown tablet. She grabbed it triumphantly.
"Temari, what are you doing?"
Kankuro whispered from behind her. Temari dropped the pill. It bounced once, and then fell into a conveniently placed crack in the floorboards.
"NOOOOOOO!!!!"
She shrieked. The others looked at her as if she was insane. In her rage, she searched for something to blame. She settled on the house and Kankuro. Thwap! She slammed her fan down hard on Kankuro's head.
"ITAI!"
Kankuro clutched at his abused cranium and curled up into a fetal position as Temari continued hitting his head with her fan. Baki-sensei rushed in to keep the siblings from killing each other. Gaara, well, just sort of…watched.
"Calm down! For Pete's sake, Temari, control yourself--"
"I've had it with this house! All it ever does is break down and—"
"Ahhh! Help me! Murder! Murder! Argh!—"
Gaara, apparently annoyed at the skirmishing, separated the brawling siblings with wisps of sand. Temari, jumping straight back up from where the sand set her down, declared, "Baki-sensei, our house is a piece of crap! We need a new one."
Hmm, interesting. Usually Kankuro was the blunt, direct one. Baki looked over his students critically. They all looked baggy-eyed, dusty, and tired. And irritated. Very irritated.
Wait—Gaara always looked like that.
Anyways, this meant that most likely, they would be difficult to deal with! Oh, joy! Baki had found that in all his years as a shinobi, one of his most distasteful tasks ever was teaching these brats. Kids. Honorable children of the Fourth Kazekage. Whatever.
That reminded him-- their Kazekage was dead. And so was a good amount of their shinobi. This was why he had to get these little bundles of insane and homicidal joytrained up to Chunin level as quickly as possible. One, it gave him time to go on long-term missions, and two, they would also help out with their village. Yes, good plan, self!
"Time for our training." He stated, ignoring Temari. "We have a bunch of missions piled up for today, so we should get a start on it."
"Oi! Are you even listening to me?!" Temari fumed not-so-silently. Her complexion was darkening rapidly, and her hands were twitching as if she was really, really, longing to kill something.
"We need new stuff! Just because we're shinobi doesn't mean that we can't live in at least semi-partial comfort!" She ranted. Kankuro started to open his mouth, but then touched his head tenderly, and closed it again. Baki rolled his eyes, used to these sorts of outbursts.
"There is still the problem of where the money would come from. And where would we purchase it anyways?"
Gaara raised his head from staring at the fascinating swirls and patterns in the floorboards.
"Kazekage-sama is deceased, and as his only living relatives, there should be a will. Also, with all of the dead shinobi, their families will be selling their furniture in considerable amounts in an auction tomorrow morning."
Everyone's, including Baki's, unhinged and fell to the ground as they stared at Gaara. Gaara, not only speaking two whole, complete sentences, but actually aiding them? Run for your lives!
Gaara returned to studying the floor. Temari was the first to recover.
"Yes…yes! Brilliant, Gaara!"
In elation, she stepped forward and started to open up her arms to hug her little brother. Then, recovering from her moment of insanity, she stepped back quickly and waited for a moment to check if he had noticed. Fortunately, he had not. Relieved, she grinned.
"Well, it's settled. Tomorrow we go to the auction!"
Please review! I know they ALL say that, but I like to pretend that I'm special sometimes. Feedback of any kind is always helpful.