Hi there peoples!

Today (19/1) is Gaara's birthday, so here's a little something that popped in my head today. I know it's not my best work (for now), but I promise it'll get better :)

I was planning on doing a one-shot and wrapping it all up today, but I didn't have much time to write today, and now it's 3 a.m. here and I'm like in a complete zombie state, so I had to leave it like this. But fear not! I already have the first part of Chapter 2, and I'll finish it and publish it first thing tomorrow. Anywayz, hope you like it, and thanks for reading! XD

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Beep beep beep beep. 7.00 a.m. His hand rose from inside the sheet and turned off the alarm clock.

Just another normal day. Just a day like all the others. Same routine: waking up (given that he slept that night), showering, putting on his heavy and discomfortable robes…Kami, how he preferred his old clothes, much lighter and easier to move in, and of course much cooler, but the damn elders made him use this. "A Kazekage must have proper and elegant attire, significant of his position", they said. Yeah, right…

As all days before this, it was just going to be the most normal/boring of days, filled with endless loads of papers to sign, laws to review, a meeting with the elders to discuss any special event or any unusual occurrences in the village, all the works. Yeah, that was just the right word, the works. The boring works of someone who is supposed to be the protector of his village, to zeal for the well-being of his people, and instead is forced to sit day after day in a small, stuffy office, dealing with bureaucracy and papers, like a politician.

To make matters worse, both his brother and his sister were out on missions. Kankuro had gone to a nearby village to capture a missing-nin who had been causing some trouble lately, and Temari was on her way to Konoha because she had received a letter from that lazy Nara guy asking her for help to deal with something concerning the next Chuunin exams. His siblings were the only people who really kept him company instead of just bugging him with papers and trivial stuff.

Yup, just the ordinary day, like all others. But with a slight difference: Gaara turned 17 today.

Yes, it was his birthday, but it was a normal a day as the others, nothing special. He was used to it, of course. He had spent most of his past years alone, making death threats to his siblings (and mostly anyone, for that matter), escaping death at the hand of his own father, behaving as a lunatic and killing people just for pleasure…

But it had changed. He had changed. There was, after all, something different from last years. He was no longer a bloodthirsty madman, and he no longer hosted a destructive psychotic demon inside him.

After the Shukaku had been removed from him, his life had bettered considerably. He now had people who he could call friends, although he didn't see them very often, and he could now count on his brother and sister to help him, advise him on the various things he didn't yet understand, mainly about feelings and thing related to social interaction, and to care for him and provide the affection he never had as a small child (this part was mostly Temari smothering him from time to time and sometimes acting like she was his mother, but he was thankful for having her). And he could sleep now. He still wasn't used to sleeping, and at first he didn't quite grasp the notion of how someone could just "shut off" and be inactive for such a long period of time, but after a few tries he managed to empty his mind and drift into periods of light slumber, and he had to admit it was indeed relaxing.

He finally decided to get out of his bed. He got up and opened the blinds and the curtains on his window and was greeted with a dark grey sky and the heavy patter of raindrops on the window glass.

'Great, it's raining…the one day when it rains in desert had to be today.'

He went into the bathroom, took off his shirt and boxers and stepped into the shower. He tilted his head back so the warm water would fall evenly on his blood red hair. After it was wet, Gaara proceeded to pour his cinnamon-scented shampoo into his hands and spread it across his hair, massaging it. Enjoying the feel of the warm water running down his back, he started thinking about random things, such as what would dinner be that night or if someone would remember that it was his birthday, when suddenly the shower water turned cold. He jumped at the icy feel on his body and turned off the water, waiting a few minutes to see if it would come back warm again…but it didn't. It just came even colder than before.

'This is not happening…' Gaara thought. He quickly rinsed the shampoo from his hair and hurried out of the shower, wrapping himself tightly inside a big fluffy towel. He went back towards his room to get dressed, and shortly after left for the Kazekage building.

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It was almost noon and Gaara hadn't stopped for a minute yet. A huge pile of papers and mission reports had already been waiting for him at his desk when he arrived to his office, and finally he was almost done with all of them. And after that, another meeting with the elders, probably to lecture him again about his attitude or something, or to discuss boring things like the fishing trade deal with the Tea Country.

Not to mention it was still raining. A lot.

As he predicted, no one in the office had remembered his birthday. Not that it mattered, of course, he himself didn't care much about it being his birthday or not, but nonetheless it would be nice if someone remembered…or maybe they didn't know. Anyway, it wasn't that important. He focused on his work so he would finish it quickly and maybe be able to take the afternoon off. As he was picking up all his work from the table and putting the files in order, to put them away, a huge air current came through the office door with such force that the window, which was not totally closed, burst open and all of the documents on the table flew out the window, into the rain. Gaara just stood staring at the open window in absolute disbelief.

'You have got to be kidding me…' he slumped onto his chair and put his head on his palms, leaning his elbows on the table. He took a deep breath. 'I'm calm. I'm calm. I'm calm.' he repeated this mantra, slowly rubbing the kanji on his forehead. This day just couldn't be happening. 'I'm calm. Okay…' he closed the window all the way this time and called his secretary to ask for another copy of all the documents and spent two more hours filling them all again, this time at a surprising speed, seeing as he was already tired of sitting there all morning reading file after file of the most uninteresting topics he could imagine, and wanted desperately to get out of there.

'Oh, right, now there's the meeting with the elders…damn.' he sighed, putting away the documents on his drawer. He got up from his chair, dragging his feet towards the meeting room.

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So, hope you liked it so far! I know it's not the best ending for a chapter, but as I said before it was supposed to be a one-shot and I had to leave it like this for now, but I'll be posting the 2nd part tomorrow (I promise!!). Now please excuse me while I go die temporarily on my bed. *crashes*

Please R&R, it makes my pet star shine a little brighter! XD