Once during a lunch break, which Gaara got accustomed to spending with his sister and his nephew, Temari hugged her two-years-old son close and asked her giggling child,
"What is your favourite color?".
She liked to ask those silly questions a lot lately – they were mostly rhetorical like: "Aren't you the cutest son?" or "Did you have to fall into the mud?"
But Gaara didn't mind, as long as they weren't directed at him.
Shikadai's answer was immediate.
"White and blue!" he exclaimed, grinning happily.
Temari smiled at the excitement of his son and tenderly stroked his spiky hair, which reminded her so much of her husband's.
"Why?"
The grin she received got wider. "Because it's my favourite view, look!"
And he pointed at the deep blue sky, where a fuzzy little cloud tried to mask the sun but found out that it was too small and too far to the south to do so. It resembled a tiny, fluffy hedgehog - if you squinted and looked at it from the corner of your eyes.
Temari couldn't help but to shake her head – yep, like father, like son.
She fake-pouted at Shikadai. "But I thought that I am your favourite view, cutiepie!"
Her son would have answered, had she not started to tickle him and smother him with kisses the second he opened his mouth. A hawk, startled by the shrieking laughter, rose with irritation into the sky, alerting other hawks that they should avoid his former resting place in case the annoying humans stayed there for longer.
Gaara, used to the bickering and squabble of her sister, was once again occupied with eating his bento and didn't pay much attention to the two people next to him - until he heard his name.
"Uncle Gaara, what are your favourite colors?"
Lowering his chopsticks, he thought about the question for a moment and murmured, "Red and green"
Shikadai cocked his head at that: "Why?"
Gaara frowned. He had never thought about it. It just came to him. He looked down at his robe.
"I wear red, my hair is red – I figured, I just like it."
"And what about green?"
"What about it?"
"You said you like green!"
Gaara shrugged. "So?"
He ignored the exasperated sigh and the eye-roll his sister gave him.
"Why is green your favourite color?"
Gaara thoughtfully chewed. "I just like it, that's all"
As unsatisfying as that sounded, Shikadai just went with it and turned to his mother.
"And what is your favourite color?"
Gaara didn't hear the answer. He was too busy focusing on one thing: Why, of all things, did he like green so much?
As much as he thought about it, he didn't know the answer.
It was one week later, when three Konoha nin stood in front of his desk, reporting from a mission he had sent them on, when he looked at the toothy grin of one blushing Rock Lee - and it came to him.
Oh.
Later that evening, when Lee sat down next to Gaara after they had a little training session together, he couldn't help but ask:
"What are your favourite colors?"
Lee blinked, blushed and couldn't quite meet his eyes. "Green… and red"
Struggling but finally meeting the eyes of his counterpart, he added "They remind me of my two most important persons"
Gaara didn't know what to say to that.
They sat there for long, silent moments and just looked at each other. And smiled.
...
"Will you be staying here for longer, Lee?"
"Yes, Kazekage-sa-"
"Please, call me Gaara"
"Hai, Gaara"