Unheard
Most of the time Gaara ignores the children's laughter outside his office. He pretends he doesn't hear them having fun; he pretends he doesn't hear the sound of their ball hitting the side of the building.
Most of all, even more than he pretends he doesn't hear the children, Gaara pretends he doesn't hear the Ichibi calling out to him (What is that noise? Kill them, kill kill kill!), but every day it gets harder to ignore.
He sits doing mounds of paperwork until he's sure his hands are bleeding, until he's sure he can hear the awful sound of blood pounding throughout his veins, and until he's absolutely certain he's ready to call Temari for a painkiller to relieve his headache.
He focuses on the sound his pen makes when it collides with the paper as he messily scrawls out notes. He focuses on the ticking of the clock on his wall, or on the sound of hurried footsteps in the hallway outside his door.
Gaara doesn't hear the children saying, "Pass the ball," or "Hey! Over here!"
Gaara doesn't hear the ball rolling through the sand when no one catches it. And…Gaara definitely doesn't sense a new presence outside, or hear the protests of the other kids.
"You can't play here!" They say, but Gaara doesn't hear it.
He doesn't hear sniffling or crying from the child that had picked up the ball, and he doesn't hear the group walking away.
Of all the noises Gaara pretends he doesn't hear, there is one noise he can never bring himself to ignore.
"Wait!" The outsider cries, and Gaara freezes.
When he hears the kid calling out, his pen stops on the paper and ink appears in a large pool that covers something important. (Something the council of elders cannot go without for one more day.)
But this happens every night, and Gaara always hears the "Wait!" and Gaara always stops writing. And because this happens every night, every morning the council of elders is denied something they needed.
Tonight, for the first time, Gaara steps outside his office and picks up the ball, looking to the child that stands all alone trying to stifle the sounds of his own misery.
"Want to play?" He asks hesitantly.
And when the little boy smiles, Gaara decides that the council can continue going without whatever it was they needed, because the little boy obviously needs him more.
At the end of the night, when the little boy is all tuckered out and Gaara's robes have been stretched from child-sized hands latching onto him, he steps back into his office and continues ignoring his paperwork.
His headache is gone, and though he should feel as if he just committed a selfless act, Gaara can't help but feel anything but a sense of selfish accomplishment.
He isn't proud that he just made the child's day. He is proud because that was the first game of catch that he had ever played, and he won.
Gaara sits behind his piles of paperwork, satisfied with himself, and the pounding on his office door goes unheard.
Wallowing in pride, he has found another reason to ignore things for the night.