Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.
You might think that before he came back to his senses, Gaara was only consistently a monster, that he never displayed any signs of humanity. Well, you're wrong. I should know; I'm his sister.
I stood, mute, staring at the toaster, willing it to give me toast that wasn't burnt to a blackened, unappetizing crisp on one side and barely even singed on the other. Sure enough, when the slices popped up they were extremely uneven, one side black and the other white. Yum.
After smoothing on butter and grape jelly on the toast to make it edible and pouring a cup of fragrant tea, I sat down at the small table with Kankuro. Kankuro had microwaved last night's barbecue pork and was prying apart pieces of warm, moist pork with his fingers; I snagged a piece of meat off of his plate and smiled through the meat when he glared sullenly at me.
We ate in silence; neither one of us were morning people, and until after we'd had tea or coffee we were no good to anybody. We were alone; Father never ate with us, and Gaara was usually down and out long before we were even awake. After breakfast, we'd always head to Baki's house, to train, to talk or to just do nothing at all; Gaara was either already there or arrived at about the same time as we did.
Well, that day was going to be a bit different.
Kankuro and I stiffened as we heard small, light footsteps in the hall, and we didn't dare turn around as the door to the kitchen slowly creaked open, like one of those old scary movies—the corny ones, not the good ones. We watched in disbelief as Gaara passed us in the sunlit kitchen, and I swear I didn't breathe for the whole three minutes it took him to prepare his own breakfast.
He was utterly silent, not saying a word to us, not meeting our eyes. As he pulled a ceramic bowl out of the cabinet, I was struck by how small he as. Gaara was only ten, and he was small for his age, but he was also the single most terrifying person I had ever met, and I had never really noticed his tininess before. I was noticing that morning though, as he mutely strained and stretched his small, skeletally thin white arms towards the cabinet, finally using his sand to procure a bowl. Gaara only filled the bowl up about halfway with cereal and milk; he didn't eat nearly as much as we did.
Gaara sat down apart from us at the table, shooting a slightly sickened glance at Kankuro's barbecue as he did so; for reasons I neither fathomed nor wanted to understand, Gaara and meat did not mix in the mornings. He just sat there and ate, poring over the cereal bowl.
When we were all done, I was shocked (and I think Kankuro was too) when, without prompting, Gaara started the process of washing the dishes. Kankuro looked at me, eyebrows raised. What brought this on? I wish I knew.
Then, maybe because the silence was unbearable or just because he was Kankuro, Kankuro started off the morning with the sort of taunt only a little brother could make. "Hey, Temari, bet I cream you at taijutsu practice."
I rolled my eyes; twelve-year-olds, who needed them? "In your dreams. You know, I can't even find that booklet of tai techniques Baki gave us to study from."
"It's in the living room," Gaara said quietly.
We both snapped around. "What?" Kankuro asked too loudly, his eyes round with shock. I could hardly blame him; it had been literally days since the last time we heard him speak.
Gaara looked up at us, a mixture of deafening blankness and uncertainty, his pale green eyes almost blue in the light. "The booklet is in the living room, under the coffee table."
"…Thank you," I said slowly.
He nodded. Finished with his task, Gaara started for the door, turning at the threshold. "You're going to Baki's house today, aren't you?"
"Yes," Kankuro answered, shifting warily.
"Okay." Gaara looked down at his feet. "I'll see you there, then."
When he left, it was like a weight was taken out of the air; Kankuro forcibly expelled the breath he had been holding in for so long.
We exchanged sad, bewildered looks, lost for words; my fingers itching, I adjusted one of my pigtails.
I always feared days like that one, for one reason and one only.
My father taught me how to kill, taught me how to sacrifice anything and everything for the village. He taught me that if something went wrong I would have to kill Gaara to keep Suna; Kankuro couldn't be trusted to do the job.
But days like that one reminded me of all the ways I couldn't do it.