Something was wrong.
Gaara thought hard, but his mind was fogged and sluggish. He looked down. He had an empty cup of sake in his hand. He was wearing a gold kimono embroidered with red and a red obi embroidered with blue. He looked back up. A girl with buns and a brown and pink kimono was yelling at Lee, who wore a green kimono with a blue obi. Lee was blushing brightly and trying to talk to the girl, but she continued to scold him. Behind him stood his sensei, who had a hand on his shoulder. Gaara felt a hand brush his arm. He turned to see Temari standing beside him, looking at him critically.
"Oh, Gaara…" she said with a sigh. "You're drunk."
♥
Temari, Kankuro, and Gaara walked through the gates of Konoha. They were greeted by a few escorts sent by the Hokage to show them to their hotel. As soon as they arrived they dismissed the escorts. Temari set her things in her room and announced that she was helping with the New Year's party, so she would be busy the next two days. Kankuro seemed bored with the whole thing and simply went to his room without a word. Once Temari left, Gaara silently walked out of the hotel and into the streets.
He walked seemingly aimlessly for a while, partially to lose any followers (he was the Kazekage, after all) and partially because he was lost. Finally, a shop owner pointed him in the right direction and he found his destination. He used a sand jutsu to silently appear in a tree above a training ground. Below was a lone ninja kicking a tree stump reinforced with pads. He wore a green jumpsuit, orange legwarmers, and a red ninja headband around his waist. His glossy black hair was in a bowl cut. He had thick eyebrows and a strong, beautiful face. Although he was sweating and breathing hard, he moved quickly and precisely, never allowing himself to lose concentration.
Gaara made himself comfortable on a branch and watched the handsome ninja train. It was more than an hour before Rock Lee noticed he wasn't alone.
He stopped and looked up, calling out, "Hello? Who's there?"
"It might be a friend," Gaara called back.
"Gaara… Gaara-chan, is that you?" He swelled with joy despite himself. Suddenly a whirlwind of sand appeared behind him, and he turned to see Gaara smiling at him. "Gaara-chan!" He swiftly scooped the boy up in his arms and twirled him around in a tight hug. "Oh, Gaara-chan, I've missed you so! I didn't know you were coming to visit! What are you doing here? How long are you staying?"
"Temari dragged us here for the New Year's party. Not sure, as long as I feel like, I suppose."
"You're going to the party too? Wonderful! …Say, how long were you watching me?"
"A while." Gaara shrugged the question off and looked straight into his dark eyes. He reached one hand behind Lee's head to pull him down into a kiss. After a moment they separated and Lee smiled.
"You never were one for talking much. Have you not missed me? I wish there was a way one of us could move closer to each other…"
"Miss you? Lee, I only think about you every day. And we both have our duties in our own villages…"
Lee sighed. "My goal was always to become a magnificent ninja, but now that I am, Konoha needs me, and, well, I couldn't just leave. And of course the Kazekage leaving Suna is out of the question…"
"That's depressing. Let's not think about it right now." Gaara kissed him again, and Lee kissed back passionately, instantly forgetting all his worries.
♥
The next two days went by quickly. Gaara spent almost all of his time out somewhere unknown to his siblings, although Temari had a hunch. She herself was too busy helping prepare for the New Year's party to think about it, though. Kankuro found amusements around the village, whatever that meant.
An hour before the party started, Temari got her brothers together to tell them the plan. "Okay, we all decided to make this party a dress-up of sorts. Here are your outfits. Go try them on." She handed them each a pile of folded silk.
Kankuro came out almost as soon as he went into his room. "What the hell, Temari! I'm not wearing a dress!"
"Everyone will be wearing kimonos. Calm down. Just go put it on."
"No way! If you're making me wear this thing, I'm not going!"
"You aren't going to the party without it. And you will go to the party."
Just then Gaara emerged from his room wearing a gold kimono. He was holding it closed loosely with one hand and held the red obi in the other. "Temari? How do you wear this thing?"
"Oh, here, I'll help you." As she tied the obi for him, she couldn't stop herself from thinking that as Gaara stood there, half dressed in a beautiful silk kimono and looking utterly confused, that her little brother was actually really cute.
Gaara waited as his siblings argued for a while longer and eventually got dressed themselves. As they came out he realized that Temari must have made his kimono specially. Her own was purple hemmed with gold with a gold obi. Kankuro's was red with a purple obi. Although they were still very fine, they were dull in comparison of Gaara's. His was a brilliant gold finely embroidered with red dragons, with a red obi embroidered a magnificent blue the exact same hue as his eyes. Always special treatment for the Kazekage.
♥
"Gaara!" Temari snapped. "You're late! Where were you? Tsk, just get inside, the party already started." She opened the sliding doors to the main room. A few people came up to greet him, but he brushed them off indifferently. This was going to be boring as hell. He settled himself against a wall near a refreshment stand. None of the food really caught his eye, so he simply poured himself a cup of sake.
A couple of hours passed. Gaara continued to stay against the wall, ignoring anyone who attempted to come talk to him, and drinking sake. He thought he felt a bit buzzed, but he had never drunk much alcoholic drinks before, so he couldn't tell. At one point Lee and his sensei Gai came in, Lee in a green kimono with a blue obi and Gai in a blue kimono with a green obi. Gaara started to walk over to him, but something stopped him.
There was a girl with pink hair in a red kimono talking to Lee. No, it was more like Lee went over to talk to her. He was talking excitedly and laughing. This made Gaara angry, though he couldn't quite think why…
"Gaara-chan!" Lee exclaimed upon seeing him. "I'm so glad you're here!…..Er, why are you flushed? Are you okay?"
Gaara looked between Lee and the girl with pink hair. "Who is she?"
"I'm Sakura. Don't you remember me?" she answered.
"…Shut up. Go away."
"Gaara-chan!" Lee said. "What are you saying? Sakura-chan is my friend! What's wrong with you? You're acting very strange." Gaara hesitated a moment, as though he was trying to clear his mind, then embraced Lee.
This caught Sakura and Lee, as well as anyone nearby who cared to look, off guard. Then Sakura noticed something. "Lee, he's holding a sake cup."
Lee looked down at the redhead holding him. "Gaara-chan? You haven't been drinking…have you?"
"Er, Gaara-sama, I think you're a tad drunk," Sakura said. "Perhaps you should…"
"Shut up!" Gaara snapped. "Go away!"
"Gaara-chan! Cut it out! How many cups of sake have you had?" Lee looked angry although he was blushing.
"What… Why were you talking to her? Why didn't you come find me?"
"I just saw her first! I didn't see you!"
Gaara continued to hold Lee but looked back at Sakura. "I told you to go away."
"Gaara! Stop talking to Sakura-chan like that!"
"Why? Do you like her more than me?"
"What? No! I mean, I-" His sentence was interrupted by lips firmly pressed against his own. Nearly the entire room fell into a shocked hush. Lee pushed Gaara away forcefully.
Sakura held a hand up to her mouth. "Lee… Gaara? What…?"
"S-Sakura-chan…" Lee started, but stopped when Gai pressed a hand down on his shoulder. The awkward silence dissolved into murmurs of conversations breaking out across the room.
"LEE!" Tenten, who wore a pink and brown kimono, stormed over to him and stuck a finger in his face angrily. "What the hell was that?"
"No, I can explain-"
"You'd better! Are you ashamed of being in love?"
"Please, I… Wait, what?"
"Are you ashamed? Why did you push Gaara away? Did you break up without telling me?"
"Break up?" Sakura asked.
"What? No! We didn't! I mean…" He stopped and turned bright red at the realization of what he just revealed.
"Then why did you push him away? Are you ashamed to show your affection in public?"
"Tenten, he's-"
"You should know better! You should know by now that love is love and you should not care if people know you're gay! You can't have a boyfriend in private and ignore him in public!" She continued to scold him for a while.
Gaara turned to see Temari standing beside him. "Oh, Gaara… You're drunk."
"Shut up, I'm not drunk…"
"Yes you are. You already know that I support you and Lee, but it's not normal to show affection like that in public."
"You knew about this?" Kankuro asked Temari as he came up to Gaara's other side.
"Well, Tenten and I did sort of hook them up."
"Why haven't I heard anything about this yet?"
"You don't pay attention. It's not like Gaara tries to keep it a secret. Not that the alcohol helped."
"Should I take him back to the hotel?"
"…Yeah." Temari walked over to Tenten, Lee, and Gai. "I'm sorry about Gaara's actions. He's really drunk."
"I don't care about that," Tenten responded. "I'm mad at Lee for refusing him, even if he is drunk. Nobody's going to care."
"Tenten-chan, I…" Lee started.
"She's right, Lee." Gai squeezed his shoulder. "I know you were embarrassed, but if you love him, it shouldn't matter who knows."
"But, Gai-sensei, I'm not embarrassed! He was drunk! He just surprised me!"
Temari looked around at all the people watching them and whispering. "All right everyone, so Gaara had a bit too much sake. Get back to the party. It's not even midnight yet."
♥
Lee was worried. After all the commotion at the New Year's party last night, it was already early evening and he hadn't heard from Gaara or either of his siblings. Were his siblings mad at him? Was Gaara embarrassed about getting drunk and kissing him in public? They didn't leave already, did they?
His thoughts were interrupted by a knock at his door. He opened the door to find Gaara standing there, arms crossed, looking like nothing happened. He was about to invite him in, but he came in anyways. "Um, Gaara-chan?"
"Lee… Are you mad at me?"
"What? Why would I be mad at you?"
"I can't recall last night, but my siblings tell me I got drunk and started acting really stupid. From the way they described it, I thought you…" He turned his head away as a slight blush crept across his cheeks.
"No, I could never be mad at you, Gaara-chan. It's just, you weren't acting yourself, and I wasn't sure how to react." Gaara looked at him, the edges of his mouth turned upward ever so subtly.
"Can I stay here tonight?"
"What? Er… why? Don't you have a hotel?"
"We're leaving for Suna tomorrow. I want to stay here with you. You know I don't sleep anyways."
Lee thought for a moment, sighed, and assumed the big grin he often wore. "Of course you can, Gaara-chan." He walked over to his lover and lifted his chin to kiss him.
"…I love you."
"I love you too."
♥