Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.


PARENTHOOD

/ˈper-ənt-ˌhůd/

the state of being a parent and the responsibilities involved [parent: a father or a mother; be or act as a mother or father to (someone) whether adopted or biological; to give (a child) nurturing and love; a guardian or protector to a person]


"Sonovabitch!"

Shizune blinked, pausing as she was placing her key card in the slot to enter the labs. Why does it sound like there's a KID in the medical labs? Shizune thought frantically as she pushed her key card in, pushing open the door to find a teenaged boy washing his hands, biting his lip in frustration.

"Who are you?" Shizune asked the boy as soon as she collected herself from the surprise of seeing a teenager. He blinked in slight surprise, his hands still under the water coming out of the faucet. He remained silent for a moment while Shizune finished collecting herself, upon which her brow furrowed in slight irritation at being unanswered by the foreign intruder. "Well? Who are you?"

"I'm Shizuka." He turned off the water and turned his face completely towards Shizune. "I'm sixteen years old. I'm a Chūnin," he said calmly, pointing his forehead protector, signifying the village he was from.

"What are you doing here? How did you get in here?"

"Key card. It's basically the same key card here as in Sunagakure, though yours gives you so much more access to other things. And I'm running tests on different medicines and concoctions I developed while in Suna," said Shizuka, drying off his hands and snapping on a new pair of gloves. "The tip of my glove split open and a small amount of blood touched my fingertip, so I had to disinfect. If you heard me cursing, that's why." He smiled and slipped back into his stool, picking up his tools. "Sorry if I scared you. I was told that as long as I wasn't going to rip apart dead bodies and leave them for you guys, it was okay for me to be in here alone, especially when I had Akihana-sempai's letter of recommendation."

"Akihana… hospital head of Suna?"

"Correct. She was one of the people who taught me." He removed his eyes from the viewfinder, taking the slide off and placing it neatly in the pile he had.

"What are those?" Shizune asked, pointing at the slides that each had a tell-tale dot of blood on it.

"Hmm? Ah, those are my samples from the subject I'm testing my medications on," he said. "Hyūga Hanabi's blood. It's been in the fridge for a while, but it was all okay. I'm testing it on the different medications I developed in Suna to see if anything might be helpful for her case." He pulled a small box out of one of the pockets of his over-sized jacket, opening it and carefully placing each slide in.

"How many?"

"Roughly over thirty."

Shizune raised an eyebrow. "How old are you again?"

"Sixteen. Why?"

"How did you develop that many medications?"

He raised an eyebrow before he chuckled to himself. "Well, I based them all off of Hanabi's current medication. A couple of them are simple enhancers of the medication. Some of them are quite different." He slipped the case back into his pocket, and turned to look at Shizune. "Aren't you the Hokage's assistant?"

"Shizune," she said, "Yes."

"Genma talked about you a lot," he said, smiling softly at the thought of the older male. Shizune, however, blushed and looked away from him, embarrassed and mentally cursing. "He said you were an amazing medic, as well as a skilled kunoichi."

She looked back. "Is that all?" she asked shyly.

"He also said you were really pretty. This is the truth—obviously." His smile widened. "Well, I have to go. It was good to talk to you, Shizune. Should I say hi to Genma for you, if and when I see him?"

Shizune opened her mouth to say no, but she was interrupted by an all-too-familiar voice that made her heart want to leap into her throat: "No, that sounds like it would be a stupid idea, Shizuka, considering I see her practically every day anyways and besides, I'm already here."

Shizuka looked past Shizune and smiled at Genma, who was half-glaring at him. Shizuka knew exactly what he was doing, and he knew that it was a dirty way to do things, but he didn't truly care. He found it too amusing to care, and didn't the end justify the means? "Oh. Hey, Genm. I didn't notice you there." Technically a bald-faced lie, but what Shizune didn't know wouldn't hurt her.

"I came to get you," Genma said, carefully maneuvering past Shizune, gently brushing against her arm. "We have a lot to do to get you settled back into the village. I'd like to get that started as early as possible, dear otōto." Shizuka smiled wider. Boy, Genma sounded pissed. When he was much younger, he didn't call him that unless he did something wrong. He smiled easily at Genma, shrugging his shoulders.

"Well, it was nice to meet you, Shizune," Shizuka said pleasantly, smiling brightly at the woman as he walked past her and Genma both, but not before he took her slender hand in his and raised it up to his lips, kissing it. He got the reaction he wanted—she blushed, and Genma glared daggers at him.

Maybe it wasn't the best thing to provoke a man who could spit a senbon out of his mouth and accurately hit a target from meters away, but it was amusing and he just couldn't help it.

She nodded; still stuck on the fact Genma was that close to her. Genma smiled politely down at her, trying to ignore the awkwardness of the moment.

"How are you?" he asked, swishing around the senbon.

"Good," she murmured, finally finding control over her body and walking forwards, walking over to the drawers and opening them. "I'm good. How are… how are you, Genma? Doing well?"

"Hmm? Yeah. I guess I am. Better than I thought I'd be doing." He paused. "Um… Shizu, you, ah… you left a couple of your shirts at my place. I keep forgetting to bring them by to your flat. I was gonna go see Tsunade at eight-thirty anyways, so… do you want me to bring them by for you, when I go to see Tsunade? That's if you're working tonight, I mean…"

"Of course I'm working tonight. I work every night."

Genma coughed. Yes, he remembered that fact all too well.

Another awkward silence overtook them, and he sighed. This was not getting easier. Fucking Shizuka, he thought irritably. "Well, Shizune, I guess I'll see you later, then. It was… it was good to see you."

Shizune nodded, angling her face away. "Good to see you too, Genma," she said quickly. Genma nodded again, staying in place for just a moment more before he walked out of the room, glaring over at Shizuka, whose arms were crossed over his chest, one eyebrow cocked up at him. Genma could tell by the look on his face that he was irritated at him, much to Genma's already-growing irritation.

He pointed in the face of his brother. "Don't do that again," he growled, "Never do that ever again unless you want me to kill you."

"When did you and Shizune-san go out, Genma?" asked Shizuka in a no-nonsense tone, getting it across to Genma that he did not appreciate being left out in the dark about the relationship between Shizune and Genma.

Genma sighed. "Not that it's your business, but, about six months ago, we ended. We were together for five months before that. But you shouldn't go around doing that!" he yelled at him, hands on his hips. "Shit, Shizuka, this is the first time I've seen you in four years, and all I wanna do is hit you upside the head with a fucking bat. I don't wanna fight with you in the first few moments of me seeing you."

Shizuka sighed, and shrugged. "Fine. But I want to know why you guys aren't together. It's obvious you still like each other."

Genma couldn't help but sigh himself in response, his anger dissipating as quickly as it had come on. Shizuka was not stupid, and he wasn't an idiot, either. He couldn't just pretend not to see what it was that he was talking about. "Yeah… yeah, I know, Zuka. I know."


"You can't catch me!" laughed Hayato as he ran across the courtyard, his cheeks rosy red and his breath heavy from all the running around he was doing. His brown jacket flew behind him like a cape, and for once, his unruly silvery blue locks flowed back away from his face rather than obscuring his right eye like it usually did. His grey eyes were alive with excitement and challenge, daring anyone who met his gaze to attempt to catch up with him; attempt to catch him.

"You can't catch me! You're all too slow!" he teased again, sticking out his tongue as he jumped over one boy's shoulder; who was getting very irritated with this under-classman's antics. Hayato even—and Kakashi wasn't all too sure where he got this from, probably Hanabi, she was mischievous enough—slapped a boy's ass before dipping under his legs, sliding out just in time for other boys to end up tackling the boy to the ground by accident.

Hayato cackled with happiness and mischief, and Kakashi simply watched on, entranced by his son's antics, not inclined to reprimand the child in the least (he figured if he could get away with it, they kind of deserved it). He wondered, to himself, if the things Hayato did would ever cease to amaze him. So far, it wasn't looking that way.

"Your son will be a very good escape artist someday, like Hanabi," said Neji with a sigh, leaning back against the lunch table he sat at with Kakashi. He chuckled, watching his young son with great amusement. "He's also rather smart. I'm almost sure we'll be graduating him early, but the only problem with him is that he seems to have little to no drive to excel. He just does. He puts no work into it, and he's at the top of his class without trying. He jokes and kids and fools around, but he gets his work done before anyone else. It's troubling to see that he doesn't take much of anything seriously."

"I was the same way, minus the mischief," he responded, smiling as he watched Hayato entertain himself by pissing off upper-classmen at the Academy. "I'm sorry if he's a handful. Sometimes, I'm actually quite sure he has more energy than Lee or even Gai."

Neji laughed lightly in response. "One would think so, wouldn't they? But it's impossible for anyone to have more energy than Lee and Gai. It's a good thing Lee can't pass the practical exam to make Jōnin, without any ninjutsu. Can you imagine him with a Genin group?" The two shinobi temporarily had a lapse in serious composure as they dissolved into a fit of laughter, imagining kids with tortured looks, tears, shiny bowl haircuts and those hideous green-blue jumpsuits and those bright orange legwarmers. After calming down, Neji continued with a laugh still in his voice, "Anyways, don't worry. If I couldn't handle being on a team with Lee, then I have absolutely no business teaching."

Kakashi smirked behind his mask. "That's a smart ideology, Neji-san." He looked back at Hayato, his smirk becoming a soft smile. He was glad to see Hayato having fun. Four years ago, he wasn't able to. Four years ago, he was blind. Four years ago, Hayato was all alone because of his blindness, and he doubted he would ever enjoy his life like other children would. "I can't thank you enough for what your clan did for him, Neji-san."

Neji blinked, and then smiled softly, closing his eyes. "Kakashi-sensei, I've told you a multitude of times already, thanks are unnecessary. The eyes are sensitive organs, and a necessity in our clan. What we did for him was something every Hyūga goes through at least once in their life, and possibly every Uchiha, too."

"You didn't have to fix his eyes. You could've left them."

"Why would we? What kind of new breed of bastard would we be if we were to leave a four-year-old boy with his entire life ahead of him blind for the rest of his life? Especially one that has an almost devout worship of our heiress?" He cracked open one eye. "Hayato is a part of Hinata-sama's life, Kakashi-sensei. You're a part of her life. Giving Hayato his sight back was important to her and to you." He flicked a glance at the boy that was their topic of conversation. "Why would we have lost Konoha a valuable shinobi?"

"I know that your council didn't want to do it."

Neji sighed, visibly irritated just at the mention of the council. "They don't want to do anything that doesn't benefit themselves. They're old asses that need to drop dead sometime soon so their less idiotic children can come to the advisory council instead."

"Maa, I take it that the negotiation for Hinata-sama and Kankurō's marriage is not going good?" Kakashi asked his smile fading away as he looked over at the Hyūga prodigy, who opened scowled off into the distance.

"Some of the old farts want her to marry my thirty-fifth-removed cousin from the Main Branch, who is a creepy little fuck with little buck teeth and the weakest Byakugan I've ever seen before in my entire life, because he is the grandson of one of the council members. Others want to marry her to Kankurō in exchange for money—a large sum of money the clan doesn't even need—and evict her from the seat of heiress. Some of them even want her to marry her off to Uchiha Itachi, let her keep the seat of heiress, and merge the small Uchiha clan into ours."

"Sounds… disgusting," Kakashi said; his one visible eye wide. "How long have you guys been negotiating this?"

"Three and a half years. It took six months for Hiashi-sama to develop the case he made—and it only took six seconds for them to deny it, saying that romance should be the last thing on Hiashi-sama's mind, as the clan head of the Hyūga. In fact, they spent a longer time taking into consideration about who Hiashi-sama should take as a wife rather than taking into consideration who Hiashi-sama thought should be Hinata-sama's husband. It was quite aggravating."

"Why don't you just marry Hinata to Kankurō? Fuck the council."

Neji sighed. "The current council has been there since before Hiashi-sama became the clan head. The head of the council is the man who officiates any marriage ceremony involving specifically the future clan heads. Unless Hiashi-sama wants to take away Hinata-sama's inheritance, his hands are tied. He has to get their consent before anything remotely related to a marriage takes place—which it would, exactly six months after Hinata-sama's twenty-first birthday, the same day she claims her inheritance."

"Shouldn't she marry before then?" Kakashi asked, confused.

"No. Well, if Hinata-sama was a boy, then yes. The Hyūga clan was founded on very sexist principles, Kakashi-sensei, and although the current members of the clan don't think that way about women, the council most certainly does.

"If a woman is married before they take the head, then it's basically like the husband was inaugurated. They think women to be idiotic, so that six-month period is to prove that a woman can lead the clan on their own. I guess it's kind of like a thirty-day trial of some good, and then a full refund is given if unsatisfied. And since Hiashi-sama's possible male heir was a stillborn, the heresy transfers from his family to the next closest, which is some idiot by the name of Yakiro, who is the very definition of a tool. Hanabi-sama, because she's second-born and a girl, is immediately disqualified if they feel Hinata-sama is not up to par."

"And what about you?"

"No. Not me." The finality that sounded in Neji's voice was something that dared to be refuted, but the beat-down overtone his voice took on hinted that he wished someone would—but Kakashi didn't know nearly enough about the Hyūga clan to be able to do so, but he really wished he could. Neji had worked hard to get to where he was—if neither Hinata nor Hanabi were an option to lead the clan, he most definitely should, no matter which house he belonged to.


"Did the layout of the entire village change while I was gone or something?" Shizuka said aloud, stretching his tight muscles and yawning. He had been walking around for a while now, at Genma's suggestion, so he could readjust to Konoha's geography and general layout. While he had originally mentally scoffed at the idea, he now knew it as the blessing it was. If he hadn't wasted two hours of his life like this, he probably would've been lost at some point during the next week and forced to ask for help.

He'd stripped off his long robes and his jacket when he had arrived at Genma's home, seeing no need for them there. Back in Sunagakure, he'd learned early on it was better to cover up as much as possible while in the desert terrain, as to avoid harsh burns from the sun and scalding sand. While he was glad to shed the extra twenty pounds of weight, he couldn't help but feel slightly cold in Konoha that night, but the cold was a sort of relief, oddly; so he allowed himself to wear a sleeveless black shirt and a pair of black rolled-up sweatpants, his scarred shins covered with thick wraps.

Several women ogled him, much to his own confusion. He still kept his low self-confidence, and didn't quite figure out that he'd grown into quite a handsome young man, taking much after his brother in that respect. Confused, he rubbed the back of his neck, walking away from them in search of something more important at that juncture—food.

He found himself at the ramen stand he'd frequented in his Genin days with his team, a small smile creeping onto his face at the sight of it. Without any hesitation, he walked forwards, moving the small curtain out of his way and beginning to smile at old man Teuchi…

…before he was stopped in his tracks by the sight of a young girl sitting in the stool, smiling and laughing with Teuchi's daughter. The young girl had long dark chocolate hair that flowed down her back, held up by what had to be an industrial-strength ponytail holder. Her bangs were just overlong, and they fit her perfectly, along with the strands of fair that went across her face, just like…

His eyes widened upon realization of whom he was ogling, and his face turned into an easy smile. Without hesitation, he slipped into the stool next to her, not looking at her.

"Hello," he said politely, smiling, "Can I get a Naruto special, please?"

Teuchi looked him up and down, about to say that the Naruto special was only for citizens of Konohagakure until he recognized the boy in front of him. He smiled wide, crossing his arms over his broth-stained smock. "Well, what do you know," he said, drawing both females' attentions, "If it isn't one of the lost boys. I haven't seen you in a long time."

"I can't lie, Teuchi-san, I've missed you a lot," Shizuka said, still smiling at him before he stuck his tongue out. "But apparently, I wasn't missed by others." He flicked a glance over at the female next to him, who blinked in surprise; "Especially by supposed best friends." Her pale eyes widened in surprise, realization running through them and in a flash, her arms were wrapped around his shoulders, a shout of excitement escaping her lips.

"ZUKA-KUN!" Hanabi said happily, pressing her lips against Shizuka's cheek, not caring if his cheeks burned bright red. Emotional training or not, shyness is not something that goes away that quickly, even in someone who appeared to be so confident now. "Shizuka-kun, you're back! You're back, you're back, you're back, you're back! I missed you!" She said, pulling away with a bright grin before she punched him in the arm. He winced, glaring up at her in confusion and pain. Hanabi could pack a wallop. "That's for never writing me or even sending a picture of yourself! How the hell else was I supposed to know what you look like now!"

"I didn't change; Teuchi recognized me," said Shizuka crossly.

"Of course you changed! Besides, you weren't looking straight at me! How the hell could I tell when you're wearing your headband like that? You're barely showing your eyebrows." He frowned, touching his hitai-ate. That was how Hayate wore his headbands… why should he wear them any different? "But its okay, because you're back; my best friend is back!" She smiled wider. "Tell me everything!"

"Well… I can't tell you everything…" he said slowly.

She glared, making him shiver. "I'm your best friend," she said, feigning a hurt tone. "Why wouldn't you tell me everything?"

He bit his bottom lip, frowning. DAMMIT! Shizuka thought, holding back his need to frown. Hanabi appealed to his deep-down desire to please people, especially her. "I can only tell you so much, though, Nabi-chan," he said as Teuchi put down a Naruto special in front of him. "A lot of it is classified. A majority of it is the business of the Kazekage and only he decides whether or not I can spread it."

"Ooh, classified information," she teased with a bright smile, picking up his chopsticks and stealing some of his noodles, "The best kind. Tell me everything you can." He frowned down at her, looking at her hands, and decided to let it go, asking for another pair of chopsticks instead. He knew he wasn't going to get out of this without sharing food—so he might as well just suck it up and allow her to mooch. It was the path of least resistance, and resistance was futile.


If there was anything Shiranui Genma had learned in the twenty-some-odd years he had been a shinobi, it was that he needed to accept and expect that any situation can have a variety of different outcomes to it. It didn't necessarily mean that he couldn't be surprised—he was only human, after all; surprise was to be expected—nor did it mean that even the absolutely impossible had its place in a situation. While he couldn't expect exactly every detail of every reaction of every situation, he could expect that sometimes, the weirdest things might occur.

It was simply a part of being a shinobi.

He had, by some work of some deity, managed to avoid seeing Shizune when he went to the Hokage's office that night. Seeing her earlier, though it had been nice, was tough and irritating and aggravating and frustrating—mostly frustrating—and he really didn't want a repeat performance of the awkwardness of having unsettled business with your ex, and he most definitely had unsettled business with her. He knew he still had feelings for her, feelings that only increased, but at the same time, he also knew that if he chose to get back into a relationship with her, she'd always put the Hokage before him. It wasn't that he didn't respect her for valuing her job, but it would be nice to be able to have one dinner with her and not have it be interrupted by some frazzled Chūnin trying to figure out how to best diffuse Tsunade.

In Shizune's book, he would always be second to her. Tsunade was her number-one, and it didn't matter how valiant it was; it was just so irritating. Genma wasn't greedy, but damn, there were some things that he didn't think he had to share with his village, and he figured that his girlfriend might be one of them. He thought he earned someone to keep all to himself. That he found someone to give his all to. But while he was giving his all to their relationship, Shizune didn't even fight when she was called by Tsunade. Once they'd been interrupted during sex, of all things, and all she did was pull back on her clothing and disappeared for about two days cleaning up Tsunade's mess. As someone who usually half-assed things for the minimum positive results, it was annoying him that she wasn't spending as much time with him as he did at her job.

It frustrated him that she was married to her job, and he was like some mistress to the side. He only grew more and more dissatisfied with the fact that he wasn't getting what he gave (and his dissatisfaction only increased when he stopped getting any steadily, naturally) and did what any reasonable, but idiotic, male would do:

He offered Shizune a sort of ultimatum.

He told her that her time off from work should be spent doing something she enjoyed rather than helping Tsunade clean up one of her fantastic fuck-ups, and that when she was spending time with her own boyfriend, she should focus on him instead on her job. So he told her she could change this and be a lot less tired all the time and have space in her life for more than just the Hokage or they could break up so she could focus on her job.

It's easy to tell which one she chose.

In retrospect, Genma figured that putting her into a position like that was what made her choose to break up with him. Though many of his male friends insisted he was in the right, some of his female friends (namely Kurenai and Anko) told him he was being the clingy boyfriend, and that was why Shizune chose Tsunade over him. He could see their point, but… he was right. He just knew he was right…

"Genma." He blinked, snapping out of his daze and looking at Tsunade, who gave him a worried look. She was standing in her doorway, which was unusual because she was lazy and her alcohol was at her desk. "Genma, you've been standing here for five and a half minutes. I wouldn't be as worried if it weren't for the fact that all you've been doing is staring at Shizune's desk. You could just admit you were wrong to force her into a corner and get her back."

He blinked. "You know?"

She shrugged. "Of course. She told me the night-of. She doesn't hide much from me." She grinned. "She said you were acting as if you were a hurt mistress." Genma moved the senbon around in his mouth, resisting the urge to glare. "She was very confused about it by the way. Still is."

He shrugged, forcing himself not to care. "It's in the past."

"Not really. Anyone who passes you can tell you guys are still awkward around each other. It's, quite frankly, sad, mostly because she doesn't really realize she's married to her job." Now he glared. "Okay, admittedly it's kind of because I can hardly handle myself without her. I'm a very irresponsible Hokage." She giggled, not at all ashamed of herself, and Genma's glare only hardened, a vein pulsing hard in his temple. "Either way, you're both unhappy, and you both daydream about each other at the oddest of times. Just admit you were wrong and get the dumb girl back."

"I'm not wrong!" he snapped. Really, where the hell was he wrong in his demands? If it had been Shizune saying them, every female would've taken her side! He resisted the urge to sigh. Females were more complicated than most S-ranked missions. There was no such thing as winning, not with a single damned fucking one of them!

"I know you're not, and as the woman who forced her to marry this job, that's saying something," she said, a small blush on her cheeks as she returned his glare. She sighed, finally visibly giving up. "Just come in and get the papers to take to Gaara. You're annoying me with your melodramatic romanticism."

He raised an eyebrow. "'Melodramatic romanticism'?" he asked, walking past her into her office, picking up the file off the table. Feeling too lazy and not wanting too much to chance running into Shizune, he kept going, popping open the window of Tsunade's office. "Been reading fictional books lately instead of mission scrolls, O Great Hokage-sama?"

"Shut it, Shiranui. Think about what I said, for the good of us all. And do me a favor; don't make Gaara think you're as much of an ass as you are. Well, actually, what I'm trying to tell you is don't be yourself, because you're a bigger ass than Kakashi is, and Kakashi is the definition of an ass. Your aim is to make him like you and trust you." Genma raised an eyebrow, lazily swishing the senbon around in his mouth, and she sighed, walking back over to her desk. "Okay, like is a little bit of a stretch, but just make sure he knows that you're a semi-decent human being who cares for Shizuka. That's pretty much all Gaara wants to see, I think."

Genma sighed, resisting the urge to bite his fingernails, like he did before he began to put toothpicks and senbon needles into his mouth. He would admit, he had a deep and nearly troubling oral fixation, one that only got worse with stress and aggravation (which the job entailed). To deal with his stress, he got a little bit sarcastic sometimes, and he began to make crude jokes that tended to make people uncomfortable. He could understand why she thought he could come off as an asshole because of it, but he didn't see a reason why he should hide it. He tended to not hide his feelings and opinions about things, so why should he start now just because he was going to talk to the Kazekage? Why should he have to lie when the point of the meeting was to be honest?

Genma shrugged his shoulders carelessly, both answering his Hokage and his own thoughts as he slipped out of the open window, ignoring Tsunade's complaints about Jōnin and the fact that not a single one of them used the door (which was completely and totally true, but none of them would admit as much aloud), jumping off the awning and landing nimbly on his feet on the next building, not wasting time as he broke into a run. It wouldn't take him long to reach the Nara compound, even if he walked, but he didn't like the idea of showing up late to things. In fact, he hated it.

It was a habit he had somehow managed to pick up when Shizuka was still a baby, and Hayate had somehow been able to magically finagle him into aiding his attempts to properly raise a non-fucked up kid. There had been so many misunderstandings around the village when people saw them together with the infant that most people just thought that Genma was just shy about his sexuality, still. They just couldn't get it into people's mind that the two of them were perfectly straight men that happened to be close friends, raising an infant together. Of course, Genma saw why the misunderstanding was present—they were two males raising a baby together for Chrissakes; he would've taken it wrong too, but it still irritated him.

Taking care of Shizuka wasn't the easiest experience ever. He wasn't loud and annoying, like children normally were, but he still required attention from the people who took care of him, because he did live in a home filled to the brim with dangerous weapons. Raising a kid without screwing him up was harder than assassination missions, actually. There had been a lot of fuck-ups on both their parts, but Shizuka seemed to come out alright in the end, even though he'd been left alone for a long time after Hayate's death.

It was a fact he still couldn't get out of his head. He felt so guilty for ever having thought it was a good idea to leave Shizuka alone, to think that seeing him was hard. It had been, for a long time, but it was cruel and unfair to him. Shizuka was a child. He'd just lost his brother not to the chronic sickness caused by a major chakra imbalance in his body, but in a murder. But then he was also ditched by the only living 'family' he had left, leaving Shizuka with literally no one to turn to.

He was already a pretty lonely kid; he just fortified his solitude. Yeah, sure, Genma had lost his best friend. But to Shizuka, not only had he lost Hayate, who was in a lot of ways his best friend, his older brother, and a father all rolled into one; but he'd lost a woman who became like an older sister and a mother, and he'd lost someone who was like his second brother, and his second father. He lost the only family had

The fact that Shizuka didn't hate him and had actually found it in him to forgive him for it still boggled his mind. The fact that Shizuka was willing to move in with him, willing to let someone who had seemingly so easily ditched him back into his life; was an amazing feat in Genma's eyes, and it was a blessing he wouldn't let go to waste. He was going to do everything in his power to let that kid know that he was important in his life. He was going to help him with anything he could.

So he wasn't going to talk to Gaara for the sake of Tsunade, nor was he going because Gaara wanted to speak to him. He was going because he was someone important in Shizuka's life.

"Ah, Genma," said Nara Shikamaru, slightly surprised. His son, the bouncy toddler he was, kept running from his father, giggling his head off. The kid was almost a carbon copy of Shikamaru, with the small ponytail holding back his overlong hair and lazy-seeming eyes, except his eyes were blue and his hair was a dark brown with hints of blond and he was obviously not a lazy child, most seen as he forced his father to run after him. Genma picked the kid up, which the boy seemed to realize but just didn't care, still giggling. "And you caught him. Thank the fucking gods."

Genma raised an eyebrow, but the toddler seemed ignorant to his cursing, merely holding out his small arms for his father. Genma handed him off to Shikamaru with minimal effort, not truly realizing how much of what he'd learned to do during Shizuka's early childhood he'd managed to somehow retain.

"Where's Gaara?"

"Living room. He told me you were on your way. He kicked me out of my own damned living room, troublesome bastard."

The boy stopped giggling and turned his face to his father. "Can I's spend more time with Gaa-Oji, Otō?" he asked; his eyes wide, his plump bottom lip pushing out in order to better his case. Genma figured that some people might've found that action cute. But he was Genma. Kids were not really his thing. Shizuka was the only one he'd tolerated, the only one he liked.

"You just spent time with Gaa-Oji, Soyo, and you need to go to sleep, or your dear Okā will kill me for letting you stay up so long, troublesome woman," muttered Shikamaru, shaking his head as he began to walk down the hall, his son merely nodding and putting his head on his father's shoulder. His laziness now showed clearly to Genma—he was too lazy to fight, apparently. Shikamaru looked over his shoulder at Genma. "Just walk down the hall. It's the biggest room, with the sliding door that has something like black waves as a design."

Genma nodded. "Thanks."

The former ANBU-agent-turned-father waved him off. "Yare, yare."


There were many things Genma could've expected from Gaara. He could've expected him to be waiting behind the door, his sand ready to wrap around his body and kill him. He could've been sitting there, getting more and more impatient about the amount of time it was taking for Genma to arrive. The problem with all of Genma's assumptions was that they were all negative assumptions about the type of person Gaara was, all of them based on judgments he'd made when Gaara was still twelve years old and still a murderous son-of-a-bitch. He knew that he shouldn't make assumptions—assumptions only lead to surprise when proven wrong, which they mostly always were—but he was only human. Admittedly; slightly more than human, but human nonetheless. It was only human nature to make an assumption about a person.

He hated when he did that, because he hated being surprised and he more disliked figuring out why he was wrong.

Well, in this case, he could figure that he was partially right. Gaara was sitting there, waiting for him, but certainly not impatient; nor was he angry or bored. In fact, one could say that Gaara was the most pleased man out of the two of them right now, because he was busy locking lips with some brunette that Genma had seen over half a million times with him. He didn't remember her name, nor did he really want to. Honestly, it wasn't his business. All he could think was that if he hadn't fucked up so badly, he'd be able to do almost the exact same thing with Shizune.

The thought of her was throwing him off-kilter.

He cleared his throat, drawing the attention of both of them. The girl had the decency to blush, while Gaara glared at him, probably pissed he'd interrupted their session before he seemed to vaguely recognize him. Gaara's look evened out, and he withdrew his arm from around her, turning his face to her and giving absolutely no emotion. "Matsuri, I have to talk to Genma-san."

She flicked a glance back at said Jōnin. "He's the one who Shizu is moving in with?" she asked, raising an eyebrow incredulously. "He wasn't what I pictured when Shizu described him."

Shizuka described me? Genma wondered, raising one eyebrow as she shook her head, giving a peck on the lips to Gaara as she left the room. His jade eyes followed her movements, basically ignoring Genma as he sat down on the couch across from him, laying the folder down on the table in between the two of them and settling into the comfortable sofa, draping his arms across the back. He knew he was sitting in what could be a disrespectful position, considering he was in front of a Kage, but the problem was… he truly didn't give a shit.

When he was younger, he did, but Genma had been the bodyguard for four Hokages in his time (though, he sometimes wished Danzō didn't count as part as that statistic), and he'd been in front of too many different Kages for him to keep worrying about being polite. If he wasn't polite to his own Kage, he saw no reason to be polite to someone else's, especially since the point of Gaara's wanting to meet him was that he wanted to see who he was leaving his student with. If he pretended, then odds were that Gaara wouldn't trust him. Though, he also knew there was a chance he might not trust him anyways, but he figured since it was a seemingly lose-lose situation, there was no point on bullshitting.

As soon as Matsuri pulled the door closed behind herself, Gaara turned his attention to Genma, just giving him a look with those eerie black-shadowed jade eyes that seemed to look through him better than a Byakugan. His gourd, which was sitting in the corner of the living room, popped open on what had to be Gaara's command, sand pouring out and drifting slowly over to the coffee table, picking up the folder Genma had placed down and bringing it over to Gaara, dropping it in his hand.

Genma raised an eyebrow. "Wow. That has got to be the laziest fucking thing I've ever seen in my entire life."

Nothing about Gaara's face or body indicated his surprise, but the stunted exhale and the brief flicker of confusion in his green depths were enough of a sign for him. He knew exactly how people normally talked to Kages; but he wasn't normal, and he didn't talk to Kages like everyone else. He treated them as if they were normal shinobi, nothing more, and nothing less, because in the end, that was exactly what they would be. This sort of approach towards his higher-ups should've resulted in the loss of his life, but oddly enough, the Kages found this refreshing. He didn't kiss ass, and he didn't pretend or speak around what he wanted to say. His blunt honesty and proficiency for sarcasm was what made people like him—even if they thought he was the definition of an asshole. Gaara's face cracked slightly as he gave a half-smirk.

"You sound like my brother," he noted, flipping open the folder.

He nodded. "Your brother is a smart man. He doesn't lead you on in the least, does he? He reminds you of what you are when you need it."

Gaara flicked a glance up. "And what am I?"

Genma shrugged and responded, "You're a human, nothing more or less. Despite how many people look up to you and think you're God, the fact remains that you are still the same flesh-and-blood as us; with the same pathetic mortality that we have, even if you have an advantage in the world of the shinobi with your sand. At the end of the day, you're not the Kazekage. The Kazekage is a title. What you are is Gaara, plain and simple. At the end of the day, all these titles and acclamations mean shit. At the end of the day, you're like everyone else."

Gaara hummed. "If I didn't know any better, I would've thought that you were a long-lost brother of mines. You sound exactly like Kankurō. No wonder Shizuka enjoyed speaking with him; he speaks like you do. Candidly, fast, and uncaring of the consequences and ramifications of the words he speaks. Dangerous way to approach things, but I find it quite amusing."

"I prefer to let the people I meet know that the sun does not, in fact, shine out of their ass. I think it keeps them human, and human is good." He shrugged again. "I tried to get the same thing through to Shizuka, though he is much more polite about it than I am."

"It depends on his mood. Sometimes, he can be very blunt with what he wants to say," said Gaara, and Genma nodded in agreement. It was not a lie. The kid could be very rude if he wanted to be. "You say you tried to get Shizuka to do the same thing. That implies that you've known each other for a long time… how long?"

"I've known him since he was a baby. I'm sure you already know, but his parents died, and his brother took him in. Hayate begged me to help him, and I agreed, after much refusal; I will admit." Genma leaned forwards, placing his elbows on his knees, becoming more serious. "I'll be blunt again, Kazekage-sama. I have done asinine things that Shizuka has been at the brunt of. For four years, I left him completely and totally alone because it was painful to see him. I can never make up for that time, unless suddenly time-travel is a possibility. It's a wonder Shizuka didn't come out incredibly fucked because of it, or at least an inability to trust people. He came out alright. I'm not saying I'm justified, or that I'm not a bad person because of these things, but what I am is a person who genuinely cares about him, and wishes to make up for it in all the ways I can."

Gaara leaned forwards as well, no longer trying to read the file. "How can I be sure of that, Genma-san? Shizuka is someone I've come to care about. He's become a very valuable asset to Sunagakure, and beyond that, my family has actually come to see him as one of us. We all care about his wellbeing, and the last thing any of us want to see is his pain. He may put on a brave face, but like you said, at the end of the day he is human. Being hurt is a part of being human, and you have caused him pain, though he seems to have forgiven you for it. And while all he does is talk highly of you, when you are brought up, I can't help but wonder what it would do to him if you let him alone a second time."

"I refuse to."

"Again; how can I be sure of that? It's like me saying I will never kill again; I will be honest with that. It's a fantasy, not a truth."

"True, but…" he sighed. "You're right. You can't be absolutely sure of that. I recognize I've hurt him, and I recognize that you believe that if it was so easy for me to do the first time; there is nothing to stop me from doing it a second time. It's, sadly, a reasonable response in someone. But… I won't do it again. I don't have it in me.

"Shizuka used to see me as a father-type figure. I was older than his brother, so it made sense he would think of me that way. After Hayate's death, he asked me what he could do, how he could make the pain go away. And when he looked at me, I can swear that I saw Hayate. All I saw was my dead best friend, and then I thought it would be painful—so painful—to watch Shizuka grow up and become exactly like my best friend, and end up like him. So I ditched him, because I was scared of the pain I felt just seeing my best friend in the nuances of Shizuka's nature.

"I can't explain it in full detail, but… I think it will suffice to say that it hurt. It hurt, watching him from afar. It hurt to know what I'd done with my best friend's memory; I'd thrown it away and tried to pretend it had never happened. I threw away the legacy of Hayate, and I also threw away my own little brother… because I was just scared and I was in mourning. I didn't expect to get a second chance with him, but when I did… my chest… it warmed up. I didn't realize how cold my chest had felt until he gave me that second chance. For the first time in years, I felt like myself, and I finally accepted that Hayate was gone." Genma looked down, sighing. "Shizuka is my little brother. It doesn't matter if he's not my flesh-and-blood; he's my brother through-and-through. Shizuka is one of very few people I would accept death for, in order to save his life."

"You would die for him?" Gaara asked, a curious tone in his voice.

"Most definitely," he responded without hesitation, looking Gaara straight in the eye, a confident feeling overtaking his entire body. For the moment, some of his irritation from thinking about Shizune so much was gone, just thinking about Shizuka, the boy he'd raised, the boy he came to love more than his real family. "He's my real family."


Happy birthday, Sasuke! And happy belated, Kiba!

Lol. That's kind of why I procrastinated with the upload. I wanted to wait until Sasuke's birthday to upload it :)

Thank you to the sailorangelmoon1 for the review! Glad to know that the dark stuff that's going to come will be received happily!

People should go check out 'The Ripple Effect'... just sayin'. It's a much slower update than this story (because I write it when I'm taking breaks with this) but I'd like to see what people think of it... it's different for me! lol.

Hmm, that should be it... I don't have much else to say other than... I hope you enjoyed the chappie!