Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Naruto or any of its trademarks, characters, places, etc.

My Favorite Harlequin

-10-

Masuyo began the second session of therapy with the same phrase she had used last time; "What do you think of the weather today?" And the weather that day happened to be quite stormy so Maiko answered like anyone else in her situation would.

"It's reminiscent of my love life."

"Your love life?" This revelation gave the burgundy haired woman a small grin, "I was going to mention how great of a day it is to fly a kite, but I guess I know what today's topic will be!"

Maiko groaned, with the dinner at the Kazekage's later in the day she didn't need to be reminded of all of her past romantic mistakes. She was nervous already and she was miles from their house.

"I didn't mean..." she sighed, it would be a long session.

"How about I go first?" Masuyo offered, "I'm sure my track record makes yours look like a cake walk."

"I would enjoy a cake walk..."

The older woman thought for a moment, "I've probably chased away at least five boyfriends with my, as they dubbed it, psychological bullshit."

"I've only had two boyfriends, and they both cheated on me," the brunette gave out a nervous laugh.

"I've had a few cheaters too," Masuyo noted, "I think everyone experiences that at least once."

"Same woman?"

"Now that's surprising," Masuyo brought out her notes, "Please do elaborate on this mystery woman."

"She's not really a mystery woman," she admitted, "She's the one I got into that fight with that made me end up here."

"Ah," the therapist knew exactly who now, "Your employer mentioned this."

"The root of my problem."

Masuyo rolled her pen between her hands, "Not actually the root of your problem actually, simply another symptom. However, if you and this woman weren't at odds with one another, it would surely help the issue."

Maiko scowled at the idea of making amends with Ai.

"I suppose we'll have to save that for another time."

As the day went on, the weather itself became even harsher out, violently throwing around sand by the afternoon. Maiko rushed back to her apartment in the sandstorm and knocked on her neighbor's door again. A muffled reply came from inside and the brunette opened the door to see the dull brown eyed woman sitting on her sofa brushing the short orange hair of her puppet.

"I wasn't expected a visit today," Kanshi exclaimed, setting the puppet down, "I um...it's not creepy, I like to keep things tidy."

Maiko didn't question her actions any further and closed the door behind her, continuing inside, "I need some last minute advice."

"Me, advice? I'm surely one of the last people to go to for advice...um," the dull eyed woman noticed the urgency in Maiko's stare.

"I need advice from a puppeteer," the harlequin girl begged. She wanted to make a great impression at dinner and figured that asking someone who had some sort of insider know-how on puppeteers would help.

"I'm…um...how do I put this," she rubbed her shoulder, a bit embarrassed, and explained, "I'm not really a puppet master, I mean, I know the puppet technique and I guess I'm pretty proficient with the puppet I have but..."

Maiko cut her off, "I need advice about the actual people, not the technique. Like, what do puppet masters like? What kind of gifts would they want?"

"Well…food is always a welcome gift," her stomach groaned as Kanshi set her puppet back in its glass case between her windows and cleared a spot for her neighbor on the couch, "But sit down, I think I might be able to help you." The harlequin girl took a quick seat while Kanshi paced back and forth across the room in thought.

She stopped and confidently exclaimed; "Maybe I'm not the most qualified person to give you advice, but I'll damn well try! What do you need, a gift idea for your friend?"

"Gift and compliment ideas would help," Maiko piped from her seat.

"Hmm," the dull eyed woman thought while she paced, "Well, I suppose the gift would depend on the person. You surely wouldn't hand a child puppeteer a corpse or a psychotic puppeteer a bouquet of roses."

"Um, I don't think my friend falls under either of those categories," the harlequin was beginning to wonder the validity of this advice herself.

"I wasn't assuming that," Kanshi continued, "It's just the fact of the matter. Now I'm not going to assume anything-for I wouldn't want to make an ass of myself or you-but I think compliments would work best."

"And how would I go about complimenting a puppeteer in the first place?"

"Well, you just tell them how great they are!" she laughed, "Considering that puppeteers don't usually get that much attention because they're long-distance fighters, it's best to give them a bit of an ego boost."

"An ego boost?" Maiko considered what her neighbor had just told her, "I've never really thought about that before." Before Kanshi could continue, she stood from her spot on the couch, "Thank you for the advice, I'll be going!"

The quick exit surprised Kanshi who called after her; "Um…well don't forget about that ego-boosting!"

For the rest of the afternoon Maiko cleaned herself up and prepared for the dinner. She was conflicted as to whether she was dressing too formal or not. Eventually she decided on wearing her military garb atop a short kimono. If there was anywhere she thought she should proudly display her Sunagakure headband, it would be the Kazekage's residence.

When she arrived, Kankuro met her at the door as expected. He seemed rather excited to see that she had kept her word and shown up. He led her to the entrance of the dining room where his siblings were waiting.

"I know you met Gaara before," he motioned to the red-headed Kazekage who stood on the left with his arms folded and a neutral expression on his face, then to the tall blonde woman who smirked, "But this is my older sister, Temari."

Maiko froze in place with a wide-eyed stare; she'd remembered seeing that woman at the bar of the Gentleman's Club when the place had first opened. The last thing she needed was this woman to recognize her and bring up her rather embarrassing employment. Her throat dried as she stood, hoping that she wouldn't need to speak.

"So this is your girlfriend, Kankuro?" Temari joked, breaking the silence, "She doesn't talk much."

Maiko pulled at her collar and held her hand up to give a small introductory gesture but instead limply waved, "Hi."

"This is Maiko," Kankuro sighed, "I eat at her place a lot."

"Well…" his older sister noted the nervousness of the girl, "Dinner will begin in a half hour so you've got time to poke around for a bit." With that she left with Gaara.

When the two were no longer in sigh, Maiko mechanically turned to Kankuro, "I can't do this, I can't do this, I can't…"

Kankuro held onto her shoulders and attempted to calm her down, "Don't let my siblings scare you."

"It's not that," she pursed her lips, she really had no way of explaining it all to Kankuro and this simply made things even worse.

"How about I show you my puppet collection? I'm sure that'll take your mind off of the whole dinner thing, ok?" he tried to persuade her while he dragged her to his workshop.

Maiko wasn't sure seeing his puppet collection would help. The idea of being alone with him in a room full of refurbished corpses wasn't the most endearing option she'd been given. Especially with the choice of conversation that he had brought up when they were inside.

"This is the Scorpion puppet I used back when I was the Captain of the Surprise Attack Division during the war," he gleefully explained as he held the puppet of a lifeless red-head to her, "It was once the body used by Sasori of the Red Sands, who defected from Suna to join Akatsuki."

"Um...how nice?" she offered, leaning on the wall with the face of the ex-Suna shinobi's puppet corpse not far from her own. Kankuro pulled the Scorpion puppet back and then pulled out two other puppets, a man who looked a lot like the Scorpion and a long haired brunette woman.

"And these are the Mother and Father puppets that Sasori entrusted me to pass onto future generations of puppet masters after his soul departed during the war," he held the two puppets out to Maiko who was only becoming more unnerved with the talk of war. Kankuro pulled them back and returned to his shelves to with the two puppets.

"My neighbor is a puppeteer..." she mentioned in a low whisper as she pushed off of the wall and stepped over towards Kankuro.

"Oh really?" he called out to her.

"Yeah, she mentioned wanting to join the Puppet Brigade if it was still around." Kankuro returned from his puppets and walked back over to Maiko, stopping a foot from her.

"Puppet Brigade hasn't been around since the previous Shinobi World War," he was taken aback by the statement, "Your neighbor isn't a Suna kunoichi is she?"

"Um, I don't really know," Maiko admitted. She hadn't seen any evidence as to where Kanshi was from, but it surely wasn't Suna.

Kankuro quickly changed the subject back to the war much to Maiko's discomfort; "So, how was your experience during the war?"

"All I remember are hordes of White Zetsus..."

Before she could continue, a shout rang out from outside of their door from whom they assumed was Temari; "Dinner time!"

"Well, time to eat," Kankuro rubbed the back of his neck, "Enjoy yourself and don't let my siblings make you nervous, ok?"

"I'll try."

Surprisingly, the dining room of the Kazekage's residence was actually quite quaint. It was a simple, long wooden table draped with a table cloth and set with eating utensils. Nothing was overly exquisite; it felt like eating at any common citizen's house, it was comforting in its own way. Maiko only had to make sure that she made a good impression on Kankuro's two siblings and didn't mention the Gentleman's Club at all.

During dinner Maiko recalled some of the things Masuyo had told her during her session after mentioning the invitation to dinner. One of those was of course;

"Remember to close your mouth while you chew. No one wants to see your saliva mixed with half-eaten meat and vegetables." In actuality, there weren't that many vegetables, probably due to the fact that Kankuro and Gaara preferred barbeque foods over them.

Masuyo also made sure to mention; "Honesty is the best policy! You wouldn't lie to your own Kazekage would you?"

Temari guided the chatter that was to be had during the dinner and eventually turned to the nervous harlequin girl, "So, Maiko, what do you do for a living?" Maiko dropped her chopsticks, it seemed a bit early for such a question to come up but it had, she went through her mental notes for a clue as to what she might answer. Kankuro, who sat next to her, was worried that she would freeze up again like she had earlier and was prepared to answer for her if she couldn't.

"Kunoichi..." Maiko quietly replied.

"Hmm, what was that?" the blonde called to her from the other side of the table.

"I'm a kunoichi," she repeated a bit louder.

"Ah, a kunoichi."

Another of Masuyo's notes came to her; "However, you should always compliment the chef, even if whatever you ate gave you food poisoning-unless it was actually poisoned per say."

"This is...really delicious," Maiko offered, picking her chopsticks back up and attempting to execute a joyful grin. Instead, a nervous laugh erupted from her.

"Thanks," the blonde answered, she seemed to take it as a general compliment, which was good. It also made Maiko feel a lot less tense, what else had Masuyo said?

"If you're wondering how you're doing, don't try to read their faces. Logically speaking, these are feared shinobi who dominate battlefields, but the last thing they'll forget is how to make a poker face."

Looking from Temari to Gaara, she noticed that the two did seem to have neutral expressions, something to note. Maiko kept focused as Temari began to ask Gaara about how his day had been. The only person who didn't have his guard up was Kankuro, who freely laughed and grinned at how his little brother had accidentally stubbed his foot on his desk.

Perhaps it was all going pretty well.