-Chapter Ten-
Gaara was out of the house early the next morning, taking advantage of the fact that no one was out on the streets so early in the day, save for a few elderly people sweeping the sidewalk in front of their houses and shops or wiping down the windows. Some tensed when they saw him, some nodded in respect. One elderly woman was opening her produce stand, making sure everything was neat and orderly. Gaara glanced down at the fruit and his stomach rumbled.
He walked over to the stand slowly and looked at the fruit, "Excuse me." He said quietly.
The woman, momentarily started, looked up from the fruit she was tending to and smiled, "Good morning Kazekage-sama, how may I help you this morning?"
Her face was so wrinkled and weathered with age, Gaara honestly couldn't tell if the smile was forced or not. For all he knew should could be revolted by his presence, she wouldn't have been the first. He pointed to the red apples in the front of the stand, "Could I have three?" He asked in a monotone.
"Oh certainly." She pulled out a plastic bag and dropped the large, impeccable apples into the bag, handing it over to him.
He handed her the appropriate amount of money and thanked the woman, walking the rest of the way down the street to his office. He closed the door and took an apple out of the bag, biting into it as he started reading through his paperwork. Once he'd made a good dent in the large pile, he looked over the missions available and started assigning appropriate ninja squads. At the beginning of his career as kazekage, he would have had to look each squad up and check their stats, but as the years grew on he'd committed their strengths and weaknesses to memory.
By the time the elderly secretaries started filing into the office, Gaara had assigned all of the day's missions and was well on his way to completing the first stack of forms. Three knocks at the door alerted him that his secretary had arrived, bright and early, as he'd expected.
"Good morning Kazekage-sama!" She said brightly. Today her hair was up and she was dressed in black pants and a white blouse, a wide red belt cinching her waist. Her heels made a clacking noise against the tiled floor, jarring his out of the peaceful haze the quite morning alone had bestowed upon him.
"Good morning Mai." Gaara said, looking over at her unenthusiastically, "You're here early."
She shrugged, "Well I saw you walked to the office a few hours ago while I was taking care of my daughter, she had a terrible nightmare, so I decided that I'd come in to keep you company and make sure you weren't working yourself to death, but it looks like those secretaries get here even earlier than I do. God, does anyone know the meaning of a nine-to-five job anymore?" She asked, hands on her hips.
"The work day is longer for political officials." Gaara said, not looking up from the document he was filing out.
"Well, that aside, is there anything I can do for you?" Mai asked, clapping her hands together and rocking back on her heels expectantly.
The young kazekage motioned to the stack of documents he'd already filled out, "You can file those for me. And bring the mission assignments to the council so they can tell the squads assigned that they need to prepare."
Mai nodded, picked up the papers and smiling, "I'll be on my way then, see you in a bit!"
As soon as Mai left, Gaara remembered that Hinata was coming in today to receive her Sand headband and register as a shinobi of Sunagakure. She reached down into the drawer beside him and pulled out the registration forms, setting to fill them out.
Name…Hinata Hyuuga. …gender, female…Birthday…I don't know…Eye color, white, hair color, blue/black, complexion, fair…height…weight…
The further the young kazekage progressed into the registration forms the more he realized how little he new the woman who was living in his home, whom he was expected to marry sooner rather than later. She seemed shy but willing enough to talk when he was around, and yet he still knew close to nothing. She'd been there for almost a week now and the only thing he could say he knew for sure was her name. He sighed, pushing the papers off to the side and going back to his other paperwork, there was a lot of work to be done if they were going to get to know each other.
The thought halted Gaara, his pen poised just a hairsbreadth above the paper. Did he want to learn more about her? Did he want to create an emotional bond so when she saw him for all of his faults and imperfections and turned away in disgust he'd be left alone with yet another gaping wound in his heart to tend to in hopes of healing but knowing that it probably never would? The though scared him to no end. He thought he would be used to rejection by now, accustomed to the revulsion people often felt when in his presence. But he knew that if it was himself taking the time to nurture the bond, the chasm would be that much greater when he was left alone.
He dropped the pen he was holding on his desk, running his hands through his hair and closing his eyes, noting how his hands were shaking ever so slightly. He had to stop thinking about these kinds of things, they were going to bring him to ruin. No one could ever truly love someone like him. They could accept him for who he was but acceptance was not affection, acceptance was easier, love took time and persistence, something no one would ever want to waste on him.
He looked back at Naruto, someone who could connect with him on a level few people could. He had gone through exactly what Gaara had in his youth. Naruto hadn't let them get to him, he'd climbed through the ranks and gained not only the acceptance, but the love of his village. People looked up to him and, though he could be annoying at times, expected him to go on to bigger and better things. Even Gaara, who wasn't around him much, knew that the blonde shinobi was going to be the hokage one day. Everyone could see that.
Gaara at one time had thought he'd done the same thing, had thought he had beat out the feelings of others by killing them and not letting them get to him. But later on, he realized they had gotten to him in the worst of ways. He'd been crushed by their glares and snide comments and done exactly as they'd expected him to, lash out and become the cold-blooded murderer they all thought he was destined to be. Even today, realizing how much he'd allowed the people's predictions and accusations to control him caused bile to rise in his throat. He placed his head on the desk, willing the nausea away.
The quick knocks at the door alerted Gaara that he was no longer alone to wallow in his thoughts. He was, for once, thankful for his assistant's frequent interruptions. In times like these, they were probably going to be one of the only things keeping him front drifting off into insanity.
Mai came into the room before he had a chance to speak, smiling brightly, as usual, "I'm back kazekage-sama!" She looked at him curiously, "You're looking a little green…"
Gaara looked at her for a moment and shrugged, "I feel fine."
She looked at him closely for a moment and then shrugged, "If you're sure. Oh! I forgot, someone's here to see you…something about ninja registration."
She walked back to the door and opened it, ushering Hinata in, "Here she is."
Hinata walked in a bowed briefly, "Good afternoon kazekaga-sama." Hinata greeted with a small smile.
Gaara nodded in greeting, pushing the unfinished stack of papers in her direction, "I started filling them out…but my other paperwork was starting to pile up so I had to stop."
She nodded, "That's fine, it was nice of you to start it for me, you really didn't have to do that, especially if it got you backed up…"
Gaara lifted one shoulder in a half-hearted shrug, "It was nothing, I'm always backed up, it sometimes seems as though they never want me to leave this office." He said dryly.
Hinata lifted her hand before her mouth to hide a laugh, knowing the Kazekage's office wasn't a place to make light of things. She finished filling out the paperwork and handed it over to him, "Okay…"
Gaara glanced briefly at the form before reaching down into one of the drawers of his desk and pulling out a black headband, setting it down on the desk in front of her, "You'll start as soon as an appropriate mission comes up, we'll set you up on a team on jounin and chunin. You're strengths are in jutsu and medicine right? You'll be a good addition to one of our shinobi squads."
Hinata tried, and failed, to hide a smile of pride, "Thank you Kazekage-sama."
"You're welcome." Gaara replied in a monotone.
Hinata looked down at the metal plate of her Suna headband and tied it around her neck, just like her older one. It wasn't the traditional way to wear it, but Hinata liked being subtly different, "I should be going now, Temari wants me to finish decorating my room today so I can finally sleep there. She wanted me to ask you if you'll be home in time for dinner tonight or if she should put your leftovers in the fridge."
Gaara thought for a moment, then looked over at his stack of papers before nodding, "I'll try to be home before dinner."
Hinata nodded, "Okay, she'll be happy to hear that, she's making something special, she's been in the kitchen for hours and it barely three o'clock. Well, see you later Kazekage-sama."
Gaara stayed impassive has he watched her walk away. Mai stayed silent the whole time, "She's cute…" She mused, letting the subject drop there, knowing her boss wasn't really the kind of person to let others in on the happenings of his personal life.
Gaara looked over at her blandly, "She's part of the peacekeeping arrangement and came to live with me and my siblings earlier in the week." He said, as though he needed to explain as to why a woman was living with him and his family.
Mai almost smiled at how much like a teen he acted when he didn't realize it. He looked up at her with a look bordering bored and innocent, as though his walls were falling, though only just a bit. She clapped her hands together and inhaled through her teeth to break the silence, walking over to his desk briskly and grabbing a stack of completed forms, "Well, I'll go and get these done for you so you can be home for that nice dinner your sister's cooking up right?"
Without waiting for him to reply, she turned and flounced out of the room, her usual bouncy, though slightly more contemplative self.
Gaara looked down at the forms Hinata had filled out before leaving, reading over the things he'd missed. Her height, her weight, date of birth, family, first ninja squad, missions, skills, strengths etc. He would never have admitted it, but he was vaguely (very, very, VERY vaguely) intrigued by the heiress residing in his home, associating with his siblings, and finding more ways to confuse and fascinate him with each encounter.