For the next few days, it was tense in the house. Gaara was rarely home, always at work. Honestly, he was getting away from Lee. Since Lee's birthday, there was no apology. There was barely any words and certainly no explanation. Lee usually tried to kiss Gaara at least once a day, Lee hadn't been near him since his birthday. It hurt.
For the time being, Gaara listened to Itachi's advice and just ignored everything. If Lee didn't want to open up, he wouldn't. Plus, Gaara was still upset with how everything went down and he didn't want to give that up just yet. He had a right to be upset.
Ino promised she would be at the café more since the nursery was shutting down for winter, but right now they had a lot to do so for the most part, Gaara was by himself. He didn't mind, it reminded him of before. Before wasn't so bad, was it?
When Gaara got home that night, December 1st, he was met with the beautiful sight of his home. Kakashi and Guy had spent all day decorating the outside of the house it looked like. Gaara wondered if Lee had helped or not.
He walked inside and everyone was sitting at the table. Lee was sitting in his usual chair against the wall, idly poking his dinner, his somber expression hadn't changed at all. Kakashi and Guy had finished their dinner, now just drinking tea and talking quietly.
"Gaara! Hello! Your dinner is in the microwave." Gaara nodded his thanks and took off his shoes and hung his jacket up on the coatrack. He grabbed his plate and joined them at the table, being made fun of by Kakashi for still wearing his chef jacket.
"It's a lot warmer than not wearing it. It's cold outside." Kakashi noticed how red Gaara's face and fingers were.
"Did you walk home?" Kakashi asked and Gaara nodded slowly. "Why the hell didn't you call one of us?"
"I... didn't want to bother anyone." Gaara looked down at his food, and for the first time in days, saw Lee actually pay him mind.
"You would never bother us, Gaara." He said quietly. Gaara pursed his lips, stood up, picking up his plate and putting it back in the microwave.
"I'm actually not hungry right now. Thank you." Gaara grabbed his bag and quickly went up the stairs leaving Kakashi and Guy frowning and Lee looking guilty again.
"You're going to have to talk to him eventually." Kakashi said and Lee nodded numbly.
When Gaara walked into his room, he saw lights draped across his ceiling. The lights were designed to look like icicles and they lit up slowly. Placed evenly through the string of lights were envelopes with numbers on them hung with a wooden clothing pin. Gaara looked at everything in wonder, it was beautiful. He turned his head when he felt someone else in the room with him. It was Lee.
"Did you do this?" Gaara asked quietly and Lee nodded. "What is it, exactly."
"It is my rendition of an advent calendar. I do not know how to build very well so I decided this was best. I hope you like it. You are supposed to open the envelope with the day's number. Today you open one, all the way up to 24, Christmas Eve." Lee explained quietly and Gaara slowly walked to number one and lightly yanked it off of the clothing pin. He eyed Lee as he opened the envelope and inside was a piece of paper, a picture and a tiny piece of chocolate. Gaara pulled everything out and he stared at the picture first. It was a picture of him and Lee at the apple orchard the first day they hung out. Lee was grinning and Gaara had a donut in his mouth.
The small note said 'When we spent time together this day, I hoped you would be important in my life. I am glad you are.' Gaara looked back up at Lee. He was smiling, but weakly. Gaara really wished he knew what was wrong with him.
"Thank you, Lee. I didn't know or else I would've done one for you too." Lee shook his head with a wry smile.
"I do not deserve one, but thank you." Lee left Gaara alone in his room and Gaara just stared at each envelope and thought to himself, who else would love him this much?
At about 12am, Gaara realized he couldn't sleep. He actually realized it a while ago, but it was just now getting annoying. Considering it was a weekend, he should be able to sleep as much as he wanted but he was too upset. He decided he needed Lee.
Gaara climbed out of his bed and walked to Lee's door. He didn't knock, just opened it slowly and was surprised to see Lee sitting up on his bed scrolling on his phone. Lee looked up, startled at the sudden movement and confused to see Gaara.
"Hey, what are you doing?" Lee asked quietly and Gaara walked in, closed the door behind him and walked to Lee's bed.
"Can..." Gaara bit his lip and looked down at his hands as he held onto Lee's bed like a lifeline. "Can we pretend to be ok? I miss you." Lee dropped the phone so quickly and pulled Gaara to his chest.
"Of course, Gaara. I miss you too." Lee started crying almost instantly. "I miss you so much."
"Then why are you ignoring me?" The sound of Gaara's broken voice made Lee hiccup on his tears and he kissed Gaara's hair multiple times.
"I do not deserve you, Gaara. You are too good. You are so perfect and I want you to be happy and I cannot do that and I am sorry." Gaara had so many questions but he was just so tired right now. Emotionally and physically drained.
"Lee, can we pretend its fine? That we don't have any problems?" Lee nodded, but tears were still running down his face. "Then just hold me, ok?" Lee nodded again, his heart aching and he pulled Gaara so close to him.
"I love you Gaara." Lee said through his tears. "I love you, I love you, I love you." Lee kissed Gaara's head again and again and again.
Gaara and Lee fell asleep and slept well for the first time in a week.
The following week, Lee and Gaara pretended everything was fine. Gaara didn't ask Lee why he was so upset, Lee didn't tell him. They both wanted to ignore everything and pretend it was just fine.
Lee was too excited to wait until Christmas, so he decided he would celebrate on the 6th of December, which he learned was the night Santa Claus visited other countries, mainly ones in Europe.
When Gaara opened the envelope for December 6th, he was greeted with something different than he was used to. There wasn't a picture or a note from Lee, nor was there chocolate. When he unfolded the paper and his eyes skimmed through it, he realized Lee had bought him piano lessons. His eyes widened and he read the paper for the second time, then third.
When Gaara was younger, his sister Temari was taught piano. An instructor would come over three times a week and Temari would throw a fit. The younger Gaara would wait for the instructor to come to sit by the steps at the back of the house and try to listen. He always wanted to learn piano but his father wouldn't let him. He tried to listen as best as he could to Temari's lessons though. It was hard through a door.
When the instructor left, Gaara would rush back to his shed and pretend he was playing a marvelous looking piano for a huge theatre full of people and they would clap and cheer for him. It was always something he smiled most about as a child. It didn't matter that he didn't actually learn, for a time, his imagination was enough.
Gaara's eyes watered when he read it a fourth time and he covered his mouth with his hand. He sat down on his bed and read it a fifth time. Lee was standing at the doorway and didn't know how to respond.
"Are you okay?" He asked and Gaara nodded and Lee saw his eyes skim the paper again. "Did I do okay?" Gaara nodded again.
Finally, Gaara put the paper down on his bed and hugged Lee tightly. He wondered if he would ever tell Lee exactly why the piano lessons made him so happy.
Gaara looked at his tree with pride. He decorated it to the best of his artistic abilities. He tied small colorful pieces of candy on the branches in random places, this was a popular tradition in some countries. He also took clothes pins and carved names into them, names of people who meant a lot to him.
The clothes pins were decorated with buttons, colors and anything else colorful Gaara could get his hands on. He believed he finally got everyone on the tree.
He had Temari, Kankuro, Kakashi, Guy, Lee and Ino. He smiled at the tree, feeling thankful for the people closest in his life.
For Gaara's first piano lesson, Lee drove him. Gaara wasn't aware that he would be driven to the Uchiha estate. He looked around at the beautiful gardens and looked in awe at the large house.
"W...who is my instructor?" He asked and Lee raised an eyebrow then smiled.
"Oh I am sorry, I thought I told you already. It is Itachi." Gaara's face heated up and he nodded, Lee looked at him curiously but didn't say anything.
Lee opened the door without a knock and Gaara awkwardly stood in the foyer and Lee grabbed his arm and dragged him along. Sasuke was sitting on a bar stool in the kitchen eating peanuts when he noticed Lee.
"Hey! What are you doing here?" He asked and Lee smiled.
"Gaara is here for his piano lessons." Gaara blushed again and Lee couldn't help but think Gaara was the cutest, most pure human he ever saw. "Where is Itachi?" Sasuke shrugged.
"Itachi!" Sasuke yelled and Lee winced. Gaara was too occupied staring at the house in mild awe.
Itachi walked into the room and Gaara's eyes quickly met his. Itachi was wearing glasses, which was something Gaara only saw once, he actually forgot Itachi had glasses. His hair was down for once and he was wearing a simple dark purple sweater and black pants. He smiled.
"Hello. Nice to see you again, Gaara. Are you ready for your lessons?" Gaara nodded but kept his mouth firmly shut. He wished he could take a picture and send it to Ino. She would probably die.
"Wait wait wait!" Ino said quickly and extremely excitedly. "Glasses, hair down? Oh my god, how hot was he? Please tell me you took a picture?"
"Well, interestingly enough, I did not, Lee did. He decided he needed a picture of Itachi and I commemorating my first piano lesson. Hold on I'll send it to you." Ino shrieked happily and Gaara sent the message.
"Jesus, mother of god! Gaara! You have the world's hottest teacher. I am so jealous. Do you think I could get some piano lessons too?" Gaara smirked and rolled his eyes.
"You could try. I think he actually wants to teach piano though, not be ogled by an 18 year old girl." Gaara teased.
"And what? Being ogled by a 16 year old boy is just fine?" Gaara frowned.
"I'm going to be 17 in a month." Ino laughed. "Stop making fun of me. Just because you're old enough to join the war and I'm not."
"Gaara, shut up and never change. Now if you don't mind, I'm going to change my wallpaper..."
"But you and I were your wallpaper." Gaara protested and Ino giggled.
"Well now it's you and Itachi."
"I hate you."
Gaara sat at his desk with his exacto-knife carving another clothes pin. This one wasn't as flashy as the others, in fact, it was on a smaller pin, but there was something telling him no matter the size of the pin, this would be an important person in his life. He didn't know how he knew, he just did.
He spent a while getting the curves in the name just right, he liked writing everything in cursive, even if it was harder to do. He blew the wooden shavings out of the way and brushed it off with his hand. It looked perfect. Gaara grabbed a small paintbrush and dipped it in his purple paint and traced the groove of the name in the wood. When he was done he let it dry, then with another layer of a paint to make the wood shinier, he coated it and let it dry again.
He walked to his tree, sat down and looked at the placement for everyone. He had Lee almost at the top, Ino around the same height, Kakashi slightly lower, then Guy, then Temari then Kankuro. He rubbed his thumb over all of the names with a content sigh. These people meant the world to him.
Gaara grabbed a branch towards the bottom of the tree and pinned the final name and with a satisfied nod, he left to take a shower.
Lee walked into his room shortly after to put a decoration he made Gaara on the side of the tree (so Gaara could place it how he wanted it.) It was kind of childish looking but it was something he made with his scrapbooking equipment. A family picture they took a few days ago. Gaara, Kakashi, Guy and Lee, all wearing silly Santa hats. Lee smiled at the picture and placed it down and looked over Gaara's tree. He grinned at his name on the tree and let his fingers run over the smooth surface.
Lee looked at all the other names until he noticed there was another name. It looked freshly done so Lee didn't want to grab it. He lowered himself to the floor to get a closer look at it. The strange thing was, seeing that name made his stomach feel funny. Why?
In purple script at the bottom of the tree was Itachi.