Author's Note: Okay, say it with me! "Awwww!!" Yeah, I decided to end on a cute note with the last one. squeezes chapter So sweet and cuddly!! So, who's ready for more fluff? Happy Reading!!
-Ryu
Hospital Visits
Gaara's Story
Gaara wandered around downtown Konoha, trying to follow the directions Naruto had given him for the Yamanaka's flower shop. He had decided to try and visit Ryu again today. He had been trying since to get in ever since Temari had told him she had woken up, but had been turned away each time. He was determined to get in today though, and the least the blasted nurse could do was deliver some flowers for him. He finally found the shop and quickly walked in, a small bell jingling as he went in.
He saw a blonde girl sitting at the counter along with Sakura, who was leaning against it. It seemed they were in the middle of a conversation. Sakura looked up and smiled friendly-like at him.
"Hi, Gaara," she said.
"Hello, Sakura," he said.
"You here for some flowers?" the blonde girl asked. He nodded.
Sakura smiled again. "Wait, let me guess. For Ryu, right?"
Gaara blinked. "Yes, how did you know?"
The blonde girl jumped off her stool and walked around to the front.
"Because Kiba, Neji, Lee, and TenTen came in for some flowers for her yesterday," she said. "Do you want some help finding some so you don't get any repeats?"
Gaara thought a moment while looking at all the colorful flowers gathered in the shop. He remembered that both Temari and Kankuro had told him to get roses for her though his sister had said to get yellow and his brother had told him to get red. Then again, Temari had swatted the top of his head after he had said that so...
"Help would be appreciated," he said.
"O-kay! Let's get some flowers!" she said as she walked over, her blonde hair moving with her movements. "Oh, my name's Ino by the way."
She started to lead him down an aisle filled with fresh-cut flowers.
"Since Kiba and Guy's team already got her a bunch, that means you can't bring sunflowers, orchids, daffodils, or carnations. So this leaves cosmos, cherry blossom sticks, roses, asters, mums, and black-eyed susans..."
She pointed at all the flowers as she named them, and Gaara stopped to look at all of them. They were nice, but they didn't seem...bright enough. He wanted something cheerful and energetic, like Ryu. He wanted something that would make her smile and forget the weariness the poison inflicted. The cherry blossoms looked nice, but they weren't energetic enough...
A splash of yellow caught his eye, and he stopped to look at the flowers that had caught his attention. They looked like the cherry blossoms, but were yellow. Ino had gone off into her own world of flower arranging, thinking of what could go with the flowers she had just named when his voice brought her back down to earth.
"What are these?" he asked. She turned and looked to the flowers he was looking at.
"Oh, late forsythia," she said. Sakura came around to look at the yellow flowers.
"I thought forsythia bloomed in the early spring." She said. "How did you get some in late summer?"
"We got them from the Mist village. They had a wicked late spring tihs year so they sent us some forsythia to make up for the lilies..."
Gaara picked a stick up and looked at it. The flowers were small, but bright and bursting with energy. Just like Ryu. He turned to Ino.
"I'll take a few of these. You may add whatever you want to it so long as it looks nice." he said curtly.
"Okay. How many do you want?"
Gaara looked at the bin of flowers, and grabbed about eight boughs of forsythia. "This many."
Ino took the forsythia from him. "Alright. Wait at the counter and I'll ring you up when they're ready." she said.
Gaara walked away, leaving her to pick the accompanying flowers on her own. Ino looked at Sakura as she went along picking the flowers that would go with the forsythia.
"Well, he's not one for social grace, is he?" she mumbled to her.
Sakura tried not to giggle. "That's Gaara, Ino. He's probably just worried about Ryu. You saw how Kiba was yesterday." she said.
"That's true..."
Ino picked up some cherry blossom sticks as she chatted with Sakura about normal things, putting them around the forsythia. She then took some bachelor's buttons and put them in also. She then added some long green ferns, sticking them in everywhere. The goal was to make the forsythia stand out since those were the flowers he had picked. Once she was finished, she brought the bouquet up to him.
"Well, what do you think?" she asked him.
The light green eyes traveled around the flowers.
"Nice," he said. "Thankyou for you help."
Ino smiled. "I wouldn't be in here if I couldn't help people." she said. She then rang the flowers up and he left, saying his goodbyes to Sakura.
He felt kind of proud of himself; he had been able to get flowers for a friend without screwing up. He started his walk to the hospital, careful of the people as he went. He didn't want anything to happen to the flowers. He was walking across one of the many bridges in Konoha when he suddenly heard the quick clacking of running feet and the manic barking of a dog.
He quickly turned to see Naruto being dragged by a huge dog, both of which were coming straight at him.
"AAAH!! GAARA, LOOK OUT!!" the blonde shouted, but it was too late.
The three collided, Gaara's sand automatically rushing around him, but he was knocked over anyway. He shook his head after falling onto the concrete then noticed there were petals in the air. He jumped up in a panic to see his bouquet floating away in the river. He stared at the water for a moment, then let his head hit the bridge's hand rail.
"THUD!"
Naruto moaned as he got himself out from under the dog.
"Ugh, sorry, Gaara. This guy's really strong..." He then noticed the aura of gloom that surrounded his friend. "Gaara? What's the matter?"
"The flowers..." That was all he could really say as his voice dripped with depression.
Naruto cocked his head. "Flowers? Wha-OH!! The flowers for Ryu!! Oh, Gaara, I'm so sorry!!" he said quickly, trying to sweep away the hurt.
Gaara didn't really know what to say. He just kind of wanted to stand here with his head pressed against the weathered wood. He forced himself to straighten up, feeling pretty much numb. Naruto immediately picked up on this and looked around himself. A few sticks of forsythia and cherry blossoms lay to the side, if not a little beaten up.
He picked them up.
"Wait! I found some!" he said, trying to give him some hope as he handed them to Gaara.
Relief spread in Gaara as he took the remaining flowers from his friend. One of the two forsythia sticks broke in two in his hand, Naruto flinching when it did. Oh man... Gaara gave him the flattest look he could.
"Thanks, Naruto..." he said tonelessly.
"Eheh... I'm really sorry about the flowers, Gaara," he said, feeling pretty bad.
Gaara sighed heavily. "These will be alright... I think..."
Naruto thought a second then an idea struck him in the head as his friend walked away.
"Wait!! I know how to fix this!!" He ran forward, grabbing Gaara's arm as he went.
Gaara didn't really protest as he was suddenly being dragged by Naruto to some unknown location. This tended to happen about three times a month, if not a week. But he was supposed go see Ryu, not get sucked into one of Naruto's crazy ideas!
"Uh, Naruto? I really-"
"Don't worry! This'll only take a minute, I promise!"
"But your minutes tend to be two hours!"
"This will only be half an hour tops!"
Gaara let himself be lead to the residential district. They came to a stop at a pink house with a small stone porch. Naruto walked up the steps, and knocked on the door. A moment later it was opened a little old woman. She smiled when she saw Naruto.
"Hello, Naruto, it's nice to see you. Who's your friend?" she asked kindly. She looked gently at Gaara.
"This is Gaara. Gaara, this is Ms. Antari." said Naruto, gesturing towards the woman.
"It's nice to meet you," Gaara said politely. How was this going to help fix his flowers?
"Ms. Antari, do you think you can do my friend a favor? You see, his girlfriend's in the hospital and I wrecked his flowers. Can you help us?" Naruto said this with the most sincerity Gaara had heard out of him since the blonde had kicked his ass last year during the Sound Invasion.
He would of said something about the girlfriend part, but he hadn't wanted to interrupt the proposal that might make Ryu happy. The woman smiled.
"Wait here, you two." she said, and she went back inside
Gaara looked at Naruto. "Ryu isn't my girlfriend, Naruto."
"She isn't? Well, could of fooled me!" said Naruto while rubbing the back of his head.
"But it did."
"It's an expression Gaara..."
Gaara looked up at the pink house with the high wooden fence surrounding the backyard. "How do you know this woman?"
"Oh, I saved her cat from drowning in the river. But she's got this huge garden! If anyone can make you another bouquet, it's her." said Naruto encouragingly.
A moment later and the door opened. The woman had a good sized bouquet of orange and yellow lilies with some red roses. She handed them gently to Gaara.
"I hope your girlfriend feels better soon."
"Thankyou. Me too."
They all said their goodbyes and Naruto and Gaara started to walk back to the bridge.
"Thankyou for the help, Naruto." he said. The blonde gave him a big smile.
"Aw, it's the least I could do. I mean, I was the one who wrecked the other ones." said Naruto.
"Actually, it was more the dog's fault then anything."
"Dog? What d- AH!!"
Naruto took off down the road. "I forgot the dog!!"
Gaara watched his friend run down the road, and laughed quietly to himself. He really was funny. He resumed his walk to the hospital, and was there in about five minutes. He crossed his fingers as he asked if he could see Ryu Akihara. To his relief, the nurse said yes and he went swiftly up the stairs.
He made sure to knock quietly on her door, and then gently opened it.
"Ryu?"
The room was softly dark, and he saw that she was asleep. He tip-toed in so he could have a better look at her. She was deathly pale, just like Temari had been the first couple of weeks after the second exam. He looked to the table near the window, and saw the other flowers that Ino had mentioned. The sunflowers were turned toward what little sun was leaking through the closed curtains and the two orchids wavered delicately from the light breeze.
He couldn't help but go over to see who they were from. The sunflowers were from Kiba, the carnations were from TenTen, the daffodils were from Lee, and the orchids were from Neji. But where had the purple and yellow irises come from? They stood in a fogged crystal vase with no name tag, and he looked closely at them. They seemed off for some reason.
He put a hand among the stems, feeling around the plants carefully. A flash of leather slipped past one of his fingers and he quickly grabbed whatever had gone past his hand. He pulled out a long, slim, green snake with yellow stripes going up it's body. It was a harmless garter snake, but it's eyes were a dark purple, something unheard of to him. He looked among the irises again, seeing more slender figures in the vase, all with different colored eyes.
He looked over at the sleeping Ryu then back at the snake in his hand. Better to be safe then sorry...
Ryu gently woke up from her nap. She had woken up really tired that morning, probably from all the energy used in her excitement about Kiba's visit. Al and Raikera were staying with him upon her request now. She had decided to take an early nap and had accidentally slept through lunch it seemed. Bright yellow and orange caught her eye and she looked over at the table next to her bed.
It was a bouquet of orange and yellow lilies along with some wonderfully red roses. There was a note next to the flowers and she picked it up to read it.
I came to see you, but you were asleep so I left the
flowers here for you. I hope you like them.
Get well soon,
Gaara
She smiled, and looked at the flowers. Roses were her favorite next to sunflowers. She looked up at the curtained window and got up to open them for the straining sunflowers. She opened the curtains, and looked at all the flowers that had sprouted on the table.
Carnations from TenTen... Daffodils from Lee... She nearly squealed when she saw the orchids; they were so small and delicate and... From Neji?! Was it just her, or had he done a 180 degree turn about his attitude toward her?
She paused when she saw the empty fogged crystal vase. It was perfect for Gaara's flowers. She undid the pink bow that held them together and put them in. She turned around to get back into bed when she heard a nurse knocking on the door.
But she hadn't noticed the three drops of cherry red blood on the floor before the vase.