As a general rule Temari Sabaku stayed well away from her baby brother's sex life. It was simply better for her sanity. However her little brother had never asked for a specific personnel file on a specific person, and he'd never wanted it as soon as he got in the office. Gaara had taken the file said a
curt thanks and disappeared into the office, casually stealing an apple from her hands as well.
The blond had previously resolved to run a quick check on the medical personnel. Now she was going to scrutinize Sasuke Uchiha thoroughly enough to find out why Gaara was suddenly so interested in an employee. Gaara used people yes, but he had never slept with an employee. Temari nodded to herself, she would find out what Sasuke Uchiha had that the 300 other people in this building didn't.
On her way to the inspection she stuck her head into her baby brother's office, smiled at the sight of her brother and husband chatting casually. Gaara's pen was in his mouth, meaning he was actually focusing. That's good, she thought, at least they get along.
"I'm on my way to inspection. Care to join?"
"No thank you Temari." Gaara declined politely, like he did every time, though little did Temari know there was a good reason. Gaara wasn't too sure he wanted Sasuke knowing he was the CEO. Maybe if Sasuke didn't know, didn't google him either, the red head might actually make a friend based solely on compatibility.
"Shika?"
"Evidently I'm to expect a phone call and Gaara wants to be there when it comes." Shika had risen slowly from his chair, straightening his suit coat as he did, he made his way across the room as he spoke, "So no thank you." He kissed her cheek and shut the door when she clicked away down the hall.
A phone call? Temari shook the thought off, who cares? There was a lot of phone calls in this building every day. She waved slightly to the secretary she knew so well. Ino Yamanaka grinned briefly then scowled, her blond amigo looked much too pensive for her usual thoughts. "You okay?" She raised one eyebrow politely and Temari shrugged before approaching and half sitting half leaning on the desk.
"Why the hell would you request the personnel file of one person when you have never done so before?" She mused and Ino sat quietly for a second before nodding to herself and speaking out loud.
"I would do so if i was really curious about whoever I'm looking into. May i ask why the hell Kankuro did this?" At Temari's head shake she gasped. "Gaara requested the file? Can I come meet him, I know you're going downstairs to see who the fuck this guy is." Her platinum hair fell down into her ice blue eyes and she glittered them merrily at her only real girl friend. She had several acquaintances but she only had a few girl friends ; Temari Sabaku, Sakura Haruno, TenTen and Hinata Hyuuga. All of the above were viciously independent women in their own way. Regardless of who they were dating.
And they were dating. Temari was married now to Shikamaru Nara, who worked the logistics with Gaara for a little bit - which was where he encountered Temari's wrath - now he was a lawyer for the company and the best one around. Sakura was with Rock Lee, He ran a branch of the most prominent martial art dojos in the city. TenTen was in love with Neji Hyuuga - another business tycoon under the apprenticeship of his uncle.
Hinata Hyuuga was a special case. She was in love, but not dating. She was in love with Naruto Uzumaki. The blond bombshell was a lot of things and Ino often found it difficult to qualify him as anything. Unlike most of her friend's lovers Naruto wasn't wealthy. He was a normal guy with normal tastes. He loved Hina too but they'd known each other so long that they were both worried about ruining the relationship by asking the other out.
"So who's the guy?"
"Sasuke Uchiha." Temari deadpanned the name. It meant absolutely nothing to her, except that he'd been a person that Shika invited to their wedding but had been unable to attend.
Ino spluttered and faltered in her step. Sasuke Uchiha? It took Temari's odd look to realize that she'd spoken out loud. "He's got quite the past. He's brilliant, and had a nasty life. Whole family murdered in one night by his brother, the guy is still locked up."
"Oh god, this is the last Uchiha! I thought it was a coincidence with the name."
"No. Sakura found him. She was 6 when the killings happened but she thought nothing of it until she was fourteen and her parents told her they were taking in a foster kid; Sasuke. He kept an erratic schedule, staying for a month before leaving for 5 months and showing for 3 months. Her parents never minded, he was a good kid and protected Sakura fiercely. You must have heard about him, she called him her guardian angel."
Temari nodded, she had a few memories of Sakura laughing about the wounds her guardian angel had doled out onto unsuspecting assholes.
"He got straightened out though, started dating a good girl named Joyce. Rumor mill says it turned sour though." Ino felt a rush of pride at her friend's face. If you need a background check it's faster to call Ino Yamanaka then a PI. The natural blond knew enough people to know a little about a lot of people. She heard almost every bit of good gossip and made sure to double check sources. "Sakura got him a good position at the hospital and he's a good man according to her. You may want to consider calling our favorite pinkette to confirm."
The female face of Suna Corps had both eyebrows furrowed in thought. Why the hell was her brother taking any interest in a doctor from the system? She slapped herself mentally, it had to be because he was from the system. Gaara had spent a bit of time in there when their father decided to teach him a lesson and now he took a special look at those kindred spirits.
"Get ready." She pushed open the doors to the medical research lab and tugged two white lab coats off the hangers, passing one to Ino she tugged the other over her suit coat. She whistled loud enough to get the lab's attention and let people take in who she was. Someone would have the sense to get Sakura.
"Sakura!" A voice called above the silence and a pink head leaned out of another office. Temari began approaching with long confidant strides, she almost gaped at the nametag on the door. In black lettering was the name Sasuke Uchiha. Perfect.
"Sakura, who's your friend?" She turned to Ino, who had a note pad in hand and looked like she was paying attention. The eldest Sabaku knew however that she was far too busy gaping at the man in front of her.
Pure black hair with wild spikes at the back, several strands kept falling in his face and the his gloved hand would dash up to swipe them away. He had glasses balanced at the end of his nose, but his eyes were so striking you wouldn't notice. Temari offered a hand when Sakura started the introductions.
"Sasuke this is Temari. She runs the people side of this building basically, she hires people and keep track of employees and salaries."
"So you sign my check? I'm very pleased to meet you." Sasuke shook hands and Temari smiled.
Gotcha. Ino smirked. Temari could practically read a person' lifestyle choices in their handshake. The blond secretary made a mental note to quiz her later, Temari was an excellent source of all information.
"This is my secretary, Ino Yamanaka." Temari side-stepped to let Ino shake hands with Sasuke. For a brief moment she considered making an attempt to assess him like her tough-as-nails pal but decided against it. Let the experts play with their toys. She smiled softly and he grinned. Ino almost growled, he was faking this smile, faking this laugh. Doing it damn well but regardless of that; he was faking!
"Pleasure to meet you, I've heard good things." Temari tossed a glance at Ino and in the back of her head the secretary wondered if her blue eyes were as bewildered as the rest of her.
"I'm glad, I really have to get back to this," he motioned to the tube in his hands, "So I'll leave you ladies to talk." He pushed the glasses up on his face and ducked out the door. Ino chuckled, no one really likes being in the room with the person who signs your check. Especially not when that woman is Temari Sabaku, her entire aura screams power.
"Sakura. We need to talk." Temari shut the office door.
.
Shikamaru Nara wasn't quite sure what to expect this morning when he realized he was spending it with his brother-in-law. Gaara always provided an interesting view on things and he never sugar-coated his opinions, perhaps that was part of his appeal with women - and men - but for Shikamaru Nara it all spelled one very important word; troublesome.
He woke up this morning and his new wife was already gone, but that was normal she started work much earlier than he did. God knows why, he never really saw fit to question it. He stuck his head into the red head's office and an amused smile made its way onto his lips. Gaara Sabaku was standing at the window and tapping his foot.
For Shika this meant several things. Gaara was either a) impatient for some event b) trying very hard to figure something out or c) really pissed off. It was much too early to even contemplate pissing off Gaara so the black haired husband ruled C out almost instantly. Impatient for an event was unlikely seeing as Shika knew the only event this morning was him. Which left him with option B. Which dragged him to a question, what made Gaara Sabaku the CEO tick?
"So who's the girl?" The words were out of his mouth before it was really a thought. It was practically a greeting. Gaara was a one-partner person dating just about 90 billion people a year. It always peaked the lawyer's interest to know who he was hooking up with now.
"Ash, Ashley. But I'm leaving her soon." Gaara murmured over his shoulder. Not once had he looked back at his sister's new husband. "How are you Shika?"
While Gaara had been speaking Shika had been studying the line of Gaara's shoulders, straight and tense. He was really deep in thought about this…whatever this was. Which only drew him further into the depths of intrigue and question.
"I'm like I always am my friend, tired and in love. How are you?"
"I'm...intrigued." Gaara pointed to the file on his desk and the Nara approached with caution. Gaara had a file on this person? Did he do a background check already? Shikamaru filed away this knowledge for further probing later.
Sasuke...Uchiha. Sasuke Uchiha! "You met Sasuke? Hmm, that's good. I won't have to introduce you later." Gaara ignored this remark and sighed.
"He has no idea I'm me."
This statement threw the dark haired man for a loop. "He doesn't know you? How the hell does he not know you? Everyone knows you." Shika mentally went back over his conversations with Sasuke and realized that he'd told Sasuke all about Temari and all about her family but he'd not named Gaara once. So as far as Sasuke knew Temari was the CEO's sister and nothing more.
And Sasuke wasn't the kind to google someones brother - especially not when he knew that he would never be associating with them. So he wouldn't bother. Sasuke didn't know he'd met the CEO, he just thought he'd met - and surely Gaara played this angle - a number guy from the floors above.
"I don't know how he doesn't know, he just doesn't. It's amazing. Shika," Gaara turned and paused, "You know him. Never mind then." Gaara seemed to lose all the intense interest that he had in about 3 seconds flat.
"What? What were you about to ask." Shika devoted all his attentions to his friend now, mostly because Gaara wasn't one to stop himself from doing anything. He cursed internally at the look Gaara gave him. If he didn't say it before, it was clear he had no intentions of indulging Shika's request now. "Fine fine, I know. So what does Sasuke Uchiha mean to you? Besides being your brother-in-law's old friend."
"He means nothing." Gaara shifted his attention back to the window and Shikamaru moved to stand beside him. "So help me Shika if you start that-"
"You know that I hate it when you do this, you know it never works with me, I'm your lawyer Gaara. Full disclosure comes with the deal."
The glare on that red head's face could only be described as vicious. "Sit Shika, sit." Gaara motioned at his chair and the Nara's guard came up. For a brief second he wondered if Gaara was willing to kill him in his office, he wrote this conclusion off when Gaara's pen was lifted. As easy as it was to kill someone with a pen, it was much too crude a weapon for Gaara to use.
"If you know Sasuke then I expect he'll be calling you soon...care to get a coffee?"
Gaara put the back of the pen in his mouth and leaned against the desk, as he was about to begin however, the door open and Shika's smile reappeared at the sight of his wife.
"I'm on my way to inspection. Care to join?"
"No, thank you Temari."
"Shika?"
"Evidently I'm to expect a phone call," He looked at Gaara as he stood up and his fingers automatically made their way to his suit to straighten it as he walked over to his wife, "and Gaara wants to be there when it comes," He leaned against the partly open door and shook his head. "So no thank you." He kissed her cheek and waited until she walked away to close the door. "So let me clear the air. You met my old friend, dropped my name so now he's going to call me. What am I going to say?"
"Whatever you want." Gaara made it sound absent.
"I know you to well for that tone. What do you want me to say?"
"That I'm nobody, a guy who looks at numbers all day. Shika, I just, for once it'd be nice to be judged on me not by my money."
Despite how stupid it sounded Shika understood what he was saying. When people met Gaara Sabaku they met the CEO of Suna Corps. A big name with big bank accounts, most people didn't care what he was like. They just wanted his money. Shika nodded to himself, so essentially he wanted make a friend without being a famous name.
Normality, that's not a horrible thing to aim for.