Sabuka threaded her way through the tables, resisting the urge to insert snide remarks into the few desultory conversations of those around her. Crazy or homeless they may be, but she still didn't think they'd appreciate dry insults from the help.

Rather than sit in one of the café's chairs, Gaara had woven himself a seat of sand that allowed him to lean back and take the weight of the gourd off his shoulders without actually removing it. The expression on his face was one of cool disinterest, although Sabuka was sure she could still detect that hopeless sadness behind his icy mask.

The kunoichi cast her eyes toward the sandy ground and pretended not to look at him. But still, she peered up at the crimson hair and pale, cold eyes through her bangs.

"What can I get you today, sir?" Sabuka asked, as much as it killed her to call anyone 'sir'. Even if it was Gaara.

"Tea," he said, and his voice sent a shudder down her spine. "And oden."

Sabuka scribbled it down and bobbed her head in what was definitely not a bow but obviously a gesture of respect. Then she returned to the room behind the counter to drop off the order.

The kunoichi went back to doodling absently, but her eyes remained surreptitiously on Gaara. He looks so lonely...

Tea and oden came sliding out of the food slot not long after. Sabuka snatched it and took it to Gaara.

Setting it on his table, Sabuka glanced around. There were currently no waiting customers; Ryūken was reading a book behind the counter.

Sabuka hesitated a moment longer, then slid into a chair across from Gaara.

The sand shinobi paused with the tea halfway to his lips. "What are you doing?" he demanded coldly. Sand began to creep across the ground toward Sabuka's ankles.

She ignored it. "Sitting," was her cool response. The kunoichi recognized the dark-rimmed eyes for the insomnia that they represented, and she wondered just how little he slept for them to be so prominent.

"Go sit somewhere else. Now." From his expression and his tone, Sabuka knew he was used to being obeyed.

She had just opened her mouth to reply when Ryūken barked across the night, "Keiteri."

Sabuka stood up, concealing a sigh. "I'll return shortly," she assured Gaara blandly, then went to see what was up.

Two more customers had showed, but that was only Ryūken's excuse. In a low voice, he demanded, "What the hell are you doing?"

"I'm flattered by your worry for me," said Sabuka, batting her eyelashes mockingly at him. "But I was only sitting."

"You were not 'only sitting'. You were sitting at the same table as Gaara."

"Emphasize a few less syllables and you'll be speaking in iambic pentameter," Sabuka advised. As Ryūken turned furious, she muttered, "No, pentameter is only ten syllables a line... some kind of iambic meter, at least, if he gets it just right... but he's sort of combining anapestic and dactylic... but no." The girl sighed to herself. "He's just not poetic enough."

Sabuka handed a woman her cup of hot cocoa and returned to Gaara's table.

--

"You are a fool," Gaara told her icily as she sat down. Sand twined about her wrists; the kunoichi wondered if it was to keep her there, to warn her, or to remind her that he could kill her with a moment's thought. Probably a little of all three.

"I've been called that," Sabuka agreed. "I've also been called worse. Like shinobi."

Gaara's pale, dead eyes bored into her. "What are you implying?"

Sabuka countered his question with another. "What's the twenty-fifth rule of Shinobi Conduct?" When he didn't answer, she went on, "'No matter what happens, true shinobi must never, ever show their emotions. The mission is the only priority. Carry that in your heart. And never, never shed a tear.' Not only are shinobi fools, they try to be inhuman fools."

As soon as she said the words, Sabuka regretted them. Looking at Gaara, she knew he was inhuman, and she could see how hard he tried to hide his emotions. She could see just by looking into his eyes.

But Gaara said nothing.

The silence stretched between them. Around her wrists, the sand tightened enough to be chafing. Gaara seemed to prefer the silence, using it to eat.

"Tell me about your past," Sabuka said abruptly.

Gaara paused. "Fools can't tell me what to do."

"No one tells you what to do."

"Yes," Gaara agreed.

"Fine." Sabuka rolled her eyes, skirting danger. "I beg you, Your Majesty, tell me, if it pleases you."

He regarded her silently, expression frosty.

Sabuka sighed. "Please?"

Still he said nothing, only took a drink of his tea.

The kunoichi also sat in silence. Begging Gaara would only irritate him.

"Why do you want to know?" he asked finally, and Sabuka was surprised to hear a note of bitterness.

The kunoichi chose her words carefully. "All I know about you is that there is a demon inside of you and almost everyone is afraid of you."

"Keiteri!"

Ryūken again. Sabuka made to stand up and found that, not only was the sand cutting into her wrists, her ankles were bound to the earth by golden chains.

Gaara's eyes narrowed. "You think to laugh at me?" Blood lust and fury turned his face to that of a murderer. "You think to torment me because of my past like all the others?"

"No," said Sabuka matter-of-factly, refusing to show her fear. She stood perfectly still, too, as if he were a wounded animal that needed calming. Nor did she say anything else, avoiding digging a deeper hole (for once).

"Keiteri!" Ryūken shouted again. Apparently, he didn't see her bindings.

"Duty calls," Sabuka said regretfully. "I do work here, you know. It's not all leisurely conversation."

"Who are you?" Gaara hissed.

Sabuka took a deep, quavering breath. "I'm not really sure, to be perfectly honest with you," she confessed quietly. "I don't know where I came from anymore. My mother was a... is dead. My father is dead. As far as I know, every member of my family is dead. But basically, the only things for sure about myself are my name and... that I'm shinobi. But a shinobi without a headband and a home village is a shinobi without an... identity."

Gaara looked taken aback, his warped mask temporarily shattered, but Sabuka figured that was because he'd expected nothing more than a name. The sand had fallen from her ankles and wrists; Sabuka took a step away. She walked backwards until she crashed into a table, breathed deeply, and whispered, "I'm called Sabuka Keiteri." Then the kunoichi turned around and walked away.

--

"Took you long enough," Ryūken snapped. Apparently, he was already accustomed to her presence, because he yelled at her to her face instead of the ground. Or maybe he was just really angry.

"I was held up by my new friend," Sabuka said loftily.

"Gaara is no one's friend," spat the sandy-haired youth.

"I didn't say he was the one who delayed me either," the kunoichi replied ambiguously, setting down a stack of used dishes in front of the correct hole.

Ryūken glared at her. She ignored him, instead pulling a couple of coins out her pocket. "Someone left these on the table with their dishes. Did one of your customers forget to pay?"

Disbelievingly, the young man stared at Sabuka. "Have you never worked a restaurant or café in your life?"

"I'm a ninja, not a waitress," snapped the kunoichi.

"It's called a tip. Extra spending money for the one who cleans up." He said each word as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "Have you never even been out to eat?"

It suddenly dawned on Sabuka why Ryūken always went after the plates. "I'm a ninja, not a food critic." There was never enough time or money. Especially money.

"I don't believe you. Ninjas wear headbands and get paid for their missions."

"Believe or don't believe whatever you want. It doesn't make it any more or less true."

Ryūken looked sourly at her as she returned the money to her pocket. Sabuka disregarded the expression. "Is there a reason you called me away from my lovely conversation?"

"We're closing, it's after midnight. I'll hang around and clean up the last of the dishes when the stragglers are done. You can go off and do whatever ninjas do." He smirked at the word; Sabuka rolled her eyes.

"I will, thanks," she responded sweetly as Ryūken pulled down a sort of curtain made of flat strips of wood. It latched to the counter on the edges; Ryūken shoved Sabuka out the room's door and locked it.

"Go home, little ninja," the sandy-haired youth sneered. Sabuka didn't bother to tell him that she lived in Ora's expansive house now, and he shut the outside door, too, leaving her standing out in the cold.

--

Ryūken hadn't locked the door, so Sabuka could have gone back inside if she really wanted to. In fact, she knew his whole act was pretty much just for show, because he'd said he was going to hang around and clean up.

But she didn't really want to go back inside, despite the chill. Thoughts of sleep had just begun to touch her brain, tentative spikes of weariness. It was not her desire to give in to them just yet.

Sabuka wandered away from the door, then paused. It would serve Ryūken right if she simply took all the money from the tables so he couldn't have it. The play was a childish one, and she wasn't usually a particularly spiteful person, but...

She did it anyway.

Then, because it established persistent pangs of guilt within her, she began stacking the used tableware. The kunoichi carried them back to the building and set them on the part of the counter that was outside the shutter. As she worked, the last few people got up to leave, although Gaara remained, finishing his tea.

When Sabuka had cleaned up all tables but Gaara's, she began to walk slowly, head down, toward the sand shinobi. Abruptly, he stood, his tea gone, enough caffeine downed to keep him awake through another night. Sabuka gathered up his cup and bowl while he walked away; no coin graced the table's sandy surface. She hadn't expected one to.

The kunoichi dropped off the empty dishes and turned to look back at Gaara. He was just turning a corner; the sight of his gourd was the last to go.

Sabuka hesitated for many, many moments, so many that she was sure he would be long gone before she made up her mind.

She shouldn't. She would be in danger of losing her life. She knew that all too well. Gaara was not a kind or merciful person. He was not even a stable person. He was a hurt person, and he seemed to desire that he remain that way. He was a loner and would not appreciate her interference.

Sabuka paused for one more moment. Then she took off running.

And even as her feet thundered across the ground - or perhaps that was just her heartbeat - her footsteps were completely silent, stealthy, as a ninja's should be.

--