When she arrives back home in the Sand, Kankuro asks her to spar with him. She sighs and recunctly says yes.
Kankuro smirks, "Are you really sure you want to spar sis? You'll lose."
She sighs in annoyance and rolls her eyes, "You're the one who asked. Kanker Sore."
The smirk is wiped off from his face and he glares at her, "Aw come one, I thought you outgrew calling me that!"
She smirks and pokes his cheek, "Guess I didn't."
He rolls his eyes and swats her hand away. He mutters out, "Whatever. Tem Tem."
Her smirk is replaced with a scowl, "What did you just call me?"
He shrugs his shoulders and grins, "Nothing. Mari."
She crosses her arms and glares at him. Gaara just sighs as he watches his sibling's antics. "If your going to kill him Temari, please do it outside."
Kankuro frowns, "Don't encourage her!"
She look at Gaara and said in a sarcastic tone, "Can I? Can I really?"
Gaara deadpans wanting his two older siblings to stop whatever their doing, "You have my permission."
She smirks and looks back at her brother, "Well you heard Lord Kazekage. I have permission to kill you."
He rolls his eyes and scoffs, "You have to get to me to kill me."
She sighs and pulls him by the arm and drags him outside. Kankuro cackles like a hyena at the annoyed expression written on her face. He knew too well on how to push her buttons. She doesn't know what is annoying her the most. The laugh he's doing on purpose or what he called her. She came to the conclusion that Kankuro in general just annoys her.
He laughs, "You're going to lose!"
She sighs, "Shut up."
She never liked sparing against. Him and his stupid puppets and his snide remarks.
And people say she's cocky and has an attitude problem.
She remembers when they were young and he was first learning his art. He uses his chakra strings on her and use her as his own puppet.
He would make her himself and he would laugh and tease her. Saying on repeat, "Why are you hitting yourself?"
She wanted to punch him so badly when they were kids. Well, still in reality she would still want to punch for the stuff she does.
In the midst of their sparing, she hears something snap. That draws her way from her thoughts and her eyes widen.
She looks at her fan and gasps in horror. One of the stick that held the cloth of her fan together snapped.
She screamed and fell down to the ground. Kankuro stops what he is doing and running to his sister with a concern look on his face.
She holds the broken fan in her hands and she cries. Tears streaming down her face as the fan she had since she was young had just broken.
One of the few happy memories of her childhood was when she was given a tiny fan by her mother. She would say it looked cute and pinched her cheeks.
She still has the tiny fan with the three moons and the first time she had ever used her wind release jutsu was on Kakuro. He was annoying her and she had enough.
He had pulled on her pigtails for the last time and she opened her fan and a gust of wind was summoned which caused him to go flying. She laughed and her mother scowled. She frowned and her mother scolded her and said that was uncalled for. She was the oldest one and that she should protect her younger brother, not be mean to him.
Her father on the other hand smirked a bit and mumbled something. To be honest, she doesn't remember the look on his face. She tries to block out her father.
Maybe it was a smirk or maybe it was a smile. And maybe he mumbled that he was impressed with her. She doesn't remember and to be honest she doesn't really care.
When her mother was pregnant with Gaara, she got a much bigger fan for her birthday. And thus began the gruelling training from hell that she would go through.
Kankuro runs to her and notices the tears streaming down her face and her zoning out. He has never seen her like this and he is concerned. He shakes her and says her name, trying to get her to snap out of it.
One of the few things she has that reminds her of her mother is that fan. And she was careless and broke it. She hated herself and wanted to cry.
Kankuro shakes her harder, "Temari?"
She looks at him, "Huh?"
He frowns, "You fell down to the ground, are you okay?"
She cried looks away from him, mumbling, "No."
He looks at her with a concerned expression on his face, "What's wrong?"
She only cries more and hugs her brother. She cries loudly and buried her head in his chest. The broken fan falls down on the floor and Kankuro's eyes widen. When the fan made contact with, the strings held the sticks and cloth together began udone.
Temari cried harder as she heard the sound and hugged her brother tighter.
He blurts out and without thinking he says, "Your fan is broken."
She mocks and cries much harder now, "Aren't you a genius."
The last time he saw her cry as much as she was doing was when their mother died. Recently, she's tearing up here and there when it came to Gaara. But never like this. She's bawling her eyes out and hugging him.
He hugs her sister back and pats her back. He mumbles out, "Temari, stop crying."
"I can't."
He asks as he tries not to cry, seeing her cry. His voice cracks a bit, "Why?"
She doesn't listen and cries out, "I broke the fan that mom gave me. I broke the last one she gave me. Before she died."
He frowns more wipes his tears with his sleeve. He tries to brighten the mood, "Well. That wasn't the first fan that mom gave you."
She shouts at him and spits out in a anger, "Shut up. Not now."
"I'm sorry."
She pulls away from the hug and pushes him away from her. She wipes her tears and looks the other way.
Kankuro frowns and looks away. He mumbles, "Temari, I'm really sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you like that."
She scoffs ignoring his apology. She's still annoyed at her younger brother's idiotic comment. She just simply stats, "You're and idiot."
He sighs in response at her words, "Everyone is an idiot according to you, Temari."
She narrows her eyes at him. She fumes out in anger, "Not. Now."
"Sorry for trying to make you laugh."
She huffs out, "Just shut up for once."
Kankuro gulps in response. She's not in the mood for his snarky remarks. If he values living he would know well by now not to utter another word from his mouth.
She looks at the fully broken fan on the ground and frowns.
He blurts out, "I can fix it."
She scoffs in response, "You'll just break it more."
He sighs, getting annoyed with her attitude, "Its already broken. I can't make it even more broken."
She bluntly says, "You'll find a way."
His eye twitches a bit at her remarks. He blurts out, without thinking, and says what's on his mind, "You're just like dad."
She angrily shouts at him back, That man is far from being our father, I am nothing like him. You take that back."
He shouts out her, angrily, "Then stop acting like him."
She glares a thim and still shouts him, "The fan is already broken, I don't want you to break it anymore."
"Dad would always doubt me like what your doing right now. He would focus all his attention on you when it came to training and call my puppets toys. He even looked impressed when you sent me flying with that fan and called me a child when I used the chakra strings on you."
Her eyes widen at his words and puts a hand on his shoulder, "Kankuro.."
He resumes. His voice cracking as tears are streaming down his face, "He even paid attention to Gaara. Even after he would tell us on how much a monster he is. All because I couldn't use the stupid sand."
She just sits there. Shocked at his sudden outburst.
"Don't sit there all shocked, Temari. Even you paid more attention to Gaara. My own sister forgot about her other brother."
She says in a soft tone and ignores the second comment, "Gaara needed attention and to be reminded that he's loved."
He huffs out, "So did I."
"Are you jealous?"
He just looks at the broken fan on the ground and murmurs out, "Maybe. I don't know. But I'm fixing your fan."
"I'm not stopping you."
He grunts in response and grabs the sprawled out broken fan on the ground. He stands up and starts walking back home. He says over the shoulder, "Come back to the mansion when you lose the tude, Temari."
She just sits there on the ground and sighs. She sighs at the broken mess that she has for a family. A broken mess that man that has been dead for so long frist broke.
***
She lays on her bed, staring at the ceiling. The door opens and Kankuro walks in and she hears a loud thud.
She sits up from the bed and sees his usual smirk as he leans on her closed fan. She walks to him.
He hands her the fan with the smirk still on his face, "Your welcome, by the way."
She takes the fan and puts it on her bed.
He rolls his eyes, "Pfft. Okay then. Don't thank me, rude."
She doesn't say anything and hugs her younger brother. She rests her head on his shoulder and says, "Thank you."
His eyes widen at first at the sudden hug. Moments passed and he hugged her back. He patted her back, "I was kidding when I said that you should thank me, by the way."
"And you made such a big deal about me not thanking you. How annoying."
He shrugs and resumes, "You practically raised us, it's about time we repaid you."
She sighs in annoyance, "I don't need to be repaid. I'm your sister."
He smiles, "The best."
"That's debatable."
Kankuro goes on, "No. If there was competition, pretty sure you'll win."
She feels her face get hot and looks at him, "Stop it. Your making me blush."
He ignored her and went on, "You're more than a sister you know. Your motherly and sweet at times. You'll make a great mom."
She crosses her arms and looks away from him, "No I won't. Don't lie."
"Yes you will. Sometimes when I close my eyes trying to remember mom, I see you."
She scowled at him, "Stop."
"I think that's what Gaara sees. You should ask him."
"How dare you."
He looks at her confused, "What?"
"How could you forget about her so easily?"
He just stands there confused at her sudden outburst and he is unable to respond.
She feels herself getting angry. Forgetting about their mother like its nothing. She turns away from him. "Get out of my room."
"Even when I say something nice about you, you're a meanie."
She snaps at him, "Grow up."
He shakes his head and leaves her room. She feels herself getting angry. That her brothers could just forget about her mother so easily like that. It's almost insulting to her. And that Kankuro says she'll make a great mom.
She's afraid of another thing as well. Having children. She's amazed that Shikamaru can tolerate her and the thought of being a mother is too much for her.
They say that having a children is a chance to amend for the mistakes that you made in your life by raising them as you weren't. The problem is that she has made so many in her life already.