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PART 9; The Oasis of Love and Youth and ZOMG NINJA ... yeah
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For a seemingly dreary place such as the desert, Rock Lee couldn't help but appreciate a conveniently located place of beauty. He was currently in a pub on the far west corner of the village with Gaara, and the view from the window was fantastic. For miles and miles there was a sea of sand that glowed orange in to setting sun, silhouettes of mountains off in the distance, and the glimmer of a far-off oasis. He hadn't anticipated appreciating the beauty of this country now, after having seen it several times on various missions.
Albeit entranced by the view, Lee had an excellent set of ears. Even in this state he could hear a pin drop, but Gaara was just one of those Shinobi who was naturally more silent than, well, silence itself. If anyone could make that possible, Gaara could. It was easy to forget his presence when he wasn't the least bit threatening, hence the reason a startled Lee snapped his head from the window the moment the Kazekage said something.
"Mostly young Shinobi come here, so no one should be disturbed by my presence," said Gaara, his voice distant as the mountains beyond the sand. That drew Lee's attention away from the view, but he found he was unable to say anything. There wasn't a whole lot he knew about Gaara, only that somewhere inside this respectable, albeit frightfully lethal Shinobi was a good person. Heck, just being a good person was always enough to win Lee over, but Gaara wasn't just that. Better yet, Gaara was a hero, and in so many ways. Lee just knew there was much to admire about the man sitting in front of him, yet so much of that was shrouded in mystery, possibly overridden by some of Gaara's less... pleasant deeds. Deeds that no longer even applied!
Gaara and he had never had the opportunity to meet in such an intimate way. He felt honored that Gaara would bring him out here. This was Lee's chance to get to know all kinds of new and exciting things about this dear friend and savior of his. Why, if he couldn't learn ten, no, thirty new things about Gaara, he'd...
"Lee," said Gaara. "You seem lost in thought. I hope my presence isn't disturbing you."
Lee's former train of thought died with that.
"No! I mean, there's nothing disturbing about you... " said Lee, earning him a glance that suggested he'd lost his brain. Oh, yeah. Gaara kinda used to be evil, but. "At least, not anymore... I mean... "
The only waitress bold enough to step up to Gaara's table chose that very moment to hand out menus. It was a good save, but Lee still felt a bit jumbled on the inside. Must be the heavy presence Gaara seemed to exude.
Although, Lee never did take into account that some of the restaurant's patrons may be wondering how eyebrows got as big as his, but he'd grown so immune to THOSE kinds of stares that he didn't even notice them when they were there. Thus, all the scrutiny went on Gaara. Yeah, but Gaara was Kazekage. A little scrutiny wouldn't hurt him.
A cold silence seemed to wash over them after they ordered their meals, and Lee had to wonder, why did Gaara choose this place to dine? Why a public restaurant? An inexpensive one at that. Why, as Kazekage he must have his own cooks, or something. This seemed a little odd. After all, it wasn't every day you saw Tsunade-sama at a dango stand, so what was this all about?
Just as he was about to ask, Gaara cut off his train of thought with a more broad, but odd question. "What do you think of love?"
"Love?!"
Lee didn't know why that brought such a blush to his face. Oh, but of course because love was only the world's most beautiful thing. The blooming of the Lotus in the Springtime of Youth. Beautiful, sweet love, when two people are joined by the pull of one another's hearts, when bees buzz and birds sing, flowers bloom and rivers flow, and all is right with the world. Love. Love was...
"Yes, talk to me about love," said Gaara.
That brilliant train of thought Lee had going on had suddenly been successfully trashed again by Gaara. What could he possibly want to know about love? Maybe he'd found a nice girl in the village and didn't know how to approach her. That Matsuri girl Lee'd seen floating around was awfully nice, and Gaara seemed fond of her. Or maybe he's been unable to express his love for his family throughout the years, but Lee always imagined that familial love, especially sibling love, often went without saying. But did Gaara understand that? Or was he... oh, Lee sure hoped Gaara didn't fancy Sakura. That'd get real ugly, real fast, considering how close she was with Sasuke and Naruto. When it came to Team 7, the village placed two bets: Which Would Sakura Kill First, and Which Would Sakura Kiss First. Lee thought that was rather inappropriate, but everyone else just seemed to run with it. Neji and TenTen both think Sakura will do away with both of them, and grow into a bitter, lonely old hag like Tsunade-sama. Sometimes Lee doesn't like his teammates very much.
"Did you hear me, Lee?"
"O-oh, yes. I got lost in thought again," said Lee.
"I didn't ask you to think, I asked you to talk."
Lee frowned, Well, that was rude. Gaara still maintained those same kinds of composed, curt remarks that he showed that one time he spoke ill of Gai-sensei. Since then, that particular tone and attitude could really ride on Lee's nerves.
"It's not an easy thing to talk about, so I had to think," said Lee.
"Why?"
Blink. "Wh... ?"
"Why isn't it easy to talk about?"
Dumbfounded, Lee now had to think of how to answer that one. "I... um... it just is! Isn't, sorry. Some things are like that."
"Then try. I know you like to be challenged," said Gaara, shoulders hunched back, eyes narrow, arms crossed. His posture demanded an answer more than his words.
Well, if that's how it had to be, Lee would gush every inkling of heart and soul into his thoughts on love. Funny how, in front of Gaara, Sakura's name didn't pass his lips once. Huh, that was weird, but the rest of it was brilliant. Indeed, Lee's rambles of Youth, and Beauty, and the like ended up gathering a great audience, and just as quickly as they attached themselves to his passionate speech, they retreated, and the cook even complained that they were losing customers because of him, but didn't dare do or say more with the Kazekage sitting across from him.
At the end of it all, Lee cried. He was so happy. This is exactly how Gai-sensei would have spoken of Love, and-and OH if Gai-sensei were here, they would share the most wonderful, youthful manly embrace to awe this entire restaurant, NO, this entire village! The village would be enchanted with the power of their Youth.
The best part was, Gaara hung onto every word of the speech. Oh, he knew he'd found a good friend in Gaara if he could appreciate the beauty of exuberance.
"... interesting," said Gaara.
"Isn't love amazing?" asked Lee, still in such a high from his speech that he hadn't noticed that the bold waitress's giggle as she returned with their food. He also didn't notice the trio that entered the restaurant just then. He was too busy leaning his face into his palms, fantasizing, not staring at anything really, though he was sitting right in front of Gaara...
"I should have asked you to make sense of love because none of what you said made any sense."
Lee shot straight up from his seat and laid down the law!
"That's the beauty of it! Love doesn't have to make sense." Lee's bandaged arms reached over and clutched each of Gaara's shoulders as tightly as they could, and if you didn't know any better you could swear his eyes were burning with passion. A normal person would have found this outburst creepy, yet Gaara just sat and listened to Lee blather on some more. "Don't you see? It's the most natural, most beautiful feeling two people share for one another... "
He promptly ignored the cook who yelled 'We know! We heard!' from the back.
"What else could love possibly be, Gaara?" said Lee. It was hard to tell whether Lee's eyes, or Lee's words gushed more passion.
"Kankuro said it was dates and stuff, like what we're doing now." It was about then that Lee came crashing out of his elated stupor, and back down to his chair he plopped. Well, he'd need a moment or two to rebuild his brain before wrapping it around THAT one.
Of course, life never granted a moment or two. The trio about to take the seat at the both behind all picked the wrong moment to walk in on THAT conversation.
"DATE?!" blurted Lee, as did Sakura, Kankuro, and Naruto simultaneously. All eyes were now on Gaara, and were he any other person in the world, any other at all, this situation may call for him to feel even the slightest urge to coil up underneath the table, and wish to be sucked through the floor, but no. This was Gaara, ever so shameless off the battle field.
"Yes," said Gaara, unable to make sense of anyone's limp jaws, or googly-eyes. This was exactly what Kankuro said a date was, so he thought it ought to be painfully obvious to all of them, especially Kankuro. "And from what I understand, a date between two people doesn't call for uninvited guests."
"How could we possibly NOT come over here, kid? Bob-cut there was spooging nonsense at the top of his lungs. People on the streets said it was a gas," said Kankuro, not seeming nearly as surprised about this as the others. It helped that he knew Gaara quite a bit better, being his brother and all. Oh maybe he just wasn't seeing what everyone else was seeing.
"We were having a discussion about love," said Gaara.
And then Kankuro shut up again. Oh. Apparently whatever he'd been thinking, or hoping, was wrong. Well, no need to make a Coming Out party out of this if you asked him. He'd... go... somewhere, and forget this ever happened for now. He'd forget because he didn't want to know. This was all Gaara's business. Gaara could deal with it.
Lee would get up and say "It's not what it looks like!" but knew that wouldn't convince anyone. Sitting there in frozen, perturbed silence wasn't going to convince anyone, either, but saying "It's not what it looks like!" wouldn't even give him a chance to save himself. Oh, what would Gai-sensei do in this situation?
Act calm. Stay cool. And just... just...
"Lee-san, you're gay?" said Sakura.
Why did Sakura of all people have to...
"HA! I knew it. You owe me a bowl of Ramen, Sakura-chan!" said Naruto, pointing and laughing as he often did in any awkward situation (one that wasn't awkward for HIM, that is.) Oh, great, people were now making bets about him! This situation couldn't possibly get any more embarrassing.
Sakura punched Naruto in the head. "You KNOW I didn't agree to that bet, moron!"
"But you almost did!"
CRACKPUNCH.
"Oww!"
Gaara's gaze narrowed on everyone, suggesting that his mood was now riding on dangerous. "You three are making Lee uncomfortable. Go away."
Riding on dangerous wasn't enough to make them leave right away, though. Gaara had just become soft like that, not that he considered that a good thing in this situation. Well, actually it was. Shukaku would have readily suggested that it be let out to Kill, and Gaara would have been tempted. Oh would he have been tempted.
"Well," said Sakura. "If you two are busy on your... date, I suppose we can't ask you to babysit this." She held Naruto up with two fingers by the collar of his jacket. Her being constantly driven to abuse him was really starting to take its toll.
"WE'D BE HAPPY TO!" Lee blurted out, and if those were Lee's wishes then Gaara wasn't going to complain. She was glad, too, because she had her own date to get to and Naruto was interrupting it.
"Thanks, Lee-san. BEHAVE, Naruto."
And then she and Kankuro were gone, hopefully not off to discuss this. Lee still couldn't bring himself to say this wasn't a date, or why Gaara mistakenly believed that it was. Even though the view was nice, the restaurant was lovely (the curry was to die for), and he'd just made the world's best speech about Love out of nowhere...
Crap.
There's no way this wasn't a date.
Lee'd just had his first date with Sabaku no Gaara of all people, in the similar kind of stupid, accidental way that Naruto had his first kiss with Sasuke; however, Lee couldn't find it in himself to be remotely disgusted, or even disappointed. After all, he wasn't one to hold a grudge, and Gaara wasn't the world's most renowned social genius. How was he to know that... no, it was physically possible for two men to go out on a date, Lee supposed, and there was nothing wrong with that. No. Absolutely not! If Gai-sensei frowned down upon the narrow-minded, then so would Lee! If Gaara chose to date men, it was in his right to do so! But for the life of him, Lee couldn't figure out why Gaara had chosen him of all people. If anything, Naruto seemed like a...
Speaking of Naruto, Lee just had to remember that picture he ran into in Sakura's room before the trip. Well, no, Naruto didn't seem like a very good candidate after all. He seemed far too infatuated with Sasuke. Everybody knew that.
Well, that's it, then. That was Lee's first date. He couldn't wait to tell Gai-sensei all about it! About the speech, and the food, and the oasis. Even though the one he was with wasn't... ideal. Oh well. There was always the Second Date, which he probably wouldn't be spending with Sakura.
Aww. Lee took a few moments to brood. Naruto and Gaara just watched.
"Ne, Gaara," said Naruto, sticking himself into the seat right next to him. "This your first date?"
"Yes," said Gaara, narrowing his eyes just the slightest bit. "And you all interrupted it."
"Man, it's not my fault! Sakura's with that face-paint guy, your brother, and I don't trust him with her!" said Naruto, pointing his finger emphatically at the booth all the way on the other side of the restaurant.
"You can trust Kankuro. I trust him more than anyone."
Naruto grumbled. "... just sayin' that 'cause he's your brother."
"Why would I say that just because he's my brother?
"Naruto, I can't say I understand your concern, but could you leave us? I'm becoming annoyed by all these interruptions."
"Yeah, sure, in a minute. I got stuff to say, though," said Naruto. Seeing Lee and Gaara like this sort of reminded him of Sasuke, that time at the Ramen stand where neither of them would bite that noodle. It made him think stuff, like...
Like...
"Then say it and leave," said Gaara. You know things were getting ugly when the sand in the floor cracks started sizzling beneath their feet. More people left.
"Hold on. Um, yeah. Sasuke," said Naruto, and he seemed to be thinking hard about something so simple. Like Sasuke. Yeah, Sasuke. And?
The name Sasuke roused Lee out of brooding. In fact, he seemed to know something that Naruto didn't, but he had to be courteous and keep his mouth shut. After all, proper gentlemen don't interrupt others in awkward situations.
"Sasuke... he's... "
"He's what?" said Gaara.
"Sasuke is... "
"You can say it, Naruto-kun," said Lee, prepared to offer his friend any support he could, despite having his own awkward situation to deal with along with it.
Of course, Naruto didn't take the route with this that he'd intended, not that he knew what he'd intended. He sucked at figuring out his own feelings.
"Sasuke is... he's... A DOUCHE-BAG."
And that was how Naruto failed at his very first attempt to admit that he wanted Sasuke.
T B C
A/N: Thought I'd update this before NaNoWriMo, and b/c I haven't had time to touch fics lately. College devours free time liek whoa. Oh well, hope you all liked this chapter. Will be reverting back to NaruSasu-ness soon, I promise. I just like tormenting their poor souls anyway I can, heh.
This chapter's almost twice as long as I normally make 'em for this fic. I think I should start writing a GaaLee fic. XD