What Gaara Does at Night. . .






“Here you go, Gaara.” Temari said, putting down a huge pot down in front of her younger brother, who was staring out the window. “Oyasumi.”

“Unn.” the red head answered, not looking at his siblings. This was routine. Temari would make something with a high amount of caffeine for Gaara to stay awake, and she and Kankuro would go to bed. When he was younger, he used to walk into their rooms, watch how peaceful their rest was, and wonder how it felt to be in such a state of bliss.

But those times had long since passed. He was no longer concerned about his brother and sister’s sleep. He had encountered some form of sleep before, at least one time that he could remember fully anyway: the Chunin Exams. He remembered a face smiling at him, hugging him, making him feel warm and welcome. . . but that had all ended when the Uzumaki boy had punched him awake. That was what really had made Gaara angry during the end of that fight. He wanted to *sleep* and not fight! It wasn’t fair. . .

Life wasn’t fair.

Gaara poured himself a cup of whatever it was. It seemed Temari was in the mood to make coffee tonight. Sometimes it was highly caffeinated tea. . . other times, when he was lucky, the drink was one that came in a small bottle that had one shot less than the illegal amount of caffeine (1). That alone kept him up all night. However, tonight he resigned himself to fight sleep off by the warm coffee.

Then, he took out a newspaper that he had neglected earlier. As the new Kazekage, he didn’t have time to read the current events of his country. Not like he cared much, but he needed to keep in touch with the rest of Sunagakure. For some reason, he especially liked to read the “Art and Philosophy” section. He didn’t like to call them the “comics”, since they were hardly comical. . . and Sabaku no Gaara could NOT be found guilty of indulging in drawn characters that were little more than the artists’ alter egos.

‘I suppose I did this. . .’ he thought, taking another sip of his coffee.

It was true. As a child he would get bored easily. Many times he would take out crayons, markers, and colored pencils and draw random pictures anywhere. . . paper, books, walls. . . he smirked a little to himself as he thought about the walls of his home. Once he had drawn a giant teddy bear by his couch (which acted more or less like a “bed”), and he had been only slightly scolded for it. His uncle ended up washing the pencil markings off.

His uncle. . .

Though his uncle had hated Gaara for taking the life of his sister, Gaara still felt he had made a bond with the man. There was something that the tanuki couldn’t distinguish that still made him feel that he may have loved his dead uncle. After all, the man *had* taught him what pain was. . . or at least to the best of his abilities. After experiencing physical pain at the Chunin Exams, Gaara realized that what his uncle said was true. The pain he described was something like that Gaara had felt. It was about then that Gaara realized that he still loved the man who tried to kill him.

‘No more on this subject for tonight.’ he thought, putting the newspaper down and walking toward the balcony.

The stars were out and in the height of their glory. With his coffee, Gaara began to look for constellations. Ever since he had learned of them, he had made it a point to look for them every night. It had come to the point where he almost didn’t need to look for them anymore. They were as clear to him as if they had been painted out for him. Orion was out this time of year. . . the three stars that made his belt shining brighter than any other stars in the constellation. He remembered seeing those three in Konohagakure, where there was more city lights to drown out the beauty of the night sky.

For a brief moment, Gaara found himself seeing his family in those stars.

Three bright, beautiful stars in the middle of the blackness of space.

They were just another set among hundreds of thousands of stars. . . However, they still shone as though they were the center stage. . .

‘Temari. . . then Kankuro. . . then me.’ he thought. ‘A star in our father’s belt.’ Gaara’s brows furrowed. That couldn’t have been a more accurate portrayal of their father. He took his children only because they were talented and had something he could use. If Gaara had been weak and didn’t have the tanuki sealed within him, his father may have just killed him. Not like that stopped him from trying. . .

‘Depressing subjects tonight.’ Gaara thought, noticing that his stream of consciousness was not flowing in nice, smooth directions. He sighed a little and went back inside. He had run out of coffee.

Gaara went to the television, which he had never really liked in the first place. This late at night, all that was on were some old reruns of soap operas, porn, or some sort of informative special. However, being up while everything else was shut down had made him turn to the useless box of wires and connections for some sort of entertainment. Boredom was not a pleasant thing to fight night after night.

Why did Kankuro always leave the channel to some slut show??

It had almost come to the point where Gaara automatically shut his eyes until he changed the channel to something else. It didn’t even matter what it was as long as he didn’t see naked bodies.

Tonight. . . it seemed that it was going to be a historical special on the first Kazekage.

Boring, as usual. Anything about Sunagakure he already knew. As the son of one of the former Kazekage, and being one himself, there was nothing they could have said that he didn’t already know. Granted, there were a few insights into the thoughts of the first Kazekage that he couldn’t have known that these historians claimed to be such experts on, but other than that the program was rather. . . dull.

So there went the TV idea.

His coffee had run out again by then, so Gaara headed back into the kitchen for coffee. As he poured another cup, he looked up to the clock. It was now 2:00 am. Another couple hours and someone else would be up to train. Many of the Jounin in his village would wake up at 4 or 5 to train. Not long after, they would be in the Kazekage’s office for missions. Speaking of which. . .

All that paperwork needed to be done. Not like Gaara put it off or anything, but there was just too much of it to be done all at once. The boy sighed and took the luke warm coffee into the office area, where he resigned to do more boring filing and assessments.

Gaara took a sip of his coffee while looking over a report from a recent mission. Yesterday? The day before? He didn’t know. It didn’t really matter. He smiled to himself as he read the participants. Apparently, this was done in association with Konohagakure. All the Genin whose names were on the paper he had met. He absently wondered how they were doing, since he hadn’t the time to see them. Often he had wondered if he should just disappear one day and visit the Fire Country village. It wouldn’t have been the first time Sunagakure had missed their Kazekage. . . he had disappeared several times for various reasons, but mainly to participate in missions which were too dangerous for the Jounin. It was always funny to see the people’s faces when he returned. They looked as if he was a zombie coming back from the dead.

The boy put a stamp on the paper, then put it into another pile that was accumulating on the floor. He sighed. Being a Kage was not as glorious as it seemed. All you did, really, was sit on your butt all day long shuffling papers through your hands, occasionally assigning a mission and putting a seal on said papers. It was a lot of monotonous work that could make one easily bored. He smirked a little and wondered if Naruto had even taken that into consideration when he declared that he wanted to be Hokage.

*yawn*

He needed more coffee. . . He had already finished off that second cup.

After pouring up and heating the mug of coffee he needed so much, Gaara returned to his boredom. Work could wait a little while, right? The boy shook his head, getting sleepy. It was hard not to sleep for long stretches of time. The human body just couldn’t run properly without that rest. Usually, on days when the Kazekage wasn’t entirely needed, Temari and Kankuro would put a ward around their younger brother while he “slept”. Really, it was just a precaution while Gaara meditated to rest. It wasn’t sleep, but if he did accidentally fall asleep. . .

That was not something he wanted to think about.

“*yawn* Mornin’ Gaara.” Kankuro said, rubbing the sleep away form his eyes. “Damn meme-kuso (2).” Gaara said nothing as his oniisan made a fresh batch of coffee. The puppet master couldn’t function in the morning without coffee. The boy looked up to the clock. It was 3:30. “How was your night?” he asked.

Gaara stood up and walked back into the Kazekage’s office, taking the pot Kankuro made in with him.

Kankuro shook his head and drank his black coffee. Though he said nothing, Gaara had answered his question and thanked his brother for the fresh pot.

Whatever.

That’s the way life was with Gaara.

~Owari~




**-**-**




Notes:


Unn: according to my text book, that’s smililar to “yeah” or “uhuh” or something like that


(1): this drink that I mentioned with one shot less than the illegal amount of caffeine is called “Bawls”. . . It comes in a blue, glass bottle. . . at a Marching Band competition, the snack people were selling it and one of my friends bought it. He mixed it with this vitamin fizzie to drink it and nearly forgot everything that happened the rest of the night. . . People claimed he got into a pillow fight with his room buddies and pulled pranks with shaving cream, but he doesn’t remember any of it. . . yeah, it’s powerful stuff @_____@


(2): meme-kuso literally translates as “eye shit”. . . it’s the crusties that are in your eyes when you wake up. . . if you haven’t heard of this before, don’t worry. It’s from the rough, country-ish dialect my family speaks. . . they’re from a little fishing village. . . yeah T___T