Under the cool shadows of an oak, a lone figure perched itself on a sturdy branch, propped against the oak trunk. Gaara kept his intense green eyes fixated on the moon, it’s silvery sheen reflected in his emerald ivories. A chilly wind picked up and scattered autumn leaves through the nighttime scene, ruffling Gaara’s fine red hair. One pale hand resting on the faithful gourd he always carried on his back, the other hanging by his side. Gaara always had liked the moon. It seemed so beautiful, a milky orb in the sky, surrounded by a mysterious aura. Yet, it always seemed so alone, cold and distant from everything else, never in contact with anyone. Unloved.
His hand instinctively raised itself to the love kanji tattooed on his forehead. He traced its scarlet outline with one finger, then sighed and gazed more at the moon. His black-rimmed eyes closed as he remembered all of his horrible, gruesome past. His unloving past. ‘I depress myself too much,’ decided Gaara as he picked himself up. With one fluid motion of his hand reached down and uncorked his gourd. A wave of sand slowly floated up and circled hazily around Gaara. In an instant, he reappeared down on the ground. He corked his gourd and gave one last look at the obscure circle in the sky. “I’ll visit you tomorrow,” Gaara promised as he started off for home.
When he reached his house, he could see no lights were on. Typical. He pushed the door slowly open. Making a little noise as possible, he started up the stairs. Soon, he came to his bedroom. Gaara twisted the doorknob, and swung the door open. Inside it was dark. Gaara set his gourd down and sank onto his bed. His passive eyes stared at the ceiling. He folded his arms and fell back into the soft pillows. Wait, what was that? Turning his head, he heard a thumping of footsteps on the carpet beyond his room. The footsteps reached the closed door, and hesitated. The door cracked open a peek, and when Gaara saw who it was, he let a reluctant small smile creep up his face.
Temari cautiously poked her head into Gaara’s room, four blond pigtails brushing against the door and the wall. Her bold eyes widened when she saw the redhead sitting on the bed and she beamed as she chirped, “Gaara! You’re back!” Gaara put on his usual bored expression. “It would seem so.” Ignoring this remark, she opened the door wider, and hesitantly looked at Gaara. He nodded. Temari nervously let herself into Gaara’s room, still unused to being inside. There were a lot of things she and Kankuro were unused to after Gaara had his shukaku removed. But it was a good change; in fact, a great change, and they were more than happy to adapt to it.
She plopped herself down beside Gaara, and looked at him expectantly. “Well? How was your walk?” Gaara shrugged and answered plainly, “It was okay.” Temari scruffed him lightly across the head, smirked, “Oh, come on, it was bound to be more than okay, you were out for 2 hours!” He shrugged once more nonchalantly, mainly to irritate Temari more. Inside, Gaara knew that normally she wouldn’t care so much about his walk. But after his shukaku had been removed, she seemed unnaturally determined to set Gaara’s life back to normal after what had happened in his past. It was an understandable sisterly duty. Kankuro, of course, contributed whole-heartedly too. It was pleasing to Gaara that his siblings were doing this all for him. He was learning to enjoy this wonderful feeling of love more and more.
“I watched the moon for a while,” supplied Gaara after a thoughtful moment. Temari’s eye twitched at these words. “I see…so you stayed outside for two whole hours in the freaking cold on Christmas Eve just to stare at the moon?” He smiled faintly and simply said, “Yes.” Temari growled about something under her breath that sounded awfully like, “little baka brothers, freeze their good-for-nothing butts off…” but she grinned anyways and pulled Gaara into a warm big sister hug. Gaara returned the hug back, and Temari chose this moment to yell over his shoulder, “KANKURO! YOU IDIOT! YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW WHEN YOUR LITTLE BROTHER GETS BACK! GET IN HERE NOW AND BRING GAARA’S PRESENT WITH YOU, BAKA!” Gaara winced, as Temari’s mouth was right next to his ear.
Moments later, a tall lean figure clad in black rushed into Gaara’s room and promptly banged into his door headfirst. “OW! CRAP!” He crashed onto the ground and started rolling around, clutching his head. “AUGH! THAT FREAKING DOOR! OW OW OWOWOW!” Temari groaned and strode over to Kankuro, who had two hands digging into his hair, which was a sleek, darker brown than normal and was damp, meaning he just took a shower. Temari towered above him, hands planted on hips, and snapped, “Well, Mr.PaintFace, while you were off taking your nice herbal bath, I suppose you didn’t notice that your little brother came home, did you?” Kankuro chose this moment to peer around Temari and put on a big smiley face at Gaara. “Hey, little brother! You’ve come home already-” He was cut off by Temari, who whacked him sharply across the head, spraying water droplets everywhere. “IDIOT! I JUST TOLD YOU THAT!” “CRAP, TEMARI, I JUST BANGED MY POOR HEAD ON THE BLOODY DOOR, YOU JUST HAVE TO GO AND MAKE THE BUMP BIGGER?!” If Gaara were any less serious than he was right now, he would have been laughing at how Temari and Kankuro were bickering. But, no, it’s Gaara we’re talking about here. So instead he just watched contently as Temari and Kankuro exchanged blows and slaps and all sorts of disgraceful insults.
After a while, they remembered Gaara was in the room with them, and Temari snapped, “Kankuro, did you forget, baka? Give Gaara our present!” Glaring back at her with intense heat, he rubbed the back of his head and growled, “Right, right. Ha, funny how you hurt the most important part of your body that you forget these things, huh?” Without waiting for her answer, he bounded quickly over to Gaara and whipped out a faded green package tied up in silver ribbon. Seating himself next to Gaara, Kankuro grinned, and held it out expectantly. “Well, open it up!” Gaara took the package and stared at it apprehensively, knowing it could be something lethal if Kankuro was so excited to hand it to him. Temari laughed and said, “Don’t worry, Gaara, it’s perfectly safe to open, I took part in it too.”
Gaara, reassured a bit, yet still cautious, carefully ripped off the tape and removed the green paper. His pale hands touched smooth, almost glassy wood. Puzzled, he pushed away more wrapping paper until he saw the gift. (Kankuro and Temari were standing off to one side chibi-style, biting their nails anxiously) Silent, he held up a framed photograph.
Gaara stared at it for a few seconds, then he cleared his throat.
“It’s………………………..cute.” Temari and Kankuro fell over sideways. Did Gaara just say the word CUTE?! Gaara seemed to think the same thing, for he quickly said, “But, it is really a nice gift. Thanks Temari, Kankuro.” The ridiculously wide beams on his siblings’ faces brought a faint smile to Gaara’s lips. Kankuro even got Gaara into a headlock and scruffed his hair playfully. He suddenly brightened up as he remembered something.
“Oh! I almost forgot! Here, Gaara, I got you another gift all by myself.”
He pulled something from the back pocket of his black jeans and tossed it to Gaara. The redhead caught it cleanly out of the air and brought it near his face to study it. It was a bright daisy yellow roll of eyeliner. Gaara stared so intensely at it he could have bored holes through it’s colorful plastic. After a few moments of silence, Gaara’s eye twitched so fast he could compete against any hamster. Temari sweatdropped.
Kankuro smiled innocently. “Well, you like it?” Wrong thing to ask. Gaara lifted his face to reveal a familiar psychotic look in his green eyes. Kankuro immediately shut himself up. Without saying a word, Gaara swung up his gourd to his back and calmly advanced towards Kankuro.
“Wait, wait-hey, Gaara wait a minute-it’s not-AAAHH!” Kankuro scrambled furiously for the door and dashed down the stairs, screaming rather loudly for a boy, with Gaara trailing behind. Temari sighed a long, knowing sigh. “Little brothers, always chasing each other like mad chickens.” Then she noticed a certain name inscribed on the side of the eyeliner roll. Her eyes widened.
“HOLY CRAP, KANKURO, YOU STOLE MY EYELINER AND GAVE IT TO GAARA?!” Without another word, Temari picked up her fan and dashed out the door after Gaara.
Yes, while other normal Suna families celebrated Christmas by eating cookies together, decorating Christmas trees, or singing carols with each other, the Sand Siblings spent the Christmas yelling death threats and chasing each other in the snow.