Disclaimer: No ownership here. Try Kishimoto-sama. :) -Bows deeply-
AN:Well, I'm back. Even though I was on 'break' from this story, whenever I had inspiration for it, I'd add a little something. Now that 'W. W. H-C?' is done (thank goodness, but ... I'm starting to miss it! T.T Haha.), I can come back and finish this story! Thanks for all the reviews, they were, and still are, greatly appreciated. Now, for the next chapter, ne?
-Oh, wait! Poll so far:
GaaSaku: 8
SasuSaku: 4
Keep voting, peoples!! Thanks for the votes that are already up. You can vote once, but you can also change your vote at any time. This poll will be going for another two chapters, but there will be fluff for both pairings in the meantime! My vote doesn't count -- and I won't tell you what it would be for! XD lol
NOW, on with the story! :D
All These Games
Ch.5 - Girl Scouting~!
Gaara glared, absentmindedly pushing a few sweat-drenched strands of his flame-red hair from his face. 'If only she would hurry up...!'
Impatient, he may seem, but you see, this young Kazekage was currently sitting out in the park in a semi-comfortable lawn chair, scouting out females for his purpose (as had become his routine for the last three days or so). He hated calling it anything but that, for Sakura loved to tease him, constantly saying things like 'Gaara! Found any good ones?' Or 'Gaa-ra-chan! Time to go girl-scoping!' She was annoying as hell sometimes!
Speaking of that infuriating kunoichi, she was the whole reason Gaara was so agitated at the moment! Or, at least, one of the main reasons.
Sakura had promised on his first day of 'scoping' that she would stick with him to find someone. However, while she had stuck to that agreement the other times, today she was rather pre-occupied...
Or rather: she was talking to Uchiha Sasuke.
'Sasuke...'
Oh, that dark haired teen just annoyed Gaara to no end sometimes. He really hadn't minded him to start off, but now... Now, the two team mates (or former team mates? Gaara could never really tell.) were talking a lot more than since he had first arrived.
At first, he'd figured that, yes; there was a chance there were feelings there, but nothing to worry about. Apparently, he needed to rethink that a little bit.
He growled quietly, yet still audibly, when an attractive blonde stepped in front of where the two conversing members of Team 7 were standing. It took him a moment, but he realized that this annoyed him thoroughly, and just as he was about to tell them off when-
"Gaara-chan... Are you ignoring your own older sister?!"
Gaara groaned as he recognized the voice. "Ah... Temari."
She was just about to respond, when another person called out. "Temari!!"
"Eh?" The Suna kunoichi spun around, scanning the crowd quickly before a pink blur catapulted into her side.
'Wait... Pink?' The red-haired male's head shot up. 'Oh. Well, I guess my dear sister can be of use sometimes, huh?'
"Sakura-chan!" Temari exclaimed, giving the petite girl one of those boy-ish, rogue-like grins she was so well known for.
"I didn't think that you were coming!"
"Well, of course I would! You didn't think that I would miss my little bro's wedding, did'ja?"
Just then, a grumbling Uchiha walked up to the trio, Naruto hopping along side of him.
"What's up with those two?" Sasuke asked the blonde male beside him.
Naruto looked at his best friend questioningly before realization finally hit him. "Oh! You mean Sakura and Temari?"
Sasuke just sent him a look that clearly said 'Who else, dim-wit'.
"Well, I guess they just sorta bonded while you were gone. Sakura had saved Kankurou when he was dying from Sasori's poison, then later helped to get Gaara back from the Akatsuki. I suppose that they just got close after that..."
He nodded his head. "Aa."
Gaara frowned a bit at the Uchiha, but just sent him a nod in greeting, and after Temari had said hello to everyone in the group, she left to go get changed. Apparently, not even the Suna ninja was quite expecting this blazing weather.
"Does that mean Kankurou is coming too?" Sakura asked, turning her attention to Gaara.
"Knowing him, he's already here..."
Naruto frowned but Sakura laughed a bit, nodding her head in agreement. "Whaddaya mean? He's here? What's he doing, then?"
"Helping out my lil' brother, of course..."
The former Team Seven spun around to see Kankurou standing a couple feet off, his arm around a scantily-clad attractive brunnette.
Sakura scrunched her face up in disgust. He laughed at that. "Ah, don't worry, you can be next, if you like!"
He sent a wink at her that she playfully 'dodged', then gave a laugh. "Nah, I think I'll pass."
Gaara raised an eyebrow at his brother. "How exactly are you helping?" He gave a pointed look at the arm around the girl - who was looking a bit ... out of it.
Kankurou grinned. "By crossing off which ones would cheat by just a wink or two. This girl was saying about an hour ago that she was your number one fan..."
Naruto, Sakura, Gaara, and even Sasuke all looked non-plussed by that comment. "I see..." Gaara muttered.
"Well," Naruto spoke up. "If that's your number one fan, you're screwed!"
He burst out laughing, but Sakura slapped him upside the head. "Baka!" Then she noticed Sasuke's smirk. "Hey, don't think that your fans don't do the same thing." That smirk faltered for a second and she knew that she had wounded his ego. She allowed herself a satisfied smirk of her own.
Gaara also smirked at that, but it went by unnoticed. "Anyway," he said finally. "Could you just ... take her else where?"
"To dispose of?" Naruto asked jokingly, but was a bit shocked when he saw a considering look pass through the Kazekage's face. "U-um... I don't think that- I mean, I know that she's, well..."
Kankurou laughed. "No worries, baka. I think he meant to just take her away from here." He paused, then added under his breath, "I think..."
There was an awkward silence, before Kankurou spoke up again, "Well, I guess I'm off!" With a grin to Team Seven and an uneasy glance at his younger brother, he walked out of the park and out of view.
They watched him go, before Sakura turned back to Gaara. "So... You have some girl-scoping to do, right...?" Gaara turned to her quickly. Obviously, he had hoped that it was forgotten, but -- Sakura wouldn't allow that. She grinned "You haven't forgotten why you're here, ri-ght?"
The Kazekage winced. "Yeah, yeah," he muttered, but sat back down in his lawn-chair, realizing that he couldn't quite remember when he had stood up from it. Must've been when she came up, almost like an automatic thing... 'This could be a problem if the Kazekage always stands up when a single girl walks up to him...'
"Then, I guess we'll get going." Sakura announced, looking to her team mates for confirmation and was met with a glittery-eyed Naruto.
"For ramen," he asked hopefully. "I mean, you've been always with him," Here, he pointed at Gaara. "and you've barely had any time for us!" He whined.
She laughed. "Alright, sure. But I'm not paying."
Both immediately turned to their last team mate. Sasuke, caught completely off guard (a rare thing for him, Gaara noted, but something that happened more often when he was around those two...), was silent for a moment as he processed, but apparently, he took too long and just as was opening his mouth to turn them down, Naruto turned and bounded off. "I'll go find Hinata and it can be like a double date!"
While he was only joking, he hadn't seen the red crawl onto both Sakura's andSasuke's cheeks in his haste. The two glanced awkwardly at each other. Sakura turned to Gaara, intending to invite him along, too, but Sasuke saw it coming. "We had better go now." He said quickly, then added, "Otherwise the dobe will already be finished by the time we get there."
Sakura sent another glance to Gaara, but he only shrugged and turned to look around. She hesitated for a moment, before nodding. "Sure, let's go. See ya, Gaara! Good luck!" She stuck her tongue out, then turned and followed her team mate out of the park, chatting to him animatedly as they went.
Gaara turned to watch them go and frowned a bit. He had kind of hoped that she would just drag him along, too. Oh well, she was right - he did need to get this done. He turned his attention back to the girls all around him, his dark sunglasses covering his sea-foam green eyes. The sunglasses, he found, were a must to conceal who he was looking at. However, no matter how good looking all these girls looked, he still found none appealing at all, and could only let his mind taking him back to an image of a certain pink-haired girl...
His frown deepened. 'Okay, seriously?! Why her...? What was so special about that infuriating Konoha kunoichi?' Suddenly, Gaara blanched. It couldn't be ... that he actually likedher... Right? He certainly hoped not -- pink haired sons would just look a bit odd, especially if they were going to be the Kazekage's!
It surprised him that that was the only con about this thought, though. He knew that she was certainly a very good candidate for his wife with the kind of crediantials she had, but he hadn't figured when had come to Konoha in the first place that he would actually end up liking someone here - even loving. (Of course, it hadn't come to that yet, but you never know... He hadn't liked a girl this way before, so there was no saying that it couldn't happen that he'd fall in love...) His father had never loved him, let alone his wife. She had been picked by the council and had died only a year or so after Gaara's birth.
For him, as Kazekage, to actually marry someone that he had not only picked, but loved, was something he hadn't thought of. Had never crossed his mind. But it had now, and he was liking the idea. Especially, if the person he married would the female of Team Kakashi...
He stood, mind made up. No need to be here, wasting his time. He needed to talk to the Hokage... Getting the permission from the mother-like figure to her apprentice would be the first step in courting Haruno Sakura.
AN:And it's done - sorry it's so short, though. I just wanted it out~! XD This time, I followed Gaara about with my little stalker-like cleverness (since he's winning the poll right now... :P)! I've missssed this fic and I've missed you guys! -Gets all emotional- -Sniff, sniff- ... Well, now that thatis done... AH HAH! I told you that I'd be back and that I would FINISH IT! Mwuhahahaaa! I love it when I'm right! XP lol See you in the next chapter...
Thanks to my reviewers from the last chapter (ages ago! Eep!). Kinda curious to see how much of you will be coming back... Now, they were:
PieciesHateScorpios, XxmotojixX (used to be cute0anime0addict, right? :D), My Broken Death Angel, EstherAngelofDeath, Ox-i-Need-A-Hug-xO, cherrygardenangel, Lady V-chan, The TalkingPaper (x2) Sabaku No Eva AKA Saki, Gaara's sexy visen Sakura, 2lazy2type, troublesomename, LIFE-sucks-balls, oni-hime-san, ruler and pen, mewantpancake, KitChi, and a thousand cranes
Holy crap; that's a lot (18)...
XD THANKS!!! XD
And don't forget to review! :)
- Cady Ps. Wanna hear a funny scene from manga I read? :D
Ootake: 'Hey... How come he isn't getting mad?! Well...'
-SLAP!!-
Ootake: 'I'll get mad at her for him!' "Just because of that, don't meant that you can go cheating on people!"
(GOLDEN--)Tenku: "Say no to violence!"
Cheating ex-girlfriend: *Gasps* "I haven't even been hit by daddy before!"
The other guy: "Who are you, anyway-?!"
LOL Gosh, I love it... Classic one shot, Shoujo manga, ne? XD Anyways... Go on about your day and ignore this little manga-fanatic over here... :P