Matchmaker

Note: //word// = word in italics.
Omiai = ‘formal marriage interview’ in Japanese


Matchmaker
Chapter 2

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Naruto knocked lightly on the Kazekage’s office door. The gesture was totally unnecessary, since the blond hadn’t bothered to suppress his chakra signature, but it was polite nonetheless.

“Hey, Panda eyes,” he greeted cheerfully, barging into the large office without further preamble.

A genuine grin split the whiskered face as a shuriken whizzed by the blond’s head. In all honesty, the Kohona nin couldn’t say he minded his current assignment. With Sakura-chan always at the hospital and Sasuke still in Kohona’s jail under closed observation, the blond didn’t have much to go home to. True, at least one or two of the other rookie 9 were usually on leave when Naruto had the rare day off, but it wasn’t the same. Gaara was one of the few people who truly didn’t give a shit about what he housed inside him. And pushing the older man’s buttons never seemed to lose its appeal.

“I thought you did not want to train today,” the Kazekage stated flatly, his green eyes glimmering like chips of jade as they bore into the blond. If Naruto noticed the annoyance in the redhead’s voice, the jounin ignored it as he crossed the room and boldly perched himself on the corner of Gaara’s oversized oak desk.

“Yeah, well that was when you still had a hot date tonight.”

Gaara’s nose wrinkled almost imperceptibly. “Indeed.”

The room lapsed into a not-quite-awkward silence as the redhead placed the folder in front of him on top of the neatly stacked mountain of papers to his right and pulled another file from the mound of papers on his left. The blond twisted in his seat anxiously. This seemed like a perfect time to bring up the Kazekage’s sexual orientation…

Naruto began fiddling with Gaara’s pens.

There was no real ‘plan’ about how to ask his friend which team he batted for. Some might say Naruto wasn’t the most intelligent jounin on the pay roll, but even he knew that asking “So, Gaara, you dig dudes?” would probably end in bloodshed. A cloud of sand enveloped the tanned hand clutching a fistful of pens in mid motion, stilling the unnecessary movement.

“Stop that. If you’re here about Akane-san, then it can wait until tomorrow. I have ANBU reports to review.”

“Geeze, Gaara. Lighten up,” the blond groused as he tugged himself free, frowning at his now tingling hand. “I’m not here to scold you or anything. You should take a page out of Tsunade’s book every once in a while. No wonder you’re so stressed.”

Gaara looked up from his work to glare at the blond. “Yes, I will look into buying a pig first thing in the morning,” he replied evenly. Naruto rewarded him with an impossibly wide grin that made Gaara’s palms sweat. Agitated, the redhead grunted and vainly attempted to concentrate on the ANBU reports still awaiting his signature.

“Ok, fine. //Be// boring, see if I care,” Naruto pouted, slipping off his perch. The blonde sighed theatrically as he draped himself across the overstuffed couch across from the Kazekage’s desk. “I’ll just make myself comfortable.”

The room fell quiet and Gaara turned back to his reports, but infuriatingly the blond’s presence never left the foreground of his awareness. For a variety of reasons, Gaara found it impossible to ignore Naruto whenever the Kohona nin entered his field of vision, or his hearing range. He decided that this wasn’t surprising. After all, everything about Naruto was loud: the exact opposite of what a ninja should be. It was no wonder Gaara’s eyes kept sliding back to that shock of blond hair no matter the situation. Gaara couldn’t help it. Besides, Naruto never let anyone ignore him for long.

“Ma, Gaara, what’s your ‘type’?”

Gaara scribbled a short note in the margin of the engineers’ report on the south wall’s structural integrity. “Strong.”

“Strong?”

“Strong.” Gaara affirmed.

Well, if nothing else the Kazekage was consistent, but this answer offered no more information than it had when he gave it four months ago. Naruto screamed inwardly. This was why Tsunade-baba never gave him intel retrieval missions that required him to go undercover. Or use subtlety. Actually she never sent him on intel retrieval missions.

“Like Sakura-chan strong or like-“

“Do //not// try to set me up with the pink thing.”

“Oi! Sakura-chan is a lady!” Naruto defended hotly. A really, really scary lady who would beat the blond senseless if she ever found out someone had referred to her as a ‘pink thing’ in his presence and he had done nothing to defend her.

Gaara was not impressed. “Why are you here?”

“I’m your friend, do I need a reason? I just figured after the ‘incident’ this afternoon, you might want to have another round of physical therapy” Naruto improvised. “I know you have the time.” There was no point denying it. Gaara had cleared his whole schedule until the next morning for the omiai that afternoon.

“It was not an ‘incident’,” the Kazekage insisted haughtily.

“Well, it was an epic failure, that’s for damn sure.”

Gaara sighed and reluctantly put down his pen. “Fine,” he conceded unhappily. He wasn’t going to get any work done now anyway, Naruto would make sure of that, best not to drag it out. Still, the redhead was unenthusiastic. Their therapy sessions always left him feeling frustrated and flustered, 2 emotions he was thankfully inexperienced with.

In theory, the sessions were fairly straightforward. Gaara would initiate contact and Naruto would mimic it. If Gaara touched Naruto’s arm, then Naruto touched Gaara’s. This allowed Gaara to set the pace and ensured that Naruto didn’t force the redhead too far outside his comfort zone. But Gaara’s problems were twofold: not only was his skin perpetually covered in a thin but diamond hard layer of sand, but his first instinct was to touch others with his sand as well.

The latter might not have been so bad if Gaara had a light touch, but until he was 13, Gaara had touched only with the intent of harming. It took weeks of training with Naruto before the Kazekage learned the correct amount of pressure to apply to another’s skin without causing pain, and even then it took a fair amount of concentration. It would take years to truly unlearn the killing instincts instilled in him as a child.

The slow progress, bruises, and gashes aside, Naruto enjoyed these ‘physical therapy’ sessions almost as much as he enjoyed talking to Gaara over a shared bowl of ramen.

It was more frustrating for Gaara though.

The redhead wasn’t nearly as comfortable touching skin to skin as he was with using his sand. Removing the sand barrier made the redhead vulnerable and until recently, he’d never had a good reason to do it. The trust required to lower his most basic defenses was enormous and, to Gaara at least, it signified a new level of intimacy he’d never experienced before.

So far, the redhead had managed to drop his entire shield in front of Naruto, but more often than not the sand instantly reformed at the last second before they ever made physical contact. It was only in the last 2 weeks that Gaara finally felt another person’s skin beneath his fingertips. Just recalling Naruto’s warm and surprisingly fuzzy forearm made the Kazekage’s stomach twist oddly, but the memory was dear to him all the more because of it.

Naruto turned himself in his seat as the other man slowly made his way around the oak desk to the sofa. The blond stomped down the tingle of excitement that raced up his spine as Gaara carefully arranged himself across from him on the couch. Naruto folded one leg beneath him and stretched the other out over the side of the sofa, his thigh barely brushing against the legs tucked under Gaara. Even though the sand barrier prevented direct contact, if the additional pressure gave the redhead even the slightest amount of comfort, Naruto would be satisfied.

When they were settled, the Kohona nin began the usual introduction to their sessions, making sure Gaara was comfortable and relaxed.

“Why don’t we try the forearm again today,” the blond suggested, keeping his voice as level and calm as possible. Blue eyes locked with green and Gaara nodded resolutely.

A moment passed and the kyuubi vessel held his breath. Then, tentatively, a small tendril of sand reached out toward the blond and gently, almost imperceptibly, brushed against a bronzed bicep. Naruto suppressed a shiver at the chakra infused contact, silently berating himself. Every time Gaara’s chakra touched him gently he seemed to melt.

Ever the professional, Naruto shook it off. “That’s good, Gaara,” he encouraged. “Add a little more pressure next time though, ok? I’m going to touch you now.”

Gaara inhaled deeply. He was fucking sick of these baby steps. With a surge of defiant determination the pale man pushed back the shield covering his arms. Without bothering to take in Naruto’s undoubtedly stupefied expression, the redhead reached up and firmly clutched at the other man’s arm, his hand settling exactly where his sand had been. A burst of fire licked at his belly as the smooth, warm expanse of flesh shifted and flexed beneath his hand.

“Gaara?”

Jade eyes remained fixed on the task at hand as Gaara hesitantly loosened his grip. “Shut up, I know what I’m doing,” he muttered, cheeks slightly flushed. Slowly the pale hand began rubbing up and down the other man’s upper arm. It was fascinating the way the smooth skin seemed to rise suddenly, almost as if Naruto had been bitten by hundreds of tiny sand-mites.

“Uh, ok.”

Gaara paused to glare at his ‘instructor’ irritably. “What are you waiting for?”

“Eh?” Naruto blinked as another ribbon of sand forcefully pushed his had toward his friend’s pale, lightly muscled bicep. The blond grinned sheepishly in understanding before slowly reaching out to mimic Gaara’s motions. “Sorry.”

The redhead dismissed his apology with a preoccupied grunt. Naruto didn’t notice though, he himself was too busy marveling at the impossibly soft expanse of pale skin as it rippled beneath his fingertips. Previously the blond had only really rubbed forearms with Gaara, which wasn’t much to go by. Gaara was like silk, his skin constantly scrubbed and exfoliated by the sand rubbing against it everyday.

Gaara’s breath hitched as calloused fingers skirted over his bared bicep. Was such innocent contact supposed to be this unnerving? Green eyes shut tight as the Kazekage focused only on tactile sensation. Despite the nerves knotting themselves in his intestines, Gaara couldn’t say he found the experience the least bit unpleasant.

Even though Naruto was only an inch taller than him, the blond was as muscled where Gaara was lithe and psychologically, the redhead reasoned, this must have made some kind of difference. Because it didn’t matter that the Kazekage’s strength was the stuff of legends, somehow he felt safer with Naruto’s leg pressed against him.

Warmth swelled inside the kyuubi vessel’s chest as the pale man leaned into his touch. “That’s it, Gaara.” The dark, husky voice sent a shiver of appreciation down the older man’s spine.

A knock sounded at the door and instantly the silky warmth beneath Naruto’s fingertips was replaced by the fine grained, chakra-infused sand of Gaara’s defensive barrier. The kyuubi vessel nearly screamed at the loss.

“Yo, Gaara!”

A lesser man, or perhaps a smarter man, would have fled at the sight of Gaara’s obvious irritation.

Unfortunately, Kankuro was neither.

Gaara glared at his older brother as the puppeteer entered the room. “Just came to see if the idiot from Kohona was still alive.” The painted man leered as he took in the intimate alignment of the men on the couch.

“Why wouldn’t he be?”

“Ah, he hasn’t asked you then.” Kankuro nodded sagely, a maniacal grin splitting his painted features “And here I thought he was trying to take advantage of the situation. You’re slacking off on the job, Uzamaki.”

Naruto cursed the puppeteer with every insult he’d ever heard, and a few new ones besides, as the Kazekage turned to regard his friend with patient curiosity. The kyuubi vessel tried his best not to think of the Gaara from 5 years ago. The one that crushed people in his sand coffin just for pissing him off.

Naruto chuckled nervously. Well, at least he could say he died on duty, serving his village proudly.

“So, Gaara, you dig dudes?”


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A/N: Sneakyfox made me feel not-so-sneaky. I was hoping not to be THAT transparent. Thanks to everyone who reviewed!