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If it were up to Naruto, they would have worn proper disguises and avoided this problem all together. But Ino insisted that disguises were tacky, that she didn't want to dye her hair, that it wouldn't make sense for a non-Yamanaka to haul around the Yamanaka Flowers flower cart—which, for the record, was never a part of the Yamanaka Flowers business model, and it was at Kakashi's behest that Yamato conceded to making one for this mission to begin with, so what's got her acting so possessive over it, anyway?!—so they didn't.
No fun costumes, no fake identities, no pretend-voices. They came to Suna as merchants, but ultimately as themselves. Ino Yamanaka, the heiress to the Yamanaka Flowers flower shop and—by extension—the owner of the Yamanaka Flowers flower cart, and Naruto Uzumaki, her lowly genin aid. This is the life story that people are stopping them over, curious to see Konoha civilians in the village.
"I'm supposed to be a jounin, actually," Naruto corrects, ignoring the way Ino tips her head back with her eyes closed, inhaling a long, alleviating breath.
"Yeah?" The customer tilts his head, curious, and the two little ears on his black hood flop to the side. "What happened?"
"Y'know how it is. A little bit of this, a little bit of that," Naruto tells him smugly. "You ever heard of a guy named Pain?"
"Naruto," Ino grits out, then turns to the customer with her I'm very sorry and also incredibly pretty without much effort smile. "Don't mind him, he's filled to the brim with these delusions of grandeur, just can't seem to accept that he's a flower boy who does nothing but sell flowers." She kicks at Naruto's shin, hidden behind the cart. Naruto squawks in response, not hidden behind the cart. "And even that he seems to do incredibly poorly."
"Hah, what sort of grandeur? Konoha flower boy who's gonna become Hokage or something?"
"Hey, yeah, how'd you—"
Ino smacks Naruto upside the back of his head. Not even slightly hidden behind the cart.
The customer doesn't seem to mind, huffing a laugh. "Eh, I mean, you don't really have to sell me on anything, I'm pretty easily impressed for stuff like this," he says, placid. "We don't really grow many flowers around here, as I'm sure you can tell by our… veritable garden of a desert."
"Desert plants can be quite beautiful," Ino says kindly, but it comes out awkward and her attention keeps diverting to the fruit merchant a few stands away.
They're supposed to be keeping a tab on the fruit merchant: looking out for any suspicious barters, tailing him when he leaves at the end of his shift. Kakashi was massively strict about the instructions: watch over him during the day and use Ino's Psycho Mind Transmission once he's in a secluded area by nightfall. Under no circumstance should Naruto or Ino be identified during the process. The diplomacy between Suna and Konoha has historically been tepid at best, and with this new Kazekage, there's no telling how amenable they would be to finding out Konoha is executing covert operations on their land.
Naruto knows this, Naruto knows Ino knows this, Naruto knows that Ino knows that Naruto knows this, but still. To be reduced to a genin flower boy? Couldn't he at least have genin flower boy who can also enter sage mode?
"Maybe, but man… These are really something, huh." The man's eyes roam around the cart, a small, distant smile on his face, like his mind has wandered elsewhere. "I know someone who'd clean out his wallet for even half of these flowers, if you're interested."
"We're not, but thank you," Ino rushes out. "On principle, we like to sell to as many people as possible. We pride ourselves on our... Um. Accessibility. I hope you understand."
The customer's mouth twists to the side as his gaze flickers through the flowers and then between Naruto and Ino. He smirks, one gloved hand on his hip.
"Honestly? I like you guys, so consider it a formality that I'm asking at all," he says. "I work with the Suna Council. Can't say I love strong-arming people, but I'm certainly not above it."
Ino glances at Naruto, mouth set in a hard line.
He knows. He definitely knows. Her face scrunches up. This is all your fault! Why'd you have to go running your mouth about Pain again?!
Naruto scoffs. My fault?! He glares. I was the one who said we should have disguises! Maybe I'm recognisable!
Or maybe you're an idiot.
They're wasting time. The customer—no, the councillor—casts them an expectant look. Naruto bristles.
What, so, do we follow him, then?!
Ino peeks over her shoulder once more at their target, who's in the middle of exchanging a small bag of oranges for coin, and sighs despondently. She grabs the handle of the cart, and flicks up the brake on the wheel with her toes before yanking Naruto's hands to take over and drive it forward.
The councillor puffs his chest, triumphant.
"Don't worry," he tells them, walking ahead. "My brother's actually a pretty chill guy when you're not pissing him off."
The Kazekage stares at them with a stern, unwavering gaze from behind his desk. He doesn't blink much, and when he does, the black tracing around his eyes closes into a deep abyss of nothingness that could swallow you whole. Lucky that it's a scarce occurrence that lasts a quarter of a millisecond, unlucky that the other, lasting option is arguably more terrifying.
Naruto feels his back break out into a sweat under his jacket and is too nervous to take it off, which makes him sweat harder.
Will you stop sweating, Ino says with the one glance they dare to share. It's gross.
Buuhhhhhhhhh, Naruto returns.
"Kankurou," the Kazekage, who coincidentally happens to be the brother in question, finally speaks. His voice is unexpectedly deep and so authoritative that it rumbles in Naruto's chest. And around his navel, which is probably normal and doesn't mean anything. "I would be remiss not to ask why you've brought two strangers into my office." A beat of silence. "Why are there two strangers in my office."
The councillor, Kankurou, waves dismissively in their direction.
"They're not strangers, they're flower merchants from Konoha! And that one's going to become Hokage some day, right, Naruto?"
"Ha-ha!" Ino cries abruptly. "Ha-ha, no, that's our—it's an inside joke. Naruto here, he's just a merchant."
Naruto nods. "Just a merchant." He shifts the weight between his feet. He should let it go. He'll let it go. It's not important, it's for the sake of the mission, Kakashi would be proud of him for adapting to the situation so effectivel—no, he can't let it go. "Who could, hypothetically, totally become Hokage one day."
Kankurou snorts, lips splitting into a wide grin as Ino brings her fingers up to her temples and starts massaging.
The Kazekage doesn't seem particularly interested in the jokes, hypotheticals, or flowers. He sends a dark, sidelong look at his brother.
"From Konoha," he echoes.
"With whom we historically have a great, peaceful relationship," Kankurou says, then laughs as if to dispel the Kazekage's glacial gaze. "C'mon, Gaara, they're flower merchants. I practically had to threaten them to bring them over here. Look, they even have those yellow flowers you like, those… what's-it-called's."
They communicate silently, sharing one final look that intends to be private. Kankurou raises an eyebrow with the corner of his lips quirking up and the Kazekage—Gaara—sighs in acquiescence. The moment Gaara's attention returns to Naruto and Ino, evidently only now noticing the arrangement of plants behind them, he relaxes. His shoulders ease out, and the slope of his neck appears long and elegant, like the stalk of a cardinal flower before bloom.
Gaara's eyes meet his, no less scrutinizing. Naruto feels his face go hot.
"Marigolds," Gaara corrects. "May I see them?"
Naruto's tongue locks in his mouth. He opens his mouth to say for sure, and I love marigolds, too, and did you know you're the youngest Kage in the history of Kages? As in, ever? As in, even before me, which makes me kinda jealous, but not really, but a lot, actually, but Ino beats him to it after a few seconds of complete silence.
"Of course, Kazekage-sama. Excellent choice," she says readily, reaching for the pot behind Naruto.
Quickly, Naruto flips himself around, intercepting Ino's hand. "I got it, I got it!"
"You don't got it," Ino hisses into his ear. She's managed to sidle up tightly beside him as they both get a hold on the plant, using their bodies to shield their hushed conversation. "Collect yourself a little, will you? It's bad enough we've ended up here, and now this entire mission's at risk because you want to show off."
"It's the Kazekage, Ino, gimme a break," Naruto whispers back, tugging the pot closer to his chest.
"Like that's ever made a difference for you." She tugs back with a grunt. "Let go of the flowers. I'm calling the shots from now on."
"Says who!" Naruto tugs back.
"I'm making an executive decision! The faster we make him buy something, the faster we can leave. Or are you so distracted that you've already forgotten what we're supposed to be doing?"
"What the hell's that supposed to mean?"
"I've seen you bumble less in front of the damn Fire Daimyou, Naruto. You should wipe away your drool before the Kazekage notices." Her tone is pointed enough that Naruto feels the need to feign confusion, but his face fails to cooperate. His scowl gives him away, encouraging her to yank the marigolds one last time, wrenching them out of his hands with the satisfied curl of her lips. "Leave it to me, alright? I'm the best saleswoman back home for a reason, you know."
They turn at the same time.
"Kazek—!" Ino yelps, flinching from how close Gaara is standing between them, and bumps back into the cart, rattling all the pots and vases. Naruto barely manages to stop it from rolling away. Recovering from the initial shock, Ino tucks a strand of hair behind her ear with a coy gesture and titters. "Kazekage–sama, you startled me. You didn't need to come up, I was just about to bring this to you."
"I wanted to see the full selection," Gaara replies. His eyes scan through the flowers, arms crossed with acute focus.
"Right, absolutely. Please."
Naruto's not sure when he stops counting, but he understands it's longer than any average person would care to spend looking. To the majority, flowers are flowers. Bright decoration to sniff a few times and throw away when they've become too wilted and dry to find value in. The loudest flowers tend to gain the most interest, but Gaara views them with the same unreadable countenance as he does the foliage meant to fluff up the bouquet arrangements, and eventually, Naruto himself.
Naruto blinks, realising how close he's leaned in, observing how Gaara observes. In a split second, he decides Gaara is waiting for him to move, so he takes a step to the side.
"Anything that catches your eye, Kazekage-sama?" Ino asks.
"Yes," Gaara says readily, still facing Naruto. "Do you grow these yourself?"
"Uh…" Naruto briefly glances at Ino. Her eyebrows knit together in confusion. "Yeah. Yeah, yeah! Some of them. Er, actually, only a couple of them. Ino didn't let me bring the others." Ino's mouth puckers into a small dot, warning. "I mean, there'd be no point! Anything I know how to grow, Ino's family grows way better. I had to teach myself." He's actually pretty proud about that last point.
"I see." Gaara hums pensively and brings his hand up to his chin, finger resting below his bottom lip. "I garden." He hesitates, considering his next words carefully. "Recreationally."
"Oh, me too!" Naruto Uzumaki, crucially introduced to the Kazekage as a flower merchant, says. "Wait, no." Merchant, who admitted two seconds ago that these weren't his flowers. "Wait, yes."
Gaara nods, unfazed by the flip-flopping. "You seem practised."
"Yeah, I love recreating. And practise," Naruto lies, but it makes him sound knowledgeable and focused. "I train, like, all the time."
"Gardening," Gaara double checks.
"Sparring," Naruto corrects, and Ino coughs loudly into her fist. "The plants! I spar with the plants."
"What sort of plants require sparring?" Gaara seems sincerely interested.
"The ones with vines and thorns and stuff. It's a local thing."
"I've never heard of such a thing."
"Yeah, well, y'know, it's local."
"And you look after them anyway?" Gaara asks in sudden awe. "Despite the fact that they're… violent?"
Naruto shrugs halfheartedly, taken aback by how endearing Gaara looks with this expression. "Takes two to tango, nothing I can't handle. Besides, they're really nice to look at."
"That's very considerate of you, Naruto."
"You know my name?"
"My brother addressed you."
That's right. Naruto's eyes flicker behind Gaara's head to Kankurou, who has silently been watching the entire affair unfold with new curiosity, leaning on the bookshelf with his arms crossed. Upon being recognised, he offers a wry smile.
"Right." Naruto scratches the back of his head, chuckling nervously. "Not used to the Kazekage knowing my name. Makes a guy feel special, y'know?"
Ino's reaction is so frantic, catching her head between her palms in disbelief, that Naruto has to push down the initial alarm urging him to grab the flower cart and run out of the room, dragging Ino with him.
Maybe Naruto is being too forward. He'd stop if he could predict anything that was coming out of his mouth, but at this rate he might as well let Kurama take the wheel. Gaara is impressive and enjoys gardening and is alluring in a way Naruto can't quite put into words, but Ino is stressing out, and Naruto's body is reacting the way it would when he's stressing out but without the mental anguish, and Kankurou is an awkward audience to have when Naruto feels this way. Flirting head-on is one thing; expecting the Kazekage to flirt back is another.
"Certainly," Gaara says, returning to his scanning through the flowers. "I don't make a habit of keeping anybody in my office for longer than I have to."
Expecting the Kazekage to flirt back is completely and utterly reasonable.
Ino whips around to Kankurou. His posture would look more nonchalant if he weren't so stiff about it. Whatever look Ino gives him has Kankurou responding with an evasive shrug, tilting his chin towards Naruto.
Gaara's eyes widen. "Is that tickseed?"
"Hm?" Naruto twists, catching sight of the flower combination, red petals with yellow tips, the separation between the colours bleeding like they had been dipped in wine. "Oh, yeah! I grow these ones myself," he boasts.
"Do they grow like this naturally?"
"Yeah!" Naruto watches how Gaara cups one of the flowers between the base of his ring and middle finger, trailing gently against the petals with his thumb. "I mean, I had to breed them to get it like that, but, y'know… You should definitely see the flowers Ino keeps in the store back home; you wouldn't believe the sorts of things her family makes. Way, way cooler than this."
Ino's glare commands Naruto to look up at her. She gives him an alert look, watch what you're implying, then drops her gaze to see if Gaara has any reaction to it.
Naruto tries to check on Gaara and finds him staring.
"Back home," he says slowly. "In Konoha?"
"Yep!"
"And you suggest I come to Konoha and see them directly."
"Yeah, for sure!" Naruto suddenly remembers Shikamaru, his noncommittal complaints about always being assigned the responsibility of chaperoning that one Suna diplomat whenever she visits in preparation of the Chunin exams. He's suddenly overcome with an enormous possessiveness. "I'll be your personal guide."
Gaara's lips part, stunned into a brief silence. Ever the professional, he clears his throat, composed, then covers his mouth behind thin fingers reservedly, his gaze dropping to the ground.
"But I'd have to check my schedule… I don't know how I could excuse visiting Konoha for pleasure instead of business…"
"No rush, you can stop by whenever," Naruto tells him, then quickly tacks on, "But they're, like, uh, really cool, so you should probably drop by sooner than later, y'know?"
"With a pitch like yours…" Gaara trails off. "I suppose I can have it arranged."
They fall silent, Gaara admiring the tickseed for a moment. There's a calm that casts over his features that wasn't there before. Hard to imagine he's the same guy Naruto saw brooding at his desk.
"I like these."
"Oh," Naruto says. "Thank you."
Gaara's gaze flickers between Naruto and the flower. "The colours go together nicely."
Naruto nods, a small movement, and swallows. "I agree."
"You said you… bred them?"
"Oh my god," Ino suddenly says, then covers her mouth, surprised. "Sorry. I… Ignore me. As you've already been doing. Sorry."
Gaara has no trouble complying.
"I've made a few attempts at hand-pollinating as well," he says. "I was notably less successful."
"It takes a few tries," Naruto assures. "This one took me ages to get right."
"I admire your patience."
"I'm not patient at all." Naruto sways on the balls of his feet. "Y'know, if you want, I could help you out with your…" What had he called it? Ah. "Recreational gardening."
"You would do that?" Gaara asks.
"I'd do anything you asked. Isn't that your privilege as Kazekage?" He's pushing it. Reel back in.
Gaara smiles, and if he didn't have his title, Naruto would go as far as to call it teasing.
"Careful, I like to use my privileges to their fullest extent."
"What sort of Kage wouldn't?"
"The sort that call me arrogant for it."
"Have they?"
"The Tsuchikage."
"He's still alive?"
Gaara ducks his head and huffs, a toothy grin hidden behind his hand. Naruto will carry the accomplishment of making Gaara laugh for the rest of his life, and he knows this from the way his heart lurches, a physical reaction of committing this to memory.
"How irreverent of you," he says, amused. "Should I be concerned about how you'll speak of me once you leave?"
"It'll be nothing but good things!" Naruto says. Reel back out, as far as he can. There's a big, big fish to catch. "Respectable things."
"But not too respectable, I take it."
"Respectable enough." Naruto hesitates. "So that I can come back, y'know, to help with your recreational gardening."
"Of course. We could have some tea afterwards."
"Or before."
Gaara squints at him, not unkindly. "You're very ambitious for a flower merchant, Naruto."
"What can I say? I have a lot of ambitions."
"Such as? Besides becoming Hokage, that is."
"Gardening," Naruto says casually. "With the Kazekage."
"Your offer wasn't out of generosity, then."
"Not just that, but I think you'll find that I'm very generous, if you let me prove it." He leaves it hanging in the air, tilts his head. "What are the odds the Kazekage will – let me?"
"Better than when you first came in, now that we're acquainted." Gaara looks at him thoughtfully. "But you should know, I'm rather particular about who I let inside my greenhouse."
The corner of Naruto's lip quirks up. "You said it yourself, I'm practised."
"Are we still talking about gardening?" Kankurou asks shortly.
Naruto and Gaara speak at the same time; they don't dare look away from each other.
"Yes."
No one says another word. Naruto's gaze drops to Gaara's pretty mouth.
"Right. That's completely normal," Ino deadpans. "Very normal, appropriate way to speak about gardening."
"If I knew it was gonna take this long, I'd have picked out a flower myself," Kankurou adds, pushing himself off of the shelf to stretch his arms out. "You gonna buy something, Gaara? Or do I have to spend another ten minutes feeling vaguely uncomfortable watching you guys chat."
"No one's obstructing the door, Kankurou," Gaara says tersely.
"Well, since you said it like that." Kankurou returns to leaning on the shelf.
Ino seems less carefree about the prospect of witnessing this for much longer. "Naruto," she says warily. "We really do have to tend to the… thing."
"Am I keeping you from something?" Gaara asks.
"Oh, no, it's just a thing," Naruto assures.
"What sort of thing? Perhaps I could help."
"It's a local thing."
"You have very many local things."
"I'm trying to get an international thing."
"Kazekage-sama, I'm sincerely sorry to interrupt your—" Ino searches for the word with furrowed brows, face pink. "Conversation. But we really do have to get back to our village soon."
"I understand," Gaara says, stepping back and rounding his desk to take a seat. "I'll keep my purchase short: how much for the entire cart?"
"The entire cart?" Ino squeaks. After Gaara gives a short nod, she pulls out her condensed ledger with wide eyes and tells him the amount.
Easily, Gaara agrees to it, sending Kankurou to retrieve the money for it in a heavy pouch. Ino doesn't seem particularly happy to be receiving it, but smiles and thanks him nonetheless.
The farewell involves less fanfare than Naruto had grown to expect. No goodbye wink, or charming wave, or passionate declaration to stop Naruto in his tracks and strip him then and there. On the chair, Gaara is diligent once more, and he maintains that poise until Naruto indulges himself with one last glance before leaving the room.
Gaara smiles at him, his cheeks dusted with a gentle pink, and it's the most affecting look he has given Naruto in all of the ten minutes that they've known each other.
Naruto follows Ino and the Suna shinobi down the hall for three more steps before making a sharp U-turn back into the office.
"Kazekaga-sama, I think you should know something about me," Naruto says breathlessly, slamming his hands on Gaara's desk. Highly inappropriate, he's aware, but this is urgent, and Gaara looks more startled than threatened. "Have you ever heard of a guy named Pain?"
Ino's shriek of Naruto's name rings so loud through the building, he's pretty sure Kakashi has already started filling out the report for an unsuccessful mission as they speak.