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Small wisps of steam escaped from the bathroom through the cracks in the old wooden door. They curled around and around, free from the room of their origins. With each movement, they began to slowly dissipate until they were nothing more. Adjacent to the short lives of rebellious steam were three chairs surrounding the small square kitchen table. Each of these chairs was occupied by a person, each of which seemed to be glaring at another in the triangle that was formed between them. There were not too distant sounds of someone entering the comfort of a warm bath. He spoke.
“I promise I have a good reason for this.” Kankuro held his hands up in surrender, moving them only to unsuccessfully wipe at some grime near his eyes.
“You better.” Temari was leaning back into her chair with a perturbed expression, her arms crossed. “You know who that is, don’t you? Or is this something from one of the lessons you skipped?”
“I rarely skipped our lessons. Besides, how could I, of all people, not know who that is?”
“Well, clearly you missed one on common sense! Bringing not only a noble, but the prince of Konohagakure here? You’ve clearly lost your damn mind. What the hell were you thinking? Do you want to get caught?”
“I haven’t lost my goddamn mind, I’m just as intelligent as always.” His arms relaxed now that his surrender was useless against Temari’s anger.
The woman scoffed, her eyes involuntarily rolling. “As if that’s comforting.”
“Hey.” Kankuro’s brows furrowed and his tone displayed a little disappointment from his sister’s statement.
“Enough,” once again Gaara, the voice of reason, had enough with his siblings bickering during a serious situation. “We need to settle this before he finishes bathing. We are not sure how long it will take.”
“Oh no worries, he’ll be in there for a while. I made sure to thoroughly coat him in mud earlier, much to his disgust, so we could walk into town. I’m sure he’s trying his best to do a royal beauty routine right about now.”
The other two rolled their eyes, hardly amused by Kankuro’s statement.
“Well, we are still unsure, so it is better to not take chances. Could you please explain this, Kankuro?” Gaara’s voice remained as collected and unmoved as ever.
“And take care to make it quick, we do not need any of your usual snarky side commentary.” Temari added.
“Yeah, yeah, I got it.” The man in question cleared his throat, his usual carefree demeanor suddenly changing to a serious one. “I found him on the farm I went to today. I didn’t see him very well at first, just tried to help someone get away from the farmer who had been chasing me. It wasn’t until I’d crossed the river that I really processed just who it was that I was dragging with me.”
“And? What made you think it was a good idea to keep tagging along with him if you realized?” Temari still appeared to be quite angered by this situation.
“I thought he’d be useful.”
“Useful? A pampered royal? A pampered royal who could have received education regarding Suna? A pampered royal who could blow our cover?”
“Well, yes, but that won’t be a problem.”
“Won’t be a problem?” Temari’s voice was starting to get louder in her frustration.
Before anyone could continue speaking loudly, Gaara stretched out a hand, calling for the two beside him to fall silent. The two obediently did as they were told. There would be no fight while the problem they were speaking of was blocked by nothing more than a few measly slabs of wood tacked together and called a door.
“Temari is correct. This could be a serious issue. The last thing we need is for someone to discover us when we’re in the final stages of our plan.”
Kankuro sighed in defeat. “I know that. I wouldn’t jeopardize our mission, you both know that. No matter how stupid I can be at times, because yes I do acknowledge I can be, you both know I would never make a decision when it comes to Suna without fully thinking it through first. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have my current position.”
The two conceded to his point with small nods. Kankuro may be a fool, but he always took things seriously, even if it did not seem as though he did. It was both the man’s charm and downfall.
“Then please enlighten us.” Gaara gestured for Kankuro to continue speaking.
“Thank you. Yes, he is one of the few people who would probably know a decent amount about home, but no one in this kingdom knows much of anything about us. We’ve kept ourselves secluded for a long time, and Konohagakure has no reason to know more about us. They have a heavy dislike for us, so what they do know will be biased, and their military is, in my expert opinion, in shambles. They would see no point in getting to know more about us, which is why we’ve been able to carry out our mission so easily. In fact, it’s kind of why we’re doing this in the first place, isn’t it?
“He would not know our faces precisely because no one here does. Even more so, If we act nicely, he will have even less of a reason to suspect us. He probably will have heard that we’re some unintelligent, cruel savages and thus wouldn’t expect the people who helped and took care of him to be from such a country. I mean, Temari, even you said how the people credited with being the most knowledgeable and intelligent people in Konohagakure showed no recognition of prominent figures from our kingdom. They didn’t even recognize the evidence provided for them, did they?”
“That is true. It would be very odd for a prince, let alone one as undervalued as Prince Neji, to know more than them. We still need to be careful if we’re going to do this though. Any small slip up could alert him that something is off.” Temari seemed more amiable to the situation now that Kankuro had laid out clear logic and evidence.
“We’ve been able to keep this up so far because we have not been intimate with the people of this kingdom.” Gaara looked thoughtful, as though he was still unsure this was a plausible idea. “Having someone live with us will make it even harder and, as Temari said, in a spot where we cannot even make one small mistake.”
“I think we’d only really have to worry about Kankuro. He’s more prone to slipping up than you or me, Gaara.”
“Hey, I’ll do fine!” Kankuro looked a little taken aback, although not seriously. “I understand the importance of this and will be extremely careful. Are you forgetting that I’m a great actor?”
“Too good.” Was Gaara’s only comment on the matter.
Kankuro frowned and Temari scoffed, “Yeah it’s not your skill I’m worried about, but your arrogance.”
“Alright geez, will you two stop berating me already? I thought you said no side commentary.”
“That was for you, not us.” Temari smirked as the man’s expression deepened in a more playful manner.
“Let’s get back to the topic at hand.” Gaara still looked thoughtful while asking his next question. “Even if he isn’t that large of a threat to our operation, why should we help him? You said he would be useful. How?”
“Simple. We can use him. We’ve learned lots about Konohagakure and its people, but our knowledge on the nobles is still, well, rather one-sided we could say. Wouldn’t it be beneficial to attempt to learn from another perspective? From his perspective?”
“I suppose you’re right,” Temari’s chin rested between her thumb and curled index finger, “We could not only learn what he thinks by guiding him into specific topics, but could also observe him.”
“Exactly,” Kankuro leaned forward in his seat, excited that the two were finally starting to understand his reasoning, “we never wanted to have rebellion as our first option, but didn’t know if there was an alternative. We can observe him to see if there’s any hope in the younger royalty. If there is, then we can consider having rulership pass to them. If not, then we simply resort to the rebellion. As long as we are careful, housing him really only has positive outcomes for us.”
Temari nodded. “We do not know his reason for coming to the outer villages. We may be able to find out why if we keep him close. If they truly have picked up on our trail or that of the rebellion’s then we could find out from him and prepare to avoid their gaze better.”
“See? It wasn’t a dumb or idiotic decision. He can help us.”
Temari sighed, looking convinced albeit a little nervous. “You’re not wrong, but I still think this will cause trouble for us.”
Gaara spoke for the first time in a while, his face no longer looking as though he was contemplating what to do. “It may be best to keep him with us. Kankuro is right.”
There were small nods from Kankuro and Temari, the latter of which started to open her mouth to respond. Any words she may have been about to say escaped her as the squeaks of a poorly constructed door and rotting floorboards filled the room. Everyone’s heads whipped around to look at the man who just left the bathroom, looking slightly damp and much cleaner. Even after being through so much and using an incompetent bathroom, the man before them could clearly be labeled as nothing other than nobility. Without needing to speak it, the three siblings all thought their work was cut out for them if they intended to make the man who stood before them with a princely aura blend in.
“Thank you for the clothes, dinner, and letting me stay here.” At least he has manners, the three thought simultaneously.
Without another word, Temari stood up and headed for the bathroom, unsure just how much of their conversation the man had heard. His lack of comment when she brushed past him assured her he hadn’t heard much if any. She closed the bathroom door, ready to decompress after all the stress her brother had put her through since his arrival back home.
Gaara turned away from the table, ready to continue the dishwashing he had been doing before their conversation. Kankuro kept himself from smiling at the happiness he felt over his siblings’ agreement that although his decision was a little dangerous, it was a good one. He gestured for Neji to come closer and led him to the area where they kept their bedding. As the rest of the night passed on, the siblings let the conversation they had fade from their minds, just like the swirling and evaporating steam from the bathroom in the rickety shed they currently called home.