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Baki’s never had kids. Never had the time or the desire for it.
But if he had kids, he would have loved them like this, he’s sure.
-
He finds Temari on the roof of the Kazekage building, overlooking the city, the desert, the sunset beyond. She’s got that look on her face she gets when she’s deep in her thoughts, not strategizing, but feeling for once.
He steps up to her quietly. Wonders where the time has wandered off to.
He’d been a teenager when she was born. Had already killed and been close to dying himself.
Unstable times.
But she’d been their princess, with her wide eyes and ruthless smile.
And while he can’t speak for the village like Gaara does nowadays, she’s still his princess. Always will be.
“I’m going to miss this,” she mumbles.
It’s a testament to their relationship, that she does.
They’ve spent hours in silence. There has never been much need for words.
But she speaks to him now, lets him know that she’s seen him from the corner of her eye, and that she’s allowing him to stay.
Baki sighs. He wants to gift her something, anything, to remember him by.
It’s rare for him to be this sentimental.
But the world is changing. Lady Temari is going to leave Suna behind for good. Who knows when she’ll be home again?
Who knows if she’ll ever call Suna home again?
“When you came into my care,” he starts, belatedly realizing that his choice of words is a little poor, “I had little left to teach you.”
Temari turns, curiosity swimming in her eyes. They haven’t talked about this in ages, if ever.
She’d been a feisty kid back then. Rasa’s attitude toward teaching had been rather harsh, but he wasn’t alone in that. Only the strongest could survive in a desert like theirs.
Temari had been his first Genin, entrusted to him with hardly any explanation. He knew he’d die for it if he messed up, just like she knew she’d die if she made a mistake. The stakes were always that high.
“You taught me things I didn’t know I needed to learn,” he admits, hoping she’ll understand.
“Like what?” She asks, and for a moment, he doesn’t see her as she is now, grown up, beautiful, sure of herself. He sees her as the little kid she used to be.
Terrified, but unwilling to show that. And so much braver than the rest of them.
“Forgiveness,” he clears his throat awkwardly. “And Hope.”
Temari laughs, the sound a little rougher than usual. She’s touched, he can tell.
“I think you’re mixing me up with Gaara.”
“None of us would be here right now without you,” he reminds her calmly. “I don’t think Kankuro, or I, would have trusted him as easily without your example.”
“Yeah, well,” she clears her throat, “someone had to do it.”
Silence settles between them. It’s well-worn and comfortable. Tomorrow she’ll leave Suna to be married.
“I wish you didn’t have to leave,” he admits to the darkness settling swiftly over the village. “But I hope you’ll be happy with your choice. You deserve it.”
Her arm hooks around his, an uncharacteristic show of affection. She’s warm, like the desert sun. “I’ll miss you, too, Baki.”
-
“You work too much,” he points out calmly. Gaara blinks back at him, a wordless conversation.
Only Baki feels like using words today.
“I know you want to prove yourself,” he pats the mountain of paperwork on the desk in front of him. “But honestly, just let these idiots suffer.”
Jade-green eyes widen in surprise. Baki snickers to himself.
“Go,” he tells the boy. “Go have some time to yourself. Sleep, if you need to. I’ll take care of it.”
“As the Kazekage-”
“As the Kazekage, you’re supposed to set an example. And I don’t want to be known as a village filled with sleep-deprived Shinobi who make mistakes and get themselves killed.”
Gaara huffs out a breath.
Baki watches him weigh his options. He stays silent.
Gaara isn’t like the other two. You can’t put too much pressure on any of them, because God knows they’ve got a mind of their own. Usually, Kankuro responds well to dares and threats, while Gaara doesn’t, really.
Or maybe he would always have, but no one dared to try it.
Finally, Gaara rises from his chair.
“I suppose I could take the rest of the day off,” he muses, brushing a stubborn lock of hair out of his eyes. “Thank you for your concern.”
-
“What?” Kankuro asks, shoulders pulled up high. “I’m working.”
“Doesn’t look like it,” Baki points out, eyeing the magazine hidden amongst the papers his former pupil is supposed to work through. “Paperwork was never truly your thing, was it?”
“Sue me,” Kankuro huffs, abandoning the papers fully. “You wanna go grab a bite?”
Baki takes a seat at his table instead, eyeing the papers now. “What’s this anyway?”
“Wedding proposals,” Kankuro pushes the papers together, clearly agitated by their presence. “And before you ask, no, I’m not interested.”
Baki nods, picking one up. “I understand. After all, who would want to marry the most beautiful woman in all of… Ulundi? That’s a pretty small village, isn’t it?”
“Not that hard to be the most beautiful woman when you’ve only got a hundred people to compete with and most of them could be your grandparents,” Kankuro grumbles.
“Did the elders-”
“Not exactly,” Kankuro sighs, picking his magazine back up and flipping through it. “But if I’m not going through it at a snail’s pace, Gaara is going to get hit with it, and I doubt he’d know how to handle it.”
“So you’re sacrificing your time?”
“Well,” Kankuro shrugs. “It’s better these letters stay with me. Can you imagine Temari getting a hold of them? I’d never live it down.”
“Yet you read them out in the open like this, waiting for someone to notice.”
“Sue me for not wanting to be miserable in private,” Kankuro defends himself, but the argument is weak, and he knows it.
Baki watches him quietly as he shuffles the papers anew, buying himself time.
“Are you planning to stay single?”
“Did you?”
Baki doesn’t laugh. He knows Kankuro doesn’t expect him to, the boy watching him closely. Without the make-up, Baki knows, he’d look like Rasa’s twin. He wonders sometimes if this is the reason he picked up the masquerade.
“Maybe my being single is simply because of my lack of planning.”
“So you’re saying if I don’t act, I’ll stay single anyway.”
“If you don’t act,” Baki points out, pulling a letter from the stash and placing it on top. “People might decide for you.”
Kankuro’s eyes flicker down to the proposal and up again. “Was that a magic trick or a coincidence?”
“You decide.” Baki gets up to leave, turning once more at the door. “I know I always tell you to take things more seriously. I’m doing that because I care about you. Don’t stay alone just because you’re afraid of being vulnerable.”
Kankuro scoffs. “Are you insinuating that you’re afraid of being vulnerable?”
It would be easy to hide behind a joke now. They’ve done it for years now, this silly little dance. Baki’s got practice in it, he does. But he wants his kids to be happy, and if that means stripping himself of carefully laid layers of self-protection, he’ll do it. Gladly.
“Why do you think I’m still single?”
-
“The elders are against it,” Gaara points out calmly. His face doesn’t show any emotion, but his sand does, swirling around him like a swarm of bees.
“Fuck the elders,” Kankuro retorts.
Baki stays quiet. Observes.
The child is sleeping, sedated for the time being. His wounds have been tended to; they’re superficial at best, but malnutrition and lack of care have worn him down. He’s small for his age.
The sight of him, a small boy and his protective sand, tugs at his heartstrings just as it tugs at his memories. Gaara, small and desperate for companionship.
Baki turns, shifting his eyes from the sleeping boy to the ones standing before him. Gaara’s wounds have been tended to as well, but his robes are torn and bloodied. It’s an unfamiliar sight, uncomfortable memories rising up again.
Gaara, lifeless on the ground. His boy, dead.
Anger rises in him. He’d been useless then. Hadn’t been able to protect them.
Baki stands, and the boys fall quiet, waiting for his opinion.
“I respect the elders,” he starts, because he does. They’ve lived longer than him, have seen more than him. But have they, really? Have they seen his kids, truly seen them? Bleeding and bruised, breaking themselves apart for the good of the village?
“But Kankuro is right.” Baki breathes out through his nose. “It will be a hard fight, but a worthwhile one. Times are changing.”
Gaara watches him quietly as Kankuro cheers.
If they were different people, Baki would have hugged them. He’s seen the Konoha people do it, has seen Temari’s husband pull her in without a care for the world around them.
He wonders sometimes what it would feel like.
But they are who they are. They stay silent, watching the boy sleep.
-
“This is your whole family,” Shikadai explains, pointing at the sticks and stones and other knick-knacks he’s put on the ground. “These here are the Nara Clan, but you don’t need to know all their names yet. Grandma Yoshinori and Grandpa Shikaku-”
“Isn’t he dead?”
“Yeah,” Shikadai nods, “But he’s still important, you know?”
“Okay.”
“My Mom is your Aunt and my Dad is your Uncle, right? And don’t forget about Aunty Ino and Uncle Chouji from the Yamanaka and the Akimichi Clan, they are your family too.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s tradition, I’ll explain it later.”
Baki watches from the doorway, curious like always. He can see bits of Temari in Shikadai, the way she moves her hands when things get too bothersome for her fast-moving thoughts, or the brashness with which she approaches any topic, no matter how sensitive.
“Now this is your family in Suna,” Shikadai points at the other side of his display. “You can name them if you like.”
“Father,” Shinki points at a bright red stone in the middle. It looks like it belongs to a collection, and Baki absentmindedly wonders if the kids know where it’s from. “Uncle Kankuro.”
“Right. And don’t forget that you’ve got grandparents as well. Your grandfather is Rasa, the Fourth Kazekage, and your grandmother is Karura. She had a brother named Yashamaru, too.”
Shinki eyes the stones and sticks for a while.
“Where’s Baki?” He asks then, and Baki shifts in the doorframe, surprised by the question.
“Right,” Shikadai nods before Baki can make his appearance, tapping his lip. “Get me that stone there,” he points toward a box in the corner. “The brown one.” Shinki uses his iron sand to collect it, placing it next to Rasa, as if he’d never belonged anywhere else.
Later, Temari will ask if he witnessed the kids playing with his precious collection. He will deny it.