Good Night

“…good night Gaara-san.”

They stood in the Konoha moon light for what seemed like an age. Gaara could feel Lee’s gaze as he nervously stared at the floor.

“…good night…Lee-san.”

Seemingly contented with his farewell, Lee spun round on his heel and disappeared into the shadows. As soon as he was out of sight, Gaara cursed himself.

“Oh why can’t I just tell him!?” He thought aloud, “I can’t take it any longer!!!”

The evening had gone according to his plan, he had arrived fashionable late, but not so late as to seem arrogant and he had talked to everyone at the party at least once so as to not make it glaringly obviously. Part of him wanted to make it glaringly obvious.

He slumped onto a bench and put his head in his hands.

“I was so close,” he muttered, kicking the ground hard.

He leant back against the wall behind him with his hands cupping the back of his head, staring up at the night sky. His mind was immediately cast back to Naruto-kun’s birthday celebrations. It was the perfect time to let his secret go; no-one knew he would show up so he would be a welcome face, and he knew that Lee-san would be there.

It was the last song, traditionally the time to share intimacy and possibly steal a kiss from the person you had spent most of the night with. Gaara recollected looking out across the dance floor to see Sakura-chan resting her head on the shoulder of the mysterious red-headed ninja who’s name he had forgotten while Naruto-kun looked at her enviously with the sleepy but very happy looking Hinata-chan snuggled against his head.

And then his eyes met Lee-san from the other end of the room. The sand kazekage’s cheeks went a violent shade of red and he pretended to be very interested in his sandals. To his horror, Lee-san’s deep melting voice appeared next to him.

“Don’t they look happy?” he said,

“…yeah…must be nice.” Gaara struggled out barely audibly,

“Well the party’s almost over,” Lee-san mused, “want to wait outside to say goodbye to people?”

Gaara made a sound of approval, and followed his green-clad friend outside.

A falling dustbin nearby and an angry shout snapped him back to reality, looking at the deep blue abyss.

If only…I could have had that last dance. he thought to himself.
He focussed on the ground in front of him, tightened his view of it and made it jump up before him. After a few seconds of rearranging the sand in the soil, the young man stood before an effigy of his crush. The perfect image of the green taijutsu ninja bowed to him and extended him his hand. A smile fast spreading across Gaara’s face, he took his hand and let his dance partner’s gentle pull lead him into his chest.

Gaara closed his eyes, and squeezed the sand clone’s hand as they moved in unison to non-existent music.

And from behind the wall next to a fallen dustbin, a dark-green figure with a big smile