The Flower Shop [A Gaara Love Story]

3: Lord Kazekage

      There was a knock at the door, and he turned his eyes away from the window to look towards it.

      "Enter."

       A moment later, a woman walked in, a clipboard in hand as she walked through. She held the clipboard close to her as she bowed before him.

     "Good morning, Lord Kazekage."

      She was given a nod in return, his eyes turning back to the window as she looked at her clipboard again and began to list the events of the day. It was the same as it had been the day before, only minor differences and alterations. Gaara didn't notice anything particularly different, his days being so routine that it was almost useless that someone came every morning to speak about it. He was more than capable of finding out for himself, but they had insisted, just in the event that he had accidentally skimmed over something important.

     There were hardly any clouds today, but the few that rolled through were small and oddly shaped. When he had been younger, much younger, he had tried to find shapes and objects in them. It had been a game other children would play. They'd lay in the sand, laughing and smiling as they saw the fluffy cats and ships that drifted slowly across the sky. No one had done that with him, so he had done so himself, seeing the things in the clouds that were not there. Now a days, they were nothing more than clouds.

     "And you have an appointment with Momoko Akiyama in twenty minutes." She said, drawing his attention from the sky as she laid a file on his desk. Silently, he reached out and took the file, glancing to her before turning his attention to the papers. The young woman was not a shinobi, she was new to Sunakagure and had come here a month ago from Konoha. If it was not a mission or a report, what was her purpose here?

     "What is the reason?" He asked, eyes still focused on the paper before they drifted up to the picture of her clipped to the corner.

     "A request to open a business, my Lord. She turned in the request two weeks ago." The woman said, offering a smile, which wasn't given a glance as the Kazekage's eyes fixed on the files. After a moment, he silently shut it and laid it one his desk once more.

     "Thank you," He said, his pale eyes turning to her as he spoke, "You may go."

      She offered him another smile, bowing again before she turned on her heel and left the Kazekage alone again. He watched the door silently for a moment, almost expecting someone to slip through again, but when no one did he turned again to his desk. For a moment, he spared the file another look, opening it and spreading the documents for him to see. There was nothing remotely special about her. No training, no criminal record or instances with the law. Nothing that raised questions; through, the clean files themselves were curious. From the looks of it, she was nothing more than an average young woman.

     It wasn't often that someone new moved to Sunakagure, and less common for anyone to want to open a shop. The stores that were here now had been here for a very long time, and if anything new did open, it was a family member of someone who had already owned one. He couldn't find a reason to deny her a request, especially since she had already bought the space. The curiosity he felt was mild, nothing that couldn't be settled with the basic questions he was to ask her. If nothing raised concern, she would get what she desired.

     Gaara's eyes drifted once again to her picture. He hadn't spent much time on it while the woman was in there, but now that he was alone, he spared the time to give it a closer look. She definitely didn't look like a shinobi, her skin looked smooth and unharmed by years of training and harsh conditions. If he was seeing correctly, she even wore a hint of makeup in her photo. Her pale blonde hair fell down her shoulders in gentle waves, and her smile brought warmth to the photo, though the photo itself was supposed to be nothing more than a form of identification. She wasn't like anything in Suna, though he figured a little while in the sun and she'd have a bit more color than the soft ivory that was in her photo. Still, color or not, Gaara could not say that she was not pleasing to the eye.