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Shijima didn’t have a crush on her boss, absolutely not. Sure, he was handsome, and kind of cool with all that calm and seriousness he always exuded. He was the strongest shinobi she ever met, and a great leader, and she admired him for that, of course. But that was all, just admiration. She was a professional, after all. But she cared about the Kazekage and his wellbeing, so, as a good employee, she thought her duty to make sure he was happy. A happy boss made happy employees, and a happy Kazekage made happy citizens. So, she was doing the best for Suna, too.Unfortunately, Gaara seemed immune to happiness, or at least that was what Shijima had thought, until recently. Because she witnessed, more than once, the Kazekage smiling. So, for the good of Suna, for the wellbeing of her boss, and whatever, she promised herself to discover what it was that had made Gaara smile, and make sure that he would do it more often. So, the investigation started!
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The Kazekage was a busy man, always working, never resting. Because of that he often forgot to eat, and Shijima made her mission to make him eat at least two complete meals per day, so if no one else provided, she did. Luckly for her (she too was very busy and didn’t always have time to cook or go on errands) there was sometimes someone else that thought about making Gaara eat, like his siblings, his student or even that weird shinobi from Konoha.And Gaara always, very graciously, accepted those meals, and kindly thanked the person who brought them. But nothing more. Until one day, while he was thanking someone for a received meal, Shijima saw the Kazekage’s lips unmistakably curve in what was, without any doubt, a smile. She dutifully took note what was the food: gizzards, yes, it must be one of Gaara’s favourites.So, she made some research of the restaurants in Suna that made it, and selected the one that her investigation showed to be the best. She chose a day in which there was no visitor from Konoha and Kankuro, Temari and Matsuri were all outside Suna for missions, and presented, nonchalantly, the gizzards to Gaara.He looked at the plate, nodded, thanked her, took it, and went back to work. He looked pleased, grateful even, but no smile. His lips didn’t even twitch.Her first attempt was a failure!
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The Kazekage didn’t have many hobbies, but, surely, he liked to tend to his plants. They were mostly succulents, of course, the only kind of greenery that could thrive in the unforgiving sunan climate without using an unjustifiable amount of water.Still, Shijima didn’t give the plants much attention until that one day when Gaara received a package form Konoha. She happened to be present when he opened it. It was a small box, didn’t seem much, but when the Kazekage looked inside, his expression changed a little bit, so Shijima started paying more attention. He extracted a very small plant, in a featureless green vase. The plant was quite ugly, in Shijima’s opinion: it looked like two caterpillars sprouting from the soil writhing on each other. And yet, when he had it in his hands, Gaara smiled.So, was it that simple? The Kazekage liked cacti, so receiving one made him smile? Well, that was quite easy, then! Except for the fact that all the succulent known in Suna were already growing in Gaara’s greenhouse. So, Shijima had to use her connection to find someone growing cacti elsewhere, arrange for a shipment to Suna, spend a lot of time and money, but finally she had her present ready: it was a fairly rare plant, way prettier that the one that had made the Kazekage smile, and bigger too. She had already bought an elaborately adorned vase to put the cactus in, custom made with a design she herself invented.Obviously, she hid all her efforts to her boss, casually giving him her present with some excuse about a gift from her sister that she didn’t know how to tend to…She could tell that Gaara was impressed. He observed the plant for a while, almost reverently touched it, and thanked her with the most emotional voice she had ever heard him speak.But no smile.The second attempt was a failure, too!
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After her second failure, Shijima started to rethink her strategy: maybe she jumped to conclusions too quickly. Maybe it hasn’t been the plant that had made Gaara smile, maybe it was the fact that it arrived via mail. Packages, after all, containing plants or other items, were a rarity among the Kazekage’s mail. He usually just received letters or scrolls. Mostly, they were work-related, but he had a (very) few people with which he had a personal correspondence. His siblings, for example, when they were away on easy missions, and some friends from Konoha (obviously).So, maybe it was that, the fact that it was personal, and not Kazekage business, that had made him smile? Because of something, at least, she was sure: the cacti had come in a package with no official sign on.To test this new theory, she tried, being as subtle as possible, to be always present or in the proximity when Gaara received his mail, but it was hard with her demanding job. Her mission to make her boss smile, though, was very important, too, so she decided to add to her daily tasks the duty to collect all the Kazekage’s mail from the Post Office and bring it to him.Gaara was a little surprised when she delivered the letters on his desk, but she had prepared some excuses about a new schedule to optimize time and resources of the various employees in the building, and he seemed to believe her.Satisfied with herself, Shijima waited. And waited. And waited. Days and days went by without not even the shadow of a smile, and of course personal mails weren’t so frequent, but she noticed at least a couple of them, that the Kazekage read with interest, but without smiling.Shijima was a patient woman, and a determinate one, but the added task of bringing the Kazegage his mail every day, two times a day, was starting to become quite annoying, since she didn’t get any results.In the end, she had to admit it: the third attempt was a failure, too!
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Shijima was a little frustrated by her lack of success in her quest to bring a smile to her boss’ face, but she wasn’t ready to give up. So, she kept observing.One day she went in the Kazekage office to look for some documents she needed. She explained that to Gaara, he nodded to her and then stopped paying her attention, even if the drawer into which she was looking was next to his desk. Shijima instead kept casting some sidelong glances to him, and had her suspicions confirmed: she had caught her boss in a rare moment of relaxation. She could tell because she had learnt to read his body language, and even if he appeared as usual (sitting with his back straight adhering the seatback of his chair, his posture stiff, his face composed, his eyes focused on what he was reading), he had a less concentrated “aura”, looked relaxed and like he was enjoying himself.Shijima immediately started paying even more attention: the reading must have been a recreational one, not work-related. Her observance was recompensated because, YES!!!!!!, Gaara smiled.The book was lying on the desk, so its cover wasn’t visible, the only thing she could make out of it was that it was brown. What could it possibly be about? What was that had made the Kazekage smile?She tried to make her search for the documents as slow as possible, but at some point it would start to seem suspicious, so she had to find them in the end, and leave the office. Just when her hand was on the door handle, she heard the Kazekage standing up. Turning as subtly as possible while leaving, she was able to notice that Gaara was bringing the book to the small bookshelf he kept nearest his desk.Of course, she took a mental note of it.The next trip to the Kazekage’s office, the following day, gave her the chance to look for that book that had made her boss smile. After all her previous failures she was careful to not let her spirit rise too high, and she was right: almost all the books on the shelf were of the same brown colour! She looked at all their titles anyway: treatises about war, diplomacy, Konoha’s traditions, taijutsu, Wind plants and how to take care of them.Not one of those books seemed to Shijima could contain something that could make someone smile, let alone someone that never smiled. Maybe it was the one about the plants? It was possible, Gaara liked to tend to the greenhouses, she knew that pretty well. But to smile just reading about it? Come on, not even Gaara could find a series of instruction so amusing. The one about Konoha’s traditions, then? Gaara was very fond of that village, and maybe they had some traditions that a Sunan could find fun? It was a possibility.Yes, there was something to work with. She noted the exact title and author, then looked for the book. It wasn’t in any sunan library, so she had to look for it abroad, a very annoying and expensive task, but, in the end, she was able to read it all from cover to cover.And… nothing.Sure, she learned a lot about their allies, some things were even interesting and possibly useful, but there was nothing, absolutely nothing she thought to be worth of a smile.Maybe she was starting to find her objective too hard to reach, maybe she was just really, really tired, but she gave up pretty easily, counting this as her fourth failure.Maybe she should just give up entirely!
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So, Shijima was seriously going to give up, exhausted, frustrated, discouraged, when it happened again: the Kazekage was given a meal, and he smiled. So, she was back at the beginning! Was it worth another try? She wasn’t convinced. Still, she gave it some thoughts.The meal in question, this time, was a dessert: homemade… dango, they were called, if she recalled it exactly. A strange looking thing, in her opinion: three balls kept together by a stick, a very konohan oddity! And they had, in fact, been brought by that weird leaf shinobi that always wears green.But Gaara clearly liked it, since he smiled when he saw them, and kept smiling while eating them. That amazed Shijima a lot: she had never seen Gaara eat sweet food, and had therefore assumed he didn’t like it!Well, yes, despite her better judgment, it was worth another try.She started, as usual, with some research about sunan and konohan desserts. She decided to be super extra careful this time, personally tasting all of them to see which ones could have similarities with the one that had made the Kazekage smile.In the end, afraid of making once again the same undetectable mistake, she opted for the dango, something she already knew her boss liked. She bought some in Suna, but just a few places made them, and not very accurately. She then looked for recipes directly from Konoha, learned how to made them, practiced, practised, practised, until she was finally satisfied with the flavour, the compactness and the appearance.In spite of all her previous failures, Shijima was very excited when she finally brought to Gaara the result of all her efforts. She, of course, hid it under her usual mask of efficiency and indifference, and casually offered the Kazekage the final fruit of several weeks of research, hard work, perseverance and perfectionism.“Thank you, but I don’t like sweet food.”“WHAT?!?”The strange and worried look Gaara gave her made Shijima realize that she had cried that last word out loud.She apologized, came up with some lame excuses, and hurried outside the office. The dango went directly into the trash can, with, figuratively, all her desire to persist in her goal of making the Kazekage smile: it was an impossible task!!!!This one has been her fifth and last failure!
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After the end of her attempts to make the Kazekage smile, Shijima had felt relieved, at first. But after a while she started to feel sad: after all, she really cared about Gaara, and she wanted him to be happy, and it wasn’t fair that he managed to smile so rarely and there was nothing she could do about it.One day, still ruminating about the opportunity to try some different approach to all the Gaara’s smile question, she entered his office to find it empty. More astonished that worried she noticed a sheet of paper on the desk: in her boss’ small handwriting there was a short message informing the reader that the Kazekage was momentarily in his private greenhouse, and to reach him there for any work-related matter. Shijima only needed his signature on some diplomatic letters she was about to send, nothing urgent, but she was curious: it was not like Gaara to leave his office during the work hours.As the Kazekage’s personal aide she had permission to enter his private greenhouse, so without hesitation she went there.Entering the protected environment, she felt the usual sense of wonder that it evoked: she’s been there a few times already, and still couldn’t believe that in the arid land of the Wind there was a place in which plants could flourish so strongly and lushly.Gaara once told her that he started working at the greenhouse after his chunin exam, the event that marked a turning point in his life. Trying to grow plants, and not only succulents, in a climate that was not at all in favour of the task had been for Gaara like a metaphor of what he was attempting to do with himself: trying to grow new relationship with his family and his people, founded in love and not fear and death.Shijima couldn’t help but think that he’s been successful in both aspects.The greenhouse was pretty big, so she wondered for a little while before locating the Kazekage. He wasn’t alone, there was that weird Leaf ninja with him, he must have made a surprise visit, because she wasn’t aware he was coming.She was about to make her presence known, when she was abruptly stopped by a sound that was unmistakable even if it was the first time she was hearing it and it was something she didn’t though possible to hear: the Kazekage had just laughed.It was a quite sound, very brief, but so sweet and wonderful! She approached slowly and quietly, hoping to hear and see more without disturbing Gaara and his guest.They were sitting on the ground, facing the opposite direction from her, but from their bent heads and their words she understood they were leafing through a book.“…improving every day!” was pretty much yelling the konohan shinobi.“I know, Lee” answered Gaara in a much softer volume: “I assure you I studied all your annotation. I don’t think there is anyone in all the ninja world that know taijutsu better than you do, so I trust you completely on this matter.”Even from her distance, Shijima could see Lee’s neck becoming red at the praise: “You are always exaggerating, Gaara!” he exclaimed with a hand on the back of his head: “Surely there are a lot of taijutsu specialists that know more than I do! Gai sensei, for example!”He started saying something about youth and passion, clearly ready to make some inspired and important speech, but Gaara stopped him with a hand on his arm: “Fine,” he said: “I concede to you: your sensei may be a bigger expert than you are. For now. But I don’t believe there is anyone else so talented in this matter.”Lee became a little redder: “Thank you!” he exclaimed: “I’m glad you appreciate my suggestions; they are something I discovered with experience!”They were talking about taijutsu, while reading a book: Shijima suddenly remembered that among the books with a brown cover in Gaara’s office there was one about taijutsu, but she didn’t even take it in consideration! Was it possible that this was the one that had made the Kazekage smile?“I am very glad that you liked this present!” Lee continued: “I was afraid you would find it boring! After all, I am always writing about taijutsu in my letters, so you are already forced to read about it a lot…”“I’m not forced to read about it” Gaara assured him: “Taijutsu is not something I’m particularly skilled in, and I’m glad to be able to remedy to this gap in my expertise. And, anyway, your gifts are always very dear to me.” And in saying so he pointed to a small vase on a nearby shelf. Shijima recognized it: it was the ugly plant Gaara had received via mail, the one that had made him smile.Lee got up and drew close to the plant: “Oh!! It is the Myrtillocactus! You made it thrive! It is beautiful! You must have taken such a good care of it!”“Of course I took care of it, it’s a very rare succulent, and you remembered I talked about it, and managed to find a fine specimen and gifted it to me. It was a very kind and caring gesture from you. I already wrote to you how much it meant to me.”Lee was now half turned towards Shijima, so she could see his face, and she watched as he blushed again: “Yes, you did, I remember. Oh, by the way, I want to thank you again for letting Takamaru deliver my letters, too, it is so much better to know they will arrive to you as soon as possible!”“It was my pleasure. You know how much your letters make me happy when we are distant. And Takamaru likes you more than he likes me.”Shijima stared to wonder if Lee was able to become any redder, because she had already though that impossible, and yet he had blushed some more.He cleared his throat, embarrassed but clearly happy about Gaara’s words: “I am sure he likes you more than anyone else, he just appreciates that I always have some treat for him to eat!”His face suddenly lit up with excitement: “Oh, speaking of treats, I almost forgot: I brought something for you to eat!”Lee hurried himself to a bag that was sitting near a wall, and Shijima took a step back because the Kazekage had turned his face towards the Leaf ninja, and she was afraid he may notice her. But the brief glance she had managed to give him showed her that Gaara was, once again, smiling. Slowly, and painfully, the various pieces of the puzzle started to come together, and Shijima felt a little stupid for not getting it earlier. The food, the cactus, the letters, the book…. they all didn’t matter, no one of them had really made Gaara smile. The common denominator of all the times she had witnessed that precious smile, the real reason for it, was Rock Lee.Yes, suddenly it was all clear! It was Lee that had brought Gaara his favourite food that day! And that ugly cactus had been a present from Lee! And he hadn’t smiled anymore with the ordinary mail because they started using Gaara’s hawk! And he probably wasn’t smiling at the book, that day, but at some notes Lee had written! And of course, she was right, Gaara didn’t like sweet food, he smiled, while eating the dango, because Lee had made them!So, in that moment, Shijima realized three things.The first was that her boss was in love with the most improbable of people: Rock Lee, Konoha's Beautiful Green Wild Beast!The second was that maybe, just maybe, she actually had a little crush on her boss, after all, since at the first realization she had felt an unpleasant pang of jealousy.The third thing she realized was that now she knew, she had finally discovered what it was that could make the Kazekage smile. And so she could, finally!, do something about it. Some weeks later the Kazekage informed his assistant that the Hokage had invited him to take part to the Rinne Festival in December, so he left her to make all the arrangements.Shiima saw her chance, and took advantage of it.A few days later she went to her boss’ office to show him what she had organized. The Kazekage nodded to everything, without showing particular emotions, approving the timetable, the chosen residence, etcetera.After everything was explained and agreed to, Shijima took back all of the documents, walked to the door, and with studied nonchalance, turned back to add: “I almost forgot: to be your personal escort in the village for the entire duration of your stay, I requested the Konoha shinobi Rock Lee.”Maintaining the best poker face she was able to perform, Shijima hold her breath, until, FINALLY!!!!, the Kazekage smiled to her: “Thank you,” he simply answered.It took her several months and five spectacularly failed attempts, but, in the end, she had reached her goal: she had been the cause of Gaara’s smile!