“Well, this is awkward.” Naruto said as he stared at the silent Gaara, who was patiently looking at him with a blank face full of clear disinterest while he sat on the ground in his cell.

Unfortunately, Naruto did not receive any answer.

He was at a loss. He usually didn’t have trouble talking to people. He could deal with disinterest. It was one of the better alternatives he normally got from people during his childhood. The problem was that the old man Hokage expected these talks to go well and wanted him to make friends with Gaara. That was what made Naruto uncomfortable.

He could keenly feel the pressure of possible failure. Even more so now that he faced Gaara’s stand-offish attitude.

“Er… Do you have something you’d like to say?” Naruto tried to pass the ball to Gaara’s court. That usually worked in his experience because people always had something to say.

“No.” Gaara answered with a deadpan, and Naruto’s shoulders slumped.

As Gaara watched Naruto’s dejected expression, he wondered what kind of interrogation technique this was supposed to be. So far, he was very much not impressed.

“Right.” Naruto scratched the back of his head. But then his entire presence shifted as he inwardly affirmed his determination. He was not going to fail the old man without trying!

His usual grin appeared on his face, and while there were still some hints of discomfort to be discovered for a keen observer, Naruto started to settle into his usual, easygoing demeanor. “Anyway, I was told to speak to you because we are the same.”

“The same as me?” Gaara’s face slightly scrunched in doubt, and while most of his expression stayed blank, the disbelief was conveyed so clearly that even the usually dense Naruto easily noticed it as Gaara lifted one of his eyebrows with a blank, “You?”

“Ugh.” Naruto choked a bit at that, “What I meant to say is that we both have an… er, you know. Inside of us…” Naruto trailed off, skimming around the topic as he tried to push away the resurging discomfort.

Gaara gave him a blank look, “You too have a mother?”

“What? No!” Naruto blurted out, horrified at the insinuation of considering Kyuubi his mother. But then he realized that he denied having a mother, and that made him indignant because parents were something he always desired. “I mean, yes. Obviously, I also have a mother!”

Naruto took a deep breath before he expressively started to wave his arms around while trying to defend his point. “No. Not like that. Aagh. Not inside of me! Since I am here, I had to have a mother but-“

Gaara’s lips slightly quirked. Just a millimeter. If one wasn’t observing him, they would not notice. But both Temari and Ren had their focus on him while the flustered Naruto was babbling nonsense.

They exchanged an amused look, wondering if they saw it right, and Gaara indeed quipped a joke.

Honestly, Ren was a bit impressed at Naruto’s charisma. Seeing it at work was something else.

“I mean that we both are jinchuuriki! There! I said it!” Naruto finally exclaimed while pointing at Gaara and stopped running his mouth. “We are the same!”

“…” Gaara blankly stared at him.

“…” Naruto’s grin awkwardly diminished when his conversation partner did not react.

“Ok.” Gaara eventually said with the same cool as always, causing Naruto to facepalm.

“That is your reaction!?” He indignantly exclaimed while Gaara nodded.

“Yes.” He blankly said, but the amusement swimming in his eyes was easy to discern for Temari and Ren.

As Ren watched the awkward conversation between the boys start turning less strained, the more Gaara started to participate, he ruefully realized that the tight bond these two had in the canon was highly unlikely to happen.

Gaara didn’t seem to be interested, and there was no deep emotional impact between them that would allow them to get past their natural reservations.

But a simple friendship between them was already forming right in front of Ren’s eyes, even if he doubted either of the boys realized it just yet.

Ren got himself comfortable in his seat and watched them speak with each other alongside Temari as they occasionally exchanged comments about their interaction. They were both kind of fascinated with what was happening in front of them.

For Temari, she had never seen Gaara so at ease speaking with anybody, while Ren was observing the unreal effects of Naruto’s stamina in silent disbelief.

Yes. He was taking notes. Obviously.

“- and that is why I want to become the Hokage!” Naruto proudly said, and by now, Gaara was listening with barely hidden interest. Sometime along the last hour, Naruto had gotten him hooked. “The people will finally acknowledge and respect me! Hehe.” He widely grinned and rubbed his hands together at that mental image, looking like a sly fox.

“You wish to prove your existence.” Gaara seriously nodded in understanding. “I never thought that anything other than killing could do it, but now…” Gaara glanced at Temari. It lasted barely a split second before his eyes were back on Naruto. “I think I understand. A little bit.” He quietly murmured.

“What about you?” Naruto, not hearing Gaara’s murmur, was fully immersed in his pace and boisterously asked while almost vibrating from happiness in his seat with a silly grin.

He found out he started to quite enjoy talking to the quiet and reserved boy. They had a lot in common, even if their personalities were the exact opposite.

“Me?” Gaara asked, slightly startled.

“Yeah! Do you have any goals?”

“No.”

“Eeh? How come? That’s not good! You should get some. It will make life more fun!”

“Fun?” Gaara looked at Naruto as if he had a mental defect or two.

“Well, yeah.” Then a sly glint entered his eyes as he remembered that Gaara seemed to have some basic respect for Ren. “Ren always told me I should find stuff I enjoy and do them. It’s why I never stopped pranking despite becoming a ninja!”

Near the cell next to them, Temari gave Ren a deadpan look, but he just gave her an unrepentant grin back. He regretted nothing.

“… Is pranking fun?” Gaara asked, and the intensity of the look Temari was shooting at Ren suddenly quadrupled.

Ren suppressed a small shiver. If looks could set him on fire, he would probably be a charred corpse by now.

“You look hot when you are angry.” He whispered to Temari, making her huff while giving him an obvious eyeroll before she finally averted her eyes from him.

Ren secretly wiped the beads of sweat on his forehead, sporting an amused smile.

Alas, their little interaction made them miss whatever was said about pranking between the two boys, and no matter how fun it was to tease Temari, Ren felt a twinge of regret at that.

“I know!” Naruto suddenly shouted, “Why don’t you aim to become Kazekage!? We could be rivals!” His eyes were almost sparkling at the idea, the exuberant excitement pouring out of him in invisible waves. “I am not losing! I am going to become the Hokage first!”

The Hokage did tell Naruto to bring this up. Maybe the old man even wanted him to persuade Gaara to take the hat of his village for some reason. Naruto did not know. He didn’t catch half of the insinuated meanings the old man had thrown at him.

But he didn’t care about that. He didn’t bring it up because of the old man’s wishes. He did so because he thought Gaara could be like him! And the idea of having a rival in this was exhil… exhalir… exhilarat… that complicated word that means exciting!

But unlike what Naruto expected, Gaara shot the idea down with a short, “No.” that brought Naruto back down to earth and utterly smashed his elation to pieces.

“But why?” The blonde boy whined with a pout that made Ren chuckle, even as he was alarmed at Gaara’s refusal to become the Kazekage.

“Because I want my sister to be the Kazekage.” Gaara answered with unexpected intensity and determination that made Naruto startle in his seat.

Ren turned his eyes toward Temari, and for the first time since they met today, they no longer held amusement.

“What have you done?” He asked, almost failing to sound casual as he wanted to throttle the girl.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep