Archive of Our Own ^beta

It had been a long day for Kankuro. Perhaps the longest day he ever lived if he were to be completely honest. Actually, that’s definitely untrue. There was one time in the Kazekage Manor with his little brother and Lee and the horrors. That was a long day. A long day that had been made shorter with a fine pack of beers. Thankfully, such a thing would be unnecessary tonight. But today was a close match against that day. He had been on a scouting mission all week that had honestly resulted in buttfuck nothing as far as intel goes. The mission just served to wear himself and the rest of his squad out. At the end of the day, it’s all a part of the job, he supposed. However, he was definitely ready to take a solid shower and go to bed.

Now, it was three twenty-three o’clock in the morning. Kankuro was now unlocking the side door to the manor. Hopefully, that way, as he walked in and to his workshop, he wouldn’t disturb or wake up any of the other members of the house. As he unlocked the door and opened it, Kankuro ruminated in the idea of being able to go to his workshop, set down his things, take a nice shower, and pass out on his delightful bed. As Kankuro went through the door, he entered the kitchen and immediately realized he wasn’t the only one awake at this hour, as Gaara was sitting at the kitchen table eating.

Kankuro walked forward to give his brother a greeting, “Yo, Gaara. How’s it- what the fuck are you eating.”

As Kankuro looked down at the plate Gaara was eating out of, he saw a slab of neon green meat. He could swear whatever the fuck that thing is that it’s literally glowing like some fucking cartoon can of radioactive liquid.

“Dinner,” Gaara spoke as he took a bite of the radioactive amalgamation that was about to have Gaara grow a third arm.

“Gaara, what is ‘dinner’? What is in that… that?” Kankuro inquired as calmly as possible. Which, admittedly, was rather not calm at all.

“Chicken marinated with a special nutrient mix that Lee gave me. He says it is supposed to ‘Help preserve the Springtime of our Youth.’” Gaara answered with that creepy straight-faced stare of his. At the bare minimum, this strange ass looking nuclear bomb chicken wouldn’t kill him on the spot, probably. Plus, even if it did at least this wasn’t an intentional poisoning. This means this can be a problem for tomorrow Kankuro. The tomorrow Kankuro, who is talented with poisons and antidotes and has had a full night of rest with nice dreams of his family members eating normal people things not at three o’clock in the bijuu-damned morning. The Kankuro that hasn’t been on a mission all week only to come back home for a different kind of mission that he’s super not prepared for. Kankuro takes a deep breath to calm himself momentarily.

“That… does sound like Lee. Cool cool, squirt, I’ll see you in the morn- “

crunch

Kankuro looked across the table that Gaara was sitting at to see Shinki sitting there. Somehow during Gaara's, "I'm going to eat toxic goo chicken," thing, he had missed Shinki's presence. Apparently, three in the morning is snack time, according to these two freaks, and both of them had decided to go to town. In Shinki’s hand was a whole peeled, raw onion, that was in the middle of being eaten.

Shinki sat down the onion on the plate in front of him and gave Kankuro a small “Hello, Uncle Kankuro,” before picking the onion back up and taking another large bite out of the half-eaten onion. The raw onion. He didn’t even make a face. He ate it like it was just a potato chip or some shit. It wasn’t even fucking chopped up as he ate it either. He was just eating it as is. How he wasn’t crying a storm just from the onion vapor getting on his face as he ate into it was beyond him but, bijuu, he was just eating it like this was an everyday choice of food.

“Don’t you have training with your team at 9 o’clock?” Kankuro questioned, along with his life, how he got into this situation, and when he would exit the nightmare dimension and go back to the normal one where he has normal family members.

“Yes.” Shinki answered before taking another bite and chewing some more of the motherfucking onion. Shinki continued, like the fact it was 3 o’clock in the morning didn’t matter whatsoever in this context.

“I- Okay, okay. I’m going to bed. See you all tomorrow.” Kankuro said as he started towards the puppeteer workshop. He hoped when he woke up that he would wake back up in the normal world where everyone was normal, and nobody was eating radioactive chicken and raw onions at three in the fucking morning. Maybe a beer or two tonight wasn’t such a bad idea after all.

“Hey, Kankuro. Welcome back. I look forward to your report tomorrow morning.” Gaara spoke before going back to his dinner with a small smile on his face.