Seven, Naruto: 20 Truths Kankurou

Kankurou, a la 20 Truths; he's sort of a cross between my Blindsided Kankurou and my Boneharvester Kankurou, not that that will mean anything to anyone who isn't me. (Most of this is pretty meh, because I suck.)

Kankurou/Hinata, Kankurou/Neji, because I honestly still can't decide.

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1 When he was five, he broke a valuable antique vase with a poorly aimed shuriken; he told Uncle Yashamaru it was Gaara's fault. Uncle Yashamaru actually believed him; Kankurou still feels a little guilty about using his brother for a scapegoat, but he values his ribcage too much to ever breathe a word of the truth to anyone. Gaara still doesn't have much of a sense of humor.

2 Kankurou has been ignored in favor of his siblings for most of his life. Temari has always been the better fighter, and Gaara has always been impossible to ignore. Rather than feeling bitter, he feels relieved; it's much easier to get away with things when no one notices you. His ability to fade into the background was what originally drew him to the theater, and it's part of the reason he's become so successful.

3 He does not play with dolls. His puppets are his weapons, and anyone who accuses him of "playing" will receive swift and merciless reeducation.

4 He loves his siblings. Even Temari when she's just finished kicking his ass for the third time that week over some imagined slight or annoyance. Even Gaara when the sand starts playing with his puppets while Gaara gives him that "my imaginary friend could beat up your imaginary friend" look.

5 He no longer remembers what his own face looks like; he knows that the collection of individual features staring back from the mirror are his, but on some level he still believes he's lookng at someone else. He only starts to see himself when that first layer of white foundation is applied; he doesn't truly recognize his own face until he's drawn in the lines around his eyes, completely obscuring his natural face from view.

6 He loves the desert and his village, despite all of his many threats to defect to Konoha, "Where the weather is cool and the women are hot, and only half the citizens are homicidal and insane."

7 He likes working with his hands, be it on his puppets or dolls, or fixing broken things around the house. Wood is scarce in the desert, so he keeps a chunk of sandstone and a file in his pocket to carve when he has a few minutes to kill. He sometimes gives the finished products to Temari or Gaara, or the children who hang around the theater.

8 He can spend hours in his workshop, remodeling his puppets and building new mechanisms and traps. He likes the neatness of clockwork, and the satisfaction of building something with his own hands.

9 Sometimes he spends hours in his workshop building toys that serve no purpose- actual dolls, each exquisitely crafted and modelled after the people he's met.

10 The very first toys he made were supposed to be gifts for his little brother; Gaara grew into a monster, and Kankurou never gave them away. Ever since Gaara became Kazekage, he's left one outside his brother's door in the middle of the night, once a month, to make up for all of those missed birthdays. He still has several years to make up for.

11 He likes to cook, but he's not very good at it. He's usually the one who gets roped into feeding the three of them; Temari is an excellent cook but refuses to so much as set foot in a kitchen. Gaara forgets to eat if he isn't constantly reminded, and wouldn't know what to do with a pack of instant ramen even if you gave him detailed instructions and a microwave. Usually both Gaara and Temari will refuse to eat anything he cooks, anyway, and as a result, he is their family's official Orderer of Take-Out.

12 The first and only time he fought with Hyuuga Neji, he was convinced he'd fallen in love for nearly a week. (The first and only time he fought with Hyuuga Neji was because Kankurou had been half convinced he'd fallen in love with Hinata up until that point.)

13 He doesn't really believe in love, but he's an enormous fan of sex and theatricality, and he thinks Hinata has a sweet smile and an excellent appreciation for theater.

14 She stutterd around him, too; he sent her messages by marionette, and conducted an illicit Victorian romance with her across the walls of the Hyuuga compound.

15 When Neji found out about the notes, he disabled all of Kankurou's chakra pathways and told Kiba and Shino. Once his chakra had recovered enough for him to flee, Kankurou had to avoid Konoha for a few months before tempers cooled. He felt this was particularly unfair since he hadn't actually done anything wrong; all they did was write letters to discuss theater and philosophy and occasionally poetry. He wasn't planning on marrying her and he wasn't planning on sleeping with her.

16 In retribution, he started sending Neji little notes wrapped around the handles of kunai- through the window of Neji's bedroom.

17 It came as a relief to everyone in both villages when the two of them stopped flirting and started fucking.

18 It's true what they say about a puppeteer's hands.

19 He likes to think that he'll get married some day, and have children to carry on the family name. But then he'll look in a mirror and see his father's face staring back at him, and he realizes that their name isn't the best thing to brag about.

20 He's a little too smug to be a truly great actor, but that confidence gains him glory on the battlefield. When he retires as a shinobi, he'll learn a little humility. Gaara and Temari always laugh when he shares this ambition with them, so he doesn't try to explain how much he truly looks forward to retirement. He'd like to try out an ordinary life for a while, just to see what it's like.