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The last time he heard "I love you" was when he watched his mother bleed out on the operating table. It had been his earliest memory, at a little over two and a half years old, clutching the coarse fabric of his sister's nightshirt when they were rushed in for goodbyes as her blood poured onto the terracotta floor as unceasingly as the little cries that followed it.
"I love you, my sweet little daughter," his mother had whispered, had closed her eyes against the tears that fell and smiled, but the blood had reached her teeth and stained it copper. "I love you, my beautiful son, my Kankuro."
And then, she was gone. Silent, drifting off.
Kankuro hadn't understood why Temari was crying, why Baki turned his face away, why his father screamed in rage about a monster. His nativity allowed him to take in the scene without so much as a breath, or word, only a thought as his gaze settled on the tiny bundle that shook its furious fists in the medical ninja's arms.
His mother had said its name. Gaara.
"Mama," Kankuro had said, and his father had thundered out the door. "You didn't say it to Gaara. You didn't say I love you to him."
Temari had slid her fingers in front of his eyes, made him turn away.
"Mother is asleep now," Temari whispered, barely almost four and somehow with a maturity three times her age. "Let her sleep, Kankuro."
So he did. He let his mother sleep, in the recesses of his memory, her gentle smile and her soft words lost in the haze of a childhood that followed. It was brutal, the life of a shinobi within Sunagakure—worse for those born to the Kazekage himself, whose rage extended beyond the night his mother died into the beatings after. If the jutsu was not good enough, he was beaten. If he did not master it quickly enough, he could expect more than a stern frown and words. Temari had taken the brunt of it, every kick and hit and scrape.
But only when she was around.
Kankuro learned quickly that his father showed his twisted sort of “love” through his fists, through his cruelty, the way he seemed to target Kankuro more frequently for his weakness. He was not as skilled as Temari. Not quite a monster like Gaara. Somewhere in between with a knack for complex and tactical jutsu that did not have the flair of his siblings.
"You are weak," his father had hissed when he was merely five and reduced to a heap of bruised skin and broken bones on their kitchen floor. "You are going to die a pathetic death like your mother. I am trying to help you, Kankuro, because I love you, and you are my son."
If love was an anger that curled fingers into punches, if love was a parched rage that was only quenched by violence, Kankuro didn't want anything to do with it.
But still, however small, his mother's voice came to him sometimes. On harsh training days or in the dead of night when he was the only one awake, and he could barely recall her words, "I love you, my beautiful son, my Kankuro."
Sometimes, he thought he had hallucinated them all together.
A question always seemed to emerge from that chaos. What is love?
But then one day, Gaara came home, blood trickling down his forehead, a familiar kanji contoured into his flesh, and Kankuro wondered, even for a moment, Is Gaara searching for that answer, too?
Kankuro had always felt isolated from his siblings, particularly Gaara, whose behavior and tendencies reminded Kankuro too much of a raised hand and the shout that followed, "You insolent boy!" He avoided Gaara, he knew. The ache in his bones when he saw his younger brother reminded him of every fracture and break, but maybe, Gaara was different.
Kankuro let himself be deluded into thinking that.
We are siblings, after all, he thought. Siblings love each other.
They never said it, of course, but he was sure he could feel it—the way Temari nagged him when they were late but still handed him a full bento box for the academy. The way Gaara would sometimes waltz into the dining room with his half-eaten plate and finish the rest in the seat across from Kankuro.
That was love, wasn't it? If he had nothing else, he at least had that.
But then sand curled around his face during the chunin exams, like tendrils, like claws, as Gaara said, "That's funny. I don't even consider you my brother."
The words had startled Kankuro—the fear of them made him release his grip on the front of Gaara's shirt, and the younger turned away from him as he added, "If you get in my way, I'll kill you."
Anger clotted Kankuro’s throat then, but it was accompanied by a bitter taste of something else. A little like resentment. A little more like a realization. That maybe there was no such thing as love —just an empty kanji carved onto a monster's forehead.
There was no love between a father and son. Only testosterone-fueled anger and fists encouraged by toxic precedence. There was no love between siblings. Only a cordialness that extended as far as roommates, to help feed and clothe one another but nothing more than that.
So Kankuro stewed in that anger, in that rage. Carried it with him like he did Crow on his back, into the further parts of the chunin exams and into his assigned duties to take down Konoha. He should have felt regretful about participating in such a mission. A little part of him was, too.
But the other part, the larger part, was overconsumed in his pessimism that it was just simply easier to say, "Are you ready for a puppet show?"
Those words brought relief. But not nearly enough to remind him that life was worth the trouble. So he threw it away like he was tossing an old puppet part in a trash bin.
He could have put more effort into his fight with Shino Aburame—more skill and analysis, showcasing more of the talent his father beat into him, but what was the point? It was never good enough, and it would never be good enough.
So when the last of Kankuro's chakra leaked into the mouths of the writhing mass of bugs, Kankuro was almost at peace. Could feel the metallic taste on his tongue, could feel hands on his face and not the pitter patter of antenna and legs.
He could feel his mother's presence.
"I love you, my beautiful boy, my Kankuro," his mother whispered, and Kankuro fell into that abyss after her.
But he could not find her. He was wandering in a black room, searching and searching and searching, but her face never emerged from the shadows. He tried to recall the curve of her features, the color of her hair, but there was nothing—he only remembered the shade of terracotta on the ground, her words, and nothing more.
"What did you mean, mom?" Kankuro asked the pitch-black expanse before him. "What is love supposed to be?"
But there was no answer—likely would never be one, either. That realization had Kankuro sinking, further and further, until when he opened his eyes again and the light of the afternoon sun almost blinded him, and he comprehended numbly that he was alive.
And he could not decide if it was a blessing or a curse as he dragged himself from his would-be grave and continued onward.
Kankuro, always the trooper, always the child soldier.
His father had knocked him down so many times, he never understood why he got back up. Didn't understand why his feet guided him in the direction he had sent Temari and Gaara, those people bound to him only by blood and nothing more.
But he walked, anyway, in silence, until he found his siblings once again.
And the first thing he noticed was not the kanji of love that seemed to mock him every time he faced his brother, but the giant bruise and blood streak on his forehead. The monster, somehow tamed, somehow docile.
Kankuro could feel a chittering in his bones as he helped Gaara to his feet and took him away from the shinobi who took him down. He didn't know why he was so gentle when he handled Gaara in that moment.
But maybe some parts of Kankuro’s nature were inherent, instinctual, and they couldn't be scrubbed away by his father and his village's brutal teachings.
His confusion only deepened when his heartbeat staggered as Gaara said, "Temari... Kankuro... I'm sorry."
Kankuro choked on his next breath and almost misplanted his foot on the tree branch.
The words seemed to rattle in his ears, tangling somewhere with the "I love you" still buried deep in his mind. Like his mother's last words to him, it was another phrase Kankuro spent his whole life never hearing, but inherently craving. And here, Gaara gave him a little portion, a little scrap to quell the hunger in his soul.
And for the first time in a long time, Kankuro was reminded of what he said the day his mother died. "Mama, you didn't say it to Gaara. You didn't say I love you to him."
Kankuro's fingers tightened on his brother's wrists, and he bit his bottom lip until the taste of blood brought him clarity. Kankuro had only been told once that he had been loved when he was just barely old enough to have the capacity to remember something.
And Gaara had never heard it. Not a single day in his life.
"Kankuro?" Temari asked when he lowered his head and he bore the weight of Gaara, of regret, of the realization that so many years of anguish have passed that maybe, just maybe, could have been fixed.
"I'm fine," Kankuro muttered, but it was almost too much, the burden he now carried.
He had always thought Gaara and his father were cruel, their threats of death making the most impact on his childhood.
But maybe he was no different—withholding the very thing that could have changed their lives, the emotion that his mother imparted to him in their passing. Gaara had written love on his forehead because he felt as though he was a creature devoid of it—and that answer had been staring in Kankuro's face for the past few years.
It was too late to change that, though—they couldn't turn their back on their participation in Konoha Crush, and they couldn't fix what had already been broken. Kankuro understood defeat, understood there were moments he should retreat.
But now, it felt like he was staring at an incomplete puppet—something he knew how to fix, and repair, and make work again. The question was, did he take the first step to fix it, or would he continue to stare at the pieces and wait?
It was awkward, at first, for Kankuro. Kindness and gentleness were things stripped from him as a child, and now he grappled for them with the dexterity of a toddler. Somedays, he would be the first one in the kitchen, preparing the bento boxes in the morning. Gaara had a child-like fascination in his eyes every time he presented the familiar white case, and he would take it with a slight bow of his head and a quiet, "Thank you."
Kankuro would never truly know what happened that day, but he could tell that Gaara had changed, whether it was from the fight, whether it was from losing, whether it was from Naruto Uzumaki himself, it didn't matter—all that did was Gaara was trying.
And Kankuro needed to try, too.
Sometimes, Gaara did burst out into anger. Sometimes, he smashed a cup against the ground with a swipe of sand or stormed out altogether, but even those were receding. In its place, Kankuro was planting the little seeds his mother left behind with both Temari and Gaara.
Because even though he struggled to say the words "I love you," he tried to at least show them in his actions.
"Gaara, you're amazing," Kankuro said, dumbfounded, when a year had passed and Gaara came home with news he had expected but wasn't prepared for. "I can't believe it. You're going to be the next Kazekage."
"Yes," Gaara said. "I meant what I said when I spoke to you that day. I want to become a part of the village. I want to become someone precious to someone else."
Kankuro understood then what he had struggled to learn all his life. That warmth in his chest, that pride that overflowed like a drop of water in a too-full cup were reminders that despite everything, Kankuro finally saw his brother for who he was.
Not a monster.
And Kankuro loved him.
"I'm proud of you, Gaara." Kankuro slid his arms around Gaara's shoulder and pulled him into a hug, and he whispered the words his mother never got to finish that day. "And I love you, little brother."
Gaara stiffened for a moment—whether he was startled or alarmed, Kankuro wasn’t sure.
Could only feel the arms tighten around his waist.
And they stood like that, for a minute, for an hour, Kankuro couldn't tell.
And it was still the warmth of Gaara's arms that Kankuro felt when the explosions roared around him. Still felt the press of his forehead against his shoulder when the sand wilted away, and Gaara plunged from the sky.
"Gaara!"
It was that very emotion Kankuro always struggled to understand that propelled him unprepared, alone, onto the battlefield with the Akatsuki. It drove him to fight, to rage, to struggle even against the poison that coursed through his veins so Crow could nick just a bit of fabric.
Gaara. That name had been on his lips through the pain, through the haze. His little brother, the little brother who showed him the meaning of love that was lost the moment his mother died. He meant everything to Kankuro.
He was the reason Kankuro was still human, even when the entire world tried to hollow him out like a puppet.
In those flashes of consciousness between the memories of Gaara, of his mother, he saw Temari. His sister.
"Don't you dare die on me," she said, less like a hiss and more like a plea. "You can't die, Kankuro."
When he was little, he often clung to her shirt. She had been so young but had been forced to take on the parental role of not one, but two parents. She had been the one to cook their meals because she was the only one tall enough to reach the stove. She had been the one to bandage his cuts and scrapes and scold him. She had been harsh, but that harshness made Kankuro fail to see that that had been her version of love all along.
"I'll live," Kankuro croaked to her, and even when the medical shinobi hushed him to be quiet and spare his breath, he managed to say. "Love you, Temari..."
Kankuro couldn't tell what followed, lost in the haze of blackness again, but he felt the tight squeeze on his hand, and he was reminded that even though it was dark, he was not alone this time.
When Kankuro recovered, he joined the team to rescue Gaara without hesitation. He remembered when he was a genin, and thought he was dead after his fight with Shino—when he woke up in silence and wondered why he went after his siblings–and Kankuro understood now that that too had been love.
Love had been all around him, all his life.
And Gaara's too. He got to remind his little brother of that when so many of Sunagakure's forces arrived to bring their Kazekage home. Gaara's gentle, startled expression was something Kankuro would always remember.
See, Kankuro wanted to say. There was always love. We were just too blind to see it.
But still, when they got Gaara home, when a routine was reestablished again and Kankuro was summoned to the top of the Kazekage residence, he hadn't been fully prepared when Gaara said, "Kankuro. There is something important I've been meaning to tell you."
"Oh yeah?" Kankuro said and stood behind his brother, reminiscent of the moment when Gaara shared his dream with Kankuro about becoming the Kazekage.
The sun was even setting, too, swirling the horizon into a peach and orange tinge that burned brightly behind his eyelids as Gaara turned to face him.
"It is something I should have said a long time ago," Gaara admitted. "So I apologize for not bringing it up sooner."
Did he know about the Akatsuki were coming for him before they appeared? Or is something else happening? Kankuro's mind was spinning out, trying to consider all the variables as his little brother approached him.
"Kankuro," Gaara said and rested his hands on his shoulders.
Kankuro’s gaze strayed to the kanji for a moment, but only a moment.
"Yeah?" Kankuro answered.
And in a gust of wind, Kankuro was blown away in an instant by the words that follow. "I love you, Kankuro."
I love you. The memory of his mother, on the table, with her smile so tender and her words just as soft. They were back again, stronger, clearer, in the mouth of his younger brother.
And Kankuro couldn't lie. He choked on a sob. Wrapped his little brother up so tightly in his arms that he only thought for a moment that he might be squishing him.
Those words were relief —a cup of water for a man who just wandered the desert for years. Kankuro was greedy and drank and drank every last drop and hoped, one day, he would get to partake of it again.
"I love you too, Gaara," Kankuro whispered.
This was the answer he was searching for. This was love —not anger and fists and fear. And for the first time in a long time, Kankuro felt like he was utterly and completely made whole by the words he had so desperately, subconsciously, longed to hear.
I love you.