The first time Lee met Gai, it had been an accident. He'd stumbled his way across the man's path after exhausting himself in training, which back then felt like it never went anywhere, and he honestly only remembered it because they'd met again, turning it from a moment of possible embarrassment to something he treasured for opening up his future. He'd literally fallen on his face that day, but had run off before the man could get a word in around his own apologies for having gotten in his way while he had clearly been on a run. He still didn't know why he hadn't been chased when he'd run off that day, but it did make him wonder at how much of a coincidence it was when he saw the man again in his own training area a week later.
Probably not one at all, if he was honest, but he'd never asked, and if Gai wanted to pretend it didn't happen, then Lee was happy to go along with it. It still hadn't solved why the man had decided to use his time on him though, not at first. After all, if one looked from sensei to student when Lee still had his long hair, it would have been glaringly obvious that the two had little to nothing in common. At least, that's how it had felt to Lee at first, that he'd been picked out of a crowd by someone who obviously didn't know what they were in for because he was unfortunately incapable of practically everything the Academy asked him to do.
But somehow, in the time that it took for Gai to turn from Gai to Gai-sensei, and pull Lee through to being a shinobi, a dream he'd started to despair ever actually achieving, he'd started to get it. He'd been watching the man, alert and attentive, and he'd started to pick out what they had in common, as well as to see what they could have in common.
It was more than he'd thought, at first, and one day, after Gai had poked and prodded him about the jumpsuit, he decided to try it. In fact, he decided to go the extra mile and cut his hair. The reaction he'd gotten for it had been happy, sure, but there had been something else... and he had to wonder if that hadn't been Gai-sensei wondering why he'd wanted to be like him the same way he'd wondered why he'd wanted to train him in the first place. All that did was make him want to look deeper and try even harder, digging in to make the man proud, to be like all the excellent things he saw in his sensei, and to unearth things about himself that would make him get that grin that let him know he did something right.
It was through this process that he noticed the way Gai-sensei and his rival interacted, how close they were, and how deeply they cared for one another. And he'd decided almost immediately that he wanted a friend like that. He wanted someone he could count on and unhesitatingly turn to the way his sensei could with his grand Rival. Instead he got Neji.
Neji who did nothing but belittle and taunt. Neji who refused to see any worth in him at all.
It had taken more than one long talk with Gai-sensei for him to understand that he'd had similar troubles with his Rival at first, and that one must not give up just because the road was hard. It was like training, and you couldn't let pain get between you and your end goal.
He made that advice a part of him, and redoubled his efforts, drawing strength from the friendship he saw when his Sensei's Rival was around, from the memory that it hadn't been so unlike his own troubles... and eventually there was a reward to that. A reward that was strangely sudden, though unfortunately took Neji rather firmly being beaten over the head by someone else to accomplish properly. Still, it wasn't perfect, and there as a kind of relief in being the person Neji ended up turning to when he'd been trying to sort out his priorities, in being able to be there for someone and to truly matter to them. Especially during a time when he'd doubted his own dreams, and had thought that he was going to lose everything.
It made him wonder if it had been something similarly intense that sparked the friendship between his Sensei and the man's Rival, but he didn't ask. Instead, he focused on his own friendship, on continuing to make Gai-sensei proud, and driving forward, creating a solid foundation for something he hoped would last well into the future.
He was pretty sure he'd succeeded.
In fact, he knew he'd succeeded, and it had been the work of hours for everything to crumble. But he would be strong, he would continue forward, and he would make Gai-sensei proud of him. He would.
No matter how much it might hurt to do it.
He was sure his own Rival wouldn't have accepted any less from him, and he wouldn't disgrace his memory by letting him down.
That wasn't what Rivals did.