Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto! If I did, it would have been titled "Rock Lee" !
Autumn Leaves
The gentle rustling of leaves was heard all throughout the village of Hidden Leaf. Not very surprising, as it was a windy autumn afternoon.
A figure clad in green was training in one of Konoha's many training areas. He was punching, kicking, repeating the process. His bandage-wrapped hands were blistered and bleeding, but the young nin showed no signs of stopping. He would train until past sunset, as was his daily routine. At the end of each day, his devoted sensei (who incidentally was yet another green clad ninja) would bring him home.
Rock Lee's daily training regimen.
"Why?"
The question that escaped the Hyuuga prodigy's lips confused his teammate.
"Why not?" replied Lee. "I don't see why I should train myself every day. It's not like I have any other commitments, besides trying to impress Sakura-chan. Youth is not to be wasted!"
"That's beside the point." said Neji. "You can't use ninjutsu, genjutsu, you definitely don't have any bloodline capabilities. Why pursue a career as a ninja?"
Strange, thought Lee. I never thought Neji would bring that up in a conversation. Then again, he's a pretty firm believer in destiny, so I probably shouldn't be wondering why he asked.
Lee thought about this for awhile, punching a training dummy.
"Well, it's probably because I never found any other careers interesting."
Neji looked at him with one of the many patented Hyuuga glares.
"I'm serious, Lee."
". . . I've never really thought about that before."
"When did you discover that you couldn't use ninjutsu or genjutsu then?"
"A little after I enrolled in the ninja academy."
Of course, Neji had to think about this. The boy not only had no proper jutsus up his arsenal,
He had the stunningly eye averting looks of his sensei. If that wasn't enough, Lee actually took Gai's youth speeches to heart, and had compiled most of them in several notebooks.
"Why are you asking, Neji?" said Lee. "I know you are my eternal rival and that I know quite a bit about your history as a shinobi but… this is really unlike you."
He had a good point.
"To tell you the truth, Lee, in my point of view, you are one of the few individuals I've ever witnessed to thwart destiny."
It was a claim backed up by actual events. Whoever had heard of a formidable ninja who used no ninjutsu or genjutsu? Who would believe that the nin in question had survived a 50/50 chance operation to restore the use of his left limbs-after they'd been mortally injured by the future kazekage? And the fact that he'd gotten only faster and more powerful after said operation?
"…stop it Neji, I'm not that impressive am I? If I really were impressive, I would've gotten Sakura-chan to date me ages ago." said Lee, scratching his head in modesty.
"Well…"
"hm?"
"Lee… Do you think anyone respects you for your accomplishments?"
Lee thought about this.
"I guess Gai-sensei respects me… Maybe Gaara does, but that is yet to be seen… I wonder if Tenten respects me, but I think she does as a teammate." said Lee. "…do you respect me, Neji?"
No response. The Hyuuga had returned to practicing his Byakugan.
" …thought so. You ARE my eternal rival, after all." Lee soon forgot about the conversation, and hee too returned to practicing taijutsu.
Neji, however, had something quite unrelated to Byakugan in his mind.
"I do respect you, Lee…" , the genius said to himself, out of Lee's hearing range. "A lot more than you think."
The winds of autumn blew differently that day, as if to commemorate the newfound respect that the Hyuuga had. The leaves rustled as they always did, but to the two shinobi, the sound had different meanings than it had before.
"Someday…" thought Lee. "I will earn not just Neji's respect, but those of everyone in Konoha. Especially Sakura-chan's.
"Lee-sensei"
He repeated the phrase in his head a few times before actually comprehending it.
Since that fateful day in autumn, both Lee and Neji had grown both physically, mentally, and in responsibility.
One thing led to another, and soon, Lee found himself in Gai's footsteps. He was a jounin now, in charge of his very own cell. Sakura had recently accepted one of Lee's invitations for a date (the thousandth one perhaps?) and for Lee, this was quite a big accomplishment indeed. He definitely had not wasted his youth.
The familiar wind blew on that autumn day, much like it did several years ago. Lee watched his students in the same training ground as he has trained in many times before, the same ground where he had promised to earn his comrade's respect, and eventually, the respect of others.
Lee soon found himself thinking of that commitment, made so many years ago. He wondered if Neji remembered that conversation.
"…Lee."
The taijutsu specialist looked up. Speak of the devil.
"Neji! My eternal rival! What brings you to this training ground? I hope it wasn't Naruto-kun again… Even if he IS hokage, he can't just tell people to bring him ramen whenever he gets hungry."
"Do you remember that conversation we had when we were still genin on this training field?"
"Actually, yeah…" shrugged Lee. "You never did answer my question though…"
"Which one, about my being here or about the conversation?"
"The conversation."
Neji looked at Lee. The same white eyes, the same cold look. Lee had become accustomed to that look over the years. It meant that he had missed something.
"… I did answer your question, Lee."
Lee looked at him.
"Yeah, it was a definite no."
The Look again.
"No it wasn't."
Lee's stunned expression said all that was on his mind.
"Working to earn your respect has gotten me this far, Neji. You're saying that I'd had it all along?"
Neji nodded. The cold stare was gone, replaced with a look that Lee had not seen before.
One of Lee's students had momentarily stopped training, to watch the two jounin talk to one another.
"Yuusuke!" yelled his teammate. "Get back to training! I won't let my rival slack off like that!"
"I guess the rumors about Lee-sensei being gay were true…" said Yuusuke, who immediately went to shut up his teammate.
End
My first fic! Hope you like it! Yaoi isn't one of my strong points…