It was not an uncommon occurrence. Dosu should have expected it, he really should have. But for some reason, he'd denied it, hoping Zaku wouldn't ask. Wishing he would just accept him, no matter what he hid under his bandages.
"Dozo… Let me see, Dosu-kun – It can't be that bad!"
Once again, Dosu grabbed Zaku's hand to stop it from unraveling his bandages. "Iie. It can be that bad, Zaku. And I won't let you see and hate me for it."
Zaku glared at him. "As if! You know I wouldn't do that to you! How can you think such a thing!" He tore his hand away angrily.
Dosu smiled bitterly beneath the bandages. "I've known that about many people, people who loved me and said they wouldn't let it bother them. But in the end, no matter how hard they tried, they couldn't endure it. And I won't lose you like that." Firm, determined… as always, Dosu.
"So instead you'll hide from me and never let me see your true face? You'll let this secret kill us!" Zaku argued.
Dosu turned his eyes away. "If you want it to, then it will." He shrugged.
Sadly, Zaku turned Dosu's face back to him and let his fingertips slid down the side of Dosu's covered face. "Onegai… Dosu… I don't want that… But Dosu, you know that I love you… We shouldn't keep secrets from each other…"
"What if knowing the secret could ruin us?"
"Then not knowing will certainly ruin us."
Dosu closed his eyes and sighed. "Then we are ruined."
"Iie!" Zaku took Dosu's hands in his desperately. "Dosu, iie! We are not ruined so easily!"
"Arigatou, Zaku…" Dosu sighed relief.
"C'mon… we should get to sleep," Zaku murmured. Zaku set up his futon for them to share and the two lay down to sleep.
Dosu was asleep already. Zaku studied him quietly and began carefully pulling away the cotton bandages. He had to know, no matter how bad Dosu thought it was. Otherwise, he'd just imagine even worse things. He used chakra to pull a kunai from his pack to himself to cut away the stubborn bandages, afraid he would otherwise tug and wake Dosu.
Dosu could not feel anything very well, but his hearing was superb. First, a soft sliding sound, then a gentle scritching sound of metal cutting stubborn fibers reached his sensitive ears and his eyes opened just as last of the bandages had slipped away. The first thing he saw was Zaku's face in the moonlit room, twisted in ill-concealed disgust and then sorrow at seeing Dosu wake.
Dosu's eyes widened, his hands snapping to his face as he scrabbled away. "Damnit, Zaku! One thing, one thing I ask you! I never asked you to love me or be loyal or anything! Just to stop trying to find out what I look like!"
Zaku couldn't stop staring, his heart in his throat, breath rushed and shallow. Oh god, he'd never imagined… He'd never been able to bring himself to imagine that the man he loved with all his heart could… could look like that! "Dosu… Gomen nasai… I…" Zaku couldn't stop thinking of it. "What –What happened?" he asked.
Dosu laughed bitterly. "Have you not guessed? I'm a leper, Zaku. You love a LEPER." And with that he was gone, leaving Zaku quiet and shaking and trying to digest what he'd learned.
It took Zaku a while to get any time with Dosu again. They met for missions, training. Dosu refused to say anything more than necessary. Mostly he talked to Kin. But finally, Zaku was able to grab a hold of Dosu before he got away after training. "Wait," he pleaded.
Dosu shrugged him off. "What could you want?"
"Dosu… Dozo… listen to me." Zaku grabbed him again to slow him down and then threw his arms around his disfigured friend. "I don't care…"
"I've heard that before…"
"Dosu!"
"Don't make me say you're lying, Zaku," Dosu murmured.
Zaku felt as though he was going to go into hysterics – it had been days since he even talked to Dosu outside of what was absolutely necessary. "All right! All right, I do care but… But it doesn't matter! I love you more than that, Dosu, and I'd do anything to prove it!"
"Would you kiss me?"
"Of course!"
"On the lips?"
Zaku hesitated and struggled not to think about it. "Of course!" he muttered.
"Would you do it now?"
Zaku tightened his grip around Dosu and nodded, slowly. "Sure…"
They stood still for several moments. "Then do so."
Zaku let go, and Dosu turned to face him. Zaku cut away the bandages, carefully. For a moment all he could do was look. Then he closed his eyes, leaned in, and kissed Dosu, briefly, lightly, almost cautiously. He pulled out and looked away.
So did Dosu. "Before… when you didn't know… You didn't care. You kissed me hard, through the bandages."
Zaku tensed and felt tears slip his eyes. He grabbed Dosu's hands and bowed his hands. "Gomen nasai, Dosu-kun! Just give me a little while to get used to it! And I swear I will!"
"All I'd ever asked you was to not concern yourself with what I looked like. You knew I did not want these bandages removed. Yet you cut them away in my sleep…"
Zaku shrunk with every word. "I know! Gomen nasai! Onegai, Dosu, another chance!"
Dosu was not sure how best to proceed. It was true: Zaku had broken his trust. But… but if the he was really willing to struggle to accept him, despite knowing the scarring, hideousness of his face… The chance that he might find someone who could love him, even knowing such disfigurement… But even if Zaku could accept his face, there was still his body, which was just as bad, perhaps worse…
He shook his head. "I think we both need time… But… I would like, very much, to try." Dosu looked Zaku in the eye, reaching up to stoke his perfect, unscarred face, and Zaku smiled weakly. And though his covered eye was blind, and his other eye saw poorly, he could witness in Zaku's eyes the fight between disgust and love.
"Me too…" Zaku could not bring himself to kiss that face again. But he knew he would, soon. He would show Dosu all the love he must have missed. And he would find a way, any way, to accept Dosu's appearance, horrible as it was. "I swear, I love you…" he murmured, and Dosu smiled back, though also weakly.
"Then we have a start."