Triptych
For Chevira
Two weeks after his mentor left on an S-class mission, Rock Lee sat pensively over his lunch-box. Whether or not Gai-sensei would return eventually was not in question. His teacher, Lee knew, was absolutely unstoppable, fitted with the shield and sword of eternal youth. And even in the impossibility that Gai-sensei's strength wavered, there was the other Jounin, the one-eyed sensei, whose skill Naruto-san frequently belittled in that light way that implies there is really nothing to be laughing about.
Lee absently wondered what mission objective could have required two of the Leaf's strongest Jounin. Certainly this top-secret S-class mission was related to reconnaissance or assassination crucial to Konoha's security. Could it have to do with the impending continental war? Foreign tension had risen unimaginably since the Third had been murdered by Orochimaru.
Whatever the mission objective was, if it was taking both Gai-sensei and his friend more than two weeks, Lee thought their mission must have taken them very, very far from home.
When Kakashi Hatake limps back into Konoha without his teacher, Lee doesn't know what to think.
Years after Maito Gai is marked as one of many killed in action, Lee will visit the monument alone. It will be a warm day, with patches of clouds that will, at any given moment, drench unprepared picnic-goers with sweet-smelling summer rain.
The lawn surrounding the massive, black stone will be slick, slightly slippery, and greener than the loose tights Lee will not be wearing. The hem of his black pants will collect rain drops from the grass as he strides purposefully towards the monument, and when he stops walking abruptly, strands of his neat, but no longer bowl-shaped hair will fall away from his ears to touch his paler cheeks.
Lee will find Gai's name where it will have been chiseled neatly next to "Gekkou Hayate." He will bow sharply in greeting to his old friend and mentor. He will ask Gai-sensei how he has been, tell him training has gone well, and pause suddenly to fight back the tears that are already flowing, mingling with raindrops from a light sprinkle that crescendos into heavier torrents.
Though his arms will remain rigidly at his sides and his hands curl into determined fists, he will cry messily before completing his report on Ten Ten, now a school teacher. By the time he's through with his account on Neji, a casualty of the war, he will be screaming through his erratic sobs and over the roaring percussion of hundreds of thousands of raindrops.
When the storm finally leaves, he will sneeze.
A bath and a cup of tea later, Lee will cut his hair.
Notes: A brief experimentation on bereaved!Lee. Happy belated birthday, Chevling the Angst Queen. (heart)