The great thing about Gai was that he never pouted long. The very next day he was already waiting at the village gate, bright and early as ever, pacing up and down the street, his pack slung loosely over one shoulder. Kakashi watched him from the shadows for a bit. He'd bought an apple from the market and ate it while Gai stomped around the village entrance, glancing at his watch every five seconds.
Twenty minutes after he'd finished the apple and rolled up his mask, Kakashi left his hiding place and strolled down the street as if he was in the middle of his Sunday walk. He ignored the daggers Gai glared at him and intercepted Gai with a question before he had time to explode - an old trick that Kakashi had found to be a very effective tactic when dealing with his friend.
"You ready?" he asked, triggering the expected gasp of indignation from Gai.
"WH- Me?! I've been here for an hour! YOU'RE –"
Kakashi just smiled. "Great! Let's go then! No time to chat, Gai. I hate to say it, but we're running kind of late."
Gai, staggering from the force of Kakashi's shamelessness, his face red and splotchy, gasped once more.
"WE?! You're the one who—"
"Well, we've got to hurry, Gai, so don't dawdle!" And with that Kakashi set off through the gate, into the forest.
Three days wasn't a particularly long journey, but it wasn't exactly a short one either, 72 hours on the road were exhausting, even for a jounin of Kakashi's caliber. Travelling with Gai, though, always made the time pass much faster as Gai tended to talk through the whole trip, telling stories about his students, past missions and exciting training sessions. Kakashi liked his friend's chatter; it allowed him to drift in and out of listening while serving as a nice constant, something to anchor his attention and keep his thoughts off the darker roads they might go down otherwise.
Still, he was relieved when they finally got to the estate, all the way north near the border to Grass, where the forests were growing so thick, there were spots shrouded in permanent darkness because the light couldn't reach the mossy ground.
Gai saw the wall first and pointed it out to Kakashi, who pulled out his binoculars and scanned the area. The forest opened up into something that – at first glance – looked like a natural clearing, but after a few seconds, Kakashi spotted the blackened rock on the ground where plants had been burnt down to create the open space.
Kakashi had to run up a tree to be able to see the buildings, none of which were as high as the surrounding wall. He memorized the layout – four large, traditional shoin zukuri, one in each corner of the rectangular compound and each of them low buildings. None of them looked like they had more than one storey. Which was surprising, considering that, according to their mission scroll, the place had been a daimyo's castle once, until the lord had fallen in one of the smaller battles preceding the First Shinobi World War and his land had gone to Fire Country. Tsukeyaki had bought the property, rebuilt it, and had been living there as something of a recluse for more than a decade.
"This is more impressive than I thought it would be," Kakashi said as he hopped down from his vantage point. It was certainly larger than he had expected.
Gai glanced at him, then into the distance, then back at him again. A frown was drawing his brows together into a thick, black, jagged line. "It's a fortress, Rival," he announced dramatically, "but we could take it!"
Kakashi gave him a look, silently wondering what he'd done to deserve this mission. "Innocent bystanders, remember?"
A huff from Gai and nothing else. As far as reactions went, Kakashi had hoped for something more professional. Weren't they past the stage where he had to explain to Gai that being a shinobi did not in fact mean running in with a battlecry on your lips and absolutely no plan in your head? Apparently not.
Better to just take the lead and move on, he decided.
"Anyway, I think it's time to come up with a story, don't you?" Somewhere in the distance, beyond the sheer endless forest, behind the wall, the compound, the buildings containing innocent and not so innocent men, the sun was no doubt already slipping past the horizon, and after three days of travel Kakashi longed to crawl into a warm bed, even one warmed by the man standing next to him. At this point, he really didn't care.
"Story? What story?" That clueless look on Gai's face, it made Kakashi wonder where he'd been for the last few days.
Kakashi could have said something cutting then, but instead he opted for a smile, the sweetest one in his repertoire. "Why Gai-kun," he said in a voice to match, slow and syrupy, "the story of our love, of course!"