Chapter 4
-- --
Gaara looks emotionlessly at his reflection. He raises his hand to the extra kanji on his forehead and pokes it. Nothing happens.
Someone knocks the door.
"It's Lee. I hope you're dressed", comes Kankuro's voice. He opens the door, Lee appearing behind it with a slightly embarrassed smile. "If you want breakfast, you gotta do it yourself. Me and Temari'll leave in a minute." Then Kankuro closes the door. Slowly his steps fade away.
"Sorry for coming without any warning, Gaara-sama."
Gaara doesn't say anything to this. He keeps staring at the mirror, following Lee's every footstep through it.
"I heard you've got a meeting with my youthful Hokage-sama today, so I rushed here to escort you. Because you can never know when some un-youthful illegal people decide to show up, jumping up from a dark alley, outnumbering us. But of course we, with our youth, would soon beat the criminals trying to kidnap the Kazekage, and the whole village and even Suna would thank us and Gai-sensei would be so proud of me and – "
Gaara lets Lee brag on and on. His mind is on something else. He lifts his hand and covers first the word 'ai', then 'shônen', then looks at both of them the same time. He frowns.
"Are you shônen ai?"
Lee stops talking immediately. He has a look of some kind of a shock on his face. "Do you mean… am I… uh…"
Gaara turns to Lee, staring straight into his black eyes with his own green ones. "Is it a bad thing?"
"No, no, no it isn't bad!" Lee shakes his head a bit too furiously to Gaara's liking. "It's love and love is never bad."
"It isn't?"
Lee shakes his head again, this time more slowly. "No, it is not bad. It's just… just…"
Gaara cocks his head and keeps on staring.
"…different", Lee finally ends his sentence, looking a bit red on the face.
"I'm different", Gaara says, and Lee thinks he sounds a bit happy. "Am I shônen ai?"
Lee stares at Gaara, his mouth hanging wide open. "…" He sighs, turning his head away from Gaara for a moment. "It's not exactly like that… You can be different in many ways, but being different doesn't make you…"
"Shônen ai."
Lee nods.
-- -- --
Later the day, when Gaara is walking to the meeting with the Hokage, he thinks about shônen ai again. He is interested about it.
Lee keeps on talking about his latest training. Gaara gives a glance at the sun shining high on the sky above. He wants to know more about the word. He wants to know the meaning behind it. He knows he has to, because there is something about it that keeps haunting Gaara's mind.
Maybe he is shônen ai. Whatever it means.
-- --
"Is Naruto shônen ai?"
"I think… I think he is. With Sasuke."
"Do you need someone to be shônen ai?"
"Well, yes."
"Why?"
"Well, love is… a thing… a feeling between two persons. It can be one-sided, but then… well, then it's doomed. But if you love someone and that someone loves you, then it'll last."
"What if it doesn't?"
"…it will be the end of it."
"Can love come back?"
"Yes. But in a different shape, usually. But sometimes you just fall for the same one over and over again."
"Then, what is shônen ai? Is it when a boy loves?"
"It's… it's when a boy loves another boy. Or when a boy just loves boys, when he doesn't have feelings for girls."
"I love myself. Is that shônen ai?"
"No. Loving yourself is different from loving someone else."
"Do I love Naruto?"
"… That I don't know."
"I might do."
"But is it the kind of love from a deep friendship, or the love of brothers, or the love that makes you fight for him until your death, the kind of love that fills your stomach with butterflies, and you feel like you want to never let him go, and you are in ease with him, like you two are one."
"… I would fight for you. I have fought for you."
"Me too."
