Author's Note: Umm...hi. Hope everyone's having a nice life.

Why do they call it Spring Break if you spend it doing nothing but worrying and catching up work, I wonder?...

"I have to leave on a mission tomorrow."

"Oh." Lee says, still regarding his piece of drawing paper. His small face is lit by the blue light of the small television, where Doraemon-like cartoon characters are dropping anvils on each other's skulls in tune to lively music. Crayons are scattered across the floor, but all within Lee's reach; he is using the black one.

Gai watches, languidly, some sort of dog take a deathly blow from a piano hoisted out of sight, his arms crossed. His big frame nearly fills the doorway, as he leans against the living room entrance.

He'd thought it would be different, for some reason. "Okay," he calls, and turns to resume packing his bag, sitting lonesome on the bathroom counter.

"Okay," Lee replies. The pink corner of his tongue pokes out as he examines the picture, his comical eyebrows bowing. Lee reaches for the green crayon and begins coloring intently.

----

"You'll stay with my friend Kurenai until I get back, okay?"

"When?" Lee asks dissatisfiedly; the coiled sleeping bag and change of clothes dwarf his small form. From the top of his shining, raven hair to his suntanned to the wriggly toes in their thronged sandals, Lee seems very small all of the sudden- and while he hardly seems concerned that Gai is leaving, the distance opening between them already burns in Gai's chest. He wishes Lee would cry, so at least he wouldn't be the only one worried.

"Until Friday night."

"…" Lee makes no moves for comfort.

"Okay," the man says, nodding to Kurenai. He steps away, slightly despondent.

"Okay," Lee says. "Oh- Gai-sensei."

Eyebrows raise. Lee closes one eye tightly and screws open the side of his mouth, revealing his spotless smile, and lifts one dramatic thumbs-up towards his mentor. "Look in your bag, okay?"

"Okay," Gai says again, and turns his back swiftly to keep Kurenai from seeing the tear welling in his eye.

----

He forgets to open his pack until they've trekked all the way to the Amegakure border, and only then when the Shinobi bed down for a restless sleep just before dawn. As he unfolds his own colorless bedding, a folded piece of paper rolls from the slippery fabric. Gai picks it up carefully, his teammate's trustless eyes searching for danger in anything.

Scrawled in the center of the paper, amidst dapples of red that are supposed to be ladybugs and pink splotches for flowers, is a tall figure drawn entirely in green- even his large eyebrows and full, toothy smile. A smaller green figure floats by it's side, it's over-long arm connecting in a scribbled knot with the larger one's three-fingered hand.

"Come home soon, sensei" is written in big, blue letters across the raggedy, sea-green grass in Lee's picture, right next to a black squiggle that's supposed to be a doggy.

A/N: And yes, they WILL be getting a doggy. XD Stay tuned...