Kakashi glanced over the edge of his book, gray eye settling first on his only surviving friend, then following his gaze. He watched as the light caught on Lee's sweat-dampened skin, illuminating hard muscle as it rippled and shifted with every movement. A bead of sweat slid down the line of his spine, tracing along a scar there, and caught in the green fabric bunched around his waist. Kakashi could objectively admit that it was an appealing sight. Lee was still young, with the somewhat wiry build of a teenager, but he'd started to fill into the promise of the breadth of his shoulders the way only a taijutsu specialist could.
He watched as the Chuunin ran through the kata again, combining fluid grace with lightning-quick strikes. His fists beat a steady staccato against the wood, one that was familiar to the Jounin from years of hearing Gai beat out the exact same pattern as he reread his book. He glanced over at Gai. The slight tension in the line of Gai's jaw was as familiar as the thin line of his lips and the ramrod-straight way he held his shoulders. Kakashi sighed and nominally refocused his attention on his book. "You should tell him," he said eventually, and flipped the page.
"I am certain that I do not know what you mean, Rival," Gai stated. There was a firmness in his tone that Kakashi was accustomed to- it was the way Gai always sounded when he'd made up his mind on the way something was going to be. Kakashi cast a pointed glance at Lee, then looked at Gai's battered hands, which were clenched in tight fists. "You're saying that's nothing?"
Gai didn't look at him. "Yes."
Kakashi exhaled slowly and leaned back against the tree. The shade was a welcome relief from the heat. The summer had been hot this year, hotter than he could remember- hot enough that Lee was the only one either stubborn or stupid enough to train at noon. He watched as Lee easily demolished his third training dummy of the afternoon, and fluidly turned to the fourth. It wouldn't be long, Kakashi thought, before he'd be Gai's equal. "He'd say yes."
"I know," Gai said quietly.
"Then why?"
Gai's gaze stayed fixed on his student. "Because he'd never tell me no," he answered finally. "Regardless of what he wanted, he would never say no."
Kakashi watched as Lee braced one bandaged hand against the ground and aimed a sweeping kick upward. It was a graceful, decisive movement- one that he'd seen Gai make any number of times during the years they'd fought together. In that moment, seeing Gai mirrored in his student, he thought he understood.