AN: Okay, yes, I'm bringing my favorite Green Beasts into this- BUT THEY'RE SO AWESOME, I CAN'T HELP IT. They're going to add to her character...and mind you, Kon never named the father of her children in the letter, did she? -malignant giggle-
My mom was a brunette, like me; I had the gracile fingers, the squat chin and the olivine skin of the dead Aztecs, but that was where my Latina-ness ended. I was a watered-down Chicana who learned Spanish simply because my mother was dead-set that I grow up speaking 'Americano Spanish', not Mixteco or Nahuatal. She learned to speak all of them in her time, and was a whole different kind of strong, my mom; she gave up on God when her husband drove off with all of her things in the car, save for four year-old me, and from then on it was just us, nosotras solas. She had very deep eyes, I think, but not of a sad history; no, she was proud of who she was, and taught me to be loud and just the same...
Of course, it didn't all fade away. Some days I'd collapse onto my worn futon (more comfortable than any bed I had known, like a cocoon where I was safe-) and the ministrations of my mother, of not knowing what had become of her, would make me tear at my hair in grief; or my best friend, drowning in school work without me, who'd sworn to get into whatever college I did. Without someone like Naruto around, the silence literally sucked at your bones. I spent nights sobbing soundlessly; I despaired leaving so quickly, with so much unfinished; who had I disappointed, dying the way I did? Could I even name all of them? The regret was crushing, like the paving-stones they piled on prisoners back in Witch Trials. But focusing on those regrets does, I discovered, absolutely nothing to alleviate the pain. All you can do is put them out of your mind- as surely as you would another life- and just trek on. People forgive, even when they don't know it; and they would never suffer you to live if you could.
For everyone I had known, I carried on… and I tried to cry in my heart, like the Hokage had told me to.
I had been so consumed in this small wonder of a world that I had literally forgotten that I knew the answers to what the future held. And time passed so differently here- there were years and years unaccounted for by the manga that I had to live with the characters. But I remembered on a long, sun-speckled afternoon as Naruto and I chased one another in the green fields; Sasuke and Sakura were there, too. I'd loved games, and I'd made up a war scenario; frogs, it was. We'd found the summer swarm of new frogs. It was boys versus girls, and Sakura and I were crouching in a tree waiting to shower an entire bucket of the things down on the pair of them. Her hair was still long, and I didn't hate her as much as I thought I would, even if she was a freaky fangirl (I had been one myself once). The forest could light up her eyes up so rarely, like spangles through the clearest jade, and she was just beautiful; it was a good day to be alive, and I thought we'd never stop laughing. We both startled, and broke into giggles again, when Kakashi stuck his solemn, silver head up to our perch.
"Kon-chan, I have someone I want you to meet," came his slick voice. Kakashi was everything I had expected; sphinx-like, prehensile, brilliant, and quietly hilarious. I understood the distance that came from his legend, but he was alright, there on his lonely island. He wasn't asking for approval, and I learned whatever he had to teach with gratefulness and an almost boundless hunger. Today he held out his hand, to help me disengage from the tree- I took it and plopped down to the ground and he let my hand go once I was there. It was small things like that that let you know that Kakashi recognized you, because he wasn't an open man; he could hardly be expected to be.
But that day, he reminded me that there was more to the world.
A part in the bushes, through which I followed him quietly; a pair of black eyes, and a memory so strong that it wrenched my lungs. A tall man with shining hair gazed down smilingly at me; I woke up.
"So this is the 'gutsy' girl?" he asked kindly. Kakashi replied affirmatively, and even ventured to say a kind thing about how hardworking I was. "Ha!" Gai practically shouted, "I knew a girl with a name like that was a go-getter, no doubt about it!" No utterance by Maito Gai was complete without finishing off with one of his poses, of course; legs spread, he encircled one eye with clasped fingers, cast the other arm skywards, and winked with an audible sound effect at me.
I'd become a very quiet child, trying to process this strange world and to seem as if I belonged. But Gai-sensei struck me speechless; my mouth dried at the sight of him, because I knew. The Exams were coming, and all of the traumas and life-changing events that would follow.
And besides, I remembered: I had been a Rock Lee fangirl in my old life, and practically idolized Gai-sensei.
"Gai is a taijutsu specialist," Kakashi began drolly, "and we've known each other for some time."
"You mean, for my past 58 DEFEATS OF YOU IN VIGOROUS BATTLE!"
"…No." the man deadpanned, sliding his one onyx eye shut. "Because I've never seen another man since who dared to wear spandex. But, don't get too traumatized, Kon-chan; I know a little about your becoming a Genin from Iruka, and I think that if you want to pursue a higher goal as a ninja, Gai-sensei would be the man to teach you. He practically worships sweat and training."
"And I've heard that you do little but that!" the dark-haired Jounin finshed, grinning. His teeth were even whiter than anticipated; their gleam practically deranged a person into grinning along with him. "I don't accept slackers…and besides, my rival is much too busy with his little rookies to be able to teach you. My students are already leagues above his; there's little left for me to teach them!"
"Oh, Gai, you sentimental old fool… Shall we remember who turned down a match last week in order to settle a spat between his two young 'prodigies'?"
"Tha-that was different! Neji was really going to kill Lee!"
Lee. Rock Lee, the bushy-browed prince of everything I had wanted to emulate: endurance, strength, confidence, and undying will. The serious-faced bishounen who's plushie likely still sat on my bed in the old life; whose keychains I had collected, and whose battles I had followed with special keenness. Even as a student, I had admired his perseverance and hoped to approach it in real life; he had my black eyes and thick hair, the same dreams.
The boy I had loved without having met; the boy who would be splattered across an arena floor amidst shattered dreams, within weeks.
… I had dreamt and prayed of him in my darkest, lonely hours, and known that the feelings I had for him were infallible, because ninjas didn't ebb and flow like My Kind. I had once known that I loved him- but now that I'd made the impossible trip and was only a decision away from meeting him, something in my heart stalled. It told me that if I truly cared for him, for Gai and all the people who had accepted me, that I would have to be careful, so careful, not to ruin their lives by a slip of tongue or an untimely negation.
But the promise I had made was to live, and so I did; and I couldn't, in the end, risk having never known them. Still it was far from being the dream reunion I had fantasized about in my plodding math classes; I was filled with terror as Gai dragged me along at top speed through the foliage, that chased feeling that would soon become so native to my blood.
All too soon, we rounded a bend into blinding sunlight.
… Nobody was there.
"Well," Gai harrumphed; my stomach did such a flip that I had to quietly crouch down and place my head between my knees. Lumbering with his massive stride across the parched clay, my new teacher began inspecting the recent signs of life which one could guess his students had left behind: kunai biting the earth and growing like lichen around the center of a shruiken target, and the curdling bark of a tree that had just had the life kicked out of it.
He had the expression of a letter bomber: squinched eyes, scrunched nose. With the wariness of a bomb disarmer, Gai even reached down to sniff a suspecting patch of grass. I was pretty sure he didn't need to have done that…
"AH, THE SWEET SMELL OF YOUTH!" he suddenly declared; birds scattered from nearby trees at his hoot of glory. "My students have labored diligently today! Do you sweat a lot?"
"Umm… Yes."
"Fabulous, then! The more you sweat, the more I'll become intoxicated with the desire to make you a great ninja! You'll be wringing out your clothes every day, my dear! Sounds good, huh?"
Oh my lord- these people were even willing to accept my ridiculous tendency to sweat like a hog. I would even wear the green suit for him, I decided.
"YOSH-SHAAAAAA! Let's go track down my darling pupils and sneak-attack them with the agility of our Springtime! COME, KON-SAN!"
It surprised me that a grown man was calling me 'san'; I'd grown fond of 'chan', even if it was a bit immature. Kakashi called anybody shorter than his shoulder 'chan', and even Iruka used it; a kid my age wasn't worth respecting that much, especially by a man who was expected by tradition to beat my head into the ground. It was a little gesture that made me stand up straighter inside. (More brownie points for him, I'm afraid. I'd be as bad as Lee, writing down Gai's every vocalization, if this kept up…)
My mind revolted, asking into the darkness of the knowing unknown how I could possibly not belong as his devoted student.
Oh, the confidence to be so loud and expressive- Gai feared nothing, and even if he did, he never gave his pursuers the honor of seeing it. It was the same semi-arrogance that Kakashi and Asuma walked with, because they were the owners of this land; they were the protectors, the inheritor of something so big that I could scarcely imagine its grandeur. They had every right to swagger; if anybody wanted to comment on it, I'm sure that they could have just knocked said invader's teeth into next Friday.
He flew through the forest as if its tangles were written in the marrow of his being. He never stumbled or faltered; he had enough strength for the both of us, as I found out. The expenditure of chakra was still hard, and my whimpering body still grew fatigued so quickly; the shame of falling in front of Gai became the only thing keeping me upright. When the mammoth of Konoha finally paused to catch his breath, I about dropped on my face behind him. For the first time since we'd begun our bound through the trees, Gai turned to look at my scrunched form.
And then, it happened.
An iron clamp fastened around my ankle, so suddenly that I let out a shrill sound; a jerk that hid unbelievable strength suddenly sent me airborne- and I don't mean simply a short tumble. He threw me, with a single tug. I flew up over Gai's head, pinwheeling from the shock of the sudden lack of stability; flipping over and over until, with a thud that must have been something like my falling off the bridge, I landed in a heap in my sensei's grasp. He took off the very same instant. My eyes were probably the size of plates.
"YOSH-SHAAA!" he cried again; his throat was against my flailing head, which meant that he had just screamed right in my ear. There was no time to nurse my bleeding eardrum, though: as he soared into the summery air, Gai literally almost dropped me. I was lighter than he'd expected, you see, and the speed of his jump tore me from him like a leaf. Before I could even resign myself to this new death, though, this Titan of weirdness ricocheted faster than sight could follow and rammed me against his shoulder. He hung unto my ankle and took off again, at the speed of a lander escaping orbit- with me dragging over his back like a sack of potatoes. I was totally limp.
"Sorry," he condescended. "Don't know my own strength!"; the drool escaping my mouth prevented me from replying, or even asking him to slow the hell down. He took off at previous speed, completely at home in this forest and with the world that had required him to become so mighty.
I am told that our first meeting went something like this:
His punches thundered, but the ethereal, sky-renting might that could have been capsized into the palms of Neji's cupped guard; a shift and a stab, as natural as breath. Neji danced right, but Lee followed him seamlessly. The blows seemed to go on forever: bandaged limbs piercing, crashing down with the power to break bones, and the give of bandages their only remnant of existence. Lee and Neji's hands alone were involved in this fight; behind their guard both boys were staring death into one another's eyes, while behind them their minds flew in endless preparation, execution, and model avoidances. They were a ballet of testosterone and rare, underaged talent; of will meeting will, diamonds beaten together until they produced sparks. Lee stepped aside of a full-forward blow; he'd tried to avoid Neji without touching him because his fingers ached from catching the last blow, but the Hyuuga had planned even that: with a sideways ejection, Neji's pointed blow sought for the tender vertebrae of his opponent's neck. The only thing that could save Lee was, well, his Lee-ness.
Green body simmering with heat, the boy flung back his upper body, impossibly close to the ground; his legs kicked up, in a flip from a standing position. These acrobatics had a way of overwhelming his straight-laced rival: one sure kick, past the pale shaft of his high hand, sent Neji's imposing form flying in the opposite direction, his arms flailing as he sought to keep his balance.
Lee wasn't that awesome, though; Gai and I rounded the corner just as the boy landed squarely on his shiny little head, and flopped to the ground in a dazed pile of numbed limbs. We've all probably done something like this before on a trampoline, trying to do a flip; that thought cruised into my brain calmly, serenely, after the initial horror of thinking that my favorite ninja had just paralyzed himself in front of my very eyes. If Gai hadn't held onto me, I would have fainted dead away.
"Guys, I have someone for you to meet!" he cried, as though he were enticing grade-schoolers. I was oozing out of his grasp, waiting to make sure Lee wasn't a paraplegic. Thus distracted, I slid off of Gai's shoulder and had to catch myself before I landed on my face, as Gai kneeled down beside his student.
"Lee? Are you…alright?" the man asked lightly.
"Y-Yes, sir," came the dazed reply. I swooned; Lee could still talk!
"THEN WHY THE HELL DID YOULET NEJI KNOCK YOU DOWN, HUH!" came, shortly followed by the BLAM of Gai socking Lee square in the head.
Tenten and Neji made faces; my mouth was wide open. What part of 'spinal injury' didn't this guy understand? Mother of god- never mind me, Lee was in mortal danger with that teacher of his around!
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" repented the green-clad teen; he ducked to avoid any more blows, but had to pounce out of the way as Gai slammed a kick down where he had been sitting. "APOLOGY NOT ACCEPTED! The enemy never stops, Lee- you don't get to rest until they're out of commission! I'm a bloodthirsty dinosaur intent on making you my Jurassic burger- now, stop me! RAAARGH!", he roared helpfully.
"I believe the prehistoric beast part," I heard everyone's favorite Hyuuga smart-ass murmur. Lee, with an open-mouthed, roaring Gai pursuing him and waving Tyrannosaurus arms, of course ignored Neji. The solemnity with which these teammates watched the world go by took me aback; from Neji there radiated a serious intent, a coolness of regard that blazed before him like an aura of ice. And Tenten was, I can safely say, just as we think of her in the anime: aloof, overreactive, and always right behind Neji. The pair of them looked to me coldly, Neji's lavender eyes appraising the weak flaws he could see even without the Byakugan.
Screw you, I thought.
"Sensei, wait for me!" I yelled, plunging into the forest after their twin, broad backs. "It's Velociraptor Time! BWAAARR!"
Dignity be damned. Life was more fun on the Green Side.
Again, mind you, this does NOT mean that Kon ends up with Lee. You'll have to seeee... -dances gleefully-