Kakashi POV
I've been back in Konoha for a week, after a difficult, weeklong, solo mission. Gai left earlier on the same day that I got back, so I haven't seen my koi in over two weeks now. From what I hear of his mission assignment, it could easily be another two weeks before he gets back, and by then I could be gone again. I suppose that's a good reason, as a shinobi, not to have relationships. But without important people, what would be the point of being able to protect them? It's difficult to face danger with a person so many times and not get pretty attached to them; especially someone like Gai.
Gai is the type of person who just worms his way into your heart whether you like it or not. He's a really special kind of person; he's always ready to help people and he's a wonderful teacher, so much so that his student, Ri, decided to just be a miniature version of him. Although, if he heard me say that, he'd probably be so moved that he made the real sun set, instead of just crying in the fake one that always happens with those two. He's helped Ri realize his dream of being a respectable shinobi, no small feat in that Ri cannot use ninjutsu or genjutsu, and had no natural talent for taijutsu. Gai goes on and on about explosive youth and how that's the most important thing; he can be very old fashioned with manners and such things.
He would be shocked to see how frequently I'm watching him over the Icha Icha I'm reading and smiling fondly at whatever he's doing now; all of his quirks are so endearing, but he definitely thinks I'm far too cool to notice. Especially in things like our ongoing rivalry; he keeps track of our record, I think I'm winning, but I don't remember. He's always challenging me to totally random contests of skill, luck, intellect, really anything that comes to mind, then promising that he'll do some ridiculous number of some ridiculous exercise if he loses. He always makes good on that promise too, even if it was just luck. I love that about him.
Gai is a wonderful person and a particularly wonderful koi. He knows to expect me two hours late to wherever I said I'd be and never bugs me about it. And if I'm more than that, he just comes to find me, often at the memorial stone. He is also delightfully distracting and with him gone, I'm finding that even Icha Icha is not quite enough to keep the loneliness and sad thoughts away.
So, I decide to go for a walk, while reading my Icha Icha, maybe then it will be distracting enough. I walk over the bridge that I sometimes stand on when I'm sad and remember when Gai and I first got together. It was a few years back, before I had a genin team.
Flashback.
I'm standing on the side of the bridge, thinking about all the people I've failed to protect, all the people I miss. I have my hitai-ate pushed up, uncovering my sharingan and am staring at my reflection in the water. I remember how Obito said that he would become my eye and see the future with me. I wonder how he'd feel if he knew how I tell all of the genin teams I test what he said about how shinobi should treat their comrades. I wonder how he'd feel if he knew that, in some ways, it's not much like he's gone. I think about him all the time. I finally listened to him about not being so uptight all the time; in fact, now, I act just like him. I'm always late because I go to stare at his name on the memorial stone; I use all of the excuses he used to use, and some even more absurd. Now I'm a shinobi he'd be proud to call a comrade.
He told me that he'd surpass me, once he'd awakened his sharingan. Well, I've become so much greater than I could have ever hoped to, with this gift he's given me. I use the sharingan so extensively that I'm called the Copy Ninja. Sometimes I wonder if I use it so much, even with the chakra drain, because it's so useful or if I just like to think that using it means it's kind of like Obito is still here, fighting by my side.
I look specifically at the reflection of the sharingan in the water and imagine Obito's face around it instead of mine. His carefree smile. His spiky, brown hair. Those orange goggles and ear protectors. I wonder what he'd look like today; I wonder who he'd be today, if he hadn't pushed me out of the way and I'd been killed instead. Maybe it should have happened that way, he was always so much kinder, but that's exactly why it happened the way it did.
The illusion of his face is broken as tears spill down my face and drip into the water, causing the ripples to dissolve the image. When it reforms, I stare at my own face. The scar over my best friends eye. The mask I've worn since I was a child. The pain and exhaustion in my eyes; I've lost so many people important people, I've been too afraid to get any more. Obito, Rin, Minato. They're all gone, so why am I still here?
The reflection in the water is disturbed again, this time by raindrops. I look up and see that though it's now just a few gentle drops falling, the deep grey clouds are about to unleash a deluge on the village. I smile as I realize how fitting this is. I picture their faces amongst the clouds and smile, knowing I'll get to see them for real soon enough. I pull out my kunai and roll up my sleeves.
"I'll be there soon; I'm sorry I waited so long," I whisper as the rain pounds my normally upright hair down into clinging about my face.
I draw the kunai deeply down both of my arms and watch as the ruby trenches fill up with blood and it spills over. I watch as the rain splashes down onto the cuts, disrupting the perfect line of crimson. I hold my arms over the railing and watch the blood spill down into the swirling river. The blood and water mixing is so beautiful; I want to see more of it. Just as I'm about to lean too far over the railing, I hear someone yelling.
"Kaka- NO!"
And suddenly there are strong arms around me, pulling me back. Then I'm scooped up and being run towards the hospital, the last thing I see before losing consciousness is green fabric as I'm held against the chest of my rescuer.
I wake up in a hospital bed with bandaged arms and a killer headache. Why, why am I awake?! I look around and there's my self-proclaimed eternal rival. Then the strong arms, running, and green all make sense. Maito Gai.
"Goddamnit! Gai!" I roar, enraged. How dare he save me?! What right did he have to keep me here?!
He just smiles that super intense smile he always does and says, "Kakashi-san, I'm glad you're al-"
And that's as far as he gets before my fist collides with his jaw. It wasn't like he wasn't expecting it, I mean, he probably wasn't, but that's not why I succeeded in punching him. He's a shinobi, a good one, and is exceptionally quick, if he had wanted to avoid it, he easily could have.
I see a brief flash of hurt in his eyes, before resignation.
"Alright, Kakashi-san. I understand, you're angry, go ahead," he puts his hands down at his sides and stands in front of me, bracing to be hit again.
His willingness to hurt if I want him to stays my hand.
"You're going to let me hit you?" I ask, bewildered.
"Of course, Kakashi-san. You have every right to be angry with me for stopping your suicide, and though I do not regret doing it, I will accept anything you wish to do to me in return," he tells me, softly smiling.
My anger melts away and is replaced with despair. Suddenly the effort of standing is far too much and I drop to my knees, bursting into tears. I can't take this anymore, especially not alone and I couldn't have picked a better person to break down in front of.
Gai's arms go around me instantly and he rubs my back.
"It's alright, Kakashi, it's alright. You'll be okay, what's the matter?" he asks, soothingly, now dropping the honorific because at least in this moment, we're close enough not to need them.
"I just miss them so much," I sob in his arms.
"I know, I'm sorry, but you don't have to be alone," he says gently.
I think about that. I am usually on my own; I don't want to risk caring too much about a person. Then it dawns on me; Gai is there so often when it's an option. When he's not training, he's always coming to find me with those ridiculous challenges. Always patiently waiting when I'm hours late to meet him. He puts up with all of this and just tells me how "cool" I am. Even now, when he saw me breaking so completely that I was willing to abandon all of my comrades in Konoha, just to escape the pain and loneliness.
"I'll be here for you, Kakashi," he says, the tone being one of promise. "I care deeply for you."
"No! Don't, then something might happen to you," I yell, now terrified that the Kami have heard him say that.
Gai knows enough about why I'm upset now to just smile at me and keep rubbing my back.
"Kakashi, I'm not going anywhere; I won't leave you, I promise. And Kakashi, I love you!" the confession tumbling from his lips in a rush, like he was afraid he'd lose the nerve to say it.
End flashback.
A raindrop falling on my cheek startles me out of my reverie into the past. I look up and the clouds look so familiar. I stand for a moment in the place where I'd tried to end my life; I don't think about the past often, any part of it, I have my smut, and Gai is delightfully distracting. But with the rain setting the scene so perfectly to match that day, it's difficult not to be swept away into it. Just then, the perfect distraction comes running up in body armor, an orange miniskirt, and that tan overcoat.