GaiKaka Gai x Kakashi ... Kakashi's got an agenda, and is overstressed. Gai thinks it might be his own fault. Mishaps and Misunderstandings...
Hello again! This chapter is also pretty G rated, although there's one tiny concept, but hey, no spoilers!
And .. sorry they're so short.. they pick up a little but.. hey… I try… - (please R&R.. .btw!!)
Chapter Two: Misunderstanding
Gai rested in a lounge-chair on the sun-down side of his apartment.
Deep, gorgeous oranges and purple-reds smeared the sky, haloing the low-set burning sun.
The sun-set view was Gai's wind-down. It let him breathe, it bathed him in its beauty, and Gai felt content.
That is to say, he would have felt content if weren't for one little nagging snag at the back of his mind.
At first, he had written off Kakashi's odd behaviour as a slip in his rationality. Kakashi did have it pretty tough, with Sakura near deserting him for training with Tsunade, Sasuke completely disappearing altogether and Naruto hammering him for tips before his trip with Jiraiya.
Perhaps all the stress was getting to him.
Gai felt a pang of guilt about the 'challenge' he had yelled out at him earlier in the week. It must have been the Monday. The day itself was a haze in his memory, remembering only the sake and the contest itself.
The person to drink the most sake would win.
Of course, both of them had ended up giggling, already quite inebriated. Somehow, on the staggering trip towards their homes, they had agreed to complete the challenge on their next free day, Thursday.
THURSDAY?!
Gai nearly fell out the window he was leaning on. With a near-comical (had anyone been watching) trip over the bed to check his weekly scroll on the opposite wall, he reconfirmed what his mind was having trouble grasping.
It was Thursday.
Kakashi had not only turned down a challenge, but he had been angry about it.
Gai felt the same pang of guilt as before. He scrunched his face up. He was never that great at interpreting feelings, especially his own, complicated ones.
He turned back towards his sunset.
Fading into obscurity.
Kakashi ripped off his clothes, which were covered in dust from the markets.
Due to an increase in the books popularity, the latest book from the Icha Icha series had quite a decent-sized queue. He had nearly ended up waiting all day.
He stripped down to his boxers and socks and stretched out in his bed.
Come night, the world seemed so quiet and Kakashi finally felt like he could let himself go. He could hear distant cicadas humming along with the other music of the night. Somewhere there was water running, and the faint buzz of street lights… an occasional crackle of under-foot pebbles as curfew-breaking teenagers or hand-holding lovers walked by his window.
Kakashi glowed from the inside, if it weren't ridiculous, he would have felt like purring.
Night-time was alive.
He pulled the thick blankets up to his chest, settling in and getting comfortable.
He fingered the cover of his new book. His skin was tingling with excitement, it had been too long since he could do this in peace.
He opened the cover, turning the first, crisp, page, eyes darting over the words like chuunin in treetops.
A slight breeze through the apartment sent a forgotten note to 'Beat Gai at Drinking on Thursday' fluttering to the floor.
Outside, the night continued to sing in tones of shadow and moonlight.
WHAT?!
Kakashi stopped reading. He was half way through the book, admittedly staying up almost the entire night to reach what he was after.
Jiraiya had outdone himself this time. He was using brand new characters, with personalities the likes of which Kakashi had never come across before. Then, as only a genius writer could, held out on those scenes for nearly half the book, only making the reader want to reach them faster and faster!
On top of that, this writing style, everything was so romantic, so needy, desperate, loving, energetic, lusty… fuelled. This new book, if it were ever possible to fall in love with an inanimate object, Kakashi was sure that this book would have been his soul-mate.
Then, when Kakashi had finally got to the love-making scene…
They were both boys?!
Kakashi flipped back through the previous pages frantically, re-reading and realising that is should have been obvious. He continued searching through those pages for a few minutes more, wishing desperately that it wasn't so.
He shut the book and glared at the cover. Had Jiraiya lost it? The title… This wasn't an Icha Icha book! This wasn't an Icha Icha anything!
Kakashi put the book down andrubbed his eyes, thinking.
Several minutes passed.
With a heavy sigh, he picked up the book and opened up to the half-way point.
He kept reading.