Hello?
Are you still there?
Hello? are you still there?
And much too late
Sorry, wrong number
Sorry, wrong number (yeah sorry you have the wrong number) - The Cure

Part 2

Obito heard Rin laughing in the background, and was mostly certain that she was laughing at Kakashi, who was being a giant drama queen about this whole him and Gai thing.

(Him and Gai were a thing! There would come a time when he was not secretly a little giddy about that. That time was not now.)

The giant drama queen thing was fairly typical of Kakashi, really, so Obito probably shouldn't have been surprised. After all, when Obito had managed to lose Kakashi's number at some point in between exclusive clinics after his Great Uncle Madara had spirited him away to get the best medical attention that money could buy, Kakashi had apparently managed to convince himself that Obito was dead.

(Admittedly it had been touch and go in some of the early days, but honestly. If nothing else, the Uchiha would probably have sued Kakashi for every last scrap of his measly inheritance if Obito had not been there to intervene… but then Obito had to remind himself that he had largely shielded his friends from the giant bag of dicks he had as blood relations, and so they had no way to know.)

It was kind of funny though how Kakashi was convinced that his moment of meanness in """accidentally""" giving Obito the wrong number had come back to bite him in the ass.

Because Obito had been living abroad until the last of his surgeries were finally, (finally,) finished with, he had largely been keeping touch with his old friends from Konoha via social media, with the occasional skype call thrown in.

So naturally, he hadn't had Kakashi's most recent phone number.

Obito, being not a paranoid lunatic, had assumed that when Kakashi had given him a phone number to contact when Obito's plane hit tarmac, that that number was Kakashi's.

As it had turned out, not so much.

Obito, sore and stiff and tired from a 23 hour flight that he had not been able to sleep on, (regardless of the nice business-class seat that Great Uncle Madara had shelled out for,) had collected his orange suitcase (what? Orange was great and it was easier to find than any other colour in amongst the blacks and navies that everyone else seemed to go for) walked to the nearest public telephone (he needed to buy a Konoha SIM card before he could make calls on his mobile phone) and dialled the number.

"Hello!" a man's voice answered.

Obito blinked heavy eyelids. That did not sound like Kakashi.

"What Can I do For You On This Most Glorious Spring Morning?" the voice, gruff but energetic, continued to enthuse in his ear.

Obito frowned. "What's glorious about it? The sun isn't even up yet, and I just got off an international flight," he demanded. (It was not a whine. Uchiha did not whine.)

"Indeed? How Exciting that you are Embracing Your Youth By Travelling! But I would say that this morning is Particularly Glorious because it has finally stopped Raining and so I can Train in the Beautiful Outdoors!"

Alrighty then…

Obito decided he was too tired and under-caffeinated to debate with the obvious nutjob (Morning Person, enough said), and instead just mumbled that he was pretty sure he had the wrong number, apologised, and hung up.

He squinted down at the phone, and dialled the number Kakashi had given him again, taking care to enter each individual digit.

"Hello!"

It was the same guy from before.

Obito groaned before he could stop himself. "Sorry, it's me again. I must be too tired to type straight."

"Not a Problem! I Hope You Reach Your Friend Soon, You Sound in Need Of Recuperation!"

Obito snorted. "Yeah, that's one way of putting it. What I wouldn't give right now for a clean surface in a quiet dark room to crash in for a couple of REM cycles. Sorry to bother you."

"No Bother! Have a Nice Day!"

Obito hung up, staring a little incredulously at the handset. At least he hadn't wrecked some stranger's day by calling them up before dawn, but this guy was unreal.

This time, he decided he didn't trust himself to dial the number, and asked a bored-looking teenager to do it for him. She gave him an odd look, but indulged him. He leaned up against the wall beside the phone and propped himself up against it.

So. Tired.

As he listened to the dial tone, he could feel himself listing to one side.

For fuck's sake Bakashi, pick up you bastard.

This time when the other side was picked up, the response was different.

"Hello Again Friend!"

Obito facepalmed and admitted defeat. There was no way he could have made the same mistake three times, so obviously the problem wasn't him.

He was going to punch Kakashi in the balls.

"I am so sorry about this. Apparently my friend gave me the wrong number to contact him with. Shit. This was not how I wanted to spend my first day back in Konoha. What the hell am I going to do?" he groaned. "I don't have any idea where he lives, I don't have enough on me for a taxi even if I did, and I'm going to be trapped in this airport forever!" he absolutely did not wail. (Uchiha did not wail. They did however occasionally give into the proportionately dramatic expression appropriate for a situation.)

"Are you okay?" the man asked him, voice quieter and calm, suddenly switching gears from the previously displayed exuberance.

Obito slumped against the wall. "I am too tired to think straight, and I need to take my pain meds, and this is day one back in country and my asshole friend has given me the wrong contact number!"

"You said you were at Konoha Airport, right?"

Obito grunted something approaching agreement.

Fortunately, it seemed like the guy on the other end of the phone spoke Exhausted Traveller, Uchiha Dialect, because he responded as though Obito had said something intelligible.

"I live somewhat close by. If you want, I could pick you up?"

Obito considered this unexpected proposal.

"You could crash at mine for a couple of hours," the man continued, "get some sleep, and then try again with a clear head?"

Sleep did sound enticing. And this guy was an appalling morning person, but he didn't sound like a total freak…

Right?

Normally, Obito would have been more hesitant to take a stranger up on an offer like that, but right this second, the guy was offering him everything he desperately wanted.

(Besides, even tired, it wasn't like Obito couldn't protect himself. Great Uncle Madara's input to Obito's rehabilitation had been intense martial arts training, and a really nice set of ceramic knives that Obito had carefully packed on the top of his suitcase where they were easily accessible the second he was off the plane.)

Obito made an impulsive decision that he was almost certain he would regret later.

"Fuck it. Sure. I'll be the poor bastard waiting out the front of Arrivals with the orange suitcase and the scars."

"I Will See You Soon!" the man hung up.

Obito stared blankly at the receiver before hanging up. He wanted to know what blend of stimulant this guy was taking, because whatever it was, Obito desperately needed some.

Twenty minutes of waiting later, and Obito saw a lime green Smart car approaching the Pick Up bay.

Somehow, he just knew that this was his ride. After all, he thought, laughing a little as the car rolled to a stop in front of him, what the hell else would a morning person drive?

The driver's door opened, and a man leapt out.

(Literally. Obito was quietly amazed and appalled that anyone had so much energy at this time of morning.)

The first thing that Obito noticed (and he was immediately a little embarrassed about this) was that the man had the thickest eyebrows he could remember ever seeing.

The second thing was damn, I have never seen spandex filled out like that with my own two eyes.

The Bruce Lee haircut was a little weird too, but despite himself, Obito couldn't help but notice how the man also appeared to be built along the lines of Bruce Lee – muscular, but in the way of an athlete or a martial artist, rather than a gym junkie trying to build muscle for the look of it.

Well, at least the guy would have resembled Bruce Lee if Bruce Lee was 6 feet tall.

Obito dry-swallowed.

Apparently his libido was somehow wide awake.

Oh hell. This was such a stupid fucking idea. He didn't even know this guy's name, he was apparently going home with him and he was so Obito's type. Oh hell.

"That you, Morning Person?" he asked, somehow managing to keep his voice smooth.

(Keep it cool Obito, you don't even know if he's into men.

Please be gay, bi, pan, I don't care just please don't be straight or taken, I've been good, Kami…)

"Is that You, Friend?" the man responded, sounding exactly as he had on the phone.

Obito wavered momentarily, but then decided that this wasn't the stupidest decision he had ever made.

(Granted the stupidest decision he had ever made had involved getting into a car driven by a 13-year-old Kakashi, but in Obito and Kakashi's defence, the crash had not been his fault. That hadn't really mattered much once Obito was healed up enough for his family to feel comfortable lecturing him about their poor decision making. Constantly.)

His hormones were absolutely not affecting his decision-making. Not even a bit. Nope. Not going to mention the fact that this guy was basically sex on two ridiculous orange-legwarmer-covered legs, or that Obito could already envisage what it would be like to remove this guy's leotard with his teeth.

If this ended badly, he was blaming it all on Bakashi. Clearly his fault for basically abandoning Obito at the airport to the mercy of this total smoking hot stranger.

Shit. Should really get his name.

"I'm Obito. You?"

"Call me Gai. I take it you are the Stranger In Need with the Orange Suitcase?"

Obito just sighed. At least the guy, (or Gai, rather, though Obito was half convinced that the name was fake and this was such a terrible terrible idea, except –) apparently had enough tact to neither mention the scarring, nor stare at it.

That was unusual, and kind of nice.

"Yeah, that would be me."

Gai offered him a beaming smile of startlingly white teeth, and popped open the tiny car boot. Obito was instantly glad that he had packed relatively light, he didn't think so much as a single grocery bag would have fit in that boot with his suitcase as was. Whilst Gai's back was turned, he took his camera out and surreptitiously took a shot of the number plate. If he ended up dead in some ditch, at least there would be a hope of the police finding his sexy, sexy killer.

Oh god Obito was way too tired to make good decisions.

He stowed his bag, and flopped into the passenger seat. Gai meticulously checked his mirrors, and then pulled out from the kerb so fast that Obito was half surprised that he didn't burn rubber.

Obito wondered if he should find this concerning.

He leaned his head against the window and turned to study Gai through his eyelashes.

"So, I take it I interrupted your morning exercise routine?"

Gai grinned. "No Problem. I will add Ten Kilometres to tomorrow's run to Make Up for it."

Obito blinked. That sounded… excessive.

"Are you a professional athlete or something?" he wondered.

Gai shook his head. "No, I am a Motivational Coach. Mighty Motivation is my Business," he explained proudly.

Well that… made sense actually.

Though something about all this rang a bell…

Obito blamed the fact that he was dead tired for taking so long to put two and two together.

The second that it clicked – Obito knew, deep in his heart, that Kakashi Hatake was a dead man.

"Wait, you wouldn't happen to be the next-door neighbour of an asshole named Kakashi Hatake?"

Gai blinked, clearly a little taken aback, and his brows drew together in consternation.

"Why…" Understanding dawned in his dark brown eyes. "Oh. Oh."

"Yup," Obito growled.

(To be fair, Obito consoled himself, when the combination of "green spandex", "loud", "eyebrows" and "training junkie" had been mentioned in Kakashi's regular complaints about his neighbour, "hot like burning" had somehow never come up. Obito felt that this was a serious lapse on his former friend's part.)

Gai seemed to be still wrapping his mind around the situation. "So your Friend who was Supposed to meet you…?"

"Former friend," Obito clarified. Kakashi was dead to him.

"Oh," Gai repeated, looking appalled.

There was an awkward pause.

Gai cleared his throat.

"Perhaps My Neighbour gave you the incorrect number by Accident?" he hazarded in a tone that clearly conveyed that he believed no such thing but was willing to pretend for the sake of politeness.

Obito had no such qualms.

"That complete and utter bastard. I'm going to rip his guts out through his nostrils with my bare hands."

...