Gai was staring hard at the piece of paper in front of him. He took a deep breath. He a drew a few more characters. Forgive yourself.
He paused and studied his work.
He groaned and crumpled up the piece of paper, then threw it at the trash bin in the corner of his room, then he groaned again for good measure. Under his elbow, his notepad was getting slimmer and slimmer. He could already feel the hard wooden surface of his table through the few remaining pages.
"Why don't you just give up?" Genma asked. He was lying on the floor of Gai's room, arms folded behind his head, staring at the ceiling. Listless, lacking energy and initiative like always.
"There is nothing you can say, Gai-kun," Ebisu chimed in, his voice not unkind, but, as usual, carrying a certain nasal lecturing quality that made Gai grit his teeth and bring his pen down on the paper with renewed, defiant vigor.
He had to find the right words; he just had to.
"I cannot give up! I will not give up! I won't abandon my eternal rival!" he shouted.
"For the hundredth time, that isn't actually a thing, Gai. You're not twelve anymore."Gai could practically hear the eye roll in Genma's voice. "Plus, there's a reason you can't buy cards for this occasion; because what is there to say? I'm sorry you had to kill your team mate, that really sucks?"
"Genma!" Ebisu sputtered in outrage, scandalized although they both knew Genma was only using his flippant attitude to mask how shocked he was. "Kakashi-kun has to cope with a lot right now. You shouldn't pester him," he told Gai in his very earnest voice.
But Gai didn't listen – he far too rarely did, as Sensei liked to point out – instead he focused on the task at hand, finding the words that would help his rival get better.
Three hours later, Gai was standing in front of the door to Kakashi's apartment, clutching his speech in his moist fist. It wasn't finished and it wasn't great, even Gai would admit that, but it was the best he could do, and that was what mattered, always giving it your best shot.
He took a deep breath to prepare himself and then he knocked, three short, energetic rasps, and waited…. And waited….
"Kakashi?" he called, convinced that his rival was inside, since, being a first rate shinobi, he had done his recon and knew that his rival had not left his apartment (nor opened the blinds) once since the funeral the day before.
No answer. Gai shifted restlessly. What if something had happened? The last time he'd seen Kakashi – at the funeral – he'd looked so… blank somehow, as if he wasn't even there, as if he was fading away. Ever since then, Gai hadn't been able to think about anything but how to help his rival get better, but what if he was too late?
His heart hammering in his chest, Gai proceeded to bang on the door hard enough to dent the wood. "Kakashi!" he hollered, fully aware that he was disturbing the neighbors and not caring one bit. "Open up, rival! It's me!"
"Go away." Kakashi's voice came floating to him through the thin battered wood. It sounded far away, weak and tired, but it was like a drop of water to a parched throat. So much relief that Gai's knees actually grew weak.
"Let me in," he called, unfolding his note with the speech and skimming it once more, wishing he could have come up with something better.
"No. I said go away. Leave me alone."
Gai nodded to himself. Fine. He could kick down the door; that was nothing. He took a step back.
And hesitated.
He skimmed the words on his by now pretty crumpled piece of paper.
They weren't right.
They didn't really say what he wanted to say, and, more importantly, they didn't change anything. They couldn't change anything.
He took a step forward and leaned his forehead against the cool wood of Kakashi's closed door. Tears were burning in his eyes. He'd failed again. But he couldn't give up.
"I'm not going away," he said, convinced that Kakashi was on the other side of the door and could hear every word. "I'm not leaving you alone."
When there was no reply, Gai sat down on the ground. He took one last look at his speech. The sweat from his hands had made the ink of his pen run and his fingers had left smudges. It was barely legible anymore.
"I'm still here!" he called as he began to fold the paper into a crane.