It's always when you try to avoid someone that they show up. That was the kind of thing Genma would say. Gai had never believed it, not until now that he was actually face to face with his rival – whom he hadn't been able to find anywhere during the previous week when he'd wanted to challenge him – and now on the one day he didn't want to see Kakashi...
He showed up, wandering onto Gai's favorite training field out of the blue. He came right to the tree under which Gai was lying, spread-eagled like a discarded doll.
"Yo! Something wrong?" Kakashi gave Gai a mildly curious glance.
It was more than he could take.
"I've failed, Rival!" he wailed; the words just burst right out of him. "I've done something unforgivable!"
"Hm? What did you do?" Kakashi simply continued to look down at him, hands in his pockets, cool and untouchable as usual. Under normal circumstances, this attitude would have made Gai furious, but, at this point, he couldn't even muster anger anymore.
"I fell asleep during watch last night…" Gai said, his mind going back to the moment Sensei had kicked him into startled awareness. "I could have gotten my whole team killed!" Sensei's words still rang in his head.
Kakashi just sighed in a can't be helped sort of way that was totally inappropriate. "Your sensei got mad, huh?"
"Yeah…" He must have been mad, that much Gai knew. But Sensei hadn't yelled, although Gai wished he had. He'd just looked at Gai; it hadn't even been an especially hard look, just… disappointed. Thinking about it made Gai want to cry.
When you have watch, your comrades trust you with their lives. You hold them in your hands, Gai. Tonight, they trusted you and you dropped them into the dirt. Now, I won't wake them and tell them, but you and I know, don't we, Gai?
He wanted to roll over onto his belly and bury his head in the grass.
"Let me guess, you trained and ran around all day although you knew you had watch that night," Kakashi drawled, his tone offensively light.
This was too much! Enraged – with himself more than Kakashi – Gai pushed himself up into a sitting position.
"I… I should have been able to do it!" And yet he hadn't… It hurt, knowing that he'd failed… Maybe his teachers at the academy had been right after all, maybe… But no, there was Kakashi, the genius, standing in front of him, his goal was right there. Gai would reach him, he would.
"From now on, I'll train so hard that I'll never get tired anymore! I'll train until I don't need to sleep ever again!" he shouted, balling his fists as hard as he could, until only the bandages kept his blunt nails from breaking the skin of his palms.
"Can't you ever quit with the pointless exaggeration?" Kakashi sighed. "Gai, mistakes happen. You'll know not to overdo it next time."
Kakashi and his damn coolness! Why couldn't he understand?!
"That's not—" He didn't know how to express himself, how to describe how he'd felt, how he was still feeling, "I let them down! I was useless and stupid and— A mistake like that can never be forgiven!"
It shouldn't be forgiven! People who let their comrades down are the worst trash wasn't that what Kakashi always said?
As tears were burning in Gai's eyes, blurring his vision, Kakashi turned towards the village, away from him.
He would go now, Gai realized. Kakashi would go, taking step after step, further and further away from him, and he, Gai, would have to earn his respect again, with blood and sweat and tears
He would, too.
He would be Kakashi's equal, no matter how long it took.
He would be his rival.
And in the end, he would be Kakashi's friend.
Kakashi, however, didn't move. He stood, looking at something far away, something Gai couldn't see.
When he spoke, his voice was so soft, Gai had to strain to make out the words.
"All mistakes can be forgiven," Kakashi said. "The only thing that would be unforgivable is if you let yourself get killed. As long as you come back alive, Gai, I can forgive you."
Then he left, but Gai didn't chase after him. He stayed right where he was, sitting under a tree on his favorite training field, tears in his eyes, stunned.