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"Thank you for this," Gaara said as an enthusiastic yell is met with the kind of enthusiastic punch that sends the air around the impact zone rippling and shreds the ground beneath the combatants. Kakashi chuckled, a little bit helpless and a little bit nervous, and rubbed the back of his head while he ducked into a shallow bow.
"I'm pretty sure that's my line," he demurred. "After all, you did pretty much all of the legwork.”
“Maybe,” Gaara allowed. “But it was still Sakura that was able to assist him. In any case, it’s better this way. I can only imagine the alternative would have involved one or both of them detouring from their posts.”
“You think it could’ve turned out that bad?” Kakashi asked. Lee was nothing if not dedicated, but he was also just as passionate as his sensei and he’d undeniably made - in Kakashi’s humbly expert opinion - a lifelong connection. He eyed the two shinobi battling it out and making shockwaves with every impact, devastating taijutsu on such a full display it was distressingly nostalgic, and felt a flicker of foreboding for the future that could have been.
Gaara glanced at him. “Ultimately, we’re probably very fortunate that the two of them haven’t decided to create some kind of connecting path that hollowed out forests and canyons.” Oh god, no. He could already see it, the force of Lee’s passion and Shira had certainly looked collected and like a reasonable, stabilizing influence but he was also wearing the green jumpsuit. How much could Kakashi really trust? He was young – young enough to be very impressionable and Lee’s claws probably ran just as deeply as Gai’s in all honesty and. “They’d probably name it something.”
“Like The Passionate Burning Tunnel of Rivalry or The Bridge of Youthful Village Defying Hope,” Kakashi suggested automatically. Honestly, they really were lucky. If any of this had occurred to Lee before it had occurred to Gaara he would’ve had a lot more dynamic entries in his office. Eventually, Tenzou probably would have even gotten annoyed at having to replace the door so often. And Kakashi hadn’t even known Shira was a reality.
Shit, did Gai know? He had to, right? There was no way Gai wasn’t aware of his student’s glowing rivalry with his Suna counterpart. (And, oh, Kakashi was absolutely not thinking at all about the fact that there was a Suna counterpart to Rock Lee. Now that he was healed, that was firmly going under the list of things that were future-Naruto’s problem. Let him suffer the consequences of taijutsu competitions and martial arts festivals and Youthful Celebrations and finding increasingly newer training grounds for them to carelessly tear apart so it never happened in either village.)
(He’d suspect Gaara of devious intent if Shira hadn’t actually been sick.)
(…Actually, scratch that. Gaara had to have at least a little devious intent. Shira hadn’t entered the village dressed in that jumpsuit and Gaara didn’t even look remotely surprised when he showed up to surprise Lee in it.)
The sudden silence between them registered at about the same time as the weight of Gaara’s stare and Kakashi glanced at him, manfully resisting the urge to shuffle his feet. “What is it?”
“Sometimes… it’s incredibly apparent how long you’ve been Maito Gai’s eternal rival.”
“Uh.”
“It’s endearing,” Gaara told him. Smiled and leaned forward on the improvised rail while Lee and Shira’s fight briefly dovetailed to rolling end over end on the ground. “I can only hope their connection is just as long-standing and good for them. The two of you have a rivalry worth aspiring towards.”
“I don’t think you have to worry,” Kakashi replied, stubbornly refusing to acknowledge the way his chest felt tight, heart flipping with an embarrassing flutter. Damn Naruto’s generation and their shameless way of speech anyway. “Neither of them much seem like the type to just let things go.”
“Shira!”
“Lee!”
“No,” Gaara sighed, sand lifting to catch the debris that manages to fly all the way up to them. “Although, if getting rivals gifts is really customary. Perhaps I should try harder to convince Shira-sensei to curb some of them. Some things really are just more suited to Konoha.”
“Why, Lord Gaara,” Kakashi drawled. “Are you trying to say that there’s something wrong with a Suna shinobi wearing a bright green jumpsuit of Youth and Enthusiasm?”
“It is a gift entirely appropriate of Rock Lee,” Gaara answered with far more grace than any teenager should have – Kazekage or not. “It’s barely more alarming that Shira-sensei is wearing it. However if this trend continues there is a chance that additional gifts are given. It would be unwise of you to believe that Shira is not just as capable of overt displays.”
“Eh?”
“I imagine he’d search far and wide to find something fitting for Rock Lee’s personality. Is Konoha prepared for such an escalating exchange?”
“Is gift giving the sort of thing that should be a challenge?” Kakashi asked warily.
“Hatake Kakashi, Rokudaime Hokage and Master of Over a Thousand Jutsu, Eternal Rival of Konoha’s Legendary Beast Maito Gai, Sensei to Uzumaki Naruto, Haruno Sakura, and Uchiha Sasuke… what things ‘should’ be doesn’t seem like something that you’d bother to consider.”
“Maa, it’s exactly because of all of those things that I have to be concerned about how things should be,” Kakashi snorted. “No one else is going to.”
Gaara made a soft sound, eyes tracking the upward spiral as Lee and Shira hit each other consecutively higher into the air. Even after everything, hearing Gaara laugh in any capacity felt a little bit like a victory and a little bit like a reward.
“Did any of your speeches ever actually stick?”
“Well…” Kakashi slumped, joined Gaara’s casual lean on the railing and wondered exactly how much of this he could pawn off on Naruto to derail. With his track record, not much – or it’d just make it into an Event. “The important one did. They’re both well-meaning at any rate. I’m sure they’ll figure it out before things get too out of hand.”
Another soft chuckle, and Kakashi dutifully tallied himself another point.
“Maybe it’s a good thing. Suna can always stand to be shaken up a little bit.”
“Taking yourselves too seriously?” Kakashi teased.
“Tell Temari and I’ll inform her it was all your idea,” Gaara admitted solemnly.
And. Well. Gaara wasn’t one of his kids. Not really. But it was an understated kind of thing, just how much Gaara had changed. And. The way he looked now, bright-eyed and with a tiny smirk just at the corner of his mouth, dark eyes just a little less heavy, strong and proud and filled with the kind of warmth that came from people – the affection he carried for his own shinobi couldn’t have been clearer.
Gaara wasn’t one of his kids, but Kakashi reached out anyway, hand dropping lightly onto red strands of hair and ruffling them gently. His kid or not, he’d never get tired of that slightly wide-eyed look.
“They’ll be at this all day unless I’ve seriously missed my mark. Why don’t we leave them to it and grab a bite to eat, Gaara-kun.” And when that wide-eyed look softened, no one else had to know if Kakashi’s chest continued to feel weird and hot as Gaara smiled a little wider, ducked his head just a touch. Kazekage – but even Gaara deserved to be a kid.
“I’d like that.” Impish glint to green eyes, and Kakashi could swear the sand around them both rippled just a touch. “Kakashi-sensei.”
Not his kid, but damn if that had ever really been necessary to make someone important to Kakashi.
He had a whole future to invest in, after all.