Chapter Text
Gai-Sensei was to Rock Lee something of a father, scratch that, he definitively thought of him as his father, and Gai-Sensei wasn’t shy in admitting the three of them were like his kids. So, it was normal, he told himself, to be weary of who their sensei hung around with. That specific thought was directed at the silver haired ninja, currently perched on the window of Gai-sensei’s home like it was his personal resting place. Just there, reading one of his weird books, hair sticking in all directions as the warm wind of the summer hit it. He sat on the wooden piece that was next to the window, shoes and all, barely missing some of the books Gai sensei kept there along with some photographs and colorful knickknacks.
All the time he was there he did not say a word, neither did he acknowledge their presence and Gai-Sensei seemed to be fine with that, not telling him to get off or pulling him inside completely.
Lee didn’t know much of Hatake Kakashi, well, he did not know much of his personal life, in fact he was 99% sure he didn’t have something of the sort, he only ever saw him around Gai-Sensei and team 7. Who knew where he disappeared when he was not with them, though, of course, the answer was most likely a mission.
See, Lee was not as clueless as Neji would often say, he knew that Hatake Kakashi had somewhat of a terrifying reputation, after all, a Hidden Ninja village was not immune to stories and gossip and what not, hell, he was sure Ino herself was the lead publisher and editor of Konoha’s most popular gossip magazine. That is why he was more than confused when on the first weeks after being a team, Kakashi had appeared out of nowhere, after training, and had without warning, launched a stone wall at a seemingly distracted Gai-sensei, who had only laughed out loud after breaking the stone into tiny little pieces yelling “Nice try, Rival! But I won’t fall for that one”
Neji, Tenten and Lee, of course, had jumped into a battle stance, the three of them standing still after Kakashi jumped from some tree and landed right in front of them, with his hands inside his pockets, and only a visible eye.
Now, Lee’s training was not only based on physical exercise, he also liked to learn as much as he could from other shinobi, since he could not use ninjutsu he liked to think about ways to defeat others by perfecting his taijutsu, always paying close attention to Gai-sensei’s teachings. Knowing what others could do had always given him a wider vision of how he could defeat them. So, facing Hatake Kakashi, the copy ninja himself, who had just attacked their sensei with a rock, clearly with the intent of hurting him, was not something he expected to do that day.
Lee had looked at him confused, next to him Neji had even activated the byakugan and Tenten had quickly grabbed two kunai from her pouch, left hand dancing over one of her weapons scroll. Had Kakashi gone rogue? Why was he attacking a fellow ni—
“I might just be testing something, you know.” Kakashi said without even acknowledging the presence of the three genin Infront of him and speaking with a somewhat bored voice, shrugging as if he hadn’t just launched A ROCK at Gai-sensei, like…how dare he? Sure, Gai sensei was also a famously strong and dangerous shinobi who could handle...whatever this was...But no one tried to hurt his fathe—sensei without having to face Lee first!
“Rival!” Gai had all but yelled, walking towards them. Lee felt uneasy, he didn’t understand, were they supposed to attack? Was this some sort of test or training exercise? What--? “These are my three little students!” Their sensei had beamed and Kakashi had only inclined his head to the side, in a way that reminded Lee of a curious dog before turning around, throwing a hand up in a lazy goodbye and stating “There’s still four more hours left”
Well…Lee definitively did not understand what was going on but Gai-Sensei had been smiling, so he supposed it was not that bad.
More than a year had passed since then and Kakashi’s presence was not something unusual, of course, there would be weeks where Lee wouldn’t see the Jonin at all, and then suddenly there he would be, walking next to Gai-sensei or, as he was now, just sitting there on the window.
Kakashi was teaching Team 7 now, Lee had seen them train (partly because he wanted to ask Sakura out on a date but then he would fail to do so, so he would run around the training grounds 500 times) and he would just see him there, either perched on a tree, reading that book, or just looking at nothing while his three genin students tried their best to manage with the exercises their Sensei had assigned them, which often consisted on completing a D-Rank mission or attacking him. Still, it didn’t seem like he did much, and more often than not Lee wondered if that really was the feared “Sharingan no Kakashi”, the bingo book talked about.
They were a couple of days away from the Chunin exams and TenTen and Lee were having curry at his sensei’s home, Neji had gone off to who knows where after their training, his usual frown and angry face on, but that wasn’t something new, besides, Lee had heard him ask Gai-Sensei how to get his movements to be faster and unpredictable to which Gai-Sensei had given him some tips regarding Neji’s training routine and how he should try and modify the Hyuuga fighting style to be more “his”, since it could be a disadvantage that all the Hyuuga Clan members that did not belong to the main branch were given the same training, Neji had nodded thoughtfullly and thanked him before leaving.
So, it was the three of them spending a nice afternoon, TenTen was already on her second plate and Lee was just about to match her when out of nowhere, Kakashi had arrived. Gai-Sensei had been talking cheerfully but went completely silent when Kakashi appeared. The younger sensei had not been wearing his usual Jonin long sleeved shirt and green vest, instead he was wearing a short dark blue Yukata, tied with a loose red Obi and a dark shirt underneath, the same color as his mask, his pants were his usual but instead of his black or blue fighting sandals he was wearing a more traditional wooden pair.
After looking at him for a moment, Gai sensei had continued talking as if nothing had happened and as if the other Jonin was not even there, but it was no lie that the atmosphere had suddenly become unconfortable, after all, neither Lee nor TenTen knew exactly where they stood with Kakashi-Sensei, the man had never even directed a word to them, except for a nod or a movement of his head and most of the times, he seemed bored or half sleep. It was then that Lee started to wonder if Gai-Sensei even liked the other Jonin, at all. Lee hadn’t met anyone that could be more of an opposite to Gai-Sensei than Kakashi was. What if Kakashi-san was just annoying their sensei? What if he was taking advantage of Gai-Sensei’s youthful and kind soul to get something out of him? After all, what exactly did he want with Gai?
Then, of course, Lee remembered how Gai had more than once (if not every time they met or every time he talked about him) called Kakashi "his Rival" and he had seen them have his unusual but youthful challenges...nevertheless, most of the time Kakashi looked annoyed at Gai, and how dare he?! Did he not know just how fortunate he was to have Gai always around? That was it! He was going to have a few words with him, specialized Jonin, terrifying shinobi and Elite assassin or not, he was going to hear Lee…But first, he needed to find his true intentions, after all, he was not going to confront the Shinobi who was the first entry on the Konoha section in the bingo book just because. Lee was not stupid.
He thought about his plan as he walked home, not before going to the Yamanaka Flowershop and getting some flowers for his own small apartment. There, he found an old man carrying a bucket with flowers to the Konoha graveyard Lee helped him, of course, and while they walked, the man told him everything about his beautiful long gone wife, who had been a Jonin kunoichi and had fought on the Third Shinobi War.
As he was leaving he noticed that the secluded lonely grave, that consisted of a couple of rocks forming a circle with an Itatoba in the middle, way too small and too asymmetric to have been made the same way the usual fallen-Shinobi tombstones were (In fact, if Lee had to guess he would say it was handmade, it had a name traced on the back, the lines too hard to read after being eroded by time and rain, the kanji for what looked like the word “Produce” or “Spawn” faintly readable), had white lilies and carnations, the flowers resting next to the bigger stone, all of them wrapped around a red ribbon.