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The world was different when Gai woke up.
He supposes he should have been prepared for it. Every war bore consequences. Afterwards, there were peace treaties to sign and structures to rebuild. There were always bodies to bury and list of names to engrave into the memorial stone. Comrades and family members to mourn.
No shinobi touched by war could quite go back to how they were prior to it. Some shinobi vowed to get stronger, some chose to retire. Gai had chosen the former, after the first war, after feeling helpless to stop the death and destruction around him. He promised himself that the next time he would be different, strong enough to protect his comrades. At any cost.
And he had become strong. He became Konoha’s Blue Beast, a force of nature, a shinobi strong enough to face any foe, the man brave enough to go up against Madara Uchiha with nothing but his taijutsu and unwavering resolve. He hadn’t regretted his choice to open the eighth gate at any point. Not when he heard the first sickening crack of the bones within his leg snapping. Not when he felt the excruciating burning sensation that followed in the moments afterward. Not even when his lungs took in what he thought to be his last labored breath as he lie in agony on the scorched ground of that battlefield.
The problem is that Gai wasn’t ready to face the consequences of this war. He hadn’t planned to live past it. He was ready to leave the world behind knowing he had done everything in his power to protect his most precious people. He was ready to be with his Papa again.
But Gai lived, and now the world is different, and he’s not sure that he has a place in this new one.
Everything that used to define him is no more. He can no longer call himself a sensei to three wonderful students. He is no longer Konoha’s Blue Beast, nor Red Beast, nor anything resembling a force to be feared and revered. He’s not sure he can even call himself a shinobi anymore.
Kakashi has begrudgingly taken on the role of Hokage, and however unwilling, he leads the grieving village with a grace that Gai has always known he was capable of. Lee and Tenten mourn their fallen teammate and spend too much time fussing over Gai, all the while pushing forward towards the bright futures he knows they are destined for. He marvels at the strength the two of them show in spite of all they’ve endured.
The whole world seems to move forward while all Gai does is regress. His mind is constantly shrouded by the grief of losing the boy who was like a son to him. The absence of his mental strength is as devastating as the loss of his leg. His soul, once youthful and bright and positive, feels wrong being tethered to a body so weak. He feels like that same insecure little genin who couldn't catch up to his peers no matter how hard he trained.
Gai has been discharged for over a week now after spending months in the hospital. “Home” is now a small house Kakashi has moved Gai into with him, with its wheelchair accessible entrances and the built-in chair in the shower. Moving in with Kakashi had been years-long desire to Gai, something that used to feel like an impossible dream. Now he has what he always wanted. He wakes up every morning by his rival’s side, yet his life still feels devoid of happiness.
Gai doesn’t dwell on this lest his brain continue on a stream of negative thoughts. He woke up with a rare determination today, and there is something he must do before he loses his nerve. For the first time in a while, he has issued himself a challenge.
The challenge is this: Gai must stand in front of the mirror and look himself directly in the eyes.
He wheels himself into their shared bathroom, shutting the door behind him. He lifts himself from his wheelchair and removes his robe so he’s in nothing but his briefs. Gai pivots so he’s facing the mirror, head downcast, his hands gripping the edge of the sink. He steadies his breathing and prepares to face himself.
Gai is balancing on his good leg so he can see the whole of his torso in the bathroom mirror. Not thinking too hard about the fact that his leg is shaking with the effort, he leans forward against the edge of the sink so it can relieve his leg of some of his weight. Gai lifts his head, wills his eyes up, forces himself to stare directly into his reflection. He’s never found it this hard to do so before.
His eyes scan the body in the mirror in front of him, an uneasy feeling settling in his gut. His body doesn’t feel quite like his own anymore. Months of lying in a hospital bed have caused his muscles to atrophy. He is noticeably less bulky than before. He feels the absence of his strength more than he sees it; he has to retrain his body to do short reps of exercises he used to be able to do multiple sets of without strain. He can’t even do a simple handstand anymore.
Despite this, Gai knows that it’s possible to build his strength back up. When he first woke up, he couldn’t even support his body weight on one leg. Each day he pushes himself to the point of tears, whether they are from pain or frustration. He is sure his physical strength can be built back up eventually. The one thing Gai can’t help but dwell on, the thing he can’t change, is how foreign his body now looks.
New scars litter his body, jagged and jarring to the eye. It’s as if his body had shattered like glass, the pieces being glued together again but not quite fitting correctly. Not one inch of him has been spared; they invade every surface now, twisting and branching off, running into his older scars. His hands reach up to touch a scar that runs from the bridge of his nose to his jawline, wincing at how ugly it looks.
Gai regrets the thought immediately and scolds himself for being so weak minded as to think it in the first place. Scars were badges of honor to be worn proudly after having fought a valiant battle against a worthy opponent. He was always proud to show off the many remembrances of wounds that his body bore prior to the war.
Yet he remembers waking up and seeing this new body for the first time and wishing that it had crumbled to dust on that battlefield.
“The scars are good,” Lady Tsunade had told him during his last checkup after noticing Gai studying them. “They’re a sign of healing.”
If that was the case, then why did Gai still feel cut open and raw? The scars felt like a permanent reminder of Gai’s failure to follow in the footsteps of the man he most admires. He wonders if maybe Papa had been wrong all those years ago. As long as you never turn your back against youth, it never ends. Gai thinks that maybe his youth is the thing that had been burned away that day, leaving behind nothing but an ache in his heart and the realization that for all that effort he’s put in, he has nothing to show for it but a ruined body.
Some part of Gai’s mind, the part that’s still hopeful, makes him continue studying the image in the mirror, desperate to find the old traces of himself that he once found so beautiful. He’s so distracted by the whirlwind of emotions invading his mind that he doesn’t register the knock on the bathroom door until it’s too late. "Gai? I'm coming in." The door handle turns before Gai has a chance to yell, "no!"
Kakashi appears in the doorway and Gai freezes in his place. He quickly recovers and tries to replace the deep frown that’s felt ingrained on his face with a shining smile, only to find that he can only manage a slight upturn of his lips. He feels exposed and guilty, like Kakashi has somehow heard all the thoughts that have been running through his head. By the look of concern Kakashi is giving him, Gai wonders if he’s read it all from his face. He’s always been frustratingly good at reading the emotions that Gai tried to keep buried deep.
“You’ve been in here a while. Are you alright?” Kakashi asks.
“I’m fine!” he says a little too loudly. “You didn’t have to come check on me. I’ll be out soon.” Kakashi tends to hover these days. He doesn’t even try to hide his blatant worry. He doesn’t push Gai to accept his help but constantly reminds him that he’s prepared to assist with anything. Gai finds, a little guiltily, that he despises it. The only thing that hurts more than having to face this new reality is the fact that Kakashi is here to witness it all.
“Okay,” Kakashi says, still lingering in the doorway, studying Gai’s expression in the mirror. He still isn’t quite used to it, Kakashi with two uncovered, dark eyes. It feels like they’re trying to stare into the depths of his soul and uncover all of the things that Gai isn’t saying right now. Gai quickly reaches for his robe, feeling exposed in more ways than one.
“—Don’t,” Kakashi steps toward Gai and reaches out to touch him but stops short when he notices Gai flinch. Hurt flashes briefly across Kakashi’s face. It sends a pang through Gai’s chest. “You don’t have to cover up. It’s just me, Gai.”
Gai doesn’t answer him. The rational part of Gai knows that Kakashi is the only person in the world who knows Gai’s body nearly as intimately as he does. But Kakashi knows the old body, and Gai realizes that this is the first time Kakashi has seen him shirtless since before the war. He wants to tell Kakashi to leave. He wants to slam the door behind him and cover up and never let Kakashi see him like this again. Instead, he remains frozen in place even as every fiber in his body screams at him to bolt.
Gai can feel Kakashi studying his body. Under Kakashi’s gaze, he’s more aware of how much the light scars stand out against his tan skin. He wonders if Kakashi feels the same disgust Gai felt when he first laid eyes on the new markings. Terrified yet curious, Gai glances up at Kakashi’s reflection in the mirror. He watches as Kakashi’s eyes roam over his body with a thoughtful expression on his face. Gai is surprised to see no judgement there; Kakashi is studying the scars in an almost pensive way, as if he were regarding a complex piece of artwork in a museum.
Kakashi moves closer to Gai until he’s standing directly behind him. He shifts to the side a bit so he can see all of the slightly taller Gai in the mirror. Kakashi stands achingly close to him, mere inches away, but he doesn’t quite touch him. Gai can feel the heat that’s radiating from Kakashi’s body surround his back. Gai’s whole body tenses up. Kakashi breaks the silence that has been making the air in the room a little hard for Gai to take in.
“I remember when you got this one,” Gai isn’t sure what Kakashi is talking about until Kakashi reaches his hand around Gai’s body to hover over a scar that is carved into Gai’s lower abdomen. “We were on an S-rank mission. We needed to deliver an important scroll back to Konoha. On our way home we got ambushed by Sand shinobi. One of them got you with a Kunai. Do you remember?”
Gai did remember that mission. He and Kakashi were outnumbered, and Gai had been vulnerable after draining his chakra opening the fifth gate. In a brief moment of weakness, Gai had wavered in battle and one of the enemy shinobi managed to stab him. Gai had crumbled, and Kakashi quickly struck the enemy nin through the chest with his Chidori. Kakashi ended up defeating the remaining enemy in a rage before rushing an injured Gai back home.
Gai nods, not sure where Kakashi is going with this.
“The wound was deep. I thought you’d bleed out before we made it back to Konoha. But do you remember what you said to me as I was carrying you?”
Gai remembers the delirium mostly, how he’d drifted in and out of consciousness. How painfully tight Kakashi was holding on to him as he raced back to Konoha, the wild look of panic in his mismatched eyes. Still, he remembers that last coherent thought he’d managed to utter. A hint of a smile plays on Gai’s lips. “I told you to wipe that scared look off your face. That Konoha’s Noble Blue Beast wouldn’t be taken down by the likes of a kunai.”
Kakashi lets out a snort. “A poisoned kunai, Gai. You started babbling absolute nonsense after that before you passed out for good. I was terrified that I wouldn’t get you home in time. When we got back to the village, Tsunade told me it was a miracle you hadn’t bled out or succumbed to the effects of the poison. That was the day I learned never to underestimate that legendary stubbornness of yours.” The fond smile Kakashi is giving him tugs at Gai’s heartstrings.
“And this one,” Kakashi’s hand travels to a scar that runs along Gai’s shoulder. His fingertips ghost over the skin but still don’t quite touch it. It has faded some after so many years, but Gai instantly knows where he got it from. “You protected me when I almost lost consciousness after using Raikiri, remember?”
“I do.” Gai thinks of the burst of energy he’d felt from his previously exhausted body after witnessing Kakashi cut a bolt of lightning in half. He remembers thinking, it’s my turn to protect him now. Hours later, when Kakashi nearly passed out from utter exhaustion in the middle of battle, Gai had shielded Kakashi’s body with his own when a shuriken nearly pierced Kakashi in the chest. It had lodged itself in Gai’s shoulder instead, leaving a bloody gash behind when they later pulled it out. It wasn’t a very serious injury by their standards, but Kakashi had fussed over it anyway.
“We managed to regroup with the others right after that fight. You wrapped it for me after Rin healed it,” Gai says. Nothing else needs to be said about that particular mission; Gai is sure Kakashi thinks of it as often as he has. They hadn’t thanked each other after the mission. They didn’t even talk about the events of that day much afterwards. But there was a shift in their relationship after that, an understanding that the desire to protect each other could defy what a chakra drained body shouldn’t be able to do.
“I wasn’t here for this one,” Kakashi tentatively lets his fingers finally connect, and Gai shivers at the feeling of warm fingertips traversing his sensitive skin. Kakashi trails his fingers down a particularly long and thick scar that bisects Gai’s chest. Kakashi doesn’t say the words seventh gate, but they linger in the air between them anyhow. Kakashi traces it with a touch that’s barely there, and Gai can tell he’s remembering, too.
Kakashi hadn’t been there when Gai opened the seventh gate. The two were on separate missions with their teams at the time. Gai had opened it protecting an unconscious Neji, Lee, and Tenten when the mission went sideways and he needed to keep all three safe while simultaneously fighting the enemy. He hadn’t felt like he had any other choice but to do it. His skin had torn apart with its release, leaving a nasty, deep wound that spanned the length of his chest. It had required stitches. It would be months before Gai was cleared for active duty again.
Gai recalls waking up in the hospital afterward with his skin and insides feeling like they were disintegrating. Through the haze of pain, he’d wondered what the strange choking sound coming from beside him was. He’d weakly looked over to his side to find Kakashi sitting in a chair beside him, his body leaned forward against the edge of Gai’s bed with his face buried in his arms and his body shaking. It was the first time he’d ever seen Kakashi cry.
Kakashi’s voice snaps Gai back to the present. “I remember hating myself for not being there to stop you. When I got to the hospital, you’d already been there for three days. You were in a medically induced coma. I sat by your bedside and realized I could’ve lost you and I just fell apart, Gai. I felt so much relief when you finally opened your eyes, days later. I’m grateful I didn’t lose you that day.” And I’m grateful I didn’t lose you to the eighth gate, either, Gai knows Kakashi is saying as well.
I’m happy I’m still here, too, Gai wants to say, wants to mean with the whole of his being. The words don’t make it past his lips.
Kakashi accepts Gai’s silence and doesn’t try to pry. Gai’s eyes flicker up to meet Kakashi’s in the mirror, and the pure love and understanding in them makes Gai want to cry. That look tells him that Kakashi accepts Gai, that he’s willing to meet him where he’s at and move forward at Gai’s pace. It tells him that he loves Gai in spite of his broken leg and scars, with them. The silent exchange seizes all remaining tension in his body, and he surrenders himself completely to Kakashi’s hold.
Kakashi freely explores Gai’s body with both hands now. They slide over the crests and valleys of his abs, across the width of his chest, follow the path of the scars that run along his arms, tracing from their beginning to end points. Kakashi’s hand delicately outlines the new scars as well as the old, as if he’s trying to ingrain their locations into his memory. He pauses over many of them, noting where Gai got them from or simply questioning Gai when he came across a scar that he didn’t know the story of. Gai finds himself answering, telling the tales of past battles with more and more enthusiasm as he goes on. He and Kakashi revisit the past together, and Gai nearly feels like his old youthful self as they trade memories.
Gai marvels at how Kakashi knows how many of the older scars on his body have come to be. He’s reminded that so many of his toughest challenges have been faced and overcome with Kakashi at his side. Years of sparring against each other and fighting side by side have made the two closely acquainted with the other’s body. Gai knows that if their roles were reversed right now, he would also be able to map out many of the scars that cover Kakashi’s own body.
Kakashi’s fingertips stop and linger over a scar that is etched into Gai’s right pec. “This one used to be my favorite, for obvious reasons.” Kakashi had a near identical one his left pec that mirrored Gai’s when they would lie together, chest to chest. Kakashi always loved to tell Gai how much he adored it, loved to trace it with his fingers and tongue.
“Used to be?”
“Look,” Kakashi’s fingers travel up to Gai’s face, tracing the new scar that begins under Gai’s left eye with a featherlight touch. “We match now.”
Gai can’t remember the last time such a genuine smile has stretched across his face. Kakashi smiles back at him just as widely, as evidenced by the shift under his mask and the crinkle around his eyes.
“There it is. I’ve missed that smile. I was hoping I’d see it again.” Kakashi says. He wraps his arms around Gai’s torso and steps closer to him, closing all distance between them. Gai finds himself leaning back into his embrace, letting Kakashi bear some of his weight and sinking into the comfort of his arms. Tears begin falling from Gai’s eyes because this is the first time since he woke up from that coma that he’s felt so alive.
Kakashi presses a kiss to his shoulder. “You’re beautiful, Gai,” he murmurs against the skin. He trails kisses across Gai’s shoulder and up the length of his neck, places a gentle one on the shell of his ear. He whispers into Gai’s ear, his tone kind and genuine. “And you’re allowed to fall apart if you need to. I’ll be right here.”
Gai’s eyes flutter shut. He takes a deep breath and allows himself to relish in the moment, to lose himself in this closeness that he’s been deprived of for so long now. His body and mind feel lighter, less weighed down by his troubles. He knows this feeling may be fleeting, but Gai decides that it’s enough for now.
“Thank you,” he whispers back.