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Gai is blushing. Hard.
It's not like Kakashi hasn't seen him like that before, red tinted cheeks beaming below his dark brows. Usually, the look is also accompanied with a puffing chest and sweat dripping from his smooth bangs, a bright grin on his face after a physically taxing challenge. But, right now, they're not in the middle of a challenge, and Gai has barely done anything to even warrant a change in his breathing pace, yet that rosy shade blooming on his face is unmistakable. More importantly, he's not looking at Kakashi but to the left of him, where a man in the Anbu Bear mask stands.
"Kakashi! What are you doing here?" Gai stutters, eyes darting back and forth between Kakashi and the other man who's a head taller than them both.
For some reason, Kakashi doesn't really like that look. With his mask off, he's no longer Hound, but the ice-cold of his tone might as well be, "I should be asking you that. This is Anbu territory." He's being irrational, reacting like this. He doesn't care much about things that don't concern him, and he hates to think of Gai as someone he should be concerned about. Yet, much to his futile attempts at denying, here he is, unreasonably irritated when he should be ruthlessly apathetic.
However, his stupid rival doesn't seem to pick up on those signals at all, gaze still fixed on the other Anbu. He stutters, trying to come up with an excuse that neither of them believes, only for Bear to clap Kakashi on the back, a smirk blindingly visible even underneath the porcelain mask.
"Relax," says the man as he walks towards Gai, fingers releasing Kakashi's shoulders and instead reaching for Gai's bandaged hand, "He's not here for you."
The grab is a surprise to Gai, his cheeks getting even redder as his eyes look down to the digits encircling his wrist. He's not even looking at Kakashi anymore, now gazing up at the man touching him as he pulls him gently away, out of the Anbu dormitory. Gai can barely manage a few stammers as he turns around, looking generally in Kakashi's direction, "See you later, Rival! We will resume our challenges then!"
Somewhere along the way, when Kakashi was too busy fighting himself and the ghosts of his grief, Gai had grown up and out of his former shell. He's no longer the loser that can barely run a few laps around the Academy, high-pitched voice in a small frame. The curves of his muscles carve visibly under the fabric of his jumpsuit, and anyone with good eyesight will spare at least a second to take a good look at him. He's grown faster, too, and certainly much, much stronger, so powerful that the Might name is no longer the butt of the joke but something to be respected. And yet, his kindness and enthusiasm never waver, making Gai the shinobi Konoha has been waiting for, though the village certainly doesn't deserve it.
Kakashi slowly realizes that he has been witness to it all, as Konoha slowly withdraws its favors for Friend-Killer Kakashi, once an elite genius now turned disgrace, and turns it to the Green Beast instead. It's deserved for both of them. What he doesn't recognize, though, until now, standing in the shadows as he watches Gai leaves with another man, until both of them turn into tiny dots in his vision, that Kakashi has been doing the same thing, too. He's been draining every ounce of respect he has for himself and instead slips it onto Gai. The process was slow and quiet, so cunning that he's completely ambushed, only left with the belated knowledge that he's just one of the many, many who's gone from annoyed to being in love with the man in the bowl cut.
He won't act on it. Everyone he has ever stained with his love has died, some more tragic than others, but the same ending nonetheless. It's always his fault somehow, one way or another, and he won't curse Gai with the same fate if he can help it.
And so he watches. He crouches in a nearby bush, holding in his breath as his gaze traces the familiar sight of Gai's back as he pins Yamato to his door, peppering Kakashi's kouhai with kisses as their chests rumble with laughter. It's so easy to Gai to express his affection publicly like this, unlike Kakashi who can't even imagine himself in Yamato's position, trapped under Gai on his balcony that faces the rest of the village, at risk to be caught by the very capable shinobi that patrol it at night. He watches from behind, in a jonin meeting, as Raido reaches a sneaky hand down, entangling his fingers with Gai, earning a bright grin back and a reassuring squeeze. He watches as all of Konoha's men and women, shinobi and civilians alike, parade through Gai's life, each of them claiming a piece of him for themselves, taking things they don't deserve.
But what does Kakashi of the Sharingan, the man who's drenched in blood and malicious killings, know about love and deserving? If anything, he deserves it the least, shouldn't even be near Gai, shouldn't even be able to look at him in the eye and bask in the light of his warmth and strength. But Kakashi is selfish; he knows. He can't seem to pull away, no matter how hard he tries. What's more brutal, though, is that Gai still treats him as if he's someone precious and not another cold mask holding up the village with the crackle of his hand through someone's heart.
It's killing him. Every clap on the back, the lingering warmth of Gai's breath on his face after a challenge where the green clad man pins him down on the ground, the random side hugs, they're too much and not enough. Kakashi always ends up wanting more, wishing the contact will last a while longer while at the same time wanting it to never happen again. Gai will never love him the way he wants and that's a fact he must make peace with.
Then, Maito Gai opens the Eighth Gate, burning brightly and withering in that same light.
It's a fundamental shift, Kakashi would say. All of his worst nightmares have come true, yet Gai still makes it out somehow, stubborn as he is. With no excuse for himself anymore, what else is Kakashi going to hide behind, running away from his own affection?
One night, when Gai finally wakes up and can talk without his vocal cords at risk of snapping in half anymore, Kakashi says it. Three words he should've said years ago, back when they were both stupid boys lying on a patch of grass by the Forest of Death, sweat slicked and bone tired from yet another stupid challenge.
And, Kakashi supposes he should be surprised that he isn't at all surprised when Gai says them back.
They've always known.