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When Kakashi’s fourteen, he breaks Gai’s nose. It starts like a challenge —like everything between them, because Gai is physically incapable of reading a room and let him be—, but the further it lasts, the fiercer it gets. And at some point, Kakashi just unfolds. This angry part, bloodied and sad, strolls out for a bit, and Gai is not prepared for its violence, hence, the broken nose.
Kakashi stops when he sees the blood, but Gai doesn’t. He tries to clean himself with the back of his hand, but it only success in spreading the blood through his cheek.
“Gai-”
“I’m fine! This is nothing! We must continue!”
“Gai”, Kakahi says again, angry. He scratches his fingertips against each other, noticing them read and moist. Behind them Gai waits for him, for whatever he is going to say or do. Kakashi is so tired, and Gai is just insufferable. Too much green, too much red, too much life. People around Kakashi is dropping like flies, shadows wear thin by the rain. Everybody is underground somewhere, except this stupid child, with his stupid challenges, and his stupid broken nose.
“Just leave”, he ends up saying, rubbing his hand against his pants, wiping the blood. “This is pointless. Leave me alone.”
“I’m sorry Rival, but that is something I can not do. If you decide to finish the duel here, I’ll be considered the winner.”
“I just broke your nose.”
“Yes, a good left hook you have in there, Rival. But even if right now I’m the one bleeding, I’m not the one wanting the challenge to end,” Gai responds, smiling a bit, with a pair of red stained teeth.
Kakashi is really tired, and the last thing he wants is to indulge in Gai’s logic. He just wants to go home and feel like shit in private, idiot challenges and self-proclaimed rivals be damned. And that’s what he’s going to say to Gai, to close this interaction.
“That’s stupid, I’m clearly in the advantage,” is what he actually says, even to his own surprise.
“You just want to retreat.”
“I know when to end a fight, you moron.”
“Yeah, when you think you are going to lose, so you would spare time, right?”
“You can’t be this stupid.”
“Fight me then, let’s see how it goes,” smiles Gai, like he knows he has just won this round, this ridiculous conversation. Kakashi doesn’t want to give in, doesn’t want to give him the satisfaction; but he doesn’t want to lose by default.
“Fine, let’s see if I can break your nose on the other direction.”
Kakashi goes home with another win under his belt, and the blood of one Maito Gai under his fingernails.
When Kakashi is seventeen Gai finds him in the shower, numb to the world. Warm hands take him out and stay with him for the night. At seventeen, wrapped in a blanket in his room, with Gai sitting in a chair at the foot of his bed, a terrible realization crosses his mind. But Kakashi decides to bury it, to never acknowledge it and pretend it’s not real. Not when Gai turns to look at him, with that silly concerned face, nor when he keeps visiting even if Kakashi asked him not to.
And most of the time is easy to do so, to look at Gai’s way and feel this annoyance bubbling in the pit of his stomach; to want to walk in the opposite direction. But other times, Gai just stomps his way to Kakashi, cornering him, forcing him to spend time together.
At seventeen, Kakashi is convinced there is no time, and no life, to feel anything towards Gai.
When Kakashi is twenty-six, Asuma tells him about Kurenai.
“How did you know?”, Kakashi asks him, watching him light up another cigarette.
“Well, I guess one day I thought of not seeing her again, not like one of us being dead, although that is just, like, a possibility, you know? But in the sense of not being near her, not having her with me, and I hated it.” Asuma pauses, taking another smoke. “And then I became aware of how wonderful my life would be if she were with me. She’s my person, you know? The one that I would never be tired of.”
“Sounds like Icha Icha, minus the porn.”
“I suppose there has to be a little bit of truth in that,” Asuma replies, smiling. “Why do you ask?”
“It’s weird, seeing you in love,” Kakashi says, watching Asuma’s expression, his little laugh. “It’s not common to see somebody in our line of work allow themselves to… feel, maybe. To feel to that extent, I mean.”
“Yeah,” Asuma clears his throat, before saying: “It’s not that I’m not aware, I’m like even more aware now of all the stakes when I’m going out to a mission, or when she’s going out. But I would lie if I said it’s not worth it. I may die tomorrow anyway, why not living to the fullest?”
At thirty-one, Kakashi is in the middle of a war, and he’s so tired. Gai is beside him, like he has always been, and Kakashi thinks about Asuma living his fullest, and thinks about all the times he didn’t.
At thirty-one, Kakashi sees Gai burn, and something within him burns as well.
When Gai wakes up, the second thing he says to Kakashi is that he’s sorry.
“What for?”
“Because I’m going to do something that I know you won’t like,” Gai says, slowly and in a whisper.
“You can do that later; you need to rest.”
“No,” he tries to shake his head, but it doesn’t move, “I cannot. I already let a war happen, I can’t risk it again.” Gai tries to shift his hand, being something almost impossible in his condition. “My Rival, Kakashi, you have always been, and you will always be, the one-”
“I know.”
“-the one who has my heart. I want you to know, even if I don’t pass the night, that you will always have my heart, body and soul. They have been yours since I could understand what love was.”
“Gai…”
“I know you don’t reciprocate these feelings, but I couldn’t let another second go by without me telling you.”
Kakashi is not looking at him, feeling somehow out of his skin, like a third party watching everything from the side. He had known this for a while now —just an idiot wouldn’t—, but having it said to him doesn’t make it easier.
But before the panic can disperse through his body, he listens again, and forces himself to remember how he felt when he saw Gai burned to the bone, in the dirt. How he had thought that, at the end of the day, there was more than enough life to let himself feel. And now, this right here, is his second chance; Gai breathing, Gai talking, Gai loving him, even if Kakashi doesn’t understand it fully.
“I actually don’t know what true love is, Gai,” Kakashi starts, looking at this beautiful man in the eyes, those that were so close to never be open again. “I don’t, but I do know that I want to spend as much or as little of life I have left by your side, in whichever way you will have me.”
Gai looks at him in the way he does when he’s quietly crying, although right now, no tears come out, perhaps his body is still too dry for it. But his black eyes melt and his whole face softens, and Kakashi can feel all of it behind his ribcage, squeezing his heart, cutting his breath.
Kakashi is fully aware that not even in ten lifetimes he will be deserving of the love Gai has for him, of the raw devotion he has always had for someone as fucked up as Kakashi; but he is also aware of how selfish he can be, and he will take this, because Asuma died before meeting his baby and Kakashi almost did before letting himself be free to feel.
“It would be an honor, My Dear Rival,” Gai says with a trembling voice, and tries again to lift his hand, but this time Kakashi reaches out, and holds to his fingers in the gentlest way he has. “To have my youth pass away, with you to hold on to, it’s a blessing.”
“Have you come to terms with your old age, already?”
Gai pinches his fingers — or tries to—, and smiles.
“I’m in my prime, Rival,” he again, looks like is going to cry, “but I would be lying if I said I’m not elated at the idea of see you grow old. I’m just glad we will be able to share it.”
“Yeah,” Kakashi answers, quietly, looking at their hands. Love, what a weird thing, something Gai has always given him freely, something Kakashi doesn’t completely understand. What a weird and magnificent thing. “I’m glad too.”