Anniversary
Kimi No Vanilla
Kakashi is sitting
on his bed when Gai walks in.
It's the middle of the
night,
but Kakashi's still mostly in his uniform. His green vest
is slung
carelessly over a chair and his gloves have disappeared
somewhere.
His hitai-ate is hanging loose around his neck; he is
slouched,
staring down with his usual half-lidded, blank gaze at the
object
held before him. It fails to look quite as uncaring as
usual with
the Sharingan exposed.
The familiar broken blade of
a long
dagger is clutched in one hand, Kakashi's elbow resting on
his knee,
his forearm dangling out lazily over the floor. His hand is
wrapped
completely around the blade and Gai winces a little, more
with
foreboding than anything, as he notices the blood dripping
slowly
and steadily onto the wood below.
Kakashi does not
so much as
look up as he enters. Gai waits at the door for a moment
before
walking into the apartment proper, slowly and deliberately
padding
over to join Kakashi on the bed. He notices the dagger's
hilt lying
next to him, between them, atop the comforter.
They
sit there
for a few long moments in silence, Gai's presence still
unacknowledged. As always, the moon shines straight through
Kakashi's window and makes everything in the room look pale
and
strange. Gai wonders if the other man ever bothers to turn
on any
lights in here.
"Gai."
He finds Kakashi's
face. The
other man is turned slightly toward the window, gaze now
focused on
the wall at the far side of the room. He never looks over
at
Gai.
"Go away."
Gai stifles an unbecoming
sigh. He
always hopes against hope for a different reception. But
his eternal
rival is, as ever, a stubborn creature.
"No," he
says at
last, "I don't think I will."
They are both silent
again for
a moment.
"Go away," Kakashi repeats dully. The
single eye
Gai can see from where he's sitting, the normal one, closes
briefly
in something that might be irritation but is probably
another
feeling entirely.
It was how many years ago now,
today? He
can't remember. But he is sure Kakashi does.
Hell,
it
wouldn't surprise him if Kakashi knew down to the minute.
The day
that Uchiha Obito...
But that's his father's dagger
blade
he's clutching so tightly at right now. Gai occasionally
thinks that
it must all get a little mixed up in Kakashi's head
sometimes. So
much guilt trapped in there that the faces, the names, all
those
beloved ones and all those he barely even knew, blur and
mix
together and create some sort of grotesque amalgamation for
him to
torment himself with.
His eternal rival is nothing
if not
good -- nay, expert -- at tormenting
himself.
"You're
bleeding," Gai says, by way of explanation. His voice is
determined.
"I'm not going to leave you by yourself right
now."
Kakashi
lets out a single tired, rather incredulous chuckle, and
actually
turns to look at Gai for a moment. "What do you think I'm
going to
do, slit my wrists like some histrionic teenage
girl?"
And
Gai takes a moment to wonder at the fact that Kakashi is
being so
verbose all of a sudden.
They sit there for a while
longer.
He watches Kakashi, and Kakashi watches the blood dripping
onto the
floor, and then rises after a while to pad over to the
windowsill.
He stands there and watches the moon, and if Gai leans back
a little
he can see the Sharingan eye, and watch the way it catches
the
moonlight. And then Kakashi turns his head slightly and his
masked
face is entirely obscured.
"Gai," and his voice is
shaking a
little, just a little, but that's all it takes, "go
away."
Gai smiles a little, just a little, and rises
and
walks out the door. He closes it quietly behind him and
leans back
against it. The inside of the apartment is utterly silent
save for
Kakashi's breathing, and even that is faint.
Gai
closes his
eyes and makes use of his Jounin's hearing, so he will be
able to
tell when the sobbing stops.
When he dares to
venture in
again, the blood has been cleaned from the floor. Kakashi
has
returned to sitting on his bed. His hitai-ate is once more
hanging
down over his eye, and one hand is gloved; the other is in
the midst
of being bandaged. He gives Gai a single unreadable glance
as the
latter walks back over to ease himself down onto the
bed.
He
glances down at the comforter. The dagger hilt is gone. Who
knows
where the blade has gotten off to.
"I thought I
asked you to
go away," Kakashi says quietly.
Gai just smiles at
him for a
moment.
"Feel like getting a snack?"
The
other man
gives him a very long look, but finally, slowly nods his
assent.
He dresses fully again before they leave.
They would
hardly be expecting trouble at some random ramen shop, and
it would
be doubtful if any of the Jounin equipment in that green
vest would
be necessary for any they did run into, but Gai
occasionally
thinks that Kakashi wears as much clothing as he can get
away with
just to put that much more space between himself and
others. If
you're nothing but a faceless, expressionless ninja in a
generic
Jounin uniform, maybe people won't go and get attached to
you or
anything stupid like that.
There isn't much open at
this time
of night. They stop at a bar, and Gai wants to order some
good
strong sake, but knows he doesn't dare tonight of all
nights. He
sips tea and nibbles on some appetizer which he's
thoroughly
forgotten the second after he's finished with it. Kakashi
has water,
and drinks it through his mask. They say nothing to each
other the
whole time.
Gai follows Kakashi back to his
apartment again.
They trudge toward it in silence. Either of them could be
there in
half the time if they wanted to, by various methods, but
Kakashi
just keeps walking slowly down the main roads and Gai
follows,
matching his pace. He thinks of it as a mini, unofficial
duel
between him and his rival. He wins if he gets back inside
the
apartment without Kakashi managing to annoy him into going
away.
Kakashi won't win, because he isn't trying
hard
enough.
Or so Gai thinks until they get to the door.
Kakashi
fumbles for his keys and steps inside before suddenly,
pointedly
closing it in Gai's face. No words spoken.
Gai
stands in
front of the door silently again, and smiles against the
tears
gathering in the corners of his eyes.
He can hear
Kakashi
moving around inside, making no attempt this time to be
quiet. A
drawer thunks, or maybe the closet door. Clothes are pulled
off and
scattered.
He waits a very long time, until it is
completely
silent again, before giving the door a
nudge.
Kakashi has
left it open. As always.
Gai lets himself inside and
walks
calmly over to the form huddled on the floor. The blood
spatters on
the wood are bigger this time. The cuts run up and down
Kakashi's
arms and across his bare chest, dribbling down onto his
uniform
pants. His hitai-ate is discarded next to him; a little bit
of blood
has dripped onto the metal and pooled in the grooves of the
Konoha
leaf; it will have to be cleaned. The mask is gone. The
expression
is still as blank as ever, turned partway down toward the
floor.
Gai reaches over and curls his hand firmly
around his
rival's slightly shaking grip, and gently pulls the dagger
blade
away from Kakashi's scarred eye.
"Bandages still in
the
bathroom?" he asks quietly, just to have something to say.
He
already knows they are. Just as they always are. Kakashi
looks at
the blade in his hand in Gai's hand and says nothing,
expression
unchanging.
Gai nudges the hand down with his own,
until it
is resting on the floor. With his other, he reaches out to
wipe a
small smudge of blood off Kakashi's cheek, and then goes to
find the
first aid kit.
They sit in silence as he cleans and
bandages
Kakashi. Once the wounds heal, no one will notice a few
extra scars
on a battle-hardened Jounin. Perhaps next time Kakashi
lands himself
in the hospital, the medics might see a few they don't
remember
dealing with, but they will doubtless say nothing. As long
as the
outside is healed, it doesn't matter to them. The inside is
not
their job. Not anyone's job, really.
Gai is not sure
exactly
when it became his job.
Kakashi sits on the
bed and
watches him with those half-lidded eyes as he wipes off the
floor.
He sneaks a glance back as he works, because he is only
ever
privileged to see Kakashi's face once a year.
It's
as strange
as it ever is. Kakashi is very pale. Perhaps it's the
moonlight, or
blood loss.
He places the hitai-ate carefully on the
desk,
and does not clean the spatters off. It's not his place to
meddle
with another ninja's emblem. He rises, and gives Kakashi a
wan
smile, and turns and hesitates and takes a deep breath and
steels
himself. And walks out the door.
And he has failed,
and it's
over.
Until next year, when they will do it all
again.
He can only hope that some year will be the
year he
finally gets it right.
Back to Chuunin
and Jounin
Back to team seven
Back to team Gai
Back to the main
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