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“Kakashi, are you alright?” Gai asked him, gently grabbing his arm.
It was not just the two of them at lunch today. Kurenai and Tenzō decided to join, crowded as they all were around a small table at the Izakaya, small plates of appetizers displayed in front of them. Kakashi looked up helplessly, and saw that Kurenai has stopped mid-bite, the hand holding the chopsticks raised in mid-air in front of her mouth. On Tenzō’s neutral face, only a slightly raised eyebrow betrayed his confusion.
Kakashi did not know what was happening to him. Gai’s hand on his bare arm burned, as if he was the one who went through the Eight Gates, and not the taijutsu master. And all for a stupid, throwaway compliment? Yeah, Kakashi was officially losing it.
Far from everyone, even himself, to say that the copy ninja was a fool. He knew he was still quite easy on the eyes, despite his face being half-covered most of the time, and despite being an old man — “Don’t say that, rival! We are still in the prime of our youth!” Gai had cried, loudly, when Kakashi first said that. Prime youth or not, Kakashi was aware he could brush up good when he put some effort. Like today. It was not any particular occasion, but he hadn’t had a real occasion to sit down and catch up with Kurenai and Tenzō in a long while, busy as he had been with helping Gai going through rehabilitation first and with Hokage stuff next, and then again with Gai, going off on a long adventure. That morning as he was getting ready, he had mused that his friends deserved the effort of a new outfit, no dog hairs, mud, or wrinkling on the clothes. It was really nothing special, but the burgundy sleeveless top really worked well with his hair color and the black hakama pants made him look neat. Yeah, Kakashi struggled with his words at expressing emotions, but the wolf-whistle Kurenai let out when she greeted him in front of the restaurant told him he had succeeded in his intent. Tenzō sarcastically asked if brushing his hair was next, to which Kakashi had laughed behind his mask.
“I’ll do that only at your wedding,” he had said, and it was that.
Which was all fine and good, until Gai joined them some ten minutes later, rolling up to their table in his wheelchair and stopped in his track when he saw him.
“Rival! You look positively stunning today!” Maybe it was the way Gai enunciated every syllable of the word, maybe it was the fact that the man’s voice came out a bit more strangled than usual, maybe it was just the way those brown eyes roamed over his arms, or maybe it was the fact that no one, not even Gai in all his outbursts over the years, had ever described him as stunning. Whatever it was, instead of the combination of muted affection and embarrassment that Gai’s exaggerated words usually elicited, something hot arose inside Kakashi.
He blushed. Hard. The sudden warmth under his mask left no doubts about that.
“Ah. Uhm,” Kakashi stumbled on his words, flustered. “Well,” he cleared his throat, “Thank you.”
That’s when Gai grabbed his arm and asked him if he was alright. Kakashi’s heartbeat did something weird inside his chest when his friend’s hand went up to this forehead, gently, and his fingers moved his hair away.
“You feel a bit warm! Are you sick?? You should be at home resting!”
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Kakashi shooed him away, “the sake went down wrong.”
It was Kurenai’s turn to raise her eyebrow. Kakashi had not taken a sip of his sake yet—and he knew she knew. Her gaze sharpened with a knowing glint in her eyes, and the copy ninja felt a shiver run up his spine.
“Gai, I haven’t seen you in a while either,” she turned to the taijutsu master, then, and thankfully got his attention away from Kakashi. See, that’s why Kurenai was his favorite. “Kakashi here has been monopolizing you for months!” Or maybe not.
“Ah, my dear friend! It is true that Kakashi and I have spent a lot of time together recently. I couldn’t have gone through the tribulations of recovery without his support!” Gai’s hand found Kakashi’s arm again, right over the wrist, and gave it a quick affectionate squeeze. To Kakashi’s utter bafflement, his heart went crazy again, and he looked down at the hand like it had personally offended him. “My rival’s burning devotion is matched only by my own!” Gai stated, with manly tears flowing freely down his cheeks, and drew him into a side hug. Their heads bonked against each other loudly.
Kakashi heaved a long-suffering sigh, wishing he could put his mask all over his face. Who said those things aloud?
“Uhm, I’m sure it is,” Kurenai mused, “I’m sure it is.” Tenzō looked on, confused at the whole exchange.
…
The restaurant event was neither the first nor the only time Kakashi had felt…weird. He did not remember when this particular ailment started, but there had been many other moments, and Gai was the common factor in all of them.
Maybe it started when Gai was having a particular bad flare day, and the phantom pain in his right leg was so sharp that it pushed him to summon Ningame and send him to Kakashi’s apartment in the middle of the night. Kakashi had come through the window in his pajamas, hair tussled and mask haphazardly thrown over his face, to find Gai writhing in bed, biting his own arms to stop the pained yelps from escaping his lips.
“Bite this instead,” Kakashi had whispered as he gathered the man in his arms and pushed the collar of his night shirt to the man’s lips. Gai had trembled for a very long time that night, even as Kakashi massaged his leg and his stump, through the endless murmurs of “it’s OK,” and “I’m sorry,” and “I’ve got you,” that the Hatake offered him. When he finally slumped forward into Kakashi’s chest, exhausted and weak as sleep claimed him, the copy ninja’s heart missed a beat or two and squeezed. Not painfully, but not comfortably either. He knew, of course, that Gai trusted him more than anyone else – hell, they were each other’s next of kin on all hospital papers – but to see his friend, his insanely strong and endlessly optimistic friend, offer his vulnerable side so easily to Kakashi’s clumsy care changed something within him. Something fundamental shifted within him that night, as he lay down on the bed with Gai gathered in his arms, head tucked safely under his chin. Kakashi did not dare close his eyes.
Or maybe it was much earlier, the first time Gai managed to get up from his hospital bed without any help and seamlessly planted himself into his new and improved wheelchair. Kakashi was there – of course he was always there, where else would he be – and the bright smile Gai had directed at him, complete with cool guy pose and all, made him almost self-combust on the spot. Sakura and Tsunade had looked at him weird, but Gai had not noticed how Kakashi had stumbled on his own feet. Power of youth be damned, he had been standing motionless next to the bed.
Maybe it was when Gai’s youthful passion had momentarily failed – that’s how he would call this whole thing later – and he has succumbed to his own dark thoughts, lamenting that, no longer a shinobi, he had become a deadweight to Lee and Tenten and Kakashi, unworthy of being a teacher, mentor, or rival. He had gripped his useless right leg in a vice grip, hurting himself doing so. Kakashi would not have it.
“Stop that,” he hissed as he crouched in front of his friend's wheelchair, snaked his own fingers in between Gai’s, forcefully snatching his hand away, only to place their linked fingers on his chest. They were both shaking, and when Kakashi looked up at his friend’s face, he saw tears of frustration and anger pooling there at the corners of the eyes.
He had launched himself into a speech then, throwing back at Gai some of the passionate words his friend had regaled him with over the years when he, genius ninja as he was, had swayed too close to the dangerous edge between depression and despair. There had been ridiculous words of youthful resolve, and over-the-top declarations that the bond of eternal rivalry could stomp down all adversities. But there had also been – many, many times – Gai’s calloused hands carding through his hair as Kakashi pushed into the man’s chest all the labored breaths of a panic attack.
“I challenge you to live, eternal rival,” Kakashi told Gai then, squeezing his fingers tight against his own chest, his other hand coming up to grab the back of his friend’s head, not too gently, and not too rough. “All men and women in Konoha could only hope to be half the man you are, Gai.”
The intense look that sharpened Gai’s gaze into a blade sliced through Kakashi like he was made of butter.
Gai surged forward to knock his forehead against his own. “Kakashi,” he said, his voice filled with emotion, and Kakashi didn’t know what he wanted exactly, but he knew at least that, in that moment, he was taken by a wild urge to bring this beautiful, uncompromising, unbroken man into himself, to merge under his skin and be one with him and never let go.
Or maybe it all started on a quiet late afternoon that they had spent at Kakashi’s place a few days prior. They were quietly enjoying each other’s company, Kakashi sprawled on his couch reading, while Gai sipped his tea as he sketched away on a pad. The place looked slightly more lived in after their travels, filled with trinkets and random art Gai had bought explicitly for this purpose. Kakashi still liked to complain about them every now and then, only to watch Gai fuss.
“Your apartment was empty, rival! There was no display of your youthful personality!”
“Maybe it’s because I don’t have any,” Kakashi had joked. Gai had scoffed as if the words were a personal insult.
“Ka-ka-shi,” the man had drawled the syllables of his name, in a light mood, but the tone rang serious, “don’t speak ill of my eternal man of destiny. He is an excellent man of many qualities.”
A warmth had spread through the copy ninja’s body at those words, so sudden that his hands around the copy of Icha Icha Paradise shook. When he turned towards Gai, the man was looking at him with an upturned eyebrow, small smile and fond eyes, daring him to disagree. Kakashi’s remark had died on his tongue, and he had to excuse himself to the bathroom, where he had yanked his face mask down and stared at his flushed face for a good ten minutes before his friend had come knocking at the door, asking if he was alright.
And then there had been the recent accident at the training grounds, when him and Gai had gone for a spar—now that Gai had mastered the full powers of his handstand, he was coming out with all sorts of cool moves. One of them had landed him a pretty good hit on Kakashi and the copy ninja found himself out of breath, panting heavily and pinned under Gai’s body and his still considerable mass of muscles.
“Ah! I win this one, Kakashi!” With their chests plastered together, Kakashi could feel his friend’s laughter course through him as well, could feel the puffs of air right next to his ear. Gai’s hands were on Kakashi’s shoulders, then, as he stabilized himself to get off, and his abs flexed against Kakashi’s belly. Oh my. Was Gai ever this solid, Kakashi’s treacherous brain pondered, and in a daze, his own traitor hands grabbed Gai’s waist to keep him there. He just felt…good.
He felt too good, Kakashi realized with horror, as his stupid body suddenly took an interest in the strong thighs that held him down, and in those defined forearms right under his nose. Fuck. That hadn’t happened in a while.
“Rival?”
“Give me a sec,” Kakashi said. His voice came out all sorts of strangled. He discreetly tried to angle his hips away from the man, but he only managed to slot them together more. A soft gasp escaped his lips.
“Oh. OH.” Kakashi did not need to see Gai’s red face so close to his, nor to feel his warm breath right over the thin fabric of his mask. He did not need to know how good the man looked sporting that kind of embarrassed expression, parted lips and all, because he would think about it for hours, if not days. Gai noticed his mounting agitation, and Kakashi let his head fall back to the unforgiving gravel underneath him. Repeatedly. It’s all good, I’ll just fling himself off the Hokage cliff later, he thought in despair.
“Rival, stop hurting yourself! It is perfectly normal to feel excited after a good spar, you are still in the prime of your youth, after all!”
“Please shut up.” Kakashi was too preoccupied with his own shame to realize how Gai had cupped his head and was preventing him from slamming it back into the ground again.
When they disentangled, a few minutes and many deep breaths later, Kakashi silently offered his hand to help Gai stand up and hop to his wheelchair.
“Sorry,” he mumbled, nor daring to look at his friend in the face.
“Nothing to be sorry about, rival!” Gai said. If Kakashi had been looking at him, he would have noticed the persistent blush riding high on his cheeks too, the spark in his eyes, he would have seen the small smile softening his features. But Kakashi was busy burning his retinas into the sunset, so.
…
Kakashi burst into Kurenai’s apartment through the window, Pakkun held steadily under his arm. The look in the copy ninja’s eyes was the wildest Kurenai had ever seen. Pakkun looked mildly disinterested, and only marginally miffed about being manhandled like that.
“Kakashi. Hi Pakkun,” she greeted the both of them.
“Kurenai. Good to see you” the dog wagged his tail at her. “Where’s Mirai?” Pakkun always had a soft spot for the Saturobi’s daughter.
“She’s on a mission, I’m afraid.” Pakkun’s ears flattened. “You should come visit in a couple days, she’d love to see you.” She looked at them both, placid, for a bit; when neither said anything, she spoke up. “To what I owe this visit? Not that I’m complaining, but it is a bit on the later side and—”
“Kurenai!” Kakashi interrupted her as he put Pakkun down on the floor. He started to pace around her living room, hands in fists to his sides.
“…Yes?”
“I think I’m sick,” the Hatake said eventually. His face was filled with anguish, and for a horrible moment Kurenai felt a pit open at the bottom of her stomach—that was until she heard Pakkun snort from behind her.
“Boss is not sick.” The pug rolled his eyes hard, in a very dramatic, very human gesture.
“There is no other explanation!” Kakashi was all but shrieking at the dog. “I have a terrible illness, and I don’t know what’s happening—”
“OK. Kakashi. KAKASHI!” Raising the tone of her voice, she bodily stopped him from digging tracks into her wooden floor with all his frantic pacing, and gently but firmly removed his hands that were pulling silver hair. “What is going on. Come sit, I’ll make us some tea. And then talk to me.”
Kakashi sit perfectly still, stony as a statue, while Kurenai brewed tea. When he still didn’t open his mouth after five long and awkward minutes, tea slowly cooling in the cup in front of him, Pakkun heaved a loud sigh and walked up to him to settle into his lap, nudging his hands into petting him. “Boss,” he said gently. So gently, as if Kakashi was a spooked pup.
“I have been feeling…weird,” the ninja eventually said. Kurenai nodded, encouraging him to go on. “Every time I am with Gai. Everything he does something or say something, I…”
“Yeah?”
“My heart beats really fast, OK. I get really flustered.” His hands almost flew up into pulling his hair again, but Pakkun’s low growl stopped his movements short. “I’m sick. I have spent too much time with him, and I am becoming allergic.”
Kurenai could not believe her ears. She risked a glance at Pakkun. “Allergic?” She mouthed at the ninken, who could only roll his eyes again.
“Or this is part of a challenge I have not figured out yet,” Kakashi continued, seemingly unaware of how demented he sounded.
Kurenai was sure her eyebrows were as high on her forehead as they could be. “A challenge, Kakashi. Really?” She said weakly. Pakkun was giving her a look and, though they were not exchanging words, the message that passed between them was loud and clear: This man is such an idiot.
“And then,” the copy-ninja continued, unaware of the silent conversation between his ninken and his friend, “then I summon this one,” he pointed at Pakkun, “to help me out, to make sense of this whole thing and he…he says…” Kakashi was so agitated and flustered he didn’t seem able to put more words together.
“I said Gai is an excellent choice for a mate,” Pakkun completed the sentence for him. “He’s strong, reliable, loyal, he has never let you down, and never would.” Kakashi pointed at him, mouth open and flushed to the root of his hair, and looked at Kurenai with eyes as large as saucers, as if to say Can you believe this guy?
“Oh my,” Kurenai said aloud, “this is unbelievable.”
“Right?”
“Gai is an excellent partner for you, Kakashi.”
“Righ—wait, what?”
“I was sure you would agree, Kurenai!” Pakkun jumped onto her, tail wagging as fast as a fan in the heat.
“Gai is not my…my mate! He is my best friend! My rival—”
“Eternal rival,” Pakkun unhelpfully supplies.
“He does say you are his man of destiny. Often.” Kurenai could not help but poke some light fun at his friend and secretly rejoiced at seeing his eyes go even wider than before.
“Kakashi, listen to me.” Eventually, she leaned over the little table between them, where the teacups lay forgotten. She gingerly took his face into his hands, forcing him to look at her in the eyes. “Think of Gai right now and tell me you don’t want to spend the rest of your life with him. I challenge you.”
There was fear in the man’s gaze – fear at being seeing so thoroughly, fear at the possibilities opening up in front of him, maybe, who knows – but then Kurenai saw his expression morphing into one of longing, of desire. His dark eyes became bright in the low light of her living room, and a blush rode high on his cheeks behind the mask. Kurenai was sure that the flush ran down all the way to his neck and chest.
“You are a genius, Kakashi. I’m sure you figured it out already,” she said, kindly, and patted his cheek with her right hand. The man could only nod, dumbly, before clearing his throat one, two times, emotion lodged deep in his chest.
“It’s OK, you know?” the Sarutobi whispered, hoping that her encouragement could be enough for him—and her words did something to him; she saw him swallow around nothing, his eyes sharpened.
“I…” he started to say, “I am in love with Gai.”
Pakkun let out a groan, but his fanning tail did not hide his excitement.
“Only took you thirty years, Boss!”
Kakashi shrieked, embarrassed out of his mind, and launched himself at the ninken. Kurenai laughed, though her confusion was clear on her face.
“What?” Kakashi asked from the ground when he noticed her expression, still in the midst of roughhousing Pakkun. Kurenai simply shrugged.
“I thought for sure something would have happen between you two when you guys went on your honeymoon trip. You’ve been acting like an old married couple for years, now…I can’t believe you didn’t realize you were in love with Gai until now.”
“It was a mission! It wasn’t a honeymoon!”
“Sure looked like one from the outside.”
Kakashi went back to pull on his own hair, just as Pakkun bit his wrists and yelled “Stop that! You’ll go bald!” The enormity of the situation crashed down on him. His tone was equally desperate and petulant when he spoke again.
“I don’t know! After Anbu I wasn’t really myself for a long time, and then I had my own students for the first time, and I was so afraid of fucking it up, and then I did fuck it up and Sasuke left and then there was the war, and Obito, and then Gai had to go and almost kill himself with those damn Gates…!” He took a long, long breath to calm himself down, and looked up at her, then, feeling lost and betrayed by his own heart. “What now?”
Kurenai smiled kindly, as if everything was easy. Maybe it was.
“Now you can allow yourself to be happy, no?”
“What if he doesn’t feel the same?”
A twin snort was his response.
“You are such an idiot!” Pakkun wailed and threw himself on the ground, paws over his eyes. “I give up!”
“What?”
“Kakashi! Gai has been in love with you since forever.”
“Ah?”
“Wow, Pakkun is right. You really are an idiot,” Kurenai said, but there was no sign of real judgement on her face.
“He never said anything.”
“Gai is an idiot, too. Don’t look at me like that.” Kakashi realized he had made a contrarian sound when Kurenai called Gai an idiot. “For the longest time he believed you only tolerated him. You haven’t always been the most…affectionate.”
He knew she was right. How he regretted it now! He felt his eyes starting to burn.
“Hey, hey, none of that,” Kurenai sat close to him then and awkwardly patted his head to console him. She pretended not to hear the sniffle. “It’s alright, that was a long time ago. Gai knows how much you care for him.” Kakashi still wasn’t convinced about the whole thing.
“He always smells happy when he is with you, Boss,” Pakkun mentioned, nonchalant. Kakashi’s head snapped to look at him.
“Yeah?”
The pug nodded. After a short moment, he added, softly, “You smell happy too.”
“Oh.” A strong blush returned to his face and, not for the first time in his life, he was glad for the mask covering half of it. Then his treacherous mouth opened and words stumbled out that he did not plan to say. “He makes me happy.” Gah! He sounded smitten.
Kurenai’s laugh and Pakkun snort filled his ears, as he stood up and retreated out of his friend’s window.
“Tell him!” Kurenai shouted after him and her voice carried through the darkness of the night.
Yes. Tell Gai you love him. Yes, absolutely. Easy. It became a whole mission, in Kakashi’s mind, and he stayed awake the rest of the night, lying in bed alone for hours trying to figure out the best way to do it. Gai certainly would love a grand gesture, no? But every time Kakashi thought of elaborate plans and, god forbid, an audience to his ultimate confession of love and devotion, he started to panic. If he fumbled this, his life would be over. His mind spiraled on and on. At a certain point during the night, he got so agitated that he summoned Pakkun again to talk him down from whatever state of panic he drove himself into.
“Breathe, Boss,” the ninken had repeated, gently, and put a paw on his face. That helped. That helped immensely.
In the end, it was Gai himself who came to his rescue. Go figure.
There was a loud knock on his apartment door the next morning. After all the years spent together, Kakashi would have recognized that knock anywhere. He took a long, long breath, and opened the door.
Gai was right there, a hand worrying at the side of his wheelchair and the other holding a ridiculously large and bright bouquet of red roses. He looked nervous, which was an expression that Kakashi had never seen on his face.
“Oh,” the copy ninja said, as he moved to let his friend wheel himself inside the apartment, “are those—”
“Kakashi,” Gai interrupted loudly, whipping his wheelchair around to face him. He cringed at the volume of his own voice then, and lowered it, prompting Kakashi to walk closer to him. “These flowers are for you,” he said, then, “a small token of my affection for you.”
Kakashi felt his legs and hands shake, even as he leaned towards Gai to grab the flowers. “What?” He said dumbly.
“It has occurred to me that I have not expressed my feelings for you in a manly and honest manner.” Gai’s tone was as sure as always, but his hands were shaking as they loosely grabbed the handrests; his red face betrayed how nervous he was. “My affection for you knows no bounds.”
The copy ninja fell to his knees in front of him at the words. He reached out to cover one of Gai’s hands with his own as he leaned close into his personal space, the flowers between them.
“What prompted this…manly confession?” He couldn’t help but tease. Just a little, to calm his racing heart, more than anything else.
“I might have had a little nudge,” Gai says.
“Who?” Kakashi both cursed and blessed Kurenai in his mind.
“Tenzō.”
“Tenzō??” The copy ninja shrieked. Of all people, his kōhai is the last person he would have thought would butt his head into his love life.
“He said, and I’m quoting here, ‘Kakashi’s behavior towards you is consistent with that of someone having a crush,’ and I did not believe him at first, but he was…persistent.” Kakashi squirmed under the weight of the sheer fondness he saw in Gai’s eyes. He found himself at loss, not knowing what to say, and could only let out a small and unsteady noise of frustration over the crown of flowers in his hands.
“So,” Gai prompted, “do you?”
“Uh?”
“Do you have a crush?”
OK, so this was it. The culmination of his mission. Kakashi took a long breath.
“No,” he said, and he saw disappointment darkening Gai’s expression, his gaze turning downward in shame. He allowed it to happen only for a moment, though, and he immediately surged towards the man and cupped his face with a hand, forcing his face up to look at him again. The bouquet paper crinkled between them, the fragrance of the roses filling both their noses.
“I don’t have a crush,” Kakashi said. His fears and anxieties melted away when he saw Gai blush at how the copy ninja gently caressed his sharp cheekbone. “I am in love with you."
Gai gasped, and it was that wretched sound, almost like a sob, that broke a dam inside Kakashi.
“I want to spend every day of the rest of my life listening to you talk about your passionate youth, I want to go to bed with you every night and wake up by your side the next morning, I want do a million more of our challenges until we are both wrinkly and cranky and cannot move anymore, I want to show everyone in Konoha that you are mine and I want everyone to know that I am yours, I want our students and friends to tease us all the time that we are like an old married couple because we are.” He stopped abruptly. Gai was looking at him with wide eyes and his mouth hanging open. Oh my, was that too much? Did he fuck it up already?
“If you want me,” Kakashi added quickly, flustered, and he counted it as a victory when his voice broke only a bit towards the end of the sentence. He heard a soft chuckle and raised his eyes to look at the other man.
“Kakashi,” Gai said, and his voice was low between them, but clear. “I have loved you for thirty years. Of course I want you.” And then, because Gai had always been the bolder between the two of them, he gently grabbed Kakashi’s head, closed his eyes and lowered the mask. He kissed him stupid, until Kakashi felt dizzy from the lack of air and the intensity of it all. Like he did with everything else, Gai put all his heart into kissing too. Kakashi was glad for the strong hands that had moved to his sides to hold him up.
“All good?” Gai whispered against the soft skin of his jaw. Kakashi shivered from head to toes.
“Perfect,” he said.