[Closed] Look, you were kind of over the top.

[thebestuchiha]

Where: Konoha Training Fields
When: BGS 16, January 23rd
Notes: He didn't know why Gai had been attempting to be 'helpful' the last few months, but he figured he might as well let the guy know he had... noticed.

He still felt clumsy. Painfully clumsy in fact, because honestly, the growth spurt had done more to fuck him up than the actual damage had. He'd been out for a few weeks though, and while he'd gotten used to Kakashi hovering around the edges, to say nothing of how Rin had handled the whole thing...

Gai having decided to throw himself behind it had been weird. They hadn't been friends before, and he honestly hadn't even been sure he liked the guy. But he'd distracted Kakashi when he'd been a bit too unhealthily fixated on making sure he didn't die in his sleep or anything so... there was that.

And when he wasn't being blindingly loud he'd proven to actually have good ideas so...

So here he was, poking around to try to figure out where the guy spent his time when he wasn't hovering around the hospital hassling recovering shinobi half to death. He just hoped the guy didn't immediately ratchet back to over the top because that would... kind of defeat what he was trying to get done here.

Comments

[morningpeacock]

"Making it true is the same as it being true, Obito!" Gai declared with another jab at the other boy's nose. "And that makes it real. Totally real!" It was a logic that worked for Gai, anyway, even if it wasn't the clearest or most sane logic.

[thebestuchiha]

"Makes it real to other people. If it's real to you, it's the act of smiling that makes you happy, not the smile itself." He hitched up a shoulder in a shrug.

[morningpeacock]

Gai chuckled and looked away, his smile softening. "You are a lot wiser than Kakashi gives you credit for, Obito!"

[thebestuchiha]

"Kakashi is smart, really smart, but he's also really stupid." It was a point blank blunt statement, and he eyed the other teen thoughtfully, his smirk fading. "But I think you knew that."

[morningpeacock]

Gai shrugged. "I would not call him stupid--" he began, trying to be polite, "but yes, he is. He is...getting there, though. With time he will better understand people, and himself." Or he hoped so, anyway. "I would like to think that we are helping him."

[thebestuchiha]

"I know I helped him when I got squashed flat..." He paused, expression turning sheepish. "And maybe gave him some new paranoias but..."

[morningpeacock]

He cringed in sympathy.

"Kakashi will always be paranoid. At least now he is genuinely worried about his friends."

[thebestuchiha]

"Yeah, well, I punched the idea into him. Of course it stuck." So what if he sounded a little smug.

[morningpeacock]

He rubbed his knuckles. Ah, Obito possessed a talent Gai didn't, then. He brushed off the sour taste of jealousy as best he could.

"I would like to learn your methods someday, if you do not mind!"

[thebestuchiha]

He sobered briefly, wariness coming and going in his expression. But he didn't shove the other teen out of his face. "Not your style."

[morningpeacock]

"I am adaptable!" he insisted. Gai would not be told he could not do something, after all.

[thebestuchiha]

"So you're really the kind of guy who would grab something painful to a person and shove it into their face even if it hurts them?" He held his gaze, waiting.

[morningpeacock]

The eager look fell away and Gai studied Obito's scarred face slowly. "No. Are you?" He felt strangely protective of Kakashi all of a sudden. "...What did you say to him?"

[thebestuchiha]

"Things he would say himself if he wanted you to know." His expression was clear though, guiltless and set that he hadn't done anything wrong. "I've started to learn that people respond to that."

[morningpeacock]

He nodded. Likely, Gai would never know what was said that had effectively changed Kakashi so deeply. If Obito wouldn't say, Kakashi certainly wouldn't.

What Gai had said earlier, that Obito was far wiser than Kakashi gave him credit for, was a terrible understatement. Obito was strangely insightful. Perhaps that was what happens when one nearly dies. "Whatever you said to him worked. I suppose, however hurtful, out of pain comes growth!"

[thebestuchiha]

"See? Not really your style at all." He gave a little shrug, waiting to see what Gai would do with it, a little tense.

[morningpeacock]

"No, I prefer a more physical approach! If out of pain comes growth, then no better growth than from training! Muscles grow stronger from labor! Just..." Gai couldn't believe he was defending Kakashi.

"Be careful with Kakashi? He is not fragile, but he is still breakable. And now that he cares, he is perhaps even more vulnerable than before. Whatever your power over him, do not abuse it?"

[thebestuchiha]

He turned his head, looking intently to the side for a moment, hands flexing restlessly before he looked back again. He lifted his chin on a deep breath, resolved and caught between being pleased and offended. "Kakashi has been my business for a long time. I'm not going to ruin him."

[morningpeacock]

"He was mine first!" Gai objected, defiant against that lifted-chin, pleased look that Obito's Uchiha features wore so well. "He is my Rival! My business! You had better not 'ruin him,' or you will be answering to me!"

To be honest, he knew that with whatever Obito had said, whatever changed Kakashi, Gai had lost some of his claim on his Rival. It hadn't quite occurred to him before how jealous that made him, or how unsure, and in the face of uncertainty, Gai put up a show of bravado.

[thebestuchiha]

"He wasn't anyone's." The pleased seeped right out of him and he leaned in, taller, though that probably wouldn't last much longer, as unlike Kakashi, Gai actually seemed to be growing. He met his eyes with his own gaze, frowning.

"Don't you get it? We were both beating on a wall that wasn't letting anyone in."

[morningpeacock]

"With enough dedication and hard work, he would have. I know it." Gai's voice was quiet. He wanted to believe it, stubbornly, that he could have changed Kakashi all on his own, and gotten the other boy to open that metaphorical door for him. He didn't want to believe that he had lost to Obito when it really mattered. "What kind of Eternal Rival would I be if I could not achieve at least that much for him?" Behind his smile and determination, his eyes looked for some sense of affirmation from someone else, for the first time in a long while. "After all, for a Rivalry to be worth its title, it must force both sides to grow and change."

[thebestuchiha]

"He talks to you. I just bludgeoned him with my death." It was a blunt statement, and he leaned away, against the tree. "Yay."

[morningpeacock]

Gai slowly scooted closer to Obito's side, abandoning his own insecurities for the moment, though unsure what words to offer. Obito sounded like Kakashi in that moment, deeply bitter with a growing darkness, though more emotional and slightly less empty.

"You shocked him, not bludgeoned him. It hit here," Gai pointed to his heart, then, pointing to his own head, "not here. Like a defibrillator. You brought his heart back up to speed." He shrugged. "...I do not know if it matters how much he talks to me if he never listens to me. He listened to you."

[thebestuchiha]

"And I about died for it." He looked away, down and to the side, pressing his lips together. "And now he feels guilty about it when that wasn't the point."

[morningpeacock]

Gai put an arm around Obito's shoulders and pulled him into a gentle hug. He could already feel his own eyes tearing up in sympathy. "That is not your fault."