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

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

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.

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

"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?"

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."

"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.

"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."

"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."

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

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."

"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."

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."

"I would have been okay with dying that way though." He lifted his head, taking in a deep breath. "I never expected to wake up, but I don't plan to waste it, okay?"

He was trying not to think about sacrifices and what it meant to die for someone. It was a gift, really, to have accomplished that and to also live to see the effect. Wasn't it? Gai hadn't ever considered that possibility before. But he liked Obito's attitude.

"Okay." Gai smiled a big, sparkly, tearful grin and gave Obito another little squeeze. "I promise I will not let you waste it either."

"What, going to be my guardian angel or something?" He wasn't pulling away from the hold, but he was a bit awkward in it too. He wasn't really used to non-Kushina hugs. Or chibi hugs, but that was a whole other category.

Gai chuckled and blushed, embarrassed by how odd his offer sounded when Obito repeated it back to him like that. He gave an awkward shrug around the hug and loosened it since Obito looked uncomfortable. Maybe he was applying pressure to an injury...Gai would hate to compound anything. "If that it what you would like to call it, sure!"

He peered at him, looking... a bit confused, wary. "Just like that?"

"Yes!" Gai beamed. Was there a problem with declaring it and making it so? ...Ah, unless perhaps Obito preferred it less casual. "Would you rather some kind of formal ceremony? If so, I am sure we could ask your sensei to perform it!"

He gave a little shake of his head, his bewilderment growing. "Like... fealty?"

"Fealty?! That is not..." He struggled for the word he did mean so Obito would understand him and stop looking at him like he had grown two heads. Yes, yes, there was loyalty in there, but fealty suggested to Gai some sort of hierarchy. And they were equals! "I mean-- It is more...fraternity!"

"Fraternity." His tone was flat, but his expression didn't change.

"What?!" Gah! Did he have to look at Gai like that? "Is there something wrong with that word? I think it is accurate! Unless... there is another definition?"

"Ah... no. Just. I." And then the blush was suddenly back with a vengeance and he rubbed at the back of his head, glancing up and tot he side in fluster. What kind of offer was that?!

"Then...you accept?". Gai was unsure what Obito's expression meant to his offer, but he was hopeful that now it was understood at least. "I promise I will be the best guardian angel for you! The best ever!"

"Fine. Fine! Okay. Just don't go... being all hovery okay? That would just get weird." Not that this wasn't a weird conversation on many many levels already, but he was drawing a line here.

"I will leave the hovering to Kakashi! Have no fear!" A thumbs-up followed, just in case, just to make sure Obito knew that was a promise.

"...Rught. Because Kakashi can be such a mother hen." It was almost a deadpan of words as he stared at him.

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