Falling back against his bed, Gai stared up at the ceiling. What he wanted to do was scream, perhaps curse a little, and storm back over to Kakashi’s room to give him a piece of his mind.
He refrained, though. No matter how upset he was with Kakashi’s behaviour he refused to lower himself to that level. He was better than that.
“He’s just so…”
“Angry?” Obito jumped up from the floor onto the window ledge, his flames flickering as he landed.
“Insufferable?” Plodding along the floor, Asuma lifted his eyes toward the bed and sighed.
“Rude?” Swooping down, Kurenai scooped Asuma into her arms and lifted him onto the bed, only placing him down after she’d pressed a kiss to the top of his little clock head.
“All of the above,” Gai groaned. “Why? No matter what I do he gets angry. I could be walking the dog or trimming the hedges or doing laps around the castle and he always seems to find a reason to get angry with me.”
“Well, you have to understand-” Turning his head to the left he narrowed his eyes at the tiny clock. “Well, my understanding isn’t the right word.”
“He’s just trying to look out for you,” Obito continued, waving his little flames around as he spoke. “He’s just kind of like that. He does it with all of us.”
“He’s rude to all of you?” Sitting up, Gai rubbed his hands over his face. “How? How do you handle it? How do you keep living here with someone who yells at you for every little thing that you do?”
Asuma trodded along the bed back to Gai’s side. “We can’t exactly leave,” he pointed out. “I mean, where would we go? If anyone else saw us they’d freak out.”
“You don’t know that.”
“We do, actually,” Jumping down to the bed, Obito rolled his eyes when Asuma glared back at him. “Some of our friends have left in the past. Usually to gather supplies in the forest, or to try to find help when the curse was first placed on the castle.”
“And? What happened?” Turning himself around, Gai reached out a hand and waited for Obito to jump on it. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust the candle not to burn something, he’d just prefer if that ‘something’ wasn’t the bed he was supposed to sleep on.
“None of them came back,” With a shrug of his handles, Obito did a little hop and turned mid-air so that he was facing Gai. “He went out searching for them, but all he ever came back with were…”
Silence fell over Obito at that moment.
“Were what?” Gai pressed.
Swooping into the room, Rin headed straight for the nightstand and began dusting. “You all look gloomy,” she commented while dust flew all around her. “What happened? Did Kakashi do something again?”
“He yelled at Gai for trying to use the sheers on some of the bushes,” waving away the clouds of dust, Obito smiled when Rin turned her attention to him. “You know how he is.”
“Protective,” Rin answered without hesitation before continuing with her work.
“Protective?” Gai huffed. “It’s not like I was going to hurt myself on some garden sheers.”
Stopping in her tracks, Rin tilted her head. “Not of you, though I’m sure that will change with time,” she added when Gai raised an eyebrow. “No, he’s protective of us.”
“Of you?”
“Ya,” she nodded “We’ve, well…”
“That’s what Obito was trying to say,” plopping himself down with a grunt, Asuma looked up at Gai. “When he’d come back from the forest, it was always with shards. Little pieces of our friends.”
A wave of nausea washed over Gai.
Shards. Little pieces of remnants left behind after a cup had been broken, or a broom splintered. Body parts turned into furniture, broken apart in an instant.
As realization sank in, Gai found himself regretting storming away from Kakashi the way he had. He’d been so insulted thinking that Kakashi believed him to be incompetent with simply gardening sheers, especially gardening sheers that could control themselves, that he had allowed his anger to get the best of him.
He’d stormed away, leaving Kakashi standing outside alone in the cold, all because he’d thought the beast didn’t believe him capable of doing something as simple as trimming some hedges. “He thought I-”
“Not that you’d do it on purpose!” Swooping up toward him, Rin landed in his hand beside Obito. “He’s just seen so many of our friends broken, sometimes by accident and sometimes on purpose. He’s always acting overprotective of us. We can’t even leave the castle grounds without him at our side anymore because he doesn’t want to have to carry more broken pieces back to the castle.”
Lowering his hand, Gai set the two human’s turned objects back down on his bed beside Asuma. “How many?”
“It’s been ten years,” Obito grumbled. “We’ve lost track.”
“We’ve lost track,” Asuma agreed before turning to Gai. “The Master hasn’t. He remembers all of their names, even the ones he wasn’t particularly close with. It’s something that haunts him every day.”
Curling into himself, Gai rubbed his hands over his face. Three months he’d been in the castle, and in all that time he hadn’t heard anything about shattered friends or overprotective princes'.
Stories of the curse had been told to him by multiple sources, including Kakashi himself whose voice had been heavy with remorse as he explained the events of that faithful night to Gai in front of a warm fire.
No one had told him anything about those who hadn’t survived long enough to meet him, though. Not even Naruto, the little teacup who loved to regale him with stories of his life as an enchanted piece of dishware, had ever mentioned any of this.
“He was protecting his friends,” He whispered, the realization weighing on his conscious. “And I lashed out at him for it.”
Rather than being understanding and trying to talk things out, he’d allowed himself to feel insulted at the thought that Kakashi didn’t trust him to care for himself. To ensure he didn’t do anything to injure himself when it wasn’t even him that Kakashi had been fretting over.
“Don’t beat yourself over it,” Jumping up onto his shoulder, Rin dusted his cheek with her feathers, causing him to laugh. “He shouldn’t have yelled at you.”
“Besides, it’s not the end of the world,” Asuma insisted. “The two of you could always make up.”
“Maybe with dinner?” Twirling in her spot, Rin giggled when Gai lifted a hand just in time to save her from toppling off of his shoulder. “A three-course meal.”
“And a dance after!” Obito cheered. “ I can twirl Rin all around the dance floor and-”
Bringing a hand down across the back of Obito’s head, Asuma “This is supposed to be for the master and Gai. Not another opportunity for you to bore Rin.”
Rolling her eyes, Rin jumped off of Gai’s shoulder. “Don’t say that,” she insisted, floating down to Obito’s side and leaning herself up against him. “You do not bore me.”
“Of course, I don’t,” wrapping an arm around her, he waved his free hand toward Asuma. “Besides, Kakashi doesn’t dance.”
A smile stretched across Gai’s face. “Oh, he will,” jumping up from the bed, he turned toward the Wardrobe. “Kurenai, I need your best outfit, and Asuma can you take care of organizing the meal?”
“On it!” without a moment’s hesitation Asuma jumped off of the bed and charged straight for the door.
“And you two,” kneeling, Gai reached out and poked the candle that Obito had just used to usher Asuma away from himself. “Get Kakashi ready. Tell him I have a surprise. An apology of sorts.”
“Fine.”
“But we’ll also be having a chat with him,” slipping away from Obito’s hold, Rin floated toward the door. “He owes you an apology as well, after all.”
Watching as the little candle and feather duster disappeared, Gai grinned. There was a lot of work to do if he wanted this dinner to go perfectly, but it was a challenge he was excited to face.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 13/13
Fandom: Naruto (Anime & Manga)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Hatake Sakumo & Maito Gai | Might Guy, Maito Dai | Might Duy & Maito Gai | Might Guy, Hatake Kakashi & Maito Gai | Might Guy, Maito Gai | Might Guy & Nohara Rin
Characters: Maito Gai
Additional Tags: Letters, letter style fic, Suicide mention, mention of suicide
Summary:
Over the Years Maito Gai has written and sent many letters.
These are just a few of them.
For a week Gai had watched the new stretch of water that had appeared outside of his village the night before his wedding. He’d stared at it from his bedroom window, thankful that whatever it was it had decided to appear in a spot that was easy for him to see from the castle, and wondered just what it was.
There had been parties sent out to the location to check on it. Soldiers equipped with the best training and the strongest weapons, ready to face down a terrifying beast.
Yet, there was nothing.
No monsters lurking within the depths or enemy soldiers hiding away in the bushes waiting to attack.
According to every report he read, it was water.
Just water.
“You can’t be serious,” the queen protested even as she followed him toward the water. She’d tried her best to convince him not to go, but his curiosity was too strong.
For a week he’d watched as his soldiers and scholars examined the water, unable to follow them in case something was waiting to jump out and kill him. After a week and no answers, though, he’d finally had enough.
He wanted to see it for himself.
“You can go back.” he reminded her, though his fingers tightened around her hand as if to say ‘Please don’t leave.’
“What if there’s a monster?” she asked, her steps slowing as they inched closer to the water. “Something hiding inside of the water, waiting to attack.”
“The soldiers would have found it on their searches,” taking another step forward, he grimaced when a beam of sunlight bounced off of the water and struck him in the eye. “They went into the water searching. At least one of them would have been killed, or eaten.”
“Oh,” pulled herself into his side, and she shivered. “Don’t say such things. That’s horrible.”
That he could agree with. The mere thought of losing any of his people to a terrifying monster lurking in the water had haunted his dreams since the first day they noticed the water. Sometimes the dreams were vivid, and the person he was forced to watch being devoured by some terrifying creature was one of those precious people he loved more than anyone else.
Sometimes it was his old Sensei, Choza, who’d waded too far into the water and had been snatched up into jaws larger than the village walls. There’s nothing of him left, and the only sign that anything happened would be the ripples in the water.
Other times, it was his wife. The beautiful woman who he’d chosen as his bride, and who now stood by his side shivering in fear. There was a lot more blood in those dreams, with limbs strewn across the water’s surface.
Those were his least favorite nightmares. The ones that woke him up in the middle of the night dripping sweat and screaming into the air. Every time he’d had that nightmare he’d woken his Queen up and found himself lying about what had scared him so much.
He simply couldn’t bring himself to tell her off the horrors his brain had conjured up for him in his sleep.
The most confusing dream he had, though, included Kakashi.
A running theme of his life. Everything weird that seemed to happen around him had something to do with Kakashi or coincided with one of Kakashi’s visits. This mysterious water, for example, had arrived on the night before his wedding.
The night that he’d spent tangled in Kakashi’s arms enjoying one final bit of freedom to love without restriction before he would be married and crowned as the new King of his land.
In the dreams that included Kakashi, there was no blood. No giant monster lurking in the water waiting to devour whoever dared to tread into its waters.
When Kakashi was there, everything was silent and beautiful. Flowers were growing all along the water. Purples, yellows, pinks, and blues that swayed in the wind. The water was still and beautiful, sunlight sparkling on the surface.
And Kakashi, the most beautiful thing he’d ever laid his eyes on, standing in front of the water with a tender smile and his arms stretched open wide as if he were inviting Gai to join him.
“Gai,” His Queen tugged on his arm, panic in her voice. “Gai, what is that?”
Glancing her way, he frowned when he saw her staring off into the distance. There was panic in her eyes with a bit of confusion mixed in. Curious, he turned his head to find what she was looking at.
That was the easy part.
His eyes located the object in an instant. A large tree standing directly beside the river with branches that reached over the water and long, dangling leaves that flowed down. Some of the leaves seemed to teach the water, causing ripples every time the wind moved them.
It was a Tree he’d never seen before. Not even when he’d stared out at the water over the last week.
“I don’t know,” he admitted, taking a step toward the tree only to have his Queen pull him back. “I just want to see.”
“You don’t know what it is,” she insisted. “It could be a monster. Or a hiding place some enemies have created to lure you in.”
Raising a hand, he cupped her cheek and offered her a gentle smile. “I will be fine,” he assured her.
“You don’t know that.” She argued, gripping his arm a little tighter. “We don’t know what any of this is.”
Glancing back at the tree, he felt his smile grow. Nothing around him made an sense. Long stretches of water didn’t appear out of thin air, and trees didn’t grow in an instant. Those were things that took time, often years, to form.
Yet, here he was. Standing in front of a large line of water that flowed freely, with the most beautiful tree he’d ever seen in his life growing beside it, and rather than feeling terrified by their sudden appearance he felt calm.
Happy, even.
As if it was a place made just for him. The little getaway that he could enjoy at any time, even from the comfort of his bedroom.
“I know.” he took one step forward and his Queen followed. Another step and she gripped his arm a bit tighter, but continued to follow. It continued like this for a third step and a fourth, and until they were standing directly under one of the tree branches.
The wind blew at that moment and lifted the leaves, brushing them against his cheek lightly. His Queen screeched but then started to giggle when the leaves reached out to tickle her cheeks as well.
“It’s a gift,” he declared, his fingers reaching out to touch the leaves. As beautiful as they were, he couldn’t help but feel a wave of sadness washing over him when his fingers first touched him. A sadness that seemed all too real, but which also came with a feeling of comfort that prevented him from pulling his hand away.
Releasing her grip on his arm, his Queen gently brushed the leaves away from her face. “A gift?” she asked. “Who could give such a gift? And to whom?”
“Who could give such a gift?” he repeated, laughter bubbling in his chest. “Why,” turning around, he wrapped the leaves around his neck like a scarf and stuck a heroic pose while his Queen giggled. “The Gods of course. Only they could make something so beautiful.”
“The Gods?” she stepped past him and placed a hand against the Tree itself. “Why would the gods give such a gift?”
“They’re the gods,” he answered as if those three simple words explained everything. “As for who it’s for…”
“You.” The word tickled his ear. A light, sweet word that sent shivers down his spine.
“Me?” he lifted an eyebrow. “Why do you think it’s for me?”
His Queen looked his way with a raised eyebrow. “I didn’t say anything, Love.”
“You didn’t?” He frowned. He was certain he’d heard someone speaking, but his Queen was the only one with him. “I must be hearing things.”
“Or,” dropping her hand from the Tree, she turned to face him. “They’re speaking to you.”
“Who?”
Rolling her eyes she stepped toward him and poked his chest. “The Gods, silly,” she answered. “You said this was a gift from them, right? Perhaps they’re trying to tell you who the gift is for.”
“For me?” He laughed. The thought was nice, but it seemed unlikely. “But why would the Gods give a gift to me?”
“Because you’re nice?” she answered as if it was the easiest question in the world. “And have you seen the festivals you organize for them? My own Kingdom has never had a single festival for the God of Storms, yet you put on three a year and they’re always the biggest celebrations. What God wouldn’t appreciate such devotion? The God of Storms isn’t even the main deity of your city and you put more effort into his festivals than you do for Hashirama. Why wouldn’t he want to give you something in return? A tree, no, a Willow Tree of your very own.”
Willow Tree.
The name sounded so perfect that Gai didn’t bother questioning it. From now on the Tree that sat next to the water with sadness so infused in it that its leaves drooped toward the water, would be known as the ‘Willow Tree’.
He’d make sure that was written down as soon as they got back to the castle. Now, though, he wanted to focus on the topic of his devotion to a certain God.
“That’s…well,” glancing back to the Tree, he couldn’t help but chuckle. What is Queen said was true, and it was a point of contention among his advisors who thought it disrespectful to put more effort into a secondary God’s festivals than the ‘King of the Gods’. Still, he did it every year.
Not as an insult to the God Hashirama, but as Respect to the God of Storms.
“The God Kakashi must adore you,” His queen continued as she made her way to the waterside.
Gai blinked. ‘Kakashi’ was a name he’d heard many times throughout his life, but never from someone else’s lips especially not with the word ‘God’ before it. For a moment he was certain he’d misheard her. There was no way she knew such a name when he’d only ever met one person who went by it.
“What did you say?”
“Surprised?” she chuckled. “The God Kakashi must be pleased with all of the festivals you put on for him. It seems only right that he would want to repay your devotion with a gift.”
“The God Kakashi?”
“Of course!” Narrowing her eyes, his Queen frowned when she saw the confused expression on his face. “Is that not what you call him in your Kingdom?”
“No,” he answered with surprising ease. “We just…Are you speaking of the God of Storms?”
“Of course, I am,” doing a little twirl, she waved an arm toward the River. “A source of water right outside of the Kingdom,” turning slightly, she motioned toward the Tree. “A nice shady Tree to relax under. Both gifts would fit The God of Storms.”
“But you called him-”
“Kakashi,” she confirmed. “That’s how we refer to him back in my home. Why is that so weird to you?”
Thinking back over the years, Gai couldn’t help but laugh at himself.
From childhood, he’d always thought that his friend was just that. A friend who happened to vanish whenever someone else entered the room. Sneaky, quick thinking, always on the lookout for someone who may scold him for trying to keep company with the Prince.
In all of those years, he’d never thought this his friend, the boy he’d grown to love over the years, was one of the Gods. Not just any God either, but the God of Storms. The one who blessed Gai’s Kingdom, and the world, with cool rain which gave life to all of the world's plants.
“That’s why…” tilting his head back, he stared up at the clouds. Clouds that he’d always enjoyed watching with Kakashi at his side, and which always seemed to be overflowing with rain whenever his friend was at his side.
“Love?” His Queen called out to him, her voice full of concern.
Pushing aside all of his thoughts, he focused his attention back on his queen and grinned. “Let’s have a picnic.”
“A- A picnic?” She blinked. “Now?”
“Of course!” Charging forward, he took hold of her hand and immediately started back toward the castle. “I’ll have the cooks make up a basket for us and we can enjoy it under the tree. It’ll show everyone that this can be a place for relaxing and fun!”
A Picnic, and then a visit to the palace gardens.
If he was lucky, he might find a particular God waiting for him under that beautiful Maple Tree where they’d wasted so many hours reading books and telling each other terrible jokes.
Swimming up to the edge of the river, Nakano placed her arms on the grass and lifted herself out of the water. “You didn’t let Papa see you.”
“He wasn’t alone,” Her dad answered as he stepped up to her side. Tilting her head back, she grinned up at him. “I don’t want him trying to talk to me with others around. It would make him look-”
“Weird?”
His eyes lit up with excitement and joy.
“Ya,” he answered with a fond chuckle. “That would be the word.”
“Well, I have some bad news for you,” kicking her feet up out of the water she watched as droplets flew into the air. “He is weird, and so are you.”
“Bad news for me?” Her dad laughed. “Oh, little one,” dropping a hand into her hair, he winked. “If that’s bad news for me, it must be terrible news for you.”
Thinking about it, Nakano sighed.
One week ago she’d burst into existence, her water carving its way through the ground beside her Papa’s village to announce her arrival. Since that moment her dad had stayed with her, keeping her company as the village soldiers searched the water for dangers, and laughing whenever the scholars tried to come up with logical reasons for why this brand-new source of water had appeared out of nowhere.
“When can I meet him?” she asked, her eyes shining bright as she stared up at her dad. “And I mean properly meet him, not just see him.”
Seeing him was easy. She could do that at any time, and she’d even left her home with her dad a few times to visit her Papa’s castle. It wasn’t meeting him, though. No matter how many times she saw him, he still couldn’t see her.
A week she’d been around, and one of her parents didn’t even know she existed.
“Give it time,” her dad whispered. “Let them find out about you first. The stories won’t take long to spread once they start, and before you know it they’ll know your name.”
Nakano rolled her eyes. “Like Papa knew your name?”
“He does know my name,” her dad argued. “He just didn’t know that it also happened to be the name of a God. That’s not my fault.”
“Right,” hoping to her feet, she examined the edge of the water. There was grass everywhere, and the tree her dad had grown for her Papa and her to find shelter under when the sun was too bright, but nothing else. “I want to make something.”
“For?”
“Papa!” She grinned up at him. “Something that he’ll like so he’ll visit more often.”
“Something he’ll like, hmm?” cupping his chin between his thumb and forefinger, he thought for a moment. “He likes flowers and turtles.”
“Oh!” doing a little twirl, just like the one she’d seen her Papa’s wife do, she squealed in excitement. “Yellow flowers! As bright as his smile, and as warm as your hug. They’ll smell beautiful and…”
Her words trailed off as she ran along the water, small yellow flowers growing whenever she stepped. Watching as she went, Kakashi smiled to himself. Just a week ago he’d prepared himself for a final goodbye as his lover made his way toward marriage. He’d never thought too much about what they were doing when they fell into bed together, or what might come out of it.
Everything had changed, though.
Kakashi had become a new person, finally finding himself and the body that he enjoyed being. Nakano had been created by the passion he’d shared with Gai, a perfect mixture of the two of them with her bushy silver eyebrows and blinding toothy grin.
He’d expected sadness and crushing goodbyes, but instead, he’d been gifted with a beautiful energetic daughter who could run circles around him but who also loved to cuddle up against his side and listen to him reading his stories out loud.
The least he could do for Gai after years of love, kindness, and support, was build him a tree. Even if the tree was something crafted using some of his sadness as the love he was giving up, it was still gorgeous.
A gift worthy of the man he loved, and one which he hoped would help Gai feel the love he had for him whenever he sat under it.
“A Willow Tree,” he whispered, repeating the name that Gai’s Queen had tried giving his gift. “Sitting beside a River. How…perfect.”
The only thing left was to think up a name for the water that had been created with Nakano’s existence. The long, flowing stream that had opened from the ocean and continued to the dog’s leg pond that Kakashi called home.
Gai feels the need to introduce Kakashi (human) to his father properly, so he plans out a whole dinner with the castle worker’s and lays everything out perfectly
Only for him to walk in with Kakashi and greet his father (who was already there) and have his father come flying towards them crying ‘my son’s!’ Because he knows that silver hair and someone already told him Kakashi (the beast) was changed back into a human due to Gai’s love
And he also knows Kakashi will be his son cuz he heard the way Gai spoke of him to the village people
He can see his son is head over heels for this strange man who was once a very furry child
Any au! Whatever intriques you can be made into a brilliant new au. An idea based off of cannon but branching off just a little (like what if Dai had back up and was able to survive saving his son and teammates from the seven deadly swordsmen) or something completely different (royalty au, modern au, etc)
What AU do you see Gai fitting into? How does he interact in that au? What other character’s are with him? What’s your favorite part of this au?
