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“I heard,” Gai says, with booming volume, “that you had accepted a most glorious team!”
Kakashi slouches aggressively on the couch in the Jounin Relief Station, Icha Icha so close to his face that it’s practically glued to his nose. “Mmmphfll,” he says.
Gai steps right up on top of the low coffee table in front of him and gives his best Thumbs Up Pose and Sparkling Grin Combination Technique.
Three jounin decide to immediately leave the station, taking cups of coffee and newspapers with them. It’s a low score, far from his personal best, but the Relief Station is sparsely populated at this hour. Gai makes a mental promise that he will scare off four jounin — no! Five! — next time, to make up for it.
Kakashi himself doesn’t waver, as expected from his Eternal Rival. “So cool and hip,” Gai marvels. “I’m sure you will rise admirably to the challenge of caring for such vibrant young spirits.”
Kakashi does not immediately divert the conversation at the word challenge and have them doing Speed Sudoku or leaping from one side of the Relief Station to the other, which is how Gai knows he’s truly and deeply worried about teaching this team.
There aren’t many ways Kakashi has ever failed in his life, but the ones that have have left deep and terrible scars.
After failing seven teams, Gai had suspected that Kakashi would simply… never accept one. He thinks this team must be something very special to even get this far.
“I, myself, find teaching to be a truly rewarding past-time!” Gai says, encouraging. “You must attend my team training tomorrow morning, to see for yourself how bright the sparks of youth shine!” He gives a booming laugh. “Five am every morning! You should see their enthusiasm!”
And oh, his adorable students are enthusiastic. Gai had half chosen the training time with as a challenge with himself — guessing how long his students would last with the early hour. But they had far surpassed all his estimates! Truly, surprising and wonderous.
Kakashi slouches even further, practically sliding off the couch. “I’ll think about it,” he says lazily. Gai knows that means he will be there, watching every interaction with as much dedication and analysis as he would apply to a mission. He hopes that he and his team do not disappoint — not that the children will, of course — and that Gai is able to adequately demonstrate how to support them in their efforts.
Gai is never quite sure what kind of teacher Namikaze Minato had been — bright and genius though he was — but Kakashi had adored him to the ends of the earth and back. Those memories are too hard to look at, to pick apart for mere techniques. Kakashi will have to look elsewhere, and there’s nowhere Gai would rather have him look.
He flexes into a bicep curl, propping his fist underneath his chin and staring broodily out the window. “Yes, for training tomorrow we must do something new and challenging!”
Kakashi looks at him over the top of his book, warm and fond and amused. “I’m sure they’ll love that,” he says, “but if it’s a challenge you want...”
Kakashi is typically closed mouthed about his students, but Gai has long since learnt how to read into his silences. He’s at turns bemused and bewildered by them, but trying to cautiously shape them into a team. Their D-ranks seem to be the same kind of fumbling awkward near-disasters that Gai remembers from Team 9’s early days — when Neji was too haughty and Tenten was too enthusiastic and Lee couldn’t keep up with either of them.
They’ll manage, he thinks, happily enduring Kakashi’s hangdog looks at the lack of instant perfection, his confusion at the pre-teen squabbling and the slight indignation at the complete lack of respect they have for his status as an Elite Jounin.
They’re all things that Kakashi richly deserves.
And then Team Seven comes back from their first C-rank mission.
“I can’t do this,” Kakashi says, slumping down to sit next to Gai, despite the fact that the couch in Gai’s apartment is barely deserving of the name and hardly fits both of them. He’s pressed in close enough that Gai can feel the heat radiating off of him, can smell the road dust and travel dirt.
Kakashi hasn’t even gone home yet. Kakashi hasn’t even gone back to his apartment, rather, to clean up or restock.
He’d just come straight to Gai.
“A team requires time to grow into themselves!” Gai says, a gentle reminder. He has various stories of Team 9’s early missions, though he is loathe to simply spread tales of how his students had floundered and failed as fresh genin. Those sort of things should be hoarded for the appropriate occasion — such as when they became Jounin themselves. “One cannot expect them to master everything on the first mission.”
“They nearly died,” Kakashi says.
Gai stops. “What happened?”
There’s a time for reassurance and lightening the mood and then there’s a time when he needs facts.
Kakashi runs his hand over his face, leaning forward to prop his elbows on his knees. He seems tired — like he’s used too much chakra and hasn’t rested enough. It’s a look that Gai is familiar with on him.
Carefully, Gai rests a hand on the back of his neck. Some of the tension drains out of Kakashi’s shoulders.
“I fucked up,” Kakashi says, as uncompromising for his own failures as always. “We ran into— we ran into fucking Zabuza Momochi. I got taken out of the fight. He could have killed them. Gai… he could have killed them.” He gives a dry, humourless laugh, more disbelief than anything. “The only reason they’re alive is because he’s not as bad as his reputation suggests.”
That... sounds worse than anything Gai could possibly have predicted.
“But they are alive?” he asks because Gai isn’t sure anything would break Kakashi more than losing a student. His whole life has been a parade of losses, but that’s not one that either of them have had to deal with or — fate willing — will have to deal with.
“Yeah,” Kakashi says, with a long, bone weary sigh. “They did good. They did… everything they should have. Nothing I told them to, of course,” he adds wryly, “but everything anyone could have asked from them.”
“Well, that is what you get for making your first lesson ‘question all orders’,” Gai can’t resist pointing out.
“‘Look underneath the underneath’,” Kakashi corrects half heartedly. “They’re getting pretty good at it.”
He sounds proud.
Gai can feel his own heart swelling in size. “What exceptional students,” he says, sniffing slightly to hold back tears.
Kakashi makes a sound of agreement. “They’re alright,” he says. “But they need so much more training.”
Gai beams, even though Kakashi isn’t looking to see it. “More training! A most youthful solution! Allow me to assist in any way I can.”
Kakashi snorts. “I don’t think they’re ready for you, just yet,” he says. But he seems lighter, like Gai has managed to take some of the weight off of his shoulders. He rises and stretches. “Ah. I need to borrow your shower. Shikako-chan invited us all to the Nara household for dinner.”
He disappears into the bathroom before Gai can react in surprise to the implication that Kakashi means to go. Of his own free will even.
Team Seven, Gai thinks, really has been good for Kakashi. He looks forward to meeting them.