Translation

Translation


Summary- There are some things that Gai, for all his verbosity, has the good grace not to talk about.

Warnings- Anal, oral, blood play, bondage, masochism, yaoi, language, and spoilers galore for the Kakashi-Gaiden arc. It takes place both during and pre-series.

AN- This is a GaixKakashi story dealing with masochism. It chronicles the not so simple relationship of Gai and Kakashi and is my attempt to explore the psychological beginnings of masochistic behavior.

As a precaution, I’m warning you now that distinction between present time and flashbacks are pointedly vague and indistinct. There will be no flashback or italicized section to warn you of the change in time or narration. I have done this for reason which should be clear as the story progresses. It’s also a way for me to experiment with another writing style.

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Chapter One


There are some things that Gai and Kakashi just don’t say to each other. It’s not that they can’t. It’s that they don’t know how. Some things got mixed up somewhere along the line, back when I love you actually meant I love you and they didn’t speak in misfires and silence.

Kakashi is the worst offender. He speaks in riddles, ambiguities, and the things he doesn’t say. He just depends on Gai to know that he really wants one thing when he asks for something completely different. He says leaves me alone when he really means help me. Gai pretends that there’s no difference and goes about being a savior. He likes, wants, to be needed. It’s one of the things that makes Gai, Gai.

Saving Kakashi, Kurenai, and Asuma from Itachi was an instinctive reflex, born into the toddler who saved ants from death and honed by twenty years of the shinobi life. More than that even, because when Gai was two his father gave him a blunt wooden kunai and tried to give him a lesson on throwing techniques. Naturally he found the weapon fascinating, especially when he discovered that sucking on it was a good way to pass the time. He was equally pleased, when he was four and could better grasp the concept of weaponry, that throwing it at trees was also a grand way to pass the time in the feel of the throw, calculating angles and trajectories before he knew what angles and trajectories were.

Coming home with Kakashi is also, if not even more of, an instinctive action. Gai looked up and down the hall. The bachelor quarters for Konoha shinobi were a scanty affair, white walls marred by dirt and various unidentifiable stains. The air conditioning units heard through open doors thrummed erratically, most of them malfunctioning to some degree. Four blocks down, Gai’s own air conditioner was working perfectly, the house cool to the touch. The hall felt three times warmer in comparison. Beneath his feet cheap carpeting full of blood stains took on the weight of yet another shinobi as Gai craned his neck to make sure the hall was clear of people. Squatting down, Gai lifted up the corner of the dilapidated doormat with the welcome nearly worn away to look for a key to the apartment. He didn’t expect there to be a key really, but never let it be said that he hadn’t tried all possible tactics before resorting to illegality. As he assumed, there was no key under the mat. The only things under the door mat were a small spider which evacuated the premise upon his intrusion and another quite sizeable brown stain. What possible injury Kakashi had sustained to bring home such a large amount of blood was something Gai didn’t want to dwell on too long.

He knocked hastily, cringing as the sound filled the hallway. No one poked their head through their apartment doors to see what was going on. Gai breathed a sigh of relief before reaching into his vest pocket and fishing out the hairpin he borrowed from Kurenai. He felt uncomfortable doing this; Kakashi took to seclusion when things were bad and privacy on good days. Gai respected that and he knew he was stepping on toes, knew Kakashi would probably send him away. He just. . .he hadn’t seen him since he was released from the hospital and Kakashi just hadn’t been all the way there then.

Picking the lock took a while to pull off. Gai’s forte wasn’t picking locks or hiding in shadows with a kunai. Subterfuge didn’t sit well with him. Subterfuge and ambush were for people like Genma, quick handed and quiet and already under consideration for ANBU a year after making jounin. He heard all the talk. Genma was exceptionally good at killing people so that they died in secret. Gai would never make a good assassin.

The apartment, if you could call one room with a bed and a stove an apartment, was quiet except for the puttering hum of the air conditioner. Buried beneath the choking cough of the air is the sound of Kakashi’s faint breathing. The shades were drawn tightly shut, making the room dim and magnifying the dearth of decoration. Back in Gai’s house, the paintings, pictures, and knick knacks his mother put up were still in place. Kakashi’s apartment felt like a tomb. Gai compressed to urge to yell something into the house, fill it with real, living noises instead of the mechanical drone of the air conditioner.

Kakashi’s breathing was rhythmic and slow as Gai stepped closer. He wasn’t under the blankets or wearing comfortable clothing, just the black jounin uniform without the bulky vest. His feet were bare. His mask wasn’t on his face. Gai couldn’t remember the last time he saw Kakashi’s un-obscured face. Five years, at least. Back when they were kids. There was no scar on his face then, no angry red line running from eyebrow to jaw. His face had been bandaged in the hospital, left eye swathed in gauze. He looked small like that, sleeping in a dark room mid-afternoon with his face so open.

The bright red of the scar drew garish attention to itself and the pale tone of his skin. Gai followed its path from just above Kakashi’s slim eyebrow to just below midway down his cheek. The culprit appeared to be a sword, and a sharp one at that. Gai wondered how deeply his face had been slashed before the medic-nins has gotten a hold of him. In the hospital, the entire left side of his face was swathed in bandages and gauze. His breathing had been shallow, aided by machine. Shock, mostly, the medic-nins told him the first time he visited. Shock, hysterics, and massive blood loss.

He must have been exhausted not to wake up as Gai took the blanket at the foot of the bed and draped it over his legs. He was normally so alert, to sound, movement, chakra patterns, that Gai was completely thrown by the stillness with which the action was received. He’d expected Kakashi to say something, to throw a customary curt insult at him, a scornful laugh. Or at the very least open his eyes. To his disappointment, there was nothing. Just a whisper of breath and the overwhelming feeling that he still wasn’t there. Or maybe just that something was missing.

Biting back the urge to run his finger over the scar, to get a reaction from him if nothing else, Gai looked frantically around the miniscule space for something to keep him occupied. He shouldn’t be there, but it felt just as wrong to leave as it did to stay. Movement, he needed to have movement. He had to move in Kakashi’s place.

Kakashi’s holster was draped neatly over the single chair wedged securely between the desk he used as a table and the wall. Perpetually paranoid Kakashi followed in the footsteps of every perpetually paranoid shinobi before him by keeping his back against the wall, safe from imaginary enemies. There was just enough room for Gai to slip into the chair carefully and even more cautiously rifle through the shuriken holster without letting too many of the razor-precise metal edges clank together. As he suspected, they were dried with enemy blood. After the injury Kakashi has sustained, Gai wasn’t surprised that he’d let his meticulous nature waver. He’d heard the nurses talking of sliced retinas, ocular arteries, optic nerves. The possibility of going blind.

The metal cleaning solution was stored in one of the desk drawers. Kakashi’s desk appeared to function as more of a storage area than an actual desk. There was a considerable lack of paper and pens and an abundance of kunai, extra masks, and books on tactical strategy. No photographs were in sight, not even the group photo of his team which was a Konoha tradition among the sensei. Gai had his up in his room on the shelf alongside his bed, next the gloves he wore for sparing.

Deftly, he poured a liberal amount of solution onto a well-used rag and began polishing the shuriken methodically. His fingers knew exactly what to do without looking down, without nicking his skin. He felt more than saw the blood soaking into the cloth. He didn’t stop until he could see his reflection in the surfaces.

Gai was startled when Kakashi let out a brief, shuddering breath. It rattled through his lungs. He stayed frozen as one of his grayish blue eyes cracked open, a little kid caught sneaking around in places where adults told him not to go. They were the same age, Gai actually older by nine months, but Kakashi had always been like an authority figure. His mother would have said that he listened too hard.

Kakashi’s mouth formed a soundless word, his vocal chords not cooperating with him. Gai imagined it was his name. Hesitantly, he slipped out from behind the desk and walked to the edge of the bed. His eyes were closed again, but his chest no longer rose and fell to the rhythmic pattern of sleep.

“My mask,” the disoriented shinobi managed to murmur in a voice that sounded like the dragging of gravel.

“Don’t worry about it,” Gai assured him. “It’s just me.”

This time, Kakashi opened both eyes to look at him. Gai was startled by the sight that greeted him. His left eye wasn’t just damaged, it was gone, replaced by the foreign crimson color of the Sharingan. The effect was unnerving, knowing that he’d been right along about something being missing. He threw it at him like an accusation. But it wasn’t Gai’s fault. It wasn’t. It was Kakashi looking for scapegoats again.

As quickly as he opened them, he closed them again, groaning in pain as he did. “Fuck,” he said under his breath. He covered the eye that wasn’t his with his palm and opened the other one. “The doctor said it wasn’t supposed to hurt like this after a few days.”

Gai said nothing in response. Kakashi probably didn’t want him to say anything anyway. Kakashi never wanted anyone to say anything to him unless it was the absolutely right, unquestionably perfect thing to say. Gai always felt like he was being graded on his responses whenever he talked to him and he could never earn that “A” Kakashi looked for.

Just as he expected, Kakashi said nothing further on the matter. Closing his real eye, he rolled over unto his side, back facing Gai. He didn’t say thank you for coming, he didn’t berate him for breaking into his private domain. He didn’t say get out, didn’t say sit down or make himself some tea. Gai could leave or stay. It was the first thing he really said since waking up. Silence breaking silence. It hurts Gai’s chest sometimes, listening to the words between the words. Kakashi takes the metaphorical literally and the literal metaphorically. Gai can’t keep up with him. That’s why he was so late in coming to the scene of Kakashi’s confrontation with Itachi and Kisame. Kakashi lies like he’s in love.

He’d call him stupid for doing it, but Kakashi isn’t very good at understanding how much he hurts Gai when he goes off without saying anything. The Tsukuyomi is a dangerous attack, a killer from all sides. After hearing about Sasuke’s encounter with his brother, Gai can only shudder when he imagines what kind of images brought about Kakashi’s vacant eyes. He understands just as much as anyone else that the feeling of dying is infinitely worse than dying. The pain is gone when you die.

He wanted to be alone with Kakashi after bringing him home from the hospital. He didn’t expect Kurenai and Asuma to show up with sympathy and concerns about the things to come. Then Sasuke arrived on the scene and Gai knew he couldn’t stay long after that. Kakashi would have stopped him from following his brother, so Gai had to rescue him if he could. For Kakashi. He does everything for Kakashi, stays by his side as his “eternal rival” because the word lover scares the silver haired man as much as losing Sasuke would. He really, really doesn’t want to tell Kakashi about Sasuke chasing after Itachi, even if he came back. He knows that Kakashi will see the same thing he sees in Sasuke, mirror after mirror after mirror. In the mirror he looks like his mother, but he couldn’t see her on the day of the funeral. He watched as his grandmother draped black shawls and linens over the mirrors in the house. Gai hated the black of those shawls. He hated the sobriety of the color and he hated all of the sad eyes that seem to follow him wherever he goes. Most of all, he hated Kakashi for wearing black every single day and not caring how much it upset him. Gai can’t recognize himself next to him.

He’d always been quiet, the exact opposite of loud, opinionated Gai. Kakashi was the absolute antithesis of Gai. Gai was out-spoken where Kakashi was contained, rash where he was analytical, bold where Kakashi hung in shadow. Gai was bright where Kakashi was dark. Lately, he was even more contained than usual, retreating inside himself instead of reaching out to Gai. Barely dead for two weeks and Kakashi did nothing to help in those somber, black funeral clothes.

There was no hug at the funeral. No pat on the shoulder or comforting words. Just a few words that honestly, truly made Gai hate him.

“Now do you know how it feels to be a ninja?”

Gai couldn’t answer that. The words, although quiet and composed, seemed to Gai full of unwarranted vindictiveness. They threatened to pull his whole world down around his feet. Kakashi would have been satisfied with that.

He could see it more and more with each passing day. It felt like they’re drifting apart. But then again, he wasn’t sure if they were ever close enough together to drift anywhere to begin with. He tentatively reaches out his hand to wrap his fingers around Kakashi’s wrist. He finds his pulses and rests his first two fingers lightly over the barely noticeable beating of the vein. The flow of blood is steadily strong, but sluggish. Gai would give anything to be able to infiltrate Kakashi’s mind to find out what Itachi had done to him. He had to have known it would happen. As good as Kakashi is, his genius is nothing compared to Uchiha Itachi, borrowed Sharingan or not.

Gai desperately wishes he would be more careful with his life. He doesn’t think Kakashi wants to die, per say, but he doesn’t think he’ll mind dying either. He can’t decide which is worse. He also can’t decide if he liked Kakashi better before or after they started sleeping together. For all his confidence and flamboyance, Gai is an indecisive shadow around Kakashi. He doesn’t know what to think and he just barely knows what to do.

Truth be told, Gai didn’t know what he was getting into at the time. If he had, maybe he wouldn’t have done it. Of course, there’s nothing good to be said about hindsight. There was no way he could have known, or even guessed, and even if he had, he was pretty sure that he still would have done the same thing. He never did do things the easy way.

The motion had come so naturally, too. He was five years old at the time, and all he wanted was a new friend. The silver-haired boy didn’t seem much different from the other kids he knew, not at first. In hindsight (damn that hindsight) maybe he should have known. Silver hair on a five year old? Kakashi was already older than he was supposed to be.

Teachers loved Kakashi. Gai, like other students, bordered somewhere on the milky border between jealousy and awe. He wanted to know how may hours Kakashi had to practice to hit the bulls-eye on the targets every single time. He wanted to know how long Kakashi studied in order to ace every test. He wanted to know why he sat in the back corner of the class, stayed inside during recess, and answered in nods and shakes. He didn’t understand how someone like Kakashi could not have any friends when he desperately wanted at least one person to call a friend.

So Gai, as he was prone to doing when feeling absolutely Certain about the Right course of Action, took it upon himself to offer his friendship to the quiet Kakashi. In Gai’s firm opinion, loneliness was a thing no one should have to deal with. He didn’t like being alone, so why should Kakashi?

Back then, back before Kakashi wore a mask and back before Gai’s eyebrows had grown in completely, Gai held out his hand and offered to be Kakashi’s friend. The already genin Kakashi looked down at the proffered hand with the more curiosity than he thought was necessary. Gai sat next to Kakashi up until graduation day, but wasn’t sure if Kakashi actually knew his name.

He didn’t say yes and he didn’t say no. “You’re weird,” was his only reply. In hindsight, Kakashi is quite aware that Gai’s stubborn streak began in that very moment of time.

He’s also quite aware that he’s no longer alone in his apartment. His eyes are open, because he can feel the dry itch of them, but he can’t see a damn thing. And he can’t bring himself to blink. He can barely bring himself to breathe, let alone move a muscle. Everything hurts: his muscles scream, his skin burns, his tendons twinge, his organs heave, and his bones crack. All of it hurts so badly. He’d scream if he didn’t think it’d kill him.

It doesn’t help that he feels imaginary holes in his body, phantom blood pouring from his chest.

Kami, you’d think it wouldn’t feel so good to be bleeding like that.


TBC

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I’m trying out this thing they call shorter chapters. The last chapter I wrote for December was over 10,000 words long. This one clocks in around 3,200.

Let me know what you think of this. . .whatever it is. It was hard to write. The rest of the story promises to be just as difficult.