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It’s raining, Gai thinks, distantly, his black eyes fixed on the photo that was smiling at him, silent like all the objects are.
He should worry about the rain weighing down his black, dull clothes, his wet hair stick to his forehead, or his shoes full of cold water, but he can’t move.
He’s using all the strength that he still has to stay on his feet.
He’s surrounded by silence, he barely notices through the thick haze that’s clouding his mind.
It’s so surreal, he thinks.
Everyone has gone home eventually, Gai is the last one standing in front of the cold grave, but he’s not surprised that no one stayed with him.
Genma and Ebisu only tolerates him because they are on the same team. Kakashi has always tried to get rid of his constant presence. And no grown-up really cared about Maito Dai, too weird to be really seen, so why should they care about his son?
And so, Gai is alone.
The Sandaime is the only one that makes an effort to talk to him, with some stupid-ass phrase everyone always says on occasions like this one. Words empty and without a true meaning, Gai thinks, detached.
Gai is so lost in his thoughts that he doesn’t even notice the night falling, or the sun rising the following morning.
At least it doesn rain anymore, even the sky got tired of crying for someone like Maito Dai.
He should train, Gai thinks for a second, unable to bring himself to take his eyes away from the name engraved in the stone in front of him.
He tries to move, but his legs are sore after who knows how much time standing up, they can’t support him very well, and he falls on his knees, moist and muddy soil now clinging to his black pants.
He should go home, clean himself, eat something.
He doesn’t move.
He doesn’t even know what hour is it when Sensei finds him, still there, unmoving in front of the cold grave, and makes him go home because it’s no good for you to stay here, with this cold. You could get sick.
It’s not like Gai cares if he gets sick or not.
Gai asks himself if this is what Kakashi felt when his father died, finding himself alone in a house to big for just one child.
He shudders, and he doesn’t know if it’s the cold or not that makes him faintly shiver.
Thinking about Kakashi creates a lump of emotions that Gai can't seem to understand. The lump is stuck right in the middle of his throat and it makes him feels like he can’t breath, tears shimmering at the corner of his eyes as he tries to force air down in his lungs.
Gai knows that it was normal for people to die, they were shinobi after all, they had to be prepared for everything, Gai really knows this, but he can’t bring himself to accept it.
His father was a genin, and a genin shouldn’t be sent alone on a mission outside the village during wartime.
His father shouldn’t have died in the middle of enemy territory and with no ally at his side.
Gai still can’t bring himself to move.
Sensei left him outside the kitchen and told him to eat something before going to bed, because he needed to eat and to rest in order to feel better.
Gai is not sure that he can feel better, and he just stays in the middle of the house, his gaze lost over nothing, asking to himself why no one tried to comfort him.
Not even Kakashi was there for him, Gai wasn’t even sure if the silver-haired boy was at the funeral or not.
Gai was there for him when Kakashi lost his father.
Kakashi had Obito. And Rin. And his Sensei.
Gai doesn’t even have his Sensei.
A sob escapes his closed lips, his fists closed tight, tears now rolling down his cheeks and falling on the wooden floor.
Plic. Plic. Plic.
The sound is defeaning.
Staying in the house is suffocating. Wherever Gai looks he thinks of his father.
His father cooking, smiling and singing so off-tune that it would make Gai laugh so much until his stomach hurts.
His father whistling while fixing their house, a hammer in his hand and wooden planks at his feet, ready to use them.
His father doing chores, challenging Gai to see who would clean the most in little time and then laughing together when they find out that they did exactly half of the house each.
His father teaching him how to do things Gai never did before. How to cook the curry he likes so much, how to do laundry, how to care for their little garden.
Gai wants to run away from it all, but he can’t bring himself to move and he can’t breath.
He tries to. His fingers grip at his shirt like they want to tear it away, but even when the shirt is off he still can’t seem to get as much air as he needs to, and he can’t tear his own skin off, no matter how hard he grips and claws at his chest.
And it hurts so much that Gai doesn’t know how to deal with it. Even when it all passes, when his lungs finally get the air they need and when the tears subside, it still hurts. It’s like a stone weighing on his very soul, something that he can’t get rid of.
He doesn’t run away, no matter how hard he wants to. In fact, Gai doesn’t leave his house at all. When he checks the calendar again, when he feels like he can bear the idea of stepping outside, a week has passed.
Gai doesn’t know what to do with the fact that no one thought about checking on him during this stretch of time. He hasn’t heard a single knock on his door, not from his teammates nor from his Sensei, much less from Kakashi.
Gai thinks that it’s unfair. He thinks that it’s wrong. He’s twelve. Someone should check up on him... Right?
But that’s not how it works, apparently, and even when Gai finally goes out for the first time in a whole week, no one approaches him. No one tries to ask him how he is. No one wonders what happened to the bright boy who would run around the village every morning and that, suddenly, has disappeared for a week.
And there is something. Something new, something that Gai is sure he never felt. It starts from the pit of his stomach, and like a seed it slowly blooms and grows.
It’s a feeling unfamiliar to Gai, and he struggles to give it a name, watching as the people walk past him without a second glance.
It’s anger. And Gai doesn’t know what to do with it.
His father has always been absurdly cheerful, the familiar smile never leaving his lips, and in his cheerfullness he never taught Gai how to deal with negative emotions, probably hoping that his son will never find himself experiencing them.
The only thing Gai knows is that he can’t lash out at the people around him. No matter how much he wants to scream and cry, or how hard he wants to punch faces, he can’t do it.
And that leaves him with only one thing to do.
Training.
When he’s not with the team and when he’s not on a mission. If there’s someone nearby, if he’s alone, if it’s the middle of the day or the middle of the night.
He trains until he’s too tired to stand. Until he was too tired to dream.
And his body aches and he doesn’t care, because if he stops then he would no longer have a reason to wake up in the morning.
No one would miss him anyway, he thinks.
One evening, Gai asks himself if this is what Kakashi’s father thought before killing himself. But Sakumo still had his son, so maybe that wasn’t a right comparison.
Gai only had his father, and now he was gone.
And it’s like living in a bubble. Every day the same thing. Waking up, eating, getting ready to train. Rinse and repeat. Except for the times Gai was out on a mission.
With how much he was training, Gai soon surpassed his teammates. It’s not like Genma and Ebisu had ever been stronger than him even before, but now the difference was even starker than before.
They comment on it sometimes, but Gai doesn’t listen to them. They hadn’t tried to stay by his side when he needed them the most, so why should Gai give them importance?
You’ve changed, Genma tells him once, looking at him like he’s someone alien, like he’s not 'Gai' anymore, and Gai understands something important when Genma tells him that.
They want him to be the same as before.
And how stupid that is? How can you expect someone to not change after their only parent died? After no one showed up to give them support?
So Gai learns to lie.
He learns to smile and laugh and be loud.
He learns how to fake, how to be the person everyone wants him to be.
He challenges Kakashi in stupid and pointless things, he says stupid things and laughs at terrible jokes.
He doesn’t feel like he’s himself anymore, and time starts to blur. One day after the other, merging together.
Even when the war reaches its highest point, even when the Kyuubi escapes and the Yondaime dies, even when Kakashi disappears to deal with his own problems, throwing himself in missions until he can’t think and remember anymore, everything looks the same to Gai.
And he knows, deep down, that he should talk with someone. Maybe if he tells Sensei about how everything looks the same, about how little he feels, maybe, maybe he would feel better.
But then Gai thinks of loneliness and an empty house and days of nothing and no one reaching out to him, and he shakes his head to get rid of every stupid idea.
And he goes back to the monotony of his life. He resists until he’s sixteen. Two years after the Yondaime’s death and four years after his father’s death.
He resists until he can’t anymore.
He needs something. Something to do, something to feel, something to experience.
Everything.
And when he can’t take it anymore, Gai does something he never thought he would do.
He asks the Sandaime the permission to join Anbu.
The Hokage laughs at first, he thinks that Gai is joking. He tells him that Anbu is not a place for someone like him, because Maito Gai is cheerful and shines like the sun, he’s not made to work in the shadows, the Hokage says.
But Gai is patient. He has passed four years training and faking and surviving and feeling so little it was almost nothing, the pain and the anger numb and distant.
Gai is patient and stubborn, and eventually the Sandaime agrees.
I will test you, the Hokage says, before I can deem you fit to permanently join Anbu.
Gai thinks that it’s fair.
When his fingers finally close around his Anbu uniform, new and clean and ready to be used, Gai feels something akin to excitement. He almost feels giddy. And he doesn’t have his tattoo yet, but he will soon, Gai is sure of it.
He will be part of the most elite shinobi and he will be tasked with some of the most difficult missions.
He will be able to challenge himself.
Will he finally be able to feel something again? Gai hopes so.
Taking in a deep breath, Gai finally dons the uniform. It’s light and yet Gai can feel the metal plates protecting his body, and he finds the claws-like gloves pretty cool.
Looking at himself in the mirror, black eyes looking back at him, Gai stops for a moment.
Am I ready for this?, he asks himself.
Looking down at the white mask in his hands, faceless and anonymous, because he will get an animal assigned only after passing the test, Gai almost smiles.
Yes, he thinks, I am.
And he closes his eyes, takes another deep breath and lets the cold mask slip over his face.
When he looks at the mirror once again, Maito Gai is no more.
In his place, a faceless shinobi.