Absent

Each day he waited patiently, his enthusiastic grin fading with each passing hour. Along with his hope as time went on, his happiness disappeared. At the end of the day, he would slowly drag himself to bed, praying that he would be in the bed next to him the next morning. After a while had passed, they told him that he had abandoned him or that he was dead. At first, he was offended by it and would reply with an injured retort, "You are wrong! He would never do that to me!" But as time slowly passed and the remarks about his loved one being dead or deserting him became common, he began to wonder, "What if they are right...?"

A large hole had formed in his chest as he waited each day. He could feel it when he woke up early in the morning, when he trained, did his chores and when he went to bed at night. The hole was filled with emptiness, and it soon began to fill itself up with tears, loneliness and a shred of hate.

He wasn't known to hate anything or anyone. He respected each individual and treated them as such. However, that began to change, and everyone noticed it. Normally, when someone visited him outside in the morning, he would greet them with a smile or a wave. The smile and wave began to change to a mere glance, then to nothing at all. It frightened some and confused others. However, no one paid any true mind to it until his physical features began to drastically change.

His skin was losing its color, giving him a ghostly white-ish gray look. His jet black hair lost its sheen and his body became thinner with the loss of muscle mass. The rims of his round eyes became reddish with small hints of gray, which were accompanied by noticeable lines in his facial features when his face was void of any recognizable expression.

Soon, he had stopped doing his training and the chores. His health was declining, going to the point where he didn't want to go to the window due to the pain in his body. He popped pills every day to lessen the pain, but he stopped eating altogether. He drank water each day and that was about it. Depression was taking its dire toll.

"Gai... Are you truly dead like they say you are? Did you really abandon me...?"

Thirteen months had passed when Gai disappeared. He had gone out on a short trip with Kakashi, who had returned alone. He didn't know where Gai was and it worried Lee to the end of his days. He was confident however, that Gai would come back soon, safe and sound. He, however, never did.

He stayed in bed the next morning, his ribs aching and his stomach crying in hunger, sending rippling echoes throughout his entire body. 'Look what you did to yourself. You are such a fool, Lee,' He thought aimlessly to himself, 'Gai's gonna come in and see you as a mess. The posts of the bed are dusty...need to clean them off. Neji is wrong... Gai is not dead. He would never let himself get killed...'

He was on his side, wrapped up in blankets with his head cushioned by what would be Gai's pillow. His own pillow was cradling his feet at the middle of the bed, due to his body being curled up into a near fetal position under the blankets. Half his face, warmed by the cushion, was hidden against the fabric and material of the pillow. 'TenTen will help with the garden outside...Gai loves those roses doesn't he... I think I'll go pick some later...' He closed his eyes, falling back to sleep.

"Finally home..." he rasped, exhausted. Gai looked up at the small cabin house that was his and Lee's. Although he was incredibly happy to be home once more after thirteen months, his face held no joyful expression. Many terrible scenarios ran through his head as he approached the door, all of which concerning Lee. He half expected Lee to be in a horrible state, if not, dead on the kitchen floor, with someone else, or not in the house at all when he entered. He almost half expected the house to be completely abandoned, and it almost horrified him when it was nearly the way it had been exactly when he left with Kakashi.

Flashing images of Lee lying on the floor in a pool of blood with a knife shoved through his neck appeared in front of his mind's eye and his heart beat quickened with anxious anticipation. The first place he looked when he quietly entered the house was the kitchen, which was the immediate room when you first entered the house. The floor was spotless and nothing was out of place. Although he was happy not to see his little one lying dead in the kitchen floor, it struck his as odd that the place was absolutely perfect. It scared him overall.

From the kitchen he went into the living room. It was clean also; nothing out of place. He then checked the small weight room, which was annexed to the bedroom. Again, everything was spotless. His heart pumped wildly as he slowly approached the door to the bedroom. He passed a mirror and paused, looking at his face. He was rugged and deeply tanned, his face rough with a growing-in beard and mustache. He flinched, "Lee won't even know who I am..."

He turned back towards the door and wrapped his hand around the small golden handle and turning it. Quietly, he creaked open the door and took a step inside. He stood at the far corner, the bed sitting in the opposite area of the room. The small lump in the bed told him Lee was there, and a tsunami of relief washed through him. He smiled slightly before quietly walking towards the bed, eying the sleeping boy. He walked around, to the side where Lee was sleeping. He saw nothing of the boy but his hair and a small glimpse of his forehead with a fraction of a relaxed eyebrow.

He leaned down to place a small kiss on Lee's forehead but stopped himself, a hand wandering up to feel the prickly roughness of his face. "Hmm… I better fix this first..." he whispered to himself before quietly trotting into the bathroom, its door located directly in front of the foot of the bed. Quietly, he closed the door, and began to wash his face as well as shave it.

Lee shivered under the blankets, his mind struggling to wake him but to his body's disapproval. He snuggled further into the warmth of Gai's pillow, letting out a soft grunt, hearing the soft running of water in the bathroom but paying no real mind to it.

Gai looked into the mirror when he was done. His hair was cut and his face shaved, revealing the tanned, sharper features of his clean-cut face. He smiled slightly before returning to the bedroom, wondering if he should let Lee rest or wake him up now and see what happens.

Quietly, he approached Lee's body, his insides shivering with a mixture of excitement and anxiety. He sat down gently on the edge of the bed, lightly resting a hand on Lee's shoulder. Slowly, he removed the first few layers of blankets, horrified at the image that he saw.

Lee's once normally colored skin was pale gray and lines that shouldn't be there on Lee's relaxed face showed clearly like a black dot on white paper. His heart ached at the sight and tears slowly came to his eyes, "...Oh Lee..."

Lee twitched as he felt hands upon him, two strong yet gentle hands that he recognized but couldn't put a face to. His eyes slowly opened and focused on the figure that loomed over him. The thick eyebrows, gentle black eyes and smoothly carved face rung loud church bells in his mind. His eyes widened as he slowly rolled onto his back. In a choked voice, he mewed, "Gai…sensei..."

Gai smiled gently yet sadly, knowing that Lee's current state was because of him, "Hi, Lee..." he whispered softly. In a violent flash, Lee's upper torso flew up at Gai, his thin arms wrapping tightly around the older man's neck, followed by the immediate burying of the face into his chest, effectively muffling painful sobs. Gai's arms quickly wrapped around him, holding the small boy tightly to him. He held Lee silently, allowing him to cry out in his anguish, the pain that he held in for so long in Gai's absence.

It erupted in Lee's chest almost immediately, exploding like a star going supernova. He couldn't control it, like hot hair trapped in an enclosed space. He let it go in the form of his crying, his tears absorbed by the fabric of Gai's shirt.

Lee's voice was weak to start with and it was growing weaker with each muffled sob. Before long, Gai gently whispered into Lee's ear, "Take deep breaths... If you continue this you're going to get yourself even sicker than you already are..." His words, however, were lost to Lee. He kept going until he had no energy left to even keep his arms wrapped around the older man. Gai held him up, exhausted and aching from Lee's sudden episode.

Even as worn out as he was, Lee held onto Gai, letting out soft moans from the effort. "G-Gai...sensei..." His words were hushed by a soft, "Shhhh..." and the light stroking of Gai's hand up and down his back, "Let's get you cleaned up and get some food into you."

Lee gave a small nod, angry with himself for being in such a weak state, though it pleased him to have Gai hoist him up in strong arms and carefully carry him from the bed to the bathtub in the bathroom. The bathtub was already filled with warm water, which Gai had accomplished when he was finished cleaning himself up. He had planned to give Lee a soothing bath when he was awake.

Gai removed what little clothing Lee was clad in; a thin pair of boxer shorts and a white ragged tank-top. Gently, he picked Lee up before setting him slowly into the water. He could hear Lee softly whimper as he turned away to grab a bottle of soap and a sponge. He looked back at the tired, red face that watched him constantly, "I'm here Lee... I won't leave you anymore."

Lee tilted his head back, watching Gai squirt a small amount of soap into the sponge and lather it up, "Promise me... Gai-sensei..."

Gai looked back at the smaller one and smiled softly, "I promise."