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The first time Gai sees the child he’s bawling in his crib, his red face visible over the railing as he clutches the bars tight and screams his lungs out.
Gai’s heard the child crying for at least the last thirty laps, and only on his three-hundredth lap of the morning does he decide to reward himself and satisfy his steadily increasing worry.
He's sure everything's fine, the child is probably just exercising their lungs at the expense of their poor parents' ears, but he can take a moment of focus from his workout to check.
It’s merely a glance, the slightest turn of his head, but when Gai catches a glimpse of the child through a grimy window, the sheer fury on the tiny face stops him in his tracks. Arms still flung out behind him, frozen mid-run, Gai watches the child wail. It’s loud, ear piercing really, and there are people in the street turning to shoot dirty looks at the second-story window, but no one stops. More importantly, no one enters the through the door Gai can just barely see in the corner of the window.
The child is alone, screaming for his parents in a dark room.
Tears and snot stream down his face and drip off his chin and Gai waits. Surely, the child’s mother will come and attend to him, or his father will open the door with a smile and an apology on his lips. It’s been at least a minute since Gai stopped, and the child has been crying for many minutes before that, and still, Gai waits for a parent or sibling or even a babysitter to come soothe the little child. Any second now someone will run in and scoop him up and Gai will be on his way, pushing himself to make up for his lost time as he finishes his five hundred laps around Konoha.
He’s got to be ready for his Eternal Rival, after all. Challenging him to race up to the Hokage Monument on his hands will be the perfect way to welcome the always-hip Kakashi home after his latest string of back-to-back missions, Gai’s certain, and he's developed the perfect workout to make sure he wins this time.
He really needs to get back to his laps.
But it doesn’t feel right to just leave, not when it seems like the child’s alone in the house, no parents or siblings rushing into his room.
The child takes a breath in preparation for another scream and suddenly disappears from sight, and Gai’s across the gap and perched on the wall beside the window before he even thinks to move. The window shrieks as he wrenches it open, and Gai wastes no time shimmying through the gap into the room.
He breathes a sigh of relief when he sees that the child simply fell over in his crib. He’s already struggling back up to stand and when he makes it upright, he doesn't scream again. Instead, he stares at Gai, eerily silent.
Now that Gai’s inside the room he can see the child properly, and he makes note of his thin legs and arms, poking out of a stained onesie that’s stretched tight enough to leave dark red marks.
Any ninja worth their hitai-ate would have noticed Gai’s entrance, but still, no one comes for the child. Even civilians would have heard the unholy screech when he opened the window. There’s no movement in the house at all, and Gai can’t think of any reason to leave a child -- Baby? Infant? At what age do they go from being babies to children? How old is he? Actually, is the child even a ‘he’? -- all alone. Not one this young, at least.
Then the stench hits him, and he immediately knows why the child was screaming.
“Hello, my young Konoha sprout,” Gai says as softly as he can, which his Eternal Rival has told him isn’t soft at all. In fact, the ever-cool Kakashi has told him many times that his voice is far too loud, which is why he’s making an effort now.
Gai isn’t stupid. He knows children are easily startled, easily frightened, and he doesn’t want this child to be afraid of him. He seems like he has enough fear in his life. Thankfully, the child just stares at him, bright blue eyes peering out of a filthy face.
His tears have left track marks down his cheeks, and Gai can’t think of a reason to let a child this small get so dirty, either. Isn’t it the responsibility of the parents to clean their child? Surely he’s too small to know how to bathe himself.
The child is still staring at him.
“It seems that your parents are absent, my tiny sprout," Gai says, not wanting the child to wonder what he's doing. "I shall care for you in their stead!” He raises his voice with a triumphant smile, forgetting himself for a moment, striking a perfect Good Guy pose with a shining grin and two thumbs up.
There's a scant second where Gai wants to curse, because hadn't he just been thinking that he needed to be quiet and calm, so the child would have no reason to fear him? He's about to throw himself to the floor and offer apologies and vow to add another one hundred laps to his workout, but the child moves before he can. He wobbles to the edge of the crib and looks up at Gai with wide, watery blue eyes.
Gai's seen plenty of memorable faces in his life, missing nin and enemies in combat, grateful clients and comrades, and he's had sights both wonderful and heinous engrave themselves in his mind's eye, each memory gradually fading in intensity as the years pass by. Some of the memories fade altogether.
But the desperate hope in this child's eyes, the plea for help written so clearly on his face…
Gai will never forget this sight for as long as he lives.
The child reaches out for him, still silent, an almost painful hope in his eyes and his open, grasping hands, and Gai moves unthinkingly for the second time that day.
It’s strange, almost like he’s watching from outside himself. One moment he's standing by the window, and the next moment he's crossed the room, his hands reaching down into the crib towards the child. Gai's just about to touch him, but then the little sprout makes a noise. The first one Gai's heard him make since he entered the room.
It's a soft sound, too quiet to really be called a gasp, but there's nothing else Gai can really call it, and he freezes in place, his strong hands hovering midair above the child's shoulders.
Gai doesn’t often worry, and it's even more rare that he doubts himself, but this is completely new territory for him. He can’t help but fear that he’ll send the child into more hysterics if he touches him.
The child is the one who closes the gap, after Gai goes utterly, entirely still. He grasps Gai’s thumbs with steady hands, looking up at him and trying to pull himself closer, and Gai’s worry is washed away in an instant.
He picks up the child with a bright grin, and when he lifts the little one and pulls him close, tucking him into the crook of his arm like he's seen mothers do at the park. It must be warm, because child snuggles in close and finally smiles, mirroring Gai as best he can. Gai keeps grinning down at him while he turns to find where his parents have stored the diapers and wipes.
He finds what must be the changing table, and there's rash cream there too, which is very welcome when he sees how red the child is while changing him.
Gai's not sure he pinned the diaper correctly, since he's never done it before, but he gave it a solid effort.
More importantly, the child isn't crying or screaming at all anymore. He's laying quietly on his back, looking up at Gai as he tugs the diaper firmly back into place.
The rest of the child’s body seems even more filthy, now that he’s partly clean, and Gai spends a few minutes more carefully wiping every inch of dirt and sweat and snot from the little guy’s skin.
As he works, he talks, telling the child what he's doing and what they'll need to do next. The child probably doesn't understand, but he seems to enjoy the sound of Gai's voice, so Gai keeps talking.
He's not sure what normal mothers do with their children, but this child doesn't appear to mind his inexperience at all.
Once the little sprout is clean and dry, Gai hunts for clothes but isn’t able to find any that would fit, and that makes him worry. He can’t find any clean sheets for the crib, or any toys or pacifiers in the room either.
He’d tear off his jumpsuit and wrap the child in that, but it’s extremely sweaty from his workout, and now that the child is clean and dry, Gai doesn't want to put him in anything dirty.
But he can't find any clean baby clothes anywhere, and it's…
It’s concerning.
As is the way the child’s stomach is growling loudly.
"Hungry, are you, little sprout?" Gai asks, striding out of the dingy room. The rest of the house is nice, clean and open and filled with pictures and books and all the things that make a house a home.
All the things that are missing from the child's room.
Gai makes his way into the kitchen, diaper-clad child tucked up in the crook of his arm, and looks around for something to feed him.
There aren’t any bottles of milk in the fridge, but there’s fresh food, thankfully, and Gai pulls out a handful of strawberries. He looks around for something to mash them with, because he isn’t sure when children can eat solid food, but this little one is too small for solids, surely? The child answers that question by grabbing for the strawberries, stuffing one in his mouth top and all, chewing fiercely.
"An excellent choice, little one," Gai says, removing the strawberry tops one-handed and offering another strawberry as soon as the child swallows the first. They get through the entire basket of strawberries, a half of a loaf of bread, an apple, and a big hunk of cheese before Gai notices that the child is smacking his lips. It only takes a moment to realize he's thirsty.
"Water?" Gai asks, and he smiles when the child reaches toward the sink.
There's a small cup by the faucet, and when Gai offers the child water, he slops it all over them both while trying to get a drink. He's still thirsty after the cup is emptied, Gai can tell by the way he eyes the sink. So Gai fills up the water again, and he holds it much more carefully the second time.
The child looks at him so strangely when Gai offers the cup again, but he readily drinks.
Once the child has eaten his fill from the odds and ends Gai pulls out of the fridge and satisfied his thirst from the sink, Gai heads back to the room he'd found him in.
The child stiffens as they walk through the door, but when Gai simply grabs the container of wipes and walks out again, he relaxes.
"Don't worry, my brilliant Konoha child," Gai says, pausing to dismantle a few shoddy traps around the front door. "I won't be leaving you on your own again. I'm sure the Hokage will have a stern talk with your parents once we tell him how I found you."
Now that Gai’s learned what kind of life this child has been living, there's no way he can leave him behind. Absolutely not.
He remembers his own father's love and care, the way he literally gave his life for him, and he knows Dai wouldn't have left this little one behind either.
No one should leave a child this young on their own, in a room like the one upstairs, dark and dirty and depressing and so, so wrong.
Gai gets the traps undone with little effort, and he's about to open the door and head for the rooftops when he glances down at the child and realizes he's still practically naked.
"We can't go leaping about Konoha with you unclothed, little sprout," Gai murmurs, bouncing the child on his hip like he's seen parents do in the market. The child doesn't seem to know what to do in response, grabbing for a handhold and latching onto Gai's hitai-ate, wrapped around his waist as always.
"Hmmmm," Gai says, as an idea springs to life in his mind.
***
The Sublime Green Beast of Konoha leaping across the rooftops toward Hokage Tower is a familiarly eye-searing sight, and no one looks close enough to notice that Gai isn't wearing his hitai-ate around his waist.
Instead there's a child in his arms, around a year and a half old, wrapped securely in bright red cloth, eyes wide as he watches Konoha blur past beneath their feet.
***
By the time Gai leaps back out of the Hokage's office, the sun has long since set, and a few teams of genin have been working hard for most of the afternoon, moving all Gai's belongings and the child's - Naruto's - necessary furniture over to a new apartment for them both.
After all, he's going to need a lot more space than his little one bedroom apartment.
Another team of genin had been tasked with buying Naruto proper clothing, and yet another team assigned to stocking the new apartment with food and all the baby supplies Naruto's former foster parents had neglected to get for him.
The Hokage wants to make sure Naruto has everything he needs, this time, and he's trusting Gai to watch over him while they search for another set of foster parents.
It might take a while, apparently, which is why the Hokage insisted on the bigger apartment. Gai could see how torn up the Hokage had been over his report on Naruto's living conditions.
It makes sense. Orphaned and then neglected? Only a monster would condone that.
Regardless, there was no way Naruto was going back to that awful room, with those awful people. That meant he'd needed a safe place to stay, temporarily, until new parents could be found.
With Naruto asleep in his arms, wrapped in Gai's own hitai-ate, there was no other choice than to offer to watch over Naruto himself.
The Hokage had seemed incredibly relieved.
Gai has always been looking forward to taking on students at some point in his jounin career anyway, and taking care of a precious Konoha orphan isn’t so different from that. This is a bit earlier than he'd intended, but…
He looks down at Naruto as he makes his way to their new home.
How could he ever say no?
Besides, raising young Naruto promises to be a most youthful endeavor!
***
It's been a week. A long week of reading and learning and more eating than Gai would've thought possible for a child Naruto's size. A week of shopping for the best baby supplies Gai can find, because the genin who bought Naruto's clothes and baby gear clearly had no eye for either quality or fashion. It's up to Gai to help Naruto be the best shinobi he can be, and part of that means Gai spends longer than he'd thought reasonable convincing a seamstress to sew Naruto a series of gorgeous green jumpsuits.
He looks absolutely adorable in them.
Naruto takes long naps, and likes to go to bed early, and thankfully sleeps the whole night through. But early every morning, he wakes Gai with babbling cries. Naruto wants to get up even earlier than Gai usually wakes for his workouts, and while it takes getting used to, Gai comes to appreciate looking out the wide window in his new apartment, watching the sun rise while they eat breakfast.
The first morning of his second week after finding Naruto, Gai decides they'll spend the early morning hours finishing last week's interrupted laps around Konoha.
They set out for the morning with packed bentos, a fanny pack full of baby wipes, and the best sling Gai could find in the entire village. It's perfect.
Leaping up to the top of Konoha's wall, Gai gently sets Naruto on his feet. The boy wobbles for a moment, but reaches out and grabs Gai's jumpsuit in time to keep from overbalancing.
"Excellent job, my adorable child!" Gai says with a grin as he wrestles the sling into submission. "You will be running alongside me in no time at all!"
Naruto stares up at him, and when he reaches a hand up, Gai takes it. If Naruto wants to hold his hand, Gai will become the best hand-holder in Konoha.
It's more of a challenge to put the sling on one-handed, but he will succeed! He will not be defeated by a piece of childcare equipment!
The sling is a valiant opponent, but Gai prevails in the end, and he picks up Naruto to cuddle him before they start their run. Naruto is very affectionate, nuzzling close to Gai at every opportunity. He reaches his little arms as far around Gai as they'll go, and Gai squeezes him gently before holding him out far enough to see his face.
"How would you like to run the length of Konoha's wall, my little sprout?" He asks gently, beaming at Naruto.
Naruto stares up at him and then, slowly, starts to smile. With his spiky tufts of vibrant blond hair and his toothy smile, Naruto is bright enough to rival the rising sun.
Gai feels like he's holding sunlight in his hands.
"Buh," Naruto says, and pats Gai's face with one pale hand.
Gai gasps in delight. "Such strength, little sunshine! What a youthful response!"
Getting Naruto into the sling is another adventure, but Gai manages, and when he looks down the boy is staring out at the world around them, absolutely fascinated.
"This is Konoha," Gai says, gesturing grandly to encompass the entire village. "It is our village, our home, and we must train hard to be able to defend it and support it. Are you ready, little Naruto?"
"Bah!" Naruto says as he wiggles in his sling, full and clean and excited for yet another new experience.
"Then let's go!" Gai shouts as he breaks into a sprint.
Naruto's head thuds back into his chest and stays, plastered there by the wind pressure, and Gai has a moment of worry that he's hurt him.
But then he hears the most amazing thing, something he's never heard before.
Naruto starts giggling.
He's absolutely delighted, laughing and kicking his legs in excitement as he watches the village blur past them, and Gai joins in his laughter as he runs.
They don't even notice when they pass the house with the grimy window.
Shrieking laughter drifts down from the wall, and Gai knows they're probably waking up all of Konoha, but he doesn't think they should mind.
What better way to start the day than with the laughter of a youthful ray of sunshine?