Chapter Text
NOTE: Check out The Moss before starting this fic, as it contains important context for this work!
03/20/1989
This is excruciating.
Gaara smooths his hands over another piece of notebook paper. He should know what to say by now—it’s been an eternity since the accident, and how many times has he talked about it in therapy? Tapping his pencil against the desk doesn’t drum up any inspiration, either.
Rock Lee,
I’m sorry for hitting you with my truck
He crosses through the words until they’re an indented black scratch on the page.
I’m sorry for hitting you with my brother’s truck
Fuck .
Again, he scribbles it out. Doesn’t something about this feel selfish? What the hell is he supposed to say? He’s throwing a bottle into the ocean a year too late. In limbo, he tears the paper to tiny shreds, letting them fall together into a deflated mound. Gaara pinches at his eyebrow, catching a fine hair that’s just long enough to be tugged at again. He plucks it out and blows it away.
The fourth time the cycle repeats itself, he decides it’s time for a goddamned break before he screams . Tugging the strings of his hood drags his sweater to a tight circle around his face. A frustrated groan comes after and he buries his face in his hands.
Why do I suck at this so much?
A child can give a better apology than him. No matter how much he wracks his brain, he comes up short. Gaara gnaws at the back of his hand, elbow propped on the desk. He can’t get this out of his head and Naruto’s right; he’s been a coward not to do something sooner.
And maybe it’ll ease the nightmares. Behind his closed eyes he sees blood and sirens. Lee must see so much worse. Why the hell are you pitying yourself?
He’s worked with the blinds shut all morning. The dark keeps him focused, but he winces at daytime when he pulls his door open and pads out to Yashamaru’s small kitchen. There’s a serenity to the common space, with dusted lilac walls and delicately painted imagery of the bay. Gaara’s envious of the tranquility his uncle’s managed to set up for himself.
“Yashamaru…” he begins softly, dragging his attention from the thick book clutched in front of his face. His hood stays pulled up, failed letter held flush to his chest. “Can you help me write a letter, please? It’s an apology.”
There’s always that whisper telling him he should be able to do this by himself.
Relief washes over him at Yashamaru’s soft laugh, coupled with an “Oh, no.” The Bean Trees takes its hiatus on the table. “Take a seat and we’ll go through it right now, okay?” he reassures Gaara.
Already, it’s a weight lifting off his shoulders. Not that it should be—all he has is the two crossed out sentences that mean less than nothing. Yashamaru scans it over and nods gently, tucking his sandy hair behind both ears. He has a perception that Gaara’s in awe of and can’t for the life of him comprehend. “Why don’t we spend some time in the garden?” he suggests. Maybe a change of scenery will help.
The sun’s supposed to do him good, though his pale skin has him smothering himself in sunscreen at the door. The yard is small, though the span of Yashamaru’s property reaches far past what they can see. He prefers to keep his resources close by, with one side of the plot designated for vegetables and the other for herbs. Gaara throws himself down and plucks absentmindedly at the weeds around a patch of chamomile. They come up laced to the earth, and he shakes the dirt meticulously from their roots.
The dirt stains under his nails and becomes a part of him.
“Do you mind me asking who the letter is for?”
Who else? “The apology is for the boy I hurt,” he finally murmurs to his lap. “Rock Lee.” Gaara picks at his eyebrow again, this time leaving an indent of dirt from his coated nails.
Yashamaru nods. “I think that’s a very brave thing to do, Gaara. Maybe it’ll give you some closure.” There’s no secret that Gaara’s been agonizing over this for months. It’s unlikely that Lee will write back, but it’s a shot in the dark to try and alleviate the pungent guilt that won’t stop eating and eating away at him.
“I feel awful .” He yanks out another clump of weeds. They fall in shreds between his fingers, joining the others in their funeral pyre. Gaara digs around for the rest of the roots. “I can’t sleep, and I can’t stop thinking about it. What the hell was I doing?”
Yashamaru is gentle, but he tells Gaara what he needs to hear. “There are things that go away easy. A punch or unkind words are one thing. It eats away at you because you know you’ve deeply hurt someone in a way that can’t be fixed.”
God, of course he knows that. It aches behind his ribs. Resigning himself to guilt is its own Pandora’s Box. “I owe so much more than an apology, but I don’t want it to sound like I’m writing to talk about…myself.” Gaara has his own demons, but he’s stripped Lee of something irreplaceable.
It seems a lifetime since it happened and a lifetime that it’s kept him up at night. “Of course.”
“And I’m scared that he won’t be open to what I have to say.” There’s no way to give back Lee’s scholarship or his blooming sports career. They didn’t give him much news from Alderpoint and what he got was bare bones, but that much made its way over. To make a point and remind him, exactly, of what he’s done.
Slowly, Yashamaru extends his hand to Gaara’s shaking knee, applying a gentle pressure until he stills himself. “It’s difficult to accept, but that’ll be for him to decide. When you write, try to understand what this experience has put him through. How he must feel and how much of a hardship it must have been to overcome.” Yashamaru’s right, of course, the guilt still pulls him underwater.
These things should ease with time, but it envelops him instead with suffocating riptides. “Will you read it for me when it’s done?” His cheeks are hot, prickling angry under the midday sun. He’s on edge. Can’t remember the last time he wasn’t. It’s easier here, though, than at home.
“We’ll make sure it’s perfect.”
Gaara lets the hint of a smile ghost over his lips. “Thanks, Yashamaru.” He pulls himself up and dusts off his hands. He’ll have to give it another shot.
New paper and his pencil swapped out for a pen, he tries again.
“Alright, Bushy Brow: two more, you got this!” Naruto cheers on, ghosting his hand under the fingerprint stained barbell Lee has precariously gripped in his wrapped hands. It’s heavy. Only one rep his first try, two the second. Now he’s here.
He has to do this. If not, he’ll go for a run after.
He can do it. Lee pushes up on an exhale, getting an “ Okay ! Almost there!” in congratulations. Letting it heave down is easy. It’s inhaling, adjusting his grip on the bar, and forcing it back up that’s the worst. “Careful. You’re losin’ it on your left arm. Easy, easy,” Naruto guides, leaning his weight towards Lee’s weaker side.
The barbell’s loaded far past what he can handle, but Naruto can at least keep it from crushing him.
“I have to , I— Yes!” Lee gasps out on a sharp push up, sending the weights back up and clattering to their place above the bench. Sweat soaks his lower back through his shirt and he reminds himself that while the pain in his left side is distracting, it’s not nearly so bad as a few months ago.
One day at a time, it gets easier.
He massages at his knee, the remains of the car accident still prominent even underneath coarse, black hair.
Lee sits up, greeted by a slap on the back and his water bottle shoved into his hand. A needed relief, and Naruto sucks his own drink down while Lee catches his breath. “I’m gonna refill mine. I’ll grab yours, too,” he offers, making grabby hands for the bottle until it’s held over.
Naruto’s barely left before he hears a familiar “Lee?” behind him.
Ah. Temari.
By the dumbbells, she throws down her thirty-pound weight and waves when he turns around. “Lee!” she greets almost cautiously. Her hard-headed personality is a given, but today is different. Temari approaches Lee with the same air someone does as they’re trying to corner a wounded animal.
Gym rats throughout high school, their run ins now are reduced to the mercy of college breaks.
Lee flashes her a wide smile. “Temari, how is your spring break going?”
“Can’t complain. I’ve been saving up some extra cash so Shikamaru and I can take a trip.”
“That sounds very nice. I am looking forward to getting back to the East Coast myself,” he declares loudly.
“Really? I wouldn’t mind another week or two to get myself together.” The pause between them says she has something else she’s struck up conversation for. “Look, I know this is a little unorthodox, but Gaara asked me to give this to you.”
Just his name, even, is sour in Lee’s ears. His relation to Temari is largely something that they, until now, have been comfortable with leaving on the sidelines. “Oh, from Gaara?” he starts cautiously, but he’s still, out of morbid curiosity, reaching out for the crisp envelope. His name is written in small, even cursive, with a return address for Arcata in the corner. “Uhm. Right. Thank you, Temari.”
“I haven’t read it. He just told me he wanted to make sure it got to you,” she explains well as she can. She’s just the messenger. Lee pats his towel against his hairline, bangs sticking back to his forehead in its wake. “You want me to bench you after this?”
“I actually had Naruto help me just now, but thank you!”
“Alright. I’ll see you around, okay, Lee?”
He smiles back at her, kicking his worry to the back of his head. It’s okay. “Yes! Hopefully I will run into you before the week is up.”
Soon as she’s gone, he’s back on the letter. It’s impossible not to dwell on it.
With cautious fingers, he rips open the envelope.
Rock Lee,
I don’t know how to start something like this.
I guess the first thing I should say is that I’m sorry in a way that I don’t think a letter will be able to express.
What I did was…evil. My recklessness took your world away from you and I walked away from my mistakes like it was a regular day. It feels unfair. At the time, I don’t think I cared. I’m sorry for that, too. Living with it is a nightmare. I can’t imagine what it must be like for you.
I saw your parents waiting for you in the emergency. I didn’t understand what it means to worry for someone like that. That’s something I’m trying to learn still.
I’d like to hear about your experiences if you’re willing to tell me.
Maybe I will hear from you soon.
Gaara.
His mouth has never been this dry. Queasy apprehension culls itself alive in anxious ripples down to the bone. Lee gets halfway through the letter before he starts at the top again.
Lee’s first inclination is to crumple the letter and throw it in the bin. It burns a helpless staccato in his chest. It’s the same kick to the stomach he’d felt when he woke up without movement on the left side of his body. When he’d seen the dent added to his face that later healed to a fractured gash through his nose and down his cheek. Whether or not he wants it to, his knee’s stuck trembling, foot tapping against the gym mat.
They’d sorted things out with the family, but after the accident, Gaara wipes himself from the map. Lee remembers this very clearly. From the sidewalk, he’d woken in the emergency room to a tear filled Guy and a silently worried Kakashi.
He’d only just completed his rehabilitation by the time spring break hit. Gaara, nowhere to be seen. He’d given Lee a kiss of death and disappeared off the face of the earth.
“What’s that?” Naruto asks, jabbing a finger at the letter. When did he come back? Lee jerks up, standing his back straight. “Ooh, ooh, did you get a love letter from Temari? She’s a little too—”
“Ah!” Lee snatches it back, leaning out of Naruto’s line of reach. But he’s not a bad person to talk to, and there’s no way he’ll be able to keep this to himself. “No, not exactly,” he admits. It’s hard for the anxiety not to slip into his voice and harder for Naruto not to notice.
“Everything okay, Bushy Brows? I leave for a couple minutes and you’re acting like someone died over here,” Naruto says, pacing circles in place to emphasize the near empty gym they’re in.
“Yes, I am fine,” Lee lies at first, rubbing at the underside of his chin, then the front of his throat. “Actually, maybe we can go out for breakfast? Maybe it would be helpful for me to ask you about something?”
“Huh?” Naruto blinks, jutting out his jaw. “Yeah, let’s go. I’m starving.”
Even at the crosswalk, he checks four times before crossing the road.
Lee feels just as awful as the day of the accident.
The Eel River Café isn’t anything special, but it gets the job done with the money they have. That being, not very much at all. The café’s name is scrawled across the side three times and another for good measure on the door. The coffee’s usually burnt when Sai’s working, and the toast is never made quite right no matter who’s on the floor. How is it burnt and soggy at the same time?
But it’s a cozy spot and their friends don’t mind how long they stay.
Tucked into a booth with torn leather seating in the corner of the diner, Lee sighs and slides the letter across the table. “I received this from Temari today. I do not know how I feel about it.” Sick, mostly.
Naruto reads it over once, twice, then gives a loud, thoughtful hum. “D’ya think you’ll write back to him?”
“I do not know. I appreciate the sentiment of an apology, but it seems very…late,” Rock Lee says carefully, thinking aloud. His life had been torn out from underfoot in a matter of seconds, and while scholarships still came through to cover his schooling, it hadn’t made rehabilitation any easier. “It feels like it is an attempt to ease a guilty conscience,” Lee admits, and Naruto crosses his arms, once-ing over the breakfast menu as if he doesn’t get the same thing every time.
It’s ripped the progress he’d scabbed over his hardships right off.
“Yeah, you had to work really hard to get back up on your feet.”
Honestly, the letter hits him the same way he’d felt when he found out he couldn’t walk.
Sai, pale as ever, with an apron tied around his slim waist, materializes next to them with a pot of coffee to interrupt. Definitely burnt.
“Ehck, I’m good on that,” Naruto says with a wrinkle of his nose. Lee, though, is too polite and lets Sai fill a cup for him. And, not wanting to be wasteful, he’ll be stuck drinking it.
“Sai, how are you doing?”
He gives the two of them an eerie smile. “Breathing.” Out of his pocket comes his tiny notepad and pencil and he waits, silently, for them to order.
Lee doesn’t completely understand him, but he’s pleasant enough.
“Alright, let’s see…” Naruto starts, and a few patrons turn their head at his volume. “I’m gonna get a stack of waffles, an orange soda, some orange juice, and,” he pauses, flipping the menu over even though he knows there’s nothing on the back. “Some milk.”
Lee grabs both menus and passes them back to Sai. “I would like a ham and cheese omelet, a side of fruit and yogurt, as well as sausage and hashbrowns, please!”
Their table always looks like a mess by the time they’ve ordered and eaten.
As Sai’s walking away, Naruto knocks his fist on the table and tries to wave at Sai again. His back is already turned, so he takes to yelling instead. “HEY! Can I grab a side of bacon, too? And some extra whipped cream!” he shouts across the restaurant.
Someone across the restaurant shushes him, but Naruto’s not paying attention.
Lee’s too busy brooding over the letter. He plucks it from the table and looks it over again. Kakashi taught him not to hold a grudge but it…hurts. By the time he’s done reading, Naruto’s leering at him from across the table.
“I gotta say, though, I went up to see Gaara a couple weeks back and--”
“Wait, you have been seeing Gaara?” Lee asks, astounded. He isn’t angry, but it isn’t like his friend to keep these things from him. “ Why ?”
Naruto shifts in his seat, scratching at the back of his head with a guilty, lopsided smile. “I dunno, it always seemed like there was more on the surface with him. And everyone else’s scared of him, it’s not like anyone else was gonna do it.”
“That is because of a reputation he created himself,” Lee argues.
“I know,” Naruto agrees solemnly. “But I really think he’s trying to change,” he says after Sai’s gone through the kitchen door, tugging the paper casing off his straw and plopping it into his lukewarm cup of water. “When I was up, all he talked about was the accident. Just tell him what you’re telling me now.”
Lee pauses, staring down the coffee before dousing it in cream. Is Gaara capable of something like that? And is what he told Naruto something worth reaching out over? “I do not know if that is such a good idea.” He’s no stranger, either, to the things that floated around their high school before he’d left for the East Coast. Gaara was the kid on the playground that would bite and hit. People disappearing in the woods, dabbling in drugs that made him erratic and unstable.
When it came down to it, he was just mean and didn’t bother to hide it.
Anyone can change, if they put enough work in, Guy might say.
“He’s giving you a chance to get it out there. You should think about it.”
Lee nods. “I suppose you are right.” But there’s still an unsettled energy that makes him antsy.
What does Gaara want from this? And more importantly, what does he want?
When he gets home, he reads the letter again and leaves it folded precariously in the center of his desk. It sits like this until his spring break ends, when it’s tucked into his daily planner for his trek back to Boston.