Chapter Text
“Yes, you are faced with a great uphill battle and it is in no way fair that you have had to work hard at things that other parents take for granted. I promise that I will do everything in my power to level the playing field!” Rock Lee pumped a determined fist, eyes practically aflame with passion at the dinner table of a single mother and daughter he was entrusted to assess that day, the kid long nudged gently to her room so that the adults could speak. “And I believe wholeheartedly that your love for each other will triumph over the obstacles you have had to navigate alone until now.”
“And I appreciate that, Mr. Lee.” Ms. Matsuno stretched the corners of her mouth, nothing more. She looked like she had not been sleeping, dark circles around her eyes and a sickly washed-out color in her face. Her pyjamas and jacket reeked of neglect. The condition her young daughter went to school in, when she went to school at all, was so clearly the very best of someone struggling to take care of herself, let alone someone else.
She did not ask for her mental health to take a turn that saw little Akira temporarily staying with a foster family while she needed time in inpatient care to get her wits about her enough not to hurt herself or Akira. Lee had no doubt in his mind that she would never want the latter to happen. The two of then adored each other and though she did confide in him that her mother was 'scary when she fights with invisible people' the main thing Akira had wanted to know was if they could stay together now that she was feeling better.
“It is also a reality of you and Akira's situation that a child her age will get hurt or sick fending for herself for days on end, not to mention the youth she will miss out on.” His hope was that the truth would spur her on. “Her removal from your home is on the table, as it stands. It is important that I am upfront with you about that regardless of what I think will happen.” He could not bring himself to lie to them about the stakes of the challenge they faced, and anything short of frank honesty felt too much like a lie.
If Ms. Matsuno was spiraling to the depths of despair, she kept it inside. From there, they spent the rest of Lee's initial visit discussing community programs and government assistance she may be eligible for to make it easier to provide for Akira and get herself the ongoing psychiatry and counseling she had been struggling to access consistently. Until proven otherwise, he came away believing in her. Hopefully she believed in herself just as much, and could make something work to be the mother she wanted to be.
It was easy to forget in his department that every child came with at least one adult attached. Not for Lee. He never seemed to have that problem, but his coworkers sometimes made it sound like he was the odd man out in that. Maybe this was because Lee knew what it was like for one's very best to still not be good enough. Knowing that pain and frustration, watching his dreams slip through his fingers no matter how hard he worked for them or how good a person he strived to be, his heart almost always broke for the parents as much as the children.
The heartbreak was all worth it, though, when his shift ended and he rocketed on his rollerblades, outpacing cars when he truly lost himself the youthful freedom of skating, to his one love in life apart from his old foster family. See, Rock Lee was not only a case worker for the Konoha Department of Human Services who felt bad for neglectful parents and had no desire to become anything higher up in rank than a splendid case worker. He was also Rock Lee, skate school instructor for at-risk youth! At least, that was what he was for the two hours once a week that he could take over the local skatepark.
He ran a program, teaching the physical and mental skills of aggressive inline skating-- though if the roller rink donated a bunch of old quads to give to kids who didn't have anything to skate on, then he could make that work as well. He refused to leave anyone with the youthful drive to learn and grow behind! Bushy Brow's Underdogs, his friends called it. He just called it The Skate Program, for now.
It was only for now, though. At least that was what he told himself, though he did not have the heart to raise the kids' expectations until he had it in black and white that his program would be more. Unbeknownst to anyone but himself, his foster fathers who helped him write his application, and maybe his foster brother, he had applied for a huge grant. With that money, he could buy the run-down pit of a defunct roller rink in Suna he had been eyeing, make a functioning skating facility out of it, and offer his program throughout the week instead of just one day. It would change his skate program into a full, independent skate school. No one turned away, no one left behind.
He hoped with all his heart to get the grant. His foster father and beloved coach Gai had helped him write the most beautiful statement letter and fill out the form to apply. All he had left was an in-person evaluation to make sure his program was worth that kind of money. He had no idea when it would happen, though. For now, all he could do was teach every session so well; the committee would just have to award the grant to him. That in mind, he rolled up to meet his young charges.
“Good evening, my beloved students!” he exclaimed, leaping over the grind box with a fast, square 360, and then stopping in front of the waiting group with a soul slide. “How is everyone?” Some older kids gave him a chorus of “what's up, Mr. Lee?” while the younger ones just shouted his name. His youngest skater was six and already better than himself at her age. At the other end of the spectrum, he had a handful of 17-year-olds with nothing in common but their age in terms of skill or living situation, and he taught every age in-between as well. “Finish putting your skates on, and then we will get into some warmups! Does anyone know why it is important to warm up before exercise?”
“Ooh! I know! I know!” Sayuri raised her hand, hopping up and down on her toestops to keep herself from blurting out the answer. To think she had been so anxious, to the point that Lee figured she was nonverbal and didn't press her for spoken words, when she started the program last year. Lee called on her. “So you don't get hurt!”
“Yes! Cold muscles are stiff and brittle! And what happens when you pull something brittle like this?” Sometimes he had props for a visual, like a stick and a handful of putty, to pull and bend as if trying to break it. Today, though, he just acted it out as best as he could while he talked. The younger children giggled at his little pulling dance while Kou, a 14-year-old with heavy eyeliner and hair across half their face, raised their hand.
“It snaps?”
“Yes! It snaps! But what if you do the same thing with something springy and supple?”
“What's supple?” Sayuri asked again.
“It stretches. Supple basically means stretchy.” Kou's patience had come a long way too, considering no snide remarks came out of their mouth after answering again, just crossed arms and a puff of air blowing their hair from their face. And they managed to refrain from rolling their eyes until Sayuri wasn't looking. In their defense, this was their dad's day off, making the skate program their main escape from watching three younger siblings from after school to bedtime.
“Exactly! You are very smart, Kou! And that is what warming up does to our muscles. It makes them stretchy instead of stiff so that instead of pulling or tearing when we work them hard, they stretch! So let us all get stretchy together!”
With that, Lee led them through a fun, feel-good on-skate warmup routine. Then, they got to skating. He taught a group of 10 to 12-year-olds who had skated with him for a while and gotten a strong handle on their skating fundamentals how to step and jump onto the grind box.
Most of them were learning on some of those donated skates he kept in his closet at home, no grind block of any kind between the wheels. One, he caught looking wistfully at the 16-year-old finally landing his makio on the rail nearby. “Hey, do not despair! There are still multitudinous ways you can have fun at the skate park without dedicated aggressive skates!” In case they didn't believe him, he demonstrated a favorite combination of his from when he forgot to bring his to the park, hopping into a fakie shoot-the-duck with a 180 back onto flat ground.
“Whoa!” a small chorus erupted as he landed. “Cool!” His skaters were so sweet. Really, they found a new way to light up his heart each session, even if they also found a new place discarded gum was not supposed to go on an equally prolific basis. “I wanna be an awesome skater with no grinds!” warmed his heart the most. He walked them through the shoot-the-duck going forward, first, then zipped over to another little group while they worked on it.
After the first hour, Lee skated around the park, gathering everyone back to the bench they met at for snacks. The first one there, he opened his duffel bag on the empty bench and passed around prepackaged fruit leather and string cheese, explaining how starch gave them energy, protein built muscles, and colorful foods had all kinds of vitamins and minerals to help them do things like see in the dark and heal cuts and scrapes. “Sometimes it can be hard to color your plate, but a little bit of color sometimes will still give you more youthful vim and vigor than none ever! The most important food of all, however, is the food that you eat!”
Most of his charges were on programs to help them access enough food to begin with, had special needs that affected what foods they could stomach, or both. Eating at all was more important than eating right. There was no sense in making them feel bad over a snack, especially the best he himself could swing without a food license. If he gave them his version of the information and they still had something they didn't want, he thanked them for letting him take it back for next session and offered whatever else he had on hand with no questions asked.
The guilt of not being able to swing more options that week ate at him, though. Next week, he would throw together three different snack combinations. It was a challenge for him and the best kind of apology for not having something for everyone and leaving some children with a suboptimal balance of macronutrients to fuel their skating!
Once he had everyone contentedly tucking into their snacks, he took the time he needed to be watching them anyway as a breather from all that skating. Not just the easy stuff for the program, but the skate there, the skate to work, and the skate he was going to do home after this. Right about that time was when an unfamiliar adult came up to their group.
“Good evening!” He rolled over to meet the stranger. “The skatepark is reserved for another hour.” But now that he was getting close to them, they had no skating paraphernalia on them. And they weren't really dressed for physical activity in a dress shirt and slacks. Perhaps they were a parent or guardian of one of his newer kids. “Can I help you with something?”
“Yes, actually.” The stranger's eyes went, well, not big, but still a little wider for a split second. Lee tended to have that effect on people even when he really tried to tone himself down. “Are you... Rock Lee?”
“Yes! At your service! What can I do for you?”
“Gaara Okaze, from the Department of Human Services.” They shook hands, Lee letting go very abruptly when it looked like Gaara might have winced. “I'll be evaluating your program on behalf of the Ninkai Community Grant committee.” Lee could have done a cartwheel right that very second. He was one step closer to the grant!
“That is wonderful! I am so glad to meet you!” he exclaimed. “As I mentioned, we have the park for another hour. If you have any questions for me about any aspect of the program, do not hesitate to ask! Otherwise, I will check in again at the end of our session!”
No questions at that second to answer, Lee then barreled back to his young charges. He kept checking on Gaara over his shoulder while he fixed helmets, walked kids through different tricks and obstacles in the park, and refreshed the newer ones on the basics of a good forward stride. For some reason, right when he showed a few of the older teens who were interested in the halfpipe his signature 540 Liu Kang grab, Gaara just... walked away as soon as he landed.
How was he supposed to evaluate his program if he wasn't there? It wasn't a good sign, if he had seen all he needed to see already. Or maybe there was an unrelated call or emergency he had to deal with while Lee was spinning in the air like a hurricane with wheels. Gaara had said he worked for human services as well and that certainly could happen. Lee took a deep breath and willed himself to assume the latter.
“Moving on,” the teens already knew how to pump through transitions at the park, so he didn't need to start there. “Everything you do forward on the halfpipe, you must be prepared to do backward, so learn to skate up the pipe before you skate down it.” He demonstrated simple pumping up and down the pipe, forward going up, backward going down.
Gradually, with more strength and acceleration, he moved higher and higher up the walls of the pipe, demonstrating how high and steep they had to be comfortable gliding backwards before it was safe to drop in and attempt tricks. Gaara had returned to circling around the park and watching them by the time he had them independently skating up and down the pipe, cheering each other on and seeing how high up they could get.
As promised, Lee returned to the bench to check in on his evaluator as soon as their session ended and older kids headed home, various guardians coming for the ones too young to just leave. He raced over and slid to a stop before taking a seat by him. “So, what information do you need from me at this time?” he asked. “Ask away! I am very proud of my group and cannot talk about it enough!” Gaara cleared his throat.
“It is... impressive what you're able to do on your own with such a large group. Are you short-staffed today?” Lee laughed nervously. He really hoped he didn't get dinged for the teacher to student ratio of the program.
“No. It is always just me! But I am very fast and keep on top of everyone quite well!”
“I can see that.” He had no idea if Gaara meant that as a good thing or a bad thing, but he really hoped it was a good thing. “Is the staffing situation part of why you're applying for the Community Grant?”
“Well, yes and no. My immediate goal with the funding is to get us our own facility. I am close to a down payment on a building, but the grant would cut years off the time it would take me to save from my own pocket. The remainder would go towards renovating the skating area to meet the needs of the program. But with more independence and the ability to charge more well-off skating enthusiasts for regular lessons and use of the building, I would hope to offer paid positions in the long run, and that would perhaps remedy the lack of interested volunteers!” He was very proud of his plan for the skate school. Tenten and Neji helped him understand the business concepts, and they were both very smart and capable people who he admired very much.
“You've put a lot of thought into this.” Surely anyone would, if they were applying for a big grant through human services. But it was promising, to hear Gaara say as much aloud. “What would you say are the goals of your program?” Lee lit up inside.
“I am so glad you asked! Besides constantly striving to skate better and learn new things, this program is designed around giving these wonderful youth a support system, a sense of belonging, and a safe place to become stronger as people!” It felt wrong not to give credit where credit was due, but while Neji had helped him turn the rambling details of his copious composition books full of notes on his skaters and alumni into a single folder of objective information, Tenten had drilled the necessity of getting his point across fast when talking to a potential sponsor. She would know, as a professional skater in the process of launching her own line of skates and gear.
Knowing all that, as much as he wanted to gush for an hour about how smart and helpful his own skating family was, he simply grabbed his duffel bag from under the bench and handed over said folder. “Borrow this for as long as you need, if it is helpful! As you can see, we achieve this mission by giving them access to outdoor mentorship and opportunities to build character that they otherwise would not have access to!”
“Hm.” It just had to be a good thing that Gaara leafed through the pages and, after skimming them all, tucked the folder into his messenger bag. “And what makes you so sure that rollerblading is the way to accomplish that mission?” Maybe Lee was imagining things. Reading people was never a strength of his and Gaara just had a serious, monotone way of expressing himself. But his eyes narrowed a little bit and it almost felt like there was an edge to his words. Lee was not sure how to respond for a moment.
“Well, from my education as a social worker and my own experience in the adoption system, I know that resilience is an important part of overcoming adversity. It is also important to have an outlet for nervous energy. Many of these children, with adverse situations actively going on in their lives, have more of that than a child their age who has not experienced that kind of stress.
Inline skating provided that for me. It made me a person who could handle pressure, navigate obstacles, and get up each time I fall, physically and mentally. I strive to pass the same important survival skills onto these wonderful youth! It is also a lot of fun in a positive, growth-oriented environment, and can simultaneously be a place where one can not be resilient for a while and just skate!” There was a pause. Did he make his point well enough? Gosh, he really wished Tenten and Neji were here. It took all he had not to start biting his nails right in front of Gaara.
“Ah. I see.” Gaara closed his own notes, tucked the small book into his pocket, and started to rise from the bench. “Thank you, Mr. Lee--”
“Please, just Lee is fine!”
“Lee. Thank you for your time. We'll be in touch regarding the grant via the email on your application, so keep an eye on it for any follow-up from the committee.”
“I will watch for your response like a hawk, Gaara!” He shot Gaara a 'thumbs up' and a toothy grin. “Thank you very much for taking the time to meet with me!” With that, they shook hands and parted ways, Lee very careful not to squeeze as hard as he did the first time.
Lee watched Gaara disappear to the adjacent parking lot, then hurried home as well on his blades. He really hoped that he was overcompensating for his struggles with social cues and reading into something that wasn't there, but he wondered why Gaara was so doubtful about skating. More than that, he hoped it would not stop him from having a fair chance at getting the grant.