Chapter Text
Rock Lee is an orphan.
This is a fact as clear as the blue sky in the summer and the greenness of new leaves in spring. Everyone in Konoha is aware, but not surprised, because it's something that is all too common for a ninja village. It's why the Konoha orphanage is built large, and yet is filled to bursting. It's why there is, at least on paper, a whole reserve of resources in Konoha specifically for all of the orphans that only seems to get smaller and smaller each year, unable to keep up with the growing demand. Death of a family member is hard, death of a parent is harder, and yet both are expected; as such, something that should be so strikingly profound in its grief is instead turned into business as usual.
When Lee is very small, only a year or two after arriving at the orphanage, a jonin asks him about his parents. Lee sits in a hard chair in a barren room with dust bunnies in the corners, ramrod straight yet fidgety in his feet as the woman clicks a pen in the air and asks him if he remembered them at all. If he knew what might've happened to them, and that he wasn't expected to remember anything because many of the children did not. It was just for data collection, she says - a phrase Lee does not understand but nods at because of the exhaustion in her voice.
It takes Lee a long time to respond, too busy scrunching his face until it resembles a raisin as he tries to think of what to say.
Lee ends up saying that he can remember. A female, not male, so no father that he has ever seen; a feminine, blurry face framed by glossy black hair. Thin hands that covered his own, guiding them into making small braids, and that cupped his face with a butterfly's weight. A soft voice that spoke to him in a language different from the one that everyone else spoke in Konoha, leaving him with half a tongue that he is unsure what to do with but whispers to himself at night so that he does not forget. Calloused fingertips, warm touch, and pale skin. A smooth face. Silky fabric, hung around the wrists, that he remembers gripping in a chubby hand on a good morning. And a disappearance of all of that one day, his memories suddenly stuttering like a burned film reel until all he could remember after about her was dirt, and blood, and ash.
The woman gives a hollow apology, thanks him for his time, and he is sent back to his shared room where he lies down and stares at the wood lining the bottom of the bunk above him until the mistress calls him for dinner.
He is not asked about his parents again.
–
Lee is not liked at the orphanage.
This is something, too, that is a fact.
It starts after they have a surprise medi-nin visit - complimentary of the dearest Hokage - who gives all of the children something called "physical checkups". These checkups include an assessment of their chakras, an effort from the Hokage to scout out the newest generation of ninja.
Coincidentally, Lee has been thinking of becoming a ninja for a while.
Lee, when asked why by a medi-nin that holds his arm in a lazy grip for inspection, finds it difficult to articulate the exact reason. There is something about it, something righteous in its nature, that appeals to him. Something about protection and sacrifice. Something about saving people - maybe people like himself. Maybe like the kids in the orphanage, who are there because someone obviously didn't protect them hard enough - didn't protect their family enough.
After all, no one protected him. Or his mother. And now he's here.
The medi-nin smiles at this declaration, at first, but Lee finds that the moment those lips fall is the moment where things change. The medi-nin tells him, in no uncertain terms, that his dream is impossible. That he will never be able to perform ninjutsu, or genjutsu, because something is fundamentally wrong with his chakra pathways. With him. Even with a healthy body, which he doesn't even have (all of the orphans suffer from malnutrition - there just isn't enough to feed them all), it would be too dangerous.
But Lee wants to be a ninja. And, in stubborn defiance, he tells the medi-nin so. And he tells the other children, and the mistress, and her assistants, and suddenly Lee is alone in a house full of lonely people. No one, he finds, wants to be friends with a hot-head whose goals are too big for his disability. Even if he is not targeted for that, now everyone seems to have problems with him because he is too much - that he is too loud. Too honest. Too strange.
And so becoming a ninja doesn't just become a wish - it becomes a need, overwhelming and fiery and the reason why the other orphans begin to tease him, flick at his braid, and play without him when the kids are let loose outside. They think that it is stupid that he has began punching trees in preparation for an academy that he would never graduate from, if he were even accepted.
Now, when Lee whispers in his private, foreign language at night, some of his roommates throw bits of paper at him when before they would have ignored it completely. Now, the mistress only sighs in his direction and deems him troublesome, despite him constantly volunteering for house chores. The previous, meek hope for him being adopted, due to his respectful and friendly nature despite his energy, becomes resignation that he will never be chosen at all. Lee ignores how that, in particular, makes his eyes water and stomach twist, and takes it out on the tree in the playground until the flesh on his hands crack and bleed - which doesn't take very long, admittedly.
The only one who really talks to him, if at all, is Akio, his top bunkmate, but even Akio is wary these days. Akio tells him, once, with a solemn gaze, that he will probably die early if he becomes a ninja. After all, that was what happened to Akio's father, who was a jonin without Lee's "issues". Akio says that Lee's death would be a shame.
Akio must not know that Lee does not care (and he doesn’t, he doesn’t), however, because now Lee is back at the playground tree, kicking and punching at it because he is determined to be somebody even though no one thinks - or wants - him to be anything. Lee may not have friends or family, but he has his tree, his language, and his dream, and that must be enough. He has that ghostly after-image of his mother, proof that he must be worth something because once he was worth it to someone , and that must be enough.
It has to be enough.
He strikes at the tree once more.
–
Lee makes it into the Academy, against the wishes of basically everyone he knows, and is once again alone.
Being alone shouldn’t bother him nearly as much, anymore - with his braid grown longer and his age older, Lee is used to being looked down upon - but it is much worse here. The moment it becomes clear that he cannot do genjutsu or ninjutsu, he is quickly made the laughingstock of every class he's in. Academy children, who depend on these tools to survive in a social climate that treasures talent like gold, insult him with sharp teeth. Many outright challenge him to fights just to humiliate him, especially because Lee never turns them down, and get extra excited when Lee starts challenging them back out of pride and spite. It's rare to see Lee without bruises, the hard hits so different from the butterfly's touch he can still feel if he closes his eyes long enough.
Even the adults are worse - his genjutsu and ninjutsu teachers either treat him with a dead look or passive-aggressively shame him at every opportunity, as if trying to subtly chase him out of the Academy before he even walks through the door. One even laughs at his feeble attempt to walk up a tree, quickly disguising it as a cough after noticing Lee glaring up at said adult from the ground. The only one that treats him decently is a younger teacher, Iruka, but Lee is unfortunately never assigned to him. Lee would never admit it, but he almost prefers the orphanage. At least he wasn’t so constantly being told and treated as if he were worthless. Plus, it beats the silent emptiness of his tiny apartment, which was provided to him the moment he started attending classes (one of the "perks" of having no family).
The apartment is so cold with just him around.
Despite it all, Lee has exactly one good moment in his Academy days. It is somewhere in the middle of his time there, and, by that point, Lee has found that he is most at peace training outside after the other children return home (to their warm houses, and their living parents, and their best friends) - he even finds himself a new tree to pummel in a quiet clearing not too far from the school. And so, at the end of every day, Lee goes to this clearing and trains, just as he does now on a spring day while the sun sets. In soft orange light that glints in his hair, he jump-ropes, does push-ups, and sweats while going through a new kata he learned in his most recent taijutsu lesson before he is interrupted by a flash of green and a loud, booming voice.
"Hahaha! Training with such splendid determination at this time of day… What youth! I love it!!!" The man proclaims, placing two large hands on his hips before Lee looks up, pausing and squinting at the shine that reflects back at him from the shinobi's wide grin.
"Who are you?" Lee blurts out, tensing slightly and clenching his fists before his face blooms red, tacking on a hasty "S-Sir." Lee inclines his head slightly, glancing at the trampled grass underneath his feet before locking eyes with the jonin in front of him. The man is dressed much differently than his teachers at the Academy, with his bright green jumpsuit and contrasting legwarmers, but Lee finds that he couldn't care less at the moment. He's not exactly conventional, either.
The man thrusts a thumbs up in front of Lee that stops just in front of Lee's nose, leaving Lee cross-eyed. "I am Maito Gai, the Beautiful Blue Beast of Konoha! But you may call me Gai!" Gai pauses, as if expecting a response, but is only met with an expectant head tilt from Lee. Gai continues, "I was just out and about, enjoying the beautiful weather and lovely nature, when I saw you, young one! Your clear willpower and drive to improve… It's enough to move me to tears! But!" Gai says, thumb curling inward to make way for a pointer finger that raises to the sky, casting a shadow that plays along Lee's white kimono shirt. "But! Your form… could be improved immensely in that kata you were just practicing! Please allow me to help!"
Lee's eyebrows raise slightly. "Help? You want to…" Lee trails off, pursing his lips as he uncharacteristically hesitates, eyes flickering between the trees and Gai. He waits for some kind of take-back or trick to happen any moment - waits for Gai to transform back into his current genjutsu teacher, who thinks he's "slow", or for his schoolyard bullies to jump out and start jeering at him again. But Gai just stands there patiently, smiling, and they are still alone.
After a few more moments, Lee pipes up, "Do you like taijutsu?"
Gai's head nods so fast that it becomes a blur of shaking black hair. "Yes! I simply love taijutsu! In fact…" Gai crouches down for a moment, leaning in to Lee as if he's telling a huge secret but still speaking with that boisterous volume. Lee still leans in. "It is my specialty!"
Lee's eyes widen. "It is?"
"Yes!"
"And you want to help me?"
"Yes!!!"
"...Yosh! Okay!" Lee declares, snapping to attention before bowing, braid bouncing against the small of his back. "If you do not mind, please - please teach me, Gai-san!" Lee looks up, eyes burning with newfound determination and an inkling of hope, and sees Gai's eyes begin to water. At Lee's visibly rising panic at the sight, Gai simply smiles wider, wipes a hand across his face, and begins.
Lee does not see Gai again.
At least, not at the clearing, anyway. It makes Lee a bit sad, because Lee's mind constantly circles back to those few hours they spent together even months after the event. Lee can't remember the last time an adult treated him so nicely, like a precious thing instead of a pest or a speck of dust, since his chakra was assessed at the orphanage. Lee remembers wondering, in a delirious sort of way, if training with Gai was what it was like for other children when they were with their loved ones. To have a warm hand guiding your own, and to receive a grin even when you fall; had Lee been any less resilient, or any more torn, the thought might have sent him spiraling.
A horrible part of Lee's mind wonders if the reason that Gai has not met with him again is because Gai only learned about Lee's deficiencies after their session, even though Lee doesn’t really expect Gai to do anything for him specifically. It bites at his brain with a viper’s fangs. After all, Lee has never seen Gai at the Academy, so maybe Gai mistook him for someone else and decided that Lee wasn't worth teaching anymore after realizing the truth. Maybe Gai just didn’t like him in general.
However, Lee pushes all of these thoughts as far away as possible, focusing instead on the tips that Gai bestowed in that animated way of his. The correct way to punch, to hold your feet; Lee decides that even if Gai does not like him anymore, he might as well take advantage of what Gai gave him, because Lee is going to be a ninja no matter what anyone thinks. No matter what even Maito Gai thinks. So Lee trains, and trains, and trains, and kicks and punches the poor tree so much that it starts to develop a divot where his fists land perfectly. Even after Lee cuts his hair and changes his shirt with all of the changing tastes and wisdom of a prepubescent boy, Lee continues to return to the tree.
He will make his mother proud.
Maybe he can make Gai proud, too, in a way, and prove that the few hours spent on him was worth it.
And so Rock Lee keeps going, because he has only himself to change his future.
(What Rock Lee doesn’t know is that Gai has been with him all along - in the shadows of the trees, watching, in awe of his persistence. That Gai has been thinking about him for weeks and months up until his graduation, not approaching him because Gai has been too busy formulating the perfect plan that will set Lee on the path to his dream; that Gai has known all along just exactly who Rock Lee is and thinks all the more of him for it. That Gai's meeting with Lee was not coincidental whatsoever, regardless of what was said.
What Rock Lee doesn’t know will change his life).