Lee was ripped out of his sleep when he heard the sound of the alarm-clock. It was pretty early; Lee didn’t like stress, so he always woke up before the others, that way he didn’t have to rush. The sun wasn’t up yet, neither were the birds. Lee stretched and turned the clock off. He scratched his back and yawned. He jumped out from the bed and walked around a little. Most of the soreness had disappeared, but it still hurt a little. “At least I’ll be able to teach my team,” Lee said to himself and smiled. It felt good, having a team again, only this time, he was the teacher. Maybe he should start as a sensei when Gai came back?

Lee walked into the bathroom, the thought of his own team still swirling around in his mind. He brushed his teeth and combed his hair. He knew he had to give a good first impression. He looked at himself in the mirror. A round-eyed boy with a black bowl cut looked back at him. The reflection in the mirror was exactly the same it had been a week ago, but the boy, Lee, was a different person. He felt more mature and grown-up now. His youth was almost over, and he hadn’t been at any parties, he hadn’t had any girlfriends or been to any strip clubs. All the other boys had girls hanging over them at all times, even Shino had a little group of girls following him. Lee sighed and looked at his reflection once more. He had to admit, he wasn’t handsome, he wasn’t pretty and he was not hot. “The only thing I have is muscles, but so do the rest of the boys.” He whispered sadly.
He’d only been to one date, and that was when Sakura had asked him to take her to the annual spring dance. She said it was because she wanted to, but Lee knew it was because Sasuke was already taken by Ino.

Lee looked at his eyes. Why did they have to be so round? Why couldn’t they be like everyone else’s eyes? He looked at his eyebrows. He liked them. They were so unique, but everyone else thought they were nasty. He once considered having Sakura fix them, but then Gai had scolded him, telling him to be proud of whom he was, and not trying to be someone else. It had worked for a while, but then Nartuo had started calling him Bushy brows again. Everyone else thought it was so funny and fitting. So they brought back the old nickname. They also added stuff like “Bowl cut”, “Grape-eyes” and “Green Boy Wonder”.

Lee had pretended that everything was okay; he let them think he didn’t care, but secretly, when he was all alone, he used to cry himself to sleep. It had lasted for about a year, till he turned seventeen, and then he couldn’t take it anymore.

He had thought about suicide, but he knew that he never would have the guts, so he did the next best; he changed his being. He had his hair cut and started using gel. He invited Sakura over so she could take care of his eyebrows and then they went shopping. He had changed his entire style, the old spandexes were roughly tucked up in the attic and loads of cloth that were “in style” filled his wardrobe.
Those two days were some of the best in his life; girls finally started looking at him, the boys asked him to join them when they went out and his self-esteem was on top. It could have lasted that way, hadn’t it been for the look in Gai-sensei’s eyes when he saw the new Lee standing in front of him. He had looked disappointed and let down, as if he had lost a battle he had fought so hard to win. It had hit Lee right in the heart, and he realized that your look isn’t what matters, but what’s on the inside.

Lee tore himself out from the painful memory. He quickly looked at the clock and noticed that he had to hurry up if he was going to make it. He ran down the stairs, two steps at a time, and spurted in to the kitchen. He there looked at the clock again, he had an hour and a half before he had to be at the training grounds. He opened one of his cupboards and grabbed some bread and some cheese. Not his favourite, but Gai-sensei said it was healthy, and therefore, Lee ate it every day. He opened the fridge and took out a bottle of milk. He quickly downed the liquor and put the bottle in the sink. He walked out to the entrance, his sandals lying beside his weights. He put them on and walked out, locking the door in the process

He arrived at the training grounds, cursing himself for his lateness. He looked around and noticed a group of three sitting under a big tree some meters away. ‘That must be my students,’ Lee thought and walked over to them. One of them looked up and glanced at Lee. “Gai-sensei, I thought you said you were going on a mission,” the boy said perplexed. Lee smiled; he took it as a compliment being confused with Gai. The other boy, a blue haired one, looked up at Lee, “Kenji, you dumbass, that’s not Gai-sensei. Gai is taller and has more muscles.” Lee sweat dropped. What a brat. “But he looks very much like Gai-sensei,” the girl said.

Lee gave them his biggest smile and said, “My name is Rock Lee and I will be teaching you while Gai-sensei is away.” The first boy looked at him again, “Why do you call him sensei? He’s not your teacher.” Lee looked at the kids, hadn’t Gai-sensei told them who was going to be his substitute? Maybe he’d been in too much of a rush to give them all the details. “Well, you see. Gai used to be my teacher, long time ago, and I guess I just never stopped calling him sensei. You see, we’re still very close,” Lee blushed when he realized what he had just said. “How close?” the blue haired kid asked suspiciously. Lee felt himself go warm as he answered, “Best friends, but not that it is of any matter.” The blue haired boy cocked an eyebrow and looked at his teacher with interest. This was a boy Lee had to be careful with; he acted like a mix between Kakashi and Kankuro. Not good.

“Well, now you know my name, how about you give me yours? And while you’re at it, tell me what your goals in life are,” Lee said in his most friendly tone. The girl raised her hand. She looked like girls most. Her straight, black hair reached to her shoulders. That, mixed with her blue eyes and fair complexion made her looks almost angelic. ‘She needs to eat more, though,’ Lee thought. He had never really understood why girls always wanted to be so skinny. Some of them looked sick. Like Ino and Sakura, Lee had always thought that Sakura would be much more beautiful if she gained some weight. But obviously, that wasn’t the way it worked in a teenage girl’s mind.

Lee pointed to the girl and she introduced herself. “My name is Suzuki Masami, and my biggest dream is to be an Anbu Captain.” Lee nodded and looked at the person beside her.

It was the boy who had confused him with Gai. He was pink hair, but that didn’t make him look the least girl-like. He had his headband around his neck, and his outfit was dark. The t-shirt and the pants were both black. He had green eyes, and he somewhat reminded Lee of Sakura-chan. He was also the only one wearing a Chuunin/Jounin vest. “What’s your name?” Lee asked. “I’m Hamada Kenji, and my biggest dream in life is to destroy Orochimaru. He tortured and killed my father, like he has done to so many other Shinobis and Kunoichis.” Lee nodded, he understood the young boy. He only had to watch out so he wouldn’t turn out like Sasuke.

The last boy looked up at Lee with disbelief. “I’ll tell you my name, but my dreams and hopes for the future are none of your businesses,” Ow, he’s got the Uchiha attitude. “Fill me in boy; are you of any relations with the Uchiha clan?” Lee asked. The boy’s glance searched Lee’s expression, looking for any signs of emotion, but Lee knew how to handle brats. Be nice, but show who’s the boss. “No, I’m not related to any of them, but Uchiha Sasuke is my role model. I want to be like him. I’ve heard he’s the strongest ninja alive, and I know everything about him. I want to do all the heroic and adventurous stuff he has done.” Ahh, well, Lee wasn’t going to say against the boy. Let him live life and find out the hard way. “And your name?” The boy stood up and leaned against the tree. “My name is Okano Kousuke.”

“So, today we’ll take it easy. We’ll start with 200 push-ups, and then we’ll do 200 sit-ups.” Lee thought for a while. What more should he add? Something that would make the students use all of their strength. Something that would really wear them out. Lee loved the good feeling hard training brought. Gai-sensei had told him that a good day of training was the best you could do for your body. It was healthy and made your heart stronger.
“So when we’re done with that, I think 300 high-kicks on the dummy should do. We’ll end it all with 10 laps around Konoha. Does that sound good?” Lee smiled; the students did not. “You’ve gotta be kidding us!” Masami said, her lower jaw almost touching the ground. “Yeah! That’s not what I call ‘taking it easy’. Man, you’re worse than Gai-sensei!” Kenji whined. Lee looked at them, his eyebrows making good friends with his hair-line. “When I was your age I used to train twice as hard and twice ad long as you do. I never imagined Gai-sensei letting you off this easy.” Kousuke huffed, obviously not agreeing with Lee on the subject of Gai-sensei’s teaching.
“Well, let’s get started, shall we? Tomorrow I’ll check if the office have any missions for us,” And then Team 4 walked out on the grass to starting on their push-ups.

Half an hour later the youths had finally reached the ‘kicking the dummy’-part. Lee stood beside them, telling them how to make the kicks more powerful. He had to help Kousuke with his technique, because Kousuke, unlike Sasuke, wasn’t very good at taijutsu. Kenji, who was already a Chuunin, had no problem with any of the tasks they were given, but none of them were as good as Lee had been when he was their age. He made himself a mental note, Gai had to start training these kids with the same intensity he trained Lee.

Lee quickly noticed that this wasn’t a winner-team; the students kept nagging each other. Kousuke was worst; he kept calling Kenji gay, just because of his pink hair. When he did, Kenji would turn to Masami and ignore Kousuke completely. ‘These kids really need to learn how to work together, because if they don’t, that’s going to be their biggest weakness if they get captured or put in dangerous situations.”

“Okay, team, stop.” Lee shouted and waved his arms. Masami had attacked Kousuke, she was very protective over Kenji, and therefore she and Kousuke fought constantly. Lee walked over to his team; he almost had to drag Kousuke off of Masami. God, why did these kids have to be so damn aggressive?

“Why are you always fighting?” Kousuke just glared at him, Masami didn’t look very happy either. Kenji just shrugged his shoulders. “Don’t you know how important teamwork is?” Masami tilted her head, “Yeah, Gai-sensei has already told us that like a million times. If we cannot work together, we’ll die alone, or something,” Kenji nodded and Kousuke crossed his arms.

“You need to learn how to trust each other, and I think that’s more important than training right now. So we’ll do some test together, alright?” Masami lighted up a bit, “what kind of tests?” Lee remembered the tests Gai-sensei had used to bring his team closer. “We’ll take a long rope and bind it between those trees,” Lee pointed at two extremely high trees that stood about 50 meters away from each other. He knew that if a person were to fall from one of them, it would hurt like hell. “And then we, or rather you, will have to climb from the one side to the other.”

Kousuke looked at Lee in disbelief, “hey, we’re ninjas, not babies, climbing those trees will be an easy match. And it’ll be even easier if we can use a line.”

Lee chuckled, “well, of course, you’re not using your arms or your hands, you can only use your legs,” Masami looked at Lee wide-eyed. “But Lee-sensei, that’s impossible!” Lee smiled knowingly, “that’s exactly what we said when Gai-sensei told us to do it, but we made it. You’ll figure it out.” Kenji sighed, not really up for this.
“I’ll be here, but I will not catch you if you were to fall.” Lee said seriously.

Lee climbed easily up to the top of the first tree, only stopping to tie the rope around the big trunk. He then made a loop and threw the rope over to the other tree. The loop attached to one of the branches, and Lee climbed down again and did the same to the other tree. Now the rope was safely bound on each side. This would be a hard one.

The team quickly started their task, doing it with much more enthusiasm than Lee had expected. It was a windy day, and Lee had made the rope pretty loose, so it was almost impossible to balance from one side to the other.
He watched them as they tried to take some unsure step out on the slack line. They quickly found out that it wouldn’t work, and he proudly saw that they were discussing wildly how to make it to the other side.

After an hour of trying and failing Lee started to get a little bit bored. He didn’t want to admit it, but teaching a team wasn’t as fun as he thought it would be. But then again, maybe it would get more interesting when they went on their first mission together.

Lee looked at the clouds; the sun was strong, making his eyes narrow. He saw something reflect the light, and he quickly turned around. On the road, a couple of meters away from where he stood, he could see a little group of people walking. One of them was wearing a white robe and a white hat with a symbol on; Gaara.

Lee looked closer; Gaara was accompanied by his siblings and some Sand Jounins. He glanced up at the tree once more; his students had finally realized that if they bend their knees over the rope they would, with some help from each other, be able to climb to the other side. Lee remembered how hard it was, and that Tenten almost had fallen, but that Neji had got a grip of her hand. And together, Lee and Neji had managed to drag her up again.

Lee looked at the Kazekage and his escorts again. He wanted to just let them be; let them go by, but a little voice in the back of his head told him to go forward and greet them. He tried to resist, tried to turn his look back at his team again, but he couldn’t. He needed to speak with Gaara. Maybe Lee could ask him if he wanted eat lunch with him? That way he could try to apologize and tell Gaara about his dreams. What was there to lose anyway?

Lee walked over to the people and Kankuro was the first one to spot him. “Hey Lee,” he said and looked at the leaf Jounin. Gaara quickly turned his head towards Lee. The look in his eyes was unreadable. Maybe it was fear? Embarrassment? A mix? “Hi Lee, long time no see,” Temari said and shook his hand. The other Sand Jounins gave him polite nods, they didn’t know him, but they knew he was a friend of the Kazekage.

“Err, hello Kazekage-sama,” Lee said and bowed his head. Gaara’s look had now changed back to normal. Cold, uninterested eyes stared at Lee. ‘This is not good,’ Lee thought and gulped. “What do you want? We’re on our way to the Hokage’s office, and we’re late.” Temari looked at her brother; she obviously hadn’t expected him to talk to Lee that way. Lee had been prepared, but it still kind of hurt. Gaara was after all one of his friends. The closest friend he had had, not counting his team.

“Well, I was wondering if you maybe, eer, were up for some lunch later, you know, catching up and all,” Lee said and felt very uncomfortable. Gaara just looked at him and raised a non-existing eyebrow. “I’m sorry Lee, I have to let you down. In the situation we’re in, the Mizukage being kidnapped by an unknown enemy, I cannot spend time with normal people. It’s too risky. And I don’t think we have anything to catch up about anyway.” Gaara said in an icy voice. He started walking again, not looking at Lee. The Sand Jounins quickly followed. Temari and Kankuro stood beside Lee, a little shocked by their little brother’s behaviour.

Lee felt hurt, not only because he had been rejected so coldly, but that he had been rejected by one of his closest friends, by Gaara. His stomach was swirling, and he wished he could just lie down and die.

“Wow, what the hell have you done to tick him off that bad?” Kankuro asked. Lee didn’t answer; his mouth was a little dry. “Yeah, I mean, aren’t you his friend or something?” Temari asked. “I don’t know, I hope so,” Lee mumbled.

“Well, give him some time and he’ll get over it,” Kankuro said and patted the Leaf’s back. Lee strongly doubted Gaara would ‘get over’ it, at least not without some help.

“Umm, Lee? Whose team is that?” Temari asked and looked at Team 4. “It’s my, or, I’m stepping in for Gai-sensei. Since he’s a part of the Konoha search-group,” Lee said, still a little hurt by Gaara’s coldness. “Aww, I see.” Kankuro said and nodded. “You should help that kid. If he hit the ground, he’ll be flat.” Temari said and pointed at a little black spot.
“Oh shit!” Lee said and saw it too. Kenji was somewhere between the ground and the rope, fast falling.

Lee ran as fast as he could, trying to make it in time. Gai-sensei wouldn’t be very happy if Lee managed to hurt one of his students the first day he was training them. “I am such moron; I shouldn’t have left their side! I shouldn’t have talked to Gaara at all! Why can’t I just do something right once in a while?” He muttered to himself as he reached Kenji. The boy fell hard down in his arms, making Lee slip on the grass and fell on his back. His breath got knocked out of him and he felt very un-elegant there he lay. “Ow,” Lee moaned in pain as Kenji sat up.

Masami and Kousuke had climbed down and were now standing beside Lee and Kenji. Lee stood up, lifting Kenji to his feet. He felt ashamed that he had failed them, but the students didn’t look depressed. “Wow. that was an awesome speed!” Masami said in awe. Kenji looked dazed, but shook Lee’s hand, “Yes, thank you sensei, without you I would be dead.” Kousuke only huffed and turned away.

“Lee-sensei? Who were the persons you were talking to? That guy in the white robes, wasn’t that the Kazekage of Suna?” Kousuke asked, looking at Lee with piercing eyes. Lee scratched his head and blushed a little, “Eerm, yes, it was the Kazekage,” Masami looked at Lee, “What did you talk to him about? I mean, do you know him?”
“Yes, I know him, we used to be friends,” Lee said a little sad, he wasn’t sure where he and Gaara stood at the moment. He knew he had to talk to the red head, but how? And when? And why? Maybe everything was better like this. “You used to be friends? What happened?” Kenji asked with interest. “Something stupid, it’s nothing worth talking about,” Lee said and waved a hand in front of his chest. Kousuke gave him a look and whispered something to Masami. She shook her head and looked at Kenji, he just shrugged his shoulders. Lee looked at the teens, ‘let them think whatever fits them.’ He remembered how his friends had been as kids, always gossiping.

“I think we say this would do for today, now, tomorrow is Saturday and therefore we’ll meet here at 8:00 Monday morning, okay?” The team nodded and left the grounds.

Lee felt miserable. He felt sick. Sick of himself. Why did he have to be so stupid? He had almost been the reason one of his students had been hurt, and how the heck could he have been stupid enough to talk to Gaara? Lee had managed to make a complete idiot out of himself in front of the Sand Jounins.

His thoughts on his way home were filled with depressed things. “Why can’t I be someone else? Like Gai-sensei.” He lay down on the couch and covered his eyes with his arm. Pictures flashed before his eyes. Pictures of his new team, Gai-sensei’s wonderful team. What did they think of him? That he was a good teacher? No, that he was terrible at everything. Yeah, something along those lines. And Temari and Kankuro? Lee hoped Gaara didn’t tell them anything. ‘Like he ever would, we’re talking about Gaara here, the world’s biggest social reject.’
After a while Lee drifted into an uncomfortable, dreamless sleep.