The Jinchuriki Brothers

8~ I'm Proud Of You

Before we knew it, we were almost to where Naruto was. Lee went on ahead, seeing as he was still in better shape then I was, and could get there faster. He finally agreed to go on ahead after a bunch of reassurance that I was going to be fine.

I arrived soon, to see Lee fighting a man with long white hair partially in a ponytail, and his... bones? As weapons. That's nasty.

Lee was moving weirdly, and his speech was slightly slurred. Was he drunk? How???

He was about to get hit with an attack, when I came in and protected him with sand. He thanked me as he got back on his fight, apparently more sober, and prepared to fight again.

We were holding our own pretty well, but the man became too much for us when he activated curse seal level 2. Even my tailed beast cloak combined with my sand imperial funeral still weren't enough to take him down.

I thought we were done for with his next attack. But he stopped right before he got to us for some reason. I watched him slowly fall to his knees, and blood spout out of his mouth. He crumpled over, and I think he died. I didn't want to risk it though, so me and Lee waited awhile before we went to go check him. And sure enough, he was dead. Me and Lee were both extremely confused, but decided to ignore it for now.

I tried to go after Naruto a few minutes later, but Lee stopped me, saying that this was something Naruto needed to do on his own. I reluctantly agreed to not follow him.

We both decided it would be best to start heading back to the leaf for now. On the way, we passed Kakashi sensei, who told us he was sent by Minato to go find Naruto. I told him the direction he went, and prayed that he was ok. 

We arrived back in the leaf eventually, and me and Lee went straight to Minato's office.

I knocked on the door.

"Come in!"

We walked up to Minato's desk.

"Gaara, Lee. How'd it go? Is everything alright?"

We then told Minato everything, including Lee's fight with Kimimaro that I didn't see.

Minato nodded when we finished, stood up, and turned around to look out the window of his office. We all just stood in silence.

"Kakashi is going to go help out now. You guys said you passed him, so that's good." He paused, as if thinking, and then turned to face us again. "I also sent out a team of medical nin to help with the others that I presumed are injured. Would you two like to wait here until we know more of what's happening?"

I turned my head to Lee, and we both nodded at each other, as if reading each other's thoughts.

"Yes," I replied without hesitation.

"Ok, you can sit over on the couch over there until we hear more. But first Gaara, come here for a second."

I obeyed, and walked towards Minato. 

He put his hands on my shoulders, and then hugged me. I was so shocked, that I didn't hug back right away. And then my senses came back to me, and I hugged him. 

He whispered, "I'm so proud of how great you've become Gaara. And I know you're worried, but Naruto's strong. He's going to make it back ok, I just know it."

I nodded my head into his shoulder.

"I'm so happy that you both are my sons, and I couldn't be prouder of you and Naruto. And I probably haven't even seen half of it yet. I know your both going to become extremely strong someday, and you might even surpass me. I just wanted you to know that Gaara."

I felt the corners of my eyes glisten with tears, but I fought them off.

"Thank you." I hesitated on the next words. "Dad."

Minato only hugged me tighter. After we finally broke our embrace, I went over and sat next to Lee on the couch.

My good leg was bouncing the whole time, and I couldn't stop myself from worrying.

Is he okay?

What if something happened and I wasn't there?

I hated him being alone.

I hated being without him.

Then, I felt Lee's fingers intertwine with mine. My cheeks immediatly became red, and I started to relax. His hand was so warm. It was a small gesture, but it felt like my heart had skipped 50 beats when he did it.

That's when it became so apparent.

My feelings.

For him.

I always felt so safe around him. Like nothing bad was ever going to happen. Like everything would be ok, no matter what. 

Was this what they call love?

Hello everyone! Feel free to kill me for how long it took to update this. I haven't really had that many ideas, but I'm starting to get some more. I'll be updating a little more regularly, though, hopefully, since I'm on summer break now. Feel free to leave suggestions or things u wanna see in this story in the comments, and I'll most likely add them. I'm always open to suggestions, and good ideas! Sorry this is a shorter chapter as well, I wanted to end that right there bc I thought it was perfect.

Oh yeah, I also wanted to say thank you so so so much for over 200 reads, you guys are amazing. I'm surprised to have gotten over 100. This just means so much to me, so thank you so much ILY all!

I hope you have a great day/night. And I hoped you know how loved you are. Like seriously, you're loved and amazing, don't ever forget that <3

~Z

Total word count~ 936