Lee
He’s alone with his mother now, the walk to her side having been too short, too quiet, too…heavy on him.
Every step closer to her room has his stomach twisting into the tightest of knots, his legs feeling as heavy as lead, and his mind stuck on what she will say when she sees him again.
Knowing that after this, he will be living with her again full time…it only makes this interaction all the more intimidating as much as it is important. If things don’t go good here, he can already say with much certainty that it will go badly when they are living together again. If there’s one thing he knows about his mother, it’s that one interaction with her can set the tone for what their time together will be like.
Hence why he is putting up the calmest, most neutral front he can in front of her now. If he does this just right—avoiding anything that could trigger a bad reaction out of her—then their time together at his sensei’s place won’t be so bad.
“Hi, mom.” he starts things off, hoping she will be reasonable and not too angry at him for anything.
Her first response?
A sneer, cruel yet to the point none the less, “Who are you to act as though nothing is wrong?”
He says nothing, hoping she will get it out of her system, hoping she will try to be good about this, but when she goes on it only ends up being nothing more than a bad sign, “Because of you and your selfish decision to not mate the Hyuuga boy, I lost my clan, my home, my mate—had we been living with the Hyuuga’s after your mating to Neji, we wouldn’t be in the mess we are now! Thanks to you, your father is dead and your clan is gone. Tell me, how do you plan to atone for any of your inactions this past month? How do you plan to atone for the loss of my mate?”
Lee looks to the floor, relieved that Neji and his family are okay yet feeling nothing but guilt all the same, “I’m sorry, mom. I tried to get Neji to mate me, but he refused. He felt bad over what happened with the mark on my hand and how he acted towards me…he didn’t feel right becoming my mate because of it. I tried, I really—”
“Clearly not hard enough!” she snaps, her scent growing sour in her rage, “You couldn’t have mated with this boy sooner? You actually had the gall to wait a month before asking him to mate you? What, did you want me to auction you off—because I would have if you told me so instead of wasting my time waiting on you to make up your mind for so damn long! Who are you to be picky on who will be your mate—you’re not Deidara Yamanaka, you should have agreed to be the Hyuuga boy’s mate the moment he left that mark on your hand then my home wouldn’t be gone, I wouldn’t have lost the family I had, and I wouldn’t have ever lost my mate to your selfishness and misplaced pride!”
When ranting, she picked up the pitcher that was once full of water by her bedside and at the end of her rant, she threw the glass object with the full intent of hitting her son with it.
What she hadn’t expected was for Guy sensei to step in right then and grab it before it could hit her son.
His eyes were full of rage and hate for the woman on the hospital bed, his cold tone of voice unhidden when he spoke, “I don’t care what the law says—if you ever try to hurt my student like this ever again, I will punish you for it myself.”
“Sensei!” Lee interjected, trying to get him to stay out of it, with Guy stopping him after this was said with a raised hand at him.
“Listen, I was willing to have you in my home with Lee after the losses you both experienced. Here I had thought you would have had enough compassion and empathy within yourself to worry over your son, to regret your awful treatment of him after having lost everything you both did and instead I hear you having the nerve to blame that sweet child for something that was never his fault.”
The angered gleam in her eyes never faltered once, leading Guy to say what he did next, “I won’t have anyone that abusive towards Lee in my home. I absolutely refuse to tolerate anyone mistreating him under my roof, even you. You’re on your own lady, good luck finding anyone to care enough to help your miserable, awful self find any form of shelter.”
He turned his back to her, his eyes on the door all the while, “Come on Lee, we’re leaving. You don’t need to hear this or tolerate it.”
“…Yes, sensei.” is all he could say in that instant.
He is amazed at his sensei for doing the one thing his father and no one else in his clan ever did: standing up to his mother for him.
In light of what he saw, he does ask him after following him into the hall, “Sensei…why did you step in? You didn’t have to do that for me; I would’ve been fine—”
“No, you wouldn’t have been.”
He glances at him curiously, finding this declaration to be odd, “I don’t know what you grew up with regarding her and her punishment of you, but after everything you experienced today you didn’t need her blaming you for something that was never your fault and mistreating you for it. Maybe you don’t know this, but you deserve better than that, Lee. You always have and you always will.”
“But sensei, it wasn’t anything I couldn’t have handled. I’ve gone through worse with her than that. I’m sure if I were to go back there and apologize, she’d be calmer and willing to apologize too—”
“Has she ever apologized to you?”
He goes silent because she never has and Guy can tell as much from his silence, “Then why should you apologize to her when she’s never apologized to you?”
He glances down, not sure what to tell her on this issue, but then he says, “Lee, you did nothing wrong. This entire invasion was Orochimaru’s fault, not yours or anyone else’s. Information has come out that he killed the Kazekage and impersonated him to kill our hokage, which he did succeed in unfortunately enough. So in a way, you were right to not rush to judgment on Gaara since it really was no one else’s fault but that monster’s. If your mother wants to blame anyone for both of your losses, it’s him, not you. You shouldn’t have to deal with someone who blames you and mistreats you like she does—”
“But she’s my mom, sensei. She’s the only family I have left.” he tells him while wiping the fresh set of tears from his eyes, “I know she’s not good to me. I know it better than anyone else, but she is my mom… I don’t want to lose any more family if I don’t have to.”
Guy knows this and yet…he really doesn’t think she’s worth the concern or effort to keep in his life.
He knows by law there’s nothing he can do to keep Lee’s mom out of his life. He knows the law is also stacked in her favor no matter how horrid she is to him and no matter what he does to try to save him, it will all mean nothing in the end because tradition always comes before the health, safety, and wellbeing of any omega in any household.
That doesn’t mean he can’t do all that he can to try to convince Lee to have as little contact with her as possible for the time being. He may have to go back to her someday, but he has a feeling that won’t be for a long time, especially since he’s a Genin in his team still.
Since he is a Genin in his team, he feels it is his responsibility to take care of Lee no matter what even if the laws are stacked against him, “I heard her talk about auctioning you off…you would tell me if your clan was going to do something like to you, wouldn’t you?”
“What would be the point in it? I know there’s nothing that could be done if I did tell anyone; the law is on her side, it always has been and I’m starting to think it always will be.” if he sounds defeated on the issues, it’s only because he has been for years now, “I have tried to tell people in the past and it always ended up with nothing being able to be done to help me. All it did was get me punished worse than what I would’ve been if I had just stayed quiet and put up with it. I’m sorry if I didn’t tell you about the auction, but what could have been done to stop it? They would’ve only done worse if I did tell anyone about it.”
The sad thing is, Lee isn’t wrong. If they had claimed it was tradition, legally speaking, nothing could’ve been done to stop it because tradition in this village matters more than the omegas who suffer the negative side effects of it.
Though knowing Lee did try to get help in the past and suffered for it helped him better understand why he didn’t tell anyone about the auction in the first place. While it did help to ease the hurt that sprung within him at the idea of Lee not trusting him enough, it also left a new sort of hurt for the omega who didn’t deserve to suffer from such a cruel fate, “I understand, but Lee…if I had known about the situation, I could have helped you if you let me. I wouldn’t have been able to get you out of being mated, but I could have helped you avoid auction all together if given the chance to.”
“How could you have done that, sensei? She gave me only a month to either mate Neji or be put on auction. I didn’t really have any other options—I know it sounds awful, but I am sort of glad the invasion happened. Thanks to it happening, there’s no way an auction can take place and it will give me some time to try to figure out if my mom is still planning on auctioning me off or not. If she is, then I still have a chance to mate Neji before that happens so I don’t have to leave everything behind.”
It’s hearing Lee put it this way that makes him realize he couldn’t have done anything to save him from that fate.
He was gone with Neji for a month training him. He couldn’t have known what was going on with Lee that whole time and even if he did, his only resort would be to either get him mated to Neji or Gaara, though Neji would’ve been preferable since him being mated to Lee means he wouldn’t have ever had to leave the village. Also, he’s still a bit iffy on Gaara despite Lee’s high opinion of him, which means Neji would’ve been the one he gone for in this case. Even then, would it have been enough? According to what Lee told his mother, Neji did apologize and he rejected the offer to mate him—while he is proud of Neji for doing so, he can admit it would have put a wrench in things and given what Gaara did at the exams, well…it’s not like that would or could have happened either.
“If I had known about it, I would have cancelled training with Neji and taken you and Tenten out on a month long mission. I would have done all that I could to keep you away from them and their grasps if I had known about this earlier—”
“You couldn’t have known earlier, sensei. I didn’t find out about it until after I spoke to Gaara on the day you left to train with Neji. By then, it was late out and I didn’t know how to reach you and even if I did, it would’ve been pointless. My clan knew how to win at this stuff; it’s why they always did. Besides, it’s not like the hokage or the elders would’ve allowed me out on a month long mission when my clan would claim it would interfere with tradition.”
He figures the omega is correct on this end, though it is a rather interesting turn of events to see Lee being so defeatist about something for once. Then again, he knows he has good reason to be.
It doesn’t stop him from trying to plead with him, “Lee, I think it’d be best to leave your mom be and give yourself some space from her. She’s not worth your time or energy on a visit to see her—you’d be better off helping me with the work we have to do to bring this village back to a semblance of normalcy for now. You can always deal with her later. Hopefully by then, she’ll have calmed down somewhat and try to be somewhat civil with you.”
It’s all they can both hope for in regards to his mother. If there’s one thing he excels at, it’s wishing for the best and getting the worst in return regarding her (and his entire clan in general). Though even with this in mind, knowing the law forever tethers him to her, Lee intends to enjoy his time at his sensei’s home while he can because he never knows what his mother will do next in the name of ‘tradition’.
Gaara, on the other hand, is home with his siblings, the future of the village uncertain now that they have no Kazekage. While he should be more worried about his village and its future, he cannot help but to think about what that blonde omega told him in their battle…something about how he got stronger when Lee was mentioned…
No, not that part! The part about his family trying to get him to mate Neji, along with the other part about his situation sounding eerily similar to what he had heard Lee mention when speaking about a cousin of his who had been auctioned off…
Right, that’s what he’s thinking about. His head is still fuzzy from what the medic nin had to do to heal him and remembering everything exactly is harder now than he’d like to think.
He doesn’t know why he keeps thinking of the omega or his sketchy sounding situation with his family. It shouldn’t mean anything to him; Lee is an omega from a village that he will never go to again. He won’t ever see or speak to him again, so why bother thinking about him in general?
What’s more frustrating as much as it is confusing is he cannot stop thinking about Lee when awake or dreaming. It further confuses him when he tries to decipher why he feels as though he’s screwed something up on the last day he talked to him and he doesn’t know why he cannot stop his brain from going to Lee even after he leaves the hospital.
Going about his day to day, with meetings, training, and speaking to his siblings (well, attempting to at least), he finds it hard to focus on anything when his thoughts are constantly on Lee and his situation with his family.
Why this bothers him so, he cannot explain it. However, he wants to stop thinking about it in general. Because of this, fifteen days after the invasion happened, he sent a spy his father used to weed out omega auctions (omega auctions are illegal in his village regardless of family tradition) to figure out what Lee’s status amongst them is.
Two weeks later, he receives news he thought would be good enough to take his mind off the issue, “Rock Lee is nowhere to be found on any auction whether it be in Konoha, the Mist, the Sound, or any other village. All I could find out was that he had lost his entire clan during the invasion, with himself and his mother being the only survivors. He apparently is staying with his sensei while his mother is said to be with her parent’s clan for the time being. It is unknown if she planned to auction him off or not before the invasion of Konoha happened.”
It doesn’t add up, though. From what Naruto said at the end of their fight, his family was trying to get him to mate Neji and the situation sounded like one where he was going to possibly be auctioned off…maybe Naruto got it wrong or maybe he’s remembering it incorrectly?
No, there’s no way Naruto got it wrong. He wouldn’t have been so passionate about it if he did and there’s no way he’s remembering it incorrectly since he knows his memory is sharp and accurate (painfully so) about everything that goes on in his life.
He can only respond to the news with a more direct order than the first time around, “Alright, then find out if she ever did plan to auction him off or not. Do whatever it takes to discover what it is she had in mind that had his friend so upset when he spoke to me last about him.”
“Will do, sir.” he answers with a polite bow before heading out, but it’s not without Temari giving him an all too knowing grin from her spot in their father’s old office, “You’re worried about the Konoha omega, aren’t you?”
“…It’s none of your business if I worry over anyone or not.”
Gaara is trying to be nicer to his siblings, trying to figure out why things happened the way they did from their perspective, but it’s easier said than done at times when they annoy him like this.
She almost cackles yet she’s still afraid enough of him to not do so in front of him, “I see…so that’s why you’re ordering father’s top omega auction spy like a dog to figure out what is going on with that omega: you’re worried over him and afraid he could be in danger. You must really like him to go that far for him.”
Gaara says nothing in response, not wanting to dignify her with any possible suspicion being proven true. In the end, all he does is leave the room to get away from her questioning and the disturbing thought popping up in his mind of that maybe she could be onto something…or is that Shukaku suggesting it?
No matter. He doesn’t want to deal with any possible idea of liking an omega because he’s going to be single for life and he doesn’t care if Rock Lee mates someone as miserable as Neji Hyuuga.
(The idea of Lee and Neji being mated to each other keeps him up that night and many others after this. He doesn’t want to think about the reason why, though it does cause him to feel both angered to the bone while leaving him feeling threatened in a way he hadn’t been before.)
No, he’s doing this to ease his curiosity. Nothing more, nothing less.
The spy comes back with nothing, leaving Gaara to tell him to keep an eye on Lee in case if his mother does try to auction him off. When asked why he should do this when the omega comes from a village where such a thing is legal as long as the clan claims it’s a tradition, all he can give him for a reason is, “Because I want to. Now get to it and don’t question me on it again unless if you want to face consequences for your in subordinance.”
He does as he is told and Gaara does his best to ignore all Lee related thoughts from here on out.
Because Temari isn’t right and neither is Shukaku. He refuses to believe either one could ever be.