sagemoderocklee:

While I am a sucker for those like moments where it’s the first time someone smiles at you and your heart just feels like its beating out of your chest because ‘holy shit’… 

I don’t think it was like that. I think they were both young and caught up in other things, and the first time Gaara smiles at Lee, Lee doesn’t even notice. Gaara is fourteen and Lee is fifteen, and they’re friends with a bloody past and Gaara’s still learning what it means to have friends and what it means to smile because of fondness. 

The second time Lee does see it, and it does surprise him. it does feel significant. They don’t see each other often and Gaara’s just come back from death and he’s smiling and he’s alive. They’re still young and the world is still rushing around them and it’s not going to stop because of a smile, but Lee feels warm because of it. His heart doesn’t beat erratically, he doesn’t have any earth shattering epiphanies about love. It’s just his friend smiling at him, alive and whole and happy. 

The third time Gaara smiles at Lee it’s after the war and they’re both alive and thank the gods. They’re alive. The world hasn’t ended. Everything is going to be okay. And Gaara smiles at Lee and it’s a shot through the heart. Lee doesn’t remember what he’d dreamed up in the infinite tsukiyomi in the wake of that smile. the world finally stops, it tilts, it’s upside down. Lee can’t breathe and his heart is beating too fast in his chest because they’re alive, gaara’s alive, he didn’t die all over again. he’s alive and he’s smiling at Lee, the brightest smile Lee’s ever seen on his face, it’s like watching a supernova if only Lee knew anything about astronomy; it’s like watching planets implode and be reborn from their own ashes; it’s blinding and hypnotizing, and why hasn’t he ever noticed that gaara’s eyes are like jade? how has he never realised what love truly was? 

after that, lee makes a mental note of every time gaara smiles at him or because of him. after that, he finds books on poetry searching for the best way to describe gaara’s smile and the way it makes him feel–he’s never felt like this before, never felt so electric, like flying without his feet leaving the ground. there are no words. he goes through dozens of books. he seeks out countless natural wonders. 

nothing compares to gaara’s smile, no words can ever capture it.

lee doesn’t stop trying

gaara has a lot of reasons to smile, he does so often. lee never wants to miss a single one. he’s up to smile 260 now. he’s compared it to the sun, but that feels cliched and he throws out another poor attempt at poetry. gaara finds the forgotten piece while visiting lee he next day. 

smile 261 comes just before their first kiss

lee starts counting gaara’s smiles from 0 after that: all the times gaara smiles because he loves lee