I debated for awhile whether to list the two characters as Kakashi and Rin or Kakashi and Sakura... but I just decided to go with this. Hopefully you guys enjoy this little oneshot! I haven't had much success in the way of developing a new multichapter, but hopefully this will still entertain someone... or even a few someones. This was inspired by the entry for a daruma doll in 'The Anime Companion' by Gilles Poitras. If you don't get the idea of what a daruma doll is from the story, I would encourage you to check out the Wikipedia article.

A clock ticked methodically in a corner, making the silence of the shop all the more apparent. The small store was cluttered with trinkets and antiques, but there was an emptiness to it that the clock only served to accentuate with every metallic click. Rin watched with mild interest as dust floated through a shaft of sunlight, each tiny particle suspended in the blinding light that contrasted with the otherwise dim store.

She wasn't sure what had brought her here, exhausted as she was after coming home from another strenuous day at the hospital. She had just been taking her regular route home past all of the same stores she had never noticed a hundred times before when this one caught her eye. Useless trinkets held some sort of allure over her; she was drawn to them in a way she could not explain. Perhaps it was that as much as she loved having a real purpose in her medical and field work, she could grow weary of everything bearing such intense importance all of the time. She sometimes felt like she was carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders, so it was nice to be able to take pleasure in objects of so little consequence.

Regardless, she had one way or another found herself wandering around a tiny antiques shop sandwiched between a Korean BBQ and a drug store. She walked along a narrow path between towering shelves, feeling slightly overwhelmed by the sheer multitude of goods. They ranged from typewriters to lampshades, wind-up toys to leather-bound encyclopedias, the obligatory (a dignified grandfather clock) to the amusing (a metal lunch box advertising the exploits of the daring and well-dressed Subarashii Chiizu, ninja extraordinaire).

After pausing to admire a particularly striking wall scroll, she noticed a familiar design out of the corner of her eye. She peered closer to see a small stuffed scarecrow, straw sticking out from underneath his shabby plaid shirt and overalls. A wide-brimmed hat sat atop his head, and onto his faded cloth face were stitched with black threat the characters making up the unmistakable henohenomoheji.

Smiling, Rin picked the doll up from the shelf. She was of course reminded immediately of Kakashi. How could she not be? It was his namesake, after all, and he'd even gone so far as to adopt the henohenomoheji as his unofficial symbol. She remembered helping him design the capes of his new ninken pack; as reluctant as the dogs had been to wear any clothes at all, they had eventually been convinced and so it became Kakashi's task to somehow procure matching outfits for them all, from the menacing Bull to the newborn Pakkun. Of course, Kakashi's lack of creativity had led him to delegate this to Rin, who interpreted the assignment as an effort to elicit both Kakashi's approval and amusement, which she had been without for an uncomfortably long amount of time.

So Rin had dedicated the better part of a week re-acquainting herself with the ways of the needle, and then on the following weekend had presented a wary Kakashi with a set of blue capes, tailored to fit, and adorned with the same arrangement of symbols present on every scarecrow's face across the country: henohenomoheji. Kakashi's eyes had widened in surprise, and for the first time in what felt like years he had smiled at her. Even though his countenance faded almost immediately back into its default state of disaffected apathy, there had been a spark of real emotion there — of happiness, no less — and that alone had been enough to cheer Rin up for an entire fortnight afterwards.

She frowned at the doll, no longer seeing it. How long as it been this way? she wondered. Had he always been this hard-hearted?

Yes. Her immediate response was emphatic— in fact, the conviction with which that half of her mind declared that no, there had never been any other way, unsettled her. Surely he had been happy once, hadn't he?

She bit her lip. He must've been, there was no way anyone could have gone through his entire life so cold and embittered— surely, no one was born jaded. But ever since she had known Kakashi, he had been this way. She hadn't known it at the time, but the nine-year-old boy she met when she was fresh out of the academy had already been scarred by the horror of war and the anguish of being orphaned. In fact, back then he was even worse— She interrupted herself. While he no longer regarded her as worthless, was his obsession with "protecting" her really much of an improvement? Now instead of outright indifference his excuse for not opening up to her was some convoluted idea of protecting her from himself, and she could not help but feel that this was far from what Obito wanted.

Her lower lip trembled violently and she clamped down on it with her teeth. Of course it hasn't always been like this, she chided. There had been times when he would grudgingly displayed embarrassment or excitement, and all of them, even Sensei, would be a little taken aback at the reminder that Kakashi was, in fact, human.

But it hasn't been like that in awhile, has it? Every time she thought they were getting closer (a knowing look, a playful tone, an affectionate smirk) he doubled his defenses and made it that much more difficult to penetrate the wall again. And there was something heart-breaking about watching his heart torn open all along the same seams only to be sewn quietly back up over all of the same scars. She remembered his elusive dimple, his boyish pout, his actual laugh — not just that sad little chuckle — and she couldn't stop the tears from falling now as she wondered desperately where they went and if she'd ever be able to reach out a hand to him without it being swatted irritably away.

Clutching the tattered little doll to her chest, she sank down, her sobs pulling her down into a trembling crouch.

She was not aware of the mantra she was chanting (whimpering) under her breath — "it's hopeless, it's hopeless, he's so damn hopeless" — but it certainly caught the shopkeeper's attention. The elderly man looked up from where he had been bent over some document in need of restoration. He pushed his thick eyeglasses up his nose and began to navigate his way to the disturbance. Taking advantage of his small size, he inched along a narrow passage between two closely packed shelves to discover a young woman stooping over some unseen object, shaking with sobs.

He immediately squatted beside her, ignoring the protests of his joints and placing a hand on her shoulder. He patted her consolingly. "It's not all that hopeless," he assured her. "It's not all bad." Whatever it is.

Eventually she seemed to register his presence and her weeping weakened to a faint hiccupping very quickly. She straightened up, averting her eyes as she rubbed them with the back of her hand; he noticed some sort of doll clutched limply in her hand.

She turned to face him. His attention was first drawn to the headband tied across her forehead, and he had to hold back his soft "ah" of understanding. This was not the first time he had witnessed a small shinobi breakdown. She returned his reassuring smile with a sheepish one, and he neither missed nor commented upon the color tingeing her cheeks. He adopted a congenial tone and gestured towards another shelf. "I've got just the thing for you."

Rin followed him shyly through a winding passageway into a different part of the store where he had on display a variety of more traditional items.

"I can tell you're feeling a little down on your luck, and luckily…" He flashed her a wink. "Luckily, I have something for people with your dilemma."

A part of her wanted to ask him what exactly he knew about her dilemma— what could this civilian antiques dealer known about the hopelessness of loving a jaded emotional recluse? Thankfully, her better nature stepped in and shushed such thoughts of rebellion before tuning her into what the old man was saying.

"Now this, young lady, is something called a daruma doll." He pointed to a small wooden object off of the shelf; Rin leaned forward to better inspect it. It had a flat bottom but was otherwise round and painted primarily with red. There was a face cleared for a face, however; it sported an offensively large nose and thick facial hair. Curiously, its eyes were not filled in but had been left white.

The shopkeeper smiled at Rin's look of interest. "You're wondering why the eyes aren't painted in?" Rin nodded. Stroking his chin with his hand, the man said, "Traditionally, when making a wish you paint in the left eye of the doll. Then when your wish is fulfilled or your project is completed you paint in the other. Typically, people display them in a temple or household shrine to serve as a reminder of the goal."

A wish, huh? Rin tentatively reached out to take it. "Go on," the man encouraged her. She removed it carefully from the shelf, running her hand over the smooth, painted wood.

"I'll offer it to you at a discount," the dealer said, winking again.

Rin smiled slightly. "All right."

(…)

All of the lights were off in the apartment. Kakashi sat on the edge of the bed, causing it to sag with the extra weight. He was cradling his head in his hands, his body visibly trembling as he cried into them. Other than his muffled sobs, only the clock could be heard, mercilessly ticking away the minutes.

Rin stood there silently, peering at him solemnly from behind the door to his bedroom, which stood barely ajar. She was clutching the brown paper bag containing her purchase to her chest as she watched him cry. There had never been anything more difficult than watching Kakashi cry, she felt. He had never cried as a boy, at least not where she could see… Obito had cried plenty, but Kakashi had always radiated stoicism and indifference. As many problems as there were with Kakashi's thick, unfeeling façade, Rin was frightened to see that something was powerful enough to shatter it. And the worst part was that he always denied it— even when the evidence was incontrovertible he invariably danced around the issue, plastering fake smiles onto his obviously tear-stained face and insulting her intelligence by churning out ridiculously cheerful excuses.

She didn't bother to knock — of course he knew she was there — and pushed the door open slowly, stepping inside the room Muttering something about how dark it was, she flipped the light switch. Kakashi did not move, but she noticed that he had stopped shaking. She sighed, finding a place to set the bag down on the cluttered nightstand.

She sat beside him, listening as the cheap mattress groaned. He seemed to have stopped crying; she could hear him trying to even out his breath. She put a hand on his bare back, ignoring his automatic flinch, and started rubbing it soothingly. She took care not to create too much friction on the many scars crisscrossing his back in a dilapidated spiderweb of pink skin. His skin was coated in a layer of cold sweat; she wondered dully how long he had been sitting here.

He eventually straightened up, causing her soothing hand to retreat to her lap. He turned his face from her, but it was still obvious that he was rubbing his wet eyes. Why does he bother to hide it? He stood and stretched, yawning widely before (reluctantly, it seemed) turning to Rin.

"Back home?" he asked hoarsely.

She had half a mind to reply sarcastically, but instead she nodded. "I've just been at the hospital," she said.

He nodded once. The atmosphere suggested that he was going to follow up on it by speaking, and it appeared for a moment that he was about to comply, his lips parted slightly and his eyebrows drawn up almost apologetically, but then his lips tightened in a frown and he walked past her without a word.

She remained in the same position as she listened to the sound of water rushing from the sink and then the shower. Eventually, she sidled along the edge of the bed until she reached the nightstand. She took the brown paper bag from where it had been balanced precariously atop a menagerie of health and hygiene products. She slipped the wooden doll out of the bag, as well as the bottle of black ink and brush that came with it.

With disregard for the endangered bedspread, she twisted the cap off the bottle and dipped the brush into it, inhaling the strong scent of ink. Sticking her tongue out in concentration, she painted a small black circle into the left eye of the doll. Once she was finished she set he brush in her lap (no doubt staining her uniform) and held the doll at arm's length to admire her handiwork. The painted pupil was rather off-center, but she thought it suited him.

Temporarily forgetting the wet brush in her lap she stood. It fell to the floor with a clatter, but she was not particularly concerned. Hugging the doll as a child might a pet, its mismatched eyes facing outward, she left the room in search of a proper place to put it. The shopkeeper had told her that they were traditionally displayed on the household shrine, but no such place existed in the apartment she shared with Kakashi. Finally, she settled on a barren corner of the kitchen counter— certainly not the most glamorous locale, but at least the doll would always be in sight. She almost giggled at the doll's absurd appearance; its bright colors clashed so dramatically with the utilitarian kitchen.

She sensed a presence behind her and turned to see Kakashi standing there in a fresh pair of standard-issue pants and sleeveless black shirt, idly toweling his hair and letting an uncharacteristic hint of curiosity peek through his generally disinterested exterior.

"What are you doing?"

Rin flashed him a coy smile.

"Making a wish."

(…)

Kakashi didn't even have the energy to slam the door shut as he ambled into his apartment — not their apartment, never theirs, never hers again — and instead pulled it wearily shut behind him. He tore the hitae-ate roughly from his face, tossing it to the ground with a disgusted snarl. Let the Sharingan bleed him dry, he didn't care, he wouldn't care if he never woke up again.

Rin is dead, Rin is dead, Rin is dead— he screamed the words at himself as he stripped out of his funeral clothes, letting the black garments fall silently to the floor. (Not that he actually went to her funeral— they had held it without him, the bastards, and he had been reduced to holding a belated one-man service at the Memorial Stone.) He hated that silence, that lack of noise— they were just clothes, for god's sake, but he felt like they should have been screaming too. The whole world should have been shrieking until its great big throat tore and only then could there be silence, the silence of necessity rather than this infuriating silence of emptiness and sadness and "I'm so sorry for your loss, she was such a sweet girl."

Down to his boxers and his bandages now — the bandages that Rin wrapped so lovingly, so gently — he made his way to the bathroom. The apartment had not been touched. He'd have to clear out Rin's things, all of her deodorant and birth control and he didn't want to know what else, didn't want to think about it. But to get to the medicine cabinet he had to go through the mirror, and he thought that maybe it would be okay, he had to get this done, he wanted to get this out of the way— but he saw himself grimacing and stopped.

There were the well-worn tear tracks he always pretended he could somehow hide from her; there was the scar she used to trace over when she would whisper nice things to him, her cracked lips ghosting over his eyelids. (Why were her lips so dry? Wasn't she drinking enough water? She always made sure that I was; was she rejecting her own care?)

And there were his eyes, gray and red, Kakashi and Obito. Rin had told him once after healing him that she had sensed some of Obito's chakra in his Sharingan— wasn't it nice that he was still with them in his way? But what was left of Rin, Kakashi wondered? No chakra, no body, no family— just Kakashi, just stupid broken Kakashi whom she had loved so much.

It was too much for Kakashi; he abandoned the bathroom in favor of the kitchen. Something caught his eye as soon as he walked in. A small red object was sitting in a dark corner, standing out against the drab gray (gray, gray, everything in this apartment is so damn drab, no wonder Rin hated it here). Kakashi approached and recognized it as a daruma doll. After a moment the connection clicked into place and he remembered Rin buying it impulsively and painting in an eye. It had been months ago now, he had left the next day, and by the time he had come home she was two weeks dead.

He squinted blearily at the doll — god, he was tired — and saw its face scrunched up into a one-eyed frown. It seemed annoyed that it had been left unfinished.

"What are you doing?"

"Making a wish."

His eyes widened as he stared into the round eyes of the wooden doll. He stayed frozen like that for a long time, his mismatched eyes boring into those of the doll. Rin's unfulfilled wish…

A thought struck him. He and the doll were similar, weren't they? The doll's eyes did not match any more than Kakashi's did, for one thing, but the connection ran deeper than that. This little wooden doll, with its chipped paint and empty eye, embodied some unknown wish, and not that Rin was — he trembled — dead it would go forever unfulfilled and that which Rin had left behind would remain permanently incomplete. And he, Hatake Kakashi, recipient of Rin's unrequited love and scarred seemingly beyond repair, was also an unfinished project, an unfulfilled wish.

It was an absurd thought, and he didn't know whether he should laugh, so he cried instead.

(…)

The next day Kakashi turned in his uniform along with his resignation form to the ANBU headquarters. His pay decreased accordingly and he abandoned his rather roomy apartment in favor of a considerably smaller and less expensive one. There was barely enough room for the essentials, but he managed to cram an unholy amount of paper into his desk and store many of his personal objects in the spare drawer of his dresser. The daruma doll found its way there, complete with brush set and cushioned by a pair of socks someone had knitted him and a tattered scarecrow doll he couldn't remember purchasing.

Time passed, and the daruma doll and its mysteries eventually slipped Kakashi's mind. ANBU behind him, he felt the itch to try something new and accepted an offer to start teaching. For years to follow he felt like he was wasting his time and his breath on the succession of snot-nosed brats who came his way, but one group, immature as they all were in their own ways, bore a resemblance to his old team so striking he could not ignore it, and it turned out that the second chance he gave them was exactly what all four of them needed.

In reflection he thought it was strange that when they were young he focused most on the two boys, but as the years progressed his interests began to shift. Ten years after the fateful bell test Sasuke was dead and Naruto had temporarily left Konoha in order to further his personal training (but everyone knew it was to regain a sense of self after Sasuke's loss). Kakashi and Sakura were left with only each other, and although at first they were both a little frightened and anxious in a no, we're really just friends… aren't we? sort of way, there was a connection neither of them could deny and before he had registered quite what happened he was sharing his apartment with a woman for the second time in his life and he thought that he may just be madly in love with her.

But still he was hesitant, and he hated that. How was it possible that in spite of how many times he'd heard her say his name — shout it, moan it, laugh it, whisper it — and loved the sound he still felt some deep-rooted anxiety that he couldn't seem to resolve?

(…)

Sakura yawned, stretching her arms above her head. She cracked an eye open to peer at a certain Copy ninja; Kakashi was lying on his back, bare-faced and bare-chested, his mouth turned up in a lazy smile. Amusement lurked in his visible charcoal eye, but she didn't bother to ask why. Instead she slipped off the bed and crawled over to his dresser, her posterior waving shamelessly in his direction.

"So," she asked, "what will be my excuse today for showing up to work in a man's clothes?"

"How about, 'last night I was having wildly passionate sex with one diabolically sexy Hatake Kakashi and my clothes are in no state to be displayed in public.' "

Sakura laughed; she could have just taken some of her own clothes out of the still-unpacked suitcase sitting on the corner of the room, but she was infinitely amused by the strange looks that were invariably sent her way when she showed up at the hospital in men's clothes a few sizes too large.

It seems that Kakashi's rubbing off on me.

Despite Kakashi's heartily voice complaints, Sakura retrieved some clothes from his dresser. After she had pulled the shirt over her head and adjusted the drawstring of the pants, however, she frowned curiously at the bottom drawer of his dresser.

"What's in here?"

He craned his neck to see. "Where?"

"The bottom drawer," she said, crouching down in front of it.

She could tell that Kakashi was shrugging. "Just odds and ends."

"Huh. May I?"

She heard a rustling of sheets was Kakashi disentangled himself and rose from bed, pulling on yesterday's boxers and joining her. "Go ahead," he said, scratching the back of his neck. "I haven't been in there in years."

"Years?" Sakura pulled the drawer open. She was greeted by a cluttered collection of toys and trinkets, objects of little practical use. Kakashi nonchalantly picked up a birthday card, softly blowing dust off the cover. Sakura tore her eyes away from the contents of the bottom drawer and looked over Kakashi's shoulder.

" 'Happy fifteenth birthday, Kakashi my boy,' " she read aloud. " 'I think you are old enough to appreciate getting a sneak peek at the masterpiece that's gonna make me millions. Wishing you happy Icha Icha fantasies, the great Jiraiya.' " Sakura punched his shoulder playfully; he just smiled and put the card back.

He leaned back on his hands, smiling slightly. She gave him an anxious look as if asking for permission, and he waved her on encouragingly. "Help yourself."

Sakura gave him a quick, grateful smile before turning back to the open drawer. She started sifting through its contents, stopping every now and then when she came across something interesting. Bright red paint caught her eye, and her eyes swiveled to it. After she decided to award it her full attention, it took a surprising amount of effort to dislodge the small wooden object from its tightly defined niche. Upon unearthing it she turned it around in her hands, and she was surprised to find a face painted on the other side. It looked extremely old; the paint was not as bright as it seemed to her before, and most of the features on the face were blurred with age. Her eyebrows quirked as she noticed that only one of the eyes was painted in.

"Kakashi?"

"Mm?" Kakashi scooted next to her, looking at the doll in her hands. She looked up at him in time to see his expression soften. He was frowning at the doll, and suddenly he looked very, very tired.

Sakura looked back at the doll. "Is it a daruma doll?"

"Mm-hm."

Frowning, Sakura asked, "So then, if just one eye is painted in…"

"… The wish hasn't come true yet."

After a pause, Sakura quietly asked, "What was the wish?"

Kakashi sighed heavily. "I don't know." Sakura blinked in confusion; Kakashi's gaze flickered to her and then back to the doll. He ran a hand through his mane of silver hair. "It isn't mine."

"It isn't?"

Kakashi shook his head. He was quiet in thought for a minute before saying softly, "It belonged to a girl I knew once… We were teammates."

This jogged Sakura's memory. "Her name was Rin, right?" The one who put in Kakashi's Sharingan eye.

He nodded. "After the other two members of our team died, Rin and I had a complicated relationship. I was… pretty messed up after it all, and Rin did her best to help me out. We lived together for awhile… not here," he said in response to Sakura's questioning look. "It was a bigger apartment on the other side of Konoha. But anyway, we were there until she died." Sakura nodded, and Kakashi exhaled wearily. "She bought that," he said, pointing at the daruma doll, "a few months or so before she died."

"… So she died before she could paint in the other eye?" Sakura asked.

"Yeah."

They sat in silence for the longest time. Sakura was staring into the eyes of the daruma doll, contemplating the mismatch. The black eye was so sad, so empty… And this poor girl, whose life had been so torn apart, couldn't even be granted the justice of having her silent wish granted. She felt the tell-tale tingling of her nose and burning in her eyes, but she couldn't help letting a few tears fall. Sakura held the doll closer to her chest and started to cry.

Kakashi immediately had his arms around her, stroking her hair; he didn't shush her, though, and she wondered if it was because he was feeling the same sadness. She didn't cry long, and when she was finishing up he took her chin in his strong hand and guided her face to his. He kissed her softly, still gently running his hand through her hair.

Pulling away a little, he looked straight into her eyes with both of his. He said something consoling, she was sure — she could feel his lips moving and his warm breath — but she was too focused on his eyes to listen. They were wide and captivating; she never got tired of marveling at their unusual beauty. The Sharingan was so strange, its black tomoe swimming slowly in the crimson iris; even when he wasn't using a genjutsu it was hypnotic. She unconsciously shifted a little and was reminded of the doll still clutched to her chest.

Suddenly she saw the painted face of the doll juxtaposed onto Kakashi's. The image faded as quickly as it came, however, and now she was just looking at Kakashi, just Kakashi, her Kakashi.

He looked concerned. "Sakura?" She looked down at the doll cradled in her arms; it stared back up at her with its sorrowful mismatched eyes.

"I know what it is," she whispered.

"What…?" She gently extricated herself from Kakashi's embrace and returned to the open dresser drawer. It took her only a few seconds to find the bottle of ink and brush. Ignoring the bemused look she was sure Kakashi must have been giving her, she unscrewed the bottle's top and dipped the brush into it, wiping off any excess ink. She held the brush in one hand and the daruma doll cupped in the other. Sticking out her tongue between her teeth in concentration, she painted in the right eye of the doll. (She thought it was fitting that it turned out that way as Rin gave Kakashi his left eye — the Sharingan — and now Sakura could complete him by giving him himself back.)

When she had finished she carefully slipped the brush into the bottle so that it wouldn't stain the floor. Wordlessly she held the doll out to Kakashi. Genuine surprise widened his eyes as he took in the doll's updated appearance.

The silence that followed seemed to stretch on for three eternities; finally, Sakura dared to break it, taking a deep breath before speaking slowly. "I think that Rin wanted you to be happy."

He closed his eyes, biting his lip, and she wondered if he was holding back tears. Sure enough, when he opened his eyes again a tear slipped out of either, but he gave her a smile so full of contentment and love that her heart felt like it was going to burst.

And somewhere, a smile spread across Rin's face and finally she could close her eyes.