A/N: Naruto is Kishimoto's. Enjoy! And if it pleases, leave a review? Thanks!
Kakashi set his dinner down on the table. A bowl of white rice with an egg mixed in, the simplest of meals, nutritious and easy enough for a tired fourteen-year-old to make. The thud of porcelain on wood echoed across the empty house.
The lights were out and the night chilly as autumn settled over the Leaf Village. The wind wailed as it squeezed into the gaps of windows worn down by a lifetime of enduring storms. Kakashi could not close them, both because they did not physically budge and because the only light that he had to see by came from the public lamp post across the street. The power in his house had been cut two months ago.
Kakashi stood before the table, shoulders slumped. He had been living alone for years but loneliness had never particularly bothered him. Tonight, for the first time, it did. He wished that he could say that he was alone by choice rather than because there was no one left.
Obito had been dead for so long now. His teammate had never been over at the Hatake household, had probably not even known Kakashi's address, so it was hard to imagine him there, hanging out. Minato-sensei had his own home and family to go back to at the end of the day. Soon he would also have a son who would need all of his love and attention. Kakashi had no place intruding there. And Rin...
Kakashi's right fist clenched.
That wound was still too fresh, but she would have been good company to have over on a night like this, when the ghosts were out and about. Warm, cheerful, happy Rin, who'd had such a bright future ahead of her.
He should have valued his friends so much more. He should have told them that he appreciated them, at least once, somehow. He should have—
"Mmmm, is that tamago gohan?"
Kakashi sucked in a breath, but dared not look up. He knew that voice. His sinews and bones and guts knew that voice, despite the fact that the last time he heard it had been years and years ago. Kakashi had tried to make himself remember that slow, affectionate tone so many times before, only for it to escape his grasp like a dandelion in the wind. Yet here it was now, clear as if its owner was right in front of him.
"You should eat before it gets cold. Come, sit."
It had happened. It had finally happened. Shivering and lonely, cold, exhausted and hungry, Kakashi had finally broken down. Because that was his dead father's voice and his dead father's shape sitting before him at the small dinner table.
Everything about him looked welcome and inviting and Kakashi was overcome with such longing that he didn't even pause to think what purpose could have brought Sakumo back to him. He just wanted it – whatever it was – to last for as long as possible, for his father to sit there, in the shadows, next to him, with his ruffled hair and rumpled clothes and caring smile that carved lines into his cheeks that Kakashi remembered so well from so many lazy afternoons spent telling his father all about his day at the Academy.
Kakashi did as he was told. He sat and picked up his chopsticks. He was not sure that he could eat. A painful lump had lodged itself in his throat. He was even surer, though, that he would not be able to speak, so he obediently pulled down his mask, opened his mouth and shoved in a mouthful of rice.
"Tell me about your day?" the spectre asked.
Kakashi looked up. Sakumo was watching him back, sunken eyes half cast in shadow catching the molten glow of the gas lamp outside. He was exactly as Kakashi remembered him – more lively even, because this time Kakashi knew to soak in every detail of the man that he had once taken for granted.
"I wouldn't know where to start."
"Tell me anyway."
And if Kakashi's laughter brushed the hysterical he could hardly be blamed. He laughed and cried and forgot all about the cold and darkness as he ate his dinner and told his father about anything and everything that came to mind, from missions to friends to whatever the dogs had eaten earlier that day.
The next morning, the sun rose and lighted on a teenage boy slumped over a dinner table, fast asleep. His lips were curved in the barest of smiles. He was still alone, but not as much as before.