DISCLAIMER: I do not own Naruto, but I DO wonder what Kakashi does at the Memorial Stone so I wrote this. It's got nothing to do with the latest chapters or anything.
Please be nice in this fanfic. NoeticSky only beta-read this so it won't be as good as anything else I've uploaded. Although wait a sec. None of the stuff I make is ever good. =.=
To all of those who love Peaches and know of my obsession with Obito, this is a shoutout to you.
Please Read and Review. If you don't, Kishi might kill Kakashi off and then there will be no reason to live. (Although Itachi and Naruto and Gaara and Obito are still there so... ah well. It's still a plea!)
Nostalgia
"The Greek word for "return" is nostos. Algos means "suffering." So nostalgia is the suffering caused by an unappeased yearning to return."
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There are times when Kakashi looks back. Like now, at a morning like every other where he stands motionlessly at the memorial stone. He sees his dark reflection in the polished obsidian, his one eye staring out emotionlessly at the names of the ones he's lost.
There are meetings, missions that call for his presence but they can wait. They will always wait. They wait while he stays, still stuck in the past because the names he can recognise remind him of promises that he'll never fulfil.
He traces his eyes down the long list of names. Some he recognises, some he doesn't, and knows that each and every one of them has gone down fighting, as true Konoha shinobi. He sees Obito, engraved just above his thigh, and like always he feels a prick in the eye that doesn't belong to him.
This morning, Kakashi thinks back to the time when Obito was there. Kakashi tries his best to remember the memories before that day, memories that had become hazy over time and because he relived his death far too many times in striking, heart-sickening clarity. He still looks back and remembers it all. He can taste the dust, and feel the slow trail of phantom tears leak from his eyes.
In his mind his present and past selves are two different people. Kakashi-Back-Then and Kakashi-Now. He doesn't like either of them. One was a person who had everything and never realised it, the other just trying to make amends he would never get the chance to.
Both Kakashis see one name on the stone differently.
Uchiha Obito.
The name on the stone, the neat engraving in the same uniform lettering as many others says nothing about the person it belonged to.
There really isn't any word to describe Obito. He is a lot of things. Clumsy, annoying, big-mouthed, loser – and at the same time empathetic, warm (to Rin, not him), persistent, believing. Obito was just… Obito. A grinning, hyperactive liability Kakashi regrets believing he once had the utter misfortune to have as a teammate.
He rolls his eyes reflexively as he recalls endless tirades of his clumsy teammate's Uchiha bloodline, dream to become Hokage, Rin. Obito's long-winded tales about the awesome coolness of the Uchihas and their Sharingans and how much "awesomer" he was going to be once he awakened his own (and you'll be sorry Kakashi-buttface 'cause you'll get wasted by me!)
He remembers wondering why it annoyed him that Obito stood half an inch taller than him when it was as evident as the effigies on Hokage Mountain that Obito idolised, that he was the strongest in their team and would always be that way.
Shinobi were meant to hide emotion – hell, they weren't even allowed emotions – strong, and most of all, merciless. They were supposed to arrive on time to every mission, obey their leaders without fail and do all for the sake of the mission. They were supposed to follow rules.
But Obito didn't. He would grin just as much as he came late to their rendezvous points. He would shed tears at the smallest things, yelp if he was injured, announce to the whole world whether he was enjoying his time or not. It still amazes Kakashi that a human being can have that many expressions on one face. And yet... There were times when something like jealousy had stirred in the heart he so scorned, for while Obito made his emotional pain visible he was still able to move on after it. Unlike him, who knew only one way to deal with pain and that was in silence. Eternal silence while pain festered within, kept bridled by the rules a shinobi had to resign to.
Sometimes Kakashi thinks he hears an answer. He imagines hearing Obito ask about Sensei's son, or Rin gently reminding him to make sure he stitched up that gash on his arm. Obito was related to Sasuke, wasn't he? He was probably the kid's uncle and sometimes, just sometimes, when he let his mind drift to his renegade student who is the reason Naruto's eyes don't shine the way they used to when he was little, he thinks of how he would explain it. He'd tried, he really had. But Sasuke… Sasuke hadn't wanted help. He had been like him, Kakashi-Back-Then.
And that explains why he thinks Sasuke will come home, someday.
Rin could have gone far too. Kakashi sees her name on the stone, a little way further down. And his hands curl despite themselves and he can feel her fading heartbeat against his arm.
And then he feels an imaginary chidori in his chest too, because he did two things the day she died. Killed a friend and broke a promise.
Back then he had been so lost in his own world to realise that Obito would have made a great Hokage and that he wouldn't have minded being his advisor. They could have been a great team. He had fought countless battles since that day and even then he knows none would ever be as perfectly synchronised, as truly great, as the one he and Obito had fought to save Rin.
... It was his first and last fight with no blind spots.
Sometimes, Kakashi wonders why he's still alive. He wonders why he still wakes up to a new morning when nothing had changed since. Scars weren't reopening because they had never healed in the first place.
He still looks back.
"Ne, Obito. What would you do?" His voice breaks the silence, and asks the same question as every other day. Which is funny, because he would never have asked him anything before he died. Before he became a name on the stone and a lifelong regret.
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There are times when Kakashi looks back. Like now, at a morning like every other where he stands motionlessly at the memorial stone. He sees his dark reflection in the polished obsidian, his one eye staring out emotionlessly at the names of the ones he's lost.
He knows he already belongs there.
He won't stop looking back.
AUTHOR'S NOTE:
Hey everyone. So I was just trying to be productive today and thought I could maybe rustle up some one-shot, if not Chapter 10 of Once I Had a Sister. SO here you are. I tried to be angsty, I tried to keep in character. I suck at writing so your thoughts on this probably won't surprise me.
NoeticSky only beta-read so she doesn't think this was a collaboration but you all know nothing is uploaded without her reading it first. So this IS a collaboration, and there really isn't anything she can do about this. Haha.
Please R&R!
- Alatariele C.
(15.6%) in collab. with NoeticSKy