A/N: Written for the KakaYamaweek2019 event; prompt: Soulmates.

I do not own these characters; I've had a wonderful time exploring them.

"Do you believe in soulmates?"

Yamato's question interrupted the stillness that surrounded him. He couldn't believe he'd uttered it and though the words had barely left his lips, they already hung heavy in the quiet moments of when night meets morning.

"Actually, don't answer that," he whispered.

Then he sighed, frustrated with himself. "Please don't say anything, or I'll never get this out."

Yamato's eyes had been trained to penetrate the night's darkness, and now he closed them to look inward. He brought his hand up to his head, fingers twining in his hair and massaging his scalp.

"I know that, for a long time, I've been on borrowed time. I can't believe I've been allowed so much time and I can't believe how much of that time I've got to spend with you. So much of what's happened in my life… I don't know how to explain it. But it's more than luck.

"Whenever things go wrong, people say, 'things happen for a reason,' and when things go well, people say, 'you deserve it.' I still don't know any of the reasons for the bad things that have happened to me, and I'm not certain that I deserve the good. I want to, though. I want to believe that I do anyway."

Yamato swallowed, using the pause to fence in his scattered thoughts instead of chasing after them.

"I've lived my life alongside many people; organized into and aligned with them, but with you, I feel like our lives have intersected. Multiple times too. It's as if I've been thrown in your path, or you in mine. I'm not a spiritual man, and I'm certainly not a mystical man. However, it's as if I simply wasn't allowed to live my life without knowing you."

Yamato's eyes flew open, worried that his words made him appear disappointed. "Not that you're not welcome in my life, you are. Welcome. More than welcome," his voice quieted, and he closed his eyes again.

"I guess, well, I wish I didn't feel the need to make sense of things. There's so much that I want to simply accept, without question. You and I are one of those things.

"Maybe I've lost so much, both known and unknown to me, and that fear never goes away. I know that you understand that without my saying it.

"It's unsettling to think you're fated to be with someone, but if that means that we're somehow, I don't know, bound to each other… It's a comforting thought."

Yamato sighed. He wasn't convinced that he'd said everything he meant to, but he was already fretting he'd said too much. The silence that crept back over and around him felt a little heavier, full of words that he wasn't sure he should've spoken.

He squeezed his eyes shut tighter and fought off regret of what he'd imparted. "You think I'm crazy, don't you?"

The quietude of when night meets morning was broken by the sound of someone shifting beside him. He felt a warm arm draped over his side, and himself pulled into an even warmer embrace.

"You asked me to not say anything," Kakashi's baritone rumbled through his chest, and against Yamato's back.

Yamato chortled, "I did, didn't I?" and his lover's laughter joined his own.