Notes: For or against war, our fallen soldiers, and by our, I mean the world's soldiers, all of them, even if this is an American holiday, deserve to be remembered. With each death, worlds are lost.
Iruka watched from a distance.
Kakashi approached the memorial stone slowly, but Iruka knew it wasn't from dread, he simply knew he had plenty of time. The whole day.
Iruka didn't want to leave him alone, but he didn't want to intrude. So he sat back, at a distance, and watched as Kakashi remembered.
They were both so close to the pain of loss that Iruka was surprised they'd never shared their grief. While his loss was personal, Kakashi's was the pain of the soldier. He remembered the fallen, his comrades, brothers and sisters. Bonds that might have been hastily made, but were no less strong than family, severed, left scars far more painful than those on the flesh.
Every new mission.
Every new scar.
Every new soldier.
Kakashi remembered daily, the fallen never far from his memory, but today, Iruka knew, was the day Kakashi grieved.
Sorrow, respect, pain, honour. Kakashi marked the day not by the changing of hours, but by the reading of names. Today, the bittersweetness of grief, his and Obito's, wet his mask.
Kakashi would not forget.
Each name was a memory; each memory, a soldier; each soldier, a memorial.
