"Why?"
They were sitting on a bench outside of one of Konoha's best ramen restaurants, both of them eating, a pleasurable silence stretching between them, neither of them feeling the need to break it.
Until now.
Rin struggled for a believable lie. "Why what?" She asked Kurenai, a facsimile of a teasing smile on her lips. "Why is this ramen overpriced? Why is the sky blue? Why-"
The older girl frowned, red eyes narrowing. "You know what I'm asking, Rin." Rin had been far too evasive lately, playing the jester to combat her friends' concern.
"Kurenai, I-" Rin started to proclaim her innocence.
"Why Kakashi?"
Rin swallowed heavily, the ramen forming a hard, cold, heavy lump in her stomach. She didn't look at Kurenai when she answered. "Let's talk about something else." Rarely was Rin so direct. She figured that Kurenai would take her not so subtle hint and stop questioning her. That was the way it had always been.
Kurenai abandoned conventionality."Let's not, Rin. I'm worried about you. We all are."
"Who's we?" The question was sharp, biting, and even Rin hated how it sounded.
"Your friends," Kurenai returned evenly, not intimidated by her comrade.
Rin bit her lip, unconsciously rubbing one of her arms with the other. "You shouldn't. I'm fine."
"You're not."
"I am!" Maybe if she yelled it enough, if she protested enough, if she repeated the lie enough, it would become reality. Reality was defined by one's interpretation of truth, wasn't it?
Kurenai sighed. "Rin-"
"I don't want to discuss this." She threw out her ramen. It had gotten cold anyway. "I'm due for a shift at the hospital. I don't have time to chat anymore."
Kurenai watched her sadly, face kind and compassionate. She acquiesced; she had no other option. "Alright," she said. "But this isn't over. Tomorrow?" Kurenai locked eyes with her friend, trying to wring out a promise.
Rin forced herself to smile. She couldn't imagine tomorrow. She had to live through the day first. "Fine."
Kurenai hugged the kunoichi and left, hips swaying in an easy rhythm as she waltzed down the street. Rin watched her leave for a few seconds, an antsy, uncomfortable feeling in the pit of her stomach.
For some inexplicable reason, Kurenai's question haunted Rin that day. Why? Why Hatake Kakashi?
A child's yell in the street distracted her. The girl was young; six or seven, perhaps; and she was playing with two clearly older boys. They had wrestled her to ground, and she was protesting. They slid off her, joking and laughing, as she pelted them with her tiny fists.
Rin waited, looking for a cue to intervene and help the girl. When the child smiled and gave the eldest boy a kiss, she relaxed and kept walking, reaching the hospital.
Rin passed a mirror, and she glanced cursorily in it. She knew she wasn't beautiful, but she wasn't ugly either. She was an excellent healer, and her status as such earned her the respect of Konoha's male population. There were several men currently interested in her, all of them fine shinobi, all of them fine choices.
But Rin couldn't see the other men, and as she healed yet another half dead shinobi, she wondered why the only man she was attracted to was a man she could never have, a man who would never love her.
When she was young (just a child; a child dressed up for combat, a child given dangerous toys and told to kill, but a child just the same), he was beautiful and strong and her prince in shining armor. He just didn't know it yet. She had vivid fantasies of him saving her from some horrible doom and the two of them dancing off into the sunset. He was irascible and uncooperative, but she could change that, because at nine years old she thought she could do anything.
An emergency call jolted Rin out of her reverie, and she raced down the hall. A child was having a severe allergic reaction to a medication, and it took nearly fifteen minutes to stabilize her.
This boy was older than the girl she'd seen earlier; ten or eleven, if Rin had to guess, and he was tainted. She smiled anyway as she helped him, remembering herself at that age.
When she was a little older (still a child, but a less naïve child), she wanted to fix Kakashi. It was all so clear to her then: he was hurting. He was a tough little man-boy, a fighting, killing machine that had ended more lives than he could remember, but on the inside, he was really just a little boy, mourning and hurting and too afraid to feel again. She could fix that. She could make him better. She was going to be a medic, and that was what they did.
Rin scorned herself as she restocked the supply room. Who was she to paint herself as a god? Who was she to think she could fix years of pain and mental repression when she couldn't even comprehend what he had experienced? An idiot, she told herself sternly, a very large idiot.
When she was thirteen and Obito died and her sensei passed a few months later (and she was still a child, quite honestly, not a woman; but then again, in that time she was too scarred and broken to be anything at all), she needed him. He had unwittingly aided her; he paid more attention to her to fulfill his promise to his deceased teammate. She clung to her love for him, her absurd dreams for what they could be. It was the only thing she had left; her team , her only family, was gone.
Rin locked up the supply closet and headed out the door, waving goodbye to the staff as she went. Had it really only been four years since she was thirteen? It felt longer; so, so much longer.
It was raining now, and drops of water pelted her unmercifully. She smiled sadly, remembering how Obito used to offer to shield her from the rain, remembering how often she used to wish Kakashi would do the same.
When she was fifteen (and she had seen more death and pain and suffering than any young girl should), she dated another boy. It was her first relationship, complete with kissing and necking and occasional groping. He was gorgeous and capable and kind and sweet, and a good kisser to top it off.
She ended their relationship after two months. Every time they kissed, the only person she could see was Kakashi; every time she said "I like you" or "I want you" she lied. She refused to cheat her boyfriend. He deserved more than a haunted girl like her.
Rin ran a hand through her wet hair, detangling the soaked tendrils of chestnut brown hair. Kakashi had never even discovered her relationship; he had been out of Konoha on a mission, as always, when they were together, and no one saw fit to inform him of it later.
Stupid, stupid girl, she told herself. Stupid, stupid girl.
Rin knew that the only thing tying her and Kakashi together was an old promise, an old, outdated, arcane promise that he had foolishly made. Kakashi had left her the day Obito died, and he never stopped leaving her. She reminded herself of that fact frequently. She had come to the conclusion that if Obito had never died, or if he had died in a different manner, there would be nothing between them at all but a few years of training and a few shared memories, which Kakashi would easily forget.
The veracity of that idea was debatable. What wasn't debatable was her idiocy.
He had left her. He had hurt her. He had raised her hopes countless times, only to crush them time and time again.
So why?
Rin reached her apartment and drearily climbed the stairs. She had another shift starting in three hours, but she was going to try for a catnap in between. She hadn't slept much recently, and she needed every spare minute of sleep.
The question nagged her, refusing to go away. Why? Her brain screamed. Why can't you let go of him?
She unlocked the door and stepped inside her shoddy little apartment, an apartment that she had been planning to renovate for years, an apartment that was as dysfunctional and grim as her relationship with Kakashi.
And he was there, stretched out on her couch, bloody and broken, mask with a little rip in it, a rip that reminded her that she had never seen his face. He was there, waiting for her, pain evident in his dark eyes.
"Rin," was all he could manage. He did not rise; he knew she wouldn't let him.
That sad smile returned to her calm face as she knelt beside him. Thoughts of the nap vanished as she assessed the damage. "What have you done to yourself now?" The question was ridiculous; they both knew he couldn't and wouldn't tell her. The ninja world had always had far more control over his life than she did. She pulled off his pants; that nasty gash on his leg was bleeding too heavily for her liking. "You're late, you know."
He tried for a smile and got a grimace instead. "The road of life can be very painful and hazardous." He winced as she cleaned his wound, and Rin felt a surge of pity for her friend.
She winced now; even the word "friend" caused her heart pain.
"Careful," he hissed through clenched teeth as she unintentionally tugged too harshly on his raw wounds.
Wryly she looked up at him. "You should have gone to the hospital."
He dismissed her with a wave of his hand, and she shook her head, sprinkling water droplets from her wet hair on the pair of them. Kakashi's nose scrunched as the sudden dampness hit him, and she teased him for it.
The question came back a million times as she cleaned and healed his body, repairing the many wounds that had been inflicted.
Why? Was she a masochist?
Why? Did she feel indebted to him because he had saved her once?
Why? Did she feel like she had to be with him, because he was the last vestige of her team?
Why? Was it because he was her first crush, and she wasn't ready to let that go?
Kakashi groaned as she wrapped his ribs. She'd forgotten herself again. "Not so tightly, Rin," he whispered.
"Sorry," she answered brusquely. She finished, securing the bandage in place. "You'll be fine, although you should probably rest a few days before taking another mission."
She knew he wouldn't listen to her. He never did.
Kakashi nodded. "Thank you," he said softly, hand brushing hers.
Electricity raced through her veins, setting her whole body on fire. She held his hand tightly, relishing in the feeling of pure energy coursing through her body, awakening every dormant sense in its mad race. She smiled at him, her heart beating at a speed that was far from healthy.
She couldn't answer why, because there wasn't a rational, reasonable "why" that she could give. Rationally, she would have moved on, if such as thing was even possible.
No, this wasn't rational , and this wasn't reasonable. As she stroked his careworn face, she knew she might never be able to find a reason why.
But as she looked down at him, with his messy silver hair and lean body, lying beside a pile of bloodstained clothes, she knew she would never stop seeking him.
After all, not even the most intelligent men could rationalize love, and Rin wasn't foolish enough to try.