Deliverance
Disclaimer: Don't even think about a law suit. I'm broke and hence it should follow that I do not own anything. Characters are borrowed from Kishimoto.
Summary: Iruka dissolves in Kakashi's absence. Death fic crap. KakaIru. One shot.
Footsteps. The night is covered with silences more meaningful than words said aloud. So many years ago, perhaps it's been centuries, since you used to slice through these thick clouds of un-uttered sounds. Like a knife in the dark, you caught me off guard; like the dawn, you never lasted long enough to coincide with the morning. You left, and when you did, all I had was that brief look of indifference to remember you by. These stealthy footsteps in the night can never be yours. Not anymore. And these taps on my window are either a product of pitiable wishful thinking or merely the teasing twigs of that old Oak nearby. They're no longer the rhythm of your knuckles pecking against my windowpane, and in that thought the silence becomes altogether too much.
The bitter irony of your short existence is that it held the glorious wonder of so many heroes. From the beginning I was bound to be captivated and only, strictly, to run after you in dreams. Though you weren't with me then, it's hard to deny that my thoughts mostly were. Thoughts should've been destined to remain as mere thoughts, that much I knew in pain. But fate had it differently and without further notice, you came, came to me without demanding any price. In which regard, fate was twisted but hardly cruel. Because such happiness lay beyond expectancies, and such expectancies lay way beyond someone such as I. Against the odds, love thrived, at least mine. And I believe that, even in some temporary glitches of time, the love was made mutual, there in your efforts to seek me in those lonely nights of exhaustion, a few hours after your steep missions had been accomplished. You used to laugh at the way you'd miss death by a few inches: I used to be thrown into deep thoughts and ask questions to myself. Did you value your life as much as I prized your presence? But what of it, really? You're gone now, in thin air.
You should've known, Kakashi-sempai, that when you thought that those you loved are dead, I stood and chose to fall for you. When you walked into that suicide mission, I walked just a step behind, striding with you spiritually even as I had gazed toward your retreating figure until it vanished into a small undistinguished dot on its journey toward disappearance. You didn't bother to say goodbye, perhaps at no remote point aware that I vowed to await your return for any length of time. And when you never came back it's my purpose for life that cracked into half, then to pieces uncounted, then ultimately to nothing.
The silence that doesn't mean peace lingers in your absence. I recall your face only to witness death in its most absolute sense and your departure from me in its final stage. Now it seems I know why I'm bound to follow wherever your footsteps tread; it's because they'll never find mine on their own accord.
Otherwise, come back, come back to me.
END