Prologue

The light was too bright. It was burning his eyes. His eyes? Well, he had two of them now. It felt strange, having two eyes that is, two eyes that were matching. He closed one trying to regain the vision he was used to for so many years. Opening both his eyes made him dizzy almost every morning. His brain had not adjusted so far.

He reminded himself to buy a thicker curtain as he struggled in a moment of disorientation to detangle his legs from the thin sheet that was his cocoon last night. He really couldn't sleep in anything thicker this time of the year. He groaned in frustration as he tried to pry his foot out of the material. How he felt so drunk like this every morning nowadays. Peace has been making him lazy and stupid.

Finally free he tried to walk through the door without hitting the frame, like he'd done the day before. He seriously needed coffee, desperately. Morning made him feel good, most of the time anyway. It made him feel alive, because he always had something to do that day, something to postpone. Procrastination had become a part of him that he could never shake off. The more things he had to do, the more he postponed them the more he felt busy as they accumulated and that had always made him have purpose. It was reassuring, relaxing and even therapeutic for someone like him, someone who was broken. Broken. He didn't like to think of himself as broken, but every time, melancholy would win. It was always like this, when he woke up alone, with nothing to distract him from the fact and keep him away from contemplating his life. He shrugged. He would feel better once he stepped out of his new apartment and lost himself in the streets.

It was a newly developed habit of his, to walk aimlessly in the new streets of Konoha. Just the smells of fresh produce, warm newspapers, old books, cat urine, green tea and sweat, made him feel alive. Those were the smells of life, of a busy town were people went about their business. The noise helped immensely too. Now though, a different kind of noise was not helping. He almost dropped the open cereal box on the floor, not only due to his morning drunkenness. The banging on his door made his heart jump. He looked at the box in his stretched arm and congratulated himself secretly for catching the poor thing. At least, he still had his ninja skills intact, mostly anyway.

"Kakashi-sensei! Open the door I know you are there"

It seemed, his breakfast was cut short. Absently pulling a mask over his face he walked towards the door, not bothering in answering his morning guest. It was a short walk really, no need to shout. Four steps later he turned the door-knob. He didn't know why, but whenever something like this happened, he found himself trying to look more sleepy and tired than he was. Faking a yawn, he greeted his guest,

"Good morning Sakura"

Apparently, his strategy at guilt-tripping his good student was very effective.

"Oh, I'm so sorry, I didn't know you would still be sleeping. It's eleven in the morning and I just assumed you'd be awake" she sputtered a string of apologies without really looking apologetic. He wanted to sigh.

"It's alright Sakura, I was awake anyway" He said straightening his back a little as he leaned on the door-frame.

"Well, what is the problem?" He said finally a little impatiently.

"Ah, they want you for a mission"

"What?" maybe he heard wrong.

"Tsunade-sama sent me here to tell you personally"

"Tsunade-sama? I thought she retired" he tried. He may have been feeling a little useless and was floating in a sea of boredom, but he didn't feel like going on a mission so suddenly, not after months of nothing to do, which he kind of had been starting to like.

"Naruto is still fresh and young. Tsunade-sama is still holding his hand at the moment. Being Hokage is not a walk in the park you know" She said proud of her mentor.

"Ok, fine, I will be there shortly" He sighed.

She simply smiled, waved and jumped over from fourth floor's balcony. He wondered for a moment if it would have impressed him had he been a civilian. He wondered many times about what it would have felt like to be civilian. He dismissed the thought and walked back inside. He walked through the kitchen area back to his room, back to his bed and decided he would take a short nap, which ended up being a little over two hours.

A/N: You see, this fanfic is one I am writing for myself only. I am not bothering myself over grammar and spelling. I just want it out of my system. So, if you find that it's a mess, I apologize. I have ten finals and and now that I wrote this I'm supposed to study for an exam this Thursday. I will write a little whenever my exams stress me out a little too much :D I hope you like it.

This story is about Kakashi. It is in the adventure genre, but I would like to add romance in the future. As for who the lucky girl will be, I'm not revealing anything, but expect anything from Tsunade to OC's.

As for my other story, the manga has been revealing more and more lately that I needed to change the structure of the original outline and since I'm graduation this year, expect some updates in the summer when I'm done with my exams. If you're still interested :D

On a side note, I know my personal life doesn't interest you or anything, but I'm so happy I finally get to be what I always wanted to be -very soon anyway- ;D I had an awesome semester with lots of goodbyes, photo-sessions and dinners with friends.

Good luck with exams if you have any :D