CHAPTER 2- NEKONIN AND YŌKINA TAKI

On the top three of things he hated, when mirrors were in third place, the hospital was in second. He had many reasons to, after all his grandmother was in a blinding white room 24/7 by now and even if he knew she was old and probably going to die soon it still infuriated him that the nurse that usually treated her did nothing more than keeping her company; then there was the fact that hospitals left a paper trail, info on patients as their clinical cartels where accessible to everyone with at least chūnin rank, as much as he yelled around about his dream he liked to be the only one to know himself.

It's not like he knew himself that well either way.

The third reason was because of bills.

His parents were so, so angry that time he broke an arm and had to go to the hospital to put it in a cast that he didn't remember if it hurt more feeling the bone snapping in two or the disappointment he saw in his parents- his whole family's eyes.

He had to pay the bill by himself.

He hated the hospital because as much as he spent time there, both as a visitor and a patient, nobody had ever visited him while he was bedridden.

He hated hospitals- and even more he hated the loneliness that came with them.

~line line line~

He dreamt of falling rocks, of screaming and crying, of blood and of enraged red eyes.

He dreamt of a dark cave, a tree, a powerful old presence and a red moon.

He dreamt about lost hope, of lightning birds and a shattered mind.

He dreamt about hate, the happiest day turned nightmare and rampaging nine tails leading to deaths.

He dreamt about blood, broken brothers and a swear of revenge.

He dreamt about red cloud, red chakra, red eyes and red blood.

He dreamt about being found, being cared for, being loved.

He dreamt about caring gray eyes and red lips stretched in a warm smile.

He dreamt about being forgiven while forgiving himself too.

He dreamt about love.

He dreamt about finding his place.

~line line line~

Obito watched, passively, as his team mates plus Kushina asked him questions one after another not caring if they spoke over each other making them incomprehensible to him. He wasn't watching them though. His eyes- or eye, as his left one was still under a black eyepatch- was fixated on their general direction but it was dull, without its usual spark of cheerfulness, empty- a pitch black pool of emotionless despair.

Nanami was curled on his lap, allowing herself to be petted, and she was focused solely on him; she scanned his face, now sporting an almost healed split-lip, a faint bruise and bandages on his forehead; she watched his hands that caressed her smooth fur, bandaged as well, and noticed a faint trembling in them as if they were too weak to move; lastly she looked at the bandages all over his arms, visible only because of the short sleeves of the hospital kimono-like shirt and the bandages around his thin neck and torso.

Uh. She noticed he was skinny, but not this much. It was basically to the point of starvation.

Slowly, the kitsune moved from her spot successfully catching Obito's attention- his only visible eye now with a spark of curiosity in it- and raised herself on her posterior paws, using the frontal paws to support herself in an almost erected position as she reached with them his slumped shoulders. They were now face to face with each other, the other occupants of the room unaware of what was happening, Obito confused by Nanami's actions. Then the fox touched his nose with her own, licking him on his not injured cheek, and then completely let herself fall over with the full length of her body against his torso, her frontal paws curled around his neck in a shockingly human way and her small face rested in the niche between his left shoulder and neck.

He started chocking on his breath, tears reaching his eyes and silently falling as he recognised the motion the small animal was doing: she was hugging him. Even one of his kittens did this on a daily basic. Arms shaking, not at all weirded out by the situation, he gently returned her affectionate gesture not bothering to hide his uncontrollable sobbing.

~ line, feels are coming...maybe~

They watched, feeling helpless, as their raven haired comrade cried his heart out.

They never heard someone cry like that, despair clear in his screams as thin tears fell down his cheeks and onto the kitsune's fur.

Obito was crying and none of them knew what to do about it, the first time the young boy was actually crying his heart out- because they could tell, this was different from his crocodile tears that gave him the moniker of 'crybaby'- and the only thing they could do was to watch unable to move.

What was the point of them coming there if they couldn't even comfort him when he cried?

Suddenly there were noises, not loud though, coming from the closed window as if someone was scratching it. Kushina broke from her trance and went to move the white curtains to see a bunch of kittens of various colourations- she swore she saw a pink one. PINK!- that were trying to open the window using their paws, even if without success.

"Kushina-san, could you let them in?" a soft voice called her attention back from the animals and turned over to meet Obito's eye, red from tears, watching her with a small plea in it.

She smiled "Of course Obito. You know them?"

A small pause "Yeah."

As soon as she opened the window the kittens rushed inside the room mewing and waiving their fluffy tails left and right, obviously showing their happiness to be there, to see him.

"...How- how many are there...?"

"They're only half of them, Minato-sensei. Let me see...uuummm...here there are only seven of them but in total I have fifteen...even though I usually get another one once in a while..."

"They're all yours?"

"Ah...uh...yes. Yes Rin, they're...mine..."

"You don't seem convinced."

"...I consider them friends not possessions. Most of them are also nekonin and considering them possessions just feels wrong to me so..."

"Nekonin? Since when?"

"Since always Kakashi. Since always. You just never cared to know."

Ouch. That hurt.

"What's their names?"

"...It will take some time...do you really want to know Rin?"

The girl smiled "Of course I do Obito!"

"All right then. Most of them are associated with a specific chakra nature or justu, like Iryū(イリュージョン) is the one specific for genjustu.

Katon is Hanabi(花火)" he picked up a female with fiery red-orange fur with the tips of her paws, tail and ears a rich gold.

"Futon is Hikō(飛行)" he gently grabbed a male with pastel green fur with light blue spots and a small set of wings on his back.

"Doton is Noboru(登る)" he gestured to a kitten that had long dark coloured fur and a longer fluffy tail than the others.

"Suiton is Kaiyō(海洋)" the kitten was resting on Obito's free shoulder, noticeable for his dark blue-purple wavy fur and for a pair of fins at the sides of her head. She was also obviously bigger than the others.

"Raiton is Raimei(雷鳴)" she was a white kitten that never stopped going around the room and was distinguishable for the lighting like yellow spots on her fur.

"Iryū is the pink one, and like I said her speciality is genjutsu while the last one is Yakusō(薬草), and with training she will be really useful for medical ninjutsu." Yakusō was the smaller of them and his fur was green with black stripes, tail thinner and longer than the others.

By when he had finished speaking, all of the newly introduced nekonin had taken places all over him- two were climbing on his arms, one perched on each shoulder, another on his head, another one inside his hospital shirt with only his face showing and the last one was playing with his non bandaged hand- and Nanami was laying on his left side, using his leg as a pillow, just in time to see a nurse entering the room that started squealing as soon as she saw him.

"Oh Kami, Obito-kun, you're all adorable!"

"Yōkina-san!"

~ line~ line~ line

"Well, Obito-kun, I'm happy to see that you're recovering but you seriously need to pay more attention and be careful. It's already the third time this month."

"It's not my fault this time! I swear!"

A playful glare "That may be so but you're still here."

"I was fine! I only had a sprained wrist 'cause I tripped down the stairs. Again. I don't know what happened in that damned forest and this is as annoying for me as it is for you, Yōkina-san.

She sighed "Ok, I believe you. But now we need to have a more serious discussion. Should I tell them to leave and wait outside?"

Them being Minato, Kushina, Kakashi and Rin.

Obito glanced at them as they stood awkwardly by the wall at the left side of his bed, but even if he could see they were expecting him to say that yes, they could stay, he knew for sure that he didn't- he wasn't ready for them to get too deeply into his life.

A flat refusal then "I want them out."

He couldn't look at them, he was afraid to see their disappointment.

"You heard him. Please, wait outside. I just need to tell him a few things about his injuries anyway. Ten minutes at most."

"Ah! O- okay then. Minato, Rin-chan, Kakashi-kun, let's go."

As soon as they heard the soft click of the door closing, the nurse opened her medical cartel and started listing all the injuries they found on him and the possible causes. Thankfully, they were far away from the truth.

"I want you to get away from that damned house."

Obito flinched "It's okay!"

"It's not! Obito, you are scared of them! You've been scared of who you should call family for the past eight years! I know that I said that I wouldn't have done anything unless you asked me to but this can't keep going. One day you'll get here too hurt for us- for me- to do anything! I know it! Please Obito-kun, let me help you. You don't deserve this."

Obito couldn't speak or look at the woman in the eyes, he was at lost of what to do. It was unusual for him to have people that told him they cared about him, that they wanted him to be safe, to be happy. While he knew that Yōkina-san took care of him out of her own will, he still couldn't believe that she truly meant what she always told him.

Even after eight years.

He still remembered how in the beginning he couldn't stop himself from panicking whenever someone entered his hospital room with something resembling a point. He was even scared of pens. Not that now he wasn't but he got better to stop the panic attacks as soon as they came, he didn't want to get triggered while in the academy or whenever Minato-sensei wrote a mission report with them damnit!

But it still was painful when he realized that he wasn't normal.

Normal people weren't scared of harmless things such as pens or salt. They weren't scared of going down the stairs, of small rooms or of shadows. They weren't scared of people.

This was the first thing the medics found out about him, leading to them allowing Yōkina-san to always be his nurse.

She always managed to calm him down after one of his panic attacks and she knew almost all of the things that seriously triggered him and she went down her ways to prevent them.

Seeing her like this, with her eyes full of unshed tears, hands gripping tightly around her cartel and so, so scared for him... he didn't know what to do.

"Yōkina-san...I can't. And even if I could, where would I go? I don't have enough money to go live on my own and nobody would ever want the Black Sheep of the Uchiha Clan near them." he still refused to look at her, but at least he was talking.

"Obito-kun, there are many people who would be happy to welcome you into their home... and you being different from the other members of your clan doesn't make you less valuable. You are allowed to run away from what scares you and yet you refuse to do so. Your happiness is every day more and more fake and I hate seeing you like this."

"...I will think about it."

She smiled "Thank you, Obito-kun. Thank you."

~ line~ line~ line

Yōkina Taki(陽気な 滝) was a kind woman on her early thirties, with wavy chocolate brown hair tied in a loose ponytail and warm blue eyes. She was also the nurse that always treated him whenever he was admitted in the hospital, even if only for minor injuries. They had a close relationship and every staff member in the hospital knew that, relationship dated to the woman's first day in Konoha Hospital, Children Ward, and Obito's first time in the Children's Ward when he was four.

Originally, she was supposed to take care of low ranked shinobi like new genin or chuunin- she herself was a Tokubetsu Jounin for her mastery of poisons and a medic nin- but because of the need of more personnel the Head Medic assigned her to Obito for the whole week he was in the hospital.

But then, only a month later, Obito came back with a mild case of malnutrition and had to stay in the hospital again for a full month to recover and only two weeks after he was released he came back again with a broken arm.

She remembered pretty well the talk she had we the boy's terrible father, how he told her that he refused to pay for "His useless son's incapacity of doing anything more that waste everybody's time with trivial matters without hurting himself as a mean to ask for attention." and that he "Didn't want to be bothered with that disgrace of an Uchiha more that necessary.".

She could hear the boy crying from his room, probably because of the harsh words of that man, and her heart had broken to know that something like that could still happen even in a village as peaceful as Konoha was.

So she decided to stand up, head raised high, and told the bastard to leave. He was disturbing the other patients rest with his yelling after all.

Then she went into Obito's room.

She would take care of him for now.

She just didn't expect to start thinking of him as her son.

~ line ~

"Minato."

"Kushina? What is it?"

"That nurse….didn't she say something about Obito being in the hospital three times this month?"

"Kushina-neesan, Obito was always present at team meeting this month. Sure he was always late but with him that's the norm. Plus we would have noticed if he had bandages or was taking some kind of pills. Nothing ever suggested to him being in the hospital."

The two adults looked at each other, a pensive expression on their faces.

"But….if that's true….that Obito was in the hospital and we never knew….What else did we miss about his life?"

Kakashi's thoughts, however, were different 'It's more like what we are missing. And I don't like it, not even a bit.'

AUTHOR'S NOTE

Hello everyone! First thing I would really like to thank all who added this story to the favourites, followed and revewed. It means a lot ^^ I just wanted to tell you a few things I thought you all sould know: first is that english is not my first language and while I will do my best to write correctly, if any of you finds errors don't refrain to tell me; second thing is that I will stick to publish one chapter per month and that I plan on making them all about the same length 'cause I like as a reader to have stories with chapters almost of the same legth and as a writer I will do the same; third thing is that while this has canon characters with their relationships mostly unchanged from canon, THIS IS NOT A CANON STORY.

Konoha will have a few traditions that aren't present in canon and I am alredy trying to find the best way to introduce them as well as a few Oc that are needed for the story.

Speaking of Ocs, I don't like them much so I won't add a lot of important Ocs. Yokina Taki from this chapter will have a semi-important role as well as other character that will come.

Also, there is another thing about this story that I won't tell you but I will be giving you hints to find out on your own ;)

Last thing is that I will focus on characterizations for the first chapters but then I will try to proceed at a faster pace with the story.

By the way, if someone is interested in being the Beta for the story I will appreciate it.

See you next month!