Hello again! So, I'm sorry if Kakashi's age is wrong…please don't sue me. Anyway, I've actually written a decent amount this time. As you can probably tell, I'm a lot better at angst than humour…yeah, I'm not a funny person. I've been told. Oh, and don't you just love Minato? Mind you, this story probably won't have any pairings…this chapter is a sensei/student sort of relationship, kind of reminds me of Gai and Lee…
Anyway, I don't own Naruto or any of the characters…on with the chapter!
'This can't be happening…please don't leave me.'
Kakashi Hatake has nothing to say. It is the first time in his short life that he has ever been speechless and it feels as though he has forgotten to breathe let alone talk. The floor is coming out from under his feet, the walls are spinning and all he can see is red red red. Crimson, bloody red and pale, lifeless eyes that stare blankly at the ceiling.
Kakashi is seven years old. Sakumo has just committed suicide.
He can't breathe, he can't move and there's an annoying distant ringing in his ears. There's nothing in the world he can see anymore apart from the body that lies in the middle of the Hatake house, drowning in a pool of its own blood. Maybe he's crying, he could be screaming for all he knows but nothing matters anymore. He can't feel, he's numb, in shock; broken and shattered and there's nothing no one can do about it.
He doesn't know how long he stands there for - minutes, hours or days? In the end the world is crashing down around him anyway and time has no importance. He wants to throw up, his stomach churns and his chest is hurting painfully for some reason but he can't quite comprehend why (he's confused because he shouldn't be hurting because no one has pierced him with a kunai or hurt him with shuriken). In the end, he thinks it may be his heart, that long forgotten organ that he had left to fester and rot inside of him.
He doesn't know when he moved forward, but suddenly he is beside his father. He lays down beside the body and for a few, silent moments he just stares blankly into those dull, grey eyes that are so much like his but at the same time are not. White, silvery moon hair is dirty and matted with crimson – impure, tainted. He looks at his father's face, unseeing, still numb. He can't feel anything. He thinks that the expression on the man's face may be happiness, but he's not sure because the smile is half hidden behind pain and years of hardship. The white fang of Konoha is magnificent, he thinks, even in death. He can see the wound on the chest where the blood has stopped seeping from, a katana sticking out of it.
Sakumo is a traitor and he is weak, Kakashi thinks, but it still hurts. He lets a single tear leak out because he knows he should, not because he can.
He doesn't know when he started running, but his mind is a blur of trees - dark and muddy skies. It feels surreal almost and he doesn't know where he's going or what he's going to do. The forest, the dark and foreboding trees, the howls of creatures in the woods dance across his mind and play tricks on him, but he keeps going. He's Kakashi, now the youngest chunin ever and he doesn't get scared of the dark (tell me it's going to be alright, please?). Sakumo – no, not his father, not anymore – is a traitor anyway. He shouldn't care. Father- no Sakumo- gave up his mission in favor of saving his comrades. He did the wrong thing, Kakashi thinks. He did the wrong thing, he tries to make himself believe. (Shinobi are merely tools to serve the village. Nothing more, nothing less. Tools.)
He doesn't know when, but he finds a clearing somewhere in the forest where the too-tall trees bear down on him and he still can't see. He collapses there, in the clearing, breathing deeply. For a few moments, he listens to the night birds. And then cries. The first ever time, because in reality he is still only a seven year old child and he's too young to be a part of this cruel world. He's still a child, but he never had a childhood. And so he cries, the tears streaming down his face and dripping into the forest floor, the sobs racking his frail body until he can't breathe again. He cries for the childhood he never had, the father he has lost, and the happiness he thinks he will never find. And somewhere in this mess of darkness, hysteria, tears and heart-wrenching sobs that only the trees will ever hear the blackness finally takes him.
(Why did you leave me? Am I not enough for you to live for?)
He doesn't dream, but his sleep is disturbed. And when he wakes up, it's morning. He's still in the clearing, lying on his side with the side of his face pressed into the dirt, his eyes still red and his messy bangs splayed everywhere. His chest still hurts and this time he is sure it is his heart, because he knows that he was never enough for his father. He was not enough for his father to live for.
They find him in the same place, the same position, later on that day. They've already found Sakumo's body and everyone in the village knows. Word travels fast. They send Minato to look for Kakashi, because Minato is all that Kakashi has left. The same, blonde jounin finds his only student on the forest floor, just staring absently at nothing and for once, he doesn't know what to say to make it better.
Kakashi sits up when he sees his mentor and he tries scrubbing at his eyes because he doesn't want Minato to see him like this. He's Kakashi – invincible, impenetrable. But Minato doesn't see him like that. Minato sees him as the child he never was. (Kakashi is a shinobi. Shinobi do not cry).
There are no words needed. Kakashi is hurt and vulnerable and alone. His sensei wants to show him otherwise. And so, Minato leans forward with saddened eyes and he hugs Kakashi. The white-haired prodigy is surprised at first, but then he relaxes. He still has Minato, he thinks, and Minato will never leave him.
"You're enough for me, Kakashi." Is all that sensei whispers and Kakashi lets one last tear make its way down his cheek. Minato says that Kakashi is enough for him, when he was never enough for his own father.
Kakashi is a shinobi. He is the youngest chunin in the history of Konoha, he is the son of the legendary white fang, he is the student of the future Yondaime and he is the elusive, white-haired prodigy. But in the end, Kakashi is still a child first.
Hope you enjoyed. I would like to thank all of the people who have reviewed me so far…Ninbunny alchemist, Prescripto13, False sourires and Delirium-Carus. Thank you! And please review :) It would make a certain someone *ahem me* very happy!
