Summary: Because fatherhood's a journey, especially for an emotionally stunted man like him.
DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN NARUTO OR ANY OF ITS CHARACTERS AND PLOTS. I ONLY OWN MY OC AKI AND ANY OTHER.
Your worst sin is that you have destroyed and betrayed yourself for nothing.
Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment
The Hospital
Kakashi and Aki were walking home together when the little girl felt a large wet drop fall onto her face. Looking up, the clouds were dark grey and little by little she saw rain starting to fall.
"Papa, it's raining."
"I see that." Kakashi said, stating the obvious. He turned his head to the sky before looking back at his daughter. "I hope you know that we're going to get wet since I forgot to bring an umbrella."
"…Gross." He just shrugged in reply since there was nothing he could do about it now.
As the rain started to fall harder, the duo started to walk faster. By the time they made it back to the apartment, Kakashi and Aki were soaked to the bone. Kakashi didn't mind the rain―hell, he trained in rain.
So before, when it would rain and he would find himself without an umbrella, he would have taken a quick shower once he got home and then he would have gotten changed. It was simple, easy, and effective. Now?
Not so much.
Looking down at Aki, he noticed her shivering before anything else. Crap. What did that parenting book he read yesterday say? Make sure to dry off your child if they get wet? Shit, he couldn't remember what it said.
Placing the items they bought onto the counter, he quickly rushed Aki to the bathroom. "You're going to take a bath right now, okay? It'll warm you up." This was exactly what he did in this situation and it'll work on a kid too, hands down. Or so he hoped, anyways.
The five-year-old nodded her head. "O-Okay."
Kakashi turned around and opened the bottom of his sink. After digging through the crap that had accumulated in the space for what felt like forever―but was only a few seconds―he finally found the box of bath salts that he had been looking for. He had gotten it a few weeks ago from Kurenai after they came back from a mission together.
"Um…" Aki tugged at his shirt and he turned around to face her. "I've n-never taken a s-shower alone."
Of course she never did. Kakashi internally groaned. "Did your grandpa always help you take one?" She nodded her head. "And now you need me to help?" She answered with a nod again.
His face went blank as his inner thoughts took over his mind. It was okay, he could do it. Sure, this was taking a huge leap out of his comfort zone but if he had too he'd be able to do it. It couldn't be that hard.
…Right?
Even if he didn't want too though he'd have to simply because of the fact that Aki was currently shivering in her clothes in front of his. She was cold, a child, and bound to get sick if she stayed in those clothes.
But still, he never really helped shower another human being before.
"P-Papa?" The small voice brought him out of his thoughts. He would have to think about this later.
"You need to take off your clothes, okay? You'll get colder and the next thing you know, you'll be sick." Aki nodded her head and started to take off her wet garments. As she did this, Kakashi opened the sliding door that led into his very tiny bath room. In the corner like in every traditional Japanese style house, there was a small metal bathtub while next to it was where he would wash his body and hair before going into the preheated water.
Rolling his sleeves up, Kakashi pulled off the plastic covering that was on top of the metal tub and placed it somewhere to the side. He then proceeded to put the proper amount of…lavender scented bath salts that would warm the user right up―or so it said on the container anyways―into the water and mixed it with his arm.
"I-I'm ready."
"Alright come on." Kakashi turned around and motioned for Aki to walk into the shower room. He quickly turned on the shower and sprayed her down before placing her into the warm, nice smelling water. "Are you warm now?" He asked after a few minutes had passed. He noticed the color returning back into her cheeks and that her shivering had stopped.
"Yup."
"Good." Kakashi sat down on the small stool and ran his hand over his face. He wasn't paying attention and didn't notice when Aki brought her hands together in the water to make a water gun. She squirted water onto Kakashi and giggled when she saw the look of surprise on his face.
At least she wasn't shivering.
"Grandpa had to buy lots of brushes because of me."
"…You broke a lot of brushes, didn't you?"
Aki turned red and hid her face into Kappa. "Maybe."
Kakashi let out a single laugh. "Don't worry, I know through experience." He tried to run his hand through his daughter's hair but failed. His fingers caught onto a large knot and that incited a wince from her. "It's easier if it's shorter." He suggested. "Why not cut it?"
"Then I look like a boy."
"Nothing wrong with that."
Aki glared at Kakashi. "No. I like my long hair." She growled out.
He raised his hands in surrender. "Okay." She turned around after a second passed and let Kakashi work with her mop of a hair.
Sure, his hair was just…a freak of nature. It poofed up in rain―and when it was wet―and no matter what he did with it, it never changed. It was thick, each hair strand was thin, and he had a crap ton of it on his head. Up until now, he thought he had it bad.
He snorted.
Nope, Aki had it so much worse than him. Her hair was longer, even thicker and at the moment, it was tangled. This was possibly the worse combination to have, especially on a five-year-old, energetic child's head. And not to mention, the brush he was using was one that looked about ready to break.
And so Kakashi tried, he really did. He tried to brush through her knots as gently as he could so the brush wouldn't break and so Aki wouldn't cry because of the pain. Yet, he managed to do both in a span of ten seconds. First, it was the brush breaking, resulting in a piece of it still stuck in one of her knots. Then it was him trying to take out the brush, which then caused a large chunk of her hair to get ripped off. Then Aki crying only made it worse.
The end result of today was a screaming child who was crying from pain and a grown man who was about ready to cry because he didn't know how to do jack shit when it came down to children.
…It was not a good night for the two of them.
Later that night
It didn't take much to wake a typical shinobi up but when that was paired with someone who was a light sleeper, it resulted in a man that woke up at almost every little sound. This was why Kakashi woke up to coughing. It wasn't like an average cough either, it sounded much worse.
"Aki?"
"Papa…" Aki turned to him and immediately, he knew something was wrong. "I don't feel good―"
Kakashi knew the telltale signs of someone who was about to vomit. Seeing Aki acting the way she was made him grab her and shunshin her to the toilet, only a second before she did puke.
He was thankful he made it in time.
He held Aki's hair up as she puked. When it was over, she looked slightly better but not by much. Holding his hand against her forehead, he could also tell that she had a fever. A pretty high one at that too, judging by what he felt.
"How are you feeling right now?" Kakashi asked despite thinking it was a useless question to ask when he could pretty much tell with the way she looked.
"…Not good." Aki looked up at him, her eyes not really meeting with his own.
Kakashi looked around in the cupboard behind the mirror and found an unused thermometer. "Let's see how high your fever is." He turned it on and handed it to her. She took it but just stared at it, unsure of how to use it.
"I don't…"
He gently took it out of her hands and then placed it between her armpits. As they waited for the little machine to go beep, Aki rested her face against Kakashi's leg.
It didn't take long, he thought probably only about a minute or so but during this time, Aki was coughing horribly, almost to the point where he thought she was going to puke again. Not only this but she was breathing a little harder than she was a minute ago which was slightly worrying him. He took the thermometer and looked at her temperature.
It was 39.1°C.
"Fuck." Now he was really worried. Kakashi quickly looked at the time and saw that it was still two in the morning. Grabbing a small blanket to wrap the little girl with, he quickly picked her up and rushed out of the house. At first, he didn't know where to go. He thought of Sakura but then remembered that she still lived with her parents, so she was off the list. The only place he could think of was the hospital. The emergency room would obviously be open. Although he hated the hospital with its white walls and smell of blood, he'd have to suck it up and take Aki there.
The usual trip there while running would have usually taken Kakashi about ten minutes.
He managed to make it in five.
Kakashi slammed open the doors to the room, shocking the nurse manning the station. "H-Hatake-san?"
"She suddenly started puking and currently has a fever of 39.1."
"O-Okay." The nurse quickly took Aki from his arms and nodded her head. "We'll have a doctor check on her immediately. Please wait here while we get a room and a bed ready."
Kakashi looked around and sat on one of the empty chairs that were scattered around the emergency room. He rubbed his face with his hands before sighing into them, feeling tired. It didn't help that he was here, a place that was associated with death more than life.
Did he do something wrong today? Was he wrong to put Aki in a bath to warm her up? Or maybe it was the way they were eating. After all, they had been living on prepacked obentos for the past two weeks.
Maybe it really was all his fault.
"Hatake-san?" Looking up, Kakashi saw the nurse from earlier. "The room is ready." He followed the nurse to the room and waited for her to walk away before entering the room. The moment he walked into the room, he almost bolted when he saw who was standing over his daughter's figure, their hands green with iryo-ninjutsu.
"Sit your sorry ass down Hatake." As quietly as he could, he sat down in the seat listening to the command.
"I'm sorry Tsunade-sama―"
"For what?" The blonde turned around and looked at him. "She has the flu, something you can't really prevent." Tsunade narrowed her eyes at him. "I hope you're not blaming yourself Kakashi. This really wasn't your fault."
"I don't―"
"Sure."
"Um…so Aki has the flu?" Kakashi asked, diverting the question back to Aki. He personally had never needed to deal with the flu because of the annual flu shots all shinobi were required to get.
The Hokage nodded her head. "It's been going around lately, especially with children. I'm guessing you took her to a park?" He nodded his head. "That's probably where she got it."
"So…she's fine?"
Tsunade nodded her head. "For the most part. We'll keep her here for the rest of the night before discharging her, just in case. I managed to bring down her fever but I'm going to prescribe some antiviral medicine."
Kakashi felt relief rush throughout his body. He was glad that Aki was going to be okay but now, a new thought came up. "Tsunade-sama, why are you here?"
"Oh." Tsunade smirked. "I'm still an iryo-nin so I do like to see how my hospital is doing. I just happened to walk by the nurse who was carrying Aki." She wrote something down onto a paper. "Well I have to go but I'll make sure to give this to a doctor. Don't forget to pick up her medicine, okay?"
"Hai."
"Good." With that she left the room, leaving Kakashi alone with a sleeping Aki. He slumped in his seat with a mix of relief and guilt. Despite Tsunade telling that that it wasn't his fault, he couldn't help but feel like it slightly was. And not only this, Kakashi was scared at how he reacted today.
He asked himself why he acted like this, why his heart was beating so painfully with worry. He recalled the way he talked to the nurse when he first arrived at the hospital and that almost made him wince because of how he sounded. He sounded so scared for her.
Only two weeks and Aki had managed to burrow herself into his heart.
Only two weeks and Aki had managed to make him act slightly irrationally.
Only two weeks and Aki had caused him to care about her and it terrified him.
A/N: QUICK CULTURAL LESSON. SO in Japan, it is normal for a father to wash/take a bath with their daughters' while they're young. And since Naruto is based on Japanese culture in a way, I figured that there was nothing wrong with this.
I swear to god, if people tell me that I'm wrong about I will literally shove my Japanese heritage in YOUR FACE AND DOWN YOUR THROAT because I'm pretty sure I know what I'm talking about since I'm, you know, Japanese.
So, how do you guys like this chapter? I'm pretty okay with it, not quite loving it but not quite hating it either. It's like in the middle for me.
SO OMG I LOVE YOU GUYS SO MUCH THE AMOUNT OF POSITIVE REVIEWSS I'M GETTING FOR THIS STORY JUST MAKES ME WANT TO CRYYYYYY. I LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH I WISH I COULD GIVE YOU ALL A COOKIE (because who doesn't like cookies, am I right? But if you do I'll give you something else xD)
Anyways, leave a follow/fav. if you liked this chapter. Also, please don't forget to leave a REVIEWWSSSSS because I'm a review whore like that. (I'm not going to lie about it soo…)
Until next time!~
