"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." — Hebrews 11:1
Nothing improved the memory like despair. Pain was the pathway to every forgotten regret, misstep, and second wasted. The hospital waiting room was a cesspool of despair. And one inconsequence—a child with a sprained ankle hobbled out on crutches with their grateful mother. Their father shook his head, appearing to be no stranger to such occurrences.
Rei felt Anko's eyes on her, anticipated her next words.
"He's going to be okay. This isn't the first time he's given us a scare."
Finding Rei with a smile on her face articulated the cruelty of the truth. Anko had hesitated, wanted to pass the words off to the doctors. They could best explain what happened to Kakashi and release her from the responsibility of having to activate an explosive in Rei's reality. The timer was set, and the diffusion of the bomb depended on Kakashi's survival, so Anko offered platitudes and tired reassurances. It was all she could think of and she stewed bitterly in her ineptitude for comfort.
Rei had only seen Kakashi physically hurt once, and a scar ran down his left eyelid to remind her. The details of his mission unraveled in the idle conversation filling the area. Tracking the Akatsuki alone exceeded the meaning of 'high-ranked and classified', and Rei considered what could have improved Kakashi's chances of coming home unscathed. Nothing. A team meant too many targets. It was his to go alone, but Rei would trade all the other shinobi in her presence if it ensured not having to sit and wait and keep a lid on her anger.
The anger was better than sadness. It was better than feeling like her and Kakashi's beginning had been ended.
Her silence made Anko bristle, and shift in her chair in search of phantom comfort. Rei was a different kind of person in these situations, so Anko decided to remain quiet. Asuma and Kurenai filtered in from the cafeteria with cups in both their hands. Anko took one from Kurenai, and Asuma looked at Rei, but didn't offer a cup. He sat it down next to her on a table with magazines sprawled out. Anko and Kurenai exchanged looks and left to retrieve an update from the nurse's station.
Asuma watched Rei intently, tried to divine her quiet feelings. The other cup was warm in his hands. He wanted to speak but not without being sure. Maybe the surgery and examination would offer more detailed information, but the coldness settling on her felt too much like what he'd almost let in when his father died. Kakashi wasn't dead, just being the center of attention as always. Asuma chose to believe that instead.
"We, uh, found him fifteen miles outside the village."
Rei turned her head towards the window, eyes beginning to red at the rims. Her nails dug into her palms, and she couldn't relax her hands. A bird flapped away—yet another black bird shooting off the branch of a tree impetuously—and she mused on why she often observed them appearing as though they had an aching need to leave. Perhaps their wings had to touch every part of the sky. Life was fleeting after all. Asuma kept talking.
"Neji, a Hyūga kid, assessed that the flow of Kakashi's chakra had been severely weakened. But we got him here in time. I've never seen Guy move so fast. Kakashi is strong."
Rei absorbed the information like rainwater coming back to the ocean. She'd heard it from Anko, and in whispers from other shinobi sitting among them and now, she was hearing it again. It was a boring cycle better suited for a girlfriend who sat there weeping and begging for comfort with her tears. She couldn't crumble at every piece of news like this. They were shinobi. Failed missions and life-threatening injuries were inevitable truths, but somehow, in their budding bliss, she'd forgotten it. She was arrogant enough to believe that the tragedies had taken a break.
Asuma tightened his lips into a flat line and sipped from his cup. Rei was no longer thirsty nor hungry. Kurenai and Anko returned just as Inoichi Yamanaka walked in. He nodded at everyone and stopped to speak with his daughter at the front desk. Rei sat up straight at his presence, remembered the array of mind-related jutsu he specialized in.
"You can walk back. An attending will take you." Ino lowered her voice. "Dad…"
Inoichi just smiled, disarmed his little girl with confidence that was almost touchable, and let an attending doctor guide him beyond the white doors. Ino left the desk and called Asuma's name. Asuma stood, but she shook her head, let him know it was okay to stay seated.
"I thought you all would want to know that my dad was asked to come and consult on Kakashi-sensei's condition. There may be information stored in his most recent memories to help us treat him better."
Asuma took Ino's hand, so proud of how seriously she regarded her new journey into medicine. More words could have been said, but Ino watched Rei and went back to the desk, not wanting to issue out maybes. Rei closed her eyes, had suspected that was why Inoichi had come. She finally loosened her fists and imagined Kakashi's last thoughts. Was he afraid? Was he as bold as ever?
"Well, that's good news at least." Anko popped the top off of her cup and blew into the steaming liquid.
Rei got up and left the room. The door swung hard behind her. She scanned her surroundings until she spotted a single occupancy restroom. Thankful it was empty, she locked herself inside. A familiar pressure made her ooze to the floor and the truth began to sound in her ears like a clap of thunder. Gathering her knees to her chest, she rested her head against them and breathed—long, deep breaths to steady herself.
Nearly everyone stunk of fear. Guy had likely left the hospital altogether to destroy things with his legs and fists. A hot cup of coffee was the only thing Asuma could hold onto since everything else was beyond his power. And Anko smelled like fear and guilt. Bearing bad news had its effects. Kurenai's serenity was genuine, the only thing that hadn't been tainted, and Rei felt weak by comparison.
She remembered Kakashi's face, the last version of it she had seen. He was quiet, almost somber. She rubbed her lips with two fingers. He'd kissed her with a bunch of false bravado. It hadn't been like the many before—confident and knowing and infuriating because he exhausted very little effort to have her.
It was clear something perplexed him, but she let him leave anyway, foolishly believed he could just tell her next time. Arrogant shinobi believed in reunions, and blatantly foolish ones counted on them in war time.
"I should have made you tell me what was on your mind. What if—"
For some reason, Kakashi couldn't recount what happened to him from his own mouth. Maybe his chakra needed time to replenish. Inoichi would steal into his mind and dig around his memories so Kakashi wouldn't have to exert himself when he woke up. Rei rubbed her arms as she envisioned him unconscious, nothing like the man who still smiled in the worst of circumstances.
Anguish rippled over her, overruled all the other thoughts pinballing inside her head. She needed clear answers, the truth as the doctors understood it. Otherwise, the dam would break and she would be like everyone else—deathly afraid and poorly compensating. The feeling that she had wasted too much time would claw its way out of her. She rolled her bunched sleeves down and stood to her feet. The thought of someone coming to find her was frightening.
When Rei stepped back into the waiting room, everyone's eyes were on her and it sickened her just as intensely as getting drunk had. With perfect timing, Tsunade and Sakura emerged from the operating room. Tsunade had refreshed herself, used her considerable chakra to put the glint back in her tired eyes and skin that had dulled. It happened before Sakura's eyes fantastically. Tsunade was the Hokage and couldn't look like what she'd been through. Especially with one of her most capable down.
Rei didn't realize she rushed towards them until she slowed down when Tsunade began to speak. Tsunade instructed them to follow her to a hall, wide and dusty and bookended by two doors. On the door they had not walked through was a sign detailing visiting hours for patients in intensive care. Naruto straggled in after a buzzer gave him entrance. Tsunade nodded at him and delivered the news they'd waited for.
"Kakashi is in intensive care. Katsuyu restored his right arm that was torn to pieces by a shuriken. Pakkun confirmed that Kakashi fought Itachi Uchiha."
The atmosphere conflated to a labored sigh. Asuma and Kurenai shook their heads, remembering their last fight with Itachi. Kakashi had told them not to open their eyes, and all Asuma had heard in mere seconds was Kakashi's knees hitting the water and his jagged shortness of breath. Thoughts that he should have accompanied Kakashi crept into Asuma's mind, but he didn't doubt the fight coming to all of them soon enough.
"Kakashi was exposed to the mangekyō sharingan and used it himself, and as a result, the strain was too taxing on his body. He was also impacted by some kind of mental exposure to Amaterasu. According to information we have on the sharingan, we didn't know that was possible, but Kakashi is lucky to not have been burned alive."
"We have deduced that his heart stopped and he was deprived of oxygen. We don't know how long. Pakkun cannot be sure. Inoichi Yamanaka isn't sure. Kakashi simply passed out after all the trauma he'd experienced."
"We made a tiny hole in his skull to relieve the pressure on his brain. As of eleven minutes ago, it did reduce to normal range, but Kakashi is unconscious and we need him to respond. He's in a coma."
A touch of weariness lurched into Tsunade's voice. Kakashi was her chosen successor. Sometimes she regarded him as the son she and Dan might have had. Possibly even her and Jiraiya—in another life without all the justicing and risk involved in the very world she'd ran from screaming. She sounded dry, like she'd talked a hundred days without water. Sakura cleared her throat and took over.
"We have chilled Kakashi-sensei's body to induce a response. After three days, we will warm him up and we hope that he will react to external stimuli. He will warm up for two additional days and we will test his responses after that time."
Doctors were so technical in their way of speaking even when they dumbed everything down. Tsunade and Sakura were understandable, but Rei still felt like they were discussing a science experiment. The hypothesis: if we freeze the patient, then warm him, he will no longer be a vegetable… we hope.
Rei's knees buckled. Gravity coaxed her to the floor, but she relaxed against the wall for support and let everyone have their reactions. The damn nausea was going to hospitalize her if she couldn't handle it.
"Can we see him?" Naruto asked, his voice feather-light and hopeful.
It was Naruto's sheepish fear that illustrated the reality of the situation again. When Anko told her, Rei felt like she was on the outside watching someone else's life. When Asuma spoke, it was like a tired old record. But when Naruto asked to see his teacher, wanting to see him first, but not saying so, Rei's eyes went glassy with sadness. Kakashi was many things to many people and she wondered if he knew. He'd navigated life with little self-importance for a long time now.
Tsunade consented, but just two at a time. The visiting period ended in forty minutes until the next one hours later. At some point, Guy had joined them, but Rei didn't notice.
"I'm going to eat something." Rei eased away from the wall and left before anyone could protest or invite themselves.
She made a wrong turn on the way out and stopped to fill in the blanks of what Tsunade and Sakura didn't say—against her will. Food had to come first. She'd be useless if she were too sick to be present if anything changed.
But it was her nature to be stricken by excruciating facts.
When the fires devouring her family licked around her, and she opened the underground refuge to see the flaming agony descended on her home, after ninety seconds, she lost consciousness. Lack of oxygen ravaged the body and brain in degrees.
At one minute without oxygen, brain cells died. She'd always gotten good marks at the Academy, particularly in First Aid. Missions couldn't be completed by dead shinobi, so she learned everything she could.
"Brain cells that have died cannot be revived." Her words were just quick breaths.
After three minutes with no oxygen, lasting brain damage was almost guaranteed.
"Who will he be if—when he wakes up?"
She realized she'd inherited pragmatism from her father. Being optimistic was a security blanket and a blanket was fodder for the flames like everything else. Without knowing how long Kakashi had been breathless, her mind painted vivid pictures of worst-case scenarios. If he couldn't smile again or make a frustrating remark or look at her like little else mattered, would he be Kakashi?
At five minutes without oxygen, impending death was sure. And at ten, even if the brain survived, a coma and brain damage ensured the person you knew could never be who you'd always known. Kakashi would just lie there, supported by machines, propped up unnaturally and silently request to die.
Rei gathered what she did know: Kakashi was in a coma. He showed no signs of brain activity. As he slept, did he dream? As he lay, did he hope? The questions were clasped a hand over her mouth and vomit spewed through her fingers. It was the second time in a few days, and she wished she could blame it on something as temporary and stupid as having too much to drink.
She looked up at the signs on the wall, pointing her in the right direction until she was out of the hospital. Her hands smelled like rotten citrus and her neck was sticky. Everything reeked of the last few hours. A bath and solitude seemed the best options to even herself out. She tipped too much to a side of something she wasn't ready to feel. Even with scientific facts hitting her over the head, a soft part of her heart said faith was still worth it. Survival had only been possible all these years because she believed in something.
Kakashi's apartment looked down on her, welcoming her. Are the houseplants still alive? Are they waiting for him too? The tiny rocks in the dirt beneath her feet made the ground uneven. Her instincts were agonizingly sensitive. A bath and food. That would make it all a little better.
"Rei?" Natsumi's door opened with a whine.
It took a few moments for Rei to turn around, amazed by how different standing in the same spot felt just a day later.
"I got the produce. Thank you and— and your friend too."
"You saw us?" Rei frowned.
Natsumi adopted that shamed look again. Rei wondered if her husband had really been an honorable shinobi or if he'd scared the shit out of her their entire marriage. Natsumi was meek and guarded in an uncomfortable way.
"It's okay," Rei sighed. "Sometimes we just don't want to be bothered."
Rei started up the stairs, leaving Natsumi standing in the middle of the street. The door closed with a soft click and Rei decided she'd reached her limit for the day.
The water was so hot as it poured into the tub, the mirrors fogged. A basket of soap sat on the counter. Maybe something fragrant would stir Kakashi awake. The hospital smelled like cold air and metal. She squeezed strawberry mint scented liquid into the bath and watched the bubbles foam and froth. She smiled at the smell. She purchased the soap entirely for herself. Kakashi wasn't particularly vigilant over his masculinity but he wouldn't leave the house smelling like strawberries, so he wouldn't disturb her baths.
"If you want to take a bath with me, this is what you'll smell like." She said softly, hoping her teasing reached his slow-beating heart.
The scalding water was balm to her aching muscles. She propped an arm on the mouth of the tub to support her head and tears flushed her cheeks.
"You've got to wake up. Please, Kakashi."
"Shinobi are prohibited from traveling outside the village unless approved by the Hokage or for the purpose of missions."
The Shinobi Code of Conduct, wooden and implacable, rested in Rei's hands. Her eyes flitted over the text, tripping over one rule after another. The Horoshimas had been allowed to govern themselves, so she had seen new parts of the world every year. The urge to go outside Konohagakure had taken long to return, but it did and now, it was prohibited.
"Hey, Rei, whatcha doin'?" Guy peered over her shoulder.
"Guy, why don't we ever do anything fun around here? This place is in dire need of a festival or something."
She threw the book and Guy caught it, his heart stilling at the lack of care taken with it. The book opened, page marked, to the very spot she'd just read.
"In need of a vacation?" Guy queried.
"If the vacation could be here, I wouldn't feel the need to leave. I just want to see some fireworks."
Kakashi entered the dining hall, a rare public appearance. Word had it he was a captain in the Anbu Black Ops. Guy was the word. Rei poked chopsticks at her steak teriyaki swimming in sauce. Guy hadn't taken his eyes off Kakashi yet.
"Go talk to him, or at least quit staring."
Rei chewed a cut of meat, rolling her eyes at all who fawned over her childhood savior whose heart, as far as she'd concerned herself, had all the emotion sucked out of it. His eyes were dark gray but they just looked black now, the one should could still see.
"Be right back." Guy left the table in a gust of wind.
Guy was so chipper it hurt like sugar candy, but Rei liked him. She just tolerated everyone else. Her mind wandered to colorful flashes of light against the night sky. Hanabi. The last trip her parents had taken her on was to the Land of Lights for the fireworks festival. It was almost her birthday then. And now.
She opened her eyes and came back to the present day to see Guy practically dragging Kakashi to their table.
"Good fucking grief." Rei snatched her tray from the table and walked away, shoved it into the cafeteria window.
By the time she remembered she forgot her bag, Guy had worked his magic and Kakashi was sitting down. She contemplated leaving the bag. She could replace the ninja tools, but all her lunch money for the week was inside. Maybe Guy would pick it up and bring it to her later. She took too long pondering what to do. Guy's yelling killed the normal volume of chatter in the room.
"Rei! Why are you just standing there?"
Kakashi flashed her condescending glare. She could see it from a distance underneath that mask that probably smelled like an old sock. She balled a fist then relaxed her hand and strutted to the table and joined them.
"The gang's all here."
"Don't be lame, Guy." Rei pulled her bag into her lap.
"Rude." Kakashi spoke, removing lids from rice and soup and fish and ice cream. Rei's eyes could have rolled into next week.
"Don't you have superior ninja tasks to endeavor in?" Rei just wanted him gone. Lunch had actually tasted good and Guy had made her laugh four sincere times.
"Rei, when you 'endeavor' to hate someone, everything about them becomes unpleasant. Anyway, hello. Long time, no see." Kakashi sipped miso soup, impressed by his own cooking.
The audacity. The unmitigated gall of him to disregard, perhaps even forget that 'long time, no see' was his doing, incensed her. Guy imagined leaving a tea kettle on the stove too long and prepared himself. Rei didn't scream with boiling rage. She pushed back from the table, legs of her chair screeching, and left.
"Kakashi…" Guy looked after her.
"I don't know what you're talking about, Guy. Want some of this? I packed too much."
Guy had attempted (miserably) to respect Kakashi's feelings. He hadn't walked in his shoes, but he had an idea of what someone losing themselves looked like. Anbu subsisted on discarded relationships. It hurt when people changed altogether, but the truly painful thing lay in pieces of them fading away, one after another.
Kakashi had taken his father, Obito, and Rin, and deleted them. Everyone else came next. Maybe he needed time and Rei just needed to be more patient. Guy concocted many excuses for the way his friends were.
"Guy, hello?" Kakashi waved a piece of fish at him.
"Go to Rei. Talk to her. Fix it or you'll regret it, Kakashi."
Kakashi reneged on the fish and ate it himself.
"Why should I?"
"Because you want to. She's the reason you sat down in the first place. Don't worry. My feelings are only a little hurt."
Kakashi began scarfing his food down and Guy shook his head.
"She doesn't even want to be near me."
"You guys are really… dumb."
Guy finished his meal and left Kakashi uncommonly dumbfounded. Kakashi could have sworn Guy worshipped the ground he walked on.
Rei returned to her apartment, violently brushed her teeth, and changed clothes. Eruptive anger made her body pulsate whenever she thought of Kakashi, but seeing him, hearing him, and feeling the coldness of his dismissal made her tingle from top to bottom. She cursed letting someone, him, disturb her so critically.
"I hate him. There's no 'endeavoring' involved. I just fucking hate him."
The doorbell buzzed. Three short buzzes and one obnoxiously long one. She didn't want to verbally abuse any visitors, so she recalled her mother's training.
"Just don't be a bitch, Rei." She recited a revised version of the lesson on kindness.
Kakashi stood on the other side of the door and she scared herself with how fast the thought to push him over the railing crossed her mind. Don't be homicidal either, Rei. She just looked at him, waited for him to state his purpose of being or admit he had the wrong house and slither back to the abyss he'd been in the last several months before Guy's bleeding heart for the cause of love pulled him back into her orbit.
"What do you want?" She didn't mean to hiss or clench her teeth so hard.
"To make you un-angry with me. It's looking like a long shot already."
Kakashi suddenly realized how close he was to her after many dangerous missions, after purposely avoiding her because he knew she had avoided him. Guy was very convincing. Her eyes were very convincing and lovely and familiar and safe. He licked his dry lips and tried not to look deprived.
"Can I come in?" He wanted back into her life, but he didn't know how to do that with his night terrors and aching hand that twitched sometimes because it had killed Rin. Maybe she had been lucky watching her family die all at once instead of one person after another. Some days he felt like he could bear it and be happy but then another one perished.
Rei didn't feel hatred nor anger. His eye didn't look black with him standing right in front of her. She blinked at the suddenness of the involuntary responses her body initiated. Confusion and dizziness wanted dominion over her, but it was just a boy at the door. The world hadn't turned upside down and hell didn't freeze. She embraced the confusion and damned the dizziness. There was no way she'd faint with him there. His confidence was the worst.
She turned away, but without slamming the door in his face, so he followed her inside. She returned from the kitchen with a tea setting on an expensive silver tray—things the fire hadn't quenched. She poured light green liquid into a cup and handed it to him. The smell was exquisite. He'd almost forgotten her class.
"So how ya been?" he asked, fingering the ridges in the tea cup.
"Angry with you."
"At least I've been on your mind."
"Shit."
Kakashi sipped, pleased with himself. Rei sighed. They weren't supposed to be having tea like two throwbacks with the decency to check in with each other sometimes. At some point, she'd made him a mortal enemy and thanked heavens their paths hadn't crossed professionally. Kakashi looked around her place, noting how it had matured just as she had.
"I have an urgent need to kick you out."
"Rei, tell me what I've done. Maybe I can fix it."
There were pictures pushed to the edge of the table to make room for the tea. A little Rei wore a pink kimono decorated with flowers and stood between her parents sporting a toothy grin as fireworks sparkled over their heads. Kakashi's heart pulled. He didn't remember his mother. He was just newly born, but he remembered his father's eyes when he spoke of her, how they conveyed a longing that would go on forever.
"Get out," she snapped like a book closing. "Just get up and go and stay the hell away from me."
Kakashi glanced at the pictures again before accepting her decision. He left, and she hurled a fist at the door. The wood splintered like the fireworks that once stretched out into the sky.
Some hours passed, and she still wanted to throw the entire tea set away. It was tainted now. Going to sleep would probably ensure she didn't do anything she'd regret, so Rei closed her eyes. A loud whistle and then a crash sounded from outside. She rolled off the couch and tugged the string on the window blinds. The sky glittered with pinks, white, and blues. Neighbors poured into the street to watch the fireworks cover the night with brilliant light. The doorbell buzzed again. She opened it quickly. Kakashi stood again, leaning against something resembling a cannon. Rei startled at the rapid popping of fire crackers.
"What is this?" she asked.
"Hanabi. One of your favorite things. I didn't forget."
"You saw the pictures on my table, asshole."
He shrugged and extended his free hand and she didn't know what to do with herself. Rainbows of color were his backdrop and she'd always found him gorgeous but in that light, he was simply beautiful. She took his hand and joined him on the railing. And everything just fell away, all the bad inevitabilities of life that ruthlessly hunted them fell away to the scene around them.
"I know I've hurt you, Rei. I guess I don't know how to deal with anything without shutting out everything. Being a ninja is the best distraction."
It was the first time she'd heard pain in his voice since his father died. She'd wished for it to come out and now, she loathed the way that it sounded.
"I could distract you if you'd let me." The words fell out of her like a drawer off its hinges.
"Hmm," he smirked, liking the idea of that. According to Guy, Kakashi had it on his mind from the day he met Rei.
He turned to face her, the rockets he'd timed taking off into the air and exploding like electric palm trees, and cupped the sides of her chin and neck in his hands. He kissed her. Their teeth clacked against each other and Rei didn't quite know how to hold her head. He didn't know what else to do with his hands. After seconds of fumbling, she slumped her shoulders and sank into him.
Kakashi slid a hand down her arm and all he knew was her lips. It didn't feel like a first kiss anymore, but like something time had poetically ordained to occur.
Rei awoke from the tail end of the dream that had crusted the corners of her eyes. She patted the bed down for her alarm. There was an hour left before the final visitation hour. Her heart raced, pulse beat in her neck. She tried to curb her feelings but her blood kept rushing. She closed her eyes, hoping to hear fireworks, and three buzzes followed by an obnoxiously long one at the door, but there was nothing but the pitch blackness of Kakashi's room and the smell of him on the bedsheets.
She waited outside the intensive care unit, stared down at the clock every time it went past the scheduled hour. Four minutes now. She didn't want to bang on the doors, but the staff had to know people were there to see someone. Odd enough, she was alone and grateful for it. The doors unlocked with a loud beep, and Rei pushed through.
Room six. The door was open. She stopped at the look of him propped up, all kinds of wires and tubes attached to him and growing from him like limbs. She made a noise that wasn't a noise, a silent cry. A machine beeped, one gasped, and Kakashi was still through all of it. She rolled a chair to his side but couldn't sit down. She pulled his blanket up, searching for his left hand. His left hand was puffy and she wanted to ask the nurse outside why, but maybe it had to do with the temperature reading of his body.
The bandage on the side of his head had a tube coming out of it, a broken stream of fluid still draining off his brain. Rei quivered, her soul precisely shook at what had become of him. She had just heard his voice and felt his skin, warm and lively.
The chair waited and she eased onto it as if she'd disturb him.
"You aren't sleeping. You just aren't awake."
She pressed his hand against her cheek.
"It's me, Kakashi. Do you know? Can you just squeeze my hand please?"
A squeeze didn't come. She knew his body was freezing and there was time in between feeling his strength again or seeing his eyes. She didn't want to see the sharingan though. It was a curse as far as she was concerned now. She put his hand back gingerly and gripped the fabric of her pants. Itachi's face flashed in her mind.
"You always said something was off about Itachi and then—goddamn it, you blamed yourself for him killing his family. You've got to tell me how that works."
No answer, nor a twitch, nor a whisper of him showing one sign of being the Kakashi before he left her home. Rei told herself to keep talking. The more expectations she voiced, perhaps she could nudge the future along to the day he'd wake up. He would probably be perplexed and sore, but she would be there.
"Do you remember our first kiss? I dreamed of it earlier. The last time I remembered that day is when I came back home. You didn't go away like I asked you to. That's a really bad habit of yours, you know? But you know me, I guess. You know I want you wanting me."
"It could have been a better kiss, but when you left, it was all I thought of. I still thought of it even when I made myself a hypocrite and left without a word for all those years. I think I just got scared of the day when it'd be over, when all this conflict eventually took one of us, so I don't know—I guess it was easier to act like I don't feel happiest when I'm with you."
The words were too honest and what she'd tried to keep in came rushing forward and pushing past all her attempts at having faith. Her tears could be mistaken for not believing, she told herself, but she cried anyway. Guttural sobs for the condition he was in, the time they had wasted, the chilling ninja existence that brought forth battle after battle.
"Please wake up," she said, shuddered.
Rei squeezed Kakashi's hand again, tried to will all of her vitality into him, but the monitors just beeped, the fluid had seemed to finally drain. The entire hour, he only lay there until she was bankrupt of tears, pleas falling on ears that couldn't hear anymore. She caught her breath in rough segments and stood from the chair and the doors of the wing closed behind her when she left, keeping his soul behind a barrier that she needed permission to breach.
Sleeping at his place was no longer an option. The tears would be worse, so she eased the lock into the door of her own apartment and pushed until she had access. He'd promised to fix it when he got back, as if she couldn't do it herself. His chivalry was never insulting no matter how she pretended. The health of the door had waned from lack of use and time but she wasn't ready to repair it.
It was quiet and it irritated her even though it was always quiet when he wasn't there. She sucked her teeth at her behavior. She'd planned to read the new Makeout Paradise novel to him softly and interject with how much she couldn't wait for him to read it himself and deliver her from the responsibility. She tried being a perky, non-reality facing caricature of herself. But she'd cried like he was dead already and she hated how easy it had been.
She threw her keys across the room, dismissed the urge to throw something else. Navigating a destroyed environment would be counterproductive to everything else happening.
There was barking at the door and then a smokey voice.
"Rei," Pakkun ruffed.
She rushed to the door and Pakkun pushed inside, hardly waited for her to fully open it. Rei wanted to cry again at the sight of him.
"You saw him?" A specific kind of devastation came off Pakkun.
"It isn't your fault so don't you even look like you failed him."
Rei crouched to pet Pakkun. It was the least she could do for Kakashi. He would suffer unwitting depression if one of his dogs were unhappy.
"Rei, there's something you should know. I haven't informed Lady Hokage just yet."
A glimpse of goodness revealed itself to her. Maybe something could help Kakashi. Pakkun shook his head as if reading her thoughts.
"It's about your clan. You family wasn't randomly attacked by outsiders. The order came from the Leaf."
The truth was a rancid cocktail that hit, and hit, and hit.
A/N: Hello again, and thank you all so much for your comments, kudos, and bookmarks. This chapter took a chunk out of me on an emotional, personal level. I hope you feel things and enjoy it. When I posted the first chapter of this fic, I said it wouldn't include much canon and that it would be short. Wrong. But I did also say I would go where the muse takes me and she is taking me on a journey with Rei and Kakashi, so the upcoming chapters will include more canon characters and events, but the events will be tweaked and given a ReiKashi focus. I am excited.
