Shallow Days, Dead Skies Ahead
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto
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Hatake Kakashi
"Want"
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When referring to Hatake Kakashi, most people say he's much like a lone wolf. When referring to himself, Kakashi says he would love to be anything but.
Of course, most kids with a life similar to his would think the same thing. Yes, he's very distant and cruel after his father's self-inflicted demise, but at the same time, he can't help but hope someone will come along and say the right thing to him. What he wants to hear is that his father did the right thing. What he wants to hear is that no matter what he does, someone will always love him.
However, most of these are a given, and no one bothers to say it, not even Minato. Minato was an evasive person himself – Kakashi finds irony in his speedy jutsu – and while emotional confrontation is a strong point to him, he can't look a newly orphaned kid in the eye. It breaks his heart, and he tries to soothe them without making them feel worse.
Phrases like "it'll be okay" and "I understand" don't help Kakashi at all, though. Kushina, his sensei's girlfriend, tries to reason with him. But again, Kakashi is distant and cruel, and doesn't want to listen to "I understand"; because even if Kushina does, it doesn't make him feel any less lonely at all. In fact, her own experience with her lost village just makes him realize how this world is full of despair and grief and that no one can change it. All people can do is cope.
This makes him angry – no, furious. Well, even that's an understatement. He doesn't want to "cope". Kakashi doesn't want to know "it'll be okay", because it won't. And it's the cold, undeniable truth of the shinobi world. And even if he doesn't want to cope, he does, because it's the only thing that makes him feel human, and not as a tool for war.
Kakashi's method for coping is one thing and one thing only: live by the rules of the shinobi. Anything against it, like relationships with people or emotion, doesn't follow, and without them, Kakashi feels indestructible. Without love, or happiness, the young, orphaned Hatake can't be hurt. For one to feel sadness, they would need compassion to balance it out. Without compassion, he has no pain.
There are still times when Minato (attempts) to talk with him, or hug him, that he wants to rebuild those bonds he used to have with his sensei before it all happened. He watches as Uchiha Obito plays on the playground with that Rin girl, and wants a companion. Maito Gai almost makes him feel like he should enjoy his youth, but he doesn't. He just needs to be alone, because it's safer that way.
It's not a perfect system for him. Without happiness, all he has is grief, and he can't quite figure that out. He wants people, he does, but he makes it on his own instead. The grief weighs on him like lead, a feeling his mistakes for not enough sleep – he's too busy reciting shinobi rules – or training too hard (which is the only other activity he has). Out of all of this heartache, Kakashi soon finds the word "want" in many of his musings.
"Want" isn't something Kakashi understands. It's a misconception of need. Kakashi "needs" to eat for energy. Kakashi "needs" to learn how to increase his speed to avoid attacks. But, the word "want" slowly starts to come up more than "need", and he doesn't understand. He doesn't care if he's hurt – the hospital can fix almost anything. He doesn't "want" to learn to fight, he "needs" to learn to fight.
He doesn't "need" people. Yet slowly, as his team forms, as they fight alongside each other, as Rin heals him, as he argues with Obito, as he takes advice from Minato, he "wants" to be with them. There's something that doesn't feel like lead in him, more like the sweet taste of caramel, only, it's in his heart. While he studies past general strategies at home, he suddenly wants – "wants" – to be training with them. It's a concept of Kakashi's mindset he just can't place. He needs to study for preparation in battle, but he wants to be with them. Why is that?
The war between "need" and "want" is a battle he fights until the day Obito dies. Obito tells him all he's wanted to hear for so long – that his father, Hatake Sakumo, is a hero, and what he did was right. Rin confesses her love for him, even though it was all his fault they lost Obito… dear, dear, Obito. Even though he was trash, that he abandoned her, she still loves him.
It's what he always wanted. However, he can't have the second one, because he realizes there are emotional limitations to "want". He wants Rin to love him, even if he doesn't feel the same way, but Obito loved her more; cherished her more than he ever did. To Obito, Rin was his entire world. And just because he's dead doesn't mean it's okay to have her.
But as he takes on this "want" necessity, he begins to lose the people he loves, that he's come to care for. Rin dies at his own hand, Minato dies after taking an oath to protect the village with his life, and people he started to come close to – like Gai – he begins to become cold. Well, not like he used to be, but cold all the same.
Because again, all he hears is "it'll be okay" and "I understand". It's an old pain that resurfaces, and he hides behind an ANBU mask for several years, trying to forget compassion. Kakashi tries to make his mindset back to the way it was before the day Obito died, but he can't. With a heaving heart, he returns the cracked ANBU mask, replacing it with his old one, and tries to figure out what to do with himself.
These feelings of love and compassion are almost gone to him now. Before he realizes it, the only things he can care for is Jiraiya, and even that is almost nothing; and the village, who his loyalty has never dwindled for before.
It's this that he tells Sarutobi Hiruzen – well, the part about not having really anyone – to which the Sandaime replies, "Well, Uzumaki Naruto will be a Genin in… well, hopefully, a year. You could take on a team?"
He has to mull it over. With a team comes new bonds, new heartaches that will one day come to haunt him. Kakashi isn't the nurturing type. But then the thought crosses his mind that whoever teaches Naruto in his place will hate him, and being the second-in-line to take care of him (besides the lazy Jiraiya), he has a responsibility. He's probably one of the very few… well, probably the only Jounin who loves Naruto enough to do it right.
With a hesitant heart, he agrees to the Sandaime's proposal, and in one year, Uzumaki Naruto, Uchiha Sasuke, and Haruno Sakura will become his students.
Years later, Kakashi realizes he was right about the heartache.
