Affectionately called "the touching chapter," it's my favorite after Kakashi's tour through the house in chapter 2. I hope you enjoy it. Please review, as they keep me going! Otherwise, I start to lose interest. This series is now dedicated to MoiyaHatake and FuyunoAkegata for beta reading and to bimbomushi-sensei for her unending support and relentless begging for more chapters!
CHAPTER 7: And in my dying, I'm more alive than I have ever been.
When he awoke, the first detail Kakashi noticed was that he was no longer sprawled on the carpet. Instead, he lay comfortably arranged on a couch. The couch. The dark red one with thick, stiff cushions that knew just how to support someone pretending to read Icha Icha Paradise for hours while watching a certain blond Hokage work.
"What did you mean?" The voice came heavy with distrust, interrupting his thoughts. The man who looked like Minato sat perched on the corner of the desk, eyes shifting over Kakashi, searing his skin as they searched for deception.
Kakashi's anger flared. "Tell me who you are!"
"You know who I am—am I your target?" The blond imposter started pacing, circling the room, his desk, thumb in his mouth, gnawing at the nail. Kakashi shook with the realization that the man even knew his sensei's most obscure habits. "You're not a threat, of course, not really. But it's the principal of the thing. Coming here, looking like that..."
"If I were a threat, don't you think you would be dead already?" Kakashi asked, the charade far past wearing on his nerves.
The sharp glare the blond turned on him was so like Minato that his breath caught in his throat and he barely registered the accompanying words: "What do you mean? It's not like you can do anything to me, and your presence is hurtful enough."
To Kakashi's surprise, his first instinct was to rage and yell, to fight. The blond man was undoing his well-honed self-control—he always could. Instead, he waited, silently hoping the man would give something away.
The blond continued, growing louder as he spoke until he was finally yelling into Kakashi's face, "How do you know about Naruto? No one here knows about him. And what did you mean—'Did I save him?' Why are you here? Looking like...like an adult version of him? Wh-who...the hell...are you!?"
Kakashi stared into fiery blue eyes, so like his student's. They swirled with the Yondaime's fury, and pain that hadn't been there before—but, they were still Minato's. He took in the scent that wafted from the folds of the man's white coat, and it was exactly as he remembered it. But warm. And alive.
There was no way he was Minato. His sensei was dead. He'd seen it. Felt it. Fought the urge to join him.
Dead.
With growing frustration, Kakashi stated bluntly, "I am Hatake Kakashi, and I—"
The blond retreated to the window, leaving his back to the couch. "Don't say that name. You don't have the right. 'Hatake Kakashi'...is alive. Try again."
Kakashi arched a brow.
'Hatake Kakashi'...is alive.
It was an odd choice of words. And if 'Kakashi' was alive...what did that make...
'Hatake Kakashi'...is alive.
A single splinter of hope was working its way into his mind as he started sorting out the details. The possibility, what it could mean...
His body was still too drained to follow Minato across the room, so, instead, he glared at the crimson carpeting.
'Hatake Kakashi'...is alive.
What did that make the blond?
Damn.
'Hatake Kakashi'...is alive.
"No. He isn't." When the blond didn't react, Kakashi started muttering, thinking out loud, working through his tangled memories. "The seal on Naruto was breaking; the Kyuubi was going to escape. You made a mistake, so I performed the jutsu. I...resealed it...It must have been a success. The shinigami; yes, he was there. He was laughing..."
"Hmph. That sounds about right." Kakashi wasn't sure when the man had turned to face him. He looked up to find Minato halfway across the room. "But you missed one crucial detail: I already sealed it, and the seal should have been unbreakable, at least, from the inside. The shinigami already has my soul; he can't have another on the same contract." Minato's face twisted with barely veiled grief, and he whispered softly, "They'll never let me see him, you know, or Kakashi. It's part of the nature of this place, to deny the prisoner the one thing...the...I don't know who you are, but I want you out. Now."
"No." Kakashi held the man's blue gaze. "You. Made. A. Mistake. You. Namikaze Minato. Likes ramen, prefers pork. Likes to sleep with the windows open. Snores...sometimes." He felt his voice tremble. "Married by arrangement to Uzumaki Kushina."
"But that's...! Anyone could find those things out if they really wanted! It doesn't prove—"
"Married by arrangement to Uzumaki Kushina," he repeated, "but more often slept beside me."
Minato started forward, then stopped. Involuntarily, Kakashi rose, standing eye-level with the blond, his feet carrying him forward, too fast, too soon. He stumbled and Minato intercepted his fall on instinct, balancing, looking down on a head of silver hair, holding Kakashi's upper body as he tried to find his feet and failed.
Kakashi slumped against Minato and felt his body go rigid beneath him. He looked up into the blond's confused expression, his own limbs trembling against Minato's shoulders. Minato who by all rights should not be there. Anywhere. And yet his scent and warmth were all around, pervading Kakashi's senses, his reason. When he whispered a faint, "Sensei," and saw the man's eyes widen slightly, lips parting in a silent gasp, Kakashi let out a gasp of his own, aware that his cheeks were warming to a pale pink, the tinge of a blush growing hotter with every moment he spent pressed against the man's chest. He could feel a steady beat against his cheek and jaw, mirror to his own heart that pounded against his ribs. Surely Minato could feel it.
He bit down on his tongue to find some kind of focus and only released it when he thought he could keep his voice steady. "You made a mistake in the jutsu," he reiterated, watching as Minato began shaking his head, slowly at first, then more vigorously, with more conviction.
"You can't be..."
"I am."
Instead of being dumped from the man's arms as he expected, Kakashi felt a swift tug at his upper body, a sudden upheaval. Without warning, he found himself sprawled haphazardly across one end of the couch, Minato sitting on the cushion beside him, leaned slightly forward and peering at Kakashi. His eyes, previously steely and pained, were neither; they were just Minato's eyes. Minato's quirked, considering mouth. His hands folded and twitching in his lap. Minato.
Kakashi's own eye closed as the man brought both of those hands to his face, to his mask, and gently tugged it down, leaving it bunched beneath his chin. A calloused thumb grazed the small, pitted scar in his cheek where a senbon had pierced it years before. When the same hands reached for the strip of ripped fabric covering his Sharingan, Kakashi didn't protest. He let the man gingerly remove it, brushing back silver hair and tucking it behind his ear in a gesture so familiar that it sent a pained tremor through his body. He opened his eyes, the Sharingan blood red against pale skin made paler by chakra drain, and the effect was immediate: Minato let out a gasp, a whispered, "Obito," as his fingers traced and retraced the scar bisecting the eye, swiping at the few stray tears that escaped down a porcelain cheek.
Kakashi couldn't hide the tremble in his voice when he muttered, "It's just...dust..." and Minato wiped at the tears again, trailing rough knuckles across his skin.
"There are more scars than I remember."
"It's been fifteen years, sensei."
"Fifteen? Naruto—"
Kakashi spoke over the man's words, rasping, "Show me my scar from our last mission to Mist." The blond complied immediately, hands slipping to Kakashi's shoulders, tossing his vest to the floor and pulling down the collar of his shirt to reveal the fading scar left behind by a stray kunai. Only they knew its origin.
Minato dragged a finger across the mark, drawing the line of the cut with its tip, and one corner of his mouth twitched at the sound that slipped through Kakashi's tightly pressed lips. He stared at the shoulder beneath his hand, reluctant to break their connection. Kakashi's skin burned where his fingers touched, and he hesitated just before slipping them across the dip in his shoulder to his collar bone, his neck. They migrated up to Kakashi's face, cupping pale and stubbled cheeks, thumbs caressing the bridge of his nose. Kakashi pushed against the hands, seeking more contact, more comfort. The movement of air teased Kakashi's lips as Minato breathed, "Kashi...Kashi..." Blue eyes traveled over his skin, memorizing, remembering.
Without stopping his explorations, Minato whispered, "My family mark. Only you and Kushina would know where..." The words trailed off as Kakashi's hand immediately fumbled at Minato's waistband, peeling down the corner of his pants to reveal a small tattoo. Slender, pale fingers traced the shape, both men secretly reveling in such intimate contact. Forgetting doubts, questions, circumstances, consequ—
tap tap tap
They froze as a shrill voice called, "Hokage-sama? I'm leaving tea on the table outside."
Minato blushed, withdrawing his hand and scooting back on the couch, separating, leaving room to breathe. Kakashi's outstretched fingers hung in the air between them before dropping onto his lap. He felt his own cheeks heat again and hated it, mentally berating himself for letting his guard down, and then pulling up his mask.
"Thank you, Ami-san," called Minato, frowning slightly at Kakashi. In a quieter tone, he said, "You never used to keep your face hidden. Not from me. You still don't trust me."
"Hmm."
"You want to trust me?"
"Yes." Kakashi hoped the word didn't sound as desperate as it felt. He wanted so much more than trust. His fingers twitched at the memory of silky tan skin.
"I understand. For what it's worth, I don't know how you're here or why, but I do trust you. Kakashi..." Minato took his student's hand, a rare gesture of comfort, one of the few young Kakashi had ever allowed, and only of his sensei. Adult Kakashi didn't respond, but didn't pull away. He resisted the urge to look at Minato, who sighed. "I suppose I'll start by telling you what I do know."
