It was dusk here.
Always dusk, with the warm golden lights streaming in from the tiny window high up the wall in the storeroom.
It would be dark in the actual store.
Kakashi knew the place like the back of Aya's hand – the little scar on her index finger from an overenthusiastic puppy, the slim fingers and short nails. Aya was too high-strung to have long fingernails; she'd start chewing on them. Kakashi had a hard but memorable time breaking that nasty habit.
Aya was there, closing a thick atlas on her lap. Her eyes lost focus for a moment, and then she stood up and placed the book on the shelf.
Child-Aya led Kakashi out of the bookstore into the open.
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He saw a seaside, with a bleached hut along the shore. He smelt the brine in the air, and the graininess of sand below his suddenly bare feet. It was too real to be a dream; this was memory.
He looked up and saw a slim figure in the near distance. Aya stood at the foot of the steps to the hut, and Kakashi saw a man exit and catch Aya up in his arms. A man with long, blonde hair and well-developed muscles – muscles that came from hard toil and sweat, not from a gym.
Kakashi felt the ire and bile rise within.
The jounin ran forward and threw a punch at the man; the punch went right through him. Kakashi was as insubstantial as fog. He stared at the pair: the stranger, with his Aya.
Then Kakashi looked, really looked at the girl again.
This Aya was a lot younger, perhaps sixteen or seventeen. Her hair was longer and sun-bleached, her skin far darker than it was in Konoha.
As he observed her she planted a kiss, a deep one, on the stranger's mouth. The couple laughed merrily and he led her down the sandy path, an arm twined about her waist. Kakashi felt a lump in his throat and a stab in his gut. Then he backed away, trying not to stumble.
She had never looked like that at him. Not once.
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He followed at a close distance, trying to hold back the jealous rage that threaten to overwhelm him.
They were at a dock. She and the man kissed again. The man walked up a plank to a ship, and waved farewell from the deck.
Kakashi saw the sheen of tears Aya was hiding from her man. She was hiding her fear, as she still did whenever he went on missions. He saw that and his love for her bravery surged. She always put him first.
He recalled the time the new shipment of Icha Icha arrived. Although there was a long waiting list, Aya had locked up the shop and trudged the five miles from the gates to locate the nasty bog where Kakashi and Team Seven were digging up rubbish. Just to make sure he had the first issue.
She had even stayed to help them with their task.
Kakashi tried to caress the worry line on her forehead, but his hand went though her. Soon the ship cast off and Aya stood alone at the dock, with the insubstantial shadow of Kakashi beside her.
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Kakashi followed Aya back to the hut, and walked through the door.
They were back in the shop.
He saw her sitting in the tall chair, placed conveniently where she could monitor the entire shop. Her dark hair curled over her shoulder. She looked up from the atlas she was reading, and focused elsewhere. Then she shut the book and placed it on a shelf.
Kakashi shook his head in bewilderment. Déjà vu, he decided, then remembered he was in a dream and so such situations were common.
He walked into the storeroom, only to find it had turned into the bookstore, on a different day.
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"I'm not asking you to marry me, just to tell them that I'm taken," said Aya firmly. "Do you know how bad I feel, having to keep turning down Iruka, Guy, Shiranui? The lies and excuses I keep giving…If you'd just allow me to tell the truth-"
"We've been through this before, Aya. No." Kakashi had been implacable, he remembered. But he hadn't realized the hurt that flashed across her eyes at the time. "It'll put you at unnecessary risk."
"Unnecessary risk of what, K? We're dating, that's not a reason for the earth to end or anything."
" It's not like that," Kakashi chewed on his lower lip and closed his eyes. He trotted out the same, old, tired argument. "If enemies found out what you mean to me, they could attack you or kidnap or something to, to threaten me, us."
"Well we're safe then, aren't we? Since only two human beings on this planet know about us, we should be perfectly fine." She turned away from Kakashi. Aya then stood up. "I'm not even sure if I know about us anymore. I just wish... I'm tired, I'm going home."
"Want me to send you home the fast way?" The Kakashi in Aya's dream was aghast at how insensitive he'd been. If he'd seen then the sheen of tears that he could see now…
"It's alright, I'm pretty sure I can walk from here to my address safely. We're still in Konoha, after all," Aya had bitten off the sentence tartly. She exited, leaving the store unlocked.
Kakashi remembered how he'd just locked up the store and went home by himself. That night he'd had a visit from Reina, and the strain from the previous months culminated in the breaking point of Aya's patience and understanding.
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I've been such a fool, Kakashi thought as he followed the dream Aya along her path. She was crying, her shoulders shaking. Kakashi tried to put an arm about her, but he was as tangible as fog.
He was surprised to see Shiranui approaching from the opposite side. He had no senbon in his mouth, an unusual thing. He saw Aya from across the street. "Hey, Aya!"
She hastily wiped away her tears. "Hey."
"What's wrong?" Shiranui tilted his face to look at her. Her eyes were puffy and red; it was kind of hard to disguise the fact she was crying. "Hey, you need a cup of tea or something?"
"Stop hitting on her, jerk!" Kakashi yelled at his colleague, with the same effect of a fruit fly swatting a truck.
"It's okay, I just need to get home," smiled Aya weakly.
Shiranui walked beside her, his lidded eyes mirroring the concern in Kakashi's. "I volunteer myself as escort."
"Thanks, Shiranui."
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Kakashi stood behind the two, glaring useless daggers at Shiranui.
He could not believe what he was seeing. Shiranui had enticed Aya to drop by a bar and got her to vent her frustrations via alcohol. A lot of alcohol.
She was now leaning against him to get to her place, and he was taking the chance to wrap his filthy arms about her. She was clearly intoxicated: even with the shinobi supporting her she was unsteady.
"Here we are," Shiranui said, taking the key Aya tried to insert into the keyhole. He helped her in and, instead of coming out again, closed the door behind him. Kakashi was locked out.
"Shiranui is so dead," Kakashi fumed. "If this is a memory I can then walk into the room through that door."
He drew a breath, braced himself, and walked into the door.
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And out the other side into a familiar space.
Again he stood in the bookshop, again he saw her placing the atlas on the shelf after spacing out for a few seconds.
This time Aya saw him.
"Hey."
"You see me."
"That's because you're here." Aya half-smiled and went past the storeroom door. Kakashi followed at her heels.
Behind the door was a flight of steps leading into a stone dungeon.
"You don't want to go down there, Aya."
"I have to," she stated in a whisper. "I have to be punished."
"For what? Aya, trust me: don't go down there." He grabbed her arm, but she shook him off and ran down the steps. "AYA!"
"I'm a bad girl…I've been a bad girl," Aya repeated as she swayed against her chains. She had no scars or marks on her now.
Kakashi tore at the chains holding her. "Let's go, Aya."
"I have to stay. I've been bad, I've done wrong, I need to be punished."
"Whatever you did, I forgive you," Kakashi said, holding her by her shoulders, looking into her amber-gold eyes. "There is no need to be punished by some psycho version of me!"
"You don't understand. I need to be punished. It's not about you, K, it's about me. I hurt people because of what I did."
"What? Aya, no," he saw a whip materializing in his hand. "There is no punishment, okay? You want to have bondage fun, we do it out of your mind."
That sounded way more decent in my own head, Kakashi thought.
Aya just looked at him. Slowly her left eye turned milky white, and to his horror welts and scars began fading into her skin. "No… no, no, no," insisted Kakashi. "We are not going into this, not here, not now."
"Here, and now, K. There really isn't any time better. We're all here-" the faux-Kakashi walked in, all leather and attitude "-and here's where we can get all the answers."
"Who's a bad girl?" purred the other Kakashi. Real Kakashi groaned inwardly; not this again.
The real one stepped back, trying to work some moisture into his mouth. Here's where we can get all the answers.
Suddenly he realized he had been asking the wrong questions.