A/N:
To those who don't know me yet, I'm Rye, and I'm quite angsty (and tragic) so if you don't need a heartbreak in whatever timezone you're in right now, you can skip this story because it doesn't end pretty. :)
To those who already know me and are skeptical of this fic, please do mind the tags.
To those who already know me and still want to read after the tags, enjoy, but please take breaks while you can.
It wasn't easy to write this even with the reputation I have. I've cried so much, but I wanted to share this with y'all.
This is my entry for KakaSaku Week 2022 - Day 4: Demons/Spirits / "Old sins have long shadows." but I'm not entirely sure everything fits.
Errors in this piece are all mine. Plotholes and such. My works remain unbeta'd.
his light
by ryekiree
Kakashi never meant to see her that night.
He sits on a sturdy tree branch, which he doesn't think could hold him for long, setting his eyes on the little bundle in a pink crib with a blanket covering her head. He waits for the slightest bit of the night chill to brush past her, just so he could see her sleeping face when she turns slightly—something that covers him in warmth. Those small fingers lifting to her face, rubbing her nose as she faced the ceiling, eyes closed, dreaming.
Since the day he first saw the little bundle, he wonders what she dreams about. He wonders if there were only good things like the stars the glowed on her ceiling, or the pillows shaped like rabbits and whales beside her. He wonders if she dreams of the smiles that come to her when her parents show her off to their friends and family.
As if he had called it, the wind blew into the window, bells rattling from the stars hanging overhead. Then, a whimper; a cry.
The little bundle woke up.
Kakashi almost went into the window to console the little bundle, suddenly realizing the impulsive feeling of wanting to be the first person to calm her down.
Something about the little bundle made him want to do things he'd never done before. Or things that he probably could have done and could never do.
And when he hears the door open, his first instinct was flight—leave and hide. He takes a quick glance at the little bundle and slips away into the night, her cries almost muffled with every step out; counts the branches he passes by as if they were days until he can see the little bundle again.
The next time Kakashi sees her, she's awake—his little bundle of light, he calls her in his mind. He sits at his usual spot, the sturdy tree branch by the window, leaning back on its bark as if he was watching his favorite movie.
He wonders if there are other more beautiful things he'd ever seen in his whole lifetime.
Even meters apart from him, her eyes sparkle like emeralds. He initially thought of them as stars, but they're more gemstones rather than astral—the way they still look most precious even when they're on the ground.
She looks like… someone he once knew.
Tonight, the moon above him casts its light onto her skin as she plays with the rabbit-shaped pillow beside her, poking her fingers into its eyes, trying to gauge if it feels something, or if it moves. He counts the number of times she yawns since he doesn't have anything to do anyway. But the way her eyes close is most adorable, it clenches his heart a little. He certainly wonders why.
He notices something though—her tiny fingers grab ahold a blanket wrapping her head. There never was a strand seen even with the moon at its fullest. Her mother might have wanted her head to be warm—autumn nights these days have been too cold for everyone's tastes. He still wonders, though, since the window is closed tonight.
If her face, eyes, hands, and feet were beautiful, her hair should have been too. It would have been nice to see all of this little bundle, but who was he to complain? He was just a mere onlooker outside the window of this small light.
Kakashi leans back as the little bundle closes her eyes. He exhales and images flash in front of him. His little bundle with her hair short, boy-like, or maybe even a bob cut, as she approaches him excitedly, the rabbit-shaped pillow on her hand, and laughter full from her lips.
He chuckles to himself when he sees her jerk a bit to the side, mouth parted slightly.
He imagines some more. He imagines it pink.
He imagines it grey.
Kakashi takes a wistful glance at the moon and wonders what it would be like.
What it could have been like.
Kakashi doesn't know what he was thinking, getting closer to her window rather than staying at his usual spot at a tree branch.
Tonight, he doesn't only see her awake.
He sees her see him.
She had started to cry when she couldn't stand, small hands slipping when she tries to reach on to the posts of her crib; her feet stumbling when she fails to hold on. She pouts, and sniffs, and then whimpers.
Poor little bundle, his last coherent thought as he moves closer to the window.
She wasn't supposed to see him, but she does.
It didn't matter how bright the moon was, or how starless the sky had been the past few days; how dim the clouds were as he waited for the dark to absorb the light; how lonely the hoots of the owls hiding in the trees were.
What mattered is the little object of his affection.
Her eyes liquid and bright green, like it was the reason the stars weren't splattered in the skies anymore. Her nose, a light shade of pink from the tears. He still wonders why her parents could never hear her.
It couldn't have been the distance because her room was just beside the master bedroom. It couldn't have been the locks, or the type of walls.
Maybe her parents weren't there, and he couldn't help but grit his teeth at the thought.
A thud, and he looks back at her, closer. Almost.
Face to face.
He doesn't realize her cries have stopped.
He doesn't realize she had crawled her way towards the window.
He doesn't realize she was reaching out to him from inside.
The little bundle's mouth parts curiously, with two front teeth shown, and a finger pointing at him, like that movie he had watched years ago at the theater with…
He stops. He thought he had felt a pounding in his chest. He thought he had felt his cheeks wet.
It's the only thing that he has with him right now. Memories. Nothing he could do but remember.
So, he breezes through the trees once again—runs, just like always; not looking back at the little bundle until the details inside her room had faded—the pillows, the toys, the crib, the hanging stars, her cries. Her eyes.
When Kakashi stops at what supposedly was the twentieth tree in his path, he swore—that under the blanket on her head, was a lock of silver tresses.
When one is surrounded by the dark, one tries to seek the light at any corner. Every corner if one feels lucky.
Kakashi tries to avoid it at all costs—the light. He thinks he never deserves it, even if it's just a little bit—a little bundle of it.
He doesn't see her for months after his flight, refuses to give in to the heavy feeling in his chest. He hadn't felt anything like this since he was with her. It was the reason why he left anyway.
But somehow, he feels a bit reckless, impulsive. Like there wouldn't be any harm just to see her again, watch her play with her toys, watch her smiles from afar.
So, he goes back after half a year.
It was a wonder how she's already growing—from a little bundle wrapped carefully like a present, to a walking little doll with a blanket on top of her head. Her cheeks puff as if they were stuffed with food when she smiles. Her walks are faster now, the tears are non-existent when she stumbles. A brave thing, he thinks.
Then, the most beautiful laughter rings in his ears from inside the room, sending drums into his heart. She pinches the hand of the stuffed bear, and he hears it say three words he could have uttered before he left.
"I love you."
Kakashi's heart clenches once. And then the little bundle squeals in glee, and his heart clenches again. She doesn't turn to him because she doesn't see him. But he has watched her enough to know, to see the dimple on her left cheek.
Just like his.
She looks like a smaller version, a happier reflection of himself, only with green eyes, only doll-like.
There's no turning back, he thinks as he moves a bit closer again.
And she sees him, and her eyes shine, the light in the little bundle burns brighter than before.
He misses it.
He misses his little bundle.
He misses her, but not tonight.
He smiles and wishes—hopes—that he doesn't burn when the light touches him. But more importantly, he hopes the light doesn't die out.
The months bleed, and autumn turns another year older, and Kakashi leans back at his favorite spot at the tree for a few minutes before moving closer to her window.
All those months playing with her, encouraging her with his claps as she tries everything for the first time, talking to her as if she'll understand. He wonders if her parents know why the little bundle falls asleep near the window nearly every night; why sometimes her head with the blanket rests on the edge; why her window is always opened. He wonders what her very first word was. He wonders if there are others who had experienced it happening.
Then one night, when the moon was nowhere to be seen, she calls him, and Kakashi is stunned, surprised.
He almost palms her small head, but he realizes it too fast.
He remembers wondering what it could have been like.
"Pa… pa," she says, the only thing he hears.
"Pa… pa," she says again, and his mouth parts open.
"Papa," she says one more time with a smile.
He can't bear it. He leaves before she can ask what's wrong. If she can ask what's wrong.
The moon hides in the clouds and the hoots of the owls that echo in the night sound like reminders of old songs that he had told her once. Promises he never kept to the only woman he'd ever loved.
It's been too long, but he wonders about her for the first time since he saw his little bundle of light.
He wonders what it could have been if he hadn't walked away.
He wonders if he could have asked her to marry him.
All these thoughts inside his head, and all it does is follow him like a shadow, pushing him further into the ground. This heavy feeling, this old wound.
It's all he can do.
Wonder.
But just like the other times, Kakashi returns to his little bundle.
He tries to find the answers in his mind, as to why he does it every time, but in truth, the answer lies in his heart.
The looming regret of leaving someone he cares about.
It hides like the stars in the midnight sky as it rains. But he knows that it's still there.
When he sits back at the usual tree branch he's been sitting for the past three years, he sees his little bundle waiting.
And again, he wonders.
He wonders if she had waited too.
Kakashi never meant to see her that night.
Another year later, and his little bundle stomps her way to the window, almost screaming "Papa" when he appeared. He places a finger in front of his lips, and she follows. Her toothy grin an addition to her brightening light.
He chuckles at her silliness, just like the rest of the nights over the months when her eyelids fall but she tries to make them stay up.
He only hears the door once it has been closed.
"Hana, darling."
His breath stops.
Hana.
Of course, he should have known.
"What are you doing up? You're supposed to be— what are you doing near the window?"
The more words come out, the more his head turns towards its owner.
Of course.
Of course, it was her. Who else could it be?
Her green eyes should already have been the indication. Of course, she was Sakura's.
But—
"Mama!" His little bundle—Hana was her name—points at him with an excitement that breaks his heart. "Look! Papa!"
Not only does his heart break, it falls into an endless spiral, too.
Sakura looks from left to right, probably trying to see if there was anyone getting in the window. But Kakashi had checked—the house was safe. Sakura stops and bites her lip like always. It's been a while since he'd seen her.
It's been a while since he left.
"Darling…" Sakura kneels in front of her, a sad look etched on her face.
"Can't you see him?" Hana's smile falls, worry on her brows, as Sakura neither nods nor shakes her head. She stills a bit, something that Kakashi knows she does when she was caught off guard. And when he glances at Hana—dear sweet Hana—the shards of his broken heart fall piece by piece as her tears start to fall.
"I—"
"He's here, Mama! He came!" Her voice raises in attempts to convince her mother. Hana looks straight at him, and then to her mother, and then back to him with a whimper from her lips. "Tell her, Papa. You've always been here… right?"
It didn't make sense, but at the same time, it did. It had been three years since that day. Three years since he left. But Sakura didn't tell—
A flash of a night nearly forgotten lay focused in front of him.
A night as ordinary as any other night but left a mark inside him somewhere.
"What would you name our child if we had one?"
"Our boy?" he asked.
"Our girl," she laughed her sweetest laughter.
"Ryo, if he's a boy."
She always has the brightest smiles even in the night. "And…?"
He rolls his eyes and takes her lips to his.
"Hana."
Kakashi glances wistfully at Hana.
All those nights wondering. Imagining.
She had been his daughter all along.
He isn't thinking when he reaches out his hand to her.
He has never tried to touch her before, and even though he wants to, he knows what to expect. He knows what will happen.
But when her hand reaches him first, she breaks.
"Why can't I touch you?"
His eyes blur as his own tears fall. He never would have thought he'd still feel it—his heart breaking, his tears leaking, his head hurting.
But the only thing he really wanted to feel at that moment was little Hana's touch—his daughter's touch.
"Oh, Hana." Sakura embraces her as more of her tears fall into her mother's green sweater. Her green eyes still bright against the moonlight, emeralds still shining even though his eyes were a blur. Hana's sobs don't stop—continuous, just like the sound he hears as shards fall slowly.
Sakura whispers, "You're okay," to her, like those times she does to him. He always remembers them when he's away from her for days or weeks.
More so when he left her.
Sakura doesn't stop whispering, brushing her daughter's hair with her fingers, crying with her. It's the same thing—what she does.
Hana whimpers the last of her tears, and Sakura holds her face to wipe them. She sniffs, and a tear falls onto her lap. Then, she starts. And he feels the dejection—the resignation in her words like a hard slap, marking his skin of this old sin that will take him wherever he'll go.
"Your father left before you were born. I never saw him again."
Three years ago.
All Kakashi wanted was to be with the love of his life. To be better with her, to do good by her. He thought that being in love together was the only thing that mattered.
Kakashi had met Sakura at the lowest point in his life. She worked as a therapist at a local hospital—the best one in his opinion. He was assigned to her, trying her best to help him "get back on his feet" as what his friends needlessly say. Her efforts worked for him, and maybe it was because he was a little bit in love with her, but still… it made him better.
The little glances when she writes down notes about his day, the small smiles when he teases her about what happened that week, the almost quiet sniffs whenever he talks about a dark moment of his life.
Before he could even name it, she was already the only light in his life.
But it was against the hospital's policy for a patient to date his therapist. So, when all their sessions were done, he'd thought that was already the end of them meeting, the end of a glimpse of bright days. He still wanted to see her, but then he thought that maybe he shouldn't.
She was the sun. He was a dark cloud. It was better for a dark cloud to avoid disruption of the light.
But only a week later, and his phone rang bells. An unknown number (he rarely saves numbers, you see), but a recognizable one. It was hers—always hers, as she'd been the only one to contact him with his phone number. He had memorized it from the first time she'd messaged him about their first appointment, when she said she'll help him get better.
But the thing about Kakashi getting better was not wanting to drag others down with him, staying away as far as possible. Sakura told him once in their sessions that getting better was to give himself a second chance.
So, when Sakura asks him out for dinner, he tells her, "Just this once."
But "Just this once" became "Can I see you again?"
And "Can I see you again?" became "See you tomorrow."
And then a "Can I see you later?"
Kakashi had thought it was a game, but Sakura was just as serious as the times she asked him about how he was feeling, or what he did in the past week.
He realizes that he could never get enough of her laughter and her inside jokes and her smirks. Her pink hair when she tucks them behind her ear. Her wide eyes when something falls. Her tears as she watches her favorite movie over and over. The shock on her face when he visits her once. Then twice.
Then, when he asks her to move in with him after months of seeing each other, she doesn't hesitate, not even once. She agreed without a second thought.
But people talk, you see. After rumors about their relationship had sparked at the hospital, there were harsh words that came for her, letters that they sent her because she hooked up with someone like him.
Someone who had a reputation for being a lost cause.
When it was just him, he would just leave them be, ignore them like always. Those letters in his mail he received, thrown away into dumpsters or in the nearest hearth. They never mattered to him at all.
Then, he read one of Sakura's mails from a sender with a name that was already familiar to him. His eyes flared as he walked into Sakura's study one night, a letter on his hand.
"Do you know this person?"
Sakura looked up and stilled. He knew what it meant.
"How many mails have you received from them?"
"Don't worry about it, Kakashi. I can handle it." He caught sight of her lips with a slight quiver.
"Throw them away or burn them. If you don't, then I will." A stern reminder.
From that day on, he picks up their mails and gives Sakura the only ones she needs.
Then, one day, he noticed that there were none addressed to her anymore when he picked up their mail. A sigh escaped him, maybe in relief, thinking that it maybe over, but there was still something nagging incoherently at the back of his head when he went inside the doors. Most of the time, the nagging was right.
Then, one night, he sees Sakura with her back towards him, shaking.
"Sakura?"
She's startled, wiping her tears, not turning to him.
He approaches her like always when he knows something is wrong.
She knows what he'll ask, so before he even says anything, she says, "I'm fine."
"You—"
"I'm fine! Don't worry about me!"
He then hears stacks of paper fall at the side of their bed and he picks them up before her. Then he sees it—dozens of mail dated from even before the first time he saw that familiar sender with her name on the paper. He's dumbfounded.
"Why are you keeping them?"
"Kakashi—"
"I told you not to!" he says at the same time she cries, "I can't stop reading them!"
He looks at her in disbelief, in guilt.
"I told you to burn them."
"Kakashi…"
"They're not worth it, Sakura."
"I know…"
"But why do you keep reading them?"
She thinks for a while, but he can't understand why she's even thinking.
"It's not good for you. For us. Sakura. Please…" He kneels, facing her. "Sakura… please don't do this."
She doesn't respond. But when Kakashi twines his fingers with hers, she tightens them, searching for comfort that he didn't know if he could bring to her.
They don't talk about it again, but he still sees her crying at times. He still sees dozens of mails on her desk when she's at the hospital, but he doesn't tell her that he knows.
There are nights when he just holds her. Then on other nights, she presses her head against his chest. The next week, she kisses him languidly and it turns into more. Each minute, each second is precious to him and to her, that they don't want it taken away from them. Each nip on the shoulder, each brush on the thigh, each lick on the neck, each thrust, each breath. Then, the tears fall, and there is only each other's warmth in the aftermath, until the room begins to cool again.
"I love you," she says against his chest, soft but distinct. Certain and sure. Like she was only meant for him.
He loves her more than anything in this world.
But the light in her eyes is slowly dying. He can't bear to see it fade anymore.
That's why he leaves when she's away.
He thinks it's better for her.
He doesn't care what it does to him.
He will miss her, of course, but it wasn't all about him anymore.
He'd always said that getting better was not to drag her down with him. And that's what he tries to do.
But if only he just talked about it to her.
If only he just continued to embrace her and assure her that he's always there for her.
Then, that week later would have happened differently.
That week later would have had him inside their home with big news from her and that would have been all that mattered.
That week later would have had him on their bed as they try to reacquaint themselves with their bodies and their love, keeping the lights in their eyes burning with passion and content.
That week later, he could still have said it.
That week later would not have him in a hospital outside of Konoha, all alone with shards of glass stuck on his body, and a sweating surgeon that did his best to save him.
"I love you, Sakura," he thinks.
In the end, the surgeon did all he could, and Kakashi could hear him say once to call his family before the light in his eyes slowly faded.
The last thing on Kakashi's mind was a series of apologies.
To Sakura.
His love.
His light.
One for leaving her.
One for loving her the only way he knows how.
And the last one…
For everything.
.
.
End A/N:
Thank you so much for reaching the end of this fic.
I've cried so much in the process, but still decided to share it with the world.
The reason? Releasing just the pent up tension within me.
Today's theme is about Demons/Spirits, but I decided to make it about Spirits instead or rather ghosts because why not. The inspiration was from several prompts about friendly spirits. That was the first one I really thought of, and I couldn't drop the idea.
I know this story is messy, but I still decided to end it that way.
And I'm not too sure if I can continue this one, to create one with Sakura's POV, but there'll be more hurt for that. I'm open to the idea, but it's enough for today, I guess.
Enough with the rambling.
Do let me know what you think. :)
I'm on Twitter and Tumblr if y'all want to interact.
~ Rye