Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.
This is just some of my random musings that I have to put into words to get it out from my system. Contain some Kakashi Gaiden spoilers here. But I think everyone should have read it by now. But anyway, hope you'll enjoy reading.
Why
Kakashi hates being asked 'why'.
And he hates it even more when people didn't seem to care why they'd asked in the first place.
Why is he chronically late?
Why does he always hide his face in mask?
Why is he so obsess with the Icha Icha series?
The list goes on...
He is a man of mystery and he likes to stay that way. Full stop. He never bothers to explain. He'll just make up some lame excuses just to irritate others and amuse himself a little.
Kakashi started asking 'why' at the young age of three, soon after he'd learnt to speak. He was too curious about the world but too young to really understand anything.
It was also the age when he first encountered with death.
It was his first pet – a white puppy. It was a gift from his father for his birthday. He liked the puppy very much and he'd named it 'Shiro' (meaning white colour). Everyday he would spend some time to play with his puppy.
But one day, Shiro didn't respond when he called out for it. It just lied at a corner silently. At first, he thought the puppy was just sleeping. So he waited patiently besides it and watched it for a long time. But nothing happened and his puppy never woke up again.
He winced as he touched its cold and stiff body. An unknown horror struck him immediately though he understood not what he feared and what had happened to his puppy then. He held up his puppy tight to his chest by instinct and ran to his father for help.
"Otosang, why is Shiro not moving?" he asked in his sobs.
His father examined the puppy carefully before he shook his head and sighed, "I'm sorry, son. It was dead."
"Dead like mother?" Kakashi rubbed his eyes and looked up to his father with his big, watery, innocent eyes. His memory of his mother was only a photograph of her kept by his father due to the fact that she'd passed away not long after he was born.
"Yes," Sakumo replied softly with a heavy heart. He then bent down and pulled his son into his embrace.
Kakashi didn't ask any further. As young as he might been, he was mature beyond his age and he knew that anything regarding mother will somehow make his father sad every time when the subject was brought up.
At the age of five, as soon as he entered the Konoha Ninja Academy, he was more interested about knowing 'how' than 'why'. He learned things fast and it soon earned him the title of a 'genius'. But because he spent his childhood with his father who was also a genius, he sometimes became arrogant and too proud of himself that he thought he knew all the answers without asking 'why'.
At the age of seven, an incident happened - his father was disgraced when he chose to abandon a mission to save the life of his companions. It shattered his little soul as he witnessed his father, the man that he'd always admired and looked up to, diminished into a shadow and ghost. His father later committed suicide.
Since then, he had stopped asking why. Since then, he would only ask 'who', 'what', 'when' and 'where' but he never asked 'why' again. Most of the time, he didn't even bother to ask 'how'. He'd figured it out himself and 'how' was only a choice of methods to accomplish mission after all. He began his insistence of following rules and regulations strictly and he never questioned the authority. For that reason, he had become the perfect tool for the village.
Then Obito came along. He was the one who told Kakashi that those who break the rules and regulations are called 'trash' but those who don't care about their companions are worse than trash. And he was the one who molded Kakashi into the person he is today.
Kakashi began asking 'why' again. He began to realize the importance of knowing 'why' because one never lives unless one knew why one lives in the first place. And that is all the reason he needed to move on.
Now with the new team 7 come along, Kakashi secretly hopes that he could offer something to them because he doesn't wish that they have to go through what he went through to realize why teamwork is important for a shinobi.
Maybe someday he will tell them why. But until then, he decided that he still hates being asked 'why'.