Kakashi never got in trouble for being late on ANBU missions. Never. It was an impossibility. Even before he became a renowned senior. Sure, it would irritate the hell out of his comrades, some of them always furious enough to want to slit his throat; after all, there wasn't any rhyme or reason to each of their sanity, some of them able to completely snap for anything, but it was just something that ended up bugging the Sharingan user. It was his way of reenacting his best friend's death, the stupid idiot of a ninja that ended up teaching Kakashi a more valuable lesson than any Chuunin or Jounin, even the Hokage, could've done by trying to drill it into his head.
The value of a life.

But the ANBU was anti-life. Everyone in the ANBU was dead in one way or another, socially, mentally, spiritually, so "protecting a comrade" was thrown out. Especially since most of the time the people they were hunting was, at one point or another, their comrade. It wasn't easy watching their blood splattering across the white porcelain chest plate, bodily fluids clinging to them as the last reminder of their soul existing on this plane, and the repugnant odor of burning flesh.
Remembering who they used to be. Their comrades.

The only way Kakashi could possibly honor Obito's loyalty to Rin, and, well, himself, who he so much detested and despised, to honor his sacrifice in the ANBU was to continue his lackadaisical attitude to the rules.
Being late.

And no one cared like Kakashi cared when Obito was alive. The ANBU just shrugged it off nonchalantly.
That really pissed off Kakashi. The point was, someone should've cared.
Someone should've bothered themselves enough to care. At the same time as being angry, Kakashi scoffed at himself for being so stupid for demanding in his mind that these merciless killers care about anything, especially regarding a past life.

In spite all of this, and being the naturally curious shinobi he was, he finally went to take his complaint to someone, at least he thought, would act like they would listen.
They didn't but the nicer option they offered was a simple answer.

"Time is a figment of man-made self-interest," ANBU Shred said simply while glossing his mask. "It's just something we made up to explain everything that follows suit."
And Kakashi understood. Because the focus of it all, the point of ANBU's feral nature, was to detach oneself from being human.
The gist of it, that is.

It really irked Kakashi.
And, somehow, was the only hint ever given to him that he really didn't belong here.

Inhuman or not, they all breathed the same air, they all feel the same warmth of the sun no matter if they hid in the shadows or not. They could eat flesh, they could howl and coon savagely into the moon's light all they wanted but deep down there was the pain of loss. The pain of regret and helplessness to circumstance.

In a lot of ways, Kakashi hated being an ANBU merely for the code he had to act out.

---

-

Shadow couldn't remember a time when he was in this much strain ever in his entire life. Hell, even as Itachi he didn't remember being in this much pain ever before.

It had been hours now. He couldn't have been completely sure, because time seemed to move much slower when things are excruciatingly difficult, but it had to have been for they collapsed in a sweating heap on top of each other, their passion only able to continue through their locked lips and trailing tongues. The thought made him shiver uncontrollably, his own body crying out for release of the heat that had built up, but he refused icily while digging his nails into the sides of his arm in some hope to abide it.
He couldn't fail such an easy mission like this. He simply couldn't. Not only because it was his final task, that should've been unimaginably simple in every way, but because he was unraveling and that was the very thing he couldn't allow to happen. Shadow had to be cold. Shadow was not allowed to feel warmth, desire, signs of life and any association to being human.

This couldn't be happening.

I just can't look
It's killing me
And taking control

Kakashi let out a content sigh as he watched his partner, or hardly his partner he mused silently, as she pull herself out of bed wearily and threw her clothes back on. Her body, in its peak of ecstasy, obviously resisted the motions against sleep through her lethargy but she knew she could not stay. One night stand. That was all it was and all it ever could be. They came, they fucked, they went. And they never meet again. It didn't matter whose face it was in the end, didn't matter who did the screaming or sounded like they died from the climax because in the end there was no point and there'd never be a memory of the encounter ever recorded in the mind. A fleeting moment of pleasure, a fleeting moment of lust that would subside over time. Just like life, give it a few years and no one will know you for your heart.
Just for the space that should've held a heart. For the blood you were able to draw from the enemy.
Kakashi learned this from the White Fang, and, as hard as it was to swallow, he took it in, just like any shinobi must.

And he also knew that he couldn't handle commitment. Not the true shinobi, not an ANBU, because commitment meant there was another conflicting force against their loyalty to the village.
Kakashi had wondered, sometimes, if it was okay if two shinobi could work being together and be able to counter balance this but he figured, in the end, it just showed that they weren't Konoha shinobi deep at heart, that they were humans who loved each other and the village all at once.

Nights like these show he could do without their semblance, their theory of love, and still get his piece of the action.
The door behind the women closed and silence drifted over the room behind the lull of sweat that had managed to cling to the air. His eyes slowly, drew upon a detail that stood openly in the center of his room, at the edge of the bed.
A shadow of a being with a mask pure as a newborn babe just for sheer contrast.

He paused on the figure, through the darkness absorbing the sight of the other boy; no, he was a man, he had long left the blissful world of childhood.
Never breaking the silence except for their breaths, surprising more labored for both shinobi, Kakashi sat up and stared at the holes in the mask. At pools of pitch black that one would think to be eyes.

"Shadow."

Jealousy, turning saints into the sea,
Swimming through sick lullabies
Chocking on your alibis
---

-

He had no clue what he was doing, standing there point blank before his target. The mission was so simply, unbelievably simple; its entire presence insulted him beyond belief.
A mission so unworthy of his talent and yet he had just admitted defeat to it.
Somehow, this mission turned to be much more than he had ever expected of it.

"K," his voice rested upon the association, a low growl through clenched teeth behind his mask. He hesitated, drawing another shaking breath "Kakashi-san…"

His superior before him frowned in obvious concern. The gesture only made Shadow seethe more in anger and heat as it pooled around his thighs and groin. His sempai should not feel this way toward himself, as another ANBU. He should not feel this kind of pain and fluttering emotions as if he were a child! He cursed himself mentally over and over, repeating meditative chants he had learned from other Uchiha in hope that he could just fade away in his mind and emerge somewhere else physically.
Ultimately, his body refused, hand balled into a fist at his side and the other lingering up to his mask and pulling it down from his face.

Weaker than ever before, exposed to the world, and no longer able to hide the wave of pain engulfing him, the mask slipped from his hand and fell to the ground.


But it's just the price I pay
Destiny is calling me
Open up my eager eyes
---

-

Silence overcame the room once more as Itachi trembled, eyes fixed to the floor in overwhelming shame and inadequacy before his superior.

And finally, Kakashi saw his eyes behind the mask, they were so young, too young to have carried the complete Sharingan. It was a horribly malicious fact, and seeing through to a similar boy like himself who had grown up far too fast for his own good. Now the boy was left alone in the world, enduring bitter winter for what will be the rest of his life. But this boy, who had thought of as a man and looked down upon with condemnation at him for his plight into the ANBU, was opened through his quiet shivers. There was pain and suffering, inside these eyes, and regret, there was so much lamenting Kakashi felt he would drown just watching the boy.

Despite the pity he felt, Kakashi beamed with unnamed delight, leaning over nearby the bedside to turn on a light.
"I'm glad you've finally decided to come out, Shadow."

Itachi's exposed, embarrassed, eyes slid up to Kakashi, confusion adding the collage of feeling and excitement.
"You knew… I was hiding…?" The older ANBU smiled acceptingly, another feeling choking Itachi from his words, and slowly moved across his bed to the foot, before him, wrapping his arms around him. Pulled him down into the bed and breathing into the nape of his neck, Kakashi stroked his bangs from his hot face.

"I always know my shadow is near."

'Cause I'm Mr. Brightside