Chapter 6.

"Cheers!" Their cups clinked together mellifluously, yet at the same time seeming irresistibly poignant, as if the tender convergence of the two cups articulated the farewell between the two of them with finality. The red, vibrantly sullen liquid swishing as the containers collided.

It was the last day of summer and Kakashi and Obito were relishing their receding moments of freedom at a café near the former's residence, as they drew near the commencement of adulthood. The strangely reviving scent of coffee hung thickly about the air, along with something redolent of nostalgia and loss.

Kakashi's heart was grave and his sentiments were painfully apparent whilst Obito looked happy, smiling. Obito was one to treat separation with celebration, perhaps because the boy was confident that both of them would meet again, unchanged and hale and hearty as ever.

"Hey Bakashi, I've decided that I want to join the police force, you know to help keep this city safe and everything, plus my family is a major benefactor," Obito beamed wildly, "and when Rin-chan comes back I'll propose to her!"

"It's a bit too early to tell, isn't it!?" Kakashi chuckled as he shook his head in mock-disapproval.

Obito pouted, "I suppose so, but I promised her I'll pick her up at the airport! Hey , Bakashi, have you every thought about getting yourself a girlfriend? You know, you've got girls swooning over you practically everywhere, it's not like your devoid of options."

"No," Kakashi replied flatly.

"Hey, um, mind if I tag along with you tonight," Obito requested—blurted—awkwardly, unsure of how to phrase this in a suitable manner."I have guests staying over at my house and my room would be occupied."

"No problem." Kakashi answered him without even thinking.

"Is Minato-san's wife pregnant?"

"Yeah, three months."

"Awesome!"

"Yeah."

"Wait, hang on—I've heard that pregnant woman tend to get cranky—"

"Oh you'll be fine!"

...

"Wait so Obito knew Minato Namikaze before and even stayed over at his house?" Shisui was rather incredulous and… uneasy, "that's why it was so easy for him to—"

"Please," Kakashi cut him off. Seven years later, his guardian's death was still a sore subject on him: he had felt so hopeless during the funeral, so preoccupied and immersed in despair. On top of this, he did nothing, nothing to ameliorate the living conditions of their orphaned son—he was so engrossed in his work as an inspector that he utterly neglected and casted away little Naruto Uzumakito the loneliness of his orphanage. It was something he felt better left unsaid.

Kakashi mentally jabbed himself in the stomach. Why, just why hadn't I adopted him? You're right Obito, I'm nothing but scum. The man had berated himself recurrently throughout the years.

"I don't really want to talk about this," Kakashi's eyes misted, the grief that had unknowingly been precipitated was overwhelming. Scenarios of what could have been tormented his conscience.

"But Naruto is gone too, Iruka Umino, the caretaker of the orphanage informed me five months ago," Shisui continued to question him relentlessly, "just around the time when Rin and Obito disappeared, this can't be a coincidence—"

"STOP!"

Kakashi screamed so loud that it knocked Shisui out of his chair in shock, for the next few seconds there was a profound silence that lingered about the room. Then realizing what he had just done, Kakashi gazed into his inspector's unfaltering eyes and mumbled an apology.

"Must have been hard for you…" Shisui shook his head, astounded yet unoffended by the sudden outburst.

"You have no idea, change is always hard to accept and for Obito, change is a catharsis, it helped him repress his discontent with the world we live in and what happened to him by changing his appearance, his actions, his behavior," Kakashi remarked gravely. "But of course, that was not until a few years after what I had just told you."

"Why didn't Obito return home then… why, just why? I mean his dad wouldn't have kicked him out just to make the guests stay there, it just doesn't add up…" the interrogator muttered under his breath

"Pardon me, were you saying something," Kakashi interrupted his thoughts.

"No, nothing, it's just his house should have had plenty of rooms for people to stay in, he didn't have to—"

"Guess he just never clicked along with his parents—"

"No, no, it must be that—"

"How did you know all this? I mean, why would you ask?"

"Nothing, it's really nothing…" Shisui let the time elapse in silence until Kakashi was in a suitable condition to recount his tale again.

...

"So Kakashi-kun, you're friend is staying over with us, dattebane!" Kushina smiled at the two boys, her stomach had not yet acquired the protrusion of a pregnant woman but she was close to it.

"Hi, Mrs. Namikaze!" Obito beamed at her buoyantly, "how's the baby doing?"

"Oh… little Naruto is still kicking well, he's fine and healthy dattebane!" The woman rubbed her stomach protectively.

"Ehh…" Kakashi looked at her in a puzzled state, "Naruto, isn't that a… Kushina-san, your obsession with Ramen has really taken its toll…" he shook his head.

"Come on Bakashi! Naruto's a cool name!" Obito laughed and casually smacked Kakashi across the back, earning an irate glare. His friend had become much less aloof over the years, often joining in a joke and attending much more of Obito's 'get together' hangouts—still, Kakashi retained some pedantic habits of his earlier days, albeit they were much softened and mitigated.

His guardian greeted them as they entered the living room, the entire place was suffused with warmth and the air was tinctured here and there with the scent of ramen. Hot, delectable, mouthwatering ramen, as Obito would usually put it.

Kakashi eyed sarcastically at his friend, who was wolfing down bowl after bowl, feigning an expression of disapproval. "Really Obito? By this rate, you'll explode from the sheer overflowing of ramen!"

"Bahhh! Nonsense Bakashi, Kushina-san makes the best food," his best friend pouted back at him stubbornly.

...

Shisui coughed, "I know this might not be the most appropriate time to interrupt but may I ask you one thing: well, it's been insinuated from your account that Obito and Rin were… an item—"

"Yes. They wer—"

"But we all know that you broke up with Anko—"

"That's completely irrelevant." Kakashi disliked the direction this conversation was vying towards.

"No I meant, Anko broke up with you, not only because of Obito Uchiha's faked death. It was Rin wasn't it?... She… told me," he concluded his sentence solemnly. "You know perfectly well what I'm talking abou,t so stop playing dumb Hatake."

"That was a mistake! I shouldn't have kissed her, it was… I don't know, I was confused at the moment, at that time, our whole world was collapsing and—you have to understand, I don't love her that way!" A whole wave of emotions, spasmodically burst out of Kakashi's remaining bastions of suppressed, clandestine thoughts

His interrogator's face darkened. "Obito isn't one to take jealousy lightly. Yes, despite you being a prodigy in high school and him seemingly content with it, I know that he drew comfort from the mere notion that he would one day be acknowledged, recognized, do better in society than you—it's not actual acceptance, he envied you from the very beginning—"

"That's not true! You have no right to say that!"

"All evidences seem to point that way, I see know reason why not."

Kakashi took a deep breath and eyed Shisui sternly. "You must realize, that Obito… has changed a lot."

"That, I cannot back you up, as you are aware, I wasn't well acquainted with him as you were."

"Then you should trust my judgments regarding his feelings."

Shisui sighed defeatedly, "very well Kakashi, suit yourself…"

...

8 years ago

Spring was coming; the remaining cold gave way to a lukewarm breeze that swept past a fairly cheerful Kakashi, it caressed his silver hair and left it in a somewhat haphazard fashion. There had been a thaw yesterday, as the frosted veneer of the lake near his accommodation began to fracture and snow itself was starting to dissolve, seeping in to grounds.

It was Kakashi's second year in university and in all honesty, he did enjoy it. First and foremost, university allotted you a lot more freedom than the rigid rules of high school could ever permit—nowadays the young adult found himself going out more and more frequent with his friends, of course, being Kakashi, he somehow always manages to balance that out with his (still profuse) studying time.

He shared a flat with Asuma Sarutobi and Maito Gai. The former never seemed to stop his excessive and, in Kakashi's opinion, drastically unhealthy habits of smoking, the air of their place being frequently pervaded with the irritating stench of smoke and tobacco, which did spawn a few disagreements here and there between the flat mates. While the latter always managed to occupy himself with a ridiculous amount of workouts as well as proposing the most absurd challenges, such as competing who can balance on one foot the longest, on the rooftop. Somehow both Kakashi and Asuma found themselves reluctantly complying time and again.

Yet that was also the year when Kakashi last saw his friend Obito.

He was no longer the buoyant, enthusiastic teen Kakashi met in high school. The young adult had his raven hair drooped around his face, it no longer spiked up in a kiddish manner and his cheeks were slightly hollowed. Obito Uchiha seemed a little off, now in retrospect.

"Bakashi, hey." Came a voice much rougher than Kakashi recalled. Something about the boy seemed…incongruent, it was like he had switched souls with another, much more solemn and bleak, being.

"Obito! How have you been?!" Ironically, by contrast, Kakashi seemed much more jaunty.

Normally Obito would have thrown his arms around his relatively stoic friend; normally Kakashi would yell in protest and call him an idiot; normally they would engage in some ridiculous conflict about 'maturity' then go out together for lunch.

Kakashi could sense that this occasion wasn't normal.

"I'm alright, you?" His sentences were brutally concise, as if the Uchiha was deliberately trying to refrain from using too many words: he was closed off.

"Eh… I'm alright too, I guess, anything happened? You seem awfully quiet today, come in!" He gestured the man, the unfamiliar man, inside.

"Nothing, none of your business I'd say. Anyways, are your flat mates present perchance?" Obito asked coolly.

"No, not now, Gai's in the gym and Asuma's going out to a party," Kakashi tried to start a conversation.

"And you're still at home, studying I presume?" His friend snorted. "What a nerd!"

Both of them burst out laughing. Kakashi heaved a sigh of relief, maybe he really was overthinking: Obito could have been on one of his bad days, bad days happen to everyone.

However, the man's expression grew glum in a matter of seconds, there was a certain vacancy in his eyes that perturbed Kakashi—they felt cold, hollow and… broken. No. This man in front of him wasn't Obito anymore, at least not the one he remembered back in highschool.

"So, how's life been?" The silver-haired man leaned against the wall while speaking in a causal tone. "It's been a while since we last met."

"Look Bakashi," Obito's face darkened. "Things… have happened. I'm not in university anymore. And no, it's by my own choice, nothing to sympathize about." He added when he sensed shock on Kakashi's face, then instinctively, he clenched his fists hard and bitterly, a motion that didn't go unnoticed.

"Wait, why haven't you told me anything about this? When—"

"Around 3,4 months ago. I came to say goodbye." His tone was blunt, concise, to the point—the exact opposite of the ridiculous rambler Kakashi once knew.

"Obito! I'm serious! What is this nonsense!" Kakashi raised his voice, he was flabbergasted, nothing made sense to him. Sure, he hadn't spoken to his friend for a while but this man in front of him, the way he talked, the way he presented himself, was not Obito; in fact, the Kakashi at that time could almost vouch that the man he was facing was none other than his childhood friend's alter ego, or Obito's doppelgänger furnished with a sepulchral persona.

"I already told you Bakashi, don't bother finding out, it doesn't matter anymore. I made my choice." Obito retorted icily, his voice seemed devoid of its last trace of sentiment.

"What choice?!"

"That's none of your concern either."

"Then… then… Obito… Quit playing a coward, quit denying me from the truth. Tell me why you're here! Tell me why—"

"Didn't I already mention I came here to say goodbye?" That man raised his eyebrows.

"You needn't. We'll still be friends, you know this," Kakashi whispered quietly. "Isolating yourself from people who are reaching out to you isn't good." He echoed Minato's words perfectly.

"Really Bakashi, you still believe that?" Obito stared at him, his eyes flickered with annoyance. "Both of us have changed, but I guess we're both still friends. Never mind, do what you must do, I'm leaving."

With that he laughed callously, the rancorous discordance ringing through Kakashi's flat. For an instance, Kakashi Hatake felt his heart drop inexplicably, his blood flow paused while his insides shuddered uncomfortably—not from fear, no, this was his friend, or at least the husk of what remained. Deformed, distorted but still recognizable. His palpitations were that of morbid disbelief, confusion and shock.

"And Rin?" He called after his lost friend.

"What about her?" Obito responded curiously. "I'll do what I must. One last note, don't try to find me, it won't work Bakashi."

"Wait, what is this about?!"

Obito was already vanishing, blending into the insignificance of his surroundings. Of course, Kakashi argued with himself often after that incident, Obito couldn't have been serious. That boy could as well have been playing some regular prank, playing the stolid and serious guy simply for the sake of bothering Kakashi.

Obito, we'll meet again, mark my words, Kakashi Hatake vowed.

...

5 years ago

Rin had never expected to linger in the States for another year, regardless of her efforts directed towards her medical studies, the scholarships attained still fell short of her school fees. Her dad would, doubtless encourage her to continue, yes, he would have done everything, even sell half of his belongings or lend a couple of valuable possessions to a pawn shop if circumstances had allowed. Except Rin herself would never allow that.

With a mildly disappointed approach to the upcoming reality of ending her medical education, she prepared for her return to Japan, to Konoha to her friends, Kurenai, Kakashi, Gai and… Obito.

She readied herself to withdraw her place for her PHD, curtailed by two years in advance. Taking a deep, resolute breath, she dialed the numbers.

"Hello? This is Rin Nohara…" She spoke in that unfamiliar tongue with a light trace of a foreign accent.

"Yes, what do you want Ms. Nohara?" A voice answered on the other side, polite and courteous.

"I would like to withdraw my studies, yes and the money too."

"Excuse me? Are you sure you're mistaken?" the receiver sounds slightly baffled.

"No, I'm perfectly aware of my decision." Why wouldn't I? I've already attained my university degree anyway, that'll be more than enough.

"But , your school fees have already been paid, all of it."

"Wait a second, what? The last time I remembered—I—I'm still a third of the money short, that is including my scholarships," Rin's pace of speech quickened considerably.

"Well, looks like you're in luck. A bank account from Konoha, Japan has already secured your fees."

"Oh… Thanks for letting me know, I'll call you if I have any other requests."

Rin hung up her phone perplexedly, frowning.

Guess I'll just have to tell Kakashi to wait a couple of years before we meet at the airport. Strange. He's an investigator at Konoha, he'll help figure out whats beneath this phenomenon.

It was a queer thing that she and Kakashi have been in touch whilst her friendship with Obito had been quelled over the years. Despite having half a world's distance between them, their friendship had strengthened instead of dimming into insignificance. Perhaps she owed thanks to Obito's initial influence on the boy—no, man.

Often, submerged in the dreary routines one has to endure while adjusting to an alien place, Rin would open her email account and send Kakashi a couple of messages. They started out as imprecise greetings, which could have been sent to anyone, like "what's up?" or "how's everything going?" then they started to get more personal like "how's Obito doing?" or "got a girlfriend yet?" and afterwards, she felt comfortable enough to blurt out her feelings of isolation and loneliness to him. No, don't get her wrong, she still enjoyed University but at times, the notion that her home and family were out of touch gripped her irresistibly.

In return he would recount what he did, what he studied and how infuriating his roommates were, especially Gai. There were times when he sent rather comforting messages like "it'll be fine" and "just talk to me when you need it", a blissful grin would always manifest whenever Rin skimmed across similar messages, she would then re-read them, savor them, picture Kakashi saying them in person. Eventually she'd fell slightly embarrassed at her irrational euphoria, just a silly little crush Rin, his texts are nothing personal… she had oft to remind herself.

Speaking of Kakashi's regular rants, there was one about Gai organizing a Youthful Marathon around their house and after both Asuma and Kakashi's fervent protests, it had been relocated… around and inside the building where Kakashi took his courses—more's the pity as the hallways were swarmed with sweaty marathoners, trampling heedlessly with Gai in the lead preaching about youth and shining youngsters taking the lead in society. Then there was the occasion when Asuma stole weed from a bunch of crack dealers, Gai, having nil experience whatsoever in making tea, predictably immersed it in boiling water and afterwards, invited Kakashi and the lot to be tasters for his "youthful concoction."

Rin involuntarily chuckled and opened her email, her eyes skimming through the list of contacts for Kakashi's name. Once it was located, she promptly sent him a few words:

Kakashi,

How have you been? I've decided to stay at the States for another two years and say hi to Obito to me, would you? We've scarcely been in contact ever since I came here.

Also, call me as soon as you've received this message, there's something I really need to discuss with you.

Rin

Afterwards, she shut her eyelids in respite from the enormity of what she had just learnt of her studies and waited.

A/N: Yes, rest assured this story isn't abandoned! I've managed to cover Rin's part of the story as well in this chapter and I've decided that Shisui would be the fourth (sort-of) main character. I've got upcoming exams that I need to worry about but I'll come back to this story as soon as they're finished. Also, if you would like to see this story being updated more often, please vote on the poll on my profile to help to prioritize my writing time :)

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated! This took a great deal of my time and I would love to see some of my efforts come to fruition. Also, is anyone willing to be a beta for this story? I've realized that whenever I write late in the evening (which is pretty much 99% for fanfiction), I'm prone to making silly, juvenile grammatical errors. Any willing volunteers, don't hesitate to send me a PMS!