I'm so happy all of you are liking Sasuke's Tenant. That'll be his name from now on until his actual name is revealed!
Onwards!
Promises Not Made are Promises Never Kept
Chapter Twenty-Eight – Don't You Fake It
Kakashi blearily opened his eyes to see jumbled words and muffled letters before him. Groaning, he picked his head up and slouched heavily in his chair, head rolling along its socket in exhaustion as he made no attempt to support the heavy piece of machinery.
Nothing. He had spent the last twenty-four hours researching and digging up any information he could get involving any possible myths of gods of the Land of Waves or priests tangling with broken pieces of myths of gods, but had found nothing. Not even a scrap something that could be considered anything. With a sigh, he rolled his shoulders and head simultaneously, stretching the muscles in his aching body with distaste.
"Maybe I'll just cancel training for today…" he muttered as he dragged his ass into the bathroom. "Everything huuuuuuurts."'
On his way to the training spot, Kakashi noticed a very familiar tuft of bright yellow hair emerge from a very familiar ramen stand, and he was just about to languidly raise an arm and call out when another head peeked out after.
Kakashi dropped his arm and simply watched Sasuke and Naruto chat post-meal in the street, both of them with bright smiles on their faces and probably incredibly full bellies. Sasuke's hair was down, shiny and black and luxurious with his headband gleaming at his hips. Naruto had ditched his orange jumpsuit top for the occasion, and simply wore the pants with a skintight black mesh shirt – the type he wore beneath the jacket.
How weird it looked, the two together. Like a couple, Kakashi realized in utter confusion. But at the same time, it was so natural. Like they had been going out for ramen together every Tuesday afternoon at the same stand for the past ten years, taking turns picking up the tab and flirting with the owner's daughter. Like they belonged together.
In awe, Kakashi simply stood and witnessed them talk cheerfully a little bit more, noticing how they stood a little closer than was probably necessary, touched each other's shoulders here and there – watched how Sasuke giggled and Naruto laughed.
Was that jealousy bubbling up in his belly?
Kakashi, you moron.
Soon enough though, they said their goodbyes and Naruto turned and headed off in the direction of the training grounds – the same direction that Kakashi was facing. Sasuke waved after him, but then turned to stride casually in the Jounin's direction, a slight smile on his face as he slid his hands into his pockets and hooked his thumbs on the edges.
Leave, Kakashi. The man told himself. You have a team to train. Just go.
But he couldn't. Silently, he waited until Sasuke looked up, made eye contact with him, and smiled, waving at him.
"Good afternoon, Kakashi-sensei!" He called cheerfully through the crowd as he neared, waving a hand up high before putting it back in his pocket. "No training today? Naruto didn't seem too wiped out when we were eating."
Kakashi waited until Sasuke had reached him and they had fallen into stride with each other before speaking.
"So, you don't have emotions, but faking them is just fine?" Kakashi asked coolly, making Sasuke look up at him in confusion and just a little bit of hurt with those big black eyes. For a moment Kakashi doubted himself, but then he pressed forward because he knew, he knew- "Did Sasuke give you permission to sabotage his Ramen date with Naruto?"
Sasuke's gaze towards the Jounin turned sharp for a moment before he sighed and blinked, turning his face away in defeat before looking back up at Kakashi. The ink that had filled his eyes spiraled away into the pupils, leaving the crystal pale green-blue color in its place as the persona completely vanished.
"Interesting for someone who hasn't seen the boy in four years to still know every single one of his habits by heart," the creature commented dryly, hands still in his pockets as he looked away. "Some people may consider that a bit creepy, Kakashi Hatake."
"Creepiness doesn't matter, results do," Kakashi replied – maybe a little bit defensively. "Sasuke doesn't put his hands in his pockets like that anymore. Not in all the times I've seen him at the exams. He used to when he was younger, but not anymore."
"And why do you think that is?" The boy asked, looking at Kakashi with a raised albeit disinterested eyebrow – as if he already knew the answer but was just checking to see how good Kakashi was. The Jounin frowned.
"Putting your hands in your pockets means letting your guard down," he stated. "It means you feel no fear. That you could be potentially be caught off guard. And he doesn't like that."
"But you are incredibly afraid, Kakashi Hatake," the beast replied smoothly – maybe even with a slight smile. "Terrified, even. Like a wee little rabbit. And yet your hands go into your pockets all the time. Why is that?" Tilting his head back, he raised his chin so he could look up at Kakashi through half-lidded eyes. "Are you that arrogant? Or are you simply waiting for the right person to come along and strike you down when you plead for it the most?"
The words, spoken so plainly and with such abandon for empathy, caught Kakashi off guard and cut deeply. So sharp and so painful, and maybe so, so true, that he couldn't keep eye contact with the creature. Silently, he looked away.
And realized with insane irritation that his hands were in his pockets, a thumb on one of the many Icha Icha novels he always had on hand and the other on one of his many kunai.
He had lost that battle. Utterly and completely.
"So why were you having lunch with Naruto anyway?" He asked as they continued to move through the crowd, opposite direction of where Kakashi was supposed to be headed. Then with a little grin, "where's the little lion?"
His companion automatically opened his mouth to answer, but then seemed to fully process what Kakashi had said and closed it again, raising a no-nonsense eyebrow at the man and turning one corner of his mouth downwards.
"Sasuke…" he reiterated, making Kakashi smirk a little, "is keeping his distance. He doesn't feel safe coming out until his teammates are fully recovered. Understandable, I suppose, but also cowardly."
"And he was perfectly okay with you waltzing out and wearing his face?" Kakashi asked incredulously. Sasuke's eyes twitched – almost like his face wanted to twist into a scowl at the words – but then the face smoothed over and it was gone.
"He felt… bad," he replied simply, hesitating in such a way that made Kakashi believe that he didn't quite understand Sasuke's reasoning. "And you found his hiding spot in the woods. He wants to stay away but he can't. Not forever. It was a very serious breech in his self-esteem, that fight with your student. The wrong combination of things gave that monster the chance to emerge, and there will always be the chance that that right combination of wrong things will happen again. He's a little… oh, what do you call it…?" Raising his hands, he made the quotation marks motion with his fingers. "'Freaked out'?"
"Yeah, yeah that's it," Kakashi replied dryly, rolling his eyes as Sasuke dropped his arms. "Why didn't you tell Naruto the truth?"
"You assume that I didn't," the boy responded with equal parched levels. But then he closed his eyes, and his voice seemed almost prideful. "But you're correct. I didn't. I didn't have to." Opening them again, he looked away into the street, glancing at all the faces that passed them by. "He knew who I was. I'm sure of it." Kakashi blinked in shock, and Sasuke shrugged as he continued. "We didn't talk about anything important. Like what had happened during that battle with his teammate or what the thing that came out of the book was. Or how it affected everyone. Or how the boy's teammates are doing. None of that seemed to matter to him." Raising his eyes, he looked up to the sky that was barely speckled with white clouds. "He seemed completely at peace just talking about trivial things. He shared ridiculous stories of how he tried to seduce his pink-headed partner a few times, and how he taught the Hokage's grandson about his Sexy-no-Jutsu technique." Kakashi simply listened with a small smile on his face. "It made Sasuke warm inside. What an interesting sensation. He should be brave enough to come back soon though, I'm sure. In the two years I've been with him, he's never been the type to play coward for very long."
"He's just a kid," Kakashi breathed, mostly to himself. "I can't imagine having such weight on my shoulders at that age."
"You had very similar weight, from what I've gathered," Sasuke replied simply, looking at Kakashi from out of the corner of his eye. "Just in a different form."
The face of his father flashed through Kakashi's mind, and he winced, shaking his head to clear it before looking back to the person next to him.
"I will find out who you are, you know," Kakashi stated firmly, out of the blue. "It's inevitable, and you can't stop me from figuring it out."
"Good. That will spare me the trouble of telling you," the creature responded, making Kakashi roll his eyes.
"Why won't you just tell me?" Kakashi asked, making Sasuke pause and turn to face him, hands in his pockets. "Why keep it so secret? Obviously you don't think it's that big of a deal-"
"You must find out for yourself because great knowledge is not given; it is earned," Sasukes stated sternly, like a grown-up talking to a child, making Kakashi roll his eyes. "You're not an idiot, Kakashi Hatake. Your intelligence rivals some of the greats. In your own strange, oddly-wrapped package. You're like a much less historically famous Anaxagoras. Like the little brother that found a cure for a cancer that hadn't been discovered yet but wasn't listened to because his big brother was busy proving that the sun was a star and is going to blow up and kill all of us one of these days, so why worry about fixing cancer when we're all just scheduled to die no matter what? And thus the little brother decided to burn the cure for cancer along with the Aztecs and then crawled into a bottle never to come out."
Kakashi blinked, trying to remember if he had ever heard that name before and then realizing he hadn't before looking back at his companion, the rant (strangely intelligent but incredibly outrageous) completely sailing right over his head.
"Who's Anaxawho-ha?"
Sasuke opened his mouth as if to berate him for being an idiot, but then blinked and then merely lightly scowled at him, lowering his hand from where he had raised it to shake a finger at the man.
"No one, never mind," he replied dismissively, turning and beginning to walk again, slipping the hand back into his pocket. Kakashi blinked, running through his mental history books before lifting a hand and following Sasuke.
"The one that suggested that the sun was a star was actually a ninja of the Village Hidden in the Stones called-"
"Shut up, Kakashi Hatake."
End Chapter Twenty-Eight – Don't You Fake It
Interesting, right?
I am notorious for having those kinds of rants. Ones that seem crazy intelligent at first but then when you actually listen to them and digest them you realize they're both intelligent and crazy, and you can't decide if the person is a complete genius or an utter moron because what they said was just so outrageous your intellectual belly is having trouble with it.
Yep. I am one of those kinds of people that tortures others like that. :)
Did you enjoy? You should review! The tournament is going to be starting soon!
Much love,
DDB
