Light the way
Eighth part… still nothing and no-one to me…
Kakashi was toying absentmindedly with his ramen, sitting at the Ichiraku. He had overslept, not waking up at the time he used to get up to go to the monument. It was rare enough to be noticed. He should be, he mused, more tired than he thought.
The bright sun shining over Konoha's roofs was not doing anything to help him wake properly. He was feeling very lazy, thoughts of basking in the sun and letting free rein to his more animal dog-like side had crossed his mind while stepping out of his apartment.
The streets were still animated. Less than the day before, but still more than the average usual-day-Konoha animated. To him though, it was just a background noise.
He was thinking about his groceries. Seriously. He did not know when he would come back when he would left on the next mission, right ? So it would be better if he did not bought too much, just enough to end the week. But in the same time, he was always starving when he came back, and his fridge was always desperately empty too. But what good would it do to him if all his food was rotten when he would came back ravenous to his apartment ?
Yeah. He was definitely more tired than he thought.
When he realized about what he was thinking, he cut straight his train of thoughts. But his mind did not want to stay empty.
So he find himself thinking about a certain Chuunin.
This was just pure professional interest he kept telling himself, he was just curious about the jutsu Umino had talked about. The jutsu the Chuunin had obviously experimented first hand.
In all the jutsus the Copy-Nin had copied through the years , he could not find nor recall one with such effects. In all the ones he had heard about, same result.
His ramen was now very very well mixed. He toyed with it some more, watching without watching it the steam coming from his bowl curling lazily up and vanishing in the play of light made by the sun outside and the shadowed restaurant.
Someone plopped on the stool next to him. This clothing color was unmistakable. Kurenai.
"Hi Kakashi-sempai.''
Kakashi grunted in her direction. She ordered a bowl. The restaurant was silent save for the noise coming from the cook and the others customers, and the like muffled noises of the streets.
"It had been a while since I saw you in Konoha, Kakashi-sempai." Kurenai was watching him with her strange red eyes.
" 've been forced to take the week… Asuma's came back yet too?"
Her order was placed in front of her. She broke a pair of chopsticks.
"We run into him and Shikamaru when coming back, they were going out again."
She gently mixed her bowl, the steam curling up.
Kakashi was still mixing his bowl.
"How are your brats?"
Kurenai smiled around her food. Kakashi noted that she had circles around her eyes, that she was a bit disheveled, and that her clothes were rumpled. She must had just came back. Her smile was … nostalgic?
"They're not brats anymore… They're growing up."
"Yeah," echoed Kakashi, "They all grow up…"
His ramen was now very well cooled down.
Kurenai stopped eating, looking at him.
"You're okay Kakashi-sempai? It's not like you to let ramen go cold." 'And to brood'. But this part was left implied.
Was she his friend?
Kakashi wondered from where had come this thought. It had to be coming from the same place where nice everyday stories from Sakura at the hospital were soothing and where his emotions still had a meaning.
Genma, Kurenai, Asuma, Raidou, and the others, were they his friends?
Had he been a friend to Rin and Obito?
He plainly stopped his thoughts to continue further on on this path. He did not like to think like that about the past, nor dwell upon it. This was the kind of thoughts he allowed himself only at the monument. Thinking like that anywhere else was just like signing his death warrant. He mentally went back to the first question.
Well… They were jounin. Enough said.
It was well-known that one has to be not sane to become jounin. As one, he was well placed to agree with that statement. Though this statement was not complete. It forgot to mention that jounin were so used to see death and killing on an everyday basis that they were losing bits of humanity – more and more bits with each mission handed and completed.
It forgot to mention that most jounin were retired ANBU. One had to be ragging insane to become an ANBU. The human mind could not bend forever under the stress and inhumanity it witnessed when one lived a ninja's life. So it broke, most of the time, and it was no more human. They were the perfect tools. As one ex-ANBU, he could testify.
It forgot to mention that some people had really to be desperate to trust their lives or their children's lives into hands of people like him.
He had really to be really much more tired than he thought. He was suddenly aware that Kurenai was talking to him.
"…kashi-sempai?"
"Yes? Aa… I must be more tired than I thought, that's all." He completed that statement by scratching the back of his head and smiling from an eye.
Kurenai was staring at him.
"You're sure?" He was no telepath, but he could hear the 'It's not like you to be zoning out like this' all the same. Her red eyes, although tired, were plainly showing concern.
Kakashi smiled some more. According to his twisted and illogical sense of logic, Kurenai had just showed she was his friend. He nodded, then lifted himself from his stool, leaving the payment for his lunch.
"I need to get going. See you around."
He left the shop, seemingly not aware of the curious and concerned stare of the red-eyed woman that was watching him leave the darkened restaurant to vanish into the brightly lighted exterior.
His still full bowl had gone cold by now.
Was Iruka his friend?
The exposed theories about jounin and ANBU are well-known ones on the fandom, don't know from whom they came from in the first place.