Pieces

A Kakashi Romance

Chapter 8: Awake

Emiri's eyes shot open when a wail pierced the night. Immediately, she shot out of bed, ready to fight any assailant. A second after her feet hit the floor, the bathroom door burst open, and Kakashi was on the scene, kunai in hand.

But her room was intruder-free, and the wailing, she realized, came from Isamu who tossed and turned beside her. Plagued by the images in his mind. Emiri's heart broke for the boy. Her eyes then briefly flicked up to Kakashi who stood at the other side of the bed, waiting for Emiri to say something—and momentarily, Emiri found it amusing that his face was still covered by his mask—did he ever take that thing off?

"He's having a nightmare," said Emiri, tearing her gaze away from Kakashi and back to the boy. "I've never observed him overnight, but I've read reports that these are fairly common for him. They have at least three times a week."

"Should we wake him?"

"No," said Emiri. "These aren't regular nightmares like you or I would have. It's been reported that if you wake him, he'll run off."

Kakashi's silver eyebrows arched slightly at her comment about "regular nightmares", but Emiri didn't notice as she gingerly sat on the edge of the bed, watching Isamu's face scrunch in fear.

Without warning the door to her room burst open as Mei entered, concern in her blue eyes. "I heard screaming!"

"Isamu is having a nightmare it's—"

Isamu suddenly shot up in bed, his dark eyes wide with terror and he bolted for the door.

"Isamu!" Emiri called, and ran after him. Even with her longer legs, Isamu had managed to sprint from their room, down a set of stairs and out the front door into the night.

"Isamu!"

Emiri chased after the boy as he launched himself blindly into the woods that were nearby, and her heart hammered wildly in her chest as panic constricted her breathing. If that boy got hurt…

Emiri took a sharp left, following the boy. Running barefoot made it difficult to sprint at her quickest speed. She knew if she jumped, she could tackle Isamu and stop him, but if he was already dreaming of traumas, she really didn't want to risk giving the boy one more trauma to dream about.

From the corner of her eye, Emiri saw a flash of silver stop in front of Isamu, halting the boy's blind escape.

Isamu yelled out once as Kakashi wrapped his arms around him, keeping him in place until Emiri caught up. Though his eyes were open, Isamu appeared lost in his mind.

"Isamu, that's enough now," Kakashi said, his voice raised enough to be heard over Isamu's struggling grunts, but his voice wasn't harsh—if anything he managed to be both stern and coaching all at once.

Finally, Isamu's eyes seemed to focus, and immediately tears sprang to his eyes as he fearfully took in his surroundings. The five-year-old's shoulders then began to shake as he started to cry, and Emiri was surprised when he clung to Kakashi.

"Don't let them get me! Don't let them get me!"

Kakashi lifted the boy into his arms, and Isamu clung tightly to Kakashi's neck and continued to cry.

"No one is going to get you."

"Yes they are!"

"You're safe Isamu," Emiri cooed, as she pressed her palm over her chest. His tears made her want to cry as well.

"P-promise," asked Isamu, craning his neck to peek down at Emiri.

"We promise," said Kakashi, and Emiri watched as he smiled though his mask. "No one will get you for two reasons."

"Why," Isamu asked warily, but his little voice came out in a wail.

Kakashi shifted Isamu in his arms, bracing the boy with one arm so his free hand could hold up one finger. "One, you're very vast and hard for an old man like me to keep up with—so if anyone comes for you, they won't be able to catch you."

Isamu sniffled, and the ghost of a smile played on his lips.

"And two," said Kakashi, holding up a second finger, "you have a Hokage and one of Konoha's finest infiltration kunoichi here with you. Do you think someone would take a chance to attack?"

Isamu frowned and buried his head against Kakashi's neck once more, his breaths coming out in occasional short bursts as his crying ceased.

"That's right," Emiri agreed when Kakashi met her eyes. "You are a very safe boy, Isamu. Now, it's time to get you back to bed."

Kakashi carried Isamu as he and Emiri wordlessly retraced their steps back to the Mizukage's residence.

"Three…"

Emiri glanced up at Isamu who was being lulled to sleep by the rhythmic cadence of Kakashi's steps. "What was that?"

"Kakashi said two reasons why I'm safe, but I can count," said Isamu. "One is I'm fast, two is Kakashi, and three is you, Nee-chan. You, me, and Kakashi make three."

Emiri glanced at Kakashi, but he stared straight ahead at the path before them.

"That's right, Isamu," Emiri said. "You are a very good counter."

"I know," Isamu murmured sleepily.

Back at the Mizukage's residence, Emiri closed the door after briefing Mei about Isamu's nightmares.

"Do you want me to put him in my bed," asked Kakashi, still holding the boy. "It's only fair that it's your turn to get uninterrupted sleep."

"No, it's fine," said Emiri, as she walked to the bathroom. "Don't put him under the covers quite yet, I want to clean his feet and make sure they aren't too badly cut."

Emiri returned from the bathroom with a towel wet with warm water. She paused to get an antibacterial salve from her supplies before she sat next to Isamu who was half-awake above the covers.

She lifted each foot to wipe it clean as Kakashi turned on the lamp on the nightstand.

"Tickles," Isamu murmured, trying to pull his feet away.

"I know." A hint of a smile tugged on the corner of Emiri's lips as she cleaned the mud off his feet. As she suspected, there were scratches along the soles of his feet from running over branches. Quickly she rubbed the antibacterial ointment onto his feet and finally tucked him under the covers, and the boy was asleep before she finished tucking him in.

Meanwhile, Kakashi silently observed the scene, his gaze lazily and impassive as always. Emiri glanced at the bottom of her feet and frowned—they weren't any better than Isamu's after chasing after him barefoot as well. She then glanced at Kakashi's feet and noticed he was barefoot too. She had to admit that she was impressed that he managed to out run her and get to Isamu first.

"We should probably wash our feet too," said Emiri, walking across the room and back to the bathroom, beckoning Kakashi to follow her. She cracked the bathroom door behind him, keeping it open just in case Isamu woke up.

The bathroom had a tub connected to the shower. She plugged the drain and began to fill the tub with warm. When there was enough water, she sat on the edge of the tub and swung her legs into the water, and Kakashi did the same, sitting beside her.

Emiri leaned forward and rested her arms across her bare knees and glanced up at Kakashi.

"Thank you," she said, "for getting to Isamu first. My only thought was to tackle him and I wasn't about to do that. Also, you seemed to know exactly what to say to him to make him calm down. That's very impressive. You have a soft spot for kids, huh?"

"Not really," said Kakashi, folding his arms over his chest. "When you're a sensei, you learn what to say to kids, I guess—especially when one of your students as the number one hyperactive knuckle-headed ninja of his time. There were times when even I was worried if he would live as long as he has, and look where he is now."

Emiri laughed out loud at that, and quickly put a hand over her mouth so she didn't wake Isamu. Her eyes danced with laughter as she continued to watch Kakashi. "Uzumaki Naruto, hm," Emiri shook her head. "I remember that one, that's for sure. He was such a brat—Neji told me of how much he hated Naruto for a short period of time…and then that kid changed Neji's life for the better."

Emiri sat up straight, so she was more eye level with Kakashi, meeting his onyx stare. She focused for a moment on the scar over his left eye. She had heard of his famous Sharigan, but she had never seen it up close in action. Thus far, Kakashi had demonstrated considerable skill, and she couldn't imagine what it would have been like for him to have the power of that Kekki Genkai.

"It was a lifetime ago," said Kakashi, chuckling lightly. "They're all grown up now."

"You're not old," Emiri frowned. "Sure you have silver hair, but you're still in your thirties!"

Kakashi chuckled again and closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them, he was looking down. "Compared to you kids, I've seen enough and done enough to last me several lifetimes."

"So have I."

Kakashi glanced up at Emiri, into her pale green eyes. For that moment, Emiri felt incredibly vulnerable as she looked at Kakashi. Maybe she hadn't seen the things he'd seen, but she fully understood what it meant to have experienced so much, she lived several lifetimes.

"So have you," Kakashi agreed.

His words impacted her more than she realized as she felt them resonate in her soul, a little bit of her that felt so deeply buried since Neji's death. She then realized how easily she talked about Neji with Kakashi—she hadn't been able to do that within anyone yet.

Emiri looked down and moved her feet in the now cold water. "I should probably get out of here before I prune." Emiri shuffled her feet to create ripples.

Kakashi leaned close to her and stretched out an arm to reach the towel rack next to her. As he did so, Emiri felt a strange pull in her stomach at her Hokage's closeness.

Yanking the towel from the rack, Kakashi laid it on the ground while Emiri undid the stopper. The water gurgled down the drain as Kakashi wiped his feet with one edge of the towel first, and Emiri followed suit with the other edge. The smallness of the bathroom kept them in close proximity, and several times, Emiri's bare knees brushed against softness of Kakashi's black sweats.

Finally she stood and tried to offer Kakashi a smile, trying to dispel the feeling that hung in the air—or at least hung around her. "So, did you have to wake Naruto up from nightmares?" she asked.

"No," Kakashi answered, his voice strangely thick, which led Emiri to believe he felt the odd heaviness in the air too. "I had to learn to wake up from my own."

When Emiri glanced up, she saw the look in Kakashi's eyes that mirrored hers. Several lifetimes worth of pieces of memories, some good, and some terrible. And she could see the strange vulnerability in his eyes too—like walls coming down in such a painful way.

"Kakashi, I am so sorry. I feel insensitive for what I said earlier about us having regular nightmares. I should have…" Emiri was aware she had dropped the honorific when addressing her superior, but after this mission, Kakashi no longer felt like her superior, he felt like another human seeking contact, and she was surprised to find she was searching for his contact too.

"No need to apologize, Emiri," Kakashi said, his eyes crinkling in the corner, and Emiri wanted to know what his smile looked like. "You didn't know."

The two of them stood facing each other their personal hurts out in the open—Kakashi with his hands lazily in his pockets, and Emiri with her arms down and her hands folded carefully in front of her.

Finally, she took a step back, reaching for the doorknob. "We should probably get some sleep—we have an early morning tomorrow."

Kakashi quirked an eyebrow, his gaze amused as Emiri opened the door, and she turned, realizing she was heading to Kakashi's room.

"Er, I'm going the other way," Emiri said, her cheeks pink with embarrassment. "Good night, Kakashi."

Emiri walked past her Hokage toward the correct door that she had left cracked open and closed it behind her.

For a moment she rested against the closed door and took a breath. From her spot against the bathroom door, she could hear Kakashi chuckle lightly at her, which made her blush more, before he walked to his own room, closing the bathroom door behind him.

Quietly, Emiri padded to her bed and got under the covers beside Isamu and rolled onto her side to stare out the window.

She realized her breathing was still shallow, and she quickly assessed her mental state. She didn't feel any sadder than usual and she wasn't feeling worried about anything, so in all actuality, she should be fine.

She then realized, her shallow breathing wasn't from any preoccupying thought that followed her from The War and Neji's passing, but instead, it was all Kakashi.

Dread and puzzlement flooded her as she thought of her eccentric, but undoubtedly powerful Hokage and the physical responses she had toward him. Emiri burrowed deeper under the covers. There was no way she was getting to sleep tonight. Not with her mind racing as it was.

Author's Note:

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