Chapter summary: In which Kakashi realizes many things, but it's still not enough.
I do not own Naruto.
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if i lose myself
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Kakashi knows his idea of pack is a bit messed up, but in his defense, he doesn't have much to base himself on.
When it was just himself and his dad, the notion was easy. His father was the Alpha and he, as the son, was both the subordinate and the next Alpha. Their dynamic wasn't strict as of many packs out there - Sakumo still had the final say in everything, yes, but Kakashi did have the freedom to tease and play with the Alpha as many pups are wont to do. Since it was just the two of them, it had been easy to sniff the air and immediately be able to tell whether the other person was truly content or not.
Then Chiyuki came, and that simple dynamic turned into a hurricane.
And see, the thing is that she had been - and still is, to be honest - completely different from anything else. She had been a genius child just like him, although a different kind, but oddly enough she let herself act and be like the kid she was.
Chiyuki sometimes acted like a brat on purpose - as if she had fun doing it - and it baffled Kakashi to no end.
Yet, the same Chiyuki that acted like a brat also thought like an adult. She saw things and immediately caught up on it, as if she'd seen that before - as if she'd known. She'd blurted out dreams of being hokage, of turning their village into a better place, of politics and economics and social problems and many other things that had been beyond his understanding.
And when he'd told Sakumo, his dad's smell had done all sorts of complicated things he as a three year old pup had no idea what to make of. It had been fearful, hopeful, relieved, worried, all at once. The Alpha had, however, gotten himself together and then told Kakashi to take it in stride and do what felt right to him.
"Whether you choose to add her to your pack or not is entirely up to you."
It's difficult to say whether or not his dad knew just what Kakashi was getting into, but perhaps he had a pretty good idea. Sakumo always spoke fondly of the old soul inside Chiyuki's body, and if the Alpha was okay with letting an entirely new dynamic shift their pack into something new, then Kakashi was too.
And then Sakumo died, and Kakashi was lost once again.
Chiyuki's family was a complicated thing he didn't want to touch without some heavy protection gear, but the girl had been completely distraught when his father died. The whys are still foggy to him, but even Kakashi could see the two had had some sort of connection, a will that connected them and it rivaled blood.
(He hadn't know it for a long time, but that connection was Kakashi himself.)
Chiyuki's brothers were okay, but he had no idea how to deal with her parents, so he avoided interacting with them. Her mother was a particularly delicate subject, and the Sarutobi siblings had a silent understanding he had no desire to be a part of.
Regardless, if you hang around the Hokage's youngest child enough, her brothers will soon follow. They orbitate around her like gravity itself is pulling them to her, like it's the most natural thing. And that was okay. They weren't pack, but they weren't a threat either. They were acquaintances, allies - people whom he could depend on if push came to shove.
Sakumo died, and Chiyuki became his Alpha, even if neither she nor Kakashi were aware of it. He became finely tuned to all the complicated things her chakra and her smell did, and although he was supposed to be the subordinate one, years turned that mess of feelings into a fierce will to protect, to defend what was his.
(He had already lost his father. He refused to lose her too.)
"How long have you and Gai known each other?"
She asks him in the middle of winter, when the leaves have long since left their branches and the trees are shells of what they were in spring. She has met Gai the other day, and he can tell she's just genuinely curious.
On that day he had shrugged and told her they had kind of always known each other because of their fathers, and that had been the end of it. She hadn't pried and he hadn't told her anything else, but he felt it in the air - when she wanted to say something else but refrained, and he had mentally rolled his eyes at her ability to overthink everything.
The war had come, teams had been chosen, and a new fear had been born.
Kakashi needed to leave Chiyuki's life in other people's hands, and that-
-that had not been alright with him.
He knew Gai, and he knew the boy would do everything in his power to keep the girl safe. He knows the Akimichi clan and how powerful Choza is. He thinks he can trust him.
Genma has the hairs on the back of his neck stand up from the get go. Kakashi doesn't know him and has never heard of anyone who does. Genma is apparently someone with a lot of acquaintances but few friends and worse yet, Genma is someone who smells like a threat to Chiyuki - he resents her and doesn't care for her, and it's all a gamble Kakashi doesn't wanna bet any money on. He has to rely on these people to have her back, and it makes him all sorts of defensive.
They put him on a team with people he knows, but who are not his Alpha.
(Soon she's not gonna be just his. Soon she's gonna be Konoha's Alpha. Where will that lead him to?)
There's Rin and Obito and a small sense of relief because at least he knows them. At least they're not incompetent, no matter how much he bullies Obito.
They put him under a jounin who's a result of his time; a genius who grew up far too fast, a genius who is too young to be on the frontlines just yet but who is too valuable to stay hidden behind village walls.
They put him under a guy who is supposed to be the next hokage but doesn't have a third of what Chiyuki does, and he often bares his fangs behind his mask.
"You'll have to let them in eventually, Kashi. They're your team, they're supposed to have your back." She'd say to him, young and petulant and protective of what is his and no one else's.
Kakashi is Chiyuki's just like Chiyuki is Kakashi's, and that's fine with him.
She'd then shake her head, looking older than she has any right to.
"You're my best friend, Kashi. The brother that's not from blood. You know that. But we live in a dangerous world and I need to know other people can keep you safe when I can't."
He can protect himself. He won't make the same mistakes his father did.
"That's what your team is for. You trust them and you rely on them to have your back."
He has his back and Chiyuki's. That's enough.
"Promise me you'll try. Please?"
Kakashi promised because he doesn't know how to say no to her. Because what his Alpha says is Law.
And because deep, deep down, he knows she's right. He knows he'll have to trust other people eventually - he knows that, he does.
He's just delaying that day as much as he can.
This has been sitting in my files since May, then today I woke up and wrote this in two hours.