Kakashi is the type of man that would ruin a relationship before he could even start. He's the type to look at someone and think I could be with youonly to toss that into the fire and move on with his life. He's the type that would rather imagine loving only through the cold pages of a book written by a long dead man.
He's the type that would rather you hate him than love him. The type that would take a kunai rather than any kind of affection. The kind that would rather forget sentimentalities rather than indulge in it. The type that would rather you not remember his birthday or even celebrate it.
He's the type that would rather spend time with the dead than the living.
Or at least, Kakashi was that type of man.
Obito knows Kakashi better than most. He'd prefer not to, but it's just a thing that ended up happening in the course of his life. It's just a thing that happens. Once in a blue moon Obito revisit Konoha to do some reconnaissance or whatever the fuck and ends up stumbling on Kakashi looming over a dry piece of stone. Or maybe he's off in the cemetery instead, leaning over Rin's grave with more devotion than he'd ever given her in life.
Laying flowers over her grave and cleaning off the dust. His eyes sad and somber as though he'd known her for all his life and she'd only passed yesterday. His book tucked away and a somber silence to be had, broken only by Kakashi's quiet recounting of his day or something else he'd like to add for that visit.
Oftentimes, he talks about the mundane with her. Because it feels like he's trying to reassure her of something, but ends up failing to even reassure himself. His voice is soft, gentle, like trying to touch the wings of a butterfly and not break it.
It's much softer than anything he'd offer Rin when she was alive.
The irony almost spurred Obito to punch Kakashi back then. Perhaps if he did, their story would be different. Or maybe not, maybe they'd end up fighting and Obito wouldn't even say his name because Kakashi didn't deserve to know it and Kakashi would end up marking Obito off as another enemy-nin because Obito wouldn't kill Kakashi and Kakashi can't kill Obito, not as he was then.
Instead he tore up a Zetsu or two, killed another nin or dozen, and went about his day. Rage still filling his veins and making him want to crush a Hatake, or two- but he can't because the Hatake clan has only one left. And he keeps living because rage was the only thing driving him at that point, because without that rage he'd be left with nothing but grief. Because Uchiha Obito was nothing without that anger, that fire, that hatred in his veins.
He hates it, just like how he hates Kakashi.
He comes back, anyways.
Perhaps it's out of some bitter vengeance to see Kakashi brought down so low by two people's death who he never gave a damn about before they died. Or perhaps it's out of some need to look at Kakashi and revel in his sadness. Or perhaps it's a way of claiming victory to a competition that had started long ago by himself and Kakashi never even cared.
Then, there are the days where Kakashi would come and talk to Obito instead. Bringing different flowers each time maybe because he never cared enough to know what Obito's favorite flowers were.
He also talks about the mundane with Obito, nothing too serious, but more somber than he usually is. He talks about anything and everything from what he saw to what he tasted. Perhaps in some foolish attempt to show Uchiha Obito the world that he could not live in.
The world that Kakashi is seeing because Obito died for it.
His words are soft, just like Rin's. Tinged with regret and heavy with fraught emotions. Talking on and on in front of a stone that will never respond to a boy that's not really dead.
His words are kind, kinder than anything Obito had the displeasure of hearing in person. The things he says are almost teasing. Some kind of hesitant camaraderie that did not exist back then and only exists now as Kakashi's attempt to alleviate his guilt, or whatever the fuck.
Obito couldn't give less of a damn.
He couldn't give a fuck about Kakashi's helping of a grandmother that day or how he dusted off Obito's googles or how he keeps on listing off amusing anecdotes of himself being late.
He couldn't give less of a fuck about how Kakashi keeps on visiting his grave every month or how he'd bring dango sometimes only to regret it as ants swarmed the damn thing the very next morning or how he'd bring the stone cats from the Uchiha clan sometimes as though to accompany him or something equally mad.
Obito could not give less of a fuck about Kakashi and his vain attempts to make himself feel better.
He couldn't care less.
He still keeps coming, anyways.
It's an innocuous day when he finally realizes why he was so angry. For both himself and for Rin. Why the bitterness stings at his eyes and why the anger burns at his throat. Why he wants to grab Kakashi by the neck and choke him alive and why he wants Kakashi to keep coming to them but also for Kakashi to just stop and leave forever.
It's a bitter realization.
It's the realization that Hatake Kakashi will only love you if you're dead.
That for all the care you give him when you're alive-
It doesn't measure up to the memory of you when you're dead.
Or at least-
Obito had thought so.
Maybe that was his way of deluding himself.
Maybe him pushing Kakashi into that image was his vain attempt to prove to himself that See? Me and Rin weren't special. Kakashi will never care for anyone.
It's a childish attempt at winning something that he never had a chance at in the first place. An attempt at trying to justify why Kakashi just didn't give a damn about him or Rin. Why he didn't care until they were dead and gone.
It was an attempt at trying to give a heartless boy a heart, at trying to make himcareand trying to feel some stupid kind of vindication at the fact that now that Kakashi wanted to be friends Obito didn't give a damn about him anymore.
Maybe Kakashi could love.
He just never loved them.
What remained atop that gravestones, the words that were spoken, the exchanges that were had, the petals that withers-
What remained was not love.
For you can't love something within a grave if you never loved them when they were breathing.
Is it truly love if it's felt only in the aftermath?
Is it truly love if what you love is not the person but the memories?
Is it truly love if you never felt it when they were alive?
That's not love.
That's a regret.
The line has never been thinner, for both Kakashi and Obito.
Perhaps love tastes sweeter on the tongue, makes it feel better on your soul and makes you feel slightly better about your damned self. To love something is positive, it's a good. If you love them, maybe you wouldn't feel the guilt crawling up your throat that all you actually felt was regret.
Maybe that was what made it easier for Kakashi. Maybe love tasted lighter than regret. Maybe it sounded better to his ear, maybe it made him feel like he made it up to them in some twisted and sick way.
In the end, regrets can wither and die just like anything else can.
And clearly, what happened after Obito's 'death'-
Kakashi's obligation towards him and Rin probably ended there, too.
For there was no longer 'regret.'
Kakashi was finally able to move on with his damned life. Finally able to spend time away from the dead and the corpses. Finally be able to stop visiting Rin and Obito like they were actually still by his side. Finally be able to stop living in the shadow of Team Minato and move on towards a better future with his own team.
Perhaps it was then, too, that Kakashi realized he never loved the dead. That all he felt was a regret that was alleviated when the dead said for him to move on.
For Kakashi did move on. Once a genius, always a genius- never doing a damn thing by half measures. He moved on and left Obito in the dust. He moved on and did what a genius does and excelled in that, too.
He moved on and left behind a legacy and a clan and a better future than anything anyone in his damned generation probably has.
Obito wonders what it must've been like. He wonders what Kakashi being in love is truly like. He wonders whether Kakashi does love like he does everything else. He wonders if Kakashi does love like he does being a shinobi. He wonders if Kakashi is terrible at love, or whether he excels at it like he does everything.
He wonders if Kakashi's love is the flighty type, the type that touches you gently and is light like a feather on your shoulder, entrenching himself into your life subtly- like a river running its course- until you find yourself wondering where it all began and unable to find an answer. Or perhaps it's the burning type, the type that's part intense and part scorching.
The type that only shinobi can tolerate in each other, the type that's about rushed kisses smoldered in between missions and close encounters, a cacophony of Don't die and I'll make them hurt for hurting you.
He wonders if it matters at all.
He wonders if-
"You're not being subtle," he finds himself saying. His voice is clipped, harsh.
"You sensed me," an unfamiliar voice replies, their voice is light. Like a playful feather- but not. It's light in the way that artificial things are. Like the way a fake leaf would hang upon a tree, light in the way that's unreal. "As expected of you."
A man stares back with dark eyes and darker hair.
The man's stare makes something within Obito want to revolt, want to wrap his hands around the man's throat and crush because it feels wrong.The new instincts he gained saying that it's wrong, wrong, wrong-
Human- curse-
Both?
"Who are you?"
An interestingly unstandard, standard man, would be Kenjaku's first observation.
The curse's form is standard in the way that you first look upon it. With pale hair and darker eyes. It can almost be labeled as handsome, in a classical sense. Its height is none too short, nor too tall. Its build can almost be called average. Not too muscular and yet not too frail. Its curse energy, too, is standard. Quiet and low, almost like a curse you can look past.
But, ah, perhaps that is where the standard ends and where the unstandard begins.
For the curse's face is seared with scars, deep and harsh, speaking to a fraction of the pain the body must've felt as the injury seared itself into the curse. And yet, curses do not scar in the way that humans do. For curses, scars are a whimsy that can go or appear with a thought or a wave of the hands.
Its clothing, too, is unstandard. For it is ancient and old. The fabrics are fine and yet it's clear that it was not made for ceremonial purposes, nor was it made to be worn for outings for the upper echelons of society.
It was made for combat. Stitched carefully and made to be sturdy, a symbol of status and power.
This, too, is something that Kenjaku has much seen of, at least, back in the day. Though none to his memory wore something like this. But then again, neither has he heard about Tengen's relations before.
Its build, too, looks standard upon first glance. But if you were to take a peek beneath the folds, it's clear that it's built for combat. Outlined by the brief glimpses of cloth against muscles.
But perhaps, most damning of all, is its tepid curse energy.
Less so standard, and moreso monstrous. It's a thing that's borderlining on crazed. Manic. Something insidious about it. Something that Kenjaku can categorize as a special grade, at the very least.
And even less standard, is the way it feels.
Tinging with power, dripping with malice. Dipped in an ancient madness. If Kenjaku were to have to find a word to describe it, it'd be like the bumpy, coarse surface of a scroll left unfurled for much too long.
If Kenjaku were pushed further, by something like Mahito, to describe it, he'd say it feels like a millenia worth of a grudge, left to be fermented for another millenia.
Perhaps, if Kenjaku were to even close his eyes, he can imagine the old vision of Heian-kyo. With its swaying lantern lights and the golden glory of yesteryears. Wherein yokai roamed and Kenjaku watched from above. Their curse energy making the air thick with miasma. Their grudge never to be quelled. The scent of lantern oil and withering parchment intertwining together in a frenzy of madness as the jujutsu era enters its golden era.
It feels like that, now, although there's no lanterns to be had and the golden age of old has long passed.
And yet.
Kenjaku would categorize this as something like a pocket in time. A moment into the past. A glimpse of yesteryear's glory.
But that isn't quite the same. It is the familiar feeling ofayesteryear. Something long past and long gone. But it isn't quite during the golden age of jujutsu. It feels like more than that. It feels longer. Older.
The curse looks at him, awaiting an answer. It's an apathetic look, almost neutral. Like the surface of a lake without any fluctuations. But, ah, Kenjaku thinks that there's more beneath the surface.
There always is.
"A friend," Kenjaku replies, the smile on his face is a false joviality.
The curse mulls over his words, there's a strange twist to its lips. Almost like dry humor.
It then shrugs, as though it could care less. But there's something about the tenseness in the corner of its lips that makes Kenjaku think differently.
Friend. That is an interesting word.
Kenjaku does not have friends so much as he has pieces and tools.
Friendship is a sentimental thing that curses do not feel for each other. In the jujutsu world where the weak gets trampled and the strong gets stronger, there is no need for such things as friendship.
Back in the Heian age, curses only rallied together if they needed more power. The weak gather together wherein the strong stand apart.
That has not changed.
But in modern times, there need to be modern innovations.
Temporary partnership and alliances are a thing of the new. And wherein in the past, it is a thing to be scoffed at. A temporary alliance now is a measure of the strong. For it means that you're good enough to be chosen, it means that you're intelligent enough to bargain-
It means that you have what it takes to survive in the new age of jujutsu.
Sorcerers evolve, and therefore, curses must, as well.
But curses do not survive on friendship, for such things were beyond them. Whatever feelings they may have for a trivial thing as 'friendship' is smeared by the human perception of it. The word 'friendship' alongside words like 'love' has been dipped in ink and smeared in mud for curses.
For they only know the twisted version of such. The version that they were built on.
But, ah, there are exceptions, of course.
Curses built upon the remains of a human.
Sorcerers that did not get exorcised. Sorcerers who died and died cursed. Sorcerers who died, perhaps with resentment or regret.
Sorcerers who died and never came back quite right.
"You're here for me," the curse notes, its voice a gravely thing.
It does not say anything further. Merely looking to Kenjaku for an elaboration. There's something subtle about it, but also something almost artificial about its words. Almost like it's reading off a script.
There's something manic about its cursed energy, as well. Something like a fever that hasn't been sweated out. Something like a sickness that's been left to rot that needs attending to.
"I'm merely curious about the newest curse we have," Kenjaku replies, his voice light and cheery. "You're a difficult curse to track down."
The curse studies him in turn. There's something almost absentminded about it. As though it's ticking off a checklist that it hadn't quite processed.
"Well, you found me," the curse replies, dryly. Its voice, an artificial cadence identical to the sentence before. Its words are mild, almost as though forced into a neutrality that it never was.
As Kenjaku says, an interesting unstandard standard.
He studies it.
He wonders if it takes after its mother. He wonders if the shape of its lips and the curve of its eyes all mirror its mother, but the rest of its insides- the part that truly matters- are dyed in Tengen's blood.
But perhaps it wasn't Tengen's child at all and this was all some terribly awry story.
But the answer to that lies below.
"You died thrice," Kenjaku says. It's nothing but a statement of fact.
It takes the curse a moment, although not too long, to process Kenjaku's words.
"You're that one's friend, then," the curse states. It's with a dry tone of disinterest. Although it can't quite hide the inquisitive glimmer in its eyes.
Youngsters, Kenjaku thinks.
"You could say that," Kenjaku agrees, finding that the word 'friend' was synonymous with 'tool'. At least for curses like them.
"One, twice, thrice, what does it matter?" the curse questions, it's tone drab and almost questioning Kenjaku's ignorance.
Again, youngsters, Kenjaku thinks.
There's something similar about the curse and its petulance for caring. Although Kenjaku thinks it's more purposeful for this one than it is for Mahito and his ignorant questions.
Mahito is a blend of new born ignorance, who often doesn't know what he's saying beyond philosophical meanderings. Whose words of dismissal are more that he doesn't care about the topic at hand and chooses to go about dismissing it in the way that a child would.
This one is more aiming to be dismissive, to hide importance beneath its disinterested words.
"Humans usually don't live after dying once," Kenjaku muses, theoretically.
The curse shrugs, it's a motion that's purposefully dismissive. "I did."
Its words are clipped and short. To the point.
Admittedly, it is hard to pick out anything useful from something so short.
But the more one has to hide, the more curious Kenjaku grows. Call it a scholar's musings, or perhaps a researcher's query. But he finds himself immersed within puzzles, questions.
He finds himself always asking if he could, questioning the nature of the world. Wanting to see how to shape it in his palm. Wanting to see how he could do this or that. How he could poke or prod, how he could twist or stretch.
And this is no different.
But perhaps this is more personal, in a way. Less related to the world and more about Tengen.
"I suppose this miraculous survival of yours wouldn't be related to a relative, would it?" Kenjaku questions, pointedly.
It's not hard to feel the rhythm of cursed energy being interrupted. The steady rise in the mania and spike in condensation. The feeling of it wrapping around his throat and wanting to choke him alive, miasma coming to life.
Ah, youngsters, Kenjaku thinks. Emotional.
But that's enough of an answer, Kenjaku thinks. Even if the curse says naught.
It's a confirmation, a link between the curse and its survival from death twice via something related to a relative.
Humans don't survive from death. Not once, and definitely not twice.
Not unless you're Tengen, that is.
Tengen who can live on and on. Tengen who death does not touch. Tengen who will only age but never wither.
Tengen-
"Do you know your father?"
The words sound slightly bitter. He thinks that this is due to him being ignorant to this development before.
For surely, if anyone were to know about Tengen's personal business, it would be Kenjaku. So how did this pass by? How did Tengen create a child right beneath Kenjaku's nose?
How did that child grow up- unknown?
The curse blinks, it is flummoxed. Confused. Almost as confused as Kenjaku is about the whole ordeal.
Kenjaku does not see a resemblance to Tengen, there. Whose mannerism is straightforward and simple. Who is knowledgeable about all worldly matters. He does not see a speck of the man's features on this curse.
Perhaps that is how the child grew beneath all their noses, all along. For he does not resemble Tengen, but the woman that bore him instead.
A woman that raised the child in complete secrecy.
Why? Why all the secrecy? Surely a clan that had laid claims on Tengen's blood would want to advertise that fact- or at least capitalize on it?
Especially after that child manifested his father's technique upon his death, and twice, at that.
And yet-
How did the curse in front of him die for the third time?
Clearly something went wrong-
"Why does it matter to you?" the curse asks, its voice neutral, but there's something more to its words. Something like confusion.
Because I know your father.
Kenjaku doesn't say. It feels petty to say that to a child, of all things, of that old bastard Tengen.
"I'm curious." Is what Kenjaku settles on.
The curse stares back at him, its lips are pressed together into a thin line. It's silence is telling enough, Kenjaku won't be getting any answers from it, not today, at least.
It's clear that the conversation has dried up, the curse's defenses are up and it's refusing to say another thing to Kenjaku, at least-
"He's an orphan, from birth," it says, whimsical and light. Spoken, like a mirage, right next to Kenjaku's ears before dispersing. Red eyes gazing back at him for a split second before they, too, disperses. Like a mirage in the desert. There and then gone. Like a mischievous yokai or another, but not.
But soon enough, Kenjaku has other matters to be concerned with.
An orphan.
No father and no mother.
No father and no mother since birth.
"You don't know who your father really is, do you," Kenjaku finds himself saying. The irony thick on his tongue.
The curse blinks, taken aback. And Kenjaku has lived long enough to know that there's shock within its eyes.
And perhaps that, too, is an answer.
Tengen, oh, Tengen, Kenjaku finds himself thinking.
Your child doesn't even know who you are.
Your child is a curse, Tengen, do you even know who he is?
As your old friend, I feel inclined to tell you.
