"Dog-san! Hey, Dog-san! Can I come in?"
A voice cuts through the dense murkiness in Kakashi's head. Kakashi twitches in his sleep, the sound not quite enough to wake him. He's dreaming, or that's what his feverish mind tells him at least. He's dreaming, and the voice isn't really there. He can keep sleeping.
"Dog-san!"
He's just dreaming, he doesn't need to wake up. Even if there's really someone out there, they're not looking for Kakashi, anyway. They're looking for "Dog-san", whoever that may be. Kakashi doesn't need to react. He just wants to keep sleeping, he's still so tired-
The voice sighs loudly, and shouts: "I'm coming in, okay? Please don't point a kunai at me again."
Kakashi wearily cracks his right eye open, his sleep now officially disturbed. He's opened his eye just in time to see a form block out the light from outside – the fingers of his left hand have already reflexively curled around a kunai before his sluggish mind has put together that he's not in danger.
It's just Naruto. Naruto, whom Kakashi met for the first time yesterday. Naruto, who had promised to be back with food. It takes Kakashi an embarrassingly long time to remember all of that; yesterday feels like a fever dream, rather than reality.
Kakashi returns the kunai to his weapons pouch, berating himself for not noticing Naruto's chakra signature earlier. If the kid hadn't announced his presence, he could've easily snuck up on Kakashi. It's an embarrassing realization. That fever is messing with every instinct he has.
Kakashi listens as Naruto shuffles down the tunnel. A bit of sunlight spills past the kid's shadow. It must be evening; the opening of the tunnel faces West, away from Konoha, and as a result, some sunlight makes it into the hole in the evenings.
So it's evening. Kakashi rubs at his face, biting back a frustrated groan. He slept through the entire day – again. It's done nothing to relieve the heavy feeling of exhaustion in his body.
He clenches his jaws and slowly rolls onto his side, trying to remember why he was sprawled out face-down on the ground with his backpack on his back. Judging by the backpack and the uncomfortable sleeping position, he can only guess that falling asleep wasn't his intention.
The memory returns slowly, through the fog in Kakashi's mind: he'd tried to run away last night, when he was no longer hyperventilating and he'd come to his senses. He'd realized that he wasn't only putting Naruto in danger by accepting his help, but that he was putting himself in danger as well; for all he knew, Naruto was going to run straight to the Hokage and send a dozen ANBU after him.
Unfortunately, Kakashi's attempts at leaving the hole were once again unsuccessful. The panic attack and the ninjutsu he'd used yesterday had drained him of what little energy he'd managed to regain – he'd passed out before he'd even made it outside.
Luckily for him, Naruto knows when to keep his word, because he's come back, alone and with food. He enters the underground room cautiously, a dangling rabbit in one hand and a kunai in the other. Now that the kid is in front of him again, Kakashi is once again reminded of how familiar Naruto's chakra signature is, and of how much he looks like his parents. Kakashi had thought that he'd gotten used to that knowledge, but it feels like a punch to the gut nonetheless. He hauls himself into a sitting position; he feels less vulnerable that way. The burning in his side is a welcome distraction from the tightness in his throat.
Naruto blinks a couple of times, his eyes getting used to the flashlight's dim light. His eyes meet Kakashi's, and his face lights up. "Hey, you are still here!" he exclaims, putting his kunai away. "Why didn't you answer me? I thought you might've left while I was gone. Or died."
"Still here," Kakashi murmurs, the groggy tone scraping against the raw inside of his throat, "and still alive. I was just asleep." He gives Naruto a serious look. "You really shouldn't come in here if you're not sure whether I've heard you. Don't do that again."
"Why?" Naruto asks. "Privacy reasons?"
"No, that's not it," Kakashi cuts him off. "It's because if you sneak up on me, my first reflex will be to stab you."
Naruto's mouth snaps shut, his eyes widening almost comically. "Right. I'll try to keep that in mind."
"Yeah. Please do." The thought of accidentally stabbing Namikaze Naruto to death in a startled reflex is not something that Kakashi wants to imagine. The idea of it is so absurdly horrifying that it almost makes Kakashi feel like laughing.
Naruto gives a noncommittal hum, already distracted. "But, anyway- Look what I caught today!" He holds up the rabbit with a proud grin and hands it to Kakashi.
Kakashi takes the wire that is tied around the animal's hind legs and studies the rabbit. It doesn't look like it's been dead for long; good, because Kakashi does not want to add food poisoning to his long list of problems. Just to be safe, he also sniffs at the rabbit, trying to let his strong sense of smell identify any illnesses that the rabbit may have had while it was alive. He can't smell very much through the stuffiness in his nose, but it's probably safe. He decides to trust it.
He looks the rabbit over and then turns back to Naruto. "I'll trade this for five questions," he says.
Naruto grins, seeming delighted that Kakashi hasn't forgotten about their agreement to trade food for information. "Sounds fair to me," he replies, sitting down on the ground.
Kakashi nods back at him and takes out a kunai, preparing to dress the rabbit. Naruto doesn't even seem to be worried about the fact that Kakashi is holding a kunai, Kakashi notices. He really should not be so quick to trust a missing-nin.
"I've never seen a kunai like that before," the kid says, leaning to the side to get a better look. "It's not a kunai from my village, that's for sure – aren't you from Konoha? I thought you were from Konoha 'cause you said you were visiting friends here, but now I'm not sure. Who are those friends of yours, anyway? Maybe I know them."
"One question at a time," Kakashi replies absent-mindedly, trying to figure out how he's going to skin a rabbit with only one properly-functioning hand. He can move the fingers of his right hand a little without hurting himself, but other than that, his right hand is pretty much useless. He managed to get a squirrel ready for consumption with only his left hand yesterday, but that was a far smaller animal…
The emptiness in his stomach urges him to stop trying to strategize, so Kakashi shrugs to himself and cuts the rabbit's feet off. Naruto watches, seeming interested. He seems to have forgotten about the questions that he wanted to ask. Kakashi is content with not talking – his throat hurts, and he needs to focus in order to not screw up his dinner – so he works in silence.
The process of skinning, as expected, gives him trouble. He really needs two hands, so he decides to just try and use his right hand. Clenching his jaws, he hooks the fingers of both his hands underneath the rabbit's skin – which is uncomfortable, but not impossible – and pulls.
Pain flares in his broken wrist immediately, and Kakashi grimaces underneath his mask. He decides he can bear the pain, though, so he keeps pulling. He tries to be careful, but it's difficult to be careful about preparing food when his hands are weak with hunger. That half squirrel from yesterday was his only meal in three days. He needs to get more food in his stomach, as soon as possible, but his damn wrist just won't cooperate-
"Does that hurt?" Naruto asks suddenly, and it startles Kakashi out of his focus. The kid gestures at Kakashi's hands, which have stilled in their struggle to skin the rabbit. "I can help you, you know."
Kakashi stares back at him. "I hope you realize that that counts as the first of your four questions," he replies – Naruto squawks in protest. "Are you sure you still want me to answer that?"
Naruto frowns at him, and then holds out his hand. "Just give me the rabbit," he says. "I'll skin it for you."
Kakashi hesitates for a moment, reluctantly considers the possibility that he's making the fracture in his wrist worse by putting this much pressure on it, and sighs. "Fine."
Naruto takes over the skinning process, and Kakashi leans his back against the wall. His wrist is throbbing; he cradles his hand to his chest, wincing with the movement, and idly watches Naruto try to skin the rabbit.
The kid seems like he sort of knows what he's doing; his technique is clumsy and the kunai that he's using seems a bit too blunt, but he seems to be doing an okay job ridding the rabbit of its skin without cutting away too much of the meat. He seems focused, his nose scrunching up a little as he works. It's a familiar expression, though it takes Kakashi a few seconds to realize where he's seen it before.
He's seen it on Kushina's face, of course. She used to wear the same expression whenever she was reading complicated mission instructions or trying to decide with utmost seriousness what type of ramen she wanted.
The kid's face is all Minato, though. If Kakashi squinted and forgot for a second what year it is, he would probably mistake Naruto for his father.
The similarities- They hurt. After a decade, Kakashi had thought that he'd finally started healing from the loss of his sensei and his sensei's wife, but that familiar expression on this kid's familiar face is enough to rip the decade-old wounds in Kakashi's soul right back open.
Kakashi can feel his throat start to close up and his breaths start to come quicker, and he has to turn away to try and avoid launching himself into the second panic attack in twenty-four hours. He presses his back against the wall behind him in an attempt to ground himself, consciously putting effort into keeping his breathing in an even rhythm. It's a struggle to breathe deeply without coughing.
Thankfully, Naruto doesn't seem to notice that Kakashi is fighting off hyperventilation; he's too busy trying to pull the skin off the rabbit with his too-small hands, his face going red with the effort. It's the last step of the skinning process. Kakashi hadn't realized that this much time had passed.
"I can see why you were having a hard time with this," he tells Kakashi. He pauses, looking up at him. "How did you hurt your hand, anyway?"
It takes Kakashi a moment to realize that he's supposed to reply; it felt like he stopped existing for a little while there. He's not sure whether to blame his mind, his exhaustion or his fever. Probably all three.
"My hand is fine," Kakashi replies. To his relief, he finds that he doesn't sound as breathless as he feels. "It's my wrist that's the problem."
"That's pretty much the same thing!" Naruto sticks his tongue out at him, and the gesture is so incredibly Kushina that Kakashi can feel his throat close up again. "How'd you hurt your wrist, then?"
"In a fight."
Naruto's eyes widen in awe. "Cool!"
Kakashi wonders whether he'd still think it was cool if he knew that that fight killed two shinobi from his own village. "I suppose."
"I mean, of course it would've been even cooler if you hadn't gotten hurt at all," Naruto muses absent-mindedly. "But, then again, I don't know how strong your opponents were. They were probably a lot stronger than you, right? You don't seem very strong to me."
Kakashi finds himself letting out a chuckle, and he nods his chin towards the rabbit, which Naruto has abandoned in favor of having this conversation. "That's mostly because I'm currently starving to death."
Naruto gives him a sympathetic nod in response. "Yeah, I get that that really doesn't help with your strength. My sensei always says that you have to eat a lot so that you have a lot of energy, but I get what it's like to not have that option-" His mind visibly catches up with what Kakashi said, and his eyes widen. "Oh! Sorry! You're waiting for me to finish preparing the food!"
He returns to the rabbit with renewed, hasty energy, and Kakashi watches him, bemused. For all that the kid looks like his father, he clearly hasn't inherited Minato's focus and intelligence. Kushina could be a bit distractible at times, but she wasn't this distractible. Well, maybe Naruto will grow out of it.
Actually, now that Kakashi thinks of it, Naruto almost reminds him of Obito when it comes to the way he acts. Another painful comparison. He exhales a shaky breath at the thought. He supposes he's going to have to get used to constantly thinking about the people he's lost while Naruto is around.
He wishes he could just put the kid under genjutsu and make him forget that Kakashi exists. He wishes he could leave while Naruto isn't looking and never return. Naruto reminds him so much of everything that he's lost – Kakashi isn't certain how much longer he can bear it.
"Done!" Naruto's voice interrupts his thoughts, and Kakashi looks up to see him proudly hold out the rabbit to him. Kakashi had lost track of time again. "Now it just needs to be cooked. Can you use that jutsu that you used yesterday again?"
Kakashi nods and takes the rabbit from Naruto. He'd used a small Fire ninjutsu to cook the squirrel yesterday, and it used up a little bit of his chakra, but it wasn't an excessive amount. His chakra reserves are desperately low, but he should have enough. Or, he thinks so, at least. It's pretty hard to judge how much chakra he has left when his mind is foggy with fever and his brain is constantly preoccupied with things that happened over a decade ago.
Before he has the chance to think about it more, he folds his fingers into the signs for the Fire ninjutsu. A sharp pain shoots through his right wrist at the movement, but he tries to ignore it. If the choice is between a bit of pain and starving, he'd much prefer the pain.
Before the pain has a chance to worsen, he finishes the signs.
He can feel his chakra run out.
Well, Kakashi thinks wrily as his vision darkens, he'd been having trouble trying to decide what to do with this whole situation – whether he should stay here or run away, whether he should deal with the memories that Naruto's presence brings back or risk starving to death.
It turns out that he didn't need to stress out over that decision at all. His body has just made the decision for him.
Running away won't be an option any time soon.
With that thought, he loses consciousness.
