A/N: Long-time reader, first-time posting! Ah! Been a fanfic reader for 16 years (!) and have been writing recently as a fun creative outlet. My first entry-point into Naruto was fanfiction before doing the damn thing of finishing Shippuden so I will be taking artistic liberties while sticking very close to character profiles/canon. I'm not a writer, I just have ideas! I'm eager to build an OC who can be a foil to Kakashi Hatake in his 30s. This is a man who is grown up in some ways but was dragged up in other ways. Let's face the music, Mr. Stoicism!

Plot: Rin reincarnation story where OC examines some dimensions of Rin x Kakashi. What does it mean (a) to bury this platonic childhood love in his heart, (b) to age alongside this love in a way that becomes paternal, and (c) to refuse to let this very first 'secure attachment' in his life inform something new? (imho he's been doubling down on the power of friendship for too long. it's getting old.)

Timeline: Starts before the 4th War ; Ch. 5 flashes forward to Kakashi's tenure as Hokage.

#Inspo: s/o to nipuni on for a really cool prompt that's a mix of Hanare's + Rin's childhood memories with Kakashi. The last line was so good I had to lift it.

#Choices: There's a writing style I really admire (see: Kate Zambreno's book Green Girl) but it can get too abstract and choppy to follow. My goal is to mind-meld Kakashi and OC so that their interactions feel more like a continuous interior dialogue where they just "get" each other. Chapters are short bc I'm an #ADHD kween.

Themes: grief ; #rin-obito-trauma ; coming-of-age v. aging ; free will v. fate ; past lives ; very passive su*c*dal ideation (the broody, existential variety) ; survivor's guilt ; platonic love ; romantic love ; sensual slow burns ; FEELINGS

Setting: First: Land of Waves, but aesthetically it's giving Victorian-doctor-prescribes-a-holiday-to-the-English-seaside-to-calm-your-nerves. Later: Land of Fire.

/ cross-posting to Ao3

~*~ thank you for trusting the process with me ~*~

Ch. 1 - The Establishing Shot

Kakashi lazily frames the landscape between his fingers, his book tucked under an elbow.

A scant house once barely more than a shack. But now fresh additions have been built onto both sides like sprawling wings of raw lumber. The house, now wider, stretches across the full width of its cliffside perch in the Land of Waves.

Tazuna's expert hand is everywhere. Undeniably so.

His eye moves lower. The limestone crags give way to a vertical drop. The rock faces rapidly flatten and fan out as they meet the ocean below. Just an expanse of smooth rock with no holds. An easy fall with little clamoring available on the way down. No room for second-guessing, just fast thinking. Feeling fast air before inhaling blue water.

The woman inside the house has seriously considered that headlong dive over the years. Mainly during exam periods when her cheek was pressed against her desk, eyes fixed out a window and onto the blue horizon line. The same thought as always:

Anywhere but here.

She's sure that the thought first came to her when she was a schoolgirl hanging wishing plaques at the temple. Selfish prayers. Crossing fingers. Holding breaths. Wanting more.

The thought of 'more' would dog her as she rounded university hallways and slept in the library carrels. She was frequently sick in those years, burning the candle at both ends. Running herself ragged. For what? And running ragged. Towards what?

More of this life of hers.

Just… more. More of it, and more. Life is consecutive in that way. What a shame.

Present day, her fingers ghost over a cardboard box above her head. It falls sideways and she hisses under her breath. Shitty stale table crackers must have spilled out inside the cabinet. More food for the ants overtaking the kitchen.

Kakashi squints imperceptibly at her. A tight shot on her face to catch the moment she closes her eyes. Her eyelashes are slightly clumped with mascara. Her nostrils flare as her patience breaks. The indignities of being a dirt-poor professor living out of a suitcase stack up in her mind.

Anywhere but here.

He hears the thought as her eyes close.

Now he pans out to take in the full sight of her. One knee on the countertop, the leverage needed to swipe at the shelves above her. The dangling foot is shoeless while the foot on the ground is soundly stuffed into a slipper. Blue-black hair is pulled out of her face in a toothy clamshell clip. A lightweight crêpe dress is bunched up below her rear, crumpled and wrinkled to high hell. Possibly worn for a few days straight.

The garment is unlined. Kakashi's eye stays fixed on this detail.

The fabric is patterned all-over with thin blue stripes. Seersucker? He's never been one to know anything about clothing. Especially what civilians wear.

A beat.

"Need any help?" He saddles up beside her with a false cheer in his voice, his mind quietly working in double-time. His suspicions were right: they've met before.

Kakashi has never been one to believe in karmic rebirth, reincarnation, and the like. But the signs were all there. Just from the way she filled his senses the moment his foot hit Tazuna's doorstep. It was unmistakable.

Had it been 20 years already? No, more than that.

He remembers visiting her grave every night back then. Just to stare at her name carved sharply into the granite plaque at his feet. Her old name. That past life. Then the self-flagellating thought like a steady slap:

Anywhere but here.

Present day, he will soon turn 32. Creeping fears of getting older pass intermittently. Anyone of his generation should be so lucky to fear the decline of one's body and mind. What a goddamn privilege.

"Need any help?"

At the sound of his voice, she collapses against the cabinets like a doe tripping over itself. Her hand snaps back to clutch her chest. "Oh my god! You scared the crap out of me!"

She's not used to shinobi and how quiet they are. Quiet to the point of unnerving.

But Tazuna opens his door to just about anyone. Her uncle is annoyingly helpful, the self-appointed mayor of the Land of Waves and elder patriarch to everyone. He had promised not to have riffraff rolling through the house while she stayed this week. But his kindness got in the way.

Shit.

Kakashi's eye quirks at her outburst. A smirk tugs at his lips. He didn't realize how much he missed the flustered reactions, the hitch in the voice, the familiar way her nose would scrunch up. Uncanny how it plays on a different face entirely.

"Sorry." He offers sheepishly, shrugging his shoulders to kindly downplay the way she just unraveled. He crosses his arms and nods in the direction of the cabinet above her head. "What are you looking for?"

She takes him up on his offer without question. He's markedly taller than her. She scoots off the counter and points to the box above. The shitty stale crackers better fit for ants than people.

"Just those." She's clearly tired.

An open box to go with plum wine and the small wheel of cheese she's been coveting. A rare import saved for tonight's celebratory moment, party of one.

The Land of Waves itself is a place of no real import. Its dependence on commerce flowing through the many converging rivers makes it a means to an end. A place made solely for passing through.

But passing through planes of existence takes the place to its logical extreme. Improbable, but not impossible. The difference is not lost on him.

"This one?" He steps up behind her quite casually, taking the box off the shelf with the practiced ease of any tall person.

Her eyes are fixed straight ahead as she watches him in her periphery. She hears his exhale close behind her as he moves. His knuckles nearly skim the top of her head on the dismount.

The crook of his neck and shoulder frames her eyes as curiosity finally gets the best of her. They shift to his face and see only what's exposed between the three points of ear, nose, and brow.

There's no sign of recognition in her face.

His mask obscures the way his own expression falters.

Who knew they would meet again in the Land of Waves, the very place she was sent to die?