Kakashi strolled over towards his team's usual meeting spot while his eyes were stuck to his book(his book that's very educational for a sensei like him). He looked up and realized, oh. He was early. That was a first.
His shoulders slumped. Damn, he really wanted to piss off his students so badly. Oh well. He'll just leave and come back when they're all there and pretend as if he's late once again just to tick them off.
Although, this was starting to be a really peculiar day for him. He waited on top of a tall, thick tree for 30 minutes and yet to no avail, his students have still not showed up!
He sighed with exasperation and decided to jump off of the tree. He wasn't gonna wait for them and longer. Despite this whatsoever, he felt a tingling feeling that this was a set up but he paid no mind to it.
After jumping off of the tree, he waltz towards the center and sat on the fresh green grass until he flinched by surprise after hearing a feminine voice snuck up to him from behind.
He immediately turned behind him and saw Sakura smirking at him. He deadpanned and cleared his throat saying, "Well— I knew you were there. I was just pretending not to notice."
Sakura scowled and rolled her eyes playfully before sitting right next to her sensei.
Kakashi specially adorned the young ninja for her courage and brilliant mind despite being grouped with two boys from rather powerful and influential clans. After that day when Naruto started acting weird and clung onto Sasuke the whole day like he's the new Sakura, Sakura started acting more aloof and straight up annoyed— not because she had competition for Sasuke's affection and attention, but because Naruto was seriously acting odd. It was unlike Naruto to all of a sudden compliment Sasuke like he's the goddess of beauty of some sort, or follow his every beck and call like a dog. After a few days, Kakashi and Sakura became tired of their overly close contact with one another nowadays. Sasuke looked especially bothered with Naruto's sudden change in character yet did nothing to push him off or even reject him. Kakashi immediately figured out the situation and groaned in tiredness when he first realized.
He went to the godaime's tower and rambled to her about the current situation. And he only deadpanned when she explained that it was 'kind of' her fault for telling Naruto about Jiraiya-sama and Orochimaru-san's story to make him realize about his feelings for Sasuke. Truth be told, he himself never noticed about the two sannins' awfully sexual and romantic tension with one another, but he did take notice of his two students' secret feelings for eachother with Sasuke being the painfully obvious one and Naruto being the gullible one. He'd never think that they both would finally get their heads out of the gutter. He even made a bet with Iruka about it and Tsunade just helped Iruka win their stupid bet. And he was so confident too.
And yet, he was happy of one thing that came out of Naruto's sudden change in personality, Sakura's independence. At first, he was genuinely worried since she seemed more occupied with getting Sasuke's attention that she's completely lost track of her own capabilities. Which was quite a shame since she was brilliant, infact, even more than Sasuke and Naruto combined— if Kakashi could say is true in its own way. Depsite not being from an overly powerful clan like the the Uchiha clan and the Yamanaka clan with their kekkei genkais, and the Uzumaki clan with their absurd chakra reserves, she was still incredible. And now, thanks to Naruto's sudden intervention, she finally decided to let go of her childish crush— which she realized was just admiration for Sasuke and finally started to train herself, even being taken in by Tsunade Senju as her student.
"Wait. Where's Naruto and Sasuke?" Kakashi slowly blinked at her.
Sakura sighed reluctantly and raised her head saying, "They're probably out there kissing somewhere."
"Now, that's not very nice." Kakashi bit his lower lip, trying to contain himself from letting out a laugh.
"Whatever. I've been here way longer than you by the way." She muses. "I saw you go on top of that tree over there." She points to a tree right beside Kakashi which was the exact same tree Kakashi jumped on top of. Kakashi pales at her words.
"Well that's just rude, then. You should greet your sensei the moment you see him." He averts his gaze from her.
Sakura hums and glances towards Kakashi's direction before narrowing her eyes at him skeptically. "You know, I've been wondering sensei."
Kakashi looks at her, telling her to continue. "How did you become who you are today?" She raised a brow.
Kakashi paused in utter silence with his eyes slightly widened. "Why do you want to know, huh? Curious about your precious sensei's past?" he immediately composed himself and converted back to his old self as he wiggled his eyebrows while nudging Sakura with his elbow.
Her eye twitches which was probably a sign for Kakashi to stop. "Yeah," She scoffed.
Kakashi's eyes widens at her unexpected answer. He was kind of expecting her to brush it off or tell him to not call him her 'precious sensei'. His lips curve into a small but genuine smile, nothing like Sakura has seen before.
"Are you gonna tell me?" Her eyes full of expectations.
"No." He replied bluntly.
"Dammit." She whispered under her breath with frustration obviously radiating off of her.
Kakashi chuckled and said, "Fine. But, I won't say much." He looks down at the palm of his hand. "It's a bit hard for me to talk about." which Sakura replies with a hesitant nod.
I was just born into this world when both my parents died.
"Really?"
"No. My mother was the only one who died. Heard stories about her yet never really met her since you know—"
"Yes. I know, sensei. I'm not stupid." Kakashi just smiled at her.
My father raised me. His name was Hatake Sakumo, I'm sure you're familiar with him. His name is written on the memorial stone where all shinobis' names who died serving for the village are embedded on. I prefer not to talk about his.. death. It was one of the reasons why I grew a fire of hatred for this village. But, that's all behind me, now.
There was only ever one guy who I was friends with since I was a child.
"Sensei Guy?"
"No. Kami, that guy and I were far from friends. He only ever saw me as a rival until now, I guess."
Obito Uchiha. All bubbly guy. I hated him— well, not literally. Think of him as Naruto but with black hair and black eyes.
Sakura looked at him with those concerned eyes of hers. Oh, goodness, how observant she was. "Mu-must be tough, huh, sensei?"
"Yeah.. he was." I just smiled at her.
I knew him because my father was friends with.. this guy that knew the Uchiha clan very well.
We were I guess you could say inseparable. That was until.. the girl he liked expressed her admiration for me. Ever since then, we've grown apart..
"Sensei." She swallowed. "You know you can be honest with me, right?"
"...ofcourse I know that. But, by this time you probably already know that I liked him, right?"
"Mhm. I just wanted to hear it directly from you, to uhm not jump into conclusions that might turn out to be wrong, you know?" She paused for a slight second, "Tsk, how stupid can he be, anyways? The girl just said how much she admired you. Plus, it was probably because he was jealous of how cool you were, right sensei?" She winked playfully at me, which I found amusement in.
The girl he liked was this really nice and absolutely incredible girl, Rin Nohara. I understood right away why Obito fell for her after talking to her— and exactly right after, me, her, and Obito were all put in as team 7, under the advisory of Minato Namikaze.
"Wait! Minato namikaze?! The 4th hokage??" She asked.
I nodded while chuckling softly. "That's amazing! No wonder you turned out just as amazing sensei! You were taught by the incredible 4th hokage himself." She grinned brightly.
"Oh, well.. if you say it like that." I scratched my cheek and felt a small faint blushed crept up my cheeks.
I watched as the boy I liked fawned over a girl. I had to act unbothered, to not make it seem too obvious which probably didn't work since my sensei and the head of the Uchiha clan alongside his wife noticed it immediately.
"I feel like I've heard this story before."
"You have."
Fugaku Uchiha comforted me like a father would his child and Mikoto Uchiha offered me snacks to distract me. Eventually then, I became close friends with their son..
"Itachi Uchiha." Sakura finished with her eyes widened, obviously appalled with the shock of her sensei having been associated with Sasuke's older brother— the one who cruelly massacred his own clan in cold blood, leaving only his younger brother alive and spared from his savagery.
Despite my hidden feelings, I still managed to form a close bond with my team. And that's where it all started. It was a mission. A mission, and our sensei was yet to be present. We indulged ourselves and were reckless. I was.. about to be crushed by a huge rock and when I had just accepted my fate, he jumped in and took the hit for me.
His left side was crushed while his right side was still intact. His dying wish, was for me to keep Rin safe as he gave me his sharingan, which I wanted to refuse yet he handed it to me nonetheless. It was at that moment that my mask began to break. Tears flooded my eyes as I held his still intact hand with sorrow and grief. I confessed my undying love for him right at that very moment in between sobs— and it was exactly at that moment when sensei finally arrived with a panicked expression and Rin by his side, tears still running down her eyes and her hands covering her mouth with a pained expression on her face. I quivered and for the first time since my father's death, I wanted to bawl my eyes out and if I could, I would've switched places with him and die, knowing that it was for him. It should've been me instead.
I lifted my headband to show her my sharingan with a scar seeing through it, "That's how I got this."
Sakura's mouth dropped and her expression darkened with shock and terror as tears trimmed down from the edge of her eyes down to her cheeks. "I-Im sorry.."
I just smiled at her, trying to mask all the emotions slowly come back to me. "It's okay. You see.. it's all in the past anyways."
Before I could retort or react, she wrapped her arms, her slim hands around me and pulled me into a tight embrace. And who am I to push her away? I returned her hug as a sad smile tugged my lips. She's so much like Rin. To her firey personality to her kind and warm arms, that's always open to comfort just anyone.
I figured that was enough for the day so I ended the story hastily. From her face, I could tell she knew that, that wasn't the entire story. Yet, we stopped as Sasuke finally showed up with Naruto in tow right behind him.
"Was Sakura crying?" Sasuke asked with a slightly concerned tone.
"W-what? No way!" She waved her hands around. "Speaking of which, where were you both!" She crossed her arms in irritation, quickly switching up the mood.
They both turned red and fumbled with their words— swearing that it's nothing that we were thinking of and that they just got lost along the way. Kakashi laughs at their stupid and overly odd story that absolutely did not mix well.
Right behind a tree just a block away from team Kakashi, a man dressed in a black robe with a swirly orange mask stared at them from the distance. He tightened his fist while trembling, his sharingan lazily spinning,
Kakashi wants to cry, but he knows he shouldn't or else it would worsen the already dreadful situation. He wished he could have saved her, but at the same time, there was a tiny breath of relief inside him that was thrilled she was finally dead. And he knows it's messed up, that's why he wished and wished it were him instead. That way, no one would have had to grieve and cry in sorrow.
Rin didn't deserve the fate she had to face and deserved to have more than what she was given. She was a good person, far better than Kakashi ever was and yet he can't accept the fact that the now dead love of his life loved her instead. He can't look at his hands the same way as before without thinking they, he was the reason why one of his teammates had died. He was tired. He was tired of losing everyone around him— atleast his sensei was there.
Oh, right. His sensei's dead too. But, the Uchiha clan's still there right? They welcomed Kakashi in like they would their own blood. Wrong. They're all gone, Itachi went rogue and the only Uchiha left is too distracted with getting his 'revenge' for his clan towards his own brother. Even his sensei's son seems to preoccupied with doing his own thing. They talk from time to time, but, nothing too serious and deep that would deepen their bond.
But now, he felt connected with one of his students. It was an improvement, really. He was opening up to someone who he hasn't already known from his past. Guy doesn't count, he's like a lightswitch, always turning on and off. He says he's Kakashi's best friend during the day before and then says he's Kakashi's rival the next! Well, to Kakashi, there can only be one rival for him but Guy's fine, he guesses. He was also starting to bond with Iruka over Naruto so everything was slowly piecing itself back together. But, Kakashi can't help but feel that somethings still missing or even yet, he can feel someone. Someone else, someone familiar, somebody who knows him like he knows them. Yet Kakashi still can't put his finger into it. He doesn't know why or what he should do.
But, for now. He's gonna set all of his past behind him. What's important now is that, he's finally found a new family. Well, a family of 3 orphans and a girl whose parents are very much alive right now. Eh, it works.
He won't forget about the people from his past, but he'll focus on the present for now. Because that's why people say, today's a gift ; that's why it's called a present.
What he's unaware of, is a dark shadow lurking in the dark, following him around with a messed up face yet still recognizable nonetheless. With a face Kakashi would never forget, even if he tried.