Coming Home
“Ka…ka…shi…” His open, heart pumping. Deep inhale. Nohara Rin’s voice echoes through the woods and Hatake Kakashi exhales, shutting his eye. She’s not here. There’s no blood.
His mind pulls up images, flitting through his losses. A depressing slideshow of the source of his sorrow in life: Obito. Rin. Dad. Kakashi automatically goes through his coping strategies, his mind trying to find any source of solace that it can gain purchase on. Deep breathing. Will it ever stop hurting? The question comes through for the umpteenth time. It hurts less when he is protecting his comrades or throwing himself into the heat of battle. Preferably both, for maximum ignorance.
He flexes his hand, an unconscious gesture. The hand that took Rin’s life, despite Kakashi wanting no part in her plan to protect the village. He sits up, seeing the dawn threatening out in the distance. Kakashi turns from his bedroll and robotically loads up his gear and puts out the fire.
His gaze zeroes in on the dying embers. The coals turning bright orange and casting a weak glow. The shadows are long. Kakashi’s mind drifts, wondering if he could hold one of those coals with the hand that took Rin’s life if that would somehow purify him in a way that washing his hands still hasn’t seemed to accomplish for him.
He looks away and brings himself back to reality. Time to get the last leg of the trip home. If he hurries, he can get into Konoha early enough to rest in his home before bringing his report to the Hokage.
A successful mission once again. One that was more reminiscent of his time in ANBU, which he appreciated. The mission was all consuming and forced Kakashi to keep his mind sharp and focused. No time to stare into the fire or think about his future. Kakashi brings his pack over his shoulder and pushes chakra into his feet to quickly move towards home.
Kakashi walks the last ten paces into the opening of Konoha. He takes in sunlight filtering through the trees and onto the mountains. Picturesque, like a soothing balm. He tries to commit the beauty to memory. Overwrite the ugliness that he has witnessed in his own memories.
A voice disrupts Kakashi’s intense gaze, screaming across the town. He’s sure it must wake some of the inhabitants up as a couple flocks of bird fly off at the loud offending sound: “Kakashi!” He winces, stopping in his tracks. Maybe he has enough time to avoid- A green blur flits through the streets and Kakashi decides to just let this happen. It has been a long mission, after all. Six months.
The green blur is crying and Kakashi’s lungs get their air forcefully expelled from them as he slams into the ground. Dirt and dust fly up with the force and Kakashi bring one arm up to slap Might Guy on the back. He doesn’t want to encourage the behavior too much.
“It has been too long, my precious rival! Are you hurt?! Did the mission succeed?” Kakashi inhales deeply, trying and failing to fully squish down the warm feeling wriggling around in his heart.
Guy pulls Kakashi bodily to his feet and dust off his best friend’s back with thumping hands. removing dust and checking that he remained unharmed. “It was successful,” he answered quietly.
“As to be expected of my rival with an unparalleled success rate! Let’s celebrate with a competition!”
Kakashi sighs, head lolling to the right as he looks down at the ground. “I was going to return home first-“
“Let’s see who can eat Ichiraku ramen the fastest in one sitting!” Guy’s eyes sparkle with his exuberant youth. Kakashi’s mouth twitches into a smile. “Hai, Guy.” It was hard not to let Might Guy’s optimism and general happiness for life leak in. Before you know it, the man has you smiling and engaging in competitions you never would have participated in. Kakashi knows from experience. That’s the sort of person Guy was.
Guy takes Kakashi’s pack from him, eyeing him warily and still maintaining the grin from ear to ear as his tears slow down their constant stream down his face from being reunited with his beloved rival. Kakashi rolls his eyes, “I’m not hurt, Guy.” Kakashi and the ninkin successfully found the thieves who stole the scrolls from one of Konoha’s shrines and assassinated anyone who had read its contents. It was long and arduous, but Kakashi had been careful and intense about completing his mission.
An arm tightly goes around Kakashi’s shoulders and guides him to ramen. Kakashi lets Guy do the talking, as usual, and considers this tradition.
Kakashi had a hard time eating, after his dad. Might Duy and Namikaze Minato took great care in making sure that he ate regular meals, and Guy, ever the protector, had taken up this habit as well. Kakashi didn’t struggle too much with eating anymore, but it was mostly due to his remaining comrades watching over him. Keeping him alive. The least Kakashi could do was not give them a hard time about it, and protect them with everything he’s got.
When they reached Ichiraku ramen, Kakashi made a surprised sound. Uzumaki Kushina, Menma, and Minato-sensei. “Oh, Guy! Kakashi! What a pleasant surprise!” Kakashi feels as if Kushina has said a line in a play.
Kakashi tilts his head to the right again, rolling his eye. Guy guides him over to the table and Kakashi sits down. A surprise? More like a planned ambush. A warm welcome home. Kakashi doesn’t know what he did to deserve the remaining people in his life caring for him in this way, but it was more than he could ever ask for. He was grateful, not that he would ever say that out loud. Intonating that would be a betrayal of the guilt he wars with inside for being alive.
These parts of him wrestle for control. The desire to be loved and to love those who had become family. The part of him that wants to run as far away as possible from these people who if he lost would certainly break anything left in Kakashi to a thousand tiny pieces. A part of him believes he is the common denominator, the curse upon those who would desire to be precious to him. Kakashi wrestles with all these pieces of himself and intently pushes them all down. The only singular task that matters is to protect them. Above all else.
That’s why he had to stay longer on his mission. Make sure every single person who had the contents of that scroll was eliminated. Protect the identity of the jinchuriki and any secrets about the nature of the seal that keeps the kyuubi safely tucked away.
The three of them start conversing jovially, welcoming Kakashi home. He tries to participate in the conversation, nodding and answering questions about his time away. Kushina and Guy have a heated debate about which flavor of ramen is superior. They begin yelling at one point and Minato snorts, smiling at Kakashi. He tries to return the smile, but he doesn’t know if it reaches his eyes.
Ramen is served and the conversation dies down a bit with food now in front of everyone. Menma babbles from his highchair, eating some plain ramen noodles with miso broth. Kakashi’s stomach growls, belying his hunger. He glances down. Traitor.
Minato keeps making eye contact with Kakashi and grinning widely. Kakashi looks down into his bowl. His rival saves him by asking Kakashi to run laps around the village with him later today, and Kakashi counter offers, asking for a Taijutsu sparring session instead. He beams that Kakashi is certain the sun must be coming out of his teeth. His chest hurts a bit at the kindness, and he thinks maybe it’s an emotional pain.
This is… nice. Kakashi only hopes he can continue to protect this. His people that are precious to him. This mission was the longest that Kakashi had been out of the village in a while, except for when he was in ANBU.
As soon as Minato-sensei became the Hokage, he pulled Kakashi forcefully out of ANBU (had literally dragged him out mid-meeting with Danzo by his elbow) and has had him doing S-rank missions hand-picked by him instead. Kakashi was furious at first and argued with Minato-sensei day in and day out.
“This is what I am good for, sensei! I can protect the village in ANBU!” I am nothing more than a tool for the village to use! He wanted to shout.
“I want you to protect the village at my side, not Danzo’s.” Minato had set his jaw firmly, looking at Kakashi as if he were the one being unreasonable. His voice got softer, “I know what kind of missions you are taking. I know where this path leads, so please, listen to your sensei.” Kakashi looked at him and could see the unshed tears in Minato’s eyes. He could hear the real request: Don’t leave me. I won’t lose another student.
Kakashi still grumbled and complained about the change, but he relented. His life wasn’t his own to give up, after all. If he still had people to protect, he could try and find meaning in his life. His heart feels like it weighs the same as an elephant sometimes and he can’t sleep and a lot of times when he’s by himself he finds that he is trapped in an endless loop of loss and grief. He can make his life meaningful between all that pain.
That’s what this ramen meeting had been about, plainly, Kakashi is sure of it. A welcome feast, but really, a mental health check. They don’t need to worry about him. That’s his job, to worry about them. Kakashi shakes his head out of his reverie and stands, reaching in his pocket for some money. Minato shakes his head and Kakashi smiles a bit, nodding his thanks.
He takes his leave of the table, much to Menma’s sadness. “Ak-ashi!” The child makes grabby hands for Kakashi and Kushina practically thrusts her son into Kakashi’s arms. He raises his brow at her. Nice tactic, Kushina.
Genma instantly attempts to grab Kakashi’s mask, pulling it down. Kakashi lets his face be exposed for an instant before pulling it back up. “Menma-chan, please don’t mess with my face mask,” he tells him softly, taking his little fists and playing with him for a moment.
Menma stares up at Kakashi with big blue eyes, smiling big and announcing, “Kashi-nii!” He embraces him tightly. Kushina smiles at Kakashi, “He must have missed you!”
If Kakashi doesn’t get his feelings pushed down where they belong again, he might start crying like these idiots next to him. Minato and Guy looked misty-eyed. “We all did,” Minato-sensei tells him softly.
“Anyway, I will see you all later today,” Kakashi needed to get out of here. It was getting too close. His emotions were way to close to the surface. “I need to shower and get some sleep.”
Kakashi speaks softly to Menma, “Alright, Menma-chan. I will see you later, okay?” The voice he uses is reserved for new puppies of the ninkin, and for Menma. He lifts him and up and hands him to Kushina, trying to ignore the way Menma clings and says his name again.
“Thanks for the welcome back, everyone. See you!” Kakashi didn’t like goodbyes, and used his chakra to speedily flee, so his heart wouldn’t burst right then and there.
After a couple moments of silence, the remaining party at the table begin to speak. “He seemed well,” Kushina murmurs first. Guy nods, “No injuries, but I will know for certain after taijutsu.” Minato nods, “Thank you, Guy-kun.”
“Maybe he is finally out of the woods,” Minato says, hope flowing eternal.
Kushina smiles at her husband, “Believe it!”