when it all goes wrong, you know where to find me
THE ONLY REASON HE'S EVEN BEING NOSTALGIC IS BECAUSE OF THE NEAR DEATH EXPERIENCE. Anytime he's stuck in the hospital Kakashi ends up wanting to reminisce of his childhood days, when he was only an angst ridden child stuck with someone who was singularly pathetic and (even worse) civilian.
Now though, as the first time he's been close to dying since he joined ANBU, Kakashi is stuck feeling like this for a week rather than a couple hours. This has the unfortunate effect of making him realize he hasn't checked on his soulmate since he was fifteen. He's been avoiding Izanami for five years.
He scratches his jaw, averting his gaze from the corner of the bed to the window.
Yikes.
He slumps back against the bed, pulling out his conveniently placed Icha Icha Paradise from his pocket.
"Ahh, it really has been a while," he says, half-fond and half-disbelieving. He never truly thought he would live to be fifteen, the age of adulthood for civilians, let alone twenty.
Laying down like this takes him back to when he first met his soulmate, at the tender age of six. Izanami was—what? Ten? Maybe eleven?—old enough to be considered fully grown by shinobi standards back then.
How odd, to realize that she must be in her mid twenties by now; well and truly an adult.
Does she think of him as often as he thinks of her?
Probably not. The last time she saw him was when he was freshly traumatized by his father's suicide. He stayed with her for less than a year before getting picked up by Minato-sensei. Village policy meant they weren't supposed to meet again unless he initiated it, since he was the younger of the two.
Of course, saying that he's the younger one doesn't mean much considering how young Izanami is in his memory. He best remembers her from when they lived together—not the furtive glances into her normal life he took after moving out and getting over himself plus his teenage angst.
They first met when she came to the Uchiha police station, carrying a baby, to see him. Izanami was cute then, all round-eyed with the puppy fat that kids inevitable have and lose. The baby (he had thought it was a girl, but was quickly corrected on his mistake when he was forced to help change it's diaper) was quiet and small in her arms.
Kakashi still uses the memories of those peaceful, lonely days to calm himself by the memorial stone. It's funny how he used to believe Izanami was a weak idiot for not becoming a shinobi, only to end up grateful for her decision when nearly all the shinobi he knew as a child ended up dead and gone.
He still remembers the derisive curl of his sneer when he realized his soulmate was more like the girls in class, who fainted in class after messily killing rabbits, than like him—a clean efficient cut across the throat—who quickly trained to be a "proper shinobi".
But his father is dead. Minato is dead. Kushina is dead. Rin is dead. Obito is dead.
Who's left after that? Who's left with real connections to his childhood? Gai, who is just as busy as him? Naruto, who's only a four or five year old kid?
He has so little to live for that it's hard to remember why he lives at all.
Izanami was an annoyance when he was little, yes, but now she's part of his Will of Fire. His way of being a shinobi has a small part about protecting the village, and protecting the village means protecting her. Living is worth that much, at least.
Ahh, nostalgia really does make him feel bad for avoiding his problems, but that doesn't mean he's going to go and visit her or anything!
---
Kakashi goes to visit her with apology flowers the very next day.