« Kakashi, come live with me. »
Minato-sensei eyes are ever so blue, soft and pleading as he says it. Looking at him with so much care.
Looking at him with so much love.
Looking at him the same way his father used to.
And his insides feel all weird upon hearing those words. His heart ache, with anger. Or at least, he believes it to be anger. He had trouble identifying his emotions since that day. It doesn’t matter, he thinks. He is a shinobi. A soldier. A weapon.
Weapons don’t need emotions.
They are an unnecessary distraction.
And attachment… that only leads to more hurting.
Because in the end, everyone leaves him.
Alone.
But it's okay, he thinks. Shinobis don’t need emotions, or bonds.
They only needs to obey.
The rules are what truly matters. He knows them all by heart, to ensure he doesn’t make a mistake.
To be sure to be a good shinobi.
Unlike him.
His father.
A traitor.
He left me, why did he do that ?
Was I not enough ?
And as he listens to his sensei telling him how he is still a kid, how he needs help and someone to look after him, and it can’t possibly be healthy for him to stay in the house his father killed himself in, in that soft voice of his, Kakashi feels his frustration -anger- grows.
He doesn’t need pity.
He hates it.
Hasn’t he done enough ? One would think that being a prodigy, one who graduated at the age of five, became a chunin at six, and now, at the age of seven, has already more blood on his hands than running in his veins would make people acknowledge him. That he would gain their respect.
That they would forget about his father.
That when people thought of the Hatake name, they thought of the prodigy and not the traitor.
The coward.
His father used to be his hero. He looked up to him. Loved him. He was is everything. All Kakashi did was to please him.
But his hero made a mistake.
He disobeyed. He stopped being a good shinobi.
And he payed for it. With his life.
He took it himself, to wash the honor of the Hatake clan and name he had stained.
He did it for the clan and his own honor.
Kakashi understand that. No he doesn’t.
And if his father died for the Hatake’s honor, then as his son, he will live for it. He will be a good shinobi, and wash his name. Make it greater even than before. And in the end, after rebuilding the reputation of the clan his father loved so much, he will die on the battlefield, like all his ancestors did before him. Besides one.
A fearless warrior of the leaf. A loyal one. Ready to give up everything for his village.
And giving up will hurt less if he doesn’t hold anything dear.
That is what he is. What he is going to be.
And he certainly isn’t a child. He doesn’t need someone to look after him. He doesn’t want to.
Doesn’t deserve to, because he should have stopped him..
He wasn’t enough of a reason for dad to stay alive for.
He needs to be strong. Stronger, to make sure that no one else is going to look at him with concern ever again. Sensei already suffers from having him has an apprentice. The rumours will only grow stronger if Kakashi lives with him.
His hands stain everything they touch…
He refuses. Sensei argues. The chunin needs to justify himself, or the man won’t back of.
And so he remind the blond of the fact that he already managed himself alone when dad was on mission, that as the Hatake clan head and it’s last living member he ought to stay in his ancestral house and lands, and he can’t take that away from him, it's all that’s left, all he has…
In the end, Kakash wins the argument, and Minato-sensei leaves.
His heart is still tight. The house is silent a new.
Why doesn’t it feel like he won ?