Red String of Fate

By the time he was an adult, Hatake Kakashi had become a firm believer in the fact that everyone had a soulmate. It was not the academy that had taught him this, but rather the life he had lived so far and his surroundings, the people he got to meet, and the people who became dear to him. No longer did he pretend that the connection did not exist or evade it through the usage of several excuses to not discuss the topic.

Conversation about it had become easier, but still left a heavy taste behind on his tongue.

Looking back on his month-long mission to protect a pregnant Uzumaki Kushina, he was now glad to have been confronted with the topic of soulmates . The love his sensei and his wife shared for one another was breathtaking, something he should have appreciated in his youth and not turned his nose away from. Their love, the one he had always described being too-much , it was the same thing he yearned for in his many dreams.

Tangled in his own shuriken decorated sheets, the bed made for two felt too big for only one. With his eyes wide open, Kakashi could only stare at the ceiling, otherwise not moving much. His back sank into the mattress the moment he had laid down on it, his limbs doing the same after sprawling out to cover less space than there actually was for him alone .

A heavy sigh escaped his lips, his muscles almost aching as did his joints from the exhaustion of a day of work weighing down on him. From the peripheral of his vision, he could see a familiar stack of books calling out to him, begging for his slender fingers to pick up and open, to indulge in during the quiet night.

He never did and instead let his mind wander, the faint glow of a string tied around one of his fingers drawing him in. It somewhat reminded him of the glow his Sharingan used to have. When open, it brought a bit of light into the darkness of his room at the cost of his chakra.

Now it was gone, and he no longer was Kakashi of the Sharingan. The days of Kakashi the Copy Ninja were over, and the times of the Sixth Hokage of Konoha had begun.

It was a drastic change that did not come welcomed at first. For months on end, even long after his head had been added to the Hokage Mountain already, sitting beside the calm facade of the Fifth Hokage Senju Tsunade, he had avoided the responsibility he was to take on. As he no longer carried his defining feature, so did his confidence in being the village’s leader crumble along with his loss.

At that point, Kakashi hadn’t felt capable to lead the village into better days, and it made him question if he could have taken care of his soulmate at that time. Now, some time into his reign as the Hokage, he was glad to not have someone by his side during that time. While then, he had practically yearned for a companion other than his dogs to stand by him and to support him, to be his anchor. Now he knew that having someone he considered his other half may have been more destructive than anything else.

Maybe there was the possibility that they could have helped him majorly, whoever it was with whom he was connected so intimately. That they would have listened to his thoughts and complaints, to the way he mulled over his new role in the village for nights on end, getting no sleep. Things could have been different, but fate had not wanted for them to be.

Mindlessly, Kakashi pulled on the glowing string around his finger, only to feel it tighten drastically. In his position, the silver-haired Hokage froze, his index and middle finger pressing down onto the thin string. His breath had hitched simultaneously, and his pair of charcoal eyes widened. Shock coursed through his veins and almost left him breathless, practically begging for air.

Could it be ?

The first thing Kakashi told himself was that he was merely delusional . His constant dreaming of his other half, whoever they may be, must have brought him to the brink of his imagination. Dreams became vivid and mixed up with the bitter reality of things. That was what he concluded, that he was hallucinating, in a state of an illusional. The sensation he felt, the stiffness of the string, could only be phantasmagoric , a fragment of his hopes.

Kakashi felt almost scared to pull on the string and test his theory. If he were to pull on it now, and it went entirely slack, no longer resisting against his fingers but instead curling around them, he was not sure what he would do.

Would he cry ?

Would he mourn someone he had never gotten to know?

Or would he simply continue to stare at the ceiling of his bedroom, sleep in his lonely bed made for two, and live his life as he always did?

Life would never be the same as it was without the red string tied around his finger. The fact that once he tested his theory, once he pulled again , the reality of things was to be revealed to him, that fact was what scared him.

His fingers almost trembled as he shut his eyes tightly, making sure to focus on the sensation of the string. He wouldn’t want to miss anything, after all.

The first pull he made was tentative, testing . Not much happened except for the string feeling tighter around his finger than it ever did before, the sensation making the silver-haired gasp. In the silence of his room, the singular sound echoed before vanishing again, leaving behind his growing confidence.

The second pull brought the tug of a smile to his lips. The string did not fall slack, not like his countless nightmares had always taunted him would happen, but instead resisted. It was a new sensation, one that got his heart to harshly thump against his chest. He breathed in shakily, taking a moment to calm himself.It couldn’t be …

In all his decades of living, never did Kakashi feel the string be so tight around his finger. Not even during his countless attempts to meet his soulmate, his other half, did the pressure become so strong. Never before had he felt so close to whoever it was moving toward him. It was an entirely new feeling that came to overwhelm him, but it didn’t come unwelcomed.

They were coming closer. Whoever his soulmate was, they were moving closer to him, they were moving locations.

Kakashi couldn't help but wonder if his soulmate was coming to Konoha. The chances were slim, but not non-existent.

Hope was a dangerous thing, so he had learned early on in life. The book of Shinobi rules was a particular work of literature, one that taught young Shinobi what it means to serve the village and what rules a successful fighter follows. To have hope in something, whether it be survival, the war, or a mere training fight, was a hazard, one that could lead to the peril of the hopeful. In Kakashi’s case, it would be his heart to suffer yet another time, the flame of his hope doused by the harsh reality.

In the morning, it came as no surprise to him that his dreams had centered around a blurry figure. More so, he had been surprised by the fact that he had been able to sleep in the first place, especially with all the excitement coursing through his body. His back ached the moment he woke up, a fact not even many stretches could change. He could only blame himself for that and his sleeping position, one that almost mirrored the one of a fetus hugging around their center of comfort. In his case, he focused on the string around his finger and allowed the soft glow it emitted to sing him to sleep.

As soon as his mind had cleared from the sleepy fog, the pair of his charcoal eyes wandered to said string, curiosity lingering in his gaze as he did. Just as he did the night before, Kakashi thought of the tightening to be a fidget of his imagination, a manifestation of his hopes and dreams brought into reality.

One tug was enough to prove that he had not imagined.

It felt so good.

Kakashi could barely keep the smile from blossoming on his features, one that was just as bright as the rays of the sun peeking out from behind his curtains. It was absolutely genuine, unfiltered, and unbothered by his past forever haunting him. The smile tugged at his lips as no other has ever before, leaving the muscles in his cheeks almost feeling sore. He couldn’t keep it down even if he had tried, and couldn’t even hide it underneath his mask.

He was so happy.

All the way to his office in the Hokage building, until he had finally sat down on the comfortable chair placed behind the grand and dark wooden table, all the way until then he had kept the gleaming in his eyes. They practically burned as coal did when lit alight, leaving behind the usual tone of his charred coal eyes. In them grew the fire only brighter and brighter with each tightening of the string around his finger, sending a shiver down his spine time and time again.

That was, at least until the panic settled into his bones.

What if his soulmate did not want him? The question lingered uncomfortably in the back of his mind, persistently nagging him. It was a possibility after all.

More time than he would like to have, Kakashi had heard of people being rejected by his soulmate after meeting them. Whether it was because of their looks or their personality, there apparently were many reasons as to why someone would reject their other half upon meeting them. There were countless reasons as to why it had happened, and every single one of them sent a shiver down his spine.

They were coming closer, and so was a possible rejection. Every ten minutes that went by while he sat in his office, his back stiffly against the chair, did the string around his finger tighten again and again. With each new sensation, the nearing of his soulmate was signaled to him, indicated.

Did they know him? Did he know them?

Even worse: did they possibly hate him?

Kakashi was well aware of the fact that throughout his lifetime, he had made many foes in lands beyond his home. His actions had always spoken louder than his words and earned him more nicknames than he could ever repeat, his reputation taking on different shapes in different places. Depending on where his soulmate came from, they could have an entirely different opinion of him than if they were from another place. The only upside he saw from his soulmate potentially not being a Konohan Shinobi was that the rumors of his time as Kakashi the friend-killer might now have reached them, and that they did not know about that.

Other than that, he still found the situation to be rather nerve-wracking. His tongue felt heavy in his mouth and as dry as the Sunagakure desert. Each time he drank from his glass of water, it became more and more difficult to swallow, and his hands even trembled when he picked up the glass or his pen.

Kakashi was so distracted that he did not hear Shizune enter his office, resulting in the woman almost startling him.

“Hokage-sama, the guests will arrive soon.” Shizune told him, clutching her clipboard closer to his chest while she stood before his desk.

He looked up from his papers and gently sat down the pen from his trembling hands. “Maa, don’t call me that. ‘Kakashi’ is just fine,” No matter how often he told her, she would always refer to him by a title of respect rather than his name. Regardless, he would always remind her. “Thank you.”

Guests … he forgot the guests.

Could it be that his soulmate is one of them? The prospect was even more than merely nerve-wracking.

Shizune bowed politely before looking at the silver-haired again, her brows drawn into a furrow. “You look pale. Are you not well?” Her eyes raked over his features, most likely searching for signs of illness.

Kakashi chose to wave her off lazily. “Don’t worry about me. I’m just fine.” On the outside, he tried his best to appear both calm and collected, to not have the signs of his nervousness show. On the inside, on the other hand, he could practically feel his nerves buzzing with excitement.

The woman before him raised her eyebrow at him again, but let him off of the hook. “Alright. I believe you … for now.”

Before Kakashi could comment on her indicated threat or reassure her again that he was indeed ‘fine’, a knock resonated from the door before a timid voice asked for entry.

“Come in.” Kakashi called to them, his gaze fixated on the door to his office.

From behind the door emerged the rather shy form of Shizune’s apprentice, who stood in the doorway with trembling hands. Kakashi found it rather interesting to see someone be even more anxious than him.

“T-the guests have ar-arrived, Shizune-sama, Hokage-sama.” She told them, keeping her gaze fixated on her teacher rather than the Hokage.

Kakashi swallowed harshly, his soulmate still lingering in the back of his mind. “Bring them in.” This could be it. Now, he could meet his soulmate.

The string tied around his finger felt impossibly heavy.

From the hallway leading to his office, several pairs of heavy footsteps echoed and warned him of the arrival of his guests. Simultaneously, the red string began to glow brighter and brighter, to an extent he had never gotten to experience before. The sensation that followed was tingly and left his body practically shaking from his growing unease. As he had never been before, he felt jittery and could barely sit still in his seat.

Another time the door swung open and again Shizune’s assistant stood there, practically trembling in the doorway. From what he could see, behind her loomed several figures, ones she timidly told to enter before closing the door behind all of them.

In the academy, Kakashi had been told that upon meeting your soulmate, one would experience a sensation so great throughout their whole body that it was utterly indescribably. Furthermore, finally, one would be able to see how their string connected to the end of the other, almost creating a bridge between themselves and their soulmate. One of his teachers had once said that the moment you looked into the eyes of your other half, you would simply know that you love them.

Kakashi now knew that to be true,

The gasp escaping the lips of a beautiful (s/c) figure standing mere meters away from him almost left him gasping too. Were it not that the sight before him, his other half, was so breathtaking, then he, too, would have made some noise of recognition. A pair of (e/c) eyes captivated him fully and reminded him of the sight of home. As did their smell, both familiar and new, left his fingers twitching in his lap, yearning to touch them.

His other half, they were there. And they did not reject him.

Faintly, he could hear Shizune shuffling around and ushering his guests out, said guests making noises of approval as they left the office. As soon as he heard the door slam loudly behind him did he awake from his staring, blinking several times before opening his mouth.

“Hello.” Never before had his voice sounded so anxious.

It appeared that his other half felt just the same. “I’ve always wanted to meet you, soulmate. I was a bit nervous, but I can’t say that I am disappointed.”

A blush dusted their cheeks in an endearing pink, an expression that he promptly mirrored.

To have his soulmate stand before him gave him a euphoria he had never been able to feel before, one that again knocked every breath out of him. Most importantly, he knew that the person before him, they were the one he would cherish for the rest of his lifetime, the one he would devote all his love to. After all, they were the one destined for him and the one he was destined to have a connection like no other with.

As if blown away, his doubts vanished into a cloud of nothing, no longer clinging to the back of his mind.

Now that he had gotten to meet his soulmate, the red string of fate wrapped around his finger no longer served as the only reminder that Hatake Kakashi was deserving of love, so had the fates had decided.