Hatake Kakashi is a man of few colours.
He can perceive them all, of course- colourblindness was a highly exploitable weakness. He would know how it forced hundreds of children away from the breathtaking career as shinobi, landing leaps from tiles to concrete, branch to earth. From the miracles these monsters threw around, casually invoking the wrath of gods from the heavens, casually invoking feral deities down to this existence, to their world. He knew that, in combat, being colourblind was a severe handicap. The mix-ups of antidotes, the inability to notice differences between one from the other resulting in oft fatal missteps.
It was proven, in a test for colourblind shinobi, that most of them- 76%- were unable to distinguish between the red "antidote" and the green "poison". In the same trial, they were told to avoid stepping on the red threads in the grassy plain- and at least 85% of them tripping on the thread, a startling crimson against the fields of Konoha. He read the black-white papers with all the reports and statistics, something mandated for all shinobi. Read about how the test resulted in colourblind jonin being respected for finding ways around their handicap, and how colourblind genin were offered interactions with veterans, suffering from the same defect.
Colours were important.
This he knew.
He knew the orange of the sunrise and sunset. He knew it well, waking up before dawn and sleeping well after dusk. It was his duty, as a Hatake (the Hatake, too alone, too small) to represent his clan as best as he could.
The clan of one.
Shuriken, sword, jutsu... He couldn't be anything but the best. Couldn't afford to, couldn't be, couldn't fathom being any less than he was and had the potential to be. His innate intelligence helped, and he knew that his instinctive grasp on concepts and techniques had a hand in determining the present him. Or the way he was. Time didn't matter when the only change was who died and who you let down. That was one of the constants too- consistently disappointing people who had faith in him, never making it in time, never being on time. Just like orange goggles.
He knew orange well, because as time passed, one Maito Gai would constantly challenge him whenever he could. More often than not, it involved the eccentric man scaling the Hatake apartment building and being shocked by electric seals along the perimeter. He would keep at it, until eventually he would just jump over the wall, flip, and land perfectly. It never made sense, how he insisted on roaring about how he was testing the seals of the building, screaming about how "Hip my rival is, using his own element to create such seals, truly the spirit of youth-"
Smile, thumbs up, a new challenge issued to him. Routine, exploitable, avoidable. Most times, Kakashi would continue assaulting the dummy in the middle of the training grounds available to shinobi living in the apartment building, continuing even as he responded to Gai, detached and calm. Nothing to panic at, because routines were predictable, constant and soothing. He wouldn't ever admit it to Gai, of course. The man would start up the waterworks and proclaim his undying youth and start with the insane challenges too.
But when they ran around Konoha a hundred times, both on their hands, he saw the sun struggle above the horizon— just as he did when getting up so it was fair, really— and then he'd return his attention back to Gai. A single second would result in unimaginable distance between them. Physically, anyway.
—So when orange streaked across the sky, marring clouds with painfully bright colours, he would always see it. He would watch the earth at his hands glow faintly, the burnt sienna grounding him. He knew his hair must've looked ridiculous, the edges tinted with the same vivid colour the clouds were edged with.
He didn't care. He couldn't bring himself to care.
He had a challenge to win.
He knows white. His own hair is white, the mission he had in the Land of Snow turned his breath white, and... Well. Correction. His hair wasn't white, it was silver.
So was his father's.
The mere thought of his father seemed to make the cold winter air warm. His father. The brief bliss afforded to everyone in the Pure Lands, immediately torn away. He remembered getting up, a faint ringing that definitely wasn't tinnitus in his head. He got up, but it didn't feel like his body. He'd gone back to autopilot, reporting to the Hokage, finding out Tsunade was in a coma, and that brief turbulence. It didn't matter to him, because it all felt faraway, all too distant. He didn't feel things, he was too distant to experience things.
He'd gotten up, an absolute mess.
The first thing he had done when he got up (was not reporting to the Hokage) —was to cry. He wept like he never had before, stifling sobs that wracked his body with trembles and shivers. He wept like a newborn freshly delivered into the cold, biting world. He remembered everything- his father's smile, his touch, his warmth. Sitting at a campfire had never felt so soothing, listening to the crackle-pop of the wood, watching the flames even as he watched his father. The clearest memory of all was his hand, still so large, still having that way of making him feel like the child he never got to be, coarse callouses against his scalp. He cried for a long time, tears soaking through his mask, sliding down the neck, filling it up even as he felt like he was drowning in emotion. So he pulled his mask down, still hidden behind collapsed rubble, still remembering the comfort.
His father loved him.
It wasn't something new, nor was it an earth-shattering new revelation he'd never known all along, Even as a socially awkward child, Kakashi had understood that there was something special. He knew about familial ties, and the ties between sons and fathers and family were well recorded. So much so that shinobi families (a rarity that the whole family would follow) were split into different teams, never close to each other, never knowing the details of the other and their mission types. Maybe dinner conversations would be mentions of "going to Earth" or "stopping by Mist". Casual mentions, never detailed, never specific. Honeypot missions, especially, were (and still are) taboo to speak of with those not involved. So yes, familial ties existed in some meaningful, measurable way. He knew that.
It didn't mean that he understood the gestures of love his father made. The wild ruffles that mussed up his hair, the way he joined Kakashi in training, the eggplant miso made specifically for him... He never realised just how precious the memories with his father had been. Teenage Kakashi had thought his father a failure. Adult Kakashi understood that his father was an exemplary shinobi and an exemplary person. He'd still never understood exactly why this tie existed, nor what it entailed. And now he did, and it overwhelmed him.
When he finally came to, finally pulling himself together, his breathing having evened out, he calmed down. And the most incredible calm, stronger than his detachment on missions, or a good meditative session, washed over the entirety of his being.
His father simply loved him for being Kakashi Hatake. For being a person with the same beliefs, a child brought up by him, staying true to his values with strength his father hadn't had. That he was loved because he was blood, was pack, and pack never abandoned another. That he would always be treasured, would never be left behind, would always be at the forefront of his father's mind. He'd never understood before, but now it made sense with shocking clarity.
His white haired Hatake of a father loved him.
A month after the invasion, he repaired the Hatake compound himself- hammers and nails and wooden planks- and moved back in. The snow crunched beneath his winter boots, leaving behind deep footprints in the path he knew well. He avoided ice, just as his father had taught him to notice the slippery patches. A shinobi habit, he had explained, especially for stealthy shinobi- good shinobi- alive shinobi- talent. The boxes never seemed so light in his arms, all his meagre possessions, all that was important to him.
Nobody else walked here, so far from civilisation. Orange sunrises and sunsets, the grass tinted orange, the long journey to the training grounds, punctual, on time. Meditating. The silence giving way to his sensei, his teammates, his training. Provoking another "self-proclaimed rival" and being a social blockhead. He took a deep whiff and let himself stand still just for a while, outside the door he knew well. Pakkun's wet nose nudged at him gently, and the rest of the pack were waiting, sitting on their haunches. All of them quiet, all of them quietly proud.
The white curtains fluttered gently in the wind as he painted seals, precautions and traps everywhere. The wooden floor warmed with the little white heater, its heat amplified with another seal, its orange glow like a hearth.
He was home.
Hatake Kakashi knew red. How could he not, as a shinobi? He saw red spilled in the second Shinobi War, in the earth, and in Obito's death. God-damned Obito, who became so misguided by Madara's attempts to manipulate him. His world-view distorted worse than Kamui's distortion of the air, eyes that saw nothing but the flaws of the world... It was natural, then, that Obito saw red. Especially when his eye was in Kakashi's cranium, and Kakashi was an assassin.
How much of his life did he see- he'd wonder on sleepless nights- the killing, the loving, the duality? How much? Could Obito have seen only the suffering he'd wrought, but not the suffering that wrecked his mind? Would it have made a difference?
But Kakashi saw the red in his Sharingan, and he knew he saw what Obito saw. A world of sin, a world of eternal conflict, of suffering. A world of sacrifices made out of love, rendered worthless by poisoned hate.
The difference between them was that Kakashi had faith.
How could he not, when his own student was Minato-sensei's son? How could he not, when his student was the Kyuubi Jinchuuriki? He knew Naruto had suffered, but he'd persevered and carried on, loss and tragedy never truly defeating him. And even through all that, his hope in the goodness of humanity, the faith in the capacity of people to grow... It was so much. Almost too much. He was the kind of kid anyone would take advantage of, and the world was full of manipulative bastards. But Naruto's black innocence, tempered with the blinding white of suffering, proved that ambitions were never too big. Peace would exist. He would singlehandedly do it, he could, but he loved his teammates- family- friends- too much to do so. And though he knew there would be some dissent and upset, Naruto would do what he did best- befriend everyone and bring that immeasurable cheer around.
So what Kakashi saw red for, was not the world of the past. He saw red for the hurt his team was forced to endure. For the hurt shinobi had to endure. For the world, its vicious cycles, its wounds.
When he stood with them- pink, yellow, black, white- it was as equals.
Red was spilled that day, but Kakashi didn't scrub his hands after the war as he used to. Somehow, it didn't seem like some sacrificial offering to a twisted god, to the patrons of violence. It had been a purging, a cleansing, but also an ending to a chapter of their story. This time, he learnt from his previous mistakes, learnt from his life, from scars and nightmares.
He had purpose now.
So, he knew colours. He knew few, and he was far too familiar with some (uncomfortably so) but at the end of the day, he knew them. He knew few, but he knew and remembered them vividly, an artist's touch to the shades in his mind.
Colours were important.
This he knew.