"I never thought I'd miss putting myself in danger," Kakashi sighed, flopping onto his couch. "At least then I had lots of stamina and awesome jutsus."
Rin scoffed. "Please. You'd put yourself in danger even if you couldn't use jutsus. You still do. You end up in my hospital a lot."
Kakashi blinked. "Yeah. It was in the hospital that we found each other, remember? You got sick with something really bad. I waited by your bedside for ages."
She snickered. "Yeah. I had no idea what I was saying at first. Then it just clicked. Your response wasn’t much better. Pretty good for a writer, huh?”
"Oh shut up. I was twelve. Not exactly a writer yet."
"You wrote fanfictions," Rin deadpanned. "That's still technically writing."
Kakashi remembered first. He was five years old and trying to finish an assignment for school.
Write a short story about a family.
But there was a slight problem. Well, maybe not slight. It interfered enough that Kakashi never really managed to finish his work anyway.
Images of a m an collapsed on the floor, drenched in blood kept running through his mind, and try as he might, he couldn’t stop them from coming.
A mission. An important one. The girl getting kidnapped. An argument. A lost eye. A cave in. One boy sacrificing himself. A new eye gained. Finishing the mission. Coming back home bloodied and bruised and without a fourth member.
A memorial set up just for him. Being ostracized by a family clan because he had his friend’s eye.
One year later. The girl getting kidnapped. A rescue mission. Lightning. Lightning to skin. Blood spilling why was it spilling? The sealed chakra beast healing her. Fear. Panic.
Blacking out. Waking up in the hospital to find she was safe and blaming herself for him fainting.
Months later. Hanging out with a boy in green spandex and the girl.
A cell. A trio. A group of three friends.
A specialized division. An attack. A great beast.
An organization. Sabotaging an assassination. A young boy who controlled wood. Sparing him.
A mission. Nearly dying. Being saved by that very same boy.
Growing up. Visiting a memorial stone. A first kiss. Missions with those three people.
A massacre. Blood. So much blood. Why was there blood? Make it stopmakeit stop.
Six students. One leaving for revenge. Another one taking his place.
The years going by.
The boy wasn't really a boy. They were a person.
Love. Getting better. Visiting the stone. His guilt never leaving but him coming to terms with it. A war. A massive war. A great being. Ten beasts.
Finding out the boy who died for him was still alive.
Betrayal. Fighting him.
The boy man’s plan nearly working. The girl woman throwing away her loving memories of him and fighting back. Triumphing. The world was safe.
His love lost the use of his leg. He persevered.
Peace. Marriage. Travelling.
A child of their own.
Everything was perfect.
Growing up. Seeing the new generation teach the next.
Grandkids.
A long life lived.
Closing his eyes as he breathed his last.
He was only five, but Kakashi realized that these were memories. He’d heard his father talk about reincarnation before. About how souls would eventually come back to earth to start a new life in a new body. Nobody knew how it operated—it was random and people could come back at any time.
In some ways Kakashi was grateful for this second chance. He could try new things. He wasn’t haunted by his past, since it technically wasn’t his . It belonged to Hatake Kakashi, not Hirano Kakashi. He had a life of his own to live.
When he was six he met a girl with brown hair and kind brown eyes. Immediately Kakashi knew that this was Rin. Like before, he was still younger than her and she still clung to him the way an older sister would. Only now she wasn’t Nohara Rin. In this lifetime she was Nakamura Rin, seven year old girl and best friend to Hirano Kakashi, with big dreams of being a doctor.
He wondered where Obito was. If Rin was here then maybe Obito was too.
Two months into their friendship Kakashi resigned himself to the fact that the Uchiha wasn’t coming.
It was ironic really. That he and Rin ended up together once again, and childhood friends at that, instead of Obito.
When he was twelve and Rin was thirteen she contracted a nasty flu. Or was it a virus? Kakashi didn’t know. All he knew was that he was visiting her to make sure that she would be alright and then she had collapsed. He freaked out and ran to get her parents.
They ended up admitting her to the hospital.
Kakashi was at her side for ages, and she finally woke up after sleeping for three days straight with the occasional bout of consciousness.
When Rin was coherent again and they were chatting, something interesting happened.
“This reminds me of the time I ended up in the hospital because Shizune was trying out new poisons and accidentally stabbed me with a poisoned kunai when I tried to surprise her,” Rin blurted out in the midst of a sentence she’d been saying.
Kakashi stared at Rin.
Rin stared at Kakashi.
Kakashi let out a disbelieving laugh. “Please tell me you remember.”
“Shit,” Rin finally said after an uncomfortable pause. “Oh shit I remember.” She looked up at him. “Kakashi?”
He lost all pretenses of self control and hugged her as tightly as he could. “It’s you! You’re back!”
A little into their teenage years, people assumed that Kakashi and Rin were dating. They weren’t. Rin’s parents knew. Kakashi’s dad knew. They knew.
Rin was a lesbian and Kakashi was gay.
At first they tried refuting the rumors. It only ended up making people believe they were dating in secret. They didn’t stop, but they usually tried to stop the train of thought that led people to believe they were more intimate than they let on.
After Rin's hospitalization she and Kakashi renewed their friendship. While there had been a time span of about several decades between their last lives and now, their bond was as strong as ever.
Throughout university they stuck by each other, and managed to strike fear into the hearts of their teachers.
Their skill sets complimented each other; if Kakashi stayed up writing his theses Rin would be there to remind him to take a break, if Rin worked for hours as a volunteer at the hospital Kakashi would be there with a snack and a blanket.
They didn't have the ability to use chakra, even though it was dormant inside of them, but they managed. Even if some kind of muscle memory had slipped through reincarnation and they had to physically stop themselves from jumping off ledges and walking up walls.
About two years into Uni they ran into their old friends. Their old friends who didn't remember shit about being ninjas.
Kakashi pouted and Rin tried to console him. They couldn't talk to anyone but each other about their pasts. Not even their parents.
It was hard on them.
And then Kakashi found Gai.
It happened in Green Leaf Cafe, a popular haunt for sleep deprived college students and the occasional street cryptid.
Kakashi liked to go there because the coffee was strong and because nobody would bother him. He kept up the habit of covering the lower half of his face with his clothes. Sometimes he donned a fabric mask, sometimes a scarf. Other times he would pull up the collar of his jackets to cover himself.
Nobody cared, because that was how college was. Someone could ride a cow through the place and not a single person would blink an eye.
It was in that cafe where Kakashi reunited with Gai.
By…smacking him in the head with a book. A hardcover one at that.
In Kakashi's defense he tripped.
He had been trying to stand up from his seat when his foot got caught and he was flailing his arms trying to regain his balance when he whacked Gai with the book. Hard.
Gai, predictably, collapsed on the floor.
Kakashi panicked. He had knocked out his husband's reincarnation and Gai was lying on the floor unconscious.
What was he supposed to do in this type of situation?
Gai was sure he was a reincarnate. Why?
Well, the several decades of memories flitting through his brain were a good indicator of that.
There was also the fact that the cute man he had been eyeing for weeks and was currently looking up at suspiciously resembled his husband from his previous life: Kakashi Hatake.
"Are you an angel?" Gai blurted out.
Kakashi—was he still Kakashi?—blushed a charming shade of red and picked at the mask covering his face. "I really don't know if I'd qualify as an angel. Maybe a lower demon at best."
There was the snark Kakashi was so well known for.
Gai tried again, "Kakashi, love, is that you?"
Kakashi froze, the blush on his face deepening. "Gai? Turtle?"
There was a lot of crying that day. Even more so when Kakashi dragged Gai to reunite with Rin.
Rin who punched him in the stomach and hugged him right afterward.
The same Rin from his previous life who looked out for them through thick and thin.
"Have you bumped into any of our old friends?" Gai asked one day when the three of them were eating lunch together. "I know that Asuma, Kurenai, and the others are students here but they don't seem to recall anything from when we were…" He trailed off, not wanting to finish his thoughts.
Rin shrugged. "We've watched them. They don't really seem to remember anything at all. So far it's just been the three of us."
Gai frowned. "And Yamato? Have you found them?"
"No, not yet," Kakashi said sullenly, "My favorite isn't here."
Rin laughed and bumped his shoulder. "We'll find him, don't worry. And it's been about three weeks since your last t-shot."
Kakashi waved a hand. "Maa, maa, okay Rin. I’ll get to it.”
They passed a chatting Genma and Kurenai, who didn’t look twice at them.
It was a chance visit to a plant garden during a tour that the three of them found Yamato.
Baby Tenzo was a tour guide at the botanical garden. Fitting really, with how connected he was with plants in their past life.
Kakashi grinned and jabbed Rin. She yelped and turned to swat him. “Kakashi!”
“Rin!” he whispered back. “It’s them! It’s Tenzo!”
“I’m not blind you dummy,” she said with a grin. “Of course I’d recognize them anywhere! Yamato is our baby!”
Gai cut in,” What’s going on my friends? Who’s the baby?”
“We found Tenzo,” Kakashi whispered. “Do you think they remember?”
Yamato remembered.
Ever since that experiment where they had been trying to accelerate the growth of plants and ended up having to chop a tree out of the room.
How could they not?
Rin, their big sister and protector.
Gai, their occasional lover and friend.
Kakashi-senpai, their…annoyance.
They were all back. And judging by the looks they were sending Yamato's way the three of them probably remembered the past too.
Yamato cleared their throat. "Hello everyone. My name is Koyama Yamato and I'll be your tour guide today. Please keep away from the sides so the plants don't get stepped on. If you have any questions feel free to ask me.”
A young boy raised his hand. “Are any of these plants poisonous?”
Yamato raised a brow. “Here at Konoha Forestry we try not to show off our poisonous plants in the case of a young child deciding to take one home. It keeps you safe and prevents us from being sued.” He saw Kakashi choke on a laugh. “Now if you’ll follow me please.”
And with that he started off through the first exhibit. “This,” he said, gesturing to a large tree, “Is an oak tree. It’s a variety of one of the many plants surrounding our village, including the Forest of Death.”
Kakashi kept pace at the back of the group. “They probably remember right? They have to. We all did. Rin what do you think?”
Rin gave him a mischievous smile. “No point in thinking when you could just ask them.”
Tenzo had stopped the group again at the base of another tree. This one was tall and pointy. A spruce tree.
Kakashi raised his hand. “This tree,” he said with a shit eating grin, “is a maple tree, right?”
Tenzo twitched. Kakashi smirked. Tenzo always hated when people mixed up their trees.
“No,” they said carefully, “it’s a spruce tree, senpai.”
Rin snorted and elbowed Gai, who gave him a large grin.
Kakashi laughed. “We found them.”
When the tour ended the trio stayed back to talk with Tenzo.
Tenzo stalked up to Kakashi and whacked him lightly across the head. “Senpai, you know I hate it when you do that.”
Kakashi only laughed and pulled them into a hug. “We missed you Tenzo.”
Rin and Gai joined the group hug too.
“Besides it’s not like Team Runaway is complete without you.”
It was during a normal day that things started changing.
The four of them were having lunch and chatting about their past lives in an empty classroom when the door opened to reveal Asuma and their other reincarnated friends behind him.
Rin turned to look. "Uh hi," she chirped, "Did you need this classroom for something?"
Asuma, to his credit, did a fairly decent job of looking like he wasn't staring at them like he was seeing them for the first time, especially Kakashi. He blinked furiously, breaking eye contact to rub the back of his neck. "I…yes please. I'm Asuma Saru—Shibata. Sorry for the inconvenience."
It did not escape the four's notice that Asuma stumbled with his name.
But instead of revealing that they knew who he was, who he used to be, they merely grinned amicably and packed their lunches up to let the rest of them have some time to contend with the reality of them being shinobi years ago.
Similarly, their friends, the ones behind Asuma, were also staring at them with wide eyes that didn't at all conceal the desperation in their gazes.
As Team Runaway rounded the far corner they turned to each other with smirks.
"We're not telling them," Kakashi said with an air of finality. "We're going to watch them squirm."
"Absolutely love," Gai agreed. "It'll be amusing getting back into our roots."
Rin snickered. "By being ourselves? Of course."
"It'll be the most entertaining thing in both of our lives," Tenzo added.
After all, what better way to make a comeback than by doing what Team Runaway did best: by fucking with everybody they met.