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Blue is the color Kakashi hates the most, he sees it every day in his nightmares, every day the blue of the Chidori shines through Rin's chest. There are some days when everything is blue, from the sheets on his bed to the clothes of the ninjas he has been assigned to murder. He hates blue so much that he is not able to look at the dark blue of Kushina's eyes or the sky blue of Minato's. Just looking at them reminds him of the blue clothes that Obito was wearing the day he died, the day he failed as a jounin.
From the shadows, he was looking at the blue curtains of the Uzumaki-Namikaze house. Kushina was resting on a couch, her eyes were closed, she had fallen asleep while reading a book. Kakashi had read that book a few months ago, it wasn't very interesting, it was about a boy who travels around the ninja world with his friends.
A small butterfly flew up to Kakashi and landed on his hand. Its wings were orange, orange was a nice color, it was warm and friendly.
The insect remained in his hand for several minutes -almost fifteen-, it ended up leaving when someone out of nowhere appeared in front of the shinobi. He was wearing the ninja uniform and a white cape with red flames. Red was an interesting color, it didn't make him feel anything, neither sorrow nor joy.
The man sat down next to him -on the roof of the house next to the one he was guarding- and stretched out his arms, the shirt under his jounin vest was electric blue which, truth be told, suits him very well.
Kushina and Minato got married after Obito's death, they realized life was too short so they decided to enjoy the rest of it together.They got married almost two years ago, when Kakashi was twelve and Rin was thirteen. They had been married only a short time, but together since they were fifteen.
Their love was so big that it made everyone jealous, especially Kurenai. She always talked about how she would like to live a romance like theirs.
Kakashi wasn't sure if he would ever be able to love someone in that way. Feelings and emotions are too confusing, even for genius ninjas like him. But he doesn't really care, having a partner is not his goal in life. (Not that he ever had one either, though.)
"Often, I am upset that I can not fall in love, but I guess
This avoids the stress of falling out of it"
At some point, Minato put his hand on Kakashi's head and he messed up his hair. “Must be all tangled up”, Kakashi thought.
He was right, his hair was tangled, so tangled that Minato accidentally pulled on it while messing it. He looked at the man with a small grimace that went unnoticed because of his ANBU mask.
He had long ago stopped taking care of himself, he didn't care much about how he looked anymore, the most important thing was that the missions went well and that no one got killed, Minato would scold him every time he noticed him behaving like that, he said he was careless and that it would eventually lead to bad things, but he didn't care about that, he was only like that with him because he was the only student that he had left, Obito was his favorite all the time, Rin was next and lastly him.
He was never anyone's favorite, possibly he was only his father's favorite, he was an only child, there was no other choice.
"Are you tired of me yet?"
The two of them remained silent until the sun began to set. During all the hours that Kakashi was watching Kushina he never moved from his position once.
“Kakashi, would you like to come in for some food?” Minato asked.
It was just a question, a single question that made Kakashi look at Minato's eyes, the sky blue eyes that he hated the most. He had failed those eyes so many times.
Kakashi refused, every time he did, he always gave the same excuse: "I can't, I'm sick. I could infect Kushina-san, I don't want something bad to happen to her or the baby."
And Kakashi knew that Minato was already tired of his excuses, but still, he smiled at him and was kind to him. The pity he felt for him had only increased over the years.
Kakashi was a trash ninja who deserved neither pity nor Minato's gratitude. He didn't deserve to be in ANBU, he was worthless, he was so weak that he was removed from the assassination squad to take care of Kushina.
"Kakashi," Minato said, "the baby already has a name, it's Naruto. Kushina and I picked the name from one of Jiraiya-sensei's novels, what do you think?"
“Naruto... I like it. When he is born, I promise... I'll come to meet him.”
Kakashi learned to not make promises a while ago. Not keeping them hurt, it hurt so much that he felt a hole in his chest every time he remember that he wasn't able to take care of Rin. He killed her and it will always be like that, there is no way to change the past, he will always be the one to blame.
His ineptitude has created mental wounds that he will never be able to heal.
"Guys! What are you doing there?" Kushina asked, looking out of the window. She had just woken up. "Come in and eat something. Kakashi, I made a cake. Come here!"
"I couldn't tell her not to do it," Minato said, scratching the back of his neck. "Please, Kakashi, just today."
Kakashi looked into Kushina's dark blue eyes and Minato's sky blue ones. He couldn't help but refuse to go inside.
"Happy birthday, Kakashi."
But Kushina said that.
"I'm a little sick right now, but I swear
When I'm ready, I will fly us out of here"
The cake was covered with light pink cream, an interesting color. It's warm and comforting, Kakashi liked it quite a lot.
When he tasted the cake, he couldn't breathe, it was perfect, it wasn't too sweet, it was filled with raspberries and bitter chocolate. It was perfect. For some reason, Minato and Kushina knew that Kakashi hated sweets, so they tried their best to make the cake as unsweet as possible.
He spent a good afternoon with the couple. That made the hole in his chest grow bigger. He didn't deserve to be happy, Rin and Obito were dead because of him.
When he returned home he immediately jumped into the shower, letting the water run over his hair and body.
His chest hurt more and more, the hole in it was so big that it felt like he had been attacked with the Chidori five times in a row or even more.
When he finally got out of the shower, he wiped the vapor off the mirror and looked at himself in it. The muscles in his arms were starting to become more pronounced and the features of his face were becoming more like Sakumo.
He combed his hair back and remembered Kushina's comments while they were eating the cake, "You're letting your hair grow out? It looks good".
He took out a kunai that he had hidden in the handwasher and began to cut several strands, Sakumo had long hair, he was not Sakumo.
When he finished, he went to his room, there was a small letter next to his plants. The note read:
"HAPPY BIRTHDAY KAKASHI! Hope you have a nice day, don't forget that in the afternoon Asuma, Kurenai, the others and I, will be waiting for you at the usual dango shop.
Ps: If you're not in the mood to celebrate we understand, we'll be waiting anyway, don't pressure yourself, come to us whenever you feel like it or whenever you feel you're ready ;)
Ps2: Sorry for sneaking into your apartment without permission.
-Your eternal rival, Might Guy".
"I'll cut my hair
to make you stare
I'll hide my chest
And I'll figure out a way to get us out of here"
25 days later Naruto was born, and Kushina and Minato died.
That was the last time Kakashi celebrated his birthday with more people or at least it was like that until a group of genin managed to touch his heart.
When he finally accepted his first team he realized he was going to have to hang up the Hound's mask, and that hurt. The Hound was him and he was the Hound.
Team 7 was full of colors like orange, blue and pink. But these were always changing their opacity.
Sakura was cute and calm, like pastel pink. She was in love with Sasuke, when she was next to him, the pink became too bright.
Naruto was warm and kind, but too loud, he always transited between bright orange and phosphorescent, he was always like that. Except once, when he witnessed Zabuza's death, that time he was a pastel orange. Soft, unafraid to show his emotions.
Sasuke was blue, the color Kakashi hated the most. Just by looking at him he could tell he was blue.
Kakashi was also blue and that was the real reason why he hated that color, it represented everything that was wrong with him, all his mistakes and broken promises. He saw himself reflected in Sasuke.
Sasuke was a good boy, he just needed the support of others to be a good person. Kakashi thought that if he could get him to change his color everything would be better, maybe a purple shade would suit him, it's a strong color that most people like.
The day of his birthday was nice.
Sasuke followed him to his apartment and watched him for several hours during the day, he repeated this routine for ten days.
Two weeks later, after a mission in which Kakashi had to go alone, he found his team decorating his apartment with balloons and streamers.
"Happy birthday!" the three genin exclaimed.
Kakashi looked at them and noticed that Naruto had bandages on his hands and head, while Sasuke had a small bruise on his forehead, Sakura, on the other hand, was in perfect condition.
He had left basic traps with the idea of chasing them away so they would not enter, but they did it anyway, they did not mind getting hurt as long as they prepared a surprise party for him.
"Surprise" in theory, his three genin were too obvious.
Sakura confessed that the last few weeks she had been asking questions to the sensei of the other teams to find out more about him, that's how she had found out that his birthday was coming up. She had assumed that the other sensei were his friends.
Pastel pink. Always warm and cute.
Rin was also pastel pink. Cute, warm and always caring for her teammates.
"How old are you now, sensei?" Naruto asked.
Sakura and Sasuke hit Naruto as soon as he asked the question.
His team had asked when his birthday was but never how old he was.
"Twenty-seven," he replied as he split the cake.
"Twenty-seven? I thought you were fifty!"
“You loser,” Sasuke said.
"If you're so young, why do you have gray hair? I knew gray hair came out from stress, but I didn't know it could get this bad."
“Naruto, shut up!”
"My hair is naturally like that," Kakashi said. He finished splitting the cake and gave a piece to each of them. "So does my fa —"
He silenced himself immediately when he realized that he had mentioned Sakumo, it was the first time in years that he had spoken about him.
The three genin looked at each other a little uncomfortably when three minutes had passed and Kakashi still didn't speak.
"Several members of my family had hair like that, and it's not gray, it's silver," he said, and the children smiled at him. They were still uncomfortable but tried to hide it.
"All of us Uchiha have dark hair," Sasuke said.
Kakashi tried the cake and it was too sweet, but acceptable. Then he remembered that Sakura said she had talked to the sensei of team 10, fucking Asuma, he knew he hated sweets and still...
"My dad has it dark pink and my mom has it blonde," Sakura commented.
He had done it on purpose, but if he was going to complain he was going to find Guy and Kurenai, they were always by his side. It was a trap to get him to approach them. It was clear he wasn't going to do it.
"I guess one of mine had blonde hair," Naruto said, scratching the back of his head a little sad.
"Your father had it blond and your mother had it red," Kakashi replied without paying attention as he kept thinking about Asuma.
Kakashi took his eyes off his piece of cake and noticed that the three children were looking at him silently.
"How do you know that, sensei?" Sakura asked.
"Uh, well..."
Idiot! Idiot! You fucking idiot! You're not even good enough to keep a secret!
"My father was blond?" Naruto asked with a sad smile.
"Or maybe it's the other way around, your father might have had red and your mother blonde. I only said that because you have one or two red hairs..."
Seeing Minato with red hair would have been something Kakashi would have paid to see.
"What about your mother, sensei?"
“I don't remember her.”
Kakashi ate his piece of cake as fast as possible to avoid his genin to see his face. It had been months, and they were still trying to see under his mask.
When night fell, Sasuke and Sakura were asleep on the ends of the couch, Naruto was on the floor and Kakashi was sitting on a chair in the kitchen.
He had almost fucked up, he was so useless he couldn't keep a secret.
Other than that problem, he had had a good day, he knew what his students were preparing, yet he was surprised that it went so well. As the months went by he began to like them, so much so that he felt bad about the way he treated them when they first met.
The first week together with team 7 for Kakashi was horrible, too many colors, too much noise, too much... everything.
On Monday of the following week, he did not show up for training.
He had stayed in bed with no motivation to get up, the thought of doing so made him tired. He didn't want to be a jounin-sensei anymore, it was too exhausting.
He fell asleep for several hours and did not wake up until he noticed that there was a well-known ANBU ninja in his room.
"Get out of here, Tenzo," he said, and covered his head with the two pillows he was using.
"Your genin thought you died, so they went to talk to the hokage, he sent me to check on you.”
"I'm alive, feel free to leave."
"Do you want me to tell the hokage that you'd rather sleep in than be with your team? If I tell him he's going to send you for a psychological evaluation, senpai."
Kakashi sat on the bed and looked upset at Tenzo.
"I overslept, because I was thinking up a plan to train them.... And my alarm clock didn't go off."
“I will tell him that.”
"Psychological evaluations are useless, they just ask you questions and tell you everything is fine, believe me, I've done several."
"Next time you won't be excused... The kids said that their sensei was super strong and used to be late, but he could never miss a training session. They thought something bad had happened to him. Those kids care about you, senpai. Don't overlook them.”
After that Tenzo left and Kakashi actually had to come up with a plan to train them. It was something simple, he just tested them to know their chakra affinity and then taught them a jutsu corresponding to each one's affinity. Sasuke was fire although he was also good with lightning, Sakura earth and Naruto wind. He was thankful he had copied jutsu of those styles in previous years.
That day Kakashi discovered that if he kept his genin busy the colors would not get out of control. Maybe teaching them things wasn't so bad after all.
He used that system for several months, it worked great... until it didn't.
Itachi showed up in Konoha and everything went to shit.
Sasuke's blue was getting darker and darker, Naruto's orange was too bright and Sakura's pink was constantly changing.
It was horrible, but he still told Sakura that everything would be okay.
Liar.
Again it was his fault, he could not keep the color of any of his students stable to the point that each one looked for a new sensei, leaving Kakashi alone.
He was in his room trying not to think about everything while he was having a panic attack and trying to calm himself down. He couldn't breathe and thought he was going to die at any moment.
He had done it all wrong.
"It's not your fault," Pakkun said, sitting next to him.
"It is! I'm always to blame.”
"Turn off your porcelain face
I can't really think right now and this place
Has too many colors, enough to drive all of us insane"
He remained a regular jounin for two years. Although technically it was eighteen months, or maybe less, twelve months. He went back to how he was when he was in ANBU, only taking A and S rank missions. He would stay in the hospital for chakra exhaustion every time he came back, even so, two days later he would take a new mission again.
The day he returned from his last mission Tsunade scolded him like never before, she told him he was careless and stubborn.
Well, if she had let him go back to ANBU, maybe things would have been different.
He only lasted twelve months until he was told he was doing things wrong and had to take a forced vacation.
It was just another day when he woke up to Guy walking into his apartment screaming.
"Kakashi, my dear rival! Happy birthday! I can't believe you're already twenty —"
Kakashi used the substitution jutsu and appeared behind Guy pressing a kunai to his throat.
"Rival! It's me, don't attack me!"
Kakashi let go of Guy and walked away. He had attacked his friend, he could have killed him.
Friend-killer-Kakashi. Cold-blooded-Kakashi.
It was stupid to keep thinking about those nicknames, it had been years since he last heard them, yet they had never left his mind. They were always there, next to his nightmares soaked in shades of blue.
"Hey, Kakashi?"
Kakashi turned to see him, Guy was looking at him worried. At that moment he remembered that it had been almost a year since they last saw each other. Kakashi had refused all his invitations to eat and even their silly challenges. He hadn't even attended Asuma and Kurenai's marriage.
He wasn't even good for a healthy friendship with another living being.
"Rival? Kakashi...?"
Not even with his ninken, it had been more than a year since he had last seen them.
"Kakashi!" Guy said, shaking his shoulders.
“I'm sorry, you were saying?”
"Happy birthday," he said with a soft smile. "I brought you a present."
Guy was the only person Kakashi trusted 72%. He always understood when it was a bad day and he didn't want to be around people. Kakashi tended to isolate himself from the world whenever he felt bad. But Guy never pressured him to hang out with him, still, he always let him know that he could rely on him for anything.
Guy handed the gift to Kakashi and he couldn't help but smile sadly.
It was a picture in a frame, the picture was almost fifteen years old. In it were Guy, Rin and him. It was taken after they had returned from the war front.
"Thank you, Guy," he said, and looked at his friend.
Green, Guy was green, not because of his clothes, his personality was. Kind and natural, he never hides anything.
"Do you want to go out for dangos, rival?"
"Guy, I don't —"
"It's okay, I understand... Have a good day, Kakashi," he said glumly and walked out the door.
Kakashi stayed alone, standing in the middle of his room with the picture frame in his hands.
He was a worthless human being who couldn't even have a single friend.
He left the picture frame on his window sill and sat down on his bed. He stayed there for almost half an hour until he bit the tip of his right thumb and performed the summoning jutsu.
All his dogs immediately appeared in front of him.
“Hey," he said softly.
The eight dogs jumped up to lick him.
"We thought you were dead!" exclaimed Ūhei.
"But your name was still in the records, so then we thought something bad had happened to you!" Shiba said. “The last time we saw you, you didn't look well.”
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to worry you."
It was nice to spend the rest of the day with them. Still, every time he looked at them the hole in his chest grew bigger. The blue clothes his summons were wearing caused a horrible burning in his eyes, making him want to take them off, throw them in the trash and then burn the trash can.
The sharingan's vision was colorblind, but he could easily distinguish blue. He hated that color so much.
At one point he stopped looking at his dogs and brought his hands to his face. How was he supposed to look at them after not having summoned them for a year? “It would have been better if they had continued to think I was dead," Kakashi thought.
He was the worst ninja of all time.
"Are you dead?
Sometimes I think I'm dead
'Cause I can feel ghosts and ghouls wrapping my head"
"Happy birthday, pup," said Pakkun.
Kakashi looked at him and couldn't stop himself from thinking that everything he had done so far was wrong.
He lived for a long time inside the square meters of his apartment, in a bubble absorbing his own sadness, but it was time for him to stop, all he was doing was harming himself and his loved ones.
"Sorry for not summoning you for over a year. It won't happen again... Would you like me to summon you all tomorrow so we can train? There's a jutsu I'd like to practice, I call it Kamui."
"But I don't wanna fall asleep just yet"
And then Naruto returned from his travel with Jiraiya.
Team 7 was once again formed, more broken than before.
Akatsuki began to hunt down the Bijū. They started with the ichibi. Gaara lived, but they still managed to take the beast from him.
Kakashi was left in the hospital with chakra exhaustion, the only thing he could prove was that he was still the same trash as before and that the months he trained were useless.
He spent all his recovery in the hospital reading the books that Jiraiya had given him as a gift so he wouldn't get bored, he spent several days there until one of them, when he had little time left before he could leave, he was told that he didn't have to worry about his team anymore, since, Tenzo, better said "Yamato", (what a stupid name), would stay in charge of the team in the meantime.
It hurt a little, but it didn't mean he was being replaced, right?
He came up with a plan to train Naruto, they were at it for several months, but it gave good results, in the end, Naruto created a jutsu called "Rasen Shuriken".
One day during training they were told that Asuma had died, Akatsuki had killed him. Again, one of his peers had died.
The training stopped there.
Kakashi wandered around the village until it began to get dark and the sky was colored in shades of blue.
Naruto had Minato's sky blue eyes, but for some reason Kakashi never minded seeing them, he still had not failed those eyes as much as Minato's, he could still prove himself strong in front of them.
So he helped the new Ino-Shika-Chō to face Hidan and Kakuzu.
They were victorious, everyone was happy.
But Pain killed Jiraiya and then attacked the village.
He couldn't even take on a single one of the Paths.
He died regretting his miserable life. The only thing that comforted him was the thought that he would meet Rin and Obito again. Before he closed his eyelids the blue of the sky reflected in his eyes and made them desire to have been brighter than they were.
"My eyes went dark
I don't know where
my pupils are"
When he woke up he wasn't in heaven or hell, he was in the fucking limbo, and to make things better, the only colors there were shades of blue and black.
Again he hadn't been enough, he couldn't even die right!
But he ran into Sakumo, they talked in front of a campfire for what seemed like hours.
But Nagato use the Rinne Tensei and came back to life. He had opened up with feelings for nothing.
When he came back to life he couldn't help but feel bad about the way he had denied his father all these years.
He had already assumed he was dead, so he confessed to Sakumo everything he thought about him, and most of all, he told him that he forgave him and that he was proud of him
The village began to rebuild and everyone helped.
Tsunade had gone into a coma and Danzo had taken power. He died almost a week later, he fought with Sasuke and committed suicide, the bastard didn't have enough courage to finish the fight.
Sasuke called Kakashi trash and told him that he didn't deserve to have the sharingan and even less the mangekyo.
Kakashi thought about this often, but it was different to have someone you once cared about tell you that.
But he couldn't concentrate on that, not now, it wasn't time. Tobi had declared the start of the Great Fourth Ninja War and they had to prepare.
When he returned to the village –after helping Naruto so he could talk to the raikage– he almost became the hokage. When he was told, his mental wounds began to bleed. He didn't keep Rin safe and he couldn't keep a simple genin team together. How was he supposed to rule a ninja village that was one of the five military powers in the world?
Luckily Tsunade woke up and the rebuilding of the village continued to progress rapidly.
When September arrived, his birthday did too. He came out of his new apartment, he didn't isolate himself. He went for a walk to get some fresh air.
He was on his way to the Memorial Stone (fortunately it was just outside the village so it was not destroyed during Pain's attack.), when he walked past a dango shop he saw Guy, Genma and Kurenai, who was breastfeeding her little daughter, Mirai.
"Rival! Come here with us!" exclaimed Guy.
"He won't come, Guy. Leave him alone."
Kakashi stared at them for some seconds, internally debating with himself whether to go with them or to the Memorial Stone. He always went there. "Maybe not going one day wouldn't be so bad," he thought.
"Happy thirty-first birthday," the ninjas said as Kakashi walked up to them.
"But I'll figure out a way to get us out of here"
He spent the whole afternoon with his former classmates at the dango shop eating and drinking.
Guy's green, Kurenai's dark red, Genma's brown and Kakashi's blue didn't match perfectly, but it was tolerable. (Mirai was still a baby, so Kakashi couldn't tell for sure what color it was.)
Kakashi laughed several times as he listened to the anecdotes of his old classmates when they were at the academy. He was less than a year there, so he didn't remember much.
"...then, I don't remember what happened exactly, but something hit me and I fell out of the tree," Guy said with a laugh.
Genma and Kurenai laughed, while little Mirai slept in her mother's arms.
"What hit you was a piece of wood," Kakashi said a little dizzy after having several drinks. "That day with Obito we were playing a game of who could throw a piece of wood the farthest. He won, but he hit your head. We just ran away because we thought you were going to get mad and say something to us," he said with a small smile.
Silence.
The three jounin remained silent and then smiled sadly.
He had ruined the evening by bringing back painful memories from the past. It was the first time in years that he had been out with people –other than his students– on his birthday and he had ruined it.
Perfect.
"I never understood your relationship with Obito," Genma said. "You hated him, but you still spent time with him. Besides, his death and Rin's death depressed you quite a bit."
And there was Genma, who could never shut his fucking mouth.
Kurenai gave the brown-haired man an unkind look and stomped his foot under the table.
"I never hated him."
This had been a mistake, he should never have left his home, he should have stayed there, just as he did every year. He was a fool, why had he thought it would be a good day? The blue sky had warned him from the beginning.
"Rival, Kakashi.... it's not necessary —"
"He died saving me, and gave me his eye. I liked him, I was just a dick."
"Get a load of this monster
He doesn't know how to communicate"
Kakashi left the shop and went to the Memorial Stone to talk to Obito. He stood there for hours as he watched his teammate's name engraved on the stone.
The Memorial was blue, this was one of the first things that made Kakashi hate that color.
When dawn broke he went back to his apartment and didn't leave it, unless it was to go on missions, and to buy groceries, or to go see Obito and Rin. He didn't even wear his Sukea costume to go out.
The days passed and the proclaimed Fourth Great Ninja War began on October 8.
A couple of hours later his world collapsed in pieces.
Obito was alive, and Kakashi wished to be dead.
He didn't know how to respond, no one in a situation like his would have known what to do.
They fought, Obito called him trash and he impaled his chest in the same way he had done to Rin's.
He stood alone in Kamui thinking about what he had done as he pulled at his hair and tried unsuccessfully to ignore the flashbacks of the deaths of all the people he cared about.
His father's body lying on the ground in a pool of his own blood.
Obito being crushed by a rock.
Him impaling through Rin's chest with the Chidori.
Kushina and Minato's funeral.
It was just too much. Suddenly he began to run out of air and felt a pressure in his chest. He was going to have a panic attack in the middle of a war.
Fantastic.
He was the worst ninja of all time, just a worthless piece of shit.
Some time ago during a mission in ANBU one of his subordinates was having an anxiety attack, the medical ninja had helped him calm down with a technique that Kakashi didn't remember the name of, but how it worked.
First: count five things you can see.
Kakashi looked around while trying to breathe calmly. Everything was blue!
Shit. Shit. Shit!
He put his hands to his face and waited for it all to end. But it didn't.
So he took a kunai and drew a long line all the way down his left thigh.
"His mind is in a different place
Will everybody please give him a little bit of space?"
The physical pain was enough to quiet his mind.
He removed his hitai-ate from his head and tied it on his leg to cut the bleeding. It didn't cover it completely, but it had to do some good, right?
He returned to the war front with only one goal in his mind: to kill Obito.
It was his fault that Obito was crushed by a rock, if he hadn't saved him, he would have become a strong ninja, and maybe even the hokage. But no, he decided to save him. He saved a worthless ninja who was nothing but trash.
Obito was lying on the ground, away from all the ninja. This was his only chance.
Kakashi used Kamui and appeared sitting astride him with a kunai in his hand, he was ready to stab him in the chest, but just before he did, Minato appeared and stopped him.
Friend-killer-Kakashi. Cold-blooded-Kakashi.
Obito wasn't his friend, so why was he remembering those nicknames at a time like this?
Shit. Shit. Shit!
Minato told Kakashi that he should have been the one to talk to Obito, not Naruto. And he was right. He always fucked everything up.
Obito confessed that Rin was the only light in his life, and Kakashi said that it was also tough for him to have to endure everyone's death.
Kakashi gazed at Obito in the eyes while still sitting astride him. His hair was messy and falling over his eyes in absence of his hitai-ate.
Kakashi moved his hair to the side so that only the sharingan was covered, he didn't want to have in his mind forever the memory of Obito in such a fragile state, he wanted to be able to forget, if he looked at him with the sharingan he would never do it.
"I didn't make that cut on you," Obito said. "Why did you harm yourself?" He drew his fingers over the visible part of the cut on his thigh.
Obito as a child was orange, but a darker shade than Naruto. All Uchihas had dark shades. But now he wasn't orange, he was purple with shades of black. He had been through so much that his color had changed completely.
"Why do you care?"
"Because even though it's been years…," Minato said, "we're still a team."
Kakashi looked at Minato, who placed his hand on his hair and messed it up affectionately. Just like in the good old days, when he was an ANBU and Minato hokage.
The hair moved from his eyes, exposing his sharingan, he saw Minato with it so now he would never be able to forget the way his sensei looked at him.
"Get a load of this train wreck
His hair's a mess and he doesn't know who he is yet"
The war continued, Kaguya woke up and the Infinite Tsukuyomi made all the people on earth have a dream in which they lived a full and happy life, except Kakashi, his team and Obito, who were hiding inside Sasuke’s Susanoo.
Kakashi always wondered what he would have seen in that dream. Most likely all his loved ones would have been alive. His father and mother would be. Obito would be the hokage. Rin would work alongside Sakura, both would be top medical ninja. Sasuke would have not left the village. Minato would be retired with Kushina, they would watch their son grow up to later become the hokage. And he —
What would Kakashi do? He definitely wouldn't be the sensei of team 7, Tenzo would be, he was much more qualified than him. Maybe he would be the ANBU general? No, he was always happy to lead a small squad like Ro was.
Maybe he would be nobody. A zero to the left who is happy if his friends and family are.
Or maybe all those thoughts weren't his, maybe it was just the survivor's guilt telling him what to think. Still, Kakashi would've loved to have dinner with his parents every Friday night. Playing with Naruto when he was a baby. Fighting side by side with Obito using his sharingan. Having Rin and Sakura scold him every time he was left in the hospital for chakra exhaustion. Teach Sasuke more techniques derived from Chidori. Annoying Tenzo and accepting more silly challenges from Guy.
That would have been a nice life, a life Kakashi would have happily lived.
But he can't, and he never will, because everyone dear to him always eventually dies. If so, him dying saving someone isn't bad, right?
He tried to die like a hero by standing in front of Kaguya's attack, she was going to kill Sasuke and Naruto. He and Obito were willing to sacrifice their lives in order to save them. But Obito didn't want Kakashi to die, “He still had a lot to live for,” Obito thought.
He used Kamui and saved Kakashi.
In the blink of an eye Kakashi's chance to die as a hero faded away.
"You can't die, not yet. You will be the next hokage. Me and Rin will be waiting for you, but don't you fucking dare come so soon, if you do I'll steal the rinnegan from whoever has one in the Pure Land, Madara or Nagato, whoever, and I'll bring you back to life, did you hear me right, Kakashi? Take all the time in the world. No matter how long, there will always be a place for you next to us."
"But little do we know, the stars
Welcome him with open"
Kakashi returned to the village without his Sharingan and with another memory of Obito dying while saving him from death.
When he came into his apartment he went to the bathroom and started to stitch up the cut he got on his leg. When he finished, he took a shower and hoped that all the tears he couldn't spill in all these years would mix with the water falling on his face.
They did.
When nothing more came out of his eyes he went to sleep, rather than rest, he couldn't sleep, every time he closed his eyes he could see the face of disappointment that Minato made when he stopped him from killing Obito.
A week later there was a thunderstorm, still, he went to see Guy at the hospital. His leg had been broken and it was impossible to heal, he would have to use a wheelchair for the rest of his life.
Then he went to see Naruto, but he wasn't in his room, he was in Sasuke's room. Luckily the ANBU guarding Sasuke used to be Kakashi's teammates in ANBU so they let him pass without a problem.
When he entered Sasuke's room he should have been restrained to the hospital bed and blindfolded, but he was not. Naruto was beside him sitting in a wheelchair, Sakura was sitting at the foot of Sasuke's hospital bed.The three of them were laughing, they looked happy.
"Kakashi-sensei!" exclaimed Naruto and Sakura.
"Yo! How are you, guys? By the way, you two should not be here."
"Being Tsunade-sama's student gives you perks," Sakura said, showing him the hospital credential hanging from her neck. "And Naruto is the hero of the War," Sasuke was a little uncomfortable hearing that. "And you, sensei?"
"The ninja at the entrance were part of my ANBU squad. And how are you?"
"Great, believe it!" said Naruto. "In a couple of days I'll be out of here."
"The hospital is full, I have a lot of work," Sakura said. "I'm supposed to be on my lunch break."
Sasuke looked away silently, everyone noticed.
"Sasuke-kun will also be out in a couple of days. Then, well...," Sakura said.
"I'll be in jail until it's decided what to do with me," Sasuke said. "How are you, Kakashi?" he asked not because he cared, but because he didn't want everyone's attention on him.
What he didn't know was that Kakashi didn't want their attention either, even so, he told them, "I'm fine."
"What about the cut on your leg?" Sakura said with her arms crossed. "Let me take a look at it."
"Maa, Sakura. It's ok. I stitched it up. I've always stitched my own —"
Maybe he shouldn't have said that. Sakura got angry and forced him to take off his pants so she could see the cut.
When she saw it, she gave him an ugly look.
"That wound is going to get infected any minute, just look at those stitches!"
Naruto sat next to Sasuke and Kakashi was forced to sit on the blond's wheelchair. Sakura undid all of Kakashi's work and started to do it again from the scratch.
"Kakashi-sensei? You said you were going to explain the whole thing about… Obito and your team," Naruto said.
Kakashi really wanted to get out of that place. It was too soon. His mind was still on kamui, with his arm impaling Obito's chest.
His breathing had started to quicken.
He brought a hand to his head and removed his hitai-ate, at that moment he realized he had unconsciously covered his left eye. He began to play with the edges of his hitai-ate while avoiding making eye contact and calming his breathing.
Sakura stopped stitching his leg and looked at Kakashi.
"Sensei? Everything okay?" she asked.
"Huh? Yes."
"Kakashi-sensei, are you going to —?"
"Leave it, you loser," Sasuke said. "It's obvious he doesn't want to talk about it."
"Get a load of this monster
He doesn't know how to communicate"
Sasuke was blue. Kakashi was too. From Kakashi's experience similar colors tended to understand each other quite a bit, though sometimes there were exceptions like Minato's gold and Kushina's crimson red.
Sasuke's blue had become dark over the years, but now it felt a bit more like his old self, clearly not the same, he was just a kid when he met him.
People grow older and older. Colors can get lighter or darker. They will never stay the same. Naruto's orange stayed strong, but tended to turn pastel whenever he was around the people he loved. Sakura's pink became strong and beautiful, with highlights of white that appeared whenever she treated her patients. White was a color that Kakashi never thought he would see on Sakura. A kind color that matched perfectly with her pink.
Kakashi always kept the dark blue he got the day his father died.
Sakumo died when Kakashi was six, he had few memories of him, still, he always knew he was white, too white to the point that he caused his own destruction.
White was the worst color, too pure, too good. Such a color was useless in the ninja world.
"If you don't want to talk about it, it's fine, sensei, believe it," Naruto said. "I just hope we'll do it someday."
"Naruto —"
The door to the room opened to reveal a furious Tsunade with her arms crossed as she watched the situation.
Sasuke was free of his restraints and Naruto was sitting next to him. Kakashi was sitting in the wheelchair with his pants down while Sakura was stitching up the cut on his leg.
"What the hell are you guys doing here?!" she shouted. "Only Sakura is allowed to come in here. Why are Naruto and Sasuke in the same hospital bed? And why are you stitching Kakashi's leg?" Tsunade asked Sakura.
The four members of team 7 looked at each other without saying anything.
"Sakura," she said, and brought her hands to the bridge of her nose. "Finish... that, when you do, take Naruto to his room. And you!" she pointed at Kakashi. "We need to talk," she said, and left the room.
Naruto and Sakura looked at each other and let out a big laugh. While Sasuke and Kakashi smiled softly.
Sakura finished stitching Kakashi and left the room together with Naruto, everyone left, except Kakashi.
"Why are you still here?" asked Sasuke, who had been restrained again to the hospital bed and had a blindfold on.
Kakashi ignored him, opened the window of the room and looked down.
"That's seven floors down," Sasuke said. "Why are you avoiding the hokage?"
"For the same reason you were avoiding looking Sakura and Naruto in the eyes."
Kakashi looked to the side and noticed that there were some trees, if he jumped into them maybe he could get out.
"When you jump make sure you don't fall on the leg you got the cut on. You will tear the muscle if you do. Hold on tight to the branches, the rain is making everything soggy."
"Yeah, thanks," he said, and went out the window.
Kakashi knew very well that Tsunade wanted to retire. He had been the first choice to replace her when she went into a coma, Obito also told him that he would be the Sixth. But Kakashi didn't want to be, not because he didn't want the title, but because he felt he wasn't qualified. Too many people had died because of him, how was he supposed to keep an entire village safe?
He walked to the Memorial Stone to talk to Obito, when he arrived at the place, he was unable to do so. Obito's name was no longer there.
He was a war criminal, his name did not deserve to be there.
He ran his fingertips over the spot where his name used to be.
"Senpai...," Tenzo said as he approached Kakashi. He was wearing his ANBU uniform, apparently his days as Yamato were over. "The hokage wants to talk to you."
"I know, Tenzo, why do you think I'm here? Please leave me alone."
"What do you want me to tell her then?"
"What I told you."
"Shall I tell her that you're depressed because of Obito's death?"
"No. I'm not depressed. I'm fine. Tell her I'm busy. I'll go talk to her tomorrow, I mean it."
"I won't lie to the hokage, senpai," he said, and left.
Kakashi stayed alone in front of the stone while the rain soaked all his clothes. Bored with the blue color of the monument he looked at the sky. Gray clouds adorned it and didn't let the light filter through.
"His mind is in a different place
Will everybody please give him a little bit of space?"
In the end Kakashi reluctantly agreed. Being the hokage is a big responsibility. Who else would be the hokage, Naruto? The boy was only seventeen. Yes, he was the hero of the war, but he wasn't mature enough.
Gaara was much younger than him when he became kazekage, but he knew what it meant to run a village.
After several months, Kakashi discovered that if he remained busy doing his work he could distract himself from his own thoughts and prevent his blue from turning darker, or worse, turning black.
Black was the worst color, it represented everything bad in the world. Kakashi never hated this color like he did with the blue, rather, he was a bit afraid of it. Once someone acquired this color it was impossible to get out of it. Sakumo had acquired this color in the last minutes of his life.
Kakashi was in his office sitting in front of his desk about to fall asleep when his computer screen lit up and showed the faces of the other kages: Gaara, Ōnoki, A and Mei.
"I had called this meeting in the hope of finding Tsunade," said the tsuchikage. "But as far as I can see, she is not here."
"Tsuchikage, Tsunade-sama retired several months ago," Kakashi said. "I am the hokage now. Apparently, the news hasn't arrived to Iwa yet."
"Did you know that, raikage, mizukage and kazekage?". All three nodded. "Why didn't I hear about this?"
"We saw the live stream that was made when he was proclaimed Hokage," Gaara said. "You didn't watch it since you said you didn't need Konoha's technology."
"That's because we don't need their technology!"
It was a long day, Kakashi only listened to complaints about how the Shinobi Union they wanted to create would be organized. Most of the time Kakashi barely listened to what was being said, he was sleepy and had a headache.
He slept less than two hours in two days.
Even as the hokage the nightmares would not leave him alone.
"By the way, hokage," said the raikage. "Who will be Konoha's representative at the Union? Considering your connection to Uchiha Obito, it would be out of place for you to be."
"I agree," Ōnoki said. "You have to choose someone else."
Kakashi's mental wounds started to bleed, they had never healed, but they had stopped bleeding some time ago (Tsunade had forced him to go to therapy, that helped a bit).
As the seconds passed the bleeding intensified and invaded every part of his body. His hands began to sweat and his breathing began to become agitated.
"Nara Shikamaru will be my representative," he said, playing with the edges of his gloves.
"In my opinion," Gaara said, "we kages shouldn't be the representatives, we already have too much work as it is. I chose Temari."
"I completely agree," Mei said. "A kage's job is difficult, and we can not handle that much at once. My representative will be Chōjūrō."
"I hope you, tsuchikage, won't be the one to represent your village either," Kakashi said. "Considering you used Akatsuki in the past, it would be out of place."
The meeting only lasted four more minutes. Four minutes that felt eternal.
When it was over Kakashi closed the computer, took off his gloves and his hitai-ate. His chest hurt, as if he was going to have a heart attack, but he knew very well it wasn't that. The pain in his chest, added to the sweat on his hands and his inability to regulate his breathing, showed that it was symptoms of a panic attack.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
He put his hands on his head and started pulling his hair. It had to stop, it had to stop now, if it didn't and someone came into his office, that person was going to think he had completely lost his mind and he would be forced to leave his position as hokage. His work was the only thing that distracted him from his thoughts, he couldn't lose it.
"Kakashi-sensei!" exclaimed Naruto as he walked next to Sakura into his office. "Sensei?"
Great.
Kakashi removed his hands from his face and combed the hair falling over his eyes back. He saw the blue and green eyes bathed in worry of his students. He was going to tell them that everything was fine and that he was just sleepy, then ask them to leave him alone, so he could let the panic leave his mind on its own.
"Is something wrong, sensei?" asked Sakura. "Do you want us to leave you alone, or do you want us to stay?"
But Sakura said that.
"Stay, please. Don't leave me."
"Get a load of this train wreck
His hair's a mess and he doesn't know who he is yet"
Maybe he only said that because of the panic and fear he had about losing his mind, but deep inside, he wanted his students to stay with him. It had been six years since he met them, he grew quite fond of them in that time, he even trusted them to 70%.
The day Naruto got married, Kakashi was very proud of the man he had become. A responsible adult, worthy of being hokage.
A couple of months later, Sasuke came back to the village and stayed for several weeks, a bit longer than he was used to stay, but Kakashi didn't take any notice, or so it was until one day Sasuke went to talk to him in his office.
"Is there something you want to talk about?" Kakashi asked.
"How are you?"
Sasuke didn't know how to start a conversation, Kakashi had learned that years ago. He had a bad habit that when he didn't want all the attention of the people on him, he would ask someone else how they were doing, so he could change the subject.
"Just a little tired," he said, with a small smile. "How about you?"
"I´m okay. Would it be a problem if Sakura joined me on my travel for a few months?" he asked.
"Huh? What did you say?"
"What I said."
"I guess no —"
"Good," Sasuke said and immediately walked out the door without saying another word.
Kakashi sat silently for five seconds at his desk, then he stood up and looked out the window facing the roof, on it were Sakura and Naruto.
"Has he left already?" Naruto asked.
"I think so. I didn't make it to hear what he said."
Kakashi opened the window and looked at his two students.
"I said yes, you can go with him, Sakura. You two forced him to ask, didn't you? He would never do it on his own."
"Of course not! Believe it!"
"Yes, they did," said Sasuke, who appeared out of nowhere on the spot.
"Don't rat us out, you idiot!" Naruto said.
"I'll do whatever I damn well please, loser," Sasuke replied.
"Maa, watching you two argue is like time travel seven years back, you act like you're twelve years old."
"Kakashi sensei, don't say that. It's more like going back to the academy," Sakura scoffed.
"Hey, knock it off!" Naruto said. "If you all were a color you'd all be yellow, believe it! It's the most boring color ever!"
The three of them stared at Naruto weirdly.
"Oh come on, haven't you ever thought about what colors represent people?"
"Never," said Sasuke and Sakura.
"Let's see, for example, Sakura is pale pink with little touches of orange and white. Sasuke is black, always acting cool and smart. Kakashi-sensei is gray, partly cool and mysterious but weird and a bit perverted, always reading the Pervy Sage novels."
"I thought I'd be blue," Kakashi said.
"Everyone has a different view of themselves and colors. Shikamaru told me that for him black was the worst color of all, but I think it's cool and mysterious. Hinata thought she was brown, but to me she's a mix of purple and pink."
"That's quite interesting what you say, Naruto. But me and Sasuke have to go. See you!"
"Yes, let's go," Sasuke said, and left together with Sakura.
"Would you like to keep talking about colors, sensei?"
"I would, but I have work to do."
"Well, another time," Naruto said and left.
Kakashi sat back down in front of his desk and a small smile formed on his face. He had carried the color blue on his back for so long that Naruto tell him it was gray made him feel a warmth in his chest. The color Gray didn't sound like such a bad thing.
"But little do we know, the stars
Welcome him with open arms"
The blue sky was clear, it didn't have a single cloud, it was a calm day, perfect to go for a walk.
Kakashi did so, he went for a walk, he had been so busy with his work that it had been months since he had seen Rin.
He brought her a bunch of white lilies and stayed by her side for several hours while he talked to her about all the progress the village had made.
When he said goodbye to her, he walked further into the cemetery and headed to the oldest section until he found Sakumo's grave.
It wasn't in his plans to go see him but it had been so long since he had last gone that, going to see Rin and not him felt wrong. He didn't even have flowers, but he went anyway.
He stayed with him for almost an hour.
He could go every day to the Memorial Stone or Rin's grave, but with Sakumo it was different. Yes, he had talked to him in limbo, but something inside him still made him anxious every time he read his name on his grave.
"Kakashi-sensei!" exclaimed Naruto, and ran up to him. "Come with me! Now!"
"Naruto, what did you do?"
Naruto forced Kakashi out of the cemetery blindfolded. He accidentally caused him to bump into several lampposts and trash cans.
"Naruto, take off my blindfold."
"I can't, believe it! It's part of the plan that you're wearing a blindfold.
Okay, maybe Naruto wasn't as mature as Kakashi thought.
"I know we're going to my house. I know the way. Have you arranged a surprise party for my birthday?"
"That... Damn it! How did you know that? Well... Never mind. I won't take the blindfold off," Naruto said. "Sensei, you're turning thirty-six, aren't you?"
"Thirty-five," he corrected.
"Shit! That didn't say in your file."
"Naruto, what do you mean by that, have you seen my file?"
Naruto and Kakashi had a long talk about why he shouldn't go into the other ninja's files. In the end Naruto confessed that he simply wanted to see Kakashi's face. In the registration photo the face has to be shown. Though in the end he couldn't see anything as the guards found him.
"Did you find anything interesting in my file?" Kakashi asked.
"Yeah, several things in fact. How is it possible that you graduated from the Ninja Academy at the age of five? Plus you became chuunin the year after that, when you were six."
"It was during the Third War. It didn't matter that we were children, the important thing was that they had soldiers so they could fight."
"I understand... Sensei?" said Naruto. "I also found mission reports.... You took care of my mom when she was pregnant? I knew my dad was your sensei, but not that."
Kakashi stopped and removed the blindfold from his eyes. He looked at Naruto's face and he could see Minato's stupid sky blue eyes on him.
"Are you mad at me for not telling you?" Kakashi asked.
"A little, but I understand why you did," he said with his hands in his pockets. "You're pretty closed off like Sasuke, he's my best friend and I understand him. So I think I also understand why you did it. So, don't blame yourself, I'm not mad."
"When my father died... Minato-sensei was there for me, even if I didn't want him to be around, he was always there. He was my sensei and my two teammates were Rin and ...Obito," Kakashi said. "Obito supposedly died saving me, and Rin committed suicide using my Chidori. It was after their deaths that I joined ANBU. I was depressed, so he thought that if I saw how you were growing inside Kushina-san, I would begin to appreciate life a bit more. Although, I actually always thought he did it because... because he thought I was weak and couldn't handle ANBU. I was so wrong. I'm sorry I didn't tell you, Naruto.
"It's okay, I know you don't like to talk about your past. I really appreciate that you did... But you have to put the blindfold back on."
"Alright."
He put on the blindfold and walked towards Kakashi's house. He only bumped into two more trash cans before they reached their destination.
After becoming the hokage he had to move to another house, apparently the apartment in which he lived was not very appropriate for him.
His house wasn't that big, it had everything for him to live in a quiet and safe way, it had several ANBU watching every corner. It had two floors and a large garden. Luckily it did not have many shades of blue. Just some decorations.
Kakashi entered his house and felt Naruto took a couple of steps to the front and said, "You can take off your blindfold, sensei."
"Happy birthday!" Naruto and Sakura exclaimed. Sasuke was there too, but he said it quietly.
"Thanks for this, guys."
The house was decorated with various balloons and streamers. Quite similar to how they decorated the first time they had thrown him a surprise party.
"By the way, Sasuke, Sakura, if you guys are here, who's your daughter with?" asked Kakashi as he split the cake on the table.
"She's with Hinata, she offered to take care of her," replied Sakura.
"Naruto, you're forgetting "something", don't you think?" Sasuke said to Naruto, who was already eating a piece of cake that Kakashi had served him.
What are you talking about... Fuck!" he said, and ran out of his seat next to Sasuke at the table in direction to the kitchen.
"Please don't tell me you're cooking something. You mess, you clean up," said Kakashi, who had already finished cutting and serving the cake.
"I hope you like the cake," Sakura said. "We talked to Guy-sensei, he said you don't like sweets. So we tried to make the cake was not. It's raspberry and bitter chocolate."
"Actually that's my favorite cake," he said with a smile. "Thank you. By the way, how did you get in here, did you break in?"
"No," Sasuke said. "Naruto talked to your guards and told them what we were planning."
" I got it!" exclaimed Naruto once he came back from the kitchen.
"We had a present for you, Kakashi-sensei," Sakura said.
"But the loser forgot to wrap it," Sasuke said.
"Here, sensei. It's from all three of us," He handed him a small frame containing a photograph and sat back down next to Sasuke. "I really hope you like it. I had to steal it from your father's file.
In the picture was Sakumo standing next to a beautiful black haired woman, both of them were smiling.
"The file said that they took that picture after they came back from the war front, I don't remember if it was during the end of the second or the beginning of the third."
"It was at the end of the second..." For a moment Kakashi could have sworn he was the happiest person in the world. "Thank you so much, guys. You don't know how much this means to me."
The three ninjas smiled.
Kakashi hugged them, which caught the attention of the three, even so, they hugged him back, even Sasuke did.
They proceeded to eat the cake. It was delicious. Just like the one Kushina had made for his fourteenth birthday.
Kakashi was eating slowly so he could enjoy every taste of the cake, so his face was in full view of his students.
"He has a mole on his chin!" exclaimed Naruto in surprise looking at him.
Kakashi smiled and continued eating.
"He has a perfect smile...," Sakura said, and Sasuke stared at her.
"He has wrinkles," Sasuke commented.
"Do I have them?"
"They show in your eyes and on the sides of your mouth when you smile," Sasuke replied.
Naruto looked at the picture of Kakashi's father and found no difference, they were practically the same.
"Well, I think it's normal. When I met you guys, I was in my twenties. I'm not that young anymore.
Years had passed, but the love he took for his students would never disappear. It would only increase with the years.
"Time is
Slowly
Tracing his face"
In his childhood and teen years Kakashi hated the color blue because it represented everything wrong with him, he only hated it because he was blue.
But once he became an adult, he realized that nothing that had happened was his fault. He was enclosed in a bubble of sadness and self-hatred that when it burst in the war, he did not know how to cope with all his feelings and emotions, he took refuge in work and ignored everything else.
Gradually he came to understand that the only way to fill the hole in his chest and heal his mental wounds was to open up to people and let them help him heal.
Kakashi knew that people in the Pure Land were waiting for him. When he is ready to leave, his family will welcome him with open arms.
Still, he chose to stay in the world of the living with his other family.
"But strangely he feels at home in this place"