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Yamato knew something was wrong with Kakashi.
Normally, when you’ve known someone for a long time, you start to recognize their tells -- the little things they do that make you think, something’s not quite right . For everyday people, it’s a hallmark of a strong bond, a perceptive layer to relationships that can make them stronger, more resilient.
Shinobi, however, are different. Higher-level shinobi are conditioned to repress their tells in order to avoid showing potential weakness in battle. On his own part, Yamato prided himself on keeping his tells in check -- tensing his jaw when he’s lying, narrowing his eyes when he’s suspicious, shifting his feet just slightly when he’s about to attack. He’d studied his tells in Root and in ANBU, had them conditioned out of him slowly, like squeezing a puncture wound so it would bleed, flushing out any contaminants in the process. He’d hadn’t had tells since he was a child. But now, after almost a year out of the ANBU, after distance from Root, he’d had a few slips. And he allowed them graciously, because they felt…normal. Like maybe, just maybe, he was human again. The tells themselves were his to have. Not Yamato’s or Tenzo’s or even Kinoe’s. They were his.
But Kakashi was always different. At least since Yamato had known him, Kakashi was always calm, cool, and collected. Years of experience and a more-than-healthy dose of tragedy had made his aloof, breezy demeanor like an extra jacket he always wore, an extra layer between him and the dangers of the world. A protector. In moments where it mattered, he was never one to let it grow threadbare.
This mission, however, was different. Yamato had gone with Kakashi to shepherd Naruto to the Raikage, where Naruto had been determined to convince the leader of the Hidden Cloud Village to not send out an order to eliminate Sasuke. After Naruto’s (unfortunately, somewhat predictable) rejection, the three Leaf Village shinobi had resolved to spend the night at what had really turned out to be quite a lovely little inn.
That is, until Madara Uchiha of the Akatsuki had decided to show up. One confrontation and several paradigm-shifting revelations later, there were multiple holes in the roof of the inn that Yamato was presently busying himself repairing. The one that Naruto had blown in the roof and side of the inn using his Rasengan was obviously the most pressing; however, Yamato had also established a containment area of his wood style around Madara when the enemy had first appeared, and the ring of those holes, each almost wide enough to fit his torso through, also had to be fixed. So that’s what he set about doing: funneling chakra into his palms and mending the jagged splinters and wide holes in wood, wall, and ceiling. Tendrils of vines and branches made up the distance between him and the ground, keeping him held up close to the roof as he worked.
His mind, however, was mostly elsewhere. Kakashi, his friend and former sensei, was acting…weird. More closed-off than usual. He’d seemed distracted, barely touching his food, missing Naruto saying his name. Earlier, Yamato was pretty sure he’d seen Kakashi sitting on a stable part of the roof, reading Icha Icha upside down, his back to the main road -- three things that Kakashi was unlikely to do.
So, what was he hiding?
Something was definitely wrong. Yamato was absolutely sure of it. And not only was Yamato worried for his friend, but the mission-oriented side of his mind was frustrated. By deviating from his normal patterns, Kakashi disrupted the routine that they had established, the understanding between them that was built on their similarities and past experiences. Now, Yamato couldn’t be sure how Kakashi was doing. Couldn’t be secure, comfortable. It was off-putting in the most basic of ways, and he found himself unable to let go of the uneasiness tugging at his mind.
In retrospect, Kakashi had been acting strange ever since Madara had left. Directly afterwards, Kakashi had called Naruto and Yamato together to tell them that they had to keep what Madara had said a complete secret until his information could be verified. Of course, that made sense; the notion that Itachi had slaughtered his clan out of some sort of twisted desire for peace, fostered by the upper class of the Leaf Village, was more than a little far-fetched (and upsetting, if Yamato was being completely honest).
He remembered Itachi well: dark hair, piercing eyes, killer instinct, but always so tender when assisting a child or an injured comrade. The perfect ANBU agent; he would never have been suspected by anyone in the Leaf.
Perhaps there is more to every situation than we can sense on the surface.
Maybe Kakashi was blaming himself? He did have that habit.
Madara had also dwelled on the transformation of the rogue ninja Sasuke Uchiha. That was what had gotten to Naruto the most. Perhaps Kakashi was upset about that, too? He supposed that would make two times--
Brought back to the present, Yamato narrowed his eyes at a miniscule splinter that had pricked his thumb. He had gotten distracted.
Just then, the door to the room opened.
“How’s it going in here?”
Yamato turned.
Kakashi gazed up at him, his one exposed eye visibly heavy with exhaustion. He had abandoned his jounin vest, but his Sharingan eye was still covered by his forehead protector. Standing there in the bare room, illuminated only by the half-light of the late evening, he looked out of place, slightly lost. Yet his tone was breezy as ever.
Yamato took all of this in within a moment and lowered himself to the floor, flexing his fingers and palms until his hands stopped tingling from chakra exertion. “Kakashi-senpai.”
Kakashi waved a hand dismissively but the gesture was distracted, weighted. “Please don’t. Not now.”
Yamato felt his eyes narrow. “Kakashi, then. Did you need something?”
His friend met his eyes evenly. A single strand of silver hair was caught in his eyelashes, reflecting just slightly in the low light. “Nothing in particular,” he said. “Just checking in.”
He lifted a hand to his hair as if he wanted to have something to do, and Yamato noticed two things for the first time. First, that Kakashi's blue fatigues were darker in some places, hugging tightly around his shoulders with moisture. And second, there were small flecks of white in his hair: snow.
“Kakashi, were you outside?”
Kakashi didn’t react. No tense muscles, no clenching of the jaw. Just a shrug. No tells. Cool nonchalance.“Maaa, and if I was? Why, is that a problem?”
Yamato was almost surprised at the intensity of his own voice when he spoke. “Kakashi. The Land of Iron is not a friendly place for shinobi. And without your weapons, your jacket, it’s not safe.”
“Come on, Tenzō. Can’t a man be alone with his thoughts sometimes?”
Silence.
Yamato didn’t think being “alone with his thoughts” was something Kakashi Hatake had ever wanted to do before.
Yamato took a moment to consider the situation. At this rate, the team would have to move out soon to beat out the storm that was coming. He could smell it in the breeze, feel the atmosphere in the air around him changing. They would have to get their gear ready very soon if they wanted to beat the bad weather, make sure they covered their tracks well, finalize the plan and talk over things before they left.
Yamato would have to hurry to fix the roof, or the innkeeper would be very upset. There was no time to waste, none at all.
He took a deep breath.
“Kakashi. Can we talk?”
And the infamous copy-ninja, feared and revered weapon of the Hidden Leaf Village, tensed visibly. He took a half-step back and seemed to spit out:
“No.”
The one clue Yamato needed. Finally, he let his frustration show on his face.
“Kakashi. You do realize that by hiding…” he made a vague gesture with his hands. “...Whatever it is that’s going on, you’re not doing yourself any favors? You’re suffering in silence. Not letting anyone help. Being all cryptic, putting yourself in danger. Potentially putting Naruto in danger. He’s very volatile right now, and if something happened to you — I know he’s always been more outwardly emotional than you and I, but I see you right now and, to be blunt, it’s worrying--”
Yamato felt the atmosphere in the room grow hostile.
“Are you saying I’m a liability now, Tenzō? Is that what you’re implying?” Kakashi challenged.
Despite his best efforts, Yamato felt a shiver of fear trail down his back. Subconsciously, his foot shifted towards his battle-ready stance, and he let it. This was Kakashi in conflict: assertive, emotionally closed off. Dangerous.
“It was Madara, wasn’t it,” Yamato said simply, without inflection. It hadn’t been a question.
Kakashi, for what may have been the first time ever, turned his back on Yamato. When he spoke, his tone was firm, like Yamato was his subordinate once more. “I’m not talking about this with you. I assure you, I will not be a hindrance to the mission. Next time I decide to go for a walk, I’ll take Naruto with me.”
He didn’t bother to stop the wooden sliding door from slamming on his way out, and the already-damaged frame splintered with the force of it.
Yamato stood there, open-mouthed. The dark clouds cast shadows over the room, and, from above, a few flecks of snow began to dust his hair.
The storm was about to hit.
The next morning, Yamato made breakfast alone. The storm had come in with the full force of a tempest last night, delaying the team significantly, so he’d decided to let Naruto sleep in. Yamato himself had stayed up alone last night, keeping watch and fixing the roof.
Kakashi hadn’t slept in their shared room, and, to be honest, Yamato didn’t trust himself enough to go searching for him. He felt the frustration building inside of his chest: at Kakashi for being so stubborn, at Madara for being so hard to figure out, at himself for not doing better. His jaw was clenched tight, and the eggs he was making had been whisked with such intensity that he’d scratched the small pan he’d been bringing on missions since he was a child.
After a year out of the ANBU, Yamato realized that maybe he wasn’t as cool-headed as he used to be, and the realization made him uneasy.
The eggs were done. Yamato separated them out into two bowls, dusted them with seasoning, picked them up, and started to make his way towards Naruto’s room. He would find Kakashi later. Surely he would have realized by now that they had to leave soon. He would trudge back in, probably give everyone the cold shoulder--
“Yamato.”
He froze. A winter breeze blew through the room, cold and invasive. The door to the balcony was open.
“Kakashi?”
“Come here.”
Without a word, Yamato sat down the two bowls, shoved his hands deep in his pockets to find the kunai waiting inside, and walked onto the balcony.
Kakashi was sitting on the wooden floor, facing the dense forest that the balcony overlooked. His right leg was extended, but his left leg was bent at the knee. His left arm was propped up on it, bent at the elbow. His forehead protector was nowhere to be seen; instead, his left hand covered his sharingan eye. His hair was weighted with moisture.
He’d been here overnight.
“Sit,” he said.
Yamato did.
Silence echoed in the space between them. It was no longer snowing.
“I wanted to apologize to you,” Kakashi said after a moment.
More silence. Yamato’s skin crawled with several uncomfortable emotions: awkwardness, worry, confusion, suspicion. There was almost half a foot of distance between his shoulder and Kakashi’s, but he could have been on the other side of the doorway for all it seemed. Maybe back in Konoha.
He didn’t know what to say. Kakashi's voice was low and gravelly, but not angry and assertive like it had been the night before. It was like someone had hollowed him out but left the surface untouched. A shucked walnut; strong, but nothing on the inside but empty space where something good used to be.
Yamato had never seen Kakashi like this. Where was Naruto when you needed him?
Yamato took a moment to think and then said what he thought was the best expression of his feelings: “What can I do?”
There was silence again. A gust of wind ruffled their hair.
Then: “You could listen.” Kakashi's voice was still flat and worn, but held an underlying tone of hope. A hand extended.
Yamato had never seen that before. He encouraged his shoulders to relax and shifted, closing the distance between them a couple more inches. Despite his frightening conflict the night before, Kakashi was clearly no longer a threat. Yamato allowed his hand to drift away from the kunai (why had he ever thought he'd needed it?) in his pocket onto feel the cold wooden floor of the balcony, rough under his fingers. Dogwood. Probably could use re-sanding.
“I can listen,” he said simply.
Kakashi was quiet for a moment. His shoulders rose and fell steadily four times. He still hadn't met Yamato's eyes, seemingly entranced by the forest in front of them.
“Lord Third told me I was too kind for the ANBU. Did you know that?”
Yamato didn’t speak, unsure if that question warranted a response. Listening: that was his job. Nothing more.
Kakashi continued after a moment. “I don’t think I ever believed him, really. Growing up, after my father’s passing, the only thing I knew how to do was protect. Protect others, sure, but mostly myself. I would never have called myself kind, and I seriously doubt that any of my comrades would have either. All I thought about was the mission and how to accomplish the objective in the most straightforward way possible, no matter what that took. I became a broken rendering of my father and all of his shortcomings, transposed over a child who didn’t know any better. And when I got gifted my eye, it was...the first time I felt like I had a close comrade whom I could call my friend. I started to change, to grow. But of course, it came at a cost. When I broke my promise--” Kakashi took a moment to swallow, and Yamato resisted the urge to look over at the man beside him. He got the sense that what he had been about to say was something precious to him, the flesh under the armor of the Copy Ninja. “I killed her. I didn’t want to but I killed her, she made me kill her and it--” Kakashi broke off again. He took one shaky breath, then another. “It destroyed me. I think it almost killed me. But nobody understood any of it. They saw what they wanted to see: another Hatake who failed. They called me the ‘friend-killer,' 'cold-hearted,' and I thought maybe they were right. So I went into the Black Ops, where nobody could see me, and became the heartless weapon some sick part of me always wished I could be. I was thirteen, and I joined the Black Ops." Kakashi chuckled slightly, as if in disbelief at his own self.
"And Minato-sensei, he tried his best, but the ANBU was a perfect fit for someone like me. Who I was at the time. Cold, heartless, powerful, and, most of all, guilty. Then I failed another mission. Minato and Kushina died and I joined Root. And I think you know the rest.
“And, honestly, I thought I was okay now. A little more like someone I can look at in the mirror. I mean, at least I’m at least doing a hell of a lot better than I used to be." He inclined his head slightly towards the snow-gray sky, his one exposed eye fuzzy, as if he was seeing something else. Yamato waited, and, after a moment, Kakashi looked down and continued:
"But seeing Madara…something about it just…made everything come back. All of the memories and the guilt. Hearing him talk about Itachi and Sasuke, it felt like he was reading my failures out loud to me. Two more people I didn’t protect. I was so angry...I didn’t want to talk about it, so I avoided you and Naruto. I did put you in danger, and for that, I sincerely apologize...” He hesitated, then: “Yamato.”
“Tenzō is fine,” Yamato heard himself say. His mind was trying to make sense of the outpouring of information that he had just experienced from the person from which he’d expected it the least of all. The girl he Kakashi had been referring to was clearly Rin Nohara, but there was so much Yamato hadn't truly considered about his friend, so many connections between Kakashi's past experiences and his actions that Yamato hadn't realized. All of those times when they were on Team Ro together where Kakashi had stayed up hours past the time his watch was scheduled to end, the S-rank missions he had volunteered to go on alone, the time when Yamato had first joined the team where he'd seen Kakashi shoot up bolt-upright in the middle of the night, shaking and covering his face...
It was all a reflection of his guilt, his trauma. And Yamato had just realized how deep his friend's wounds truly were.
He knew what it was like, sort of. Growing up without a family, one gets accustomed to being alone. He was comfortable with sorrow, with following orders and the mission above all else. After Root, he had been welcomed into the ANBU by Kakashi, and, despite some conflict, they had eventually grown close. They'd completed many effective missions together, shared meals, collaborated on logistics...and he'd almost felt like he knew Kakashi. But all along, had he really? If Kakashi had been holding all of that inside him, even while they slept just a few steps away from each other? When their lives were in the hands of each other, did he truly know the depths of his friend?
There was an abrupt movement to his left. “Anyway, let’s get going. Now that the storm has passed, we have to go. I’ll go get Naruto--”
Before he fully realized what he was doing, Yamato reached out and grabbed Kakashi’s arm. Openly caught off-guard, Kakashi turned, and his wide eyes met Yamato’s solemn ones. His red sharingan eye was open, bright red and stark against his pale skin.
Yamato kept his voice steady and measured as he spoke, taking care that his grip on Kakashi's arm was gentle enough to not hurt him, but firm enough to keep him there. He kept his eyes trained on his friends', that dark eye and the burning red one that looked at him with veiled panic. “Kakashi. You are one of the best people I know. And, underneath all of it, you are kind. I truly believe that. I know what the ANBU is like, how hard it is. Who we've been in the past doesn't define us. That's what I've learned, and I know you've worked through it. But what you just told me...you have lost so many people, I just--I don’t know how you do it. I can't even begin to imagine, to understand. How have you come so far? How did you survive it all?”
This time, Yamato saw the tell. Kakashi’s jaw clenched tightly, quickly breaking the eye contact between them as his eyes immediately filled with tears. “I…I don’t know.”
Yamato released Kakashi’s arm, threading a hand through his own hair. “It’s just that…honestly, Kakashi, I wish you’d just told me sooner. I mean, even before Madara showed up! It would have been helpful to know -- for me to know--”
“I didn’t know I could,” Kakashi said quietly, turning his head slightly back towards Yamato. “You’re the first one I’ve told. So, thank you.”
A single tear rolled down his face, crystal-clear in the cold, and Yamato had the decency to look away.
There was a noise of approaching footsteps.
“Hey, Captain Yamato? What’re you doing out here in the cold?” Naruto asked, blinking in confusion. Then, his eyes landed on Kakashi. “Whoah, Kakashi-sensei, put some clothes on! It’s freezing out here! And your hair’s all wet!”
Yamato chuckled awkwardly, drawing Naruto's attention away from Kakashi. “We were just catching up. Listen, why don’t we all get ready to head out? The storm has cleared. Go gather your equipment and meet us outside in ten minutes.”
“Yes, sir!” And with that, Naruto dashed down the hallway.
“That kid,” Kakashi said after a moment. His tone was heavy with exhaustion, but held a sort of fondness to it.
Yamato hummed his agreement, then turned towards his friend.
“You ready to go, Kakashi? I can give you some more time, if you need it.”
Kakashi took a breath, slow and methodical. Yamato could tell he was gauging his physical and mental state, the same thing he did during a pause in combat. Seeing if he could take any more.
“No, I think I’m okay," Kakashi said after a moment. "Let’s get going.”
Yamato nodded in understanding, and the two of them began to make their way back towards their room to pack their things.
His stomach growled, and Yamato stopped mid-step.
“What? Forgot something?” Kakashi glanced over.
Yamato groaned. “I never got to eat the eggs I made for breakfast.”
Kakashi closed his eyes in a relaxed smile. "We can stop somewhere on the way back. My treat."