Chapter Text
As weeks turn into months, and months into years, he worries.
He can’t know if anyone is okay, even as the sky turns colors and a war breaks out.
Is Shikamaru okay? Did Haruhi make it through? Tsunade?
He can barely even think it but he… doesn’t think Kakashi is okay. There was a moment, a few months ago when his heart felt like it had been ripped out of his chest.
It only lasted a few hours but- it was enough. He could tell. Kakashi was gone.
He would never see Kakashi again.
~~~
They don’t call him back. After the war demonstrated just how far above normal people the nin really were, it was easy enough to nudge the higher ups in the right direction- diplomacy, not war, was the only way for the Daimyo to keep power.
He gets all operations related to Konoha rescinded and dissolved, and they instead start diplomatic relations, negotiating power between the Hokage and the Daimyo.
But they still don’t call him back.
Not even for the funeral.
Or, he supposes, funerals.
He was abandoned. So he sinks. Into Haruto. Into his own head. Back into the cold numbness that had consumed him nearly his entire life.
He prepares to send a missive to Konoha, in case it was a simple matter of paperwork getting crossed, him being forgot about, not abandoned on purpose, and waits for the next time he surfaces…
“Shit,” Haruto says, “This paperwork is completely wrong.”
Nothing.
He stays in the deep of his own mind, no matter how many times the trigger word is said.
It’s easier that way.
That way he doesn’t have to think about his Father, alone in his home, visiting his Mother who’s so far in his own head he doubts she even recognizes his Father.
Or Haruhi, stuck rebuilding after the war, alone.
Or Kakashi. Whenever he even thinks the name he can’t help but imagine. Blood, running down his forehead. That twinkling eye, dulling with pain, and then nothingness.
How he went without ever giving Takashi a chance to answer.
He doesn’t have to know the answer. Whether they forgot, or whether they abandoned him.
And so, more time passes.
He loses himself, a little more each day. That’s what he does, after all. Hides himself away from the pain until he no longer recognizes who he is.
That’s the way he stays.
~~~
He’s honestly not sure how long has passed. Haruto gains influence, and rank.
He ends up joining diplomatic meetings, meeting nin that Taka doesn’t recognize.
He doesn’t pay too much attention these days, in the moments he has awareness that he exists.
He perks up a little bit when he hears that Haruto is going to be part of the diplomatic delegation meeting with the Hokage.
He’d at least get to see if Tsunade was okay. Hey- maybe he’d find out about some of the others while he’s there. At the very least he’ll hear about goth fuck-the-patriarchy Sasuke.
Haruto walks in, not paying much attention to the nin. He still hates them. Wishes they didn’t exist. All the while, Taka is straining for a glance. A familiar face.
Eventually, Haruto’s eyes are forced up from his paperwork. He looks over at the Hokage to greet her and-
He’s knocked off kilter. The shock is great enough that it almost brings Taka all the way back up to the surface. Kakashi is alive- he’s there- he’s Hokage, holy shit He’s Hokage. It’s enough to bring tears to his eyes, even with Haruto still in control.
“W-what the hell?” Haruto wipes at his eyes, “Apologies, I must be having an allergic reaction to some sort of pollen that’s in the air.”
Kakashi looks stricken. Taka reaches for him. He claws at the walls trapping him inside his own mind. They had protected him before, but now they were nothing but a prison. No matter how he tries, he can’t break them on his own. He’s stuck.
It’s probably good for Kakashi. If Taka got out now, he would shove Kakashi under his wing and never let him out of his sight again.
The meeting continues agonizingly slowly.
It’s only now that he realizes that Haruto is a huge dick and he should strangle him while he sleeps. Stop talking to Kakashi like that you fucking asshole.
As he leaves the meeting, Taka starts screaming. No real reason, just to annoy the hell out of the dude, because he can’t stand that Haruto is walking away, just leaving Kakashi standing there. The look in Kakashi’s eyes breaks his heart all over again.
One of the commanding officers is following him, and he never minded what Haruto did so much until right now when Kakashi is watching.
Haruto slips into his room, and then Taka genuinely starts to panic. What if Kakashi thought he was ignoring him? Worse, what if Kakashi thought he wanted to stay here?
… What’s taking that guy who was following them so long?
Moments after that thought, Kakashi pops into the room out of nowhere, holding the body of the officer who had been following him under his arm, “I admit this might have been an overreaction, but in my defense, I do recognize him as one of the people who was killing our merchants.”
Haruto freaks out.
He scrambles back, tripping over his bed and hitting his head on the wall.
“Oh, oh my god! You killed him! Oh god please don’t kill me- shit, shit, shit”
Kakashi tilts his head, dropping the body without fanfare. He approaches, and it makes Taka gleefully happy, even stuck in his self-made cage.
“I see. Stuck. You really need to stop getting into these situations- you’re going to give me a heart attack.”
You’re one to talk. I thought you were dead.
“I thought you were dead.” His words come out at his urging, for once, shocking both himself and Haruto. Taka reels, losing his grip on the small amount of control he’d gained.
Haruto claps his hands over his mouth, “Wh-what?”
“There you are,” Kakashi smiles, reaching for his face with both hands, “We’ll talk in a second, just let me help you out a little first.”
Haruto cringes back, away from the reaching hands, but Kakashi cradles his face gently, smoothing his chakra through Taka, and-
He settles back into his own skin for the first time in years.
He grabs Kakashi’s hands desperately, clinging to him, he might be crying, he’s not paying attention. He’s focusing on the feeling of Kakashi’s hand, his heartbeat, “I thought I would never see you again- I felt it, I felt you go, what happened? What the hell? What the fuck happened to your eye?”
Kakashi pulls him closer, pressing their shoulders together, leaning them back against the wall. He wraps an arm around him, a calming presence for as long as Taka freaks out.
When Taka stops hyperventilating, Kakashi finally responds, “It’s kind of a long story- you might be better off asking Naruto, he was in the thick of it all the entire time.”
“I always knew that kid would be the main character.”
Kakashi chuckles, “Yeah, he always had that stubborn streak.”
“I was scared that she had abandoned me here.”
Kakashi nods tensely, “Yes, regarding that…” Kakashi shifts, pulling something out of his pocket.
“Did she?”
Kakashi shrugs, “I honestly don’t know. She wouldn’t tell me. Would go off about how I wasn’t ‘related’ so I didn’t ‘Have the rights to know’ I brought your Father with me once and she started complaining about security clearance.”
Kakashi rolls his eyes, then turns to look at Taka with a new type of intensity- this isn’t compassion, or a comforting gaze. It’s something else. “I don’t want you ever taken away from me again. I promised myself that I would ask as soon as I found you, that I would never let you go. So, Takashi, will you marry me?” He reveals the box in his hand to be holding a ring. Intricately made, but not delicate, he can tell how expensive it must have been.
That doesn’t stop him from being shocked.
“Wh-what the hell?”
“There’s rights given to married people- she can’t withhold information from me about you ever again if we’re married. Please. I can’t- I can’t lose you again.”
“What the fuck.”
“I know it’s out of the blue-”
“Five years”
“I could have started with something else but-”
“Five years,” he repeats, laughing. Kakashi shoves his shoulder lightly.
“I was worried about you!” He protests.
Taka shoves him back, and somehow they end up tussling, trying to pin each other down while staying as close together as possible.
They fall off the bed, both of them trying and failing to headlock the other.
They end up on the floor, tangled in a pile of limbs, laughed out, out of breath.
Taka sighs, “I had so much time to think, stuck in there. Honestly Kakashi, I can’t imagine doing anything other than spending the rest of my life by your side. So yes, Kakashi, if that’s what you need, I’ll marry you.”
“I know, I didn’t really expect- wait, really?”
“Oh Fucking Hell Kakashi.”
~~~
They don’t have a ceremony. It’s a hell of a lot easier to cut through the red tape and get married when your husband is the Hokage, so the process is expedited. The only hold-up is Taka himself. Finding a ring that suits Kakashi was a doozy, and trying to hide it from him until the marriage is even worse. He manages it though, and seeing the pure joy in Kakashi’s eyes when he sees the ring makes it all worth it.
It’s nice to be home.
He visits his Dad. It’s a tearful reunion.
He has to assure him several times that he’s not going anywhere. He means it too. He’s not leaving Konoha for as long as he can help it.
He starts visiting his Dad weekly. Sometimes with Kakashi, sometimes not. It’s comforting, that he’s still welcome even after how much he’d hurt his Dad.
He helps with the rebuilding efforts. Given that the Hokage is on his side on nearly everything, it makes it a lot easier to cut through the politics and make the rebuilding actually make sense. They wanted to put all the grocery stores in a ‘shopping district’, instead of interspersed throughout the city, so some people would have a 15 minute walk and other people would have a two hour walk. Ridiculous.
They weed out a lot of corruption while they’re at it. Not all of it, that’s near impossible- but a lot of corruption rears its ugly head when you start making positive changes.
Kakashi ups the age of admittance to the academy, and adds an advanced course. There’s a minimum graduation age now too, so 9 year olds, and 11 year olds, have no place on the battlefield anymore.
Konoha blooms.
Honestly, Taka would be happy enough with Kakashi just staying Hokage. He’s good for the city, and it’s good for him.
Kakashi wants his time back though, to do things on his own clock, and Naruto starts to get anxious, and starts bouncing off the walls.
So he abdicates. They have a long talk about it, and they re-do the government. No longer a monarchy, power is shared between several branches of government. Domestic- Sakura, Foreign- Naruto, and Internal Affairs- Sasuke.
Sakura splits her time between running the hospital and dealing with her new duties as one of the Hokages.
Naruto does the same, except instead of the hospital, he spends time with the orphans, doing everything he can to help them and give them better lives than he had.
Sasuke spends the most time weeding out corruption- it’s sort of his job. He reworks the shinobi by-laws, making sure that nothing like what happened to his clan- or Kakashi’s Father- will ever happen again.
They’re all far to busy for romance, but Naruto is trying. He started dating a nice woman recently, and he seems happy.
Haruhi got married while he was away, to his eternal chagrin.
“You didn’t even invite me to the ceremony!”
“You got married in an office!”
“We did it for the benefits!”
“I thought you died!”
“You didn’t even bring my picture!”
“Okay, point made! We’ll renew our vows and invite you!”
“Thank you!”
“Don’t think you’re getting out of having a ceremony yourself!”
“Bye Haruhi!”
“Get back here! This isn’t over! You’re going to have a huge ceremony or so help me…!”
Is how the conversation goes.
He opens the door to his apartment. It had been exactly how he left it when he got back, but it was a lot different now. The shelves were overflowing with food, and he had to do the dishes every day or be overwhelmed by massive amounts of them. There are plants everywhere thanks to Naruto.
Sasuke seems to think affection should be shown with weird fingertip touches and swords, so there are a lot of swords on the walls as well. Sakura has a more tempered approach, but they’re going to have to ask her to start bringing vases with the flowers, because every one they’ve bought has been broken.
Kakashi’s touch is subtle. It’s in the way he leaves his chair away from the table, not pushed in, but just out of the way enough that he doesn’t trip over it. Or the notches from where he got overzealous during his indoor training and threw a kunai at the wall.
Or the bed, perfectly made when he gets home even though he certainly didn’t leave it that way. And, of course, all the pictures on the walls are his as well.
He finds Kakashi on the balcony, playing with his ring and staring at the city.
“You know, Takashi,” He says, “I really think we’ve done well.”
He turns, smiling, and just like all the times before, Takashi finds himself breathless, just from looking at him, “I do too, Kakashi, I do too.”
Finite.