Chapter Text
Afternoons like this were rare, but treasured. You and Kakashi, sitting on the couch together as you read; no missions or training or other obligations.
It was late summer and you wore shorts and a tank top, while Kakashi opted for a loose pair of pants and his usual undershirt. He sat on one end of the couch, a well-worn copy of Icha Icha Paradise in his hands and your feet in his lap, one thumb rubbing idly over your shins as he read.
He always pulled your legs over his when you sat like this. He claimed it was for your comfort–“So you can lean back and relax,” he said–but you knew part of it was just that Kakashi liked to be always touching you in some way whenever he could.
He certainly wouldn’t find you complaining. You lost yourself in your book, humming contentedly as the sun warmed you both through the windows and Kakashi’s thumb continued its same mindless caressing of your leg.
At some point, you realized Kakashi’s fingers were taking a more deliberate path and you lowered your book to find Icha Icha abandoned on the arm of the couch and Kakashi’s brow furrowed slightly as he traced patterns across your skin.
“What are you doing?”
He looked up at you with a soft expression that made your chest tighten.
“I don’t think I’ve ever noticed how many scars you have here.”
You sat up on your elbows to peer down at Kakashi’s fingers, which were delicately tracing over all the barely visible marks on your legs and knees.
“Yeah, I guess. They’re mostly just from training.”
The life of a shinobi came with scars. The ones on your legs were mostly the result of errant kunai or flying rubble from sparring matches; little knicks and cuts that left barely a trace unless you were really looking for them.
“I think it’s just the lighting,” you said, noting the way the sun shining through the windows highlighted the scars more prominently.
Kakashi bent one of your knees and pressed his lips to it over a particularly obvious mark from a nasty fall you’d taken as a chunin.
You smiled softly at the gesture, sitting up so you could rest your hand on his cheek, running your thumb along the scar over his closed left lid.
You could hear civilians chatting in the streets below your open window, birds flitting past in raucous pairs.
But none of that mattered. This moment was quiet and private; just the two of you acknowledging past hurts.
“I don’t like them,” he said, finally, drawing your hand away from his face to look at the similar marks across your hands and forearms, scrapes and slices from shuriken and other deflected blades. “I don’t like thinking about you being hurt.”
You smiled, which Kakashi seemed taken aback by.
“Don’t think of it like that,” you said, “Think of them as a reminder of all the things we’ve survived so we could come back to one another.”
Kakashi smiled, too, at that, and kissed your knuckles gently.
“I don’t know how you always manage to find the bright side of everything,” he said wryly.
You knew sometimes Kakashi lost himself in the darkness. It was only natural; you’d found yourself there plenty of times, too.
But you knew the both of you would always be there to pull each other back out into the sunshine, even if you were a little worse for wear. And watching as he returned to his beloved book, you knew you wouldn’t change a thing about your life, scars and all.
Because it brought you to him.