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Kakashi knew the instant the plant wilted. Before the first shriveled leaf even touched down atop the soil in the small pot, he could feel it in his bones - the ache of loss.
The day had started off well. Kakashi woke next to his lover and kissed him goodbye before they separated - Kakashi to his job as Hokage, Tenzo to his mission. He had been in a good mood as he entered his office, sitting behind his desk and giving the small plant sitting next to his picture of Team Seven a cursory glance. Tenzo had given the small plant with white flowers to him the day he became Hokage, promising that it would never die - a symbol of Tenzo’s feelings for him. It was almost sickeningly sentimental, but Kakashi had loved the gesture nonetheless and had placed it prominently on his desk. It seemed like such an insignificant thing, but it meant the world to him. A small tree that would never die… Until it had.
He was halfway through a report from Amegakure when the first petal fell. He hadn’t paid it much attention, but by the time he finished reading the report and looked up, all the flowers had yellowed and drooped, the bottom of the square pot littered with petals. That was when he had known something was wrong.
The leaves were the next to fall, shriveled and brown. A few moments later, the entire plant was dead.
The official report came two hours, fifty six minutes, and forty seconds later at three fifty two in the afternoon, July fifteenth. An Anbu operative, codename Tenzo, codename Yamato, had fallen in battle.
And Kakashi’s world shattered.