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Guy gently squeezes Kakashi’s right palm. He unclasps it and runs his fingers over it, carefully and tenderly. He pulls it toward himself and kisses it. Kakashi demurs:
“Don't. It’s so ugly.”
Guy shakes his head no and continues kissing it.
Kakashi’s palm is cool, the skin on it rough, coarse, and covered in cracks. It probably pricks. Sometimes the skin on it peels. Guy reminds Kakashi to drink more water, and Kakashi drinks, but it doesn't help.
Kakashi is lying in the hospital, exhausted after the Akatsuki attack. Guy thanked everything in the world — Tsunade-sama, Naruto-kun, the heavens — for pulling Kakashi back. For the fact that he regained consciousness.
Guy clearly remembered the first time he saw his right palm.
The skin on the hand stung even through the glove, but Kakashi was almost used to it.
“Need to concentrate more chakra in the hand, adjust the output, and to hit the mark — engage the Sharingan...” Kakashi thinks.
It’s rather difficult, considering he isn't used to looking with one eye — the right one kept trying to pop open. But he’s almost accustomed to the sound, knowing in advance how loud the jutsu gets. When he made Chidori for the first time, he was actually scared — though it was more the shock of the unexpected; he had hoped for a completely different result.
Minato-sensei was scared too: seeing his student’s original jutsu, he forbade him from using it, worried for Kakashi’s safety and the safety of those close to him. But Kakashi was always set in his ways, and besides, as his best friend used to say: there are people worse than scum. No matter, he’ll refine his technique and show it off to Minato-sensei.
Eight in the morning: he stood on the training field, fully prepped long ago, picking up fallen straw from the dummies. Kakashi woke up quite early today, grabbing a hasty bite of whatever was at hand.
He needs to calculate the speed to run without getting tired while executing the jutsu.
He inhales and exhales. Nine hand seals, a distinct sound, a burning sensation in his hand. The familiar scent of scorched straw — four dummies pierced; a strike — into the trunk of a young tree. A crunch.
“Rather effective, I suppose,” Kakashi concludes, shaking out his hand.
His skin is still burning. The leather of the glove has fused with his own skin — it isn't the straw that smells burnt anymore.
“Yo, Kakashi.”
He turns around. Guy is standing next to him — a strange but friendly fellow.
“What do you want?”
His voice doesn't tremble; he speaks as if nothing happened. As if he feels no pain at all.
“Can I see?”
He points with his eyes at Kakashi’s right hand. It’s hidden by the glove, but Kakashi already knows things are bad.
In the rare moments Guy noticed Kakashi at Ichiraku or anywhere else with food, he noticed he held his chopsticks unusually. Once, Guy saw him switch them to his left hand, even though he always knew Kakashi was right-handed.
Guy is no fool; he knows the difference between the smell of burnt flesh and scorched straw.
“Let’s go.”
Kakashi resists, turning away, wanting to go nowhere. To hell with this hand, to hell with everything. It’ll be even better when it can't be used anymore. Let it burn completely, let it be useless—just like Kakashi considers himself.
Guy insists, deliberately (yet gently) grabbing Kakashi by his right hand, and Kakashi lets out a gasp of pain.
“So everything isn't fine,” Guy says, his own heart sinking — he hurts Kakashi.
Kakashi stops resisting and averts his gaze. Guy lets go of his hand. He tries not to look at Kakashi himself, so Kakashi won't see that he feels sorry for him. Kakashi is proud; he can't stand self-pity. The only one allowed to feel sorry for Hatake Kakashi is Hatake Kakashi himself.
He is fourteen; Nohara Rin vanished from his life forever not long ago. He is useless because he couldn't protect her. He is useless because he couldn't protect Uchiha Obito. He is useless because he was their damn captain.
Kakashi clenches his teeth and drags himself after Guy. Guy doesn't have to walk with him, but he does. Kakashi glares bitterly at him as they approach the medic’s office, as if to say, Why are you trailing behind me like a mother? Guy pays it no mind. He knows Kakashi well — he’ll just neglect his hand and go back to practicing his technique as if nothing happened. He knocks on the medic’s door. A man opens it from the inside, asking:
“How can I help you?”
Kakashi is fourteen and, truth be told, he hasn't had his fill of rebelling. He rebels politely, seemingly without breaking the rules (how could he — top student of the Academy), yet almost committing a terrible mistake.
The medic catches the smell of congealed blood.
“Take off the glove.”
Kakashi tries, but fails. It really stuck. He looks pathetically at the medic, but makes no sound. The medic realizes what happened.
“Easy, easy, don't tear it! You’ll make it worse!”
The medic finds scissors and cuts the fabric of the glove away from Kakashi’s hand. The patches where the cloth stuck, he leaves alone. He applies ice over the fabric.
Guy feels sick at the sight — Kakashi’s hand is red and cracked.
“This,” the doctor points to a blister raised in the middle of his palm, “do not pop under any circumstances, got it?”
Kakashi nods. After treating it, the doctor wraps Kakashi’s hand in bandages. He returns from the hospital slumping. Guy hurts again.
Kakashi quietly mumbles:
“Thanks.”
He didn't care about the pain, the injuries, or anything else. Guy cared.
Guy tries not to look at his leg. He convinces himself that everything is fine. Kakashi convinces him that... no, not everything is fine, but still. Now he will remain disabled forever, but still. Now they will never compete again, but still...
“And yet you were the one who convinced me, through your own actions, to be more careful, Guy,” Kakashi sighs.
He used to slip Kakashi ointment to heal the blisters after Chidori. He worried about others, not himself.
Kakashi thought he would go insane when he saw what Guy was about to do. Neither Naruto, nor Sasuke, nor even Obito and Madara knew what technique he was going to use.
Guy opening the gates, committing suicide. Kakashi running out of strength to scream.
Guy — a charred heap, not the man who loved Kakashi so much. One of the few who loved him genuinely. But... alive. He is alive thanks to Naruto. He is alive and cannot walk.
Now Kakashi visits the hospital more often as a visitor rather than a patient. The moment a free minute drops between wading through piles of documents and long council sessions, he goes to the hospital. He goes, ignoring visiting hours — he can do anything, he is the Hokage. He knows Guy won't be asleep; he’s been sleeping poorly lately.
He asks:
“May I come in?”
Not asking the nurses — asking Guy.
And Guy almost always answers:
“Of course, come in.”
Kakashi's skin has practically healed since that day. Kakashi strokes him ever so gently with his fingertips, petting his shoulder and along his arm. He lifts the blanket. Guy turns away — he can't bear to look at the leg. He couldn't even remember when it fell off — everything happened so fast. Kakashi looks at the treated stump — with a mix of sadness and tenderness.
“Does it hurt?”
Guy shakes his head.
“Here — it hurts,” he places a hand over his heart.
The hair on the leg has grown back since the surgery; they tried to help him. No one could — neither Sakura nor Tsunade-sama.
Kakashi strokes the maimed leg, insistently yet carefully.
“Don't touch it,” Guy says. “It’s... so ugly. It isn't beautiful enough... for you.”
Kakashi catches the compliment, but keeps stroking. He leaves a kiss on the fingers of Guy's other hand and presses it against his leg. He rests his head on Guy's shoulders, tickling Guy’s face with his unruly hair, and Guy can't help but smile.
They close their eyes, listening to each other’s breathing. Kakashi slowly stands up, intending to leave Guy’s room. Guy knows Kakashi will return.
He always wants to say something to Kakashi, something very important, but stays silent. And Kakashi seems to understand everything without words. He understands how hard it is right now for Guy to repeat the words “I love you” — words Kakashi heard from Guy a hundred times before the war. Guy was always very loud in expressing his feelings.
“You’re a hero,” Kakashi said once. “Remember that.”
Guy smiles. Replacing the wild spring of youth, the time for rest has arrived — a warm summer.