Chapter Text
He likes to wander around Konoha in the hours of the early morning. In those hours, well before the sun comes up and everyone else is awake, the world is so still.
The air feels fresh against his skin. Everything has been reset by the night, leaving a refreshed and new earth. And he, walking through it before dawn, is usually the very first who got to see it.
It was a nice feeling. It gives him much needed solitude.
Not that he had a particularly tough time finding solitude. Kakashi Hatake was a clever young man, and had a knack for finding unnoticed places. Caves, trees, forest clearings. He found places easily. Even inside the walls of Konoha, he knew dozens of abandoned or out-of-the-way places that he could go into to be alone.
It was his annoying friends that stopped him. Those little assholes, led by the ever-irritating Guy, would never get off his back. Inevitably, when he went out and about during the day, Guy would track him down and invite him to something. It was usually a food-related activity, or a challenge for their inane “rivalry.”
Saying no was getting really boring, and Kakashi was tired of it.
Becoming nocturnal was an easy solution, made easier by the extremely variable schedule of his ANBU missions. So what if he only went out when no one else was around? He wasn’t lonely. He was just… pragmatic. He liked his personal space.
He’s pacing around near the memorial stone, contemplating the state of his loneliness when he runs into her.
She’s a familiar face, one Kakashi recognizes immediately but has trouble putting a name to. He knows her… did he take the chunin exams with her? Or was she in the Academy with him? Is she an ANBU, wandering around unmasked like he is?
He’s aware that he’s been staring at her, unspeaking, for several moments and most regular people find that disconcerting. Not knowing what else to do he flips a peace sign (instinct, but a terrible one) and says “Yo,” at the confused young woman before him.
“Kakashi?” she asks, another couple moments after his awkward greeting. She inclines her head at a slight angle, brow furrowed.
“Uhhh… yeah…..” he wracks his brain hard, trying to use every single bit of skill he’s acquired in a long career of espionage and shadows. He’s always been good at recall, and… “How are you, Kurenai?”
It’s a guess, but a lucky one. Kurenai (he hopes, because she doesn’t react negatively) just stares at him. Kakashi, already uncomfortable at having his solitude disturbed, can only handle so much more silence.
Before he cracks and tells her literally everything he’s ever kept bottled up, she breaks the silence. “What are you doing out here, dude?” she asks.
It’s a fair question. But one he doesn’t have to answer truthfully, because he’s in the ANBU and she technically answers to him. Not that he’s gonna be an asshole about rank, or he’s not going to do that anymore.
“Um. Well, I’m visiting Obito,” he says. It’s a passable lie, because the real answer (“I’m just wandering around aimlessly”) makes him seem too deranged. So this is obviously better.
Fuck. He’s fucked.
“...The memorial stone is four miles north of here,” says Kurenai, bewildered.
Oh. He’d wandered farther than he’d thought. A lot farther.
And he sounded like a liar, or like he was insane. Kakashi, put on the spot, has to quickly pick his poison.
Insane it is.
“I feel his spirit more, uh, strongly. Here. Than at the stone,” he says, grateful for his mask and hitai-ate for keeping so much of his face hidden. That helps, when he’s spinning his bullshit.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t help him with Kurenai.
“I know you’re full of shit, Hatake,” she warns him. “But I’m a good friend so I won’t push it. Mind if I join you?”
And he did mind, but the first word that spills out of his traitorous lips is, “No,” and so five minutes later, he and Kurenai are walking side by side through the forest.
She chatters, but he finds himself not minding. It’s nice to have another person there with him. She chases away some of his shadows just by being there, being willing to speak to him like he’s just another ninja.
To be spoken to as Kakashi Hatake, fellow ninja. Not as Friend Killer Kakashi or Kakashi of the Sharingan.
So he listens as Kurenai tells him about the new research she’s been doing, about using materials to aid the casting of genjutsu. Her mind is sharp, and her approach to genjutsu honestly? It’s genius. He himself is a passable caster of genjutsu, especially with his Sharingan, but Kurenai explains the theory behind it in such a detailed way. She has a very precise way of affecting the mind.
She’s telling him which ingredients will have a more potent effect on what part of the brain, picking them as she describes them.
He helps her, picking herbs and absently listening. He picks soft leaves that are meant to affect the parietal lobe, plants that look more like pine needles for the cerebellum, and other things he doesn’t even bother pretending to keep track of.
The sun rises and he and Kurenai are done. She’s given him a basket, which he wears slung over his shoulder. They’ve filled it, and she delights in that she’s done so early and has some free time.
“I’m going to use it having lunch with Asuma,” she admits to Kakashi. They’re walking back to the village together, taking their time simply because they can. It feels nice to linger. It feels good to not be in a hurry, to walk and simply enjoy walking.
“Hmmmm.” He doesn’t know what to say at that. He could say some trivial comment on how Asuma was alright. But if he does, Kurenai might want to talk about Asuma more, and Kakashi doesn’t want that. All he knows about Asuma is that he smokes, he likes to hang out with Guy, and the fact that he’s in the Sarutobi clan. Not super interesting conversation topics.
“You should come with us,” Kurenai tells him. “I know Guy’s always inviting you to hang out with us. I want you to know that we wouldn’t mind if you said yes.”
Kakashi is taken aback by that. Frankly, he didn’t know Kurenai and Asuma ever noticed him. Let alone gave a singular shit about his well-being.
And then Kurenai goes on to say something even worse. “It’s not just Guy that wants to hang out with you. We’re all your friends.”
Oh shit. They like him.
How embarrassing for them. Don’t they know who they’re talking about?
But for now he’s stuck in this moment, and he has to find a way out unless he ends up hanging out with Kurenai and Asuma all day.
“Um. Maybe later, Kurenai. Another time.”
She frowns, not convinced he’ll follow through. But like she’d said before… she was a good friend, and she wasn’t going to push it.
“Fine, Kakashi. But I’m holding you to that.”
She reaches a hand out suddenly, jabbing him in the gut. He lets forth a startled oomph, jerking backwards. Counter-attack strategies fly through his head, fingers wrapped around his kunai knife, until he notices that it’s just Kurenai’s hand. Extended. Waiting for him to shake it.
Yeah, okay. She wasn’t stabbing him or anything, she just wanted a handshake. Like normal friends.
He shakes his head, then reaches for her hand and gives it a quick pump. “Okay.”
When they part ways and Kakashi goes to crash in his empty, dark little apartment, he falls asleep a little easier.
Whether he’d admit it or not, having Kurenai and Asuma on his side means a lot to him.
More than he could ever say.