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It all started with a knock on your window, the usual rat-tat-tat of a knucklebone tapping glass.
You roll over in bed, look at the clock, see the late hour, and let out a small sigh.
But still, even if it is this late , you get up, manage your way across your dark apartment, and you unlatch the window. Once open, the cool night air spills inside, cooling your skin, and the figure standing on the rooftop just outside your window is none other than Kakashi Hatake, leaning against the wall. His exposed eye meets yours. “Yo.”
“You realize what time it is?” You say, exasperated but at least a little bit fond. Kakashi’s eye creases, as if to smile.
“I thought you’d be awake.”
You step away from the window, and Kakashi climbs inside your apartment. You wonder how many times he’s done this, but you realize you don’t really care. You close the window after him and ask, “Are you hurt?”
“Nah.” He shuffles about your small apartment, deftly avoiding the small stacks of books and papers scattered across the floor. He gets to the kitchen and flicks on the light. You squint as your eyes adjust, and the low hum of the cheap lights fill the apartment. But, you finally get a good look at Kakashi, and of course, the man’s barely changed at all.
He has no new scars (that you can see), nor bandages. His clothes are the same, along with the same green flak jacket he always wears, and of course, there’s his quintessential mask and headband. Everything’s the same. Everything’s fine by the looks of him, but you’ve gotten good at reading his body language, even if you can only see a sliver of his face most of the time.
“Bad dreams?” You ask.
“Nah.” He opens your refrigerator and starts going through it. You blink, not really too surprised.
He doesn’t take anything, but he does comment, “Your milk’s gone bad.”
Part of you wants to say, “ You disappear for a month, and one of the first things you say when you come back is: Your milk’s gone bad? ” but Kakashi has never had a good track record when it comes to keeping relationships of any kind. Then again, neither have you.
“Been busy with work, I haven't had time to go grocery shopping,” you say.
Kakashi hums in agreement. He then turns to you, “Wanna go to the store?”
“It’s rather late.”
“There’s a 24-hour mart just down the road.”
You take in a deep breath, hold in your chest, and say, “You’re lucky I don’t have work tomorrow.” You go back into your tiny bedroom, dress, and pull your shoes on.
Kakashi says from just beyond the doorway, “It’s not luck…”
You reenter the kitchen. Squinting, you ask, “You looked up my schedule, didn’t you?”
It couldn’t be too surprising, and it’s more than a little unnerving. Kakashi shrugs, “No, but I visit the flower shop enough to figure out when you're working there. You should change your routine a little bit. It makes you too predictable.”
You two leave your apartment and the apartment complex. The Village’s streets are silent. Dew on the dark pavement reflects the orange of the streetlights. They look lonely, you think, but you say, “Well, the flower shop can't run itself."
"Maybe I can get Team 7 to put up some hiring posters for you. That way you could move your shifts around."
"Team 7?" You then pause. Shocked, you ask, “You didn’t fail this group of genin?”
“No.”
And with that, you realize why Kakashi is here. “That’s unlike you,” you say, hoping he’d keep talking.
He does, “I know. I didn’t think I’d do it either.”
“Scared?”
“Hmm, no.” Kakashi hums, then adds, “But Iruka is.”
“You’re going to be Naruto’s teacher, then.”
“And a certain Uchiha’s teacher. I don’t think they’re going to get on well. I’m not too worried about Sakura. She’s a smart girl, a little distractible, but very smart. Reminds me a little bit of someone I know.” He sends a pointed look your way. You think of a little girl with hair the color of those spring-time flowers.
“The Haruno girl?”
“That’s her.”
“Oh, I taught her flower-arranging when she was little. She and Ino…” You smile to yourself, lost for a moment in the memories. It was a time when you were still a teenager, working part-time at the flower shop. You knew not to ask too many questions to the shinobi who would stop by. Many of them were haggard war veterans, widows and widowers, orphans, and parents who’d lost children. More often than not, your arrangements could be seen decorating a headstone somewhere in the Village graveyard, or the Memorial Stone. And so, you’d come to understand that your job often involved a lot more grief than it did joy. But just occasionally, you’d teach the art of arranging flowers, and your students were the younger sort. Children, some Academy-aged, some a bit older or younger. It could be refreshing. Children born in these times rarely get saddled with the weight of war.
“Here we are,” Kakashi states. The bright light of the mart’s neon sign is blinding, and so are the white lights inside the store. You blink hard, eyes adjusting. Bells ring once you enter, and then they ring again as Kakashi follows you inside. The clerk at the desk gives you both a two-fingered wave as you enter in lieu of a greeting, then goes back to reading the paper.
“Reminds me of when I would take you grocery shopping,” you say as you grab a basket.
Kakashi says back, “Guess I’m returning the favor then.” It was a strange development. First, you’d been working the counter at the flower shops, counting out change, when you’d noticed the twelve year-old boy, your age, was a few coins short of the arrangement he was buying. They were always pricey arrangements, and you had wondered how a kid his age could afford them. You hadn’t figured it out then. Still, you quietly covered the rest of the cost and made nothing of it. The masked twelve year-old just stared back at you. You hadn’t known what it meant at the time. He kept coming back after that, and he’d only stop by when you were working. By far, the masked kid had been the strangest customer you ever encountered. It was mostly because he was your age, but he definitely didn’t act like it. He would stare quietly, never saying much of anything beyond the number of his order. Sometimes, he’d remember to say a curt ‘thank you’ when you handed him off another bouquet. You’d always find those flowers on the memorial stone, and a few times, when it was raining, you found him in front of the memorial, mumbling to himself. It was those days you’d walk over with your umbrella, offer him to come back inside the shop, dry off, and have a cup of tea. A few times, he even took you up on that offer.
Because back in that time, you knew what both of his eyes looked like. How dark they were, and how loneliness would sometimes pour through— a loneliness that you could understand.
“You’ll catch your death out here,” you’d say, and the boy sitting in front of the grave would occasionally shift, noticing the rain wasn’t falling on him, and he’d say back,
“I don’t care.”
“If you don’t, then I think they would.” You’d gesture at the grave slightly. Although you hadn’t read the name on the headstone, you had a feeling it’d matter. Someone wouldn’t let themselves get soaked in the rain over someone they hated.
The boy would say, “Fine.” And he’d go back to the flower shop with you. The boy never spoke much about who was buried at the grave, and you didn’t figure out who it was until the boy introduced himself, “My name is Kakashi Hatake. I’m Sakumo Hatake’s son.” After that, he would stop by with his teammates, Obitio, a hot-headed Uchiha, and Rin, a very smart but slightly distractible girl. Sometimes, their teacher, the late Lord Fourth, would accompany them. You liked all of them, and you could tell Kakashi liked them too. Maybe, he even loved them, but it wouldn’t be like Kakashi to admit that.
“Let me cover this,” Kakashi says over your shoulder once you’ve filled up a basket full of necessities and plenty of snacks. You let him pay. The cashier sends him a quizzical look as they ring up the goods. This part of town doesn’t see too many high-ranking shinobi after all. Once Kakashi’s paid, you two head back out into the night. As you do, a pair of men enter the store. One of the men sizes you up. He pauses, as if to block the entrance, but then he looks over your shoulder and gets out of the way.
A tremor of anxiety hits you once you step outside onto the quiet streets, and you glance behind a few times while you’re walking back.
“Something wrong?” Kakashi asks.
“It’s just weird. Being out this late, I mean,” you say, to try and deflect from your own nerves.
Kakashi states without missing a beat, “We’re not being followed. Trust me, I’d know if we were.”
“I know.” You tuck a loose strand of hair behind your ear and smooth down any frazzled strands.
Kakashi adds quietly, “I forget that it’s not always easy being a civilian.”
“Sometimes,” you amend.
~
Because you think back to that one guy, and your skin crawls.
You can’t quite remember if he was a chunin or not. Only, you’d remember how he would come by when you were running the shop by yourself.
He’d lean on the counter and instigate these long, uncomfortable conversations with you. He’d ask prying questions about your family, your schooling, everything. It was as if he wanted to get to know you, but you knew on an instinctual level that he wanted to know these things for all of the wrong reasons.
He wanted to know where you lived, really. You just knew nothing good would come out of him knowing this, like how he knew your first name, and how he called you by it even when you told him not to. It got even worse when he would wait for you outside your work, to talk to you, or worse, try and follow you home.
Eventually, he did.
You remember climbing out of your window when you realized you weren’t alone in your apartment, how you scraped your hands on the roof tiles and the tree you scrambled down, desperate to get away. How you ran, and ran, and ran. You don’t remember how you wound up in the graveyard, or why Kakashi had been there that particular evening, dressed in that strange, bone-white armor and cloak.
Only, he’d caught you by the shoulders, asking, “What’s wrong? You’re bleeding.”
You barely got an answer out when your pursuer caught up with you, a kunai in his hand. Kakashi only needed to see the weapon and he acted. He never told you if he’d been reprimanded by Lord Third for what he did, but all you do know is, that man disappeared from the face of the earth, and you were never bothered again.
~
You almost want to say that the shinobi who frequent your flower shop avoid eye contact with you now, but you’d catch Asuma and Kurenai, two of Kakashi’s peers, watching you, as if you were a puzzle to figure out, and Might Guy would walk you home if you were working late. That is, if Kakashi can't do it himself.
“Tea?” you ask while Kakashi puts the groceries away. He glances at the clock, but you both know it’s a bit too late for sleep.
He closes the refrigerator door, and knowing you’re both alone, pulls down his mask, “Please.”