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Shock coursed through Kakashi’s entire body in an instant. It was as though his small body simply froze in place, as though it were rooted into the floorboard below his uncovered feet. He did not mind the evening chill sending shivers down his spine, his mind fixated on the shade of crimson covering the floorboards, trailing all the way to taint his pale skin a shade of red.
It had taken Kakashi minutes to move from his spot by the door. Rooted into place he stood there with his eyes fixated on the gruesome sight, mouth gaping open as the terrible smell following invaded all his senses. His chest was heaving up and downward in sync with his erratic breathing, his heart beating at a pace faster than usual.
It had taken his father’s croaking and pained moans for Kakashi to snap out of his trance.
“K-Kak-kashi …” Sakumo breathed in deeply. He was unable to turn his head, his right ear pressed against the bloody floor. As much as he wanted to look at his son, he couldn’t. Only his excellent sense of smell told him that the young boy was standing there.
Kakashi felt like he was suffocating in that room. His senses were entirely overwhelmed, his eyes burning with unshed tears, his nose feeling as though it was burning from the inside, the only sound in his ears his blood rushing through his body, his hands clenched painfully so and a sickening taste invading his mouth, making him gag several times. As much as he wanted to move away from the overwhelming sensation, run as far as he could, and never look back, his father’s voice left him almost clinging to it, holding onto it as a newborn would to their mother.
Why hadn’t he come home sooner? Guilt was already wrecking his mind, leaving behind a mess his father wouldn’t be there to clean up. Kakashi had already chosen to come home sooner than expected, he had put off the game he was brought in to play with his classmates and went home sooner, a strange feeling troubling his stomach. As though something was meant to happen, the young boy traveled home with his stomach sinking with each step he took, sweat breaking out on his body, and his nerves tingling.
And he had been right. Had he only come sooner …
Without much thought, Kakashi’s small feet padded toward the body of his father, his ears becoming more aware of how much trouble the man had with breathing. It was painful to listen to his last moments like that, to hear the man struggling for a mere breath, his hand enveloping his weapon of choice completely clenched, the muscles frozen.
Sakumo let out another cough, blood splattering practically everywhere. “K-kakashi …” He wished dearly that his son wasn’t here to see all of it, it wasn’t how he wanted to be remembered. “I’m s-sor-ry.”
Kakashi’s legs buckled under the weight of his emotions and he fell to the ground, his knees meeting the blood-covered floor harshly. His mouth opened several times to form a word, but he did not manage to even produce a sound. Many phrases ran through his mind, all of them left unspoken in the shambles of his thoughts.
I’m sorry, too, dad.
Please don’t leave.
Why did you do this?
Kakashi could only place his hand onto his father’s shoulder, gently squeezing it once as tears of his own burned his eyes, quietly falling down his cheeks. “Dad.” He managed to speak in a whisper, his throat feeling as though it were burned by the word.
Sakumo’s heart broke at hearing the word. Coming from his son, it sounded so … childlike in comparison to his normal way of speaking.
“I-I shoul-should’ve told y-you sooner, son,” With each word he spoke, Sakumo was coughing up more and more blood. It spilled from his lips in a stream, leaving a trail of drying crimson in its wake. With his hand, he attempted to wipe away the blood but found the limb too weak to move. “I regret that now.”
Kakashi’s entire small frame was shaking, so much so, that even his father could feel the movement. A hiccup pushed past his lips, more tears spilling from his eyes. “What is it?” He croaked out weakly.
The silver-haired man took a deep breath, one that felt as though there was a heavy weight pressing onto his chest. ”Y-your m-mother. She’s wa-waiting f-for you.”
Kakashi’s eyes widened to resemble those of a doe. Tears spilled out from the deep charcoal set ablaze, his lips trembling underneath his mask. It took a moment for his lips to be able to form these words, words he hadn’t spoken since early childhood. “Mom?”
His mother had always been a topic he rarely dared to address, a bridge that Kakashi thought of long burned. The portrait he had once seen of the woman had burned into his mind that day, it was an image he ensured never to forget. Days later the portrait had disappeared from his father’s study, gone as though the wind had carried it away. Yet, he never forgot what she looked like.
Sakumo nodded weakly, his head barely moving. The breath he drew was shaky and had him coughing up more blood as his son watched, helpless.
Kakashi shakily lifted his hand and moved it to press on the wound on his father’s stomach to somewhat keep the blood from flowing out of his wound to no avail. As though it would keep his father alive, Kakashi held his hand close as it continued to shake. Sakumo was quick to nudge the hand of his son away, now stained in his crimson blood, and shook his head. “It’s t-too la-late …”
No, the young Hatake couldn’t believe it, it just had to be a dream, a piece of his imagination. “Dad-”
The older male hushed his son, shaking his head as his eyelids began to flutter shut slowly. Sakumo breathed in through his nose, finding it more difficult to breathe, as though a weight were pressing onto his chest, sucking all air out of him.
"M-my breast pocket …" He didn't even need to finish his sentence, Kakashi knew what his father meant. Speaking became more and more difficult with each word. "The b-backside … photo."
Kakashi’s nimble fingers slipped into the breast pocket of his father’s shirt, pulling out the portrait he had seen many years ago. It was stained with splatters of crimson blood, and the edges torn and wrinkled, but that did not make the familiar face depicted any less familiar. His mother.
From only seeing the portrait alone, Kakashi could understand why exactly his father had fallen for the enigmatic woman his mother had been for him all his life. There was no denying that his mother was a sight for sore eyes, with hair that was as expressive as it matched her features. They were entrancing, to say the least, captivating, even. Lips that pulled into a dazzling smile, and eyes that just shone with undeniable kindness, his mother was in simple words beautiful. Seeing what she looked like also made obvious what Kakashi had already known, that he was a carbon copy of his father, having no features that he shared with his mother.
The fact only nourished his wish to see the woman in person one day, to hear her voice speak to him for the first time, and to etch it into his brain as one would record a vinyl to play over and over again.
Sakumo yet again coughed up blood, taking his son’s attention away from the portrait.
“Dad-” Kakashi breathed out, his voice cracking. His emotions were a turmoil and had his heart feeling as though at any moment, it might break from all that he was feeling.
His father swallowed harshly and took a moment to recompose himself before speaking again, “Turn ar-around.” His voice had become more strained and quieter, barely audible by his son.
Despite his undeniable intelligence, Kakashi took a moment to understand his father’s request. By then, his mind was already rushing to keep up with everything that had happened, trying to get a stable hold on all that he was feeling, to keep Kakashi from sobbing anymore so that he could assist his father in his final moments.
Kakashi turned the portrait in his hand around with some hesitance, his hand shaking from the anxiety coursing through him. Upon seeing the backside of the portrait, his eyes widened dramatically, new tears beginning to prickle at the edges. A location was scribbled messily on the backside of the portrait, something Kakashi cursed himself he hadn’t seen before.
“Waiting …” Sakumo felt like his lungs were on fire, yet, he kept going. He had to tell his son, even if those were his last words. “F-for you.”
His mother’s location. After all these years of the woman being shrouded in an enigmatic aura, with no information about her, Kakashi was so close to getting to know her, to where she was. His eyes lit up and his lips quivered underneath his mask, the shock he was feeling making him shiver.
All Sakumo needed to see before his death was that Kakashi had at least some guidance before his untimely passing. To watch as his son's charcoal eyes widened at the sight of his mother and her potential location, to see his eyes take on a new glow, one that was so lively and child-like, had Sakumo's heart breaking into a million pieces. It had become unsalvageable.
He could rest easy now, knowing his son could reside with his mother from now on. It wasn't the way Sakumo had intended to go, quite frankly, the opposite of what he had wished upon himself the moment he first got to hold his newborn son. He had planned to love and cherish the child he held in his shaking arms until the day he passed from natural death, but things had gone way differently, he now realized. All of those things he saw himself doing with Kakashi, a boy whom he raised to be beyond his years, would never happen. Sakumo would never get to be the father Kakashi deserved to have, that realization dawned upon the man in an instant, he would never get to raise Kakashi into an intelligent young man with dreams of his own.
Sakumo could only mourn what would never be. He wanted to scream, he wanted to sob as a mere child would he wanted to kneel before his son and beg for forgiveness, beg for Kakashi to forgive his actions. And yet, despite his willpower to do all these things, he could not, his body’s strength had left him long ago. He could only watch his son take in the image of his mother, adoration, and determination burning in his charcoal eyes.
Seeing his son scramble to make up a plan gave Sakumo the comfort he needed to finally close his eyes. It felt like the burden of a thousand worlds was no longer pushing down onto his shoulders, dragging him down into a pit of darkness until he could not breathe any longer. It was like he was suffocating under the weight of his own emotions, the shame he felt, the disappointment others instilled in him. It had become too much.
A final breath was all he needed to go in peace, his chest no longer rising and his heart remaining still. The figure cloaked in darkness had come, at last, something Sakumo already knew would happen the moment the weapon pierced the skin of his stomach, his hand outstretched for death to take.
As soon as Kakashi’s gaze moved to look over at his father again, he could feel his heart give out for a moment. The only sound he could pick up was his blood rushing to his ears as he moved into a state of shock, his muscles clenching in response. His fingers almost crushed the portrait he was holding as his jaw clenched, his teeth painfully grinding against one another. There was no word he could use to describe how he was feeling, and what emotions were going through him. Was it anger? Frustration? Grief? Kakashi could not tell. It was a mixture of all those emotions, sprinkled with a tad bit of joy at a hint of his mother’s whereabouts.
Shivers danced across Kakashi’s spine, leaving him to tremble by his father’s body.
How had he not noticed sooner?
Could he have saved his father? Helped him deal with emotions, at least?
Kakashi choked back a sob and shut his eyes tightly, attempting to rid his mind of the images burned into it. Never before did he crave a parent’s affection as he did now, for someone to hold him close and tell him that everything was going to be alright. Yet, there was no one left to do that, the only person too far away to reach him now.
For his mother to hold him close, he had to reach her himself.
Kakashi knew what he had to do: leave the village. Not even once did he think about the consequences of his actions as he left the rotten room to haunt his memories, that as soon as he left, he would be considered a nukenin. That fact was almost irrelevant to him, something he was able to easily ignore while he was beginning to pack his bags together. He pushed the fact to the back of his mind, and continued without sparing it another thought, his mind focused on what he still needed to pack for his long journey into faraway lands.
Leaving the village behind was no longer a tough choice, but rather a necessity if he wanted to see his mother.
Occasionally, stray tears trailed down his cheek, but he was quick to wipe them away, determined to show no signs of weakness now. The green vest he wore felt heavy on his small body, draping over him as any other oversized article of clothing would. The portrait of his mother he placed in one of the many breast pockets, Kakashi making sure several times that it would not fall out. Then he secured the vest as tightly as he could around his body, ignoring how it did not fit properly on his too-young frame.
More so than he ever did before, Kakashi felt beyond his age. An adult living in the body of a child, a mature mind trapped in younger years. And yet, when he looked into the mirror, all he could see was a child with dried tears still visible on his cheeks, grief evident in his eyes, and a pair of hands, too old and too coarse for his age. In the mirror, his maturity and mind did not matter, in the mirror, he was only a child, left alone in a cold world.
Kakashi quickly tore away his gaze from his mirror image and checked the inside of his bag once more, making sure that he had packed everything necessary. With a heavy heart, Kakashi left behind the place that he once called home, making sure to shut, but not lock, the door behind himself. Before leaving the village, he knew that there was one last thing he had to do. In front of the Konoha police station he left behind a note of what happened with his father, making sure that in the morning, it would be found.
Without turning back once, Kakashi swiftly moved through the thick forest outside Konoha, relishing his newfound freedom. Safely stashed away was the picture of his mother in his new vest, pressed right against where his heart lay, guiding him to his new home.