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—everything—
Everything felt so wrong.
Rin dead—
—so very, very wrong.
Kakashi felt numb, tried being numb, to have no emotion, yet there were times—
He cried. Kakashi cried his own tears, not Obito ’s.
Or so he thought, because he ’d cried from only one eye that time.
“It’s likely the transplant, not that,” Rin had told him, the medical nin had told him, yet—
There was no denying that this time felt worse.
Worse than before.
So—
He didn ’t want to see Rin ’s mother.
But—
“She has something for you.”
To which he thought it was something to make sure he felt guilty, but—
He was fine, he thought, with that, with the Nohara clan blaming him.
She sat there in Minato ’s office.
She sat there, and—
“At the end of the day, these were always meant for you.”
Those weren ’t the first words from the mouth of Rin’s mother, as she had offered her greetings, did the painful thing of not blaming him—
—letters—
“I know you may not be ready. May never be ready,” the woman said. “But as far as we’re concerned, I’m concerned, you are my son-in-law. Do you understand?”
He didn ’t understand.
He felt too emotionally numb.
His mind is still processing.
Only ever processing in the dreams that he woke from to in the waking nightmare was way blood that wasn ’t there—
Kakashi did, though, make sure Rin ’s mother was taken care of just as he made sure Obito’s grandmother was taken care of, grandson to one, son to another, things he didn’t quite understand.
Not till he was older, and—
Obito ’s grandmother had passed on, Uchiha massacre and all.
But Rin ’s mother?
Seeking her out was one of the first things he felt he had to do before he took the mantle of Hokage, but—
Tsunade was pushing him, and that—
He decided that needed to be his stipulation, and Tsunade—
Bless her, Tsunade was happy, and Kakashi could understand why.
“I can’t imagine you’d want to see me,” he muttered.
“That’s not true!” the woman said, dismissing the rest of her family, even her husband, even though they wanted to crowd the long-lost brother-in-law.
“I wasn’t ever,” Kakashi said.
“It’s okay if you were never able to open the box and read them,” she said. “But they’re there.”
He didn ’t want to tell her he’d lost the box in the Pain attack, but then—
That might have in itself been a wake-up call, that he needed to see her, particularly since he ’d almost taken the mantle of Hokage.
He fidgeted.
“Are you doing well?”
“Yes,” he said, and then he told her. He told her about things he wanted to tell Rin, such as about his Gennin team, skipping the ANBU parts, and—
She already knew about the war and him being a war hero, although not about Obito ’s return. That—
The general populace didn ’t need to know that, or some of the other things. He could already imagine some wanting to strip Obito’s name from the memorial stone, though—
“No. No. She might as well.”
And no—
He ’d not found someone else. Didn’t plan to, definitely now that—
“So, this needs to stay mum,” Kakashi swallowed, worrying his hands under the table, tea in front of him. “It’s not been announced yet, see. But…”
“But?”
“I wanted you to be the first to know. And to apologize for not…”
“Hmm,” she said. “Apologize for what. Being sure the shinobi offices set aside a part of your wages as a stipend for your mother-in-law?”
“Ah. That.”
“Rin told me enough,” the woman said. “That you were never good at processing your feelings, that I might have to wait until you were this old for you two to have children.”
To which his face turned red. “Ah!”
“I’m allowed to tease you,” the woman chuckled.
And then—
He told her about the announcement that would be coming, about how unsure he was.
“You’ll make a good Hokage,” the woman said. “Rin expected it.”
“Ah.” It seemed a bit strange.
And they both knew part of the reason he told her was because Hokage duties meant not visiting for other reasons, despite having come to terms with a lot of things, making him wish he ’d done so sooner.
And—
“How about letters?”
“Yeah,” he said. “They might not be of much substance, or frequent. My life’s rather boring.”
“That’s okay.”
Because everything was okay.