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“Worthless shinobi system and a worthless world–”
a damp, musky scent of undergrowth. the ever-present crick in his neck worsening as he shifted to drown the noise out.
the sensation of dusty air blowing in all at once. bright light shining, for the first time in months. sound ringing in and out, a stinging pain in his eardrums—
--------------------
the old man collapsing, soundlessly, bloodily.
gasping, throwing the thin sheet off
behind him, something exploding into massive chunks
running towards the light—-
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heart racing
the wind knocked out of his chest, with the horrible realization that he’d caught up to him. choking on air, struggling to recover from the force of that punch to his back—
a hand on his shoulder, being forced back around. he was staring into mismatched eyes: one ringed, glowing purple, one Mangekyō.
“Who the hell are you?! Nonono-–WAIT!”
it spun and spun–- A veil of black and red coated everything–
‘My head hurts–’
“You will remember none of this. You are not Uchiha —. You will never become Uchiha —”
Darkness.
“You sure seem to be awfully distracted today,” says Mariko.
Obito, who has just poured water on the bar counter’s surface instead of into the glass he’s holding, and is wiping the inside of said glass with the cleaning rag, replies, “Oh, sure.” He then blinks, processes for a minute, then sets the glass down next to the spill. “...I had that nightmare again.”
“Ah,” Mariko says. “Were you able to recall any details this time?”
“Not really. It went the same way it always does.” Obito dabs at the spill. It’s frustrating, with no new information deciding to reveal itself, but this is how he’s lived for the past decade. He doesn’t know who he is, where he came from, why he was even in that cave… and he’s sure the very frustrating key to unlocking the mystery lies with that mysterious shinobi with the mismatched eyes.
“Chin up kiddo,” Mariko says, pushing herself off of her bar stool, “it will sort itself out eventually.”
“I guess.” He lays the rag flat, then smacks it against the spill. Pretty effective.
“Sometimes our minds reject memories that would be too harmful for us to remember. Maybe it’s best for you to forget.”
“Yeah, maybe,” Obito mutters. He still can’t help but wonder who he was before all of this, before the old lady and her late husband Shuichi had found him wandering around in the woods, bloody and half stark-raving mad.
“I’ll see you back at the house. Don’t start any more fights, now.”
“I won’t.” Probably…
The bar is a tiny, simple place. Located in the tiny village of Nishiyama, which consists of a general store, an inn, and a few specialized supply stores, Mariko’s Bar is the only social hub in the entire valley.
Nishiyama is in Earth Country in a valley that is a day’s walk from the Lightning Country border and a week’s walk from Iwagakure. All around, they are surrounded by a series of tall, rocky peaks dotted with emerald terrace farms.
There is no such thing as a secret in Nishiyama. It’s one of those towns where everyone knows everyone and what their neighbor’s grandma’s dog ate for breakfast that morning. There are about thirty families total; not a single person besides Obito has any shinobi training.
The valley is considered treacherous, and doesn’t receive visitors outside of daring merchants and shinobi passing through on missions. Mariko’s Bar is extremely popular both with the locals and these travelers, as it’s practically the only watering hole in thirty kilometers of mountainous, forested, rocky backcountry.
Currently, only Obito is on shift. Which is fine because it’s noon on a Tuesday and there’s never much business at noon on a Tuesday, save for the odd sporatic shinobi or three.
The building is compact. There are a few low tables, mostly used by friends catching up, and the bar counter top and seven bar stools mainly are visited by flirting locals and shinobi wanting to leave as quickly as possible. There’s no kitchen– yet– but they do have a jar of toothpicks.
Open for business, and not a soul to be served. Obito sighs. This area is big on farming. He’ll get a boom in business when the work day’s over, in about five hours.
Mariko and her late husband Shuichi were farmers. They’d had one surviving child, a daughter named Kiku, who was five or so years older than him. She was hardly around, as she had left Nishiyama as soon as she was old enough in order to become a kunoichi.
They lived on a decent plot of land about a ten minutes walk due west. Mariko still does. When they rescued him, Shuichi had tried to teach him to plant and harvest rice, expecting that since he was half plant, their harvest would be excellent. He was so horrible at it that it led to their yield being significantly lower than that of all their neighbors and the yield of the previous year, and a ruined, wood-studded field.
Obito has worked at the bar ever since.
There’s not a lot he knows for certain about his mysterious past, except for the obvious: he has a shinobi’s reflexes even if his memories of his training have been lost, he’s pretty sure he fought in the Third Great Shinobi War, and he knows he’s an Uchiha.
Years and years ago, when Mariko and Shuichi had first brought him to Nishiyama, Obito’s theory had been that he was an Iwa shinobi who had been missing in action and captured by the enemy– whoever the fuck that cave grandpa was. Mariko had refused to allow him to return to shinobi life, citing the extent of his injuries, her age, and after the death of Shuichi, the need for an extra pair of hands around.
Obito learned later that she had two older children who had left to become shinobi and died in the war.
A few years later, it became evident that he fought on Konoha’s side in the war.
Mostly, local Kumo and Iwa shinobi pass through Nishiyama.
(The route through the valley is considered too off the beaten path for most people, even those who know about it, and too dangerous to travel on threeout of twelve months of the year.)
Only once did Obito encounter a Konoha shinobi, a purple-haired woman who stopped by for an incredibly brief glass of water and left before he could learn her name. The kunoichi said he looked like an Uchiha comrade she had who died in the war. He had asked her if she and her friend were close at all. The woman had replied that they weren’t.
Obito, since then, has been left with the knowledge that he is countries away from everyone he’d originally known.
He wonders if somewhere in Konoha, his friends, comrades, and clanmates think he’s dead. He wonders if he went missing, or if he was a known prisoner of war.
He wonders if anyone misses him.
He wonders who he depended on, and who depended on him.
He wonders what his life was like, if he had any dreams he never got to work towards accomplishing.
He wonders who he would have been.
He wonders what his life would have been like if he had left Nishiyama to return to Konoha… would everyone here be alright?
Ah, but there’s no point to thinking like this. Nishiyama has been his home for the past ten years, and will remain his home for the next ten years. He just desperately wants to know how the fuck he possibly ended up in that cave.
Obito puts his elbows down on the table, leaning forward. He adjusts his eye patch, then scratches at his remaining eye. He then exhales a lengthy sigh, staring vacantly out into the empty bar and willing customers to appear.
…Was that old man in the cave an Iwa shinobi? Did the abduction even have anything to do with the war? Was he just some sort of crazy old pervert?
It’s mid-summer. He can hear the cicadas buzzing outside through the half-open windows. The doors to the bar have been left ajar to let the cool breeze float in.
He hears the crunch of footsteps floating in on the wind before he sees him: a shinobi staggers up to the side of the door and holds himself up against it. The sole visitor to this bar is a man with gravity-defying silver hair, wearing an incredibly suspicious, abstract dog mask.
Even from a distance, Obito can tell that he’s been recently injured, with a patch of dark brown blood staining the gray armor covering his chest. Bandages peek out from the top of his turtleneck. More bandages are wrapped around his left bicep, over his right thigh. A patch of blood steadily blooms through the bandages on his leg. There’s a large slash mark cutting across his abdomen through the material of his armor, and a haphazard, blood-soaked bandage wrapped over it.
Obito pushes himself off the bar, passively noting he’s wearing the same uniform, albeit a ruined one, as that other Konoha shinobi he met ages ago.
The shinobi takes a staggering step forward. He clutches his gut, sways, then staggers a couple more steps.
“Hey, are you okay-– shit-–”
The man drops to the floor and doesn’t try to get back up. Obito runs to him and with slight hysteria, presses two fingers to the pulse point at his neck. It’s slow, but steady. The shinobi tries to move his hand away, but his hand drops back to his side before he can grab Obito’s hand.
“I’m gonna get a doctor!” Obito tries to rise to his feet, then is surprised when the shinobi weakly grabs at his wrist.
“You waited for me,” the man rasps.
Obito does not know any medical ninjutsu. Obito does, however, know enough to be aware that this man’s injuries are very bad, and he desperately needs help right away. With dawning horror, he realizes that if he leaves him here, this guy might not be alive when he returns. Obito grabs him by the underarms and very gently, forces him up. “We’re going to the doctor. It’s not far!”
“You waited for me,” the man repeats. He whispers something else, but his voice is too scratchy, too quiet for Obito to tell what it is other than someone’s name. He tries to touch Obito’s face, but only succeeds in barely brushing fingertips against his scarred jaw.
Obito ignores him, and opts to pick him up bridal-style to hopefully avoid jostling his wounds and causing any more internal bleeding. “Alright buddy, let’s get you some medical treatment!”
The Konoha shinobi had been suffering from a broken arm, eight stab wounds–one of which was threatening to become septic–and severe dehydration. Shinobi adrenaline was certainly legendary. Obito suspects that the man hadn’t been aware of how injured he was, and only stopped into town to get some water when he had collapsed.
Doctor Shirotani is a miracle worker. She used her limited medical ninjutsu to help the smaller wounds heal faster, splinted the man’s broken arm, and gave Obito some medicine to cut the man’s pain. Doctor Shirotani had been raised in Kumo, but her chakra pools are small so she can’t do very much with her medical ninjutsu. Still, she’s a talented herbalist, and the town of Nishiyama is very lucky to have her.
Currently, the shinobi is resting in his room on the guest futon.
Mariko’s house is tiny, like all the houses in this village, consisting of two rooms and a kitchen. It’s attached to her modest plot of farmland. After leaving the shinobi with Doctor Shirotani, Obito had briefly returned to the bar to close it for the day. Upon returning back home with the shinobi, he explained to Mariko this man’s predicament, and Mariko, being the kind soul she was, was more than willing to host him until he’d gotten back on his feet.
(They’d done this occasionally. Obito wasn’t the only stray she’d picked up, but he was the only stray that had stayed.)
Obito was under the doctor’s orders to wait for him to wake up, then continue to hydrate him. She’d done what she could, but her supplies were limited in a town as small as Nishiyama and she couldn’t do what he needed. Thus, Obito had been enlistsed as the man’s nursemaid.
He slides open the doors to his room, carefully balancing a pitcher of water and a glass on a tray, and discovers the man is awake and sitting up. He’s taken the dog mask off and placed it to the side of his futon, revealing… a second mask beneath it.
His entire face is covered by a dark blue face mask, and his Konoha headband is slanted to cover one of his eyes. His broken arm sits in a sling crossing his chest.
Suddenly, Obito is struck by the inexplicable feeling that he knows this ninja.
They stare at each other for what seems to be an eternity.
Familiar Masked Guy’s single, uncovered grey eye is assessing, sharp like steel. Obito squints at him.
He knows this guy. He doesn’t know how, but he knows him. He–
“Water,” the shinobi demands curtly, breaking the spell.
Obito immediately moves to his bedside and sets the tray down beside him. Crouching in front of Familiar Masked Guy, he pours him a glass of water, then hands him the glass. Familiar Masked Guy doesn’t even bother to pull his pretentious face mask down and chugs the entire glass, spilling water all over himself and his freshly bandaged wounds. He finishes, then sets the glass down on the floor instead of handing it back to him. “Another.”
Obito narrows his eye at him. “Another, please.”
“Please,” the shinobi rasps.
Obito picks up the pitcher and fills the glass, then hands it back to the shinobi. Again, the shinobi drains it nearly immediately, spilling a not-insignificant amount of water on himself.
“Another, please.” The shinobi slides the glass over towards Obito.
Obito takes it, starts to fill it, and finds the man staring at him. His eyebrow is raised slightly, derisively, and the emotions in his visible eye are indecipherable.
There’s just something about this guy… It’s like he makes breathing punchable.
Obito huffs a sigh. He glances back up at the guy’s blank masked face and his mind whispers a name: Bakakashi.
…
‘I don’t know this guy,’ Obito reminds himself. ‘I’ve never met this fucking guy before.’
“So…” Obito tries, “You have one eye too, huh? How’d that happen?” Throughout his career as Nishiyama’s one and only bartender, he’d seen many shinobi with many different battlescars. It was rare to see shinobi with one eye, because from his understanding, the loss of depth perception was considered a career-ending injury. Obito had a few theories about how he lost his own eye, and most of them involved that creepy old man or the war.
The shinobi looks down at his third glass. He pushes it away, then tilts his headband up so it sits straight across his forehead, revealing a sharingan eye beneath it, to Obito’s surprise. Familiar Masked Guy says, evenly and lightly, “If you release the genjutsu, I promise your death will be painless.”
Obito stares at him, baffled. He looks around the room for any other shinobi. It’s empty of anyone besides him and this guy. Obito points at himself.
The shinobi nods slowly.
“I don’t know how to do genjutsu,” he admits, “At some point in the past, I was a shinobi, but that was years ago. If I did know it, I don’t remember.” Obito stares at the shinobi directly in his mismatched eyes, into the guy’s sharingan eye without activating his own, feeling his heartbeat quickening. “I’m not whoever you think I am. Drink more fucking water.”
The shinobi knocks the water glass out of his hand. Knocked free, it drops onto the floor with a wet thud.
Obito sighs, loudly. “Isn’t it too late to worry about that? Since you already drank the water I gave you?”
Familiar Masked Guy ignores him, and tries to stand. His legs shake visibly. The three tomoe in his sharingan spin menacingly. “Lift that genjutsu and appear as your true self, or I’ll make you.” He then cocks his head and shuts his eyes in a mocking smile, “either way, you’re going to die.”
“Fuck you,” Obito snaps, “Deal with me? I found you on death’s doorstep! I don’t know what you think is going on, but get it through your thick skull that I’m clearly trying to help you!”
The shinobi tackles him. Obito’s breath is knocked out from his chest and he’s thrown backwards onto the puddle. The shinobi moves his unbroken arm in a motion that telegraphs he means to go for the throat. Obito rolls away from the strike, only to be met with a headbutt.
“Where am I,” Familiar Masked Guy hisses, “what do you want with me?”
“You were practically dead like two hours ago,” Obito replies, slightly dizzily. Where did he find the energy all of a sudden? Oh, right. Shinobi adrenaline. “I dunno, I just didn’t want you to die painfully on my bar floor.”
Familiar Masked Guy lifts him up by the collar and headbutts him again. “Where am I? Who do you work for? Are you a bounty hunter? A nuke-nin?”
He feels something wet and hot at the back of his throat. Obito coughs, then wipes a bit of blood away from his nose. “I’m a bartender. You’re in Nishiyama, in the mountains of Earth Country. I work for an elderly woman named Ikeda Mariko! The nice lady who’s house you’re in!”
Familiar Masked Guy stares down at him for a minute. Obito thinks he might let go of him and finally calm down. Then, like a broken record, he repeats, “Who are you? Why do you know that face?”
Baffled, Obito just stares at him. “It’s my face…?”
“You’re lying.”
Obito curses.
‘Oh shit, oh fuck, he’s so pissed! Does he know me? Does he think I’m dead?!’
The shinobi slams him down against the floor, again, then again while repeating, “Who are you? What do you want?” Dizzily, he spys the glass rolling closer to his side. He gropes for it, grabs it… then smashes it against the shinobi’s head as he’s slammed down into the floor.
The shinobi releases him. He falls back. Shards of glass rain down, into the bloodied puddle. Obito coughs, then spits blood over his shoulder on the pale wood floor. He props himself up using his forearms. “You’re fucking nuts!”
“I’m nuts?” laughs the insane man, mismatched eyes narrowed. Clearly seething, he slides his broken arm out of the sling–
“Hey--don’t do that–” ‘Why do I even care? Fuck this guy! What the fuck? What the fuck?’ “It’s broken and you’ll only fuck it up worse, you asshole!”
The shinobi ignores him, then wobbily rises to his feet. He stares coldly down at Obito, hands resting on his hips. His brows furrow and he sighs. “Maa, sorry, sorry. My emotions got the better of me there. This will be over quickly.”
“Wait,” Obito cries. “Wait a minute!”
An impression of coldness, jealousy, admiration flashes.
“Calm down--put that knife down--I think I might know what happened–”
The doors to the room slid open.
Swirling tomoe, the room is tinted in red…
“What’s going on in there?! You’re making a ruckus!” Mariko shouts. Then, she cries out, “OBITO!”
Darkness.
Obito wakes up in the shade of the porch with a killer headache. Beside him is a glass of iced tea. The sun is just beginning to dip below the mountaintops, its light tinted golden. He hears the buzzing screech of the cicadas. He sees Mariko tending to her sunflower garden at the edge of their fields, before the forest. Slowly, he stands up and makes his way over to her.
“Oh, good, you’re awake,” Mariko says. She’s kneeling in the dirt, pulling weeds from the soil. “Dr. Shirotani cleared you. Your head will likely hurt for a while, but Ka–”
“Did you kick him out?” Obito kneels down beside her and starts ripping out weeds.
“Kick him out? He’d hardly be able to fend for himself,” says Mariko.
“I’m sure he’d manage just fine on his own.” Obito looks up with a weed in his not-quite human hand.
Mariko glances out into the forest. Sitting high up in a tree, idly reading, is Familiar Masked Guy. He’s changed out of his torn and blood-stained uniform and is wearing a suspiciously familiar looking shirt and pants set.
“Are those my pajamas?” Obito feels incredibly betrayed.
“Don’t get too mad. He’s only borrowing them until he feels well enough to get back on his feet,” Mariko says, pulling another weed. “After he knocked you out, he calmed down some and we were able to have a civil conversation.”
“Right,” he scoffs.
“You two need to talk,” says Mariko. She drops the weeds she’s just pulled to the side of the plot, then claps her yellow gardening gloves together and a cloud of dirt forms in the air. “He’s the best chance you have at finding that mysterious past of yours.”
Mariko was right.
Mariko was always right.
Obito sighs, then stands up. He trudges over to the forest, neck craned upward to try to find whatever tree the bastard is hiding out in. He goes around in circles for a few minutes before he hears a scoffing laugh coming from behind him. Obito turns around and comes face to face with Familiar Masked Guy.
“You-–”
“I’m-–”
Silence.
“You first,” says Familiar Masked Guy.
Obito bows to him. “My name is Uchiha Obito. If we used to know each other, I don’t remember you. Nice to meet you again.”
…
Obito rises back to his full height. He stares at Familiar Masked Guy, expectant. “And you are?”
“Ah,” says the shinobi. His brow furrows. “Oops. Sorry, Obito. I’m just… ajusting to this whole situation.” He bows. “Hatake Kakashi, nice to meet you again.”
He feels a pang of something buried deep down, remembers the name–no, nickname– that surfaced when he’d seen his face for the first time.
“So,” Obito says when Kakashi stands tall again, “I take it you thought I was dead?”
“Well, yes,” Kakashi says, “We all did.” Sardonically, he cocks an eyebrow, “Honestly, I’m not convinced I’m not still bleeding out somewhere.”
Wow, it must have been bad. Obito starts pacing back and forth between two pines, their shadows stretching long in the dirt. He stops, then turns back and faces Kakashi. Gesturing at himself, “Is my ‘death’ related to how I got these scars?”
“I’d say so.”
Obito turns around again and starts pacing. “What happened?”
The sound of a deep, miserable sigh. “What can you remember? What is the last thing you remember happening?”
“The cave,” Obito says.
“What?”
Obito looks back at Kakashi.
“What cave?” he repeats.
“The cave with the old man in it,” Obito says.
“Did the old man do this to you?” asks Kakashi miserably.
“I honestly have no idea,” Obito responds.
He sees Kakashi squinting at him. He sees the sun beginning to dip below the treeline. He thinks of how everyone’s finished up for the day and how his loyal customer base is probably lined up around the block, waiting to be serviced.
He thinks of that great big blank spot in his memory. Of the answers he could finally get. He thinks of the closure that this man, whoever they were to each other, needs.
“Hey, do you want to head back inside and talk some more?”
The glass has been swept away, the bloodied water has been mopped up. His room is tidier than it’s been in ages. This is as good as any apology.
Kakashi sits on top of his futon. The gray sheets covering the comforter have been changed to a pair of navy blue ones. Obito sits on the floor, close to the edge of the futon but far enough away for his own peace of mind. The curtains are half-drawn, the windows are open. A warm breeze floats in, along with the night.
…
“While I can’t really remember anything that you told me about, I feel like I remember you.”
“You do?”
“Well, I remember how I felt about you,” Obito clarifies. “It’s definitely colored my impression of you now.”
Kakashi is staring at him. He leans forward. “Really?”
“Sure. But I’m trying to put those impressions behind me, ‘cause we’ve restarted our relationship.”
Kakashi looks like a kicked puppy. “I know that back then, I should have been a better friend to you. But was your opinion of me really that low?”
“It’s envy, mainly. You must have made me feel bad about myself. I have no idea why. It’s weird. As much as I resent you, I trust and admire you just as much.”
“Oh,” says Kakashi.
Obito tells him everything he remembers about the past: flashes of the cave, the old man, and the blank spaces in between. How he ended up in the woods, and was found by Mariko and her late husband, covered in blood, dirt, a goop-like substance.
“There was another person there, who killed the old man. I can’t remember anything about them, though. Except for their eyes. One was purple, the other was red. I got hit with some jutsu, or something. And Mariko says my chest was an open bleeding wound when she found me. I don’t know how I survived.”
He is told about Team Minato, about the Third Shinobi War, Kannabi Bridge, the sharingan and his hero’s death, about tense days training together. Kakashi’s voice is soft and fond. It’s like hearing stories about a stranger.
“Are you okay in there?” Obito sits with his back to the bathroom door. “I can change them. You don’t have to do it yourself.”
A pause, then Kakashi says, “It’s fine, really. You don’t need to.” There’s a muffled grunt as he lowers himself into the tub that Obito had filled earlier.
“What happened?” At Kakashi’s silence, he clarifies, “How did you end up like that?”
“...It’s a long story. Do you remember– does any news about what’s happening in the Shinobi nations ever reach Nishiyama?”
It’s sunset. The hall is lit up in amber. Shadows creep down the scratched wood floors.
“Sometimes,” Obito replies.
“Have you heard of the masked man?”
“Vaguely, I think. I’ve heard shinobi passing through complaining about him for a while. I’ve never had a clear picture of what his deal was.”
“We don’t know either. He claims he’s Uchiha Madara,” Kakashi says. Obito jolts. There’s a strange sense of unease forming in his stomach. “Who?”
“...One of the founders of Konoha who later attacked the village after deserting it, then died by the First Hokage’s hand.”
“...Thanks.”
A grunt, then, “He shows up every so often and sends Sensei a cryptic message about what his plans are, then by the time Cryptography has decoded it, he’s already accomplished it. His actions are erratic and largely incomprehensible. He’s not a danger to anything. More like a nuisance. Rin would probably disagree with me, however.”
“What do you mean?” Obito asks.
“The ciphers sent to Sensei talk of a mission to ‘bring peace and salvation to the world’. He sometimes interferes with the affairs of the villages. Rin believes he’s a madman trying to impose his vision of peace onto the Shinobi nations and isn’t to be trusted. He killed elder Shimura Danzou and exposed his dirty dealings. Over the decade since he first appeared it’s become apparent he acts the way he does for a reason, though that reason is known only to him.”
“Did you fight him?” Obito pulls his knees up to his chest. He rests his chin in between his knees.
Grunting, then splashing. “No.” Water rolls underneath the crack of the door. A towel is dropped and shoved underneath the crack of the door. He hears Kakashi’s voice closer to him. It sounds faint, as he strains to redress his wounds. “My squad is one of several that has been tasked with apprehending him and bringing him back to the village for interrogation. We’re familiar with each other. I was on an entirely different mission in Iwa, doing solo reconnaissance. It went sideways.”
The door to the bathroom slides open, then Kakashi kicks the wet towel to the side. There’s another towel wrapped around his waist, his mask is pulled up, and his bandages are white and fresh. The cast is dry.
“I was caught and tortured in an Iwa interrogation cell. Then he showed up and killed my interrogators.” Kakashi very carefully goes to sit beside Obito. He is staring out into space. “When I attacked him, he disappeared into thin air and I was able to escape.”
The light is shifting downwards on the wall. Obito turns his head and sees that Kakashi is looking at him. “Do you think… Um, you’ve fought him before, so you’ve actually seen him. Do you think that he actually might be Uchiha Madara…?”
“I don’t know,” Kakashi says.
“Stop laughing at me,” Obito says, scowling.
“Wait, wait,” Kouga, a farmer and borderline alcoholic, gasps in between wheezing cackles, “So you finally discovered your mysterious past. And not only do we have confirmation that you’re a Konoha shinobi, but a bad one! Hahahaha!”
“Fuck you!”
“Knock it off,” sighs another regular, a cigarette drooping low between his teeth. Akira is also a farmer, and Kouga’s neighbor. “He can’t help where he was born, or his general lack of talent in the shinobi arts.”
“You lost the war! I was on the winning side!” Obito cries. He takes the half-filled pint glass away from in front of Akira and dumps it out in the sink.
“Hey!” the man exclaims.
“He didn’t mean it,” Midoriko, Akira’s wife, says. She’s slumped forward, chin down on the bar. “Come onnn. Darling is stupid. He’d never do anything to offend you!” She has been cut off for the past half hour. “Pour him another, pleaseeee.”
“You’re both cut off,” Obito snaps.
“What?!”
“Nooooo!!!!”
“Well,” Kouga sighs, “what do you want to do now?”
“What do you mean?” He heads over to the sink area and submerges the glass he’s holding under the tap.
“You said that this man used to be your friend, before you came here. You thinkin’ about heading back to Konoha with him when he’s healed enough?”
That was the problem: in Konoha, he had a clan, parents, maybe siblings, more friends who had been missing him, a past life. But here in Nishiyama, he already had a life as unfulfilling as it was. If Obito left Nishiyama, there would be nobody left here for Mariko. What was waiting for him in Konoha? The chains of a shinobi’s duty? That same apathy waiting to overtake him?
“Maybe,” Obito says, “I have no idea.”
The following day, Kakashi slides his door open the second before Obito can.
“Oh, my. Breakfast in bed? You’re awfully considerate.”
“Yeah, sure am. Now get back in bed,” Obito says, making a shoo-ing gesture with the tray.
Amused, Kakashi steps back and meanders back to his futon.
Obito sets the tray down, then takes his own breakfast and rolled up place mat and moves it to the floor. He unrolls the mat, sets the small dishes of rice, natto, and miso soup down on it. He looks up to see Kakashi watching him carefully.
Obito suddenly feels self-conscious. “What? Is my cooking not good enough for you?”
“No, no, I’m sure it’s very good,” Kakashi says. His broken arm is fortunately still in its sling. His other hand fidgets with his chopsticks. His brows are furrowed. Obito glances at the mask, which hasn’t budged at all since they’ve been reacquainted.
“You can take it off,” he offers, “I won’t scream.”
This startles a laugh out of Kakashi. “Ah, no. Maybe it’s finally sinking in for me that you don’t remember me at all, so it’d be your first time seeing my face.” He then looks down at his breakfast, tugs his mask down and begins to eat. Obito notices the mole, the long scar underneath the headband. And for the next few minutes, they sit together, eating in silence.
…He’s hot.
Kakashi is really, really hot. Maybe even the best looking man he's seen in his life.
Well, it's not like there's a great selection of eye candy in the town of Nishiyama... or available male eye candy. Obito feels his cheeks burning. He drags his gaze down to his breakfast then starts stuffing his face.
"Did we eat together often? Uh, back then?" He asks, chewing on his chopsticks. Obito is still very carefully looking into his bowl of rice.
"Every time our unit was assembled. When we trained together, in the beginning, then when we were dispatched to the field."
Fuck me. How did I survive?
"Not what you expected?" Kakashi's tone is light and playful.
"Uhh-- um-- well-- no," he admits. Obito looks up at him, "Did I ever... act stupid around you?"
"All the time," Kakashi says, smiling. His canines are longer than the average person's, Obito notices. They look sharp, too.
Can you put those in my neck–-?
AHHH
NO.
Fuck, we just met again!
Flushing hotter, he immediately scoots back slightly.
Kakashi stares at him, blinking slowly.
"Haha..." Obito coughs. He glances down again and continues to eat.
Does he know? Had they been close enough that he knew? Now that he thinks of it, Kakashi hadn't really said much about who they were to each other. Last night, he'd mostly wanted to reminisce about the good old days: silly training mishaps, mission triumphs, and times where Obito had embarrassed himself that Kakashi had found charming.
Obito knows that they had to have been close-- there was no way that he would have ever given something as important as an eye to someone he hadn't trusted with his life. But they also had a female teammate that he'd apparently been pretty close with, and Kakashi had made it extremely clear that they'd made a deathbed promise that she'd remain protected at all costs. So it looks like Obito had a girlfriend. But he would've still had eyes... And from the remaining impression Obito had of Kakashi that survived the black hole of his memory, whatever burgeoning attraction he felt would've been overtaken by insecurity.
Damn. He can't get a read on this situation.
He glances back up at Kakashi. He's drinking from his soup bowl. The base at the bottom is chipped.
He can't read Kakashi at all, either. Obito is part of a profession that specializes in reading people and seeing what they really need and supplying it to them, whether it's a listening ear, a friend, or a silent drinking buddy. Shinobi are usually difficult to read, but ultimately, Obito's never found that to be a problem. Kakashi, with his mask-like placid demeanor as an old wound is reopened, worries him. He's clearly having a hard time talking about it. Obito wants to know who he used to be really badly. How does he know not to cross the line if he can't figure out where it is?
Obito decides to test the waters. "Our teammate Rin and I... were we a couple?"
"No," Kakashi says. He picks up the bowl of natto and continues chewing slowly.
Obito waits. He doesn't elaborate. Obito feels even more confused. "...Was I closer to her than to you? Was she another Uchiha? Did we grow up together?"
Kakashi snorts. "Rin isn't an Uchiha. We all," he does air quotes, "grew up together, but you two spent more time together because I graduated the Academy a few years early and joined the squad once you two finished the Academy."
This is the first time he's mentioned this.
"Oh," Obito says. They avert eye contact once more. "Were you and Rin together, back then?"
Kakashi pauses for a while. He glances up, almost grimacing. There's a grain of rice stuck to his upper lip. "...No. She made her feelings for me known at Kannabi bridge. I am not attracted to her."
It seems he's discovered the source of his past-self's raging insecurity. If Kakashi was hot and talented and Rin, who he may or may not've had feelings for, liked him, then naturally he had seen him as a threat.
But why? According to Kakashi, despite their bickering, they were friends. And he was friends, close friends, with Rin. Shouldn't that have been enough?
…
Unless there's something that Kakashi is hiding.
Obito glances back up at him. There's another grain of rice sticking to the corner of his mouth. "You have a little something there."
"Oh, thank you."
"Hold on, you're telling me that Akira wasn't pulling my leg? Obito really is a missing-in-action Konoha shinobi?" There's a finger being thrust in Obito's face. Irritated, he quickly smacks it away, turning away in disgust.
"Have you ever seen a shinobi with his kekkei genkai around these parts? There ain't nobody who can grow plants like that, except that Harumasa fellow." Ryouma says contemplatively, leaning back on his stool. He's chewing on a long blade of grass. Ryouma has shinobi relatives in Kumo who he likes to brag about, and dark skin made darker from working in the sun. His hair is flaxen and curly, and his eyes are dark. He's a father of two and his wife is pregnant with another. Ryouma doesn't typically stay for longer than two cups of sake.
A cough, and Midoriko says, "Senju Hashirama. The first Hokage." She's got long black hair and sun-tanned pale skin with freckles covering her face. Midoriko and Akira live with Akira's mother and siblings. They married a few years ago, shortly after Midoriko's sixteenth birthday. She's one of the smartest people in the village and one of the few with an education. Akira is well-traveled in the paths in the mountains and often goes to nearby Iwa to stock his general store. He often brings her back books, which she takes to the bar to read out loud to the other farmers.
"Whatever. Barkeep, top me off." This smirking asshole is Daigo. He's the only person in the entire town that knows his secret. This is because unfortunately, he's the only other queer man in Nishiyama. Daigo is also married to a woman, Nanako. Nanako doesn't come out to the bar too often. This is because she's too busy running their farm and raising their young kids while Daigo sits on his ass, twiddling his thumbs. Daigo has rough tan skin and pale yellow hair, and unfortunately is good looking enough to successfully be able to cheat on his wife.
The bar is packed. When he'd headed in to open this afternoon, there'd actually been a line outside.
Obito takes his cup and refills it, rolling his eyes. He makes sure to top off his own cup as well. He sees a trio of Kumo shinobi enter the bar, visibly exhausted and groaning. There are two kunoichi and one shinobi. They sit in the back.
He sees Daigo eyeing the shinobi: muscled, tall, wearing nothing but a chain shirt beneath his white vest. He cocks his head and turns back to Obito. “Is that shinobi you found sticking around?”
“He’s too injured not to,” Obito replies.
“Don’t they have some jutsu thing that can deal with that?” Ryouma asks.
“I don’t think he knows how to heal himself,” Obito replies.
“Wait,” Midoriko says, “So, he’s living in Mariko’s farmhouse right now?”
Obito shrugs. “Until he can get back on his feet.”
Ryouma hums. “I assume she’s gonna put him to work.”
“Poor Mariko,” sighs Midoriko. “She acts strong, but it can’t be easy running everything on her own…”
“I help out,” Obito says, offended.
"You can't help with the harvest," Daigo says. "Your plant powers are like poison."
"You oughta meet a good woman sooner rather than later and get out of Mariko's house," Midoriko says.
"And give her grandkids," adds Ryouma.
I get it, Obito thinks.
No one appreciated him around here. He huffs a sigh, rolls his eye, then turns his back to the bar.
Obito slides the door to Kakashi’s room open. All the blinds are drawn closed, though sunlight breaks through the cracks. There’s a window cracked at the opposite end of the room. Fresh air perfumes the room. He moves as quietly as he can, then crouches down to pick up the tray of dirty dishes. Kakashi rolls over from his back to his side. He reaches out, fingers barely grazing Obito’s ankle.
“You’re so different,” he says, “You seem happier.”
“Compared to before?”
Wistfully, Kakashi says, “Yeah.”
I'm happy enough, I guess.
Obito looks back at the door, down at the dishes in his hands, then back at Kakashi. He sits down, then sets them behind him.
“You and Rin were both chuunin. I made jounin first. That made you really mad. You were always talking about your dream to prove yourself and become Hokage. You didn’t want to get me anything but you did. And now I see you trusted me with your burdens,” he laughs. There are tears gathering in the corner of his visible eye.
For a minute, Obito has no idea how to respond. He hesitates, then he awkwardly pats Kakashi’s shoulder. “...I’m happy enough, I think. All I have to worry about now is Mariko, and whether or not I’m burdening her. ”
The hand gripping his ankle is retracted. Kakashi slowly pushes himself up. Obito drops his hand back to his side.
He looks miserable. He leans forward, falling, face landing on Obito’s shoulder.
Obito freezes.
“I’m sorry. This is all my fault. If only I’d listened to you in the first place and I hadn’t been so stupid back then…”
“Um–”
There’s a growing wet spot on his shoulder. “This is all my fault. We lost you. Somehow, this hurts more than watching you die.” Kakashi lifts his head slightly. His mask is damp.“I wish I had gotten over myself enough to properly be your friend.”
“It’s okay,” Obito tries. He is rubbing the back of a near stranger. “If you need to, you can say to me what you never were able to say to him.”
“...You don’t mean that.”
“Would it help?” asks Obito. “I’m not him. Even if I do somehow get my memories back, I’ll never be him again. I barely know you, yet I still find myself caring about you. I don’t want you to beat yourself up about this.”
Kakashi looks down. He looks at his broken arm, then at the arm clutching onto Obito’s collar. He releases him, then falls back on his knees. His gaze is downcast. “I…I never thought of you as a rival. I can tell you thought of me that way. Someone in your way, an obstacle to defeat on a path to glory and recognition, not an ally to help you win it. We didn’t fight all the time, but I wasn’t good at getting close to either you or Rin.” Suddenly, he looks at Obito. “You don’t remember my father, either, do you?”
Obito shakes his head.
A wistful look crosses Kakashi’s face. “My father, Hatake Sakumo, made a choice that led to war. Instead of choosing to complete his mission, he chose to save his comrades. A choice which later backfired when the village shunned him and he killed himself in disgrace.”
The light outside slowly darkens, as the sky becomes overcast. The smell of rain fills the room.
Obito’s stomach drops. “What–?! Why would they– he saved them!”
“At the price of war,” Kakashi says. “I was afraid of having comrades in my younger years. I kept everyone at arms’ length. I didn’t understand my father’s sacrifice, but you did– still do, it seems. And you taught me that comrades aren’t a bad thing. The rules aren’t everything. To prioritize your friends is to have real priorities. I’m really grateful to you.” A pause, then a sigh. Kakashi looks at him with sadness. “It doesn’t matter anymore, but I’m in love with you.”
Obito's chest clenches. He doesn't respond, because he isn't the person who the confession is for.
He sits, gently rubbing Kakashi's back as he cries silently. Soon, after the sun has set and the room has darkened, Kakashi pushes him away and rolls over on his side. He picks up the dishes he came in the room for, then exits with a glance over his shoulder.
It’s midnight.
Obito can’t sleep.
He’s fine, he tells himself. Obito rolls over and shuts his eyes. The crickets chirp softly.
…
He sits up. Before he can stop himself, he finds himself standing in front of the door to the guest room, sliding it open–-
On the neatly made futon, there lies a note.
It reads: Thank you for everything.
“Well, you got your answers at least,” yawns Ryouma. “You know who y’are. What more could you possibly want?”
“Yeah,” he replies absentmindedly. “I don’t know everything, though.” And from what he knew, he wanted to know more.
(Who is Hatake Kakashi?)
“Does that matter?” asks Midoriko. “I mean, you’re a barkeep. If you plan to stay a barkeep in Nishiyama, do you need to know?”
“Technically no,” Ryouma chimes.
“It’s a shame, though,” sighs Daigo, “I was looking forward to meeting him…”
Midoriko continues, “Anyway, I have a friend–- you wouldn’t know her, she ain’t the drinkin’ type-– she’s just come of age and her Ma’s itchin to marry her off. I told her that you were single and-–”
At the end of the night, he toes his shoes off in the entryway. Obito then spends a minute staring at the floor. The hall echoes with the ticking of a grandfather clock.
Resolutely, he glances down the foyer.
He finds Mariko sitting outside on the porch, a bottle of sake beside her. She looks up at him, a sad smile on her face. “You can go if you need to. I’ll manage.”
“But the bar!”
“I can hire someone.”
“But the farm…!”
“I can handle it.”
“Come with me,” he says. “I want to be able to take care of you.”
“You’re a good kid,” she says, ruffling his hair, “But your only responsibility is to yourself. You only have one life, after all. I'm happy you stayed with me this long, but I was always prepared for you to leave me."
Heart swelling with warmth and gratitude, he hugs her. "I promise to visit a lot!"
He takes only a backpack filled with clothes and all the money he has.
Obito is confident that with his injuries, Kakashi couldn't have gone too far.
However, he is also a shinobi, used to traveling at a shinobi's pace. Obito does not remember being a shinobi. He remembers being a bartender. So, instead of using amazing superhuman shinobi speed to track his former teammate down, he hitches a cheap ride with a carpet merchant. Transporting fine rugs from Kumo, en route to Konoha.
It's been days. His clothes reek. There's hardly any space for him in a wagon stuffed top to bottom with rugs. He sits with his knees pulled to his chest with a rug on his lap, neck turned at a bad angle to watch the scenery going by from the cluttered window.
Somewhere in the Land of Rivers, he spies a flash of silver and black up ahead on the road. Shakily, Obito shoves the rug off then scrambles to the window. “HEY! STOP--HEEEYYY!!!”
Kakashi turns his head.
“TAKE ME WITH YOU!”
Obito throws himself from the caravan. He lands awkwardly, neck crunched against the dirt, torso first, and legs askance. All the air is punched out from his chest. His backpack is still in the caravan.
Step-crunch. step-crunch. step-crunch.
Kakashi’s exasperated voice rings out above him. “What are you doing?”
Obito pushes himself up. “I know that I can never give you the closure that you need from your friendship with him, and I’ll never be who he was again. But as myself, I want to get to know you and have my own relationship with you– with everyone. I’m the same person, aren’t I?”
...
"Well, then," Kakashi says. He smiles. He offers Obito his hand. Taking it, Obito is pulled to his feet. "Shall we?"