Impossible to Forget

Chapter 33: Everyone Knew

"Here's how it's going to be," Nori stated firmly, "You will remove your flak jacket, shirt, and forehead protector and restrain yourself to the device or I will slit Kaiyo's throat right now."

My mother is absolutely full of maternal love.

Kakashi glanced down at me before turning around and walking towards the device that Nori had mentioned. He slowly ran the tips of his fingers across the operating table section as if deep in thought. I could not watch this. He wasn't seriously going to strap himself down to that, to that thing when Nori would probably kill me anyways, would he?

Careful to avoid moving my neck to much, I rasped out a single word.

"Run." Leave me behind right now and don't even think about sacrificing yourself for me.

Kakashi's hand froze in its methodical tracing of the edge of the table.

"Those who would leave behind even one of their comrades are worse than scum."

"Idiot." She'll kill me anyways even if you do what she says. Leave your philosophical high horse behind and save yourself!

His shoulders rose and fell with the force of his sigh, "I know. But- Kai, it's just a chance I'm willing to take."

I wanted to scream at him at the top of my lungs for being such a moron. What the hell was he thinking? He was the Hokage! He can't just throw his life away for someone like me. Naruto wasn't ready yet for the position, and there was no one else qualified to lead the Leaf ninja if Kakashi died. Surely the safety of the village that he had served and loved for almost three decades was worth more than me.

"Why?" Why are you doing this? Why the hell would you abandon the Leaf like this? Why won't you do the only logical thing and leave me?

Kakashi didn't answer. Instead, he reached behind his head and slowly untied his forehead protector and let it fall to the ground with a clink that rang through the cave like a clap of thunder. No, he couldn't really be doing what I thought that he was doing. He pulled off his fingerless gloves and dropped them too. Moving as if through molasses, he unsnapped the shoulder pads of his flak jacket, removing the words "Six Fire" from his back and dropping that to the ground as well.

"Why?" I choked out again, unable to watch silently. I had absolutely no clue why he would do something so stupid. I just wanted him to stop. I just wanted him to run. I just wanted him to live.

He pulled his long sleeved shirt over his head, taking the attached mask with it. I could see the corded muscles of his bare back, the scars that proved how much he had survived as a shinobi, and all I wanted to do was cry my eyes out.

So a third time I asked, "Why?" But I could not keep myself from trembling, and my neck brushed over the edge of Nori's sword, causing a thin trickle of blood to run down from the cut, over my collar bone, and into my shirt.

This time Kakashi answered. He turned around at a snail's pace, and my eyes traced up the ridges of his abdominal muscles to his neck to his exposed face. God, he must have been so freaking cold. Until finally, I had the courage to look him in the eyes.

He broke out into a lopsided grin that was so Kakashi that it made my chest clench painfully. So this was to be the first time that I'd see his face, a final farewell before our untimely deaths.

Unlike his usual smiles, his eyes did not close and crease, instead they remained locked on mine with a sadness that didn't quite match the expression of the lower half of his face.

"I love you, Kai. Always have."

It was like the world had frozen. What had he just said? He what?! Oh my god, and everyone knew but me.

Nori knew, that's why I was his leverage. Anzu knew, that's why she'd call me "clueless Kaiyo" and give me sly looks when I talked about Kakashi. Bijonko knew, that's why she'd always slip away when Kakashi would come by. Naruto and Hinata knew, that's why they placed us next to each other during their wedding reception. Sakura knew, that's why she always talked about her time on his genin team whenever I went in for a healing session for my hip. Izumo and Kotetsu knew, that's why they'd always make excuses to make me deliver stuff to Kakashi's office personally as opposed to taking it for me. Yamato knew, that's why he was smirking at Kakashi the entire time they wished me a happy birthday. Shikamaru knew, that's why he'd always say that being the third wheel was so "troublesome" whenever the three of us would have a meeting.

Everyone knew. Everyone but me.

Toukuro had told me that he loved me, told me everyday when we were married, and then he died alone and unloved. Kakashi had told me that he loved me, and now he was going to die because my very own mother had ordered him too, and he would do it for me. When were people going to figure out that loving me was bad for their health?

The worst part was that I realized that I loved him back. Always had.