✔️Heal My Heart {Kakashi Hatake}

45 | recovery

I'd lost count of the amount of times I'd woken up in a hospital bed. The yellow-tinted lighting was now familiar, as well the typical one-bed room with the single chair for visitors, the window that took up almost one entire wall, and the bedside table with the single alarm clock and a small vase with a few select flowers in it.

I stared at the ceiling as my consciousness slowly caught up, watching it slowly come into focus. The pain had not faded much, and I still felt like my whole body was bruised beyond repair. I could do nothing but pray that it wasn't.

It hurt to take breaths too big, but I forced my breathing to settle down. With a little bit of luck, I would be able to remedy that, or at least get some painkillers. As I settled down, I let my eyes wander around the room. Almost immediately, I discovered Kakashi lounging in the visitor's chair, reading his book.

"We need to stop making this a habit," I told him, my throat feeling like it was rubbed raw by something blazing hot.

Upon hearing my voice, Kakashi looked up from his book. He was wearing his Jonin clothes, so I could only see one eye, but it was wide with surprise. After a moment, his gaze softened and I saw relief flicker across it. "You're awake."

"Nice observation. I hadn't noticed," I commented dryly, meriting a laugh from Kakashi.

"What needs to stop being a habit?" he asked, eye crinkled up with a hidden smile.

"Me waking up in a hospital after long periods of unconsciousness with you sat there waiting," I explained. "How long was I out, anyway?"

"A couple of days," Kakashi responded vaguely. "I like waiting around for you. Gives me plenty of reading time, and an excuse to get out of work."

"How many times have you read that book?" I asked despairingly.

"It's my favourite," Kakashi said defensively.

"I was only teasing," I assured him, grinning widely. "Do you happen to have any painkillers on you?"

"I doubt you'd be allowed to take them," Kakashi replied, setting down his book and writing a note on a blank sheet of paper.

"What are you doing?" I asked curiously.

"Writing a note to the Hokage to let him know you're awake. You might want to prepare yourself for interrogation." Kakashi signed the letter and sent it off with a messenger hawk that had been waiting on the window ledge outside.

I groaned loudly. "He couldn't give me a break, could he? Twenty hour working day, then I get interrogated after being in a life-threatening fever state. I swear, if I see even a hint of Ibiki Morino, I'm quitting."

"Please don't. The ANBU gets very boring without you around." Kakashi said, picking up his book again.

"Really?" I blinked in surprise. I hadn't expected that response.

"You'd be surprised." Kakashi looked directly at me, his one-eyed gaze boring into me. "The others are all work-addicted killjoys when there's nothing interesting going on."

"What, and I'm interesting?" I raised an eyebrow, unable to see how I made any difference to the team's personality.

Kakashi shrugged a little. "I don't really know how to explain it. There's just something about you that's rubbed off on the team. I've noticed it."

"I still have no clue what you're on about," I stated.

Kakashi started to say something, but he never managed to, because the door opened and the Hokage was admitted by a doctor I didn't recognise. He was wearing his Kage cap and cloak, a somber expression on his wrinkled face.

"Yo," I greeted him, not bothering with any formalities since I was lying on my back in a hospital bed, completely immobilised.

"Miyoshi." The Hokage dipped his head in acknowledgement. "I assume you know what I am here for?"

"Unfortunately." I closed my eyes. "You couldn't give me one day to rest?"

"The information I need from you is of a more pressing matter than your comfort," the Hokage admonished. "Can you tell me who it was that injected you with the fever?"

"I can," I confirmed. "We've met him before, Kashi. Remember that guy from a while back, Kokuyōseki? The one who escaped? Yeah, it was him. He snuck into my back garden and lured me out, then stuck a needle in my neck."

"It was him?" Kakashi asked in surprise.

"Did he explain how he did it?" The Hokage pressed.

"He did, as a matter of fact." I tried to shift myself into an upright position, and with a little support from Kakashi, I managed with only mild lightheadedness. "He said it was a plant called Netsu."

"I've never heard of it," Kakashi said.

"Nor I." The Hokage's frown deepened.

"Apparently it only grows in remote areas of the Hidden Grass, and it's been extinct for over a century now. Netsu affects the brain through the bloodstream, which explains why Kokuyōseki injected it. It grips the brain and inflames it, inducing a fever state while it eats away at the nerves that keep the vitals working," I reported. "He also said that he was expecting me to recover, but while I'm weak, he'll come back and take me to a benefactor of his. When I questioned him about it, he confirmed that it was the same benefactor who supplied the Genjutsu to Dochi Guntai, who used it on me a few months ago."

"Interesting," the Hokage mused. "If that is true, I'd like Kakashi to stay here until you are discharged, and to watch over you for one week after that. You'll need a guard, and I'm sure you wouldn't mind?"

The last question was directed at Kakashi, who hastily assured the Hokage that it was no problem at all, of course he didn't mind.

"If that's all, I shall take my leave." The Hokage dipped his head to me once more and left, closing the door behind him.

"So what else do you have that you didn't want to tell him because of your grudge?" Kakashi asked casually.

I laughed. "You know me too well. I had this really weird dream while I was out. I thought my mom came to me and we talked for a while. She said that she and my brother planned the death of the whole clan, including their own. She said it was for their own protection, but still..." I hugged my knees to my chest, which felt like icy chains were constricting it as I spoke of my mother and her supposed crimes. "I can't believe she would do something like that. It's completely against her nature."

"I'll bet." Kakashi's brow was furrowed in a frown, and he looked more contemplative than I had seen him in a long time. "Are you sure it wasn't just a dream?"

"It didn't feel like it," I insisted. "She hugged me, and it felt so real. It couldn't have been a dream."

"How were you able to talk to her?" The question was meant to be rhetorical, but I started to think about an answer to his question.

"I was in this big, empty whiteness for a while, but at one point it started going black. I started hearing voices then, that were yelling my name. When the whole space turned black, that was when I saw my mom. Do you think that was when I was on the brink of death?"

"It could be," Kakashi admitted. "There was a short time when everyone thought you were going to die. That might have been why you heard voices calling your name."

"Were you among them?" I asked with a devious little smirk.

"Of course not," he responded smoothly.

"Lies. Lies, lies, lies. We've talked about lying, Kashi." I grinned when Kakashi made no effort to deny it. "Aww, he cares about me. You heard it here first, ladies and gentlemen. Kakashi Hatake cares about another human being!"

"Shut up."