Getting Lost on the Roads of Life - a KakaSaku Story [CONCLUDED]

Family Problems

It felt good to be on the road, Kakashi thought. Sitting still inside large walls was not something he enjoyed much. Caged and trapped... that's what he felt like ever since becoming the Hokage.

But then again, it also didn't feel good to be on the road. He missed Sakura much too much. Rather than heading toward a massive scolding, he would like to laze around in bed with her and attempt to make babies all day long.

But it wasn't about what he wanted these days.

Kakashi put his hands into his pockets, his trademark gesture that he knew made him appear far more nonchalant than he actually felt. He was tense, his hands balling into fists now that they were out of sight.

It was Rin.

Rin who shouldn't be here, next to them, barely keeping up with the fast pace he had set because she dragged her feet a little. More to the point, she shouldn't be here as if she had never died, as if people came back to life with their bodies intact after receiving a fatal blow to the heart.

His head swiveled in her direction, not for the first time on this day. There was no denying it - she was a weakness, maybe his most dangerous one. His heart pinched at the slightest sign of discomfort on her face, as if his guilt compelled him to be a fool against his better judgment.

Rin looked at him too, her lovely face hidden in the shadows of her hood, shielding her from the strong gusts of wind and infrequent drops of rain, making her expression unreadable.

The truth was, he couldn't stop himself from feeling protective of her. Even with a knife at his throat and her wielding it - he didn't think it would be any different.

Truly... a fool. No wonder everyone had kept spreading rumors about a dalliance between them. No wonder poor Sakura had believed he had moved on from her. Like he could ever. Didn't his pink headed sweetie know how deep his besottedness for her ran?

I should have told her, Kakashi thought, his stomach in a sudden knot. He didn't think he had, at least not recently and not clearly enough. He was a soldier, he knew one never left his lady love without making sure everything that needed to be said was out in the open and properly acknowledged. Their farewell had not been what it should have been.

"It's nice to be on the road with you," Rin said into his regretful thoughts.

Kakashi lifted his eyebrows.

"It feels... like the old days," she followed up with a little smile.

"Does it?" Kakashi didn't think it did, not in the least and his voice carried all his doubt and more.

"Oh," Rin said and threw Micha a measuring look, "I'm not saying he's like Obito..."

Kakashi nodded.

"... but you, me, in a team of three, walking through the forest... it feels to me like I'm transported back in time."

It did? To him, it was all wrong.

Obito's second, real death had allowed Kakashi to stop grieving for his friends. He would never be fully free of the guilt he felt for not being there for Obito when he had most needed him - but at the end of the war, it had seemed like the end of a chapter, no... the end of a story. He could finally accept Obito's sad fate, his terrible role in the history of Konoha, because despite of it all, his friend had died so peacefully, almost joyfully.

Because Obito had believed he would finally be reunited with the love of his life in the afterlife, all misdeeds forgiven. An eternity of happiness in exchange for a lifetime of misery.