Once in a lifetime (KakaIru)

⤜⥼⊱ ONCE IN A LIFETIME ⊰⥽⤛

"How can I be so cold while you are so warm?" questioned Kakashi. His companion's cheeks reddened.

"Ah... Well, I'm not sure" the younger man answered with a shy smile. "But, if you're recovering your senses, maybe it means you're going to wake up"

Wake up? Kakashi looked bewilderedly at his hands, feeling his fingers stiff. In that moment, he paid attention to his clothes for the first time. That was... pyjamas? No, no, it was a... A hospital gown... What the hell?!

"Am I... in a hospital?" Kakashi asked, noticing that the other was wearing the same clothing as him –a couple of sizes smaller than his, in any case.

"That was what the conclusion I came to after a while. Although I don't know more than you"

After a while? Kakashi wondered.

"How much time have you been in here?"

The stranger just stayed in silence with a blank stare. When the young man levelled his gaze to Kakashi's again, a small smile had appeared on his lips. However, Kakashi, somehow, knew it wasn't sincere. The brunet never replied to his question. Instead, he looked back at the sky, his eyes following the delicate turns of a cherry blossom navigating in the soft breeze. Kakashi saw the smile disappear. The stranger's eyes showed so much pain that Kakashi felt devastated.

Kakashi wanted to stay there, playing questions with that stranger of soft voice and warm skin, but he felt colder and stiffer with every passing second, and Kakashi knew he was about to leave. The words abandoned his lips in flickering words before his brain could realise that the doubt he had been keeping locked in his heart had been thrown.

"Will we meet again?"

The younger man stared at him disconcerted. Then, bewilderment gave way to one of the saddest smiles that Kakashi had ever seen.

"I hope not"

Something pulled him from his chest so hard that Kakashi's eyes glazed in pain.

"Aren't you going to come back?" Questioned hurriedly; breathing turning into a very difficult task. The other shook his head.

"I have no right" said the beautiful stranger.

The time of grace ended and Kakashi found himself laying in a cold stretcher in a room with white walls, a strong scent of disinfectant clouding his thought. Breathing was horribly painful and his chest hurt as if someone had hit him with a baseball bat. Around him, people in white coats sighed in relief.

"And here we were thinking you wanted to leave without paying the bill, Hatake-san", joked a doctor.

  ⤜⥼⊱⋇⊰⥽⤛

It had been three days since Kakashi had woken up. According to his friends, Kakashi had been going to work when another driver lost control of the car and hit Kakashi's car from behind. Only then did Kakashi start to remember by himself what had happened before waking up in that garden full of cherry trees. As always, Kakashi had decided to take the car since taking the underground first thing on Monday morning tested one's will to live. Then again, as always, he had waited to arrive at the first traffic light to buckle himself up. But it was okay; he had not even gone 30 metres. Really, what could happen? But, then, before he could put the safety belt, something hit his car hard enough to send him flying through the glass.

He wasn't seriously hurt, just a couple of pretty bad looking injuries which, having been treated so fast, hadn't developed into anything worse than they could have if given a poor treatment or a considerable intervention delay. On the other hand, his ribcage hurt more than Kakashi would ever say. Even so, everything was right, or that was what doctors thought until his body reacted badly to the medication and went into shock, which produced a cardiac arrest. Kakashi had been dead for five minutes.