He's Just My Best Friend | a Kakashi love story

Chapter 9

And I still hadn't even processed Kurenai's comment about everyone thinking we'd end up together. I honestly had never thought about it. I mean, I guess I get it. And I knew some people thought that. Minato used to tease us all the time when we were on his team. Plus, we've been basically inseparable since we were five. And we've been through so much together. And I mean, I've always known that Kakashi is attractive. Even when we were five, I knew that. But, he's just my best friend. Or was my best friend, rather. Now, who knows what we are.

I guess I can tell myself that all I want, but I've known for awhile. Really, probably since he began to push me away after Minato's death, that I can't live without him. And for some reason, when I think that I should have married Shisui to save Itachi, my thoughts go to Kakashi instead. What would he think? Would he understand why I did it? I don't know if that necessarily means that I like him, but it doesn't not mean that either. I don't know. Right now, it doesn't matter. He needs to figure himself out, and I need to figure my clan out. I can revisit the idea of feelings later, and then promptly do nothing about them if they exist because he's too important to lose, and if I'm honest, marrying Shisui is looking more likely by the minute if I want to help Itachi and save our clan. Feelings for Kakashi aren't an option for me if that happens.

A rustling in the bushes pulled me out of my thoughts. I pulled out a kunai and looked up to a tree branch, and saw a man in a long black cloak with an orange swirly mask covering his face, except for one eye. Okay. He's creepy.

"What do you want?"  I said forcefully. I wasn't nervous. I didn't sense anyone else nearby, and I was pretty sure I could take him down if I need to. He said nothing, just looked at me. "Who are you?" I tried again. Instead of responding, he just disappeared into nothingness in the form of a swirl. My eyes widened and I stopped breathing for a minute. I activated my sharingan to check for his presence but saw nothing. He was definitely gone. I let out a sigh of relief, and decided to try to get some sleep.

After another day and a half of travel, I arrived in the Sand Village. I was met at the gate by a messenger for the Kazekage. He took my scroll and looked at the contents before handing me the scroll I was to retrieve from him. I was told not to look at it, so I didn't. I simply thanked the man, and made my way home. I was looking forward to being home and seeing Itachi. I had a lot of time to think about everything, and I had a plan.

We'd talk to Father first, even though he's not as level headed. I'd tell him my decision to marry Shisui and take over for Itachi, making me clan leader, and taking this decision out of Itachi's hands. It wasn't ideal, and I didn't want to, but if I was in charge, I could fix this.  I held more respect than Itachi because I was older, and would even more so when married to Shisui, who was also well respected. I could change the minds of those in the clan to see that a coup was not the way to go. I'd tell everyone of my plan to talk to Lord Third, and once implemented, we wouldn't need the coup. Marrying someone I didn't love seemed like a small price to pay to save my family.

Then,  I'd talk to Lord Third, and propose a treaty of sorts. The Uchiha would be allowed more freely in the village, without discrimination, and in return, we would be more lenient with allowing our people to be shinobi and ANBU, instead of almost exclusively working for the police force. Because it was me as clan leader, I could more honestly say that this would happen, and I know that Lord Third trusts me enough to allow it. It seemed like a fair trade to me, and would stop the coup, as long as everyone cooperated.

I still hadn't figured out how I was going to manage working with Kakashi, or working with Genin for that matter. I didn't even know if I could as clan leader, but I would try my hardest. I knew what qualities I found most important in a team, and unless Kakashi has changed more dramatically than I thought, he would agree. We would give them the bell test against one of us, and if they could work together, they passed. If not, they were sent back. That's how I wanted to do things anyways, but I didn't know if Kakashi would agree. I didn't even know if we'd be able to work together, much less teach children how to work together. I sighed and ran back to the village as fast as I could. I just wanted to be home and get all of these hard things over with.