NARUHINA ONESHOTS

☪ | time

' time '

naruhina oneshot 03.

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Time.

It was a concept no one truly understood, at least not to the fullest. The oldest man alive wouldn't even hold the secrets that time carried with it, because he too would succumb to its wrath.

Time created. It birthed new, miraculous things, it started powerful beings on their journies of life. Roots spread, stems grew, and flowers bloomed. All with time.

Time stole. It destroyed. It took the lives of those it once held in youth, trying them until they'd had enough. After the flower bloomed, it's petals shriveled and it ceased to exist.

Kakashi wasn't too fond of time.

There were times when he thanked it, as if it were some entity looming over him in the sky. He was thankful that, with time, he'd healed. Overwhelming sadness and the urge to do something when there was nothing left to be done –– it'd faded with time.

Usually, though, it was the source of his blame. He was alone, and a man with nothing but bloodied hands and broken ties could only search for something to blame. Time took those he loved. Sometimes it was slow, other times fast. It ripped his only true sources of joy from his unprepared grasp, never to return it.

But time brought with it replacements. And although they'd never be the same, Kakashi was grateful.

Team Minato had drifted away from him until it was nothing. His family, absent. His innocence, ruined.

Then, his students came along.

Naruto, Sakura, and Sasuke.

When Kakashi looked around with the question, What's there left to live for? it was them. They were there.

From young, stubborn genin to full fledged shinobi carrying the same stubbornness, Team 7 remained with him. He'd watched them grow like he'd never been able to do with his teammates, like his father had never been able to do for him.

Time did that. Kakashi couldn't be upset with that.

And, now, his Number One Knucklehead genin, the hyperactive blond who chose only to see the good even after he received anything less, was all grown up.

Naruto had never been a quiet student, nothing of the sort. He was, as the title suggested, a knucklehead, with endless energy and constant bluntness. He wasn't dumb, no, but he could be awfully oblivious and carefree. Which sometimes worked to his advantage, but that was besides the point.

Suddenly, Naruto had returned from his mission to recover the young Hyuuga girl with a strange pep in his step. He couldn't stop grinning, he wouldn't, even when Kakashi attempted strategic jabs of starting his studies again, reminding him of the long hours he'd be spending cooped up in a stuffy room.

Naruto, barely phased, had taken the armful of scrolls in stride, smile ever present.

Kakashi brushed it off as another one of his student's strange behaviors. Naruto was impulsive and overdramatic, he'd probably received a free ramen for a week gift-card or something of the like.

Once again, the Hatake was proved wrong. The end of the week came and went, but Naruto remained joyful, bursting with a sickeningly sweet blissfulness. He came into Kakashi's office, accepted whatever mission appointed to him, and returned soon after with an everlasting eagerness.