More Like Him

Summary: Team Yellow Flash and the six stages of awkward, transitional moments between total goofballs; as only goofballs can execute and endure. Or; to chose not to and regret. Because you had it all. And you once even had fashion sense.
Author's Note: I was taking a quick break from Cou, and this came out, almost start to finish in two parts over two nights. I love writing gaiden stuff, and there's very little I've deemed half-ways decent. This was finished at 3:13 in the morning. Normally the man's hour, but I've made a claim to it as of late. I hope Bradbury doesn't mind. This story makes use of the six phrases I first heard from JMS on the Lost Tales commentary.
Disclaimer: Do not own Naruto yet again, and this story, like all my others, is just another one. And thanks so much if you're reading it.
Genre: Humor, Tragedy.

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You had it all,
for a pretty little while.

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He wrote six words on the back of a napkin he stuck under the pre-set pair of chopsticks and made the sign of the cross under his orange collar. He pranced back around to the other side of the table, careful not to trip on any of the floor cushions. The small table was set for four, but only two people came walking in. Their sensei sat next to him, and Rin was already destined for the spot with the blessed napkin, directly opposite him. Sensei was actively distracted since the moment he sat down, "Kakashi volunteered for guard duty," he said, looking displeased with the decision he couldn't influence.

Obito didn't hear him, as he was keeping note of Rin's movements. She was settled into her seat, and so far, never dared touch the blessed napkin. The waitress soon arrived and took their orders. During the wait, sensei did most of the talking, and during dinner, he also continued much of the talking.

But Obito saw that she still had not handled her napkin. And it drove Obito in an absolute wild, inner frenzy. Sensei's comments were very dry, and of no help to detangle the knot in his throat that gathered in the nervous anticipation. So Rin responded and laughed and smiled in her usual manner while Obito's eyes kept growing larger. At one point he purposely dropped his napkin to the floor and suddenly announced, "Oh, my napkin fell." Ever so slowly he reached down allowing himself to inwardly scream beneath the table like a muted banshee, and then he returned to his position with a lop-sided smiled his sensei did not know the meaning of. Meanwhile, Obito was left wondering when she'd ever get around to touching that cursed napkin. Rin's manners were pristine, but maybe it was that tom-boyish pride that made her ignore it.

Nevertheless, Obito tried one more time to hint the issue. He stole sensei's napkin. And when sensei went to reach for it, Obito instantly proclaimed quite pretentiously, "Oh I'm sorry sensei—I took your napkin."

Sensei stared at the boy for a moment in confusion, but accepted it back from the boy's clammy hands and mentally scratched his head for an answer. He found none. "Obito," he said. "You ok?"

"Yeah, I'm fine—I'm done!"

"Oh—well, so am I," With a simple gesture, the waitress came walking over. "Rin, Obito, you two go one ahead, I'll get this."

Obito perked: Rin used the lonely napkin for the briefest moment…and then crumpled it without ceremony on the empty plate. Rin smiled at him before she rose, and then the poor boy truly despaired as if she'd committed the worst crime imaginable. "…You coming?" she asked him.

"Uh—" he didn't feel like walking. "In a minute."

Sensei looked at him, and then up to the waitress. She gave him the bill and collected the men's plates, and lastly Rin's. The waitress noticed an odd black shadow on the napkin and as she held the plates with her left hand, she partially unfolded the napkin with her right. Curiously, she read the note to herself; six words:

Will you go out with me?

She looked down at the men with high brows: sensei was busy signing the check while Obito stared at her in white-faced horror. But the waitress broke into a strange smiled and set it back on the plate. Before she left, she winked at the young boy.

"Obito, what's the matter?" sensei asked him.

"Nothing," he squeaked.

"Are you sick?"

"No. Well—yes."

"Well tell me what it is!"

"I can't."

With that, Obito went to find Kakashi to steal his job.

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Five words kept playing in his ear like an annoying jingle without the music. Five words; he counted the personal pronoun twice. Five words he continued in failing to say, but today…could possibly be different. And he thought 'possibly' like it was possible for Rin to be a widely-known medical ninja and Kakashi a black opps ANBU member. It could happen someday, but as to whether it'd be today was still unlikely. Nevertheless, Obito kept faith alive for another day.

He wanted to say it—blurt it out with a bunch of flowers in his hands, but alas, he had none. Which was probably good in case he became so nervous and his hands so sweaty he inadvertently poisoned them with anxiety. But today was her birthday, and here he was, the first one to meet her before their sensei or that dammed Kakashi got there—it was just the two of them. In fact, he'd been there a half an hour early in the field—just before the dawn. And when she came walking, his heart skipped a beat.

"Hello Rin," he said, "Happy birthday!"

She smiled gently, "Thank you."

Yet again, she paralyzed him with that smile; but it faded; "Obito, is there anything you'd like to say to me?"

…What? Had she found him out? Obito considered. Typical. It was now or never. Now or never Obito. "Y-Yes—I-I…"

"…Yes?"

He closed his eyes. Five words. "I think I like you!"

When Obito opened them, he saw Kakashi staring back at him. "Oh you are too easy…" But Obito was already trying to strangle him to muffle his laughter, and maybe shut him up forever. Kakashi dodged him easily, but Obito wasn't giving up. His main goal was to pummel him into the ground. Preferably six feet into a cozy wooden box. He imagined Kakashi looked good in wood.

Sensei and Rin came along together, and as soon as he saw his two boys going at it like drunken ANBU (no offense to drunken ANBU), he teleported instantly to break them up, and thus shocked the boys fairly well. Kakashi got up first, coolly brushing off his pants, standing straight like he had a moral compass the length of a flagpole—save for a stiff bend in his grin.

Clumsily, Obito rose and staggered to him and in a hoarse whisper seethed, "You won't tell a soul."

"Tell a soul what?" sensei questioned.

Kakashi's mask kept his smug smile a secret—his voice did not. "Nothing," he said innocently.

Beet-red, Obito spun around on his heel and felt like crying. He bit it in and sucked up what was left of his pride, leaking somewhere underneath his feet. He heard Kakashi say happy birthday to Rin, but he couldn't find the nerve to say anything.

Sensei was very displeased with them and, instead of going to the mission's office, he directed them instead to a training field with a concept of 'teamwork' alive in his mind, but in neither of the two boys.

Rin's eleventh birthday, too, was forgotten by the end of the day.

.

He intentionally made a display for two grass ninja who looked like they could be his parents. Child-hating parents. Their black eyes sought retribution—but fire beats grass, doesn't it? That's what he figured, anyway.

Sensei was separated from the three—so Obito took the hit, and the fall for the girl, who stared on in awe, but not shock of his bravery. He was always pulling crazy stunts similar to it, like that time he used a pair of chopsticks in that recon mission two weeks ago as senbon. He even made use of a butter-coated napkin like a banana peel. Or that guard duty four weeks ago—Obito single-handedly restored a sand ninja's camaraderie for the leaf village when he complimented him on how nice his clothes looked. "I like your vest," she remembered he said. From there on, history. Their sensei took great (and odd) pride in what he heard from Sandaime. Kakashi thought it was dumb.

Obito fought against the grass ninja with all he had. Though he had no dinnerware to fight with, he made use of all his kunai and steel wire and fire jutsu. Kakashi, beside her, recovered, and it wasn't before he joined the fight again did they succeed in defeating them. And by defeat, the twelve year old Kakashi killed them.

After Rin treated him first, she saw to Obito. He had paper cuts on his arms from the wire burning into his skin. "Obito…" she said in the middle of her work, "…Why'd you do that?" She was of course thinking of him selflessly deflected the ninja's attack from her.

Four words.

You matter to me.

But he knew better than to say them. "Aw—you know me," it came out instead with an innocent smile.

"…Bumbling idiot…" Kakashi took the liberty to supply.

A fuse was suddenly lit inside the young Uchiha. "…What?"

"Kakashi please," Rin echoed.

"It's your fault in the first place," Kakashi muttered. "If you hadn't wanted to veer off the path, we might have never run into them."

Obito stood up and shouted. "Don't I do anything right to you?!"

"I'm being logical. Someone has to," he glared upwards.

"Yeah?" Obito crouched and unabashedly took him by his collar, taking advantage of his rival's weakened form. "Where's the logic in doing everything by yourself?" he contested. "Huh? I helped you just now—I saved your butt! Whether you'd care to admit it or not, you stuck up ass—!"

"Come on, please," Rin stared at them both. She knew Obito would fight him anytime, anywhere; but Kakashi, for the moment, was in no condition to battle a grasshopper, let alone Obito. "Don't argue. You two act like children!" But the statement held little weight since sensei was not there to enforce it.

Obito raised his fist, clenched with enough anger to break Kakashi's jaw. But he paused as he held it back, and then he felt something deliberate hold it back. At first he thought it was one of those Kusa ninja, the presence behind him felt angry enough, but no one drew back. It was sensei, with his own temper to lose.

"What the hell is the matter with you two?"

Obito dropped Kakashi's collar. The boys were silent, staring at each other.

"W-We ran into a couple ninja—" Rin started.

"I don't want to hear what happened, I want to know why two… teammates are breathing anger onto each other."

The boys finally disengaged their stares under the greater threat their sensei posed. Kakashi looked down and Obito turned around and started walking, praying to make it out alive—or at least not feel his collar yanked.

Sensei let him leave while he stared down Kakashi.

But Kakashi held it in, and didn't disclose one word of what happened, or namely, one word of remorse. Sensei's blue eyes never gave up on him, even as Rin, nervously, offered again an explanation.

Sensei consulted Obito at nightfall and waited for the boy to speak. And it took a moment before Obito lamely asked, "Why don't you just move us to different teams."

Sensei was ready for an answer. "Because you and Kakashi will work this out," he offered sternly.

"Now we won't! We won't ever get along!" Obito returned stormily. "Not in the way you want us to. He's too stuck up," Obito glared into the bark of a tree. There was no doubt it crumbled under it.

"Kakashi has issues—"

"Big issues for a…" Obito mumbled half of what he wanted to say.

"—but you must learn to accept him, and so does he. Have some patience with him."

"I've had patience with him!" Obito said angrily. "I'm tired of having patience with him!"

"Then have a little more patience with him, ok?"

Obito stared at the tree (or what was left of it) glumly.

"For me?"

"…Ok," Obito said forcibly. "Fine."

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Three words.

Three words, like from books or films or stage plays or even kabuki dramas. Three words his thirteen year old self stared in both horror and shock of. He imagined they were said by girls; women—at risk of losing their beaus to wars or sickness or worse; prettier women. They were not said by guys—er, men, yes men. And even if they were uttered by men, it was only in supreme moments of weakness before their woman or before some incredibly beautiful vixen or even dreamily to some racy magazine (he bought cheaply) that now hides under his bed with one other past issue; without fear of retribution from a simple picture. But he digresses—and, he is quite late, as usual. Predictably—Kakashi's eager to chastise him from in front of his immaculate flagpole he loved propping up behind him. He could probably make an art form of it. But Obito didn't mind it so much if that sweet old woman he helped had an issue of those same magazines in one of her grocery bags. Women's Circle was so great for pictures of women. In circles.

But this mission was different—this day was even a bit different. Their own Kakashi was promoted to jounin (well on his way to earning acceptance into the oops squad, or so Obito came to dubbing it), and deliberately, as two teams, would they enter Kusa to destroy a bridge at it's northern borders, while sensei kept the Iwa ninja busy with his disappearing act.

They talked in so many words, Kakashi, Rin, and sensei, with no use for the odd three that, as a young man, he strung together whenever he saw her face. So go ahead and call him weak, it was no surprise. They were all thirteen, growing into gangly teens with abnormal growth spurts, with sometimes larger than normal hands, and with forming faces and voices deepening into chasms of grand misunderstanding. Kakashi didn't have height yet, Obito took that from him. But Kakashi was the most lanky of the three. Obito was steadily stronger, and Rin was Rin.

Sensei saw them off and Rin didn't seem to change. She was the same, sweet young girl she always was and always would be. If ever she did grow taller, it would be only his mind that saw it, and not his heart. But Kakashi suddenly changed, with a few words and sentences he had not thought to fathom before. Obito had gone to sensei in the middle of the night to protest the killjoy's mean-spirited prejudice from earlier, and instead, found out something horrible he never knew. And it made Obito feel sorry for him. He'd hated Kakashi, he'd envied Kakashi, but never had he felt sorry for him.

Three words.

Kakashi led the mission. Which was a bad idea, but Obito gave him the benefit of the doubt. All until after the moment Rin was taken by two unfashionably dressed Iwa ninja. And Obito screamed and shouted at Kakashi's stoic front in order to run after them. In order to save her. But Kakashi refused. So Obito held up his fist and hit him. And God did it feel good. He was tired of Kakashi's indifference for any human being, enemy or ally. It was all he seemed to see them as. So Obito marched off on his own, desperate in his heart to save his chance at three small words someday. Because he loved her.

Rin was the wind if you were warm, the sun if you were cold, and a fixed star in the midnight sky if you were lonely. She was one thing to focus on if the whole world caught fire and you were sinking under a great and terrible landslide, with only your hidden kekkei-genkai to see through the rock and the mud and the flames. And even then, somehow, you felt like you would climb your way back out of solid rock to see that smile again.

Three words.

He would have had to.

And by judge of her tears, she felt the same way. Because Obito was brave and steady and never left anyone behind; and she wasn't in awe anymore, she was in shock. Shock that Obito and Kakashi came to rescue her in a hell pit cavern on the north, north-western side of that country. Shock that Kakashi seemed to be missing something. Shocked that rocks came closing in around them so fast she didn't have time to think, and shocked that in that moment, Obito saved Kakashi's life. And the tears were coming when she found she couldn't save him in return. The tears were coming when he decided to let Kakashi have the newfound kekkei-genkai that made him a stronger ninja than Kakashi would ever hope to be. All because he forgot to give him something for becoming a jounin. And Kakashi's tears came when he realized it came from a friend. But Obito could not say three odd words to her. Maybe the haze of semi-consciousness got to him first; maybe it was his nerves he couldn't find. He was always so weak in front of Rin. And Rin didn't want to let him go. Even after Kakashi took her hand and helped her out of that place, even after she heard Kakashi say three words in the past tense with different pronouns, only because she wouldn't let him go, either. She was clingy like that. And so was Obito.

But he died on that mission.

Three words.

I love you.

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Sensei watched painfully as the thirteen year old sobbed the most unselfish tears he'd ever seen him cry. Which was a shock since the boy had once vehemently enforced shinobi rule of conduct number twenty-five, ironically, in front of Obito a few times. But Obito was gone save the red Sharingan that was with Kakashi now, acting as his conscience; cheering with him when he survived, and then crying with him when he grieved. Give Kakashi a chance, he really could.

Two words.

Sensei's words were calm and soothing, but mostly fruitless. He had little hope of stabilizing the thirteen year old save his presences and a handkerchief—one he let Kakashi keep, even though the boy's pride would not let him accept. So sensei had stuck it in his pocket when he cried himself to numbness and sleep.

Headaches were murder. Kakashi was sure of it. Rin's medical help was of little use after the immediate week. The two literally carried him to the hospital, but he hated it there; as if the medics there could do anything more, which they could not. At that point, he was begging to go back home, wherever that was. All he knew was that it was away from all those people—person after person coming in, just to look at him as if he were a magnified protozoa. So it was up to Rin, in the immediate months, to help him. But he was more silent with her than anybody else. Because after all, Kakashi would have let die.

He hadn't loved her. He hadn't loved anybody but himself. It haunted him. The memory of Obito…saving his always ungrateful, ignorant butt as if he deserved it. Just the feeling he remembered on his right arm; the feeling of being pushed aside with purpose and direction as opposed to all those times he pushed Obito aside like he was nothing more than a piece of trash. And then that circumvented with every strong memory Obito made on him, and that, he changed his mind, was murder. It would wake him up, even when he wasn't sleeping, and he'd lose it. He cursed at himself. He mentally beat himself. He thought of hurting himself. It all ended with one more headache like a final stab of pain before his mind would finally go numb.

Two words.

He was standing on the bridge on the west side where she was not far beside him. His hitai-ate was pulled down over that left eye in a manner so untidy, he was as fashion sense-less as those Iwa ninja. But there it was, all the same, with the flagpole bended behind him in concert with his back. They'd been talking mundane things. How are you; I'm fine, he lied. But Rin didn't have to wonder when she'd trample on those frayed nerves of his when he said, "…He would have married you, you know."

Two words.

Marry me.

She bit back a sudden feeling of tears. It was the most he'd said about Obito in her presence since the immediate weeks and months and after months. Kakashi appeared calm. In his mind, he'd been thinking about him all day. How much he'd envied Obito. A buried feeling he found dug up after all his explosions of conscience, sitting there in the sun. He'd been thinking of how jealous he'd been that Obito had a family, had friends; people he cared about, and was willing to care about. No matter the cost or reprimand. He was fighting to save one another, sometimes with only a kunai in hand. "He was that…" Kakashi's voice broke before he could say the rest; "…He was that way," he finished quietly. "I should have been more like that."

Rin opened her mouth, but it was useless. She couldn't play into his self-pity, or his self pity would play into her. That was it. Because it was true.

"I should have been more like him," he said more firmly.

She looked him over and reached out to hold his hand on the rail. He drew away instantly, as if a butterfly was going to land on the back of his hand.

He turned away to leave. And when she refused to let him go on his own, he took a breath and said in a hoarse whisper, "Leave me alone."

Kakashi would have to endeavor to deserve her, and even then, he wouldn't know what to do if he ever got there.

.

It was a promise straight from Obito; he vowed to protect her.

"How can you protect me if you'll be a black opps?"

"Well," he said. "I thought I'd…get that sense," he shrugged. "Either that or you'll scream really loud."

She couldn't help but smile.

Another slow ache behind Obito's sharingan. He made a pact with himself he could not mind it, physically. For Obito was only trying to have his own conversation with her, i.e.: How are you? You look nice. I like your shirt—is it new? Kakashi looks like a dweeb, doesn't he? Ha-ha.

In return, she asked a stupid question. "Are you going to ask sensei for reference?"

"Yeah."

"Is he really going to give it to you?"

"I can imitate his signature."

"Kakashi…!" she scorned. "That's against the rules!"

He smiled a foreign one. "I don't care."

Rin admired him for a moment. They were both fourteen. She was still a sweet, innocent young woman, and he was a hormonal-driven, innocent young man, with almost a year of agony to his name. She looked at him the same way she looked at Obito, with that gentle, assured smiled she only knew as just a smile. "Please don't do it."

He looked at her, and then settled his gaze elsewhere. "If you told me to do anything else…I would. But it's only six months—then I can be put on a team here in Konoha. Sensei can see to that. I can protect you. And I'll be stronger for it."

"You…" she shook her head. "Please—"

"I'm not strong as it is," he admitted. "I lost it."

"Sensei can keep—"

"He's hokage now. I won't ask him to do anything I can't do on my own. He's spent too much time already. I have to repay him. I'm in his debt."

"You're in nobody's debt," she refuted, and then realized it was far too late to retract her words. She caught a nerve like static cling.

"I have to protect you," he looked at her sternly as if it were the law he used to repeat.

"Kakashi…" she fidgeted. She stopped when they looked at each other in earnest.

He spoke quietly, "If I loved you less…then maybe I wouldn't do it."

Rin's breath held and her eyes stung with tears. She opened her mouth, but her breathing only resumed when she threw her arms around him. He jerked, but the embrace held as she cried and whispered his name.

One word was left.

She drew back and smiled in a mixture of tears and happiness.

He loved her.

And she loved him, ardently. And that care of the words he said made her think of all the things Obito used to say and do, or sometimes not say, but still do. His smiles, his constant affections that were so sweet and genuine she remembered holding his hand and giving up something to be fixed or opened just to give him something else to do. Because Obito cared. And maybe here, Kakashi wanted to be like that.

But she remembered once she flipped a coin, and she named the heads side for Obito, and the tails for Kakashi. She wanted to see who it would be, as decided only by the magic of a coin. She started with heads up on her thumb. Rin flipped it high in the air and extended her hand to catch it, but she missed. She saw it dip in the blue water under the bridge, and she leaned over, but she couldn't see which side it landed on. That's funny, she thought, smiling strangely. How will I know? It was then Obito circled her view.

One word.

He was bound for a training facility in the ANBU black oops division and when they arrived, they got the call to go back.

The village was quiet, coming in from the western side, a sort of tranquil quiet that, for a moment, made them question the order. But as they scanned, the first quake was felt. And as the team got closer, the quakes of the ground intensified in an almost rhythmic fashion. The director, they found, was a gigantic, wide, bright orange fox.

It stretched across the sky-line like a wall of madness and fur. Their next orders went nearly unspoken, had their captain not shouted them from a pit of horror.

Before he could battle the fox, he had to fight against the dust and debris and the branches of each kind of tree Konoha possessed that were all flung by the wind the fox threw around like a pinwheel. The sharingan allowed him advanced warning until he misjudged the extent of his strength when he found himself being carried back not by another ninja, but by the terrible sickle wind like a leaf. He landed somewhere at the break of a tree line against an old oak.

Rin had been scuttling people away from the ground site. She was breathing hard, her chakra mostly expended from offering first aid to jounin-level ninja. She saw him at the tree line and ran to him. Even as ANBU, Kakashi qualified as jounin. "Kakashi!" she held on to his shoulders as if he were about to fall. "Kakashi, come on, you have to get out of here," she helped him stabilize through another giant trebled quake that was only a footfall.

He ran behind her, constantly checking behind him. When the scent changed, the winds shifted. He sheltered her form as the wind snapped around with another quake and kicked them to a stagger of trees that now had various kunai and other sharp objects lodged in them. Rin felt a prick towards her side and opened to her eyes to see Kakashi, unmoving, over her.

One word.

Carefully she eased away and stopped dead as she realized what happened. A kunai knife was embedded in his side, under the ribcage, bleeding out the other side.

Even as she worked to seal the wound, he was semi-conscious, sometimes acting as if he was going to get up, sometimes acting as if he was going to lie back down. His eyes were closed in intense thought. But he opened them more resolutely as he felt a hot raindrop of hell on his forehead. He came to his senses enough to see that it was sweat on her brow. She crumpled beside him and he saw the next big wave coming. He forced himself to get up and carry her further outside the danger zone.

One word.

He looked down at her as he laid her on the soft grass. His left hand went to his shirt and felt nothing there. He cursed at himself. "Rin! Please—!" her eyes were closed. "Please—God; hold on—you're safe," he told her. "I'll protect you."

One word.

She imagined Obito laughing, Kakashi sulking. He was so dark and intriguing like that. Will you go out with me? She saw Kakashi in the school, and could not confess the five small words or else she'd be socially ridiculed every time her peers would see her, with or without him. I think I like you. She saw Obito, saving her from more than one precarious occasion without pause. She saw Kakashi's blank look at her smile. You matter to me. I love you.

Slowly, she opened her eyes. I love you. Obito stared. Marry me, Rin…?

One word.

"I-I'm sorry, Kakashi…" she whispered. He shook his head, ready to run her to Suna if she wanted. She smiled. She couldn't say one word. She didn't want to, but she knew it was necessary. She couldn't feel his touch anymore. He saw her to a team of medics close to a shelter, and went back to the debris and the madness and the fur and remembered little after that.

One word. 'He's stable for the moment' wasn't it. Because Kakashi woke up in confusion. No one could tell him where Rin was. No one could tell him where sensei was. Kakashi felt displaced as he built up the strength to run out of the crowded hospital to find a strange ceremony taking place he had no knowledge of. Multitudes of shinobi were there. Multitudes of villagers were there. Multitudes of people were there. Sandai was atop the Hokage tower, his voice amplified by speakers. "…We are gathered here today…" his voice cracked and so he cleared his throat, "…To say…"

One word.

Kakashi stared.

"Goodbye."

The rest was lost on Kakashi in a haze of head shaking and utter, mind-numbing confusion. He started shaking and ran out of there as fast as he could, to nowhere in particular. Where the hell were sensei and Rin. What made him even more confused were the tears that he felt falling and stinging his mismatched eyes when he could not understand why.

He got into trouble for not reporting in the next day.

He got into trouble for not reporting in the day after that.

He got into trouble for being dogmatically late.

He got into trouble for making certain comments.

He got into trouble for being weak and pulling crazy stunts.

He got into trouble for being more like him.

But it was the only thing he found, that kept him going.

.

.

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by Caliko, Kariko Emma