Author's notes: Just a short chapter this time, I'm getting a little bored writing such huge chapters so much so I decided to shorten it down a little, back to the format it used to be when I first started. Mainly just subtext, thought processes and such and the mildest, slightest bit of angst.
Reviewed Anonymously: I do believe I stated, in Lies of Silence, that Gai did not enter the room to catch the two in the act, as said in the second last line; "-But they both looked to the door as a familiar, spandex presence made itself known, before knocking lightly, and sighing in defeat." -
HOWEVER, I understand it wasn't exactly written very well and the following chapter probably made it even more confusing because, as all this was going on between Kakashi and Arashi, Gai was out gathering information (and kidnapping Junya-san) so I was trying to convey what he WAS doing before returning to the room. I didn't really think how that would throw some readers off, and I apologise for the messy cuts between POV. So, I have edited the end of chapter 31 slightly to make it a little more understandable.
Relax, this is what reviews are for, and getting criticised isn't something I tend to loathe, it's something that helps. So thanks for letting me know :3 as for anyone flaming you, I wouldn't pay it any mind, I appreciate you taking the time to tell me.
Warning: Some language and a little angst. It's also notoriously short.
Wishful Thinking
No one had ever wished for a time machine as hard and Kakashi Hatake did in one single evening. If he could go back, even if it was just wishful thinking, he would probably go back to warn himself that Gai was going to get monumentally drunk and it would change his winter for the worst.
Or warn himself not to go to that bar in Cloud after he assassinated a small village Shougunate, so he would never meet Toyotomi Arashi or be stalked for two years straight and it would probably change his perspective on how much he truly had to hide.
Or-
Or… he could go back to the time he was so young and just admit to Minato-Sensei that he was frightened of himself and how he felt wrong for what he was feeling when the blonde politely (almost fatherly) asked him; "Kakashi-kun… you've looked so down lately. (He sat down beside him, his warmth and sunny disposition washing over him like a wave. Kakashi remembers how his scent changed slightly over time, so it held the spicy aura of Kushina with his own smell of earth and sea. Sometimes his arm would twitch, almost like he wanted to wrap the limb around the younger Ninja for comfort but felt it wasn't really his place.) I know times haven't been the best, but… do you need someone to talk to?"
Minato was probably the closest thing he ever had to a father, or an older brother (and an annoying one at that) and even though the urge was there and the words were almost out of his mouth, Kakashi just… stopped. Couldn't speak. He didn't want Minato to smile that kind, gentle smile and tell him everything was okay, that he was normal. He wanted to bury himself away in his own misery and eventually become obsolete, blending into the tight lines of masked ANBU who didn't have to think and feel and love like he did, even if he couldn't express it.
So he shook his head and looked away, back to the etchings in the monument stone and reminisce about where he went wrong. Eventually he joined ANBU and became just that – miserably obsolete.
Yes, Kakashi thought, if there was one thing he would go back and change with his magical time machine, he would go and tell Minato everything and probably burst into tears and never get over the sheer embarrassment. But if he knew then what he knows now, The Copy-Ninja would have been a lot better off.
Perhaps even capable of holding a relationship, regardless of the consequences.
Of trusting someone over himself.
Of actually sorting out how he really felt from the schooled, disciplined emotion he thought he should have so whenever a sexual urge became too difficult to ignore, he just had to escape.
But he didn't have a time machine, he didn't tell Minato everything and the weight of that one moment settled on his shoulders and carried onto the situation at hand, so finally after carrying it around for so long he was well and truly-
Crushed.
Sitting between two Ninja from opposing villages glaring daggers at each other, Kakashi came to the conclusion that it was all his fault. Not just the fact that they were fighting, no. Just that Gai was compromising his own reputation to help the slighter jounin feel better about himself. That he toyed with Arashi's emotions by being to afraid to tell him the truth, because he couldn't bear the thought of leaving him in such a state. That the thing (what ever the hell it was) with Gai clashed fiercely with the thing (what ever the hell it had been) with Arashi.
That even now, he couldn't openly admit it to himself that he simply was himself and nothing more, not their expectations or their falsified notion he provided them with.
That clash brought his lies to a head finally, and what once could have been an extremely powerful alliance between three high level Ninja with years of experience against a common enemy, was now a tense room with two very angry men and one calm, cool one.
So he schooled himself, even though his heart felt like a dead weight inside his chest when he realised that what ever had been with Gai was now gone and what ever had been with Arashi was well and truly dead, he told himself it didn't matter.
It wasn't important, not now, not when they should be focusing on their enemy and devising a plan.
The Copy-Ninja replaced the exhausted exterior he wore with the cold, collected façade of Kakashi of the Sharingan, the famed assassin, expert in open and hand-to-hand combat and terrifyingly aggressive strategist, because, in the end-
"You said you have something useful," he turned to Gai, "so, let's see it."
- Kakashi of the Sharingan, master of over 1000 jutsus, was who he truly was; his one and only constant.
Author's Notes: I'm finally moving out with my boyfriend tomorrow. WOOHOO! Thanks for reading anyway, in the next chapter the interrogation of Junya-kun will be underway!