Someone you loved

Chapter 27

In the wee hours of the next day, Kakashi cornered Tenzo in his small, scarcely furnished ANBU apartment, eyeing the younger man cheerfully despite the seriousness of his visit.

The Hatake didn't want to stay there for long, having left his pack back in his apartment, still asleep and with only Chiasa's falcons and his ninken as protection. Not that his Hime would need them. He doubted anyone would be able to enter his apartment unnoticed with all the seals activated.

"You did what?! What the hell were you thinking?"

Yeah, he too could hardly believe he had torn his childhood home to the ground, though every time he woke with a silent scream on his lips, his amazing Uchiha had been there, curled up against his chest and driving his shadows away.

"Mh? What did you say?"

Looking agitated at his senpai, Tenzo threw his arms into the air, pacing through his room.

"I was out of the village for half a day! Half a day! And you managed to call up a natural disaster the likes that hasn't been seen in decades because you want me to build you and your gennin team – your pack – a new house!"

"Ma, you make it seem like I did something ridiculous. And here I was just asking my sweet little kohai to do a favour to his senpai."

"Fine, fine," sighing Tenzo rubbed his head. "Please tell me you at least informed Tsunade-sama."

Giving him a closed-eyed smile, Kakashi shrugged carelessly, saying: "Nope. But don't you worry, I'll talk to her later abut the small rebuilding on the Hatake land."

Staring deadpanned at the silver-haired Jounin, Tenzo mumbled wryly: "She's going to murder you, senpai. Small rebuilding: you've got to be kidding me."

"But you'll do it, right?"

Sighing, the brunet nodded, refusing to give in to the urge of hitting his head against a hard surface repeatedly.

"Of course, senpai. I owe you a lot, this is nothing. I assume you want me to work on it right away?"

"Thank you, Tenzo. I really do appreciate it."

Tenzo had never seen his senpai so open and dare he say happy. The Hatake had always kept is emotions – be they negative or positive – close to his heart and locked behind iron walls, in fact, there had been days where Tenzo could have sworn the silver-haired Jounin had gone through Danzo's inhuman torture that he dared to call training.

However, Kakashi had changed since meeting Uchiha Chiasa and three naïve little children. If someone had told him his senpai would ever ask him to build a house – a home – for his team he would have turned away, laughing about the ridiculousness of the situation, and thinking they'd have gone mad. But alias, here he was, doing exactly that.

There was a light in Kakashi's eye, an ease in his posture, and an aura of content. It scared him slightly to see the change and it outright terrified him to think what Kakashi would become should something happen to one of Team 7.

Hound.

Not many shinobi had seen Kakashi at his darkest moment, when all humanity had left him, when he was not even conscious anymore, when Hound had taken over.

People called his senpai a monster and cold-blooded, but they had never seen Hound. There was less than a handful of shinobi that had seen and survived Hound.

Tenzo had.

And even when Danzo's teaching had rid him of his emotion, he had felt terror – ice-cold and freezing – in every inch of his body. Because Hound was not a monster, he couldn't be described as cold-blooded. Because Hound was the thing out of nightmares, the thing that you didn't dare call by a name in fear of catching his interest for even a brief moment.