Under My Skin

Chapter 21

Konoha

His obsidian eye didn't snap open. It opened slowly, as if he wasn't really ever sleeping. It focused on nothing as he gazed into the darkness, his face half submerged by his pillow. His breathing was shallow and undemanding.

The heaviness within him pulled his face gaunt. The numbness he had been surviving in slipped through his grasp as the vivid dream marred his soul. He could still feel the ghost of her fingers running through his hair. The warmth of her cheek on his chest. The kiss she left on his lips. The tightness of her arms wrapped around him. The absence of her ached in his heart.

He tortured himself with his memories of her. The first time he'd seen her, like an angel appearing in a dark place. The first time he saw her sleep so peacefully on their mission. The blushes she gave him. The sound of laughter. The struggle it took her to get on a stool. The way she gazed out the tea shop window watching her first festival. Her only festival.

He clenched his eyes back shut trying to rid himself of the images, of the torment. His arms clung around his chest tighter as if it would keep it from falling apart.

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A week later

Someone once told Kakashi that it was better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all. He loved Obito, loved Rin, loved Minato, loved his father. It broke him but he was able to rebuild parts of himself, remake parts of himself from that. But this, he didn't know if he could survive this. The only thing that kept him breathing was the thought of her life force inside of him. Her life force keeping him alive. He'd never take that away. Not her. He stared numbly at her clothes in his room. He hadn't moved them from where she left them. He couldn't bring himself to. They reminded him that it was real.

"Kakashi," Gai's voice called through his front door. His fist battered on the wood. Kakashi pulled his duvet over his head and covered his ears with his arms drowning out the noise. Wave's of nausea rolled over him between the hollowness. The pain in his chest made it impossible to breathe. He hadn't slept really since the day she- the day she gave him her life. Every time his eyes closed he saw her disappear into the shadowy veil. She chose death to give him life.

He tortured himself with perfect memories from his Sharingan of her. Her laugh, the feel of her head on his chest, her lazy smile in the morning, watching her struggle to sit on the high stool at Ichiraku. All the memories he had of her. Repeatedly.

He wanted to wish that he'd never met her at all. Wanted to wish that he could've controlled himself and just remained professional. Wanted to wish she'd never found him in the bunker. He found he couldn't wish for it. To have never met her... he couldn't.

Kakashi withered into himself further, curling into his chest as if it was enough to keep it from falling apart. It was her face he saw behind closed eyes.

The way you screamed my name haunts me.

He lay letting the numbness eat at him, not wanting to feel the storm that brewed around him.

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Gai kicked his door down the next day. He pulled the void nin out of his bed and sat him by the table. He forced food into his mouth and shoved him into the shower.

Kakashi sat dripping onto his bed, looking into nothing. Gai crouched in front of him rubbing his hair with a towel.

"Oh, Kakashi." He sighed, "my eternal rival. Youth has all but slipped from you."

Kakashi's worn gaze lifted heavily to his bushy-browed friend. He blinked at him, his face gaunt.

"She wouldn't have wanted this for you, Aki-chan would hurt to see you like this"