Salvation (Kakashi x OC) (Standalone)

Abstract

Written: 11/1/22
Word Count: 737

There are moments in one's life—moments both minute and grand—where the events of the past come together in a blurring of motion, a desperate reeling of images. All of the images lead to these moments in a yellow brick road of evidence. Inescapable, unavoidable.

Inevitable. Something akin to fate.

If I had to remark on the events leading up to the moment that changed my life forever, it would be that they had been unremarkable. The lead-up had not left a set of clearly-understood footprints paving the way to an eventual conclusion.

There had been nothing that could have shown me the path my life would take.

One moment, and it all changed.

Disconnected by fate, disconnected by logic, disconnected from the universe...and yet, it had happened all the same.

Please excuse me, half-baked though these thoughts are. These careless ramblings are well-intentioned to be as truthful as honesty can make.

I simply don't have the best words to describe how I feel about what I went through. Ah, well. I suppose it's time to stop the rambling and stick to cold, hard facts.

You're here for a grandiose love story, an adventure that ascends to the heavens.

I understand. That's what we're all here for, isn't it?

Very well.

Let me start on the day Kakashi Hatake appeared outside of my crappy, two-bedroom apartment.

I'd been eating cereal. If I had to name any single thought running through my mind as I chewed each large mouthful of Cheerios like a mindless cow chewing its cud, it had to be this:

The paint's peeling off the ceiling.

The kittens were in a box coated in stray cobwebs from the community laundry/storage shed. Their happy mewls were the kind that only came from sated infants who were too young to express their joy with movement, so they had to resort to sound.

Hable and Sintar had just been stray beans back then. Two little sausages stretched out like putty. Eyes closed to the cruelties of the world, ears half-slits just beginning to let in the barest hint of sound. Their tabby coating stood out, making them look like high- brand toys.

I want to say there were eight...no. Six? Seven kittens in the original litter?

Harsh realities had brought the little darlings to me too late to save more of them.

My sister hadn't been capable of taking care of herself, her useless baby daddy, and the two babies, yet she'd thought she could weather a pregnant cat?

If there was such a thing as fate, then this would probably be the most obvious I'd ever seen it interfere in my life. Hable and Sintar had been destined to become mine.

"How could they do that to the babies?" Tenna's wailing cry had crackled so loudly through my phone that it had blanked out the noise entirely, making me cringe.

"That's what they do, Ten," I'd told her, my voice too firm for my sister's tearful shock. But it hadn't been firm enough, let me tell ya. "The males will kill the kittens that aren't theirs. It's part of a cat's nature."

"But...but that's so cruel?" The wailing had raised in pitch. Each upward notch only made me grind my teeth together more and more. "Evan won't help me anymore! He said he can't look after monsters all day!"

"You're the one who had children with him."

My words, my voice...hadn't been very nice. But it wasn't my fault, really. I was doing all I could to keep from unleashing the full force of my anger.

A blaring thought had echoed in my head as I listened to each juddering, tearful sob that punctured Tenna's words to unrecognizability: How Could You Be This Stupid?

"G-Graciee—-eeeee..." The crying intensified, and before the kittens had been permanently moved into my humble, single-level apartment complex, I'd already known I would be caring for them for the unforeseeable future.

On the day I met Kakashi, the kittens were already a done deal. Their ears were beginning to open, and I'd long stopped receiving half-hearted apology texts from my drunken sister at two in the morning.

My eyes had been staring straight up at the ceiling, eyeing the slivers of paint peeling off in little curls. The dry cereal, despite the milk in it, scratched at my throat, but I couldn't cough and disturb the happily mewling kittens sitting near my elbow...