The Case-Book of Kakashi Hatake

The Beginning {Part 12}

The dirt made a hollow, wet sound, thunking down shovel-full after shovel-full, as it slowly hid the casket from view.

It was all I could hear.

Finally unable to watch the macabre filling of my friend's grave any longer, I turned away to begin the walk through the wet grass. It seemed that I wasn't the only one ready to go home, as the other funeral goers had all begun pairing up and walking away, whispering somberly. Kurenai, like myself, was walking alone, head hanging down low. Shikamaru had his arm wrapped around a beautiful blonde who I knew, from her perfume, was his wife. There were two other couples walking close by: one, a young man with a short beard and very sturdy frame arm-in-arm with his own wife who, with her dark skin and red hair, must have come from the Land of Lightning, and the other, a woman with long, flaxen locks accompanied by her own husband who had paper-white skin and dark hair. The final attendee was Sarutobi, a grievously somber look on his weathered face, aging him another full decade. Izumo and Kotetsu were standing a respectful distance away, eyes alternating between scanning the area and watching the Hokage.

A sad smile curving my lips, I watched as Sarutobi hastily walked over to his daughter-in-law, and the two of them held a brief, hushed conversation before embracing tightly. Old wounds mended far too late.

Somehow everyone ended up in Kurenai's cramped apartment, and the chairs were taken from the dinner table and added to the sitting area as everyone made a tight circle of bodies, piling onto the armchair, the loveseat, and even the ottoman. We all tipped back a dish of sake in remembrance and began sharing how each person in the room knew Asuma as the burning liquid loosened our tongues.

But no one dared mention the elephant in the room: the hanging that was scheduled in a week's time, the guilty verdict being handed down a few days prior.

Everyone refused to acknowledge the dark cloud of loss hanging over the room as we all smiled harder, laughed louder, passed around more sake. We were drunk on denial, rebounding from the month of sorrow with a night of fooling ourselves into thinking that we were carefree.

I do not recall what was said that night, not well enough to write it down, that is. It all happened in a sort of blur, a haze of emotion, of my mind floating feet above my body, and I hadn't even been drinking that much, though the sake had felt more potent than it actually was. I do remember names of everyone present: Kurenai, Sarutobi, Shikamaru, Temari, Choji, Karui, Ino, and Sai, friends and their spouses, but not much else besides.

I do have one clear memory of it, however. I was leaving, the night was late, or maybe the morning was early, and everyone had slowly begun to drift home, emptying the small apartment, leaving it cold and silent once again. Sarutobi and I were the last to go, walking out together. We stopped one door over, my door, and before I could unlock it, the wizened Hokage clamped his hand around my upper arm with a surprising amount of strength, a beseeching look in his eye.

"Do you... need something?" I asked, mind unusually muddled and slow.

He nodded, "I need to talk to you, and this is the first chance I've had all day."

I refrained from pointing out that today hadn't been going on for too long and that the funeral had now occurred yesterday as it was well after midnight.

I let him into my tiny home, and he cast a guilty glance about the room before sitting in my chair, commanding in presence and posture despite the humble seat. I sat across from him, perched at the edge of my bed.

"I really am sorry about the size of your accommodations, you know. You served as an elite commander for nearly a decade; it surely was worth a little more gratitude than this. Most officers of your caliber retire to some nice manner in the countryside."