CHAPTER VII.
( steps forward. )
She tells them at fourteen. They're her best friends, her teammates, hers in the way Hatake claim, and it's started to rub her the wrong way when they keep referring to her as a boy. It claws, gnaws at her; her fingers bleed from the force her teeth bite onto them, her nails leave behind enough mark on her arms that days later she's still seeing bruises on the mirror.
It happens one day while on the training grounds, a couple of months after the Third War is over. She's just staring at them, and they're talking about whether he would beat some Jōnin in a race or not. Her heart jumps and scratches at her mind, insistent: tell them, tell them, tell them.
Maybe it's time.
Minato-sensei and Kushina-nee-san accepted her, didn't they?
(Her father did, the first of them all. She hates him, hates how much she treasures the memories by his side, loves him so much it tores her heart open and it makes her lungs rot.)
(She loves him, and hates him, and wants to kill him herself and wants to hug him and cry in his lap like she used to do when she was nothing but a pup.)
(She doesn't know anymore.)
They're on a pause, drinking water under a shade, a light breeze alleviating the heat of the summer. Kakashi's got bruises from the spar she's just won―though she won't admit to being impressed with how close Obito'd been a couple of times to landing her on the ground―and blood on her mouth from a kick that nearly knocked a tooth out. Biting her tongue, her muscles coil as her heartbeats resonate in her ears, and she thinks: it's now or never.
Obito and Rin are making light conversation, still not used to the peace the end of the war has brought.
(Not that she is, either.)
She thinks back on how they were: their innocence a pure white, their smiles still a mile wide.
It's cruel, and she definitely hates herself just a tad more for it, but she prefers them as they are now: hardened muscles under mesh shirts, scars littering their skin, toughened up but not yet beaten, with hands tainted red and their hearts a bit more closed off.
(It means they give parts of themselves to her that they don't give to other people; and Kakashi, Hatake, selfish as she is, as they can be, purrs in satisfaction at it.)
"Hey," she says, grabbing their attention. Both of them turn to her fast, curiosity shining through their eyes. Someday, she won't want to squash the affection that rises up to her chest, she knows. "There's―" a false start, great. "There's something I've been meaning to tell you. For a while."
Fuck, she's so awkward.
(Socially competent, thy name is not Kakashi.)
"Sure," Rin responds, a grin as brilliant as the sun behind her. "What is it?"
And, the thing is: Rin would never judge someone for their gender issues, and Obito's grown a bit out of his all-girls-are-flowers ideology, but she still fears their reactions as if they're going to be raining hellfire upon her the moment they find out. Like they're going to think she's been deceiving them all this time, or something.
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𝐁𝐋𝐄𝐄𝐃𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐎𝐔𝐓, kakaobi.
Fanfiction❝ THE GIRL IN HER RIBCAGE WEARS A BLOODY CROWN. ❞ 傷 ━━ The world will either make you or break you, and maybe Kakashi was born with a dick between her legs, but her fangs were sharpened by wolves, and her kindness bred by death. Maybe in another lif...
