🌸 The Flower He Saw 🌸 A Kakashi and Sakura Story

Minato

────────────────

"Who's this?" Sakura questioned. 

Sakura and Kakashi stared down at the gravestone, embraced by the gentle wind of the early summer morning. 

"This grave belongs to Rin Nohara." Kakashi stated tonelessly. 

Sakura slowly nodded and placed one single cosmos flower on her grave. 

Before they came here, Kakashi told Sakura that they were going to visit a few graves today. When telling her, she insisted on buying a few specific flowers for the graves. Kakashi tried prohibiting her but she was just persistent, horribly so. And so they made a quick stop to the Yamanaka flower shop and bought a few of Sakura's choice. 

Kakashi noted that she was in search of certain flowers, as if there were specific ones to bring to the graveyard. 

Clearly, there was.

"Who was she, a frien'?" she asked. 

Kakashi took a few seconds to answer her question simply because he didn't know how to answer her. "She was my comrade, and a friend. We were on the same genin team." he answered, standing before the grave and heaving a sigh. 

Sakura looked up at Kakashi wondering if he would cry, but he didn't. He unambiguously stared down to the grave as he steadily controlled his breathing.

"Was she nice?"

"Too nice." he quickly tutted. 

He turned himself around and began walking towards the front of the graveyard, there were 2 graves that stood out in comparison to the others. As they approached, Sakura read off one of the names engraved onto one of the grave stones. 

"Is' the Yondaime-Hokage?"

Kakashi silently nodded and walked her to them. He would typically visit the graves everyday, without Sakura by his side, but today he had a change in heart. Instead of dropping her off to Kurenai's household, he decided to show her what it meant to be a Shinobi─ and the evident ending of a Shinobi.  

"This is the grave of Yondaime-sama, Minato Namikaze." his throat closed. "4 years ago, when you were just a few months old, an attack occurred and Minato-sensei gave his life for our safety."

Sakura frowned. "Why 'dya call him sensei?"

He paused, sighed, and shoved his hands deeper into his pockets. "He was my sensei at one point."

"That's so co─"

She immediately stopped herself when realizing that it would be a little inconsiderate of her if she'd continued her sentence. Being the student of a Hokage was great, but it wasn't as ecstatic as it was ought to be. The Hokage was someone who was bound to die for the sake of his village, but it was that cognizance that brought Sakura to understand that continuing her sentence would only shower Kakashi with memories of his past he would've most likely enjoyed forgetting. 

"─A hero..."

She stated in a low voice but loud enough for Kakashi to hear. He quickly peered down to her for a brief moment, watching her willingly place a cosmos flower on his grave. They soon moved to the one that was next to Minato's, and it was of Kushina's.

"The wife of Yondaime-sama, Kushine-hime. She saved the village as well during the attack and both herself and Minato-sensei died together. Although their deaths brought 2 things into our village." his voice trailed off. 

Sakura patiently waited for him to continue.

"Peace and trauma."

──────────────────────────