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Entropy	By : ersatzbeta Category: Naruto > Yaoi - Male/Male Views: 1333 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, nor do I profit from writing this or any other fanfiction.

Chapter List
- 13
- 14
- 15
Author's Note: Bonus update!

Chapter 13
The first snow of the year had fallen in the night. A certain chill in the air and a fresh, clean scent told Kakashi this before he even got out of bed. He rolled over and looked out the window. The snow, a bare inch, seemed fluffy, and yet it weighted down the edges of everything it touched. It blunted the rawness of their yard, muffled trees and rocks and gave everything a softer, lighter look. He got dressed quickly in the cold.
Kakashi rapped on Sasuke�s door on his way downstairs. There was no verbal response, but a sluggish roiling of chakra told him everything. Sasuke was almost always peevish, though the cause varied from day to day. Starting out so poorly so early was unusual. Kakashi frowned, but getting the fire stoked was more important right now. He made no efforts to make his steps quiet. He was half-tempted to let Sasuke stay home. At the same time, it was important for Sasuke to live up to his promises, and he�d promised to come to the memorial today.

Upon arrival at the hearth, Kakashi prodded the coals inside the ceramic wood stove. He was glad he�d gotten into the habit of banking the fire over the past few weeks: he�d noticed the weather growing colder, but this snowfall was still unexpected. He laid down some kindling, opened the vents, and crouched, poker in hand, waiting for it to catch.
Sasuke came down the stairs just as Kakashi was ready to drop a couple pieces of wood onto the rebuilt fire. He noticed with some amusement that Sasuke made a beeline for the stove, heedless of the cloud of sparks sent up by the logs. It seemed he didn�t like the cold, though Kakashi couldn�t recall any similar behavior from his genin missions. This was probably a new behavior, then, one to be watched. The day was looking just a bit less bright as he adjusted the vents for a long, slow burn.
When Sasuke set a quick breakfast on the table, Kakashi put up his poker. He took the hot tea with a murmur of thanks. The rice, while left over from the night before, was still quite good. He made efforts to eat it, though he wasn�t hungry. He noticed Sasuke struggling as well. Kakashi put his chopsticks down, drank his tea, and waited for Sasuke to capitulate. It was an awkward wait.
Sasuke finally gave up chasing rice around in his dish. He met Kakashi�s upturned eyebrow with a glare. He quickly occupied himself with his tea, presumably so he wouldn�t have to talk. Kakashi shrugged and stood.
�I�m ready when you are,� said Kakashi.
This, of course, gave Sasuke the opportunity to continue his feigned irritation with Kakashi. Sasuke�s ire, while real, was no fault of Kakashi�s. He received the misplaced blame often enough to know that waiting it out--ignoring it--was the easiest and best course of action. Sasuke made a show of finishing his tea before he too stood. He re-wrapped the leftovers. Kakashi waited and deliberately did not voice his opinion that they would probably never get around to eating them. He was feeling thoughtful this morning. It wouldn�t do to provoke Sasuke before they�d gone to the memorial--after all, Kakashi was trying his best to give Sasuke a fair chance.
They put on their sandals in tandem, crossing the threshold into the snow with a sense of truce between them, uneasy though it was. Without words, they headed into the forest toward their destination. The air was cold, but there was very little snow on the ground in most places. The trees were so large and thick here that their branches, and the leaves still left on them, kept the snow from the forest floor. The open glades and few bigger fields still showed quite a bit of grass through the thin covering of white.
Theirs were the only human footprints stretching across the quiet forest. Kakashi noted deer and rabbit trails, birds of all kinds, and a lone fox�s tracks. He wondered if Sasuke had seen the same things. Probably not. Sasuke was looking especially grim today. His skin was almost translucent in the light of the not-quite-risen sun. It was pulled tight across the bones of his face and hands, and Kakashi couldn�t tell if it was from the cold or something else. His hold on a kunai, if that were anything an outsider could judge by, strangled the weapon. Sasuke�s fingers were thin and sharp, knuckles prominent where they wrapped around the hilt. Kakashi could hear the leather grip creak. It could have been just an adverse effect of the cold, but he doubted it. It wasn't cold enough for that. He let his gaze drift back to his own two feet.
�What?� said Sasuke.
�Oh, nothing,� said Kakashi. �You looked a little chilly this morning, that�s all.�
The silence between them lasted for a few steps as they crunched through the half-frozen grass and snow.
�Of course it�s cold,� said Sasuke. �It snowed.�
Though Kakashi didn�t look at him, he could hear Sasuke rolling his eyes. That familiarity squeezed Kakashi�s heart. That was the old Sasuke, genin Sasuke.
�I can handle it,� Sasuke said. �It�s not that bad.�
His voice hitched at the end, cut off a thought which would remain unspoken. Hurt throbbed in Kakashi. He missed the old Sasuke at this moment, while at the same time he mourned and feared for the brittle young man before him. The old Sasuke had had an unshakable confidence, an arrogance that made all reassurances of his capabilities into boastfulness. This man, this stranger bearing Sasuke�s face, was too quick to assume that Kakashi doubted his strength. That confidence he remembered was subdued or had been transmuted into something less pleasant. Kakashi tried to shake the feelings off. It was just because he was going to the memorial that any of this had arisen. Thinking about old teammates, missions gone wrong�the evidence of his latest--and perhaps greatest--failure was walking right beside him, and it was irrefutable. Here was something for which he had yet to atone. He might never, if things kept going the way they were.
They were approaching the clearing of the memorial, and Kakashi noted the instability in Sasuke�s chakra had grown since this morning. It was a muddled, yawning hole inside of him.
�Stay at the edge of the clearing,� Kakashi said. �Within eyesight, mind you.�
He felt an immediate slack in the tension. No doubt Sasuke was less than eager to see, for the first time, the list of ninja whose deaths he�d had a hand in those few years ago. Kakashi wasn�t about to rub his nose in it, either. It was this moment, more than any other previous, that told him Sasuke�s morals were still alive and well, that he wasn�t just some mad dog to be leashed and beaten into obedience, to be put down when he couldn�t be controlled. There was something there to be saved, to be salvaged from the wreck Sasuke had made of himself.
Kakashi took the last few yards to the memorial by himself. He faced the list of names. Sasuke settled in somewhere behind him, and Kakashi began his one-sided conversation. His fingers traced the names graven into the stone. There were so many, too many where the lettering was still fresh and sharp against his skin. He breathed a sigh into the morning air.
�Obito,� he said.
He cleared his throat, which had grown clogged and tight in the time it took to pronounce the name. A breeze kicked up a few stray leaves behind him. He took his time before continuing.
�It�s been a while," said Kakashi.
A/N: This and the following chapter are probably two of my favorites. These were written much later than the bulk of the story so far. They seem a bit more lively to me, though that might have something to do with them still being so fresh in my mind.
- 13
- 14
- 15
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Entropy