Kakashi wasn't a hero. He couldn't save people, or bring back the dead, or anything like that. He knew how to kill, and he knew how to play dead. That night, the first night, he played dead, just like he did the night after that, and the night after that, and the night after that. Asuma was never drunk again, never the mess he was the first night, but Kakashi could feel him breaking in the way he would breathe, ragged, to the way he would move, so very slowly. After Kurenai died, everything slowed down. The nights were like an eternity, with Asuma looming over Kakashi, and slowly, so very slowly, Kakashi began to be afraid.

If he stopped to think about it, he'd decide it was stupid, that he was nothing but an idiot. He could kill Asuma in under seven seconds. He could beat him seven ways from Sunday, throttle him, stab him, fuck him over. But somehow, whenever Asuma looked at him, with those angry, bitter eyes, Kakashi was the one fucked over, inside and out. He felt like he did when he was little, after mission, sick and beaten and tired and scared, scared enough that he woke up with a pillow wet from tears and blankets torn to shreds. But even scared of what Asuma would- could- do, he was more afraid of what Asuma would say, what would come out of that mouth that bit him, licked him, tasted him.

Asuma was enormous, huge hands and massive shoulders, and his words were bigger still. Kakashi was sure that Asuma could kill him with his words alone, and Kakashi was terrified of dying. He'd watched his father die, Obito and Rin, his sensei and his mother, and Kurenai. He watched men die with his kunai in their hearts, with his shuriken in their necks. He didn't want to hear the words from Asuma, the accusations that would make him wish to be dead, because he didn't want to die.

For seven months it continued. For seven months Asuma would look at him and Kakashi would play dead. For seven months he waited for it to be over, for Asuma to fall on top of him, sweating and panting, limbs pinning Kakashi against the floor. He waited until Asuma rolled over, and then he would rise to a crouch, moving around the room cautiously, gathering his clothes. Every night he would slip out of Asuma's apartment, out of the bedroom where Kurenai used to sleep, and through the living room where she used to laugh, and he'd stagger home, feeling beaten and empty and small.

One night Asuma looked down at him as he played dead. Kakashi couldn't look at those eyes, angry and broken, and so he tried to look anywhere else, tried to stare at the ceiling, because the ceiling didn't look at him like that. Asuma grabbed his chin and forced his head until Kakashi was looking at him, and Kakashi let him, his limbs heavy and limp.

"It's your fault," Asuma finally said, and Kakashi didn't play anymore.

Back to Chuunin and Jounin
Back to team seven
Back to the main page