Flower in the Mirror [Hatake Kakashi] [1]

❄️ Chapter 27 ❄️

Yumetsuki sighed as she reached to tuck her hair back behind her ear, feeling a strange sense of exhaustion coursing through her body. She had been trying to wash the dishes, but it was proving hard to concentrate on the task even with the absence of Naruto. The young boy had gone for yet another trip with his classmates and Iruka, and even the silence did not compel Yumetsuki. No, rather, she had begun to dislike the sound of silence. It felt heavy and overburdening upon her body.

In the end, there was no choice for Yumetsuki but to simply give it up. She turned off the sink and leaned against the counter, massaging her forehead. The wintry evening was falling, and the snow outside her kitchen window was frigid. Yumetsuki was rarely ever affected by the cold, but she felt that she would rather be beneath her warm covers. She simply wanted to exist there forever.

Weariness and exhaustion – those were the two things that had always been a part of Yumetsuki's short life. And right now, at what should be the lovely age of nineteen, the young woman felt the burden of those emotions to be the highest that she had ever encountered. Yumetsuki tried to think of a reason behind it but the real reason behind was hard to mention without tearing up.

Dinner and cleaning up could be neglected today, Yumetsuki tried to convince herself. It was better to leave work until tomorrow than to do it half-heartedly today. She looked wearily toward the clock that hung in the sitting room and the hands were slowly approaching eight. Yumetsuki had been up since five in the morning, and the amount of work had been piled up like the snow in her heart.

"I suppose I should change..." Yumetsuki mumbled to herself, and she decided to only change her clothes that evening. She threw her clothes into the laundry and pulled on her soft and warm nightwear. She pushed her long hair up, curling them up into a bun on the back of her head.

The gift that Shisui had given her sat on the palm of her hand, and she stared at it in silence. That silence had persisted for a very long time until she sighed softly and set it down into her jewellery box, closing it firmly. She hoped not to think too much about it tonight.

But before Yumetsuki could collapse onto her bed and bid goodbye to the day, there was a knock on the backdoor. She halted for a moment, her body racing with adrenaline on the prospect that some bad news had come her way once more. She stood frozen until she felt a sense of warm, familiar Chakra outside – it was Hatake Kakashi.

"Kakashi-Kun?" whispered Yumetsuki as she slowly slid the door open, surprised to see him standing outside, snow dusting him. But her worries were not sated until – "Is everything alright? Is something the matter? I was not expecting anyone today..."

The sight of Yumetsuki's bright blue eyes so worried, the silver of it swirling with fear – it felt like a dagger in Kakashi's chest. His smile faltered for a moment, but he quickly fixed itself: even if she was so intensely worried whenever he came to visit her, he would make sure that he would bring a time in her life when she would never have to face such fears.

"Oh, everything's good, I was just stopping by," Kakashi replied kindly, and he watched her features relax in awareness that he would never lie to her. "I apologise for not letting you know in advance. I heard you were going to be alone, and you didn't have lunch, so I brought dinner... it is dinner time for you, right?"

"Hm?" Yumetsuki asked, appearing to have started to think of who could've informed her being alone today to Kakashi. She also felt like he simply always figured things out on his own. "Um, yes... it is dinner time for me... come on inside..."

Moving out of the way to allow him to come inside, Yumetsuki slid the door close and turned to find Kakashi carrying two bags of food. She wasn't sure what compelled him to get so much but she didn't say much about it, hurrying to clear the living room for him to sit comfortably.