Desire (Kakashi) - Indefinite Hiatus

The Sakura Funeral

“Alex! Get up! We’re going to be late!” Kakashi pounds on the door, which I effectively locked behind him as he left to go to the kitchen and make breakfast. I groan loudly, loud enough for him to hear, and roll over in the bed-hiding beneath a large mountain of covers.

“Mom!” Naruto whines, joining Kakashi at the door, “You know what today is!”

Oh yeah, that’s right. I sigh somberly and sit up. Swinging my legs over the side of the bed, I force myself to stand and walk over to the door-where Kakashi and Naruto are still banging. We told Naruto to just call us Mom and Dad, something that he has thoroughly enjoyed exploiting, and the rules to our house are fairly simple. Do well in school, stay up until ten, and clean if you’re asked. If you do all that, we don’t really care what else you do. Usually, I’ve learned that Naruto will crawl onto the couch with us at nights and we’ll watch television or movies and during the day he trains with Kakashi while I paint.

I tap lightly on the door-quieting their bangs.

“Alex?”

“Alex is not here at the moment.” I reply sleepily, yawning. “Leave a message at the beep……” I almost forget to say beep. “Beep!”

I hear Kakashi let out an exasperated sigh and I unlock the door, allowing him in. Kakashi hurriedly bursts through the door, something long and a pale pink in his hands, and Naruto patters in after him-already dressed in his ceremonial blue robe.

“I don’t like pink.” I scowl slightly as Kakashi lays the silky flowing kimono on the bed, but other than that I don’t object. Even Kakashi is wearing the larger version of Naruto’s kimono, spicing it up a bit with his mask.

Pulling the cloth off the bed, I walk into the bathroom and pull it on. And instantly hate it.

I hate it. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it. With all my well being, I hate this stupid dreadful kimono. I hate how beautiful it is, with its long billowing satin sleeves and form fitting bodice colored a soft pink. I hate how the large sash that holds the robe together sits just above the flare of my hips, tying into a large puffy bow in the back-visible to all. I hate how the color makes my skin look a lovely shade of ivory, my hair the color of chestnuts, and my cheeks splattered with a rosy hue.

“Momma?” Naruto calls softly through the door.

Snapping out of my hate spiral, I open the door and step out. Kakashi nods slightly, visible eye traveling over my body, but doesn’t compliment on how pretty I know I look. Which is a good thing too, because I would probably sock him.

“Are we ready?” He asks instead, starting for the door.

“I need a bow.” I say, moving to the dresser.

Kakashi sends me a look, to which I blandly ignore. I grab a rosy ribbon and tie my hair back into a high ponytail-fixing the ribbon so its folded into a large bow atop my head.

“You get your mask, I get my bow.” I say as I join Kakashi at the door.

He simply nods and takes my hand. Naruto slowly walks out the door in front of us. He doesn’t skip, or run, or smile even-which is very weird for the blonde little boy. If I didn’t know where we were going, I would’ve asked him what’s wrong.

It’s sweet of them, really. The only reason I haven’t vetoed the idea of going to this is because it’s tradition and it means a lot to Kakashi. Naruto is too young to really care about the traditional values, but he knows it’s important to us so he’s somber and grim.

“It’s a Sakura Funeral.” Kakashi explained that night, staring at me with soft eyes. The New Hokage, Lady Tsunade, stood beside him, the bringer of the news, with her soft hazel eyes trained on my face-watching my reaction.