He's Just My Best Friend | a Kakashi love story

Chapter 11

The next morning, I got up early and made sure that we had something to eat for breakfast. I went with fruit and rice again. Maybe one day I'd be better at this, but fruit and rice was simple, and I need simple. I laid breakfast on the table and went to wake up Sasuke for school. I knew he didn't want to go back, but we needed to get back on a schedule, and school was part of the schedule. I was also going back to work today. Kakashi and I would be observing the Academy students who were to graduate soon to see which of them showed promise. It sounded like an easy enough day, but I was still terrified that I would fall apart.

"Sasuke, breakfast!" I yelled and sat down at the table with my banana in hand. Sasuke came out of his room already dressed and ready for school. I smiled at him, and handed him a peach to eat. "Are you ready to go back to school?" I asked.

"Hn. I guess so." He griped.

"Are you nervous, or do you just not want to?" I raised an eyebrow at him.

"Both, I guess."

"Well, I can't do much about not wanting to, but I don't want you to be nervous. It's still school. You still have friends there, and  I'm sure they'll try their best to understand, okay?" I gave him a small smile, which he returned.  I was trying to be as open as I could with him. I knew he needed to see me being strong, as well as me being weak.

"Are you ready to go to work?"

"Yes and no. It'll provide me a distraction from what happened, and I'm grateful for that, but part of me wants to just wallow a little more, you know? Be sad for a little while longer."

"You're not going to be sad anymore?" He looked confused.

"That's not what I mean." I sighed. This just kept getting more and more complicated. "When I was younger, I had a year where a lot of bad things happened to me, and the rule I made for myself was that I get to wallow in as much sadness as I want to until I start back to work. After that, I pick myself up and I start moving on. It's worked every time. The pain I feel may be worse than it was then, but I plan to keep that rule. So, after today, I will start trying to move on."

"How?" I sighed again. It's a hard question. I don't really know how to move on from something like this.

"That's kind of hard to answer." I started. I paused to think about how I would answer. "Well, I guess one thing I do is I lean on my friends for support. Like Kakashi, for instance. I can already tell you that he's going to be back to his normal self today, because I need him to be. He'll joke with me like normal, and help me feel like everything will be okay in time, and I'll do my best to do the same for him. My other friends do this as well. Another thing I do is throw myself into work. The more I focus on it, the less I can think of how much pain I feel."

"Hn." Was all he said back.

"Come on, you don't want to be late for school. Let's get going." I smiled at him, and handed him his backpack.

After I dropped Sasuke off at school, I made my way to the Hokage tower to meet Kakashi and get our mission. I knew it would be something small, because Lord Third always did this after something like this. Those involved got to ease back into work and take small missions.

I got to the Hokage's tower and made my way to his office. I was a little nervous. I had questions I wanted to ask, but didn't want to know the answer to. I also promised Itachi I wouldn't tell anyone that I know, but I don't know how much I want to keep that promise. He certainly didn't keep his to me, and his letter made it seem like it might all be a lie anyways. I'm just confused.

"Come in." I heard after knocking on the door. "Hello, Mika, how are you?"

"I'm doing okay, Lord Third." I said with a small smile. "Ready to get back to work."