🌸 The Flower He Saw 🌸 A Kakashi and Sakura Story

Because He Was Already Broken

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"Take a seat, Kakashi."

The masked man quietly took his seat as Ibiki shut the door. Inoichi perched himself across from Kakashi, a clipboard in his hand and his lips were pressed into a thin line. The ambiance was rather heavy, with Kakashi's legs pressed tightly against each other from nothing being foreshadowed to him. 

He wasn't sure what to expect, it was the first time he'd done something like this. 

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Ibiki closed the door to the room and slowly made his way to his own office with a straight face. He wasn't the type to be so happy if someone were to get indulged in their own feelings, but he was somewhat glad that Kakashi had finally decided to take the diagnostic. They were the same age, both 20 years old but the difference between them was more than he could imagine. Ibiki was the type to be very serious and precocious, he shedding tears wasn't something he had as an option for himself because there was nothing to shed. Kakashi, on the other hand, had tears to shed. He had the reason so be upset and cry─ but he chose to push that fact aside and continue living as though nothing had bothered him, as if he wasn't hurting. 

The difference between the two was that unlike Ibiki, Kakashi had been torturing himself. Even if they didn't spend much time together, being the head of the T&I, he could see that Kakashi was as broken as it gets and it had to be stopped now before he dissolved into his own sorrow.

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"There's a glass of water beside you if you need it." 

Kakashi reciprocated a nod.

Inoichi's eyes were glued onto him, making sure that he didn't miss any movements that his patient did. He was going to get this diagnostic right, and he wasn't going to fail. 

Being the best psychologist in all of Hi No Kuni, he had a specific illness in the back of his head that could be the one Kakashi had─ and so, he based his diagnostic off of that.

But even so, he was ordered to stay away from making this session completely about his mental health. Hiruzen informed him to make this meeting about both his mental health and his overall lifestyle. 

In other words, Hiruzen wanted him to focus more on Kakashi's way of living than his mental state─ strange. 

Inoichi hated that, so ever much. However Hiruzen was a part of the older generation, it's not like he'd ever understand how important one's psychological state could be, but orders were orders.

"Alright Kakashi, this is how you'll be taking this diagnostic." he said. "I will be asking the questions, and you'll answer them. It's rather simple... of course if you're being honest. This isn't something where you should lie, and if a question bothers you, you are allowed to ask me to come back to that question in the end."

"Affirmative." Kakashi responded. 

Inoichi fixed his position and stared intently at the man who sat before him.

"Your view on life, what is it?"

"Life is something we don't get to decide the fate of." 

Inoichi scribbled onto his paper and looked back to Kakashi.

"Have you experienced any traumatic events in your life? If so, explain further."

Kakashi slightly shifted his gaze downwards and thought of the same four people he'd always been thinking of. No matter how hard he tried to avoid it, their deaths were the reasons of his sorrow. Although he wasn't sure if he should consider them 'traumatic' because he thought that he was just experiencing the life of a Shinobi.