He never meant to stay this long, but it seemed he always did. When he was there, he always got too swept up in the past-- into memories of wars and deaths and lost best friends; the death of Obito had hit him hard.
He did not know why he kept coming. The memories were more painful than, perhaps, Uchiha Itachi's Mangekyou Sharingan. He sometimes argued that he was not the only one that visited; he has seen Umino Iruka place lillies on the memorial for both of his parents, and there he once met that ANBU captain, Uzuki Yuugao. She suggested he should come to the memorial earlier, as to make the rest of his appointments on time. He told her that he did come early; it was just that the mourning took so much out of him, that he had to take time to recollect himself, and put on his emotional mask. She even suggested he stop coming everyday; he looked at her as if she was insane. That was the day he was late for the Third Hokage's funeral.
There was no doubt that he was the only one to visit the memorial so faithfully; he stood by the memorial everyday, for hours on end. Not even Uzuki came to mourn for Gekkou Hayate (one of the newer additions) as often as he did; she was an ANBU captain with responsibilities after all, though he supposed that if it were different, they would be spending hours in each other's mourning company, but that was beside the point.
Speaking of the devil, as Kakashi finally turned to leave for the day, Uzuki landed in the clear, taking off her ANBU mask and shaking her violet hair free of the pony tail it had been in. As they crossed paths, the acknowledged each other with small nods.
Kakashi reached the edge of the clearing, and turned back to look upon it. This was the place where he came to everyday, and he knew it without looking; there were the wooden logs he had used to teach his cute students the value of teamwork, which in turn he had learned from Obito, Rin, and the Yellow Flash in the very same place. He could see that Uzuki knelt on the ground, tracing the characters with her fingers, as if to memorize the carvings of Hayate's name.
Kakashi gripped his mask, the fabric that covered merely half his face feeling inadequate now. His one eye was still exposed, and anyone could read his emotions in it. Hitching the mask up more securely, he began to prepare today's lie to his cute students and turned to leave.
Lucky Uzuki had a full mask.
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