Prompt#189 - Peppermint - The Smell of Home - thedawnbegun - Naruto

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Title: The Smell of Home
Fandom: Naruto
Prompt: Peppermint
Warnings: None.
Rating: G
Summary: Kakashi is looking for the smell of peppermint.

I can do it this time. I can do it. I can do it.

 

The smell of peppermint is the smell of home.

 

Kakashi's mother had an insatiable liking to a certain spicy peppermint tea, and the sharp scent of it clung to her incessantly. And when she died, alone and afraid, crying out with her dying breath so Kakashi would not be asleep and helpless when the intruders found him, the scent died with her.

 

It is for her and not his father that he wears the mask. He once made them of her shirts, where the scent of her clung, every one of them that bore the soft scent of home and dyed black in mourning.

 

It is nothing more than a memory now, but sometimes Kakashi wakes to that phantom smell, a fleeting breath of peppermint fading before he can properly embrace it. Those are the days that he is latest, standing in front of the stone that will never show him the name he needs to see.

 

He never admits it, never even to himself, but the real reason he accepted his ANBU mask is so he can safely travel in search of that elusive smell. He has since grown to hate the taste of peppermint tea, sharp and bitter. It's never the same, and recently Kakashi rarely makes it past the first sip, never gives up because it's the only thing he has left.

 

When he hands back the mask—burns it, to be exact, moves on and forgets why he joined—he hands back the last memory of his family with it. Kakashi finally moves out of the house he grew up in, his mother grew up in, and opens the window when he leaves as a final rejection in the face of his regret.

 

He doesn't say goodbye but he burns the last of his mother's shirts too, a dark blue kimono draped atop his worn clay mask, and the two go up in flames together. Kakashi finds it strangely fitting, a haunting symbolism that amuses a darker part of himself. He doesn't laugh but he doesn't cry either.

 

He doesn't know if he can cry anymore. Doesn't know if he still wants the smell of that peppermint tea, doesn't know if he can stand the smell of his childhood washing over him again. Doesn't know it but he's fading.

 

He's fading until the day he walks past the academy, glances in absentmindedly—more children to break, more future ninja to suffer his same fate—and catches a whiff of that smell.

 

Kakashi doesn't know what to do so he runs away. He's back at the memorial stone less than two minutes later, and the sight of it confuses him more than it helps. It's been a long time since the stone didn't calm him down—it means family is involved. And so it is.

 

He just sits there, too confused to stand, and stares at the rock until dark has long since fallen. Sits until he can smell the rain coming, until he's forgotten the smell of peppermint.

 

The sun was beginning to rise when he left.