He jolts upright at that voice, its inflections as familiar as his own.
Ironic, that his grief falls away so quickly at the appearance of the one he grieves for. The response is automatic, and he hoods his eyes from the scrutiny he can feel, though he dares not look.
Kakashi has his mask on, but he has never felt more exposed.
It’s hard, almost impossible, like reassembling a broken snowman, but he schools his expression into something he hopes is less agonised, less broken.
“Everybody lies,” he says, because it is the kind of glib remark he has always hidden behind.
He realises he has to explain his presence here, in Minato’s apartment. And it is Minato’s. It had always been. Kakashi had never allowed himself to think of it as theirs. Never.
“I was — I came to get my clothes. Sorry. Didn’t know you would be here.” Measured. Quiet. As if Minato hadn’t just accused him of lying a month ago. Of… loving him.
The thought is just as distressing as it had been that night, and every night since. Kakashi imagines that he is surrounded by thick, cloying fog and crosses his arms to keep his hands from worrying at the bedsheets.
He frowns at his knees, half his attention on breathing evenly, the other half on Minato, the glimpse of flared nostrils he’d seen earlier, the elevated heartbeat, the roughness of his anger. It is all he can do to keep the torrent at bay, keep himself from spilling apologies and confessions at the other man’s feet.
Perhaps most powerful of all, however, is the idiotic, selfish urge to whisper don’t hate me into the crackling silence between them.
Minato stands rooted to the spot, oscillating between anger and sorrow.
There is a part of him that will always crumble into ash when Kakashi is near, as ridiculous as it seems, another part of him that loathes himself for falling so easily. For allowing Kakashi to break him like this. But he is shattered, and the shards of his heartbreak cut at every part of him, drawing poison. He swallows, emotion a rock in his throat that chokes him. Fast, faster than he’d intended, he’s across the room, his fingers knotted in Kakashi’s stupid vest, shaking him lightly. His cheeks burn, his eyes sting, and he knows he must look wild like this, feral. “Stop it,” he growls, teeth bared. This close, he can smell Kakashi, the loam of the forest clinging to his skin, the sweat and fading smoke of somewhere he’s been. It sloughs at Minato’s anger, wears it down to a smooth stone instead of an avalanche. “You don’t have to say it, just...just stay.”
Fingers tremulous as they curl over the edge of Kakashi’s mask, Minato pulls it down, sucks in a breath wet with fear, and presses his lips to Kakashi’s.
“Just stay,” he whispers again, lips brushing over Kakashi’s when he speaks.
