The Crash
Team Minato Week
@teamminatoweek
Modern Au
Words: 892
“Come on, Obito,” Rin chuckled, shoving him away from the passenger's side door. “You had shotgun on the way here. It’s my turn.”
Not willing to give up his seat so easily, Obito wrapped his arms around Rin’s waist and lifted her up into the air, the sound of her laughter ringing in his ears like a sweet bell. “Nope,” he drops her down in front of the back seat door. “I called shotgun.”
Her hand comes down against his shoulder. An open-handed slap that is meant to tease rather than hurt. “You always get shotgun,” she continued to argue. ‘Kakashi, tell him it’s my turn for shotgun.”
On the other side of the car, Kakashi rolled his eyes. “I don’t care who has shotgun,” he reminded them, opening the door and climbing into the driver's seat. “I just care that you two get into the car. If you keep arguing we’re going to be late for class.”
“See,” Propping himself up against the car, Obito grinned bright and triumphant. “You wouldn’t want to make us late fighting for shotgun, would you Rin? Then stupid Kakashi’s perfect attendance record will be ruined forever.” something small smacked into his side, pulling his attention to the ground where a wad of paper now sat by his feet. No doubt an assignment Kakashi had crumpled up in annoyance and left on the floor of his car until this moment.
Perfect ammunition to chuck at his friend.
“Fine,” turning her back to him Rin pulled the back door open and crawled in, stopping just long enough to stick her tongue out at Obito. “But I’m kicking your seat.”
A small price to pay for victory.
Two weeks.
Two weeks of his life were gone in the blink of an eye.
One moment he was laughing and reaching back to smack Rin when she kicked the back of his seat, the next…nothing.
He hadn’t even seen the other car coming. None of them had.
One second they were having fun, living free.
The next, their world came crashing down around them.
“You were lucky,” the doctor says softly. A kindness in her voice that Obito doesn’t deserve. “If you had been sitting properly in your seat you would have died.”
Closing his eyes, he takes a deep breath. Even after all they had done itto save him the only thing he could feel was never-ending, relentless pain. The damage to his nerves was irreparable, and his arm was gone. Crushed under the weight of the other car.
The worst part was even with all of the pain coursing through his body, he knew he had gotten off lucky. He would walk out of this hospital one day. There was still life ahead of him. Things that he can look forward to even with an arm missing and his body screaming in pain.
Rin didn’t have that. The other car hadn’t spared her.
While he and Kakashi would heal and move on, Rin was gone. She was dead and it was his fault.
“I should have let her have the front,” he dared to speak only when the doctor had left. When it’s just him and the silence of an empty room. His fingers curl into the fabric of his hospital gown, tears dripping down from his face onto the back of his hands. “I should have-”
It should have been him.
Kakashi’s standing in front of him. The only visible sign of damage from their crash is a scare over his damaged left eye, which he quickly hides away behind his hair when he notices Obito staring.
“It’s your fault,” he doesn’t mean it. Even with all of the anger boiling inside of him he knows better than to think something so stupid.
So wrong.
Yet, he can’t help but say it.
Faced with the man he used to call his best friend, after three months of recovering and physical therapy, it’s the only thing he can bring himself to say.
The worst part is That Kakashi doesn’t argue.
He doesn’t make excuses, or try to pin the blame on the other driver even though they both know it was their fault.
It was them who ran the red light. They were the one speeding.
The crash was no one’d fault but theirs, yet Obito stood here pinning the blame on Kakashi.
“I know,” his voice is broken when he finally speaks. Months of anguish and guilt spilling out all at once. “I’m sorry.”
It’s not good enough.
Obito knows it’s meant to relive some of the guilt he feels. Kakashi’s way of trying to ease his pain.
It doesn’t work.
If anything, it just makes Obito angrier.
“You should have-“ he grits his teeth, unable to come up with any solution to what happened. Anything that Kakashi could have done to avoid this whole disaster.
There was nothing.
It wasn’t his fault.
“I’m sorry.” Kakashi whispers once more, bowing his head.
Obito can see the way his friends shoulders shake. He can hear the muffled cries of a broken man trying to make sense of a terrible situation.
It’s not enough.
“Get out out of my face.”
He watches as Kakashi turns away from him without argument. Whatever hopes the two of them had for repairing their friendship were dashed.
They had died alongside Rin.
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