[Fic] december
May. 10th, 2011 10:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
suchacharmerDecember: It's sad quiet in our apartment, because Itachi doesn't talk much. He laughs even less. I don't laugh much either, because there's nothing to laugh about anymore. Especially in December.
Category: Chapter fic
Status: Work in Progress
Rating: R for language, drug and sexual references, mature subject matter.
Notes: First person narratives alternating between Sasuke, Kakashi, Itachi, and Kisame.
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
***
Come on, we all know I'm not Kishimoto, don't we?
October
I.A letter in French means nothing to Isabel, no matter how beautifully written.
"Mad as a hatter," Mom used to say in the days when Mom could say anything at all. I’d nod in agreement even though I never knew exactly why she said "mad" when the right word was crazy and who precisely the hatter was. She said it whenever Dad started talking about the house he’d have out in the country on day, with an apple orchard and babbling brooks. And when I asked her what the brook babble about, she said they babble with dreams that never came true. Like Dad’s.
She said it under her breath every time he started going on about the farm. Dad loved that dream. I liked it too. I wanted an entire field full of apples of all kinds: green, yellow, red, and yellow streaked with red. I didn’t think his dream was so crazy.
The way Itachi’s going on now, I’m inclined to think that he’s mad in both senses of the word, babbling under his breath like the brook. He babbles angry words without complete consonants. Breakfast bowels emptied of milk and Cheerios clack as he gathers spoons one handed. The clatter is loud and fills the room.
I take one last slip of water from my glass. He’s been like this since Tuesday. His psychiatrist phoned the house. I picked up the phone first before handing it off to my brother. Itachi glared at me like it was my fault that he called.
When the last dish is in the sink, Itachi spins around and rests his back on the ledge of the sink, eyes drifting up to the clock. "Time for you to go," he reminds me, arms braced on the ledge. He winces ever so slightly. "Remind Kakashi that he has to drop you off at the café around six."
"I will," I assure him, although assured is the last thing he looks. He nods, briefly, and hands me a brown bag with my lunch in it. For the past few days we’ve been down to the wire again, peanut butter sandwiches, canned soup, and tap water. He’s working at the bookstore again, but Friday is payday and its only Thursday. "But you have to remind him too. You see him first."
"I know," Itachi says. "I will. But you know how he is."
I do know how he is. I know how he is better than Itachi knows how he is. Kakashi can remember to put the coffee on at exactly the eight, four, and seven o’clocks and all the moves a knight can make, but he can’t remember appointments. Things in the present. Kakashi remembers ghosts every Saturday and sometimes in between. I haven’t been brave enough to say more than a few words to Obito at the end of our visits. I believe, now, that Obito isn’t a figment of his imagination, but I wouldn’t know what to say, or how to say it. I’m not sure I have anything to say except that I know how much Kakashi must miss him to come every week.
Maybe, if I had something to contribute, maybe I would say more than hello and goodbye.
"Yeah," I say as I unzip my backpack to put my lunch inside. "I know how he is."
Itachi nods again, a bit absently, but still basically here. He’s been better since the night Iruka showed up, talking to me a little bit more, his gaze wavering less. I want to say that the pancakes helped him feel better, but I think it has more to do with the psychiatrist that called. Even though he glared at me when it happened, I’m glad he called; as incoherent as it may be, Itachi’s broken language is still more sound then he typically makes. His focus, an anger that I didn’t even see in him when he killed Mom and Dad, has something to do with the psychiatrist. I can’t help but think that he did something bad to warrant so much emotion from my brother, emotion that’s leaking over to me all of a sudden. Most times I might as well be talking to stone.
I re-zip my back-pack slowly, his improved awareness in the forefront of my mind. Too bad he’s not really looking at me right now. He’s not planning on saying goodbye the way most people do. I don’t think he’s ever really said goodbye to me, or to anyone at all in the past few years. So I know that there’s no hug coming.
What would he do if I hugged him? He’d notice me, but I’m not sure he’d like it. I can’t remember even hugging him at the funeral, but I might have been angry with him then. That was back when I still believed he was a murderer.
Maybe if I just said goodbye.
I look up to meet him in the eyes, ignoring the moments they waver. He looks back at me, almost as if by accident. Aside from the slightly vacant feel to them, our eyes are exactly the same. I see myself in there, the white of my face like a flash of light across his pupils.
"You don’t want to be late, Sasuke," he says, not sure why I’m still here, looking up at him the way I am. "The bus is coming soon."
I swallow a mouthful of fear. I’ll run for the bus. "‘Tachi?"
He jerks visibly. It’s been such a long time since I called him by that nickname. Since anyone did. He doesn’t answer. The fear rises back up again. I know I’ve done the wrong thing, because he’s not looking in my direction. He’s looking out the window. Like he looks out over the fire escape, making me want to erase what I’ve done.
"Nothing," I take back just as quickly as I blurted it out, answering like he’s actually said "what?" "Never mind. I have to get to school."
I don’t run. I want to run right out of the kitchen, down the street and up the four blocks to the bus stop. I want to run until I don’t want to cry anymore.
I’m almost out the door before I hear him call my name. And he follows me. Right to the front door as my hand is on the knob. "Wait a minute," he says as he crosses the tiny living room. I have to blink several times when he’s suddenly eye-level with me. Really, really eye level. Not like Kakashi on his knees where he’s still taller. "Sasuke, I need you to do something for me. Can you do something for me?"
I nod, too stunned to do anything else. Stunned by the abruptness. Stunned by the proposition. Stunned with happiness that he would ask anything of me. That he would need something from me.
"When we go to meet my doctor tonight," he says slowly, nearly reaching out to grab my hand but stopping short and coming up with air. "You have to promise that you won’t like him. No matter what he says or does, don’t like him. Can you do that?"
I open my mouth to protest, thinking about how hard it is to promise someone something like that. He’d have to be a bad person for me not to like him. You’re supposed to like nice people. He seemed nice at the café when Kakashi and I saw him the first time. Number eleven, Genma called him. He had curly hair. Tall. Itachi was glaring at him.
"Promise me," he says so lowly that it’s close to a whisper. I still remember the days when his voice was high like mine. Like a boy. He sounds so old. "Please, Sasuke." Black eyes bore directly into me, not wavering in the slightest for once. "Please?"
I can’t say no. Not if he needs me that badly. It’s been such a long time since he needed something from me. "Promise," I whisper back. I can’t make my voice any louder than that. It’s too much and he said please. "I promise."
As he nods in approval, I find it funny how I still want to cry. I run to the bus even though I have plenty of time.
*^*^*
The last time I threw a party was in my senior year of college, right before my senior thesis, when my future seemed like it would never arrive and alcohol was the only plausible catalyst for a good time. Few ever managed to pick up on the concepts of booze as a depressant, alcohol poisoning, or just how detrimental a hangover is during an exam.
At that point, I hadn’t put a drop of alcohol into my system for two years. Having my stomach pumped twice did the trick for me. I never liked to call myself an alcoholic because I was in denial back then, but I suppose that’s what I was. A dependent before twenty, delirious with dreams of lights and limos and lines of girl waiting to conceive my love children in the backrooms of the after-parties where everything and anything happened.
Luckily, I seem to have learned something since then. I’m alone far more often than I was before or truthfully want to be, but for the first time, I feel like my life isn’t in a bunch of little piece. It’s been a good few years since grad school and there are still things that aren’t quite right with me and my dad, or even me and alcohol, but on the whole, I’m content. And I know I’m better off. Proof is Deidara, who still stops by from time to time asking for money that I don’t have and time that I can’t give him anymore. My stomach drops to the floor whenever he wanders back into my life. He reminds me of the person I could have become, that I was well on my way to becoming until I had a moment of absolute clarity, probably at some party of another when I ended up passed out in some stranger’s bed unable to remember exactly what happened last night, showing me that my life was hell in a handbasket and I had to fucking well do something about it before I ended up looking for something that I was never going to find. Peace with the past. Acceptance. A way to make it stop. Because no one ever really finds those things, especially where I was looking for them.
It’s not that I’m a cynic. If I were a cynic I wouldn’t have become a psychiatrist. Psychiatry would be an unadvisable profession if there was no merit in it. I just don’t believe in the whole "we can make you better" concept. Like we’re actual doctors who can hand out medication for a heart that’s taken too many beatings. Psychiatry’s downfall is that no matter what we do, we can’t erase memories. Memories are what cause people so much agony. If they really could forget, or if I really could make them, no one would suffer.
But I don’t have the power to make Itachi forget what happened. I can only offer him the chance to have what I had, a moment where he realizes that he can’t go on living the way he’s living: closed-off, distant, and permanently on-guard. That he can talk to me. That I know I can’t fix him but that it won’t always hurt quite as bad if he doesn’t let it. He just has to let it first..
It’s a rather fucked-up concept and he’s not buying it.
I guess at this point I’m still trying to find a selling point. Give him the opportunity to figure out that I’m not the bad guy. This is the most unorthodox approach I’ve taken, initiating contact outside of the office. I didn’t mean to find him in the Red Lantern, no matter what he thinks. Luck of the draw on that one. This party, if I could call it that, would nothing like a college party or a journey to the bottom of a bottle in Deidara’s garage. There would be no alcohol, no blow jobs in the corner or behind the bar like the celebration after one minor gig or another we played for petty pay. Just an overworked troubled teenager and his little brother. Just a dinner.
Just a dinner that could make or break the tragically thin line of communication we opened after our last encounter in the park. And I wasn’t really sure if they were still open or not.
I’m waiting for them outside as opposed to inside. The office is a little stuffy even with the windows flung open. The temperature out here is a fraction of a degree cooler and with my sleeves rolled up and my tie gone it’s just about bearable. I hate wearing ties. It feels like I’m choking, a slim boa constrictor on my neck. Worse than the chokers I used to wear on a daily basis as a teenager. I can’t remember how I managed to put up with those things, but I think I still have one under the lid of the piano that I haven’t opened in years. God help me if my leather pants are still around somewhere. Talk about unbearable.
There are a lot of little pieces of memorabilia floating around the apartment like litter that never made it to the trashcan. I stuck them in my pocket instead and promptly forgot about them until moments like this one, when I start to wonder why I the hell I still have something as impractical as a leather pants.
Previous patients of mine have found my history somewhat of a comfort. Who understands the rebel better than a formal rebel? I never tell anyone the story in completion. They aren’t interested in the whole story anyway, just the part than concerns them. The abused hear about the neglect. The abusers hear about the alcohol. No one hears about the music.
I wonder if that method would work on Itachi. My guess is that it would. That’s why he resists getting personal. Still, I know he might be curious. He’s only human, no matter how many problems he’s having. I want to know more about him, as much as he’s willing to share. Which isn’t much.
They come around the corner right around seven, Itachi punctual as usual. The kid with him, his brother Sasuke, looks small from this far away. They both do actually. As I expected, they aren’t holding hands, or looking particularly brotherly at all. Sasuke is off to the side, stopping ever once in a while to step deliberately over a crack in the sidewalk. Itachi has his arms crossed low on his abdomen, bad wrist clutched in good hand.
I wave as they get closer. Sasuke almost waves, but he glances up at Itachi at the last second and whips his hand behind his back forcefully and valiantly tries to pretend that nothing happened.
Trouble on the horizon.
Up close, there is absolutely no mistaking their relationship. Sasuke will look like Itachi when he’s older, no doubt about that. They look a little like elves, pale and finely muscled with slim, startling features. Tiny figurines I could keep on my shelf next to the albums of Thin Lizzy and The Monkees.
"You’re Sasuke then," I say as I jump down from the wall with a smile. "Hi. I’m number eleven."
He looks up at me with pursed lips. "That’s not your name."
"It is to some people." I’m granted with a grim look of disapproval from Itachi. "But you’re more than welcome to just call me Kisame."
He looks at up at me and I can see all the little bits of expression missing whenever I look into Itachi’s eyes. Every little bit of emotion is in Sasuke’s eyes. At one point, maybe Itachi’s eyes looked like that too. "You’re Dr. Hoshigaki," he says primly. "Itachi told me to call you that no matter what you say your name is."
"I imagine he did." A small, nearly nonexistent flash of contentment passes over Itachi’s lips before he carefully schools his features back to grim, flat look I’m most accustomed to seeing. "I’m sure he has good reasons." Itachi turns that glare of his on me, to which I can only smile. He’s going to have to be a little more creative than that, although pitting his brother against me is a strike of ingenuity all on its own. "But, I think we should get going now. You’re both probably hungry, right?"
Sasuke nods enthusiastically. I wonder how much the little thing can put down. He doesn’t come up any higher than my waist. How old is he on Itachi’s profile? Eight? Nine? "Where are we going?"
"I was thinking pizza. As long as you approve, of course," I look at Sasuke as I say it, but it’s directed at Itachi. Itachi is always in the forefront. I’d look up to see what kind of reaction it garnered from the stoic teen, but that would give me away. Let him pick up on it on his own. If he’s willing to wage war, then so am I.
"I like pizza," Sasuke says. "So does Itachi. Except he likes mushrooms." He wrinkles his nose in disgust and it has to be the cutest thing I’ve seen in a long time. "I don’t like those."
"Well, I guess pizza wins."
He nods happily, then checks himself and shrinks back behind Itachi as if reprimanding himself. The situation would be quite comical if I wasn’t on the receiving end of the treatment. It’s not fair of Itachi to color the kid’s perception before he has the chance to make his own. I’m not trying to get to him through his little brother. That would be downright dirty of me. But really, if he wants to think that I’d sink that low, maybe he deserves it.
"Sounds fine," Itachi says as motions Sasuke forward again. "Lead the way."
Lead the way I do. They keep just enough distance behind me, that it doesn’t look like we’re together at all. We’re just a young man and a pair of brothers going on a stroll, maybe to the same place or maybe not. Who can tell yet? It’s not until I hear Itachi let out a huff of air do I register the sound of light, fast footsteps beside me. Sasuke is right besides me, looking up at me hopefully.
"Can I have pepperoni?"
*^*^*
The pizza set before us is a compromise between all parties. It’s half pepperoni and half mushroom.
Sasuke keeps looking up in wonderment at the lamp above our heads. The stained glass depicts a panoramic view of an Italian city, probably Rome, in shades of green, yellow, orange, and red. The one dangling over the booth behind us looks like a scene from Venice. Sasuke keeps twisting his neck to see it.
On his second slice of pizza, Itachi pauses with his pizza halfway to his mouth to toss Sasuke a napkin before taking a bite. For some reason, watching Itachi eat is surreal. He’s so thin that I’d unconsciously dismissed eating as something he just doesn’t do. He chews just like a normal person, though maybe a bit slower. Certainly slower than Sasuke, who is eating as fast as he can manage. I’m sure it’s been a long time since either of the two had pizza. Eating out, even take-away, is expensive. This is a rare treat for both of them and the way Sasuke is devouring his food makes me glad I took a vein out of Genma’s logic and included him.
But even more so, I’m glad that Itachi said yes. Because watching his jaw actually move is more fascinating than it should be. I honestly never expected to see his facial muscles move so damn much. It’s kind of like watching Ripley’s Believe it or Not. And there’s some weird shit on that show.
Sasuke, unlike most of the little kids I’ve encountered, actually uses the napkin to wipe grease from his face. It’s then that I notice that, in spite of the drab quality of his clothes, there is not a single stain or tear anywhere on him. Lucrative funds have made them both aware of how much they can get out of a little. He even eats the crust.
Out of plain old courtesy, I let the two of them have first dibs on the pizza. I have food at home. Most of it is microwaveable and full of artificial preservatives, but that was a conscious decision on my part. I like fructose and corn syrup. These two, for all I know, might not have much of anything in their fridge. I know it’s ridiculous, but I feel a pang of guilt when I think about the Frosted Flakes and the instant rice that have been in my cabinet untouched for two months. It’s my food and I can eat it whenever I want, but I can’t make the odd feeling of regret that’s gripping me. Like the Frosted Flakes deserve better.
I don’t know if he meant to or not, but Itachi catches my eye when he looks up. I’m guessing not, because he only does that when I’ve done something he doesn’t like and the only thing I’ve said in the past ten minutes is "do you want more iced tea?" He can’t possibly be pissed over that.
He stares at me for a full ten seconds, although not intensely enough to put me on edge. He looks, well, curious. It’s a look I haven’t seen yet.
He swallows quickly, his index finger jutting out just enough to let me know that he is indeed pointing at me deliberately. He then flips his finger inward to point at himself, and mouths something while rubbing his chest.
Now, I’m pretty good at reading lips. I had lots of practice with Dei trying to talk over people in crowded, too-loud rooms. But I got distracted by the hand motions and completely missed the mouth movement.
"What?" I mouth back.
Itachi shoots me a look of supreme prissiness and repeats both actions again. I really wish he’d stop making that hand motion. I can’t keep my eyes in two places at once.
I nod as if I understand. Itachi’s gaze turns disapproving, so I know I’m caught. There was probably no point in trying in the first place. This boy notices everything. He abandons the hand motions in favor of mouth alone, moving slowly enough that any idiot could have understood.
If I thought watching Itachi’s jaw moving was fascinating, then it was nothing compared to his lips. I’d never really looked before. I hadn’t had a reason to look. Mostly I concentrated on his eyes, his general body language. It’s not even that he has exceptional lips, it’s just that I’ve never really looked before and now suddenly they’re all I have to look at. It’s like my brain is saying, "they’ve been doing that all this time? Why has this slipped past my notice? What have you been doing?"
I think I need to stop eating so many preservatives. Because I’ve missed it again.
"Sorry," I mouth back. "Didn’t catch that."
He scowls mildly, because all of his facial expressions lean towards mild, and, very discreetly, I might add, switches his index finger to his middle finger and flips it upward.
Mildly.
I don’t know whether to take offense or not. I have to deliberate a little before I decide that being flipped the bird was completely unwarranted and that retaliation is necessary. However, Sasuke is watching our exchange (and probably has been from the beginning) with something of an intensity and giving the one finger salute is sure to earn me negative points. Itachi can get away with it because the position of his right arm is effectively blocking his left hand from view. Sneaky little thing.
Sasuke is staring back and forth between the both of us curiously, trying, no doubt, to figure out what we’re talking silently about. That’s when I remember that I still have absolutely no idea what Itachi was attempting to communicate to me. And now I probably never will.
As he reaches for the last of the bread sticks in the woven basket, Sasuke points to my shirt with a sauce covered finger. "Doctor, there’s pizza sauce on your shirt." Then he licks his finger clean before wiping it with a napkin.
I look directly across the table and am caught off-guard by what I take to be Itachi’s version of a smug smile. His earlier actions click right into place effortlessly, which, of course, leaves me with no choice but to admonish myself for letting my attention wonder to the point of distraction because of some grumpy teenager’s lips.
He’s apparently in a good mood now, quite pleased, it seems, with making me look ridiculous. Or maybe he’s just proud to have found that I don’t always have my full wits about me as he watches me dip the corner of my napkin into my glass of water and dab lightly at the stain. It doesn’t do anything besides widen the stain, an almost black spot blooming across my blue oxford. Right where a tie would have been, had I been wearing one.
"Bleach will work on that," Sasuke says in all-startling seriousness. "The color-safe kind."
I can’t help the look of incredulity that spreads across my face. When I was nine I didn’t know about cleaning solutions. I didn’t do laundry. My dad may have been a bit of a space cadet, but he did the laundry. Most of the time. And what’s more, Itachi doesn’t seem to register that this is in any way weird. He continues eating pizza with something of a content look, more content than I’ve ever seen him. Pleased, no doubt, that his minion managed to make me look ridiculous.
"Bleach. Right." I give up on the napkin with a disgruntled sigh that Sasuke misses and Itachi catches. Did I have bleach? "Thanks, Sasuke."
He nods, taking a bite out of his bread stick. "Just make sure you use Tide. That one works better."
I’m torn between which factor strikes me as the oddest: the fact that he’s apparently tested the cleaning properties of tide and Clorox or that he chewed, swallowed, and wiped his mouth and fingers clean before speaking. Hoping that I’ll be able to push my luck because Itachi is distracted by pizza, I utilize carpe diem. "Kiddo, how do you know some much about laundry?"
The glare Itachi gives me shoots daggers. Clearly I’ve over-stepped boundaries, but too bad-so sad for him because Sasuke answers me quite happily. "Kakashi likes to clean. I help sometimes."
Kakashi? That’s a new name. Not surprisingly, Itachi never mentioned him, whoever he is. And, not surprisingly, his lips are sealed. He makes no motion to further explanation or to dissuade Sasuke from speaking again, but the latter seems to have forgotten that he ever mentioned mystery-man’s name. He’s chewing pizza with gusto. I blink a few times when my calculations indicate that Sasuke, the tiny little thing that he is, is responsible for eating an entire half of a large pizza.
This new knowledge temporarily distracts me from pondering the possible identity of Sasuke’s little slip-up. Of course, Sasuke has no idea he’s inadvertently given me information that Itachi would rather have kept under wraps. He’s more interested in food and I’m only momentarily interested in the fact that he might just have more than one stomach
Itachi ought to have known better than to enlist a nine-year old. Sasuke is an intelligent kid from what I can tell, but he doesn’t have finesse yet. I’m sure he doesn’t know Kakashi’s name is an important piece of information. Hell, I don’t even know if his name is important yet, considering that’s all I have- a name. Only Itachi’s reaction tells me that Sasuke said something he shouldn’t have said, but most things are taboo subjects around Itachi.
I send the question to Itachi. Not verbally, because that would make me a kamikaze, but with my eyes. He brought it upon himself by deciding not to use his words during our sessions, and he keeps on doing it when for the first time I can remember, he breaks my eye contact as quickly as he meets it.
Sasuke would use his words if I asked right now. We both know it.
I feel a bit criminal using the kid against him, however inadvertently. I don’t know what exactly Itachi told him before we met, but I can imagine it was something along the lines of "don’t like him" or "he’s not my friend and he can’t be yours." And he tried, valiantly, right in the beginning, but things have backfired. He’s not a chatterbox by any means, but he’s not closed off and glaring daggers at me either. It’s hard to dislike someone who feeds you pizza and although he hasn’t exactly taken to me, he doesn’t seem opposed to me. I’ll take neutrality over hostility any day.
Neutral or not, however, he’s still an effective blockade, which I’m sure Itachi meant to happen. I can’t bring up a single personal topic in front of Sasuke. Not that I was planning on doing that at all, since I promised in not so many words that I’d keep tonight free of psycho-babble. The stake on the table stands at "just dinner" and dinner is not a place to lock in our old battle.
Of course, now we’re locked in an entirely different brand of battle, one over which I’m growing increasingly angry. Maybe he does deserve it, had I actually been intending to use Sasuke as a weapon, but just the fact that he would think that lowly of me is an insult. I’m not that kind of person. Itachi, it seems, is that kind of person. Or, maybe he’s just that kind of desperate. In any case, Sasuke is still nine and not the kind of kind of kid who follows blindly; he’s not hostile or unfriendly, even when he tried to be. As much as he tried to avoid this exact scenario, Sasuke had become exactly what Itachi feared- a liability to his safety behind that damn walls he hides behind. Because Sasuke had one foot in the door and one foot outside, asking me to get him pepperoni pizza, informing me of the stain on my shirt, and willingly sharing Kakashi’s name.
And he brought it upon himself. Not that’ll he’ll see it that way. I was, after all, the one who insisted Sasuke come tonight.
How many times is he going to judge me so wrongly?
"Can I have the last bread stick?" Sasuke asks out of what feels like nowhere because I was so intent on puzzling out how we can ever see eye-to-eye on my role in his life.
So I tuck the name Kakashi away and save it for the off-chance Itachi is ever ready to talk. Because I’m not petty enough to use the only family member he has left as a weapon, even if he is. It’s a shame. The kid really doesn’t deserve that.
"Sure you can," I say with a shrug. Then, as an afterthought, because it’s something I’ve been wondering, I add, "can you always eat this much or is tonight a special occasion?"
"I haven’t had pizza in a while," he says simply. "Kakashi doesn’t really. . ."
He trails off, and I know why before I even look up. I can feel the heat of the glare radiating from him, focused entirely on Sasuke. Sasuke’s chin quivers slightly, hands snapping away from the bread stick he was reaching for to hide in his lap, as if they were the guilty party.
Meanwhile, I stare the real guilty-party straight in the face, locking my gaze when he, predictably enough, turns it on me. What I lack in the intensity of my stare I make up for her in the sheer amount of disappointment I find easy enough to load into it. It’s all-natural and completely uncontrived. It just happened.
As if once in one night wasn’t strange enough, it’s me who forces him into disengaging eye contact. It’s the second time I don’t expect to win. His black eyes drop away before I can catch whatever emotion it is that jumps across them. I hope to God its shame, but it’s more than likely some brand of shock. ****bewilderment****
Still looking at him, letting him feel what it’s like to be on the wrong side of a reprimand for once, I reach into the bread basket and take out the bread stick calmly, extending my arm until it’s within Sasuke’s range. He hesitates, looking uncertainly towards his brother for some indication as to whether or not it’s okay to take. Itachi doesn’t say a damned word, but his hand moves in what I think is a wave of permission. Still daunted, he takes the bread stick gingerly from my grasp. His smile is just as ginger when he looks up at me before it disappears in a renewed flash of fear from barely a minute ago.
Not fair. Not fair at all.
*^*^*
Saturday morning dawns like any other morning in October. Rain lurks somewhere out in the distance, the air sits heavily on the lungs as the sun hides her purity behind a screen of haze. It’s too early in the month for picturesque calendar photos of babbling brooks clogged with fiestas falling from heights. This October is the kind you don’t talk about, too muggy for a jacket but too cold for a t-shirt. The kind of October in which you sweat when you least expect to perspire.
Itachi drops Sasuke off right before I take off the coffee pot. He stays long enough to refuse a cup of coffee and promise us croissants before taking off. To his credit, the circles under his eyes are less prominent. If anything, I’m sure the painkillers are helping him sleep.
Sasuke shifts nervously, putting his weight alternately on one foot and then the other. He looks around quickly, but doesn’t say a word. I know who he’s looking for. I’m keeping an eye out for him too.
"Iruka is upstairs," I tell him, breaking Saturday morning silence for the second week in a row. Sasuke’s eyes went as wide as saucers the first time, and even now his mouth forms a little "o" of disbelief. "He should be down soon."
He nods. He has permission to talk, but I doubt he will unless addressed. Last week while the three of us had breakfast together Iruka asked whether or not Sasuke was ill. Shaken was really a better word to describe the look on his face than ill, but Iruka suddenly became intent on checking to see if he had a fever. I assured him that he was fine before he could whip out the thermometer and before I could ponder exactly why he knows where, of all things, my thermometer is.
Truth be told, he looks shaken now. He did yesterday too. I won’t go as far as to say that Sasuke is always happy, because his genuine smiles are rare. But he doesn’t look normal today. Shaken is not normal for Sasuke. Shaken implies that has thrown him for a loop, and so far Sasuke has managed to handle most of what life has thrown at him, coming out of it with perseverance I’ve yet to see in some adults. And cheek. His cheek alone would be worth cheering him up, if I thought for a second that I had any idea how to go about doing that. I’m not a normal adult and he’s well, so young. I can’t exactly take him out to the bar to cheer him up. That’s what I do with Genma.
Resigned to the fact that I’ll probably never know what to do with myself around distraught people, nine or twenty-seven, I usher him into the kitchen in hope that coffee will do something for him.
I take up my usual chair and open my usual paper while Sasuke climbs into his and sniffs the coffee I left out for him. I had to tell Iruka it was hot chocolate when he looked at it suspiciously. Unlike Itachi, who doesn’t like the addiction I’m passing on to his brother but doesn’t do anything more than protest, Iruka might have actually snatched the hot beverage away despite the high ratio of milk and sugar to actual coffee beans.
He sips carefully, as if afraid of spilling.
The aroma of coffee in the air reminds me that I haven’t taken a sip yet. No more prompting needed, I take a rather large swig. After cooling for fifteen minutes, it’s no longer hot and therefore not liable to burn my tongue.
As I swallow and begin to put the coffee down, another scent, an out-of-place one for a Saturday, hits my nose. There have been plenty of new, unusual smells in the house since Iruka’s abrupt arrival. In the mornings when I wake up the kitchen will sometimes smell like eggs, sometimes maple syrup or sausage, and always the green tea he takes to work. I’m the one who has to fill the house with the coffee smell that I prefer to chase away the lingering scent of him on my skin. Certain nights have smelled like sex and sweat, leaving traces of cranberry and vanilla on my hands and wrists and arms that sneak in under the coffee.
Of all the day to have this smell on my wrists, Saturday is my last choice. I should have made a stronger brew to ward this away. Four scoops instead of three.
I read my way through the world section of the paper before Iruka comes down, hair still wet from the shower, to put on tea. He drank coffee in college, but ever since he snagged a job as a teaching assistant last year, he switched to coffee’s less potent cousin.
"Morning," he mumbles as he takes out the tea bags. "You’re starting to run out of shampoo. I just noticed."
"S’okay," I say back, even though there’s an odd resistance in my vocal chords. "I’ll go shopping soon. Sunday, maybe."
"I’ll come with you. I need a few things."
What a scene that would make. I haven’t shopped with anyone else in years, since Asuma died really. And before that was Obito, who doesn’t really count because that was in a drug store and I was helping him buy condoms when he still entertained notions of scoring with Rin. What does this scenario look like in Iruka’s head? Am I pushing the cart while he picks things up, or are two carts involved? Here’s your list, I’ve got mine, let’s meet back at the car.
Sasuke is looking at me in disbelief, as if he can’t imagine such a scene either. Looks like I’m not the only one thrown off-track by his extended visit.
"That’s not necessary. I might just stop by the store on my lunch break Monday. There’s an Acme not too far."
Iruka fills a mug with water from the sink and places it in the microwave with the tea bag, the buttons beeping while he speaks, decidedly nonchalant for what he’s suggesting. "Could you pick up my stuff while you’re there then? I’ll give you a list and pay you back later."
Somehow, this scenario is even worse than the first two. Asking things of me. Unconsciously, I’ve come to do things for Sasuke, who probably thinks I’m crazy but isn’t bothered by it. I tried to make pancakes for the kid, so yes, I’ll admit it, I accept his presence here. Don’t mind, even, the idea that he’s not leaving anytime soon. If he were an adult, he’d be perfect for me. But he’s not, and Iruka is, and Iruka has to be getting tired by now of all the boundaries that Sasuke lets be. All of the questions he knows not to ask but wants the answers to. The questions that unravel the enigma that is me.
I make a noncommittal noise as an answer, something that he can interpret as he will. He sighs as the microwave reaches the one minute mark, ruffling his hair. Irritation. Complications that I sure as hell don’t need. The little things get to him, like my refusal to let him use one of my towels or the fact that I won’t let him open the bedroom window. I wonder if he realized exactly how far he just pushed. Iruka is aggravated by my boundaries, but he respects them nonetheless. The day he doesn’t is the day we, whatever we are, will end.
It’s exactly why I didn’t want him here. I can already see him pushing.
I want to be an enigma to him. Intimacy other than sex is not what I want from him or with him and if he unravels me, sees how fucked I am, than I don’t know what I’ll do. He won’t want to stay after he realizes how much of me he can’t possibly understand; that’s why I can’t handle him so close to me. My ghosts won’t fascinate him. They’ll scare him.
I don’t want to fall for someone who will end up scared of me and run away. I don’t need that in my life. I don’t want that. I’ll just save him the trouble, not let him in at all. Save us both the trouble of having to move on.
Sasuke, yet again in recent history, reveals himself to be my savior. He puts his coffee down before he speaks. "Mr. Umino, can you make me some toast?" Sweet and hard to say no to.
Iruka smiles indulgently, happy, probably, to have someone who wants something out of him, even if it is only toast. But really, it’s not my fault I can’t eat the breakfast he left out for me in the beginning. Eating before ten makes me feel ill. "Sure, Sasuke. Butter?"
"Jam," he replies, reaching for the world section of the paper I’d discarded for the sports page. He makes a noise in return, one that I can interpret as I want. I don’t know what conclusion Iruka has drawn, just like I don’t know what conclusions Sasuke has been drawing about me, though I’ll venture to say they’re probably close to the truth. He already seems to understand that graveyard conversations are normal for me, and that I can’t stop. If he ever understands exactly why I do it, then it’ll be because he’s intelligent and insightful, not because I tell him. And I won’t mind if that happens. But I can’t explain myself. I don’t know how. "Strawberry."
Iruka gets out the bread and jam and pops two pieces into the toaster. The microwaves beeps seconds later. He adds sugar and stirs while the bread is crisping. Then a bit of milk right before the toaster pops and releases Sasuke’s toast.
I tune out until I hear the sound of Sasuke crunching. He has jam on his upper lip when I look at him over the edge of my paper. He licks it off and wipes the spot clean with the napkin I gave him for his coffee spoon. I’m more than a little surprised that he doesn’t notice. Usually he’s good about feeling my eyes on him. Then, given his mood lately, his inattention makes sense.
"Shaken," I decide, is also the wrong word. Its part of it and yesterday would have applied almost exclusively, but today is more of a base content for another ill-conceived state of being. His curiosity, his attention, his almost preternatural sense of perception, is not here. I don’t know where he left it or who took it from him, but it’s not with him.
I can’t remember hearing him say "thank you" to Iruka.
"Kakashi, do you want some toast while I’m still up?" Iruka is always offering to do things for me. His choice of profession suits him.
"Not hungry," I reply curtly. I’m not lying. Only coffee for now, before ten. I’ll take Sasuke out to lunch just like I always do. Iruka hasn’t disrupted my routine that much, and I aim to keep it that way. Then I can stop lying to him about where we’re going. Sasuke doesn’t know that he has a secret identity as a softball player.
“Right,” he says with a yawn. The yawn has a resigned tone, if it’s possible for yawns to have a tone. “Just asking.”
I “hmmm” at him, my preferred method of communication this early in the morning. Eight o’clock may not be early on some watches, but it is on mine. I find speech unnecessary this time of day for a concatenation of happenstances. I’ve always visited the graveyard on Saturday, even when I had to drive an hour and a half just to get to Obito’s grave in college. Starting out, I remember being too freaked out to talk in that morning, something like stage fright and, predominantly, pure, unadulterated foresight. Somehow, I think I knew the outcome of it all before I said those first words, in my dorm room that morning waiting for the coffee to finish brewing at eight so I could be there by eleven. The time I arrive changes, but the coffee is always done at eight and I’m always done by noon. I knew that very day that I was in for the long-haul- whether or not that’s what I wanted at the time is debatable and wholly outside of my control. Wanting to needing to having, all in increments of split seconds that didn’t register until they had passed to delegate me with a routine Iruka is already breaking by engaging me in conversations that mean so much to both of us for such incompatibly different reasons.
I wonder if Obito is resentful at all. Saturday is his day- a promise I forged it in silence all those years ago.
Pakkun stretches down by my feet. He’s like a cat, this dog, either attached to my side or completely ignorant of me, whatever suits him best. I’ve only had him for a year. Sometimes I think I should get him a friend for company when I’m not home. Of course, knowing Pakkun resentment will ensue and I don’t want to have a fight with my dog. (1) Honestly, I have enough idiosyncrasies. The line has to be drawn somewhere.
Iruka joins us at the table with his coffee and his own plate of toast, his with butter. Sasuke is on his last piece as Iruka begins his first. I glance candidly at my watch. Iruka thinks that Sasuke’s imaginary practice starts at nine, and if we drive, leaving now would make us very early. But if we walked we’d be right on time, as much on time as anyone can be for something that doesn’t actually exist.
“Nearly done, pretty bird?”
He shakes his head, putting his toast down. “No, I’m done now.”
I quirk an eyebrow just as Iruka inquires on my train of thought. “You aren’t going to finish? You barely ate any of it.”
“Not hungry,” he says in an eerie echo of me five minutes ago.
Iruka looks just as confused as I am, although my reasons differ from his. He’s wondering why Sasuke bothered to ask for toast if he’s not actually hungry. That part I understand. He did that for me. What I don’t understand is why he’s not hungry. Sasuke is always hungry, wolfing his food down and coming back for seconds. Itachi, as best he tries, has difficulties with their funds, meaning that Sasuke eats the majority of his big meals at my house. So unless Itachi had him eat before coming over, which I doubt since he eats at the café, then his lack of hunger is connected to his unusual mood.
If only I could figure out exactly what was wrong without asking. As a general rule I don’t care much for other peoples’ problems, but when I do, the general rule is not to inquire unless I know it doesn’t really matter, the idle chit-chat garden varieties of wrong. Point in case: I took pity on Itachi and let him bring Sasuke to work. Now there’s a distraught, brooding child at my kitchen table eating my toast and drinking my coffee and damn it all if I actually care about whatever it is that has disturbed his countenance. And damn it all and sorry pretty bird, somewhere along the road I picked up enough sense not to ask.
I can, however, rescue him from Iruka’s prying eyes and inquisitive tongue. By now he’s probably certain the kid has some kind of bug. “We can head out then. It’ll take a while to walk.”
“Something wrong with the car?”
“Not at all,” I say as I toss the newspaper aside. But something is wrong with Sasuke and there’s a whole lot wrong with Iruka being here this long making me smell like cranberries on a Saturday and asking me to shop for him and all in all, I need to get out of the house for a few hours so that I can pretend he won’t be here when I come back. “But it’s a nice day for a walk.”
Sasuke scoots out of his chair and follows me out of the kitchen. Iruka lurks in the hallway, watching me shoulder the duffle bag Sasuke’s “softball gear” is stored in and not in the good way that means I want to take you when we’re alone. That’s the only kind of look I like on Iruka. His other ones- inquisitive, confused, aggravated, and always directed at me when I’ve refused him something- are signs that everything is going to blow up in my face eventually. No matter how I look at it, he’ll end up gone. The only thing I can control is how attached to we are before he goes. How much of an enigma I remain.
He leans against the wall as I look over my shoulder to nod a goodbye. His eyes are dark, knowing something. “Looks like its going to rain to me, Kashi” he says softly, just as I’m out the door. I could have played it up to a trick of the wind if there was any.
On to Chapter Five-Part 2
Category: Chapter fic
Status: Work in Progress
Rating: R for language, drug and sexual references, mature subject matter.
Notes: First person narratives alternating between Sasuke, Kakashi, Itachi, and Kisame.
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
***
Come on, we all know I'm not Kishimoto, don't we?
October
I.A letter in French means nothing to Isabel, no matter how beautifully written.
"Mad as a hatter," Mom used to say in the days when Mom could say anything at all. I’d nod in agreement even though I never knew exactly why she said "mad" when the right word was crazy and who precisely the hatter was. She said it whenever Dad started talking about the house he’d have out in the country on day, with an apple orchard and babbling brooks. And when I asked her what the brook babble about, she said they babble with dreams that never came true. Like Dad’s.
She said it under her breath every time he started going on about the farm. Dad loved that dream. I liked it too. I wanted an entire field full of apples of all kinds: green, yellow, red, and yellow streaked with red. I didn’t think his dream was so crazy.
The way Itachi’s going on now, I’m inclined to think that he’s mad in both senses of the word, babbling under his breath like the brook. He babbles angry words without complete consonants. Breakfast bowels emptied of milk and Cheerios clack as he gathers spoons one handed. The clatter is loud and fills the room.
I take one last slip of water from my glass. He’s been like this since Tuesday. His psychiatrist phoned the house. I picked up the phone first before handing it off to my brother. Itachi glared at me like it was my fault that he called.
When the last dish is in the sink, Itachi spins around and rests his back on the ledge of the sink, eyes drifting up to the clock. "Time for you to go," he reminds me, arms braced on the ledge. He winces ever so slightly. "Remind Kakashi that he has to drop you off at the café around six."
"I will," I assure him, although assured is the last thing he looks. He nods, briefly, and hands me a brown bag with my lunch in it. For the past few days we’ve been down to the wire again, peanut butter sandwiches, canned soup, and tap water. He’s working at the bookstore again, but Friday is payday and its only Thursday. "But you have to remind him too. You see him first."
"I know," Itachi says. "I will. But you know how he is."
I do know how he is. I know how he is better than Itachi knows how he is. Kakashi can remember to put the coffee on at exactly the eight, four, and seven o’clocks and all the moves a knight can make, but he can’t remember appointments. Things in the present. Kakashi remembers ghosts every Saturday and sometimes in between. I haven’t been brave enough to say more than a few words to Obito at the end of our visits. I believe, now, that Obito isn’t a figment of his imagination, but I wouldn’t know what to say, or how to say it. I’m not sure I have anything to say except that I know how much Kakashi must miss him to come every week.
Maybe, if I had something to contribute, maybe I would say more than hello and goodbye.
"Yeah," I say as I unzip my backpack to put my lunch inside. "I know how he is."
Itachi nods again, a bit absently, but still basically here. He’s been better since the night Iruka showed up, talking to me a little bit more, his gaze wavering less. I want to say that the pancakes helped him feel better, but I think it has more to do with the psychiatrist that called. Even though he glared at me when it happened, I’m glad he called; as incoherent as it may be, Itachi’s broken language is still more sound then he typically makes. His focus, an anger that I didn’t even see in him when he killed Mom and Dad, has something to do with the psychiatrist. I can’t help but think that he did something bad to warrant so much emotion from my brother, emotion that’s leaking over to me all of a sudden. Most times I might as well be talking to stone.
I re-zip my back-pack slowly, his improved awareness in the forefront of my mind. Too bad he’s not really looking at me right now. He’s not planning on saying goodbye the way most people do. I don’t think he’s ever really said goodbye to me, or to anyone at all in the past few years. So I know that there’s no hug coming.
What would he do if I hugged him? He’d notice me, but I’m not sure he’d like it. I can’t remember even hugging him at the funeral, but I might have been angry with him then. That was back when I still believed he was a murderer.
Maybe if I just said goodbye.
I look up to meet him in the eyes, ignoring the moments they waver. He looks back at me, almost as if by accident. Aside from the slightly vacant feel to them, our eyes are exactly the same. I see myself in there, the white of my face like a flash of light across his pupils.
"You don’t want to be late, Sasuke," he says, not sure why I’m still here, looking up at him the way I am. "The bus is coming soon."
I swallow a mouthful of fear. I’ll run for the bus. "‘Tachi?"
He jerks visibly. It’s been such a long time since I called him by that nickname. Since anyone did. He doesn’t answer. The fear rises back up again. I know I’ve done the wrong thing, because he’s not looking in my direction. He’s looking out the window. Like he looks out over the fire escape, making me want to erase what I’ve done.
"Nothing," I take back just as quickly as I blurted it out, answering like he’s actually said "what?" "Never mind. I have to get to school."
I don’t run. I want to run right out of the kitchen, down the street and up the four blocks to the bus stop. I want to run until I don’t want to cry anymore.
I’m almost out the door before I hear him call my name. And he follows me. Right to the front door as my hand is on the knob. "Wait a minute," he says as he crosses the tiny living room. I have to blink several times when he’s suddenly eye-level with me. Really, really eye level. Not like Kakashi on his knees where he’s still taller. "Sasuke, I need you to do something for me. Can you do something for me?"
I nod, too stunned to do anything else. Stunned by the abruptness. Stunned by the proposition. Stunned with happiness that he would ask anything of me. That he would need something from me.
"When we go to meet my doctor tonight," he says slowly, nearly reaching out to grab my hand but stopping short and coming up with air. "You have to promise that you won’t like him. No matter what he says or does, don’t like him. Can you do that?"
I open my mouth to protest, thinking about how hard it is to promise someone something like that. He’d have to be a bad person for me not to like him. You’re supposed to like nice people. He seemed nice at the café when Kakashi and I saw him the first time. Number eleven, Genma called him. He had curly hair. Tall. Itachi was glaring at him.
"Promise me," he says so lowly that it’s close to a whisper. I still remember the days when his voice was high like mine. Like a boy. He sounds so old. "Please, Sasuke." Black eyes bore directly into me, not wavering in the slightest for once. "Please?"
I can’t say no. Not if he needs me that badly. It’s been such a long time since he needed something from me. "Promise," I whisper back. I can’t make my voice any louder than that. It’s too much and he said please. "I promise."
As he nods in approval, I find it funny how I still want to cry. I run to the bus even though I have plenty of time.
*^*^*
The last time I threw a party was in my senior year of college, right before my senior thesis, when my future seemed like it would never arrive and alcohol was the only plausible catalyst for a good time. Few ever managed to pick up on the concepts of booze as a depressant, alcohol poisoning, or just how detrimental a hangover is during an exam.
At that point, I hadn’t put a drop of alcohol into my system for two years. Having my stomach pumped twice did the trick for me. I never liked to call myself an alcoholic because I was in denial back then, but I suppose that’s what I was. A dependent before twenty, delirious with dreams of lights and limos and lines of girl waiting to conceive my love children in the backrooms of the after-parties where everything and anything happened.
Luckily, I seem to have learned something since then. I’m alone far more often than I was before or truthfully want to be, but for the first time, I feel like my life isn’t in a bunch of little piece. It’s been a good few years since grad school and there are still things that aren’t quite right with me and my dad, or even me and alcohol, but on the whole, I’m content. And I know I’m better off. Proof is Deidara, who still stops by from time to time asking for money that I don’t have and time that I can’t give him anymore. My stomach drops to the floor whenever he wanders back into my life. He reminds me of the person I could have become, that I was well on my way to becoming until I had a moment of absolute clarity, probably at some party of another when I ended up passed out in some stranger’s bed unable to remember exactly what happened last night, showing me that my life was hell in a handbasket and I had to fucking well do something about it before I ended up looking for something that I was never going to find. Peace with the past. Acceptance. A way to make it stop. Because no one ever really finds those things, especially where I was looking for them.
It’s not that I’m a cynic. If I were a cynic I wouldn’t have become a psychiatrist. Psychiatry would be an unadvisable profession if there was no merit in it. I just don’t believe in the whole "we can make you better" concept. Like we’re actual doctors who can hand out medication for a heart that’s taken too many beatings. Psychiatry’s downfall is that no matter what we do, we can’t erase memories. Memories are what cause people so much agony. If they really could forget, or if I really could make them, no one would suffer.
But I don’t have the power to make Itachi forget what happened. I can only offer him the chance to have what I had, a moment where he realizes that he can’t go on living the way he’s living: closed-off, distant, and permanently on-guard. That he can talk to me. That I know I can’t fix him but that it won’t always hurt quite as bad if he doesn’t let it. He just has to let it first..
It’s a rather fucked-up concept and he’s not buying it.
I guess at this point I’m still trying to find a selling point. Give him the opportunity to figure out that I’m not the bad guy. This is the most unorthodox approach I’ve taken, initiating contact outside of the office. I didn’t mean to find him in the Red Lantern, no matter what he thinks. Luck of the draw on that one. This party, if I could call it that, would nothing like a college party or a journey to the bottom of a bottle in Deidara’s garage. There would be no alcohol, no blow jobs in the corner or behind the bar like the celebration after one minor gig or another we played for petty pay. Just an overworked troubled teenager and his little brother. Just a dinner.
Just a dinner that could make or break the tragically thin line of communication we opened after our last encounter in the park. And I wasn’t really sure if they were still open or not.
I’m waiting for them outside as opposed to inside. The office is a little stuffy even with the windows flung open. The temperature out here is a fraction of a degree cooler and with my sleeves rolled up and my tie gone it’s just about bearable. I hate wearing ties. It feels like I’m choking, a slim boa constrictor on my neck. Worse than the chokers I used to wear on a daily basis as a teenager. I can’t remember how I managed to put up with those things, but I think I still have one under the lid of the piano that I haven’t opened in years. God help me if my leather pants are still around somewhere. Talk about unbearable.
There are a lot of little pieces of memorabilia floating around the apartment like litter that never made it to the trashcan. I stuck them in my pocket instead and promptly forgot about them until moments like this one, when I start to wonder why I the hell I still have something as impractical as a leather pants.
Previous patients of mine have found my history somewhat of a comfort. Who understands the rebel better than a formal rebel? I never tell anyone the story in completion. They aren’t interested in the whole story anyway, just the part than concerns them. The abused hear about the neglect. The abusers hear about the alcohol. No one hears about the music.
I wonder if that method would work on Itachi. My guess is that it would. That’s why he resists getting personal. Still, I know he might be curious. He’s only human, no matter how many problems he’s having. I want to know more about him, as much as he’s willing to share. Which isn’t much.
They come around the corner right around seven, Itachi punctual as usual. The kid with him, his brother Sasuke, looks small from this far away. They both do actually. As I expected, they aren’t holding hands, or looking particularly brotherly at all. Sasuke is off to the side, stopping ever once in a while to step deliberately over a crack in the sidewalk. Itachi has his arms crossed low on his abdomen, bad wrist clutched in good hand.
I wave as they get closer. Sasuke almost waves, but he glances up at Itachi at the last second and whips his hand behind his back forcefully and valiantly tries to pretend that nothing happened.
Trouble on the horizon.
Up close, there is absolutely no mistaking their relationship. Sasuke will look like Itachi when he’s older, no doubt about that. They look a little like elves, pale and finely muscled with slim, startling features. Tiny figurines I could keep on my shelf next to the albums of Thin Lizzy and The Monkees.
"You’re Sasuke then," I say as I jump down from the wall with a smile. "Hi. I’m number eleven."
He looks up at me with pursed lips. "That’s not your name."
"It is to some people." I’m granted with a grim look of disapproval from Itachi. "But you’re more than welcome to just call me Kisame."
He looks at up at me and I can see all the little bits of expression missing whenever I look into Itachi’s eyes. Every little bit of emotion is in Sasuke’s eyes. At one point, maybe Itachi’s eyes looked like that too. "You’re Dr. Hoshigaki," he says primly. "Itachi told me to call you that no matter what you say your name is."
"I imagine he did." A small, nearly nonexistent flash of contentment passes over Itachi’s lips before he carefully schools his features back to grim, flat look I’m most accustomed to seeing. "I’m sure he has good reasons." Itachi turns that glare of his on me, to which I can only smile. He’s going to have to be a little more creative than that, although pitting his brother against me is a strike of ingenuity all on its own. "But, I think we should get going now. You’re both probably hungry, right?"
Sasuke nods enthusiastically. I wonder how much the little thing can put down. He doesn’t come up any higher than my waist. How old is he on Itachi’s profile? Eight? Nine? "Where are we going?"
"I was thinking pizza. As long as you approve, of course," I look at Sasuke as I say it, but it’s directed at Itachi. Itachi is always in the forefront. I’d look up to see what kind of reaction it garnered from the stoic teen, but that would give me away. Let him pick up on it on his own. If he’s willing to wage war, then so am I.
"I like pizza," Sasuke says. "So does Itachi. Except he likes mushrooms." He wrinkles his nose in disgust and it has to be the cutest thing I’ve seen in a long time. "I don’t like those."
"Well, I guess pizza wins."
He nods happily, then checks himself and shrinks back behind Itachi as if reprimanding himself. The situation would be quite comical if I wasn’t on the receiving end of the treatment. It’s not fair of Itachi to color the kid’s perception before he has the chance to make his own. I’m not trying to get to him through his little brother. That would be downright dirty of me. But really, if he wants to think that I’d sink that low, maybe he deserves it.
"Sounds fine," Itachi says as motions Sasuke forward again. "Lead the way."
Lead the way I do. They keep just enough distance behind me, that it doesn’t look like we’re together at all. We’re just a young man and a pair of brothers going on a stroll, maybe to the same place or maybe not. Who can tell yet? It’s not until I hear Itachi let out a huff of air do I register the sound of light, fast footsteps beside me. Sasuke is right besides me, looking up at me hopefully.
"Can I have pepperoni?"
*^*^*
The pizza set before us is a compromise between all parties. It’s half pepperoni and half mushroom.
Sasuke keeps looking up in wonderment at the lamp above our heads. The stained glass depicts a panoramic view of an Italian city, probably Rome, in shades of green, yellow, orange, and red. The one dangling over the booth behind us looks like a scene from Venice. Sasuke keeps twisting his neck to see it.
On his second slice of pizza, Itachi pauses with his pizza halfway to his mouth to toss Sasuke a napkin before taking a bite. For some reason, watching Itachi eat is surreal. He’s so thin that I’d unconsciously dismissed eating as something he just doesn’t do. He chews just like a normal person, though maybe a bit slower. Certainly slower than Sasuke, who is eating as fast as he can manage. I’m sure it’s been a long time since either of the two had pizza. Eating out, even take-away, is expensive. This is a rare treat for both of them and the way Sasuke is devouring his food makes me glad I took a vein out of Genma’s logic and included him.
But even more so, I’m glad that Itachi said yes. Because watching his jaw actually move is more fascinating than it should be. I honestly never expected to see his facial muscles move so damn much. It’s kind of like watching Ripley’s Believe it or Not. And there’s some weird shit on that show.
Sasuke, unlike most of the little kids I’ve encountered, actually uses the napkin to wipe grease from his face. It’s then that I notice that, in spite of the drab quality of his clothes, there is not a single stain or tear anywhere on him. Lucrative funds have made them both aware of how much they can get out of a little. He even eats the crust.
Out of plain old courtesy, I let the two of them have first dibs on the pizza. I have food at home. Most of it is microwaveable and full of artificial preservatives, but that was a conscious decision on my part. I like fructose and corn syrup. These two, for all I know, might not have much of anything in their fridge. I know it’s ridiculous, but I feel a pang of guilt when I think about the Frosted Flakes and the instant rice that have been in my cabinet untouched for two months. It’s my food and I can eat it whenever I want, but I can’t make the odd feeling of regret that’s gripping me. Like the Frosted Flakes deserve better.
I don’t know if he meant to or not, but Itachi catches my eye when he looks up. I’m guessing not, because he only does that when I’ve done something he doesn’t like and the only thing I’ve said in the past ten minutes is "do you want more iced tea?" He can’t possibly be pissed over that.
He stares at me for a full ten seconds, although not intensely enough to put me on edge. He looks, well, curious. It’s a look I haven’t seen yet.
He swallows quickly, his index finger jutting out just enough to let me know that he is indeed pointing at me deliberately. He then flips his finger inward to point at himself, and mouths something while rubbing his chest.
Now, I’m pretty good at reading lips. I had lots of practice with Dei trying to talk over people in crowded, too-loud rooms. But I got distracted by the hand motions and completely missed the mouth movement.
"What?" I mouth back.
Itachi shoots me a look of supreme prissiness and repeats both actions again. I really wish he’d stop making that hand motion. I can’t keep my eyes in two places at once.
I nod as if I understand. Itachi’s gaze turns disapproving, so I know I’m caught. There was probably no point in trying in the first place. This boy notices everything. He abandons the hand motions in favor of mouth alone, moving slowly enough that any idiot could have understood.
If I thought watching Itachi’s jaw moving was fascinating, then it was nothing compared to his lips. I’d never really looked before. I hadn’t had a reason to look. Mostly I concentrated on his eyes, his general body language. It’s not even that he has exceptional lips, it’s just that I’ve never really looked before and now suddenly they’re all I have to look at. It’s like my brain is saying, "they’ve been doing that all this time? Why has this slipped past my notice? What have you been doing?"
I think I need to stop eating so many preservatives. Because I’ve missed it again.
"Sorry," I mouth back. "Didn’t catch that."
He scowls mildly, because all of his facial expressions lean towards mild, and, very discreetly, I might add, switches his index finger to his middle finger and flips it upward.
Mildly.
I don’t know whether to take offense or not. I have to deliberate a little before I decide that being flipped the bird was completely unwarranted and that retaliation is necessary. However, Sasuke is watching our exchange (and probably has been from the beginning) with something of an intensity and giving the one finger salute is sure to earn me negative points. Itachi can get away with it because the position of his right arm is effectively blocking his left hand from view. Sneaky little thing.
Sasuke is staring back and forth between the both of us curiously, trying, no doubt, to figure out what we’re talking silently about. That’s when I remember that I still have absolutely no idea what Itachi was attempting to communicate to me. And now I probably never will.
As he reaches for the last of the bread sticks in the woven basket, Sasuke points to my shirt with a sauce covered finger. "Doctor, there’s pizza sauce on your shirt." Then he licks his finger clean before wiping it with a napkin.
I look directly across the table and am caught off-guard by what I take to be Itachi’s version of a smug smile. His earlier actions click right into place effortlessly, which, of course, leaves me with no choice but to admonish myself for letting my attention wonder to the point of distraction because of some grumpy teenager’s lips.
He’s apparently in a good mood now, quite pleased, it seems, with making me look ridiculous. Or maybe he’s just proud to have found that I don’t always have my full wits about me as he watches me dip the corner of my napkin into my glass of water and dab lightly at the stain. It doesn’t do anything besides widen the stain, an almost black spot blooming across my blue oxford. Right where a tie would have been, had I been wearing one.
"Bleach will work on that," Sasuke says in all-startling seriousness. "The color-safe kind."
I can’t help the look of incredulity that spreads across my face. When I was nine I didn’t know about cleaning solutions. I didn’t do laundry. My dad may have been a bit of a space cadet, but he did the laundry. Most of the time. And what’s more, Itachi doesn’t seem to register that this is in any way weird. He continues eating pizza with something of a content look, more content than I’ve ever seen him. Pleased, no doubt, that his minion managed to make me look ridiculous.
"Bleach. Right." I give up on the napkin with a disgruntled sigh that Sasuke misses and Itachi catches. Did I have bleach? "Thanks, Sasuke."
He nods, taking a bite out of his bread stick. "Just make sure you use Tide. That one works better."
I’m torn between which factor strikes me as the oddest: the fact that he’s apparently tested the cleaning properties of tide and Clorox or that he chewed, swallowed, and wiped his mouth and fingers clean before speaking. Hoping that I’ll be able to push my luck because Itachi is distracted by pizza, I utilize carpe diem. "Kiddo, how do you know some much about laundry?"
The glare Itachi gives me shoots daggers. Clearly I’ve over-stepped boundaries, but too bad-so sad for him because Sasuke answers me quite happily. "Kakashi likes to clean. I help sometimes."
Kakashi? That’s a new name. Not surprisingly, Itachi never mentioned him, whoever he is. And, not surprisingly, his lips are sealed. He makes no motion to further explanation or to dissuade Sasuke from speaking again, but the latter seems to have forgotten that he ever mentioned mystery-man’s name. He’s chewing pizza with gusto. I blink a few times when my calculations indicate that Sasuke, the tiny little thing that he is, is responsible for eating an entire half of a large pizza.
This new knowledge temporarily distracts me from pondering the possible identity of Sasuke’s little slip-up. Of course, Sasuke has no idea he’s inadvertently given me information that Itachi would rather have kept under wraps. He’s more interested in food and I’m only momentarily interested in the fact that he might just have more than one stomach
Itachi ought to have known better than to enlist a nine-year old. Sasuke is an intelligent kid from what I can tell, but he doesn’t have finesse yet. I’m sure he doesn’t know Kakashi’s name is an important piece of information. Hell, I don’t even know if his name is important yet, considering that’s all I have- a name. Only Itachi’s reaction tells me that Sasuke said something he shouldn’t have said, but most things are taboo subjects around Itachi.
I send the question to Itachi. Not verbally, because that would make me a kamikaze, but with my eyes. He brought it upon himself by deciding not to use his words during our sessions, and he keeps on doing it when for the first time I can remember, he breaks my eye contact as quickly as he meets it.
Sasuke would use his words if I asked right now. We both know it.
I feel a bit criminal using the kid against him, however inadvertently. I don’t know what exactly Itachi told him before we met, but I can imagine it was something along the lines of "don’t like him" or "he’s not my friend and he can’t be yours." And he tried, valiantly, right in the beginning, but things have backfired. He’s not a chatterbox by any means, but he’s not closed off and glaring daggers at me either. It’s hard to dislike someone who feeds you pizza and although he hasn’t exactly taken to me, he doesn’t seem opposed to me. I’ll take neutrality over hostility any day.
Neutral or not, however, he’s still an effective blockade, which I’m sure Itachi meant to happen. I can’t bring up a single personal topic in front of Sasuke. Not that I was planning on doing that at all, since I promised in not so many words that I’d keep tonight free of psycho-babble. The stake on the table stands at "just dinner" and dinner is not a place to lock in our old battle.
Of course, now we’re locked in an entirely different brand of battle, one over which I’m growing increasingly angry. Maybe he does deserve it, had I actually been intending to use Sasuke as a weapon, but just the fact that he would think that lowly of me is an insult. I’m not that kind of person. Itachi, it seems, is that kind of person. Or, maybe he’s just that kind of desperate. In any case, Sasuke is still nine and not the kind of kind of kid who follows blindly; he’s not hostile or unfriendly, even when he tried to be. As much as he tried to avoid this exact scenario, Sasuke had become exactly what Itachi feared- a liability to his safety behind that damn walls he hides behind. Because Sasuke had one foot in the door and one foot outside, asking me to get him pepperoni pizza, informing me of the stain on my shirt, and willingly sharing Kakashi’s name.
And he brought it upon himself. Not that’ll he’ll see it that way. I was, after all, the one who insisted Sasuke come tonight.
How many times is he going to judge me so wrongly?
"Can I have the last bread stick?" Sasuke asks out of what feels like nowhere because I was so intent on puzzling out how we can ever see eye-to-eye on my role in his life.
So I tuck the name Kakashi away and save it for the off-chance Itachi is ever ready to talk. Because I’m not petty enough to use the only family member he has left as a weapon, even if he is. It’s a shame. The kid really doesn’t deserve that.
"Sure you can," I say with a shrug. Then, as an afterthought, because it’s something I’ve been wondering, I add, "can you always eat this much or is tonight a special occasion?"
"I haven’t had pizza in a while," he says simply. "Kakashi doesn’t really. . ."
He trails off, and I know why before I even look up. I can feel the heat of the glare radiating from him, focused entirely on Sasuke. Sasuke’s chin quivers slightly, hands snapping away from the bread stick he was reaching for to hide in his lap, as if they were the guilty party.
Meanwhile, I stare the real guilty-party straight in the face, locking my gaze when he, predictably enough, turns it on me. What I lack in the intensity of my stare I make up for her in the sheer amount of disappointment I find easy enough to load into it. It’s all-natural and completely uncontrived. It just happened.
As if once in one night wasn’t strange enough, it’s me who forces him into disengaging eye contact. It’s the second time I don’t expect to win. His black eyes drop away before I can catch whatever emotion it is that jumps across them. I hope to God its shame, but it’s more than likely some brand of shock. ****bewilderment****
Still looking at him, letting him feel what it’s like to be on the wrong side of a reprimand for once, I reach into the bread basket and take out the bread stick calmly, extending my arm until it’s within Sasuke’s range. He hesitates, looking uncertainly towards his brother for some indication as to whether or not it’s okay to take. Itachi doesn’t say a damned word, but his hand moves in what I think is a wave of permission. Still daunted, he takes the bread stick gingerly from my grasp. His smile is just as ginger when he looks up at me before it disappears in a renewed flash of fear from barely a minute ago.
Not fair. Not fair at all.
*^*^*
Saturday morning dawns like any other morning in October. Rain lurks somewhere out in the distance, the air sits heavily on the lungs as the sun hides her purity behind a screen of haze. It’s too early in the month for picturesque calendar photos of babbling brooks clogged with fiestas falling from heights. This October is the kind you don’t talk about, too muggy for a jacket but too cold for a t-shirt. The kind of October in which you sweat when you least expect to perspire.
Itachi drops Sasuke off right before I take off the coffee pot. He stays long enough to refuse a cup of coffee and promise us croissants before taking off. To his credit, the circles under his eyes are less prominent. If anything, I’m sure the painkillers are helping him sleep.
Sasuke shifts nervously, putting his weight alternately on one foot and then the other. He looks around quickly, but doesn’t say a word. I know who he’s looking for. I’m keeping an eye out for him too.
"Iruka is upstairs," I tell him, breaking Saturday morning silence for the second week in a row. Sasuke’s eyes went as wide as saucers the first time, and even now his mouth forms a little "o" of disbelief. "He should be down soon."
He nods. He has permission to talk, but I doubt he will unless addressed. Last week while the three of us had breakfast together Iruka asked whether or not Sasuke was ill. Shaken was really a better word to describe the look on his face than ill, but Iruka suddenly became intent on checking to see if he had a fever. I assured him that he was fine before he could whip out the thermometer and before I could ponder exactly why he knows where, of all things, my thermometer is.
Truth be told, he looks shaken now. He did yesterday too. I won’t go as far as to say that Sasuke is always happy, because his genuine smiles are rare. But he doesn’t look normal today. Shaken is not normal for Sasuke. Shaken implies that has thrown him for a loop, and so far Sasuke has managed to handle most of what life has thrown at him, coming out of it with perseverance I’ve yet to see in some adults. And cheek. His cheek alone would be worth cheering him up, if I thought for a second that I had any idea how to go about doing that. I’m not a normal adult and he’s well, so young. I can’t exactly take him out to the bar to cheer him up. That’s what I do with Genma.
Resigned to the fact that I’ll probably never know what to do with myself around distraught people, nine or twenty-seven, I usher him into the kitchen in hope that coffee will do something for him.
I take up my usual chair and open my usual paper while Sasuke climbs into his and sniffs the coffee I left out for him. I had to tell Iruka it was hot chocolate when he looked at it suspiciously. Unlike Itachi, who doesn’t like the addiction I’m passing on to his brother but doesn’t do anything more than protest, Iruka might have actually snatched the hot beverage away despite the high ratio of milk and sugar to actual coffee beans.
He sips carefully, as if afraid of spilling.
The aroma of coffee in the air reminds me that I haven’t taken a sip yet. No more prompting needed, I take a rather large swig. After cooling for fifteen minutes, it’s no longer hot and therefore not liable to burn my tongue.
As I swallow and begin to put the coffee down, another scent, an out-of-place one for a Saturday, hits my nose. There have been plenty of new, unusual smells in the house since Iruka’s abrupt arrival. In the mornings when I wake up the kitchen will sometimes smell like eggs, sometimes maple syrup or sausage, and always the green tea he takes to work. I’m the one who has to fill the house with the coffee smell that I prefer to chase away the lingering scent of him on my skin. Certain nights have smelled like sex and sweat, leaving traces of cranberry and vanilla on my hands and wrists and arms that sneak in under the coffee.
Of all the day to have this smell on my wrists, Saturday is my last choice. I should have made a stronger brew to ward this away. Four scoops instead of three.
I read my way through the world section of the paper before Iruka comes down, hair still wet from the shower, to put on tea. He drank coffee in college, but ever since he snagged a job as a teaching assistant last year, he switched to coffee’s less potent cousin.
"Morning," he mumbles as he takes out the tea bags. "You’re starting to run out of shampoo. I just noticed."
"S’okay," I say back, even though there’s an odd resistance in my vocal chords. "I’ll go shopping soon. Sunday, maybe."
"I’ll come with you. I need a few things."
What a scene that would make. I haven’t shopped with anyone else in years, since Asuma died really. And before that was Obito, who doesn’t really count because that was in a drug store and I was helping him buy condoms when he still entertained notions of scoring with Rin. What does this scenario look like in Iruka’s head? Am I pushing the cart while he picks things up, or are two carts involved? Here’s your list, I’ve got mine, let’s meet back at the car.
Sasuke is looking at me in disbelief, as if he can’t imagine such a scene either. Looks like I’m not the only one thrown off-track by his extended visit.
"That’s not necessary. I might just stop by the store on my lunch break Monday. There’s an Acme not too far."
Iruka fills a mug with water from the sink and places it in the microwave with the tea bag, the buttons beeping while he speaks, decidedly nonchalant for what he’s suggesting. "Could you pick up my stuff while you’re there then? I’ll give you a list and pay you back later."
Somehow, this scenario is even worse than the first two. Asking things of me. Unconsciously, I’ve come to do things for Sasuke, who probably thinks I’m crazy but isn’t bothered by it. I tried to make pancakes for the kid, so yes, I’ll admit it, I accept his presence here. Don’t mind, even, the idea that he’s not leaving anytime soon. If he were an adult, he’d be perfect for me. But he’s not, and Iruka is, and Iruka has to be getting tired by now of all the boundaries that Sasuke lets be. All of the questions he knows not to ask but wants the answers to. The questions that unravel the enigma that is me.
I make a noncommittal noise as an answer, something that he can interpret as he will. He sighs as the microwave reaches the one minute mark, ruffling his hair. Irritation. Complications that I sure as hell don’t need. The little things get to him, like my refusal to let him use one of my towels or the fact that I won’t let him open the bedroom window. I wonder if he realized exactly how far he just pushed. Iruka is aggravated by my boundaries, but he respects them nonetheless. The day he doesn’t is the day we, whatever we are, will end.
It’s exactly why I didn’t want him here. I can already see him pushing.
I want to be an enigma to him. Intimacy other than sex is not what I want from him or with him and if he unravels me, sees how fucked I am, than I don’t know what I’ll do. He won’t want to stay after he realizes how much of me he can’t possibly understand; that’s why I can’t handle him so close to me. My ghosts won’t fascinate him. They’ll scare him.
I don’t want to fall for someone who will end up scared of me and run away. I don’t need that in my life. I don’t want that. I’ll just save him the trouble, not let him in at all. Save us both the trouble of having to move on.
Sasuke, yet again in recent history, reveals himself to be my savior. He puts his coffee down before he speaks. "Mr. Umino, can you make me some toast?" Sweet and hard to say no to.
Iruka smiles indulgently, happy, probably, to have someone who wants something out of him, even if it is only toast. But really, it’s not my fault I can’t eat the breakfast he left out for me in the beginning. Eating before ten makes me feel ill. "Sure, Sasuke. Butter?"
"Jam," he replies, reaching for the world section of the paper I’d discarded for the sports page. He makes a noise in return, one that I can interpret as I want. I don’t know what conclusion Iruka has drawn, just like I don’t know what conclusions Sasuke has been drawing about me, though I’ll venture to say they’re probably close to the truth. He already seems to understand that graveyard conversations are normal for me, and that I can’t stop. If he ever understands exactly why I do it, then it’ll be because he’s intelligent and insightful, not because I tell him. And I won’t mind if that happens. But I can’t explain myself. I don’t know how. "Strawberry."
Iruka gets out the bread and jam and pops two pieces into the toaster. The microwaves beeps seconds later. He adds sugar and stirs while the bread is crisping. Then a bit of milk right before the toaster pops and releases Sasuke’s toast.
I tune out until I hear the sound of Sasuke crunching. He has jam on his upper lip when I look at him over the edge of my paper. He licks it off and wipes the spot clean with the napkin I gave him for his coffee spoon. I’m more than a little surprised that he doesn’t notice. Usually he’s good about feeling my eyes on him. Then, given his mood lately, his inattention makes sense.
"Shaken," I decide, is also the wrong word. Its part of it and yesterday would have applied almost exclusively, but today is more of a base content for another ill-conceived state of being. His curiosity, his attention, his almost preternatural sense of perception, is not here. I don’t know where he left it or who took it from him, but it’s not with him.
I can’t remember hearing him say "thank you" to Iruka.
"Kakashi, do you want some toast while I’m still up?" Iruka is always offering to do things for me. His choice of profession suits him.
"Not hungry," I reply curtly. I’m not lying. Only coffee for now, before ten. I’ll take Sasuke out to lunch just like I always do. Iruka hasn’t disrupted my routine that much, and I aim to keep it that way. Then I can stop lying to him about where we’re going. Sasuke doesn’t know that he has a secret identity as a softball player.
“Right,” he says with a yawn. The yawn has a resigned tone, if it’s possible for yawns to have a tone. “Just asking.”
I “hmmm” at him, my preferred method of communication this early in the morning. Eight o’clock may not be early on some watches, but it is on mine. I find speech unnecessary this time of day for a concatenation of happenstances. I’ve always visited the graveyard on Saturday, even when I had to drive an hour and a half just to get to Obito’s grave in college. Starting out, I remember being too freaked out to talk in that morning, something like stage fright and, predominantly, pure, unadulterated foresight. Somehow, I think I knew the outcome of it all before I said those first words, in my dorm room that morning waiting for the coffee to finish brewing at eight so I could be there by eleven. The time I arrive changes, but the coffee is always done at eight and I’m always done by noon. I knew that very day that I was in for the long-haul- whether or not that’s what I wanted at the time is debatable and wholly outside of my control. Wanting to needing to having, all in increments of split seconds that didn’t register until they had passed to delegate me with a routine Iruka is already breaking by engaging me in conversations that mean so much to both of us for such incompatibly different reasons.
I wonder if Obito is resentful at all. Saturday is his day- a promise I forged it in silence all those years ago.
Pakkun stretches down by my feet. He’s like a cat, this dog, either attached to my side or completely ignorant of me, whatever suits him best. I’ve only had him for a year. Sometimes I think I should get him a friend for company when I’m not home. Of course, knowing Pakkun resentment will ensue and I don’t want to have a fight with my dog. (1) Honestly, I have enough idiosyncrasies. The line has to be drawn somewhere.
Iruka joins us at the table with his coffee and his own plate of toast, his with butter. Sasuke is on his last piece as Iruka begins his first. I glance candidly at my watch. Iruka thinks that Sasuke’s imaginary practice starts at nine, and if we drive, leaving now would make us very early. But if we walked we’d be right on time, as much on time as anyone can be for something that doesn’t actually exist.
“Nearly done, pretty bird?”
He shakes his head, putting his toast down. “No, I’m done now.”
I quirk an eyebrow just as Iruka inquires on my train of thought. “You aren’t going to finish? You barely ate any of it.”
“Not hungry,” he says in an eerie echo of me five minutes ago.
Iruka looks just as confused as I am, although my reasons differ from his. He’s wondering why Sasuke bothered to ask for toast if he’s not actually hungry. That part I understand. He did that for me. What I don’t understand is why he’s not hungry. Sasuke is always hungry, wolfing his food down and coming back for seconds. Itachi, as best he tries, has difficulties with their funds, meaning that Sasuke eats the majority of his big meals at my house. So unless Itachi had him eat before coming over, which I doubt since he eats at the café, then his lack of hunger is connected to his unusual mood.
If only I could figure out exactly what was wrong without asking. As a general rule I don’t care much for other peoples’ problems, but when I do, the general rule is not to inquire unless I know it doesn’t really matter, the idle chit-chat garden varieties of wrong. Point in case: I took pity on Itachi and let him bring Sasuke to work. Now there’s a distraught, brooding child at my kitchen table eating my toast and drinking my coffee and damn it all if I actually care about whatever it is that has disturbed his countenance. And damn it all and sorry pretty bird, somewhere along the road I picked up enough sense not to ask.
I can, however, rescue him from Iruka’s prying eyes and inquisitive tongue. By now he’s probably certain the kid has some kind of bug. “We can head out then. It’ll take a while to walk.”
“Something wrong with the car?”
“Not at all,” I say as I toss the newspaper aside. But something is wrong with Sasuke and there’s a whole lot wrong with Iruka being here this long making me smell like cranberries on a Saturday and asking me to shop for him and all in all, I need to get out of the house for a few hours so that I can pretend he won’t be here when I come back. “But it’s a nice day for a walk.”
Sasuke scoots out of his chair and follows me out of the kitchen. Iruka lurks in the hallway, watching me shoulder the duffle bag Sasuke’s “softball gear” is stored in and not in the good way that means I want to take you when we’re alone. That’s the only kind of look I like on Iruka. His other ones- inquisitive, confused, aggravated, and always directed at me when I’ve refused him something- are signs that everything is going to blow up in my face eventually. No matter how I look at it, he’ll end up gone. The only thing I can control is how attached to we are before he goes. How much of an enigma I remain.
He leans against the wall as I look over my shoulder to nod a goodbye. His eyes are dark, knowing something. “Looks like its going to rain to me, Kashi” he says softly, just as I’m out the door. I could have played it up to a trick of the wind if there was any.
On to Chapter Five-Part 2
