[Fic] december

[suchacharmer]

October
II. Nothing is under the bridge but water.


The only things in the duffle bag are a blanket and a bottle of water. We’re both sweating by the time we cover the ten blocks between my house and the cemetery. Hot and muggy are two very different things. Heat seeps into your skin. Mugginess sits on it.

So far, the clouds haven’t darkened enough to indicate that rain will fall anytime soon. But I’m waiting for it. I’m anticipating it.

Sasuke slides down the tree closest to Obito’s grave, the same one he always leaned against in the beginning. He skipped last week, when halfway into the visit he wandered off somewhere. I didn’t question him because he came back before we had to leave. I never said he had to stay. He finally figured that out I guess. He might leave again. It’s probably better for him if he does, although I can’t say I haven’t gotten used to him here as much as in my house. I lie to other people, not myself.

The blanket I brought is woven in deep blues, burnt oranges, white and green. It’s been in the trunk at the foot of my bed for three years. I never used it after the road trip to New Mexico where I bought it in a gift shop in Santa Fe. Asuma thought Iruka would like it, and as usual, he wasn’t wrong. Iruka pulled it out of the trunk the other night when it was actually cold. We didn’t speak the next day.

But now that’s its out, Sasuke can sit on it. I just don’t want it on my bed.

He’s tracing the patterns as I take a seat to the left of the headstone, running delicate fingertips over the zigzags. The effect is almost instant, the movement of his hands helpfully mesmerizing with my head against the coolness of the stone. He’s here. I always feel him here as smoke, a thick, overwhelming, hazy presence that enters my lungs and spreads. I can’t breathe him out.

I remember him as a sixteen year old, unpredictable and thoughtful when he least meant to be. Black hair that curled slightly, a lopsided grin, and dark eyes that laughed, like he did. He’s in the hockey jersey he wore before and after he tore a hole in the sleeve and he’s laughing, pouting, grinning, shouting, kissing the curvature of my neck the way I liked it. Not crying though. Never crying because he didn’t cry when he died, he just bled and bled and bled and I cried and cried and god but that was a cold night.

“It’s warm out,” I tell him because it’s muggy out; mugginess sits on the stone, doesn’t sink in, so under that thin layer of heat I can feel the chill that’s really there, the one he feels down there under all that earth. Don’t the dead deserve to be warm? “I remember Octobers that actually had a nip in the air. Leaves falling.” Falling in patterns, or following them, like Sasuke’s fingers. “You ever jumped in a pile of leaves, Sasuke? I can’t remember the last time I did. That was a long time ago, though.” Long time since I saw you last. I remember you at sixteen, at fifteen, at fourteen, thirteen, twelve, eleven, but never past sixteen. That’s eight years. “Eight years is a long time, Obito. Almost as old as you are.”

Eight is half of what his life was. Is, was, is not and will never be. Verbs aren’t subjective to time here, because he’s here, I always feel him here as smoke that Asuma used to blow into my face, a thick, overwhelming, hazy presence that enters my lungs and spreads so that I have cancer everywhere and I can’t breathe them out. I can’t breathe at all. I’m drowning like Obito with the sticky liquid in his mouth, the sticky red blood.

All that red, red, blood.

It’s in his mouth, his nose, his pores, that blood. So much of it and so very red, like the leaves that are swirling in patterns around Sasuke’s hands. Has he already jumped? “Did you want to jump in a pile of leaves, Sasuke? I do. I want to jump and I want to drown. “Dad keeps the rake in the shed. We have to go back and get it.”

Don’t know why we had a shed really. Dad wasn’t much for outdoor activities while he was getting high. No volleyballs to house, no paint cans to stack, no wheelbarrow for carrying plants. Just a few pieces of plank wood and rusty rake with missing teeth. The rake always missed a bunch of leaves and more fell anyway. In October, they never stopped falling. The grass, the sidewalks, the roofs of cars, my lap.

My lap?

Red, green-tinged yellow, brown and orange leaves are on me. In my lap.

I blink several times, effectively stirred out of my reverie. Rain- thunder and lightning included- has failed to break me out one of my deviations, but leaves on my lap can do the trick. Lots of leaves, as if the tree took a handful and reached over the expanse of grass to drop them on me in a perfectly neat pile.

Someone knew I wanted to drown in them.

“Thought you might want some,” a familiar voice resounded. Bounced off the stone, I think. “You were talking about them.”

The consideration is oddly complimentary. Unwelcome, but complimentary.

“Pretty bird,” I begin to say before he cuts me off. With his eyes. With his posture. Not his words. If ever there was anyone who recognizes trouble on the mind, it’s me.
He takes one hesitant shuffle of a step forward before they turn strong, two quick strides. Then, it could be fear that moves him quickly to the grave, stone epitaph to marble white face. There ought to have been some color in his cheeks.

“I guess Kakashi told you some things about me. Right? He hasn’t told me anything about you. But I can guess. He did tell you I’m smart.”

I don’t say anything to him. I’ve no idea what to say to this sudden display of- what? Support? Comradeship? Sasuke doesn’t have any ghosts to talk to here. Are his parents buried somewhere in this graveyard? As far as I know Sasuke’s lived here his entire short life here and Arden only has on cemetery to lay name to. If not for me, who’s namesake does he evoke in Obito?

“You know I’ve been coming here for a while. I said goodbye a couple of times, don’t know if you remember or not.”

No matter how often I close my eyes, he’s still there when I open them and I’m still very here, in the graveyard with a pile of leaves in my lap. Obito just isn’t with me. He’s here, in the graveyard, but I can’t see him or hear him now. Just a feeling of knowing.

Does Sasuke feel him? I’m torn between hoping that he does and knowing that it would be better if he doesn’t. But from the incident two weeks ago, I think he does.

“Pretty bird,” I say. As a warning.

He goes on.

“I figured that as long as I’m going to keep coming here, I should say something more than just goodbye. But I didn’t have anything to say before. I do now.” He takes a deep, somewhat shuddery breath.. “Maybe you’ll understand. I did something bad. I didn’t mean to or anything, but I did it.”

A grave as a confessional. Precisely what I’ve never used it for.

“My brother asked me to do something for him. I promised, too. And I let him down. I didn’t mean to like him.”

I’m quiet, listening, almost enraptured, to the honest cadence of his voice. I don’t know what shocks me more, his willingness, his ease talking to a dead boy he does not know, or the guilt he feels. His mood for the past few weeks resounds in perfect clarity now, part guilt complex, part fear.

“I think he’s mad at me now. I’m scared. I don’t want him to hate me. I tried.”

The warble in his voice is killing me.

“Have you ever done something bad?” The tone of his voice changes slightly, the inflection pointing right at me. “Something you don’t know how to fix?”

Plenty, pretty bird, plenty. More than enough to last me until the day I die. But aloud? There have always been things I won’t say aloud. I’ve never been adept at expressing myself. I keep the things he feels, the things he has the courage to actually say, inside, let them wander around my head. It’s not even that I care if he knows. I cared at one point, in the beginning, but since then Sasuke has demonstrated, repeatedly proven to me, that he understands things that Iruka- that friends my age- have not been able to comprehend so thoroughly. I can’t cast him away. He soaks up my eccentricities like a sponge and being around me so often, every single goddamned day of the week, there’s no time to dry out, to let my life-style evaporate from him. It’s not good for him. I’m not even sure if it’s good for me. But to have a companion in all of this. That’s enticing.

I touch the epitaph on the gravestone, finger on the date he died. It astounds me, to the point of anger with myself it astounds me how open he can be. I’ve come here every Saturday for the past eight years to tell him and the words never fucking come out. I tell him about the weather, the hockey scores, my dog, but I’ve never told him anything that mattered. And here Sasuke comes along to confess his sins to my ghost when I haven’t even asked him if mine are pardoned. What we’ve both done to need to confess isn’t even important. Just the fact that he can do it after I’ve being trying to in vain for years is enough to elicit disappointment in myself. In my weakness. Sasuke’s called me a coward without realizing it. So he still doesn’t understand it all.

I’ll just have to give him more time. We have plenty. After all, this isn’t my routine anymore. It’s our routine.

I nod. Like most things, I didn’t see it coming. Didn’t see him coming. “We can’t fix everything,” I say carefully. We can try as hard as we want with nothing of it. “Sometimes we can’t fix anything at all. You understand that, right?”

He nods back, taking a few steps forward before bending his knees to sit on the other side of the grave. We flank Obito on the left and the right. In a long moment of silence, strangely comfortable for all this moment means, I contemplate the idea of us. Sitting here me and him, a kid and an adult, at a grave with no flowers. What a strange, fitting pair we make. “Who was he Kakashi?” Sasuke says finally, head leaning on the side of the stone. His dark bangs are growing too long, falling into his eyes the way they are. He needs a haircut. “Obito?”

So many times he’s proven to be insightful beyond my expectations. I trust him. “Who do you think he was, pretty bird?”

His eyes lower, hand coming to rest on his knee. I want him to know. It’s been a long time since I’ve wanted anything this badly. "I think,” he says slowly, knowing as well as I do that this is important. This is confession and resurrection. “I think you were in love with him."

There’s a breath I didn’t realize I’d been waiting to take and a melancholy satisfaction. He’s right. I knew he’d be right, and for once that’s why I asked. I let him answer his own question, but in no way do I like the answer. Yes, we were in love, but I didn’t mean to let him do that. Never mean to let anyone do it again. No one should fall in love with me: for sanity, for preservation, for posterity. I don’t condone it for anyone’s sake. Getting close to me killed Obito. It killed Asuma. It’ll kill Iruka too. And then it’ll kill me, all the leaving.

“I was.” I grant him the courtesy of confirmation instead of evasion. He kept asking and asking, and no he got an answer, even if he provided it for himself. It’s the least I can do now. “I really was.”

“I love my brother,” he says almost too softly to hear. “I don’t want him to hate me.”

Itachi is oftentimes curt and unfriendly, but he could never hate Sasuke. He might be mad at Sasuke, but I find it hard to believe that he hates him for whatever it was he did. Cold on the surface, hot in the center where he’s corked everything. He would have let Sasuke be taken by a foster home if he didn’t love him. A devotion like that is too strong to be broken by a brotherly spat, although the details are hardly clear. I don’t know who “him” is. Still.

“Itachi’s not dead, pretty bird.” You, pretty bird, you still have a chance, whatever it is you’ve done. And you’re advised to do it soon. Guilt is such a terrible, unsavory thing to have on your conscious. It brings me back here week after week. “He can forgive you.”

“I hope so, Kakashi.” Through the melancholy he smiles in belief. In trust that I won’t steer him wrong. I’ll only promise not to steer him anywhere, because I don’t have as much faith in me as he does. But I’ll let him follow if he wants, and hope I don’t lead us both into destruction. Maybe he’ll turn back at some point, when he realizes that I walk too thin of a line to be considered sane, psychiatric evaluation or not. He has after all, already used Obito’s grave for the purpose I always intended. So maybe I will, one day, say what I come here to say and we won’t have to worry about crossing borders. Maybe someday soon.

I take a handful of leaves from my lap and not-so-surreptitiously drop the pile on his head, just to hear the squawk of indignation that predictably follows. It feels good to chuckle, Obito. “I hope so too, Sasuke.”

*^*^*

“Raido,” Genma mock whispers loud enough for the stage. “I think Itachi lost his watch. He’s still here.”

I roll my eyes. So does Raido.

“I’m pretty sure he knows that,” Raido returns normally, furiously drying a sauce pan with a green-checked dish towel that looks like it’s contributing to the water build-up instead of soaking it up. My shift ended twenty-five minutes ago and I haven’t found the energy necessary to get off of my stool much less collect my jacket and keys from the closet. Motivation is eluding me.

Any kind of peace is eluding me.

The Red Lantern is nearing closing time. Dessert hour lasts until nine, so around eight-thirty the staff starts taking small measures to clean up and prepare, sweeping the floors, wiping down counters, taking stock in their storeroom. The curtains are still thrown wide open, the artificial white lighting of the street lamps spilling over the tables. The café is unusually dark thanks to several burnt out light bulbs in the overhead fans. Shadows are more pronounced than usual, making for interestingly intimate or mordant lighting for the few couples scattered about, depending on their constitution of romantic. I’m not usually around for this portion of the night, which is slow and tired, spent instead of meditative. It matches my mood the past two days.

Everything that could have gone wrong on Thursday did. I should have known Sasuke couldn’t do it. I should have left him home. Had I been hoping Dr. Hoshigaki would magically decide to drop me as his patient just because I brought my little brother around to dinner? Did I think that this dinner was the cure to our battle? Something else equally idiotic?

My frustrated sigh matches Raido, who accompanies his with the tossing of the dishrag somewhere done along the counter. “Long day,” he comments in what seems like idleness, but I catch the sly sideways glance of his eyes. “Saturday’s always pretty busy.”
“Yes,” I reply half-heartedly, unwilling to go where I know it’s headed. Busy is good. Busy gives me little to no time to think about what happened on Thursday. About how wonderfully nice he was, to both of us, and how perfectly Sasuke had responded. I knew it would happen. And so did he.

I couldn’t have been a bigger fool showing up.

“There’s not much to do here. Genma and I can handle clean up.”

“You know,” Genma cut in as he waltzed by with a broom. “Kind of like we do every night without your help.”

“I’m aware,” I say as chillily as I can. In the end, I think I come out sounding more pathetic than I do stony. Raido smiles sympathetically.

“Come on, you could use some sleep,” he says, gently but firmly.

Genma hops up on a stool, the broom leaning against the counter and the pile of dust and trash waiting for him in the center of the room. “You’ve overstayed your welcome, kid.”

Genma jokes, Raido cajoles. Both leave me with no room for argument. I have to get up, which I do without any more resistance, albeit slowly. I’m already on the way to being late picking up Sasuke. Kakashi probably won’t be mad. Not that I care much. He likes him enough to tolerate and extra hour of time with him. And since he’s late to everything under the sun, I can’t feel bad.

The rain that’s been threatening all day still hasn’t dropped. It hangs suspended up there in the clouds, waiting for something that signals the time is right. I wish it would fall already. Our roof is still leaky at the apartment and we’ll have to walk home in it, but I think the soak will do me good.

I wave goodbye to Raido, and Genma, who waves with the broom. The final clang of the bell seals my departure.

I’m not looking forward to going home. Home puts me in close quarters with Sasuke, who I can’t look at right now. So I take a left instead of a right, the same way I took the night I was propositioned in the park. I need quiet before I go home, because even though I don’t want to think about it too much, I have a beginning of a bad headache. It’s gathering, just like the storm.

Like last Saturday, there are still kids in the park. Time rarely matters to kids, and the lamps give them plenty of light by which to play. Only the mothers worry, some biting nails as one of their brood decides to attempt the slide in the dark. I head towards the bench I usually occupy during my lunch break when the weather cools. Once October hits, I anxiously wait for November to follow. November promises the chill that I cherish in the air, the kind that bites appropriately. I eat outside everyday in November-slight flurries a non-issue- without so much as a jacket. I gave Sasuke my old coat when he outgrew his. It’s too big on him, but it keeps him warm and I don’t need it.

It’s coming. Not nearly soon enough, but its coming.

As I get closer, following the bend of the path that twists just around a cluster of elm trees, I spot something out of place. In no way do I think I own the bench. Often there’s already an occupant when I come during my break and I simply find another bench. But even from afar, the figure on the bench tonight looks unsettlingly familiar. Taller than Kakashi, dark skin washed out under the lamp, black hair curled and unruly. Like the good doctor.

Not at all what I need right now.

I have time to turn around. I don’t think he saw me. I can just find another bench or abandon it and just go get Sasuke. I am late already.

A child shouts from the playground, which snaps Dr. Hoshigaki’s head up in my direction, the playground almost directly behind me. The recognition is instant and I’m a deer in the headlights.

For the first time we’ve been alone together, a scowl settles on his lips. Not a frown. A scowl.

Anger.

As if he has a right to be angry. I didn’t do anything to him without fair warning.

Resigned to the fact that we’re destined to have yet another confrontation, I stride over to the bench, arms crossed over my stomach. I’m not in the mood to deal with him, but if I walk away, he might just follow me. And I don’t have any more complications to this whole affair. I never have wanted anything to do with him, so minimal interaction was already too much trouble. This feud we’ve embroiled ourselves in, this battle of wills to see who will cave first, this is ridiculous. No middle ground will ever be reached. I’ve seen what he’s capable of doing to people, rendering them of their sense of caution. He did it to me in the office with his damned book, and he did it to Sasuke in the pizza parlor. And he can do it to me again if I don’t get him away from me.

“Did you enjoy the pizza?” he says first, not waiting more than a second or two after I stop a good six feet from the bench.

Not the conversation I had in mind for the scowl on his face.

“It was pizza,” I say with a shrug. “It was good.”

“How about Sasuke?” he goes on as if I said nothing at all. “Did he enjoy it?”

Judging from how many slices he had, I’d say he enjoyed it immensely. If pizza were less expensive I’d try and buy it for him more often, but finances are usually just enough to pay the electric bill, water bill, and the rent. That’s why our roof still leaks. “I think we both know he liked the pizza, Dr. Hoshigaki.” You knew he would.

He clicked his tongue against him teeth, tsking tsking a chiding. “Always with the formalities. If we know each other well enough to be this hostile then I’d think we’d be on first name basis.”

Round and round in circles we go. “I think we’ve both established that I don’t hate you. Multiple times.”

“I can’t rationalize any other reasons for you behavior. I’m beginning to think I was wrong in thinking that you keep me away because you like me. You really do just hate me.” He crosses his legs, arms down at his side, perfectly ready to pick a fight. His stance is like Genma’s when he’s ornery, open and ready to take anything. I fight with my arms tucked around me, protecting things from coming out as opposed to blocking them from reaching me. Defense in reverse. A clash of methodology.

My arms are steel against the onslaught of ruin that’s bubbling within me, keeping down my rational explanation. He doesn’t deserve it and needs no further encouragement in the pursuit of my mental health.

“And involving your little brother like that. Let me ask you, have you always been a bitch, or is this part of your reserve artillery?”

My jaw slackens and my eyes narrow at the same time, a double reaction for a double pronged attack. “You’re a little old for name calling, don’t you think?”

“I think,” he says with pointed deliberation, “that I’m sick of dealing with you. You and all your secrets. Christ, everything is a secret with you. How the hell is he supposed to know what’s okay to say and what’ll make you mad? He didn’t deserve that from his own brother."

Why is he dwelling so much on Sasuke instead of me? The conversation keeps winding back to him. He’s not part of this.

"I never-" Then, abruptly, I stop myself. Because what I was about to say would have come out as a lie. Maybe I hadn’t wanted to hurt him, but I’d be an absolute idiot if I can’t admit that I knew I was asking too much of him. I knew the second it left my mouth that I shouldn’t have said it. Still, though, I hadn’t meant to hurt him. I didn’t ask him because I knew it would put so much weight on his shoulders. I just wasn’t compassionate enough to stop myself.

He hasn’t said a single word to me since Thursday night. Why the hell did I think he could handle me?

Yes, just chalk a little bit more onto my guilt debt. Like I need any more.

Kisame is a mind-reader, I think, because his voice cuts me off at the same time I cut myself off. As if he knew whatever I was about to say wasn’t entirely true. "You put him in a horrible position. And why? Because you want him on your side, like he’s some kind of human barrier that I can’t hurt but you can? He’s your brother, not some tool for you to utilize. You want to build an army against me, pick people who won’t get hurt when you step on them.”

“An army?” I repeat blankly, processing the vitriol. I feel the swell something foul afoot, a misconstruction of evidence. Yes, I asked Sasuke not to like Dr. Hoshigaki, and yes, I want him on my side. But he’s my brother. He’ll always be on my side, and that’s part of the problem. He hurt my situation more than he helped.

“A united stand. I’ll give you one thing, the kid sure does love you. Fucked if I know why, but there it is.” His hands fly into the air, and I’m struck by the revelation that aggravation and exasperation are not the same thing. “He looked like he was going to cry, did you notice that?”

“No,” I admit quietly. “I didn’t notice.” I’d been angry at the time. But not so much with him.

It didn’t occur to me to feel guilty for asking for his help. It was asking a lot, I knew, but I’d been hoping, vainly and stupidly hoping, that the consequences would cancel out the repercussions I’m facing now. I knew he couldn’t, but I wanted him to, because if he’d been able to summon the tiniest bit of disdain, then I wouldn’t feel like the bad guy right now. I would feel justified in refusing Dr. Hoshigaki’s company. His help. Right now, I can’t look at him without feeling like a jackass. It’s the same reason I haven’t been able to face Sasuke, although now it seems as if I ought to be even more ashamed for my actions. Crying. I hate when Sasuke cries. It reminds me of the first few months after Mom and Dad died and I don’t need any more guilt tagged unto what I’m dealing with now as I do my best to avoid the royal blue of his eyes. I’ll end up with a mile long trail of bereavement for my transgressions, tight little knot of kite-tail regrets, all of them interlocked.

Round and round in circles we go. "That’s not why I did it," I say honestly.

"Then why did you? Or is that a taboo subject too?"

"Yes, it is." I’m not admitting everything to him. I’ve said enough. He’ll have to take my word. I glared at Sasuke because I felt my defense crumple around me, fear of my suspicions’ affirmation. The powerlessness that he entices in close quarters was so powerful in that moment that I broke down and glared to scare away the one who confirmed what I’ve feared all along. If I prolong contact, I will end up liking him. Sasuke did within two minutes.

And I can’t even make myself walk away from this bench.

When it happened, I don’t know, but the truth sucks the breath out of me. Whether in little steps or one moment, all of which slipped by unnoticed, I like the guy. Fighting has done no good. The harder I resist the more places he finds to break through. I cracked, slowly, fissure by fissure. He’s sweeter than he has any right to be, both to my brother and to me, intelligent, perceptive enough not to give up soon enough. There are admirable qualities in him that I can’t pretend disgust me, employed against me or not. His only fault is circumstance. In another time, if I were a different person with different problems, if he weren’t a psychiatrist. I wouldn’t have fought. Because even after avoiding him, ignoring him, and fighting with him, I still like the bastard.

I wish to God he were a bad person. Then I wouldn’t feel this moral compulsion to clear the air.

I meet those stunningly blue orbs he has the audacity to call eyes. Apologies aren’t my strongest suit, so I word it in a way where I can fool myself into believing I have no compunction. It’s just easier that way. “And really, doctor. I don’t hate you." I duck my head when his eyes fill with surprise, cursing inside at the way they draw me in so easily and trick me into reaction. They did it at the pizzeria, holding such disappointment that they made me step back for a minute, bewildered by the force by which they pulled me in. It was such a moment of clarity between us, nothing hidden or not communicated on his part. I felt like he’d invaded me.

The way his lovers must feel when they gaze into his eyes. It’s what I once imagined sex would be like.

So in an instant I know he realizes that this is hard for me, because his eyes soften drastically, although he retains a steely core that’s probably always there. No, I don’t hate him. With eyes like that, no one could. “Really, I don’t.”

He blows out air, steam perhaps, with a half pacified, half daunted by all we still have left to fix, if we so choose. I feel the road in front of me stretch, Dr. Hoshigaki in no way behind me. "Well maybe you should stop trying so goddamned hard," he says with an under-the-breath laugh.

I’m starting to agree with that assessment. Despite myself, I want to believe that I can trust someone, even if I’m still not ready to talk.

He sighs again, standing up and closing some of the distance between us. “Look Itachi,” he says firmly, “I don’t know if you and I are ever going to see eye to eye. And I don’t enjoy arguing with you and more than I enjoy you sitting there in a silent huff. So there’s no need to come to your session next Thursday or any of the rest for that matter.”

“What?” I blurt out, all the analytical portions of my brain in hibernation. Somewhere in my mind is the reminder that this is exactly what I wanted, the permission to go on to number twelve, but other parts of my mind, the less rational and more susceptible ones, got very used to his determination to help and subsequent persistence in sticking around. It wasn’t a good feeling, but it was a substantial and it didn’t hurt. I never once expected him to back out. For all my scheming, I never expected to be standing in front of him feeling betrayed by someone I hardly know.

It hurts way more than it has any right to hurt.

He shrugs as if it doesn’t matter. And it shouldn’t. “What we’ve been doing hasn’t gotten us, you anywhere.”

But it does.

He seemed so genuine in his desire to help me and as much as a pain in the ass as it was, this feels like abandonment. “I’ve done everything possible on my part to earn your trust. To convince you that I’m not out to get you. But you just don’t believe me.”

There’s no relief, no sense of the victory I felt are warding off my other psychiatrists. Abandonment with nowhere to go. “So it’s your move now.”

My body snaps into alertness so fast I think bones might have broken. “My move?” My articulation appears to have disappeared. I’m down to repetition.

He nods, the steel sparking. “There’s no need to come. Unless, for some reason, you want to.” His legs move backwards, carrying him away from me with his hands hooked into his pockets. “Your call,” are his last words before he turns around and walks forward, disappearing beyond the circle of lamp light while I remain caught in it, two choices in front of me. Come back and talk or never see him again.

Once, that would have been easy.


*^*^*

I told Kakashi everything on the walk home. And he listened. He didn’t share anything in return, but that’s okay. I’m just tired of being tuned out, like I’m not there at all. Itachi treatment.

I told him about Dr. Hoshigaki, who is too friendly not to like. Smiles come easy to him. I counted them in the short span of time we were together. Seventeen smiles in total, all at things I wouldn’t have thought called for a smile. He smiled at the waitress who brought us our pizzas, he smiled when he first said hello. He smiled when I asked for the last breadstick.

I told him how delicious the food tasted.

“Better than mine?” he shot back teasingly.

“You don’t make me pizza,” I shot right back.

I told him about the stony walk home, the rigidness in my brother’s posture. Never had I felt so isolated from him before, even right after Mom and Dad died. Then I still felt a connection, an anger knowing that it was his fault. Thursday’s walk was all my fault and I’ve been afraid to say anything, afraid that I really messed up something important to him. Afraid that I’m not a good enough brother for the one who spends most of the hours out of his day working to keep me alive and out of foster care.

And I don’t know how to say I’m sorry to him. The way he’s been since that night, I doubt he’ll really hear anything I say. It seemed like he was getting better staying out of his thoughts, but I’ve ruined that.

That’s why he’s late tonight. It has to be.

Kakashi looks at his watch for the third time in ten minutes. All of Kakashi’s clocks read a slightly different time. I checked the other day, when Iruka and Kakashi were whispering in the kitchen, the tension in the air driving me out and bolstered by my curiosity. Clocks seems like they’d be more important to Kakashi, since he has so many of them, but yet they all read differently and between them all he’s still usually late. The sunflower clock in the hall is four minutes behind the one on the microwave, which is two minutes ahead of the clock on the kitchen wall. The one in the living room is ten minutes ahead of the clock in the hallway. I have a feeling they’re all wrong. The correct time, I have a hunch, belongs to the one he keeps on his wrist.

Iruka, which he said is okay to call him outside of school but still makes me feel like I’m behaving inappropriately, is humming a song while he prepares oatmeal at the counter. We had dinner around seven, and it’s tiptoeing close to nine o’clock. (2)

“It’s really not like him to be late,” Kakashi murmurs as he stirs the inch of cold coffee in his mug. On the way home from the cemetery we stopped at the tea shop in town, a roundabout route home, and Kakashi let me pick out a mug to replace the one Itachi broke. I chose one with tiny paw prints winding around in a spiral trail, finishing with a flourish on the handle. It reminded me of Pakkun, and the dog that I still want.

I don’t say a word, fearful of the worst. Had he had enough of me? Does he want to leave me here? Or has something else bad happened?

Iruka joins us at the table, another cup of tea by his bowl. Kakashi’s boyfriend (more terminology that makes me feel like I should get a detention), I’ve discovered since his arrival, can only make certain types of edibles: foods that come from a box and an assortment of breakfast foods. He doesn’t make much meat, chop vegetables, or whip up any salads like Kakashi, and is a fan of take-out. I’ve been eating a lot of Chinese noodles lately. Not that I’m complaining. Before Mom and Dad died, Monday nights used to be take-out nights in our house. After the relaxing weekend and harrowing day at the clinic, Mom didn’t feel like cooking. She’d call us up at home and have Itachi order Indian, Italian, or Chinese, whatever she was in the mood for. Mom was the dictator when it came to the things that passed in and out of our kitchen.

I peer into the bowl and make an immediate face. Oatmeal is not high up on my list of edible foods. It’s right above mushroom and right below broccoli. I can’t stomach a food that can’t decide if it’s a liquid or a solid.

Smells pretty good, though. Iruka stirred in a lot of cinnamon.

Kakashi looks at his watch, again, and clangs the spoon against the mug. “Let’s go wait out on the porch, pretty bird. There’s a breeze out there.”

Iruka looks up from his oatmeal, question-marks written all over his face. He has no idea how big of a deal it is that Itachi is late. No one ever filled him in. He doesn’t know how Kakashi and I do a lot of things around here. I wanted to teach him the rules when he broke the unwritten silence clause last Saturday. At the very least I expected Kakashi to set the same guidelines he set with me, but instead he let it go.

I’ll figure out why eventually. For now I can only speculate that it has something to do with the hushed conversations they have, during which Iruka is cajoling and Kakashi is intractable. No one gets anywhere, and Iruka tends to wind up leaving for a few hours until the air has cleared.

One of them started when Iruka touched the sugar bowl. He only moved it out of the way, but Kakashi was watching and he didn’t take it too well. And I’m starting to know him too well to feel like he blew things out of proportion. Kakashi is a sentinel when it comes to his personal life and it takes compliance for acceptance to start.

Still, I feel bad for him. I was never excluded from the graveyard like he is. He must feel so alone when we go off together, like we’re conspiring against him. Especially since he’s supposed to be closer, being the boyfriend.

I’m certain that things aren’t as they appear. With Kakashi, they never are.

Leaving Iruka out of the picture and to his own devices, Kakashi and I head out to the porch to keep an eye out for my wayward brother.

Kakashi was right about the breeze. Where in the morning there had been no breeze, now it’s downright nearing gusty. The leaves of Kakashi’s warped and in need of pruning elm tree sound like a hundred or more birds flapping their wings, puffs of air entering and escaping through the gaps in the foliage. With the living room and porch lights on, I can see all the way to the sidewalk. We settle down on the creaky steps, the sound blending with the tree leaves. Kakashi doesn’t have any chairs on his porch, but at least he has a porch. All we have is that loathsome fire escape Itachi likes so much in December.

He rests his head on one of the posts holding the porch aloft. A quiet Kakashi isn’t unusual, but tonight his quietness is more than just his nature. He’s tired. After what happened in the graveyard, I’m tired too.

Obito. Kakashi’s dead lover. Iruka is the new one. He actually helped me solve some of that mystery. I didn’t know that Kakashi liked other boys before he showed up. The rest fell into place after that. I feel him there. I feel Kakashi’s grief hanging around the stone. He touches it like you touch people, like Mom did when I was on the verge of falling asleep in her lap.

Right now, he looks ready to fall asleep.

I scoot over a bit, deciding that his thigh looks like a comfortable place to rest my head. Without asking, risks fully known, I lie down. The fabric of his jeans is surprisingly soft on my cheek. They must be old. He looks down at me with one eye, and does nothing but twitch in response to his lap’s use as a pillow. His hand rises, as if to nudge me away like I thought would be his most likely reaction, then settles in my hair. Just like Mom used to do.

I breathe in, relaxing as best I can while we wait. I keep my eyes open, not sure if he’ll come after what I did. But God, it was so hard not to. He gave me pizza. And he was funny. He kept trying to make me laugh after Itachi glared at me, scared me. I would have if I’d been in the mood.

It doesn’t take long before I drift off into a light nap, the winds like a lullaby, hush little baby by Mother Nature.

We don’t say a word.

A drop of moisture on my ankle, which is dangling over the steps where the roof ends, stirs me from my nap. I open my eyes, see the knots of the elm tree, Kakashi’s jeans. And Itachi.

I go to dart upright, but I’m hindered by Kakashi’s hand clutched in my hair. His grip tightened at some point while I slept. “Itachi?” I ask as I stop trying to sit up. Kakashi isn’t letting me. “Why are you so late?” Making sure he’s not an apparition of some kind. That he’s really here.

He’s not far away, about halfway up the sidewalk. And still moving. No answer. But he’s here, and that’s all I care about. I like Kakashi, his house, his dog, our rituals. I wouldn’t even mind living here. But I’d want Itachi to live with us too, so that he doesn’t have to walk so far to work, so that we don’t have to bring out all of the bowls when the rains fall. Itachi would only have to pay half of the costs because Kakashi can pay the rest. He won’t have to work two jobs, either, so he’d be less tired. Maybe he could even go back to school.

It would be like to having a family again.

The drop of moisture I felt on my ankle is turning into a steady shower. Itachi is soaked within a minute, just like the hem of Kakashi’s jeans. We’re all motionless, waiting for something to happen. For a while, there’s nothing but the sound of rain and Itachi’s wide eyes, trained on me. His bangs are plastered to his face, which is twisted into indecision. It’s a look I see on Iruka when Kakashi’s back is turned.

“It’s ten twenty-seven,” Kakashi says without looking at his watch. I don’t know if he really kept track of all that time passing in his head or he just made it up to sound impressive. “I think I’m rubbing off on you.”

Itachi stares at me for a minute longer, as if gauging something, before Kakashi’s words seem to penetrate. Either that or he decided that I passed his inspection. “God help me, then. We don’t need another one of you.”
“Those are fighting words.” I stretch and twist my head to look up at Kakashi. His mouth is twisted into a wry kind of smile. One of those smiles he gives when he knows something that I don’t. “Get your ass out of the rain, Itachi. You look drowned.”

Itachi glares at him. “Don’t curse in front of him.” I could jump up and down in elation. He hasn’t done that since before he cut his hand. Most of his protective gestures have disappeared since that night. He hasn’t smacked Kakashi in ages.

“Noted,” Kakashi says in way that we can all tell he doesn’t intend to do a single thing about it.

Itachi makes a scoffing sound, but ends up doing what Kakashi suggested and ducks under the safety of the porch. He drips water on me as he step over my body, an action Kakashi would have never have done. I would have had to move for him.

He settles down behind me, his clothes squelching. A freezing cold hand announces itself on my arm. Unlike most people, he’s not shivering in the slightest. Not enough exposure, not low enough of a temperature. He rubs softly, much like Kakashi’s fingers are still doing in my hair. Kakashi relaxes me, Itachi keeps me on edge. It’s not like him to touch me unnecessarily. Something is still wrong. My heart sinks. For a minute, I thought he was feeling more like the Itachi I knew a few short months ago. Not the one I knew two years ago, but still more comforting than the one of the past few weeks.

The fingers press urgently. “I’m sorry, Sasuke,” he murmurs gently.

I freeze. Kakashi continues to rub steadily, as if he knew this was going to happen all along. And maybe he did. Either that, or he really is unflappable. But, knowing Kakashi, he saw what I didn’t. That maybe he felt bad for glaring at me. That maybe he was never mad at me to begin with.

“I didn’t mean to,” I murmur back, wanting to puzzle this all out quickly. Every once in a while, it is refreshing to be given a reason behind their actions without months of detective work and lying-in-waiting. To know instead of guess why he’s apologizing to me when I’m the one who betrayed his. It’s not something I’m typically granted.

His whole hand covers the upper part of my arm. The very center of his palm is warm from clenching his fists. It matches the warmth of Kakashi’s jeans. “Neither did I.”

I nearly laugh. So much for knowing the reason from the beginning. Still, I’m getting good at working things out on my own, cryptic statements or not. It doesn’t even bother me like it used to. I’ve learned better. Nothing they ever give me the first time, if they give me anything at all, is the end of the story. I’ll always ask, because that’s a natural reaction that I don’t think I’ll ever be able to stop. It complicates the process, but it doesn’t stop it. Sooner or later, when none of us are expecting it and it seems like the mishap has blown over, the reason will reveal itself. I won’t even have to search. I just have to pay attention. Grown-ups are good at lying, but they aren’t quite as good at keeping secrets.

“We should get you a towel,” Kakashi says with no real conviction. Itachi murmurs some words of agreement and none of us move. We go on sitting as the rain pours into puddles and rivulets in the sidewalk, thunder rumbling somewhere way, way off. Iruka is still inside where it’s dry, the television colors filtering through the gap in the curtains. Just three crazy people, two with secrets thick as the gale and one holed up between them. Waiting.

Chapter Six-Part 1