"Niisan… are you… breaking up with me?"
The young boy's lips trembled as he looked up at him. Itachi suppressed the sigh that was building in his lungs. Just how had this all started again? Oh yes, that was right. Shisui.
"You know, people are going to start getting ideas about you two."
Itachi shot his curly haired cousin a warning glare. This was not the first time Shisui had made these kinds of jokes and he could not for the life of him see why the other found them so amusing. The small hand clasped in his own tightened its grip slightly and Itachi braced himself for the onslaught of questions his brother would now put forward and would refrain from hitting his best friend up-side the head as he did his best to answer them.
"Niisan, what does he mean? What kind of ideas?" There was a worried tone to Sasuke's voice and Itachi made a mental note not to let him come the next time he went to train with Shisui. A chuckle from his other side accompanied the boy's words, of course.
"Nothing, Sasuke, Shisui is just failing at being funny as per usual." Really now? Could he not find other targets for his incessant teasing? Itachi was getting tired of having to deal with the fallout from his remarkably bad taste in humour. Perhaps it was time to rethink his choice of friends?
"I mean," Shisui stated, not at all deterred by Itachi's dismissal. "That Itachi is never going to get himself a girlfriend when people think he already has one."
He hadn't thought Sasuke could have looked sulkier but apparently he'd been wrong. Small lips puckered into a pout and his already round cheeks puffed up at Shisui's words. "I am not a girl! And why would niisan even need a girlfriend? He has me! And he has you…" The last bit was added with a slightly sour tone to his voice. It was no secret that his brother wasn't exactly happy with the people Itachi chose to spend his time with, or rather – person, and it was at times like these that Itachi could hardly blame him.
"Fine, fine," Shisui reached around Itachi's back to tug a lock of the small raven's hair. "You can be his boyfriend then, does that suit you better?"
Before Itachi could interject there was an ecstatic 'yes' that erupted from somewhere around his waist. Of course the peals of laughter from Shisui were soon to follow.
Great.
Dinner that evening had been… eventful. Ever since they had arrived home his brother had possessed a suspiciously large smile and Itachi was not at all happy about it. Looks like that often tended to get one or the other of them into trouble.
It didn't take long for the boy's excitement to get the better of him and his 'surprise' for the evening came out in one happy slur. "Guesswhat!NiisanhasaBOYFRIEND!"
There was the loud clatter of his father's cutlery hitting his plate followed by a short silence filled with wary looks shot by his mother between Itachi and her husband. After a moment Fugaku managed to compose himself, his face almost returning to a relatively normal colour, and asked the question everyone was waiting for. "Is that so? And who is this… boyfriend of his?"
Sasuke had been quick to ignore all the signals Itachi was giving him, both subtle and not so subtle like the kick he gave him under the table, all too eager to answer their father's dreaded question.
"ME!"
Soon after this Sasuke was ushered, forcefully, into his room for the night and Itachi was stuck sitting across from the man whose barely contained rage he could feel a good few feet away. Dark eyes were tracked to his linked hands resting in his lap. He had known this would happen but as always it was near impossible to keep his brother's mouth shut.
"What is the meaning of this?"
Itachi had to wonder just what his parents thought of him. It seemed they had accepted a child's words with almost no hesitation or doubt. What was he? Some kind of predator? Itachi shook his head slightly, releasing the sigh it felt as though he'd been holding all day, before explain the events of that afternoon - ones that, after a little persuasion, were eventually accepted by his father.
After that night the boy's 'relationship' was never brought up again, or at least, never brought up by either Fugaku or Mikoto who were more the sort to avoid awkward situations such as these. Sasuke, however, was a completely different matter. The child had taken to using his new status as a means to get what he wanted from the elder, choruses of 'but I'm your boyfriend' often resulted in a reluctant surrender from Itachi – especially when they were mostly sung in the most public of places.
For a long while this set up continued. It made Sasuke happy and over time Itachi himself had become indifferent to the matter. In the end what made his brother happy normally left him feeling the same. But eventually the time came when it was no longer reasonable for Sasuke to still refer to him as such.
Sasuke was now starting school.
Bending his knees Itachi perched on the balls of his feet to come level with the other. Reaching out a hand he petted the boy's downy hair softly before speaking. "Of course not Sasuke, we were never really together after all."
It seemed this was completely and utterly the wrong choice of words as before his eyes the child turned from sad to distraught, tears welling in his eyes and spilling across his cheeks as he squeezed his eyes shut. Itachi frowned, reaching out to pull the younger boy into a hug, tears seeping into the fabric of his shirt. "I mean, we're brothers Sasuke and we always will be, no one can take that away from us." His words of comfort were of little use as he doubted the other could even hear them over the sound of his steadily increasing sobs.
"But why don't you like me anymore?! Shisui said you go out with people you like!" Passers-by, mainly parents dropping their own children off on their first day, were starting to give them strange looks and Itachi was beginning to think this perhaps wasn't the best place for this conversation to be held.
"I know what he said but-" His efforts were interrupted by the soft wails emitting from the bundle now curled against his chest. Itachi could feel a vein begin to throb in his forehead. Placing his hands on the other's shoulders he pushed the boy away – only resulting in more protests – and smiled softly at him. "Okay look, you can still be my boyfriend." Itachi cringed as he spoke the word, why was he doing this again? "But you have to keep it a secret, okay? Just between the two of us."
The pain instantly vanished from Sasuke's face, replaced with a grin and violent nodding. Relief broke through the tension Itachi felt and he swore he would figure out a better way of dealing with this by tonight. "Okay." He added firmly, a small nod of his own backing this up. Getting to his feet he quickly dabbed at the boy's face with his sleeve, "Now run along, you don't want to be late on your first day."
"Okay, niisan!"
Itachi was beginning to wonder if the tears earlier had been an act because surely no one could swing from one extreme to another quite so quickly. Before he could ponder on this too long, however, the boy was off and through the gates headed towards a group of children. Itachi's smile widened as he gave the boy one last fond glance and took a step towards home. Not quite quick enough for his brother's voice to manage to escape his ears from the playground.
"Yeah! That's my boyfriend! Niisan!"
Itachi did not even pause to see the reaction this got from the other children gathered there. His pace quickened as he headed down the street, hand coming up to cover his face. He was going to kill Shisui.