Itachi's GirlFriend
Most of the time, it was nice to just watch the little things... The flutter of a birds wings as it soared past. The tiny taps of a squirrel's feet as it scurries away. The water rushing down the stream. The loud presence of nature. I liked to feel the breeze quicken and pick up the hairs on my head. I reveled in the warm sun beating down on my shoulders, the only visible part of my body.
"Sleeping on the job, Itachi?"
I didn't even have to open my eyes to know who it was. It was like that for someone you spent almost every day with for years.
I stood up on the giant tree branch I was lying on and jumped down next to him.
"Did you find the intruders?" I asked.
He shook his head.
"I don't think there were any intruders to begin with." He muttered.
I lifted my ANBU mask, something I would only do for him, and raised my eyebrows. I sensed worry in him. I opened my mouth, planning to get him to tell me his concerns but he spoke first.
"It's probably nothing." He said, flashing me a smile. "Put your mask back on."
I slid the mask back onto my face quickly and ran along the trees back to the village.
"Anyway, I've been meaning to ask you..."
I jumped above him. He usually described my stride as quick and nimble, because of that he'd nicknamed me bunny rabbit when we were younger.
"Ask me what?" I said.
"When are you planning on getting a girlfriend?"
I almost missed the next branch I jumped onto.
"Isn't this a bit..."
"Off topic? Random? Out of place?" he improvised. "What does it matter? Just answer the question."
I couldn't help but smile at him.
"Only you Shisui..."
He wasn't really a random guy but the things he took interest in about me were...different. At home, all my father cared about were my accomplishments. I knew he was proud of me and he loved to praise me but he never looked deep enough to see what was behind that praise. My mother had been a bit of an escape for me as a child, but when I entered my teen years, she gave me space and concentrated more on my younger brother, as all mothers should do. And as for my younger brother, he was so blinded by my fame and glory, he couldn't see that I was a normal, imperfect human...just like everyone else. They all expected so much from me. So much, I was constantly frightened I wouldn't be able to deliver. But Shisui, he was the only one who saw the real me.
"There is one girl." I replied, after a very long pause.
We were already at home, in the Uchiha District. Our ANBU uniforms were stripped away and hidden. I wore one of my usual outfits, a gray sleeveless shirt and white shorts. Shisui wore a black t-shirt and black pants. We both had the Uchiha crest painted in bright reds on our backs. A constant reminder of who we were and where we came from.
We were in the plaza of the district. A place where everyone had to walk by at least twice a day to get anywhere. We sat on a bench placed right in front of a large, concrete fountain shaped like nothing other than the Uchiha Crest.
"Is she here right now?" he asked.
Of course she was. That was the main reason why I led him to that bench. During mid-day, she was always standing around the plaza chatting about whatever girls chat about with her friends. Most of the teenage Uchiha girls could be found there around mid day.
Shisui correctly took my silence as a "yes".
"Is it her?" he asked.
Really funny... He was playing a genjutsu game. Instead of pointing to a girl, he created a genjutsu where whatever girl he was talking about would appear to have a neon green target mark on them. I responded by casting a genjutsu of my own and marking a red X over the target.
"Her?"
And of course, to make it humorous, he HAD to put a target on the bustiest girl, right in the center of her... I marked her with an overly large red X.
"Am I even getting close?"
"No, but I doubt that's going to stop you." I said.
He winked at me.
Didn't think so...
"Hmm... What kind of girl would Itachi like?" he mused. "Probably someone unique... Someone with a lot of class..."
He suddenly took control of my genjutsu and marked X's on a lot of other girls.
"So, I can cross them out. They're too average for you."
I said nothing, trying to lead him astray with my silence.
"And knowing you, she'd probably have to be on the smart side."
He crossed out some more girls.
"And she definitely wouldn't be shy or quiet because that would remind you too much of your mother... No, she's probably one of those out-spoken, independent types."
As much as I hated to admit it, he was right on every single guess. There were three girls left, he slowly crossed out one of them.
"So that leaves... those two."
He smirked at me.
"I can solve this so easy, it's sad." He said.
He stood up.
Don't embarrass me...
He walked over to the girls, calmly and coolly, in his usual swagger and asked them a question. Both of them looked at me. One of them nodded vigorously and jumped up and down and the other one put her hands on her hips and shook her head. He told them something to calm them and then came back over to me with his hands in his pockets.
"Stop looking at me like I just ruined your life." He joked.
"For all I know you might have." I replied.
"I just asked them if they'd like to be a part of a group I'm creating called 'Uchiha Itachi's favorite fans' and the first ten girls to sign up gets free dinner with you."
Seeing the look of confusion on my face, he went on.
"The black haired girl was so excited about it, she launched into this entire story about how she's been waiting for an opportunity like this her whole life and blah, blah, blah..."
I glanced at the black haired girl over there. She waved at me eagerly. I smiled and waved back but said "And what was the point of that?" to Shisui.
"Well, the other girl, the one with the light brown hair, was all like 'no way any guy who needs a fan club is more trouble than he's worth.' So, obviously, the one you like is..."
He's going to get it wrong.
"The one with brown hair." He said.
I wasn't one to express "shock" but my face got about as close as it will ever get to it at that moment.
"...How?"
He laughed.
"You really think I don't know my own best friend?" he asked. "You'd hate a girl that grovels at your feet like that. And I said before that the girl you'd probably like is one of those opinionated types, she fits the description completely."
I let my eyes wander over to her. Some of the other friends she was waiting for showed up, bringing her an ice cream cone. I watched as laughed and talked and licked it.
Her brown hair was cut short, no longer than the nape of her neck, and styled so that she had bangs that swooped over her forehead. I'd never seen a girl wear her hair like that before. I thought it was...a lot more beautiful than all the girls who wear their hair long. Her eyes were a solid, charcoal grey color, large and round. It was the first time I'd ever seen anyone in our clan with eyes that weren't a pitch black shade.
"She's really pretty." He told me.
I nodded.
She wore a tight fitting white shirt with a collar and sleeves that stopped just past her elbows and dark grey shorts that matched her eyes. Her shirt was long in the back, so it had space for that omni-present Uchiha crest, and short in the front so that it exposed her slim stomach. Her leaf headband hung out of her pocket in an informal fashion but I knew that when she was on a mission she wore it proudly on her forehead. Lately, it had become a trend for the teen boys and girls alike, and even some of the kids as young as my little brother, to wear their Konoha headbands in an informal or disrespectful manner...even when they were on missions.
One of these signs of protest was wearing the headband backwards so that the leaf symbol was on the back of the wearer's head or neck, or turning the headband inside out so the symbol didn't show at all, or...in her case, stuffing it into a pocket and allowing the symbol to just barely dangle out.
To hell with Konoha...right?
"But, Itachi..." Shisui suddenly said. "You know what your father's going to say about this."
"He already has."
He turned to me.
"What?"
I recalled a night many months before then when I was studying genjutsu strategies in the Uchiha District Hall building. My father was there with me. He wasn't teaching me anymore, more or less just making sure I was where I said I was going to be. Ever since I became an ANBU member, people had been paying extra attention to my actions. For what reason, I had no idea.
She entered the room while I was studying with her father.
"Fugaku-san." Her father said, getting on his knees in front of us. "Please bring her to be buried here."
Buried?
I watched as the man put his hands together, like my father was some kind of God and he was praying to him.
"I've told you already, Shou." He said emotionlessly. "She is not one of us. It is out of my hands."
"Please, Fugaku-san, I'm begging you." He continued. "This district is her home. These people here are the people she knows."
"Shou, it was a stretch just to allow her to live here with us." He said. "Now...there is nothing that I can do."
"But please, what about my daughter, Miki?"
That was when I noticed her. Her hair was long then. Almost down to her waist. But that wasn't what attracted me to her, it was her eyes... Those large, grey eyes of hers...they looked so empty and...cold.
"She wants to visit her mother." He said. "If she's buried outside of the district, when will she get a chance to visit her grave?"
Miki chose that moment to raise her eyes from the hollow wood floor we were kneeling on and look at me.
"Shou." My father said sternly. "The best thing for you to do now is to stay out of trouble, for your daughter's sake. This way, at least she may be buried properly."
The man clutched his knees.
"Now, if you will excuse me, I'm spending time with my son, Itachi."
Shou-san stood up.
"Let's go, Miki-chan." He said.
But her eyes were locked onto mine, I'd like to say we shared a moment even if it was short lived. I wanted to get inside her, figure out how such a kind face could hold such cold eyes. I stared at her long after her father pulled her away.
"Itachi." My father said to me.
I slowly looked up at him.
"I hope you're not thinking of fraternizing with that mutt." He told me.
Mutt?
"She's a half-breed. Of no concern to you..." he said. "I don't want to see you speaking to her...ever."
"Yes, father."
"Good, get back to your studying."
I bowed my head and listened to my father like the respectful child he expected me to be. But inside, I felt differently. More than anything else, I wanted to get to know her. But I knew my place. I was the District Head's son, basically royalty. It'd be a disservice to my entire family if I even made friends with a half-breed. It was obvious, too. With her brown hair and grey eyes... Any Uchiha that saw her could tell she wasn't of pure blood.
"I didn't know the woman who died that day, the woman he was trying to get a proper burial for." I told Shisui. "But by the way Miki looks, I can guess that she might've been from the Senju clan."
Shisui shook his head. An overcast floated over. It was beginning to get dark. People were heading inside, the district was clearing. Miki was nowhere to be seen.
"If you think I'm going to tell you not to see her just because she's not a full blood, you're sadly mistaken." He said.
"I know you won't." I smiled at him. "You like sneaking around."
He laughed.
"Hey, what can I say? I'm a ninja!"
My smile slowly faded. I felt a small droplet of rain hit the back of my neck.
"But sometimes it's hard to believe the divisions between our clan and the rest of the village has gotten so pronounced that a woman who's lived on our side of the line this entire time can't be buried here." I said slowly.
He cocked his head. He didn't like it when I thought about things too deeply. I tensed, expecting him to tell me to lighten up, enjoy my childhood, go get the girl. Instead, he looked up at the darkening sky.
"More and more now I'm beginning to feel like these kinds of things are exactly why this clan will never prosper." He said. "How do they expect to be treated equal if they can't even treat their own equally?"
Shisui was exceptionally intelligent, just like I was. While I masked my abnormally vast intellect with silence, he masked his with humor. Anytime he wasn't cracking a joke, his understanding of the world would seep out like that.
"Itachi, I'm think you should indulge in whatever you're holding back." He said. "Not because I like mischief but because I believe that true tolerance and understanding is the only way to fix what's broken. Starting with inside the district."
That day was the first day I ever considered going against my father.
*Go Get Her*
"Okay, firstly, you're going to have to ask her out on a date." Shisui said the next day.
It was our day off, and we were spending it how we normally did, genjutsu training by the streams near the back of the Uchiha District. Shisui was always more skilled than I. Because of that, I was having phenomenal trouble at getting out of a genjutsu he'd casted over me that forced me to see every girl that walked by naked. I slowly got him with a reversal and turned his own genjutsu on him.
"Ahhh. It was the best day of my life when I invented the Sexy Genjutsu." He told me.
He smiled a bit more widely than usual at the girls that walked by and didn't attempt to get himself out of the genjutsu.
"Let's go to the plaza, it'll be the perfect opportunity." He said.
"Didn't you say that she said she hates guys who need their own fan club, or something?" I asked. "She'll probably blow me off."
"Only one way to find out." He said.
He stood up and interlocked his hands behind his head.
"Come on!"
I slid off of the rock reluctantly and fell into step with him.
"Nii-san?"
I turned to see my younger brother, Sasuke, hopping over the rocks in the center of the stream and coming over to us.
"Where are you going?" he asked.
I smiled at him. He'd probably spent most of the morning looking for me, most likely to beg me to train him.
"Just to the plaza." I said.
"Can I come?" he asked just like I knew he would.
"Sorry, Sasuke, this isn't really for kids."
"You should let him come." Said Shisui.
I turned to him with my eyebrows raised.
"I mean, he's going to need to learn this someday, too." Shisui shrugged.
But not like this...
He smirked at me, clearly reading my thoughts.
"Please?" Sasuke begged.
I usually couldn't say no to him when he pleaded with me like that. I wasn't too fond of strictness; I always vowed that if I became a father, I'd be a lot more lax than our father was.
"Okay." I agreed.
He grinned and threw his arms around me and I poked his forehead softly.
"How come you never do that forehead thing with me?" Shisui asked. "I feel like you guys just shared a whole private moment I'll never know about."
I ruffled Sasuke's hair and smiled.
We entered the plaza and instead of sitting right in the center near the fountains, we stood on the outskirts and took up a bench next to a food kart.
"Okay, there she is." Shisui said.
Sasuke poked his little head between us.
"There who is?" he asked.
"Now, all you gotta do is three things." He said, holding his fingers up. "Smile at her, compliment her hair or clothes or something, then ask her out. Simple and easy."
Smile...compliment...ask?
"Ask who out?" Sasuke asked.
"If that doesn't work, then put her in a genjutsu." Shisui joked. "She'll never know the difference."
"Put who in a genjutsu?"
Shisui sighed.
"You see that girl over there, Sasuke?"
Sasuke nodded.
"That's the girl your brother's going to marry if he strikes up the courage to ask her out."
Wait...what?
"Ohhh." Sasuke said, face lighting up. "Nii-san can do it, asking a girl out is a lot easier than shuriken practice."
Both Shisui and I raised our eyebrows at him.
"You've asked a girl out before?" he asked him.
Sasuke shook his head.
"But it sounds easy..." he mussed. "Let's see!"
He hopped up off the bench and made his way over to a group of girls who were a couple years older than him.
"Uh oh, he's going toward some older girls." Shisui said. "This is going to be sad."
I knew we shouldn't have brought him...he's way too young...
"That reminds me." I said to him. "I never said I was going to marry her."
He rolled his eyes.
"You know how people are around here. The moment you start going steady with a girl, her parents and yours already have the marriage date picked out and know the color of her dress."
I couldn't help but laugh. He was absolutely right.
"That's why I never stayed with a girl for too long." Shisui said, winking at me. "Or else they'll trap you."
"That's not why." I replied. "You never stay with one girl for too long because you're already looking at the next girl."
He shrugged.
"Hey, what can I say? I'm a guy..."
"Being a male and extorting yourself like meat on a platter doesn't correlate."
He smirked at me.
"Check your brother out."
I looked back over to where I was sure I'd have to carry a crying six year old boy home and was surprised to see the exact opposite. All three of the ten or eleven year old girls he'd gotten the attention of were taking turns giving him a kisses on the cheek. He waved them goodbye and made his way back over to us.
Shisui sneered at me.
"What did you say about meat on a platter again?"
I shook my head but turned my surprise into a smile as Sasuke approached.
"Told you it was easy." He said.
"What did you say to them?" I asked.
"I told them I liked the roses they were wearing in their hair and asked them if they wanted to go out with me."
"And they said yes?" Shisui asked.
He nodded and shrugged.
"Turns out they were watching me train earlier and they already liked me." He said. "When I asked, they were all screaming and jumping up and down."
He tugged on his ears.
"It was actually pretty loud and annoying." He muttered.
"Welcome to the rest of your life." Shisui said. "Loud and annoying girls everywhere!"
Sasuke frowned.
"Really? Then I don't want to grow up."
I couldn't help but laugh and pull him into my chest for a hug.
"That's right, Sasuke. Stay a kid forever."
He poked his head out from under my arm and smiled.
"Let's see you ask your girl out, Nii-san!" He said to me.
"The smile, compliment, ask thing seemed to work really well for Sasuke." Shisui pointed out.
I sighed.
Might as well get this over with now...
I slipped my hands into my pockets and stood up.
"Go get her!" Sasuke cheered.
I smiled at him but inwardly frowned.
This is going to be the worst day of my life if I mess up in front of my baby brother... Who's idea was this anyway?
Shisui gave me an encouraging smile.
Right... It was his.
A couple dozen strides later I found myself in front of their group. They glanced at me and immediately stopped talking and started grinning. Miki was the only one who looked at me the same way.
"Can I speak to you? Over there?" I asked pointing at the fountain.
Her girlfriends squealed and nudged her. Her face was expressionless but came over just the same. When we got to the fountain, I stared into her eyes for only a second and completely forgot the advice Shisui told me.
Was it...compliment, ask, smile...? No... That's not right... I think it was wave, smile, ask... No... Maybe smile, wave...compliment?
"What is it, Itachi?"
She knows my name? Wait... of course she knows my name. My father had said my name in front of her that night... That night...
Suddenly, I wasn't thinking about the advice at all.
Her eyes...are still cold and disconnected, like that night.
The words that came out of my mouth were completely unplanned. And, I'm usually one to plan things out to a perfect precision.
"I want to know more about you." I said. "Your mother, your father, how you're holding up... The way things are."
Her eyes widened.
"I want to understand you." I clarified.
She was silent for a moment, and then she cocked her head.
"You came all the way over here just to ask me about my pointless life?" she asked me.
I looked at her carefully.
"Pointless? It doesn't seem at all pointless to me." I replied.
"And then what?" she asked me. "And then what do you want after I tell you?"
What do I want? That's a good question... What do I want?
My hand grasped the answer quickly.
"To...perhaps...make your world a bit brighter." I said.
The otherwise cloudy sky cleared and the sun came out, I chose that exact moment to flash her with one of my rare smiles.
She stared at me for a second longer then smiled back.
"You're an interesting guy...Uchiha Itachi." She said. "Fine then. You've got yourself a date, meet me by the back streams Sunday night. I'll tell you whatever you want to know then."
And as quickly as she came, she walked back over to her group of friends who began tugging on her and whispering to he furiously and I walked over toward my best friend and little brother.
"You did it, didn't you?!" Sasuke asked.
I nodded.
"I knew you could do it!" Sasuke said, jumping off the bench.
"You did what I said, didn't you?" Shisui asked.
"Actually, I decided to be spontaneous."
Shisui's mouth dropped open.
"You? Spontaneous?" he asked, then he laughed. "Wow, that girl must be golden."
I looked up at the cloudy sky and smiled.
"But I did end up using a genjutsu." I confessed.
The sun was not as bright as she'd seen it...
Shisui almost fell off the bench laughing.
"Of course you did! What's dating with a little extra help?" he said.
*Moonlit Streams*
Four days passed before it was Sunday. Shisui and I were on a number of seek and eliminate missions, all of which were fake-outs, but on Sunday, he was given a mission without me.
"I don't understand. We're a team." I said. "Danzo must know that."
"He does but he said it's something small, I can do it on my own."
I opened my mouth to protest but he nudged me.
"Besides, tonight's your big date! I wouldn't want you to be late for that." He said.
I smiled softly and opted to say nothing. He hopped up onto the ledge of the fence that surrounded the district, with his back to me, he waved.
"Tell me all about it when I come back." He said. "Maybe you can convince me to settle down with a girl, too."
"Maybe in another lifetime." I replied.
He laughed and ran off.
As soon as he was gone, quick footsteps sounded behind me. The light-weightiness of the steps keyed me in to who it was.
"Sasuke." I said before turning and smiling at him.
If Shisui called me a rabbit because of the way I ran, Sasuke was like a deer, swift and almost soundless...like a real ninja.
"Ready to train?" he asked.
"Sure."
Training with Sasuke was normally a weekly routine. Every week, I'd take him out and train him for as long as he could stand up...which had progressively been getting longer.
We trained all day. He begged me to teach him the substitution jutsu and after a lot of protesting I eventually caved. The biggest reason I caved was because while he struggled trying to learn how to perfect the jutsu, it gave me the time to practice my own techniques and strengthen some of my counter genjutsus...
"Nii-san!"
What? It's not like him to give up this early...
It was nearing dusk. I'd left him to practice alone about four hours before then and he was already looking for me. Well, his timing wasn't bad. I was just about to go get him anyway. Miki-chan was probably already waiting by the streams.
"Sasuke-" I began but then I noticed his appearance.
He was breathing heavily. His fingers were twitching, probably from having over-practiced weaving signs. He was covered in dirt.
"Nii-san...I...I got it." He said heavily.
My Sharingan was activated. I watched as he suddenly began straining for chakra when there was none left.
"I'll show you."
I reached out for him.
"Sasuke, wait!"
He did the jutsu, producing a clean copy of himself who smiled at me.
"See? I...I told you..."
His eyes rolled into the back of his head. I darted over to him, catching him right before his body hit the ground. His clone stared at me with wide eyes and then, perhaps because of shock, poofed back into a tree log.
I held him in my arms, frowning as he breathed deeply, soundly asleep.
"Sasuke, you need to be more careful." I scolded him quietly.
But inwardly, I was amazed. He might not be an intellectual genius, like I was, thirsting for knowledge and craving problems to solve but he was definitely a genius of pure willpower. I knew then that there was nothing my little brother wouldn't accomplish if he put his mind to it. In only four hours, he'd mastered a substitution jutsu.
I entered the house cradling him like he was a baby again. Mother saw me and rushed over to me.
"Sasuke!" she exclaimed. "Is he alright?"
"He's fine just burnt out from training." I reassured her.
"Itachi, he's just a baby! You shouldn't overexert him with those advanced jutsus!" She scolded me, pulling him out of my arms.
I scratched my hair sheepishly and apologized as she carried him to bed.
But you don't know what I know, Mother. He'll probably be stronger than I am one day... And I look forward to that day.
I left the house and hurried to the back streams where I normally hung out with Shisui as fast I could. I wouldn't have been surprised if she'd left though and I wouldn't have blamed her. I was late.
I hopped off the final tree branch and splashed down onto the bank of the stream. Much to my astonishment, there she was, sitting atop a boulder perched right in the center of the stream, looking up at the sky. I slowly made my way over to her.
"I hate stars." She said.
I raised my eyebrows but said nothing.
"Always watching and waiting...but never noticed." She said. "They're such pointless things."
Slowly, she brought her eyes down from the sky and looked at me.
"My younger brother, Sasuke, hurt himself at the end of training." He said. "I had to carry him home. That's why I'm late."
She just looked at me.
"This is the truth." I said, taking her silence for disbelief.
Suddenly, she laughed.
"Of course, it's the truth." She said, then she smirked at me. "Sounds exactly like something Goody Boy Itachi would do."
Goody Boy Itachi?
"That's what they all say about you, you know." She said.
I edged closer to her, so close that I rested my hand on the boulder she was sitting on.
"The District Head's first son, the golden boy of the clan, the boy every father wishes was his son." She went on. "No one is as smart or brave or kind-hearted as you are. No one else has accomplished as much. The boys want to be you. The girls fall to their knees in front of you and..."
And?
"And somehow, through all that... Through the dozens of people in this clan you could have taken an interest to... You pick me?"
I couldn't understand why she was asking such a question so I said nothing.
"Why?" she persisted. "Why are you interested in me?"
I opted for spontaneity again.
"I was hoping that talking to you, understanding you, would give me the answer to that." I told her.
She pulled her knees to her chest. I swiftly pulled myself up onto the boulder and sat down on it. We faced away from each other. She opened her mouth slowly to speak. The moonlight bathed us in navy blue sparkles... I waited on her voice.
*The New Spy*
"My father, Shou, is a regular Uchiha." She began. "He was born here. Just like you. Just like me. My mother, Nanami, was born outside of the district in the general hospital. She was raised out there. Her family and friends were there..."
She shifted on the rock and turned slightly. I felt something slide into my palm.
"She met my father after they graduated from the academy. He was in her squad."
I looked at what was in my hand, a picture. The moonlight reflecting off of the stream gave it a shimmering hue. A girl with grey eyes and white hair which was cut and styled the exact same way as Miki's smiled at the camera with a boy wearing the Uchiha crest on his hoodie and another girl who wore the Uchiha crest on her skirt.
"Even though there was another Uchiha girl in his platoon, he liked her instead." She told me.
Suddenly, I could see everything taking place right before my eyes...
"My father told me once that he'd do anything for my mother." She said.
She chuckled rather sinisterly.
"That didn't last long."
But I could see it... I didn't need her voice. She had put me under a genjutsu. She was showing it to me. I saw a white haired pre-teen girl who brought an Uchiha kid home to her parents.
"Nanami, stay away from him." Her mother snarled.
"You know how we feel about that." Her older sister hinted.
"I'll murder that boy if I see him in this house again!" Her father threatened.
She ignored them all and ran away to the Uchiha District with Shou. It wasn't a far walk. They could've come to check on their daughter. Any one of the Senju could've come to take her. Initially, the Uchiha didn't like her anyway so they would've gladly returned her, but...
"My mother's family didn't come for her." She said. "Figures. Self righteous bastards."
Instead, she grew up, listening to Uchiha presentations, making Uchiha friends, attending Uchiha district meetings and having the life of a regular Uchiha teen girl. Shou's parents didn't want her there but with much, much negotiation, she was allowed to stay...under one condition.
"She wasn't allowed to...you know...have relations, with any of the Uchiha members."
And that included the boy she'd run away for.
"And three guesses how long THAT lasted." She went on.
Not very long. When they were around twenty years old, Miki was born. They tried to keep her a secret and the secret lasted for a good ten years, but in such a small area, nothing is secret. The clan head at the time, my father's older brother, found out immediately and gave them an ultimatum.
"Either me or her." Miki told me. "One of us had to go..."
"By the looks of Shou-san, I can't say I'd believe you if you told me he killed her for your sake."
Miki's back pressed against mine. She was looking up at the stars again.
"Of course not." She spat sourly. "My father would die himself before he ever did anything half as useful as that."
I was surprised by her tone.
"My mother...is a true ninja. She told me what she never told him."
And suddenly, I saw the conversation...right before my eyes.
"Miki-chan, listen to me." She said.
Miki was then a little girl. Probably no older than seven or eight.
"I'm going to have to leave you today."
Miki stared at her, wide eyed and clutching a small teddy bear. Her hair was incredibly long and braided down her back.
"I know." Miki-chan said. "The elders are making you leave... Dad said so."
Nanami-san's eyes went wide then and she grabbed Miki-chan's arm.
"Whatever your father told you, it's a lie." She said steadily. "I'm leaving of my own free will. I'm leaving to protect you...and your father, no matter how blinded he may be."
"I want to stay with you, Mommy."
"Listen." She repeated. "You must be strong. Do not leave the district. Do not trust anyone that is not an Uchiha. They will betray you, do you understand?"
I felt Miki-chan's childish confusion. She was thinking: "But if the Uchiha elders are making you leave...aren't they the bad guys?"
Her mother pressed a note into her hand.
"Don't read this until you're alone." She whispered.
"That was the last time I saw my mother." Miki said.
"And the note?"
"It told me the unspoken truth. Though, I didn't understand it fully until I was older."
I waited patiently for the revelation, though, I had a feeling I already knew the answer.
A perfectly good Senju in the Uchiha district? Who would waste something as useful as that?
"She was a spy." Miki revealed. "The elders made a big show of kicking her out so that everyone would think that she was gone for good. She went home and patched things up with her old friends and family never forgetting her allegiance to the Uchiha clan. She joined the underside of Konoha led by Danzo and served as one of his closest agents, constantly linking information back to us."
"And she was caught." I said.
"Eventually." Miki said. "She killed herself before any of the Hokages could get to her. No one knows this. They all think she was a filthy Senju breaking laws when, in fact, she was the truest Uchiha I know. My birth wasn't accidental either."
I showed no shock or surprise. My brain was fast enough to catch on.
"You're the next in line." I responded.
She nodded slowly.
"Exactly. I'm the new spy."
*We Are Stars*
All this pain...all this coldness... It was all from shouldering this information, shouldering this burden and knowing that no one can ever understand you.
"People like my mother and I are born to live double lives." She said. "It's just the way it is."
"It doesn't have to be that way." I spoke out. "There could be a truce. If anyone was willing to listen."
She snickered.
"A truce? Please, with those prestigious assholes? The last time we tried to have a truce with the rest of them we ended up being branded as the 'village policemen'. What are they going to do next? Make us full out slaves?!"
The way she speaks... It's like...
"They're mocking us!" She said, then she hopped off the boulder. "And I'm glad I get the chance to finally bring honor to this clan. I'm an Uchiha. And damn proud of it."
I kept my spot on the boulder and she walked around to face me.
"Soon, I'm probably going to be 'kicked' out of the district, too." She said. "But I'll handle it and do my job and clean up my tracks afterward, if I have to. That's the fate of a ninja. Living in the shadows. That's what we do. I know that."
Cleaning up your tracks doesn't have to equate to suicide...
"What about your father?" I asked.
She looked away from me.
"He doesn't matter. He's a fool anyway... He's so blinded by his longing for mother that he's gone as far as to blame the Uchiha clan for her death. He's completely lost it..."
She looked hard at me.
"But don't tell anybody that... As much as I hate to admit it, it'd bother me if he were killed for treason."
"I won't tell anyone." I said.
It was quiet for a while. She suddenly smiled at me. Something about the smile was off...like it was fake.
"But this is great. By your silence, I can tell that you've finally realized how useless it is to spend time with me." She said, then she rubbed my thigh. "I'm no one, Itachi. It's best you drop me now before you get attached."
If you were worried about me getting attached then you shouldn't have come tonight at all...
She turned around and began walking away.
"I realize now why I was attracted to you." I spoke up.
She froze.
"It's because...we're the same."
"Oh, please." She said, putting a hand on her hip and turning to face me. "Remember what I said before? You're the district golden boy and I'm the cursed half-breed. How could we ever be the same?"
She turned back around again and began walking. I looked up at the sky.
"I know why you hate stars..." I began quietly. "Like you said, they're a constant presence that no one ever notices. Even when it's daytime, they're still there, but no one sees them. They remind you of...yourself."
She froze again, her shoulders stiffened.
"All your friends and comrades and even your father see you as a normal ninja girl. Or else, they see you as a stain on the Uchiha clan, something that is and never should have been." I went on. "I'm the same... My family loves me. And my friends and comrades love me. And my district loves me. But they don't see me. The only one that sees me for who I really am is Shisui."
She said nothing, keeping her back toward me.
"Like you said, they all see me as the golden boy. A symbol. No one sees that I'm a person. I can make mistakes. I can feel pain. I can cry. Everyone expects so much of me." I paused and my eyes locked on the symbol on her back. "Sometimes, I wonder why me? Why me out of everyone?"
"Wouldn't it just be nice to have a normal, listless life... To be allowed to relax." she whispered.
Slowly, she turned and looked at me. The moonlight bounced off the stream and bathed her body in blue.
"We're like stars... People only look at us when they want to see something to marvel at." She whispered. "And then the rest of the time they ignore us... But we're not pointless."
She slowly made her way back over to me.
"You really do understand." She said.
I finally understand now. All this time, my attraction to her was rooted in the desire to find someone like myself. My desire to find someone... Someone who could understand the pain of carrying the desires of an entire population on your shoulders.
But the more I thought about her past, the more something felt unsettling in me. I wanted to know more about her family. Was what Nanami told Miki as a child the truth? I doubted it.
"It's late." I said. "I'll walk you home."
*The Passing Days*
Days passed, life continued on and for the first time in my entire life, I didn't wake up with my entire day planned out. Things were open to change. The passing days were unpredictable.
"It's called a water fight." Shisui said. "The water users usually play it to strengthen their water control."
I blinked, saying nothing, he guessed what was on my mind immediately.
"We're doing it because it's fun, 'Tachi!" Shisui said, grinning at me.
Sasuke jumped up and down, nodding along.
"I want to try! I want to try!" he yelled.
And someone else, a third person, jumped up behind me and covered my eyes with their hands. This wasn't an unpredictable thing. In fact, this person, this presence, became the sole predictable thing in my life. Continually showing up in flamboyant ways and trying but failing to surprise me.
"Aghh! You're so boring, Itachi!" she exclaimed, still covering my eyes. "Just get scared once."
"I could sense that you were coming from the change in the wind direction." I told her.
Shisui laughed. "He's right. Aren't girls supposed to be graceful?"
She sighed and let me go.
"Whatever."
It wasn't an everyday thing, of course. We were all very aware of what her consistent presence around me would mean to others. It was too risky. Miki even said it herself on more than one occasion.
"Don't sacrifice your 'Goody Boy' status for a loose cannon like me."
But what she didn't realize is that, I was willing to sacrifice everything for her. I wasn't definitely sure why at first but the longer I spent time with her began to be clear as day.
Shisui dunked his hand into the bucket, cocked his arm back and threw a water ball at Sasuke who just barely dropped to his hands and the tips of his feet to avoid it.
"Whoa!" Shisui said, eyes popping. "That kid is super quick."
He dunked his hand again and threw another one, this time, Sasuke jumped up from the ground and grabbed a tree branch above him, snickering at Shisui from almost thirty feet above the ground.
"No way..." he said, shielding his eyes from the sun to look up.
My hand dove into my weapons pouch and grasped a kunai knife. I swept my arm to the left to shatter a water ball coming to catch me directly in the face.
"Can I ever catch you off guard?!" Miki-chan exclaimed.
I found myself sneering.
"Not with those reflexes." I told her.
She raised her eyebrows and put her hands on her hips haughtily.
"Oh? You want to play, Goody Boy?" she asked.
Her hands dunked into the basket and she formed a water ball, much slowly than Shisui but it still held its form even after it left her finger tips and sailed toward me. I dodged it with ease. At the same time, Sasuke jumped to the ground and cart-wheeled to the right to avoid Shisui's throws.
"This. Kid. Is. Un... BELIEVEABLE!" Shisui exclaimed, pausing between words to throw a water ball.
Sasuke dodged them all, laughing as he back-flipped away from him.
"Okay! I give up! It's completely impossible to catch you off guard." Miki-chan said crossing her arms.
I walked over to her.
"Would hitting me with one make you feel better?" I asked.
She looked at me, smile growing on her lips.
"You're so hopeless." She said, reaching up to stroke my cheek.
"Hey, love-birds!" Shisui called. "This game isn't over! Help me catch your freak-of-nature brother!"
I dipped my hand into the cool water, quickly formed a ball using the change in chakra nature, and threw it over my shoulder and slightly east-ward.
Thwock!
I was still facing Miki-chan and her eyes widened, jaw dropping.
"Awww! Nii-san, you got me!" I heard Sasuke call out.
"This is ridiculous. I can't surprise you once but you shock the skin off me every day."
"That's not true." I told her. "You're the most unpredictable person I know."
"And does that excite you?" she asked, grabbing my hand.
Yes.
"Not particularly." I told her.
I turned around. Sasuke shook his head roughly, trying to shake the water off him. I smiled at him.
"Are you okay?" I called.
He nodded and grinned. Shisui crossed his arms.
"I know how you did that, and it's cheating."
I cocked my head, quickly turning my Sharingan off.
"You didn't set any rules." I pointed out, smirking at him.
Suddenly, Miki-chan tugged on my arm roughly, bringing me down onto the ground. My back hit the grass giving her a chance to promptly sit on me. She held a water ball over my face.
"Now... Didn't you say something about letting me hit you with one?" she asked, smiling at me playfully.
The sun radiating off of her brown hair made it look reddish, she grinned down at me.
"Well? Ita-kun?" she asked.
"Go ahead. But that won't surprise me."
"Come on, Sasuke, let me show you something cool." I heard Shisui say.
"But what about-"
"They're busy, just come on."
Miki-chan raised her arm and threw the water ball down, I closed my eyes expecting to feel the cool rush of water on my face but nothing happened. I could feel the grass brushing against my cheek in the warm breeze and something, perhaps a grasshopper, landing on my arm. And then, very abruptly, there was a cool, damp sensation on my lips. My eyes fluttered open as she slowly pulled her lips away from mine.
"Surprised now?"
...Yes.
"Nii-san?!" a voice called.
We almost bumped heads as we hurriedly got to our feet like we'd done something wrong.
"What are you guys doing?" Sasuke asked.
Shisui stood behind him mouthing "Sorry" over and over again. I smiled at him.
"Trying to surprise each other." I told Sasuke. "She...finally won."
And even though, the rest of that day was normal with all of us practicing Taijutsu and doing speed tests all day, we both avoided each other's eyes. Miki-chan went home earlier than usual and I made a point to be busy helping Sasuke while she left. But that initial awkwardness only lasted a day at most...
"You guys are doing fire ball jutsu today?" she asked. "Why did I even bother to show up?"
Shisui grinned.
"It's not anyone's fault that you suck at things Uchiha are supposed to naturally be good at."
That was a sore spot...
She frowned and opened her mouth, probably about to summon the most foul thing she could think to say about him. I grabbed her arm.
"I can help you learn." I told her.
She smiled at me warmly.
"Aw, Ita-kun!"
"Ita-kun." Shisui mocked. "Where'd you pick that stupid nickname up from anyway?"
She stuck her tongue out at him.
"In simple terms, it's just gathering chakra in the form of air pressure in your lungs and releasing it as hard as you can." I told her. "Let me see your biggest one."
She laughed.
"My biggest one is nothing but smoke." She quickly did the hand signs, leaned back and blew out a two foot thick ball of smoke.
Shisui snickered. She sighed dramatically.
"It's almost completely hopeless." She said, shrugging.
I looked her over, realizing I couldn't quite call the problem either. I'd had my Sharingan activated. I saw her building the chakra up but somehow, between her chest and mouth, it got lost somewhere. And even if it was just smoke, the smoke should've at least been many feet wider than it was.
"Contrary to popular belief, fire-ball jutsu's aren't really a forceful thing." Shisui said, walking up with his hands in his pockets.
We both turned and looked at him.
"You're building up the perfect volume of chakra but your pressure is way off. Volume and pressure have an indirect relationship. If you compress your chakra too much, it'll raise your pressure that much more making it come out in that forced smoke that you have." He explained to her.
That's just like Shisui... Extremely intelligent, especially with concrete things like that. No matter how much he liked to joke and play around, his intelligence succeeds even mine.
"You need to relax more." He told her. "Decrease your air pressure."
She raised her eyebrows at him.
"I guess you do live up to your genius status." She said.
"Well, I'll get going. I have a mission from Danzo anyway." He said.
Miki-chan's eyes locked on him.
"Danzo?"
"Yeah." He said shrugging. "Lately, he's been asking me to do a lot of stuff."
"And not me?" I asked.
He shrugged again.
"Usually, it's nothing. Just more of those blank missions."
He sounded carefree but I knew his voice...and I knew that it was forced.
"Maybe I should-"
"Just work on keeping her relaxed." He said, winking at me.
He turned and ran off.
Shi... What are you playing at?
The sun was setting, casting a warm pink and orange glow over the forested area we stood in.
"What's the best way for you to relax?" I asked her.
She stood on the tip of her toes and peered through the trees around us.
"Let's go back to the streams for a swim."
I sighed, as she slipped her hand into mine, tugging me alone.
"I have a strong feeling this will have nothing to do with training." I said but the feeling of her small, tender hand in mine kept me willing.
*The Annual Film*
We weaved in and out of the trees and walked up the hill toward the District Plaza. Soon, we could see the stone monument Uchiha Crest on the horizon. I raised my eyebrows.
There are a lot of people here... A lot more than usual.
There was a thick crowd surrounding the monument. Miki-chan squinted ahead and frowned.
"Looks like the kids from the last film showing." She observed.
The Annual film... A show held in the Uchiha District Main Hall about how the Senju clan and the rest of Konoha, who were just Senju sympathizers, forced the Uchiha members into a corner of the village, branded them with the title as "Village Policemen" and spread rumors about how they had no control over their powers and would kill any and everybody. In my opinion, it wasn't as if anyone was forcing them to stay with their backs against the wall. They could've tried to integrate again. But after that, the entire clan became dark and bitter. Giving birth to generations of kids who saluted my father, the District Head, and completely ignored their own Hokage. The film was supposed to be only held once a year but recently, they had began showing it every week. It bothered me to think of the kind of complications a division like that could cause.
We approached the gathering and I quickly realized that they were all children or adolescents. Adults never went to go see the film, they'd gotten their fill of it since it was mandatory for all Uchiha members to watch it once they turned twelve. By the time someone was the age I was, they'd seen it enough times to recite it by memory. Most kids my age only went to mess around in the dark with their dates.
"I know that kid." Miki-chan suddenly said.
We were at the edge of the crowd looking up just like everyone else. A bald, burly boy and his two side-kicks were standing all the way on the top of the Uchiha Crest monument in the middle of the plaza.
"That's Akai and his idiot fanboys." She muttered. "What's he doing?"
"Attention!" Akai exclaimed. "Aren't you guys tired of seeing this movie every year and having to go home with your heads down and say nothing about it!?"
Everyone had their arms crossed, many people looked skeptical.
"Well, I've had it! Not this time! They stained the name of our clan! They took away our ancestry! They took away our hero! And now they're trying to take away our freedom! I won't be a part of it!"
Our hero? Right... That movie has been getting worse and worse every year.
My mind flashed back to the last time I'd seen it with Shisui. Unlike everyone else, we were actually there to gain knowledge on the past instead of just to mess around like the others. I remembered the film very vividly.
"Long ago... Our hero, Uchiha Madara stopped the Age of Warring between the Senju and Uchiha clan." The film began, showing a flickering black and white photo of his face. "Along with his long time rival and first Hokage Senju Hashirama. These two would forge what is known today as the Village Hidden in the Leaves."
The film began with a triumphant song but it then turned ominous and dark.
"But Madara could not have the dream that he wanted, the dream that we all wanted... He sensed that there was treachery afoot! Distrust on the horizon! The Senju's were being caught in their peace-lies!" the announcer exclaimed. "Madara Uchiha was the only one who had heard the truth but when he came to warn the rest of his beloved clan, he was stopped by Hashirama and Tobirama and henceforth banished!"
Everyone in the audience booed collectively. I could almost feel the pressure to do so as well. Shisui remained silent just like I did. We both knew what we believed.
"Years passed with our Hero kept apart from us. Some of us forgot the deeds that he had done for us. Others were forced to be silent. We were trapped in the treaty we had signed. Forced to fraternize with these devils. Madara Uchiha continued to try to come back, to tell us of their evil plots, to set us free! The final time he tried, Hashirama Senju intercepted him and murdered him at the valley of the end!"
The audience was in uproar. People threw things at the screen, stomped their feet, hollered.
"And since that day, we Uchiha have been known as the Cursed Clan. This is how our story began..."
I frowned; the crowd was beginning to get excited, nodding in agreement with Akai. I noticed most of the teenagers we were standing around wore their headbands inside out or backwards. Everyone there was most likely a subtle or active Anti-Konoha supporter. Back when my parents were growing up, people would be shunned, taunted or even put in jail for attending such an obvious promotion of segregation. But recently...
"This village is ours too!" someone yelled.
"Let's take it back!"
"Yeah! Yeah!"
People began pumping their fists. I turned to Miki.
"Let's go." I said. "Mob mentality will take over soon."
"Wait..." she said, leaning forward to see him over the crowd.
"Let's paint the town black tonight!" Akai yelled. "Let's do it for Madara! Let's do it for the countless other Uchiha driven to death or insane over this wretched war! Both most importantly, let's do it for our freedom!"
"YEAH!" the crowd shouted.
Miki was nodding vigorously. I noticed that she was still wearing her Konoha headband hanging out of the pocket of her gray shorts.
"Miki, this isn't-"
"Isn't that Shisui-san?" she asked, interrupting me.
I looked up.
"Everyone calm down!" I heard him shout.
He jumped up on the crest next to Akai.
"Don't let your anger fuel a needless riot!" he shouted. "Use your head!"
"It's Senju-lovers like you who've ruined this clan!" he retorted.
The crowd roared in agreement.
It's already too late Shi... No one is thinking anymore, they're just...mindless.
I observed the crowd turning quickly into an angry mob. They all wore their Konoha headbands in that disrespectful manner; backwards, inside-out or like Miki-chan, half sticking out of a pocket. But now they were completely stripping them from their heads.
"To HELL with Konoha!" someone shouted.
"Konoha can burn straight to hell!" yelled a girl near us.
And suddenly a battle cry, a chant arose from that.
"Burn it down! Burn it down! Burn it down!" they shouted.
Akai hopped off the top of the building leading the riot. Everyone rushed past us. I planted my feet and held my hand out to Miki-chan who took it unquestioningly.
"Stay close to me." I ordered.
"But Itachi..."
Her words were lost in the roar of the crowd. Everyone pulled against us, making our grip weaker. For a second, her fingers slipped out of mine. I turned, reaching again and grabbing at nothing.
"Miki?"
I felt her hands slide around my waist.
"I'm here." She said.
"Hold on."
I jumped up high over the crowd with her hanging on to my shoulders. My feet hit the dirt at the butt of the crowd where a few stragglers rushed after the procession. Someone else's feet hit the ground next to us. I looked down into his black curly hair as he straightened up.
"They're just running to their deaths." Shisui stated. "They'll be the ones burned instead, lined up in front of an Anbu kunai firing squad for the highest crime in Konoha."
...Treason.
They weren't far yet. Their voices were still loud.
"We can stop them." I said, looking to Shisui and then to Miki-chan who was looking after the rioters. "All three of us, we can-"
Shisui looked to me and smiled.
"Don't worry about it Itachi, just go ahead home with Miki-chan, okay?" he said. "I'll take care of everything."
You're just trying to calm me down again...
He turned around, ready to dart after the rioting crowd.
"Shi!" I called.
He turned and looked at me.
"Didn't you say you were going on a mission?" I asked.
"I already went." He said. "It was just child's play. Nothing to worry about. But Danzo did mention he wanted to speak with me privately later."
Danzo again?
Miki-chan looked up.
"Don't you think stopping a riot and going on another mission is a bit too much work?" she asked.
I nodded.
"How about I go on your mission and you take care of the mob?" I said. "That way-"
"No, 'Tachi." He responded quickly, cutting me off. "He asked for me. I'm perfectly capable."
We stared at each other.
There's something...
His expression was blank but slowly that same smile came back.
Something he's not telling me...
Miki-chan grabbed my arm and tugged me.
"Ita-kun..."
"I'll meet you later tonight, by the streams." He reassured me. "Just take her home... Ita-kun."
His eyes sparkled playfully in the sunset as he mocked the nickname. And with that, he turned and ran off. The sounds of the yelling adolescents were gone, washed away in the chilly breeze of the night. Miki-chan shivered. I held my hand out to her.
"Let's go."
She shook her head roughly.
"I'm going to go too." She said, looking after him. "Shisui's being an idiot. He knows he can't stop that riot and go on a mission alone, he just doesn't want you to be persecuted."
She turned back to me.
"You're the Head's son." She said. "You have a lot more on the line than we do."
I grabbed her arm.
"I can't let you go alone."
She laughed.
"I'm a big girl. I can take care of myself." She said, but I wouldn't let her go.
Shi told me to take her home... But even more than that, I know she only wants to go to join the riot. I can't allow her to do that.
"No." I said, my Sharingan activated and my voice held a deep tone I usually didn't use.
She sighed, slowly bringing her hand up to stroke my cheek.
"I never thought I'd see you being forceful." She said.
I slipped my hand into hers carefully pulling her in the other direction, toward my house, toward the streams, toward safety. She leaned on me.
"You know you're the only one I'd submit to like this, right?" she asked.
I looked up, my father and a couple other clansmen were walking up the hill, quickly approaching the entrance to the village.
"Otou-san." I said.
He nodded at me, eyes traveling to Miki-chan.
"Hello, Fukgaku-san." She said in a light-hearted voice.
He smiled to her.
"Good Afternoon." He said but the moment he looked at me his smile vanished.
Right... I'm disobeying orders...
"There's a riot outside of the village." Miki suddenly spoke up. "After the film, everyone got upset. They said they were going to burn down Konoha."
"What?!" one of the men said.
"It's far too soon." Said the one closest to my father.
My father shook his head.
"These kids are going to ruin everything with their impulsiveness..." he muttered.
He looked at us again, eyes layering over us quickly and then he snapped his fingers.
"Alert the others, go get them." He said.
His advisors ran off as he approached us. I tensed. My father wasn't a fool but he wasn't afraid at all of speaking his mind. He was someone who never told lies or put up a front. He slowly looked to Miki.
"Thank you for telling me this and for not participating." He said.
She smiled.
"Well, I wanted to go. In my opinion, any chance to give this clan the honor and respect it deserves should be pounced upon. But, Ita-kun told me to wait and... I trust his judgment."
He cocked his head, eyes flitting over to me. We stared at each other. I already knew what he was thinking.
Any girl that listens to her man and takes his decision as her own is...
"She's smart." My father said to me.
"She has to be." I replied.
...very useful.
"Well, take your girlfriend home, Itachi." He told me, relaxing and looking toward the district entrance. "I'll try to calm everything down."
And with that, he turned and walked away.
"That was surprising." She said as we walked back. "I thought your father would be like everyone else. Too scared to let their daughter date a mutt."
"He was like that." I said truthfully. "But he respects you"
"Really? How did I do that?"
We weaved around a couple of trees and I pulled a large branch up for her to duck underneath.
"You were eager to help your comrades but you were also attentive to the orders of a superior." I told her. "That shows not only the skills of a great ninja but also the skills of a great woman."
We entered the area, the same streams we spoke at on our first "date".
"Superior?" she asked me as she planted herself on the boulder in the middle of the water. "Since when do I answer to you?"
I slid my hands into my pockets and stood in front of her.
"I know more about the plans we have for the district." I said. "One who knows more than you is superior to you. Those plans are the main reason why my father is opting to stop the riot. It will be bad to have Konoha officials looking at us before we're ready..."
"I'd heard rumors. So, it's true then? Fugaku-san is planning a coup d'état?!" she asked.
I nodded. She clapped her hands together, grinning.
"So we're really doing it?" she asked. "Saving everyone?"
If this is what you call saving... It feels more like slaughter.
We were quiet for a while. I leaned against the boulder next to her. Miki tossed a branch into the water and both of our eyes settled on it, watching it sink.
"But at the same time, it's scary, you know? It's almost like it's going to start a chain of hatred. When we win, we'll do the same thing that they did to us. And then..." she trailed off.
I watched her face backwashed in the blue of the night.
She really is smart.
She looked up at me, realizing I was staring and started laughing.
"But they deserve it so it doesn't matter." She said quickly.
But she's scared.
"We're destined to fight a lifelong war with them. They'll exterminate us if they get the chance. They'll erase us off the face of this planet. That's what they want. But we can't let them..."
"Miki..."
She turned to me.
"We have to do this Itachi. If we don't fight, we can't live."
Her eyes were steady, serious. She's already reassured herself. Set herself in her own plane of thinking.
You're wrong... War isn't necessary for life. War isn't necessary at all. You're just scared to show everyone what you're thinking, even yourself because you don't want to be isolated from us. But it's not wrong. I'm thinking the same thing.
"You're supposed to be relaxing, remember?" I said.
She smiled.
"Right, we were supposed to be going for a swim before all this happened!" she said.
She pulled her shoes off.
"Come on, lets take a dip."
I glanced up at a bat swooping down overhead. The sun was setting. I could hear the faint yelling sounds from the riot. Serious things were happening and we were just...
"Hurry up!" she said, running downstream.
The stream let out into a small lake. Shisui and I would often stand on the water and throw shuriken back and forth to each other and catch them through the holes with our forefingers while utilizing enough chakra control to not fall beneath the surface. It took incredible concentration.
"The water's warm." She said diving into it.
The water she splashed up littered onto my shirt. She came back to the surface and grabbed my ankle.
"Hey, you're the one who wanted me to relax, right?" she asked, grinning up at me.
I couldn't help but smile.
"You seem pretty relaxed already." I told her. "Why don't you try it?"
She put her foot up on the surface of the water and stood next to me. She quickly did the hand signs, expanded her chest and blew as hard as she could. It was still nothing but smoke. I watched the water dripping from the brown locks over her eyes. Slowly, my gaze drifted south. She had taken her shirt off and hung it on a tree leaving nothing but a black wrap she wore around her chest. Suddenly, she poked my forehead.
"Find something interesting?" she asked.
I quickly averted my eyes, cheeks flushing.
"Keep swimming." I said. "Maybe you just need a bit more time."
"By myself?" she asked. "No way! I'm not going to let you watch my half naked body all soaking wet with nothing in return."
"It's nothing like that." I replied, still keeping my eyes off her.
She grabbed the bottom of my shirt and lifted it up.
"What are you-"
"You're swimming with me!" she said, eyes flashing playfully.
I sighed, finally allowing her to pull my shirt over my head and toss it onto the shore. She turned and dove back into the water.
"I bet you can't catch me."
I kicked my shoes off and dove in after her, kicking my feet hard to get to her. She was quick through the water, just as I was about to grab her, she darted away like a fish. I saw her grinning through the water, sticking her tongue out and crossing her eyes.
She's so...
I reached and succeeded in grabbing her.
Light-hearted.
She pulled away from me and surfaced. I broke through the water also and we both summoned chakra to our feet and stood on the surface again.
"Do you think you can do it now?" I asked.
She gave me a wry smile.
"Maybe with a back massage." She prompted.
I smiled softly.
"I'm beginning to think you have some ulterior motives."
She made a face at me again and giggled. I put my hands on her shoulders.
"I'll do it, if that's what you want." I told her.
I carefully nudged the tips of my fingers into the soft skin of her shoulders. She leaned back against me. It was quiet for a while, nothing moved except the water droplets falling off our hair and clothes onto the surface of the lake below.
"Ita-kun?" she said.
"Hmmm?"
"Do you think of me as your girlfriend?"
I found myself laughing and then I tried to stifle it, thinking I would hurt her feelings. She leaned back and looked up at me.
"That was unpredictable." She said, then she grinned. "Is that a no?"
"No, of course not. It was just unpredictable of you to ask that, that's why I laughed." I told her. "I never thought you cared about labels like that."
"Well, every girl wants to know for sure." She said. "And you do have a lot of fan-girls."
I smiled.
That's silly. You're the only one I could ever even imagine something intimate with.
"You're the only fan-girl I like." I told her.
She elbowed me.
"I'm not a fan-girl!"
I laughed again.
"Forgive me. I didn't realize."
She sighed.
"I'd be really mad at you if your laugh wasn't so cute." She said. "This is the first time I've heard you laugh..."
I paused.
"Would you like me to laugh more often?"
Suddenly, she laughed.
"No. It'd be weird and out of place." She said. "Shisui-san laughs enough for the both of you."
That's true, that's why we work so well as a unit.
We were quiet again as I continued massaging her. I quickly became incredibly aware of my chest pressing against her back.
"Would you want to be my girlfriend?" I asked quietly.
She didn't move so I couldn't see her facial expression.
"Of course not." She said. "You're way too easy."
I could hear the smile in her voice. She turned her head and looked up at me, lifting her hand simultaneously to the back of my neck. I gazed down at her.
"Easy?" I asked.
"Yeah, I have you wrapped around my finger." She said bending her pinky finger on me.
"How?" I asked.
"Like this..."
She pulled my neck down bringing my face down over her right shoulder and inches from her lips. The moment I felt her soft, full lips press against mine, I shuddered. My hands slipped from her shoulders and wrapped around her waist, holding her against me. I could hear the crickets chirping around us. Her tongue slipped through her lips and mine. Every thought or memory I'd ever had was suddenly unattainable as my mind zeroed in on the taste of her tongue. A cool rush of water shocked my skin, running into my shoes. Her soft finger tips brushed against my cheeks and ears, exciting me even more.
"Mmmm. Ita-kun?" she said pulling away.
I blinked, not even realizing I had closed my eyes.
"You're sinking!" she exclaimed.
I looked down at my feet which were more than ankle deep in the lake, reminding me of that rush of water I'd felt earlier.
Losing chakra control because of a kiss?
I felt my warmth pool in my cheeks again. I pulled my legs up out of the water reestablished the chakra under my feet. I expected her to mock me but she laughed.
"You're so cute." She whispered.
She picked her head up off my chest. Without even asking, I knew she wanted to try. I placed my hands over hers and we did the hand signs together. Her chest expanded as she sucked in air and she exhaled.
A flame ball almost as large as my biggest one expelled from her lips. My eyes widened as the wind blew our hair back and extinguished atop the water. She breathed heavily, clearly, almost out of chakra. I hugged her to my chest.
"That was amazing." I told her.
She laughed.
"It's all because you got me so relaxed." she joked.
She turned around and pressed her face into my chest.
She's warm.
"Okay, I'll admit it... I do want to be your girlfriend." She whispered. "When I'm around you, I don't feel like a star anymore."
I lowered my hand to her waistline and grasped the piece of cloth hanging from her pocket. She looked at me questioningly as I raised it to her forehead and tied it firmly around her head.
"You belong to Konoha." I told her. "So wear this proudly."
I could see my own face reflecting from the metal. She smiled and poked my headband.
"No... I belong to you." She told me.