Hello :) This is a story of two Uchiha cousins, Obito and Itachi. I first planned to center the story around Obito and Kakashi, but Itachi won't let me! Arrggggg!

Anyway, here it goes.

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Cousin-Sitting

Itachi was not sure since when he grew to expect and long for his distant older cousin Obito's visit. But from what he overheard from his mother's chattering to another relative one afternoon, Obito first came to babysit him when he was only about a year old. The loudmouth, very un-Uchiha boy was barely ten at the time. As he was an orphan and thus was raised by the clan as a whole – which meant he was often neglected and uncared for due to diffused responsibility – Mikoto thought it was a duty as the clan-head's wife to look after him. Thus she asked him to babysit her firstborn son with a promise of small sum of pocket money when she spotted him rambling aimlessly around the complex. It wasn't a babysitting per se, as Mikoto didn't leave the house but merely went about tending to the house chores while Obito kept an eye on his charge in the baby room.

Obito was thrilled to be given such an important job as watching over the clan-head's son. Sure, it was like other babysitting jobs he had done on D-rank missions over his first year as a Genin, but still. He was sure nobody, not even the stuck-up Kakashi, was entrusted with a clan's heir, especially a clan as famous and powerful as Uchiha. Besides, he loved babysitting. Not that he would tell that to anyone.

"Tousan!"

Obito's attention snapped back at the baby's shrieking voice.

"No no, it's Obito nii-san. Can you say nii-san Itachi? Can you say nii-san?" Obito hold out his finger for the younger Uchiha to grab.

"Kaasan!" Perhaps having sensed that he had made a mistake, Itachi tried another word of his limited vocabulary.

"No, now you even got the gender wrong. Say, nii-san. Nii, and san. Nii-san."

"Nii?"

"That's right!" Obito laughed, tickling the baby's belly.

Although he would not remember later on, at that moment Itachi, in his young baby mind, decided that he liked that laugh and that wide grin, which were so different from the stoic, emotionless expressions he usually got from the grownups around him. He liked his nii-san.

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It didn't take long for Mikoto to realize that Itachi took a great liking of that particular cousin. He rarely cried or fussed – not that he did either of the two frequently, he was much too quiet and reserved for his age – when Obito was around, and would always smile when he spotted the vibrant boy come into his view. Thus Mikoto frequently asked Obito to come over, and soon trusted him enough to actually leave her son to his care when she needed to go out.

Although Fugaku wasn't particularly thrilled about his son spending time with the boy who had been practically marked as a failure and even a disgrace to the Uchiha name, Mikoto persuaded him that there was no harm done. Besides, Itachi seemed to have problem socializing with other kids of his age. Why deprive him of his only source of non-adult companionship?

Obito, who was a little lonely without anyone to call his family, grew fond of Itachi pretty quickly as well. Thus throughout Itachi's short life, the scene of his cousin barging into the house at random time with random excuses became an expected surprise.

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Itachi perked up at the loud noise of somebody opening and darting through the gate of the house. He heard his mother replying to hurried greetings. Any moment now….

"Oi, Chibi-Tachi!"

Itachi stood up from where he had been drawing on a sketchbook and dashed out to the front porch. As expected, he was greeted by his favorite cousin with his trademark ear-to-ear grin.

"Nii-san!" Itachi ran and hug Obito's legs. With Obito promoted to Chuunin, he now had less and less time to hang out with his younger cousin. Mikoto smiled warmly at her son's rare display of emotion. Obito goodheartedly laughed and ruffled the jet black hair.

"Hey kiddo. It's been a while, huh?"

"Uh-huh. What are we gonna do today? Tell me stories!"

"Roger that! But first say bye-bye to Mommy."

"Bye-bye, Mommy." Itachi looked up and waved his small hand.

"Bye-bye, Itachi. I'll be home before dinner. Thank you so much for doing this, dear."

"No problem, Ma'am. You know Itachi and I are like brothers!"

Mikoto laughed, waved her hand at both boys and left. If it hadn't been the adamant refusal from Fugaku, Mikoto would have adopted Obito as her son long ago. She loved the kindhearted, goofy and sometimes reckless boy. Too bad he wasn't up to Fugaku's standard. But really, could anyone live up to his standard? She could not even begin to imagine what kind of expectations and demands he would impose on their son when he grew older.

Miokto quickly shook her head, as if to chase away her worries. Today was a rare hang-out day with her friends. Her rather dominating husband was away, her son was in good hands, and her friends were waiting for her. She would not let her worries ruin her day.

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"…and then that bandit bastard was like Wham! And I threw a kunai just in time to set off the trap, and he was caught like a fish in a net! Ooooh, you shoulda seen his face! It was priceless!"

Itachi giggled at his cousin's epic-sounding tale. Obito was acting out the story of his latest mission outside Konoha.

"I want to be a ninja when I grow big!" Itachi declared.

"Huh, so you're gonna follow your nii-san's steps?"

"Uh-huh. Teach me ninja stuff!"

"All right! I'll make you the best ninja Konoha has ever seen! Okay, let's go out to the yard. I'll show you how to aim and throw."

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Obito made a small pile of cobbles and picked up one. Itachi seemed a little bit put out at that he wouldn't be throwing real kunai or shuriken, but Obito was not going to let his baby cousin touch anything sharp.

"Okay, let's see how well you can hit that tree over there. First, watch."

Obito threw the stone in a deliberately slow motion. The stone hit the center of the tree, leaving a small mark. Itachi watched intently, seemingly trying to record every movement in his young mind.

"Now, look straight at the tree and throw."

Itachi picked up a stone, held it tightly, and then threw with all his strength. The stone flew past the tree. Itachi's shoulders sagged in disappointment, but Obito laughed and ruffled his hair affectionately.

"Wow, you're good! I bet I couldn't throw half as close to the target when I first tried this. Here, try again." Obito handed Itachi another cobble. And so they practiced until the small pile was disappeared and Itachi finally succeeded in hitting the tree.

"Yosh! I told you you'd make it!" Obito jumped up and threw his fist in the air, rejoicing in his baby cousin's success. Itachi blushed at the compliment. "We should celebrate this. Where do you want to go? Do you wanna eat something? Oh how about dango? There's a new dango shop in the marketplace and I heard it's really good!"

"What's dango?"

"Wha-what? You've never had dango before?" Obito asked, befuddled at the innocent question. When Itachi nodded his head, wondering if he had said something wrong, Obito grabbed Itachi's hand and headed toward the gate. "That's it, we're having dango today. Nobody should go without knowing the awesomeness of dango!"

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A while later, Itachi found himself walking down the street, holding a stick of three colorful dango's. Obito was munching on his and urged him to try. Itachi looked at the gooey-looking balls skeptically and took a tentative bite at the topmost dango. Then, another. And another. Obito laughed at how his cousin devoured the entire dango in a matter of a minute, his mouth full of the sticky goodness. Frankly speaking, he looked adorable.

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"Obito!"

When the Uchiha boys looked up, they saw a girl with soft brown hair and purple markings on her face running towards them. Instantly Obito stiffened and squirmed. Itachi looked up at him questioningly.

"Hey, Rin."

"Hey. Who's this?" Rin asked, squatting down to get to Itachi's eye level. "I didn't know you had a younger brother."

"He's my cousin, Itachi. But he's technically my brother, right Itachi?"

Itachi made a small nod and hurriedly hid behind Obito's leg.

"Aww, don't be shy Chibi-Tachi! Rin's my teammate. She's not gonna hurt you."

But Itachi did not come out of his hiding spot, and pulled on Obito's pants leg in a silent plea to go home. He did not like meeting new people, even if he was a little curious about his favorite cousin's teammate.

"It's all right Obito. See you tomorrow?"

"Oh right… Mission."

"Please don't tell me you forgot about it again. Anyway, bye-bye Itachi-kun. Hope we'd meet again! Obito, don't be late! I heard the client's really cranky."

"Yeah, yeah."

With that, Rin turned around and went down the street. After he was sure the kunoichi was far gone, Itachi let go of Obito's pants leg and took his hand instead. Obito mock-sighed.

"Chibi-Tachi, what am I gonna do with you?"

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R&R please! :)