Dread-filled sanguine eyes so deceptively appeared emotionless to those who did not know how to look. Childish features seemed mature when coated with an enemy's blood, yet within that ghastly skin lay something pure, something that, in spite of all hardships, could not be tainted. His innocence was not a sight that just anyone could see. Months would pass before Kisame would come to realize that despite the emotionless front that this ethereal creature wielded, the simplest of tasks could reveal the child that Itachi guarded so protectively within the confines of his psyche.
It was in the careful folding of clean laundry, draped over a stained mattress from a disgustingly vermin-filled inn, so aptly fussed over by a teenager with hands that moved as if guided by an older parental figure. He would check it once, pause to listen to the whispers of his memories, then smooth out the corners once more before settling them in his bag, right next to those deadly poisons he kept on hand.
It was in the wary glance he could just barely be caught giving the street before he crossed it, fingers curling around the invisible hand of someone far shorter, far more worth protecting, far more out of place in his new life where he walked the skinny path worn by the feet of murderous traitors. Look both ways before crossing, Sasuke, said the digits that curved around air in an instinctive manner.
So subconscious were his quirks that he himself was ignorant of them; were they to be pointed out, he would immediately deny them and do his utmost to erase such signs from the figure he carved to display to the world. It was in knowing such a thing that Kisame kept completely silent, letting not a single breath be indicative of the fact that he knew of Itachi's most closely guarded secret, more dear to his heart, more absolutely treasured than his partner could ever know.
Perhaps it was no more than wishful thinking on his part, but Kisame couldn't help but hope that if someone like Itachi still had such a pure entity within him that he, too, could have some shred of that very same innocence somewhere within his monstrous being.