The air itself was shivering from the cold as the last shreds of summer were disappearing over the horizon. The distant hint of warmth and the promise of sun whispered by luscious voice was instead drowned out by the shrieking frost and the wailing of coldness pouring in from all directions, shrouding the world in sparkling haze. Biting cold was creeping under layers of coats, crawling under the nails, stinging on the exposed flesh and clutching the tips of fingers in its freezing grip.
Yet all of the frost gnawing at the surrounding area was nothing compared to the chill emanating from Uchiha Sasuke. It floated around him together with his usual aura of darkness, which caused other students to give him a wide berth in the school corridor in futile attempt to not freeze any more than necessary in this miserable weather.
That day, not even Sakura dared to come closer than two steps away, just observing him from afar while occasionally breathing into her palms, trying to warm them up. Ino, whom she met this morning in the school campus and whom joined her in high spirits, now looked at Sasuke with narrowed eyes.
"He´s in such a bad mood today that it´s giving me the chills," she remarked. Sakura just nodded in silence. The chairs around Sasuke´s usual place, where one could usually find two to three girls fighting for the privilege to sit next to the black-eyed boy, were now empty.
The aforementioned young man didn´t appear to realize this fact. He was sitting motionless like a marble statue, his eyes fixed ahead of himself in places where the teacher usually stood. The pedagogue was now nervously pacing from one side of the class to other during his lecture, carefully avoiding the area where the Uchiha´s glare was focused, perhaps because of the fear of turning into an ice sculpture.
The reason for Sasuke´s disgruntlement was simple. It´s name was Itachi.
Just why did he need to have an older brother who took delight in playing pranks on him? This morning became hell for the young Uchiha in the exact moment, when he sit down to eat breakfast and poured salt (which miraculously appeared in the sugar bowl) into his favorite black tea. By his fault! And because he would never admit to his older brother that he sweetens his tea, he was forced to gulp down the entire cup as if everything was normal and endure Itachi´s sneaky smile on top of that.
This happens every time when I´m in a good mood, Sasuke cursed that morning and begun to spread white distemper on his toast. If it wasn´t for Itachi´s cat-like reflexes, his beloved brother would have to wash the paint out of his hair. This way it only ended up with Sasuke having to scrub the wall clean under strict surveillance of his mother and a stream of curses from his father about throwing bread around the kitchen.
ITACHI! He will suffer...
"Hey, Sasuke!" terrified faces turned around, just who has the audacity to address the Uchiha when he is in such a mood. They didn´t even have to bother. Naruto´s brilliant smile and sunny aura were inexorably moving towards the unmoving black-haired student.
Just two more steps and he will overstep the imaginary line, went through Sakura´s head, but before she could finish the thought, Naruto was already past the border.
"How´s Itachi?" someone obviously lacked their self-preservation instinct. Which couldn´t be said about the rest of the students, the blonde abruptly realized when he discovered he is suddenly alone in the room with the Uchiha and that it is getting alarmingly cold.
Before anything could happen, the headmastress flung the door open, took a deep breath, and at the top of her lungs begun...
"...!"
...and again closed the door silently behind her before either of the boys could register her and turned to Sakura, who just came to report about a problem in the history room, with a murderous glare. Suddenly becoming aware of how thin were the doors separating her from the furious Ichiha,
Tsunade just suddenly hissed something under her breath, grabbed Sakura by the wrist and cleared off before Uzumaki flew out through the very same door few seconds later, still not comprehending where did he go wrong.
The madness revolving around the Uchiha (although sufficient distance away from him) only ended when Itachi, with a smile on his face, came to pick up his little brother from school. Black sports car skidded to a halt and from the swirling cloud of dust came out the heir of the Uchiha clan.
Epic music was playing on the background (the fact that the Uchiha only forgot to switch off the radio did nothing to the allure of the moment). The black shirt, shining eyes, his hair done tied in his signature ponytail and the expression of his face took everyone´s breath away. Sasuke included.
Although Sasuke rather had his breath taken away when Itachi good-naturedly ruffled his hair and then patted his back (leaving a little note plastered there, saying ´I love cute kittens´) and then, with nonchalant elegance, asked him how he was today. Everyone held their breath with anticipation of something horrendous. Excited whispers followed, because nothing happened.
"Did he really touch him?!"
"He didn´t kill him."
"What happened?"
"How did that-?"
"Who´s that?"
"That´s Uchiha Ita-"
"Don´t say it! You saw what happened to Uzumaki."
"Does Sasuke really like kitttens?
"Maybe he would go on a date with me, if I buy him a cat!"
"Hey, that´s my idea!"
"He´s really handsome, this Itach-"
"Sakura!"
"I know, but he really is."
With this last sentence, that wasn´t whispered at all, two two brothers finally got into the car and took off in a cloud of smoke, to Sasuke´s delight and to the great disappointment of the rest of the school. The silent purr of the engine was drowned out in the screams of the arguing Ino and Sakura.
"What a beautiful piece of ass."
"No, Sasuke has perfect ass."
"This one was beyond the bounds of perfection."
"Well, this your boy looks like a little kid when compared to Itachi," remarked Tenten. The two girls looked around whether the forbidden word was out of their classmate´s range of hearing just to be sure, before nodding in agreement.
°º°º°º°º°º°º°º°º
Meanwhile, a somewhat tense atmosphere reigned in the car. The younger Uchiha tried his best, but with Itachi next to him beaming with happiness, he couldn´t reach further than ´somewhat tense´.
"Aren´t you happy I came to pick you up from school, little brother?"
The answer he received was something between a hiss and a growl. Sasuke was occupied with trying to get the glitter out of his ebony hair. The only result he accomplished was the glitter getting stuck to his shirt too.
"Itachi. If you. Immediately. Don´t stop. With the pranks. Then..." Sasuke hesitated for a while, whether the situation was critical enough for him to use THAT threat. He wasn´t the kind of person to use empty threats, and if he was by any chance forced to use his threat (which was, let´s say, something that could be used only once), he would use up his only leverage he got against Itachi.
His bemused brother and Sasuke without a chance to stop him. He felt faint just thinking about it.
"Am I not an amazing brother, just tell me, how many of your classmates have such selfless relatives they would drive them the entire way from school to home in this weather, hmm? I bet at least half of those people don´t have older siblings, poor guys..." Itachi was in a good humor and didn´t pay the slightest bit of attention to Sasuke´s complaints.
Sasuke cursed. The glitter was pink. That settled it.
"If you don´t stop immediately, I will tell father about Kisame."
The desired effect came right after, Itachi stiffened in the middle of his sentence and the mood in the car dropped a few degrees (together with the actual temperature, because in Sasuke´s case, these two quantities were directly related and without Itachi´s sunny amiability, there was nothing that would prevent the global cooling now).
"You wouldn´t do that," Itachi said with the tone of a person who is awfully sure he would.
Sasuke didn´t bother replying, just made sure he got out of the car slowly enough to give his brother adequate amount of time to wipe the toothpaste out of the handle, run ahead on the stairs and disappear in the house before Sasuke even entered through the front gate.
With malicious smirk, Sasuke registered some racket coming from the hallway, sounding all too similar to a falling bucket filled with water. Sasuke pondered whether the object in question wasn´t ingeniously arranged above the door leading to his room just a few minutes before.
Finally, (with considerable amount of satisfaction), he arrived to the conclusion that his beloved brother wouldn´t do anything like that.
If he mentioned something similar during the dinner (oh, how Sasuke loved the divine peace granted to him during his meal...), he was rewarded by eagerly nodding Itachi, who suddenly paled as if he remembered something, hastily excused himself and went to the bathroom. Some ringing of shampoo bottles later, the older Uchiha returned to the confused members of the family.
If Sasuke suspected his brother (which, of course, didn´t even cross his mind), he would perhaps look for a link between Itachi´s strange behavior and the empty hair dye bottle he found in the trash bin earlier today.
But because Sasuke´s mind was pure as snow and free from any hint of doubt that his brother would do something like that (he took care in giving Itachi a confused glance), he grabbed his chopsticks (which someone with less trusting than Sasuke could see traces of fast-drying glue wiped from it at the last moment) and continued eating his meal.
°º°º°º°º°º°º°º°º
Ino, who was absorbed in a passionate debate with Karin, suddenly choked.
"You can´t say his older brother is like a god when Sasuke IS God, and, at the same time say that Sasuke doesn´t even reach his ankles!" Karin continued in an attempt to breath some semblance of logic into her arguments, before she noticed that the fair-haired girl isn´t paying attention to her anymore.
She looked around what caught the attentiveness of the higher girl and was left speechless in the middle of a word. She gawked at Uchiha Sasuke, the ice prince, who radiated joy, and occasionally blinked to make sure she isn´t dreaming.
A wave of silence was slowly spreading from the black-haired youth, soon followed by another, slightly bigger wave of whispers. If the Uchiha caused a commotion when he was in a foul mood, Sasuke in high spirits was a rare phenomenon and whispered words spread through the campus like a wildfire, leaving behind the thought just what brightened his mood.
Everyone who sometimes me the black-haired genius knew that it definitely wasn´t something pretty. Hopefully the world won´t end today.
"Have you seen him?"
"Is he really in a good mood?"
"Impossible, probably someone just drugged him."
"He greeted Uzumaki just like that!"
And really, the blonde student graced by whole three words from his usually taciturn best friend, was now accompanying him to their next lesson together.
"...and then I tried to kiss Sakura-chan, but you know how she is, but I have this black eye since our last encounter already so it´s not really worse..."
"Hn."
"You know how you threw me through the door yesterday, yeah well Tsunade came to me after telling me to clean up the mess, old hag, and I told her it´s not my fault, that she should go to you, yeah and we argued a bit any maybe I threw an inkpot at her and then got detention..."
"Hn."
"And they opened a new ramen stand across the street from Karin, it´s better than Aoi´s but worse than Trea´s even though they give bigger portions..."
"Hn."
Naruto continued his monologue, oblivious to Sasuke´s shift in mood, but he was still kind of surprised they still haven´t begun fighting today. Sasuke even greeted him, out of his own initiative! Perhaps even he can eventually become a sociable person, one never knows...
They entered the class. The stares that the Uchiha seemed to attract the whole morning didn´t spare him even here. Such an unparalleled occurance as Sasuke with almost good mood was nearly overshadowed by the fact, that the two were talking together for almost fifteen minutes straight now and they haven´t begun fighting yet.
Sasuke took a seat at his desk, satisfied smirk on his face and wasn´t unsettled even by the two girls trying to nuzzle up to him from both sides. Nothing could ruin his mood today, not even this kitten with a pink bow around its neck lying on his desk...
Wait.
There was a kitten on his desk. Out of all the animals, the black-haired boy hated cats the most. And one was on his table. With a little note saying: ´For Sasuke´. A single name suddenly flared up inside his mind with unpleasant pungency.
"ITACH-!" his scream was drowned out in in violent sneezing as his allergic reaction kicked in.
°º°º°º°º°º°º°º°º
Five minutes later, the school idol was sitting in the infirmary with bloodshot and puffy eyes, his glare burning through the closest living being, who happened to be the school nurse Shizune. She fidgeted under his stare uncomfortably and with muttered "here you are, it will be over soon" handed him a glass of water and two white pills, evidently trying to get the Uchiha out of the room before something ugly happened, like a murder. Shizune likes her life.
But the black-haired student showed no sign of wanting to leave the infirmary. Instead, now he was glacially calm again. He took out his mobile phone out of his pocket and dialed his father´s number, comfortably settling himself on the infirmary bed.
"Father, it´s about Itachi."
Short silence, during which Sasuke listened to the reply of the called person gave away the fact that his father wasn´t any more talkative than his youngest son. If Shizune wasn´t desperatelly attending to some pressing matter at her work table, which included nervously shuffling things, plethora of unnecessary hand movements but most importantly pretending that her being in the room must´ve been some mistake, surely she would bet that the renowned "Hn" could be heard from the other side of the link. She would win.
"He´s gay. He has a boyfriend. His name is Kisame."
Sasuke pressed the red button and a mischievous smirk spread across his face. If you´d ask Shizune, she´d tell you that it was downright terrifying. Perhaps that was the reason behind the written excuse from the rest of today´s classes which she handed him as she closed the door behind him. She counted to three and breathed out in relief.
°º°º°º°º°º°º°º°º
"Mikoto, does the name Kisame remind you of someone?"
"I don´t think so dear, why are you asking?" His wife lifted her head from her cooking.
"It appears that our oldest son got involved with a person of that name."
"Oh no, Itachi got into debt? That doesn´t sounds like him at all," her voice was filled with emotion which gave the notion that whatever her little angel got himself into, Fugaku should pay the sum.
"What I meant to say is that he has a friend."
"Ah, that´s good, I knew that Itachi wouldn´t do something like that," she returned to stirring the soup.
"You don´t mind that the heir of our clan is hanging out with some layabout?" the irritation in Fugaku´s voice was clearly noticeable.
"What matters is that he is happy," Mikoto smiled, "the young ones should love."
Fugaku was momentarily distracted by the memories of his own youth. The idea that Itachi, his first born, would do something like that during the nights wiped the smile off his face. "I just hope he will grow out of it."
Mikoto appeared satisfied with the consistence of her culinary creation and put the pan off the stove. "Hmmm, Kisame... I´ve heard that somewhere..."
"He should be responsible, after all, he should set a good example to Sasuke," the dark-haired man frowned again. "Isn´t by any chance the Hoshikage heir´s name Kisame?"
Fugaku´s face lit up immediately. "Oh but of course, how could I forget. Then there isn´t a slightest problem. Hoshikage Kisame," he repeated delightedly and begun counting the approximate rough income of the Hoshikage company, one of the biggest businesses in food industry in Japan. Content smile spread across his face.
°º°º°º°º°º°º°º°º
Itachi, who came into the room just in time to hear Kisame mentioned, paled and turned to leave, silently praying to disappear unseen.
"Itachi."
The Uchiha broke in cold sweat. Why did Sasuke do this to him? How could he?
"Yes, father?" his voice sounded calm as always but Itachi fought the urge to close his eyes and do a full-body cringe in anticipation of his father´s next words.
What he definitely didn´t expect was a hug and "I´m proud of you, son" said with strong voice, before his father placed a kettle with tea, continuing about wanting to talk to him about his bright future and the promising potential of the Hoshikage company.
Mikoto stood behind him, smiling happily and with definite resolution announced that she "just has to meet this charming young man."
If Itachi´s face was able to show emotion, it would gradually go from surprised to relieved, happy and finally malicious (when he remembered his little brother).
It´s unnecessary to say that Sasuke didn´t savour his tea tomorrow morning.
AN: Hello everyone. This fanfic wasn´t originally written by me, but by theConfusedConfusion, in Czech language. Seeing this little pearl among the usually shitty Czech fanfics, I asked for a permission to translate this to spread this where more people would read it.
Any and all reviews will be translated and sent to the original author. I´m also curious whether you have any comments towards my own translation skill. The entire fic was translated word to word, keeping everything the same to preserve the original version.
Hope you enjoyed, thank you for reading :)