Admiration is the emotion furthest from understanding.

The pills in the glass clinked gently against it as he passed them over to the raven sitting on the bed. Aizen had never seen the other look quite so defeated, the illness had taken root deep down in the boy's lungs and there was nothing he, nor any other doctor on earth, could do about it.

Yet the now dull black eyes that glanced up at him were not bitter, the smile on his lips not false. Aizen had worked with countless terminal cancer patients and each had dealt with the diagnosis in different varying shades of the same spectrum. Some had cried - many had cried - some had been angry, some choosing denial, but in the end each and every reaction had been expected. Aizen could read people, it was how he had easily breezed through every interview he had ever attended, why his patients always credited him as their favourite doctor no matter what the outcome of his treatment, even how he was considered kind and charming by every single one of his colleagues even though he himself knew that was very much not the case.

But he had never been able to read Itachi.

The struggling motion of his throat as the boy knocked back the medication that made little to no difference this late on was hard to watch. The tendons stuck out harshly through near-translucent skin and the dryness of the other's mouth was clear in the mottled skin that cracked his lips.

"Thank you." The words were little more than mouthed but Aizen made no comment on this, knowing that the topic of Itachi's declining health was one that was very rarely broached during their meetings.

"Did you manage to contact your aunt yet?"

"Not yet." The barest hint of concern flashed within faded obsidian, of course not for himself, however. "It would seem she has moved since the last time we were in contact."

"I see." Aizen knew just how important this matter was to Itachi, he was an orphan after all and there was no one else around to make arrangements for his younger brother once death inevitably made its claim on him. Not that he cared for the fate of the little boy, in his line of work he saw relatives abandoned to fend for themselves almost daily and it had left him rather immune to the whole situation. "Well, you're running out of time."

"I am aware." Again, there was no irritation at how blunt he had been over the matter – how uncaring. If he had spoken to any of his other patients like this he was sure he would have received a far more volatile, emotional, response. He had yet to decide whether the lack of this from the other was due to strength, stupidity, control, or merely a complete lack of care for his own wellbeing. "But I should still have a few more weeks, at least. She is a good woman, I'm sure that it is merely a matter of getting hold of her."

Aizen nodded, his gaze now averted as he made notes in Itachi's file. Not that he agreed with the statement. In his experience there were very few 'good' people, and the fact that this woman had severed all ties with her two orphaned nephews did not exactly bode well for her moral standing, yet to air any of this would have been useless. Itachi seemed to have the relatively naïve trait of finding the good in everyone, one that clashed hardly against the obviously high intelligence which he possessed. It was an extremely rare thing to find someone widely considered as a genius who had managed to go through life without losing the ability to sympathise – Aizen himself was perfect proof of this fact – though apparently this was yet another rule with which Itachi was an exception.

Returning his gaze to drawn, tired features, Aizen wondered just how many more times he would be privy to viewing them. How many more conversations they would have that contained little words yet so many obscured reasonings.

"Well I shall wish you the best of luck." The words accompanied the last scrawl of writing added to the other's chart, a gentle smile forming on his own lips – hollow, as always.

The dismissal was clear to the other, never one to outstay his welcome, and he quickly rose from the gurney. There was an eerie grace to his movements, one that did not match the frame of an invalid. Itachi was a collection of contradictions.

As soon as the door shut behind the fading raven any traces of kindness bled from Aizen's features, as were any thoughts of the other swept from his mind. A puzzle such as that was one far too complex for a solution to be found before the dwindling sands of time it had been dealt had run out, and Aizen was not foolish enough to let himself desire one.

Then I most certainly must admire you, for I know I will never understand you.