Tachycardia

All Shisui wanted to do that morning was sleep.

It was a dark, early Saturday morning, the cold welcome as the seven year old snoozed beneath the covers, not expecting his mother's voice to carry to his young ears as she cried, "Mikoto's having the baby!"

He groaned inwardly, barely hearing what she had said, his foggy brain interpreting it as, "Something was broken by Shisui!" He rolled over and pulled the covers over his head, wishing desperatly that this could wait until he could at least pretend to care, or twelve. Iseul, his mother, bounded into the room and quickly turned on the light.

"Augh! I hate my life!" he yelled into the pillow, pulling the duvet over his head.

"What? Shisui, get up! Shisui! Mikoto's having the baby."

"Great," he mumbled into his pillow tiredly, "That's great. Can I go to sleep, now? It's, like, early."

"No! Get up, we have to go to the hospital, babe."

"But, Mama-"

"Shisui, il-eona !"

"Okay, okay!" the child scrambled out of bed, knowing full well not to disobey his mother when she "Went native" on him. He kicked the sheets away and quickly pulled on a white tee-shirt, deigned that the basketball shorts he wore to bed was fine for a hospital inhabited by tired staff and sick people who wouldn't really care, and ambled downstairs tiredly, his messy hair covering his face, going unbrushed.

"Honestly, Sojunghan, you couldn't have gotten ready more...appropriately?" Iseul questioned the tired child. "Oh, well. It's a hospital. Nobody cares," she smiled, then frowned quickly, as if seeing something unpleasant and totally avoidable. "I do wish we could do something with your hair, though, ai. It's so...neh."

Shisui sighed as his mother raked her hand through his hair, her long crimson nails scratching his scalp in a not totally unpleasant way, her mascara'd eyelashes batting slightly. "Oh, well."

His father made his way downstairs, looking about as tired as his son, his hair in his face as well. Iseul sighed, planting her hands on her hips and clucking her tongue disappointedly. "I swear, you two."

Akashi resigned, smiling as his wife fixed his hair, his eyes closed sleepily as well. "Okay, hun, it's fine. Nobody's gonna care, really. Are all of your rings necessary, though? Miki'll be squeezing your hand before she squeezes Fugaku's."

"Don't blame her," she growled. "Yeah. Let's just get going. She'll never forgive me if I'm not there before she's crowning."

"Eww, Mama!" Shisui scowled. "Can we go now? I wanna go to bed as soon as possible."

"Shisui, how do you know what that is?"

He shrugged languidly. "I read."

"Medical books?"

Shisui gave a slight smile. "Children's books are boring."

Iseul rolled her eyes, "You're too smart for me, Shisu."

-O-

He wasn't prepared for the screaming either.

Sitting in a hard-backed hospital chair that was soaking cold through his shirt, Shisui covered his ears against the screams of, "I AM PUSHING, DAMMIT!" and "GET THIS THING OUT OF ME!" He wasn't quite sure what was more surprising: The fact that his Auntie Miki was screaming such awful things that he usually only heard in movies that he wasn't technically allowed to watch but did anyways or the fact that her sparse mascara was smeared with sweat, her usually glossy lips were chewed raw and bare, her hair was mussed beyond recognition, and her calm had wandered off somewhere far away. His mother brushed Mikoto's hair out of her face and smiled reassuringly as his uncle, Atashi, dabbed cold water onto her forehead, his father filming, his older cousin Jangmi just having walked in with coffee for the adults and a small carton of milk for Shisui. The whole time he could only think, "Where is Uncle Fugaku?"

Maybe Auntie Miki and Fugaku weren't together anymore? he figured, by the way that Atashi kept looking at Mikoto with such loving eyes and she responded with weak, adoring smiles. I wanna look at someone like that one day.

Suddenly, Akashi slipped Shisui a five dollar bill. "Go grab something sweet from the vending machine, for the both of us, 'kay?"

Shisui nodded, slipping out of the room quietly.

The sudden silence was unnerving, the florescent lights glimmering off of the starch-white walls, seeming to make the hospital change, shift, as if the walls were breathing, expanding and contracting; magical. The windowpanes sparkled, the doorframes shimmering brilliantly. His heartbeat was suddenly signifigant, something ringing in his ears, as if there was something important that he was missing. He didn't know what it was, though. Shisui realized that something was happening, he just didn't know what. Did someone die? Is something alive? He felt alone for a split second before a presence made itself known, some shapeless spectre standing beside him, telling him something, something. What was it? What was it?

Run.

And Shisui turned around. And he ran.

He ran straight back to the room, the glitter of the hallway blurring into nothingness, melting into white, white, a beautiful tunnel that he didn't want to be in without that someone or something there with him. He needed that special person to see the lights with him, he couldn't be alone much longer. A sudden, horrible, panging lonliness made itself knowin in the pit of his stomach, a great black void gaping in his abdomen, sucking away all happiness. He wanted to cry, he started to cry, he was done crying. He wanted to hold something or someone close, closer than humanly possible, something transient and painfully beautiful. He didn't know what it was, but he wanted it. And he understood as he, despite running, was holding his breath, reached for the doorknob. He understood that after this...

...he would never be complete again.

-O-

The first thing he noticed was a small bundle in Auntie Miki's arms.

She was smiling like she had found a reason to live, her eyes radiating with love and adoration and absolute, unbridled forgiveness for anything that would ever happen again. Shisui felt a bit like an interloper, as if he shouldn't be intruding on such a scene, and he was fully ready to bolt back out into the hallway when he heard, "Shisui, c'mere."

Shisui closed the door behind him slowly, the click seeming louder than the ringing in his ears, more painful than the void that had opened, tears clawing at the back of his eyes for a reason he did not know, and walked slowly over to his aunt. For a second, he thought she was an angel or something, her skin radiating, the sweat going unnoticed, her hair floating like a blue-black halo, light gathering around like moths to flame, her eyes glittering like the moon on a deep, black lake in the middle of summer; lovely.

"Shisui," she said softly, her smile increasing incrimentally. "Do you want to see your new cousin?"

New? he found himself thinking without reason. I've known him forever. He's been here forever. He nodded.

"Here, but be careful. He's sleeping."

She shifted slightly, ready to hand him over, the adults slightly tensed, ready to catch the child at the first sign of faltering. The nurses eyed the baby suspiciously, as if accusing him of something. Despite himself, Shisui glared, then took the child into his arms like it was the most natural thing in the world. Suddenly, his heart fluttered in his chest, the void filling over with a lightweight concrete feeling, like everything was stable.

Everything was perfect.

The missing piece that he didn't know he lost.

Shisui's eyes flickered over the small bundle, the baby's thick black eyelashes fluttering lightly as he breathed oddly, his tiny, fragile-looking hands curled up to his chest, eyebrows relaxed in sleep as a few strands of strangely long brownish-black hair peeked out from beneath the soft blue cap. He was a lot smaller than most babies Shisui had seen, but had a healthy pink tint across his adorable little nose, reaching across his pale cheeks, reaching the tips of his tiny, rounded ears. He sighed quietly, his tiny pink lips pursing together as his brows furrowed, letting out a small yawn. Shisui heard himself gasp slightly, beneath his eyes burning with a heavy blush. His eyelashes batted as he leaned a bit closer in to the child, pressing his lips to his forehead in a chaste display of affection.

"Aww, look!" Mikoto whispered within earshot of him. She turned to him. "His name is Itachi."

"Itachi..." he whispered, and Itachi's eyes opened.

Two shiny, black orbs of light stared up at Shisui, meeting his gaze with an innocent curiosity, his long eyelashes batting lightly at the sudden light.

The nurses began to whisper among themselves. The midwife kneeled down beside Shisui and smiled. "Newborns usually don't open their eyes like that. This is gonna be a very intelligent, very special child. He didn't cry when he was born, you know."

Shisui nodded slightly.

"Yeah. He'll be a really special one."

Shisui nodded again, a little more steadily this time.

He said, "I know."

-O-

He never thought he would see Itachi smile.

Itachi quietly pieced a puzzle together, his hands moving hesitantly and without inhibition as the picture came together; a sparrow in the snow, perched securely upon a spindly branch , icicles dangling freely, their sinuous bodies catching the light brilliantly. The puzzle itself was a hundred and twenty pieces, but only eleven remained unplaced. Itachi was five.

Shisui watched as his young cousin manipulated the pieces until the picture fit together, sliding into place with the precision of a surgeon. His beautiful obsidian eyes flickered over the image, his hands suddenly working so fast, sweat began to form on his furrowed brow, fingers interlocking and blending together so easily it looked effortless. Seven more pieces.

Six. Four. Two. Suddenly, Itachi stopped. His breath was heavy as he looked over the finished puzzle. His hands remained poised in midair as he glared coldly at the picture of the sparrow, his small chest heaving with movement, his breath steadying slowly, slowly.

"Look, 'Tachi. You finished it," Shisui smiled from his spot upon the couch, gazing down at his pretty young cousin as those sharp, deep pools of black humour turned to look at him.

Shisui's heart skipped a beat when Itachi flashed a smile, quick, just for him.

-O-

He never thought he would see the day where Itachi would cry.

Incidentally, it was the first time Shisui had seen Itachi sick.

They sat across from eachother, their legs warm beneath the kotatsu, the shoji screen door open despite the frigid winter air, snow drifting down slowly as the wind howled through the empty night. Shisui peered up precariously at Itachi every so often, an unhealthy pale coloring the ten year old's skin as he slowly ate his Kibuchi Nabe, slower than usual. Every so often he would stop, furrowing his brows as he took deep breaths, seeming to try and calm something when he thought Shisui wasn't looking.

"Something the matter, Itamichi? You ain't eating."

"No...No, I'm fine, Shisui. I'm just not too hungry."

"Sure?"

"I'm certain..."

Shisui gave him a strange look before lifting his own bowl to his mouth to drink down the spicy broth. He sniffled a bit as the spice cleared his sinuses, wiping his eye with the heel of his hand tiredly, the cold making him incredibly sleepy. He was inclined to slip beneath the warm kotatsu and just fall asleep with the cold stinging his face and the close warmth of his cousin beside him, but was quickly snapped out of his reverie when Itachi's head snapped up, his face paling even more (If that was possible), his pupils trembling slightly.

"Itachi? Are you-!"

He didn't even have time to finish the sentance before Itachi bolted through the open screen door, keeling over the porch and heaving up something Shisui couldn't see. Shisui's heart raced as he kicked away the kotatsu, sending bowls tumbling, soup sloshing over the edge and staining the kake buton framing the low table. In half a second, he was at Itachi's side, one hand on the trembling child's back and the other around his faltering bicep as Itachi tried to support himself against the wood, his eyes wide as he stared down at his blood seeping down into the thick blanket of snow that covered the ground.

"I...Itachi..." Shisui began, wordless, speechless, thoughtless. Suddenly, he was angry. "How long has this been going on? Why haven't you told me, Itamichi?" his fingers tightened around Itachi's suddenly thin, frail arms, leaning in closer to his cousin. "Why. Haven't. You. Told. Me? I can help you, for Kami's sake! I can help, Itachi!"

The younger didn't respond, instead beginning to tremble, suddenly unstable. He curled into himself, wrapping his arms close to himself and hiding himself away like a dying caterpillar, knowing full well that he could never, as hard as he tried now, escape to the safety of a cocoon. Shisui stopped himself from yelling as he encouraged his cousin to look at him, but his heart skipped a beat when he saw cold, icy tears trailing their way down his lovely cousin's pale, pale face, the Sharingan swirling within his trembling iris.

"When were you going to tell me?" he asked quietly. "I can help."

-O-

He also never thought that he would see the day Itachi loved.

Well, him anyways.

The newly-teenaged Itachi had blossomed like a beautiful orchid, frail and fragile and in need of meticulous care, but recieved about as much care as wild bamboo, hardening his outer self until he was impenetrable, untouchable. The inside of himself, however, was hollow, hollow, hollow. His eyes were no longer dark pools of wonder and intellectual prowess, but dark, terrifying thoughts they caused whenever they were looked into. The dark feather of his hair drifted around his head, haloing his narrow jaw, the bridge of his nose usually sihlouetted against the sky as he stared against the rain, daring it to make him sicker, if it were even possible. It wasn't.

But Shisui saw past the carefully sculpted muscles and the intimidating stare and saw the hollow within Itachi's soul, just as he felt thirteen years, one month, two days ago in that beautiful white hallway, the gaping void within his abdomen filled by the birth of this angel he was blessed with; his lovely cousin.

Now, he smiled, Itachi's paled skin shimmering like that day, Now it's my turn.

So, naturally, he was surprised when Itachi showed a bit of ungraceful demenor when he lowered himself to ask Shisui in a hushed tone as they sat upon Shisui's made bed, "Nii-san, what's it like to love?"

He was a bit drawn back, visibly flinching when this graceful being deigned to ask him what it was to love. Shisui could break down and explain that it's a bubbly feeling that erupts in your chest every time you're in that person's presence, it's an unexplanable adoration and utter devotion, a state in which you're absolutely and irrovicably oblivious to that person's flaws (Flaws? What flaws?), and can never find a bad thing to say about them. But of course, Shisui wouldn't let that slip, because that's a blatant point in the direction to Shisui's true heartfelt intentions, and that was a giant NO, considering Itachi was probably straight, straight, straight, straight as an arrow.

"Well..." Shisui muttered, glancing up into Itachi's eyes.

"Could you...I kind of..." He glanced away from his friend.

"What is it, Itamichi?"

"I want you to show me."

Shisui's eyes widened.

Well, arrows are crooked as Hell at the end.

And Itachi caught on to that glint in his eye. "Purely for educational purposes. I only want to know. It's like studying."

"You couldn't ask somebody else to teach you?" Shisui asked with a quirk of his lip, smirking slightly as he raised an eyebrow.

"I couldn't think of a better teacher," he responded without missing a beat.

Shisui could only smile as Itachi leaned in close to him, the tip of his nose brushing Shisui's lightly, cutely, as a healthy pink tint spread across his cute little nose, across his not as young cheeks and to the tips of his rounded ears. His heart skipped a beat as Itachi's lips brushed against his hesitantly.

"Oshiete, kudasai."

-O-

But Shisui really, never, ever thought he'd see the day that Itachi danced.

It was an incredible moment, so private and personal. Shisui felt like such an interloper to intrude on this moment, the calm on Itachi's face, in his closed eyelids as he clenched his jaw, standing against an abrasive wind on a secluded cliff they discovered years ago when Itachi was the tender age of twelve. The grass in the summer was a vibrant green, emeralds beneath his bare feet, his pant legs longer than the three-quarter pants he usually wore, the bottoms flaring out oh-so-slightly, his shirt sleeves long, long around his bony wrists, his shirt collar low unlike the traditional Uchiha high-collar, exposing his elegantly thin, protruding clavicles, his jugular vein exposed attractively, seductively, almost sinfully that the skin that had been so many times been allowed to Shisui's lips touched the air with such freedom; Fugaku would have had a fit if he saw his son so...

...so...?

There wasn't a word in the human language that could describe this.

Free.

Allowed.

Liberated.

Shisui watched as the fifteen year old stood at the wind, the violet wildflowers swaying in the wind around him, his feather hair drifting around his face, haloing the suddenly young features as he looked up to the sky, lifted his arms, and began to spin, without a care in the world, his hair flaying behind him, his long bangs catching on the bridge of his nose, his lips parted oh-so slightly, his perfect white teeth just barely exposed between his pale pink lips, a healty glow surrounding him as his long fingers reached for the sun, spreading to catch the light and never let it go, to keep that light in the hollow of his heart, his shell breaking down around him as he spun, his bare feet turning in a consistant motion, not allowing him to stop, knowing that if he did, the world would catch up to him. His pain would catch up to him. The hollow would catch up to him.

He kept spinning.

And spinning.

And never letting go of the sun.

His hair began to stick to his face as he began to cry, the long strands framing his face, keeping himself in close, his throat contracting with every silent sob, his lashes fluttering with every teary interval, his sleeves swaying in the wind, his pants hem flapping around his feet. A bruise on Itachi's collar bone made itself known as he reached up to pull his hair tie from his hair, the beautiful black silk tresses flaying out like angel's wings, tracing the air. Suddenly, the colors around him blurred, the blue sky running into the white clouds, the yellow sun melting the sky a sea-green, shimmering around him as the stars fell from the heavens, the violet flowers bursting like supernovas around his feet, the emerald grass swaying and sloshing like waves in the wind as Shisui saw, physically, physically saw Itachi's heart break in his chest, colors exploding out of his chest, all the hues even invisible to the human eye bursting out of his chest like fireworks, like some magical stream that was impossible to achieve through any want or desire. This was pure emotion. This is was true sorrow.

And Itachi was smiling.

And Shisui, as he hid among the bushes at the bottom of that hill, looking upon that private spot as Itachi spun, as he sat there, doing absolutely nothing but watching, he realized he was holding his breath, his mind was trembling like Itachi's sharingan that winter night, that aching lonliness, the gaping void suddenly filled over once again, and...

his heart began to race.

-O-