Author's Note: Hello, there, this is my first story here, so please bear with me. :) Also, the story might be a bit slow, but I prefer this over rushing it too much, I think it's better to build things up gradually. About the shounen-ai in this story, I am yet unsure if I should add any, but I will announce it beforehand.

Another thing is that the characters are intended to be OOC at the beginning, but that will change as the story goes.

That being said, thank you for taking the time to read !

Chapter 1: Acceptance

"People live their lives bound by what they accept as correct or true. That's how they define "reality". But what does it mean to be "correct" or "true"? Merely vague concepts… their reality may all be but a mirage."

Those were his brother's words. Sasuke was sure of that. He had been hearing them every night, in his sleep, yet, he couldn't remember when he had heard them. But he knew they were Itachi's.

But, as sure as he was that those were his words, he was sure Itachi wouldn't tell him what he meant to say by them. Sasuke even got the feeling that Itachi couldn't explain it himself anymore. Itachi had changed, since that happened. Itachi seemed like a totally different person. Or was it just Sasuke's imagination? But it couldn't have been, right? Itachi was always such a calm and cold person so the difference was just plain obvious now. It was impossible for Itachi to be like this, yet, he was. And Sasuke felt like he was simply missing something. Was the really calculated Itachi just a fragment of Sasuke's childish imagination? Or could this mean something more?

Sasuke was still half asleep when his arm hit the snooze button on the alarm clock, throwing the poor object around the corner of his drawer and under his bed. He would now be forced to wake up and get it out of there the next time it would ring. That was just perfect for a Monday morning. He rustled the sheets and made himself comfortable again. If he tried really hard, he could ignore the alarm clock and sleep a nice and long sleep, ditching the first two or three periods, why not skip the entire day?

This day was just one of those really suffocating days. When he felt an unknown pressure pressing all around him, squeezing him and making it impossible for him to breathe. Ok, this might just be a bit over thinking it. He just had that certain feeling that something was slowly but surely leaving him. Like something was always trying to get back into his head at night, but daytime would just push it back to the deepest shadows. It was simply just annoying…

He turned around and tried to avoid the light coming from the crack of the window's curtain right when Itachi came rushing into the room. He slammed the door open and started talking. Sasuke couldn't care less about his brother's complaints. He vaguely distinguished the word "clock" and suddenly became aware of his alarm ringing monotonously but infernally.

"Where is that god damn clock, Sasuke?!" Itachi screamed while desperately searching through the heaps of clothes and sheets, before turning to Sasuke to shake him awake.

"Under the… bed" He mumbled, annoyed at having to open his mouth again, right a few minutes after having woken up in such a bad disposition.

"Jesus, how do you even manage to sleep with this shit under your bed? Are you deaf or something? Why can't you ever wake up like a normal person?! Fuck."

The stinging sound stopped and Sasuke caught himself sighing of relief. That thing made him tense. His older brother made him even more tensed. He always acted that way when he was mad, saying things like that, when, in fact, Sasuke rarely caused any troubles. He usually woke up like any normal person, but whenever he didn't, Itachi would start accusing him of everything he ever did or didn't do. Why was Itachi like this? Sasuke started feeling guilty. This was just the way Itachi was and he felt remorse for getting the feeling that Itachi had changed. It felt as though his brother was not good enough, as if Sasuke was imagining another Itachi before this one, just to fill in the gap.

He pushed the thought deep into a corner of his mind. Itachi was a gentle older brother. He never did anything bad and always took good care of his younger brother for ten whole years, ever since... well, ever since their parents got caught up in a certain violent altercation and got killed by a psychotic man when Sasuke was barely seven. At least that was what he had been told. But it didn't matter now anyway, a lie or not, it's not like anything could be changed now. He didn't care about it. That man was probably in a prison or mental hospital, and, just as probable, he would spend the rest of his life there. It was enough punishment. After all, what could have been done? What revenge? What could you take from a mad man, in order to destroy him? Sasuke knew there was no answer, probably even torturing him wouldn't make him feel the "real" pain, the pain normal people felt, so he resigned. He kept his parents' memory close to him and remained grateful to his brother for being such a good man.

"…all day long. What would they think? Jesus, your room is a mess. How do you ever manage to get through with school still baffles me. One day your little tricks won't work anymore and you'll fail. Get up already. Maybe the school's level dropped, having someone like you at the top, I should speak to your teachers…" Itachi kept complaining about everything, jumping from one topic to another, while furiously gathering clothes from Sasuke's floor and stacking them neatly into a pile that would most certainly get washed right away.

Sasuke got up slowly. His brother was dressed in a suit, as usually, but it looked surprisingly good on him at all times. His short, black hair was done perfectly, and even though he roamed the room and moved a lot, everything still looked perfect on him. The little wrinkles and scars on the right side of his face were barely visible, the scars he got while saving Sasuke from the fire… fire that was started by the same crazy man that killed their parents, of course. He turned around and looked at Sasuke with a tired look, but also Sasuke knew the complaining would stop. His understanding look told him everything was fine.

"Come on, get dressed. I'll give you a ride to school."

"You sure that's fine? Don't you have a meeting or something?"

"I do, but it's fine. I can drop you off to school and hurry up." Itachi smiled gently and Sasuke nodded.

He pulled a gray T-Shirt out of his drawer and a pair of black, tight jeans and got dressed. He took his bag and put it across his shoulder. He didn't have to put anything else in it. He had a few notebooks inside and used them for more than one class. He was just that good, but he was lazy and didn't really feel like doing anything with all his capacity.

He rushed down the stairs and got his black shoes on, then grabbed his black leather jacket and his scarf from the hanger and put them on. His brother was waiting outside in his black BMW, the car running and the passenger's door open. Sasuke ran to it. The trip was nice, relaxing, his brother laughed a lot and now he felt better. He even felt a bit of sadness, having to get off in front of his school.

"I'll be home late tonight, so feel free to order food, ok?"

"Okay, take care."

"Yeah, you too, little brother"

The car then disappeared from his line of sight and he turned around to enter the school gates. The classes passed by, boringly and he even invited a few friends over. He wasn't all that found of people in general, but he knew it pained his brother to see him all alone, so he would often make use of his looks and the fact that he had people always willing to hang out with him, even be his friends and help him. There were a few of them that seemed a bit bearable to be around, maybe even a bit fun at times, like Naruto for example, who was actually pretty close to him in a way. And it made his brother happy. It always did, seeing that he didn't fail at raising his little brother, that the incident didn't take such a tool on him. Of course it affected Sasuke, but his brother did such a great job. He couldn't explain why he didn't like people in fact, he liked being with Itachi, so who knows why other people weren't the same. He couldn't possibly make Itachi feel like he failed. He would hate that. So he was a good brother.

They all ordered food and paid for it together, watched movies and Sasuke kept being cold to everyone, especially the girls, not that there were many. His classmate, Sakura, Naruto's childhood friend, Hinata, and Neji's cousin, Ino. Sasuke always found the fact that Hinata and Neji seemed to look so alike weird, since they were not even related. Even their last name was the same.

"Let's watch something! Something like a good horror movie! " It was Saukra's suggestion, and , of course, everyone agreed. They ended up watching two of them, since the first one was so scary, they had to watch another one so poorly made that it got them all to laugh so much they cried. Everyone but Sasuke. He laughed too, but not THAT much.

"It's gotten pretty late. You'd better head home"

Everyone agreed, and , right before leaving Naruto turned to him

"You know, Sasuke, if there's something on your mind, you can always tell me. I'm here for you" He had a concerned look in his eyes.

"I'm fine, what would an idiot like you worrying for me do good anyway?" Naruto smiled and left, and the door shut and locked after him.

Sasuke looked at the clock. It was 2:47 in the morning. Itachi was still out. Should he be worried? He tried calling him a few times on his phone and, at 2:53 he decided it just won't work and that he was probably just being paranoid. He would go to sleep and that was it… he ended up calling Itachi's office just to learn he was away on business, and that he would probably be gone for some more time. He felt relieved. At 3:04 he was done brushing his teeth and he changed his clothes to nothing but a pair of loose pants. He threw the rest on the ground, then looked at them, picked them up and folded them. He was thinking that this would make his brother smile while placing them on the chair in his room.

He laid down into the bed without drawing the curtains, just because the moon was so astonishingly beautiful today. He stared at it for a long while and the shadows kept moving, kept forming silhouettes… CRASH. A loud noise came from the kitchen. Itachi was back, Sasuke got out of the bed and rushed to the kitchen to greet him. In there, a fairly tall man was looking down at a broken glass of water.

"Are you ok, brother?" Sasuke rushed to the place and took his brother's hand into his to search for any wounds.

He was an idiot, in his sudden rush of worry, he forgot to turn the lights on.

"Brother, turn on the lights please, I can't see anything, are you ok?"

The man remained still, as if he was trying really hard to understand. Sasuke lifted his eyes. The darkness was embracing his face, but, he could see it clearly now, the bruised hands, the scarred neck, and now, the smooth face, with no burn marks on it, the ruffled and black hair. This was not his brother. He stepped away cautiously and grabbed a knife.