Rewritten madness ahoy, I guess.

Title: Aime Moi

Rating: M

Disclaimer: Trust me, I'll be dragged off to the asylum if I even think about claiming Naruto- Kishimoto does.

Music: Kokia, Staind, Salon Betty

Fully alive
More than most
Ready to smile and love life
Fully alive and she knows
How to believe in futures

All my complaints shrink to nothing
I'm ashamed of all my somethings
She's glad for one day of comfort
Only because she has suffered

~ by Flyleaf

Chapter 01: Ashioto/Footsteps

Itachi could almost believe that he was a child again.

A child sitting in a circus, watching the manifested myths, hearing the loving laughter, holding popcorn and dreams between his small fingertips-

trying to grasp what was important, trying to hold everything close without crushing it in the process.

He could almost believe that he was a child again,

sitting in a circus, watching the clowns, watching the one solitary clown, who was gazing at him with melancholy eyes while sporting a grin that was red and painful and disgustingly artificial.

He doubted, however, that any paid, any trained clown would be this obvious in their misery, this painful to look at.

The girl in front of him, the pseudo-clown, was painting a smile on her face, trying, stubbornly, to appear cheerful, trying to act polite even, when he could almost taste the desperation tainting her eyes, her entire being, the very air around her; when Itachi could do all this, without even so much as trying.

He almost felt sorry, but, alas, it was not in his nature to do so.

The girl tucked a strand of her odd-coloured hair behind an ear, fished for something else to say, something else to spend, waste time with; something that he did not need and did not care to hear.

The man found himself opening his mouth, exhaling an almost-sigh. It was not his fault, his business, that the girl had appeared at his brother's birthday party, that she was brave, stubborn, inane enough to pursue the younger Uchiha, when he clearly did not care for her company. The black-haired man knew this kind of girl, was used to meeting them himself; the kind of girl who fought to be close, closer, closest to the object of her desire, the one who had spirit and strength but was blind and never noticed that all she accomplished was to create physical, but never emotional intimacy.

She belonged to the kind of women who came close to annoying him; the women he could only be composed around because he had better, more important things to do than to think about them, the ones he could be polite with and ignore because he did not allow himself to spend emotions on them.

The girl made another hasty survey of the room, her smile becoming even more strained and Itachi remembered how he had come to the questionable honour of sitting across from her on one the tables in his parent's house.

She had only sat down at his table because his brother had made himself unavailable, because of the likeness the two brothers shared.

He had only accepted her presence because she had been close to either crying loudly or having a fight with the other girl, because he really did not want to deal with a tantrum.

The looks he was receiving all around, though, made him reconsider this decision. He did not plan, in the slightest, to give his relatives the chance to try and set him up with another person, and had not the slightest desire to be told, at another gathering, that the girl would suit him perfectly.

Knowing his relatives the way he did, they would do everything in their power to ensure that he and the girl would meet again, as often as possible.

The only reasons for this would be this single meeting of theirs, the one where both of them wanted to be somewhere else, and the fact that those people thought he ought to marry.

Itachi lowered his gaze to his cup, stared into the miniature abyss of black and saw how the corner of his eyes tightened in annoyance.

And he knew, that this would not do, would not be good, that his departure was long overdo, because the emotions on his face were a dangerous, an abominable thing.

He watched the girl a moment longer, watched her eyes searching almost frantically for the face of her unhealthy infatuation, watched her searching for someone she had never actually seen, before he rouse, with the wish to leave this place once and for all- even when he knew, very well, that it would not happen, this freedom of his, not for as long as he'd work in his father's business, not as long as he fought to remain a reputation he did not care about-

Not as long as his stumbling, sheltered sibling would be there, in this rotten, pathetic house of theirs.

But for now, for this day, for the few days following this, Itachi could leave, even when it was only on a leash he himself chose to keep.

Ignoring the girl's startled mutterings and the eyes being fixated on him, Itachi left the house, the circus without sparing another glance at all those clowns, who, in all their stupidity and megalomania only managed to make him want to close his eyes and blend their existence out.

All those people who were wearing shrill masks, who had gouged their very eyes out to replace them with glass orbs, all those people whose bodies were filled with nothing but sawdust and nonsense, who were weak and coming undone at their seams, all those people who made his muscles and his stomach burn with a black flame.

Seeing those idiots in his mind's eye made him almost believe that he was propelled back in his childhood days, that he himself was a child again.

He could have believed it, if it were not for the fact, that he had never been to a circus-

Tan fingers twirled a pencil with practised ease, the movement fluid and confusingly captivating, and yet somewhat callous.

The body attached to those fingers sat on the kerb, propped against a lamp post, wild hair shrouding attractive, strong features, while the head was inclined and the eyes halfway closed. The boy managed, even in his old and slightly tattered clothing, to look like a flower sprouting out of the stone ground.

Not giving a damn about what was normal and proper and boring.

The sound of the cars, the rush that only humans could create drowned the sound of the pencil slapping, gently, erratically, against the boy's knee, and yet it seemed that some kind of inner fixation, another melody, wiped the sound of the cars out of the teen's mind. For the head of the red-head was moving slightly, and the lips were giving birth to words nobody beside himself could hear.

The boy would have looked innocent enough, if it were not for the female hooker walking up to him, gazing at him with a slightly frustrated smile and blue, sky-soft eyes.

Naruto did not see, too intent on hearing something nobody else could, but, for a moment, the secure lines of the girl's face washed out and revealed pain and worry bravely hidden by a smile, a caring heart that wanted to wrap itself around the boy; but all it took was another screeching car, the brightness of artificial lights glinting of the false red hair and the girl reclaimed her noncholant, strong expression.

She greeted her long-time friend with a sound kick.

"Wha-What? Ino- are you mad? What are you kicking me for?"

"Well," she drawled, leaning against the street lamp. "I was just making sure that you were still conscious. What are you sitting on the ground for? You do know that you won't make any money like this, right?"

The boy found himself pulled up by the (supposedly weak, supposedly stupid, supposedly-) girl with ease; dusting himself off, Naruto stuck his tongue out at her.

"I was just trying to pass time, waiting for you-! And I'm making money just fine, being the handsome guy that I am."

"I've got no idea how you pull that stunt off, though. If I wouldn't stand with you on the same corner for years now, I'd never pique you to be a rent boy at all," giving his outfit a condescending look she continued. "if anything you look like a talented musician."

Not knowing how he should react, insulted because, really, he loathed being called a rent boy, or warm and happy, because Ino had just called him talented, he settled on a grin. Frowning would only give him wrinkles, and he could do without looking like Ebisu; Naruto looped his arm around her waist and watched Ino do the same.

The girl was one of the very few people he felt completely comfortable with, one of the few he had no problem to initiate physical contact with. The best was, however, that Ino never took this as granted and always waited for him to make the first step. The teen felt cold, but also strong; the knowledge that he was no longer alone turning his eyes the colour of the sea.

Sharing a look, she proclaimed, "I only said talented, because it's always the people with potential that end up on the street, starving. Don't let it get to your head, Naru-pii."

"Mou...Ino, can't you give me a few nice words, a bit of hope?"

"Why?" A short laugh, a thumb stroking his hip, a friend's gesture beneath the casual facade, "Do you need that, Naru-pi?"

"No, because I won't end like this, not in a gazillion years! Watch me- I'll make it big and then those people will have to stop treating me like this", Naruto looked down the street, gazed at the cars with their nervous drivers and tucked with his free hand at the hem of his shirt, changing gears in his mind. "I don't know who would want to look like a hooker, anyway. I doubt that I'd want to know."

Itachi did not know it yet, but Karma, alongside with Fate, had decided to make his life a bit more interesting, a lot more chaotic.

This sudden interest in Itachi's life lead to a lot of less than Elysian happenings, such as finding himself in a maze made up of horribly parked cars that did not only block each other, but also succeeded in hiding pretty much the entire drive-way.

It took him one moment to realise that his own car was cushioned by three other vehicles and one ferocious, giant mutant of a box tree and estimate his chances of getting to his car close to nil.

The men ordered to park the visitor's cars were busy looking innocent; even when their lopsided smiles and off-key whistling made it all too obvious that they were, in fact, everything but.

The black haired man spared them each a glance, listened to the insistent chattering cloaking the house and decided that he had legs and could, therefore, walk.

Whoever had planned to keep him caged with all these fools would have to live with disappointment; stupidity had, after all, always been Itachi's pet peeve.

There were startled whispers and shouts that claimed his walking as unfitting, but Itachi continued on his way unperturbed. He knew where the hotel was, where he was supposed to stay and had his few belongings already sent there; everything else was not of importance.

He certainly would not mind not looking like a rich man's son; he did not want to know who would.

"The point is," continued Ino as though she had never stopped in the first place. "you don't want to be taken for an oddball, because, after all, only twisted weirdos go after the oddballs and you really do not want this to happen."

She fingered his bangs and pushed them behind his ear while Naruto presented her with an angry frown and wild blue eyes, not saying anything for a change.

"You know, maybe I should get myself a red wig as well, it looks nice on you, so it must look gorgeous on me, ne? We could pose as siblings, I bet that would earn us a lot of money-"

The boy gave her a chuckle which was punctuated by the rise of a light-coloured eyebrow.

"What? I thought weird was not your thing? I mean, honestly, Ino, what kind of people get off on siblings? This is freaky...!"

Through the sound of the defiant, vibrant laughter Naruto could hear something else, something that was equally familiar but much more unpleasant. The sound of rough voices, of people hiding in the shadows, of hands only waiting to reach out and-

"The druggies are running wild again; seems that Gaara's absence has made them unnecessarily cocky."

"Unnecessarily? You're just saying this, because you do not profit from all this cocky-ness"

Intended bad grammar and the urge to create words aside, Naruto was dead on, just as Ino's fist on his head was-

"Idiot.." a grin, a subdued laugh tied with worries. "Take care of you, 'kay? Those scumbags are out for blood, don't make them hunt for yours."

"As if! What do you care about me anyway? Don't want to pay the rent alone? Or is it my hot body that you'll miss, eh, Ino? Is there something you haven't told Naru-bro?"

This time Naruto was not even close to saying the truth, but they both knew this and had better things to do than to spill their guts and their heart of hearts on the busy street. It was simply wrong to show your tears on the very street corner where you got into cars and sold your body for a hot shower.

The diamond glint in her eyes, the hard-candy smile of his clashed for a moment, before Ino, almost suddenly, turned her head to look at something- or, knowing her, someone- that happened to be out of Naruto's line of vision. Having a nasty feeling the boy followed her gaze and encountered a shadow.

A man, all in black, with black hair and black eyes and blackblackblack clothing; someone who, without saying anything, had made it clear that he was not to be touched.

The boy blinked, cocked his head at the lone figure sweeping now past him and hoped against hope that Ino did not plan on doing what he thought she would-

However, there was a sudden move, a leap almost, and Naruto heard the tell-tale sign of two bodies connecting. He closed his eyes, finding himself amazed against his will at his friend's sheer courage. Shaking his head, Naruto cracked his eyes open, expecting to see another man being swallowed by the Ino but found something as of yet unknown.

Not only was the guy unaffected by her, but he seemed to completely disagree with the close proximity Ino had forced on him. Now Naruto knew that there were men who were less than favourable of streetwalkers, who thought themselves above the pleasure of the streets, but even those men usually took a moment to give his friend an once-over.

This one did not do anything of the like, he simply bestowed Ino with a look almost worthy of a capital "L" and pried her, with calm movements, off himself.

There was indignation and puzzlement rolling together in his stomach, hissing worriedly at the way his friend was treated- not roughly, not gentle either, just the freezing coldness of being irrelevant, of being ignored, of not being seen- and the boy pressed himself a little bit harder against the metal, trying to ignore his own ghosts and past pains.

Distantly, he heard the girl's voice, but the stranger did not open his mouth, everything he portrayed was done with his head, with the lines of his face, with curt nods and liquid shakes of No.

Curiosity piqued, Naruto took a step forward, his movement alerting the man.

Naruto found those dark eyes in the dark night and something inside the boy's chest sizzled and cramped, making him take a single, shuddering, slightly audible, breath.

He was silent for the moment, the second it took the indignation to change into wonder and then, strangest of all, sadness. He tried, unconsciously, to fight this bitter sulfur wave of pain; the boy felt like screaming, like laughing, like anything as long as it would help him to forget the sting behind his own blue eyes.

He wanted to get closer, without knowing how close would be close enough.

The man, however, turned and walked away. You know, just like that.

It did not help Naruto at all that the older male was now missing something as well, the wallet resting in Ino's hands, the one that clearly did not belong to her, the one she had probably taken to get back at the other male only managed to make Naruto feel uncertain; he was not usually like this, and while he never sanctioned the Blonde's attempts at thievery, he had never found himself wanting to undo the damage poverty, hunger and blood-red humour had made her do.

Ino cut her eyes at him, examining with an acute, smoldering intelligence and all he could do was to give her a grin like glass on stone, before he reached for the wallet, grabbed it, and put a few steps, a few worries, between him and her. He was only slightly aware of what he was doing himself, but his friend did not appear startled at all. If anything there seemed to have resurfaced an unbalanced spark in her eyes, a smirk waiting to appear, hiding, barely contained, at the right corner of her mouth...

He ripped his eyes of her and turned, With his feet beating against the ground he murdered the distance between himself and the stranger and found himself next to the strangely gelid body.

He could not remember feeling this warm ever before.

"You know," he said with more cheer than was strictly sensible. "I believe there's something you're missing."

The man did not pay him any heed, continued onward silently; frowning Naruto hurried and came to a direct halt in front of the other, cutting his way off. The leather felt hot in his hands, uncomfortable.

He showed the older man the wallet, making his lips move into a grin, closing his eyes almost completely, feigning ignorance, and waited for the other to react.

The wallet was in easy reaching distance, could be retrieved without so much as the lift of one black-clad arm and yet, there was no movement to be spoken of.

They both seemed to be suspended in time, swimming through shadows and embraced by frigorific whispers. The stranger titled his head, and raised his right hand, waiting for him to give him his possession, waiting for the younger man to act, waiting for Naruto-

"Oh," the smaller male said. "oh" and the strange things traveling between his throat and his chest hardened again, making him take in a gulp of air.

He gave the man his wallet, felt as though he was made to do this by an invisible force and could only find himself again when the stranger acknowledged this not-quite-gift with a polite, reserved nod and a pair of all too familiar eyes.

Eyes like wounds, like glass and fire and stone and-

Naruto decided, and he would stay true to it, like he did to most things he said, that he would not let the other go like this. It was a good thing that the boy's determination could outshine the lamps in this dark street anytime.

"You know...Ino might have been a bit...drastic, and her antics did not appear to sit good with you at all, but you do seem kind of misplaced. You sure that you don't want me to show you around?"

A smile, not the usual one, not the lie, shivered across his face and the wounds in Itachi's face found the wounds in Naruto's own. There was understanding, wonder and something like thunder.

And Itachi agreed to the other's offer, even when he knew where he was heading, even when he had never before asked for the way, even when it seemed profoundly out of character for him-

If asked, Itachi would have thought, that it was the smile beneath those blue bruises that had made him consent to this madness.

If asked, Itachi would think, later, that he never truly had an idea of where he was heading, not, at least, as long as Naruto was not part of his life.

It's not over yet-