8. elegance
He watched the boy who was almost a man from the shadows of the trees as the other trained on the water. His eyes showed him the chakra pulsing around his feet, keeping him on the surface, and they showed the intensity of the chakra around the rest of his body.
Itachi had seen the Jyuuken style a thousand times before. With his Sharingan, he had picked it apart, seen the different moves and analyzed ways to avoid them, saw how the Hyuuga clan was able, with an insignificant tap on the wrist, cut off an attacker's advantage and bring them to their knees. It was deadly, just as he was, without being overly flashy. And he had always seen in it a strange beauty; watching Neji, it became an art form. Itachi was reminded of the exercises that his teacher had made their team do as warm-ups before a mission. Slow forms that were deceptively easy-looking but sometimes left even him in a shaky sweat. The control and the movements had to be utterly precise, or they would only earn a swat on the head and a terse demand to redo the entire sequence.
It helped Itachi's perception of beauty that Neji had become a handsome young man in the years between Orochimaru's failed invasion and the time when Itachi had begun to cultivate an interest in him. Two clansmen, two geniuses, two heartthrobs, two disillusioned shinobi; a truly dangerous, elegant pair.
Neji came in off the water, white eyes glittering with the remnants of the euphoria he found in this kind of training. He wasn't tired at all, but energized, and sat across from Itachi on the blanket they had brought to this chilly mountain lake. They ate together, calmly, their balance restored.
1. look over your shoulder
He always seemed to meet Neji coming or going, and with never enough time to stop and talk. Itachi had come to know every delicate plane, every deceptively gentle-looking muscle in the Hyuuga's back, and the determined look he always seemed to wear. It was a gaze not unlike Itachi's own, which when he thought of it vaguely reminded Neji of Ibiki's gaze, like Itachi could look into his head with those ever-so-special eyes and read his thoughts. It was a gaze that let everything happening around Neji slide off to the side for later recovery and categorization.
(Whether this was something Neji did on purpose to avoid sticky conversations with Itachi was always and forever would be up in the air. Neither of them were much to talk, anyway, and Itachi had long ago decided that he really didn't care either way. Nonetheless, genius didn't like to go ignored especially by another of its kind, and occasional company wouldn't be turned away.)
Look at me, red-whirled eyes seemed to say. Neji turned and looked back over his shoulder, arching an eyebrow.
At you?
Red clouds filled his all-seeing eyes.
3. mixed drinks
The Akatsuki are a strange bunch. Some time spent among them, partly on a classified infiltration mission and partly because his interest was piqued, has made Neji decide that there are many, many flavors of 'strange' and that even within each flavor there are subtle undertones of insanity and downright insensibility that threaten to make him tear out his hair in frustration.
The leader always seems to watch Neji with something like amusement, as though he knows something Neji doesn't, and despite all the Hyuuga's veiled questions and the valuable information he sends back to Tsunade every week, he thinks that the leader knows about this mission, and that the leader knows he knows.
Hidan, after a few days of trying to evangelize at Neji to no success at all, promptly gave up on his immortal soul and now spends his time telling Neji in no uncertain terms that he is well and truly fucked in the afterlife (as if Neji didn't already know this). Zetsu will often come in and listen to these exchanges, seemingly amused by how Neji so gracefully handles Hidan's diatribes. Although if that's just half of him, nobody will ever know.
Deidara and Tobi are slightly friendlier. They'll at least have slightly normal conversations in comparison to the rest of the members. Tobi's exuberance reminds Neji of Lee and Naruto. He's taken a shine to the orange-masked man.
Kakuzu looks at Neji with something like indifference, although Neji wonders if he's trying to figure out some way to take Neji captive and hold him ransom for a goodly portion of the Hyuuga estate. However, he'd have to do that without pissing off Itachi, who tolerates nothing of the sort.
Itachi is his own flavor, off to the side like a dusty bottle behind the bar. On the way here after accepting the mission and after convincing Itachi to take him in, Neji realized that he was very, very curious to take a sip and discern the myriad things that made Itachi.
7. foreign chocolate
The taste is foreign and full against his tongue, and chewing slowly Neji opens his eyes to meet calm dark ones. The expression in those eyes doesn't change as Itachi reaches over and wipes a (nonexistent) smear of chocolate off the corner of Neji's mouth, only sparking for a moment when Neji can see his own approval mirrored in them. Their eyes define them and set them apart; black on white, red on white, and their hair two shades of darkness rippling and trailing across the bed. It's often damp when they've both finished, like the sheets that will need to be changed and their sweaty bodies.
Itachi is always saying that the world is a place that doesn't deserve geniuses, and so instead of going to the source of the rare chocolate, he brings it to Neji.
9. penguins
Under the tutelage of the Uchiha genius, Neji learns many things he probably wouldn't under Gai-sensei or even the Hokage. He learns things that criminals must do to survive, and dutifully records these each night in his mission log. The small leather-bound book is nearly full with notes, drawings, diagrams, thoughts, observations of Akatsuki life and work. One evening, he realizes he has come to the last page, and slowly packs it away.
Itachi comes in and hangs up his cloak. The metal mesh shirt he wears glistens in the light. Catching Neji's glum expression, he asks, "Something the matter?"
"Nothing, really."
Itachi stares a moment more, studying Neji carefully, before stripping off his shirts and shoes and the white leg-warmers, and climbing into the bed. Absently Neji follows.
The next morning he finds a new journal sitting on the bedside table. Its front is embossed with a small flightless bird, and he smiles to see that it's black and white.
2. ballroom dancing
Like the movements of the Jyuuken, there is a grace to Itachi's fighting style that lends it the appearance of dancing.
The Uchiha had been in a mood all week, and tonight it had driven him down to the training rooms. He practiced forms over and over again, obsessively as though he'd forget them if he didn't. Neji had brought down some food from the kitchens when Itachi missed dinner, not wanting his one companion in this strange world to collapse from hunger, and had long ago set it down and become engrossed in the flowing style. It reminded him of a faint memory from long ago, of a time before he had known what hatred and resentment were, and before he had been spoiled to the world.
4. tie-dye
Neji was neatly folding his clothes and Itachi was crosslegged at the small table, studying a scroll, when a horrified shriek from down the hall cut through their heavy wooden door. Both looked up in mild surprise, changing to carefully school impassive expressions when Hidan burst into their room, waving a pair of his underwear and screaming obscenities.
Trying to hide his smile behind a tight-lipped smirk, Neji asked, "Is there something the matter, Hidan-san?"
Hidan could only squeak and wave the underwear at him. They were covered in irregular blue-and-red splotches.
"I'll do your laundry for you next time," Neji said calmly. Hidan huffed and stomped back off down the corridor. Itachi looked over, curious about the Hyuuga's satisfied smirk.
"What did you do?" he asked.
"Nothing permanent," Neji replied.
The dye never came out.
5.wings
They were in a teahouse far from any village that would know them, and where they managed to feel relatively safe. No shinobi was ever truly safe or secure in their surroundings, not after years of being trained to walk a knife-edge between life and death, but there were places. Still, just the same, they were attacked by a squad of hunter-nin from a nearby village.
Itachi had seen the attack coming before Neji—a rare occurance. Itachi kept the Hyuuga with him so that he could have warning, but Neji had had his attention on something else. Itachi had shoved Neji behind him, hands darting out from the sleeves of his cloak to run a precise set of hand seals. Caught in the folds of Itachi's cloak, Neji had struggled to look out—he wanted to fight!
Black feathers drifted down around them, and the sound of a thousand birds pecking the eyes of their attackers was all the epitaph the hunters would ever have.
10. suspicious behavior.
They should have seen it coming.
Running for familiar territory, the two Akatsuki and the lone Konoha nin had been exhausted—even Itachi had looked ragged, and despite that he was a clan-nin and had greater stamina than most, Neji felt that he'd used up almost all his reserves of energy and chakra. They'd stopped for the night in a copse of trees, hidden from the main path, and set a watch. Neji had been willing to take first, but it was Itachi who sat up, wordlessly handing his bedroll to Neji to cover with. He'd seen the telltale shake of chakra exhaustion in the Hyuuga's hands, and wanted to stave that off as long as they could and hopefully get back to headquarters.
The hunters who pursued them had fallen upon them soon after. A shout was Itachi's only warning; Samehada swung into action, and scrambling up as fast as he could, Neji summoned up the energy to activate the Byakugan and fight.
They should have seen the people watching them in the teahouse. They should have found the scout that'd stayed outside and watched the carnage Itachi's birds had caused. But they hadn't, and now they paid for it with their blood.
6. immortality
Itachi leaned against the wall outside the infirmary. Nothing would have belied that he was standing there for any real reason; when dealing shinobi as powerful as he was, the question Where does an S-Class missing-nin sleep? was promptly answered with Wherever the hell he wants.
He had his reasons, of course, but they were hidden behind lashes almost too thick for a man and the collar of the cloak, blending him into one long smear of red and black on the wall, like a dead thing. At last, when the healer opened the door, Itachi stirred from his ghastly repose.
"He'll live," the medic said. "You people are all immortal."
Nodding, Itachi went into the infirmary, and shut the door.
