It had begun to rain. Itachi couldn't help but be amused by it. Perfect timing. Next to him, Sasuke was- well, Itachi couldn't quite call it pouting, but it was relatively close.
"Come on, Sasuke," Itachi said, turning in the direction of the Uchiha compound. "We'll be soaked if we stay out here much longer."
Sasuke, however, didn't follow. Instead, he dropped down to his knees in front of the small mound of dirt.
"Why can't he wake up, big brother?"
The prodigy frowned.
"I've already told you that. Your bird is dead; there is no waking up from death."
There was a noise that sounded suspiciously like a sniffle before the little boy's shoulders quacked. With a sigh, Itachi realized he had made Sasuke cry. Again. He had to remember that the five-year-old beside him wasn't a fellow ninja. He was his baby brother who hadn't even started academy yet.
He wasn't sure of how to comfort, but he did know how to distract.
"Sasuke, father will wonder where we are."
To Itachi's great distress, the child began to cry even harder. It was then that Itachi realized that their father definitely wasn't a good subject to transfer to. He had been skeptical of Sasuke's ability to keep a pet, and when he realized that the bird was no longer chirping it's displeasure about being in a cage- when he realized the bird had died- he would decide that Sasuke was undeserving of the kitten that he so desired.
Crouching down and being careful of the newly formed mud, he looked into Sasuke's face. Feelings began to swell that Itachi immediately recognized as big brother instincts. Normally he would repress this mixture of sympathy, protectiveness, and genuine love; but now, it might help.
He reached out stiffly and pulled the boy into an awkward embrace. With the aptitude for adapting to change only a child has, Sasuke threw his arms around his brother's neck and sobbed onto his shoulder.
Resolving to let mother figure out how to end the crying –she had been the one to comfort him when the bird first died after all- Itachi lifted his brother and started again in the direction of the Uchiha compound. Hopefully, they wouldn't run into their father immediately. If they did, maybe he would mistake the tears for rain water.
Later that night, Itachi lay in bed listening to the storm. It had grown harsher in the hours following the burial. One particularly loud clap of thunder almost drowned out the sound of his door sliding open.
Sasuke peaked in through the crack, looking unsure. Itachi, knowing his little brother, lifted the corner of his blankets and it was mere moments before the boy clambered into his bed.
"Mama sad you told me the truth," he whispered into Itachi's shirt, having latched onto it once lying down. "She said Ukeru won't wake up again 'cause that's what it means to die. But she didn't tell me why."
Itachi, who usually ignored his brother when he let him in his bed at night, found himself at a crossroads. Maybe it was okay to be a brother and a ninja. Maybe it wasn't such a bad thing to have feelings sometimes.
"Everything dies someday, Sasuke. It's a part of life for life to end. But that's not the end."
"What's after death?"
The older boy looked down to his brother, who seemed desperate for the answer. Did that bird really matter that much?
"After death you pass on. Your soul leaves this world and enters into the next. Ukeru, I'm sure, has passed. Not many spirits stay in this world after all. Only those who died with a particular grief, hatred, or regret. Your bird didn't have any of those, so I'm sure he's passed on."
Sasuke seemed comforted by this. He snuggled closer to his brother, and his previously tense muscles relaxed.
It wasn't until Itachi was finally drifting off that the boy spoke again.
"I bet it's the worse thing to not pass on."
Almost four years later, Sasuke stood at the fresh Uchiha graves and wished harder than he ever wished before that his parents' grief at being killed by their own son wasn't enough to keep them from passing on.