The first time Itachi ever met Hiro he was six years old, and walking to the academy. The man was standing outside of a sake-bar, holding a white mask with (blood) red lines on it, Itachi instantly recognized it as an ANBU mask, but he didn't bother to stop, until he noticed the man had two of his class mates with him, the girl he knew as Kunei was bouncing up and down trying to look at the mask.

The man, Hiro, was smiling knowingly at her, but refused to lower it so that she could see it, as Itachi approached the two children looked at him, before bowing to the man and running up the street toward the academy.

Itachi paused before the man, and he looked down at the young boy who was looking up at him disapprovingly. The man seemed surprised, but neither of them spoke, a man inside the bar called out to the man standing in front of Itachi ("Hiro, come in here son!"), just as Itachi's mother called to him ("Come on Itachi, we have to hurry.").

Hiro smiled down at Itachi, and slowly turned away.

Hiro's smile worried Itachi, but he paid it no further thought, as he assumed he'd never see the other man again.

Itachi was seven when he next met Hiro, who'd come straight from the Hokage's tower, to see his brother and sister graduate. He was congratulating them when he looked up across the crowd and caught Itachi's eye.

He smiled.

Itachi shivered without knowing why.

This time Hiro spoke to him, "Congratulations." he said as Itachi walked past him, toward his own father. His voice was strange, a sort of deep husky voice. Itachi wondered if the strange scars on his throat, which his brother and sister carefully avoided looking at, had something to do with the way he sounded.

Itachi didn't speak to him, but rather walked straight to Fugaku, a blank expression as his father patted him awkwardly on the shoulder.

The third time Itachi, now a chuunin met Hiro, still an ANBU, the other man didn't smile. It surprised Itachi, but he showed nothing. Hiro walked past him, and though nothing seemed different Itachi could see what the others couldn't.

Something on his mission had broken something inside of him, but Itachi was sure; Hiro would reach out to nothing, and nothing would care to reach back.

The forth time Itachi met Hiro, he was thirteen years old, and ANBU captain, and his encounters with the other man would be too often to count now, but still Itachi knew he would try.

He was introduced as ANBU captain, and when the men left the room only he and Hiro stood staring at each other.

Itachi offered a smile.

Hiro didn't.

Itachi took Hiro with him, occasionally, when he had to take a partner. The other ANBU assumed it was for the sense of familiarity that Hiro offered, having been the older brother of both of Itachi's cellmates.

Itachi tried one day, in vain, to understand why Hiro seemed to hate so much, including him.

He asked him, as they headed home, "Why don't you look at me?" he wasn't entirely sure what he meant by the question, and the look Hiro gave him told him it was a question for which he would fear the answer, but when Hiro did, finally answer, Itachi didn't understand,

"Because if I look at you... I want to touch you."

Itachi started to ask what he meant, but Hiro quickly used his ninjutsu, Shadow fade, for which he was known as the 'Shadow Killer', and faded into the shadows.

When Itachi, almost fourteen, and still contemplating Hiro's strange response almost seven months earlier, approached the man on the training grounds feeling slightly apprehensive. He came to a halt three, or so, feet from the vigorously training Hiro, and softly spoke, repeating the same strange question he'd asked the man months prior, to see if his response was different, "Why won't you look at me?"

To his surprise Hiro turned to look at him slowly, breathing heavily from over exertion, and did something strange, he fell to his knees, and sat back on his heels slowly, his hands resting flat on the ground, palms upward, and spoke softly, almost a whisper, "I want to touch you."

Itachi still didn't understand this statement, unsure of what kind of touch the man meant he said softly, "And so you can."

"No." Hiro whispered, and didn't yet lift his eyes to the boy before him.

"Why?" Itachi didn't understand the complexity of a situation as simple as touch. Why not, he wondered, just touch? What problems could such an action bring?

Hiro looked up at him slowly, and for the first time since Hiro had knelt Itachi realized that it looked as if the man were groveling before him, "Touch you?" Hiro asked, he seemed aghast at the very thought, "If I should indulge myself I would taint you. As pure as you are, you could never understand."

Itachi frowned, not understanding, but again Hiro fell into the shadows, and Itachi was left to wonder.

Itachi, not quite fourteen, had to leave. His family dead at his hand, and he thought of his brother. Thought of his pain, his anger. His hate.

He truly had let Sasuke live for his sake.

Some where outside the village Itachi met Hiro for the last time. Both men had blood on them, Hiro had it dripping from his hands, and Itachi had it drying on his skin.

They stood in a small clearing, illuminated by the full moon what seemed to make the blood glow black.

Itachi didn't know what to say, and he could see Hiro was looking at the cut in his forehead protector, and so finally Itachi said, falling back on the conversation they'd started ten months ago, and left off with three months earlier, "What do you mean," he could hear his voice rasping, and he felt as if he should feel something, other than longing, "That you would taint me?"

Hiro held up his hands, and smiled slowly, "With these blood stained hands I would turn your white into red."

It was the first time Itachi had seen him smile in years.

This time it was Itachi who left without another word, thinking that someday, some where they would meet again, and finish this conversation. When he could understand better.

As he moved past Hiro his hand brushed the older mans as he dropped his hands to his sides.

Hiro didn't look at Itachi, and Itachi didn't look at Hiro.

Hiro had been wrong, Itachi realized as he stumbled toward Sasuke his hand outstretched and trembling, it wasn't his touch that could have tainted Itachi. It was Itachi's touch that would taint.

Sasuke was standing before him wide eyed and afraid.

Itachi offered a smile.

Sasuke didn't.

His fingertips touched Sasuke's forehead, slick with blood, and he felt the life force draining out of him.

Itachi reached out to no one, and no one reached back.

Itachi closed his eyes.

A/N: This isn't anything real important... though I am particularly in love with that stupid OC =.=!

Just written from boredom/for Itachi-ness.