You Will Not Remember Me
- Sensitivity -
The stranger's mouth started to tremble, as the waitress's face turned into such an utterly done expression he tried very hard not to smile at something he had just recalled.
"Nii-san, nii-san! Take me and Naruto on the ferris wheel again! Please, please, please!"
"Otouto, you two have been on that ride four times already. At this rate, you won't have enough tickets left to do anything else."
"But nii-san it's really fun! Isn't it Naruto? Come on, speak up! You want to go on it too! Naruto? Uh, where did you go? Naruto, get back here!" His brother sprinted off after the escaping hyper-active blond, forgetting all about the ride. The eleven year old shook his head at how short a leash Sasuke kept on his friend at just six years old. That blond was going to go through hell with him during his teen years. He shook his head; it was partly his fault after all.
On his way back from a mission two years ago, he had spotted Naruto beat up and trembling in a ditch; his body enveloped in bright red chakra. All around him were other ninja and even some civilians equipped with pitch forks and bats, but every last one of them was dead or unconscious. He knew that he had direct orders to not engage with Naruto, the accursed jinchuuriki, but there was no way he could have just left him there, orders be damned.
Secretly, cloaking both their chakras, he brought the child home and tried to help him; his wounds were already healing fast, but he was dirty and traumatized. Using some secret little-brother-hearing-technique, Sasuke had barged into the room and was shocked to see his academy classmate crying with ripped clothing, and a dirty face, as he treated Naruto with a tired expression. Even though he kept calling Naruto a 'dobe' for following some man who offered him food, after having had the situation explained to him, Sasuke had gotten truly upset and resolved that he would do something about it.
He was already a bright child, of course, but he started advancing at even higher rate; gluing himself to Naruto's side, and scaring off anyone who tried to hurt him.
He shook his head slowly as he head Naruto's voice, yelling at Sasuke to stop doing something or another. Even though their father had not been thrilled at Sasuke's new friend, Itachi had been so proud of his brother for doing the right thing, and growing as a person. He smiled softly and turned to face Shisui who had returned from buying tickets from a positively confused-looking volunteer, cursing under her breathe as she counted the money Shisui had given her.
"Come on!" Shisui called obliviously, pushing him forward, "Let's go enjoy the fair!"
So they did just that; sight-seeing, attending performances, and playing games in the tiny booths lining the main road, eventually returning to where they had started.
They were just about to visit a restaurant when they suddenly heard high-pitched soft sniffles coming from behind. Wordlessly, they agreed to go find the source when they found a small girl of all of four years old sniffling, clutching a single ticket to her chest.
"I-I-I wanted to w-w-win Teya a-a-a st-st-uffed mo-mo-monkey but I couldn't a-a-and n-n-now, I w-w-won't cause I on-on-ly have o-o-one ticket l-l-left," she cried, showing the older boys a sad-looking crumpled ticket.
His heart broke a little so he figured why not? He played the game, throwing three consecutive darts into the bull's-eye and won their most special prize, a monstrously huge blue and green elephant with a purple monkey riding its back. The girl immediately straddled the elephant stuffed animal, sitting down behind the monkey, as another even younger girl came into view.
The resulting little girls' smiles threatened to swallow up the entirety of their tiny faces.
"Thank you onii-san!" The two chorused, before bowing deeply and speeding off with the giant toy.
"Oh, my hero," Shisui teased, batting his black eyelashes and clasping his fingers to the side of his face like some ultra-girly, whiny Disney princess. "And what a cutie too," he said, kissing the side of his forehead.
"...Shisui, why are you so creepy," he mumbled under his breath.
The two decided to get more tickets before hitting the restaurant; but when Itachi asked for twenty, the volunteer narrowed her eye, twitched her lips and said,
"You two lovers, want the super special couple's package again?"
The eleven-year old was speechless, but Shisui decided that it was a good idea to creep out the already confused woman, by asking who she thought 'topped' in their relationship. It ended with her contorting her face into an eerily similar version of the waitress's, and putting out a 'gone for break,' sign before disappearing behind a set of curtains, without selling them any tickets at all.
'Ha, puzzling tired night-shift workers is too much fun' Shisui had said when they finally sat down for dinner. 'But hey it's cheaper! And even if we aren't a couple, like you keep insisting, Sasuke and Naruto sure are, haha."
Now here he was, five years later annoying night shift workers again, but without even trying to. He imagined Shisui sitting beside him and grinning.
Knowing him Shisui would probably run up to the register and ask for a few more skewers, 'Extra bland, in fact don't even put the glaze, just give us the raw rice flour balls and we'll eat them like that,' and then get them both thrown out of the bakery for being nuisances. His heart clenched because even though it was the dumbest think he could think of, he wished it would happen.
The chunin misinterpreted the tension in his expression and spoke out, ordering another set of food items for herself, and bringing the man back to his current location, the bakery. Distracted, the wind ninja stalked off to the back to complete the orders, grumbling about tasteless food.
He took a deep breathe, schooling his features back into a neutral expression. Several minutes later, he noticed the heavy silence emanating off the remaining ninja, so he shifted his glance to the chuunin, trying to analyze her in greater detail.
'Probably around my own age,' he estimated, 'And a tomboy of sorts or without a mother-figure, judging by the badly-cut short purple hair, it resembles a raggedy version of Konan's.' She was also quite short, standing a good head and a half less than the other girl and wore her village's standard ninja attire, similar to Konoha's but with a blue vest and grey shirt, folded back to reveal bruised wrists.
Watching her pick at a burn on her left hand, he re-evaluated his earlier judgement that she was beginner to intermediate level; she was clearly still working through the grueling beginner stage in her lightning nin-jutsu training where self-mutilation was practically a good thing.
Her body positioning was awkward; eyes flickering from his table to another, then back again repeatedly.
He hoped she did not feel as though she needed to talk to him because she defended him... but she apparently did.
She shuffled over and sat down opposite him and introduced herself, asking him who he was.
He stayed completely silent, not moving an inch as he tried to decide how to respond to that. Ordinarily, he would not have replied at all, or used some really generic name like 'Ryu,' or 'Akira', but due to the secluded nature of this village, he doubted either choice was even necessary. Also, she asked him who he was, not for his name, and such vague questions warranted vague answers.
Also, and perhaps this was the biggest reason, he was feeling just the tiniest bit lonely after thinking about Shisui.
"Hello Aida, I am a Konoha ninja currently on a mission," he replied.
"Alright," she said in a small voice, sounding defeated a little by his evasive answer; although, it was a genin mistake to give away her and her friend's names so quickly to a stranger in the first place.
"Super top secret mission, got it," she continued easily enough, after a few blessed seconds of silence, but her shoulders tensed almost microscopically as she innocently added, "But, we haven't disclosed any information to any hidden villages requesting for such powerful shinobi aid like yourself."
'Sharing personal, but useless, facts combined with compliments and flattery to lull me into a false sense of security, in return for private intel,' he thought, catching onto her little play immediately, as he moved forward to rest his chin on one of his hands, 'Ineffective on me, but not completely hopeless if your target takes well to charming and attention.'
"That would make sense, seeing as that I'm not acting in behalf of your village. I'm acting on behalf of my own," he said in a low voice, anticipating her reaction at the slightly inflammatory statement.
She visibly bristled and looked at him with slightly widened eyes and a small lopsided scowl on the left side of her mouth. She sputtered slightly before she asked plainly, "What are you doing here?"
He responded in a lighter more pleasant tone, "What everyone does here; stop for some rest and food before crossing the mountain-path to get to the next village over." No part of his tone suggested deception; not faltering, keeping his pace perfectly controlled, and each word enunciated fully. This way it sounded like he was just having a bit of fun pulling her leg.
'I probably was pulling her leg a little,' he thought absently; if Shisui were here he'd laugh at this point but Itachi only smiled, raising his chin a little so she could see his expression.
"Oh," she said, voice low with embarrassment. She ran her fingers through her hair once more, not bothering with the innocently enthusiastic facade in trying to get information any longer; he was not falling for it, and she did not really expect this normal-sounding guy of any suspicious activity.
He smiled just a little at her abrupt change in personality. Just as he was about to comment, they heard the sound of a door suddenly smacking a door stopper. A moment later, Niha's footsteps clattering on the hardwood as she re-entered the space, arms full with plates of dango, food, and drinks.
"Let me know if you two dare-devils want anything really, really, flavorful because I think I saw some totally crazy flavored water in the backroom," she said as she set the food on the table.
Niha heard a quiet deep voiced laugh, but she assumed it was a figment of her imagination along with the slight tilt of the stranger's lips. That smile was probably just a play of shadows under his hat, too. Hallucinations being a more likely option than Mr. Stoic laughing.
"I don't think so Niha, too risky for me. Although, another cream packet for the coffee would be nice," said Aida.
Smiling fakely, the brunette bowed, placing two packets on the table with both hands, and saluted once before she went over to manually rub down the tables just recently vacated by the construction workers.
Neither girl noticed that the stranger had placed his hat on the seat beside him and unbuttoned his cloak till mid-way down his torso until Aida heard a slight 'pop' sound along with the sound of a now two-dango skewer touching the plate.
Niha had not bothered looking over at the pair (her thoughts more occupied with how damn messy people ate) and was absentmindedly humming a ballad under her breath. However, if she were looking, she would have teased Aida relentlessly for the rest of her life for the way she looked just then. The short girl had her coffee lifted halfway up to her lips, contents swishing around dangerously close to the rim; but this was fully unnoticed by her occupied shock-wide eyes. Her blue irises were barely visible around her blown open pupils. The finishing touch was her now floor-level jaw.
The black-haired man had his eyes trained on the wall clock the entire time, acutely aware of Aida's eyes moving across his face and lower, but he ignored it. He sipped at the tea, inhaling the therapeutic steam and pondered the way his skin was feeling uncharacteristically sensitive. It tingled a bit at the attention.