" So, what brings you back to Konoha?" Makoto asked casually, fiddling with the small strap attaching his gourd to his belt ( a habit that he had been teased by Emiko many a time when they were younger).
" Well, it's hard to believe, but i tend to miss this place" she laughed gently, twiddling a piece of her hair as they walked side by side through an old path that only they knew about that lead to the statues of the 4 hokages in the rock.
" ...Emiko, I... Well..." he stumbled over his words, stopping to a halt in front of their destination with a confused and determined look etched on his features. She stopped with him, just as confused as he was, and decided to at least TRY and help him out.
" Emiko I well, what?" she asked in her usual mischievous tone, turning towards him with her hands behind her back and shuffling her foot nervously along the dirt path ( A habit that Makoto could get his own back on her for ALSO when they were younger).
He scratched the back of his head nervously, before sighing and finally looking up at her. White met dark blue as he stared into her eyes, resolving in his mind that he had to tell her sooner than later.
" Emiko, I'm worried about... Itachi" he said, looking seriously into her confused orbs of blue.
" Wh- What do you mean?" She asked, bringing her arms back to her front and crossing them over her chest.
Makoto sighed and turned to lean onto the metal safety bar, looking down into the bottom of the cavern, making his blue tinted green hair fall down his face, hiding his eyes from everything.
" He's been acting strangely, cutting himself off not just from his other team mates, but from everyone around him..." he started, stopping when he heard Emiko lean onto the railing as well. Taking a quick lance to where she was, he saw that she was in the same sort of position that he was in, her unique hair enshrouding her features until all that you could see was a tiny frown marred upon her face, before he turned his head back to the forest floor beneath them.
" ...And his power, it's grown exceedingly in the last few months. Don't get me wrong, that's the whole point of training,to learn from your mistakes and use them to your advantage, but the truth is..." he said, stopping to stand back up slightly, making Emiko look back up into his white eyes.
" It scares me..." he said, licking his lips and turning to fully face her " ... It scares me to think that he might, one day, be more powerful than the hokages, put together" he finished, before hearing Emiko laugh solemnly as she turned her head back to face the statues.
" That's exactly what Otousan keeps saying, or if he doesn't, it's pretty damn close to that. It's always 'Itachi this' and 'Itachi that' and when he says it, he has pride coming out of his ears. But don't get me wrong, I love my brother, both of the, more than anything in thsi world, but i mean, how would you feel if you were compared to nejia ll the time? And well, me, as you know, I was, what my father often described as, 'a disappointment to the Uchiha family'." She said, before feeling the stingy, burning feeling in her eyes and trying desperately to blink it back, hoping that it would eventually go away, when unknown to her a teardrop was already running down her cheek.
She tensed up slightly, but soon relaxed when she felt a pair of strong arms encircle her waist and pull her into a hug, her back to his chest as he leaned his forehead on her shoulder, a position that they both knew very well from when they were both children, and she managed a slight smile when she placed her hands on his.
"why do y-you always have to cheer me up, you baka?" she joked, sniffing as another set of hot tears coursed down her now flushed cheeks, leaving little trails where they had been.
He gently let go of her a moment, only to turn her around and pull her into a deep, friendly embrace as she cried her heart out into his shirt for the first time in months, her hands grasping the soft material tightly as if her very existence would crumble were she to let go, whilst he made soothing notions on her back, trying to help her calm down as he did many a time when they were younger...
