~Pieces Of You~
Chapter 6: Unsatisfied
Sasuke had started to view the math lessons as a safe oath, a little bit of peace in his gray life. He felt safe with Itachi, and after the first weeks it became easier to be in the same room as him. He didn't know if it was because he somehow accepted his feelings, or if Itachi's gentle attitude towards him affected him so deeply. He stopped blushing so violently and it instead turned into an ever-present pink color that gave his face more attitude. Itachi seemed to enjoy the change in his face color as well.
It was rather obvious to his classmates that he was constantly treated specially, but most of them were too dazzled by their teacher to really care. The sour exception was Shino and Neji of course, but Sasuke couldn't care less about them.
Suddenly it was not enough with those few classes they had with Itachi each week. Sasuke was seriously considering something that he had never thought about before – lowering his grades on purpose so that he would need extra help from his current favorite teacher. Even if Itachi never reprimanded him if he spent a whole lesson daydreaming, it was obvious that he didn't like it when Sasuke didn't study.
Sasuke's perfect opportunity to get extra time with Itachi appeared a dull day when he and his friends were on the run from their most hated teacher.
"Shit shit shit! It's o-v-e-r now! Pervy-sensei coming this way! Run! Take cover!" Naruto and Kiba rushed down the corridors, closely followed by an amused Suigetsu and a bored Sasuke. They heard Ebisu's voice behind them:
"Today I'm going to teach you elite math!"
Sasuke looked at Naruto and frowned. "You know, mathematics is not bad for your health."
"Yes it is!" the blonde boy inquired dramatically. "Can't you see how much I'm coughing? And I think I have a fever! I'm allergic to equations and homework! "
"Desperate?" Suigetsu asked.
Kiba and Naruto were both panic-stricken. "We're going to get slaughtered and murdered and finished off! We will die like Jews in a concentration camp! Bring in the gas, we're the sacrificed lambs…"
"Sacrificial lambs", Sasuke corrected. "But seriously, he is not a dictator."
"What the hell do you know! I swear he was -"
Kiba shook his head. "Excuse that I ask, but is there anything you don't know, Sasuke?"
Suigetsu interfered: "No offense bro, but you would be no match for Itachi. That guy is a calculator. "
The black-haired shrugged. His white-haired friend grinned and took a sip from his water bottle. "By the way, isn't it strange with Itachi and Sasuke?"
Sasuke immediately became defensive and glared at his friend. His biggest fear was that someone would find out about his feelings for their teacher. However, Suigetsu continued unfazed:
"I mean, both of them have got the look and the brain which is enough to get the girls. But except being smart-asses, both of them lack any emotion beside the Ultimate Emo Feeling –"
"Stop calling me emo", Sasuke hissed. "For the umpteenth time, I am not!"
Kiba nodded understandingly. "I mean, I've never seen you express any feeling but irritation. And it's the same with Itachi. Don't you guys think?"
"What?"
Sasuke looked from person to person. Suigetsu exchanged a glance with Naruto.
"Well – it's rather obvious, man. It's like you and he are having some kind of private conversation on the math lessons, only by looking at each other."
Sasuke put on an expressionless façade, as he always did when he didn't know how to handle a situation, and put his hands in his pockets.
A moment later he snapped them away. "Wait – where are my keys?"
Naruto grinned broadly. "Oh, I just happened to find them somewhere before. And then I think I just happened to drop them in the toilet –"
The black-haired boy glared at him. "You're dead, Naruto."
"If you want 'em, run for 'em", the blonde boy shouted and turned around a moment later.
As Sasuke chased after him in break neck speed down the corridors, Suigetsu smiled nonchalantly. "He is slowly turning back to his old self."
"Maybe it just was PMS, as you said", Kiba suggested.
"Naruto! You're so going to regret this!" Sasuke growled and looked wildly in all directions after his blonde friend who suddenly had disappeared. He continued running and suddenly bumped into something – somebody. He looked up and met Itachi's gaze.
"Looking for something?" the man asked.
Sasuke cursed himself silently when his cheeks reddened again. "My keys."
Itachi held them up for a moment and then dropped them in Sasuke's hand. "Here you are."
The younger boy struggled to tear his gaze away from his teacher, and felt the need to spend more time with him when he got an idea.
Well done, Sasuke, his mind congratulated his genialness sarcastically, while his sense wondered why he even bothered.
"Itachi?"
The man seemed to be slightly surprised. "Yes?"
"About what you said the other day …"
"Hm?"
"I think I need help with some math exercises," Sasuke lied and hoped he was able to fool Itachi just a little bit. It was shameful for him to admit that he needed help, but this was the only way. "I realized that I have some things to catch up on."
His heart beat with an almost suffocating force as he waited for a reply. Itachi suddenly spoke up. "You seem to have problem with breathing, do you have a high pulse pressure?"
"No", the younger boy muttered, ashamed to the extent that he thought he would die.
"We can look over some of your exercises already now", Itachi said and relieved Sasuke from the tension that almost killed him. "I don't have any classes right now; how about you?"
Sasuke noticed that although Itachi was speaking very formally - except for his lack of honorifics - his gaze was warm as if they were good friends.
"No" Sasuke said hesitantly and they made their way to the classroom.
This was the beginning of a form of ritual that they would keep up the following week. But that first time when they sat down together and started with the work, Sasuke was overwhelmed. He sat so close to Itachi and was even prepared to act retarded just to get to spend more time with him. He watched Itachi's hands that were so strangely similar to his own holding the pen so gracefully and writing so fast. He could smell the special scent of his teacher that managed to calm his heart whenever it tried to jump out of his chest. And he couldn't get enough. Whenever Itachi stopped in his explanations and looked at him with those kind eyes, Sasuke couldn't even feel his body anymore.
Their private lesson lasted an hour the first time, and the young teen was soon far beyond his grade. They worked well together and Itachi was a splendid teacher, mostly because he knew more than what the work book contained. Sasuke learned fast but occasionally he would forget everything just because their hands happened to make contact. Again.
"I would like to have some more lessons with you", Itachi said with a voice that was more demanding than requesting as Sasuke collected his things at the end of the hour. Sasuke nodded and felt how a big sun was shining in his chest, making him glow with happiness. Itachi smiled at him and reached out his hand.
Sasuke froze and stared at him. Itachi immediately pulled back and his face turned neutral again. "It's time for you to go", he said quietly and stood up as well. "Well done, Sasuke."
"Thanks."
Sasuke felt how the distance between them had extended once again, and he wanted to reach his teacher. Surprising himself he asked: "When do you have time to help me out again?"
Itachi distractedly toyed with an eraser on the desk, but his eyes were utterly focused. "How about tomorrow, after your last class? This classroom is empty then."
Sasuke nodded. He almost stumbled out of the classroom and in his head their conversation was repeating over and over again, and he found himself over-analyzing every single thing. Then it hit him, when he was on his way to the next class. Wait. Wait wait. "After your last class – this classroom is empty then" - How did he know -? He knows my schedule?
He was late to the next class but no one really cared. Kakashi was reading his book as usual, the classroom was in chaos and the students resembled a bunch of kindergarten children. The young Uchiha was quickly initiated in the under-cover war that his friends had started up against each other. They automatically parted into two teams; Sasuke and Suigetsu who had the help of Ino versus Naruto and Kiba.
Sasuke read the note that Suigetsu had gotten from their 'enemies': IT'S ON, BITCHES. THE WAR HAS BEGUN! With kind regards, Kiba :)
He face-palmed. "He can't use the world 'kind regards' in a declaration of war!"
Ino who had participated read her note with a snarl: You are not as sassy as you think! I hereby declare a sassy match! / With deadly regards, Kiba the King
She scribbled something down and passed the note to Suigetsu with a snicker. Stay classy, sassy, and be a smart ass-y. I have just too much awesomeness in my blood. You're not sassy at all. /Ino the Queen
"I'M MORE SASSY THAN YOU!" Kiba shouted.
Kakashi stopped all activity by shutting his book, the ultimate sign of 'shut the fuck up'.
"About your P.E. lesson this afternoon … we're having a different setup today."
"What?" The students stared at him, fearing the worst.
"You are going to have orienteering."
"WHAAAT?" The pupils clutched their heads and groaned in opposition.
"No way!"
"Not today!"
"Sensei I'm allergic to sports!"
"In the woods?"
"You are going straight out into the forest", Kakashi declared calmly. "And because none of you did what you were supposed to do before, you're starting at once."
"What – but what about our lunch, sensei?" Naruto yelled.
Kakashi looked at them. "No one is allowed to eat their lunch until they have found all of the control points. You must learn that breaking the rules is bad." He started to hand out a couple of maps that he had gotten from a cupboard in the gym room. "I hope you still are able to read them; the last class ran into a tsunami or something so they are still a bit wet."
"I like wet things", Naruto grinned.
Karin and Sakura glared daggers at him and Ino rolled her eyes. "God, you're so immature, Naruto."
Kakashi then handed out a couple of compasses as he read his children banned book with his free hand. "Sasuke, tell your friends how this sport works."
Sasuke sighed. "You use a map and a compass to navigate yourself in unfamiliar terrains, often moving at speed."
"I like to navigate myself in unfamiliar terrains! Especially with speed!"
"NARUTO! If you say anything else, you're dead! I'll castrate you like they do with pigs, in an apparatus WITHOUT anesthesia! And it's going to hurt like hell!" Sakura roared and punched him. Sasuke sent her an annoyed glance.
"You can start as soon as you've gotten the map and the compass", Kakashi announced when said objects were distributed. "You can split in groups of two."
Everybody stood up with complains and accusations. As they slowly left the building they got sight of the weather.
"Oh common!" Kiba groaned. "It's pouring down outside! Seriously, I'd rather orientate in the middle of Sahara!"
The scattered groups slowly spread over the schoolyard. Naruto, Kiba, Suigetsu and Sasuke examined their maps without any interest as they walked over the gray concrete. Sasuke pulled his rain coat up and suddenly spotted a long, black-clothed figure come walking towards them. He stared in astonishment and hope. Itachi?
Their teacher was dressed in a black rain coat that emphasized his masculine features, and from under the hood a pale face was visible, surrounded by strands of black hair that were slightly wet. Sasuke stared at his face through the falling rain and suddenly felt as if he was about to lose his ground. There was something so painfully familiar with that face under a hood, but he couldn't relate to it. A moment later the strange feeling disappeared and Itachi looked at him with the same friendly smile as before.
"Hello, Sasuke."
Why is he only greeting me?
"...Hi."
"What are you doing here, Itachi?" Kiba asked.
The man smirked a bit. "Since I have no classes right now, I figured that I would come and see how my lovely students are doing."
"Very kind of him", Sakura muttered where she was crouching together with her friend under a pink umbrella. "Don't you think, Ino." The blonde girl sent the man a curious glance that was mixed with anger. None of the girls had been treated very well by him.
Itachi raised one of his hands and swept his bangs out of his face, and Sasuke was hit like a flash of lightning again.
The sound of rain… a soft hand caressing his forehead… I'm back, Sasuke.
Terrified he stared at the ground. What is this?
"Let's go", he snapped to Suigetsu and almost ran away, eager to get out of Itachi's sight. "Hey, wait!" his best friend shouted as ran after him. "Are you so hungry that you can't even wait for me, man?"
Sasuke didn't answer. He clutched the map firmly in his hands and left his teacher far behind him. His heart pounded wildly and he felt slightly nauseous as he ran into the woods that surrounded their school. The ground became muddy and he stumbled, but he didn't care for a moment.
"You know, you can't hide it for me", Suigetsu panted as he tried to keep up with his pace, "I know that you are –"
"Shut up!" Sasuke shouted and stopped dead in his tracks. His friend looked at him with his purple eyes glimmering through the rain.
A moment they remained grave and motionless, before Suigetsu suddenly laughed. "It's okay dude, I know you're attracted to him. It's not so abnormal, I mean – but maybe he is just a sick pedophile who wants to get into your pants!"
"Dammit!" Sasuke clenched his teeth and continued again, torn up inside. He ran blindly into the forest and ignored his friend's words.
"Sasuke! Dude, come back here! We're never getting our lunch if you continue like this! I didn't mean to offend you, okay?"
When he finally caught up to the black-haired, the latter was sitting on a stone among some bushes and stared emptily in front of him.
"Sasuke! Seriously, say something!" Suigetsu leaned against a tree and noticed that his water bottle was empty. He cursed savagely and waited for a reply.
"Hello, Saaaaasuke, the world is calling! Are you in there?"
He was only rewarded with an annoyed glance. "I'm not talking to you. In case you haven't noticed, I'm ignoring you."
"No. You're not ignoring me because if you were ignoring me you should not have talked to me in the first place."
"Shut up!"
"Hey, let's get this over with and go home." Suigetsu took the map from his numb hands and looked at it bewildered. "Hm…. Let's see… where are we now?" He turned the map around a couple of times and frowned. "I really hope you kept track of where you were going, Sasuke."
The other boy finally looked up at him. "I? I wasn't the one who should do that!"
"You had the map!"
"And you had the compass!" Sasuke snapped and grabbed the map. "I can't believe it! We must have been going straight at east and now –"
"I don't know, you better handle that." Suigetsu sat down on the stone beside him and stretched out. "I'll take a nap meanwhile. Wake me up when you figure it out."
Sasuke ignored him and stared at the map. "I don't know where we are."
"So what are we supposed to do?" the white-haired said and chewed at his thumb nail in lack of anything better to bite into. "No matter how we look at it, we're helplessly and unforgivable lost. If only Shikamaru was here... we'd need a genius now."
"We have to try, at least."
They slowly started walking in a vague direction, with Sasuke as the map reader and Suigetsu who tried to figure out which direction they were going. Sasuke felt shielded in the forest; high trees were surrounding him from all sides and blocked the most of the rain, and the world around them was glowing green and living. When they had walked for about two hours without finding a single control point and neither the way back, both of them were hungry, annoyed and worried in their own way.
They stopped in front of a big rock and realized that they were not going to find the way out. They sat down on a stone, silent, and wondered what they were going to do. Sasuke tried to figure out their location, but it was meaningless as they didn't have a clue where they were. Continue walking would only make it worse.
He didn't know how many hours had passed when Suigetsu started biting into trees in frustration. Sasuke who now was freezing cold had never been so happy in his whole life when he suddenly spotted a black-clothed man, walking towards them through the rain. Itachi had his hood pulled down and his long hair was hanging in loose strands around him. Something red faded in his eyes as he approached them. Sasuke looked down in his lap and his body reacted instantly. He was surprised when Itachi stopped right in front of him.
Happily he looked up only to see the dark, almost dangerous glimpse in his teacher's narrowed eyes. Sasuke's smile died away.
"Come with me", Itachi said and spoke only to the black-haired. Suigetsu walked over to them and tilted his head to the side.
Sasuke hesitantly started walking with Itachi as a tall, shielding shadow at his side. The older boy took the map from him and he confidently guided them back the way they had come from. Sasuke wondered why Itachi seemed to be so angry and a defiant blush started to burn on his cheeks.
"What's wrong?" he blurted out, upset. "Are you angry because you had to come to search for me?"
Itachi barely sent him a glance and he didn't sound happy. "It's getting dark. Did you plan to continue walking even deeper although you didn't know where you were?"
Sasuke was taken aback and he didn't know what to say. Instead he silently gritted his teeth and followed the man back. They walked in silence with Suigetsu trailing some yards behind them, and Sasuke wondered how long he could take it.
Say something! Say something! He clutched his head in his hands again as he walked; it had became a habit of his to do so, but all he could think of was endless questions.
They finally arrived at the school, where Kakashi and some students were assembled in the falling darkness. Naruto rushed over to them, closely followed by Kiba.
"Where the heck have you been? Kakashi-sensei was about to send out a searching squad! We thought that you had run into a tsunami for real!" Naruto shouted.
Kiba rolled his eyes. "You thought that."
"I didn't, believe it!"
Suigetsu was glomped by his anxious girlfriend and soon had his face full of red hair. The other girls in their class, except Hinata, were there and looked anxiously at Sasuke.
The young Uchiha could only focus on one single person. Itachi seemed to be a bit calmer now when they were near the school, but Sasuke didn't like his stern facial expression. Sasuke couldn't help himself; he held himself close to the elder.
"Are you alright?" Itachi asked quietly so only Sasuke was able to hear him.
Sasuke nodded, feeling a bit closer to him now. His teacher suddenly reached out and placed his hand on his shoulder. The younger boy felt as if an electric shock went through his arm and through his whole body in a fraction of a second and made his heart cramp. Itachi smiled faintly at his dazed facial expression. "Take care."
Then he pulled back and simply turned around. Sasuke watched as his teacher walked away from the school, with doubt and confusion filling his heart.
Itachi was already so far away… and Sasuke couldn't take it anymore. He suffered from this; he suffered from this kind of unsatisfied, desperate and shameful so far unreturned love. He felt it now stronger now than ever as he watched Itachi's disappearing back.
He was deeper in love than he never thought he could be, and it was driving him mad. He didn't know what made him rush forward in the next moment, but he grabbed Itachi's wrist and halted him. The elder looked at him with unfeigned surprise in his dark eyes for a moment, and it soon turned into something else, but Sasuke wasn't letting it dazzle and immobilize him this time.
"Thank you for finding us."
Itachi's gaze changed. The look in his eyes became warm and kind, reflecting Sasuke's own feelings. The younger boy felt his stomach muscles tighten at that look… as if Itachi wanted him too. However, his teacher remained calm and collected. "Not at all, Sasuke. I'm glad you're safe."
Sasuke stared at him for some moments, feeling that strange safety wrap itself around him. Why did he feel so... protected when he was with the older man?
However, a moment later Itachi broke the contact between their eyes.
"Well, see you tomorrow then."
This time Sasuke stood still as he watched his teacher leave. His gaze was still filled with frustration, but there was also affection. He couldn't keep himself from admiring Itachi from behind. Although he knew that his friends were watching him, he couldn't care less. Maybe Itachi felt the same and that was enough to satisfy him right now.
The older boy smiled to himself as he left the school behind him. Right now he was hearing another voice in his head:
You'll become a big brother, Itachi, and I feel that I can entrust you with that.
He put his hands in his pockets and straightened his back, shaking some black hair out of his face. His strong feelings were blossoming inside of him, but he couldn't let them out just yet. But soon...
.
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