Disclaimer: I own nothing. I only...I got nothing. I am brain dead. Sorry.


chapter 7 | mou nakanaide


When he went to bed that night, sleep didn't come so easily. There were screams dying in the throats of those that were soon lifeless, and blood gurgling in their mouths soon after.

Itachi never told anyone about his nightmares, and he probably never would. The only one that knew was Shisui, and it was only because the 12 year old experienced the same thing on an almost nightly basis. He sat up and rubbed at his eyes, already used to the strain that came with being a ninja.

He tossed the thin blanket off himself and silently but quickly slipped on a pair of black ninja shoes he kept in his closet. He tied his hair and without making a single noise, he opened the window of his dark room and left.

As he walked down the streets of the quiet Uchiha district, the ten year old noted how only a few of the houses he passed by were decorated with unlit lanterns. He, Mikoto and Sasuke had left the festival early, because after the performance at the hospital, his mother claimed tiredness and they ended up missing the Cruise of Spirits.

Which, in hindsight, Itachi didn't really mind. He knew that he had barely gotten four hours of sleep that night, the same number he usually got before he was woken up by nightmares. If they had gotten home later, he wouldn't have had the time to walk the streets in the dark like this.

His nightmares were always the same—a replay of all the things he witnessed in his missions as a shinobi. Killing…killing…and more killing. Sometimes, on nights that were particularly merciless, he'd have nightmares of the things he'd seen when the war still went on.

He ambled through a path he took on the nights he didn't feel like lying on his bed until exhaustion crept up on him and forced him to sleep for another thirty minutes or so—he walked this path only on the nights where he wanted to feel peace, if only for a few hours before the sun rose and he'd have to go back home so his father wouldn't notice him gone.

The raucous sounds of the festival were long gone; the villagers had gone home hours ago. Konoha wouldn't wake up until several more hours.

As he walked, he tried to keep his misgivings about the reason why Fugaku had come home late—again—that day. His father had muttered something about being summoned for a clan council meeting.

'The subject of the meeting,' He told himself, 'I can discuss with Shisui.' Right now, he forced himself to keep his thoughts at bay by thinking of something else.

Something else being a certain silver-haired, green-eyed girl.

"Katsuya," He slowly murmured underneath his breath. He was now passing through that same park he had met her in the second time—that time, underneath the cover of a waiting shed, with the skies pouring rain above them.

Up until a few hours ago, Itachi had always thought her to be a mild-mannered girl, not prone to extreme displays of emotion.

At the time they met at the waiting shed that he now passed by, she had smiled and she had laughed in a strangely subtle way—it wasn't entirely noticeable, with the way the corners of her mouth lifted up minutely to form a small display of happiness. Her laughs were quiet, and were more like lighthearted chuckles.

She felt so…different, compared to other children. Other children his age, and sometimes even adults, either worshipped him or feared him; too wrapped up in the fact that yes, he had graduated the academy at the age of seven, and yes, it had only taken him one year—and yes, he knew, it had only taken three years to become a chuunin.

But Katsuya, she didn't know any of that. The only thing she probably knew was that he was a ninja and that he was a "very good one", as Shisui had told her. She was completely oblivious to the fact that he was a prodigy and treated him like anyone else should have.

She had smiled and talked to him without any inhibition other than politeness, and even then it was the most normal conversation he had had with a child his age. He remembered that the quarter hour he had spent with her at the waiting shed had been nice in its own simple way.

He walked in the dead of the night, with the crickets chirping in the carefully kept foliage of the trees and bushes that lined the paths of the park. The moon, along with the stars, hung high in the black sky. It was moments like these, and like the one that he had in the waiting shed with Katsuya, that he secretly enjoyed.

'Peaceful moments like these.'

Itachi made his way to the end of the path, where he knew it would eventually join with a pier. He was almost halfway to the end of the pier when he was near enough to discern a solitary figure from the darkness, sitting at the same spot he liked to sit in.

The little light that the moon and the stars gave shone in the sparkling, silver hair that tumbled down her back. He stopped his near silent footsteps, seeing the object of his thoughts dangling her feet in the waters of the lake.

It was like she heard him—which was near impossible, he was a ninja—because not a moment later, her head turned back to see him.

She looked as tired as he felt. Her face didn't seem very surprised, but he thought it was probably because she was too tired to even look the emotion. She gave him a brief tip of the head.

"Itachi…-san."

The honorific was added like an afterthought, but he didn't mind very much. He looked at her critically after returning her nod, "What are you doing here?"

She pursed her lips before quietly asking, "Do you really want to know?"

He contemplated it for a moment. Did he? Surprisingly, it was Shisui's voice in his head that answered that question.

"Yes you do, Itachi."

Before he even realized what he was doing, his mouth was uttering a word.

"…Yes."

She sighed and moved a little bit, so she sat to the side of the pier instead of its center. The girl gestured to the space beside her, her back still facing him, "Sit down if you'd like, Itachi-san."

He nodded again, slowly. Although the offer was still a polite one, he could tell that it would be better for him to accept it. She would feel more comfortable if he did—her reasons for being there would be personal, just like his.

So he slipped off his ninja sandals and set them on the pier before coming to sit beside her. He dipped his feet in the water, just as she had. He turned to look at her.

She was taking the time to think about something, he knew. Her face was partially obscured by a curtain of silvery hair, but it didn't stop him from noticing that her eyes were staring at the hands that she had folded in her lap.

Internally, Itachi wondered at how easily she consumed all the space in his mind by staring at her hands. At that exact moment, she had done the thing that he himself couldn't do without forcing himself—that is, keeping himself so preoccupied that he had no thoughts left to the clan, nor even to his father.

.

That night, she had woken to the sounds of Toru and Hideie arguing. She had never heard them so furious before—she could hear them yelling from down the hall, even through closed doors and her sleep.

She knew a hole had opened in her heart that night, no matter that her parents were yelling at each other.

'Mother will never love me like the way dad does.'

She had then stayed up, sitting on her bed, listening to the sounds of her parents undoubtedly fighting over her. She listened until her ears and her sorrowed heart begged her to make it stop.

So she left. She crept halfway down the hall, halfway close to where her parents were arguing, and in front of the wooden banister of the stairs. As silently as she could, she made it downstairs and slipped on her wooden sandals.

She went to the only place that she hoped she could keep away from the unhappiness, from the fighting inside her house. She went to the lake and she'd been there for an hour before Itachi arrived.

In that hour, she thought about her parents and their complicated marriage. She thought about geisha and their foreign world, a world that she would soon become part of. She thought about everything that she had studied—dancing, tea ceremony, manners, music, literature, conversation and even how to dress—and about how none of that mattered then.

She was nine and she sat alone on a pier, looking at her feet underneath the shining water. Everything she had been taught didn't matter and didn't help in the face of her twisted relationship with her mother.

Hideie was Hideie. Nothing would change that. Hideie didn't love her like most mothers; there was nothing she could do about it. No matter how well she excelled in all her lessons, or how well she treated all her kimono, or how well she pleased the hokage—nothing would ever bring Hideie to love her like Toru did.

Both anger and resentment bubbled within her when she realized.

'I've spent practically my entire life for nothing.'

Her geisha training had started when had been three years and three months old—the traditional age, her mother had said. Since then, the next six years had been nothing but training, training and more training. Which was to say, that she had spent little of her childhood as an actual child. She'd been less a child than a robot, and less a daughter than a student.

She both wanted to both cry and yell. Instead, she gave a humorless laugh. What would she do then, now that all that mattered to Hideie was that she become a geisha?

When Itachi arrived, the question still drifted in her mind, still without an answer.

She took a deep breath and faced him, knowing that he was still waiting for her answer. "My parents…they were…"

'Screaming? Yelling? Fighting over me?'

"…having an argument. It was too loud and I woke up. I came here to…"

He nodded, turning his head away to stare at something in the distance. His eyes were lidded and he looked like he wasn't getting enough sleep. His long black hair was mussed and hastily tied back and even his clothes—a combination of a black shirt with matching short pants—looked disheveled to her eyes.

He had probably rushed out of bed in very much like the same way she did. Something had bothered him so much that it had forced him out of his house. Momentarily, she forgot all about her troubles.

"…escape the noise."

Her response was said blandly, because she'd lost all interest in what she'd been saying. She carefully examined Itachi, noting the near melancholic air that he gave off, just staring at something. His black eyes looked dull and exhausted, and she knew that he had a night just as rough as she did.

Something about him felt old. Not in the way of graying hair or plenty of wrinkles, but in the way that his eyes seemed so tired, like he had worked all his life. She had suffered but it was obvious that he had suffered too. Maybe he even suffered more than she did, because her problems had never looked so small when she realized there were dark, purplish circles ringing his eyes.

'I have problems. But they're not that bad.'

A surge of shame rushed through her.

"Are you alright, Itachi-san?"

She didn't drop the honorific, knowing that while Shisui told her to, she still didn't have Itachi's own opinion.

Itachi only sighed. He stared at the stars above them, and she could tell he contemplated his response by the way it took him a while to answer, "I should be asking you that question." His eyes then glanced at her, "I saw you…"

Katsuya smiled sadly. 'So he saw,' she said to herself.

"Cry?"

He hummed quietly in response.

She looked at the hands in her lap again, "To be honest, I think I still want to."

There was a sadness left in her that made her want to cry for all those lost years, for all those moments she could've spent eating with Toru or playing outside, instead of training extra hard to make her mother proud. Some part of her wanted to cry for her wasted effort and her crushed hopes.

"But you won't."

Itachi was looking at her questioningly, as if asking her if his statement was true. In that glance, he didn't look as tired as before.

After moments of contemplation, she knew that he was right. She found that she genuinely didn't want to. It didn't feel like earlier, where she didn't want to cry in front of all those people for the sake of not looking weak.

It felt like she didn't want to cry in front of him because she didn't need to. Not anymore. When he said those words, it was like a wave of calm washed over her, and it was just her and Itachi sitting on the pier, not her and Itachi and her depression.

Again, she told herself how small problems were, compared to Itachi's.

'If he doesn't cry then I shouldn't too.'

Only her and Itachi. Only her and Itachi.

She smiled a true smile this time, showing her peace with the statement. "No, I won't."

He looked surprised and confused at the change of emotion, and shook his head. Katsuya laughed, knowing that he probably didn't get it. And he didn't, because he then asked, "Why are you laughing?"

She shrugged. "I'm surprised too. You somehow make me feel…less sad."

A part of her wanted to make him feel the same way, but she didn't know how to.

Itachi nodded, but to her, he still looked confused. So she laughed more for a little bit. A few moments of comfortable silence passed before she asked, completely out of the blue, "How is Shisui?"

At the question, the corners of his mouth lifted. "He's off on a mission."

She tilted her head to the side, observing his slightly amused expression, "Why do you say it like that…?"

He looked at her with a raised brow, as if asking; do you really want to know? "Like what?"

Katsuya decided that she did want to know, if Itachi continued acting this way. Like he was entertained by her simple minded questions. "Well…like he's doing the exact opposite of what you say."

He chuckled and she felt something warm and fuzzy explode inside of her. It filled her with inexplicable happiness to see him laugh, even if it was only a chuckle. "He usually is."

She furrowed her brows, despite the growing warmth in her chest, "Really?"

Itachi laughed. A real laugh, one that had Katsuya smiling widely. "Is it really so unbelievable?"

It felt unbelievable, in a way. In the times her thoughts wandered to the subject of Shisui, she always thought him to be a straight-laced ninja that went by the book and followed all the rules, especially with the way he treated her so courteously and warmly the day they'd met. The way Itachi talked about him suggested that Shisui did something suspiciously sounding like goofing off in the times he was supposed to be a ninja.

"…Sort of?"

His laughs were dying down and he looked at her with something like warmth, "I know better than to rely on first impressions."

Katsuya did too, only that she hadn't really…applied the principle to Shisui yet.

.

They stayed there for what felt like hours, exchanging light-hearted conversation. She first asked him all about the ninja world and when he'd reacted to some questions in a way she knew that he was uncomfortable with the topic, she immediately jumped to another topic. They talked about everything, because strangely, she found herself actually feeling able to talk without having to watch what she said.

It was a liberating and happy experience for her, to talk to Itachi. He was unlike any other person she knew, with the way he talked with such intelligence and knowledge of the whole world. It was even more gratifying to see this side of Itachi—the one with tiny smiles and mirthful eyes.

They eventually got to the subject of his little brother.

"You have a brother?" She asked with surprise.

He was clearly amused with her response, and said like it was the most obvious thing in the world, "Yes, I do."

The girl looked at him testily, "What if I suddenly told you that I had a twin brother called Katsuro?"

He merely raised his brow, "Then I wouldn't be so surprised. It is, after all, perfectly reasonable for you to have a twin."

That was another thing she liked about Itachi: he was patient and logical. He answered her questions even if he thought they sounded ridiculous.

"What's his name?"

Itachi said the name with a smile and sincere happiness in his eyes, "Sasuke."

'He must love his brother very much if all it takes for him to look happy is his name.'

"Sasu-ke. Sasu-ke. Sasuke." She tried his name on her tongue, "How old is he?"

"He's five."

It was then that Itachi chose to look at the steadily brightening sky, "It's getting late."

She nodded, taking her pruney feet out of the water. "Early, you mean."

He followed suit, though he slipped his shoes on faster than she did. By the time she had finished putting on her wooden sandals, he already had a hand held out to her. "I'll walk you home."

It didn't even sound like an offer, it was simply a fact. He was going to walk her home, no doubt about it.

She smiled in response. "Thank you, Itachi-san." She took his hand and he hefted her up. She patted down her sleeping robe.

"Itachi."

She looked up, and his eyes were closed and arms were crossed. "What?"

"Itachi. It's only Itachi."

'Oh.'

"Thank you, Itachi."

He tipped his head, before gesturing to lead the way.

The walk home was quiet, but not uncomfortably so. They were at peace with each other, she knew, that after hours of talking, it was enough for them to be in each other's presence. She felt happy and like she weighed nothing—that the worries and sadness that had once plagued her had been chased away by being with him.

It only when they reached the front of her house that she realized that she had one small problem left: somebody, either her mother or her father, had locked the doors.

With a face that was burning with embarrassment, she smiled sheepishly at Itachi's questioning look. "I've been locked out."

The calm, aged and stoic Itachi was almost back, if it weren't for the mirth in his eyes. "I can see that."

He looked up. She followed his gaze curiously, noting that he was staring at her window. He looked at her again, "Is that the window of your room?"

She nodded.

It wasn't even a second later when he pulled her in his arms and carried her with his hands under her back and her knees. She felt more blood rush into her face when she realized that he didn't think this was a…well…improper way to hold a…girl? ? ?

'What am I complaining about? He's…he's…holding me! That's more than I ever hoped for!'

She didn't even get to wonder just when exactly she started hoping for something from Itachi, because she was so close to his—again, when did she notice this—handsome face, she swore he could hear her furiously beating heart.

Katsuya didn't know why she was acting this way but all she knew was that she liked it and hated it at the same time.

Another split-second later, by some kind of magic or by some kind of ninja thing he did, he was standing crouched, in the middle of her window. She was held a few feet above her bed before he set her down gently.

"W-wow…" Her mind was still reeling with amazement. "How did you…?"

He placed a finger to his lips. Sssh.

'Oh. Right.' There wasn't any yelling in the background, so her parents were already asleep. He nodded at her before disappearing in a poof of smoke. She hurriedly looked out her window, finding him where they had stood only moments before.

"Goodbye, Katsuya."

He gave her a nod then disappeared again.

It was in a few frantic moments of looking through the streets and the houses of Konoha when she finally spotted him running on rooftops.

"Bye…Itachi…" The nine year old murmured underneath her breath, both adrenaline and excitement unexpectedly pumping through her veins.

She fell back down on her bed with a soft plop, marveling at what she'd just seen.

'Did he just…?'

'Yes, yes he did.'

Exhaustion caught up to her as she rapidly wrapped herself in a cocoon of blankets, trying to calm her beating heart. That was possibly the most thrilling experience she had ever had in her entirely life.

Even as she curled up on her side, she could still hear her heart beating in her ears.

"Itachi. Itachi. Itachi. Itachi…"

She couldn't stop saying his name. She kept saying it until her eyelids drooped and eventually the 'Itachi' turned into 'I…ta…chi…' with a yawn in between the 'ta' and the 'chi'.

When she woke up a few hours later, the first thing she did was to look out her window. She didn't see Itachi there, but the memories of what had happened earlier kept her smiling, with her elbows propped on the window ledge and her palms supporting her cheeks.

She made a decision soon after.

Hideie could have what she wanted. She could have Katsuya's future—the nine year old would become a geisha one day and she'd still train diligently, she'd give her that.

But what she wouldn't give her was Itachi. Itachi and his secret world of cool and crafty ninjas like Shisui, Itachi and his composed way of talking, Itachi and all the warmth and giddiness he inspired in her.

And finally, she realized what she could maybe fill the newly opened hole in her heart with.

'Maybe I can stuff the friendship of all the cool ninja friends I'll make in there.'

.


A/N: The title is in Japanese, because hey, isn't that cool? It means 'don't cry anymore', which is what Itachi basically wants to say to Katsuya in this chapter. [excuse me while I go hug myself]

Isn't this kind of fluffy? I don't know. One sided fluff? I still don't really know, obviously. But, we got to see the more of the childish side to Katsuya, especially when she's near Itachi's face. Like, 'Itachi? ? Personal space? Is this improper? WHaT? ?'

The next few chapters will be Katsuya waging war against Hideie. Maybe. Things don't always go to plan, anyway. [Did Itachi seem OOC by the way?]

I'm extremely grateful for all the reviews, follows and faves! I'm heartened by your positive responses to this fic, I really am. Hee hee!

As always, leave me your thoughts and comments in a review~