A/N: Had a writer's block... here's the next chapter! XD

Chapter 6

I walked up to a pay phone in the middle of the street and pulled out the number which I had stuffed in my pocket earlier that day. I stuck in a few of the coins I had left over and dialled the number. It rang and I waited for it to be picked up. "Hello?" My sister's voice answered.

"Hey, it's me yeah." I replied. Before I could get my story out she started speaking a mile a minute.

"I didn't expect you to call me back so quickly!" She exclaimed. "Is this number yours and why the hell are you calling me at this time of night?" She asked.

"I'm calling from a payphone, so this isn't my number, un." I told her skirting around the problem. She seemed to think that I had more to say and so stayed quiet, for once. "I called because I don't know what else to do, yeah." I said, carrying on. "I got fired, un."

"What!? Why!?" She exclaimed. "You didn't really have the day off yesterday, did you? This is all my fault!" She was jumping to conclusions once again.

"No, it's not your fault, ne. It's dad's, yeah. He recognised me and told Fugaku that I was gay, un. I was fired on the grounds of my sexuality, yeah. I did actually have the day off yesterday, ne." I explained to her before she over exerted herself with blame.

"Oh," She fell silent. "He's not allowed to do that, is he?" She asked quietly.

"I don't know, but he just did. Look I can't speak for much longer 'cause I've run out of money, yeah." I told her knowing that the call was about to run out.

"Oh right sorry." She apologised. "Wait you don't have any money, or a place to stay do you?" She asked me.

"No, but I'll slum it on the streets 'till I find a job, ne." That was what I did last time.

"No, I'll meet you by the park we used to go to all of the time. Go there straight away, I might have a solution for you." She phone then went dead as she hung up on me. I guessed that I had no other option but to go and meet her since she would just go and search for me anyway if I didn't turn up.

OOO

I arrived at the park and saw that it was empty. It was too late for the little kids to be out and still too early for the teenagers who would drink on the swings. I opened the gate which allowed entrance through the fence into the play area. I walked towards the middle and dumped my stuff onto the floor. I sat on the floor of the roundabout and lent onto the pole in the middle. I closed my eyes and decided to just rest while I waited for Ino.

After some time I stirred from my half-sleeping state by movement. I opened my eyes and saw that the roundabout had been pushed and was now moving round in a circle. It suddenly came to a stop when I saw a flash of blonde. I looked round and saw Ino standing beside my bags.

"Good you're awake now." She commented as I sat up a little straighter. "I found us both a place to stay." She said sitting next to me.

"What do you mean, un?" She just stayed quiet, which was very unusual for her. "You didn't, did you?" I accused her.

"I fought with our parents, packed my bags and came to meet you out here." She told me quietly, confirming my thoughts. "I don't want to live with parents who can't live with their son the way he is." She explained.

"You didn't have to do that for me, yeah." I told her. My life was already so messed up that I didn't want it to ruin hers either.

"I didn't just do it for you, I did it for me as well. I've found it hard living with them the past few years. I just didn't want to live like that anymore. I had considered leaving before, but you just became the catalyst which set everything into motion." She told me, getting everything off of her chest.

We were quiet for a few minutes. It was a comfortable silence, but neither of us knew what to say. "Shouldn't we be getting to this 'place to stay', ne?" I asked after a while.

"Yeah, we'll be going to Shika- kun's." She told me getting up. "Although to be honest I'm surprised that he answered his phone at this time of night." She said, joking again. I laughed along with her as I got up from my position on my roundabout, making it spin in the process.

Once we stopped the kids' playground item and I had gotten over the dizzy spell I'd given myself, I picked up my bag and followed Ino towards her best friend's house.

When we arrived I saw lights on in only a few rooms of the house. It was smaller than the Uchiha property but I knew that it was still bigger than our old house. We walked up the path which lead up to the front door where Ino rang the bell, alerting them to our arrival. We had to wait a little bit before anyone answered the door, presumably fighting over who would actually answer the door. From what I remembered the family was fairly lazy.

"It's only Ino and her brother!" Shikamaru shouted back to his family. "I guess you'll want to put your stuff into your rooms." He assumed walking back into the house and walking up a set of stairs. "These are your rooms here and the bathroom is opposite." He told us when we had arrived at the end of the corridor. "So what happened?" He asked, slightly curious.

"I'll tell you later." Ino told his quickly and quietly. Shikamaru nodded confused in reply. She then pushed me into my room.

"Ino I'll be fine, yeah." I told her once the door was closed. "Go talk to him, I know you want to, un. I'm just gonna go to sleep and forget about what happened, alright?" I had seen how desperate she had been to talk to him and I kinda wanted to be on my own.

"Are you sure?" She asked me worriedly. I nodded and pushed her out of the door to my room, closing it shut behind her. I put my ear to the door and listened to her footsteps walking away, just to make sure that she did go. I sighed and walked over to the bed in the small room and collapsed on top of it. Fully intending to do exactly what I had told my sister I was going to.

OOO

I woke to a knock on the door. "You decent in there?" Ino shouted through the door. I gave a non-committal grunt before she bounded through. I folded the pillow over my head and pulled the covers up over my head. Ino immediately pulled them off and jumped on top of me. "Get off, un!" I shouted pushing her off the bed. She just jumped back up.

"I'm not giving up that easily." She then went for my ticklish spots on my neck and feet.

"Stop it, yeah!" I shouted but she kept on tickling me. "Stop it! Please, un!" I shouted between my laughs and gasps for air. "I'll get up, all right, yeah." She then stopped and bounced away to the door.

"Just make sure you're up soon. Otherwise, we'll eat all the pancakes up on you." She shut the door and quickly skipped down the stairs. She was always to damn perky in the mornings. I sluggishly moved to the bathroom across the hall before changing into fresh clothes. Black, since that was all that I owned in my wardrobe due to the job I no longer had. Way to start the morning, dickhead.

I sighed before walking downstairs and following my nose to the kitchen. On the table I saw a large pile of pancakes, butter and maple syrup. Apparently it was a big American delicacy in the morning. Sitting around the table already digging in was my sister and her friend, who looked as sleepy as I felt. I sat down and served myself as I listened to the others banter.

"Stop being so perky in the mornings. Some people like to sleep in." Shikamaru told her.

"And why would I want to waste any moment of the daylight?" She asked rhetorically. "You just need to get up at an earlier time more often and you'd get used to it quickly." She told him, taking another bite from her pancake.

"Yeah, and you're a troublesome woman." He muttered under his breath. I sniggered slightly.

"And what's your problem? 'Cause the same could be said for you." She said pointing accusingly at me.

"And why do I have to get up? I no longer have a job to get up for." I said sullenly. "I'm gonna eat this upstairs." I can't believe I did that again. I picked up my plate and went back to my bedroom.

I sat on my bed and put the plate on the floor without eating a thing. I lay back and curled into a ball. The pain was too much to eat. Even though I kind of hated Itachi for using me, I could never stop loving or missing him.

There was a light knock on the door before it opened up. I didn't look to see who it was. I already knew it would be my sister. "Hey, you alright?" She asked me gently. I didn't answer, not really wanting human contact right now. "Okay, I'll come back later with some food. If you're up to it." She then hung around for another minute before closing the door behind her. I realised that through this I was also hurting my sister. And with that thought all the tears that I had wanted to keep bottled up burst from their banks.