Chapter Eleven: Illusion
"Are you even real?" She asked as his arms slipped around her.
"You can feel me." He replied in quiet observation.
That was true…she could feel the fine architecture of his musculature against her back, and the heat of his arms, and the weighty coolness of the blanket, and the dusting of warm breath on the back of her neck…But did that really prove anything?
"That doesn't mean a thing," She responded as she turned over to face him, "You know that, Itachi."
He didn't refute her claim; he was a master of illusions. He could craft any world he wanted and drag others into it. It might have been a Hell, or a Paradise. It could have been a riot of primary colors, or the bloody veil of inverted black and white.
"Why does it matter?" He asked.
"I don't want to live an illusion."
"Life is an illusion." He replied. "It's the hallucination Death uses to appease us before he comes."
"I suppose you would know…" She trailed off.
He continued as if he hadn't heard her, "Illusions are what we want them to be, Lynn. So make life what you want it to be."
"Always so enigmatic, Itachi." She said as she rolled on top of him and drew him into a longing kiss.
As she pulled away, she stared into the crimson of his eyes, tracing the intricate bands of color that the moonlight brought out.
Finally, she sighed, "I guess I'm the illusion, then."
"I choose to make you real." He said as he turned her over and pressed his lips to her neck.
"Why, Itachi? I'm just a ghost…" She thought back to all the nights in the Oto compound…to all the whispered words and the rough caressed and the silent promises.
"Because I love you." His mouth crashed against hers.