Title: Musical Culture
Author: AppleL0V3R
Beta-reader: SymphoniaFreak
Fandom: Naruto
Pairing: Uchiha Itachi and Haruno Sakura
Chapter: Eleven – By the Shore
Rating: T
Type: Drabble Collection – Incomplete
Summary: Twisted meme music challenge, (rules not followed). 11. If they were the only ones who knew just how wrong everything went, then that was okay. They'd keep their secret. ItaSaku.
Song Used: Save Me from Myself by Vertical Horizon
Word Count: 640
Disclaimer: If you've heard of it before, then it's obviously not mine.
Note: I will take requests for any song, so long as it's clear that they will be drabbles.
Edited on: February 5, 2012
This was all that mattered; it was all that could matter. Because if it didn't matter, then everything wasn't okay. And if everything wasn't okay, then what was he left with?
Nothing.
He was left with the remains of what could have been and what was. But he would never have what existed right then. He wouldn't have what he wanted, even needed.
And what he needed was to be whole. To be human. Was it so much to ask? Was it so much to simply want the basics of life that he saw everyone else with? He wanted a family and a home; he wanted someone he could speak to no matter the circumstances.
Closing his crimson eyes, he pushed those feeble thoughts away. He'd thrown those things away, put them forever out of his reach.
He'd let himself suffer isolation and loneliness for what he deemed the greater good, and as far as he was concerned, it still was. All he was doing now was wasting time, waiting for his precious little brother to finish what Itachi had started.
He paused but for a moment, before he turned on his heel and began the trek back to Akatsuki Headquarters. Even without being in his original home, he still had duties and missions to attend to, reports to turn in and assignments to overview. Despite everything, his daily routines, the way he lived his life, hadn't changed all that much.
Other than being a wanted criminal, nothing had changed as far as the rest of the world was concerned.
He was tempted to smile bitterly, but instead he tipped his head back to look up at the sky. A storm was on the horizon, and he still had quite a while to go before he was at his destination. A number of forests and valleys stood between Ame and the Kiri's ocean front. The faintest noise of rustling leaves caught his attention. However, he didn't fall into any form of defense.
It wasn't his partner that approached; it was a pink-haired kunoichi. Itachi had been crossing paths with her more frequently than any other of Konoha's best shinobi, but each time she made no move to apprehend him. For one reason or another, she knew; she knew about his past and why he was on the road he was. But most of all she understood.
It was rare to run into someone such as her. The young woman's sense of loyalty and honor rivaled his own, and she was fiercely protective of those she deemed precious. Yet even when they stood face to face, or happened to be side by side, she was not anymore defensive than she was around her comrades.
The way she approached him, the way she held herself, it was all telling. And that had certain implications: the kind that made looking at himself in a mirror that much easier; the kind that made it even marginally bearable to deal with his sins.
Sometimes he wanted to believe that everything was okay because of what it meant if it weren't okay. And other times, when she wandered into his vicinity, he was able to accept how wrong his whole life had gone.