Karin shifted nervously and fidgeted with her glasses again, catching his attention. "Itachi," she said, speaking carefully enough to warrant at least a little bit of concern. "What can I do to make you want to marry me?"

Itachi blinked, caught off guard by her question.

Karin gave him a small smile and an apologetic shrug, as if she had been the first to grab something they'd both been reaching for, as if she'd accidentally been drinking from the mug he used instead of her own.

As if what she'd asked was somehow innocent.

He frowned.

Had that been her strategy, then? Wait to catch him with his guard down then hope he'd be more honest with less time to prepare?

"That is the last question I will answer," Itachi said carefully, feeling a strange tightness settle in his chest. Karin raised an eyebrow in question but made no effort to press him for a reply.

For a moment Itachi waited, trying to think of something innocuous but still true that he could say that would answer her question without giving her any sort of inspiration.

He'd never considered such a thing before, of course, so nothing came readily to mind; would it be technically true if he told her he'd marry her if it meant never having to see her again? If they could live as two strangers, never speaking or interacting?

He doubted he'd be so lucky that her definition of marriage would allow for that.

The tightness in his chest grew harsher, more painful, and Itachi began to suspect that he could only spend so long thinking about her question before he would be forced to answer.

He tried to speak in order to buy himself more time, to put off the inevitable, but his lips started moving of their own volition, words spilling out beyond his control.

"I need personal space. I would only ever marry someone who was kind and considerate; I do not like your harshness or lack of tact or—" Itachi forced his hand over his mouth as tight as he could, effectively cutting himself off.

He took in a deep breath through his nose, feeling his body relax when he released it and the compulsion that had seized him finally died.

That was… very far from an ideal response.

When he looked up Karin was gaping at him, almost looking shocked. When their eyes made contact she seemed to come back to herself, the 'O' of her mouth breaking into a wide grin, one pale hand coming to rest by her collarbone.

"That's so easy," she said hurriedly, eyes blown wide. "I can be patient and give you whatever space you need, I promise, I… I can be less harsh if that's what you want. Anything you want."

Itachi pulled his hands away from his mouth, feeling an uncomfortable relief when he realized he could at least control his own body again. He crossed his arms defensively, hoping to hide the anxious trembling in his hands.

He took a moment to collect himself before he responded, as toneless as he could manage, "I do not want you. At all. There is nothing you can do to change that."

Karin shook her head, a too-hopeful glimmer in her unnatural red eyes. "That's not what you said, though. I can give you time and space; I've given you plenty so far. I mean, I've given you everything you've needed while you've been here, haven't I? Anything you've asked for I've provided."

Itachi scowled. "I am not interested. I have told you this time and again but you do not listen."

She ignored the obvious hint and continued on, gesturing wildly as she spoke. "I can make you happy—you just need to explain yourself to me. You can have anything you want. From me or the house. I want to give you things, you just have to ask me. Or make it easier for me to guess." She was almost breathless with excitement, the words coming in a torrent like she'd only been waiting for the moment. "I'm serious. Anything."

Karin just did not get it. "You do not have the ability to give me anything I truly want."

Karin stalled a moment but her good will wasn't entirely derailed. "You haven't even given me a real chance yet. I can if you'd just let me!"

It was… almost pathetic to see her so animated over so little; had someone given Itachi such a blunt list of his faults he could not imagine how he would ever see it as uplifting news, especially in a romantic endeavor.

He sighed, beginning to understand that it was nearly impossible to get through to her. "You can dress our relationship in whatever finery or excess you would like but it will not change the reality of our situation. A few quiet nights do not change the reality of our situation; a kind jailor does not make me any less of a prisoner. I do not buy into such illusions so easily."

Karin paused for a moment, her face turning from annoyed to something more subtle, more serious, her mouth at a sharp slant. Her eyes stuck to him, taking him apart by inches as she thought something over.

"You really think so, don't you?" she eventually started, shaking her head. "You think you're so much better than I am because you hole away in here all day and hide?"

She took a step toward him, and Itachi took several back.

"Do you honestly think you aren't lying to yourself about what it is you're doing in here?" Karin pressed, following him backwards until there was nowhere else the go, the front of the table bumping into his back.

She pinned him against the table, her arms on both sides of him, her face inches away from his own.

He'd seen Karin annoyed plenty of times and it wasn't uncommon that she'd be impatient or irritated or even frustrated with him.

This was the first time she looked genuinely angry.

"You've been here for months and you've only just started to really think about what's going on. And then you got a few questions in and you quit because you're so afraid of me." She scoffed, shaking her head. "Why the hell are you so afraid of me? Em, of all people! I want to help you! I keep trying to get to know you and spend time with you but you're too afraid, too fucking suspicious of everything that I do. You're too much of a coward to even give me a chance!"

Itachi took immediate offense to that. "I am no coward," he ground out. "I…" He paused.

There was nothing cowardly about what he was doing, nothing cowardly about refusing unwanted advances. But still, the accusation stung.

Karin didn't know him or his past or anything about what he'd done. She hadn't seen his father's disappointed face when he quit the rangers and ran off to the University, hadn't seen the detours he'd take just to avoid talking to his colleagues, she hadn't seen his nightmares and yet—

She wasn't wrong. She just didn't understand why she was right.

Itachi swallowed a lump in his throat. "I would much rather be in here alone. You are not entitled to anything from me."

"Why do you even bother with all of this?" Karin demanded, gesturing towards his work on the table. She was uncomfortably close, her stomach beginning to press against his as she leaned closer, her tone becoming more pointed, accusatory. "You are wasting your time."

She stopped there, her face inches away from his own, Itachi's back bent at an absurd degree to maintain that slight bit of distance between them. She watched him carefully for a moment and seemed to read something in his expression that irritated her, letting out a frustrated sigh.

Karin pulled away and before he could breathe a sigh of relief she was rifling through his things again, throwing open the book he'd been reading when she walked in, her mouth set in a determined frown.

She began flipping through the pages, looking for something.

"Stop that!" he snapped, reaching over her shoulder to grab the book from her grasp.

Karin shot him a glare and knocked his arm back with her forearm, nudging her elbow against his gut. It wasn't quite a blow but a warning: stay back. "You'll get it when I'm done."

Itachi backed up an inch but tried to reach around her anyway, pointedly avoiding coming into contact with her again. Though she was in his way he was taller and had a much longer reach than she did, giving him an advantage that still seemed to do him no good.

Karin smacked his hand away, hard enough to leave a sting in its wake, and pushed the book further out of his reach, leaning across the table as she continued to skim.

"Stay away from my things, Karin," he hissed, hoping she'd back away of her own free will, knowing he couldn't harm her without harming himself just as much.

She gave him another dirty look before lifting the book and turning around, holding it open at the top so he could see it. "See this?" she demanded, trailing her finger down one of the margins where he'd scribbled comments and citations, tapping her finger angrily on the page. "Who are you going to share this with?"

Itachi frowned. "What?"

Karin tsked and gave the book a shake before dropping it on the floor, the spine hitting first and the book falling open onto its back, opened to a random page.

For some reason, Itachi found himself staring at it.

Of all the offensive things Karin had done, damaging a book shouldn't have felt as insulting as it did.

She had likely been here so long that she'd never known the scarcity of books of any kind, let alone ones with intact pages and firm bindings and legible print. She had never learned respect for physical objects, he supposed, never having to worry about breaking anything when she had everything she could ever want at her fingertips.

He could see how that would warp a person.

When he looked back up, Karin was watching him, arms crossed. She was still frowning but her face seemed to have softened a little, her frown more of a displeased quirk of her lips.

Karin's voice was oddly sympathetic. "I'm the only other person here, Itachi, and you won't even let me into the library. You've got hundreds of pages of stuff you've written—what are you going to do with it? What are you going to do when you get bored of this?" she asked, looking down and giving the book a gentle nudge with her foot. "When you run out of topics? You've got an entire room full of books but that doesn't change the fact that it's just you in here, alone with your thoughts."

Itachi went to respond but just as quickly realized he did not have a response to that.

His eyes glanced over his charts on the walls, the stack of his manuscript, an uncomfortable feeling setting in the pit of his stomach.

It'd made sense that he should find something to keep himself busy, a hobby that would be productive and useful. Research had always been both of those things to him.

But that didn't quite answer her question.

What would he do with it?

There were no colleagues to look over and remark on his drafts, no committee to question his direction or research methods.

It was just him and his thoughts and Karin until…

Until he died.

One day he would die and this would be all that was left of him. Scraps of paper for Karin to burn or for the house to consume, to erase entirely like it did with the eggshells he threw away or rough drafts he'd crumbled up.

It'd all be gone. And so would he.

Karin continued when he didn't reply, her voice still oddly calm. "I think you still think you're going to get out somehow. You aren't thinking this through because you're afraid to face the truth, that you're going stuck here forever. You're stuck with me, Itachi. I'm not going anywhere."

Karin was wrong. What she was doing was wrong. Everything about her, this house, and whatever damned rules were keeping him trapped there were all wrong.

And yet, not entirely wrong.

Itachi took a cursory glance around the library, at the shelves of books that seemed to go on and on forever.

How long would it take him to get through all of them? A lifetime?

He drew in a sharp breath and brought a hand over his eyes, trying to center himself. "Leave," he murmured, wanting to put more force behind it but not being able to pull in enough air to manage it.

Karin paused, and he imagined she had expected something much more intense. "What?"

Itachi took two more breaths, feeling his heart begin to race and said, as calmly as he could, "I want you to leave. Right now."

The lightheaded feeling only became more intense, was beginning to make the edges of his vision blur, and he leaned over, putting his hand down on the table for extra support.

Karin watched him but stayed where she was, instead placing her hands on her hips. "I'm not leaving, are you kidding me? We've just gotten started. We're going to talk this out like—"

"Leave," he ground out, letting his head rest against his free hand, palms clammy. "Go."

"Itachi, I know that was hard to hear—"

He didn't wait to hear her finish, to hear more lies or stories or tricks from her. Itachi swiped his hand across the table, papers and pens flying off. "I want you out of here now!"

Karin flinched and backed away. "Calm down! I'm trying to help you! You need to deal with this and stop feeling sorry for yourself. Stop hiding from reality!"

"I don't care! What's it matter? If I'm going to die in here what's the difference if it's today or thirty years from now? If you're the only one who is going to know then—" Then one day he would die, and Sasuke would have no way of knowing. His parents would have no way of knowing. Shisui—

He sucked in a harsh breath, fisting his hand in his shirt."Dammit."

Karin seemed to flag for a moment before bringing a hand to her chest, taking a small step toward him. "It's not really like that… I didn't mean it like that, Itachi," she said, having the goddamn nerve to look worried.

"Your intent means nothing to me," he hissed. "It is your fault that… that…" Itachi sucked in a quick breath and tried to hold down the feeling that was beating against his chest, threatening to crack through his ribs if he didn't let it out.

He righted himself. "I will never seen my family again," he said, speaking slowly so she would understand. "I am going to die in here alone, and that is entirely your fault."

"Itachi…"

"Go already. I am so unbearably sick of you," he snapped.

Karin hesitated, hands fidgeting, before she let out a sigh, her shoulders sagging. "I'll be back later. After… I'll give you a chance to think. But I'll come back."

He didn't look but Karin's footsteps gradually faded away and he could hear the door opening and closing.

He'd known all of this, of course he'd known it all but the reality of it—

Itachi had made an informed decision and now he was bound to it. There was a reason he was there.

Sasuke's life had been worth it; that had not changed.

It just… It left Itachi with a lot of unanswered questions. An uncertain future.

Itachi groaned and stepped away from the table, almost tripping on the book Karin had dropped. He bent over to pick it up and frowned when he noticed a place where the cover had torn.

He traced the line of the tear but even as he did so the edges were pulling themselves together, meeting and binding back up in the middle so that it appeared brand new.

He sighed again, rubbing his eyes. None of it was real, none of it mattered. His grip tightened on the book in his hand.

It didn't matter what he did in here. None of it mattered. None of these books were even real; valuable.

Itachi opened the book in his hands, tracing over his comments as Karin had done. How long would it take for them to fade away?

Taking a deep breath, he gripped both sides of the book in his hands and tore at them, ripping the book in half and throwing the halves on the floor where they sat, lifeless.

He waited a moment, and then watched them move.

As if pushed by invisible hands, the two halves of the book began to slide towards each other on the floor, broken strings floating and grasping towards their opposite parts like unnaturally long, thin fingers. The ties met in the middle and, with a sound not unlike that of scissors sliding through a sheet of paper, the torn edges of the cover and text came together, rebound.

The book sat there on the floor, gaping open without a single rip or crinkle in it. As if it'd never been touched before.

Wrong.

It should have felt wrong to him too but it didn't.

The ever-changing walls, cupboards that never emptied, shelves that never gathered a speck of dust no matter their disuse, the books that were somehow flawless, without smears or tears or misprints.

When Itachi thought about it, of course it was strange but…

He had to think about it first.

He'd just gotten used to it.

Even the discomfort that had been so palpable when he first entered the grounds was gone; he was entirely surrounded by magic and yet even when he concentrated, even when he focused and tried to recall the feeling of revulsion there was nothing.

He snatched another book off of a shelf, holding it by the cover and giving it a shake, the pages wobbling. It didn't matter how he held it; the book could always fix itself.

It wasn't something a binder had sat down to carefully piece together, taking hours to stitch and glue and align until a book was created. The print that had seemed so novel, so helpful when he'd first arrived looked so lifeless now: magic had no need for human imperfections or warmth. There were no distinctive cursive loops or boxy printed letters, no crooked slants to the rows of sentences.

He'd mindlessly accepted all it, had even appreciated those conveniences, and it'd only been a few months.

What would he accept in a few months further?

Why bother? Karin had said.

Why did he bother?

Itachi dropped the book and cursed, resenting how deep Karin had managed to get under his skin, that she'd somehow outwitted him. She'd had ample opportunity to watch him, chances to bait him and learn how he functioned and tailor her approach to that.

"She's right," he said, horrified. "It's all pointless."

No matter what, time was on Karin's side. She only needed to wait for him to break himself down and eventually he'd come crawling to her, desperate for human validation and company.

It'd happen gradually: pieces of him cracking and chipping away until he was hollowed out completely, a shell she could fill however she wanted.

"Dammit."

Why had he decided to seek her out earlier? Because he'd been interested in her secrets? Naively convinced he could help himself?

Had he been bored?

Itachi groaned again, slamming his fist down against the hard wood of the table, feeling a sharp jolt of pain travel up his arm when it connected.

An entire house and the only thing inside of it he could destroy was himself.

He brought his hand up to rub his eyes, feeling exhausted beyond belief though he'd done very little. His manuscript sat across from him on the table, having been barely touched that day.

Why should he bother now?

He put his hand on the top of the neat stack of papers, the culmination of hundreds of hours of work. Hundreds of hours of reading, of note taking and charting and diagramming. Drafting, proofreading, reorganizing, rewriting, and for what?

He was stuck there forever. He was never going to escape.

There was no one in the world who would ever see it, who would ever benefit from his work. This was not the University, where he could add his voice to the choir of scholars and contribute towards some greater academic purpose.

Or, at the very least, contribute to something.

Itachi gave the stack a single push and it tipped over the table, spilling the entire manuscript onto the floor with a loud crash, hundreds and hundreds of pages pooling around his feet and under the table and spilling outwards until they hit the walls.

He watched the expanding mess of papers indifferently, feeling oddly disconnected to the disorganized heap around his feet.

It didn't matter, he told himself. None of it mattered anymore. To continue on as if it did would be to prolong the inevitable: there was no future in which what he said or wrote would have mattered.

It was just paper and ink, words no one aside from him would ever read.

He eyed the charts on the wall in front of him, feeling a sudden itch in his fingertips.

An entire house, and the only thing in it he could destroy was himself.

A/N: uhhh so YIKES that was kind of a lot, wasn't it? This is gonna be a long note, too.

This chapter was a wild ride to write, but I really did enjoy it because I felt like I could hit on what I see as some interesting parts of Itachi's character, namely his absolute need for a driving purpose. I think this is something we see the clearest in the beginning of the series, where he's living for the sole purpose of letting Sasuke kill him one day. I see Itachi as someone who likes to live in a 'simple' way, and by that I mean he'd rather be entirely dedicated to one absolute purpose than have to worry about the nuance of day to day life without having that guidance. This is, I think, almost exclusively why in this fic he immediately jumps into this research project-he needs something to sustain himself and the research is something he can stretch as long as he needs to.

Without having that one goal, I think he'd be an absolute mess, and that's one thing I've really tried to hit on in this fic. Even before this weird situation with Karin he was lost; Itachi's goals, I think, almost always need to be external. It isn't enough for him to do something for himself, and without having someone or something to work towards or protect (recalling Sasuke, in this fic, asking him to back off) he feels completely unbalanced; he's a scholar, but he struggles to commit to any one topic because the decision is entirely based on his own desires but he doesn't make decisions that way.

The great irony of it is that Karin absolutely could be that person but he has no desire for that. And I don't necessarily see her becoming that in an 'endgame' picture of their relationship; at the very least, I think they at least recognize each other as equals and, while Karin would like the attention, I think she'd find that behavior condescending as heck in a long term relationship.

Now this argument they just had. Despite the above paragraphs I think Itachi is /almost/ entirely in the right; he doesn't owe Karin anything and he has every right to be on guard against her. She's done nothing to 'deserve' his affection, and I think it's partly because she thinks it can be 'bought,' because Karin has a very formulaic understanding of relationships I'm gonna get into in a few chapters, and I think it's pretty clear that her pursuit of Itachi isn't exactly romantic on her end either. She's got some major issues with being pushy and not respecting his boundaries and that's really not okay. At the same time though, Karin's making a lot of good points, but is missing the big picture. Her behavior, more than the situation itself, is what puts Itachi off. The situation definitely doesn't help though.

Hopefully she has a good learning moment, eh? I expect this is probably going to end up being the lowest/near the low point of their relationship, which is at least something to look forward to. I'm, uh, hoping to make the next chapter less painful lmao. Rant over!

Thanks again to everyone who has been reading, leaving kudos, and posting comments! You're all my heroes!

(also thoughts and prayers because I hammered out 20k words of ANOTHER new au in one week so when it takes me months to post any of the things i've teased this is why. i have no self control.)