Chapter 11. Present and Sambuca

Have you ever woken up from the feeling that someone is gazing at you with the eyes full of hatred, wishing you were dead? First you start feeling uneasy, you spin and turn in your bed from side to side, pull the blanket over your head then instantly crumple it down with your feet, and when this hasn't helped you wake up completely, pissed, sweaty and generally tired. That's how I woke up the next morning.

When I opened my eyes I saw Itachi standing by the window in my room, dressed all in black, as usual. He was holding one hand with the other behind his back, ponytail resting on his left shoulder.

How many times I had wished he'd let his long hair free. But he never did. Not that I told him about it, of course. I imagine:

"Itachi, could you open your ponytail for me please?"

Itachi:

"Take a shovel and start digging." A grave, I mean. I chuckled.

"How do you feel?" My brother's apathetic voice. Cold. Emotionless. Empty. No, hateful. Despising.

Fuck.

I remembered how he'd washed me yesterday, sat near me in the bed, how he'd kissed my forehead and said to me 'I love you too, brother'. Yeah. Back to life. Back to reality. Pretender. Tch.

"I'm fine" I answered in the same manner, despising him and hating him even more. Good fucking morning. I felt so fucking bitter and bad all of a sudden.

So much that I had to bite my lip and throw my arm over my face to cover my eyes. No. No tears. Just bitterness.

What the fuck did I expect from Itachi? It was probably one of his sick tricks on me again. Just to make me feel worse.

Itachi walked across the room to my wardrobe, opened it and situated his choice on the back of the chair by the wall. Situated. Yepp. Talking about Itachi. He didn't 'place', 'hang' or 'throw' things, he 'situated' them.

"Get up. You have twenty minutes. Jeans and a t-shirt."

I moved on the bed and called to him

"Itachi…-"

He was already at the doors but turned his head, looked at me and…smirked or smiled?

"I've got something for you. Don't make me wait."

With these words…he obviously opened the door and left. Twenty minutes. Starting now.

Fuck. I sat on the bed, my fingers in my hair.

My brother had gotten for me a present? I started getting a very unpleasant fucked up feeling in my guts. Then something else moved, lower. Could this be..? No.

Itachi had let me know yesterday, that he would never…or would he? Eighteen minutes.

My thoughts, feelings, and emotions all started spinning like laundry in a tumble-drier. This was far too much for me to process.

I jumped off the bed and ran like mad into the shower. Washed. Brushed my teeth. Arranged my hair in a form of …who fucking knows what.

Nine minutes. I picked the clothes my brother had chosen for me, Kelvin Klein and Diesel. I liked it. Fuck, I liked anything now. Even if it was some fancy Gucci-dress I would love it too as long as my brother had chosen it for me. Fuck. Talk about sick.

I was ready just in time.

Itachi was sitting in the living room, staring blankly at the wall and clutching at a thin leather folder in his hand. Jeans and a black shirt. What the fuck was going on? A funeral or a celebration? One never knew with my brother.

Itachi stood up.

"Ready? Let's go".

We put our footwear on and left the house.

"Are we not taking the car?"

I was plainly surprised knowing that my brother took his damn car everywhere except maybe to throw the garbage.

Ignored. Itachi kept on walking, down the road now. Away from the car, away from home. I was pacing next to him, a bit behind. Like a fucking dog. Fucking great. Now I was confused.

I stopped after some fifty meters.

"Itachi, where are we going, for fuck's sake?"

He stopped too.

"You will see."

I glared. Right. Smart. Of course I would see. I needed to know before I would see. When I would see it would be too fucking late. We started walking again. I was glaring but he kept ignoring as if he didn't feel it. Hn.

Was I too early with my assumptions? Was I wrong? Fuck, Itachi was one hell of a bastard, how the fuck was I supposed to understand anything about him if he wouldn't explain or say it in a straightforward text? Yeah, just leave it to your little brother to guess.

One more shithole neighborhood lesson? I doubted it.

Then, Itachi, you would be stuck there with me, won't you? Hn. Usuratonkachi. No, not him, me of course.

I was seriously considering myself being mistaken. Fuck, one part of me desperately wanted to believe …what it wanted to believe. But looking at Itachi walking, no, stepping along the street, I was turning more and more emo. My fucking inner voice was repeating his phrase in my head over and over again "Sasuke, I've got something for you. Don't make me wait". Something for me...something for me…something what?!

Something could easily be anything. It could be me throwing him on the floor and …I licked my dry lips and glanced at silent walking/ stepping Itachi…no, it couldn't be.

Or it could also be Itachi throwing me on the floor…fuck what's with this throwing on the floor crap? Tch. Yeah, Sasuke, I said to myself, if it goes like that you will need a fucking professional help. Right.

We had walked for half an hour now and came up to a one- storeyed building that gave an impression of a garage or a workshop. It could also be a studio of some sort. No signs. A massive door.

Itachi fished out a bunch of keys from his pocket and unlocked, he opened the door and let me in.

I tried to see something without the lights. It was cold in here.

Itachi turned the switch and closed the door behind.

We found ourselves in a concrete box with a couple of small windows. But.

There was a mirror-walled small bar stand in the opposite, decorated with some bottles of multicolored alcoholic drinks, mainly half-empty. But whatever. Different shaped and purpose glasses and other liquid containers. I didn't pay much attention. Yeah. An espresso machine. Maybe even a functioning one. Hn.

In the middle of this 'room', to the right was a dark green leather sofa group, three- armchairs around it, well beaten up by the looks of it. No extra pillows. A low massive chestnut-colored wooden table in between them with a bunch of papers on.

Yeah. The funniest part. By the opposite wall the level of the floor was different, maybe half a meter higher and it gave an impression of a scene of sorts. An old eight-drum set was gloriously standing in the center of it, with some seat-looking arrangement behind.

A shorter distance away, closer to the edge was a bent note-stand (in the amount of two). One of them couldn't not serve its purpose of a note stand any longer and was just randomly laying on the floor, headless.

Yeah. The last part of this 'music corner' included a seen-it-all base-guitar with a broken string and a crack in the middle. That one was partly hanging off the platform, as if it had been aimed into it by its 'calm' owner in one of his 'calm' moods. Tch. Punks.

Notes, printed and handwritten scattered every here and there, mostly on the floor.

Yeah. I nearly forgot that one, but my cold feet reminded of it directly. And why the fuck had I taken of my boots by the door? Stupid habit.

The floor was stony. Plain concrete. It gave an impression of walking in a building facility or something. No good old warm tatami under the socks. I looked at Itachi- he had kept his boots on. Smart. Hn.

In spite of the mess, the place didn't smell untidy. It smelled just…deserted. As if it hadn't been used for longer time.

Tch. A music studio. What the fuck were we doing here?

Itachi casually walked up to the bar, took two glasses, checked them against the light for cleanness and turned to the drinks.

"Come here, Sasuke" Itachi waved his hand to me, calling me up and by that interrupting my observation activity.

"What is this place?" I asked him, pulling a barstool under my ass and placing the elbows on the bar, looking at my brother who was busy, filling up two shot glasses with something yellowish, thick and a holy shit- he lit them shots up.

"Kanpai", Itachi pressed a burning shot into my hand.

"Itachi, the fuck?" I asked plain shocked, but seeing my brother emptying his shot glass, I did the same. Bleh. It was sweet syrupy stuff that clearly contained a lot of alcohol.

My brother had never allowed me to drink alcohol. The one and only time I had gotten drunk, he picked me up from a bar and broke three of my ribs. He had made sure I learnt the lesson well. I did. Itachi never drank either. Actually I had never seen my brother even touch alcoholic drinks. Ever. This was the first time. I looked at him. What the fuck were we drinking for?

"Itachi what?-"

"Sambuca".

"No, I mean why?"

Next shot in my hand again

"Kanpai", ding (against my glass), he blew it off and tipped the contents of the shot into himself.

"Kanpai" (confused) me.

Itachi was repeating the procedure.

"Fuck, Itachi. What the hell?"

Two more shots lit up and ready waiting. Itachi seemed gathered and serious. Same as always. Was it a smile?

"Drink!" he pressed the shot glass in my hand "Kanpai".

Okay. "Kanpai". I gagged. Again, that sweet but disgusting taste. How could he drink it with such a straight face? As if he was consuming mineral fucking water?

Itachi lifted his eyes at me. What was it? Now I blushed, that was for certain, I lowered my gaze. Tch. Drinking is not fucking fun.

My tongue spoke something all by itself.

"Itachi, I think I'm getting drunk. Let's go to the sofa and drink more!"

That was one hell of a sentence. I looked at Itachi. He smirked at me, but lifted up the bottle of Sambuca and his shot glass, along with the lightning unit and started moving towards the sofa, more or less steadily.

I nearly tipped the stool with me but managed to land without accidents. Talk about ninja skills.

Some miracle helped me and my brother get ourselves along with our 'cargo', namely the bottle and the glasses, in our/their original form to the sofa and place the above mentioned cargo on the table.

I felt a relaxing warmth streaming through my limbs and making my head spin pleasantly. I desperately tried not to smile, but didn't do a good job at that looking at Itachi.

My brother was fighting with gravity and magnetic fields around the table that were affecting the bottle of Sambuca, the shot glasses and most of all Itachi's hands.

"Are you drunk, Itachi?" I asked my brother.

"No, Sasuke", he answered. It sounded unlikely.

"Are you lying to me, Itachi?" I asked him again

"Yes, Sasuke", he said, frowning and concentrating on the process of filling up the shots.

He managed to fill them up. Overfilled. Hn. Who cares? We decided it was safer not to lighten them up or we would burn the fucking place down.

"Kanpai", Itachi said.

"Kanpai".

We drank up. Itachi put his glass on the table and leaned back on the sofa. He closed his eyes and was smiling to himself, breathing heavier than usually. A pink drunken blush covered his cheeks. He looked so cute and relaxed, so peaceful.

I put my sticky warm shot glass on the table and moved closer to my brother.

"Itachi?"

"Un?" he answered not opening his eyes, still smiling.

I put my hand on his knee. His smile wiped off. Itachi glared at me directly and removed my hand.

"Stop it, Sasuke" he said to me seriously.

I felt hurt. What the fuck? Wasn't it this what we came here for? To make love? I didn't understand why we couldn't do it at home, but okay. If he wanted us to get drunk in a dirty workshop and fuck on the concrete floor I wouldn't mind. What was this talk about then?

"Itachi you know how I feel about you. I know you want it too" I looked him in his eyes and …

He got up on his feet.

"Sasuke. I don't want to hear this again. Do you understand it?"

The fuck? I jumped up and tried to put my arms around him- he pushed me away and I landed back on the sofa.

"Why the fuck are you doing this to me, Itachi?! What have I fucking done to you, huh? Why do you hate me so much?" now I was crying. Fucking alcohol. Fucking Itachi. He had turned me in some sort of wimp. In these last two days I cried more than in my entire life.

Itachi sat beside me on the sofa and put his hand on my shoulder. I hit it away.

"Don't fucking touch me! I don't need your fucking pity. I want you to love me, nothing more, Itachi! "

He didn't answer and looked away.

"I hate you! I hate you so fucking much. This is your new toy torturing me like that, isn't it? You fucking sadistic bastard! I wish you were dead! I wish I never had to see your fucking face again. I wish" I punched him in his face.

I thought that was fucking it. Now I would cop it.

Itachi's eyes narrowed and got a furious glint. I stopped screaming, sobbing, breathing and was just staring at him, waiting for his fist in my face. My body crouched itself and pressed into the cold leather...still glaring…still not breathing…a second more…

I closed my eyes. And pressed my chin in my laps. Now my head would suffer.

I felt the sofa shifted slightly. He would kick me now?

I heard a dinging next to my ear, something got cast on the floor. I lifted my head, Itachi was standing and looking down at me, smiling.

"Very well, Sasuke. You don't have to see my face ever again. I'll send someone to bring you your things. This place belongs to you now. I wanted us to celebrate your new home and your new life, but it looks like you don't want me near you." He smirked and wiped of the side of his lip with a cushion of his hand, looked at the red mark on it and then continued. Already dead serious.

"I have been a bad brother to you, Sasuke. But I would never ever-listen to me!- never would I do something like that, despite what you do or how you put it. I am anything, but I'm not that."

With these words he turned away and headed towards the door. All firm, almighty.

My Itachi. Left. Me. Again. Fucking. Bastard. I hate. His. Fucking. Guts. We'll. See. About. That. Brother.

"Thank you for the present, brother!" I screamed at the slammed door. But he wouldn't hear. Sound-proof walls in a second-class music studio. My new home. My fucking new home.

I picked up the bunch of keys from the floor and smirked. Tch. Bastard. He had planned it all along. Don't worry, brother.

I was getting a plan ready in my head. Itachi would be mine, he just didn't know about it yet.

N/A: yepp. the plan. and Sasuke is out of there, from under Itachi's wing. no turning back. and what the plan includes...i guess you'll see, those who are interested of course..XD

thank you Guys for your support. As Always. Without you all it would never be any story. All the comments and reviews I'm receiving it just means so much..

mainki