~*~ ITACHI'S POV ~*~

I stand a few yards away, Kisame right beside me as Konan and Pein help load the unconscious forms of Orichimaru, Kabuto and Kimmimaru into the back of the ambulance. We'd well and truly got Deidara and Sasori's revenge on the three of them. After we'd finished, there wasn't a speck of skin that wasn't covered in blood. After this, Konan had called the ambulance, and played a fantastic role of being the hysterical Head Girl who found the bodies. She'd said her friends were helping to check them all over, but could they all hurry as they were in a critical condition. I smirked as I realised her plan. If we were checking them over, it would explain why our fingerprints were all over them, and why our clothes were caked in their blood. The girl obviously thought her plans through, and she was a brilliant actress. On the phone she'd managed to sound terrified, like she'd never seen violence before, and when the ambulance arrived, she'd even managed to turn on the tears. Upon seeing this, Pein had muttered that she'd gotten out of a lot of trouble by doing this. As the ambulance men were talking to Konan and trying to calm her down, Pein has hissed at the trio on the floor that if they were fond of their limbs, they'd keep this a little secret, and stay the fuck away from his gang.

"Alright.. You've had a bit of a scare miss, so I think it's best for you to go home and get some rest.." The ambulance driver announced, patting Konan on the shoulder softly.

"Y..Yes.. Will they be..?" She nodded her head towards the ambulance. The man looked uncomfortable.

"They're in a very unstable condition. But I expect they'll pull through."

At these words, Konan started crying all over again, but with a beaming smile on her face.

"That's brilliant! I'm H.. Head Girl you s.. see, and I organised this d.. d.. dance.. So to think that t.. this could happen.." She trails off, and the man smiles sympathetically at her.

"They'll be fine. You all did a good job saving them like this. Take care of yourselves." He then gets into the ambulance and drives off.

As soon as the sirens fade into the distance, Konan wipes away the tears from her face, grinning.

"You really did a number on Kabuto." Kisame laughs.

"What about you and Itachi with Orichimaru? I thought I'd die laughing when I saw how bent out of shape his face was!" She giggled.

I stretch my arms, clicking my fingers.

"I wonder how Deidara is.." I mutter.

"Sempai will be fine! Sempai is with Sasori-san!" Tobi assures me, bounding over. Once Kimmimaru was well and truly out of it, he snapped back into being his normal, happy, hyper self.

"I hope so, Tobi.." Zetsu says, appearing from behind Tobi.

"Look, we all know Sasori's responsible. He'll look after him." Pein says, wiping flecks of blood off his hand with his sleeve.

"Alright.. I'm gonna head off home now. Just gotta grab something from my locker first." Kisame announces, stretching his arms too. "Coming Itachi?"

"Sure. See you guys in a minute."

The others wave and Tobi gives us his usual goodbye; a flying jump hug. After detangling ourselves from his tight hold, we start making our way over to the school. I watch as Kisame walks on ahead a little, hands over the back of his head. His head is thrown backwards as he stares up at the sky. The moonlight outlines his perfect features, making his eyes dance. I blush, and look away.

"You've been training, haven't you Itachi?"

"Huh?" Kisame's question snaps me out of my daydream. I turn back to him. He's come to a halt, and seems to be waiting for me. As I draw level with him, he smiles and carries on up the path.

"You never used to be able to kick that high before." Kisame announces. "I just wondered if you'd been training."

I shrug. "Sasuke's starting to really try to beat me now. So I thought I'd get even better than I am now just to totally humiliate him."

Kisame smirks. "Brother of the year you're not."

I smile. "True. But neither is he."

"Ah, touché."

I grin as we walk side by side towards the school. Another year over of Konan trying to drug us. Bring on the next. I yawned. What with all the running, jumping and hiding I'd had to do tonight, not to mention the fight with Orichimaru and his friends, I was suddenly very tired.

"Do you think there are any buses running at this time?"

Kisame checks his watch. "It's only eight."

"Really? Feels a lot later."

"Tell me about it." Kisame laughs.

We reach the school, and enter it in silence. This was how me and Kisame usually spent our time; in silence. I had asked him why once, and he had said he appreciated that I needed my own space every so often. He also said that he understood how I liked silence and as he was so talkative, he'd try and tone it down a little. I just couldn't pluck up the courage to tell him that I loved talking to him, because I loved everything about him. But if I complained about the silence, he'd realise something was wrong, and he'd worry. And that was something I wanted to avoid at all costs.

His locker was on the ground floor, near the cafeteria. I leant against the rest of the lockers and he swung the door open and grabbed a couple of books from inside. He then started rummaging, probably looking for something right at the back. I watched as he moved different things about within the locker, muttering swear words under his breath as he got more and more agitated. It took all my self control not to start laughing. Just then, I noticed a small slip of paper escape from the locker and fall to the floor. It landed right by my foot. I looked up at Kisame. He didn't seem to have noticed, so, with a shrug, I bent down and picked it up.

It was a folded up piece of paper, and I could see the familiar scrawl that made up Kisame's handwriting on the other side. I stole one more look up at him. Kisame was still too busy with his locker to pay any attention to what I was doing, so I allowed curiosity to get the better of me. I folded the note open, and saw the date a couple of days ago at the top of the page. I twitched when I noticed it was a diary entry, and was about to slip it subtly back into Kisame's locker when I saw my name. Unable to resist, I started to read.

'I don't know what to do anymore.. I keep noticing all the small things that Itachi does as being the best things about him.. I mean, his smile, for instance. All he has to do is freakin' grin, and my legs go like jelly. And I hate feeling this way, because I know that no way in hell is he ever gonna return my feelings. And that's killing me. But I can't let him know. If he knew, he'd completely freak out.. He'd hate me probably.. And I can't live through that. If Itachi started hating me, it'd really kill me, because I love him with my heart, body, mind, soul.. Everything.'

My hand shakes as the diary entry falls from my grip. It lands on Kisame's foot, and he must have spotted the sudden flash of white against his black trainer, because he pulls his head out of the locker. I watched his face as he spotted just what it was. His cheeks completely drained of colour, and his eyes looked wide and full of panic. He turned to me, and I swear to God I saw his eyes filling up with tears.

"You weren't supposed to see that.. Ever.." He mumbles, his voice breaking.

"Why..?" My own is quiet; just above a whisper.

"Aren't you freaked out..? Itachi, your best friend is in love with you!"

"Why would that freak me out?" I reply, smiling. Kisame looks confused. "Let me tell you a little secret, Kisame."

Still smiling, I grab the front of his shirt, and pull him down towards me. Our lips crash together, and Kisame emits a squeak of surprise. My hands release the front of his shirt and instead slide up into his hair. I feel him smile against my mouth, before winding his arms around my waist, his hands wandering up and down my back. Very soon, the sweet kiss gains heat and passion as Kisame pins me to the locker. Eventually, we have to come up for air, although I never wanted the kiss to end. Kisame smiles at me as I gulp down oxygen, and closes his locker.

"Wanna go back to my place? Right now?" He asks, smirking. I smile back and nod.

I couldn't believe Kisame liked me back. I'd always imagined him to be the one to freak out should he realise the way I felt about him. But it turned out that he felt exactly the same way about me. I was so happy, I could break into a random little dance. But I won't, as Kisame would laugh until he wet himself.

My smile grew as Kisame took my hand in his and led me back towards the front of the school, not caring about who we passed along the way. Let them spread rumours, I wanted the whole of the school to know that Itachi Uchiha was going out with Kisame Hoshigaki. If they were going to try and mock us for what made us happy, then they were the ones who needed to reassess their lives, not us.