[A/N: Erm…I'm pretty sure I fail at writing romantic stuff. Sorry!]
Chapter 11: In Which Itachi and Hikari are An Item
Much to the relief of the Akatsuki members, there was no pursuit as they left Konoha. This was mostly because everyone was either in a state of shock at what happened or trying to figure out just what exactly had happened.
After their first kiss, Itachi had lapsed into silence. The sky was wide, and the stars were bright, and the full moon hung above them. Everything was beautiful.
"So," Hikari said as they crossed the border, "When do you think we could, you know, have the wedding?"
Itachi blinked, and turned to face her. "The wedding?" he repeated.
"Well, yeah," Hikari replied. "It's what you usually have after an engagement…or do the Uchiha do things differently?"
"No, but…" Itachi actually sounded a little flustered. He had been acting considerably more emotional lately, Hikari realized. "I mean, of course we're going to have a wedding…but it doesn't have to be right away."
Hikari pushed away from Itachi's embrace so she could face him. "You're not trying to back out of this or something, are you?"
Itachi shook his head, absently running a hand through her hair. Hikari's skin tingled at the light touch. "No, of course not. There's just a few things I need to…settle…before I could get married. Besides, you need some time to prepare for the wedding, don't you?"
"Ooh, right, the wedding!" Hikari squealed. "Do you think we should have a traditional ceremony, or one of those foreign things? And how many bridesmaids do you think we could have? Because if we don't have very many all my sisters are going to fight. Besides, I bet Konan would like to be a bridesmaid. And then my family's going to want to come. Do you have any—no that's right you don't, sorry, oh wait, you have a brother or something."
"I don't think he would want to come to my wedding," Itachi said quietly, twining a lock of Hikari's hair around his hand.
"Well, that's his loss. Where do you think we should have it? Because there's this really pretty place up in Iwa where my sister got married before she moved to Suna. There's this little temple, and it's all forest-y…"
…
It took two days to get back to Amegakure, and Itachi and Hikari discussed the wedding for almost the entire time. Or rather, Hikari talked, and Itachi said 'yes' or 'hn' or 'that's nice' in all the right places. Hikari didn't mind—it was the longest they'd ever talked without him telling her to shut up, anyway.
When they walked in, they quickly discovered that they weren't the only ones who'd just got back. Hikari nearly tripped over Tobi, who was lying in the middle of the living room floor coloring. He had made some very…unique…alterations to the picture he was working on. Hikari was pretty sure Atashi no Kouma had never had quite that much blood in it, but she hadn't seen the latest episodes yet.
Zetsu was skulking about the room, tending to the houseplants. "Pein wants to know why the base was left unattended," he announced after everyone had trooped in.
"Unattended? We left Hidan and Kakuzu here," Sasori pointed out.
"Exactly."
"He's got a point," Hikari said. "I wouldn't leave Hidan and Kakuzu anywhere either. Unless it was splattered on the walls."
Itachi raised one eyebrow but didn't disagree. He probably concurred with her opinion that Hidan and Kakuzu were about the annoyingest things on the planet. Besides gerbils, that is. Gerbils were the spawn of evil!
She didn't realize she'd just said that out loud until Konan started snickering. At this point, she considered pointing out that the gerbils had been Konan's fault, her and her expensive porcelain plates (who would seriously let a bunch of socially challenged S-rank missing-nin anywhere near things like that, anyway) but remembered that Konan had helped head up the wedding-crashing party back at Konoha. "…Okay then, let's go see what Pein wants."
…
Pein was, to put it mildly, decidedly displeased to discover that two of his subordinates had gotten engaged without consulting him. When he had originally formed Akatsuki, that hadn't exactly been anything to worry about, as the only woman in the group was his own girlfriend.
Of course, he couldn't set a precedent, or everyone would start skirt-chasing and their peace plans would be derailed. He was about to order Itachi and Hikari to break off the engagement when Konan started cooing about how it was so wonderful that there was going to be a wedding and didn't Hikari's ring look so nice…
Pein knew when to drop an argument.
…
"Hey, Itachi, what happened to my posters?" Hikari asked as she pushed the door to their room open.
"Posters?" Itachi tried to look as if he didn't know what she was talking about. This effort was unsuccessful.
"No, seriously, where's my Yoake o Kowasu poster? It was right…over…" As Hikari pointed across the room, her voice trailed off when she noticed the streak of gray ash on the pink wall. "You burned it? Seriously, I know you didn't like that movie, but isn't that over-reacting a bit?"
"I am sorry," Itachi said, gently taking Hikari's other hand in his. "At the time, I did not wish to be reminded of you. I will replace it, if you value it that much."
Hikari laughed. "Forget it, who cares about the dumb sparkly bishies? It's not like I'm engaged to any of them, after all!"
They spent the rest of the afternoon redecorating, as Hikari quickly decided that she had tired of the Suns of Suna, as well. This left their room with nothing but bare pink walls.
"Hey, Itachi," Hikari said, affixing an explosive tag to the last poster and putting it in the pile to destroy outside, "what do you want to decorate with?"
Itachi had never really thought about this. He was not as artistically oriented as Hikari or her former teammate, Sasori. He usually ignored art in general, as long as it stayed out of his way and didn't try to blow him up, stab him, poison him, or dye his hair. Still, Hikari looked as if she expected an answer. "A mural, perhaps?" he suggested.
"Ooh, that's a good idea!" Hikari squealed. "We'll have to repaint the walls white first, though. Look, we'll put, like, a forest here, and have a twiny vine that goes over the door, and then a castle over there, and then a field with flowers and bunnies and little birdies, and then over on that wall, we'll have an epic ninja battle with tons of stuff blowing up! How's that sound?"
Resting his chin on one hand, Itachi processed what Hikari had just said. It still amazed him how quickly she could talk, and how abruptly she tended to change subjects. It was quite dizzying, but he liked it all the same. Everything about her was motion; motion, and freedom, and joy. Strange things for a missing-nin, and things Itachi had never thought he could have. "It sounds delightful," he replied.
…
It took two weeks of on-and-off work between missions for Hikari's mural to be finished. They didn't have to go very far for the missions; Pein was planning something big soon, Hikari thought, but lying low until then. Unfortunately, that meant that she hadn't been able to let loose for quite a while. She knew of two or three good ammunition dumps within a hundred miles, but until she got a proper excuse to head in that general direction she was stuck.
The mural had more than occupied her time, however. It had turned out to her complete satisfaction, even if Itachi thought that the charming forest scene with bunnies and raccoons and birdies was a bit incongruous next to the 'epic ninja battle with tons of stuff blowing up'. She wasn't quite sure what his problem was with it. She'd blown up tons of stuff in charming forests with bunnies and raccoons and birdies!
Eventually, however, there was no more mural to be painted on, not even the last loving little details of the feathers on the bluebirds or the debris from the explosion. No missions either, and although Konan had been a lot nicer lately, she'd still blow her top if Hikari did anything to endanger any of her surviving tea-services.
Hikari was bored.
"Hey, Itachi," she whispered across the room. "Are you awake?"
Itachi raised his head from his pillow looked over at her blearily. His eyes were flat black, which was strange for him, and he squinted just a little as he looked her way. "I wasn't until you decided to enquire," he replied, his eyes shifting into their usual red swirls. She wished he wouldn't, she liked them better the other way. The red eyes made him look like Uchiha Itachi, Really Dangerous Missing-nin, instead of Uchiha Itachi, Who Is Actually Pretty Nice After All If You Overlook Some Things. "Is something wrong?" he asked.
"No, I'm just bored. Want to go blow something up?" Hikari asked, darting over to bounce on Itachi's bed.
Realizing the futility of trying to get Hikari to leave him alone, Itachi sat up with a sigh. "At two in the morning?" he queried.
"Yeah, it'll be awesome! We could go out for sushi afterward, it could be like, you know, a date or something. Pleeeease?"
…
"Ooh, ooh, watch this one! Katsu!"
Light flashed through the entire sky as the blast went off, briefly casting the rocky ground below into wildly contrasting shadows. Hikari shaded her eyes with one hand as she laughed.
Itachi smiled back in spite of himself, caught up in her infectious enthusiasm.
"Oh, hey, there's a little town over there," Hikari said, pointing as the bird swooped down.
"Hikari, you're not…"
Hikari poked him playfully in the ribs. "Of course not, silly, what did you think? They might have some chocolate or something!"
During his years as a missing-nin, Itachi had discovered that most such persons had retained some kind of personal code; for example, he avoided injuring innocent bystanders whenever possible, and Kisame had once admitted that had never committed an actual theft.
Thus, he was a little surprised with the alacrity with which Hikari broke into a candy store. "So, what do you like, Itachi?" she asked, climbing down off the roof their bird had landed on and preparing to blast through a window.
"Chocolate, I suppose," Itachi replied, following after her.
He quickly realized he would have to be a little more specific. By the time they left almost an hour later, they were laden down with more kinds of candy than he had ever known existed. While he had mostly chosen exotic chocolates and traditional sweets, Hikari grabbed everything that was brightly colored.
Her kisses tasted like strawberries as the dawn broke above them.
