Itachi stood outside Karumi's workroom, debating whether or not he should just leave. He'd been back in the Rain Village for almost a week now and still hadn't managed to convince himself that visiting her was a good idea.
Of course, Itachi wanted to see Karumi - he'd been looking forward to it since he and Kisame had left Shukuba town - but there was a small part of him that was afraid of her reaction to what he'd done during his mission. Itachi couldn't lie to her, after all; so what would she do when she found out he'd almost beaten Sasuke to death?
He couldn't avoid her any longer, though. Itachi had promised to come back to her as soon as his mission was over, and he wasn't about to ignore that promise - even if he was late to deliver on it. Lifting his hand, Itachi moved to knock, though the door swung open before he could make a sound, revealing Karumi's junior assistant.
"You were right, my lady!" he called back to Karumi, who was hunched over at her work station. "There was someone out here!"
"I told you I could hear pacing," Karumi replied, still focused on her work. "Who is it?"
"Me," Itachi stated, immediately making Karumi stand up straight and turn to face the doorway, her eyes wide with surprise.
Brushing her hands against her cloak, Karumi moved forward, reaching for the examination table in the middle of the room to guide herself. "Tetsuya," she murmured. "Could you give us some privacy?"
The young boy looked at her curiously before nodding his head, opening the door wider to let Itachi in before excusing himself.
Itachi listened as the boy's footsteps disappeared down the hallway, before turning to look at Karumi, mentally kicking himself again for thinking that she and the woman in Shukuba Town were one in the same. Compared to the stranger, Karumi was much smaller, due to both her natural petiteness and her awful posture. She wasn't as curvy either, and her hair, though the same colour, was messily pulled back from her face and up into a high ponytail.
Karumi's pale eyes stared straight ahead as she smiled softly and held out her hand, and Itachi felt strangely relieved as he approached her, taking her hand in his and gently pulling her against his chest, wrapping his other arm around her shoulders.
There was something so comforting to Itachi as Karumi's face pressed against his chest, her hand gently squeezing his. A feeling of satisfaction overtook his earlier anxiety, and Itachi leaned down to rest his forehead on her shoulder.
"Strange," Karumi mumbled against his clothing. "Normally you come and see me right away, but you seem surprisingly well-rested compared to usual."
Swallowing heavily, Itachi's hold on her body tightened, as did her grip on his hand. A cold shudder ran down his spine as the distress made its way back through his body. "There's something I need to tell you," he muttered, forcing himself to be honest with her. "We ran into Sasuke."
The young woman's body grew tense as she took a step back, still grasping his hand. "And?"
Itachi's expression turned guilty as he stared down at her, his brow furrowing as his whole body seemed to sink. "He was determined to kill me," he murmured quietly, his voice barely audible as he watched Karumi's breathing quicken. "I had to make sure he wouldn't get in the way of the mission."
Before he could continue, Karumi clenched her fist and reeled back, applying chakra to her hand and striking Itachi square in the gut, sending him flying across the room, listening as his body hit the wall with a deafening crack. "So you killed him?" she shrieked furiously, stalking toward him and reaching down to grab a fistful of his clothing, hoisting him up to push him against the damaged wall.
"No...he's not dead," Itachi managed through raspy breathing, still winded from the blow. Of course, he could easily have dodged the punch, but Itachi knew he deserved Karumi's wrath - even if he hadn't actually killed his brother.
Karumi's grip on him loosened immediately and Itachi slid down the wall, still wheezing as he gripped his side. She'd almost definitely cracked his rib, and his vision blurred as the pounding pain in his head from hitting the wall grew more intense. Karumi quickly dropped to her knees, immediately tending to his injuries, and Itachi watched, slightly concussed, as the green glow of her chakra appeared over his face.
"I'm sorry," he mumbled, making Karumi's eyebrows wrinkle in confusion.
"What are you apologising for?" she asked, gently touching his head injury, guilt crossing her expression. "I'm not the one who just got thrown across the room."
She paused suddenly, frowning.
"You let me do that, didn't you?" she accused, placing one hand against his neck to feel him nod. "Why?"
Itachi winced as he shifted his weight, sitting up properly as the throbbing ache in his head began to clear. "You need to be angry with me," he murmured, making Karumi's frown deepen.
"That's stupid," she muttered dismissively, moving to tend to his torso. "Lift your shirt."
Grunting, Itachi did as he was told, unbuttoning his cloak and lifting his undershirt, closing his eyes as Karumi placed her hands against his chest, healing his injuries.
"Is..." Karumi trailed off, sitting properly on the floor beside him, and Itachi gingerly opened his eyes. "Is Sasuke okay?"
"He would have been hospitalised," Itachi told her, averting his gaze from her face. "Even after his own attack burned his hand, he still wanted to fight me, so I broke his wrist."
Karumi sighed, clearly disturbed, but nodded. "Burns and broken wrists are easy to fix," she whispered quietly, more as reassurance to herself than Itachi. Of course she'd been worrying about the younger Uchiha. Sasuke's wellbeing had been one of the first things brought up when she'd learned that Itachi was being sent to the Leaf Village.
"Also," Itachi continued grimly, making Karumi stiffen. Clearly she hadn't expected there to be more. "I forced him to relive the night I killed our family."
"Why would you do that?" Karumi hissed, applying pressure to Itachi's chest, making the young man recoil in pain. She pushed herself to her feet, making her way back to her workstation, feeling for the stacks of spice mixtures and herbal tinctures that sat, perfectly aligned, on the countertop. Grabbing one of the jars, Karumi unscrewed the lid and sniffed the mixture, before carefully making her way back to where Itachi sat and dropping down beside him once more.
Itachi grimaced as Karumi scooped a handful of the mixture out of the jar and slathered it onto his chest, before continuing with her healing jutsu. "I needed to remind him," he murmured after several moments of silence. "Why he was becoming strong in the first place."
Karumi huffed and rolled her eyes. "Because you didn't scar him enough in the first place," she muttered, removing her hands from Itachi's torso and sitting back on her heels, nodding to herself.
Shifting his weight, Itachi blinked, relieved that he no longer felt any pain, but quickly frowned as he poked at the paste Karumi hat wiped on him. "Is this..." he trailed off, the strong familiar smell of the mixture making him even more confused. "Garlic paste?"
"It's a chakra conductor," Karumi explained as she stood up, a small smile tugging ever so slightly at her features. "It makes the healing technique more effective without using too much energy. Normally it's odorless, so I put garlic in it to make it more identifiable."
She held her hand out, helping Itachi to his feet.
"Come with me," she murmured, still holding Itachi's hand as she began to lead him out of the workroom. "You can use my shower."
A small voice in the back of Itachi's head told him he should decline and head back to the hotel he and Kisame were staying in, but he didn't want to. He wanted to stay with Karumi instead.
Itachi had never been anywhere in the building other than Karumi's two workrooms. After all, he rarely stayed with her longer than an afternoon on the off chance he'd find himself in the Rain Village. The hallway with her workroom and apothecary stopped at a large utility door, which led out to an exposed stairway that wound around the large building. Following the stairs up to the next floor, the pair reached an identical door to the one they'd just come through. This time, however, it was as if they'd entered a completely different building.
The door closed behind them, drowning out the deafening sound of the rain outside and leaving Itachi to take in his surroundings in silence.
Rather than the bleak industrial cement that made up the workrooms downstairs, Karumi's living quarters were much more traditional looking, reminding Itachi of their home back in the Leaf Village. Following Karumi's lead, Itachi kicked his shoes off before stepping up onto the wooden floorboards, making his way down a corridor lined with sliding doors. He watched as Karumi placed her hand against the wall, following the hallway with a look of concentration on her face, before stopping in front of one of the doors and gingerly pulling it open, stepping aside to let Itachi through.
The room was dark and bland. A large bed was centred in the middle of the room, the headboard pressed against the far wall, with bare nightstands positioned on either side. A spare Akatsuki cloak hung neatly on a coat hook jutting from the adjacent wall, acting as the only colorful item in the room. Perhaps it was because of all the tacky art in the cheap hotels he'd been staying in for the past few years years, but the lack of any decoration in Karumi's room surprised Itachi - though, really, it shouldn't have.
"The shower's through there," Karumi murmured, gesturing vaguely to the sliding door that took up most of the opposite wall. "Help yourself to whatever you need."
Itachi nodded, glancing quickly back at her before making his way into the en suite, mentally preparing himself for whatever he'd need to face when he was done.
XXXXXXX
Karumi didn't know how long she'd been sitting on the mattress of her bed before the sound of running water finally ceased. So much of her focus earlier had been on Sasuke's wellbeing and Itachi's injuries that she hadn't actually managed to talk to Itachi properly and say what she'd been waiting to say for weeks.
The bathroom door slid open, making Karumi sit up straighter, tilting her head to face where she could hear Itachi standing.
"You didn't have to wait for me," he murmured, shifting uncomfortably.
"Actually," Karumi said quickly, moving to the edge of the bed. "There was something I wanted to talk to you about."
She gently patted the area of mattress beside her, waiting until it dipped with Itachi's weight before taking a deep breath, frowning for a moment as the scent of her conditioner wafted from his hair but shaking the thought out of her head.
"I was thinking about the Leaf Village while you were away," Karumi told him quietly. "Rather, I was thinking about our families and wondering what life would have been like if none of what did happen - erm - happened."
Itachi stayed silent as Karumi took a deep breath, her face growing warm.
"It was just a random daydream - just hypothetical 'what if's - but, when I was thinking about how you and I would have spent the rest of our lives, the thought that we might have spent them together..." she trailed off, struggling to find the right words. "It didn't bother me. And it bothers me that it didn't bother me. I mean, we never really...we were just friends, right?"
The young man beside her said nothing, leaving Karumi to continue talking.
"So, I guess the first thing I wanted to ask you," she murmured, her brow furrowing. "What made you decide to take me with you? You could have easily left me at the inn and gone off on your own, but you didn't."
Itachi shifted his weight, adjusting his position on the bed to sit more comfortably. "A few things," he admitted quietly. "Most of them selfish."
Karumi raised an eyebrow, leaning back on her hands. "Like?"
"You know what happened," Itachi murmured. "And you understood."
Frowning, Karumi let out an unsatisfied snort. "You and I both know that's not the full reason," she muttered, before her smile returned. "So, what was it really?"
Itachi's hand touched hers, lifting it gently to touch the side of his face. "Are you sure you wouldn't rather do this more privately?"
"Absolutely not," Karumi laughed, pulling her hand away. "Every time we do, I wake up in my office to find that you've already left again."
She paused, this time reaching for Itachi's hand.
"I want to hear it from you - the real you," she murmured, intertwining their fingers, her smile falling once again. "Not just some image in my mind."
A heavy sigh escaped Itachi's lips as he lay back against the bed, keeping hold of Karumi's hand. "Do you remember what you said to me when I asked you to stay in the village and look after Sasuke?"
Karumi paused for a moment before nodding. "That he has a whole village to take care of him," she said quietly. "And that you wouldn't have anyone."
Itachi's grip on her hand tightened, gently squeezing. "That's why," he whispered. "It's petty and greedy, but I wanted someone to be here - for my sake."
A pleased expression tugged at the corners of Karumi's mouth as she moved to lie down beside him, a gleeful feeling bubbling in her stomach.
"So," Itachi murmured, rolling over to face her properly. "What about you?"
"What about me?" Karumi mumbled, the giddy smile still plastered on her features.
"You daydreamed about us being married and you're not going to elaborate?"
Karumi sat up immediately, her eyes wide. "I didn't say anything about marriage!" she said quickly, though her brows furrowed in thought as she tried to remember the past few minutes of conversation. "Did I?"
"Not explicitly," Itachi grunted, sitting up properly. "But by 'spending the rest of our lives together' I assumed that's what you meant."
A bright pink flush tinged Karumi's cheeks as she gently lifted her free hand to cover her face. "Fine," she sighed, defeated, her hand dropping to rest in her lap. "Like I said, we never had that sort of relationship, but I never really considered you family either."
The rain outside began to grow heavier, its sound becoming a roar that even penetrated the building. A few moments of silence sat between the two, before Karumi continued.
"Even then, as much as I told myself that's what we were, we weren't best friends either. That's what Shisui was to you, right?" She paused, swallowing heavily, her heart pounding in her chest. "Yet, I've always felt...close to you - really close - even when you were trying to push me away. Maybe that's why the thought of us being together like that made me kind of happy."
The hand holding Itachi's tightened, and the young man returned the gesture with his own reassuring squeeze as Karumi took a deep, albeit shaky, breath.
"To say something like 'I love you' doesn't quite describe this feeling that I have," she murmured closing her eyes. "But I honestly can't think of any other way to describe it, so...I love you."
More silence filled the room as Karumi struggled to slow her heart rate. Maybe she shouldn't have said anything after all. The outside rain grew even louder, sounding as though the building was being pelted with thousands of stones. Itachi said nothing as he slowly let go of her hand, reaching instead to wrap his arms around her waist and pull her against him, resting his chin on top of her head.
Karumi stiffened a little as the sensation of bare flesh touched her arm, though she quickly relaxed, resting her head against his shoulder.
"Sorry," Itachi muttered, sensing her moment of discomfort. "My shirt smells like garlic, so I didn't bother putting it back on."
A quiet giggle escaped Karumi's lips. "My bad," she smirked, feeling much less awkward than she had just moments ago. "Maybe you should stop letting yourself get so hurt." Another silence settled between the pair, though this one was much more comfortable, the sound of the rain almost calming.
After a few more moments, Itachi spoke. "If things were different," Itachi murmured quietly, his tone serious. "If we weren't here doing this, I might be able to say something like 'I love you too', but that's not possible right now."
Karumi's face grew warm once again as a tight pain constricted in her chest, though she forced herself to smile softly and nod.
"You're right," Itachi continued. "We're close. Even now, coming back here is one of the things I look forward to when I finish a mission."
He paused, and Karumi felt his head turn to look down at her.
"This feeling - like you said - isn't familial or friendly, it's attraction," he said thoughtfully. "Mutual attraction. Still, neither you nor I are in any position to make anything out of that."
Karumi took a deep breath as a sinking feeling pulled at her stomach. "I knew you'd say something like that," she sighed. "I just wanted to tell you how I felt - before something bad happens."
"Something bad?" Itachi asked.
"Just the thought that you could go out on a mission like any other day and never come back," Karumi murmured, her face growing hot and flustered once again as small tears pricked the corners of her eyes. "It's always terrified me. Either you get caught and you're imprisoned for life and maybe tortured, or you're killed, and no one's going to bring your body back here."
Itachi said nothing, only lifting one hand to cup the back of her head, hugging her closer to him.
"I just wanted to tell you now," Karumi continued quietly, mumbling against his skin as she wiped her eyes. "So I wouldn't regret anything when you left again."
Slowly, Karumi lifted her head, raising her hand to lightly touch the side of Itachi's face and placing a quick soft kiss against his cheek, pausing for a moment before pulling away from him completely, turning her head to hide her flushed face.
"I'll get you a new shirt," she uttered, moving to push herself off the bed, though stopped when Itachi's hand grabbed hers. She paused, frowning in confusion as she felt the mattress dip deeper beside her, before something soft and warm brushed against her lips.
"Wait," Itachi murmured, his voice much closer than she'd expected, his breath tickling her nose.
It took a moment for the realisation at what had just happened clicked in Karumi's head. She gingerly touched her fingertips to her mouth, another airy smile lifting the corners of her mouth as her eyes narrowed slowly. "What happened to 'that's not possible right now'?" she teased, her soft smile stretching into a grin.
Itachi huffed, a quiet sound that Karumi interpreted as short laughter. "You have a point about not wanting to regret anything," he replied, placing his other hand on top of her head.
Karumi chuckled. "What's with you making big decisions based on tiny things I say?" she asked, moving her hands to rest casually on Itachi's shoulders.
"Because I trust you," he said simply, dropping his hand to rest on the bed.
"You do?" Karumi squeaked, feeling her face grow even hotter.
"Of course," Itachi murmured, his tone softening as he lifted his hand to brush a few stray hairs away from her face. "Don't think I don't I care about what you have to say. Besides, what you said just then wasn't tiny."
Karumi's entire body seemed to sink against his with a feeling that could almost be described as relief. "I didn't think you'd be this...understanding," she breathed, smiling sheepishly.
Itachi said nothing, and Karumi felt his fingers gently brush against her face, before his lips were once again pressed against hers.
It was as if all the uncertainty Karumi was feeling suddenly evaporated as their lips moved together in a way that was both clumsy and endearing. Once again, Itachi's arms wrapped around her waist, pulling Karumi toward him, letting their kiss become a little more aggressive. Karumi's arms tightened around his neck in turn, hugging him closer.
Perhaps this was what she'd been wanting after all. There was something so comforting about the way that Itachi held her that made Karumi want to stay like that forever. Even if she couldn't see him, this was a feeling Karumi didn't want to let go of. She'd told herself so many times that she wasn't desperate for a romantic relationship with Itachi, and while that was still somewhat true, a burning feeling inside her was telling Karumi not to let Itachi leave her side again.
After what seemed like both an eternity and not long enough the two broke for air, and Itachi's hands gently moved from Karumi's waist to her thighs, lifting her effortlessly to let her legs straddle his lap before their lips connected once again.
Karumi's hands moved to lightly caress Itachi's face as she gently pulled away, trailing tiny kisses past his lips and down his face.
"Do you...maybe," she mumbled between pecks. "Want to...stay here...tonight?"
Itachi's grip on her legs loosened a little in surprise. "That's moving pretty quickly, don't you think?" he murmured, tilting his head to glance down at her.
"No regrets, remember?" Karumi whispered breathlessly, pressing her face into the nape of Itachi's neck as her fingertips softly trailed down his chest.
"Well, if you insist," Itachi breathed, his hands moving from her thighs to her hips.
"I do," Karumi moaned quietly, a small smile lifting the corners of her mouth as she wrapped her arms around his waist, kissing his lips again and feeling his weight tilt backwards, the pair hitting the mattress with a heavy thud.