summary Adrift at sea

Everything hurt. That was the only definite. Parts of him hurt that he hadn't even realized existed before.

Once he acknowledged the hurt, other things started to filter through.

A steady beep that sounded out every few seconds. A stinging smell inside his nostrils. The sound of chair legs scraping on the floor. Pages turning.

When he felt ready, Itachi opened his eyes. Or at least, he tried. He turned his head to the side.

"Itachi?"

He felt a touch on his hand. One of the only places on his body that didn't really ache. He tried to say something, but his tongue felt heavy and swollen. The inside of his mouth was dry, too. But after a few tries, he managed to get some words out.

"Where am I?"

"You're in the hospital," his mother replied. Her voice quavered, like she was trying not to cry.


Itachi wavered in and out of consciousness. He vaguely remembered a doctor explaining that it was the pain medication. Or maybe it had been a nurse. He couldn't tell. Because he couldn't see anything.

"I'm going to be honest with you, Uchiha-kun. There was a lot of broken glass. You had a few superficial cuts. We stitched those up. It's really the bruising that's hurting so much right now," a doctor told him during one of those short moments of lucidity.

"My eyes?" Itachi heard himself ask.

"They're just swollen. You'll be able to see out of them fine when the fluids drain out," the doctor answered. And Itachi let out a sigh of relief.

The bruises and the superficial cuts and scrapes on his body didn't bother him so much. Itachi only worried when the doctor told him, "You did have a sizable laceration on the back of your head. And a concussion. Your head hit that windshield pretty hard."

Itachi decided not to point out that it was the windshield that had hit his head.

And then the doctor added, "It took six stitches, but the skull wasn't damaged. Your scans look clean. It's probably nothing to stress about. We just want to keep you here for observations until we're sure."

Itachi felt his mother squeeze his hand.

"You'll be okay," she assured him in a whisper.


Itachi continued to sleep on and off throughout that first day. The only way he knew that the day had gone by was to ask his mother and the nurses who came in and out of the room. In the afternoon, he heard his mother move around.

"Sasuke will be coming home from school. I won't be long," she murmured.

"Go," Itachi urged her, giving a weak wave of his hand. And then he added, "You don't have to rush. I'm not going anywhere." He had meant that last part to make her laugh. She didn't. Instead, she hesitated.

"Dad should be here soon. I'll be back after I put Sasuke to bed."

"Mom. Get some sleep. Dad will keep me company," Itachi insisted.

After a long moment, Mikoto sighed, "Alright. I'll see you in the morning." She kissed his forehead before her heels tapped out.


"He's the same age as my son. Imagine how scared his mother must have been," a nurse commented the next time Itachi came to. He heard her fiddling around with something near his head.

"I would've had a heart attack if anything happened to my Eiko," another nurse agreed.

There was a light tug near his arm. Itachi realized that one of the nurses was fixing the sheets on his bed.

"Poor boy," she sighed. She stroked his head once. Her hand felt a little cold. She said something else, but Itachi missed it as he drifted back to sleep.


"What time is it?" Itachi questioned when he heard the chair next to the bed creak.

"Almost midnight," Fugaku answered.

"How long have you been here, Father?" queried Itachi.

"I got here around 6. Your mother stopped by. But I sent her home."

"Good," Itachi remarked. And then a thought occurred to him. "Did you tell Sasuke what happened?"

"Not yet. We didn't want him to worry," replied Fugaku.

Itachi jumped a little when he felt his father pat his hand. They weren't a particularly affectionate pair. But he didn't mind at this moment.

"We'll bring him to visit after we explain what's going on," Fugaku added.

"Thank you," Itachi sighed. Because the last thing he wanted was for little Sasuke to lay awake at night over him. He was such a compassionate child. When Sasuke's pet fish had died, he had cried over it for days. He didn't know how well his baby brother would handle something like this.

Itachi tried to send his father home to get some rest, too. But Itachi should have known better. That legendary Uchiha stubbornness had to have come from somewhere. When he woke during the night, he heard his father's quiet snores beside him. It lulled him back to sleep, like a white noise machine.


A couple days later, the doctor came by.

"Have we been able to go to the bathroom?" she asked.

"Yes," Itachi responded. And each time, Fugaku had guided him to the door and helped him grope around to find the toilet and sink. It was a little embarrassing, but less awful than letting his mother help him.

"Excellent. Let's see those eyes," she said. Itachi held still as she reached around his head. She found the edge of his bandage and began unwinding it.

"Do you feel any pain in them when you move them around?" asked the doctor as she worked. Keeping his lids closed, Itachi moved his eyes up and then down. Left and right.

"Not at all," he responded.

The last of the bandage fell away. She pulled the gauze off his eyelids. Her fingers lightly touched his lids. Pressing to them and then around the edges of his sockets.

"Alright. Let's take this slow. Whenever you're ready," she told him.

Itachi waited for a moment. Slowly opened his eyes. At first, the fluorescent lights made it hard to see. But when his pupils adjusted, he could see the hospital room. The speckled tiles on the ceiling. The curtain that divided his bed from the others in the room.

The doctor hovered in front of him with a flashlight. She moved the light back and forth, staring into his eyes as she did. He followed the motions without being asked.

"Take a look at my ear," she instructed, tapping her left ear. And while Itachi stared at it, she leaned in close. Watched the way his pupils moved and contracted. Did the same with the other eye.

"Any blurriness or spots in your vision?" the doctor questioned.

Itachi shook his head.

"Do you see a ring or halo around this light?" she inquired.

Itachi shook his head again.

"Excellent," she declared.

"Oh. Thank goodness," Mikoto uttered. At the sound of his mother's voice, Itachi looked at her. And she sat there, her hand on her chest. His dad's arm around her shoulders. When she met his gaze, Mikoto smiled. So did Fugaku. And all of this should have been so wonderful and filled with relief.

Except, his mother looked washed-out. Sallow, almost. Her hair looked lighter. His father's complexion seemed grey too.

Itachi looked past them. Out the window. Although he could see the sun shining, the skies looked steely. The trees waving outside the window had ginkgo leaves. All pale like a faded photograph.

"Something's wrong," Itachi whispered.


There was a name for it: Deuteranomaly.

The doctor sat down to explain. But all Itachi heard was the gurgle of everything pouring down the drain. The rich shades of the world swirled together into something ugly. Like water after it had been used to clean paintbrushes. All muddy and flat.

The hospital kept him for a few more days. Specialists dropped in every few hours. They all poked and prodded at him. Shone lights into his eyes, nodding and muttering to themselves as they jotted down notes. They even sent him to get scans of his brain. But the best answer Itachi got was, "Well, it's just like that sometimes. Color blindness can be a side effect of head trauma."

"It wasn't anything major. You said that he would be fine!" Mikoto exclaimed.

"Well... we were wrong," was all the doctor could say to her.

Fugaku put his arm around her. Mikoto's head whipped around. She was still glowering, a splotch of angry red highlighting each of her cheeks. He didn't say anything to her. Just held her against his side until her breathing evened out.

"You're lucky. It's not a complete loss of color, it looks like. You've just lost some sensitivity to green light," one of the doctors commented.

Itachi wished everyone would just stop talking.

When his parents went home, Itachi lay awake. Clicking through the pictures on his phone of his past assignments. The crimson field of poppies. The cerulean ocean. The blushing skins of peaches stacked in a basket.

It was like he was having a bad dream. Because surely, these lifeless, drab colors weren't his.

Shisui brought Sasuke one day. Sasuke walked in, hands clenched around something. Eyes wide, he stared at the other beds in the room, searching.

"Sasuke," Itachi called.

A smile lit up his entire face. Sasuke ran over, thrusting something out to Itachi with both his hands. Itachi smoothed it out. It was a cluster of little dolls made of white tissues. There were scraps of ribbon tied at their necks. Sasuke had drawn on smiling faces. His fingers were still smudged with the ink.

"Sasuke, what's this?" asked Itachi.

"Teru teru bozu!" announced Sasuke. He fidgeted, looking down at his feet for a moment.

"Aren't those to keep rain away, buddy?" Shisui questioned. He plopped down in the plastic chair with a groan, sounding a million years old. When Sasuke's shoulders drooped, Itachi frowned. He punched Shisui in the shoulder. Shisui's grunt made Sasuke look up.

"Did you make these for me, Sasuke?" Itachi queried.

Rubbing his nose on the back of his sleeve, Sasuke nodded. Itachi beamed at him.

"These are wonderful. You need to teach me how to do this," Itachi declared. Sasuke beamed. He put his hands on the edge of the bed, peering up at him.

"You know what, Nii-san? Sensei said that they bring good luck!" he said. Shisui reached out and lifted Sasuke onto the edge of the bed. And then he settled back to listen to Sasuke chatter about everything Itachi had missed. It took a while, but Sasuke managed to talk himself to exhaustion. He fell asleep with his hand on Itachi's leg, curled up onto his side. Itachi stroked his head, smiling down at his baby brother.

Shisui let out a sigh. He drummed his fingers against the armrest. And then he leaned forward, elbows on his knees.

"What're you gonna do?"

Itachi looked up at him.

"Do?" Itachi repeated.

"Don't play dumb, man. I know what you're worrying about," Shisui went on. He watched Itachi continue to pat Sasuke's head.

"I don't know. It hasn't really sunk in yet. I guess I'm just glad I can see at all," Itachi mused. But Shisui's eyes narrowed.

"Itachi..."

"I'm serious. I just want to focus on getting better," insisted Itachi.


Itachi and Hidan received high marks from all their professors. The black background with lit wooden panels were 'modern but a suitable backdrop', according to their advisor.

Even as his professors shook his hand, Itachi couldn't help but look back at the backdrop again and again. It felt like he had stood on that ladder setting it all up many lifetimes ago. And he just didn't understand what all the teachers were gushing about. It all looked so flat to him.

As the bruises on his body shrunk and the little scabs on his body began to itch, the fall semester ended. His junior year of university was over. His grades were impeccable.

And there was just no point to it all anymore.

Because everything that came from his hands looked like shit. It wasn't just the colors. The textures and the perspectives were all wrong. The stipples from his brush were clumsy. The things that had once come naturally were painfully difficult.

One morning, as he sat painting a landscape, Itachi set his brush down. Taking a deep breath, he picked up the palette knife and jammed it into the canvas. He shredded up the scene of a meadow with poppies because everything was wrong. And the rounded heads of the flowers looked like they were mocking him. Hands still covered in paint, he popped a beer open and downed it all in two gulps. And then he had another one just for good measure.

He attended two weeks of classes in the spring semester before he withdrew for the semester. When he explained to his advisor that he needed a break, the sympathetic look he got in return only made him feel worse.

Itachi settled into a new schedule.

The morning shift at the cafe, steam hissing as he churned out espressos and lattes. On his way back from work, he picked up some beer. Cracked one open as he turned on the TV. Cracked open one after the other, crowding his coffee table with the cans. And the numbness that came with the buzz made things a little easier to deal with.

He knew that his parents worried. Itachi knew how to put on a cheerful voice. He assured them that he just needed a break. But he knew that his mother knew something was wrong. Because she stopped asking to see his artwork. Like she somehow knew that he couldn't draw or paint anymore. That everything that came from his hands was garbage.

Itachi grew his hair out to cover the shiny scar on the back of his head. He could feel the still-tender skin under his fingers whenever he washed his hair. The emotions boiling together into his gut didn't really have a name. Or at least, he didn't know the words to describe them.

"Are you coming back next semester?" Kakuzu asked, pouring him another drink. Itachi caught the way that Kakuzu and Hidan shared a silent look. He ignored it as he tossed back the shochu.

Itachi didn't answer them because he didn't have one to give.


A year went by. Hidan graduated and immediately got a job with a small but successful production team in Hokkaido. Itachi read the guilt in Hidan's face each time they met. So he stopped responding to his texts and calls. Because it was awful seeing Hidan look sorry for his own successes.

"You've gotten so thin. Are you eating?" Mikoto fretted each time she saw him.

"When do you plan to go back to school?" Fugaku wanted to know.

"Will you paint for me again?" Sasuke pleaded.

And it only made Itachi's stomach roil with those unnameable feelings again.

He shoved all his canvases and brushes into a pile in his studio apartment. Covered them with an old sheet. As if that would make him forget the big, gaping hole in his life.


One by one, Itachi watched his classmates and friends stop reaching out. It wasn't their fault. He didn't expect people to pursue friendship after being ignored 10 or 20 times. Even the most persistent girls eventually gave up.

Kakuzu was the only one who refused to leave him alone. His voicemails were laced with swears and insults about how he was a "shithead for not answering the phone". But he didn't stop reaching out.

So when Kakuzu demanded that Itachi come visit him at his place in Miyagi, Itachi at least read the message before not answering. But when Kakuzu had then sent him a train ticket in the mail, Itachi had struggled to ignore him. Because the manners his parents had instilled in him were marrow-deep. And he couldn't let someone waste money on him. Grumbling and finishing off his beer, Itachi raised himself onto his elbow to call Kakuzu back.

He asked his manager to take a day off. And then Itachi was on the two-hour journey north to the busy city of Sendai.

Kakuzu met him at the station, glaring as he lowered his sunglasses. He wore a leather jacket and a frown.

"Senpai," Itachi greeted him.

"Asshole," replied Kakuzu, still glowering.

Kakuzu had struggled to find a job after university. He was picky, turning down all offers that he considered "beneath him". Until finally, an international school in Sendai had asked him to work as an art teacher.

"I thought you hated kids," Itachi said.

"Still do," Kakuzu confirmed. "But I'm home by 6 and I still have studio time on the weekends. Can't complain too much." And then he made a face.

"By the way, you look like shit," added Kakuzu, looking him up and down.

"You're a teacher?" Itachi repeated, still unable to fully process the idea. Surly Kakuzu with his sharp tongue teaching children to finger paint was inconceivable. Like something out of a nightmare.

"Alright, stop laughing, Uchiha. There's something I need your help with," Kakuzu shifted the conversation.

"And before you say 'no', shut up and listen," Kakuzu growled. He led them around the corner, to the front gates of a large school.

"Our school is holding a special event for Tanabata this year. And they asked me to design the decorations. I mean what're they thinking?" grumbled Kakuzu, pushing past the gate.

"Yeah, Senpai. Asking the art teacher to do art," Itachi replied.

Kakuzu shot him a dirty look. But Itachi only shrugged.

"Anyway, smartass, I need help designing the overall decor. You're good at this stuff. Help me," Kakuzu ordered. And the smile slipped from Itachi's face.

"No way, Senpai," replied Itachi.

"Too bad, kid. It wasn't a request," snorted Kakuzu.

"We really do appreciate you coming in to talk to the children," a voice said from down the hall.

Itachi and Kakuzu looked at each other. It was a Saturday. There were no classes in session today. The school building should have been deserted.

The door to the faculty room slid open. Out came the principal, his bald head gleaming. He dabbed at it with a handkerchief, smiling and bowing over and over again. His eyes darted around.

"Ah! Sensei! Let me introduce you," the principal called.

"Shit," Kakuzu muttered under his breath. He walked over to him, Itachi awkwardly following along.

"This is our art teacher, Abe Kakuzu. He just joined our faculty last year," the principal said. Kakuzu dipped his head in a bow, perplexed.

"Aw. What happened to the old man?"

"Ishida-sensei retired to be with his family," answered the principal. And then he directed a polite hand to the visitor.

"This is Hoshigaki Kisame-san. An alum of our school. And one of our most famous alums, at that," the principal gushed. Kisame gave a smile. The uncomfortable kind tinged with half-hearted modesty.

"He's agreed to come in this week to speak with our students. Isn't that wonderful?" the principal went on.

"Yeah. Wonderful," repeated Kakuzu with significantly less enthusiasm. The principal didn't seem to notice as he mopped at his shining head.

"Although, we would love it if you would also bring-"

"Ehhhh, not the best idea," Kisame interrupted him. And he cast an exasperated look at Itachi who gave him a sympathetic grimace in return. He had no idea what was going on, but he had the feeling that it was something the principal had pestered him about more than once.

"Well, please consider it. The children would be so excited to see her," the principal suggested. Kakuzu's eyes narrowed.

"But I thought he was your 'super special alum'," Kakuzu pointed out, making air quotes.

"A little rude," Itachi added in a low voice. The principal flushed. Kisame coughed into his fist in a poor attempt to hide a laugh.

The principal bumbled through a few more sentences before making up some excuse to leave.

Kakuzu squinted up at Kisame.

"Didn't you use to be a- uh... hockey player or something?" Kakuzu demanded.

Kisame crossed his arms across his chest, a smile still on his face. "Figure skater, actually," he corrected.

"Famous, huh?" muttered Kakuzu with a pointed look at Itachi. Itachi elbowed him without meeting his gaze.

"Not a skating fan, I'm guessing?" Kisame asked.

Itachi and Kakuzu both shook their heads.

"Well, Sensei, there's a reason why the old man's so eager to have me here. I'm a pretty big deal lately," Kisame bragged, looking a little smug.

Itachi held back a sigh. If he knew anything about his senpai, it was that he loved being a killjoy.

"Aren't you a little old to be a skater?" Kakuzu jabbed.

The easy grin on Kisame's face faded.

"Senpai!" Itachi hissed, elbowing Kakuzu again.

"What? He can't be that big a deal. I've never even heard his name before," Kakuzu said to Itachi, shrugging. The shit-eating grin on his face said it all.

Kisame's eyes narrowed. He glared at the both of them. And then he checked his watch before he pulled his phone out.

"Don't move," he said before he pressed a few buttons. They could hear the line ringing as he held the phone up to his ear. After four rings, someone picked up.

"Yo. Chibi. Are you practicing?" Kisame demanded.

They could hear a female voice from the other end reply: "Huh? Of course I am."

"Good. Don't leave the rink. I'm on my way," Kisame barked before he hung up.

And then he pointed at Kakuzu and Itachi.

"You two. Come with me," he ordered before he turned on his heel.

They watched him storm down the hall in long steps. Itachi looked at Kakuzu. Kakuzu looked back at him.

"I thought you wanted me to help with the decorations or something," Itachi whispered to him.

"Did you actually want to do that, Uchiha?" Kakuzu retorted.

Itachi's scowl said it all.

"Then come on. This sounds way more interesting anyway," Kakuzu then declared. Grabbing Itachi's arm, he dragged him down the hall after Kisame's retreating back.