To Last straw (guest):
thanks for reviewing however, that was not very nice of you. I would normally not grace comments like that with a reply but I had to get it off my mind. If you think I'm not skilled enough to write something why not teach me to do it? I'm only human please, we all start from somewhere. Your comment made you sound like an asshole even if it wasn't your intention and I really wish you are reading this right now. Be nice, not everyone is as good as Shakespeare.
"Shisui-san!" An excited squeal resounded from the top of the long wind of staircases that led to the second floor of the main Uchiha household. It was followed by the footfalls of small scrambling feet and slight pants until, finally, the source of all the racket revealed himself.
Uchiha Itachi, eight years old and full of life, bounded happily down the staircase with a fully stocked bag pack on his back. By fully packed, Itachi's standards meant fully packed with encyclopedias and research books. He took a leap at the last few steps into the unsuspecting arms of the older boy below.
He was not afraid though, Shisui would always catch him. And he did. "Whoa Itachi, slow down!" The older one chuckled and tousled Itachi's hair. The boy complained about it and tried in vain to adjust the strands of hair that had gone askew. His smile didn't disappear though, he was visiting a planetarium with Shisui!
The two said their goodbyes to whoever it concerned (in which Sasuke bawled his eyes out that his nii-chan was going somewhere without him), and set out for the planetarium. Itachi was pleasantly thrilled at the beautiful sight of the place. It stroked his nerdy side which caused him to start saying random facts that normal eight year olds wouldn't bother knowing.
"Do you know that the earth is just on the edge of the milky way galaxy? If earth were to move closer to the center, it would disintegrate. This is because the our magnetic field and atmosphere would not be able to protect us from the intense radiation the stars in there would give.
Speaking of disintegration, do you know that if man can actually teleport it would be a one time thing and then we die? In order to move through space, your cells would need to break themselves down to atoms to disappear and then reorganize themselves to appear at another place. That though would be disastrous and the body breaks down. Superheroic movies are filled with flaws..."
Itachi flushed in embarrassment when he realised that he was the only one doing the talking.
"Sorry, I probably sound like a weird nerd now or something." He apologized sheepishly.
Shisui just gave a laugh. "Why did I bother bringing you here if you know everything? Don't you think it's too soon to delve into quantum physics yet?" He joked.
"But I like being here with you!" Itachi declared hastily, taking Shisui's joke serious. Even if he did know the names of the stars and constellations in the planetarium, he still liked being with Shisui because the older one always had something new to teach him.
Shisui chuckled at the declaration and ruffled Itachi's hair once more. "Me too." He replied. This time Itachi didn't complain about him tousling his hair.
"Shisui-san!" Itachi smiled his small, almost inexistent smile at his cousin. On Itachi, that was as good as a full blown smile because his lips never quirked fully upwards. It was an Uchiha thing not to smile with your teeth, an exception being Shisui. And Tobi. And uncle Obito.
"Dommo." Shisui greeted happily and let himself in. He was here to hangout with Itachi– the two of them were very close despite the age gap. He spotted Sasuke from the corner of his eyes and turned to full on face the approaching boy. "Dommo Sasuke." He greeted, taking note of how glum the youngest Uchiha looked at the moment, feeling left out. He needed to change that. "Ne, you have a pencil in your ear." He started.
"No I don't." Sasuke deadpanned. He was ten, not stupid for crying out loud!
"Oh but you do." Shisui reached for Sasuke's ear- the boy flinched back a bit- and when he brought his hand back, a pencil was in it. Sasuke was unimpressed. He knew all about slight of hands and misdirection but when Shisui proceeded the clench his fists and the pencil disappeared, he was amazed. But Shisui was not done. He unclenched his hand and swiped the other one over it in a swift woosh motion. Four pencils, one in between each of his fingers, appeared on his knuckles.
This caused Sasuke to smile and Shisui was happy that he cheered his cousin up. Itachi really admired his cousin's ability to put a smile on everyone's faces.
"It's beautiful up here."
Itachi was thirteen and Shisui, eighteen when the older one summoned him to the top of the Monument Tower. The Monument Tower of Konoha was a glorified hall of fame built in respect of the past and upcoming heroes of Konoha. It was the highest building in all of the Fire Nations.
Shisui was sitting very close to the barricaded edge of the roof, never minding the hundreds of feet drop to the ground if he did fall by some unfortunate twist of luck. Itachi stood a little bit far off from the edge. Even if it was barricaded, he couldn't trust human contraptions as much as his cousin did.
They both watched the glimmering mass that was the city for a few silent moments, soaking in the beauty of the night. The silence was broken by Shisui's call on his name.
"Itachi."
"Hmm?" Itachi hummed in response.
"What do you want to be in the future?" Shisui asked. Itachi wondered where this question was coming from. It was very obvious what Itachi was going to become, he had been training for it. He would take over his father as a world renowned maestro and excel Hatake Sakumo and Namikaze Minato's set records. But was that what he wanted?
"I guess...I'd like to travel...and play music on my endeavours. It sounds fun." Itachi replied after some minutes in deep thought passed. "What about you, Shisui-san?"
"Hmm, I'd like to be a comedian. Do you think it'll be weird if I show up on Stand Up comedy?" Shisui laughed to himself at an inner joke that Itachi never understood. The teen's laugh faded into something melancholic as he gazed over the city. "Comedians make people smile with jokes even if they themselves are distressed on the inside. They wear fake smiles to make others smile, they're rotting away on the inside."
Itachi wasn't sure what prompted the emotional commentary about the ironic lives of humorists but he never stopped Shisui from leading him into a deep insight about the people that the world considered silly.
"They have problems gnawing away at their hearts but they put on a happy go lucky face to make the rest of the world think otherwise." Shisui looked up at the starless sky. "If no one makes the comedian happy, can they be truly happy?" His gaze shifted to Itachi's. His voice trailed off into a whisper. "Can they really smile or would they forever wear their masks?"
"Shisui..." Itachi could only choke a gasped breath out of his mouth at the immense emotions that swam in the other's dark eyes.
"I ache, Itachi. Who could save me?" Shisui gave a small smile and outstretched his empty palm towards Itachi before turning it in the air and clenching it. He softly gestured the boy to open it. Itachi gently unfolded his fingers to see what was hidden in his fist.
"Shisui-san?" It was a necklace. Shisui always wore that necklace as a memorial for his mother but to think he is giving Itachi something worth this much... When Shisui noticed Itachi's reluctance, he reached over to put it around his neck.
"It looks great on you." Shisui complemented with a soft smile. "Take care of it, Itachi." The young man poked Itachi's forehead softly with his index and middle fingers, a gesture of affection for the younger one. The next thing he did would forever be ingrained underneath Itachi's eyelids for life.
"I love you Itachi, you and Sasuke both, I always will."
The whispered words were the last thing he heard from his beloved cousin and suddenly, he was pushed backwards. At that moment, Shisui leapt off the edge of the roof and plummeted to his bloody death.
Itachi froze. His whole system shut down. He couldn't think, blink, hear or even breathe. He doesn't know how he got off the roof and woke up in a hospital. He doesn't know how his family heard the news. He doesn't know how fast the suicide news spread across Konoha. He still does not know.
All he could see and hear was Shisui and his last words, haunting him and rendering him sleepless. Itachi was a total wreck.
Several months of therapy later, he was finally okay enough not to break down at the mere mention of his cousin's name. His parents made sure every news about the exceptional Uchiha was erased completely from media houses. Everyone in the household was banned from mentioning Shisui's name. He became someone that existed only in Itachi's dreams...just for his recovery.
"I was pretty selfish back then, wasn't I?"
A gasp tears its way out of Itachi's mouth as he turns around at the familiarity of the voice. There, standing behind him, Shisui was with a very familiar grin on his face. Was he dreaming? "Shi-sui-san?" His words came out in broken pieces.
"It's me. You've grown, 'Tachi." Shisui smiled fondly at him. The smile faded into something smaller and sadder. "I see you tried to do what I did." He said sadly. Itachi's head dipped in shame but Shisui outstretched his arm. "Let's walk?"
The both of them walked down a path, setting a strolling pace for themselves.
"I wanted to see you back then when I jumped." Shisui broke the tranquility that had settled around them. "I didn't think about how it might've hurt and affected you. I was selfish. I'm sorry."
"Why did you do it?" Itachi's question was barely a whisper. Still, Shisui heard it and stopped walking.
"I wanted an escape." The other said. "I couldn't handle the burden of being looked up to anymore so I escaped. More like ran away with my tail between my legs." He chuckled. "It's too late to change everything now. The hurt I've left you in would forever remain." Shisui turned to face Itachi now.
"But you have another chance to make things right. I might miss you so much but I don't miss you enough to allow you leave Sasuke like that."
"But..." Itachi's head hung low again. "I am not wanted, especially not by him." He whispered dejectedly.
"You're wrong 'Tachi." Shisui began to fade away, the process unseen to Itachi's downcast eyes. Before he left, Shisui poked his forehead again just like that day but this time, he allowed the touch to linger. "Just open your eyes, my little cousin. Sasuke is waiting for you."
It was dark and silent. Shisui's whisper lingered at the back of his mind but Itachi wasn't sure he could do it. His eyelids seemed to be sealed shut. He was floating in still water. He could not move.
"Just open your eyes, my little cousin."
He was trying but his eyes were not cooperating. He wanted to move but he could not even feel his body. He was sinking. The cold tendrils of the water kept dragging him to the bottom and he could not even struggle.
"Just open your eyes, my little cousin."
But he had to. He had to do something. Slowly, Itachi started writhing in the water, gaining movement in his legs first before his hands. His mouth opened to shout but only bubbles came out. He didn't stop fighting against the water. He just needed to open his eyes!
"Sasuke is waiting for you."
With one last effort, Itachi struggled to open his eyes. If not for anything, he would do it for his little brother. To clear the misunderstanding between them. To have another shot at being a family. For a chance at apologising. Sasuke was waiting for him.
Finally, Itachi's eyes opened.
It was closing hours at Konoha school of arts and Sasuke was on class duty with Juugo. One would wonder why there was need for mundane things such as class duty when they were in a school for the wealthiest of the wealthy but KSA not only focused on producing intellectual people but well rounded and mannered individuals as well.
He was in the middle of wiping the board clean when a call came in from his mother. That was weird, his mother never called him especially if she knew that he was still in school unless there was an emergency. What could she be calling him for?
Sasuke gasped in realisation as he swiped across the screen. "Mother?" He asked as the call connected. His mother sounded breathless from overwhelming emotions which made the boy really afraid. Did something happen to Itachi? Was Itachi...
"S-Sasuke! Itachi..."
Sasuke's hands fell limply at his sides as he took a moment to register the news. Juugo's worried call on his name did not reach his ears, neither did the complaints of the people in the hallway as he brushed past everybody in a hurry.
He found himself immensely grateful that his driver was always there on time to pick him up from school when he got to the front doors and saw the familiar car. "Take me to the hospital!" He ordered without even allowing the man to get the door for him.
Sasuke was restless throughout the ride to the hospital. Despite it being a twenty minute ride, it had felt like it took three hours to get there to Sasuke. Once the car pulled up at the hospital's parking lot, the boy didn't wait for anything before he bounded off.
He ignored the angry nurses' yells not to run in the hallway and avoided every patient he saw with panicked precision until he finally, finally, got to his brother's VIP room. All eyes turned to him when he opened the door.
Mikoto was standing just a little ways from the hospital bed while a nurse stood closer to it and seemed to be checking Itachi up. Said teen looked at Sasuke with wide yet tired eyes for a moment before carrying his gaze away. Sasuke mirrored his sentiments because he wasn't sure where to go from here.
Itachi was awake now and he needed to talk to his brother, at least to Kakashi he needed to, but what was he going to say? Itachi clearly disliked his bratty brother enough to choose such a way out.
"Sasuke." Mikoto's voice followed after the boy as he walked brusquely away from the room. Itachi had woken up, he was greatly relieved but this just meant that sooner or later his family would have to resume back to its normal routine; Itachi working hard and getting the glory while Sasuke did his best and got no form of acknowledgement, not from their father or mother or even school.
Don't get Sasuke wrong, he loved Itachi but he hated him at the same time– his presence that is. He was so bright but it was not the kind of brightness that gave other opaque objects light to shine, his brightness was of a smothering quality. His brightness singed Sasuke and it hurt.
Kakashi sure made it easy to believe that talking would be possible between the brothers when Itachi woke up. Sasuke knew first hand that talking was not as easy as it seemed in his imaginations. What would he even say? 'I hate you but I love you and I somehow wish you were still in coma so that I would keep on being the center of attention?'
What would Itachi say to him? What would be his reason for trying to escape? Was he trying to escape from Sasuke? The boy was silent throughout the ride to his house. Well he was always mostly silent but for even Sasuke, this form of silence was worrying enough to cause the driver to ask after his health.
His glum mood remained till the next morning. He refused to go to the hospital when his parents offered a ride and chose to go to school instead. He missed the confused glances Mikoto and Fugaku shared. Sasuke remained in his foul mode throughout the week and not once did he go to Itachi again after his initial visit.
Naruto decided that he had enough of the moody Uchiha already. He seemed to be in a better overall mood after his talk with Kakashi on the rooftop and even reconciled with the the EsDee but this past week, he just seemed to be foul to everything and everyone.
Sasuke was not at the dining hall which was not usual of him whenever he was experiencing one of his moods wings. The next possible place to search was the rooftop so Naruto went to the vending machine and bought two cans of Pepsi, zero for Sasuke because his sweet tooth was inexistent, and went upstairs.
Sure enough the Teme was at the rooftop. He had monopolized the place that even Shikamaru was no longer taking naps there. Sasuke startled when Naruto placed the cold can of Pepsi zero on his cheek– how far gone was he to not have noticed the blond behind him until he did that?
"What?" Sasuke asked sourly.
"I should be asking you the same question, dattebayo." Naruto countered. He nudged the can towards Sasuke who was already opening his mouth to refuse it. "It's zero 'ttebayo." He informed. It was then Sasuke took it with a grumbled thanks.
"Gah- Pepsi?!" Sasuke complained when he sipped the drink.
"What's wrong with it?" Naruto asked dumbly.
"I prefer Coca Cola."
The way Naruto looked at him would make a passers by think the raven stole his girlfriend but it was understandable; who the hell preferred Coca Cola over Pepsi?! (A/N: I detest both )
The both of them sipped their drinks in silence which peeved Sasuke because anybody that knew Namikaze-Uzumaki Naruto knew that silence was not exactly the blond's forte. He could practically feel the vulpine boy's mouth opening and reopening in an attempt to find the right words to say, and it was ticking him off.
"What do you want to say, Dobe?!" Sasuke asked when he could take it no longer. Naruto looked like a deer caught in headlights with his mouth hung open but the blond found himself and scratched his cheek with a finger. Sasuke knew Naruto well enough to recognise the nervous habit of his and his eyes narrowed at the act.
What was the dobe thinking about now?
"I was wondering if there was something wrong with Itachi-senpai." Sasuke almost did not hear Naruto's muttered words but then he did. "That's the only thing I can think of that'll make you this upset."
The words could be and would have been brushed off as a concerned observation if Sasuke were less perceptive than he was. From the way Naruto kept scratching his whiskers to the way he avoided eye contact and fidgeted, the raven knew that Naruto knew something about Itachi. His eyes narrowed thinner.
"You know about Itachi." It was a question but Naruto was none the wiser because of the voice tone he used. The reaction he was waiting for came in form of the widening eyes of the dobe and Sasuke saw red.
Naruto yelped as the Uchiha knocked him (and their unfinished drinks) over and straddled him, hands fisting his collar in a choke hold. "How do you know about Itachi?! What do you know?!" He yelled, eyes darting around erratically with rage.
"Everything. I overheard you and Kakashi-sensei talk about it." Naruto decided that there was no reason to hide the fact that he eavesdropped on their conversation albeit accidentally. As expected, the information enraged Sasuke enough to get the raven to punch him.
"How dare you?! Why do you keep poking into what is not your business?!" Sasuke angrily shouted at the aggravatingly pliant blond underneath him. Naruto didn't struggle to fight back or retaliate the punches Sasuke was giving him.
"Because you're my friend and being my friend means its my business!" Naruto yelled back. There was a moment between them during which Naruto's eyes softened. "I kinda understand how you're feeling yanno?" His empathetic words seemed to be the wrong choice of words because Sasuke was raining punches on him again.
"The hell you do! Like you would ever understand what it feels to struggle at the background because your best is not enough! Like you would ever understand what it feels like when your brother chooses to kill himself just because of your own selfish reasons! Like you would ever understand the feeling of inadequacy!"
Something in Naruto snapped at Sasuke's words. The raven yelped as he was suddenly turned over so that his back hit the floor with a harsh slam followed by a painful punch to the jaw and another and another.
"Don't go acting like you're the only one on earth that has gone through shit, teme!" Naruto growled angrily as he grabbed Sasuke by his collar. The other struggled to regain dominance in the fight but Naruto was not going down. "I might not have caused somebody to commit suicide but I have seen a person die in front of me!"
Sasuke somehow froze at the words but didn't interrupt them.
"I was effing accused for my parents' murder when I was eleven! Nothing I ever did made people see me for who I was, my best behaviour was not enough! I was always a cold hearted preteen who murdered his own parents in cold blood!" Naruto's tears fell on Sasuke's face as the next words came in a broken whisper.
"I still am. Everybody sees me as a monster and would never count my talent as worth taking a second glance at. So I know. I know what it feels like to struggle at the background because my best is never enough to make people see me for me. You're not the only one going through this so stop acting like you're the most miserable person alive!"
Sasuke's arms fell to his sides limply as a show of resignation. He might've said the things he said earlier but those were not the real things bothering him. Obsidian eyes gazed into the blue ones above him wondering if it was worth their owner everything. In the end he decided to speak his mind.
"Itachi woke up."
Naruto gasped and released Sasuke. The both of them laid on the ground facing the sky, feeling the beginnings of the warm summer breeze blowing through their hairs.
"And honestly, I don't know if I should be happy about it. A selfish part of me wishes that by some twisted turn of fate, Itachi would lose his intellectual abilities just for me to shine. I'm afraid that now that he's back, I'd no longer be anything to anybody. Everything he does leaves me in the dust, I'm nothing compared to him. You'd never understand how I feel, dobe."
If Naruto was thinking that Uchihas were self confident intellectuals, he been thinking wrong until his friend showed him all his insecurities. It was awing as well as it was heartbreaking but Naruto's convictions about the brothers remained the same, that they were both idiots.
"You know, I thought of something when I overheard you and Kakashi-sensei on the roof. Why don't you guys just talk?" Naruto asked. He supposed he deserved the nasty glare that was shot his way because virtually everybody that had a talk with Sasuke must've told him the same thing over again.
"It is not as easy as you guys make it, dobe, I can't just walk up to Itachi and talk." Sasuke grunted in annoyance.
"But you're talking to me now." Naruto (unhelpfully) observed.
"This is a completely different scenario."
"How come? All you need to do is to pour your soul out to Itachi-senpai the same way you did today and with Kakashi-sensei, nothing big. It wouldn't actually come to this if the two of you kept talking to each other in the first place. Even if he was busy, even if you were desperate, if you two remained friends you would understand each other better."
Naruto chuckled at an inner joke.
"Mah, I am not much of a preacher so I've got nothing more to say."
Sasuke deadpanned. "Really? And what about everything you've just said?" He asked flatly.
"Shhh! You're ruining the moment!" Naruto yelled but then he sighed. "Think about it dattebayo. Just start saying anything that comes to your head and the rest of the words would get out."
"Hn." Sasuke refused to comment on how wise Naruto just seemed, he didn't need the blond's ego bloating any further. He considered his friend's words and decided that maybe, just maybe he would for once throw caution into the wind and talk.
The talk-no-jutsu prevails! It didn't sit well with me that Naruto and Sasuke should not have a man to man talk so this chapter was born
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