Title: Mobile Devices
Synopsis: NonMass. Itachi was of the opinion that technology was the epitome of evil. Thus it took Sasuke dragging him, half in ANBU attire, through the streets of Konoha to buy the latest electronic.
For ItaSaku Week. Prompt: Konoha introduces mobiles, wrong number gets texted - end up texting buddies
Genre: Humor
Itachi was of the opinion that technology was the epitome of evil. Thus it took Sasuke dragging him, half in ANBU attire, through the streets of Konoha to buy the latest electronic. Mobiles. Promised instantaneous communication. As if no one had ever learned to teleport a scroll by jutsu.
A compromised security line. The technical ANBU operatives had discussed that, while someone could utilize this to send messages, a third party could observe them. Itachi had one big fat label for those things. Useless.
But yet, to appease his little brother's fanaticism for all new things, here he was using his purchasing power as a consumer to say yes to the highly addictive, mostly nonfunctional, trash that everyone had their face stuck in at the supermarket. The cognitive dissonance between his beliefs and actions sickened him. He hid it well with a smile to his brother but internally he cringed as he held the cool metal in the palm of his hand.
"Alright, now I'm going to send you a text, ok? Your number is up by just one digit. I'm 08, you're 09. So when someone asks for your number, you read my number but change the last digit."
Why in the world would someone want his number, if they were before him, they could just speak?
The thing buzzed and pinged most obnoxiously in his hand. The screen showed two characters of text. 'Hi.'
Itachi lifted his gaze to his brother. "Hello, Sasuke."
"No," Sasuke quickly corrected, "You text back."
"But you stand before my presence. It's much easier to just speak to you."
"Practice, like throwing shuriken. Just because there's no enemy-nin doesn't mean you shouldn't throw to hit a dummy."
"Are you the dummy in this picture?" Itachi asked.
Sasuke flushed, his cheeks turning rosy in annoyance. Even the tips of his ears had a hint of red. Even though his little brother's baby fat had long gone, he wanted to pinch the cheeks. His brother still was cuter than any other in Konoha. Itachi would fight anyone to the death that believed otherwise.
"Come on, text me back. Mom's gonna want to text you. Better know how to do it, she'll expect instant correspondence."
"According to current intelligence, these devices can be used to track the location of the correspondent by the cell signals that send them. We are currently building such tracking technology such that if enemy-nins utilize this for correspondence, we'll be able to track them within a mile precision."
Sasuke tilted his head. "I'm sorry what?"
"I do not wish for our mother to know my whereabouts at all times."
Sasuke laughed, "Mother isn't going to go to such lengths to track any of us."
That showed how naive his little brother truly was. Mikoto's ears had perked, her nose had twitched, and a smile had graced her features as Fugaku had read that piece about the technology out loud at tea yesterday morning. Sasuke had been away, on a mission, no doubt Itachi would have been here much earlier had he not to acquire one of these small and annoying devices.
Sasuke poked him on the shoulder, "Come on, at least show me you know how to work it."
"You will not bring this device with you on a mission."
"I won't."
"If you are in the same village, we can find each other and talk."
"Itachi," Sasuke sighed, "Why are you like this?"
"Like what?"
Ping. So high pitched. So annoying.
Itachi looked over at Sasuke's device.
"What do you know," Sasuke smiled somewhat wickedly. "Looks like Shisui was the first to text me on my new phone because my brother is too slow."
Oh. That did it.
The technology couldn't be that hard to understand. He activated his sharingan, memorized the keyboard, flicked through the settings, and observed the range of characters available to the screen. How to access and type. There was a limit of so many characters per message. Once the limit was met two messages were sent, delivery order not guaranteed. Interesting.
He turned off his sharingan and looked at his brother's raised brows.
"A bit overkill?" Sasuke asked.
Without looking, phone resting at his hip, just using his fingers, Itachi sent a message to the number on his device. Slight pause. Another one. Slight pause. And one more
Ping.
Ping.
Ping.
Sasuke glanced down at his phone. "You sent me haiku? Without even looking?"
Itachi twisted his head to look down at the phone. "Good, enough hesitation and they did arrive in the correct order." Not a single character misplaced either.
He's so annoying
Pathetically stupid
Your brother is better
Itachi gave a low hum.
"How — How did you even do that, by touch alone?"
Itachi smirked, it paid to have an IQ above the rest. "I can't teach you all my ways." He poked his brother's forehead. So cute.
Itachi twirled the phone like a kunai and then motioned further down the street. "Come let's grab lunch while we are out. Also tell me Shisui's number, but don't tell him mine. I want to harass him."
And it was at this moment, Itachi not realizing his fingers were aligned differently than before, still attempting to show off to his younger brother, that he mistyped the digits.
Strangely enough, he still got a contact from his brother's phone… just not the right one, one belonging to a kunoichi with whom he'd little acquaintance since she'd been a genin.
Later in the evening, had he done what men normally do in terms of harassment, it definitely wouldn't have unraveled. Instead Itachi read beautiful haiku, and texted his favorite piece about pink flowers caressing the sun to Shisui, for Itachi believed in sharing.
Sakura fell in love instantly with her 'secret admirer' for she recognized the book upon which it had been pulled and followed up her favorite line from another of their works.
At this point. Itachi was fully aware he was not texting Shisui (the man didn't read poetry), but he damn sure wasn't going to ask Sasuke again for the number. Nor was he going to ask Shisui directly. No doubt, the second he knew Itachi's number, he'd buzz him anyway.
But by sheer luck, he'd found a kindred soul. And thus started a long discussion upon the author in question.
For the first time, Itachi realized exactly why these devices were so addictive. He only got one hour of sleep, having stayed up the night talking to someone who had similar interest to himself. He was a monster to all the ANBU candidates in the morning. The pink-haired medic that received their battered and broken bodies had admonished him on the spot.
That night, his texting partner ranted about a jerk and he'd discussed how annoyed he'd been at being yelled at by a subordinate for doing his damn job.
'Why is everybody in this world an asshole?' read the text on his phone.
It was at that moment Itachi fell in love, for he fully agreed with the sentiment after his tiring day. Maybe there was something to these devices afterall.