Itachi and his father play a game.
Chase
He is sitting on the counter when his mother comes back from the bathroom, watching. She smiles at him and continues cooking, occasionally glancing up, as if to see if he is still there. As if she doesn't know. She hums, a song he does not remember, and stirs the broth in the pot. The kitchen smells of meat and parsley and mother.
"What are you doing, Itachi?" she finally asks, when the broth is done and so it the salad and there's nothing to distract her anymore. Itachi has not moved from his seat on the counter, but his eyes follow her back and forth around the room, and he stares at the food on the table and the sunlight in his mother's hair.
"Learning to cook." The answer is simple, and mother does not really register it, simply nodding and continuing setting the rice cooker. Then she turns and looks at him.
"A Ninja should take care of himself in all capacities." He explains, voice as blank as ever. He is repeating lines she knows well, from the 1001 Shinobi Arts scroll. Itachi continues to watch and she starts the rice cooker and turns to take out plates.
Sometimes, she wonders if he isn't a little too fixated on that scroll. He's been reading it over and over since Fugaku gave it to him as a private assignment.
"You don't have to learn how to do everything, Itachi. Why don't I show you how to make sandwiches, later?" Itachi is young, he is barely six, and his mother is afraid of him in the kitchen. He could burn the house down or cut off his thumb or make something that should really not be eaten. She does not want to stop her son from trying his best, but she still worries.
"I know how to do that already." Itachi does not move. He stares as she finishes cleaning up and then stands in the middle of the kitchen, awkwardly, wishing to leave.
"What are you doing, Itachi?" His father's voice interrupts whatever his mother wanted to say and they both turn to look at him in the doorway, mother with relief and Itachi without visible emotion. Father is easily the tallest in the room, he towers over Itachi's slender form on the kitchen counter and a few good inches above his mother's head, as well. He stares at the boy from across the room.
"Did you train this morning?" He asks as if he already knows the answer, knows perfectly well that it is still early and Itachi has only woken up recently, and he has not trained. Itachi does not react. Even as a child, he is in perfect control of his emotions. It is one of the things that allow him to advance as fast as he does.
"Yes, father." He answers.
"Show me." Father is used to barking commands at Shinobi. He's been doing it since before Itachi was born. The boy jumps off the counter lazily and his father walks him out of the kitchen and through the living room, into the hall that leads to the backyard. There are targets set up for Itachi there, made of wood and painted with a bull's-eye. There are old notches in the wood, from yesterday and the day before. Itachi comes over and points to one in the red inner ring, around the center. Then he points to several more.
"You've improved." His father says. It is casual, because the achievement is casual. Itachi picks up a kunai from a table by the door and throws it again, into the red ring. His father continues to frown. He never does smile.
"Practice more." And he begins to walk away, not intending to oversee the exercise. Itachi goes over to the board and picks the kunai out of the wood where it has lodged. Then he goes back and sits opposite the target, staring at it. His father pauses by the door and keeps frowning at his back. He is about to turn when Itachi extends his hand again.
He throws the kunai idly, not really aiming. His movement is lazy and relaxed. It hits the board, in the center mark. Itachi looks at it and then stares, ostensibly surprised, at his father.
"I was lucky." He says. He does not throw again.
"Luck is not something a Shinobi should rely on." His father replies, and walks back into the house. Before he enters he watches Itachi retrieve the kunai and throw it again, with the same accuracy. Then he goes inside.
Itachi stays to practice for the rest of the day, but there is only that one mark in the center of the target board. He never does make any others.
His father watches from the upper floor window, because it is not visible from the ground so near the house. His frown keeps increasing every time the mark in the center gets a little bit deeper. Eventually, when it grows so dark the boy can no longer see what he is doing, he walks outside again and calls him in for dinner.
END
A/N: Itachi is a creepy little boy. His father knows it, too. I have a feeling Fugaku is at least partially responsible for it, pushing his son so hard to be perfect. The scroll is something I made up (hopefully it's not too strange?). It seems to me that Itachi is a little too fixated on being the perfect Shinobi. Now, a perfect Shinobi is hardly a good human being, they're uncaring murderers with no honor and no mind except for accomplishing missions. Whose missions is a different story.
The title comes from the idea that Sasuke was always chasing his father's expectations. Itachi was also chasing them, I suppose, but then eventually, now, he has already surpassed them and now the chase has turned around: his father is still trying to understand and control the son he created.
Anyone notice how everyone seems to ask "what are you doing, Itachi?"... already they are a little uncomfortable with him...