The old-style sliding door opened smoothly despite years of neglect, surprising Sasuke, putting to waste the extra strength he thought he needed and causing him to stumble backwards. A cloud of dust erupted from the house and hovered lazily in the spring air, and he coughed. The building, his aunt's house, was small and almost bare of furniture. Her bed was still made, as all of them still were, and one of her dresser drawers was open. Paintbrushes littered the floor and huddled in groups in vases, on the windowsill, and even on her bed. Countless canvases and papers, some painted and others blank, were scattered everywhere, as if someone hostile had come in and knocked them all over. Oh yeah, that's right, that's what happened, huh? The houses in the Uchiha Compound were primarily the same as the night their inhabitants were murdered. Only a few essential things had been moved or sold, and even then Sasuke hated doing it. More and more he was finding himself breaking into his family's houses, taking their things, and pawning them off. It was horrible, disgusting, and dishonorable, but he needed the money. Without a job, and the constant paranoia of losing the wealth his parent's left him, taxes for the entire area were hard to come by. The village went easy on him, as it did for all orphans, letting him pay later and later each time. His family had a lot of valuables: junk to most people, but valuables to the boy who'd lost their owners. Nevertheless, the people of Konoha were always willing to pay for and collect this junk from Ryuhei's Pawn Shop. Ryuhei himself was never too keen on paying as much as Sasuke thought the items were worth, but he understood how difficult it was to get rid of family treasures, having never been able to put his father's old things up for sale, and usually gave him a fair deal.

The young buy doubted he would find anything of value in Aunt Wakaba's house, though. She was hardly the type to keep anything like that. The stagnant smell of old paint tickled his senses, causing him to turn his head back to the clean air of the outside and sneeze violently. Sasuke's deep brown eyes scanned his humble surroundings as he wiped his nose on the back of his hand. Paintings of everything from Paris to the veins of the wooden bed posts made up the carpets, the bedspread, and extremely gaudy wallpaper. But despite the haphazard way they were all thrown together, Sasuke noticed, some of them were actually quite nice. There were pictures of places he'd never seen before, flipping through a large stack on Aunt Wakaba's desk. Ancient ruins some, exotic beaches others, modern cities, high society; things the woman had probably never seen either. Sasuke sighed, tossing the stack on her bed. Personally, he had no interest in that kind of thing, but maybe some cheap-ass on a trip to Ryuhei's would. He yanked the top drawer of his aunt's old pinewood desk open and pulled out a few extraneous papers. Letters, memos, some tape, a few paper clips, and an unmarked manila folder. These things were removed and flung to the bed with the paintings. They would be thrown out later. The next drawer down was full of tasteless photographs of everyday objects like the desk in front of him, the ceiling lamp, and whole rolls of a fat gray cat named Elvis. More garbage. He pulled open the left drawers simultaneously and flipped through the contents with little hope of finding anything useful. There was nothing, go figure, and he gave a low grunt of frustration. Sasuke took a large black garbage bag from his back pocket, unfolded it, and shook. It was a big bag, but his Aunt certainly had more than enough garbage to fill it. A small, smooth hand grabbed piles of old papers and dropped them into the bag without a care. If he was lucky, and scraped the paint off, somebody might buy the desk. It would need some new finish, and it looked like one of the legs was a little loose, but other than that it was a pretty good desk. Sasuke grabbed the papers he'd thrown on the bed without looking. The contents of the manila folder came spilling out onto the floor.

"Damn." He tossed the papers and empty folder into the bag and bent down to gather what he had dropped. They were more photographs. He picked up the top one with a sigh, and eyed the pencil writing on the back. Boys, 13 and 7. Curiously, and with a severe sense of dread, Sasuke turned it over. A young boy clung desperately to the back of his older counterpart—older, but still young. They both wore the traditional navy blue Uchiha shirts with the wide collars, and they were both smiling. Two happy boys, enjoying the summer sky, the warm yellow sunshine, the sweet smell of Jun's Bakery, and of course, each other's company. Sasuke drew a sharp breath, tracing a finger over his own childhood face, so pleased, so immensely excited to be spending time with his older brother he couldn't have possibly seen what would happen next. But as he looked at the older boy now, he hated himself for not realizing something was wrong. The large Uchiha hands (which Sasuke had, for whatever reason, not inherited) that gripped the legs of the little boy were cut, calloused, weathered more than most men's. He could see, peering out from underneath the bandages, deep, scarring cuts along his arms and legs. A pair of defined stress lines decorated his brother's face, depressing even his smile. The smile was real, it was happy, it was having fun; but it seemed strained in a way that it almost hurt him to smile, like it was hardly worth it at all. Sasuke remembered seeing that smile a lot, never noticing the change from the smile his brother often sported before joining the Anbu. It was sad. It hurt to look at it. Itachi's eyes, deep brown orbs identical to every blood member of his family, were sunken back in his skull—a desperate attempt to hide the strife someone might otherwise witness. Eventually, they saw it anyways. They all did. They just didn't live long enough to think about it.

The soft, soothing cool of the rainy morning had changed to a hot, sticky spring afternoon. Here and there a few raindrops still dripped from the waxy green leaves of Konoha's abundant forests, or sat collected in the bowl of some wildflower, but for the most part, they had all since been absorbed and dried up. Sasuke closed his eyes, trying hard to recreate the sound of the garden chutes in his mind. It didn't work. It wasn't as good when it wasn't real. Just like the pictures. Dozens of Aunt Wakaba's photos littered the floor of his room, all of them Itachi and himself. It's funny how he never remembered her taking them. But, there they were: happy face upon happy face, fun-time memories and laughs, all catalogued in an unmarked folder in his crazy relative's desk drawer. He flipped through them again and again as an old red radio played static love songs from the oldies collection. Sasuke shuffled through the pictures faster and faster, eyes glazed over in thought. What exactly should he do with them? He loved his memories, as he loved his brother once. He loved the games they played, the talks they had, all those times he watched his brother train… and yet, he hated them all with a greater passion than most people will ever know. The very sight of Itachi within the walls of the compound disgusted him. The ignorance and bliss of his own boyhood self-branded the deepest corner of his being with an intense hatred he sometimes had a hard time keeping down. He should destroy these photos. Nothing so vile, so repulsively distasteful should ever be allowed into his house, not ever ever again. He'd scrubbed the floors, redone the packed dirt paths and ruined gardens. He'd tried so hard to keep out the bad, evil things, and somehow they always managed to creep back in. Was it because of him? It was a character flaw, to fix things, leave them be, and never notice them until they needed fixing again. It was a flaw, and it would have to be irradiated. He was a good boy, a clean boy, a smart boy. And if he needed to train for days without rest to keep himself that way then by god he would. He had to. One mistake and he would go against his father and become Itachi. He had to destroy his weaknesses the only way he knew how: beat them out.

"I didn't know you painted your toenails." Sasuke's head snapped up at the penetration of his thoughts. For a split second, the worst had happened. He dropped the photos down on the bed in front of him and grabbed the kunai from his nightstand. His big brown eyes widened and became red as he rolled forward from heel to toe, raising the blade back behind his head to kill. A bottle of dark liquid tipped over near him and spilled its contents onto his bare feet. Startled, he looked down to examine the origin of this strange little accident.

"S-Sasuke?" He blinked, his eyes relaxing back to their normal color. He lowered the kunai slowly, knuckles still white on the grip. The dark, sinister figure of his brother smirking in the doorway had changed in a flash to a small, pink-haired girl in a miniskirt, eyes wide with fear and hands clasped together over her breast.

"Sakura?"

"I-I'm sorry. T-the f-f-front door was open, and I-I…" She swallowed and licked her glittered lips. "I didn't know you painted your toenails." Sasuke looked down at his feet, to where the liquid had spilled. It was a bottle of black nail polish. His toenails were painted the same color. When had he done that? And where had he gotten the nail polish? "I'm sorry; I didn't mean to scare you." Sakura shook her head, and nervously took a step forward. The wicked black polish oozed over his toes and down in between them to stain the navy blue blanket.

"Sakura," Sasuke gingerly removed the bottle from its position and set it on the nightstand. "I'm sorry, but I have to ask you to leave." He didn't dare look at her. He pretended to be interested in the bottle, drumming his fingers in the slick black puddle on his foot.

"But Sasuke—"

"I asked you to leave." His voice remained forcibly level. She was annoying as hell, but somehow getting mad at her would only make it worse.

"Okay… well… um… bye, Sasuke." He looked up as he heard her turn, and her heels clack down the hard wood floors, the mats, and finally out the front door.

"Well that was embarrassing." A low, scratchy voice poured through the wooden slats of the corner closet. Sasuke reached for his kunai out of reflex and stopped when the tips of his fingers brushed the grip tape. Last time he went on reflex he scared the shit out of Sakura. He thought she was Itachi, for god's sake. Maybe he was losing his mind. He wiggled his fingers at the blade and withdrew them, leaning against the headboard and closing his eyes.

"Where did you get it?" The voice asked. Not there, not there… Sasuke told himself as he squeezed his eyes tighter shut. "You went in my room, didn't you?" No, no he didn't. Why would he? It's locked, he locked it. He would never go in there, not ever. "You went in my room and took my stuff, didn't you?" No, it's locked. He threw away the key, it's locked. "You're wearing my clothes." Sasuke's eyes shot open. His small hands grabbed at the navy blue t-shirt, pulled it off as quickly as possible, and flung it at the closet door. The worn black pants with the gauze wrapped around the left leg? Where had he gotten these? They looked like they belonged to… his fingers frantically tore at the button and zipper, and pushed them off, first with his hands and kicking them with his feet. He scrambled to the other side of the bed with pants in hand and hurled them at the closet with his shirt.

"If someone saw you, in your underwear, nails painted, kneeling in a puddle of your brother's cosmetics, what would they think of you?" Sasuke opened his mouth to speak, scream, yell, anything, but his throat was dry and his mouth felt like it was filled with sawdust. His shoulders shook; his fingernails dug crescent moons into the skin of his knees. There was nothing in the closet. He could hear his brother's voice mocking him from behind the wooden slats, but he couldn't see anything. All there was were clothes. Clothes and that voice. His brother's voice. No, not his brother's, Itachi's. His brother was kind to him, he had fun with him, and he loved him. "Even if you hate me." Sasuke took a deep breath, ragged and sore. "We're unique brothers."

"You're not my brother." He whispered, suppressing the tingle in the back of his throat that called for his voice to crack and the floodgates open.

"To surpass our own limits,"

"You're not my brother."

"You and I need to stick together."

"You're not my brother!" He screamed, grabbed the empty bottle of nail polish, and threw it at the closet door. The glass shattered on impact, polish still stuck to the sides splattered on the slats like a sickening black bloodstain. The voice was quiet. Sasuke fell back against the headboard, put his head in his hands, and cried.