Itachi recognized this kitchen. He recognized the wooden kotatsu, the red cabinets, the silver countertop, the mint green fridge, the yellow rice cooker, and the window over the stove with a view of the garden. He sat where he always had, with the door to his left and the stairs to his right. All of it looked exactly as it had every morning he ate breakfast with his family as a child, even the teacups and chopsticks and arrangement of dishes. Except-
Except sitting beside him was not his younger brother, nor was his father sitting across from him, and his mother was not cooking or cleaning like usual. Sitting across from him was Asaya, and sitting adjacent to them was a little girl, a toddler, with round eyes and soft waves of wispy, black hair.
The little girl had a plate of steamed vegetables and a bowl of rice before her. She watched Itachi with attentive, bright eyes as he picked up some rice with his chopsticks and ate it. She looked at his hand, as if studying his grip or the way his fingers articulated the utensils. The little girl put down her pastel pink baby spoon and grabbed Asaya's chopsticks from where they rested while she drank tea. Mildly surprised, Asaya only watched curiously as the little girl struggled to grip the pair of chopsticks. A few lumps of rice and stray broccoli florets fell onto the table as the little girl fumbled with the unwieldy utensils, her hands amusingly too small to properly manipulate them.
Asaya reached forward to help the little girl, but she could only lean so far before the gentle swell of her belly touched the edge of the table. Itachi thought the little girl might refuse the assistance in an early act of independence, but instead she patiently allowed Asaya to position her tiny fingers into something approximating proper form.
The little girl stuck her chopsticks back into the rice, but instead of trying to mechanically pinch the two pieces together, she scooped a small portion as if she were still using a spoon. Even with the slightly unusual technique, the sticky rice adhered to the wooden chopsticks, and the little girl was able to carefully bring the food to her mouth and eat it.
Asaya chuckled at the little girl's antics, and the little girl responded with a radiant grin, pleased that she had made her mother laugh. She looked up at her father to see if she had earned the same reaction from him.
Itachi held a gentle expression as he gazed at his daughter and brushed a stray lock of hair from her eyes. Her smile disappeared for a moment at the unexpected action, but returned when she realized the gesture was a loving one.
Itachi cursed the early morning light that crept in from between the gaps in the thick hotel curtains. Squinting, he blinked a few times while staring up at the white ceiling still cast in shadow. After a few minutes, he removed the scratchy blanket from his body, but he remained laying in bed while contemplating everything he had just imagined. The thin ray of light seemed malignant, only reaching his eyes out of spite for the curtains he had drawn shut.
Itachi remembered how much his mother wanted a daughter when she carried Sasuke. His mother was never one to directly express herself, but a daughter was one of the things she wanted enough to say. He remembered feeling a little guilty when Sasuke was born, as if he had taken something away from his mother by telling her he wanted a little brother instead. It was only magical thinking, of course. Human reproduction didn't work that way. But he felt selfish nonetheless. When he was younger, he hoped to give her a granddaughter one day.
Itachi watched the ceiling slowly transform into something approaching white as more sunlight filtered into the otherwise vacant hotel room.
Itachi didn't want children of his own. Not anymore, anyway. But he found himself thinking of the life he would have had while also dreaming of a life that never could have been.
If everything had been different- if he hadn't made so many mistakes- his father and mother would have selected a suitable bride for him from their clan, he would have married her as young as respectably possible, and she would have given birth to their first child within the next two years. They would have had at least one more child in another two years, exactly as expected of the clan heir. He probably would have loved that woman, in at least some way, but the idea of it still felt wrong.
Suddenly, Itachi remembered thinking the wood paneling on the kitchen walls was "dated" while his father thought it was "traditional."
How paradoxically cruel: if circumstances had been different and he had stayed in Konoha with his family, he never would have met Asaya, but if he'd never met her… The aphorism "ignorance is bliss" came to mind, and a derisive sneer formed on Itachi's lips.
Then Itachi wondered what might have happened to Asaya if he had never joined the Akatsuki. He wanted to think that she would have been able to easily escape from whomever would have abducted her instead him, but even if she had it wouldn't have mattered. It all would have played out almost exactly as it already did. Asaya, like himself, was dammed by the hand of her own village.
Did that make it any better that they had found each other? Itachi wanted to think so. Chances were that anyone in the Akatsuki but him would have allowed much crueler things to have happened to her, if not actively committed such things themselves. He wanted to think he at least protected her from a worse fate. He even dared to think he brought her the same happiness she gave him. But was the pain he would inevitably cause her any better?
Itachi wondered what she would think if she knew, but his mind couldn't bear to imagine it.
It was too late now, Itachi chided himself, if only to avoid thinking about it. At what point their relationship had become something he should not have let happen, he couldn't say. It happened, and it exists.