errands
012. rigorous

(non-massacre. again. :D)

"Nii-san?" Itachi tensed. "Mother wants to know why you're taking so long—"

Itachi turned to his little brother, carefully placing the package he was holding back in its designated spot on the shelf. "Sasuke."

"Oh." His little brother frowned. "Did she ask you to get these, too?"

To be perfectly honest, this was the first time Itachi had ever been in the feminine hygiene aisle. In all of his years of grocery shopping for his family, his mother had never asked him to pick up…these things for her.

(And what was worse, was that when he expressed this problem to Sakura, who was supposed to be his loving girlfriend, she just smiled and asked if he could pick some up for her, too.)

And he didn't mind. Really. Itachi was a man of dignity, and no feminine hygiene products were going to change that.

It was just…why were there so many different kinds?

"I'm in…a predicament," he told Sasuke, who was surveying the aisle. "Mother did not specify which ones she needed."

"Did she say she was all out?"

"Yes."

Sasuke promptly went a little further down the aisle and grabbed two packages of different colors, tossing them into Itachi's shopping basket. Under his brother's bemused stare, he explained, "The thicker ones for the night, and thinner ones for the day. Now let's go—we're all hungry for lunch."

"I, ah"—he cleared his throat—"still have to get some for…Sakura."

His little brother stared at him for a moment, before looking away and his ears growing red. "Ah. Okay. I'll…wait for you at the cashier—"

"I don't know which type she uses either."

Pause. "Haven't you two been going out for a little over a year now? She hasn't subjected you to this torture yet?"

Itachi frowned. "No. Women do this to their boyfriends?"

"Yes."

"…Ah."

Sasuke sighed, and plucked out the box right in front of them, and dropped it into the basket. "Tampons," he explained.

He frowned. "There are…different kinds?"

"She says that they're more practical for her, since she moves around a lot. If you really want to know how they're different from pads, just…read the back."

He did. He had no words for such…oddities.

"And…how do you know all of this?"

Sasuke looked away indignantly. "You're always away on your ANBU missions, so Mother sometimes asks me to get hers. And Sakura is my teammate—Naruto and I have had our…fair share of time here."

Itachi needed to hear no more, and patted his little brother's shoulder in empathy.

A/N: So it's been sixteen days since I last posted on here, which is actually a record for me, I think. I suppose it's just a reminder that I do have a life away from my laptop. 8D Sorry, guys. It's the middle of exams (I think I failed my Math diploma), and…lots of boy stuff has been happening. I'm just kind of overwhelmed.

But I hope this makes up for it?