Walk/Stroll
Konoha was a pleasant place to walk through, especially the upper-class districts where the clan houses were. Inside the walls of the compounds was in effect a smaller version of Konoha. Children of each clan were trained in the very basics and grounded in clan and shinobi laws. There were little shops where other clan members sold their goods; villagers could come and go as they pleased during the times the gates were open. The Hyuuga compound was not as commercial as that of the Uchihas, and so when Itachi took Neji for a walk through his home, he was more than a little amazed.
There were people everywhere, for one thing—Uchihas, characterized by their light skin and dark hair, and the shoppers, clamoring for the best wares. Itachi stopped by a fruit stand and picked up two apples for them, slipping his into a pocket. The shopkeeper nudged him and pointed at Neji, asking something the Hyuuga couldn't hear. Itachi responded, and they nodded knowingly. He'd never felt as uncomfortable in his life.
"What was that about?" Neji asked when Itachi rejoined him and they continued their walk.
"Just asking after your health," he replied. Neji felt fingers brush his and twitched. He still wasn't comfortable with holding hands in public.
"They had an odd expression for it."
"Hyuugas don't visit Uchihas very often. They were understandably curious—stop being so paranoid, Neji." They went down a side street, between two houses. Itachi kept looking up at the roofs of the houses.
"What are you—"
"You'll see. Here," Itachi said, and stopped at a wall near the end of an alley. "Get up onto the roof."
It took little more than a leap off the side of the building opposite to get to the tile roof. It still held the heat from the daytime, but as the sun was sinking behind the monument the tile was starting to release its heat and cool down. Itachi sat up near the spine and gestured Neji over.
"It's fine, nobody's home," he said. "They went on a vacation to Waves."
Sitting gingerly, Neji looked out over the roofs of the Uchiha compound—in the center of it, the sprawling house of the main family—and over the rest of Konoha.
"We're supposed to protect all of this," Itachi said. "We're supposed to be the elite, you and I. When war is called between Sound and Leaf, we clansmen will be the first ones out to war. It's our duty to Konoha for allowing us to live here. We don't have a choice; our destinies are set."
Neji thought of the words of a certain blonde at a chuunin exam long ago, and of how his thoughts that he would marry a rich woman he didn't love and have children for the clan that he would probably see die in his lifetime had begun to fade away. "No, they're not," he said.
He felt Itachi's hand take his own, and held it without hesitation.