"Be sure to watch out for wild animals."
"We know, Mother."
"And dress warmly. It might be turning spring but it's still cold at night."
"We know."
"Do you have enough food?"
"We'll only gone until Friday, Mother. And we can hunt if we need more."
"You never know! I'm responsible for Neji, too, and if he gets hurt I'll have Hiashi after me, and he gets so scary when he's upset—"
"We'll be fine, Mother. If something goes wrong we can be back here in less than two hours."
Mikoto looked them over a last time, her mother's eye sizing them up, before smiling. "I suppose you'll be all right. But be careful."
Gathering chakra in his feet, Itachi leapt off into the forest. Neji bowed and thanked her, then took off after him, moving quickly; their destination was a secluded, sheltered canyon some distance away. It didn't take them long to get to wilderness; large areas of land between villages were undeveloped, unmapped even. As entertaining as the vacation house was, they only had a few days left before they had to return to Konoha and missions, and they intended to make the most of it.
It took them exactly two hours to reach the canyon, and another half an hour to find a suitable site. They'd brought a tent—it was far too cold to put their bedrolls outside, even with a fire—and set it up, storing their things inside, taking food, and setting out on a hike to the ridgeline behind them.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0
They had sex for the first time that night. It was strange, sticky, and nothing like what Neji had learned about—of course, he'd learned about heterosexual intercourse, not between two men. But as he lay on his back with Itachi's head pillowed on his chest, the Hyuuga thought that perhaps it wasn't all that bad. Smiling to himself, Neji ran his fingers through Itachi's damp hair again. No, not bad at all.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0
"Neji, have you ever been in love?"
He paused in packing up their bedrolls, looking over at his lover. Itachi had that Uchiha Look, the one that meant he had something on his mind and was working it out. "...never."
Itachi nodded to himself, seeming to have reached some kind of conclusion, and resumed helping Neji get their things out of the tent so they could take it down. The rest of the day, all the way home, he had that look. Neji attributed it to having to go back to work and thinking about the missions he'd have to endure. Camping always relaxed him, and going back to normal routine after this vacation was going to rattle him.
"Let me know when your mission's over," Neji said as they walked back into the house. "It'll be spring before long. Soon all the trees will start to blossom."
Itachi looked over at him, unreadable as ever. "I will," he replied, and they stepped inside.