A Day in the Life

November 8th

Itachi is here and he is already making my life a living hell.

When I arrived at the airport, Itachi was ready and waiting at arrivals because it is against his nature to be anything less than a few minutes early. I was right on time, and eventually managed to elbow my way through the crowds and push to the front. I silenced all protest with my patented Icy Uchiha Glare. It really does work. I'm so proud of it.

Itachi was sitting on a pile of three unnervingly large cases amongst a crowd of fellow arrivals (I thought he was only going to be staying for three days? How much luggage does he need? This is ominous.) He spotted me right away and we had one of those horrendously awkward brotherly moments that Itachi is really into. He doesn't do it because he feels any sort of familial affection for me. He does it because he perceives that that is how things are done in normal families. The feeling is mutual, except I know that it's all just a smokescreen and would prefer not to have to go to the bother of putting on an act. Said moments involve Itachi and myself offering each other a false smile and a curt nod - this followed by the most excruciating hug ever witnessed by man or beast. Then, we will take a step back, punctuating this with a manly sniff, and end the whole mortifying ritual by informing the other how glad we are to see them. This is, of course, a lie.

After our "brotherly moment", I piled Itachi's cases onto the luggage trolley (because he was standing around waiting for me to do it for him) and we made our way back to the car. I paid the exorbitant sum of money charged for parking (even though I was only in the terminal for half an hour) and Itachi and I worked on forcing his ridiculously large cases into the trunk. Only two would fit, so Itachi had to sit with one perched on his knees.

The ride back was similarly uncomfortable. I can easily sum up the extent of our conversation in a few lines:

Me: "So... Oni-chan. How have you been?"
Itachi: "Me? Oh. Perfectly well, Sasuke-kun. Yourself."
Me: "Oh fine, fine..."

Insert an awkward pause, in which I raided my dwindling stash of small-talk lines to proffer to Itachi in hope of breaking the dismal silence.

Me: "And how's Kisame?"
Itachi: "Kisame is fine."
Me: "How's he coping without Goldie?"
Itachi: "Fine, I think."
Me: "And Deidara?"
Itachi: "He's fine, too."
Me: "Sasori?"
Itachi: "Quite well."

Eventually, I ran out of names and faces and trailed off into a twenty-minute awkward pause, which was interrupted by my timely recollection of a request of Itachi's I had left unanswered. I pounced upon it, in a manner not unlike the boss after a dry spell.

Me: "Oh, by the way, it's 220 volts over here. Will you be able to use your GHDs?"
Itachi: "I know. I googled it. I had to buy an adaptor at the Duty Free before I left. Kakuzu borrowed mine and hasn't returned it yet."
Me: "What a prick."
Itachi: "Mmm..."

This followed by another lengthy, awkward pause which was only broken by my last-ditch attempt to make conversation when the hour's drive was almost over.

Me: "You straighten your hair? When did you start doing that?"
Itachi: "I liked Oro's look. I'm growing it out just now, but it's hard to keep it from going wavy at the ends."
Me: "Ah, I see. Looks good."
Itachi: "Thank you."

At this point, we had pulled into the car park, so I knew I wouldn't have to torture myself for much longer. I had booked an underling in advance to come and transport Itachi's luggage down to my apartment. I really wish I hadn't, as it would have proven a welcome distraction.

When we finally managed to get indoors, I escaped to the kitchen to make some tea after showing Itachi to the guest room. He said he was going to unpack. The unpacking process seemed to be taking him quite a long time, and, curious, I went through to see if I could figure out why this might be so. The answer was immediately apparent.

In each of his three cases, his belongings were vacuum-sealed in plastic bags and arranged according to bulk. Each individual item was readily identifiable because of the sticky labels printed in 12-point verdana smoothed at perfect right angles across the surface of the bags. The ones I could spot read: "Akatsuki - formal robes", "Akatsuki - everyday robes", "Akatsuki - spare pair of everyday robes", "underwear - three pairs of black boxers", "a selection of black socks", "casual -black jeans", "casual - black shirt", "casual - black Vans", "Akatsuki - kasa", "Akatsuki - forehead protector" and "Akatsuki - accessories (ring, purple nail polish and bells)". As I looked on, aghast, Itachi was hanging up his clothes in the wardrobe - co-ordinating them by size and colour - occasionally stopping to survey his work, shake his head and rearrange items to conform to the most minute detail.

Slightly freaked-out, I backed out of the room and reached for the phone. Suigetsu. Suigetsu would know what to do. Unfortunately, when I called him, he was rather angry. I suppose he was within his rights to be, since it was technically my fault he had been locked in the cupboard in the Staff Room for fourteen hours without food or water. He informed me, in no uncertain terms, that if I did not liberate him from his decidedly claustrophobic prison right then and there he would never, ever speak to me again.

Clearly, something had to be done.

I yelled to Itachi that I was popping out for fifteen minutes and I sprinted over to the boss's to beg for a pair of keys. The boss wasn't available, which was odd, but one of his underlings handed them over and I headed straight for the Staff Room and released Suigetsu. Suigetsu, needless to say, was not best pleased with me and he punched me really hard on the arm at first opportunity. When my eyes had stopped watering, I apologised profusely and attempted to buy back his affections by promising to take him back to my apartment and let him invent sundaes to his heart's content. He pretended to consider my offer and threw me filthy looks for five minutes before caving. Ice-cream is one of his biggest weaknesses, and I have loads of the stuff in my freezer for just such an occasion.

When we got back, Itachi had commandeered the big mirror in the sitting room and was sitting, cross-legged on the floor, straightening his hair. Suigetsu asked who he was and I introduced them. Itachi was quite keen when he learned we were going to be making up ice-cream sundae recipes, so I had no choice but to permit him to join in.

While we were in the kitchen, Suigetsu was very interested in finding out about Itachi and he quizzed him on a number of inane personal topics, including, but not limited to: his age, his height, his shoe size, what his favourite flavour of ice-cream was (mint-choc chip), what his favourite colour was (black), whether he had any embarrassing stories about me (he told the one about the time I pooed in the laundry basket when I was two - and they laughed!) what his favourite drink was (pepsi), what his favourite animal was (any member of the mustelidae family - I had to explain to Suigetsu that this meant ferrets, weasels, stoats etc.), what shampoo he used (Pantene sleek and smooth), whether he preferred boxers or briefs (boxers), and who would he shag out of Deidara and the boss (no comment).

When we'd finished making our sundaes and when Itachi had been thoroughly interrogated, Suigetsu thought it would be a fun idea to invite Gen'yumaru over to judge whose was best. He thought wrong. As soon as the plan was confirmed, Itachi went back into the kitchen to "tidy up" his creation.

This signified that he had gone into "perfection overdrive" and had shifted up a gear into "subtly competitive mode". I knew then that any hopes of winning the sundae competition had been utterly dashed. It followed, then, that I suddenly cared a hell of a lot more about it than I had ten minutes beforehand.

I could feel a sulk coming on, but the doorbell rang and I had to answer it, greet the guests (Gen'yumaru had invited Karin along too), uncork the wine and be a good host. Itachi emerged ten minutes later and turned on the Uchiha charm when I introduced him to the others, being graceful, gracious, complimentary and always laughing at the right time. I felt like punching him.

Why is it that when he's with me in private, getting him to interact is like drawing blood from a stone, yet when he's in public, he turns into this completely different person? I swear there's some big, dark family secret being hidden from me. Twins are definitely involved somehow...

It was not long before everyone trooped into the kitchen so that the sundaes could be judged. I can tell you (and I'm not making this up) that Itachi's sundae elicited gasps - gasps! - of awe from the assembled judges and participants. The fifteen minutes Itachi spent "tidying up" had clearly been well-spent, and appeared to have involved making dainty little chocolate curls from milk, white and dark chocolate, chopping a handful of macadamia nuts, crushing a Crunchie to sprinkle over the top, and constructing the crowning glory, a miniature, delicate golden nest of spun sugar balancing on top.

Despite having been left with one of my less flamboyant sundae glasses, Itachi's creation seemed to favour the clean, simple lines of the more plain vessel. Like his wardrobe, his ice-cream was colour co-ordinated; Ben & Jerry's Cookie Dough and Chocolate Brownie flavour had never looked so good together. This teamed with lashings of dark chocolate sauce, hot fudge and sweet butterscotch, two of those little tube wafers with chocolate in the middle set elegantly to one side, and a delicately fanned strawberry, all combined to offer the prospective adjudicator a singularly, irritatingly, sickeningly perfect sundae.

Mine, on the other hand, was a merely a hodgepodge of things I liked: mint-choc chip and chocolate ice cream with chocolate sauce, bits of After-Eight mints, grated dark chocolate, chunks of brownie and a swirl of aerosol-can whipped-cream with a proper, whole cherry on top. Simple and most definitely not overdone.

Suigetsu's was hilarious and should have won - being pure comedy gold. It comprised of scoops of lime, mint-choc chip and strawberry ice-cream, but you wouldn't have guessed due to all the fit-inducing, sugary detritus that obscured it from view. Gummy worms, smarties, mini-marshmallows, bubble-gum balls, fizzy laces, popping candy - you name it, Suigetsu had it in his sundae. He also found an ominous-looking raspberry sauce at the back of my cupboard and became extremely excited when he squeezed it and blue came out. Naturally, he tipped a whole load of the stuff into his concoction along with half a bottle of strawberry sauce - resulting in a weird, psychedelic purplish goo in places. Suigetsu fittingly dubbed it: "E-number Surprise."

Needless to say, Gen'yumaru almost orgasmed when he saw Itachi's work of art, so it was declared out-and-out winner, to my disgust. My sundae came second, and Suigetsu's last on account of the fact that "it tasted and smelled like migraines" and made Karin's tongue burn.

Everyone eventually became sick of ice-cream and it was time to go. Goodbyes were said and compliments were paid to me on behalf of my brother at the door: "He's fucking cool, dude! You should let him stay more often", "...such a flair for presentation, I can't tell you! It's refreshing to meet someone with such natural culinary talent...", "He was really nice, Sasuke. Quite charming. You can definitely tell you're brothers. You should ask him over more often!" When the last of them left, I waited till they were all safely back in their apartments before slamming the door shut as hard as I could. It echoed for at least three seconds. I felt good.

He's only been here for a couple of hours and already he is driving me insane. He managed to get into the bathroom first and is taking AGES doing god knows what.

I don't think I'll be able to get through this...

November 9th

Shit has hit the fan in the office.

The reason Amachi didn't appear last night was because he was working frantically through the night with Kabuto trying to hack into the boss's admin account. News has somehow got out that the network at Otogakure Enterprises has went down and investors are selling their fucking shares left, right and centre. Some idiot underling, no doubt. Amachi and Kabuto tried to contact the boss to gain access to his admin account, but he wasn't answering his phone, and they tried to contact Suigetsu to ask him to inform all the staff of what was really going on, but he had been locked in a cupboard until ten-thirty.

The result is that the front-page of this morning's Otogakure Enquirer sported the rambunctious headline: CORPORATE MELTDOWN - OTO ENTERPRISES CRASH AND BURN!! I found this out because the paper was thrust in my face after I was awoken by the boss yelling himself hoarse and hammering down my door. When I answered the door, the boss stormed into my apartment, wearing his most expensive white kimono, and Karin was there, hot on his heels, looking panicky and talking rapidly down the line to someone on her phone.

The boss dragged me out of bed and told me to get dressed in my best as there was an emergency press conference scheduled in an hour for the purpose of enlightening the masses (read: the investors) as to the state of the current computer situation. Feeling disorientated, jittery and quite, quite terrified, the boss shoved me towards the bathroom and tried to open the door. Clearly, Itachi had managed to sneak in first, as I could hear the faint roar of the steam shower working at full power.

The boss narrowed his eyes and looked at me. "Who's in there, Sasuke-kun?" he said, his voice carrying an ominous warning note that, in my experience, has preceded each of his random outbursts of psychotic jealousy.

Fortuitously, at that moment, Itachi chose to unlock the door and pop his head out to see what was going on. A cloud of steam, smelling of lemons, billowed out as he did so, and he tilted his head to the side, clearly puzzled to have been greeted with the sight of his old colleague standing before him, utterly enraged and in full, formal dress at quarter to seven in the morning.

"Oro?" he said, squinting through the steam.

The boss was appeared to be similarly confused at having been greeted with the sight of his old colleague, smelling of lemons and clad only in a towel, in his PA's bathroom at quarter to seven in the morning.

"Itachi-kun?" the boss said. "What on earth are you doing here?"

"I've taken a few days off to help Sasuke out with the trial," he replied. "Is something wrong?"

And thus Itachi was roped into helping fix things. He is on the phone right now to all the newspaper editors he has contact with and is being sickeningly efficient. I really don't think he knows how to turn it off. He is also attending the press conference along with myself, the boss and Karin. I made fun of him earlier for packing his Akatsuki formal robes. Yet again I have been proven wrong. Karin is looking incredibly sexy in a pencil skirt and heels, with a tailored suit-jacket and crisp-white blouse. I winked at her when the boss wasn't looking and she blushed. I've still got it.

I'm wondering why the boss hasn't shouted at me yet. It's probably because he was involved, too, though that's never stopped him before.

That'll be coming later, no doubt. For now, I just have to turn on the charm and ingratiate myself with the cameras. That, I can do...

Man, I really want some ice-cream now...

Virtual, giant-sized portions of Suigetsu's "E-numbers Surprise" for leaving me some lovely reviews go out to: Ayatsuji, Riana1, Sakonster, CloodSama, qwertumz, Simple-Minded Idiot, eerabbit, InuyashasEars, fiore777, Raspedra Twilight, ArilianaFireQueen, danni quinn and Ooh Look a Giant Hippy!

If you wish to be able to get to sleep for the next few days, the portion of "E-numbers Surprise" may be substituted for an Itachi or a Sasuke sundae. :-)

Cheers for the reviews! Take care, guys:-)