Chapter 5: Wicked Witch

"Sasuke."

He turned at the soft sound of his own name, coming from the back porch. His big brother's voice was low and gentle.

"What are you doing out here?" Itachi sat down on the edge of the porch. Through the evening's dimness, Sasuke could see the concern in his eyes that he couldn't quite hear in his tone. He looked like he was preparing to say something serious. Sasuke racked his brain just in case but he knew he wasn't in trouble; Dad promised Santa would bring him a new bike this year if he was good, so Sasuke had been trying extra hard lately.

"I'm fixing the scarecrow me and mom put up today. He's crooked, and his clothes are falling off. I think they're too baggy," Sasuke answered honestly.

A strange expression crossed Itachi's face. There was a kind of tightness around his eyes. He seemed to choose his next words carefully, "But Sasuke. It's December."

"I'm not cold! I've got my heavy coat on, like you said!" Sasuke protested.

Itachi shook his head once, slowly. "No, Sasuke. I mean, plants can't grow in December. The ground is frozen, and the birds have gone south besides. You know that."

Sasuke considered this, frowning thoughtfully. It was all true. "So, are you saying we don't need the scarecrow after all?"

Itachi's face became somewhat strained. "Sasuke. Come here, please."

Sasuke put the pile of clothes down and trotted over, curious. Itachi patted his leg and Sasuke gladly hopped into his lap, secretly grateful for the warmth despite his earlier bravado. Itachi gestured to the backyard before them, lit only by the rosy windows of the house behind them.

"What do you see, Sasuke?"

"Huh?"

"There." Itachi pointed.

"You mean the scarecrow? In the garden?" Sasuke asked, brow furrowing. Itachi took a very long time to answer.

"...is that what you really see, Sasuke? Or are you pretending, like a game?" Itachi's eyes met his own identical ones seriously. Sasuke did not know how to answer.

"Well, mom said—"

"I know what mom said. I want to know what you think, Sasuke."

"...I'm just pretending?" Sasuke hedged, watching Itachi's face carefully. His brother was hard to read, but Sasuke thought the lines of worry remained.

"You tell me, Sasuke. Are you pretending? Do you really see a scarecrow, or something else?"

Sasuke looked again. He saw the other thing too, the yellow plastic handle stuck awkwardly in the solid earth, stiff bristles facing the sky.

"...you mean the broom?" Sasuke finally asked. He felt Itachi's body relax against his own, saw his eyes close for a long moment as he exhaled.

"Yes, Sasuke. Yes, that's exactly what I mean," Itachi said quietly, smiling gently now. "What do we need to scare away crows for? We've never had a garden, right?"

"We have a pretend one," Sasuke amended, thinking of all his mother's hard work planting tomatoes.

"Mm. Pretend gardens are fine, as long as we understand they are not real." Sasuke mulled this over.

"Does mom—" Sasuke began, but his voice died at the expression on Itachi's face. He looked so sad, suddenly a hundred years old.

"Forgive me, Sasuke. Maybe next time." Sasuke nodded and slid off Itachi's lap. His brother poked his forehead affectionately before standing and making his way back inside. Sasuke glanced over his shoulder at him.

"Can I stay out a little longer? Please?"

Itachi nodded. "Just come inside if you get too cold. I don't want you getting sick."

"Okay."

Itachi closed the door behind him. Sasuke sat back on the edge of the porch in Itachi's spot and looked at the scarecrow for a long while, contemplating. He thought about the difference between "real" and "pretend." And he inevitably thought of his mother...

As he got lost in thought, it slowly grew darker and darker around him until he couldn't even see the backyard or the house anymore. Maybe there was no house nor yard, in fact. Sasuke found himself walking through the blackness, wondering where he was walking to. At least it wasn't cold anymore. But someone was watching him. He could feel their mismatched eyes on his back. And then somehow he could see it in the dark: hundreds of them descending on him all at once, together. They screamed and shrieked, a deafening torrent of sound. Sasuke sprinted for his life, but they caught up to him effortlessly, ever faster, unstoppable, aiming for his face. Claws ripped, talons slashed, razor sharp beaks gouged. Blood streamed from his eyes in thick red rivulets, poured down his face, and then Sasuke no longer had eyes to bleed from. He screamed himself hoarse, crimson trickling from his newly empty sockets, rushing into his gaping mouth; he choked and retched even as he screamed on into eternity. Hands grabbed and shook him and Sasuke screamed and the hands shook and shook and shook—

"Sasuke!"

Sasuke gasped, sucking breath into his lungs violently, eyes flying open. He lifted his hands to them, touching, confirming their existence. He blinked. He could see. He was in his room, on the floor next to his bed, sweaty covers twisted around his body. His door was wide open, and Itachi knelt on the carpet next to him.

"Are you okay?"

Sasuke was about to open his mouth wide and laugh like the lunatic he was; to absolutely split his gut laughing at the absurdity of an ironic question like that. He really was, until he caught the briefest glimpse of Itachi's unguarded face.

Sasuke recognized that expression from so many years ago. How could he ever forget? It was that same delicately complicated way Itachi used to look at their mother when he thought Sasuke wasn't watching. His black eyes swirled with a myriad of unnamed emotions, but there were wells of something intense pooled deep at the bottom of them—such raw emotion that Sasuke had to look away immediately. It was like looking into the sun.

"Are you okay?" Itachi repeated flatly. He averted his eyes from Sasuke, leaning back to put some space between them again after having accomplished his goal of waking Sasuke from the nightmare. Sasuke in turn tried to avoid looking directly at Itachi as he responded.

"Yes. Thank you."

Sasuke heard the tension hang in the air, palpable, as though his brother wanted to say something else.

"If you...need me, you can call me," Itachi managed at last.

"Okay," Sasuke answered quietly, embarrassed. Itachi stood, shutting the door gently behind himself as he left.

Sasuke wondered if that was really all Itachi had wanted to say.

School wasn't so bad. Aside from the occasional unnecessarily concerned glace from Mr. Umino, most of Sasuke's classmates seemed to have either forgotten his embarrassing outburst of a few days ago, or didn't give enough of a crap about it to comment one way or the other.

Most being the keyword there.

"Hey, hey! You! The mute bastard! Stop!"

The sound of that obnoxiously loud voice could only mean one thing. Sasuke immediately dropped the rest of his uneaten sandwich in the garbage and was halfway across the courtyard in record time, but not even record time was quite fast enough for someone this determined. A tanned arm, clad in a horribly bright orange sleeve, appeared across his path to block the doorway inside.

"That means you, you jerk." Blue eyes narrowed at Sasuke accusingly.

"Naruto!" A girl with sharp green eyes and disheveled hair (was she also from his class? Sasuke couldn't really remember) trotted up then, panting slightly. She was not too out-of-breath to knock the blonde kid upside the head, however.

"Honestly Naruto, I told you, you can't just accost people like this because they won't talk to you. Yelling insults is not the easiest way to make friends with someone either, by the way." The girl sneaked a tentative glance towards Sasuke.

"But-but-Sakuraaaa," the blonde whined, "this antisocial bastard has avoided everyone all year! I wanna know what his problem is!" He whirled on Sasuke. "What's with you, huh? Think you're too good to be part of the community or something? Or are you one of those self-appointed emo artsy outcasts? Did a funny uncle touch you somewhere as a child and give you weird social phobias or what?"

"Hoky—Naruto! You just can't say stuff like that to people!" Sasuke heard another thwack! followed by an, "Oooowww, Sa-ku-raaaa!" but missed seeing the actual hit, given that his back was to both of them as he made a mad dash for the gate in the fence on the opposite side of the courtyard.

"Oh no you don't!"

Sasuke broke into a flat-out run the second he heard the sound of pursuing sneakers, but the persistent kid was smarter than he looked. Sasuke's hand was stretched out towards the gate when he went down hard, an orange backpack tangled up hopelessly around his feet. Sasuke didn't need to guess who threw it. He kicked the backpack away and rolled onto his back, blinking up at the gray, cloudy sky in defeat. His vision was eclipsed by an orange and blonde mass, looking down at him in disbelief.

"I can't believe you tried to make a break for it just so you wouldn't have to answer me!" Naruto whined, brow furrowed in hurt. "You can't possibly hate everyone that much! You can't really hate me that much, right?" He held out a hand. Sasuke could see Sakura's concerned expression over Naruto's shoulder. He could hear the silence of the other kids eating lunch in the courtyard as they watched the scene progress. He felt the first drop of rain from an oncoming storm hit his cheek. And he saw the steadiness with which Naruto extended a helping hand to him.

"...I—" his voice cracked.

"—I—" he faltered again. Naruto lost his minimal patience and carefully, gently—more gently than Sasuke would have guessed the aggressive boy to be capable of—took Sasuke's wrist in his hand and delicately pulled him to a standing position.

Nothing happened. The ground didn't split open and swallow him, the sky didn't fall, the earth didn't implode. Sasuke found himself upright, staring at the blonde who stared back at him. Sasuke felt the others' stares on them. Too much staring for one day, far too much.

Sasuke cleared his throat quietly. "I'm...sorry," he managed at last, before finally turning and unlatching the gate behind him. "Really."

Sasuke walked away from school. This time, he did not run. He felt a few more drops of rain land on his hair, but still Sasuke did not run. He did look back, but only once the school was long out of sight.

Sasuke sat under the little wooden bridge at the water's edge, watching the drops break the pond's surface and trying to think of nothing at all. He was not surprised when the expectedly unexpected face of Kakashi popped into upside-down existence over the side of the bridge to peer down at him.

"Yo," Kakashi greeted with his easy smile, all cheery despite the wet weather. When he received no immediate response, the enigmatic man made the small jump over the side, landing lightly on the edge of the pond to peek under the bridge at Sasuke.

"Hiding from something down here?" His black and blue eyes were inquisitive.

Sasuke shrugged vaguely. "The rain..."

"Aah. Well, hope your day gets better, Ms. West." Kakashi abruptly began to saunter off through the downpour in a random direction.

A thoroughly stumped Sasuke called after him, "Wait, 'Ms. West'? What?"

"As in, 'the Wicked Witch of?'" quipped Kakashi. Sasuke looked distinctly unimpressed, so Kakashi clarified: "My apologies. With that depressingly black aura of yours and an obvious allergy to water, it was an easy mistake to make."

Sasuke cracked a smile at this despite himself.

"So. Wanna go for a walk with me?"

"In the rain?"

"Of course! What sort of weather is more beautiful than a gray, rainy day like this? It's healthy for plants. Should be healthy for you too, so long as you're really not the Wicked Witch of the West." If Sasuke didn't know better, he would've sworn the older man's shoulders were twitching with silent laughter.

"Well, with logic that infallible..." Sasuke rolled his eyes, but climbed to his feet anyway. "Where to?"

"It's against human nature to be so...linear. Must we always have a destination in mind before we even begin?"

"No. I suppose not," Sasuke allowed, arching his eyebrow. "But then how do you know it when you get there?"

"You don't," Kakashi said simply. "Would you like to come anyway?"

Much to his surprise, Sasuke did. The motley duo set off side by side together through the rain, one reluctant, the other at ease, both headed in no particular direction at all.