Well, this took some time, sorry about that! Many thanks to my amazing beta-reader, Anime-loon, without whom I'd be lost at sea. Love you Bean-paste-Chan!
This is dedicated to my little sister, since it's her birthday today, and I can't be there. Happy birthday Squid, big hugs coming your way!
There's a fanart for this chapter on my Deviantart page if anyone's interested, but other than that all I can say is: ENJOY!
Chapter 2.
It was too late to contemplate turning and running, as they reached the top of the stairs and Itachi opened the very first door on the left. Dreading what the room was going to be like, Deidara unwillingly trailed him after him.
"Holy –"
He'd been prepared to face anything – a dungeon, a coffin for a bed, black walls, even a Satanic alter, but this...
Itachi glanced over his shoulder, his companion's gobsmacked expression causing him to frown ever so slightly. Seems like Deidara hadn't expected that of him. Why did people always think he was some sort of sick freak? Just because he dressed in black did not make him a Goth. Okay, and that incident with Shisui...Itachi shook his head hurriedly, NO! He was not going to think about his cousin's suicide now, not when he had work to do; the guilt trip would take ages to disperse – distracting him from necessary things. It was probably due to Sasuke that the school had formed such stereotypes about him anyway. The kid hated him, plain and simple. And when the most popular boy in school hates someone, the rest of the world does too.
And now he had found someone who was not only treating him like a human being but had even bolstered up the courage to come to his house to finish some work. Itachi wasn't stupid enough to believe this acquaintance would last – he and Deidara hadn't spoken a word to each other before today – but he wanted to make the best of the moments he had. Friendship was a precious commodity, and one he had sorely missed.
Deidara was still standing in the doorway staring, and it took a few repeats of his name to make him snap out of it and follow his peer into the room. It looked like nothing he'd ever expected of Itachi.
It appeared that the Uchiha had tried to stick to his Japanese roots as much as possible, so that his private space clashed with the western design in the rest of the house. Opposed to the green landing carpet, the floor in here was a light gray – the colour of a rain cloud, and softer. The curtains were open at the window, letting in a small breeze that shook a set of wind chimes enough to allow a few echoing notes to play every now and then. The walls were so well painted to impersonate screens that Deidara had to reach out and touch one to convince himself that were still only plastered breeze blocks.
Itachi had gone for traditional furniture too, incorporating some things Deidara hadn't ever seen before. There didn't appear to be a bed, although a few moments later his eyes registered the futon folded against the wall. It left a lot of space in the middle of the room, which was currently occupied by a low fold-up table littered with sheaves of paper and – he peered closer – scrolls. The low table didn't have any chairs; instead two cushions were placed at either end. A bookcase - crammed tight with all sorts of ring binders and what appeared to be text books - was against one wall, and finally a chest of drawers sat snugly in a corner.
"Not what you expected huh?" Itachi asked finally.
"Not really." Deidara grinned at him, "Okay, I'll admit that I was expecting some sort of gothic dungeon."
The Uchiha rolled his eyes. "I'd worked that out from your expression. You were doing a brilliant impersonation of a rabbit caught in the headlights." He swept some scrolls off the table and sat down cross-legged on one of the cushions. Deidara followed suit, kneeling awkwardly compared to Itachi, who had obviously spent most of his life working at a desk in this style. "Okay, I'd prefer to get most of this done before either of my parents get home and bug us." The Uchiha stated, opening up a slim laptop.
"Sure, whatever." Deidara, now feeling a lot more at ease, pulled out his RE text book and began rifling through the index. Finding the section needed, he balanced the book on his knees and leant forwards with a grin. "So, what are we doing?"
They say time passes quickly when you're having fun. It also seems to run away when you're busy. Deidara jumped when he heard the door downstairs slam shut, and stared at his watch – they'd been working for nearly two hours and he hadn't noticed.
There was a pair of thumps from downstairs – akin to the sound of shoes hitting a wall – then heavy footfalls all the way up the staircase. The unseen person stormed past Itachi's room without looking in, and stamped to the end of the landing, before slamming shut their own bedroom door with enough force to rattle the pictures on the walls.
"It appears my brother's home." Itachi said calmly, without looking up. There was a moment's silence, before Linkin Park's Crawling blared out through the house. "And I think his girlfriend has finally dumped him."
"So he's not naturally this emo?" Deidara asked with a grin, putting his text book down and stretching his arms out.
"Only when the occasion calls for it." The Uchiha finished typing in a line to the presentation, then finally raised his gaze. "I think this is done. I've co-ordinated the fonts and background so that they don't clash, and I've managed to put in that Midi file you found on the title page."
Deidara waved a hand airily. "Yeah yeah, as long as it's done." He looked up out the window, and his eyes widened in dismay. "Oh you've gotta be kidding me!"
The light drizzle that had started when they'd reached the house had picked up its pace a bit and decided to go for something a bit more grand. Rain was too minor a word for it. If someone had moved the Niagara Falls to pour over the town it couldn't have been heavier. Deidara stared in alarm – he was going to get soaked walking home in that!
"I said I'd give you a lift home." Itachi seemed to have read his thoughts, as he reminded him of their earlier conversation. He too turned to look out of the window. "Although I might wait until it eases off a bit, I'd rather not aqua-plane onto a main road. Is that okay?"
The blonde nodded, maybe a little too quickly. After all, he hardly knew Itachi, and wasn't going to trust in his unknown driving skills right away. "Sure, if you don't mind me hanging around here."
Itachi shrugged, saving the presentation and shutting his lap-top down. He then proceeded to pick up one of the documents on the table that was unrelated to their work and settled down to read it.
Taking this as a 'dismissed' signal, Deidara decided to occupy himself with drawing – as always. Settling down with his sketch book on his lap, he began to outline a line-art for his newest idea, effortlessly ignoring his silent companion.
For a while the only sounds in the room were the occasional rustle of paper and the scratch of a pencil. It was the sounds out of the room that were the problem though. Nearly fifteen minutes passed before Itachi slammed his wad of papers down with a growl that made Deidara jump and look up at him in surprise.
"Right! I have no problem with Linkin Park, but I refuse to listen to Crawling on repeat!" He stood up and stalked over to where a slim black I-pod sat in its speaker system. "Mind if I put some music on to drown that noise out?"
Deidara, who'd been getting pretty annoyed with having the one song blaring through the house, nodded happily. "At this stage, I'd pay you to put some music on." He said with a grin. The smile faded a little as he watched Itachi scroll through albums on the music-player, he had no idea what sort of music the Uchiha liked, and had a sneaking suspicion that it was going to be Marilyn Manson.
Still, anything would be better than having one song stuck in his head, and he turned back to his sketch book in resignation. Itachi sat back down next to him apparently having chosen something. There was a second or two of silence before a few gentle notes grew in a crescendo into a familiar set of chords. Deidara's head shot back up.
"Sleeping Sun?"
Itachi looked at him in surprise. "You know it?"
"Hell yeah! I love Nightwish! And this is the original version too!" He mouthed along with a few words as it reached the chorus and grinned at his companion. "I didn't think you'd be one to like them."
"Of course. I didn't you would be one to like them."
Deidara nodded enthusiastically. "Sure, the music's great and the words paint a lovely imagery. Who doesn't like them?"
"My brother for one." Itachi smiled and picked up the documents he'd been previously reading. "Then again, he never agrees with me."
Having no siblings of his own, Deidara couldn't really reply to that, but was anxious to continue their conversation since they'd seemed to be getting along so well. He looked at the paper-work inquisitively.
"So, what are you doing?"
"Work." The Uchiha looked distinctly bored with whatever he was reading, so glanced up to meet the blue gaze fixed on him.
"What sort of work? School stuff?"
He shook his head once. "No, it's for my job."
Grudging respect lit Deidara's eyes. Although he wasn't currently employed, he'd been in various jobs before, but had never cared enough for any of them to bring the work home with him. "Who do you work for then? Must be a bit of a slave-driver to have you doing paper-work in your free time." He said in sympathy.
Surprisingly, Itachi chuckled in response. "Actually, I'm self employed."
"What!?" Gobsmacked would describe Deidara's reaction nicely. He couldn't believe his own ears! How could a nineteen year old already run a business (or so he assumed) whilst still in full-time education?! How could a nineteen year old run a business period? "What do you do?" He stammered.
The small but light hearted grin that had surfaced on Itachi's face vanished, and he looked back at his papers. "Nothing interesting."
Deidara was not the brightest bulb in the box academia-wise, but he had a knack for knowing when and when not to change the subject. Right now his intuition was telling him that Itachi really didn't want to talk about this, but something deeper was giving the feeling that he should press the point anyway. Being impulsive and easily driven by his emotions, Deidara did just that.
"C'mon, it's a major achievement that you've got your own business at your age, of course it's interesting!" The blonde's bright cerulean eyes were sincere as he leaned forward eagerly for an answer. "So spill, what do you do?"
Itachi eyed him warily for a moment, before muttering; "I'm a paranormal researcher."
It seemed that this was a day of one surprise after another for Deidara. He stared blankly for a few seconds, before shaking his head furiously.
"I'm sorry, you're a what?"
Itachi wished he'd never said a thing! Just when he was actually getting along with someone he had to open his big fat mouth and incriminate himself again. If the blonde hadn't thought him a freak before he definitely would now! At Deidara's incredulous question he decided that the damage was done so there was no point in beating about the bush.
"In lay-man's terms; I'm a Ghost Hunter."
A long silence followed that statement. Ignoring the now awkward atmosphere, Itachi turned back to his work, fully expecting his companion to leave.
"So...So it's true then?" It was a tiny whisper, but made the Uchiha look back up in surprise. "All those rumours, about the magic and curses and stuff...they're true?" Deidara didn't meet the onyx gaze that was pinned on him as he stared down at his sketch-book.
"Yes." Itachi saw the blondes eyes widen dramatically and expanded slightly. "It's not magic, but I can do all those things, yes." He watched his companions hunched up form and sighed. "You really think I'm a freak now, don't you?"
"What? No!" Deidara's head shot up, exposing troubled blue eyes that surveyed Itachi owlishly from behind the half-curtain of golden hair. "No, I don't think you're a freak, I just...well, I'm not sure if I can believe you or not. I'd like to, if that's any help though."
The Uchiha knew better than most when to listen to his intuition, and right now his was telling him that the blonde was sincere. Still, he had a hard job believing that – so far no one in England had taken him or his profession seriously. There was something else though, something about Deidara made him know intrinsically that the blonde was – in a manner of speaking – on his side. This was a novelty; usually his side consisted only of fellow 'freaks'. Deciding to give Deidara the benefit of the doubt he took the spoon out of the empty cereal bowl he'd left on the table from breakfast.
"Okay, watch." He said quietly. Ignoring the scepticism on his companions face, he focused on the task in hand.
Deidara was trying not to feel cheated at what was obviously going to be the old party trick – hold the spoon in one hand whilst 'gently' rubbing the head to make it bend. Any fool knew that applying enough pressure would do that! On the other hand, Itachi was only holding the spoon, keeping his free hand flat on the table top as his jet eyes focused on the steel implement.
There was a heavy silence in the air as both young men stared at the simple item of cutlery, one in concentration and the other in scepticism.
The absence of noise was shattered by Deidara's startled shriek. The spoon was bending, ever so gracefully, in the middle, with no visible pressure or stimuli except for Itachi's somewhat smug gaze.
"That's...It's..." Deidara gingerly reached out and ran his finger along the new curve, feeling that it was perfectly solid and barely malleable under his touch. "It's like that scene in the Matrix!" He breathed finally. "You're Spoonboy!"
"Who?!" Of all the thousands of reactions he'd planned for, this was one that had never crossed Itachi's mind; Deidara seemed thrilled at the sight of the utensil curling in on itself!
"You've never seen The Matrix?" Deidara seemed unable to curb his enthusiasm as his eyes left the spoon momentarily to meet the Uchiha's confused gaze. "It's a great film! And there's this kid called Spoonboy who does that!" He pointed at the implement. "That's incredible! Where did you learn how to do it?"
"Uh, my uncle taught me..." Itachi was completely thrown by the blonde's evident excitement. "You...you don't think this is weird or anything?"
Deidara laughed, looking up at him again. "Weird? Of course it's bloody weird! That's what's so cool about it!" He grinned. "What else can you do? If you're a ghost hunter can you perform exorcisms? And what about summoning spirits? ESP-?" Seeing Itachi's befuddled expression, the blonde went red. "Sorry, I'm doing it again aren't I? I always get carried away! And I'm being far too nosey; I've made you feel uncomfortable." He dipped his head in a small bow. "Gomen, Itachi-san."
To say that Itachi was surprised was a gross understatement! He was absolutely stunned that Deidara was expressing an interest in his abilities and job.
"Uh, no, It's fine, I don't mind." He put the mangled spoon down on the table, and was about to expand on Deidara's interest when his brain finally caught up with his ears. "Gomen? How do you know Japanese? And you put the correct honorific on my name too!"
The happy grin he received in return for that statement confused him even more.
"I told you earlier; I love anime and manga. "Deidara chirped. "I pick up random words here and there! I was worried about getting the honorific wrong though; I heard that could be quite offensive."
"No, no you were right." Itachi replied slowly. "And to answer the questions; Yes I can exorcise spirits, yes I can summon them in certain circumstances, and my ESP is abysmal."
It seemed that the spoon-bending demonstration was all that had been needed to convince Deidara of his companion's sincerity, and now he stared in unabashed awe. "That's so cool!"
Itachi felt an unaccustomed pride at those words, yes it was cool, and it was nice to have someone else acknowledge it for once. Thinking about it, he decided that it was high time for him to ask a question or two of his own, and there was a lot he now wanted to know.
"Considering that you obviously believe in them, have you ever seen a ghost?" He asked.
Deidara's cheerful smile faded, and he looked down at his crossed legs. "Kind of." He muttered. He could see that this rather negative way of answering had made Itachi curious, so expanded voluntarily. "I had a dream once; someone came to see me..." He shrugged helplessly. "There's not much to it, but I know that it was real. Just because it was a dream doesn't mean that person didn't speak with me." He met the Uchiha's gaze. "Do you believe me?"
Itachi tilted his head to one side. "I want to. Can you expand a bit on the dream?"
He received a nod in return. "It was about two years ago. I had dropped out of school after my GCSE's and was stacking shelves in the supermarket." Deidara laughed bitterly. "It was a crap job, and paid badly, but I didn't have any other goal in life. Then one night, I had a visitor in my dreams. She told me that I needed to get my act together and do something with my life, since this moping wasn't getting me anywhere. The very next day I went back to the school and enrolled for collage. It was the best choice I ever made, and now when this year's over I'll have A-levels under my belt and will be going to uni. If it wasn't for that dream I'd still be a shelf-stacker with no higher education." His smile had returned, and he turned it on his companion. "I know there's the argument that it could have been my subconciousness, but I know it was real. I don't know how I know it, but there's nothing anyone can say that will persuade me otherwise!" He cast his gaze back down. "That's why I'm fascinated in the paranormal and stuff; I want to see her again, if only to tell her what I've achieved in life now."
"Who is she?" Itachi asked softly.
Deidara sighed, his breath blowing his long fringe back enough for the Uchiha to see the pain in his eyes. "My mum."
"Oh...I'm sorry."
"Don't be." The blonde tried to fix his smile back on, although it was a rather half-hearted one. "You weren't to know. She died about five years ago I suppose, that's quite a long time."
"What happened?" Itachi didn't want to intrude, but there was something about Deidara that told him the blonde wanted to talk about it.
His intuition proved correct, again. Deidara looked up at him briefly, before casting his gaze out of the window at the pouring rain. "We were going to my cousin's garden party." He said quietly. "It was the middle of summer, and we always had a family get-together and barbecue. Mum was wearing her favourite dress," He smiled wistfully, caught in the memory for a moment, then shook his head. "Anyway, we were just leaving and she was fetching her bag from her bedroom." His expression turned guarded, all emotion leaving. "It was no-one's fault, purely an accident. She was wearing high-heels, and there was a loose thread in the carpet at the top of the stairs..." Pained blue eyes sought out shocked onyx ones. "She...She fell. There was nothing Dad or I could do but stand there. I called the ambulance but..." He shook his head again, this time to dispel the first treacherous hints of tears. "They pronounced her dead at the scene."
Itachi, as has already been pointed out, was not the most social of people, and had had few human interactions outside his immediate family and profession since returning to England. Now he was faced with someone who had just spilled their heart to him, and he had no idea how to react. He came into contact with ghosts on an almost daily basis, and was used to working with bereaved people in a professional environment, but had never learnt to deal with a peer who was grieving. Hell, he and Deidara weren't even friends! They hadn't spoken a word to each other until about five hours ago, how was he supposed to know what to do in this situation?
Deidara himself solved the quandary by brushing his hair back from his face, and fixing a small grin on.
"So, that's the story of my epic encounter with the paranormal, what about you." He gestured at the spoon. "How and when did you realise that was possible?"
Itachi refocused his thoughts. "Psychic ability and a link to the paranormal is something of a blood line in my family." He said matter-of-factly. "Most if not all with Uchiha blood have some latent ability. Mine is a lot stronger than normal, which is probably a genetic mutation thanks to my grand-parents exposure to Fat-Man, the bomb. By the time I was thirteen my powers were too strong for me to control, and my parents sent me to live with my Great Uncle Madara, who has spent his life researching these gifts we have."
Deidara had regained his expression of an eager school-child and was nodding enthusiastically. "So is this gift purely a genetic thing, or can anyone do it?"
"Everyone has the intrinsic ability." Itachi replied, fully in lecturing mode. "But nearly everyone will go their whole lives without ever accessing it. Usually those who do, can only do so because – like me – it's a family trait that's nurtured, or have experienced a life changing event that links them to the other side. That could be a near death experience, a religious conversion, or the loss of a loved one. There are many catalysts."
"You're pretty clued up on this."
"I have to be, it's my job."
The blonde nodded thoughtfully. "Did you do this in Japan as well? All this psychic stuff?"
"Yeah, I was part of a team then, not solo." A fond smile crossed Itachi's face. "I worked with my cousin, although he always claimed I worked for him, narcissist jerk." He laughed and picked up a small framed photograph that sat next to his work space, and passed it to Deidara. "That's the whole gang there, the Shibuya Psychic Research Facility, also known as SPR."
Deidara looked over the photo, and ten faces peered back at him, most smiling, two scowling.
"Who are the grumpy-butts?"
Itachi peered over his shoulder to see who he meant, and chuckled. "The insanely tall one is Lin-San, he's a Chinese sorcerer, and the shorter sulky one is my cousin, Shibuya Kazuya-San, although everyone calls him Naru because he's a narcissist prat."
Deidara's finger moved over the glass. "What about the little pixie in the middle?"
"That's Mai-Chan, she's head over heels for Naru, but he doesn't even realise she exists half the time."
"And this ugly one?"
"That's me!"
Deidara burst out laughing at the indignant tone used. "I'm only joking!" He grinned over his shoulder at the peeved Uchiha, handing the photo back. "They look like a nice group of people to work with. I guess it must be lonely doing this sort of work solo."
Itachi shrugged, placing the picture back in its place. "It's not too bad, although I miss having people around who can take care of the aspects I can't do. I have no problem with spirits that are trapped in one place, or are searching for someone, or are lost. I can easily rip a poltergeist out of a haunting if needed, but I can't bring a spirit peace. Many ghosts, British ones especially, just want a funeral, or blessing, and an ordained priest is needed for that usually – I'm not even religious!"
Deidara nodded in understanding, but his mind was already whirring off down other lines of enquiry. "What else can you do though? Ouija boards? Demon circles? Voodoo?..." At the last word he trailed off suddenly, an unsure frown marring his face.
"Yes to all three, what's wrong with that?" Itachi couldn't understand the sudden change in his companion. Worried blue eyes met his own.
"If you can do Voodoo, then that means you can curse people and that means...what did you do to Shisui, really?"
Ah.
Itachi had wondered how long it would take for that conversation topic to poke its ugly little head up from the rock he'd hidden it under. If Deidara's painful story was his Mum's death, then this was undoubtedly Itachi's.
Guilt – never quite forgotten, like a latent virus in his mind – built up the dormant flame into a roaring fire again as he thought of his cousin. Of his cousin's suicide.
"I..." God! How was he supposed to broach this with a complete stranger?! He hardly knew Deidara, it was insane that he was even considering telling him something he'd barely even admitted to himself. Then there was that wave of sincerity coming off of the blonde again, the feeling that you could trust him with any secret in the world. "I put a curse on him."
Had he been a lesser man, Itachi would have covered his mouth in horror. He'd just blurted it out without even thinking about it. What was wrong with him?! Trying to cover up the slip he quickly continued;
"But I'm not responsible for his death!"
Deidara's sceptical look said all it all.
Itachi growled in frustration at himself. "Look, he was seriously bugging me, and I reacted badly, okay?"
"Badly?!" Deidara exclaimed. "You've just admitted to putting a curse on a guy who subsequently died two days later!"
"Yes, but it wasn't a death curse!" Itachi ran his hand through his hair agitatedly. "If you must know, Shisui couldn't speak a word of Japanese, and that's the language I do all my curses in. He
correctly assumed that I meant ill when I yelled, what was to his ears at least, a load of gibberish, but didn't realise what I'd cursed him with. Paranoia consumed him, and he assumed the worst. Instead of coming to me and simply asking, he drove himself mad with worry and paranoia, to the extent that he committed suicide."
"So...what did you curse him with then?"
There was a lengthy pause.
"Hair loss."
"What?!" Deidara stared at him for a long moment, then burst out laughing. "You've got to be joking! You mean to tell me that the silly guy got so scared that he killed himself, and all that was actually going to happen was he'd lose a few hairs?" He went off in a fresh peal of giggles. "I would feel sorry for the poor bastard if that wasn't so damn funny! I mean, sure it was a tragedy and all, but..."
Once again – and this was swiftly becoming a familiar occurrence – Itachi was stunned into silence by the blonde's easy acceptance. The questioning, and almost threatening aura that had surrounded Deidara up until a moment ago had dissipated into mirth.
"Y'know, I'd assumed it would be something like that anyway." The blonde enigma said happily, wiping tears of laughter away. "I'd had you down as an intrinsically good person, and I'm pretty damn good with snap judgements of people." He grinned at his gobsmacked companion. "I've never been wrong so far, and I'm glad I wasn't this time either."
Itachi shook his head in disbelief. "So you aren't in the least bit perturbed that I indirectly brought about the death of a fellow human being? Not in the slightest?"
"Of course not! How were you to know that he was going to hang himself? You've already told me that you can't do ESP."
"Well, yes, but-"
"There you go then, don't feel guilty about something that wasn't your fault!" Deidara chirped, like it was the easiest thing in the world.
Itachi was beginning to feel trapped by the conversation, and searched desperately for an exit. He glanced up at the window, and noted the lighter sky.
"It's stopped raining."
Deidara allowed the topic change and nodded. "It stopped about fifteen minutes ago."
"What? You never said anything!"
He grinned at the bemused Uchiha. "Of course not. You would have insisted on driving me home, and we'd never have had this conversation."
Itachi stared, then a small smile curled his own lips. "You were that interested in the paranormal huh?"
"Yup!" Deidara had begun packing his stuff back into his bag, but looked up to give the Uchiha a bright grin. "And I'm glad I did!"
Itachi had to grin as well at that, as he grabbed his car keys and they headed downstairs and out. The conversation in the car was mainly about normal school stuff and music, since the blonde didn't live too far away and there was little point in starting another mammoth conversation only to have to cut it short.
When they reached the Deidara's house, Itachi pulled up on the road, and the blonde left with a cheery 'See you tomorrow.' That left the Uchiha alone with his thoughts for the quick drive back. And they were troublesome thoughts!
Without Deidara there he was now very conscious of how open and out of character he'd been behaving. Something wasn't right with the way he'd just spilled all his secrets like that, and it worried him that he of all people had been caught like that, he'd spent years training not to be! But caught in what? An illusion or hypnotism seemed to cover his symptoms, but at the same time he wouldn't be able to remember the incident if either were the case. But even if he were to work out what had got him chattering away like a gossiping girl, he still couldn't be sure who had done it to him. Deidara was out of the question, since he had obviously had no real idea that the paranormal really existed.
Still, hell of a coincidence for that to happen the one time he found someone to talk to about all this. Someone was defiantly screwing with his head!
Parking back on his own drive, Itachi ran back up to his room and turned his laptop on again, connecting his webcam to it. Once it had booted up, he opened the video-conferencing package and typed in an URL.
There was a moment of static before the line fixed and a face formed out of the pixels.
"Good Morning, SPR facility." A sleepy voice greeted in Japanese. Morning? AH, of course. Itachi had to grin wryly. With a nine hour time gap it was currently three in the morning over in the land of the rising sun.
"Morning Naru." He replied, switching to his second language. "What are you still doing in the office?"
The slightly blurry image of Naru yawned and rubbed its eyes in frustration. "Paperwork, we're in the middle of a tough case. What did you want?"
Itachi smirked at that; no 'how are you' or anything. Still, he'd have been like that at three AM too.
"I just wanted an opinion on something, but if this is a bad time..?"
Naru waved his hand irritably. "No, no it's fine. Go ahead."
Itachi quickly explained his worries concerning his change in personality, briefly mentioning Deidara, since it was the blonde's company that made him realise something was wrong.
"Hn, you sure you aren't possessed?" Naru mumbled sleepily.
"Positive, don't patronize me!"
"Okay, whatever." The ghost hunter sighed. "So you were normal this morning, then began acting oddly a later in the day, it becoming especially noticeable when this Deidara person was round?"
"That's right. I mean, for God's sake! I told him about Shisui and everything! I even did the spoon bending trick!" Itachi ran a hand through his hair in frustration. "This isn't like me at all!"
"You do know that people with ESP can influence the minds of those around them right? Especially people like you who don't have it."
The Uchiha nodded. "Of course I do, what's your point?"
Naru yawned widely again, propping his head up on one hand. "Did it not occur to you that Deidara could unknowingly be psychic?"