Chapter 11
Yani bit back a scream as she woke up from her nightmare. As she tasted the sweet tang of her own blood in her mouth, she felt that Itachi was sleeping on a chair next to her bed. After carefully stretching, she jumped out of bed and landed on the floor without a sound. The jacket that she had been sleeping with was draped over Itachi's still form just as the grey dawn began to break.
The clangs of a pan woke him up from a restless sleep. As soon as he saw that the bed beside him was empty and he had the jacket, he made his way over to the kitchen.
"Whom are you cooking for?" He seated himself on the kitchen table and yawned.
"You," she responded, folding an omelet over, "but I'm hungry, too." When she turned to set the toast on the table, she found that the table was already set. When she looked at Itachi curiously, he just shrugged.
"I was a very good boy when I was little. I told you." Seeing the subdued look on Yani's face, he smiled and gestured for her to sit in the seat beside him. She slid the omelets on a plate and brought it over to him.
"So, did you sleep well?" he asked, after the plates had been set down. She put her head down in her arms and looked straight ahead.
"No, I had a nightmare," she responded quietly.
"Do you want to talk about it?" He sighed when she shook her head.
It's because you weren't next to me when I slept, she thought in her head. "Why didn't you sleep next to me; it looked uncomfortable on that chair"
He swirled the coffee in his cup before replying.
"I wanted to," he murmured, looking at the coffee, "I wanted to comfort you. Hold you until you felt safe again. Kiss you until every bad memory you had was replaced by a good one." Cracks ran up the side of the coffee cup as Itachi made an effort to control himself. But when he saw Yani, he laughed at her stiff expression. A dry laugh. "I'm kidding," he amended, taking a sip of coffee. "Well, I did want to sleep next to you, but I was afraid you would be scared." She turned her head in Itachi's direction. "I do look very similar to Sasuke."
"You don't." She disappeared into a room briefly and came back out with a sketchpad. "Look." As Itachi looked through the sketchpad, his eyes got wider.
"Is this your drawing notebook?" he asked, still flipping.
"No. That's the book I draw in when I have nightmares. That's why it's dated."
"Do these people show up in your nightmares?" As soon as she nodded, Itachi flipped to a picture of Sasuke.
"This is dated to over two months ago."
"I know. I started having nightmares about him then." He flipped through more pictures of Sasuke when abruptly, he ran into a picture of himself.
"…This was when I brought you back those color pencils, wasn't it?"
"Yes." She flipped back to Sasuke's picture. "See? You guys don't look alike." He examined the pictures. They were so realistic that he felt as if he was looking at a photograph.
"Do I scare you?" he asked quietly, flipping though more and more pictures of him and Sasuke. She nodded. "Why?"
"You smell different than other humans do. A wolf in sheep's clothing." Sighing he closed the book.
"I must smell very different if you're scared. And you must be very scared of me if I appear in nightmares," he said, with a touch of sadness. "But you draw very well," he added, smiling a little. "Could we draw together someday?" With that one sentence, Yani smiled fully, as brilliant as the sun breaking through the clouds.
"That would be nice."
"Kakashi-sensei!" Sakura shouted, "You have a gold rose hung on your door!" He and Naruto went outside.
"Wow, Sensei! You have a secret admirer!"
"Sure," Kakashi chuckled. He took the rose, looked into the forest, and headed back into the house.
"Get Yani to complete the mission with you." The shadowy form of Leader commanded. "Both of you seem to be spending a lot of time together, so you probably know her the best." Itachi bowed and disappeared.
When Yani heard a familiar whistle, she opened the door to her mansion. She felt her heart thumping strangely when she sensed Itachi standing in front of her with his gentle smile.
"Have you been well, birdie?" Scowling, she blushed and let him in. But when he smiled, she couldn't help but grin back. "Hey, do you want to go on a mission with me?"
"Sure!"
"I didn't even tell you what it was yet!"
"Anything is better than being stuck in his gigantic house alone." She bounded out the door, forcing Itachi to run to keep up with her.
"Okay, so this is the mission," Itachi finally managed to say when he stopped her. "A certain bureaucrat has not paid his debts back to us for killing off his competition. So we are to capture him alive and burn his house down."
"…Will there be children in the house?"
"Maybe. He has three sons and one daughter." Yani didn't think he had noticed the unsettled expression that flashed briefly across her face.
"…okay. Where's Kisame?"
"He was sick today." They started to move in the direction of the target's house and arrived in an hour.
"Ah, crap. Look at all those guard ninjas. He must have known we were coming. What a bother." Itachi ran his fingers through his hair. Suddenly, he glanced at Yani. "Why don't you try this one. I want to see what you can do." Crouching, Yani put her hand over the frost-covered ground. When she lifted it, there was a yellow dandelion, blooming as if it didn't care it was the middle of February. She put her hand over it again, and when she removed it this time, the dandelion was puffy and white. She picked it from the stem and blew the seeds away gently. Instead of scattering on the ground around her feet, the seeds floated to the courtyard where all the guards were keeping lookout. Yani mumbled something so softly that he could not hear it. But as soon as she did, all the guards collapsed in a snoring heap.
Only when they were halfway to the big house did Itachi realize there was a snake wrapped around Yani's shoulder.
"Ummm… Yani?"
"Yes, I know. His name is Petey." The snake faced him with a cold, swaying smile. Itachi deftly jumped and landed on a balcony next to a glass sliding door.
"It the person in the room him?"
"Yes."
"Open the door just a bit." Itachi did as he was told, and Yani slipped Petey into the room. In a second, the man in the room clutched his leg and fell off his chair. Quickly, the pair moved into the door. Itachi bound and gagged their target while Yani put Petey gently in a tree.
"I hope this poison doesn't kill him."
"It just paralysis people and knocks them unconscious." Itachi rolled the man over and started to tie his wrists.
"I'm almost done, can you set the fire?" When he had finished, he looked up to find Yani just staring at the doorway leading deeper into the house. The sound of children's voices floated up from the stairway.
"Yani?" She shook her head and pulled out a combustion tag.
"I'm sorry, I just—" Itachi took the tag from her and instead, placed an explosive tag on the stairway. He pulled Yani away from the stairway. "But if you do that they'll hear—" A deafening roar shook the entire house as Itachi held Yani tightly in his arms and buried his nose in her hair. Even if it was for a split second, Yani clutched Itachi's jacket and closing her eyes, let herself be held by that warm body. He gently disengaged himself from her clenching fingers and threw the man over his shoulders.
"It's a fire! Everybody run!" After shouting into the stairway, he brushed his fingertips over Yani's, beckoning for her to follow him.
After running for a couple of minutes, Itachi quickly dumped the bureaucrat on the drop off point and caught Yani in midair, who yelped. Then, carrying her like a child, he tried to put as much distance he could between the smoking ruins of the house and themselves before dark arrived. When he finally tumbled to the ground, they were at their meadow, the stars shining clearly above them. Yani scowled when she heard Itachi breathing hard.
"You didn't have to run that fast." She scowled even more vehemently when he didn't respond. Itachi almost stopped breathing when he felt a light hand on his chest. "But you know, you're a really good person. All the people in that house probably escaped alive."
"I'm not a good person," came his muffled reply.
"Well, you spared your brother," she started to count off on her fingers, "you bought me new color pencils, took care of me when I was sick—" Suddenly she found herself pinned to the ground, Itachi a tower of rage over her.
"I am not—" he tightened his hands on her wrist, making her wince, "a good person."
"Ow, Itachi, it hurts—"
"Listen to me!" Yani fell silent. "I killed them, Yani. I killed them all. And my mother cried out for me when she died. For me. I still killed her."
"But—" He swept her arms over her head, holding them in place with one hand. With the other hand, he roughly tilted Yani's chin up.
"If I raped you right now, would I be a bad person then?" Defiantly compassionate eyes stared back at him, without a trace of fear.
"No," she said softly. He held her gaze for a second and then broke away, letting go of her wrists.
"I am not a good person. The reason behind the terrible things I did doesn't matter. What matters, is that I did them. What matters, is that I took away my brother's childhood from him. What matters, is that I killed every person that had ever loved me. What matters," he put his head in his arms, "is that I have to keep doing these terrible things so I can keep up this façade." There was a silence and Itachi was sure Yani was disgusted with him. So when two hands folded around one of his hands, trying to warm it with her cold hands, Itachi's eyes flickered to Yani.
"You know what it means when you have cold hands?" She smiled and put his hand to her cheek. "It means you have a warm heart." He laughed in shock putting both his hands to his face.
"I have never met a girl like you. Ever." Then, he smiled and took both of Yani's hands and put them on his chest, underneath his jacket. "But I guess it's a good thing to have a warm heart, right?" Itachi pulled her to him, holding her, one hand on the back of her head, the other arm wrapped around her waist, waiting for her to pull away.
She didn't.