Away from the mayhem and in the safe confines of the kitchen, Fugaku sighed. He knew that even after all these years, his wife still harbored great resentment because of his part in Itachi's isolation. Only duty and love made her stay by his side, and the latter had to be painstakingly rekindled over the years. When she finally let him lay with her, he thoroughly displayed his gratefulness and loyalty to her, and it resulted into the child in Mikoto's womb at the present.
Still, as the hormones run rampant in her, Mikoto wouldn't be able to control her impulse to kill him if he was on sight for the early parts of the story. It was kind enough of her to warn him away, and he fully intend to enjoy the rare peace he could get since Kushina and her brood started visiting.
"Where are the special bowls?" he muttered to himself after retrieving the strawberry-and tea flavored ice cream from the freezer. Everything in the kitchen looked the same — flat, polished brown — to give emphasis to Mikoto's special cabinet. Even the fridge was camouflaged as a cabinet, useful to prevent Kushina's son from raiding it.
Naruto and his parents were practically family, with everything they had all suffered through during the aftermath of the Kyuubi attack. But Sakura was a guest, and guests are needed to be given special treatment, Mikoto had said, even if the guest was a child. Or else.
To his chagrin, Fugaku found that the thought of his flayed skin hanging and swinging on the clothesline came easily as breathing. It was one of Mikoto's promised punishments for him, made special because of the issue with their eldest son, and he had experienced enough trauma to know that Mikoto can fulfill her promise despite her round belly.
A deep sigh of abject misery permeated through the kitchen air. He now knew that what he did was wrong, but it was frustrating that relationship with his wife had degraded to revolve around their lost son. If it wasn't for Minato, Fugaku would never had gotten through the shield called Kushina to get to his wife.
Lost in his thoughts, the Uchiha patriarch chose a random cabinet and opened it none too gently… and met a blank stare.
"Itachi," he wearily greeted, "please pass the bowls."
The wooden cabinet was three feet high and less than two feet wide, a miracle that Itachi could fit in there alongside all the special kitchenware that Mikoto always lavishly spent her money on. Fugaku and Sasuke always steered clear of it for fear of skin-flaying, or worse, but Itachi was rarely seen that it made him special enough to bask in the special wares without repercussions. Mikoto would not punish her often-absent baby.
His son wordlessly handed the ceramic bowls he had stacked on his hands, no sound produced, not even the clink of porcelain. All that while, he didn't change his expression nor take off his eyes off the Uchiha clan head.
Fugaku pretended that he didn't notice how swiftly his son's fingers retreated before they touched his own. It hurt, the knowledge that your own son didn't trust you, but Fugaku firmly kept his gaze set, trying hard to memorize his son's features without the Sharingan. Itachi would run away if he sees even a glimmer of red in his eyes.
The last he had seen his son was… six months ago. He looked the same as before; nearly indiscernible eyes that peeked through long, unkempt hair. Twin lines that ran scant inches from his nose to parallel areas of his cheeks — something that Fugaku only saw because he was looking for it. Anything else was covered by a thick blanket that masked his son's posture, weight, and height. The only body parts that were visible aside from his face were his hands, and even that was stretching the truth; right now, Itachi's fingers barely skimmed the outside of his blanket.
After Itachi turned five years old, Fugaku has never seen how his eldest son grow, much less stand up.
"How are you?" he asked as a familiar jolt of guilt and pain surfaced. He wished to say something else, but he feared that Itachi would disappear at the slightest nod to the wrong topic.
His son didn't blink. "I'm fine."
A standard polite response one usually reserves for strangers or acquaintances, not family.
The uncharacteristic yet too familiar urge to cry came to the Uchiha patriarch. Stoicism generally was often used by the clan as a mask to deal with their pain of losing their loved ones, but it often bled into their everyday lives that outside parties always made the assumption that the Uchiha were just uncaring assholes. But the clan didn't care about that — or rather, used to not care until Minato came and fixed things — family came above all else. It was thus an unspoken rule to drop your mask as much as you can around your loved ones because you never know until they're gone.
If it wasn't for the Sharingan's clear and total memory recall, Fugaku would have forgotten how his son made an expression different from the impassive yet obviously wary face he now always sees on Itachi.
How had their relationship deteriorated into this?
No, Fugaku sighed; he knew how.
Partly because of the then-clan elders' insistence — Senile fools, he thought hatefully — and partly because of his own young delusions of how great and mighty the clan was compared to the others, Fugaku had taken a young four and a half Itachi to the edges of the battlefield during the Third Shinobi War. His son was a genius, after all; he'll be able to adapt and grow up faster to assume the duty and responsibility of an heir and bring the Uchiha clan to more greatness.
Instead of a shining future though, Itachi retreated to a shell, and secluded himself from society.
Coaxes, rebukes, treats — none worked. The boy would stubbornly declare that he didn't want to be a shinobi, to kill. For some reason, the boy got it in his head that that was the only thing shinobi did.
The elders ordered his punishment, but the boy did the unthinkable — he told the Fourth about private clan business, when Minato was visiting with Kushina.
Rumors had spread afterwards — most likely that bastard Shimura's fault — and shame washed over the Uchiha clan then; they had an errant, uncontrollable heir, or to the civilians' point of view, that they regularly push children to horrors. Inevitably, the pressure from all sides made Fugaku fold. The clan's reputation was in tatters, and his fellow clan heads all look down at him because he was failing as a father, and it was all because his son refused to obey.
"I never want to see you again," he had declared in cold fury towards his crying son.
And he didn't. Until two years has passed.
Guilt slowly piled as high as the problems of his clan and marriage, but when he had at last received the opportunity to see his son, all that regret was swiftly replaced by anger. The clan have severely suffered a low morale, and if not for the efforts of the Fourth and the clan heads (whom Minato had managed to recruit over the years), the clan who have done something drastic. Seeing the reason for all the trouble brought all the negative back into light, and he had rebuked his son again, and watched hope die from Itachi's eyes.
Perhaps Itachi would have altogether disappeared if his wife didn't begged for forgiveness and stopped pressuring him about shinobi matters. Instead, Itachi was there, but sparsely; evidences of his presence only lent to random household chores being done, or the food vanishing once you turn your back. Sometimes, Mikoto would be seen talking to furnitures and the like, so it could only be assumed that Itachi hid in those things despite thorough inspection after his wife's conversation provided none of his presence.
Suddenly, Fugaku was struck how mad he must look from an outsider's point of view, conversing with an inanimate object.
Then he ignored his discomfort and the urge to check for watchers. The person in front of him was more important. Itachi revealed himself — a rare occurrence for Fugaku altogether. It meant that he wanted something that only he, the father, could provide.
"Do you need something?" the Uchiha patriarch tentatively asked.
Eyes that he remembered to be bright and curious blankly stared. "There are guests," his son finally stated after a long minute.
Fugaku wished to close his eyes for patience, but feared that Itachi disappear if he did so. "Yes, there are," he replied. "Sasuke recently became a genin, and he invited his teammates for dinner." Something to draw his son into a conversation. Itachi probably already knew of these things — he always knew everything about the household, Mikoto said. For him to inquire of the guests meant that he was interested about them. Since his isolation, he never asked about the others, except one.
"Naruto and Sasuke are pleased," his son's soft voice cut through the memories of That Guest.
Taking the statement as a question, Fugaku simply inclined his head. The two had been best friends since birth, and they had aspired to be shinobi for years, after all.
"The girl. Her hair is pink."
The Uchiha clan head waited for more, but apparently, that was it. "Yes, her hair is pink," he replied.
Inane statements he normally didn't partake in, but he had gotten used to the fact that his son would always be bizarre — a sign of genius or insanity? Or even autism? No Yamanaka has ever managed to deal with his son directly — and if he wanted to spend time with him, he should simply just go along with it.
"Pink. Why?"
From 'guests' to 'pink' — yes, conversation with his son always involved pulling hair and teeth. It was always difficult to answer and keep track of the conversation. But Fugaku answered anyway. "I don't know."
A small furrow of the brow indicated that Itachi was trying to solve this latest conundrum. Fugaku is no psychiatrist, but even he can tell that his son was so socially stunted that almost anything from the outside world became a wonder to him.
He brushed away the familiar sadness of losing the chance to raise his son before jumping at the opening he found. "Why don't you ask her?"
Again, a long moment of staring ensued, and Fugaku resisted the urge to fidget as he returned his son's gaze. Then he heard him reply.
"The last person I revealed myself to ran away and spread the rumors."
Seven years ago, in an attempt to bridge the gap between the Uchiha clan and the village of Konoha, the Fourth Hokage had let the head family host the daimyo's representative at his home. Itachi had still been considered the heir at that time, so when Mikoto received the opportunity, she told him that he was to dress appropriately and greet the honored guest and his guards. He refused, until his mother told him that it could be a good chance to address the necessity of shinobi to the daimyo.
A pity that Mikoto had failed to specify where and when he was to greet the guests.
But it wasn't all her fault; they both failed to take into account that Itachi didn't like to mingle with groups of people, so it was inevitable that he greeted the delegate when the latter was alone.
Itachi also didn't like being seen in daylight or in vulnerable places — actually, at all — so he greeted him at night. The problem is, the time was near midnight, when everybody had turned in for the night, so the lights have been minimized. Especially inside the guest rooms.
Another thing to take into account was, by that time, Itachi had finally gotten over his anathema of Sharingan — for his own eyes, at least — that Mikoto had frequently seen him using it in the dead of the night in lightless places of the house.
And last of all was that, despite his faults, Itachi was a kind child. Polite, too — that was why he did not raise his voice, because he only wanted to greet the guest without awakening the others.
So one could only guess what the delegate thought when he was all alone in the dark, when he saw eerie red eyes peering at them as the shadows whispered, "Hello."
Despite the delegate screaming mad, Minato had optimistically proclaimed that the future will be secure for both the clan and village, but privately, Fugaku thought the clan's reputation had already been shredded, dragged through the mud, then burned to ashes.
And they were both right.
Rumors flew, that the Uchiha was haunted — after all, how did one boy get pass through the delegate's guards? — and that because of this, they were crazy. Instead of being shunned, the curious people flocked to the Uchiha, making the clan feel part of the village faster and better than before. They thought that they were doing a good cause for helping the clan of crazies; for some reason, the simple explanation of the clan's collective 'crazy' was enough to make them throw their past perceptions away, just because the Uchiha finally Made Sense.
Even now, the Uchiha couldn't decide whether to be happy with the village's united misguided notion of acceptance or kill themselves from the pity.
"He doesn't have the Sharingan," Fugaku replied in response to his son's statement, "so you should've greeted him with a light." Then he frowned, because the nagging feeling that Itachi would also greet the girl itched. "Neither can the girl see you."
To his surprise, Itachi nodded, accepting his counsel. "Mother said that it's polite to introduce oneself."
Not minding the fact that he never introduced himself to other guests after That Guest, Fugaku simply focused on the hope of his son reintegrating back into society. He nodded back. "Yes, tell her who you are."
Then his son's thoughtful expression shuttered back into blank. "I do not want to be a shinobi."
...How the hell did he go there? Fugaku has been careful not to mention anything shinobi-related, except that little bit of Sasuke attaining genin status. He resisted the urge to throw his hands and instead heavily sighed. "Itachi, I'm not going to force you anymore into becoming something you didn't want."
But the suspicion, once aroused, was difficult to to wipe from his son's eyes. Itachi eyed him, long and assessing before he declared, "The ice cream is melting. Good night, father."
Fugaku tiredly inhaled, deep and equally assessing. He could at least smell that his son isn't injured or stinky. Just… the smell of mothballs, fabric softener, and dishwashing liquid. Nothing personal, not like his scent when he was just born…
"Good night, son."
Knowing that it was what his son wanted, Fugaku closed the door of the furniture, slow because he didn't wish to frighten Itachi, but also because he was loathed to not see him again. There was also a small hope that Itachi would stop the door from closing and just linger, but it never happened. The cupboard soon closed with muted finality, and Fugaku stepped back.
A few blinks reoriented him back to the real world; the few times he had talked with his son always lent him a strange sense that he was stepping into another world, a place out of time. Most likely because of the rarity of their confrontations and his son's otherworldliness that they became precious.
The wooden door to Mikoto's special wares stood silent, as if mocking Fugaku that it held his most cherished treasure. The urge to yank the door open was strong, but he knew that Itachi would not be there by that time, and Mikoto would do worse than flay his skin if he got her 'special babies' destroyed.
Minato's words came to him then, "Think positive. To change your clan you must change yourself first."
Yes… he was able to talk with his son, wasn't he?
With a small smile, Fugaku grabbed the wasabi paste and mashed it with the strawberry-and-tea ice cream in one of the bowls.