For those of you out there who are unable to grasp the blatantly obvious, I'll go right ahead and say that my scheme was not going according to plan.

On one hand, my partner had protected me on the battlefield, so he was definitely becoming more attached to me. On the other hand, he had broken one of our numerous unspoken rules, and made physical contact with my body. Moreover, he had harmedme. This in and of itself was not necessarily a huge setback, despite being my fears realized.

He had without a doubt acted out of desire to keep me safe, but had not thought to restrain himself in the process. As a result, I had contusions on my lower back, from where I had been manhandled by him. Yes, I said manhandled. What are you going to do about it?

I decided not to bring up my injuries, and simply return to the base in the hopes of allowing our partnership to return to its previous state of only necessary communication, no friendliness, nothing but the barest items required for a partnership. My plan simply had to be abandoned. If this was how Kisame showed his affections for me, I could likely end up dead trying to prevent him from killing me.

Of course things couldn't be that easy, as that night later proved to me.

You see, I was fully aware that my partner observed my actions at night; we couldn't trust each other, after all, so constant observation was required. For reasons that need not be stated, we never brought it up.

But that night, he broke yet another unwritten code and mentioned the bruises that I had been attempting to conceal from his gaze.

When I spun around to confront him about this, I could distinguish a terrified look in his eyes. He knew as well as I did that he had overstepped his boundaries by opening his mouth and speaking then. Under normal circumstances, I would have brutally slaughtered him for admitting to watching me while I undressed. However, I was partially to blame here, both for allowing such behavior to persist, and not taking more care to veil my blackening marks from his eyes. So, I'd have to settle for maiming several small animals tomorrow instead.

Suddenly, the metaphorical light bulb went off in my head. Despite having Sharingan eyes, I did not possess the ability to rotate my neck like an owl, and thus could not see the full extent of my injuries. Kisame, on the other hand, was in the perfect position to look over my wounds. Plan in hand, I inquired as to my physical state.

He responded by sitting on the end of our shared mattress, calmly looking at my bruises but refusing to even brush his hand against the wounds. It was a good thing too, because even my patience had its limits, and at that point more physical contact would have sealed his fate.

I nodded when he informed me that the wounds were only superficial, satisfied with the report. And then, he confirmed my suspensions of his mental inferiority to me by inquiring as to how I received these injuries. How dumb can you…but, I digress.

Had I made eye contact then, I probably would have snapped, so I tactfully looked away. He seemed to realize the origin of my wounds at that, and started laughing at his foolishness. I failed to find any humor in the situation, and remained silent. He stopped laughing then, and apologized for his actions. I accepted, requested that he keep lookout first tonight. Afterwards, I crawled into our bed, intent on sleeping.

As I lay there, I thought about Kisame's apology. No one else ever takes the time to say they're sorry to me; not my family members when they were alive, not my friends (well, when I had friends) and most certainly not the other Akatsuki members. It was odd, to think that the man I feared so much was also the only human being on the planet who ever had, and ever would, show me an ounce of respect.

Perhaps I could still be a little friendly to him.

-n-

Over the next few weeks, my new plan disintegrated. The blasted shark would not simply let the incident die, and kept trying to "make it up" to me!

Always he would start conversations, ask if I wanted to train with him, and the like! Had our years together taught him nothing about my solitary lifestyle, my antisocialness, my-I need to stop there, before I strangle something.

At first, I was firm in my resolve to break apart the relationship I'd forged between us, and said barely anything in reply, never accepting his offers. He persisted, and eventually I gave him more than two syllables for an answer. Eventually, I even sparred with him.

This in no way, shape, or form means that things between us became any better. I was on high alert now, for any signs that I could accidentally be harmed by Kisame again.

Despite my best efforts, though, I was completely unable to stop another incident from happening.

It occurred during one of those blasted days were I was imprudent enough to accept an offer to train with Kisame outside of our base. I took him up on the offer mainly because I was unable to think up an appropriate excuse within an acceptable time frame, and had nothing better to do at the moment. And so, moments later, he and I were outside the base in a small clearing, surrounded by trees and silence.

It had been a long while since I'd trained with my katana, and brought the weapon along with me. As always, my behemoth of a partner had Samehada in his hands, and looked ready for a fight. We had both forsaken our cloaks, due to the summer sun beating down on us from above, and now stood facing each other on the battlefield.

For a few moments, nothing happened. Then, he lunged at me. I knew he would be the one to make the first move; every instant he waited gave me more time to formulate a plan. I didn't even attempt to block him; it would have been useless. Rather, I ducked and rolled, before coming up and swinging my blade at his exposed back. He moved out of the way, and attempted to attack again. The fight was on.

Many ideas or rules are made by the two of us, yet never spoken aloud. During that fight, another unsaid rule was made; for that battle, there would be no special techniques. Only hand to hand combat.

Of course Kisame would have the advantage in such a situation, but I was not about to back down from such a challenge. Still, I could only do so much against a tai jutsu specialist like Kisame, and thus spent most of the battle dodging. Our fight went on for hours like that, until two fatal mistakes were made.

The first occurred when I made a faulty step. The second was when Kisame temporarily forgot he was sparring with his partner, and not an actual opponent on the battlefield. So, when I nearly tripped, Kisame wasted no time in slamming his sword into my side.

On the bright side, it didn't shred my torso to pieces. That's because when it collided with my body, I was sent flying into a nearby tree from the force with only minor cuts.

I slammed into the plant with enough force to knock the air out of my lungs. As I slid down to the ground, trying to catch my breath, I heard Kisame swear and drop his sword to the ground. Forsaking his weapons, he ran to my side, and crouched down by me. "Itachi, where'd I hurt you?!" He didn't ask if I was hurt. He knew he'd harmed me, and skipped straight to asking where he had injured me.

This reminded me of him apologizing. I can't remember the last time someone had bothered to ask me about my wellbeing. If I had ever been hurt back in the days of being a Konoha ninja, I would be expected to heal up and then get right back into the field. I was not someone that needed to be worried about, so no one ever bothered to.

This concern for me was a bit of a shock, and could possibly be the only thing that kept me from killing my partner for this physical harm. "My torso," I answered simply. My shoulder was bleeding as well, but the crimson liquid dripping down my arm made that plain to him.

Kisame looked me over for a few moments, actually crossing the line again to touch me with his fingers as he probed various spot where he believed he had broken or cracked a bone, before helping me to my feet and escorting me back into the base to have Kakuzu give me a more thorough examination, as well as stitch up my shoulder. All the while he was saying, "I'm sorry," again and again. It became very annoying, and I finally told him none-too-kindly to be quiet.

When we finally located Kakuzu within the walls of the Akatsuki hideout, he was arguing with Hidan over some trivial matter, and it took Kisame a good five minutes to get them to stop arguing long enough to focus his attention on me.

I was seated on their bed within moments, and Kakuzu began the slow process of looking over my injuries. His touch held none of the caution or concern of Kisame's hands; it was as rough and cold as any doctor's. He muttered something about my wounds, and then promptly stitched my shoulder back together. After confirming that my partner hadn't broken any bones, he dismissed us from the room, and promptly began arguing with his partner again once we were in the hall. How those two get along with each other long enough for sex will forever be beyond me.

"Itachi?"

I turned around in the hallway, and raised a brow. My partner was shifting from foot to foot, and slowly held out a balled up piece of clothing for me. "You left your shirt outside."

I looked at him for a few brief moments before the words finally sank in. when they did, I calmly yet quickly extended my hand and grabbed my clothing. As I snatched my shirt, my fingers briefly brushed against his hand.

I didn't outwardly react to the contact, and he tried to do the same. In seconds, my shirt was back on, and I was heading back to our room, while Kisame ventured outside to retrieve our weapons from where they'd been discarded.

Although the touch was brief, the feel of his skin against my own, as well as the strange look in his eyes I saw as we made contact shattered my new plan into a thousand pieces, and convinced me to return to my original scheme. I may become injured at some point in time, but my plan could still work.