Let me start by apologizing for the delay; this chapter was written ahead of time, but I made some changes to it recently (I specifically had a highlighted note in caps instructing me to reread after a certain point) and I needed to make sure that I was happy with the changes before uploading it (which required me to plan +10 chapters ahead of the game to maker certain that the consequences of the decisions made in this chapter are ones I'll be content with later on so I don't have to rework anything). I did plan on updating it on time...it just took a week longer...
Oh, and one more interesting tidbit: THIS is the chapter for which the line "In a meeting of fate..." described in the summary pertains to (more or less).
In the meantime, here's to the longest chapter thus far! *cheers*
"Excuse my tardiness, I had a lot of work to finish today." He said, and set his lap top bag on the floor so he could reach out to shake his hand. "Itachi Uchiha. Pleasure to make your acquaintance."
Kisame stood up to shake Itachi's outstretched hand. "Pleased to make your acquaintance." He said, taking his seat.
Itachi was dressed like all the other people Kisame had seen since he arrived; black dress pants, a buttoned down shirt and a tie.
"Tell me about yourself, Kisame." Itachi said, crossing his ankle at the knee. He pronounced his name "Kee-sem-ay." Most people mispronounced his name, saying it "Kee-som-ay." Itachi was a first.
Kisame realized with a start that Itachi had asked him to talk about himself and didn't know what to say.
When he couldn't come up with anything, Itachi rephrased the question. "What's your story? Why do you want to room with me? What can you contribute?"
He pursed his lips and thought it over for a minute. Professional attire, quick-to-the-point; Kisame was beginning to think that this man didn't want a roommate just for company. "I'm not really sure what to say." He started awkwardly. Itachi's dark eyes were fixated on him, his gaze rigid as he waited for Kisame to continue. "I'm a hard worker. I can be neat. I can cook some halfway decent meals…" He trailed off uncertainly.
"What do you do for a living?" Itachi cut in.
This, Kisame knew the answer to. "I'm a mechanic at Suikazan Auto-Repair Shop. Ever heard of it? It's down the way, you take a left at—" Itachi shook his head. "I'm a mechanic." He settled on.
Itachi nodded. "Does it pay well?"
You don't look like the type to crawl underneath cars, Kisame wanted to say when he realized the purpose of the question. "Yeah, I guess it pays pretty good."
"Does it get busy there often?" Itachi asked.
Kisame thought about the car job he and Suikazan finished a couple of days ago. Since then, Kisame was helping Suikazan tidy up the place to see what he could sell and what he could keep. "It's been steady lately." Kisame said.
"I might bring my car down sometime for a tune-up if the chance arises. Can you give me a price range?"
This is where Kisame faltered. "Well, you see…we're closing up shop soon. Suik-" he started to say, and caught himself, "the owner, my boss, is retiring."
"How long have you been working there?" Itachi asked.
"Twenty two years." Kisame answered.
Itachi leaned onto his right elbow. "If you were loyal for all those years, couldn't you take over the business? After working there for all that time, you must know how to effectively run it, don't you?"
"That's what I said." He muttered, remembering back to his argument with Suikazan the day he learned the news.
"Have you lined up another job at a different repair shop then?"
Kisame scrunched his eyebrows together and sighed. "I tried, but they said that I lacked the necessary 'certification' and would need to go to school for two years to get certified."
"Do you have any other jobs lined up?"
"I do." Kisame said proudly, happy to let Itachi know that he wasn't a bum looking to mooch from the rich. "At the Hozuki Sandwich Co., that sandwich shop down by the bridge." Itachi looked unimpressed. "I start next Wednesday."
Itachi, who had been leaning back in his chair, head resting on his knuckles, was now leaning forward, slouching almost, with his knuckles pressed into his cheek now. "Anything else?"
Kisame's eyes darted around the floor as if he would find the answer Itachi wanted to hear somewhere in the rug. "No, not yet." He said uncertainly and remembered what Suikazan had told him about always making eye contact with the man interviewing him. Snapping his head up, he looked Itachi in the eyes. "I haven't had the opportunity to do so yet. I have a lot of things going on right now."
"I see. I think I've heard everything I need to know. I'll get back to you with my decision within the next week." Itachi said, reaching over the arm of the chair for his lap top bag.
The air was ripe with the promise of rejection, a feeling that Kisame was all too familiar with lately and he wasn't going to let this meeting go down like that.
"Wait!" Kisame said, halting Itachi's movements.
Itachi raised an inquisitive brow. "Yes?"
"Listen, I now I sound like bum who doesn't know what they're doing, but I've just…it's just, it's been hard, lately, you know?" Kisame asked him. Itachi's expression didn't change, and Kisame mentally kicked himself for saying what he'd said. Of course Itachi didn't know what he was talking about. "I used to live above the shop – the repair shop – but I moved out a month ago to stay with a friend, but she kicked me out to let her boyfriend move in—"
Itachi held up a hand to silence him. "I've heard enough. I'll get back to you later, Kisame." He said, pulling his bag up by the strap.
"Please, listen. Hear me out, please." Kisame pleaded. Itachi sat still and motioned for him to continue, clearly losing his patience. "Times are tough. I had a place to live. I had a steady job. If things were different, I wouldn't look like such a loser—"
"No." Itachi interjected, standing up now. "You would still be living at the auto-repair shop. Not sitting here wasting my time."
It had been twenty two years since Kisame's mother kicked him out of the house. Since he got a job at Suikazan's, things started to smooth out and go his way until just recently. It seemed as though everything stable in Kisame's life was falling out from under him, and through it all, he'd kept a pretty even head.
Something about Itachi's last comment unearthed the anger he felt at being kicked out when he was younger. Just then, something inside Kisame snapped.
"I bet you've always had it easy."
"Come again?" Itachi asked, his attention directed towards Kisame once more.
"I bet everything's come easy for you. You were probably brought up in an expensive, gated community, went to some private school, got straight A's throughout school and never had to work at the same time." Kisame seethed. He knew that he was probably taking things out of proportion but he couldn't stop now. The words just popped into his head and rolled off his tongue before he could think twice. "I bet your parent's paid your way through college and hooked you up with a good job because they know a guy. If I had the life you did, I wouldn't be 'wasting your time.'"
Itachi pursed his lips together and closed his eyes, inhaling in annoyance. "I'm not judging you based on your appearance or my assumptions of you."
Kisame looked down at his dark blue jeans. They were the nicest pair he owned, but regardless, did sport a small oil stain on the left thigh. Had he known he was being interviewed for the Nobel peace prize, he would've put a little more effort into his attire.
"I'm looking for a roommate so that I can pay off my student loans." Itachi continued and turned around to once again face Kisame, his eyes narrowed. "Had I not been caring for my brother while he worked his way through college, I would've paid them off sooner. In short, I'm looking for someone who can pull their own weight." Itachi said. "I'm sorry that things aren't going so well for you right now but I can't let you live with me free of charge."
"But if you would just give me the chance," Kisame said, rising to his feet to meet Itachi's gaze, "you waited this long to pay off your student loans, just give me a chance, I'll prove to you that I'm not a waste of time. I'll look for another job, and maybe even another. As many as it takes." He begged. Kisame knew that by this point, he was grasping at straws, but he couldn't afford to go back to Suikazan's. Not with the shop closing soon.
Kisame made sure to keep eye contact, hoping that maybe he would see something in Itachi's eyes that would tell him what the other man was thinking, but Itachi's expression was unreadable.
"Then you can kick me out." He said. "I want this so badly that I'm begging you to give me a chance. Itachi, I need this. If I don't pull my weight, kick me out and don't let me come back. That'll teach me a lesson."
Itachi studied him for a moment and closed his eyes with a sigh. "You have one week to find another job in addition to your pre-existing job at the sandwich shop."
One week? "If it's alright with you," Kisame asked uncertainly, knowing he was sailing into uncharted waters by asking this, "can I ask for a little longer? As I mentioned before, my boss is retiring soon, and our last job is in a few days. I won't have much time to search for a job this week since I'll be helping him close up shop."
Itachi averted his gaze to the arm chair for a moment before once again shifting his focus back on Kisame. He appeared to be considering the man's proposition in his head, discerning the pros and cons of allowing Kisame an extra week to find a second job and get his life in order before moving in with him. "Fine." He said after a long moment of thought.
Kisame closed in eyes in relief, happy that Itachi was giving him a fair chance at this. He liked to think that Itachi didn't merely agree with his logic, but that Itachi trusted him too.
"I will give you two weeks to find another job in addition to your pre-existing job at the sandwich shop." He continued, snapping Kisame's focus back onto the topic at hand. "But let me ask you this: do you have a place to live until then?"
Kisame nodded more eagerly than he probably should have before responding "Yes."
Itachi slowly nodded and rose to his feet. "If you find a job before then, call me to arrange a meeting time two Mondays from now." He said and pulled out his phone to confirm the date of their next rendezvous. "The eighteenth. If I do not receive a call from you, I will assume that you haven't yet found a job and will take my search elsewhere. Understood?"
Instead of eagerly nodding to everything Itachi said to him, Kisame carefully thought through the other man's words. "What time would be most convenient to call?" He asked.
"You may call whenever it is most convenient for you. I will say this, however, I am at work from eight in the morning to five in the afternoon so you probably won't be able to reach me. If that's the case, just leave me a voicemail and I'll check it when I have time." He said. When it was clear that Kisame's facial expression still held a hint of uncertainty, Itachi elaborated. "If I check my phone Tuesday morning and I haven't received a call from you, I will interpret that to mean that you have not found a job and I will take my search elsewhere. Does that sound fair to you?"
"Yes, that sounds fair." Kisame agreed.
"Good. I look forward to meeting with you again in two weeks, Mr. Hoshigaki." Itachi said, extending his hand for a handshake.
Kisame quickly scrambled to his feet and extended his own hand, grateful for the fact that it took a lot more pressure for his palms to begin to sweat. "Thanks for reconsidering."
"You can thank me after you find another job." He said, and hoisted his laptop over his shoulder.
Kisame remained standing long after Itachi walked in the direction of the elevators, and long after he disappeared inside of them. In two weeks, Kisame thought to himself, that could be me.
He stood standing like that for another minute or two when he realized that people were staring at him oddly and took his leave.
Outside, the sun had set behind the jagged horizon of the city skyline, draping the night in a hazy shade of bluish purple and giving rise to first few stars of the night if one looked closely enough.
Checking his own phone, Kisame decided to stop inside every shop on the way back to Suikazan's to pick up an application. He'd not only start his search immediately, but he'd land a job by the end of the week and prove to Itachi that he was more than suited to be his roommate.
He just hoped that Suikazan wouldn't mind if he arrived home later than expected.
And so Kisame has been presented with a challenge...will he rise to the occasion, or fall flat on his face in the process? Only time will tell...
Until next time!
~Sasori33-001
PS Chapter 14 is written and will be posted sometime tomorrow most likely. It's a Kisame chapter, and it's a good one!