I said I would update either yesterday or today, and I delivered *takes a graceful bow* Enjoy~

Itachi slowly opened his eyes to the obnoxious chiming of his phone alarm and willed himself to stay awake.

In one swift action, he thrust the comforter off of his tired body, allowing the cool air of the room chill his body.

He glanced over to his phone, which had stopped sounding. Do I want to know how late it is? He wondered. The answer didn't matter. He knew he slept through his alarm at least twice, maybe even three times and that it was later than he would've wanted to wake up. Reaching out to the bedside table where his phone sat, he picked it up and illuminated the screen.

7:36am.

Itachi groaned. Moving on auto-pilot, his legs swung over the bed, one followed by the other, while he lifted his upper body from the warm confines of his bed. He stretched his arms high above his head and yawned. I should've been in the shower by now. He thought, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.

Rising to his feet, he plucked his cell from its spot on the bedside table, taking it into the shower with him. In this manner, he would be able to silence the alarm when it sounded again. While it would've been easier to simply turn it off altogether, he feared that he'd be too tired at the end of the day to turn it back on. If that were to happen, he'd surely be late for work the following day. And given his track record as of late, he couldn't afford to be any later than he already was.

Before undressing, he turned the shower dial between hot and cold and adjusted it so that it was on the colder side. While an ice cold shower would definitely wake him up, it would also give him a terrible headache which was not the way he wanted to start off his Monday morning.

Just then, his alarm sounded from its resting place beside the sink, and this time, Itachi was ready for it, quickly dismissing it.

For weeks now, Itachi wondered if his neighbors were at all bothered by the intensity of his alarm. He'd never personally met his next door neighbors; for all he knew, he might not have had any next door neighbors to bother. However, ever since Kisame moved in, he often worried if the man could hear his alarm from his bedroom. Itachi felt sorry of course, as Kisame often worked during the early hours of the morning at the convenience store, returning before Itachi even woke up. But so far, he never brought it up.

At least, not yet.

But what other alternative did he have? Itachi couldn't remember having one night of sleep where he woke up rejuvenated and ready to start the day since Sasuke moved out. In the time since then, he tried everything from checking his alarm to make sure it was set to the correct time to increasing the volume on his phone to its max to going to bed earlier at night.

And still he found himself pressing his forehead against the wall of the shower while water cascaded over him wishing that he could get just a few more hours of sleep.

Should I see a doctor about this? He asked himself, pushing against the shower wall to continue washing himself.

"What seems to be the problem, Mr. Uchiha?" The doctor would ask.

"I've been exceedingly tired, lately." He'd say.

"Have you been stressed out lately?" The doctor would ask.

And Itachi would awkwardly shrug before answering. "I've been busy with work lately…"

Any doctor would tell him that his work was the cause of his fatigue recently. Kisame could even tell him that his work was the reason for his lack of energy. Why take time out of his day to see a specialist when he himself already knew the answer?

At 8:06am, Itachi should've been at work already or at least in on his way to work. Instead, he found himself stuffing his laptop in his bag along with all of the documents he had been working on the night before that he was too tired to properly put away before retreating to bed.

Upon exiting his bedroom, he nearly collided with Kisame who was heading towards the kitchen.

"Itachi?" Kisame exclaimed, pulling his phone from the pocket of his khaki's. "Aren't you supposed to be at work by now?"

"I should've been on the road half an hour ago, yes." He explained as he rushed out the door, not waiting to hear Kisame's reply. If the roads aren't busy, I might make it there by 8:30. He thought in the elevator. "If" being the key word here.

After an exhausting eight hours staring at thousands of numbers, numerous spreadsheets and countless calculations, making conversation with his new roommate was the last thing he wanted to do when he returned to his apartment that evening.

"There you are!" Kisame smiled, lounging on the sofa with his cell phone in his hand. "I was thinking of ordering pizza. Want any?"

Why must he insist on feeding me? Itachi frowned as he untied his shoes. "No thank you. I'm still full from lunch." He lied, mentally kicking himself when he realized that Kisame expected him to eat the sub he brought home for him the night before. In his haste to arrive to work on time, he had forgotten to bring the sub Kisame brought him the evening before, and due to the hellish traffic he encountered on the way there, he didn't even have time to get anything to eat for breakfast.

"Really? You're full from eating a club sandwich at lunch time?" Kisame asked him, knitting his eyebrows together in confusion.

"I went out to eat with a couple of co-workers for lunch today." He lied. "I ate a rather big lunch and I'm still full."

"Somebody's birthday?" Kisame asked.

Having assumed that Kisame was done talking, Itachi walked over to the fridge to put away his half eaten bagel with cream cheese he'd eaten for lunch instead. "Yeah."

"How old are they?"

"Forty-three." Itachi replied, unfazed by how easily the lies passed his lips. For the most part, he considered himself a relatively honest person, somebody who could be trusted, but when a stranger inquired about his personal life, even if that stranger was his new roommate, he resorted to whatever he needed to say to protect himself.

Even if that meant putting up walls and telling countless lies.

Aware that the subject matter of his lies concerned something as trivial as his eating habits, it was a topic that made Itachi self-conscious, regardless. He knew that his eating habits weren't outstanding recently, but Kisame didn't need to know the reason why.

"I've been working myself to death in a feeble attempt to distract myself from constantly worrying about my younger brother." He imagined explaining to Kisame.

While Kisame wasn't dumb by any means, describing the nature of his relationship with Sasuke was one of the last things Itachi wanted to spend his evening doing. How could this man ever understand when he had never even met Sasuke? The answer was simple: he couldn't.

"Hello, I'd like to order a large pizza." Kisame spoke into the phone.

With Kisame distracted, Itachi took the opportunity to retreat to his bedroom. Once inside, he walked over to the desk where he sat his bag, carefully removing the sleek laptop from its inner confines and set it on his desk.

Strolling over to the bed, he briefly considered whether or not to take his bagel from earlier out of the fridge. He eventually decided against it, as doing so would prompt another conversation from his loquacious roommate.

He'll probably ask if I want to watch TV with him next. Itachi mused as he loosened his necktie. But if I don't make myself a cup of coffee soon, I won't accomplish very much. Wanting to minimize the amount of social interaction with Kisame as much as possible, he decided to at least start his work until the numbers on the screen started to blur together. Only then would he allow himself to make a cup of coffee.

That'll be my fourth cup today…Itachi considered.

Rising to his feet, he walked the short distance from his bed to his desk, determined not to let himself fall prey to the comfort of his bed as he did so many times the week before. Thankfully, Kisame was too busy working one of his two jobs to notice anything out of the ordinary.

He hasn't known me long enough to know what can be construed as being ordinary behavior verses unordinary behavior. He thought to himself, lifting the lid of his laptop to begin with his work.

Even so, Kisame's words the night before still lingered in the back of his head.

"Just take it." Kisame said, cutting him off. "You're always so busy working in your bedroom that I never see you eat anything." He said. "So I thought I'd bring you something quick to eat while you work. You don't have to eat it tonight; bring it to work with you tomorrow or eat it for dinner tomorrow night."

With his cursor positioned above the Excel icon, ready to open his work and continue where he left off earlier, he made a split second decision to open up the internet instead.

"Fatigue and loss of appetite." Itachi whispered under his breath as he typed the words into the search query.

The results yielded a variety of explanations as Itachi expected. Scanning the top search results, he noticed various blogs detailing his symptoms, tips for healthy living (which he had no desire to read), and a myriad of health articles describing the symptoms for ailments such as Addison's disease, anemia and cirrhosis.

"Pale skin…" Itachi read under the description of anemia. "I've always been pale." He muttered, examining his right forearm. Unable to tell if he was any paler than usual, he continued to read. "Weakness, dizziness…" Not that I remember lately…

"Symptoms of Addison's disease includes fatigue, lethargy, muscle weakness, low mood or irritability, loss of appetite…" The heading under an article titled "Addison's Disease" read.

While he was exhibiting symptoms of fatigue, lethargy, and loss of appetite, he hadn't shown any muscle weakness besides the time when he was helping Kisame to carry his outdated television up to their apartment. Even if I was in perfect health, I'm sure I still would've struggled while carrying that thing. He knew that Kisame was older than him, but the TV he owned had to have been older than Kisame himself if appearance was anything to go by.

"Low mood or irritability…" Itachi reread. He'd been in a low mood ever since Sasuke told him of his plans to move out which had been a little over a month ago. Surely that's not a symptom… He dismissed. As far as irritability went, the only evidence he needed of that was currently watching TV in the next room, waiting to engage in a conversation with him when he ventured out to fix himself a cup of coffee.

"Cirrhosis – fatigue, nausea, decreased appetite, weight loss…" Itachi read aloud. Of all the symptoms listed, nausea was the only one he hadn't felt and read the subtext underneath the heading. "Cirrhosis is chronic scarring of the liver." It read. Itachi had seen enough medical dramas in his life to know if there was a problem with his liver. "There'd be more obvious signs." He rationalized. Yellowing skin and corneas were telltale signs of liver damage, right? Although it had been a while since Itachi examined the color of his corneas in the mirror, Kisame would've commented on it when he arrived back home.

"Depression (major depression) symptoms: Memory difficulties or personality changes, fatigue, loss of appetite, sleep problems, aches…" He read, his eyes widening with the realization that he could be depressed.

Immediately he clicked on the link and scrolled down to the list of symptoms commonly associated with depression. "Feelings of sadness…sleep disturbances, including insomnia or sleeping too much, tiredness and lack of energy…changes in appetite – often reduced appetite and weight loss…anxiety, agitation or restlessness…trouble thinking…"

And with every new bulleted item on the list, Itachi found himself wondering how long he'd been this way.

"Then downsize." Sasuke had suggested at the cemetery, in reference to his decision to save money by looking for a roommate. "It would save you the work of living with another person because I know you, Itachi. You'd sooner sell your car than live with a total stranger if it meant saving money. This is just a shallow attempt to get me to change my mind so that I can come crawling back to you so you won't be lonely, even if you're not saying it." He remembered Sasuke saying.

Back then, Sasuke's words hurt. And ever since that day, Itachi hung on those words and asked himself if there was truth in Sasuke's statement. Was he really just doing all of this to convince Sasuke to change his mind? Was he being selfish for wanting his younger brother to make the best decisions so that he didn't get hurt in the end?

These were the questions Itachi asked himself on his way to work every morning and afternoon while the radio played in the background. These were the questions he thought about when his work wasn't making any sense.

It was these questions that kept him up late at night as he thought of things he could've said or done to result in a different outcome.

It was Sasuke's words that made Itachi throw himself into his work with more vigor than before, going as far to take it home with him and working through the weekends on projects that could've easily waited until Monday morning. It was his increased work ethic that depleted all of his energy each day and caused him to forget about lunch.

But above all, it was Sasuke's unwillingness to talk to him that made him this way.

Albeit a crucial installment to the plot, this chapter was difficult to write! But I'm glad that it's written and excited for the next chapter which is also set to be an Itachi chapter.

Don't forget to review! (I know you won't, The Secret Sal ;) )

Until next time~

Sasori33-001

PS I'll probably get around to updating sometime within the next week (no promises, though!) Feel free to check my profile page where I frequently update story statuses if you're ever curious about my progress.