*swims to the surface and gasps for air* CHAPTER 23 HAS BEEN WRITTEN! WHOOT! I don't know why I'm so excited! Maybe it's because I love this story so much (it's the longest story I've written to date! ;) ) and I had the planning done a week ago, I think, but was too tired to actually sit down and write the stupid thing (plus, I hadn't uploaded my other story - Things Better Left Unsaid for a while, so I needed to plan and write that out...) but I finally sat down and wrote it for y'all's (Y'all meaning (primarily) The Secret Sal (love you, honey~), Moo-cow300, KamuiMaster, and Nanaki Lioness) viewing pleasure.
So enough rant from me - here's chapter 23~ (and it rhymed! *tears of joy*)
When Kisame didn't see Itachi when he awoke at 5:30am on Monday morning, he thought nothing of it. Itachi didn't have to be at work until eight, and never woke up until half past seven so it was natural to assume that he wouldn't be awake so early in the morning.
When Kisame didn't see Itachi when he returned to the apartment at 2pm, he thought nothing of it because Itachi didn't return back from work until after 5pm.
What Kisame didn't expect, however, was for Itachi to emerge from his bedroom at 3:23pm and restarted his phone. "Aren't you supposed to be at work right now?" He asked, and checked the time on the television, which read 3:24pm. "It's barely 3:30; you don't get off until five, right?"
Without offering an explanation, Itachi slowly approached him and handed him a sealed white envelope with Kisame's name neatly printed on the front. Using his index finger to pry open the seal, he dumped the thin contents onto his hand. "A check?" He asked him.
"I'm refunding your rent from the time you've been here."
Kisame examined the check in his hands. 'One thousand one hundred and eighty-two dollars and fifty cents paid to the order of Kisame Hoshigaki' it read. "Why?" He asked and looked to Itachi for an explanation.
Itachi sighed and looked away. "Something came up and I need you to leave."
Had Itachi asked him to leave for an afternoon while he had company over, Kisame would understand. Heck, he'd be content locking himself in his bedroom for the duration of whatever Itachi was planning to do. But something about the check lying in his palm told him that this wasn't temporary. This was permanent. "Leave? Are you kicking me out?"
Itachi nodded. "I'm sorry for the inconvenience."
Kisame handed it back to him. "I won't accept this."
Itachi blinked in confusion a few times. "I'm refunding your rent; either take it or leave it."
"What do you mean 'something came up'?" He asked, rising to his feet. "What? Are you having an argument with your girl or something? If that's the case, then I can leave you two alone if you need some privacy, but I'm not leaving altogether!"
"Kisame, that's not what I'm—" Itachi started to say.
"Does she want to move in with you? Is that it?" He demanded to know. And as soon as the words left his lips, all he could see in front of him was Miru sitting on the couch beside him, her honey colored hair cascading over her shoulders as her eyes looked anywhere except at Kisame. "I'm asking you to move back in with Fuguki, above the auto-shop."
Itachi might as well have recited her exact words. And had Suikazan still been alive, Kisame had no doubt in his mind that Itachi would've.
"There isn't a girl involved, Kisame." Itachi sighed, clearly frustrated with Kisame's lack of cooperation.
"Then why are you kicking me out all of a sudden? Did the rent increase? Am I not pulling my weight around here? If so, you sure as hell didn't come to me about anything, so I deserve an explan—" He started to say when Itachi handed him the check again.
"Something came up and I need you to leave."
Kisame clenched his fists. "Where exactly do you expect me to go, Itachi? Where?" He said through gritted teeth. "Back to my boss' place? Back to the autoshop? Do you expect me to stay with my friend and her boyfriend who feels threatened by me or something? Is that what you were thinking?"
"Look, I'm sorry that it has to be this way, but I'm willing to reimburse you for the rent that you've already paid during your time here. Maybe you can use it to find another place to live." Itachi said.
Kisame threw his hands up in disbelief. "I looked for a second job in order to live here, Itachi! So that I could help pay my half of the rent! You think if I wanted to live somewhere else, I would've worked as hard as I did to be living where I am now?!"
Itachi cast his gaze to the floor. "Sometimes, things don't always go according to plan." He said and handed him the check once more. "You have two options: take the check, or don't take the check. Either way, you have to leave." He said.
"I can't accept that." Kisame muttered as he stalked past Itachi and headed for the front door. "I'm leaving, but I'll be back later to get ready for my second job." He said. "And I hope that by the time I return, you realize how unreasonable you're being." And pulled the door shut behind him.
For all his tough talk, Kisame found himself between a rock and a hard place as he stared at the place where the edge of the water met the sky, divided only by the hazy heat waves drifting on the horizon.
Without a prior plan in mind, he pulled out his phone and dialed a familiar number.
"Hello?" Miru asked.
"Hey, Miru, how's it going?" Kisame greeted her with a fond smile.
"Kisame! I'm doing great! How are you doing?"
"I'm doing fine, I guess." He answered and switched the phone over from his right hand to his left.
"Babe? Who's that on the phone?" Miru's boyfriend asked from the background.
As soon as he heard her boyfriend's voice, he immediately hung up the phone. It wasn't a mystery to anyone that Miru's boyfriend didn't like him. Kisame didn't have a problem with the man except for his extreme jealousy and overprotectiveness of Miru.
Just then, his phone started ringing again. It was Miru. And again, Kisame disconnected the call. For all he knew, Mr. Overprotective was calling him back to give him a piece of his mind and to warn him to stay away from his girlfriend.
Kisame sighed and glanced at his forgotten phone lying on the guard railing. It seemed that he had received a text message from Miru.
"Is everything alright?" It read.
"Yeah." He typed back and pressed the 'send' button. Had it been three months ago, Kisame would've gladly told her all of the details of his morning. Miru was a girl, after all, and girls, he knew, like to listen to other people's problems. But Miru was different from most girls Kisame came into contact with. When you told her something, she didn't listen just to be polite or to get the latest juicy gossip; Miru genuinely cared about the lives of others and wanted to do whatever she could to help. That's why she made such a good school teacher to young children. She wanted nothing more than to see them succeed and grow under her tutelage.
In that respect, she hadn't changed. It was her life that was slowly evolving. She had a job and a boyfriend whom she loved (Kisame didn't know why, but that wasn't any of his business). She was building a life for herself and had enough to worry about without Kisame adding his own problems into the mix.
And with Suikazan gone, the only option he could see was climbing over this stupid railing and jumping over the edge, putting an end to his problems and ending his pain. With his death, he wouldn't have to worry about finding a place to live. Somebody else would take care of his body for him. And he wouldn't have to worry about working two jobs anymore. All of his problems would melt away.
"Or you could try changing Itachi's mind." He could hear Miru saying inside his head. He didn't think Miru even knew Itachi. Did he even talk to her about him before? He didn't think so.
While that was certainly an option, it was mission impossible. In the time Kisame had been arguing with him earlier, Itachi's face was unreadable as he handed Kisame the check. How did someone like himself change the mind of someone like Itachi?
"Something came up and I need you to leave." He remembered Itachi saying over and over.
What does that mean? Kisame wondered. He didn't know Itachi well enough to know what was going on in the man's life to even begin to fathom what he meant when he said that "something came up." Although Itachi admitted that a girl wasn't involved, that didn't mean that he didn't have a girlfriend. But if he did, Kisame never saw her before. It also stood to reason that she didn't visit while he was at work because Kisame never shared his work schedule with Itachi. Hell, the man spend almost 70% of his time in his bedroom for God's sake! What was there to hide?
More importantly, what was there to hide that would force Itachi to kick him out?
At 7:33pm, Kisame was more than halfway home which left him an hour and half to spare before he needed to be one his way to the convenience store. An hour and a half I have to spend with Itachi. He thought bitterly. At this hour, Itachi was no doubt in the apartment, probably locked away in his bedroom, lying in wait for Kisame to return.
Kisame chuckled to himself as he walked down the street. He probably moved all of my stuff into the hallway with a sign labeled "free." He thought darkly.
If it hadn't been for a police officer asking him if he was planning to commit suicide or not, he would've spent the time he had before he needed to get ready to go to work standing at the bridge instead of returning home to whatever hell awaited him there.
And of course, with his luck, Itachi was standing in the kitchen washing dishes when Kisame returned. Of course. He thought. Maybe if I act like I'm not here, he won't notice me.
"Do you have a minute to talk?" Itachi asked and dried his hands on a nearby washcloth.
Shit. "About what? We already talked. You want me gone, and I'm not leaving. What more is there to talk about?" He asked. "Let me guess: you want me out by the end of this week? Is that it? Am I supposed to be searching for places to live during my spare time?"
Itachi sighed and leaned back against the counter. "About that. I'm really sorry about earlier. There's a lot going on in my life right now and I don't know if I can handle living with another person at the moment." He said.
Kisame raised a questioning brow. "Meaning…what exactly? You're the one who took on a roommate in the first place, may I remind you. What? Does it have to do with your job? Are you getting fired and need to downsize? Because if that's the case, I'd rather you just be frank with me instead of—"
"I have cancer."
And just like that, the bomb was dropped. "What does that have to do with anything?" Kisame asked him. "Are you—are you serious right now?"
Itachi slowly nodded. He wasn't looking at Kisame, or at the floor, or anything really. Just staring somewhere in the far distance.
"So let me get this straight; if you have cancer, then why do you need to—" Kisame attempted to reason when Itachi cut him off.
"I'm going in for treatment this Friday."
"This Friday?" Kisame asked.
Itachi nodded.
It was Monday, which meant that by the end of the week, Itachi would be in the hospital receiving treatment for a potentially fatal illness. "Okay…so…"
"And I won't be back for a month."
If Kisame wasn't already at a loss for words, this one left him completely speechless. "What do you mean you won't be back for a month?!" He'd never in his life heard of staying in the hospital for treatments lasting an entire month. Pregnant women didn't even stay in the hospital for that long! So why was Itachi…?
"Last Friday," Itachi began to explain, "I was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia, which is a cancer of the bone marrow. I need to go in for treatment as soon as possible, but this specific treatment lasts for four weeks." He said and pursed his lips. "I'm not entirely comfortable leaving you here in my apartment by yourself for that amount of time."
"So what you're basically saying is that you don't trust me." Kisame articulated, taking a few steps into the kitchen where Itachi was standing. "Is that what this is all about?"
Itachi averted his gaze. "I've only known you for about a month now. And while things seem to be running smoothly so far, you're still a stranger whom I barely even know."
If you weren't cooped up in your bedroom every day, maybe you would know me better than that. Kisame wanted to say. "That's probably because I'm so busy working myself. And during the short amount of time that I am free, I'm either sleeping, eating, or watching TV." He carefully explained. One wrong move and he'd miss his opportunity to earn Itachi's trust. "With a chaotic work schedule like mine, how much trouble could I get into?"
"I don't know, Kisame." Itachi said. "I just…there's been a lot on my mind lately, and I don't know if I'm up for taking any chances—"
"Please let me stay." Kisame said. "I've been through a lot these past few months. I've moved from place to place and now I feel like I've found a place to stay…for a while at least. I've worked hard to earn your respect and gain your trust and if you let me stay, I'll prove to you once again, that I'm worth taking chances on."
For what felt like forever, Itachi stared at him, looking him up and down as if judging his worth based on his current appearance alone. But through it all, not once did Kisame break eye contact with him, not even to examine if his jeans contained any unflattering oil spills from his time at Suikazan's.
"Fine." Itachi sighed. "I'll let you stay." He said and walked over to the living room table.
Kisame didn't move from his spot and watched as Itachi leaned over the coffee table where the discarded check lay and tore it in half.
"Thank you." Kisame told him.
"I'm going to bed for the night." Itachi said with a nod and a yawn.
Kisame looked at the time on the stove. "Shit. I gotta get ready for work soon too!" He said and quickly jogged over to his bedroom.
"Oh? And Kisame?" Itachi said from over his shoulder.
"Yeah?"
"I'm putting my trust in you, Kisame. Don't break it."
And thus, Itachi has not only dropped the bomb, and fired shots, but he's also laid down the rules - way to go Itachi-san!
I can't say for sure who's perspective the next chapter will follow yet...we'll see.
As always, check my profile page for any updates on next chapter's progress!
And with that said, I bid you good-bye,
Until next time~
Sasori33-001
P.S. $2,365 is Itachi's actual rent (meaning, I researched where he actually lives and that is the rent of the place). If you split that in half, Kisame pays $1,182.50 a month.