Chapter 24 - Ankle Memory

Sasuke and Yakata walked in silence for the longest time, passing out of the village, over the hills and into the forest beyond the village's borders.

It was strange, then, that the first thing Yakata found himself asking was, "The Woman of the Woods… She, she, she doesn't… really exist, does she?"

Sasuke looked over his shoulder at him, eyebrows tangled in confusion. "Excuse me?"

"Well, it's just… some, some stories got around after y-you and your, um. Students stayed here," Yakata continued. He looked sideways, at the passing trunks, as he talked. "'course, I don't, I don't think she lives here, like, like some of the other guys were saying, but, um… Does she… does she really live in Konoha?"

Sasuke's chuckle was a strange thing to hear. "No, it's just an urban legend," he said. "You shouldn't believe in things like that, much less be afraid of them."

"Ah…" Yakata said. He didn't look at Sasuke after that, not for a fair amount of time.

(Why did he have to bring that up? He resolved to be more careful in conversation from there on out. Stupid, stupid…)

Nothing more was said for a good long while. The land soon started looking unfamiliar, they began passing villages, in the distance and up close, that Yakata did not know. Sasuke's pace was steady, and quick, for a walk. But Yakata was able to keep up.

Eventually, they decided to stop for something to eat. Yakata suggested that he maybe eat the package from his mother, but Sasuke stopped him. "There's a restaurant not five minutes away from here. You can eat that later, when we have to stop for dinner. We are going to have to camp out tonight, you know. Won't reach Konoha until tomorrow evening, at this pace."

"Oh, I… I didn't bring anything to, to sleep out in, I'm, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," Yakata said. "I should have thought of that…"

Sasuke sighed, loudly. He closed his eyes, then opened them again. "That's… okay. You can use my kit."

"Oh, no, I, I couldn't-"

"I'm used to it. You can use my kit," Sasuke said, again. It was an order, not a suggestion.

Yakata took a breath in and held it there for a moment, before exhaling. "Okay, if you… if you say so."

The restaurant was a little isolated sort of thing on the outskirts of a town, by the side of the road. The old woman who ran the place seated them and gave them menus, and told them she could take their orders any time.

"Order anything you want," Sasuke said, once again, like a command.

Yakata didn't know what to get. "There's, um. Wow, lots of choices…"

"Well, just pick one, okay? Don't worry about cost," Sasuke said.

"I wasn't… well, okay," Yakata said. So many of the dishes had strange, exotic names. Empress Chicken? What in the world was that? He wondered why they couldn't all have simple names, like Beef and Broccoli. Only, Yakata didn't really like beef, so… "I'll get the cabbage with… ginger? That, that comes with rice, right?"

Sasuke's eyebrow rose. "Just that?"

"Well, I do like cabbage, so… Wh-why are you smiling, Sasuke-san?"

Sasuke shook his head, almost laughing. "Nothing, nothing… it's just, that was his favorite food, cabbage."

Yakata blinked. Sasuke waved the old woman over, from where she was shuffling near another set of tables. "Who?"

"Your… father, of course," Sasuke said, and addressed the woman, handing the menus over. "A cabbage with ginger, and a vegetable stir fry."

"Right away," she said, in a voice like a creaking door, and shuffled off with the menus in hand.

"That… that really was his… favorite food?" Yakata said. He found himself sitting up a little more.

"As far as I can remember," Sasuke said. "Well, that and rice balls. He kind of had simple tastes, my brother."

A pinched little smile began to grow on Yakata's face, and his shoulders rose with it. "Gosh!" The smile faded slightly as a thought occurred to him. "…what… what was his, his name, anyways? My father. I, I don't think you, um. Ever told me…"

"His name?" Sasuke looked at his hands for a surprisingly long while. "Itachi. His name was Itachi."

"Itachi." That was his father's name. Itachi. "…c-can I, um. Can I ask you about him at all?"

Sasuke made a noise that wasn't really a laugh, but wasn't much of anything else, either. "Of course you can ask about him." There was a thoughtful expression on his face, suddenly. "No… reason why you can't." And it was gone. "What do you want to know?"

Yakata had come up with so many questions, sitting alone the night before, and yet he found himself struggling for them, now that he had the opportunity.

He decided on, "Well… what… what kind of a person was he?"

"What kind of a person?" Sasuke's eyes were surprisingly narrow.

"Yeah, like… um." How could he clarify…? "What, what was he… like? His, his personality?" Yakata said.

"Oh. That's what you meant," Sasuke said. He nodded, and looked at his hands again, fingers laced together. "Your father was… a very quiet person. He liked to keep to himself, most of the time. But he was very kind, at the same time, even if it didn't always seem that way."

Quiet, liked to keep to himself, and kind. Yakata sealed the facts away into his mind, adding them to the faceless portrait he was creating. "Did he… did he have any hobbies or anything? What, what did he, um. Like to do?"

Sasuke was quiet for a while. His head shifted with subtle movements as he thought, and his eyebrows knit together and slightly upward. "…I'm not terribly sure," he finally said. "I can only remember him just training, all the time, when he wasn't with me or at work. He didn't have much time for hobbies."

"Oh, I see…" Yakata said. He dug around for another question. "So did… did you two get along well, then, or, or were you sorta… sorta distant?"

Sasuke was still looking at his hands. His red eyes grew even softer. "I suppose… you could say that we got along. Though I was always the annoying one, always trying to get his attention. He was my older brother, you see. Five years older. I really looked up to him."

"S-sounds like it," Yakata said, when Sasuke didn't say anything for a while.

"He was so patient with me; I almost can't believe it, in hindsight." Sasuke continued. The corners of his mouth twitched upward. "His… work just had him busy, a lot of the time."

"Wha-what did he do? For, for work, I mean." Yakata sat up, very straight, in his chair. He had one hand folded on top of the other, on the table.

"He was a ninja. Naturally. Just like the rest of my family," Sasuke said. "He was…" A dry, laugh-like thing escaped from his lips, like the noise he'd made when Yakata had first asked a question of him. "He was a very high-ranking ninja in the village. One of the greatest they'd ever had."

"Wow, really?"

"Yeah, really."

"What… what sorta stuff did he do?"

Sasuke paused for a long while, his eyebrows low. Yakata opened his mouth to apologize, before Sasuke said, "He did… the things that other people didn't want to do. The most difficult missions. That was just the kind of person he was, Itachi." Another twinge-smile. "He always put others before himself."

Patient, skilled, selfless. The portrait increased in detail, but it still didn't have a face.

"I guess that makes sense, then," Sasuke continued. "No matter how busy he was, he always made at least a little time for me. Even if it meant, hah." The smile grew.

"What? What's so… so funny?" Yakata asked.

Sasuke had his hand at his mouth now, covering his smile. "I was just reminded, whenever I was bothering him to play with me or something, and he didn't have the time, he'd call me over. Like this, you see." He took the hand and waved it, palm-inward, towards himself. "And when I was right in front of him, he'd…"

But Sasuke pulled his hand back from where it had been drawing nearer and nearer to Yakata's face. He stared at it with an expression that Yakata couldn't quite read.

(Could grief be that shameful-looking?)

"What? Wha-what would he do…?" Yakata said softly. He leaned forward.

"…sorry. Maybe next time." Sasuke's voice was incredibly quiet, and coated with a strange bitterness.

"Huh? Oh, uh, okay," Yakata said, blinking. "If, if, if you… if you don't wanna… t-talk about it now then, um…"

Quite suddenly, Sasuke was laughing, just as quietly as he had been speaking. "No, no, that's just what he used to tell me," he said. "When he poked me on the forehead. See, like this." And with two fingers he reached out and gently pressed the middle of Yakata's brow. His hand crumpled into a fist of loose fingers as it fell away. "That was how he told me he was… sorry, I suppose. For being too busy."

Yakata rubbed the space where his fingers had been, closing one eye. "F-funny way of… saying you're sorry…"

Sasuke's laughter was even louder, this time. And because it was louder, Yakata finally noticed how it almost sounded like he was crying, at the same time.

"Sounds like he… like he really cared about you," Yakata said, smiling as he put his hands back down on the table. "I mean, I'm, I'm… I'm sure he cared about you, since you two were, um. Brothers, I guess…"

"He did," Sasuke said, simply, softly. "I don't think I ever realized how much he cared, though, until… after he was gone." He narrowed his eyes, and his mouth twitched, again, but this time into a frown. "I wish I could have thanked him, just once, before it was all over. For everything he did for me."

"I'm… I'm sure he knows that, that you're thankful, though," Yakata said. Sasuke looked up suddenly, his expression tilting into mild confusion. "You know, wherever he is… If… if he was as good a person as, as, as you say he was, then he's… he's bound to be somewhere nice."

Yakata believed in mountain gods and rice gods and a Riverman and a world where, if you did well in life, you'd be rewarded in death. Though he wasn't sure, yet, what sort of reward that really was.

The priest in the temple where they prayed on New Year's Day said that a rebirth into a better life was one's reward. The monk with the shaved head that had passed through the village a few months before said that there was a divine world where good souls came to rest at the end of their lives, where they could watch over their loved ones in comfort and bliss until they were reunited. Yakata wasn't sure which one was right, but they both sounded rather pleasant to him.

(Sasuke couldn't remember ever being more grateful for tea being brought to a table, with apologies from the old woman for it being so late. He didn't know how much more he could bear.)

The conversation turned to Sasuke's own family, after their meals were delivered, a while later. Yakata handled his chopsticks with a rough precision, bundling the leaves of cabbage, the rice together. He never spoke with food in his mouth.

"So, um, what about the, the rest of your family, Sasuke-san?" he asked, after chewing, swallowing. "Do, do you have any, um. Children?"

"Ah. Yes, I do."

"How many?"

"Five."

Yakata took another bundle of cabbage leaves, eyes widening. "Wow, you, you have a lot of children, Sasuke-san."

"Is that really so much?" Sasuke said. He took another bite of his stir-fry instead of smiling.

"Well, I, I know people with, um. Large families," Yakata said. "I can just imagine, they're… they're probably a real handful. Well, if, if, if they're young, anyways…"

"Oh, most of them are nearly grown. But, they've always been very well-behaved." A stiff sort of pride entered Sasuke's voice. "They are Uchihas, after all."

"Oh, well…" Yakata said, not exactly sure what that meant. Uchiha, that was the name of Sasuke's clan, wasn't it? Itachi, his father's clan, too.

Yakata's clan, too?

…he decided to think about it later. "So you said they're… they're mostly grown? Is there anyone that, that, that's around my age?"

Sasuke finished chewing. "Yes, my youngest daughter, Karai. She's eleven."

"Oh, I… I see. I hope we'll get along, then," Yakata said. Then again, Yakata knew that most people would at least tolerate him, if he stayed quiet enough. "Wha-wha-what's she like?"

"She's very…" Sasuke frowned as he sifted around for words. "…cheerful," he decided. "She gets along with just about anyone, so you don't have to worry about her not liking you."

"Oh, well, that's… that's good," Yakata said, remembering, Karai, cheerful, friendly, eleven. Another portrait. "You said she's the, the youngest." He got another bunch of cabbage leaves with his chopsticks. "Who are the, the other four?"

"Well Inou is the next-youngest. He's fourteen. Nadeshiko is… eighteen. Takeru, my second son, is nineteen, almost twenty. And Hajime is twenty-one." He gathered a bunch of noodles and carrot together. "Don't know how much you'll be seeing of them, but I'll have them come home to meet you when we arrive tomorrow night."

Yakata swallowed. "Wow, that's… that's really nice of you. Thanks, Sasuke-san, I, I, I can't wait to meet all of them," he said, and smiled. "And your wife, too. I bet she's… I bet she's really nice."

"She's a good woman," Sasuke replied, emptily, and went back to his food.

There wasn't much more conversation in the restaurant, and they were back on the road after Sasuke paid for their meals.

Yakata asked, when they stopped to rest their feet in a small village just beyond the border of the Land of Fire, the sun beginning to set, how he would get letters to his parents, if he wanted to write. Sasuke said there were methods, and that was that.

He opened his package of rice balls and ate them. Sasuke got his own dinner from a street vendor, not terribly far away.

"You'd think for something this expensive it'd have been a little bit better," he said, but bit into his stick of grilled chicken anyways. He offered some to Yakata, later, but Yakata refused, saying he was full enough. He licked the rice off of his fingers when he was done, like always.

(There were other vendors, further up the road, but Sasuke didn't even think about visiting them. He didn't want to let Yakata out of his sight.)

They traveled on long after it had gotten dark, and Yakata found it hard to see more than a few feet in front of him. Sasuke, however, moved forward confidently, without hesitation. "How, how, how can you see without a torch?" Yakata asked him, eventually.

"Sharingan," Sasuke replied, and that was that. There was almost disappointment in his voice.

Yakata tried to keep up, but he was starting to get tired. Sasuke was going too fast, and there were times when he was almost out of sight, fading into the darkness.

It was when Yakata reached forward and grabbed onto the hem of Sasuke's shirt that Sasuke finally stopped. He turned around. "You're tired, aren't you."

Yakata rubbed his eyes. "A little… I, I, I mean, if… if we have to go further…"

"We'll camp out here," Sasuke said. "Follow me, and don't get lost."

"Mm." Yakata's face was uneasy, his eyes heavy. He tripped over his feet a little as he walked.

Sasuke's hand held his wrist very tightly. "Come on, it won't be very far." He pulled insistently. Yakata rubbed his eyes again as he went, still only half-seeing things in the darkness.

Eventually, they stopped. Sasuke led Yakata to a tree, and Yakata slumped against it, yawning widely. He saw, faintly, Sasuke pulling branches down from trees and picking them up off the ground, piling them up over stones.

Then, Sasuke began breathing fire and Yakata's eyes snapped open. Sasuke's face was illuminated a strange and intense yellow, which diminished when the fire was lit and crackling on the ground. He had taken off his pack, and was now bent over it, fiddling with something attached it.

"How did… how did you do that?" Yakata said, eventually.

"Hm?" He was undoing the buckles on the top.

"That… how, how, how can you breathe… fire?" Yakata said. "Is that a ninja thing?"

"Oh, it's an Uchiha family technique," Sasuke said. "The fireball jutsu."

"Wow…" Yakata curled into himself where he sat, holding his knees. "Are you… are you going to teach me how to do that?"

"If you can handle it, eventually. Though… if you are your… father's son, it shouldn't be too difficult for you." Sasuke had taken his bedroll off the top of his pack, and tossed it Yakata's way. "Here, for you."

The bedroll hit Yakata in the stomach, and he wrapped his arms around it. "Oh, are, are, are you sure…? I mean, it's, it's yours, and…"

"It's late, you should get some rest," Sasuke interrupted. "And why are you stuttering like that? There's nothing to be afraid of."

Yakata took a very long time to answer, trying to sharpen his words. "I, I… I'm not afraid… I'm… I'm just…" He yawned, closing his eyes tightly, trying to concentrate. It didn't help. "But wh-what about you…?"

"I'll be fine. It's not like I'm not used to this," he said. He sat down beside his pack and rubbed his palm against one of his eyes.

Yakata held the bedroll for a moment, his feet scratching against the dirt of the ground as they extended. "I'm just not… I'm not sure about this, okay?"

"Not sure? I thought you said that you wanted to come to Konoha with me." The fire cast frightening, flickering shadows across Sasuke's face. There were dark shadows under his eyes, though the eyes themselves were… strangely saddened, from what Yakata could see.

"Oh, no, no, no, I, I mean, um… I do want that." And he really did. "I'm just… I, I, I'm just not sure if I should, should, should be using, um. This. I mean, it's, it's yours and…"

Sasuke sighed, loudly. He closed his eyes and began to stand. "Look, if it's that big a deal then I'll just find an inn for us. I don't… want for you to be uncomfortable."

"No, no, please, please, don't… don't do that," Yakata said. "You, you, you don't need to do that. It, it's fine, I just… don't want to be an inconvenience, is all…"

Sasuke was quiet for a moment. He sat back down. "You aren't an inconvenience to me. If you were, I wouldn't be doing this," he said. "I want you to sleep comfortably, okay? I'll be fine."

Yakata held the bedroll for a while longer, looking into the fire, thinking. He took off his own pack and set it aside, before untying the rope that held the bedroll together and rolling it out at the base of the tree. He took off his shoes and placed them neatly next to the pack, and wiggled under the blanket, using his arm as a pillow.

He could see Sasuke smiling, slightly, from where he was sitting. His hair was in his eyes, and Yakata could not read them.

"…Sasuke-san?" he said, softly.

"Mm."

"Thanks."

"Don't mention it." A pause. "Goodnight, Yakata."

"Goodnight."

Yakata fell into a warm, dark, dreamless sleep.

He woke up feeling very stiff, and he tilted his head this way and that, trying to work out the kinks. Sasuke had built another fire from the ashes of the first, he noticed, once he had all of the sleep out of his eyes, and he was boiling water in an aluminum kettle.

"All I have is instant noodles on me. We'll stop somewhere nicer for lunch," he said, and tossed Yakata one of the containers. "Hope you don't mind."

"Oh, not… not at all," Yakata said. He set the noodles on top of his pack and began putting the bedroll back together, and was finished before Sasuke could say he didn't have to do that. "I need to pull my weight. It's… it's the least I can do…"

Sasuke smiled, slightly, his mouth pulling up towards one side of his face. "You are too good."

They ate their breakfast in silence, for the most part, and continued on their way.

"We're making good time," Sasuke said, when they were eating lunch together at a dango stand, since there wasn't "anything nicer" in the area, according to him, and Yakata was hungry (though he hadn't said a thing about it). "We're farther than I expected. At this rate, we'll be in Konoha in time for dinner. I'll have my wife make you something good to eat."

"Oh, that'll… that'll be nice," Yakata replied. "I'd like that!"

"Then we'll make that a priority," Sasuke said. "Come on, eat up. I don't want for us to lose our pace."

"Oh, uh, okay!" Yakata said, and tried, as politely as possible, to finish his current stick of dango without making it look like he was stuffing his face. Sasuke noticed.

"I didn't mean for you rush," Sasuke said, with a disapproving half-laugh. "Take your time eating. We'll be fine."

Yakata swallowed the half-chewed dango, coughing afterwards, and reaching for his tea, looking very sheepish indeed. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry…"

Curiously, they found things to talk about after lunch, though it was mostly Sasuke doing the talking, which was the strangest thing. "We'll focus on getting you settled in tonight. I'll take you around the city tomorrow, to get you acquainted with the place. There's a few people that I want you to meet, too," he said.

"Oh, like who?"

"Mostly friends of mine. One of them is a doctor, she'll be doing your blood tests," he said. Sasuke's face suddenly darkened. "Yakata, if… anyone looks at you strangely while we're in Konoha, just… remember to disregard it."

"Wh-why do you say that?" Yakata said. He felt a strange weight in his stomach, suddenly. Why was that…?

(Would people still be staring at him there, in that new city?)

"…never mind. Don't worry about it," Sasuke said, and didn't mention it again.

Yakata worried about it all afternoon. He could think of a million reasons why people would look at him strangely. He was an outsider and, admittedly, a strange choice in traveling companion for someone like Sasuke.

Maybe it was because of his father? He didn't know what Itachi had looked like, but if there was a strong enough resemblance then that would certainly get people to stare…

(Certainly not the reasons why he was stared at, back home.)

He tried to focus on that being the possibility, and not any of the other ones, the ones that made him feel even more awkward and insecure than he was feeling already. Even though Sasuke was nice enough to him, already, and trying to make him feel welcome. At least, that was what it felt like…

Yakata hummed to keep his mind distracted, instead.

"What is that?" Sasuke asked him, after a while. "That you're humming."

Yakata stopped mid-melody. "Oh, um. It's… it's a folk song. My, my mama likes to sing it."

"Does it have words?"

"No, I don't… I don't think so…" Yakata said.

(Partially lying. It was a love song.)

"Well, either way. Keep going." Sasuke looked over his shoulder, ghost-smile on his face. "We could use a little cheer."

So Yakata continued to hum, quietly.

"It's very nice," Sasuke said when he finished. "Do you know any others?"

"Oh, um. I, I, I know a few others, but, um…" Yakata held his arms with his hands, glancing sideways.

Sasuke looked over his shoulder again, and then back. "It's okay, you don't have to sing any more. I enjoyed it, anyways."

Yakata didn't say anything. He didn't even hum again.

Sasuke noticed. "I didn't mean to embarrass you," he said.

"No, no, you didn't… It's okay," Yakata said, his eyes still on his feet. "It, it, it was just kinda, um. I don't know..."

"Well, I enjoyed it."

"Ah…"

Yakata still didn't hum, after that.

Surprisingly, though, Sasuke did.

It was a strange, atonal sort of thing, with a melody that went in places where melodies didn't seem want to go naturally, but went anyways. Yakata couldn't tell if it was deliberate or not, the notes quavering just enough to suggest tone-deafness, but their placement seeming far too deliberate to be sheer musical inability.

"What were you humming just now?" Yakata finally asked, long after it was over.

"A song from my village. My clan, actually." He didn't look at Yakata over his shoulder, this time. "I can't remember the words, but I think it's a love song."

Yakata's face burned. "Oh, I, uh… I, I, I see. It's… well I've, I've never heard anything like it, but..."

"You don't have to compliment me, I'm not that good of a singer," Sasuke said. Yakata could see, just barely, that his face was almost as red.

He felt, for a moment, rather bad, for having embarrassed Sasuke that badly, at his expense.

But when he saw the smile on Sasuke's face, creeping over the edge of his profile, he started feeling a lot better.

He began to hum a harvest song, and when he was finished, Sasuke asked him about it, but he didn't ask about the words. Sasuke attempted another song of his own, afterwards, and Yakata had to follow up with a song of his own, it was only fair.

And that was how they came back to Konoha, as the sun was setting, humming, a call-and-response, with smiles on both of their faces.

(The guard Yamada, who saw them enter through the gates, was faintly terrified. He knew Sasuke well enough through reputation and the occasional encounter, and while he couldn't say he knew the man personally, there was one thing he knew for certain: Sasuke almost never smiled like that.)

(It took him minutes after the fact to realize that there had even been a boy with him.)