[A/N]: I want to apologize in advance; this chapter is a tad shorter than the 4,000 words I usually aim for (it's about 600 words short, to be exact). But it is my hope that you still enjoy what I have presented here for you ~Sasori33-001
SINCE THE WEEK OF HOMECOMING, Itachi and Deidara had fallen into a comfortable routine wherein the two roommates shared lunch every Monday and Wednesday, and dinner every Friday, Saturday and Sunday due to the differences in their class schedules.
"They actually pay people to construct their work, yeah!" Deidara was saying through a mouthful of potato chips Wednesday afternoon.
"That's interesting; I didn't know that." Itachi remarked. According to his artistic roommate, several modern-day artists paid people to construct their work in a fashion similar to that of a factory assembly line.
"Like," Deidara attempted to continue before choking briefly on a stray potato chip shard lodged in his esophagus. Itachi moved to clap him on the back when Deidara put up a finger and took a long drink of soda before exhaling in relief. "Anyways, there was this one guy who's credited for constructing a sculpture of a dog balloon animal, but he didn't actually build any of it himself, yeah!" He said as if nothing had ever happened.
Cautiously, Itachi lowered himself into his chair and made certain to keep a watchful gaze over the blonde should he choke again. He didn't, much to Itachi's relief, and happily rambled on about an artist whose recent collection utilized glitter.
Even though Itachi didn't care to discuss modern-day artists, artistic mediums, or art in general, Deidara was the happiest Itachi had seen him all year. With the incident involving Sasori behind him, he appeared to be enjoying the company of his roommate as he educated him about giant balloon sculptures and glitter aesthetics.
Conversely, it had been exactly two weeks since Itachi's argument in the cafeteria with Shisui, and although he preferred to discuss the nature of found objects as they applied to art any day of the week, part of him still worried about his cousin's welfare since their fight.
He glanced down at the table where he laid his phone and pressed the home button to reveal the time when a familiar voice sounded nearby.
"Excuse me."
Itachi looked up in time to see Shisui's fleeting back meld into the crowd.
"I mean, why didn't I think of that when I was a kid, yeah?" Deidara was saying. "I could've been a millionaire by now—"
Itachi held up a finger to interrupt him. "Excuse me for a second." He rose from his seat and weaved his way through the endless sea of students converging for the purpose of nourishment between classes. He could see a sliver of Shisui's black jacket from within the crowd when somebody grabbed his wrist from behind.
"Who the—?" Itachi muttered when he was met by golden irises and a gleaming white smile.
"Hey! Guess what?" Kisame asked.
"What?" Itachi asked and looked over his shoulder to see if he could still find Shisui. Luckily for him, his cousin was chatting with a girl advertising an upcoming event for the psychology club.
"I checked my midterm grade for philo101 online." Kisame beamed.
Itachi raised his eyebrows in surprise. It appeared that this knuckleheaded athlete cared about his studies after all. "You did?"
Kisame furrowed his brow. "Yeah…don't you?"
Itachi resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "I just expected you to wait until they were given back in-class."
"The professor told us our grades would be up by this morning at the latest so of course I was going to check to see what I got!"
"So what'd you get?" Itachi asked him.
"A C+!" He proudly exclaimed. "I didn't completely fail!"
Itachi's shoulders dropped. "But a C+ is hardly worth getting excited about."
"But you don't understand!" Kisame said, grabbing both of Itachi's shoulders in his broad palms. "I've failed almost every assignment we've been given. A C+ is one letter grade away from a B- which is good, right?"
Itachi nodded slowly. "Right…" He agreed, wondering where Kisame was going with this line of reasoning.
"So all I gotta do is ace the final, and it'll be smooth sailing, baby!" He cheered.
"There's still a written assignment due between now and Thanksgiving break." Itachi warned him. "If you do well on that, and study for the final a few weeks in advance, you might leave this class with a B."
"That's what I'm talking about!" He roared, raising his hand in the air for a high-five. Itachi tentatively returned the gesture and cradled his hand after the harsh impact of their palms. "I know I'm not the best student, but would you be willing to help me study for the final exam?" Kisame asked. "I'll pay you double."
It wasn't a question of money, so much as it was the time he was willing to devote to Kisame's cause. Final exams was the week wherein he'd have either an assignment or written test in all of his classes to prepare for, and the few weeks between Thanksgiving break and then wasn't much time. "I'll tutor you on two conditions." He said. "In order for me to have enough time to study for my own exams, I'll need you to meet me on time; no excuses."
"Done."
"And if you don't understand a concept, we will review it. Understood?"
"Got it."
Satisfied with Kisame's resolve, Itachi crossed his arms. "Good. We start immediately after the conclusion of Thanksgiving break. Deal?" He extended his hand to shake on it.
"Deal." Kisame said, returning the gesture and walking in the opposite direction. "See you tomorrow in class, Itachi!" He called over his shoulder.
Itachi nodded and turned to see if Shisui was still conversing with the psychology club student only to find that, in the span of his conversation with Kisame, Shisui had disappeared from the scene.
"Who was that, yeah?" Deidara asked when he returned.
"A classmate of mine." Itachi answered and wrapped up the other half of his sandwich. "I have to go. My class is starting soon."
"Okay! See you later, yeah!" Deidara said. "Have fun in class!"
Itachi sent a small smile his way. "Thanks."
-8-8-8-
The week of Thanksgiving break, Itachi outlined a strict schedule for himself consisting of homework assignments, a group project in marketing, an individual project in statistics, the planning of the topic for his end-of-term paper in English and all around studying for his final exams in each of his classes. While some finals, given previous methods of testing, would be easier than others, the only one Itachi could put off until later was his philosophy final wherein he would do all of his studying (and then some) in Kisame's company.
"Did you guys kiss yet?" Sasuke asked him.
Itachi whirled around in his desk chair to face his sibling. "Did we do what?"
"Did you and your roommate kiss yet?" Sasuke asked as if it were the most natural question in the world.
Itachi's face scrunched up in disgust as he pictured what it would be like to kiss Deidara, golden tresses gliding between his fingers, warm lips encapsulating his own as a deep moan escaped the other's throat, reminding him that he was kissing another man.
The thought sent chills down his spine, and not in a good way either. "No!" Itachi cried. "Just because my roommate is homosexual does not mean that I am too!" He said and spun around to return to his work.
Sasuke rolled over onto his side and propped his head up with his palm. "You haven't considered it? Not even once?"
"No." Itachi answered, hoping that if he focused on next week's chapter for his marketing class that he'd be able to tune Sasuke out.
"Haven't gotten so drunk that it just happ—"
Unable to ignore him any longer, Itachi, held up a hand to silence his younger sibling. "Stop. We haven't kissed and we never will. Deidara knows better than to act on such impulses anyways."
"Which means he's thought about it before." Sasuke concluded. Itachi glared at him. "What? You said he knew better than to act on such impulses, which means that he's had impulses before, right?"
Itachi groaned. "That's not at all what I'm trying to say. I'm not homosexual. Deidara knows that." But as soon as the words left his mouth, he realized the invalidity of his statement. Does Deidara know better? Itachi questioned as his mind drifted to the night of the homecoming dance.
"Sasori wasn't really into me, yeah."
Sasuke raised a speculative brow. "Are you sure about that? Because you seem pretty asexual to me, Itachi. Think about it. You've never been on a date with anyone before or showed any interest in women in general."
"Speak for yourself." Itachi retorted. "You act like you have some expertise in this area, but unless something happened while I was away at school, you've never gone on a date with anyone before either and you've showed very little interest in girls ever since you were in kindergarten."
"That's because I'm waiting for the right one to come around. All the girls in my school are annoying."
Sure, now you decide to be noble. Itachi thought. "Are you sure you aren't homosexual, Sasuke?"
"We're not talking about me, Itachi, we're talking about you." Sasuke said. "And if you must know, if I ever settle down, I intend to spend the rest of my life with a woman, not a man."
"Spoken like a mature adult." Itachi murmured sarcastically.
"So let me get this straight; blondie hasn't made any moves on you yet?" Sasuke continued, ignoring Itachi's admission. "He's never once let on that he finds you attractive or anything like that?"
"No."
"You've never had dinner together or anything like that?" Sasuke pressed.
Itachi rolled his eyes in amazement. "Can't I have lunch or dinner with my roommate every so often?"
"Correction:" Sasuke said, "your gay roommate."
"Just because he's homosexual doesn't mean that anything's happening or going to happen between us." Itachi said.
"I wouldn't be so sure, Itachi." Sasuke said, idly scrolling through one of his various social networking apps. "You've never been attracted to anyone before, and throughout your entire high school career, you've never 'shared a meal' with anyone either." He air-quoted.
Itachi narrowed his eyes in confusion. "What are you getting at?"
Just then, Sasuke swung his legs over the side of the bed and tucked his phone in the back pocket of his jeans. "If I were you, and I didn't want anything to come from my little dinner dates, I'd be watching my back." He said, pausing at the doorway. "But who knows? You might be surprised by what comes of it."
And on that note, Sasuke disappeared down the hall, leaving Itachi with a mess of papers and a million unanswered questions.
-8-8-8-
"How's the semester going so far, honey?" Mikoto asked him the next day as they prepared a traditional thanksgiving feast.
Itachi had just placed the stuffing in the oven to cook and closed the lid. "Fine." He answered, pulling off his oven mitts and lying them on the granite countertop.
"Are your classes going well?" She asked and fetched a container of disinfectant wipes to clean the countertop with.
Itachi reached out to take the container from her. "Yeah."
"Are they harder than the college credits you took during high school?" She asked.
"Not at all." Itachi answered. "If anything, they're a lot easier."
Mikoto arched her eyebrows. "That's surprising; the fact that community college courses are more difficult than those of a prestigious university. Interesting." She mused and opened her palm to collect Itachi's dirtied disinfectant rags from him to throw away.
Itachi shrugged. "I suppose. There's definitely a lot more coursework to juggle than there was in high school. Fortunately for me, I've made it a point to complete all of my assignments a week in advance to stay on the safe side."
Mikoto smiled in a way that only an adoring mother would in the face of her child's success. "That's good. You've never given me any reason to worry. Now if only your brother was the same way. This 'I can do everything without even trying' attitude is going to catch up with him one of these days. He acts just like your cousin." She laughed. "By the way, how's Shisui doing? I hear he's made plans with some friends of his this weekend."
Ever since Itachi could remember, his and Shisui's families always visited each other for the holidays. Most years, Itachi's family would visit Shisui's for Thanksgiving, and Shisui's family would stop by for Christmas. This year, however, Mikoto had volunteered to house Thanksgiving at their house as Shisui's mother was suffering from recent carpal tunnel surgery and couldn't prepare the turkey herself.
"He's doing fine." He said, carefully choosing his words. "He's been busy with his studies so I haven't seen him very much lately."
Mikoto nodded in approval and moved to uncover the dough she'd set aside for the cherry pie. "I'm surprised. Shisui's finally getting serious about his studies. I'm glad."
Itachi breathed a sigh of relief. He didn't expect the conversation to go that smoothly.
"For a minute I was worried that he'd go crazy on his twenty-first birthday and start partying every weekend. Guess I was wrong." She admitted sheepishly.
You couldn't be any closer to the truth. Itachi wanted to say but let it be. His mother had been through enough when it came to alcoholics. Her father was an alcoholic, and for a while, her husband had been one too until that fateful night thirteen years ago. He watched as she delicately lifted the ball of dough from its plastic confines and dropped it onto the newly cleansed countertop. She didn't need another reason to be unhappy, he decided.
"Are you getting along with your roommate?" She asked. "What's his name again?"
"Deidara." Itachi supplied.
"Deidara, that's it!" She smiled. "Have the two of you been getting along?"
Itachi considered this for a moment. It was an innocent question, but after his talk with Sasuke yesterday, he felt he needed to keep some facts to himself. "I guess so. He's messy and talkative but most of the time he restricts his clutter to his side of the room and knows better than to bother me when I'm working." He said.
"That's good. Can you pass me the pizza slicer, sweetie?" She asked. Itachi did as he was asked and fetched the utensil from a nearby drawer. "Thanks."
"You're welcome."
"Does Deidara have a girlfriend?" She asked.
Itachi knitted his brow in confusion. "No mom, Deidara's…homosexual…" He said with uncertainty. He could have sworn that his mother was aware of that fact.
"Really?" She asked. "Does he have a boyfriend?"
"No. Not that I know of, at least." Itachi answered. He tried to read her expression, looking for anything that would suggest that she was tactfully prying for information about his roommate's love life, or possibly, Itachi's own love life, but her expression was inscrutable. Perhaps she genuinely forgot about Deidara's sexuality.
She pulled him in for a quick hug. "I'm glad that the two of you are getting along." She gushed and turned her head to the kitchen doorway. "Sasuke! Come help with the cranberry sauce!"
"You didn't think that we would?" Itachi pried.
Mikoto arched her eyebrows and turned away. "To be honest, I had my doubts…" She confessed.
"Why?"
"It's just that, well," she stuttered, "you've never been very…social...around strangers. I was worried that by being so far from home and surrounded by so many new faces, you'd feel out of place."
Out of place? Itachi thought and sighed. "Mom, I'm not a little kid anymore. I don't need to be surrounded by friends all the time, you know."
Mikoto smiled. "I know, but you're always gonna be my little boy in my eyes." Just then, Sasuke appeared in the doorway. "And no matter how old Sasuke gets, he's always going to be my baby boy!" She said and pulled him in for a hug.
"Mom!" Sasuke whined. "What's wrong with you?"
Mikoto, like all mothers Itachi had seen in his lifetime, always knew how to walk the fine line separating innocence and reconnaissance when it came to Itachi's personal life. Whether she was trying to ascertain the details of Itachi's relationship with Deidara, or was genuinely concerned about his well-being, he did not know. Perhaps it was a little bit of both.
-8-8-8-
Given his brother and mother's behavior as of late, Itachi wasn't surprised when his father invited him to watch the football game that evening shortly after they had finished eating dinner.
"You're gonna watch with us this year, Itachi?" Shisui's father asked. "And here I thought you didn't like sports!"
"I don't." Itachi muttered and took a seat on the sectional, perpendicular to where Fugaku and Kagami sat.
Kagami's face held a puzzled look until his eye caught a glimpse of an exceptional play on the television screen. "TOUCHDOWN!" He cried, raising his fists in the air.
"Tell me, son," Fugaku said, "how's everything going at school?"
"Good." Itachi answered.
"How did midterms go?"
"Good. I received straight A's in all my classes so far." He said, omitting the part where he stayed up until one in the morning the night before taking care of his hung-over cousin.
Fugaku nodded and turned his attention to the screen. "Just what I'd expect from you." He said. "How's that roommate of yours?"
"Deidara?" Itachi asked, even though he knew who Fugaku meant. "He's doing fine."
"Do you two get along?"
Itachi was really starting to get sick of this game. "Yeah. He usually keeps to himself." He lied, telling his father only the details he wanted to hear.
"That's surprising. I pegged him as being a distractive type. You're able to get your work done when he's present?"
"I get a lot of my work done between classes in the library most of the time." Itachi answered truthfully. "But once my classes are done for the day, I retreat to my room and study there. Deidara knows to leave me alone when I'm working."
"Deidara," Kagami said to himself, "is that your roommate?" He asked Itachi.
Itachi nodded, unsure why Kagami found the need to enter their conversation. "Yeah, why?"
"Shisui's told me about you guys. He says you two have created a really close bond over the semester." Kagami said. "He's always telling me how he sees you two eating lunch together in the cafeteria together or walking to class together. He wished that he and his roommate freshmen year were as close as you guys were; Shisui despised his roommate!"
"Is that so?" Fugaku asked.
Itachi inhaled, mentally preparing a way to downplay Kagami's words when Mikoto's voice rang from the kitchen. "Sasuke! Be careful; that's glass!" She scolded him. "Itachi, sweetheart! Can you give me a hand in the kitchen please?"
"Coming!" He called back and rose from the couch. Thank God…he thought to himself as he made his way to the kitchen.
"Sorry to interrupt your time with your father, honey, but Sasuke's trying to destroy all of my glassware." Mikoto explained.
"It's alright." Itachi smiled.
"Since Itachi's here, can I go watch the game with dad and uncle Kagami?" Sasuke asked.
Mikoto sighed. "If it keeps you from breaking any more dishes, then yes, you may."
"I didn't break it!" Sasuke called over his shoulder.
"It was only a matter of time, honey!" Mikoto called back with a chuckle.
"What do you want me to do?" Itachi rolled up his sleeves and took a position next to his mother at the sink.
"I'll hand you the dishes, and you can put them in the dishwasher for me, okay?" She asked. "And when the dishwasher's full, we'll hand-wash the rest."
"Okay."
Like clockwork, Mikoto and Itachi worked together in a synchronized fashion. Mikoto would grab a dish from the stack on the countertop, quickly rinse it and hand it to Itachi who would carefully place it in the dishwasher. And whenever she got to a dish with food scraps still stuck to the surface, she'd work to scrape it off while Itachi continued to rinse less difficult dishes and place them in the dishwasher.
"What made you want to watch football with your father and Kagami this year, honey? I thought you didn't like football." She said when the dishwasher was full.
"I don't." Itachi answered.
Poor Itachi.
First of all, the bit about artists paying people to do their work for them is true; I learned about it last year. (The thing about the giant balloon dog sculpture is true as well; if you're curious about it, you can look up "Jeff Koons balloon animal sculpture). Second of all, I know that the ending wasn't very suspenseful, but not every chapter can end in a cliff-hanger right? Especially if it's about ordinary life, like how do you end a chapter about Thanksgiving with a cliff hanger? (Don't answer that). And lastly, the bit you've all been waiting for, I have an idea for what I want to write the next chapter about, but I don't have an idea as to when I'm going to get around to it (I have 2 other stories that eat my time, you know! And I need to work on them sometime too…plus, writing 4,000 word chapters isn't an easy task!) If you're ever curious about chapter planning/progress, check out my profile page under the heading "Storie Statuses."
Until next time~
Sasori33-001
PS: A huge THANK YOU to all the people who've been reviewing my story! *Holds hand to chest* I never thought this one would be as popular as it is! Your reviews give me strength and the will needed to continue writing at the pace that I currently am (and the fact that I have lots of free-time on my hands at the moment, but that is neither here nor there) And...TRUCKY! OU EST-CE QUE TU EST? I MISS YOU!