Author's Note: Sorry it's been so long (almost 4 months to be exact. I've made you guys wait longer before though, haven't I?) Anyways. I was stuck on what to do all summer when a particular review renewed my spark (shout out to AbsoluteAnarchy on that one ;) ). And then I got busy and Yuri on Ice happened and my love of Naruto fanfiction fell to the wayside. UNTIL! Until I read both Itachi Shinden novels recently. I feel like my love of the Naruto universe and my love of Itachi has been rekindled enough for me to produce the next chapter of Things Better Left Unsaid. So without further ado, I hope you enjoy what you're seeing!
Recap: It's the official start of spring break. Itachi shared lunch with Kisame on Tuesday, March 1st, 2016 and this chapter starts on Saturday, March 5th, 2016, a few days later ;)
"THAT'S MY BOY." FUGAKU CHUCKLED PROUDLY and absently twirled Pad Thai noodles around the tines of his fork. "I thought that maybe college would provide you with more stimulation than high school did but I guess I was wrong."
Itachi nodded to show his father that he was listening, not necessarily because he agreed with him. College was indeed more stimulating than high school was but none of his assignments were so arduous that he couldn't keep afloat. He had no doubt that the workload would increase with every passing semester but even then he was confident that he could stay organized and relatively stress free. The latter of course, heavily depended on his living situation which he hoped would improve next semester at the earliest.
"First college, then graduate school." Fugaku continued. "By the time you reach the workforce you'll be guaranteed almost any job you want within your field. Your qualifications will be—" he began to say when his phone vibrated inside of his trousers. Without excusing himself, he slipped the device into his palm to check the caller I.D. "What on earth could they possibly want now?" He growled and quickly rose from the table. "Yes, what is it? Yes, I was in the middle of having dinner and yes, Itachi's home from school."
The rest of the family cast their gaze down at the plates of food before them and ate in silence. His father's conversation would last no longer than five minutes so it was pointless to start a new conversation. Fugaku would return back to the table with an air of annoyance surrounding him and briefly grumble about the incompetence of the guys down at the station before resuming the previous topic of conversation like nothing had happened.
"Something's wrong." Mikoto mused aloud when five minutes had passed. Wordlessly she stood up from the table and disappeared into the kitchen.
Overhead, Itachi could hear the heavy thud of his father's footsteps treading upstairs.
"So much for a proper family meal, huh, Itachi?" Sasuke asked.
Itachi shrugged slightly. He wasn't really looking forward to sitting down with his family the first night back as it would undoubtedly give rise to questions about his studies, his social life, and his relationship with Deidara. All of which were related and all of which Itachi wanted to avoid discussing because they were all intertwined.
"I have to go down to the station." Fugaku briefly explained when he reappeared a few minutes later donning attire appropriate to that of the local police lieutenant.
Mikoto, who had since packaged up his dinner to take to the station, stood up from her seat to press a soft kiss to her husband's lips. "Your dinner is in that Tupperware." She explained.
"Thanks." He replied and turned his attention to Itachi. "Sorry about this Itachi. We'll talk about your studies some other night."
Itachi looked up to meet his father's distracted gaze and nodded.
"I don't know how long it'll take so don't bother waiting around for me." He called over his shoulder as he exited the room.
"Be careful, honey." Mikoto responded and took her seat at the table. Only after Fugaku shut the front door behind him did she speak again. "I wonder what's going on now." She uttered to herself and picked up her fork. "Anywho, how's everything going at college, Itachi?" She asked.
Didn't I already answer that question? He wondered.
"How are things going with Deidara?" She asked, the real intention of her previous question.
Sasuke, who had just taken a particularly large bite of his dinner, quickly glanced up to meet Itachi's gaze. Not surprisingly, he too was curious to know the answer to that very same question.
"Fine." Itachi voiced.
'Liar.' Sasuke mouthed.
Mikoto kept her gaze locked with her oldest son's and nodded slowly. Seemingly content with his answer, she averted her gaze to the plate of food in front of her and pierced a piece of shrimp with her fork. "I ask because you haven't talked about him very much over the phone when I've called." She said. "You talked about him much more last semester."
"Did something happen between you?" Sasuke couldn't resist asking.
Itachi narrowed his eyes in Sasuke's direction and answered "Deidara's been spending more and more time hanging out with members of the art club that he's involved in." Which was the truth. Sasori was a member of the art club and as far as Itachi knew, Deidara had been regularly attending the art club meetings every week. "So I don't see him very often."
This time it was Sasuke who narrowed his eyes at Itachi, trying to discern the truth in his statement. Itachi was confident that Sasuke would drop the subject because Itachi was actually telling them the truth. There was no reason to believe that he was lying about his lack of interaction with his roommate.
"I was just wondering," Mikoto began to say, and brought a hand up to her mouth to cover up her chewing, "because you seemed to be getting along so well last semester." She swallowed. "So much so that he invited you out to the movies over winter break, correct?"
"Yeah." Itachi shrugged, aware that a vague one word response was not all that convincing. "But I've been pretty busy myself this semester." He said and took a bite of his pasta. When he finished chewing he continued, "I've been tutoring a former classmate of mine so I haven't been spending much time in the room myself lately."
"Former classmate?" Sasuke asked.
Keeping his facial expression neutral, Itachi nodded and took another bite of his food. "The one I tutored in philosophy." He said as if to jog Sasuke's memory. "He did well under my tutelage and asked if I could help him with his statistics homework."
Sasuke didn't appear convinced and Itachi knew why. Sasuke knew that Itachi wasn't the type to willingly seek out social interaction if it didn't benefit him in some way. While Kisame persisted on paying him for his time and energy, Itachi wasn't a tutor hired through and paid by the university. What he was doing for Kisame wasn't a paid job position he could list on his future resume which was the only conceivable reason Sasuke could come up with as to why Itachi would even waste his energy on someone like Kisame.
"That's nice of you, sweetheart." Mikoto smiled. "How old is this friend of yours, or I mean, classmate? How old is he?"
"Twenty." Itachi answered.
Sasuke's eyes widened in sudden realization. "Wait, this guy's twenty years old and needs help with statistics? What a joke!"
"Sasuke!" Mikoto hissed. "Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses and his weaknesses happen to be—"
"An intro to philosophy course, simple statistics, math, anything academic in general." Sasuke rambled on.
"Sasuke, dear, since you're done eating your dinner why don't you clean up the dishes in the kitchen?" Mikoto asked politely.
Sasuke glared in her direction. "Whatever." He said and stormed off into the kitchen with his fork and plate in hand.
Waiting until he was out of earshot, Mikoto turned to Itachi and said "I'm glad to see that you're helping out a fellow classmate." She said. "Do you only study when you're with this man or do the two of you hang out as friends from time to time?"
Itachi felt as though he could answer her question honestly, especially without Sasuke's judgmental gaze boring into his skull. "I sit down with him at lunch from time to time."
There was a twinkle in Mikoto's eyes. "That's wonderful, sweetheart! I'm glad to hear you're making friends."
You say that as though I'm physically incapable of doing so. If Itachi truly wanted to, he could make and keep an acquaintance. But the way he saw it, nobody truly understood him or shared the same work ethic as he did. What was the point of befriending someone who was no work and all play? A friendship like that would only be destined for ruin. All in all, it was easier to avoid pursuing such relationships.
He wouldn't go so far as to even refer to Kisame as a friend yet because he didn't know much about the other man apart from his age, major and a few of his interests and hobbies. In addition to that, Kisame was the type of person who didn't know how to properly budget their time. Who didn't place enough emphasis on success and hard work until it threatened to interfere with the things he loved most. In short, Kisame was the type of person Itachi usually didn't get along with. He didn't share the same ideals.
Yet, somehow, Itachi felt calmer when he spent time with Kisame. For once he felt as though the world wouldn't pass him by if he spent even a little bit of time doing nothing or sitting down to eat without a textbook open at his side. What's more, Kisame gave Itachi his distance when it came to issues he didn't necessarily want to discuss with the older man.
At least, that's how Itachi felt about him as of late.
By now the clanging of dishes in the sink had subsided as Sasuke finished up his task in the kitchen. "I'm done, can I be excused now?" He asked.
"You're free to go." She called from over her shoulder. She watched as Sasuke hurriedly darted from the kitchen out into the hallway and up the stairs, no doubt racing for his phone which was lying on the desk in his bedroom. Only when she was sure that her youngest was contained in the space of his bedroom did she start to speak again. "I didn't want to bring this up in front of your brother earlier but I'm concerned that there's something you're not telling me, Itachi."
Itachi's heart skipped a beat but he tried not to let his panic show. "What do you mean?"
Mikoto glanced at the entrance to the foyer. "I can really pinpoint it but I have this gut feeling that something is up between you and your roommate." She said. "Is everything okay?"
Was it that obvious? Was he so aggravated by the situation with his roommate that it was apparent to everyone who spoke to him? The normally dense Kisame knew that something was wrong, Sasuke was waiting from the start of the school year for something to happen between the two and now his own mother was questioning his relationship with the blonde without having any concrete evidence.
He mentally kicked himself for becoming so involved in Deidara's business that everyone took notice. Itachi looked up to meet his mother's look of concern and sighed. "You're right. Deidara and I haven't been getting along very well recently." He admitted sheepishly.
"What happened?"
With a shrug, he shook his head. "It's trivial. I resolved to go to bed early in preparation for an exam and he insisted on keeping the lights on to work on an art project. That's all." Itachi lied, remembering back to Kisame's assumed cause of their dispute. I thought that maybe you and Deidara were arguing about him wanting to keep the lights on when you wanted to go to sleep or some stupid shit like that you know? It was a shot in the dark to provide this as an answer to her claim but under no circumstances could Itachi tell her the real reason that he and Deidara were avoiding each other.
His mother looked pained. "Did you ask him to turn the lights off so you could sleep?"
Did she honestly think he was so socially backwards that he couldn't speak up for himself? Even in an imaginary scenario? "I did."
"So what did he say?"
Itachi absently chased around the few noodles leftover on his dinner plate with his fork. "He said that his assignment was due the next day and that he would rather stay up to finish it as opposed to waking up early the next morning." Itachi answered. So long as he kept his gaze directed at the food on his plate, his mother had less of a chance of doubting his words.
"So how did you handle it?"
Itachi thought back to the way he had handled their actual argument. "I didn't handle it well." He admitted. "We weren't seeing eye to eye and I said some things I shouldn't have said."
"You lost your temper? Sweetie, that's so unlike you." She said and looked as though she was about to press him further on the subject. A small shake of her head told Itachi that she decided against questioning his actions as she continued her previous train of thought. "Whatever the case, I'm sure you could recover your grade if you didn't do as well as you liked on it."
"I know." He murmured. "I was stressed out and I handled things poorly." The truth of his own words hit home. The day Deidara kissed him Itachi had been stressed out from his run-in with Shisui's old friends Fu and Torune. Could it be that he unjustly taken out his frustrations on Deidara? Was he the one in the wrong? No. Deidara had kissed him when he was openly sharing his feelings regarding a sensitive topic - his cousin's death. Itachi didn't see the need to apologize for his actions. This wasn't a misunderstanding created over a simple light switch and conflicting studying beliefs. It was more than that.
The groaning of Mikoto's chair pulled Itachi out of his own thoughts. "Are you finished with your plate, honey?" She asked.
Itachi nodded and rose to his feet with fork and dinner plate in hand. "Yeah."
"Let's take this into the kitchen, shall we?" She prompted.
Itachi offered her a curt nod and wordlessly followed his mother into the kitchen. "Not to beat a dead horse but I can't get over the fact that you lost your temper with him, honey." His mother began as she turned on the faucet to rinse her dinner plate. "I mean, Deidara strikes me as being kinda airy at times, but over something like a test?"
Silently listening to his mother's words, Itachi couldn't discern if she was disappointed in her normally level-headed son for lashing out over something so trivial or concerned for his mental state. Did living with another person have such a profound effect on her son that he couldn't concentrate on his studies, she probably wondered and Itachi couldn't blame her. The source of her concern was made-up, after all. Itachi's studies had not suffered since Valentine's Day save for the fact that some of his professors changed the criteria for assignments he had completed weeks in advance. Although it was a hassle to redo everything and adapt to the new changes, Itachi maintained a solid 4.0 GPA. While it was true that he and Deidara were not on speaking terms with each other, his relationship with the other man had very little effect on his studies.
When it was clear that Itachi was not going to provide her with an answer, she provided one of her own. "Honey," she said delicately, "it's not like you to lose your temper over something so...so—"
This line of conversation was exhausting and Itachi wanted to put an end to it as soon as possible. "I know, mom but it can't be helped. I was stressed out and I lost my temper." He reiterated so that she wouldn't have to.
Mikoto pursed her lips, acutely aware that Itachi was becoming agitated by her barrage of questions and cut straight to the point. "Sweetheart. I'm worried that the root of your frustrations lately is tied in with your cousin's death."
Itachi's eyes widened and in that second he wanted nothing more than to tell her that she was wrong and that Shisui's death had nothing to do with it. But that was just the thing. Real or imaginary, it was feelings stirred up from Fu and Torune's comments regarding Shisui's death that had put Itachi in such an unfamiliar state of mind. That Sunday, he had been disoriented, upset, and in need of a distraction. And when he got the distraction he was looking for, everything turned upside down and now he and Deidara weren't speaking to one another.
Even in the days following their argument, the nature of his relationship with Shisui only added fuel to the fire. "The Itachi Uchiha I know doesn't stress out over homework assignments he did three months in advance." Kisame stated and released his hold on Itachi's wrist. "Is this about Shisui?"
"What?"
Kisame averted his gaze to the floor and scratched the back of his head. "I worded that badly um...I dunno...you're different...this semester…I—"
"I'm different?!"
"Well no, I didn't mean it like that I—" Kisame stuttered.
"If your cousin—your best friend—died a week after you finally made up after a semester of animosity towards each other in a car accident, wouldn't you be different too, Kisame?"
That was only a week ago. A week ago he was arguing with Kisame over the nature of an argument he had with Deidara two weeks before that. Two arguments in the span of a single month. Whether he was shouting at Deidara and crying in front of Kisame, the utterance of his cousin's name was present at least once each time. In short, every argument he participated in tied back to Shisui's death in some way or another.
Mikoto didn't need to wait for Itachi's reply. His silence was more than enough to confirm her worries as she pulled him into a tight hug.
They stood that way for a while. Mikoto's arms wrapped around Itachi's upper arms, her cheek resting against his shoulder. He was much taller than his mother was so the embrace didn't have quite the effect as it had when he was younger and could bury his face in the crook of his mother's neck as if to cocoon himself from his worries. Nonetheless, Itachi treasured the closeness he felt in that moment because his mother was right. Although she didn't say it directly, the source of Itachi's frustrations were a direct result of grief. The grief of his cousin's death that he'd attempted to push aside and work through at a later date. The grief he'd attempted to ignore all these months following the accident. The grief he chose not to deal with that slowly started to manifest in the depths of his heart like bacteria in expired milk. He was a ticking time bomb waiting to happen. In fact, he'd already detonated, countless times. How long, he asked himself, would it be before he took the time to properly deal with his emotions?
He pulled away from the embrace just then, a sign that he was satisfied with the duration of her comfort. She flashed him a gentle smile. "The death of a relative can be hard." She began. "And there's no doubt in my mind that Shisui's death was particularly hard for you given how close you boys were."
Itachi kept his gaze directed to the floor tiles as she spoke. He feared that if he met her eyes, his resolve would crumble and he was frustrated with his constant displays of emotional weakness. This wasn't the kind of person Itachi saw himself to be. This wasn't how he normally acted. This wasn't him.
"But you have to remember that nobody knows what you're going through unless you tell them, sweetie." Mikoto continued. "Like I said before, Deidara...seems like he can be a little...dense...sometimes. That being said, you shouldn't lash out at him for something that is beyond his ability to fix. The only one who knows how you truly feel is you, Itachi. Deidara doesn't know how you feel and probably doesn't understand why you were so angry with him over wanting to keep the lights on."
Until now, Itachi was so absorbed in the recent events of his life and how closely his mother's words tied into them that he had forgotten about his original lie. This entire time his mother was speaking to him as if he was upset over a light switch when in reality, he was grappling with an unwanted kiss during a time of vulnerability and mixed feelings regarding his relationship with Kisame.
"Are you and Deidara on good terms?"
Itachi blinked in confusion. "Hm?"
Mikoto cocked her head to the side. "I said, are you and Deidara on good terms?"
No. The answer was simple. Or at least, the answer would have been simple if he'd told his mother the truth to begin with. How did he answer a question like this when she was under the impression that they were arguing over lights?
"You don't have to answer that."
He exhaled in relief but maintained a neutral facial expression so she wouldn't assume something else was bothering him.
"Just…" she began uncertainly, "keep in mind that your stress may be something internal that your friends don't understand."
"I will."
The corners of Mikoto's lips quirked upwards slightly. "I went to the store and bought some ice cream for when you came home." She said and opened the freezer to reveal two pints of "Chocolate Therapy" chocolate ice cream.
Chocolate Therapy. Itachi couldn't resist the urge to smile at the coincidence. "Thanks."
His mother smiled broadly now, exposing a row of straight pearly whites. "Not a problem." She said and closed the freezer door. "Oh! There was something else I wanted to say before I go." She turned to face him once more. "When I said that your friends might not understand the source of your frustration, I'm not saying that you have to tell them everything that's on your mind."
"I know." Itachi smiled.
"I just want you to keep in mind that you might be misdirecting your feelings of grief. That's all."
"I will."
Mikoto smiled once more before disappearing around the corner, leaving Itachi standing alone in the middle of the kitchen. Not even a minute after her departure, Itachi padded over to the freezer to enjoy the ice cream she bought for him. After a heavy conversation like that, he felt as though he deserved to treat himself, despite the fact that it was getting late.
Although his mother was under the impression that he and Deidara were fighting over something trivial, her words resonated deeply within him. The day that he shared a kiss with Deidara, the blond had been generally under the impression that Itachi was single and had feelings for him. He may have been right about Itachi's relationship status but he had mistaken Itachi's kindness towards him for something more than that. Something beyond the realm of friendship. What's more, Deidara had apologized profusely for the misunderstanding and Itachi refused to hear him out. And when he did, he continued to lash out at his roommate and mock his decisions. And what right did he have to do so? Itachi had never been in love with anyone before. While it may have seemed obvious to him that Sasori did not feel the same way towards Deidara as Deidara felt for Sasori, maybe love did cloud and complicate one's judgment and thought process. Maybe it was for that same reason, that Deidara had kissed Itachi that day, only to realize in the face of Itachi's confusion and anger that he had been mistaken.
Instead of trying to see things from Deidara's point of view or trying to understand even a little how Deidara felt, Itachi turned a deaf ear to him. He had effectively shunned him and for what? For his inability to properly deal with his cousin's untimely death.
Sitting at the dining room table with an open ice cream container in hand, Itachi carefully considered his mother's words and wondered how he could fix something that was beyond repair.
Nothing like a heartwarming conversation between mother and son, right?
A few things before I dive into the shout-out section: I have changed my username from Sasori33-001 to Itachi's Husband as it seems more fitting to what I like to write~ (don't get me wrong, I love Sasori too but I don't really write much about him). I do have a tumblr account under the same name but I'm terrible at updating it so feel free to check it out but don't expect much. I also have an AO3 account too but I haven't done anything with that yet either X'D I'm terrible, aren't I? If I do decided to post on AO3 the content will likely be the same as on here ;)
SHOUT-OUTS GO TO:
****The Secret Sal: #QueenMikoto is all I want to tell you! ;P
****Hanyuu-Bunny and Syndigrast: Welcome aboard the TBLU cruiseline, I hope you enjoy the ride and I thank you for your recent reviews! Much love! *mwuah*
Until next time!
~Itachi's Husband