Author's Note: I did NOT expect to update this story this week. I mean, I wanted to, but then I started watching TV and procrastinated on some homework assignments (I'm still procrastinating as I type this author's note lol) and towards the end of the week I realized I wouldn't forgive myself for not updating something over break! So enjoy this beautiful 4,719 chapter that I slaved over to post in time for Kisame's birthday (3/18 - Sorry Absolute Anarchy, I couldn't make it in time on your end T^T) because I probably won't be able to update this again until the semester ends in May ;)
Happy Kisame Day and yes, there is quite of bit of our beloved shark in this chapter~ *you're welcome*
ITACHI SIGHED. "LET ME GUESS, you're not going to start eating until you've seen me try this, are you?"
Across the small table, Kisame uncrossed his arms and gestured to the chocolate frosty positioned in the middle of the table. "That's the plan!"
Itachi extended his middle and index fingers into the fry reached into the cardboard fry container to pluck two average sized French fries. "What compelled you to even try such a combination in the first place?" He asked, stalling for time.
Kisame shrugged. "Kim Possible, duh!"
"You watched that show?" Itachi asked. He personally never saw the appeal of a teenage spy or whatever she was and her blundering sidekick.
"You didn't?"
Itachi shook his head.
"I watched that show all the time when I was younger." Kisame reminisced with a fond twinkle in his eyes.
Itachi glanced down at the wilting French fries he still held between his fingertips. If he ate them without dipping them into the offending dessert in the middle of the table, Kisame would make a scene. "Hey wait a second, you were supposed to dip them in the frosty not eat them plain!" He'd complain.
Seeing as he couldn't put off his fate any longer, Itachi dipped a single French fry into the light cocoa colored dessert and retracted it. Kisame had gone out of his way to take him out to lunch solely to try this odd concoction. The least he could do was give it a try.
"You're doing it wrong!" Kisame protested suddenly.
The sudden outcry caused him to flinch. "There's a right and wrong way to do it?" What could he be possibly missing? Dip it in, take it out, and eat it. Simple.
"Here." Kisame offered and leaned across the table. His large hand completely engulfed Itachi's and thrust the fry back into the dessert. "You can't just dip it in and take it out," he instructed, "you need to angle it so that you can actually taste the frosty on the fry. Otherwise it's just going to taste like a soggy French fry."
With Kisame's hand still tangled around his own, they removed the fry to reveal a sizeable glob of frosty hanging off the fry like toothpaste on a toothbrush. "You can let go now or were you planning on feeding me while you were at it?"
Kisame laughed. "I think I can trust you to do that much on your own." He said and sat down to do the same with his own fries and chocolate frosty.
Itachi opened his mouth, careful to place the mass hanging off the fry directly on the surface of his tongue before biting down to sever it in half.
"What do you think?" Kisame asked immediately after stuffing two frosty covered fries into his mouth. Not surprisingly.
It tasted exactly like a frosty at first, chilling his palate. At the same time the saltiness of the fry assaulted his nostrils. Pushing the combo to the side of his mouth so he could chew the crispy fry encased inside the frosty, he came to a conclusion: it tasted exactly like he imagined that French fry dipped in a frosty would taste. "I don't see the appeal." He said upon swallowing.
"You're kidding!?" He asked incredulously and immediately snatched the frosty away. "These things are the best!"
"Be my guest." Itachi murmured and delicately reached for his Mediterranean salad. When they first arrived to the establishment, Kisame argued that Itachi always opted to eat salad and then tried to equate his diet to that of a rabbit's. In the end, Itachi was able to dissuade him by saying "If I'm to try this concoction of yours then I should be able to decide what I want to eat."
"Fair enough." Kisame compromised.
As the pair started to eat, Itachi watched Kisame take large bites of his sandwich, a double cheeseburger topped with bacon and mayonnaise and wondered why the man had chosen to take him out for lunch today. While Kisame had promised to let Itachi try the combination of French fries and frosties sometime, Itachi didn't expect for it to be a few days later. There was no rush in his mind to try this wayward combo.
But what puzzled Itachi the most was the fact that he rarely saw the man eat lunch with people his age. He had seen Kisame loudly chatting with a group of friends in the dining hall for dinner on the weeknights before and he assumed that during swim season he often dined with his teammates after practice.
"Because I was going to get something to eat and wanted to know if you wanted to tag along." Kisame had said the evening he invited Itachi to sit with him while he ate dinner after practice. Back then, Kisame hadn't been surrounded by a bevy of jocks like Itachi had expected him to be and he appeared to have no dinner plans that involved his other teammates either. It was only when, upon running into Itachi, he asked if the younger classman wanted to share dinner together somewhere. "May I ask you a question?" He asked after several minutes of silence.
Kisame was in the process of devouring the last of his sandwich and nodded, his mouth too full to provide a verbal response.
"You don't usually eat lunch with your roommates." Itachi ventured.
Kisame arched a quizzical brow. Seconds later, a crooked smile spread over his face. "You know that's funny because one, that wasn't a question, it was a statement."
Itachi regarded him with a blank stare. Of all the times to nitpick, Kisame chose to do it now. Unless he was avoiding something.
"And last I checked I checked, neither do you."
He sent a narrowed glare in Kisame's direction because the man knew full well why he and his roommate didn't eat lunch together anymore. "It was an observation."
"But you wanted to know if you could ask me a question. You didn't say you wanted to tell me an observation." Kisame grinned and pinched several French fries from the container. "My roommates and I have different lunch schedules which is why you don't see me eating lunch with them all that often. Either that or they've already made plans to eat lunch with their girlfriends or make out behind a building somewhere instead." He shrugged.
Itachi didn't need to know the details of Kisame's roommate's love lives. Explaining that their schedules conflicted was sufficient enough.
"I could make plans to eat lunch with them if I wanted to," he continued, "but by the time I get out of class I'm starving. And you seem to be free the same time that I'm free so I spend my lunch eating with you instead."
So he was nothing more than a placeholder then. If Itachi understood correctly, Kisame would rather eat lunch with his roommates if they were free, but because they had other commitments Itachi was the next best option.
"Don't get me wrong, I enjoy eating lunch with you." He said as if to read Itachi's mind. "It's a good time to talk about when we're going to meet up to help me with my statistics homework and catch up, you know? Talk about life."
Talk about life. Kisame said. More like "make sure you're emotionally stable and won't be reduced to tears when I question your relationship with Deidara again." At least, that's how Itachi interpreted his words. "Don't feel obligated to sit with me for lunch because you feel sorry for me."
Kisame, who had long since tilted his frosty in an attempt to salvage what was left of it, slowed his movements and glanced upwards at Itachi. After several seconds went by, he averted his gaze downwards at his frosty.
So Itachi was right. Kisame didn't sit with him because he enjoyed his company. He sat with him because he felt sorry for him. If they were in the cafeteria, Itachi would have casually slung his messenger bag over his shoulder and retreated to an empty classroom, mentally cursing himself for being so foolish and so ignorant.
"I already told you I'm bisexual, right?" Kisame finally spoke.
The question was sudden and immediately pulled Itachi from the swirling vortex of his thoughts. There had been no mention of sexuality so why was he bringing it up? "Yes…?"
"And I told you how a lot of people assume that because I'm an athlete that I'm straight, right?"
Itachi nodded though he still didn't understand where the course of the conversation was leading.
Wiping his salt laden fingers on his dark jeans, he somberly continued. "It's not really a big deal since I don't go around flaunting what type of people I'm into but when I'm with my roommates or my teammates I feel like I'm hiding something. An important piece of myself, you know?"
In all honesty, Itachi didn't know. He never felt like he was hiding any part of himself from anyone but nodded to keep the conversation going.
"I don't know why but it's different when I'm with you. You're more down to earth I guess."
"What do you mean?"
For the first time since Kisame began to answer Itachi's question, he looked up to meet Itachi's eyes. The contact lasted only a second before Kisame looked away. "I don't know. You don't seem like the type of person to judge people until you've really gotten a chance to get to know them." He said.
It was Itachi's turn to look away this time. Typical jock and knuckled headed athlete were just a few of the words that came to mind when he first met Kisame. To this day he wondered why someone like Kisame – a confident, popular athlete who drinks protein drinks and runs at the break of dawn for the fun of it – would willingly sit with someone like Itachi – a quiet bookworm that would rather spend the day in solitude reading a book than in the company of others. And somehow or another this man believed that Itachi wasn't one to judge.
"I assume you knew your roommate was gay before, you know, Valentine's Day, right?"
Just the mention of Valentine's Day made Itachi's pulse race. He had yet to find the right moment to make amends with Deidara. "Yes."
"And yet that didn't stop you from befriending him, even though his sexual orientation made you uncomfortable right?"
Itachi didn't respond.
Kisame scratched the back of his neck. "I don't know if this makes any sense or not but when I'm with you I don't feel like I have to hide anything. I told you I was bisexual and you haven't treated me any differently since. You haven't run for the hills or anything like that!" He laughed.
I considered it. Itachi absently thought. And it was true. When Kisame told Itachi that he was bisexual, the world felt like it was spinning. Was everyone he associated with on this campus everything other than heterosexual? He remembered thinking at the time. But Kisame never forced the issue. He never made any unwanted advances towards Itachi, and until today, he had never broached the topic. And Itachi respected him for that. It was because of this that Itachi continued to tutor him and sit with him at lunch.
"Anyhow, I hang out with you at lunch time because it's the only time you're not in class or studying in your room. I don't eat with you because I pity you or because I don't have anyone else to sit with. I eat with you because the more time I spend with you, the more comfortable I feel in my own skin."
Itachi couldn't bite his tongue. He had to pry for a further explanation. "How so?" What quality did he have that made Kisame feel better about himself? His studiousness, perhaps? His organization?
"Well when I first met you I thought you were this robot that spends all his time studying." Kisame began to explain. "But the more time I spend with you, the more I get to know you, the more I realize how human you are. The day you came clean about what happened between you and Dei last month really changed my perspective of you."
He could only imagine. After weeks of concealing the events of that night, Kisame managed to force it out of him. Itachi's normally steely composure crumbled that day and it wasn't something he looked back upon fondly.
"That day I saw a more human side of you that I had never seen before. Not only that, but it was kinda cool to know that there was somebody like me who kept things locked up inside. Things you feel like you can't really talk to anyone else about."
Although Itachi hated it when Kisame implied that he was anything less than human, he understood the point that he was trying to make. Somehow or another Kisame found solace in Itachi's company because like him, Itachi strived to keep parts of his life a secret from the rest of the world.
Across from him, Kisame pulled his phone from his pocket. "I guess we should start getting back, huh?"
Itachi checked his watch and nodded in agreement. "It's probably for the best." He said and tossed his plastic fork and crumpled up napkin into his empty salad bowl.
"Thanks for coming out with me today." Kisame smiled with bright eyes. A stark contrast from just ten minutes prior. "I was surprised you said yes."
Itachi shrugged and rose from his seat to collect their trays. "I figured you'd either drag me out here to try it for myself or you'd bring one to me the next time we met up."
"That's not a bad idea, actually." He mused, a mischievous twinkle in his eye.
Itachi dumped his tray in the nearby trash receptacle. "No thank you, I'll pass." He said and waited for Kisame to dump his own tray. Kisame volunteered to drive them since he was more familiar with the area than Itachi was.
"I don't sit with you because I pity you," Kisame said as they walked into the parking lot, "I sit with you because you fascinate me. There's more to you than what meets the eye." He pulled out the car keys to the gray mustang he lovingly named "Samehada."
Although Itachi would've guessed that Kisame drove a sports car, there was more to Kisame than what met the eye too. Itachi would have never imagined that he could ever be persuaded to try a combination as unsightly as French fries and a chocolate milkshake of all things and yet here he was, in the company of an athlete he'd originally pegged as a dumb jock, trying things he would have never considered trying before if it hadn't been for Kisame. And their conversations were…nice. Whenever Itachi spoke with Kisame, he forgot about schoolwork and Deidara and everything else that nagged at the back of his head on a typical day.
"I'm sorry for my accusations of you earlier." Itachi said a few minutes into the drive back to campus. He opened his mouth to offer a reason for his actions when he realized he didn't have one. He wasn't sure why he assumed Kisame only thought of him as a placeholder. Such a thing never mattered to him before so he was uncertain as to why it riled him up so much now.
"Don't be." Kisame interjected. "I probably would have thought the same thing if I were you."
When he found himself at a loss for words, he simply smiled in response, thankful for Kisame's understanding.
"And Itachi?"
"Yeah?"
"You know you can ask or tell me anything right? I mean, I told you that I was into guys just as much as I was into girls so don't be afraid to talk to me when something's bothering you, okay?"
This was the second time now today that Kisame brought up his sexuality in a conversation. Perhaps admitting to Itachi that he felt comfortable in his presence eradicated any hesitation he might have felt in mentioning it before.
"I mean you don't have to if you don't want to but I'm just saying you don't have to keep everything bottled in, you know?"
"I'll keep that in mind." Itachi replied back.
Kisame looked over in his direction and smiled before shifting his focus back to the road.
You know you can ask me anything right? If that was the case, perhaps Kisame wouldn't mind if he asked him something that had been on his mind for a few weeks now. "Are you in a relationship right now?"
He would be lying if he said he was expecting to Kisame to erupt in a fit of laughter when asked. In fact, it was so sudden that it made Itachi flinch. "Wow when I said 'ask me anything' you didn't hesitate, did you? You went straight for the kill and asked the personal stuff!"
Maybe his question was a bit too personal. "Forgive me," He mumbled, "ever since you told me that you were bisexual I—"
"I'm not in a relationship right now, Itachi." Kisame cut in.
How did one respond to an answer like that? It wasn't as though Itachi was expecting anything to come from it one way or another. He just couldn't picture Kisame being in a relationship with another man.
"But I do have my eye on someone at the moment." Kisame said, keeping his eyes level with the road.
"Really." Itachi answered evenly.
Kisame nodded slightly. "Hm-hm. But I don't think they're aware of it yet."
He wasn't surprised that someone like Kisame would be pinning after someone. Kisame was charismatic, popular, athletic, and by popular standards, he wasn't unattractive by any means. What surprised Itachi most was how someone wouldn't be aware of Kisame's affection as he seemed like the type to go out of his way to spend all of his free time winning the other person over with displays of chivalry and disgusting fast food combinations if today was anything to go by.
"Mind if I ask you a question?" Kisame asked as the university came into view.
Are you in a relationship with anyone? It was the only thing Itachi could think of that Kisame would want to ask him. And it was only fair since Itachi had asked him the same thing just now.
"Have you talked to Deidara yet?"
"No not yet." Itachi replied and released the breath he was holding. "I haven't found the chance yet." Which was both true and untrue. Deidara didn't spend as much time in their shared room as he used to. From what he'd observed, his roommate was spending more and more time hanging out with Sasori in the art room or in the upperclassman's room. And given Itachi's relationship with Deidara as of late, he could see why.
"Try to find the time to talk to him. Even if it's not about anything important." Kisame said. "Talking about your day or about his day will at least help break the ice before you talk about more important issues, you know?"
"Yeah." Itachi understood that. His problem, however, lie in implementation. He could plan exactly what he wanted to say to Deidara and how he wanted to say it but every time he saw Deidara the blond was either in a hurry to go somewhere else or blocked any of Itachi's attempts to make conversation with him. "I'll keep that in mind." He settled on.
"Just give him some time to warm up to you and it'll be fine."
It'll be fine…
Shisui brought a gentle hand to rest on his shoulder. "Don't worry about it, Itachi; it'll be fine! I promise!"
It'll be fine. He promised a few days prior to his death. And now Kisame was promising him the same thing. "Thank you." He said in a voice just barely above a whisper.
Kisame glanced in his direction as they entered the parking lot behind his apartment building. "Not a problem! Call me up anytime you're craving French fries and a frosty and I'll make it happen!"
Itachi wasn't thanking him for taking him off campus for lunch but he might as well have. He didn't have the heart to tell Kisame what he was really thanking him for. "It's unlikely I'll have a craving for that particular combination but I'll give you a call if I change my mind."
Kisame smiled and reached for the gear shift to put the car in park. "I hope I live to see the day!"
As soon as Kisame stopped the car and pulled the keys from the ignition, Itachi opened the passenger door and stepped out onto the pavement. "Am I meeting you at your apartment again next Tuesday?"
"If that's okay with you." Kisame agreed. "Anywhere but the library; that's all I ask."
"That's fine."
Kisame flashed him a warm smile and unlocked the back doors of the car so the pair could retrieve their bags from the back seat. Kisame hadn't told Itachi of this plan until this morning in the form of a badly worded text and several corrections marked with asterisks so they brought their bags with them. "Well I hate to 'dine and dash' but I gotta get to my next class."
"Same here." Itachi said and slung his own messenger bag over his shoulder. "See you later, Kisame."
"Later, Itachi!" Kisame called over his shoulder and started to jog across the parking lot.
Itachi followed Kisame at a much slower pace as he had more time to spare before his next class started than Kisame did. Once he traversed the parking lot and set foot on the side walk he chided himself for not buying a vanilla frosty to go because now he really wanted one. Sans French fries.
-8-8-8-
Itachi enjoyed Fridays. Fridays were very peaceful for him as he only had one class to attend at eight in the morning, leaving the rest of his day to do whatever he felt like. And in most cases, he spent his time working on homework that was recently assigned. Although he strived to complete as many assignments as fast as possible to prevent the stress that most of his classmates felt later on in the semester, some of his professors didn't explain the criteria for the assignments until closer to the day they were to be introduced on the syllabus.
Thus, Itachi spent his Fridays getting a head start while everyone else attended classes or slept in.
Deidara didn't have such a luxury. Like Itachi, he also had an eight o'clock class to attend followed by another class shortly afterwards. After eating a quick lunch, he often returned back to the room to collapse in his bed for a few hours until meeting up with Sasori later in the day for art club.
Today, however, Deidara arrived back to the room and immediately began shifting around in his closet for something. Itachi didn't say anything to the blond as it was none of his business what Deidara was doing. But when he saw a bright flash of blue and a dark black pant leg he was curious to know what the blond was planning. It still wasn't any of his business but from what he could tell, Deidara had disappeared to the showers with a pair of dress slacks draped over his arm.
Twenty minutes later, Itachi confirmed his suspicions when Deidara reappeared donning an electric blue dress shirt, a black bow tie pulled into a perfect bow around his neck (a feat Itachi wasn't sure he could even accomplish without a tutorial), suspenders and dark black dress pants. Even his normally wild hair was washed, blow dried and combed back into a neat pony tail that hung low at the base of his neck. It looked as though the artist had attempted to comb back the long fringe that normally hung in front of his left eye but several strands had come undone, not long enough to do what he wanted to do without the use of bobby-pins or the like and Deidara didn't seem to care.
"It's unusual to see you so dressed up." Itachi stated in a tone that lacked any animosity or ill will. It was his hope to sound as open and friendly as possible so that Deidara wouldn't spit out a sarcastic remark and storm out of the room as he had the last time he tried to engage in a conversation with the blond.
"I have an interview, yeah." The blond answered back, much to Itachi's surprise. His tone was bereft of any anger or resentment. If anything, he sounded distracted which was understandable as he continued to fish around in his dresser for something. Socks, if his bare feet were an indicator.
"Really? Off campus?" Itachi pressed. They were already on rocky footing so he had nothing to lose from asking his roommate questions.
"On campus." He responded. Their room was tiny. Just big enough to fit two beds and two desks. The two closets in the room were just big enough to accommodate Deidara's large suitcase and were arranged on either side of the doorway. From where Itachi sat at his desk, he could clearly hear Deidara mutter "Where the hell is my other sock? I just saw it last night, yeah!"
"Which department?"
"Admissions, yeah." He spoke to Itachi. "There you are you little bastard!" He spoke in regards to the sock. "I didn't get the RA position I applied for so I thought I'd apply for a job giving tours to prospective students and their parents, yeah."
Itachi knew Deidara applied to become an RA or resident assistant. He too, received an e-mail explaining when and where the mandatory information sessions were being held but didn't see the appeal. Patrolling the hallways until the early hours of the morning, writing incident reports detailing his findings, planning monthly events to get people to come out of their rooms. An on campus job couldn't hurt him since he didn't want to rely on his parents for money for the rest of his life but mediating between roommates who couldn't get along with one another clearly wasn't the right job for him. How could he help people sort out problems with their roommates if he couldn't even sort out problems with his own roommate freshman year? "I didn't know you didn't get the RA position. I'm sorry to hear that."
Deidara shrugged and stalked over to his bed with two socks in hand. "I got the rejection letter on Valentine's Day, yeah. I was kinda bummed out about it but there's nothing that chocolate can't fix, right?"
Hearing "Valentine's Day" was enough to make Itachi's heart skip a beat. Knowing that Deidara had gone to such lengths – the chocolate, the rose petals, the dimmed lighting – to ease the pain of rejection only to have Itachi lose his temper with him later on over a kiss. Scratch that, a misunderstanding. "I didn't know that."
Deidara pursed his lips, pulling his black shoes on over his feet. "I didn't have the chance to tell you about it, yeah."
Itachi would have much preferred to have Deidara snap at him as opposed to this. He wasn't hissing at him or saying anything sarcastic but he could definitely hear the hurt in Deidara's voice when he spoke of the events that transpired last month. Every bit of new information was like a punch to the gut as if Itachi wasn't feeling bad enough for his attitude regarding the blond.
He knew he should apologize. Say something at least but he wasn't expecting the conversation to end up like this. He was at a loss of words. What did you say in response to something like that?
"Gotta go. My interview's in less than an hour and I wanna get there early for sign-in." Deidara announced, rising to his feet.
"Good luck." Itachi called after him.
But the door to their room shut before Itachi could hear Deidara's reply.
If he replied at all.
Damn that chapter ended on a somber note. I knew it was going to be kinda heated but damn. Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this massively long chapter and I am excited to announce some fun facts about this particular chapter:
Fun Fact #1: I knew that Kisame was going to drive a 2014 Mustang that was roughly the color of Samehada since 2013-2014 and wanted to stick it out with this story until I could say that he drove one. (I say 2014 for the ridges(?) towards the back that reminded me of shark skin. I saw my resident director driving one a few years ago and immediately knew that Kisame would drive one too and I am so HAPPY to finally share that little factoid with you guys!
Fun Fact #2: I applied to be an RA my freshman year. And got rejected. In fact, I got my rejection letter on Valentine's Day too so I know the pain.
****SHOUT-OUTS!
****To The Secret Sal: You didn't even review the last chapter so you don't get a shout-out ;P (I'm sitting here wondering why you were talking about Fugaku and Mikoto in the last chapter like "wtf? I don't think that was the last chapter so why does he think Mikoto's gonna be in this one...OH. He didn't review the last chapter. I see. smh...)
****To Absolute Anarchy: Yes, I said this would be the calm before the storm but I lied, as weatherpeople often do (LOL do you see what I did there?) I see no reason why the drama shouldn't pick up next chapter but deep down you were secretly delighted to see how Itachi and Kisame's lunch would play out this time (don't tell me you don't have comments about some of the things they talked about because I know you do, gurl~ ;PPPPP and I can't WAIT to hear them!)
****To Dragon77: Yes, Itachi needs to talk to Deidara and Kisame agrees with you on that. However, new information has been added into the mix and it seems like Itachi did quite a bit of damage to Deidara...it's gonna take a lot to fix this relationship. But we shall see how it plays out! What did you think of Itachi and Kisame's little lunch though?
Until next time guys,
Itachi's Husband
PS: Did I mention that this chapter actually takes place on March 17th, the day before Kisame's birthday? It's a Thursday in this chapter because Kisame's birthday fell on a Friday last year when this particular chapter takes place but that's why it was so important for me to crank this thing out today. I know it wasn't mentioned in the chapter but it'll come up sometime soon *Absolute Anarchy - *wink* *wink**