Itachi leaves no note and no indication of when he will return. This is not unusual for them, especially where Itachi's business with the Akatsuki is concerned.
Tsubaki likes to think they've both grown fond of each other over time, and cultivated some trust between them, but fondness is not love, and they each will always have parts of their lives that the other will not be invited into. In Amegakure, a city of forgotten names and private selves, theirs is not too uncommon of an arrangement.
The morning after Itachi leaves, Tsubaki returns to her own business. She changes from her nightgown into a dark blouse and skirt, then sorts through her jewelry box for a gold pendant and several slim, pearl-tipped pins to hold back her hair.
Modest, but always neat. Clean, but never anything overly indicative of wealth.
When she's satisfied with how she looks, Tsubaki grabs a pitcher from under her sink, fills it with water, and carries it into her living room. Though her two-bedroom apartment is more spacious than most in Amegakure, a large portion of that space is taken up by shades of green and brown and terracotta - her indoor "garden," though the term is more than a little overgenerous.
A proper garden within city limits is out of the question, not only due to space constraints, but the extraordinary amount of energy that would be required to maintain a garden in a city where there is no reliable sun.
Hanging grow-lights hum softly overhead as she works, and they tint the room in fluorescent shades of blue and purple and red. Her electricity bill is monstrous because of them, but there are few other ways to work around Amegakure's lack of sunlight.
In all of Amegakure, Tsubaki has this: discounting Itachi, it is her only indulgence, the one thing that is solely hers, that exists only for her pleasure.
Anything grown and tended to, anything that requires cultivation, is in short supply. This is not exclusive to plants, though much of what Tsubaki grows - her moon limes and sandroot and snail orchids - are the only ones of their kind in the entire country, as far as she's been able to trace. Possibly through the entire country, though news outside of Amegakure is difficult to come by.
It takes her several dozen pitchers and half an hour to make it through the winding rows of pots leading from her living room to her kitchen. She nudges a squat step stool around with her foot in order to reach her hanging plants, over the thin plastic sheets spread out across her floor to catch fallen leaves and water.
When she's finished, she fills a basket with jars of plant trimmings she prepared the night before, and she grabs one of her plastic-lined cloaks off of the hook. After fastening the hood over her hair, she slips on her boots and steps down onto the hazy Amegakure streets.
Day and night are often indistinguishable in Ame. The sun is barely a smudge behind the rainclouds, and the street lamps give the streets a dreary glow. The streets have flooded again overnight, which means she'll need to walk to the commercial district instead of taking a trolly. With a sigh, Tsubaki adjusts the basket on her arm and walks briskly through the sea of puddles on the sidewalk.
Thankfully, the walk to her shop is a short one, and the foot traffic is light. The store itself is small - smaller than her own apartment, even - but land in Amegakure is scarce, and rent in the commercial district is so high that at times Tsubaki can't help but wonder whether she's gotten into the wrong business.
Tsubaki unlocks the door to her store and sets her keys and basket on the front counter. Her space is small, so she needs to be strategic in how she uses it. The rest of the store consists of a single room divided by three long rows of shelves, organized by cosmetics, herbs and oils for cooking, and salves and medical products. On a whim, she keeps a small basket of fresh plant trimmings at the front of the store, though the output from her small garden is nothing significant, and the demand for them has never been great.
Customers usually filter in and out throughout the day, but it's never crowded. Tsubaki has a clerk, Umi, who comes twice a week to manage the store while she handles the accounting in the back office, but she's never grown particularly close to her either.
Conversations in Ame generally tend to be few and far between, especially between strangers, and especially between a stranger and a person running a profitable private business.
It is how things work in Amegakure, and for Tsubaki, they work fairly well.
Itachi has called her interactions with customers - or lack thereof - interesting, but he refuses to elaborate beyond that. He seldom ever explains his odd comments, regardless of their context. He isn't an Amegakure native like she is, though, and she supposes his business has never been—well, she supposes that business as a subject has never been his actual business.
Itachi does whatever it is he does for the Akatsuki, and she manages the rest.
It is how things work between them, and they work fairly well.
When five o'clock comes and the rest of the businesses in the commercial district begin to close, Tsubaki locks her own doors, slips on her cloak, and walks briskly toward the gate to the city. She keeps a larger, more expansive greenhouse just beyond the city limits, beyond the worst of the rain, close enough that she can be there and back at her apartment in a little over an hour, though her visits are infrequent.
The guards know her well by now, but in Amegakure no one takes chances. She waits patiently under an awning while the hooded watchman examines her passport, passing his chakra through the laminated booklet to check its authenticity.
There is no small talk between them. The guard offers her a stiff nod when he returns her passport, and he cracks the gate open just wide enough for her to scurry out of the city and enter the rainy plains that surround it.
Immediately, Tsubaki sinks several inches into the mud and scowls.
Amegakure has always been her home, but it no longer feels like the city where she'd spent her childhood. There has always been rain, but now it is never ending.
It is not a nurturing rain. As a gardener, Tsubaki feels especially qualified to judge this. Amegakure's new rain breeds only rot and rust. The smell of mold permeates the entire city, until even that is drowned out by the downpour. The air doesn't clear until Tsubaki is at least a mile away, though even then dark storm clouds linger overhead.
The fields that used to span across the countryside have become pools and mud pits, and those further beyond are plagued with severe droughts. For years, Ame shinobi have been forced to raid other countries for supplies, and the Akatsuki have been known to occasionally divert their funds to purchase supplies from smaller, less scrupulous villages.
It isn't the most sustainable way to live, but Amegakure has survived nonetheless.
Tsubaki harbors her own doubts, though she voices them to no one—not even Itachi.
Rain is good, but too much rain will destroy a garden.
Any gardener knows this.