2 years ago

"I'll come with you" Suigetsu said.

"No" Sasuke replied.

"I didn't ask."

Sasuke tried to take a calming breath "I don't want you there."

"Do I look like I care what you want?" Suigetsu said with a smile that showed too many of his teeth.

"Suit yourself." Sasuke said.

It didn't matter. It was hard to gather up the energy to care.

Karin, who'd been uncharacteristically silent so far chimed in "I'll drive."

It's like a fucking daytrip, Sasuke thought. He had the oddest urge to laugh.

Sasuke's family home was only about an hour-and-half drive from the university. Sasuke, who would usually sit in the front, sat in the back, and closed his eyes, leaning his head back on the seat. Karin and Suigetau bickered occasionally, but there was no bite to it. Mostly they were all silent.

"Sasuke" Karin called hesitantly half-way into the drive "What are you going to say to him?"

Sasuke didn't respond.

"What is there to say." Suigetsu said after a moment, and there was a hint of anger underneath his usual mocking tone. "We should just jump him. You and I hold him down, Sasuke breaks a few bones."

There was another pause.

"You sure you're not going to hide behind me?" Karin asked, "You almost pissed your pants that time he gave you a stern talking to."

"That was before…!" Suigetsu snapped, then trailed off.

Before.

Sasuke's life was cleaved into a clear before and after.

The funny thing was he couldn't even bring himself to care about the money. Maybe that would come eventually. But right now, all he could think about was the radio silence from Itachi.

What was he going to say to him? Sasuke had no idea. There was a part of him that thought he would see Itachi and things would somehow just make sense. Itachi would have an explanation. There would have been a mistake.

Another part of him quietly suggested that maybe Sasuke could promise him he wouldn't contest the will. Then they could just not talk about it and go back to being how they'd always been.

How pathetic was that?

If they'd ask him a year ago, what he'd thought would happen if his parents died having disinherited him, he'd say Itachi would burn that will before anyone had the chance to blink and swear in court that it never existed.

Could he really be cutting Sasuke off? Could there be an explanation?

Distantly, Sasuke thought Suigetsu's plan was also an option. Maybe breaking Itachi's nose would make him feel better.

He just needed to do something. Anything. Anything other than getting calls from the lawyer, anything other than calling Itachi's phone only to get hung up on.

"We're behind you no matter what you want to do." Karin said.

Sasuke didn't respond. They'd only known each other for a year. How could he ever believe words like that when his own brother could do something like this.

Now

"Suigetsu, Karin, it's good to see you." Itachi said as he closed the door behind him.

There was an awkward silence. Neither of his roommates responded. Karin was looking at Sasuke, and Suigetsu seemed to be staring somewhere above Itachi's shoulder. It could have almost been funny. Except it really wasn't.

Sasuke broke the silence "What do you want?"

"Can we speak in private?"

"Now he wants to talk." Suigetsu muttered.

Despite everything, Sasuke still knew Itachi enough to recognize the look of amusement in his eyes in response to his roommate's hostility, but unlike what Sasuke expected, he didn't say anything in was an odd air about him. It almost looked like he was nervous. Except, Itachi didn't get nervous. He'd picked up his laundry in the break between the morning and afternoon sessions of his bar exam.

"Do you two mind?" Sasuke asked his roommates. He didn't really feel like inviting Itachi up to his room, so the living room it was.

"Whatever you need Sasuke" Karin jumped up to leave, and for once, Suigetsu followed her without protest.

"We'll be upstairs." Suigetsu said as he passed by Sasuke and added in a lower volume "It's never too late to enact the old plan. Remember? We can hold him down. "

It took Sasuke a moment to register the suggestion.

How odd to think they'd been there two years ago, and they were here still. Sasuke would not have bet on the people he'd met in the first week of uni to be the ones to stick around after everything in his life had gone to hell. Did he deserve it? It wasn't something that he asked himself often.

"Can I sit down?" Itachi asked, surprising Sasuke out of his thoughts.

"Since when do you ask permission?"

Itachi only stood there, waiting.

Sasuke considered forcing him to have the whole conversation standing up, out of sheer spite, but in the end, he took a seat. Taking it as tacit permission, Itachi followed suit.

"What do you want?" Sasuke asked.

"I saw Kakashi the other day."

Sasuke gritted his teeth. Of course, he had. He did whatever he wanted.

"He said you're considering dropping out."

"If this is what you came here to talk about, you can leave." Sasuke managed to say from behind his teeth.

"What are you going to do? Work for that music venue full-time? Is that really what you want?"

"How is this any of your business?" Sasuke asked as coldly as he was ready to get up if Itachi mentioned anything about 'being his brother'. However, the other man simply went silent at the question.

"I understand that you're angry" Itachi said after several moments.

"Really." Sasuke said, and he was proud of how steady his voice was.

"I made a mistake."

Sasuke froze for a second, because what a momentous occasion, then he snorted "A mistake? Which was it? Having the family lawyer call and tell me I was disinherited or disappearing on me a few months after our parent's funeral?"

Itachi's expression didn't reveal anything of what he felt. If he was even a little guilty or regretful, Sasuke could find no sign of it on his face.

"There was a reason." Itachi said after a moment.

How long had Sasuke wanted to hear those words? Now that the time had finally come, he wasn't sure he wanted to hear it.

Could anything ever justify what he'd done?

"Tell me."

2 years ago

There was no one in the house. Sauske had known it in his stomach as soon as they arrived. Itachi had the habit of leaving the hallway light on when he was home. He'd done it since they were children. So, Sasuke had known when they'd driven up the street and he'd seen the dark window. Still, he pretended like he didn't.

So they'd rang the bell a few times to no avail. Then they just stood there.

"What now?" Karin asked.

Sasuke paused, then took out his keyring. There was a part of him that was afraid the locks would have been changed, but the key slid in as easily as ever and they trespassed into Sasuke's family home.

The house had an undisturbed air to it, and Sasuke already knew what he would find before he walked to the kitchen and saw the unplugged, dark fridge.

The other two followed in solemn silence and none of them even turned on the light. It had barely been 15 minutes before they were all already back in the car.

"Maybe he's gotten a new place?" Karin suggested tentatively "He wouldn't just leave the city, would he?"

It had taken a call to the family lawyer to confirm that he would. He had. Itachi was gone.

Now

"Sasuke" Itachi paused. Hearing the uncharacteristic hesitation in his voice, Sasuke tensed up "You always had the habit of putting our father on a pedestal."

Sasuke's anger rose immediately "This is how you want to start?"

"I want you to know what I was thinking."

Sasuke stayed silent.

"Can you tell me you weren't proud of everything he'd built? That you stopped caring about his legacy because of how he treated you at the end?"

"How is this relevant?" Sasuke snapped "He disinherited me from his legacy. If you want to explain something, explain why you decided to cut off all contact and leave the city without telling me."

"He didn't disinherit you. You were meant to get an equal amount of everything as me, including the company shares." Itachi said point blank.

Sasuke stared at him.

"And the company was facing federal investigation."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Sasuke snapped

"It took me a while to figure it out after I started working for them" Itachi continued bluntly "They were embezzling money, laundering it through international branches, I don't even know the full extent of everything. But just the tip of the iceberg was already really bad."

Sasuke stared at him. His father had built the company from the ground up. It was his life's work.

"That can't be true." Sasuke said. While it was an understatement to say they hadn't always seen eye to eye, Sasuke knew his father to be unwavering in his principles.

Wasn't he?

"If the company went under investigation, it could have gone on for years. We would have proven that you weren't involved eventually, even if you inherited all the shares. But the only way to keep you out of it from beginning to end was to claim you had no contact with the family at all. No inheritance. No shares. Nothing to do with the company."

Sasuke watched Itachi's face as he calmly reiterated all this as if it made perfect sense.

"So, I forged his will." Itachi said casually. "Obito helped."

Sasuke stared at him. "You…" Sasuke wanted to say it was impossible, but it was Itachi. His group of friends were half criminal lawyers and half some of the shadiest people Sasuke had ever met. Besides, it wasn't like Sasuke had even contested the will so it had never undergone any sort of scrutiny.

Sasuke felt his head spin as he sat there. His father had been, what, a fraud? A criminal?

He could think about that later. Right now, there was something more immediate to think about.

"Let's say I believe what you're saying." Sasuke said from behind clenched teeth "Why didn't you tell me?"

Itachi went silent. He just sat there, looking at Sasuke.

"Well?" Sasuke snapped after several moments had gone by.

"I thought I could handle it." Itachi said "Quietly sell the company for parts, keep you out of the mess, and if I couldn't do it, it would be just my name involved. I was the one who knew anyway. You didn't have to know, you could go on thinking…"

"Who gave you that right?" Sasuke's voice was significantly louder than before. He couldn't bring himself to care.

"I did." Itachi said "I'm your older brother. I thought I was protecting you."

Sasuke gritted his teeth. "Why come back now?"

"It's done." Itachi said "The company's gone. The investigation's settled."

"So what?" Sasuke laughs "You thought you could just reappear and I'd welcome you back with open arms?"

"No." Itachi said, and he was still so calm. "Maybe. I…"

"What?" Sasuke snapped.

"I'm sorry." Itachi said.

Sasuke paused.

"I'm sorry. If I hadn't tried to take on everything myself… " Itachi took a breath, the only outward sign of his nerves "If you knew, you might have been involved in the investigation, that's true, but I also thought it would be too much for you, losing our parents, and then also having your image of him destroyed like that."

Sasuke looked at him, and for the first moment in his life, he recognized that his older brother, the infallible Itachi, could be so blind "You thought losing our parents and then also losing you would be better?"

He saw the pain pass behind Itachi's eyes "It wasn't supposed to take so long."

Sasuke shook his head.

"Why tell me now?" Sasuke said after a few moments

Itachi sighed "I was waiting for a right time, maybe a part of me still thought I could come up with a way to avoid it after all." Itachi smiled, as if acknowledging the ridiculousness of it. "But then your friend gave me a touching speech on the value of honesty. He is surprisingly persuasive."

Sasuke stilled "What the hell are you talking about?"