Dearest...
SHISUI saw Itachi for the first time at a funeral when he was six.
It wasn’t anyone Shisui had been close to, his great uncle on his mother’s side, but no matter how often Shisui’s parents expressed the importance of blood, of family, and of the clan, Shisui just couldn’t muster up enough sadness to feel sad. He’d only met his great uncle once before, maybe twice, and he could barely remember his face. ‘Kouzaburou’ was just a name to him, not a real person. He wasn’t allowed to say anything about it though; he just sat there next to his mother, listening to the long winded speeches, surrounded by a sea of dark traditional Japanese clothing and stony faces.
His gaze wandered, and he caught sight of another boy across the room that was the same age as he was, with delicate features, pretty almost. This boy didn’t move at all, perfectly still, back ramrod straight. It made Shisui feel somewhat self conscious of his own fidgeting, but he couldn’t help it.
“Mommy,” he whispered. “Mommy, who is that?”
She swatted his hand down, gently, but quickly.
“Don’t point, Shisui, it’s rude,” she murmured under her breath. As always, that was the first thing she thought about. But really, pointing was the easiest way, he couldn’t see why it shouldn’t be allowed. Shisui puffed out his cheeks, kicking his legs with vengeance. His mother sighed, giving him a firm pat on the shoulder. “He’s your great uncle’s grandson, your cousin Itachi.”
Well, that was a funny name. It didn’t seem to suit the other boy, Shisui had always thought of weasels as animated creatures. He couldn’t remember having met anyone from that side of the family before, hadn’t known of any cousins his age. He wondered if Itachi had known his grandfather very well, if he was sad to have lost him. Shisui couldn’t remember his at all. He had something to ponder for the rest of the hours they sat there, watching Itachi do a startlingly accurate impression of a statue.
Shisui never did get a chance to talk to him after the ceremonial formalities were over.
--
ON his first day attending class at the academy, Shisui walked in and saw Itachi, sitting in the center of the front row, again with the flawless posture and the calm mask of a face with his eyes trained on the blackboard and the teacher. Shisui had no intention whatsoever of paying that much attention, and he certainly had no interest in placing himself in the direct line of fire for questions from the teacher, but somehow, something dragged him straight to the seat next to the serious boy.
That very same something smacked him on the top of the head, so that--
“Hi, I’m Shisui, we’re cousins,” popped out of his mouth.
Itachi blinked slowly, turning to look at him. His eyes scanned over Shisui’s face. There was no recognition in them, at least, nothing Shisui could see. Itachi inclined his head.
“Hello, Shisui-san, it is a pleasure to meet you. My name is Itachi.”
Shisui’s ears physically twitched at that. He’d never heard ‘san’ tagged onto the end of his name, ever. He didn’t very much like the sound of it. Itachi was already turning away, formal (ish) introductions done with. Shisui struggled for something else to say, not wanting the conversation to die just yet, but really, there wasn’t much else for him to talk about, and the teacher was taking attendance now anyways.
He spent the rest of class watching his desk neighbor, trying to glean some other area of potential chatting ground, but his source of interest didn’t say a word to anyone else. Maybe it was something about the impression Itachi gave off, unapproachable in all his seriousness, but no one tried to go up to him. He didn’t try to speak to anyone else either.
Itachi, Shisui decided, was the type of person who cared so much about their academic performance that they would take vigorous notes of every single word that came out of their instructor’s mouth. However, Itachi was also the type of person who would never need to take notes, because he was just that smart. He could remember everything just by concentrating and listening very carefully. It might explain how no one else in the classroom really seemed to exist to him.
When it came time for lunch, Shisui practically seized the opportunity - ignoring all the other children that seemed perfectly friendly, but were also very much not Itachi and thus were not interesting enough at the moment - went over to Itachi, and asked him.
“Can I eat with you?”
Itachi looked at him with that same expression, not happy, not irritated, maybe a hint of surprise there, but nothing much to tell Shisui if he really cared one way or another.
“Of course.”
Shisui mentally celebrated this microscopic victory, and sat down. They didn’t talk about anything, they just ate, but Shisui took the answer to his question as an invitation for the next day as well, and the next. He asked questions now and then; ‘What’re you eating?’, ‘What’s your favorite subject?’, ‘Do you listen to music at all?’, and Itachi would answer them. Other than that, Itachi would remain silent.
Still, even if Itachi never bothered to say anything while they ate together, Shisui filled in for the both of them, cluttering the silence with various inane topics. He was able to comment on the weather without shame, could mention how that boy sitting behind them didn’t bathe enough, and tell Itachi stories about the stray cat that kept wandering by Shisui’s house, how it liked to eat salmon, all the while latching onto any new information he learned about Itachi and tucking it away into the back of his mind.
Itachi’s favorite foods were cabbage and onigiri with seaweed, he didn’t like steak, he didn’t listen to music, he didn’t have a favored subject, he didn’t have any hobbies, he had a little brother named Sasuke - Shisui had heard about the new baby, news traveled rather quickly in the clan. Sasuke, consequently, liked music, was going to be rather good at singing, liked dark blue, and giggled whenever Itachi poked him in the forehead.
Disregarding how adorable that last fact was, Shisui wondered how it could be possible that Itachi could know any of those things when Sasuke was barely a year old, but decided not to question him about the one topic he was so verbose about.
Itachi was the type who did not linger after school was over. He left exactly on time, never a moment too late. Shisui supposed he should be happy that Itachi let Shisui eat lunch with him at least, and he could walk with Itachi home as well.
But he doubted it was for any reason other than the fact that they were related, and that they lived in the same neighborhood.
--
AND at some point along the way, Shisui had decidedly started to like Itachi.
--
VALENTINE'S day rolled around, and every single person in the class would receive a little bit of chocolate from everyone else. It was just one of those things. Shisui honestly liked giving people things, people that he wanted to give things to anyways, but the fact that he was required to give every person in his class something just to obey the rules of social appropriateness, that was what irked him. If it were up to him, he’d only be giving chocolate to Itachi; that was the whole point of Valentine’s day, wasn’t it? It defeated the purpose of giving chocolate to someone he liked, if he was giving chocolate to all the people he didn’t particularly care for, and the people he didn’t like either.
He apparently wasn’t allowed to give extra chocolate to Itachi either, it would be rude to the other children. (Shisui tried not to and succeeded in preventing himself from asking why the other children would have any right to complain considering they were already getting giri-chocolate from him.)
Instead, Shisui took up the little plastic bag of chocolate addressed to Itachi, and stuck a silver star sticker on to it. (Squares, circles and such were too ordinary, hearts were too much.)
Itachi accepted the chocolate with an inclination of the head and a ‘thank you very much’. Other than that, there was no sign that Itachi could see any difference.
--
HE didn’t see Itachi’s careful gaze that scanned the room, taking note of the other chocolates, the singularity of the star.
--
OF course Itachi graduated early. What was surprising to Shisui was that so did he. Somehow, in his efforts to not be left behind, he had also managed to finish in only one year, albeit with lower marks than Itachi (who refused to share his test scores with Shisui, out of politeness no doubt, but Shisui knew they were better than his own).
Not a day after graduation would go by that Shisui would not mentally thank whoever was in charge of organizing the teams for placing him on the same team as Itachi. Thanks to that, not much changed, except for the presence of a new teacher, an additional team mate (a girl from the Aburame clan who seriously gave Shisui the willies), and they had missions. They still ate lunch together, and Shisui still did most of the talking.
One time, when they were walking home later than usual, night had fallen (because even if it was a d-class mission, finding twenty cats was still hard, and how on earth could a person manage to lose all twenty of their cats in the first place anyways) and Shisui had been craning his neck back to stare at the full moon, he’d asked,
“Hey, did you ever think that there really were rabbits up there that pounded mochi?”
There was a long silence, but Shisui didn’t repeat himself. One of the many things he had learned, Itachi was always listening, probably because it was impolite not to.
“No, but Sasuke still does.”
Something sounded different about his voice this time, and Shisui looked over at him, just in time to see a faint smile gracing Itachi’s lips.
Shisui hadn’t realized that a single smile could be equal to the feeling of as if one were on top of the world.
He started to keep track of them. That’s one. The grin stretching across his face in response felt like it might become permanent, and he barely managed to restrain a whoop that was threatening to jump out of his chest. He wanted keep that smile, to run through the streets and show it to everyone and brag about it.
In the end, he only told his mother, but it didn’t really matter anyways.
--
“…AND the river looks really pretty at night, during the day too, the trees aren’t too tall so they don’t block out the light, and the current isn’t too strong so the moon reflects really well on the surface of the water but the sun makes it really glitter. I bet we could go right now and I could show you, wanna come?”
Itachi paused, looking unsure of what to say in response. It made Shisui realize that he had in fact just fumbled into the question that had been sitting on top of his head for days, during his ramblings. He’d been so focused on asking, that he hadn’t considered a good way of asking, and asking during a peaceful moment at lunch probably didn’t qualify as good. (Even if he couldn’t think of any other time to say it.) He didn’t look at Itachi, suddenly feeling too self conscious to make eye contact.
There was a long moment of quiet.
“I am sorry, I promised to spend time with Sasuke this evening.”
Ah, of course.
He let go of the air trapped in his chest, quietly allowing it to drain out as he laughed.
“No, that’s fine. Sorry, that was kind of out of the blue wasn’t it?” And now he was fully prepared to launch into another stream of mundane dialogue. It was stupid to get upset over something so small anyways; Shisui knew that he’d never come before Sasuke in Itachi’s list of priorities. The two of them must have been seeing less of each other lately too, Sasuke had started classes at the academy, and missions made free time less routine.
--
HE didn’t see the guilt in Itachi’s eyes, he was too busy trying to hide the hurt feelings in his own.
--
COME next Valentine’s Day, Shisui was handing out more giri-chocolate, to his teacher and his team mates. He stuck that star sticker on Itachi’s little box of chocolate again, hoping that it would get noticed this time and simultaneously trying not to care, because he doubted it would.
--
WHEN Itachi shared the news with him that he’d been accepted into the ANBU, Shisui let out a cheer, and wrapped an arm around his cousin’s shoulders, congratulating, successfully ignoring the niggling thought at the back of his mind that became morose at the thought, because Itachi would definitely not have much free time to spare as an ANBU. It was good news, he was proud, and he was happy for Itachi. (No time for clingy selfishness.)
When the Konoha Military Police Force told him to keep an eye on Itachi due to the suspicious activities going on, Shisui wanted to break something, because he always had kept an eye on Itachi and he didn’t want the thought of suspicious ANBU activities scratching at the back of his mind whenever-
He almost didn’t want to go to see Itachi, just to spite them, but he couldn’t do that, even if he did manage to convince himself that he wanted to, because he wanted to see Itachi more.
So the next day, Shisui met up with Itachi again, at that café, just like he always had. He ate dango, Itachi drank tea, and they talked. Itachi would not speak of ANBU related subjects, Shisui kept nothing secret except for the one.
And when Shisui noticed that Itachi had stopped wearing their clan’s symbol, he didn’t say anything.
--
WHEN Itachi called Shisui, asking him if he could meet up with him at the river, if he was free, Shisui called in sick and canceled everything he had planned.
The water wasn’t sparkling with sunlight, or reflecting a shimmery moon and stars, it was cloudy out, not exactly fit to rain, but clouded enough for all the light of the sun to have become bleached white, for the waters to look grayer.
“So why did you call me?” Shisui asked at last. Itachi didn’t say anything for a while, didn’t look at him.
“It truly is beautiful,” he said quietly, looking out at the river.
Shisui was fast. He saw it coming.
But he didn’t care.
The jutsu wasn’t anything Shisui had seen before, some sort of paralysis inducing technique, subtle, but not particularly potent. The answer came to Shisui before the question did though, through the disorientation, a side effect of the jutsu no doubt, when he felt the river water swelling and surrounding his body. His limbs wouldn’t cooperate with him, but he still tried to sit up, because he could make out Itachi’s face above him; the Nakano’s water was always clear. He wanted to ask-, he had never been able to muster up enough confidence to ask. He didn’t need to know why Itachi was killing him, why Itachi was betraying their family, their clan; Shisui didn’t care about any of those things right now. He just wanted to say it, he needed to get up, but Itachi was straddling him, his hands, slender fingers, graceful even to the bone, pressed down on Shisui’s shoulders.
Only half a foot of water separated them, if he could just-.
I love you.
The air was stagnant in his lungs.
Do you love me?
He gave up, letting go of the tension in his chest, the thing keeping the dead breath in, and the water out. Rocks pressed into his back. There was a vague sense of numbness pervading through all of his muscles, accompanied by a feeling of fatigue.
He tried to see through the ripples that danced across the surface, but no matter how gentle the current of the river was, it still wasn’t clear enough for him to see much of anything. He wondered what sort of expression Itachi had. He wondered if it was that same look, calm and serious as always, as if the act of living was a task, meant to be carried out with vigilance. He wondered if the various smiles he had managed to coax out of Itachi were anything close to the ones Sasuke probably received all the time.
He wondered what Itachi would write in Shisui’s suicide note.
…Did you ever love me?
There was water in his lungs now.
He noticed, not all of those ripples were from the current. It looked like it had started drizzling after all. Then he closed his eyes.
--
HE never got to find out that Itachi kept a photograph of him, the back of it covered with star stickers, painstakingly saved.
He never got to find out that it hadn’t been rain drops he’d been seeing; it had just been Itachi.
~*~
THE END