itachi || "date in a dream"; back to black
Numb was all it felt like. You didn’t recall ever crying over it, and it wasn’t like you could have a shred of hope that the traitor wasn’t alive. Attachment, while necessary for survival, was also most definitely gonna lead to your early end one of these days, if you didn’t do the job yourself.
You didn’t like to think you were one of the nutjobs who would sit and talk to a grave. It was very well possible you were already that far gone, and if you were, you were honestly just thankful you didn’t follow the career path of the shinobi. ‘Cause if push came to shove and you snapped once and for all, you weren’t in danger of doing anything to this village. A bit weak and altogether useless for combat. You’d just be shipped to a mental institution. Still, stonewalling was a part of the grieving process. At least, that was what you kept telling yourself.
In the puddles of the rain around you, you saw your own reflection and she looked hopeless. Not hopeless as in helpless, or hopeless as in beyond redemption. Hopeless as in all your hopes and dreams were gone, at least by the look of you.
Somehow, this whole situation was a bit of a blessing. You remembered your emotional outbursts, your occasional fits of uncontrollable rage. That seems like a different person, now. Of course, it had been around five or six years, so you should be over all of this. But some corner of your psyche really didn’t want to give up the numbing feeling.
How could someone who was so kind to you do all of those terrible things? You supposed your subconscious stopped you from hating him because none of it added up. He was so loyal to the village and his clan, and then out of nowhere, he snaps and murders all but one of them. You knew very well about the curse of hatred, but that didn’t matter: why would he kill all of the rest? Itachi wasn’t a cold-blooded murderer. He wasn’t afraid of killing, sure; he was a part of the ANBU Black Ops, after all. But he wasn’t one to take part in senseless slaughter. It just didn’t make sense, like it was some stranger who had died and not him.
Of course, you weren’t sure if he was dead or not. To everyone else, it didn’t make a difference. He was there no longer, ergo he was dead to the village. A traitor. Excommunicado. Cut away, forever. You missed him. Oh, god, you missed him. And those dreams you kept having didn’t help at all.
After all, it was easy to forget someone, especially with your addled mind. But what brought you back to this stone wasn’t necessarily the names engraved on it, just what it represented.
“Hey, leave her alone.”
You squeezed your eyes shut, sitting down with your legs crossed. If you could just seal away all thoughts of him, it would be for the better, but…
“No, I’m serious. What did she do to you to deserve this?”
You tried to commit to memory every name on the stone, out of respect for those who had died during the attack of the nine-tailed fox, especially the fourth Hokage and his wife, but you were never the best with rote memorization. All you could remember were your sister, your mother, your father, and Iruka-sensei’s parents.
“There… are you alright?” The boy with the dark hair and mysterious yet kind eyes helped you to your feet. “I haven’t seen you in school… are you a kunoichi?” You shake your head. He has a grace to him; his gentleness is not out of weakness but out of how carefully he controls his strength. “Well, anyways, they should leave you alone from now on. Do you want to join me for lunch?”
Standing up, you gripped your knife and headed out to a point where you not only knew you could cry in safety, but also where you knew you wouldn’t be able to stop yourself.
“Hey, you’re pretty skilled at making bento,” he remarks after you offered him a bite. “You’ll make a good wife to someone someday, I can tell you put a lot of care into it.”
Sitting in the grass of the meadow under a large tree, you took out the massive mason jar you carried on your person and set it aside, next to the bundles of cedar sticks in your bag. Opening your pocket knife, you start to carve up the twig, keeping the cold glass between your legs, slowly watching the shavings curl and cutting them off.
“You always keep the wood shavings when you whittle,” the shinobi next to you observed. You nodded, expecting him to ask you why, but Itachi just smiled and kept braiding the blades of grass in between his calloused fingers, larger than yours yet so careful, so… precise. “It’s so you can burn them, right?”
Eyebrows furrowed, you closed the mouth you hadn’t realized opened in shock. Everyone else always treated you like it was weird, or like it was stupid for you to do something so mundane in your spare time. But Itachi, your friend Itachi, Itachi Uchiha, the prodigy of his clan—the ninja who had entered ANBU at age eleven—guessed your hobby, first try. There seemed to be no judgment in his gaze or his tone. You set down your kunai knife. “Yeah. When I started whittling, large chunks of wood flew off like shrapnel. So I slowed down, and now it’s just these spirals.” You reached into the jar, which barely had a quarter of its size, and pulled out a few swirls of cedar wood, letting them sift out of your palm like sand.
“And the cedar… you have that Eastern red cedar tree by your house, don’t you? It’s a beautiful species, and it smells amazing when it burns.” The stress lines on his face moved as the corners of his mouth turned upwards. “You’re an interesting one,” he says, his dark eyes tracking the movements of your fingers.
The jar was about three quarters full by now.
“Hey, what’s that supposed to mean?!” Itachi let out one of those drawn-out, quiet laughs that came from his low voice, deeper than yours. “Don’t make fun of me,” you giggled, playfully swatting his shoulder. “I’m not a kunoichi or anything, so it’s not like I can have arson or chakra control as a hobby like you ninja.”
“Don’t worry,” he grins again, and it makes this part of your stomach turn when you can hear how the simplest smile affects his voice, “I’m not making fun of you. Hey, do you want a tip on technique?” You nod vigorously. God, were you a puppy around him. Itachi takes your kunai knife and gestures to where the blade meets the handle. “Kunai aren’t always the best for controlled whittling, you know. There’s no dull part for you to hold on to when you slice in the same direction as the grain of the wood.” The Uchiha sets it down on the ground, and slips a hand into his jacket pocket, retrieving a pocket knife. His digits hover over the girthy stick of cedar you had been chipping away at. “May I…?”
“Sure,” you let him take it, curious as to what the difference would be. Itachi cuts a beautiful spiral in the shape of the golden ratio, knife sliding through the cedar like butter. “Whoa,” you whisper under your breath without thinking, and he looks at you, his soft black eyes showing something besides the usual friendly glint you saw. “There’s such a difference…”
“This was a knife my father gave to me when I was younger, when my hands were smaller like yours. It works best with that size… so it should whittle even better when you use it!”
Your vision was starting to blur, dark wet spots appearing on the cut surface of the wood.
Itachi closes the pocket knife and places it in your palm, closing your fist around it and holding it with his larger hands. “Keep it.” Your eyes widen again, and it looks like it physically hurts him. “Think of it as a gift to remember me by.”
Retrieving the whetstone and the flask of water from your bag as well, you sharpened the primary blade of your pocket knife, careful to keep your index finger pressed against the flat portion of the sharp side, with the crest of the Uchiha clan inscribed into the metal.
A gift to remember him by…? Those sounded like famous last words. You furrow your eyebrows, but Itachi envelops you in a tight hug and you almost forget your own name. It’s so unlike him, so… personal and intimate. He smells like… well, you couldn’t pinpoint it, exactly, but it was even better than cedar logs in a fireplace. You liked being close to him, him holding you like this, and it only happened every so often, so you had to savor these small moments while they lasted. This one was just slightly different, though: he seemed like he didn’t want to let go of you, like his protective embrace was more than just beneficial on your part. You pressed your forehead into the crook of his neck, and wished more than anything that you could be there for him forever. “You’re meeting up with Sasuke soon, right,” you whisper, and his sigh sounds pained.
When it was satisfactorily sharp, you continued to whittle away at the stick until the sun came up, wiping at your eyes every few minutes.
Itachi holds on for one more second before letting you go. “That’s right,” he says, and you know how much he adores his younger brother, but the tone of his voice is bittersweet. You close your eyes briefly, the summer breeze mixed with the clear air of the meadow making you a bit drowsy, but when you open your eyes again. Itachi presses his lips to your forehead gingerly, his thumb brushing your jawline very carefully, with the gentle touch you couldn’t find anywhere else. When he pulls away, one of his hands is resting on where your neck met your collarbone, and those dark eyes are staring into yours fondly. “You are important to me, (Y/n).” His gaze tears away from you. “I—I have to go.”
Yawning, you tightened the lid on the jar and put the whetstone away in your bag. You should probably head home. Closing the pocket knife, it suddenly occurred to you that there were several other blades inside of the tool, so you should check them to see if they were dull or not. Your heart racing for reasons you weren’t quite sure of just yet, you pulled them out one by one, and by the time you were done, you didn’t even have the strength to throw it as far as you could.
The three other blades read I love you.
Th—this wasn’t possible. You had seen those blades hundreds of times, you had been using that pocket knife for years , how could th—how could someone have written that in there?! It wasn’t you, so how did someone find your knife and write things in there? How did they even carve that into metal with such a small space to work with? Was it maybe—?
Sasuke opened the door before you could even knock, apparently on his own way out, seeming a bit surprised to see you. “(Y/n)?”
He was the splitting image of Itachi, except for the haircut and the noticeable absence of the two stress lines under his eyes you adored so much on his brother. You swallowed; he must get that a lot, so you didn’t need to rub it in by bringing it up. “Sorry, Sasuke, I just—is it okay if I look in his room for something?”
“Who—? Oh,” he recovered quickly. “Well…” There was conflict in his eyes, and it was clearer than day that there was something he was keeping from you. Something important. There was so much hatred in his expression that you were almost afraid of what would have happened had you been a stranger who got in his way. That was never something you saw in Itachi… was that the curse of hatred? But then again, apparently you hadn’t known Itachi half as well as you thought. “I… uh…”
“If you’re going to go do something stupid that professional ninja have told you not to do, go ahead, be my guest,” you rolled your eyes, “but whatever it is, you still haven’t said whether or not I can—”
“Itachi is here, in the Leaf Village,” Sasuke blurted out, gesturing wildly, “and I’m going to avenge my clan, so if you feel sorry for him, go to his room, but stay out of my way!” The Uchiha sprinted off with a blood-curdling shout, faster than the speed of light, and you keeled over like you’d been shot. Because to be completely honest, that’s what it felt like.
Opening the door, numb and weak in every movement, you made your way to his desk, rifling through the drawers for something, anything that hinted at recent activity. Maybe a screwdriver, or a slightly dented kunai, or welding material or—just anything that could carve into metal, really. You needed to know this was real, you needed to see his fucking existence and know that it wasn’t just your messed up head making everything up again.
Ants crawling into your vision, you could have fainted when you saw Itachi sitting up straight on his bed, gentle gaze pinned on you. Almost every facet of your vision swayed and blurred, but you winced, holding on to the wall, and it started to re-focus. He looked so much different from the last time you had seen him, and you nearly tore out the interior lining of your cheek from biting it so hard to stop yourself from bursting into tears. Those stress lines were the same, and his eyes were still as caring and wise, but his hair was longer, and he wore a long robe, an abyssal black with red clouds, outlined in white. The headband of the Leaf Village he used to champion so proudly had a mark slashed through the metal of its insignia. He was taller, stronger-looking, but… but he was still the same man you knew now. The same one who murdered the overwhelming majority of his clan. The man who cursed Sasuke with hatred, yet the same one who kissed your forehead, who gave you this knife, who protected you from asshole kids, who you thought was dead, was sitting on his own bed, staring at you with a bittersweet smile, one that… one that your conscience told you he shouldn’t be allowed to have.
“Itachi…” You stood up straight, now, still pressed against the wall. “Long time, no see.”
“I wanted to show up earlier,” he said, calm. Calm as always, so reassuringly calm, but there was very little he—or anyone, for that matter—could do to quiet the shrieking confusion in your soul right now, pulling you towards and against him at the same time like two currents working to erode a boulder into a school of perfectly smooth pebbles. “To confide in you, to try and guide you, to apologize… but I was busy until now.” Itachi moved his hand, staring at it with a sort of apathetic glaze pinned to his irises. “Even this is a shadow clone. But don’t worry, he’s coming. To… to talk to you. Just probably not in the way you expect.”
You raised an eyebrow. “I’m going to need you to remember that I am not a ninja before you explain to me whatever the hell that’s supposed to mean. Also, I don’t have sufficient proof that you’re actually here right now, and not just inside of my imagination.”
The shadow clone grinned, and it didn’t seem malicious, either. “Well, that’s not going to help anything.” He closed his eyes, and exhaled slowly. “This is the Tsukuyomi.”
Waking up in a place with inverted colors, red and black everywhere, you were in exactly that meadow where you had last seen Itachi. Sitting up, you glanced to your right, before glancing to your left and jumping a bit. There he was…
“I missed you, you know?” He leans back and sighs happily, not making an attempt to touch you or hug you at all. “You were the best damn thing about this town and you didn’t even know it.”
“Why?” It sounded so hoarse. Itachi winced. “Why to everything. Why did you kill your clan, why didn’t you come back before, why did you give Sasuke the curse of hatred?” You weren’t the same young girl with the same level of innocence, but you still wished you were in that moment. You wanted to keep him as your best friend and… and… You shut your eyes. “Even if it makes him stronger, it… I looked into his eyes as he left the house, Itachi. That is not a child anymore. It… he… It’s all just so much.” You gripped the claret blades of grass in trembling fingers, only daring to look at the former ninja beside you through half-lidded eyes, and not directly. “I just want an explanation… please, Itachi…”
He shook his head. “I can’t explain everything. I… still need you to hate me. That’ll make it easier.”
“I tried. Itachi, I tried to hate you,” your voice cracked, “and I don’t think it’s possible. Even after everything you’ve done. I just can’t. And… and carving things into the knife you gave me is beyond cruel. It’s hard.”
“It’s true,” Itachi spoke immediately. “It’s true. I loved you.”
Your breath hitched yet again. “Loved…?”
A bittersweet laugh, a mere shadow of the one that used to make your insides twist into knots. “I can’t keep this from you, it hurts too much. It was an order. I turned my back on the Leaf Village by following the orders of the Leaf Village. That much I can divulge.” Itachi’s fingers, still larger than yours, still warm, touched the back of your hand gently. “I need to be the bad guy, for Sasuke’s sake. For the sake of the Village. His hate will die down, I promise you, but it will make him stronger. I’m here for the nine-tails, but I needed to tell you this.”
Wiping your face repeatedly, you breathed heavily, trying to stop crying and stop being a pussy about this. “Itachi… can… can you hug me? Like you did the last time we met. Just for a little bit, and then you can go, a—and I won’t tell anyone—”
Itachi wrapped his arms around you, stronger and taller than back then. You melted against him, the familiar scent still present in the Tsukuyomi. He was warm. Warm as always.
“Please don’t hurt Naruto,” you whispered, “he’s a good kid.” You kept your face close to the collar of his robe, trying to ingrain the feeling in your memory, before pressing a chaste kiss to the side of his cheek and letting go.
“I love you.” Itachi stood, zipping up the robe so you couldn’t see his mouth, just his eyes and the world inside of them. “Goodbye. I’ll miss you.”
“I always will,” you exhale, slumping down to sit on the floor of Itachi’s room as the illusion of the Tsukuyomi faded back to black.