Tears
The first time Itachi witnessed his wife crying something had twisted in his gut. He blamed it on the fact that she was a timid little girl, even shorter than his midget of a brother. She looked as though she wouldn't swat a mosquito even if she found it biting her. Yes, she was more the type to shake her arm to make it go away, rather than kill the poor thing.
So, when three boys around her age had pushed her pretty little face into the dirt, Itachi knew she wouldn't even think about using her Gentle Fist on them. He didn't bother helping her, having already sensed her bodyguard rounding the corner a few meters away. Though really, the man should've been there from the start.
Useless guard.
Useless heiress as well.
She'd wilt under the strictness of the Hyuga.
His merciless pre-teenage assessment all those years ago had been right because the second time he saw her cry, it was in a hospital bed. It was done in the middle of the night after the Chunin exams where her cousin had upstaged her and showed the entire village the incompetence of the Hyuga main house's heiress. If she didn't improve soon, she'd be replaced. It was only a matter of time.
As an ANBU operative, it had been his job to guard her room. He did so for one night, before being sent on another mission because his skills were apparently wasted on guard duty according to the Hokage—and practically anyone else with a brain.
He agreed of course.
Itachi knew his strengths, and they didn't lie in guard duty and tiresome escorts, no, he was trained to kill, and he did it better than most.
But during those scant few hours in her company, the one thing he realized about her was that she cried quietly. Her shoulders barely shook. And though she gasped every now and again, it wasn't so noticeable that someone would suspect that she wasn't sleeping. Itachi knew that she didn't cry that way because she noticed his presence. That was impossible for a child of her caliber. He was an ANBU operative; she had barely made it through the Chunin exams. But then again, what child tried to stifle their sobs when they thought themselves alone?
He knew the answer—the frightened and the unloved.
Itachi only felt bad then.
The third time was much later, closely after their fourth marriage meeting. The yearly setup was only for formalities. Truthfully, he hadn't seen her since the first meeting when she first turned sixteen. Whenever it was scheduled, Hyuga Hiashi would merely invite him in for tea, coldly apologize for her absence, and then assure him that his presence was enough to satisfy the Hyuga—Itachi doubted it, but he wasn't about to question a quiet afternoon of expensive tea and silence.
Itachi didn't know why Hiashi did it, but he suspected that the clan head knew of Hinata's affection for his little brother's best friend and thus, made her only attend meetings she couldn't avoid. If nothing else, Itachi was good at reading between the lines, and he could easily see that Hinata's father wanted her to keep that childhood love for as long as she could.
Hiashi was kind when he wanted to be. It was clear to him, at least, that he loved his daughters, despite how he acted in public.
Itachi kept his secret.
In the years after realizing this, he made sure to go to the Hyuga main house first. Unlike the other ninja clans and noble families, Hiashi didn't give him grief about the flimsy excuses he made concerning the absence of his little brother, who every year, without fail, pleaded with him not to make him go.
He'd never been good at denying Sasuke anything.
Itachi didn't mind not seeing her. Before their fifth meeting—when she was twenty and he, five years her senior; when she was actually present through some twist of fate and he'd found her in the kitchen cooking—he was only vaguely interested in her, and Hinata, not at all in him. He was still satisfied by that back then. Relieved, even. Because whenever he was forced into attending marriage meetings, then he at least knew that the Hyuga house was safe from any screeching women.
But that day, as he left the Hyuga main house for the fourth year in a row, it became especially memorable for him because the angry cousin that had tried to kill the Hyuga heiress all those years ago had glared at him on his way out. Hyuga Neji had apparently gotten protective while he wasn't looking. That took a special kind of person. And just when Itachi thought that he'd be able to enjoy a leisurely stroll, he looked up at the sky only to find it gray and heavy with the threat of impending rain. It was as if the droplets were just waiting for the best moment to ruin someone's day. Sadistic things.
So, on his way home, Itachi decided to take a shortcut through one of his favored training grounds. To his surprise, he found Hinata there. He saw her from afar, huddled in on herself, with her back pressed against a tree. He knew it was her simply because of her attire. Few ninjas wore lavender. It wasn't a color just anyone could pull.
Itachi didn't bother approaching. He didn't make a habit of comforting crying women, lest they all expect the same treatment. Besides, they could handle it. Hinata, especially. She was more than the Hyuga heiress; she was a proud ninja of Konoha. He didn't doubt her ability to overcome.
He lingered just long enough to note that she still cried the same. Quiet and alone. Only the subtle shake of her shoulders gave her away. If Itachi hadn't switched on his Sharingan, he might've thought her sleeping.
Mere hours after he left her there to wallow, he learned from Shisui—who kept one ear pressed to the door of Konoha's gossip mill—that Hinata had been upset with herself for fainting in front of her oblivious childhood crush. Again.
Foolish woman.
Every drop that rolled down her cheeks was worth a bag of blood. Dozens would kill if she showed them that face of hers. He would know. Throughout the years, his mother had told him much about all of the women itemized on that list he received every year of women he was allowed to marry. Itachi knew Hiashi could barely keep up with the meeting requests thrown his way. Some by men twice Hinata's age; others by clan-less ninjas with legacies large and proud enough to grant them an audience with ninja nobility. Perhaps that's why Hinata had been out there, in that training ground he favored—for seclusion. He didn't blame her. That was one of the reasons he visited it so often.
Her tears then had... irked him.
That purposefully—because he refused to believe Naruto was truly that naïve—ignorant blond wasn't worth it. No one was. She was the heiress of a prestigious clan. A great ninja in her own right. Gentle. Perceptive. Beautiful. Any man lucky enough to be blessed with her interest and still wilfully choose to leave her alone was beyond help.
The fourth time he saw her cry, Itachi had an irrational desire to immolate the entire world to the ground... because how dare they make her look like that? What right did the Hyuga council have to make her mouth tilt into a pained grimace? Insulting her for her choices, all the while stocking stones on her back like she wasn't already staggering under the weight of what she carried.
They were old, demented fools. The entire lot of them. And if they couldn't appreciate her for who she was, then...
Then...
He honestly didn't know.
Itachi had no claim over her. Neither did he have any right to be angry, but here he was—exactly that. The solution then was simple. He just needed to change the dynamics of their relationship.
The fifth time, she didn't cry, she wept.
It was the day she emptied herself of her love for Naruto.
Itachi had pushed her then. His scalding tongue lashed out in prime Uchiha fashion because he just couldn't understand why she was still hanging on. Why she pushed those that truly cared for her away for someone that may or may not turn around and see her. He regretted it after of course. But pride kept him from apologizing and stubbornness reminded him that she needed this.
That didn't stop him from feeling like a failure when he saw her red eyes the morning after.
Slaughtering men never made him feel like half the monster he did when he knew he was the reason for her tears.
The sixth time, she was in a daze and had accidentally rammed her head against one of the kitchen's overhead cabinets. If the tears were from embarrassment or pain, he didn't know.
But he'd laughed at her then.
She was so, so lovely.
The seventh was a minor sob.
He'd proposed.
The tears were a welcome sight.
All of the subsequent times he found tears welling up in her eyes, he kissed them away because it was his right as her husband to do so. If they were in public, he'd wipe them with his fingers instead. The gesture was still affectionate enough to make her blush and to garner more than a few looks from passerbys, but he ignored them. They weren't important.
All in all, Itachi could say with certainty that his wife cried too easily and too often. But they were never crocodile tears. They were never done with an ulterior motive; to gain pity or induce guilt.
And he loved that.
He loved her.