Chapter Text
It was a crap morning following a crap night. Ino awoke with a sick, heavy feeling in her head like she’d had too much to drink the night prior, but then she recalled her fallout with Itachi. So, not hungover, just fucked over. She groaned into her pillow, wishing she could disintegrate into it, just become cotton stuffing so the rest of her would match what her idiot brain was doing.
But the sun was up, the light was coming in through her blinds, and the consequences of her actions awaited. So, naturally, it was time to seek out Sakura.
“Hiya, Ino!” Naruto said through a mouthful of noodles where Ino had tracked Sakura down.
Ino made a face. It smelled like deep fried socks in here. “Naruto, how often do you have ramen for breakfast?”
“Every Wednesday,” Sasuke said, glaring at his own half-eaten bowl like it had been the one to put his clan to the sword. “It’s half price before 10 a.m.”
“They made that rule for Naruto years ago,” Sakura chimed in.
Ino narrowed her eyes. “That’s suspicious.”
“It was the only way they could get him to stop coming in more often. Now, we just come once a week.”
Sasuke snorted. “For breakfast, at least.”
Naruto snickered and put his arms around his longtime teammates. “Hey, don’t lie. I know you guys like hanging out with me the most.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Sakura said, grinning.
Ino caught Sasuke’s eyes. Kill me, they seemed to plead with her. And yet, he was just as happy as Sakura to let Naruto gush all over him.
Ino poked his shoulder. “You’re a sentimental bitch, you know that?” she communicated to him telepathically.
Sasuke snorted, but he didn’t push Naruto off.
“Well! I don’t want to interrupt this, uh,” Ino gestured at their ramen bowls, half empty, and the origami Naruto had tried to fold out of their chopsticks wrappers (a beetle, or a duck with too many legs?), “whatever this is. But I do have to borrow Sakura.”
“Hey, why don’t you just join us instead? Room for one more right here.” Naruto patted the bench space in between Sakura and him.
“Because, Naruto, I don’t eat junk food for breakfast. And anyway, this is an exclusive invitation, so.” She tapped Sakura on the shoulder. “Come and find me at our usual spot when you’re done here.”
It was a beautiful day in Konoha to feel like absolute crap. Ino took her time getting to the usual haunt whenever she and Sakura wanted to meet up just the two of them. Even without any blooming flowers this late in the season, the spot beneath the ginkgo tree was grassy and soft, the sunlight casting gold through its changing leaves. Ino lay back and stared up at the canopy dappled through with blue among the fluttering leaves and sighed.
Out in the open with no distractions, it was impossible not to think about Itachi and how she’d made a mess of things.
“That bad, huh?” Sakura sank down next to her on the grass and handed her a bottle of iced tea she’d purchased from a vending machine on the way here.
Ino groaned and accepted the drink. It was cold and a little damp with condensation. “Worse.”
Sakura popped open her own iced tea. “Does it have anything to do with talking to Itachi about what I dug up in that old medical examiner’s report?”
“Yeah,” Ino said. “Also, we’ve been fucking for the past couple months.”
Sakura choked on her iced tea. It came out of her nose and dripped on her red vest in ugly, brown rivulets. She hacked and shook, and Ino sat up to wait for her to get over it. The iced tea tasted nice going down cold.
“Fucking—” Sakura wheezed, pounding a fist to her chest.
“Yes, keep up,” Ino said.
Sakura eventually calmed down enough to function like a normal person again and rounded on Ino. There was a righteous judgment in her eyes Ino had not seen directed her way since she’d told Sakura she’d had a one-night-stand with that Legendary Swordsman with the teeth who’d arrived with the Kiri delegation a couple years ago and left damp patches on every chair he sat on—Suigen? Saigetsu? She couldn’t remember his name, which was a shame because he’d been an amazing lay in the onsen where he could liquefy any part of his body on command—
“Stop thinking about fucking Sasuke’s brother and explain. Right now.”
“Oh, stop clutching your pearls. Not everything revolves around Sasuke.”
“That’s not—” Sakura pinched the bridge of her nose and took a deep, calming breath. “Okay. This is fine.”
“It’s really not, actually. Hence,” Ino gestured between the two of them. “But I could use a little less judgment and more sound boarding.”
“Yeah, okay, okay, sorry. It’s just unexpected. Well, I mean, it’s not like it didn’t cross my mind, but he’s Sasuke’s brother, you know.”
“If you mention Sasuke one more time, I’m going to scream.”
Sakura made a face like she’d just bitten into a lemon. “Sorry, okay, for real, it’s fine.”
“Do you need a minute?”
“No, really, I’m good.” Sakura cleared her throat. There were tea stains on her shirt, but that was her own fault. “From the beginning, then. How did this start? I assume it has something to do with that fake courting rumor you started.”
“Yeah, hold the fake.”
“Damn, Pig. I mean, he’s hot, but he’s…well, you know.”
“What?”
“He’s so…”
Ino poked her arm. “What, Forehead?”
“He’s so weird!”
Ino couldn’t help but laugh at that. “Gods, you really are confused. Honestly, I’m surprised you haven’t thought about it.”
“Of course I’ve thought about it!” As if it would be a crime not to. “How even is the sex? I mean, he’s pretty, but he seems so reserved. It’s hard to imagine Itachi being carnal.”
“Sakura, the man has cum gutters. What more do you need to imagine?”
Sakura flushed. “But you could have any hot guy in this village or the next. I remember how you seduced that Kiri nin from the delegation. Suigetsu something or other, with the sword.”
Ino snapped her fingers. “Suigetsu! That was his name.”
“You really forgot, huh?”
“Listen, I have more important things to think about than who got me off at one point or another. I can get that whenever I want, it’s not special.”
“Except with Itachi, I gather.”
“He’s a very quick study. Almost supernaturally so.”
“Uh-huh, go on.”
“And, I don’t know, I know he’s weird, but it’s a weird I can fuck with. He isn’t reserved with me, and not just in bed. He’s particular and intense, and maybe that’s a lot for most people who don’t know him well, but he doesn’t let most people know him well, anyway.” Ino snorted. “Which I’ve tried explaining to him, but it’s in one ear and out the other. I’ve never known someone so comfortable being lonely they don’t even see it as loneliness.”
“Hell, you really do like him.”
Ino realized she’d been rambling a bit at that point. Sakura was looking at her with a dreamy, knowing expression like she had her all figured out. “Last night he told me he’s falling in love with me.”
“Wow. That’s… Wow. What did you say?”
“I asked him if he was covering up Shisui’s murder.”
If Sakura had been drinking her tea, she would have choked on it a second time. “Oh. You’re not joking.”
“Afraid not.”
“That’s really bad.”
“Hoisted by my own petard yet again.” Ino rubbed her eyes.
Sakura took pity on her at last and squeezed her shoulder affectionately. “Hey, I’m really sorry this is happening to you. Really.”
Ino growled in frustration. “It wouldn’t be happening if Itachi wasn’t covering shit up. This isn’t even about us, you know? Something is rotten here, and I just have this feeling it’s a lot bigger than one dead Uchiha. What was I supposed to do? Ignore it?”
“I didn’t say that, but historically speaking you have a tendency to ignore the human component of things.”
“He’s lying about something, Sakura. Something that could affect all of us, and you know it.”
“Yeah, I do, but what are you going to do? Rip it out of him like he’s one of your prisoners?”
“Of course not.” Why would Sakura even joke about that? “I would never violate his trust like that.”
“But didn’t you, though? He bared his heart to you, and you took advantage of that vulnerability to try to get information from him.”
“That’s not—” Ino cut herself off at the cutting look Sakura shot her.
“Think about it for a second,” Sakura said in that gentle way she had that somehow managed not to sound patronizing.
Ino didn’t want to think about it; she wanted to be pissed at Itachi for being so withholding and for breaking her heart so tenderly it made her ache for him all the more. He’d been nothing but tender with her last night, even as she probed at his deepest wounds.
She’d really hurt him.
Ino stared into the murky depths of her iced tea. “Shit.”
“Yeah,” Sakura said.
They sat in silence together for a few moments as Ino gathered up her courage. “What am I even supposed to say to him?”
“Well, and this is, like, a wild suggestion, but maybe you could try telling him how you really feel? Give him back a little of the vulnerability he showed you?”
“Alas, that would require actually thinking about what we’re doing together.”
“What are you doing together? I mean, how does that work? You both being clan leaders and all.”
“It doesn’t. Unless one of us abdicates or something, which, obviously that’s not going to happen.”
Sakura watched her thoughtfully. “Are you sure about that?”
Yes, Ino wanted to say, but stopped herself. She liked Itachi, perhaps even loved him a little bit. He didn’t make it easy with all the secrets he kept, but Ino didn’t get up in the morning for easy and boring.
“I’m sure I need to talk to him,” she said, which, if nothing else, was the truth.
“And what about Shisui?”
“I’m not going to chase him anymore. The road ends with Itachi unless and until he decides to pull his head out of his ass and talk to me.”
Sakura shook her head. “All else aside, I don’t really get it. We’re talking about a person who’s been dead ten years. I can understand that it hurts Itachi to think about it even now, but this is bigger than personal feelings, surely. I mean, it looks really bad for him. If it were me, I’d want to clear my name at a minimum.”
“There must be something about this particular secret that’s worth the suspicion,” Ino surmised. “Either he really was involved, which I’m certain he wasn’t, or what he does know is damning enough to, I don’t know, completely upend reality as we know it.”
“That’s dramatic and paranoid.”
“That’s Itachi.” Ino waved her hand as if to say, duh. “The dude is a master of secrets. He’s wrapped up in them head to toe.”
Sakura nodded like this made perfect sense. “Practically swaddled. Like a lying little bundle of lies.”
“He’s the tiny hot dog at the center of a thick, buttery croissant of deception.”
“The cock in a cock and bull story.”
Don’t think about Itachi’s cock, Ino chided herself, one hundred percent back to thinking about Itachi’s cock.
“Anyway,” Ino said, ignoring Sakura’s snicker. “Fuck.”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t like this.”
“What, making a huge mistake or talking about how you made a huge mistake?”
Ino shoved Sakura hard, but it barely put a dent in her, damn superhuman that she was. “You’re supposed to be on my side here.”
“I’m on your side.” Sakura took Ino’s hand in hers and squeezed. “Hey, look at me. I’m always on your side.”
Ino let herself be babied a little bit. It was the least she deserved after everything she’d gone through. “Thanks.”
“I’m glad you told me.”
“Yeah.”
“I mean, you could have told me you were fucking Sasuke’s brother months ago, but all the same.”
“You have five seconds before I start screaming directly in your ear.”
Sakura was already on her feet and dragging Ino up along with her. “Save your screaming for the makeup sex.”
Ino didn’t argue with that super valid point and let Sakura drag her back to the village to mope some more and hope she could think of a way to actually earn that makeup sex with Itachi.
Itachi grunted with the force of the next blow. A cloud of dust exploded from the heavy rug he’d strung up on a rack in the back yard of his home, and he shook out the whicker rug beater. It was a clear day and the sun was hot and relentless even for the autumn season, but it did not deter him. He tightened the knot on the white kerchief he wore to spare his hair the dust, wiped the sweat from his brow, and lined up another hard smack against the thick, wine-stain rug.
“I’ve heard of beating off to ease stress, but you’ve been at this for coming on four hours.”
Itachi waved the rising dust from his face and repositioned himself on the other side of the rug. He didn’t spare his brother more than a passing glance to confirm his state—shirtless, holding a cold glass of lemonade, lightly perspiring. He decided not to respond to that bait and let fly another whipping.
When he reared back for the next blow, Sasuke’s hand stayed his wrist. Silent, not even a brush of wind. Itachi allowed himself a small moment of pride in his little brother; he really was becoming quite good. The training for ANBU was paying off. Itachi did not know how to feel about that beyond resigned.
“Did you need something, Sasuke?”
Sasuke seemed very close to pouting with how petulant he looked. “I need you to drink something before you pass out. Here.” He shoved the lemonade at Itachi and tightened his grip on his wrist.
Itachi knew better than to argue with Sasuke when he was like this, so he set aside the rug beater and accepted the drink. It was icy cold and more sweet than sour, just like he liked.
“So?” Sasuke prodded.
Oh, he wasn’t leaving.
That was awkward.
Itachi sipped his lemonade faster.
“Itachi.”
“What is it, Sasuke?”
Sasuke sighed, good and petulant now. He smelled strange, worked up, notes of steel polish. “Is it the kids?”
“The children are perfectly fine.”
Sasuke’s frown deepened. “Then, this is about Ino.”
Itachi finished the rest of his lemonade, handed the glass back to Sasuke, and retrieved his whicker stick for another beating.
Thwack.
“What happened? You have a fight or something?”
“It’s really none of your concern.”
“It’s my concern when you’re out here getting a sunburn for four hours and neglecting the ninja kittens you adopted without asking me.”
“You did not pose any objection to the kittens when Hana dropped them off.”
Thwack.
“Yeah, because I’m not a moron who would pick a fight with Kiba’s wolf-whispering sister. Don’t change the subject.”
This rug was particularly dusty. It lived in the conservatory where his parents used to entertain important guests. Itachi’s paternal uncle and his three sons had fallen to the blade in that room, their blood staining this very rug. It had taken hours of scrubbing to get it all out.
Thwack.
“Itachi,” Sasuke said, more forcefully.
“What, Sasuke?” Itachi snapped. Sweat ran down his temple and beaded under his chin. “Is there something you would like to say to me?”
Sasuke’s face was a pinched mess, taut and uncomfortable to behold. “That’s my line. Anything you’d like to share? I’m right here.”
Itachi studied his little brother clutching the empty lemonade glass so hard his knuckles were white. His pants hung low around his hips, his hair more disheveled than normal, his lips swollen. No, Itachi did not want to share his heartbreak with Sasuke right now and ruin such a lovely day. One of them ought to enjoy it.
“You should not keep Tenten waiting,” he said, refocusing on his task.
Sasuke, true to form, flushed like a tomato. “Whatever.” Itachi whacked the rug again as Sasuke turned to head back inside. Before he disappeared through the sliding door, he called back over his shoulder, “You know, the more secrets you keep, the more you push people away. Eventually they’ll stop coming back.”
Sasuke was gone when Itachi looked up to see that he’d left the door open, and the three ninneko Hana had foisted upon him came tumbling out into the yard. They were a mess of shaggy grey fur and blue eyes falling over each other to get outside and explore, and the moment they noticed Itachi’s familiar scent, they came scurrying over, meowing obnoxiously. They were too young to speak, but that grace period would not last long.
“I must finish this first,” Itachi explained to the kittens, “then I can help you with shuriken jutsu.”
More yowling. One of them—Yuzu? No, the one with the pink nose was Momo—stretched out on his pant leg like it was a scratching post and yawned, baring her fine fangs.
Itachi set aside his stick and picked up the annoying kitten. The rug would have to wait. “Very well.” The other two immediately began to meow louder, wanting to be picked up like their sister.
No wonder Sasuke had left the door open for them to escape and give him and Tenten some privacy.
Resigned to his fate, Itachi led the kittens to the targets a few steps away and retrieved the practice shuriken from a wooden box by the porch. The kittens were all too happy for his attention, a cheap price for their affection.
Itachi thought about Sasuke’s warning. Was he truly pushing away the people he cared for the most by keeping them in the dark? Yuzu—no, Negi, the loudest of the three—pawed at the bag of shuriken dangling in Itachi’s hand, while Yuzu sat patiently thumping his tail. Itachi petted the kittens’ heads one by one, considering.
If only people were as simple to please as ninja kittens.
He drew out a couple shuriken, rolled them between his fingers until all three cats were watching carefully, and flung them at the target. “Watch my wrist. The snap is crucial,” he instructed.
A chorus of meows went up. Momo began to purr loudly as she head butted his leg.
No, Itachi resolved. Whether it was Ino, or Sasuke, or anyone else, it was better to keep them at arm’s length for the sake of peace. It was for their own good. Some secrets were better left buried.
He threw another set of shuriken, and the cats raced each other to retrieve them from the targets. And he thought of Shisui as he’d been before everything. Shisui at the bottom of the Naka River forever looking up, sightless as he choked on his own blood. Shisui, who would have undoubtedly told him he was shouldering too much alone, that it was okay to ask for help.
But Shisui was dead.
The cats handed him back the several shuriken he had thrown, and Itachi launched them again, this time all at once, each one hitting dead-center.
The three-day mission that took Ino out of Konoha with her usual Jounin team was just the distraction she needed from moping herself into early-onset wrinkles agonizing over what to do about Itachi. It was complex, it was high-risk, and it got her heart pumping. When she finished extracting the intel her team had come for, Shino gave the all clear signal and recalled his far-reaching bugs. Tenten loosened the chains stringing up their mark and caught him before he could fall on the bedroom floor and snap his neck.
Between the three of them, they got him tucked into his bed with a head stuffed so full of false memories he’d wake up with a killer migraine and no recollection of the insurrection he’d amassed a small army of rogue nin to instigate.
Neji was waiting for them at the rendezvous point, an enemy nin slung over his shoulder. Unconscious, Ino discerned with a quick scan. Which meant he had some information worth keeping him alive for long enough to extract.
“Captain,” Shino acknowledged their team leader. “We successfully incepted the target.”
“Good. Yamanaka, last minute adjustment.”
“Where do you want me?” Ino asked, cutting right to the chase.
“Here, if you can manage it.” Neji was staring off into the distance, his Byakugan bulging the veins around his eyes as he scanned their surroundings. “We have four minutes until his friends find us.”
“I’ll do it in three.” Ino put her hands on the rogue’s head and poured herself inside him. It only took her two minutes to run his memories through the sieve of her technique and pan the nuggets Tactics would want to send ANBU to raze the insurgent bases.
“Good work,” Neji congratulated his team when they’d made it back to Konoha’s outskirts in the late afternoon. “I’ll report to the Hokage. Ino.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’ll make my deposit at Tactics. But your ass better be at the Bent Kunai later tonight.”
“Oh, he will be.” Tenten slung an arm around her former Genin teammate, casual now that they were off mission and he was no longer their captain.
“It is not strictly necessary for us to imbibe as a group after every mission,” Shino pointed out.
“Only after the successful ones.” Tenten winked.
Shino considered. “That is most of our missions.”
“Exactly,” Ino said. “I’m not letting us get a bad rep for being that gloomy team who never has any fun. So I’ll see you losers tonight after Neji washes his hair.”
Neji glared at her in that constipated way he had whenever he wanted to swear but Hinata was within hearing distance. Ino skipped away before he could let loose, laughing.
She was in high spirits as she dropped off her extracted intel with the Tactics team on duty, but she was three days gone from a hot shower and her Jounin blues had begun to stick to her in places that had no business being sticky.
Ino was trotting down the stairs to the first floor main entrance when she sensed an achingly familiar chakra signature coming straight for her. She froze in the stairwell, briefly contemplated launching herself out the high window into the street, but ultimately decided not to be a coward (and also, that window was way too tiny to fit her ass through it). She meant to seek him out sooner or later, so it might as well be sooner.
“Itachi,” she said when he opened the door to the stairwell and looked up at her.
He was dressed in his Uchiha blacks, casual, like he had the day off. It occurred to her that he was probably reporting for a mission based on the very intel she’d just delivered. Just the thought of him leading his ANBU team to slaughter the insurgents currently instigating guerrilla warfare on Fire Country’s borders, splattering their blood on his pristine, white armor, made her flush. That, and the shame recalling the way she had treated him the last time she’d seen him wearing that same uniform.
Itachi, for his part, was as impassive as a corpse and just as chilly in his posture. But when he spoke her name, she shivered at the lancing warmth it sent crawling down her spine. “Ino.”
He was below her by a few steps, yet still his aura loomed large between them, dark and cold. Ino was struck with an overwhelming urge to go to him then, to touch him and feel him curl around her, warm him up. But he was impregnable standing there in the concrete stairwell that was too small to contain the both of them at opposing ends like this.
Ino took a step down toward him, her fingers clutching around nothing. Hell, but seeing him after a few days inflamed the ache he’d left her with. All he’d said was her name and she was already so…
“I’ll come back later,” he said, turning to leave.
“No! Wait, don’t leave. I’m on my way out.”
Itachi looked up at her hovering there like a nervous bird unsure where to land. How could he be so impassive? Her mission had been a distraction, time to cool her head and internalize Sakura’s advice without getting defensive, but seeing him again like this wrung her out, and all that was left was this desperate need to feel him.
“Itachi.” She took another step toward him, and another. “I know you’re upset with me. You have every right to be after the way I handled things.” She steeled herself and looked him in the eye. “I’d like the chance to apologize properly.”
He said nothing as he watched her, unmoved. The urge to touch him morphed into a desire to shake him.
She took a steadying breath and reminded herself that this man and his feelings mattered to her. “Please, I’m not asking for your forgiveness, just—just a little bit of your time.”
Itachi moved then, an unfurling of sorts as he beheld her through the lens of a thousand murky emotions too bottled up to name. He clenched his fists white-knuckle tight, but they remained dutifully at his sides. “Of course I will give you my time.”
The relief at his acceptance hit her so hard her throat twisted with the urge to cry, but Ino swallowed that nonsense down along with any lingering urge to feel him. This was enough. “Tonight? I can drop by your place after dinner.”
He nodded, and Ino decided that was as far as she was willing to push her luck.
“Thank you.” She gave him as wide a berth as possible and headed straight for the door.
“Ino.” His voice stopped her halfway through, and she shuddered.
Don’t look back. Don’t do it.
If she looked back at him, she would crumble.
“Yeah?”
There was an agonizing pause that followed as she hung on his word.
“It’s nothing. I’ll see you tonight.”
Ino didn’t trust her voice. She pushed the rest of the way through the door and all but ran out of the Tactics building, grateful she didn’t run into anyone else she knew.
Dinner was a quiet affair with Sasuke and Teru, with Teru dominating the lion’s share of the conversation. Ever since Itachi had not opened up to his brother about the argument with Ino, Sasuke had been more distant than usual. He was busy training for the ANBU physical examinations, which took up most of his time, but even so there was something a bit colder about Sasuke.
“I’m going out tonight,” Sasuke announced as he cleared the table for Itachi to wash the dishes. “Don’t wait up.”
“How mysterious,” Teru said. “You rarely go out unless Naruto or Sakura comes over to drag you out. Do you have a date?”
“Yes,” Sasuke said, completely unabashed. “Tenten’s team returned from a successful infiltration mission today. She invited me to have drinks.”
Teru grinned. “That girl. She has excellent aim when she sees a target she wants to hit.”
Itachi dropped the glass he’d been rinsing in the sink water. That was rather brazen, even for the sly Elder.
“I’ve never known her to miss,” Sasuke said. He finished clearing the table and headed to his room down the hall for a shower.
“So, it seems Sasuke-chan is rather serious about her,” Teru said as she took clean dishes from Itachi to dry and stack in the rack.
“Sasuke is serious about joining ANBU.”
Teru chuckled. “Yes, he’s always been quite eager to catch up to you in all things. Mark my words, he’ll be married before you.”
Itachi saw no reason to argue that point. With Teru, it was best to let her have the last word.
Of course, she did not let him get away with it. “How is the Yamanaka girl? I have not seen you with her since Setsuna-chan’s party.”
“Ino is stopping by this evening.” Itachi drained the sink of the soapy water and rinsed his hands. “We have something important to discuss.”
“Ah. I shall make myself scarce, in that case.” She returned the drying towel to its hook and laid a bird-thin hand on Itachi’s arm. “You know, Tacchan, there is one thing you might learn from your brother.”
“What’s that?”
“Persistence. Some targets require more than good aim to hold fast.”
Very brazen.
“You’ve changed your tune considerably since the Akimichi Clan banquet. What’s happened?”
“An inroad to a possible political alliance, one we would be foolish to snub. Yamanaka Ino will lead her clan one day soon, and you could use all the friends you can get.”
“Alliances are built upon more than mere friendship.”
“Well, then you had best turn on that brooding charm of yours and get to building.”
Itachi honestly had no idea if she was serious or just fucking with him when she grinned wickedly at her own suggestion. She left him that way, bewildered and a little bit embarrassed, thoroughly cowed.
He set about brewing a pot of tea for himself and arranging the china as he waited for it to steep. Anything not to think about the idea of what a true alliance with the Yamanaka Clan would look like, whether Ino would even agree, what they might give up for it.
Nonsense thoughts, those. Itachi had lost his grip on his anger toward her the moment he ran into her in the Tactics building and she asked him for permission to apologize properly. He would hear her out, and he would forgive her. In his heart, he knew he already had. It wanted what it wanted, as they said.
Itachi stirred a spoonful of sugar into his tea, and he laughed at himself.
Her knock on the door saw him halfway down the hall to admit her before she even pulled her hand away.
“Hi.”
“Hello.” Itachi peered down at her standing on his doorstep dressed like she wanted to be seen.
“Can I come in?” She was guarded like she never was around him. It was a sobering reminder of why she was here, i.e., not to be stared at.
“Of course. Please.” Itachi stepped aside to admit her, and he led her to the kitchen. “Would you like tea? It’s a fresh pot.”
“No, thanks, I’m good. I won’t keep you long.”
Itachi regarded her—dolled up and glossy, she looked like she belonged at a bar, not in his dead mother’s kitchen. He realized then that must be where she was bound. She didn’t plan to stick around.
“No,” Itachi agreed, leaning against the kitchen counter.
Ino tucked her long hair behind her ear, jingling the many silver bangles she wore around her wrist. “Itachi.”
There was weight behind her voice, a ball and chain she had dragged all the way across the village to his doorstep. He felt it between them now, splintering the floorboards and making them creak. He dared not move.
Ino sighed and put her hand on the back of a chair, leaning her weight on it. “First of all, thanks for giving me a chance to try to make this right. What I said to you the other night after…” Her expression soured, as if just the memory of it upset her. “You were right. I had no right to look into Shisui behind your back. It was wrong of me, and I get why you were so upset about it. I’m sorry.”
Itachi ached to touch her then. She looked quite small white-knuckling the back of that chair like she might snap in two if she didn’t squeeze it to hell.
“I won’t dig him up anymore,” she promised. “I really am sorry I hurt you. I hope you know it wasn’t intentional on my part.”
“Of course I know.” Itachi couldn’t resist being near her anymore when she was being so vulnerable. He could see the strain in her pretty face, how difficult this was for her to admit, and it made his chest tighten. Her cheek was soft and warm beneath his fingers where he touched her, the surprise in her eyes genuine. “Thank you for apologizing.”
She touched her hand to his and held him there, drawing comfort, he liked to think. “Itachi,” she murmured against his palm.
The urge to pull her close and kiss her was nearly overpowering. He had never felt this way about another person, not even Shisui, who was taken when they were too young, too naïve, too soon to properly explore the depths between them. With Ino, he had time and peace, rather than the threat of civil war hanging over his head like a guillotine blade waiting to drop.
“I think I could love you too.” Her confession was spun sugar, delicate and sweet, prone to cracking. And crack she did. “Which is why I think we should slow this down.”
“No,” Itachi said, unthinking. “Why?” and then, “Ino.”
Her waist caved under his wandering hand, a snug fit, and she was warm against him, warm upon his lips where he pressed their bodies together.
She smelled like mint and the night blooming jasmine that grew in her family’s garden, tasted the same. “Because.” She cracked again as she clung to him, dug into him, and he wished she would stay. “You’re keeping secrets from me, and I don’t understand why.”
Itachi didn’t fight her when she pulled away from his kiss. “You said—”
“That I wouldn’t pry, yeah. I won’t. But it doesn’t change the fact that you’re keeping something damning and possibly treasonous a secret.”
Itachi was so taken aback that all he could do was stare. It wasn’t that she was wrong (in fact, she was dangerously not wrong). “Is this an ultimatum?”
Ino’s face instantly fell. “No, of course not. Itachi, no.” She caught his face in her hands, and it took everything he had not to melt for her then. “I told you, I won’t dig any deeper on this. I’m not asking you to compromise your line.”
But.
It hung between them waiting for the other shoe to drop and crack him in the skull. Her hands were so soft at his temples.
“But this is my line,” she said, steady despite the tumult in her eyes to behold him still keeping silent. “I don’t know if I can be with someone who won’t answer what I think are basic ethical questions about his past. Maybe I can, I don’t know. Maybe I just need time to accept that about you. I’m willing to take that time because I really am falling in love with you.”
He wanted to explain, to make her understand. Not the substance of it, but the heart behind it. But how could he without revealing the ugly truth? That Shisui had died because Itachi had been careless, too trusting, that the Massacre had been a last resort that crowned him king of the Uchiha, the few that remained. A throne built upon bones.
“I know you’re good,” Ino said, entreating. “I know it. I’m just struggling with why you won’t prove it to me when I ask you.”
Itachi took her hands in his and kissed her knuckles, willing her to understand. To accept. This was all he could give, all he had a right to give. It was for the best. “There is a rot inside me,” he said, thready and newborn. He had never spoken to anyone, not even Teru who had been there, of this secret. “It isn’t that I don’t trust you; it’s that I cannot abide my rot spreading to you or to anyone else. It’s better for everyone this way.”
Ino smiled, but there was nothing happy about it. “Oh, Itachi, love. That just isn’t your call to make.”
She kissed him then, sweet and sad, not quite goodbye but close enough.
“Ino, please,” he begged. Please what? How could he ask her to stay after all that?
“Ino,” Sasuke called from the doorway to the kitchen. “I didn’t hear you come in.”
“Then your ANBU training could use some work,” Ino quipped, flashing him a smirk over her shoulder. She didn’t bother to hide the way she was holding Itachi from him, and Sasuke didn’t comment.
“I have to go meet my team,” Ino said to Itachi. “I’ll see you around.”
And then, she was leaving. Gone with the shadows to join Sasuke, her skirt swishing behind her and tempting him to all that he was missing.
“Tenten invited you, I’m guessing?” Ino said.
Sasuke, dressed smartly for a night out, smirked. “It’s not like you did.”
“Okay, bitch, noted for next time.”
Itachi watched them banter and shuffle out of his home like they had been doing it for years. He followed them to the hall, but no further.
Ino spared him a last glance before she exited his home, longing and sad. But what could he do? Invite himself along? To what end? She’d made her position clear, and he was left wanting. Always wanting.
“I’ll be home in a few hours,” Sasuke said, touching his hand to Itachi’s shoulder. Then, more softly: “Nii-san?”
Itachi smiled blandly. “Enjoy the night, Sasuke. I won’t wait up.”
They left him alone, and Itachi went back to the empty kitchen to his cold tea. The Uchiha Compound was quiet and still, and he hardly dared to breathe lest he wake the ghosts interred in the walls. On such a silent night, even the slightest sound was like to stir them.
Itachi drank his cold tea alone, staring into nothing, with only his well-guarded secrets to keep him company.
