Mind Gardens
Chapter One

Itachi's parents were not going to let him live at Uni. That much, Shisui assumed, was a given. Mikoto could really only do so much as long as she was overseeing all of them and the business too, and Fugaku was a difficult, spiteful traditionalist.

Shisui had no parents. Rather, he had a dead mother and a father who was nowhere to be found, and Shisui would not have found him if given the opportunity and a trillion dollar incentive which, according to the majority of people he had polled over drinks, was the fundamental equivalent. This fact was directly correlated to the fact that Shisui was living at Uni, and with an irritating roommate besides.

So the end quandary ended up being whose place it was going to be.

Neither option was incredibly enticing.

Uni meant University. University meant Todai. Tokyo daigaku. University of Tokyo. Home to over 30,000 students at any given time, spread over five campuses in Hongou, Komaba, Kashiwa, Shirokane and Nakano. All sub-wards of Tokyo. Home to Uchiha Shisui, towering by comparison to most of his fellow students at 6'0" even and nearly underweight at 142 pounds, who roomed with a mousy boy named Takani or Takeshi or something of that nature in the secondmost expensive dorm money could buy. (The most expensive dorm was a single occupancy apartment, but each had been filled with upperclassmen and International students, much to Shisui's disgust.) And the people that had taken him in, Uchihas themselves who'd never been able to conceive, were positively delighted when Shisui said he was finally ready to go to school, for they had simply been so upset at the concept of him not going at all.

When he'd finished High School, after he'd set record scores on his college entrance examinations (scores to be broken by his much younger cousin only two years later) - Shisui had told them he was going abroad, and that he would be back in six months. Six months became eight months. Became a year. Became eighteen months. Became two years before he finally flew back with an air of permanence, despite his frequent visitations for Holidays and the like - just in time for his darling little cousin of fifteen to score higher on the standardized test than anyone ever had. Ever would.

He'd brushed it off as coincidence.

Yet despite his greatest efforts for their University studies to correlate, Itachi was not moving to a dorm. So Shisui was made to take a comprehensive personality test so they could match him with a roommate who would best suit him. And apparently, out of the 30,000 students at the University of Tokyo, the best they could come up with was Takani-Takeshi. Barely five feet, horribly shy and extremely easy to startle. Appeared to have no personality because, on the day he moved in to their comfortable but shared (Shisui didn't do particularly well with people he didn't like. Dislike became hatred rather quickly) - apartment space, Takani-Takeshi put up no posters. Unpacked no CD towers. Had a game collection that was so inappropriately bland and well divided. Didn't demand Shisui follow any rules, nor did he designate anything as his own. But on the same front, never stated that what was his was Shisui's.

He just spent most of his time at his desk, on his computer.

Shisui didn't like him at all. Because he was not Itachi.

Itachi, as it were, was proving quite irritating in his own right, not that Shisui adored him any less for it. He had always been beguiling and elusive but University seemed to give him all sorts of opportunity and incentive to be even moreso. Lord knew who had approved him to do the maximum permitted credits (the rumor mill had already pegged him as the inevitable recipient of the President's Award, something Shisui had no doubt would last through each year of his attendance), but he had already officially selected his undergraduate major (Philosophy and Religion at the Faculty of Letters), which was (a) completely unprecedented, being that there was a mandated two year period allotted to each student in the name of General Education requirements (from which Itachi was exempt thanks to his weighted 5.0 average, his extensive cram schooling, and various stints in exclusive summer-time ventures into the realms of higher education), and (b) meant that the majority of his courses were on the Hongo campus.

Shisui's classes, however, were well spread and highly random. He was a man of many interests and little direction, humorous and relatively popular despite his low patience level, and he was always quick to challenge the professors if he knew they were wrong. In other words, he was a Class A: Smartass. The kind of student that every professor either vehemently disliked or wouldn't mind sleeping with, and it was just Shisui's bad luck that every single one of his professors this semester were men. After all, not everybody was as Slightly-Gay as he was. "Slightly-Gay," he'd explained to one of his classmates, who'd arched a brow at the term, "is when you know one person of your gender you would bed. But, generally speaking, wouldn't bed anyone else of your gender. Also known as (insert object of desire's name)sexual."

Slightly-Gay somehow justified the strangeness of him. Justified that he was pretty, the way all Uchihas are, how he had a head of curly hair that hit his shoulders that looked like chick-hair. Justified how when he got angry, all the outer-beauty of him seemed to vanish in an instantaneous burst that confused and startled anyone who was dumb enough to agitate him. Justified that he would take Abstract Algebra, Values and the Modern World, Korean VIII, Competitive Swimming, Painting I, and Acting for Non-Acting Majors all in his freshman first semester, collectively scattered over three different campuses, and none of them working toward his major.

Shisui was, predictably, Undecided. But he was only taking math because he had to, philosophy to have argument with Itachi that scared their underachieving peers into dead silence, Korean VIII just because he wanted to take a class that sounded like a monarch, swimming because - when a problem comes along - the appropriate response is to put on a speedo and jump in a pool, painting because art majors were hot, and of course, acting. The only one that actually made any sense. Shisui was a very good actor, an even better smooth-talker, and a fantastic liar. And he had not shown up to class even once.

This had both nothing and everything to do with Itachi. On one hand, the class was taught by a notorious lecher whose company Shisui found borderline insufferable. On the other hand, the class was taught at a time that coincided with Itachi's Oral Communications lecture, a spectacle which Shisui had not missed one minute of thus far, and which he enjoyed immensely. Itachi - who was marvelously conservative both in styles of dress and in habits of speech - was quite the accomplished and efficient orator (and wasn't that just his way), and Shisui was loathe to miss an opportunity to see him speak, him with his sweet, pale face and his thick, rimless glasses and his cruelly black eyes.

Not that Itachi knew he went. Shisui was very careful of this. He consciously mapped out the part of the room situated in Itachi's blind spot and stayed there.

When he wasn't in any of his classes, or doing the minimal amount of cram studying necessary to still be able to set the curve in the classroom's grading scale (despite his questionable work ethic, Shisui was an indisputable genius. Not as smart as Itachi, of course, but who was?) - Shisui tended to visit Itachi at home. Because, regardless of how good Itachi was at avoiding him at school, the fact was, they were best friends. Always had been, always would be. And wherever Itachi was, Shisui had a tendency to simply show up there, just as he had before he graduated High School. There were only a number of exceptionally ritzy areas in Tokyo, and since the Uchihas tended to never want to settle for anything less than the best, many of said neighborhoods would have four or five different Uchiha units on one street. And, growing up, Shisui's had been two doors down from Itachi's.

Convenient?

Certainly so. It was the only thing he felt any amount of appreciation towards his foster family for. So when Shisui came around, he merely said that he was visiting his parents and simply wanted to check on his lovely Auntie Mikoto, oh-how-much-prettier-you-get-every-day , his sweet baby cousin Sasuke, who was spending more and more time locked in his room at the ripe age of 11 years old, and of course, as an afterthought, studious little Itachi. Obviously. Shisui obviously wasn't coming home every weekend to see his cousin that he had a weird, Slightly-Gay crush on. Not at all. After all, that would be incestuous. Unnatural. And Slightly-Gay.

And, after all, Fugaku was already rather...perhaps "unfond" of him would be the right way to word it. He didn't hate him, heavens no - hate was reserved for those who did not share in his prestigious bloodline - but he certainly didn't like him, and he certainly didn't like him loitering about his house, contaminating Itachi's work ethic with his aimlessness and his otiosity.

As if any person in the world could. contaminate Itachi's work ethic. A herculean effort in futility that would be.

"Itachiiii, let me in. It doesn't take longer than five minutes to get decent."

It apparently did. And, for that matter, some time more. The door slid open about twelve minutes past five minutes.

"...apologies," he said, not looking particularly apologetic. He made no excuse for himself whatsoever.

Shisui sighed, giving him a flat look as he dropped his bookbag near the entrance of his baby cousin's bedroom. The nice thing about having all of his courses spread out was that Shisui was all over Tokyo at all times. It meant that he quickly adjusted to constantly being on the move, meant that he had friends in every part of the city, and meant that going to Itachi's home was no longer considered an ordeal. On the other hand, it also meant that he spent hours of his precious life every day on the subway, time that could be better spent, oh. Watching dramas. Sleeping. Jerking off. Things essential to survival as a University student, at any rate. But regardless, Shisui liked it in Itachi's home. When they lived in Korea, they'd lived close. When Itachi's family moved back and Shisui's foster family had insisted they follow along, they'd continued to live close, by coincidence or perhaps by design. He glanced at Itachi's desk, snorting a little at the open textbook, the exposed pages filled with very neat little notes and perfectly horizontal highlights and underlines.

"Advanced Brain Chemistry?" He sighed dismissively, flopping on his cousin's bed like he owned it. "You're such a nerd, Itachi-kun. It's making you wrinkle prematurely."

Itachi looked down his nose at him severely, the contacts in his eyes catching the light so that they looked round and filmy around the edges of his irises. His glasses were sitting on his desk beside the book, but the nose-guard had left shallow indentations in the skin along the bridge of his nose, and now that he'd removed them, they were flushing slightly, and it was a bit cute. He was dressed well, shirt buttoned all the way up to his slim, long neck, and his hair was swept back, tied so that it hung low, near his nape.

"I am not wrinkling."

Shisui grinned, rolling onto his stomach and cracking his neck with a roll of his shoulders. No, he wasn't wrinkling. He was annoyingly man-pretty, the way he'd always been, the way they both were, and the way Sasuke - from the looks of it - was on his way to becoming. "Ho, yes you are~ At this rate, cara mia, you're going to look like an Armenian fishwife. Which would be strange because Armenia is completely landlocked. But not too strange because there is always Lake Sevan. But I digress." He rubbed his cheek into Itachi's pillow, massaging his temple. This was one of Shisui's strengths. He could babble on like a ditzy child because people knew how to handle that. Itachi, of course, Itachi knew him better than that. Knew that when Shisui spoke in nonsensical rambles, he was indirectly mocking him in some latent way, but they never argued about it. Not once. In fact, the grand total of Shisui and Itachi's arguments would be a single digit, and most of them would have occurred in their first year of knowing one another.

Itachi said nothing because he did not need to, which was a more common occurrence than one might think. He did not necessarily like talking at all, and he especially did not like talking when there was nothing worth saying, which, he deigned, was the majority of the time. He turned from him dismissively and reached to close the book by the cover; the light was coming in from the windows, which were very rarely open, and caught him at a magnificent angle, silhouetting the effeminate, doll-like features of his face and his long, feathery lashes. He moved with a careful, practiced ease over to the bookshelf, removing one of its members to toss it at him. It landed with a soft fwump directly beside his face, perfectly flat. He did not tell him that it was his history book, or that it was from one of the only classes they shared, or that he had left it there for Itachi to collect.

The notes inside were missing, though.

"Do you have a girlfriend, Itachikun~?"

The question wasn't really as out of the blue as one might have assumed; Shisui asked from time to time, always receiving some version of the same answer, playing off the illusion that if Itachi had a girlfriend, Shisui would somehow not know about it. The only way he couldn't of would be if he'd dated anyone during Shisui's extensive stay overseas, and Shisui highly doubted that. Those years were spent studying for college entrance work, etcetera, etcetera. Itachi was a nerd. Itachi contemplated the meaning of life and solved abstract math equations when he was bored. His idea of a party was eating Dango and reading Confucian writings, or coming up with number puzzles for Shisui to solve. Although they certainly acted wildly different, they really weren't. The only difference in their chemistry that kept Shisui from essentially being Itachi's Korean clone was that Shisui had this thing called

(impulse)

and it made him do stupid things. Great things, certainly. But stupid ones. Itachi was brooding and silent, choosing to trap his innate genius within himself and preferring contemplating over action. Shisui was brooding, but vocal. Not loud, but vocal. And he firmly believed that zeal left a much deeper footprint than understanding ever could, and really, that was why he was there. He was on a mission with all the fervor and cruel irony of an hyper-patriotic soldier. He let his eyes run over the book in front of his face, and grinned. Itachi, meanwhile, surveyed him from the opposite side of the room, seeming to weigh whether or not his question was worth answering.

"No," he said finally, in a tone that said he would rather not discuss it further. He offered no explanation.

Shisui gave him a sideways glance. "But certainly there are prospectives?"

"No," Itachi said, firmly dismissive. He gave him a look that distinctly said he disliked this current line of questioning.

The older of the two pretended to frown contemplatively, resting his chin in his hand and running a lock of hair back behind his ear. "Maa, Itachikun. That's not healthy. Fine, I'll simplify it, what's your type. I know you have one, everyone does." And if Itachi actually didn't, he needed to probably get his blood tested for hormone suppressants. The kid was sixteen. Even if he was lying, which was certainly a possibility, Shisui had never seen him with anyone. Which was exactly with how many people he should have been with. He was marked with a fierce, albeit liberal possessiveness, and Itachi was almost an extension him. Always had been, always would be. Shisui had been Itachi's only friend until middle school, and Hoshigaki Kisame had undergone so many tests disguised as friendly theme park excursions it had stopped being humorous. Hell, the kid had almost begun to notice towards the end there, and that was saying something, since, outside of certain key arenas, Kisame was overwhelmingly thick.

Itachi, on the other hand, was not. (This was ice to be tread carefully, perhaps.)

His baby cousin scoffed derisively and turned away from him again to say, wordlessly, that the conversation was over.

This did not come as much of a surprise. Of course, a lack of conversation on Itachi's behalf always meant that he had meandered back into his silent, chaotically internalized world of thought; type, what did he mean by that. "Type." Noun. A subdivision of a particular kind of thing, usually pertaining to individual preference in regards to aforementioned article. In this context, to be best equated to, "attributes found within an individual with whom one would most prefer to fulfill one's biological imperative."

There was quite a bit of trouble with this particular definition of the word "type", beginning with the fact that Itachi had no desire to ever fulfill his biological imperative. For one thing, he had done an egregious amount of research and determined that he stood to gain nothing from it, financially, physiologically, or emotionally. For another thing, Itachi rather disliked people. He especially disliked women. Women, in his experience, were, on average, almost seventy percent less likely to subscribe to a primarily logic-based school of reasoning. Their decision making patterns were, statistically, most heavily influenced by romantic and sexual interests, empathy, and moral and integral values. Men were, for the most part, similar; Itachi enjoyed their company no better. But men were less likely to make something of his company than women. In an environment filled exclusively with males, Itachi was less likely to be bothered or interrupted than if he were placed in an environment filled exclusively with females.

The fundamental problem was that Itachi indeed had no type that he could think of.

He sheathed this line of reasoning, since it made his stomach churn.

"Don't ignore me."

Shisui was grinning like a cat, reaching out to tug at his cousin's hair. Itachi had a 'thing' about hair, there really was no other word for it. Touching his hair made him incredibly uncomfortable, which only served to amuse Shisui to no end. "I imagine you to find girls who are taller than you attractive. I couldn't surmise why, my darling little frigid bitch, but taller than you, certainly. Black hair, black eyes, generally Asian, in any case. Rounder faces, not like Japanese women, but.. ah.. Korean? Perhaps. You tend to stare more when they have rounder faces. Not fat ones, but. You have a type, of this I am certain~"

Itachi whipped his hand away, eyes flashing in their sockets.

"What is the motive behind this line of questioning."

Shisui laughed outright, throwing his arms loosely around his shoulders and digging his knuckles painfully into the top of Itachi's skull, raking his fist back and forth hard. "The motive? You make me sound like a criminal." He kissed his temple with a smack, chest rocking with laughter at his cousin's rather pointed discomfort. The child could not take harassment of any sort, it was adorable. "The motive, Watson, is that if I don't check up on you, how on Earth will I be able to send Mikoto her monthly update reports on your personal life? For you see, without those, she turns into a merciless Hydra that feeds on my fear and destroys my rather flawless skin with fire."

Itachi elbowed him away, barely resisting the urge to drive his elbow into his windpipe, and began brushing himself off, as if he were set on removing even the particular evidence of Shisui's being from his clothing.

"I don't see how any of this is your business."

"I'm your cousin. We've been over this."

"You are a meddlesome fool."

Shisui grinned, kissing his temple again a tad more tenderly. "Yes, but. You are in love with me."

Itachi spooked away from him like he'd been bitten. Like he was venomous. He stared at him.

Like he was venomous.

Like he should leave.

Right now.

"And I am in love with you."

And the breakdown was inevitable. No, he could see it. Itachi was already halfway in, receding quickly. It was a short transition from indifference to disgust to cold, icy rage that hums below the surface of the skin.

He stared, eyes a warm, glowing crimson in the light, eyebrows two strokes of ink.

Shisui smiled, a tad darkly, watching him with the sort of penetrating look that had always half-frightened Itachi since their first acquaintance. "Cruel, Itachikun. Such a negative response." He ran his hands through the mess of curls that hit his shoulders, brushing it out of his face and resting his cheek in his palm. The problem with Shisui, as with all people of his personality type, was that you could never really tell if he was serious or not. All of his expressions were some variation of the previous voice, and his voice inflected merrily even when he was seething with rage or sadness. Shisui, in that regard, was far harder to read than Itachi could ever hope to be. "Though I can only surmise why you've got that look of homicidal intent all over that pretty face."

Danger zone.

Itachi eyed him. His face was composed in a fortress. A barricade. Shisui could only see gaps of him through the arrow slots. It was a cold landscape in Masyaf. Unfortunately for Itachi, Shisui did not understand the social concepts of personal space. Not when it came to him. Was he actually in love with the antisexual little brat? Shisui didn't know. Shisui didn't care to invest in those types of thoughts, they were distracting and kept him away from the main goal. Itachi was too darling to not corrupt beyond repair, and that was Shisui's right alone. The girls Itachi stared at too long, girls who matched a description that was essentially him, they could just wait.

He grinned, hand jetting out and tugging Itachi's hair tightly.

The younger snarled and snatched his hand in a grip that seemed contemplative as to whether or not to crush his bones to powder, but Shisui didn't seem particularly phased by it, watching him for a moment before yanking him forward with a force that didn't match the femininity of his arms and kissing him not so much hard but certainly quite firmly, the grin in his lips evident by the shape of them against his cousin's mouth and his fingers hooking back into the very straight hair that wasn't like his at all. (He really, really should have seen that one coming.) He laughed like a jester against him, the kiss only lasting for a couple of startled seconds before he ducked away in time for his lips not to be shredded off with Itachi's shark teeth, kissing his forehead and amusement rolling out of him in audible, familiar waves.

"You should see your face."

Itachi promptly kicked him into the wall, with admirable flexibility and strength, and managed not to tear a hand across his lips. His mouth was drawn so sharply downward that the edges looked barbed, and his eyes bubbled with ire.

He forcibly ousted Shisui from his room, then, and with the door shut and locked so quickly that the sounds seemed synonymous, the following silence seemed intent to swallow the world.

Shisui didn't get to see him again for something like three weeks, which he chose as the strategic amount of time to drive Itachi absolutely crazy with whatever he would be consumed with. Itachi was a far too complex person all over for him to successfully pretend Shisui hadn't kissed him, the child simply thought too much. It was what Philosophy majors were supposed to do. In that three weeks, Shisui discovered he had a rather potent talent when it came to watercolor painting, a talent he hadn't previously been aware of, and more interesting than that was the open space for development. As an Uchiha, that called for him to be a genius, that's the flavor Uchihas came in. But artistic skill didn't come from that side of the brain, and had so many different angles to be approached with that he found the hobby rather fun. As a result, he'd suddenly begun skipping even more of his classes and simply remaining in the art building, watching the art majors (girls with paint on their jeans were adorable, you see) play in their studios and modeling for a handful of them since he'd had nothing better to do.

Being painted naked was a lot less awkward than he'd originally suspected, if truth be told.

Of course, it was all strategy. There was no room for it not to be. He was as he was, and as he was, not seeing Itachi for a few days was uncommon enough, dating back to their time as children. Yes, by now it would be less of a held grudge and more of a thick, putrid mire. He knew his cousin well. Yes, by now he would be power brooding, refusing to sleep or leave his room. It was like an elaborate, live action version of chess.

And when Shisui did finally run into him, he'd been relatively sure Itachi had been looking for him, not like the brat would ever cop to something so degrading, because he'd been taking the same route to class he always took, a route which never intercepted his baby cousin in their history of being, when Itachi had simply been there. And he'd nearly choked on his riceball at the sight of him, not prepared to enact the second phase of his strategy, hacking quite attractively and only barely keeping a mouthful of rice from spraying in painful, half-chewed chunks out of his nostrils. But nonetheless, he had avoided what could have been a memory he looked upon in disgust for the rest of his days. Nonetheless Itachi stared at him blankly, doubtlessly aware of how close Shisui had just come to either dying of asphyxiation or of public embarrassment. As usual, he said nothing about it. He didn't need to. The look said everything.

(Said, if perhaps more eloquently, something along the lines of, "My God, look at yourself. Aren't you ashamed even of your own existence? I most certainly am. Fool.")

"Good morning to you, too."

Shisui's tone was intently cold, purposefully dismissive and nonplussed to try and sting him in whatever way he could. Regardless of how distant Itachi was, or how mad he was trying to be, Shisui was his closest friend. Had always been his closest friend. And that meant a lot to anyone, even a person whose emotional scale was minuscule, if nonexistent. He strolled past him, portfolio under one arm, his hair a good inch longer now and getting increasingly difficult to maintain. Another inch and he'd be wearing ponytails every day. Or pigtails, if he was in a fag mood. Shisui was very strange.

Itachi's head turned owl-like, unblinking (what was that American film...? The Exorcist?) as he passed, his lips thinning in a way that Shisui noticed, in a way that meant his temper was overwhelming his typical nonchalance. There was something about this that sent a tingle of delight shooting down Shisui's spine.

He did not tell him to stop, nor did he fall in step with him. He stood there, arms folded, and caught the end of one spindly brown lock of hair and pulled Shisui around by it sharply.

Itachi was glowering.

His feet span to avoid the most pain he possibly could (because unlike Itachi, he did not have a thing about hair. Hair was the crap on top of his head every morning that would probably be more convenient if he shaved off, but he wasn't going to because shaolin warrior wasn't a good look for him. And college was a time when looking good was kind of a priority), expression a bit flat and a thumb hooked into his jeans. "I'm going to kiss you again if you don't let go." Itachi did so, so promptly that it was a bit insulting, expression unchanged.

"You will not," he said, voice darkened and grave. "Not now and not again. Do you understand."

"I don't. Actually."

Shisui leaned forward and kissed his forehead chidingly, rolling his eyes as he pulled back and turned away from him. "Until next time, blackbird~?"

Itachi seemed to barely resist the urge to cold cock him. There were too many witnesses.

But the skin of his forehead burned.

And he seethed with rage.

Shisui came across him again a good week or two later at a campus restaurant. This wasn't quite as by chance, but it - nonetheless - wasn't truly intended either, though he'd been with a girl, which made the look on Itachi's face all the better. She was an art student, one of his friends who talked too much, enough so where he didn't himself have to speak, and while she'd been babbling and he chewed over a mouthful of chicken in rice, Itachi had stepped through the door with the same look on his face he always had. The flat, nonplussed, unstimulated and uncaring bore. Itachi's face. Shisui'd only sighed, the absence of time spent with his best friend making him uncomfortable and lonely, swallowing a mouthful of noodles and watching him intently.

Itachi noticed, it was clear, and immediately steered his eyes to Shisui's, which was a sick, almost aching comfort in a small way. Kisame towered along his left side, skin so black it seemed to devour all the light directed thereupon, and as Itachi's stare drifted into the realm of vaguely uncomfortable the shark's eyes travelled along it. Had it been any other person, it would have seen strange for so long and obviously dangerous a creature to coincide so directly to the actions of someone so much smaller than itself.

But they both knew Itachi was the bigger one, really.

There was a small envelopment wherein Shisui became vaguely suspicious that Kisame might be privy to the goingson between them - he often felt this way, as it were, as if he and Itachi were capable of communicating everything through heartbeats and swift, sharp glances. In the center of the dining commons they looked like two wolves biding their time in the midst of a sheeply ocean.

Itachi turned his head.

Kisame grinned and his sharp fanglike teeth glinted.

Shisui stood, smiling in that pleasantly fake way of his, that way that successfully threw off everyone he ever came to know, intercepting them and the paint caked under his nails taunting Itachi in a subtle, vague way. Their relationship was old. They'd known each other in more than this lifetime, that was a certainty, and the current one was built upon foundations of misunderstanding. Of Shisui being a brotherfigure, possessing the knowledge of a mentor and the mentality of a fox. Combined with the humor of an Uchiha, this made him impossible to understand, and that was really the only reason Itachi kept his company. The child fixated terribly with the things he didn't understand, for there were so few of them, and Shisui was a person whose nonsense was a parody of its own. Like a puzzle game that fit together perfectly, except for a few pieces left over that had no place to go.

"I've not met you."

He smiled with a sultry, warm-draft-in-a-cold-room sort of way to Kisame, hip swayed at a bit more of an angle and a strip of his skin visible between his paint-stained shirt and uniform pants.

Kisame snorted through his large, flat nose and eyed him with a predatorial sort of amusement. His eyes were a cold, dark grey, like the edge of a knife, and he surveyed him.

"You've met me plenty, Uchiha-kun."

"I hardly recall~"

Kisame snorted again, a low sound, like a boar rooting about in mud. Itachi's eyes were weighing heavy on Shisui's face, flashing from where he watched over a deeply wary shoulder, but the older of the two made a point not to meet them. First, isolate them. Make them mull over what happened to the point of half-obsession. Then, make them jealous, a jealousy that will heightened because of how much they'd thought about it, and even more so if the object of rage is a close friend. Itachi was too cruel a soul to fall in love with him before having sex with him, despite how much Shisui would have preferred it that way. So, instead, he was doing the reverse.

He was going to fuck him until Itachi screamed that he loved him.

He leaned forward a little, everything about his actions subtle, and let a couple of his fingers snag Kisame's biceps lightly, peeling paint stretching slowly across his hands and up his arms, mostly shades of cream and black. "Come eat with us, hmm?"

Kisame's body composed itself elegantly beneath his fingers, athletic and firm. He watched him, seeming more clever than he was simply thanks to his posture, which was amicably suave, his shoulders dropped loose with his gigantic hands in the pockets of his cargo pants. Shisui had no reason to assume he understood what was going on.

He grinned. "Sounds hazardous to my health."

...then again, it gave one pause. Scientists had long speculated as to the awareness of baser animals than they, after all.

"Ah, but what is a good meal without a tad of food poisoning~?"

"I'm in for way more than a tad."

Shisui smiled, tugging him away from his very cold looking cousin with a bit more pressure. "You're in, then? How lovely. Come along, I'll buy you something full of cholesterol and pockets of blood."

Kisame would have said something about wording himself wrong - he had meant that he was "in for more than a tad," in that considering he did, he had a distinct feeling that food poisoning would be the least of his problems - but he wasn't really one for tact or brains, and as it was, he was doing his best not to attract Itachi's attention. He was doing an excellent job of it, too; even as Shisui moved away, hips swaying ever so slightly in a sashay, he could feel the weight of those eyes trained on the back of his head.

They left him standing there. A lonely little black dot in the middle of a vast, wary ocean.

And Itachi seethed.

Exactly two months after Shisui had first kissed him was when he scouted him out with a purpose. His hair had gotten long enough to be in a ponytail at all times, slowly beginning to resemble their elder uncle's, and for that reason, Itachi would make him cut it back to shoulder length where it belonged. School wasn't Shisui's element; collegiate nonsense required too much intellectual stimulation for subjects he cared little about. He'd confided in a couple of his new friends about this (if you could call them such; his frequenting of the art building resulted in several acquaintances that found his direly strange personality of great, foreign interest. Like a shiny new toy that begged to be played with), and the general consensus response was for him to simply drop out. When Shisui stated, quite dully, he did not want to drop out, they told him to take more philosophy classes and get a girlfriend.

Visual arts students weren't the most verbally articulate people. Paintings spoke thousands of words, and that was lucky for them, because when an art student was asked what his work meant, most of the time he couldn't tell you. He could try, if he even bothered. But often didn't. And so, on a whim and enjoying the look of annoyance at his roommate every time some surface of their apartment stained with paint, Shisui had changed his major from Undecided to Art, and signed up for five art classes for the next semester and zero cores. After all, if he didn't like painting or printmaking or drawing as much as he did right now, he could always just change again. Education was a service industry. If he was paying for his education, he had every right in the world to decide what he was going to learn, especially since his career path probably wasn't going to be his choice.

But anyway.

It was two months, two very, very long months when Shisui found him again, sitting in on Itachi's oral communications class as he so often used to, but always in the back. He was there because it was his day to speak, and watching him speak was always lovely because although Itachi was a silent, increasingly depressive monster, he had the ability - on rare occasion - to pretend he was not.

The topic of discussion today was, according to the blurry outlines projected behind the podium, "Outrageous Scandal: Corruption as Measured Daily and as it Affects You and Your Classmates." From what Shisui gathered, sharp chin resting on the plush flesh of his palm, each student was to do a satirical speech of three minutes or less on a controversial topic of their own choice. Itachi was second in line, which he rarely allowed for, and so Shisui got the opportunity to watch him prepare himself, which was a rare and golden treat.

He did not ramp himself up - from what his cousin could see there was no obvious way in which he changed at all from being who he normally was. For all the rest of the classroom knew, he was listening intently to the loud and passionate declarations of the current speaker, who had decided to speak of dredge netting and its effects on dolphin populations, of all things. But Shisui knew better; he saw the soft, impatient fettering of hands; the way Itachi's deft fingers slid his speech from under his book so that he could glance it over one last time; the way one hand seemed to find its own, idle way to the ends of his hair, which was held up higher on the back of his head than it normal would be. Itachi was entirely absorbed in himself, the way that geniuses often are, but there was a sort of manic obsessiveness to it. The lines beneath his eyes were more deeply grooved than usual; his eyes themselves were a pale brown, and his body seemed more rigid, his wrists thinner.

When the boy had finished, he descended from his proverbial soap box, seeming deflated, and Itachi rose without waiting to be called. The professor made no remark, watching from over the huge stacks of paper littering her desk, and the room seemed to go a degree quieter. Itachi walked down the aisle slowly and with a distinct purpose, and then up the steps of the podium; he set his speech down there, and paused to take off his glasses. It was so quiet that you could hear as he set them alongside it.

He closed his eyes for a moment. Opened them. Looked down at his speech. Closed his eyes again. Exhaled. Opened them.

And then he began:

"...in our country," he said, slowly and with deliberate precision, "less than five one thousandths of a person out of 1000 people is a victim of intentional homicide.

"This rate is lower than almost every other recorded in the world; it is lower than that of Denmark, Hong Kong, the United Kingdom, or the United States. It means that there is a possibility that no one in the classroom will ever be a direct or indirect victim of intentional homicide - a rate of .5%.

"However," he continued, placing emphasis on the word so that it stood alone, "if we instead examine how many individuals in this classroom will be directly or indirectly in need of an organ transplant, the number jumps by thirty six times to no less than 18%. That is one in every three hundred and fifty people in Japan.

"This rate is also relatively low. Worldwide the numbers vary due to many factors, including but not limited to availability of proper medical care. In China, one in every 96 people will need an organ transplant. In Bolivia, one in every 48.

"But the predicament I wish to discuss is not entrenched in the problems of singularly this rate; it lies in the correspondence between this rate and another, and the disparity between the one in every three hundred and fifty Japanese who require an organ donation, versus the forty organs for transplant that have been legally and officially donated since 1997."

He had them, now; Shisui saw it and it gave him a strange sort of pleasure. Itachi seemed to wait patiently, reeling them in slowly as if by two of eight legs, carefully threading them deeper and deeper. He did not move or shift his posture.

"And so, as in all cases where there is a vast disproportion of supply to demand ratio, those who are in need of organ donations have begun to proposition foreign, illicit markets.

"The organ trade is not only real, it is incredibly lucrative. In areas where destitution pervades, and the prevailing winds favor greed and desperation over tenacity, organ trafficking has become an industry that generates millions of dollars in profit each year; of the 70,000 kidneys transplanted annually, 14,000 of them are black market organs. In Brazil, one human kidney can be bought for just under one million yen from a donor, many of whom make less than twenty one yen each day.

"In China, the average 8,000 prisoners who are executed each year, are harvested for their organs, which are then most commonly sold to the wealthy sick in this country for upwards of 6.8 million yen."

And then he saw him. It was almost slow motion, and it was somewhat thankful that he had already finished his sentence, or it is doubtful he would have finished it all. Itachi saw him, and all at once he froze up, a plethora of intense emotion bleeding into his face like the bleat of a lamb. He stopped dead, staring at him for a moment.

Shisui did nothing.

And slowly, Itachi began again.

"In every three hundred and fifty people, one will need an organ transplant at some point in their lifetime." He gave pause. "That one, statistically, could very easily not be you. But, on the assumption that this class has a collective average age of approximately 19.89, and that each individual therein has met at least one person for each day that they have been alive - "meet", as defined by the parameters of have been introduced to and shared with a brief dialogue - it is safe to say that each of you knows no less than approximately 7,264 people. That means that, even if you are not one of the three hundred and fifty people who will be in need of an organ transplant at some point in your lifetime, you know no less than 20 people who will. And, if the current trend goes unchanged, no less than 14 of them will obtain those organ transplants illegally."

"And no less than six of them," he concluded, smoothly, staring Shisui in the face, "will die."

Shisui stood as he clapped, attracting attention to himself that both was unnecessary and unwise, but he didn't care as he strolled down the levels of the lecture hall, lingering out of the way until Itachi stepped down from the podium, before taking his arm with something that combined a rough clarity and a sincere warmth. He spoke in his dignified, incandescent voice, a voice that melted mirrors and kept spiders at bay, but what was missing from his face was a smile. Smiles, you see, they threw people off. Depressed people, angry people, sad people; society both detested them and knew all well how to deal with them. The disillusion in Shisui's smile was something most could not deal with, but on this occasion, it was missing from his face, all that remained a line in his lips, devoid of everything that made him him.

"Come with me."

Itachi, surprisingly, did so without pause or exaggerated argument, which made Shisui quite certain that it had been the Right Time to make his move - surrounded by people as they were, what a strange, adorable little cousin he had! Such an orator and yet so averse to attention.

And yet he was averse to attention, and so he was painfully quiet as Shisui led him out.

He tugged him into the hall, looking around for a moment (it was empty, though a security camera was blinking at them around the corner) before turning towards a supply closet, yanking it open, and pushing his cousin inside. The room had only one light, which blinked like a strobe for a slow-action camera, and about fifteen class sets of rare or outdated textbooks the students weren't supposed to know about, and when the door snapped shut behind him, the maximum amount of room they had from each other was eight inches. Eight inches that Shisui closed immediately by kissing him fiercely, protective and possessive all at once, locking him close by winding a hand to the back of his neck and his opposing working a vicegrip at his bony hip.

(Did you miss me~?)

Itachi's knuckles made contact with his cheekbone so ferociously that it knocked his head into the doorjamb with a crack.

(Apparently not.)

"Ow."

"Do not. Do that. Shisui."

"But why."

Itachi hit him again, this time in the stomach, apparently for asking quiet the wrong question. It hurt, the way he did it with his thumb wrapped around the fingers, driving hard bruises, melon-sized bruises in to him, and Shisui only took it for a few seconds or so before catching his cousin's fists (both of them, for insurance) and towering over him, so much bigger seeming when he wasn't smiling, able to completely shroud Itachi at all angles if he hunched over. He sighed, kissing his forehead once, then the top of his head as he forced Itachi's hands stagnant, running one of his knees between his legs. "That's not a reason and is very rude."

Itachi wrestled one of his hands back, shoving their faces and bodies forcibly apart, jaw set; he seemed quite close to baring his teeth. He held Shisui against the door with one hand knit against his collar, other hand clenched in a fist so tight that Shisui could feel it in the tendons of his wrist.

"That I have ordered you not to is sufficient reason."

"What have been up to, in the past two months?"

The change of topic was abrupt, but the tone of his voice (which was in its rare state of not perpetual joking) attempted to convey he actually cared. Because he did. It wasn't the reason he was there, it was a conversation reserved for later. But for some reason, it had been the first coherent thought after recovering from the blow to his head. And Itachi only hit him again, kneeing him in the side. His eyes glinted in the dark, seeming almost manic; black gold, oiled and shining as if some dark knife. (Speaking of... mm, but perhaps it was best not to prematurely assume Itachi had brought no weapons with him. Not that it was congruent with his personality to do so. But then.)

"What right have you to ask anything of me."

His voice shook. He was impassioned, how rare; he seemed so much a child.

He appeared to reach the limit of Shisui's pain threshold because the latter let out a cry, grip on his cousin weakening dramatically as his nerve endings exploded with reaction, reeling back all of six inches and smashing hard back into the door. "Goddamnit, Itachi," he snarled, holding his side. "You are quite the little bitch."

Itachi recoiled from him as if struck, looking simultaneously petulant and disgusted; there was a tinny clatter as he inadvertently backed into the assorted brooms, mops, cans and plastic containers population the floor behind his feet and the crowded shelves behind his head. His face emptied, but the movement was inadvertently clumsy and he seemed embarrassed by it; he had left his glasses in class. They lay unattended on the wood panel of the podium. Shisui realized, somewhat tangentially, what that said about the limits of his vision; he must be nearly blind.

"Open the door." He was still nearly shaking, either with rage or passion, Shisui did not know.

"I can't."

He spoke with a faded sort of lopsidedness, skin still throbbing as he noted Itachi's reaction. (Shisui rarely swore at him, let alone called him names, which both made his insults all the more shocking and all the more likely to sting. He hated that about himself. Hated when his and Itachi's relationship took a tumultuous turn of any sort because Itachi was his. Had always been his. His cousin, brother, lover; semantics hardly mattered. But regardless, Itachi was his. And thus, he hated hurting him for any reason that wasn't psychologically educational. But that was for another day.)

He leaned forward and kissed his lips chastely, blindly but on target.

"Please stop hitting me."

Once more, Itachi's hands pressed him away, but his strength seemed to be waning with his anger. Shisui swore he felt those long bones tremble but it must have been his imagination.

"Stop. Shisui."

"Would it really make you happy if I did and disappeared from you."

Itachi, for what decency he actually possessed, froze momentarily, his limbs taking on strange, angular shapes. Shisui paused, watching his outline before stretching his hand out to touch his face testingly, the skin cold and his cheekbones jetting out dramatically. Itachi hadn't been eating enough, that was more than obvious, and he felt a sting of burning guilt crawl through him with the same consistency as wriggling maggots. Mikoto and Fugaku spent little time at home, and what little time they were at home was spent working, sleeping, eating, or having sex on the rare occasion their days off were scheduled together. Which meant Itachi was now becoming responsible for feeding himself, which he could do just fine - he'd been feeding Sasuke most of his meals for several years - but rarely remembered to. Even less so if he was consumed with his work.

"I'm not sorry." He cupped the other side of his face, thumbs moving over his cheekbones to the corners of his eyes.

"I said stop."

"Don't make it like I'm assaulting you." Shisui sighed, running his fingers through the gorgeous hair that burst in even locks out of Itachi's pale scalp, kissing his forehead and then under his left eye, like an afterthought.

Itachi snarled low but left it at that, because there was no point in arguing that it was. He pushed him away again, backing himself into a corner, a broom prodding his side, and Shisui just sighed, leaning over him and mouthing in half-kisses over his cheek. "I'm wondering exactly why you thought to take refuge in a painful area of this claustrophobia inducing space that in fact has no means of escape." From his cheek to his jaw. From his jaw to his mouth, hands moving to lock him into place and humming with a gentle adoration that clashed with a feral sense of impatience, swiping his lips with his tongue and grinding with a slow but almost ungodly friction into Itachi's groin.

"Mm~"

The younger of the two hitched and grabbed him by the biceps, hands so tight that they cut off the circulation to his arms. His whole body seemed to seize up.

"Shisui."

"I'd wondered what that'd sound like when you moaned it." He nipped languidly at his bottom lip, itching to run his palms all over him where they belonged but well aware that if he let go now, he'd probably get stabbed in the throat. Which wouldn't be pleasant at all, no it wouldn't. "And I have to say." Shisui broke it, fingers stringing sweetly through his hair as he felt his hands begin to shake, the blood in his veins unable to reach them with Itachi's vicegrip. Leaned forward and kissed him sweepingly, not like any of the previous in the combination of dominance and love and possession and rage and confusion that crushed through them, so much emotion that it nearly made him sick.

"You didn't disappoint."

Itachi seemed to flounder as Shisui dragged his discontent from his mouth, dredged his refusal from his throat, eyes glazing open like sores. Shisui could feel his pulse jumping behind the skin of his dry lips; there was a deep, intense humiliation dripping into his lungs like antifreeze, cold and blue, and he felt as though he were steadily drowning in it. He could not swallow. Shisui's hands were like bits of hot metal. There was a putrid mortification making its way down his spine. Surely not. No, surely not, he was thinking, though perhaps not in words but in algorithms.

He stopped breathing for a moment. Each searing kiss scrambled his numbers. He felt an intense, deep fear sweep through him like a fever, and even as he pressed it down it incited an irrational panic, and he fought to ration it. Each touch muddled his process, and he felt himself becoming so irritated that it choked him; he hated it. He hated being touched. He hated being interrupted mid-thought. He hated it with a vehemence that surprised him, a depth that made his stomach twist and his chest ache and burn.

But Shisui knew this. Had always known this. And had always seemed completely undeterred.

His knees cracked softly when they hit the floor, far louder than the minimal pain would have reflected, teeth grinding in his mouth, so irritated with his behavior, so fucking hurt by it and so fucking furious Itachi not only had the ability but the means to make his stomach twist like this. Shisui hated that about him, hated how desperately unfair it was that God would send him something to cause him this much trouble only for it not to end up a terribly sappy but wonderfully darling little love story, like it was supposed to be? It was wrong. No, something so gravely cruel wouldn't happen, not if Shisui had anything to do with it, and as much as it disgusted him to confront it, he knew that if he couldn't make Itachi fall in love with him normally (I.E., being best friends for over ten years), then he would merely have to do it abnormally.

And he was going to start now.

Both of his hands fixed bruisingly on the sharp bones at Itachi's hips and he snagged the button of his uniform pants between his teeth, tearing it straight off (though not without some uncomfortable resistence) and yanking the zipper down along with it. He spoke clearly, if not angrily, faced flushed halfway with embarrassment (... geez.) and the other half simply out of irritation with him. Out of a complete lack of patience. "Itachi. Do not punch me, kick me, or maim me in any way. Shut the hell up and let me blow you." He grabbed him almost roughly, eyes narrowing with concentration and pumping him slow, thick, and almost painfully tight as he tugged his underwear off his hips.

Itachi exhaled as if around a rock, hands slamming back against the wall, as if desperately trying to crawl away from him, even as his eyes leveled on his face with a morbid, unwilling fascination. His whole body twitched as Shisui's mouth made it's most intimate contact and his pupils dilated to a comical size, his facial muscles seeming to go numb as his chest and stomach clenched, bunching together in tangled knots.

Shisui let out a soft, almost agitatingly calm sigh, looking him over for a few moments (moments longer than normal, since he was in the dark) before leaning forward and sucking the tip, curious and languid and slow, not to startle him, though he had no doubt he could get him off in twenty seconds if he had the desire to. But he didn't, he wanted to savor this. Not the act itself; it was lewd and not intimate or romantic enough, not the way it should be. But the flickers of everything that flowed in and out of Itachi in thick, almost wall-sized waves, so obvious to Shisui who'd known him for so long but so adorable subtle on any other measurable spectrum.

He twisted his tongue slow and gentle over him, still gripping him tightly at the base and jerking him off thick and with intense amounts of care, precision, digging into the slit as a bead of precum leaked into his mouth. Cruelly bitter. The way Itachi would have tasted regardless. It occurred to him how rarely Itachi ever succumbed to his own damnable sweet tooth. He wondered, slowly, how much effect a bit of well-timed dango could effect-

But never mind that, what about that face, wasn't that just disarmingly exquisite. The way his lips trembled slightly, as if he were fighting the urge to sink his small white teeth into the lower; the way his chin became less sharp, more ambiguous with his uncertainty; the way that Shisui was certain that if the scene were lit, he would be wearing that perfect blush of his, the one that barely changed his tint, the one he had worn last when he was ten and Shisui had told him that incredibly filthy, smutty joke and Itachi had pushed him into a swimming pool; the way those long, butterfly-wing lashes fluttered, slightly. Perfection. Truly.

Now if only he could be a tad less difficult.

A tad. Perhaps.

He shuddered slightly, involuntarily, letting go of him and working him deeply into his mouth and quite cautiously into his throat, brushing his hair over his ear and holding Itachi's hip more now for support than control. The floor was cold stone, not like marble but more like smooth concrete, and his kneecaps were already beginning to ache. Not that there was anything he could do about it in a room as small as this. He felt the threat of his gag reflex coming on as Itachi neared dangerously close to his uvula and withdrew back, the vacuum of his mouth unimaginably tight and slick, working backwards to the head again and starting a slow, calculated rhythm, trying to take in details he couldn't see, and it only proved to frustrate him immensely. Details that he deserved to be able to see.

Shisui pulled back entirely with a lewd little pop, twirling his tongue over him and speaking clearly in the kind of voice that couldn't really be said no to.

"Turn on the lamp."

"No."

...of course he would say that. God, couldn't cooperate for the very life of him, could he.

But there was comfort to be had in the way he said it. It was almost a squeak - so embarrassing, his voice was sharp, like a door banging open, and it vanished into the dark just as quickly. It was almost a gasp, and though Itachi obviously tried to keep it quiet by buckling his mouth once more after it was said, the ragged edges of his breath caught his lips and the sound raked up Shisui's back like a raw, illicit eroticism. He said no like it was less of an order and more of a plea. A no to be preceded by God and to be followed by pleases and anything but thats. The older of them purred sweetly, skin crawling with attraction like he'd been introduced to a pheromone for the first time, starting in again but faster now, not taking the time to torture him the way he'd planned to because he wasn't on carpet (for one), and for another, Shisui simply couldn't. Even if he wanted to.

Perhaps he was in love with him.

He groaned softly, head bobbing at a faster pace so that there was a quiet thud of skin smacking skin the back of his throat, his teeth brushing across him as infrequently as humanly possible and his tongue always moving, drawing Kanji characters all over his cock just to keep busy. Just to keep him shaking and shuddering like that, so adorable and so out of control.

"Shisui-"

But it was the last thing Itachi said for a long time. It was the last moment his head remained above water and then he was beneath the water, bound and helpless. It was a strange, foreign sensation, to be physically overwhelmed in a way that disrupted his mental processes, and he felt battered, swept by a rip tide, nasal passage burning as the salt of Shisui's control infected him, infesting his blood. He battled it feebly, with paper knives and plastic swords, wearing armor made of styrofoam, and Shisui barreled inevitably through him. Itachi broke into him, quietly, hands whiteknuckled along the wall, sharp hips pressing against the bones of his cousin's chin, which was moist with a cooling mixture of precum and saliva.

He didn't choke (albeit he should have, since he was drastically inexperienced when it came to deepthroating), but he jumped sharply, the hand crushing his bony hips lessening in force as he eased into it. Eased into Itachi, whose personality was a highly familiar territory (he knew, for example, Itachi's favorite color was white, although he would argue that white was not a color, it was a tint, and that he in fact had no favorite color. But he did. He knew Itachi didn't like the cinema because it overstimulated his eyes, which were sensitive and tended to be unreliable. He knew Itachi's favorite book was Anna Kerenina, knew Itachi watched him when he thought he wasn't looking, knew Itachi was fiercely protective of his baby brother, and knew he was unaware Fugaku was beating him. Because if Itachi knew that, he wouldn't be here. He would be with Sasuke. Shisui knew his brain worked in numbers, not in concepts, which was why he liked Philosophy. It forced him to think on planes that it wasn't natural for him to be on, forced him to be smarter in ways no IQ test could measure. Knew Itachi was homosexual and had noappreciation for the female figure. Knew Itachi hated snakes and loud noise, and had an intense phobia of being naked. These weren't things Itachi ever said. He was a silent creature by nature, but a highly complex one. Something deep in the sea.) - but whose body, Shisui wasn't familiar with.

Not at all.

He undulated his throat, sucking around him in melting, horrifying waves, things that made Itachi unbearably warm from the abdomen and spiking through everything else. That made him weightless and unbearably heavy at the same time. Shisui pulled back and dug his tongue hard into the slit, squeezing him tightly and pumping him with his first. Entirely too quiet. Itachi could hear his own breath and his heartbeat, and it both enthralled and enraged him, and he was not paying attention to his hands, which were clenched at his sides, but his pride kept them from clasping them over his mouth as some part of him so desperately wanted to do.

The pleasure was wrenching; nerves that had never been stimulated in him were stimulated to the point of breaking, driving holes in his bones and his reserve. Something spread up his chest in a wave of pungent warmth and he bit down, crushing one edge of his bottom lip between his teeth.

He felt immobilized.

Shisui drew forward and took him to the back of his throat, fists clenched as he mentally meditated his way through not gagging, taking deep, cold breaths through his nose and inhaling the highly distinctive coital scent that was boxing around them, thicker than blood and almost dizzying, pulling back and tongue swiping the three characters of his name at the head of Itachi's cock.

shi
su
i

(Mou, I love you so.)

When Itachi came, it was a surprise and a humiliation.

A pleasure and a victory. Perhaps.

He did not really know what to do, afterwards. There was a long, intense silence that absorbed them for a short moment and then they were set back where they should have been, with the exception of the fact that Itachi was still heaving for breath, and Shisui was still on his knees in front of him, staring up at him with eyes like accusations and lips like evidence.

He did not really know what to do, afterwards. There was a long, intense silence that absorbed them for a short moment and then they were set back where they should have been, with the exception of the fact that Itachi was still heaving for breath, and Shisui was still on his knees in front of him, staring up at him with eyes like accusations and lips like evidence. He stood after what felt like ages, both of his knees popping loud and hysterically painful, though it didn't show in his features that he registered it at all. He raised a hand to the string of metal beads hanging from the ceiling and tugged it, and the single light bulb at the ceiling flickered on above them, too bright but altogether far too dim. Itachi recoiled as if he'd bitten him, seeming to snap into place - he whipped around to conceal himself, pushing Shisui away with an arm he kept outstretched.

He only laughed and wiped his mouth, licking the back of his hand quietly.

"Is this the part where you storm off as if I've committed a grave injustice by inducing your first orgasm."

Itachi said nothing, despite the way the word "orgasm" nearly made him flinch with shame and disgust, facing the corner like a disobedient child, with his nose at the very convergence of the walls. He stood straight, his posture inflexible, completely mute. There was a shadowiness to it. Shisui watched him, tongue moving in his mouth like a housewife around a new guest, pressing Itachi's bitterness into the wells of his teeth. "You're homosexual and in love with me. You realize this."

Itachi released his forefinger and thumb from his nose and let out his breath in a thin, uneven stream, taking back both of his hands and pressing them to the wall in front of him, head hung and eyes closed.

"...no."

"You really ought to get out of the closet. It must be a terribly cramped lifestyle."

"Open the door, then."

Shisui sighed, withdrawing a postcard from his back pocket and sliding it neatly into Itachi's front.

"I'm in that exhibition. You should go."

He spoke with a clear solemnity, unjamming the door and letting it open with a soft creak, not bothering to leave himself but allowing his cousin to pass first.

(Once upon a time. There was a garden on a high hill, green and blossoming against the sea. And when the sun came, and the rain came pouring down, the garden grew and flourished and splattered bits of color on the ground. It took shape and symmetry, and all of the life around. But there came winds driven and howling, there came snow, and I feared for the garden, so I built a wall. And I built another. And I roofed it over, thick and strong, and kept it from the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. The killing cold could not get in, but when the sun came with the gentle rain of spring, they could not reach the garden behind those walls. It would have died. Safely, securely, died. But as I longed, and as I learned, I tore the walls all down. The garden still lives.)

A/N: Heya, internets 8D chapter one finally finished amsnsmfsd! This, the prologue, and the rest of the story is being cowritten with my best friend in the universe Lamb. Who needs to stop being so effing hard on herself, thankyouverymuch. She is providing pretty much 100% of the Itachi characterization. Because her Itachi is insanely good, A, and B, she's an amazing writer and we work super well together ;A; she's posting this fic on LJ while I'm doing so FFnet and AFFnet. So everyone who's going to review, say hello to her~ 3 she is mai waifu. (Speaking of which: this chapter is over 11,000 words long. It took us three weeks to write. It will take you 60 seconds or less to review. If you don't do it, I'll sick Darth Jesus on you e_e;) aaaand yeah. Lolblowjob.