𝑻𝒉𝒆𝒚 𝑪𝒐𝒎𝒆 𝑰𝒏 𝑺𝒑𝒂𝒅𝒆𝒔 //𝑰𝒕𝒂𝒅𝒆𝒊//

𝙿𝚊𝚛𝚝 𝚝𝚠𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚢 𝚝𝚠𝚘

The following morning, I woke up with a plan.

As much as I would have loved to spend the day making life difficult for Itachi, today officially marked the day where I no longer had an excuse to keep putting off telling my brother I wasn't dead.

"Where are you going this early?" Itachi hummed Into his morning coffee. He paused. "Is that my sweater?"

"I'm visiting Naruto. You should probably go see your prick mini me too." I teased, snatching one of the pieces of toast off his plate."And yes, I did raid your closet. Because all of my shit. Is at my house. Which I cannot go to."

"Of course, my bad." He muttered sarcastically under his breath.

"Thanks for noticing."

I stuck out my tongue and ran out the door before he could reply. Thefted toast in hand, I walked towards the train station and thought about my plan of attack.

Of course, shooting him a text to say I was coming over would have been convenient, but I was fairly certain that my phone had been blacklisted the moment I got sacked. I'll get a new one later.

Despite the distance between us because of my new living situation, I found there was a train that would take me nearly all the way to Iruka's residence. The ride felt long and short at the same time. Sure, I wanted to see Naruto, but I also had one hell of a lot of explaining to do. And I'd be surprised if he still wanted contact with me afterwards.

My brother was the most justice driven person I knew and even if he understood that I was up to no good, surly being part of the Akatsuki was worse than whatever he thought I did for a living.

And Iruka. What would he think? Out of the two of them he'd be more likely to be disappointed in me.

Shit, I was thinking too much again. Maybe I should have waited until Itachi was free for moral support.

Stepping out of the terminal into the open city, I took in my surroundings. The familiar streets prompted memories of Naruto and I visiting Iruka with our parents when we were younger. It was a bittersweet feeling.

Nevertheless, I kept walking through the city at an unnecessarily brisk pace. Turning back now wasn't an option.

My anxiety came to a skittish peak once I was outside Iruka's apartment. All I could do was give a gentle knock as my heart pumped blood fast enough to make me light headed.

The sound of soft footsteps approached the door and when they stopped I knew whoever was on the other side was seeing me through the peephole.

I swallowed. "Uh... hi."

Few doors had been unlocked and swung open so quickly.

Before me, stood my brother. Messy blond hair and blue eyes as wide as saucers. His jaw hung open like he wanted to say something,  but no words were coming out.

I smiled. "I don't look that rough, do I?"

Naruto gave me a hug that nearly knocked me off my feet.

"Dei... Where were you? " He whispered.

"I'll tell you everything, but we might want to get inside first," I said, barely keeping an even tone. Were my eyes watering? Shit, they were.

"Naruto? Is everything okay?" Called Iruka from inside.

Reluctantly letting me out of his death grip, my brother led me through the door. "We have a visitor!" He called back.

The interior of the apartment hadn't changed much from how I remembered it. There was always a warm homely feeling, just like the man who owned it.

"Who is it?" He asked, rounding the corner.

"The queen." I snarked.

Iruka halted so quickly that I was fairly certain he had whiplash. Guess I was just the worlds prettiest jump scare today.

"Dei! Sorry, I didn't expect you," He sputtered. "What happened? Are you alright?"

I laughed "Yeah, I'm good. Long story short, I have a new job."

"Short story long?" Iruka asked.

The next twenty minutes or so, was spent recounting the last five days in a way that made things sound significantly less dangerous than they actually were. Although, certain things couldn't be sugarcoated as easily.

Naruto looked confused. "Wait. So when will we get to go back to the house?"

I winced. That was the one thing I hadn't quite figured out yet.

"I'm working on it." Feel free to have friends visit you... just not the other way around,"  I explained.

"Oh, that's fine, I guess."

Nope. Even I could tell he was faking. I was going to make it up to him. On a totally unrelated subject, whoever made the saying 'Money can't buy happiness was full of crap.

"There are some perks..." I said, pulling out a fair amount of yesterday's pay check and placing it on the coffee table. "For worrying you two so much."

Iruka looked conflicted. "Deidara, we can't take this from you. This is too much."

Not to me.

I shrugged. "Don't worry about it. You already know I'm living with Itachi right now. And trust me, he's so rich that he doesn't use fast food napkins as Kleenex in his car."

He wasn't convinced. "And you're sure this is the right line of work for you? I still think you should get out as soon as possible," he sighed. "What about your education?"

"Don't worry about me, old man. I'm tougher than I look," I laughed. "Having said that, I'm also a damn hypocrite. Naruto, you're getting your ass back into  school as soon as we find one close enough."

Naruto groaned in annoyance. The little gremlin didn't think he was getting off that easily, did he?

"Aw, come on Dei! That is so not fair and you know it!" He whined.

"Boo, hoo," I laughed, ruffling his hair with my hand.  "Will ice cream make you forgive me?"

"Fine." He huffed.

This wasn't so bad. I kinda felt like an idiot for making such a big deal of things. They were my family and I should've realized they wouldn't care.