Now What Have I Gotten Myself Into? ~Enter Konoha's number one knuckle head

52

By the time Itachi had returned we were back on the original tree branch looking off towards the village. I had set back against the main tree only to look up at Itachi and give him a soft smile. Sasuke didn't even look to his brother as he took the fish his brother had caught for him. The rest of the night went like that. Silence between the three of us. At some point Itachi and Sasuke had moved to separate branches to sleep, leaving me on watch. Trying to force myself to focus on my blanket rather than the Uchiha just off into the shadows less than five feet from me. By the first light of morning Itachi was the first one to rejoin me on the tree branch. His gaze set on the village before us. I don't doubt that he knows why I sent him to get fish the night before and not Sasuke. But with the look in his eyes he has fully set his mind on the mission. Separating himself further from his emotions as usual. At this point, I myself don't see a way I can alleviate his pain. If I did try to say anything it would only make things worse.

"I will make certain Sasuke comes back to you." He speaks up into the silence drawing my eyes away from the scenery towards him. Tilting my head as he doesn't even move to make eye contact with me. "Make sure you both do." I speak quietly looking away from him again. "I may have chose Sasuke, Itachi. But you both are important to me."

"Why?" He questions and I only close my eyes. His tone was his usual empty monotone but even I can tell he was just masking pain. "Why my little brother?" He elaborates quietly and I very nearly sigh. "He was the first bond I formed in this world." I speak barely a whisper drawing his gaze to me. "When I felt alone even with Aphrodite at my side he was there. Our bond grew before I had realized it. Our banters back and forth, our shared glares. Even as we smirked at each other when training. We grew close and I couldn't see how close. When he had kissed me after I killed Orochimaru, I tried to deny what I was feeling. I couldn't love him because I love you is what I told myself. But the more I tried to push from him the more I realized. In the Akatsuki I wasn't lonely because I was no longer in the village. The thought of my team not coming to find me isn't what hurt. It was the thought of him not caring, not knowing, not being with me. That's what hurt. I even had the thought, if I had somehow stopped the massacre, if I had gotten rid of Danzo the year I was in the village. Maybe you and I would have gotten closer at that point. You, the boy I couldn't stop staring at during the entrance ceremony as you watched your brother from the crowd in place of your father. I know that if things would have happened differently that maybe my choice would have been affected as well. As I've told you. I love you but I also love both of you. But then reality sets in. It's Sasuke. It's always been Sasuke. He makes me feel in ways that have eluded me for years. Even before I had realized what was going on, he made me feel. I protected him, not because I promised your parents but because my heart told me to."

Finally opening my eyes I look towards Itachi to see that same pain lingering in his gaze as he stares off at the village. "I'm not telling you this to rub salt on the wound, Itachi. You of all people both know and understand how I think for you yourself have the same thought process as I do. You know that when I say I love you both, I mean it. You know that the decision wasn't easy for me to make because of our time together and my feelings for you. You know I hold those memories close to my heart. Just as you know I hold the bonds I have with you both tightly to my very being. You know, I need you and cannot lose you. Me being with Sasuke could never change that." Pushing back the pain from my memories with Itachi bring up I stand and look towards the village. I hate this, everything used to be simple before I came to this world. There was no worrying about who I hurt or which one I love more. Everything always flowed seamlessly. Is this.. the difference between living only for someone and not having such a deep attachment? I remember a love that took over my entire being, a love that I couldn't live without. As if his every breath was me breathing, every single heartbeat was my own. We were two sides of the same coin. The love I have for both of these men, are as if we are all sides of the same triangle. I trust them to do as they will, I didn't even question their distance and chase after them. I didn't find myself staring at their tent wishing to be there. No, we are all our own parts that move independantly from one another like three clocks that say the same time but each uniquely different and can function on their own. Maybe the love I have for them is more healthy than the dependant love I shared with Light. We depended on each other, we needed each other. To be apart was more painful than death itself.