Kairos |An Itachi Uchiha Story|

xxx. my feelings are genuine

"Aiko!"

A voice yelled suddenly so close to her. Barely reacting she stared at the grey sky and let the drops fall on her face. The feeling in her chest and the churning of her stomach causing her to not care for anything else around her. Her chest felt heavy and her body numb.

"Aiko you will catch your death out here!"

Her grandmother yelled while standing at her feet. Aiko laid in the grass and barely felt the rain that pelted her skin. Between the sadness of her village and how much she missed those from the Leaf village, she could barely work up the urge to stand. Her eyes barely looked at the older lady who stared pitifully at her grand daughter. Aiko knew she could not hide her emotions from her if she really wanted to know and so did not bother to mask. She just laid and allowed everything to swallow her whole.

"I'm tired of this love sickness that keeps strumming around you. You need to focus while you are here or there is no point of you coming to this village." Her grandmother's voice was blunt and stern but she did not take the words to heart like she was meant to do.

Deep down she found humor in her grandmother reading love sickness in her bones. She knew she cared deeply for her weasel butt but she knew they were not going to last. He would leave the village and she would tend to Sasuke who would be orphaned. Knowing what was in their cards in the immediate future, was there even really a point to the small of amount of affection they already shared? She knew they were not even in a relationship but the thoughts pestered her already depressed mind lately.

She looked at her grandmother's brown hair and almond brown eyes. From what small images floated in her mind of her mother, she could barely tell the two were related. Her mother had inky black hair and a golden gaze that by the time she had came to pass had declined. Her hair was knotted and her metallic gaze lacked the shine they once had before the incident. When Aiko brought it up, her grandmother would come to the defense of her deceased daughter and would talk greatly of her beautiful and bright she had at Aiko's age. But Aiko could not see past her pale and bedridden mother she knew when she died. Thinking of her own mother, she visualized Sasuke and Itachi's mother caring for her children. Her bright warm expressions and her joy of feeding her boys.

"I miss having a mom." Aiko spoke out loud, not caring for the temper she may strike in her grandmother. Just wanted to voice one of the reasons she ached so much during her time in Amegakure. The last time she was in this village she watched her mother decline before her eyes. Though her mother was nowhere near as warm and tending as Mikoto from what she remembered, it was still her mom. Aiko barely looked over at the anger that filled the brown eyes of her grandmother. Thin lips frowned down at her grand daughter that laid in the wet grass. "I always wondered why you look nothing like mom, you know?"

Aiko did not mean to voice such controversial thoughts that she usually held inside but it sparked the memory of being so harsh with Itachi a few months ago.

"Lonely or alone?"

"When are you leaving?"

"I could leave right now, weasel butt. I mean.. If you want me to... So foolish of you little weasel butt. I have already crept ever so slowly in your mind. Your emotions are an open book for me now and trying to hurt my feelings when your heart pounds is feeble."

Looking at the angry and hurt expression on her grandmother's face she realized the same expression marred Itachi's that night and knew both were her fault. She hated that she did this to people she cared for but the bitterness always snuck up on her.

"You are being disrespectful." Her grandmother berated but if Aiko focused just enough, she could feel shame. The shame that came from harboring an unspeakable secret. The inkling was enough to cause her amber eyes to narrow and her body to sit up to get a closer look at her grandmother. Putting it together, the angry expression was not at her actions. The anger was because she was being defensive.