He watched as his older brother approached him with a smile on his face. Sasuke had remembered that look of his as if it had only been a few hours since it happened and not a decade. Itachi had smiled widely, beckoning him forward with a teasing motion of his hand as he laughed. That rich laughter he was so accustomed to but he hated with a passion. The laughter that would haunt his dreams for years until it became the dull buzzing sounds of cicadas in the summer heat.
Itachi had smiled, laughing as he watched Sasuke cross his arms and huff. 'Are you that mad at me?'
(Of course)
He would say, and the answer would remain the same; Sasuke would huff again, peer at him under his thick eyelashes, and let his shoulders slump over in muted defeat. He stood up and came face to chest with his older brother, oh how he loved their height difference despite how much it wasn't in his favour, and puffed out his cheeks.
'I'll be back, Sasuke.' Itachi would always promise. He left. He left and he would always come back because that's what he always said.
If he had known that day, that bright sunny day in the courtyard of the Palace, of their home, he wouldn't have been angry. He wouldn't have shouted. He wouldn't have cried. And, dear gods, he wouldn't have told his brother how much he hated him.
Two fingers on his forehead and his laughter rang in his ears again. Hurt words masked quickly as Itachi patted him on his head and muttered an 'I love you too' because he knew his foolish little brother didn't quite mean the words of hatred he had allowed to pass his sealed lips.
Sasuke could hear his heart in his chest, his fingers curling and stretching as he watched his big brother continue laughing as he turned around to leave on the nearly monthly trip their father had assigned to him.
His eyes glistened. His head hurt.
"You're all set." She mumbled as she deactivated her Byakūgan and began putting away the things she had just finished using. Hinata gave him a smile as he sat up and blinked rapidly.
A dream, it was a dream (or perhaps a memory that he had buried deep so that he would not acknowledge it) that quickly faded away as he was brought back to the present. He reached for her hand, covering it with his own before bringing it up to his lips to kiss it.
"Has anything changed?" He asked.
Hinata let him hold onto her hand for a few seconds more before she pulled away to continue cleaning her work station. They had temporarily turned the main room into a miniature hospital for the afternoon so that she could exact her routine checkup of his chakra pathways.
"No, other than the fact that you won't be needing my help soon."
Right. Right. Right. Right.
He had gone nearly a week without needing her to supply him with the recommended amount of chakra he would need. It was funny to him
(hilariously so)
that a few months ago, he could not have walked out of his room, or be far from her field of vision for more than an hour or two at best. Yet, now, he didn't need her to continually use her own chakra to make sure that he could at least see. He didn't realize how long it's been, or how many sessions
(there were a lot of sessions)
had passed before he got to that point. Though, the occasional bouts of sleep and the plaguing of his memories never ceased to bother him. As soon as he allowed his mind to relax, it was either he was subjected to a long nap, or he would wander around his mind's terrain as he watched younger him bother his older brother to play with him.
YOU ARE READING
日向導 - A Hyūga's Guide
Fanfiction« She's gotten used to it; she craved it from time to time. Never would she have thought that she would get to the point where Sasuke's proximity did not cause annoyance or anger to arise. How far have they come that warmth and affection bubbled in...
