WANTED: Itachi Uchiha

Nijuukyu

"Yakisoba?" 

"Mm please...Have you picked out all the pork?!" Reina exclaimed, her mouth ajar as she looked from the takeaway carton to Itachi whose cheeks began to flush with guilt whilst he occupied himself with the carton of katsu chicken. "You sneaky-" Reina scowled in exasperation.

"Force of habit sorry, Izumi would always pick out the good bits before I had the chance to." Itachi mumbled in between poking at the breadcrumbed pieces with his chopsticks. He paused, blinking when another piece of pork appeared in his carton. He frowned, questioning Reina with the quirk of his brow. 

"I never really was a fan of pork anyway." Reina shrugged, slurping on her noodles; Itachi smiled, picking up the pork and taking a bite. 

The pair sat on the couch, having not moved aside from to answer the door and bring the food back to the table. Baa-chan would probably come back and haunt her for not setting the dinner table to eat; Tomo always preferred to sit at the table, it set with the crockery her own mother had gifted to her for her wedding. 

In the background a late night quiz show played on the television, the show's host firing random, obscure questions at the contestants who would panic under the pressure before blurting out the first thing that came into their head. 

"The Tsukumogami are household yōkai. Tell me, what is the name of the possessed tea kettle?" The host asked, shuffling their deck of quiz cards. 

"Morinji-no-okama!" Reina shouted eagerly, hugging a cushion as she practically bounced on the couch like an excited child. "Morinji-no-okama!" 

"Ahhh I'm afraid you're out of time." The host said to the contestant. "The answer is: Morinji-no-okama." 

"Aha! Yes! I told you!" Reina grinned smugly to herself and nestled back into Itachi's side. 

"How on earth did you know that?" Itachi asked, his brows still knitted together in both awe and confusion. 

"Hm?" 

"How on earth do you know what a haunted tea kettle is called?" Itachi repeated, taking a swig of the whisky Shisui kept stashed under the kitchen sink. 

"How do you not?" Reina retorted, plopping one of the complimentary chinsuko biscuits that came with their takeaway into her mouth. 

"Touché." Itachi smiled from behind the rim of his glass. 

°°°

Itachi watched the television until his eyes stung and felt as though he was blinking razor blades. For once he didn't think. It wasn't the same silence that often occupied the sheer terror that would accumulate in his stomach. Or the type that made his head spin with shame like that, that often followed him home from a mission. Instead the silence was comforting. It wasn't numb, like that of the static, which he often found overwhelming and stifling. 

The silence was warm, and made his stomach simmer, that of which radiated throughout his entire body from the skin of his scalp to the tips of his toes. The last time he had felt so at peace was with Shisui. 

But he was gone, which could only mean one thing: Reina. 

The Hitori Leader had long stopped shouting obscure answers at the television (all of which he had noticed were correct and more in depth than the host's explanations). Whereas Reina had once used him as a makeshift cushion to prop herself up, the Hitori Leader was now fast asleep in his lap, she using his legs as a pillow. 

Her cheeks were a little fuller now, less gaunt and greyish. They had a colour to them now where the food his mother had readily been feeding her had begun to replenish what the grief of losing her grandmother had taken away. Gone were the shadows that usually clung to the delicate skin below her eyes; they occasionally appeared, but they weren't as frequent or as prominent. She was just as beautiful then as she was now. 

Whereas Shisui was an infinite source of happiness and Izumi was a vacuum for any remotely joyous emotion; Reina was a bizarre combination of the two. She had literally brought him back from the dead whilst attempting to keep a tight leash on her own demons. It was one of the many things he admired and loved about her. 

Especially that smart-assed mouth of hers. 

Itachi didn't want to move for sake of disturbing her, as the last time he woke her up he ended up with a blade to his throat. Perhaps not his finest of moments but they had certainly come a long way since that night. He just hoped she didn't have a kunai hidden in her borrowed clothes. 

"Reina…" Itachi whispered, moving stray hairs behind her ear and outlining the shell gently. Still sleepy, Reina swatted his hand away, nustling his thigh in reply. Itachi smiled lazily, running a finger down the delicate length of her nose which wrinkled in response. "Reina-chan~" 

"G'way."

Itachi's smile widened a little. "Come along Reina-sama off to bed we go." Itachi slid his legs from under Reina carefully, cradling her head as he twisted to scoop her up into his arms. She had definitely come so far from the bag of bones he had carried home from the hospital that night. "Up we get."

"M'kay." Reina sighed, obliging Itachi's efforts by wrapping her arms around his shoulders and leaning her head in the crook of his neck, allowing him to carry her down the hall to the spare room. 

The spare bedroom was more cupboard than room, but Itachi had many fond memories in his home away from home. The small cot bed was rickety and fairly shoddy looking. Shisui, despite his intelligence and prodigy-like prowess, had almost incinerated the flat-pack furniture bed when he couldn't work out the ridiculously drawn  instructions. Yet what the bed lacked in style, it made up for in comfort - thanks to Shisui's love of orthopedic mattresses. 

"Down we go." Itachi murmured as he eased Reina down into the bed, her body instantly sinking into the mattress. Itachi pulled the blanket over Reina, tucking her feet in and making sure that her shoulders were covered. Sasuke would always complain as a child that if Itachi didn't tuck his toes in properly that the yokai living under his bed would eat them. 

So Itachi became a master of the bedtime toe-tuck. 

"Goodnight Reina." Itachi whispered, instinctively pressing his lips to her forehead. "And thank you."

When Reina woke a little while later, she frowned at the lack of second body in her bed. Perhaps it was clingy or sad, but she had become accustomed to the Elder Uchiha sleeping next to her these past weeks. Being an Uchiha inherently made him an excellent hot water bottle. 

Like a child waking from a nightmare to go in search of their parents, Reina padded down the hallway with the blanket still wrapped around her shoulders. She found Itachi dozing on the couch, his breaths light and soft. So unlike Sasuke’s bellowing snores. Without so much as a word Reina crawled onto the couch, startling the sleeping shinobi. 

"Ne - Reina? What-" 

"Move over." Reina ordered softly, squeezing herself onto the couch and spreading the blanket across the two of them. Itachi, although groggy, obliged and rolled onto his side, vacating some of the space. "When you buy a girl dinner and take her to bed, the least you could do is actually stay with her. Otherwise it's just plain damn rude." Reina muttered as she made herself comfortable against his chest, they now a jumbled mess of arms and legs. 

"I'll remember that for future reference." Itachi smiled, wrapping an arm around her waist and holding her against him. "Goodnight Reina." Itachi murmured against the top of her head after letting out a quiet yawn. 

"Goodnight Itachi."