nisacharakj (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
nisacharakj) wrote2015-08-29 10:21 pm
nisacharakj) wrote2015-08-29 10:21 pm
Entry tags:
[FIC] Birdsong [Itachi/Shisui]
Title: Birdsong
Author:nisacharakj
Type and Genre: Shonen Ai/Friendship/Romance
Rating: G
Characters: Uchiha Itachi, Uchiha Shisui
Summary: Itachi cannot stop thinking about how warm Shisui's hand was that first time they shook on a promise of friendship-- and he decides to find out what other parts of him might feel just as warm.
Warnings: --
[1]
Fugaku’s voice eventually trampled his thoughts: “Did you beat your previous time today at practice?” Droll, dry, leaden, predictable-- it seemed so distant, like it always did at dinnertime. Technically, it always seemed so, regardless of what time of day, but dinnertime was when the family sat down to conversation. One-sided, of course: Fugaku did all the talking.
So used to the daily routine since he could remember, Itachi already knew what to say: “Yes.” Monotonous, apathetic, not a hint of wanting his father to prod him some more and drag the subject on for any longer than the time it took for the last grain of rice to remain in his bowl. He knew what came next: praise that was delivered with pithy, thinly veiled braggadocio that was soon followed by a set of instructions that he was expected to follow in the near future. Instructions, plans, dreams that were not his but his father’s: a future already written out for him; a future that he, even at only five, knew that he did not want. It was a future that left him somewhat hollowed-out and wanting—wanting for something more, something to hope for.
And as his thoughts strayed once more while Fugaku spoke in the background, Itachi pointedly made to glance at the hand holding his chopsticks. His right hand—the one that had grasped Shisui’s in a handshake. It was the very same one that had shaken on a friendship that he hadn’t even been given the chance to decide on whether he wanted it or not.
It wasn’t like he was a stranger to having decisions made for him; Fugaku did it all the time. In fact, Itachi was certain that Fugaku had had plans made for him before he’d even been conceived; he couldn’t remember when he was given a choice, and made to feel like it was his own. Itachi was Fugaku’s plan, and tradition dictated that he did his father’s bidding until he was old enough to hold his own in the rungs of society and the swill of politics. He was no longer a boy in his own right, having crossed the clan’s bridge into manhood: the katon gyokyaku no jutsu. He remembered being pushed into it, and thereafter being pushed into the adult world all too soon. Bound by duty, held down by tradition, made to carry a hefty burden on little shoulders, Itachi had been in no position to refuse. Neither had he known anything different to risk a choice…
But this—this was different. Shisui had smiled, approached him so familiarly, laughed. And that voice—Itachi remembered it all too clearly, as if he were hearing the words spoken right now. Let’s be friends.
He didn’t know how it happened; at the end of it all, he’d only found himself shaking on a promise to work on being friends, a decision he doesn’t remember making. At all. But somehow, it was the promise of a future much different than the one his father and the rest of the clan expected of him that had stayed his hand in the other’s grasp. Itachi didn’t know what it was, he couldn’t put his finger on it, describe it in any words that he knew. But he knew. There was something about the boy with the magic voice and laughter like birdsong on a warm summer’s day.
It looked a lot like hope. Like a dream he wanted to be a part of.
And he remembered how warm that hand was, and set his chopsticks down to excuse himself from the table.
“Homework again, Itachi?” His mother’s voice. They were used to their oldest leaving the table pronto.
“Yes.” Always yes. Tell them what they want to hear, and they’ll leave you alone.
But the truth was far from it. Even as he held his bowl in both hands, he could still feel the warmth of Shisui’s in his right one. A dull thud let his parents know that he’d left his empty bowl in the sink.
Footsteps padded over to his room and the soft click of the door behind him delivered a momentary privacy that he figured he ought to make the most use of.
Itachi threw himself on his bed, only to bring his right hand up within view, holding it up squarey in front of his face. Birdsong on a summer’s day. Shisui’s laughter rang loud and clear and lilting, flooding him with something indescribably soothing. His eyes scanned every line on his palm, almost expecting to see something different. He wished for a tangible explanation, something he could physically pick apart and analyze, something he could work on understanding. But he was having no such luck.
And ever so slowly, Itachi eventually brought his left hand to trace his fingers over his right, touching where Shisui’s hand touched him. It was a mixture of fascination and frustration—
But at the sound of footsteps in the hallway, Itachi curled his fingers into a fist, turning to his side and forcing his eyes shut, his reverie broken. Feigning sleep, the fist pressed to his chest like he was afraid that the feeling he was holding on to would leave him too soon.
He almost feared waking up in the morning to find that the promise of a dream was only a fantasy that could never be fulfilled. –For despite the fact that the decision to be friends was overtly made by Shisui alone, Uchiha Itachi felt he had a choice in working towards it. Somehow, for once, he didn’t feel like he was compelled to.
[2]
Nothing changed.
Over time, Itachi came to set aside the nagging fear of losing that warmth he’d felt that first day he’d met Shisui. He found instead that it was no farce—it was not a calculated, carefully constructed persona meant to trap him into conversation, into association with the son of the Konoha Military Police Force Chief Uchiha Fugaku for personal gains. Instead, in front of him, the older boy stood out like a sore thumb. In the middle of brewing political unrest and hostilities that grew thick enough to stifle the very air he breathed in and choke him on it, here was a boy—an exceptionally skilled boy—who spoke not of war and power and justice that was black and white. What fell from those lips were words that rolled like a pleasant breeze rustling through the leaves and sweeping softly over grass that bent to its gentle will. They spoke of peace and compromise and the willingness to embrace change, of recognizing that war was inevitable unless there was someone capable enough to come along and divert it. Stall it even, if there were no other choice. They spoke with the memories of war they’d lived through and seen to its end, and even so, they spoke not of the past, but of the future. They spoke of love and duty that bore no distinction between clan and village, and argued—quite convincingly—that it was all one and the same. They spoke with conviction, and so freely, what he’d always wanted to say. They spoke his thoughts before he’d thought them out aloud himself, and Itachi could only agree.
Shisui truly was the sun, and his very presence flooded Itachi with a sense of warmth that seeped right through him. It pulsed through every vein and rode every breath he took in the other’s presence. He felt he could dream the dream Shisui dreamt and never feel like he was intruding, for Shisui had already let him in, eager to share with him his own little world—his world that would soon become theirs. And some day, he hoped, Sasuke’s too.
Each day was a brand new encounter and one long moment all at the same time. Shisui taught him everything he knew; there was no holding back. And every day Itachi found himself smiling a little more.
But he still sought out that warmth, smitten since day one—so much so that one day, after months of wanting to do it but holding back, he took Shisui’s hands in his (if only to just hold them). He ignored the mild confusion that danced on Shisui’s face at the gesture. It was now or never; he needed to know.
Warm. They were still warm. A flood of relief at the realization led him to another: that those hands had come to be his tangible affirmation that things will be alright.
“Everything okay?”
The effect Shisui’s voice had on him was always immediate. He looked up, eyes wide. Had he seemed too strange just then? In the split second in which he doubted the weight of his action, Itachi’s stomach dropped.
But ah—there it was. That infectious laughter. No, Shisui didn’t judge him. The laughter bore no hint of cruelty; there were no sneers. The threat of a void seemed to fill itself up almost instantaneously.
Itachi smiled. “Yes.”
He felt Shisui turn his hands in his hold just to squeeze his slightly smaller ones. He knew what it meant. He had permission to hold those hands whenever he wanted to.
Shinobi didn’t hold hands unless they had to. They never laced their hands together as tightly as he did with Shisui. A shinobi needed his hands to mold chakra—fingers could be cut off, hands could be tied. You could lose your life without them. Hands were precious.
But Shisui—Shisui let him.
Shisui trusted him.
And when Shisui fit his fingers in the spaces between Itachi’s, Itachi never flinched.
[3]
“Shisui!”
The dust settled slowly, loud in the abrupt silence between them. The pause seemed prolonged and the awkward jagged break in that last syllable appeared amplified. Shisui only stared from about ten meters away, and Itachi felt the color rise in his cheeks. Hand gripping his kunai tight, it almost shook from the force with which he determined he’d never look at Shisui again. Not until the moment had been smoothed over. And what he needed to do to make that happen, Itachi didn’t know. He only hoped Shisui would do something about it, but even so, the mere thought of Shisui having heard his voice crack in the middle of his name was embarrassing. It had been barely a moment, but even so—
He fixed his gaze on the trodden grass to his right. And then he cleared his throat, as if it would magically fix things.
The silence only grew louder, and he could hear himself speak in his head. Don’t look now.
But it was tempting, and Itachi found himself giving in to stealing the ‘briefest’ of glances at Shisui as if to confirm his suspicions. To what end, he knew not, but soon found himself unable to tear his gaze from the other despite the bubbling laughter that shattered the stunned silence between them. Itachi grimaced, and before he could recover his features to a more neutral expression, Shisui had already bridged the gap to stand nose-to-nose.
“Say it again.” He could feel that grin, despite staring right at it.
There was only a huff in response.
“Say it.” Not a hint of malice in that voice he couldn’t block out in the moment. It was no longer ringing laughter, no longer lilting. Just soft and low and persuasive all at once “Itachio~ Say my name.”
Itachi found himself shuddering for reasons he did not want to entertain just then; the slightest of tremors that rocked his conscience and brought new color to his cheeks. Suddenly, Shisui seemed way too close for comfort. It became a battle within himself, then, to shield the other from the true nature of his emotions roiling on the inside, stirred since the intense spar and amplified by their proximity.
The urge to bring a hand up to cover his mouth was great.
But Shisui refused to back off, waiting ever so patiently like he always did. “I-ta-chi-o~”
And Itachi found himself weak once more, in the presence of that voice.
“Shisui.” It’s whispered, barely audible in the sudden breeze that picked up. Itachi cursed it, aware that Shisui was going to use that as an excuse to make him say it again.
“Hm? What’s that? I didn’t quite hear you.” And there it was. Teasing.
Idiot. “Shisui.” Louder and clearer this time, any reservations about his new voice set aside, though only such that Shisui could hear. It no longer sounded like he always used to say his name—it now sounded so deep, like it came from somewhere in his chest. He supposed he liked it better, after all… —Enough to find the courage once more to look him straight in the eye. Enough to see Shisui break open that sunshine smile and lean forward, that same smiling having brushed his lips.
Warm.
This time, it was a visible tremor that shook through him.
Author:
nisacharakj Type and Genre: Shonen Ai/Friendship/Romance
Rating: G
Characters: Uchiha Itachi, Uchiha Shisui
Summary: Itachi cannot stop thinking about how warm Shisui's hand was that first time they shook on a promise of friendship-- and he decides to find out what other parts of him might feel just as warm.
Warnings: --
[1]
Fugaku’s voice eventually trampled his thoughts: “Did you beat your previous time today at practice?” Droll, dry, leaden, predictable-- it seemed so distant, like it always did at dinnertime. Technically, it always seemed so, regardless of what time of day, but dinnertime was when the family sat down to conversation. One-sided, of course: Fugaku did all the talking.
So used to the daily routine since he could remember, Itachi already knew what to say: “Yes.” Monotonous, apathetic, not a hint of wanting his father to prod him some more and drag the subject on for any longer than the time it took for the last grain of rice to remain in his bowl. He knew what came next: praise that was delivered with pithy, thinly veiled braggadocio that was soon followed by a set of instructions that he was expected to follow in the near future. Instructions, plans, dreams that were not his but his father’s: a future already written out for him; a future that he, even at only five, knew that he did not want. It was a future that left him somewhat hollowed-out and wanting—wanting for something more, something to hope for.
And as his thoughts strayed once more while Fugaku spoke in the background, Itachi pointedly made to glance at the hand holding his chopsticks. His right hand—the one that had grasped Shisui’s in a handshake. It was the very same one that had shaken on a friendship that he hadn’t even been given the chance to decide on whether he wanted it or not.
It wasn’t like he was a stranger to having decisions made for him; Fugaku did it all the time. In fact, Itachi was certain that Fugaku had had plans made for him before he’d even been conceived; he couldn’t remember when he was given a choice, and made to feel like it was his own. Itachi was Fugaku’s plan, and tradition dictated that he did his father’s bidding until he was old enough to hold his own in the rungs of society and the swill of politics. He was no longer a boy in his own right, having crossed the clan’s bridge into manhood: the katon gyokyaku no jutsu. He remembered being pushed into it, and thereafter being pushed into the adult world all too soon. Bound by duty, held down by tradition, made to carry a hefty burden on little shoulders, Itachi had been in no position to refuse. Neither had he known anything different to risk a choice…
But this—this was different. Shisui had smiled, approached him so familiarly, laughed. And that voice—Itachi remembered it all too clearly, as if he were hearing the words spoken right now. Let’s be friends.
He didn’t know how it happened; at the end of it all, he’d only found himself shaking on a promise to work on being friends, a decision he doesn’t remember making. At all. But somehow, it was the promise of a future much different than the one his father and the rest of the clan expected of him that had stayed his hand in the other’s grasp. Itachi didn’t know what it was, he couldn’t put his finger on it, describe it in any words that he knew. But he knew. There was something about the boy with the magic voice and laughter like birdsong on a warm summer’s day.
It looked a lot like hope. Like a dream he wanted to be a part of.
And he remembered how warm that hand was, and set his chopsticks down to excuse himself from the table.
“Homework again, Itachi?” His mother’s voice. They were used to their oldest leaving the table pronto.
“Yes.” Always yes. Tell them what they want to hear, and they’ll leave you alone.
But the truth was far from it. Even as he held his bowl in both hands, he could still feel the warmth of Shisui’s in his right one. A dull thud let his parents know that he’d left his empty bowl in the sink.
Footsteps padded over to his room and the soft click of the door behind him delivered a momentary privacy that he figured he ought to make the most use of.
Itachi threw himself on his bed, only to bring his right hand up within view, holding it up squarey in front of his face. Birdsong on a summer’s day. Shisui’s laughter rang loud and clear and lilting, flooding him with something indescribably soothing. His eyes scanned every line on his palm, almost expecting to see something different. He wished for a tangible explanation, something he could physically pick apart and analyze, something he could work on understanding. But he was having no such luck.
And ever so slowly, Itachi eventually brought his left hand to trace his fingers over his right, touching where Shisui’s hand touched him. It was a mixture of fascination and frustration—
But at the sound of footsteps in the hallway, Itachi curled his fingers into a fist, turning to his side and forcing his eyes shut, his reverie broken. Feigning sleep, the fist pressed to his chest like he was afraid that the feeling he was holding on to would leave him too soon.
He almost feared waking up in the morning to find that the promise of a dream was only a fantasy that could never be fulfilled. –For despite the fact that the decision to be friends was overtly made by Shisui alone, Uchiha Itachi felt he had a choice in working towards it. Somehow, for once, he didn’t feel like he was compelled to.
[2]
Nothing changed.
Over time, Itachi came to set aside the nagging fear of losing that warmth he’d felt that first day he’d met Shisui. He found instead that it was no farce—it was not a calculated, carefully constructed persona meant to trap him into conversation, into association with the son of the Konoha Military Police Force Chief Uchiha Fugaku for personal gains. Instead, in front of him, the older boy stood out like a sore thumb. In the middle of brewing political unrest and hostilities that grew thick enough to stifle the very air he breathed in and choke him on it, here was a boy—an exceptionally skilled boy—who spoke not of war and power and justice that was black and white. What fell from those lips were words that rolled like a pleasant breeze rustling through the leaves and sweeping softly over grass that bent to its gentle will. They spoke of peace and compromise and the willingness to embrace change, of recognizing that war was inevitable unless there was someone capable enough to come along and divert it. Stall it even, if there were no other choice. They spoke with the memories of war they’d lived through and seen to its end, and even so, they spoke not of the past, but of the future. They spoke of love and duty that bore no distinction between clan and village, and argued—quite convincingly—that it was all one and the same. They spoke with conviction, and so freely, what he’d always wanted to say. They spoke his thoughts before he’d thought them out aloud himself, and Itachi could only agree.
Shisui truly was the sun, and his very presence flooded Itachi with a sense of warmth that seeped right through him. It pulsed through every vein and rode every breath he took in the other’s presence. He felt he could dream the dream Shisui dreamt and never feel like he was intruding, for Shisui had already let him in, eager to share with him his own little world—his world that would soon become theirs. And some day, he hoped, Sasuke’s too.
Each day was a brand new encounter and one long moment all at the same time. Shisui taught him everything he knew; there was no holding back. And every day Itachi found himself smiling a little more.
But he still sought out that warmth, smitten since day one—so much so that one day, after months of wanting to do it but holding back, he took Shisui’s hands in his (if only to just hold them). He ignored the mild confusion that danced on Shisui’s face at the gesture. It was now or never; he needed to know.
Warm. They were still warm. A flood of relief at the realization led him to another: that those hands had come to be his tangible affirmation that things will be alright.
“Everything okay?”
The effect Shisui’s voice had on him was always immediate. He looked up, eyes wide. Had he seemed too strange just then? In the split second in which he doubted the weight of his action, Itachi’s stomach dropped.
But ah—there it was. That infectious laughter. No, Shisui didn’t judge him. The laughter bore no hint of cruelty; there were no sneers. The threat of a void seemed to fill itself up almost instantaneously.
Itachi smiled. “Yes.”
He felt Shisui turn his hands in his hold just to squeeze his slightly smaller ones. He knew what it meant. He had permission to hold those hands whenever he wanted to.
Shinobi didn’t hold hands unless they had to. They never laced their hands together as tightly as he did with Shisui. A shinobi needed his hands to mold chakra—fingers could be cut off, hands could be tied. You could lose your life without them. Hands were precious.
But Shisui—Shisui let him.
Shisui trusted him.
And when Shisui fit his fingers in the spaces between Itachi’s, Itachi never flinched.
[3]
“Shisui!”
The dust settled slowly, loud in the abrupt silence between them. The pause seemed prolonged and the awkward jagged break in that last syllable appeared amplified. Shisui only stared from about ten meters away, and Itachi felt the color rise in his cheeks. Hand gripping his kunai tight, it almost shook from the force with which he determined he’d never look at Shisui again. Not until the moment had been smoothed over. And what he needed to do to make that happen, Itachi didn’t know. He only hoped Shisui would do something about it, but even so, the mere thought of Shisui having heard his voice crack in the middle of his name was embarrassing. It had been barely a moment, but even so—
He fixed his gaze on the trodden grass to his right. And then he cleared his throat, as if it would magically fix things.
The silence only grew louder, and he could hear himself speak in his head. Don’t look now.
But it was tempting, and Itachi found himself giving in to stealing the ‘briefest’ of glances at Shisui as if to confirm his suspicions. To what end, he knew not, but soon found himself unable to tear his gaze from the other despite the bubbling laughter that shattered the stunned silence between them. Itachi grimaced, and before he could recover his features to a more neutral expression, Shisui had already bridged the gap to stand nose-to-nose.
“Say it again.” He could feel that grin, despite staring right at it.
There was only a huff in response.
“Say it.” Not a hint of malice in that voice he couldn’t block out in the moment. It was no longer ringing laughter, no longer lilting. Just soft and low and persuasive all at once “Itachio~ Say my name.”
Itachi found himself shuddering for reasons he did not want to entertain just then; the slightest of tremors that rocked his conscience and brought new color to his cheeks. Suddenly, Shisui seemed way too close for comfort. It became a battle within himself, then, to shield the other from the true nature of his emotions roiling on the inside, stirred since the intense spar and amplified by their proximity.
The urge to bring a hand up to cover his mouth was great.
But Shisui refused to back off, waiting ever so patiently like he always did. “I-ta-chi-o~”
And Itachi found himself weak once more, in the presence of that voice.
“Shisui.” It’s whispered, barely audible in the sudden breeze that picked up. Itachi cursed it, aware that Shisui was going to use that as an excuse to make him say it again.
“Hm? What’s that? I didn’t quite hear you.” And there it was. Teasing.
Idiot. “Shisui.” Louder and clearer this time, any reservations about his new voice set aside, though only such that Shisui could hear. It no longer sounded like he always used to say his name—it now sounded so deep, like it came from somewhere in his chest. He supposed he liked it better, after all… —Enough to find the courage once more to look him straight in the eye. Enough to see Shisui break open that sunshine smile and lean forward, that same smiling having brushed his lips.
Warm.
This time, it was a visible tremor that shook through him.