Itachi is unused to having free time. Since he’s been old enough to walk and talk, he’s been training and fighting with only limited rest between to allow for optimal recovery. When he reflects on it, it’s not so odd that after his first close brush with death, he’s given time to recuperate.
Fitting, even, that he can now spend time with those who his thoughts had drifted to in those few precarious moments after he’d collapsed, before the retrieval team had come upon him. In those suffocating seconds, he’d seen his parents, Shisui. Sasuke, a baby, then a boy, and now a man. Kakashi, his anbu squad. Miyu, the way her expressions open only for him.
Kakashi and Shisui’s chakra signatures had felt like a dream. For a moment he had thought they were a hallucination, but then he’d been picked up and they were moving at a speed only Shisui could accomplish with his flash-step.
He wondered, as he faded in and out of consciousness, struggling for breath and coughing up blood, whether they arrived fast, or whether he had blacked out and lost time.
When he finally does wake, it’s to Sakura, who scolds him, but tells him;
“That woman saved your life.”
With a smile.
Drugged and fatigued, he doesn’t quite understand who she’s talking about until he wakes a second time. His hospital room is lit only by the service light above his bed, but his eyes hazily make out two forms standing guard.
“Yo,” Kakashi salutes lazily from where he’s leaning against the foot of Itachi’s bed.
“Don’t you dare almost get yourself killed again,” Shisui is scowling as he leans against the wall beside the window, and it looks odd on his face, “scared me half to death, you did.”
Itachi offers a weak smile and opens his mouth to respond when he notices his third visitor.
Miyu’s head is cradled on her arms, obviously having fallen asleep while sitting. Her hair is loose and messy, draped over her cheek and pooled on the bedsheet. Her face is calm and lax, but there are dark purple bags beneath her eyes, and she looks to be in her home wear.
Itachi knows she would never leave her apartment dressed so casually.
“A painting saved your life,” Kakashi begins conversationally.
Itachi only cocks his head in question, eyes not straying from Miyu’s slightly parted lips.
“The one I got Miyu,” Shisui informs him gravely, “you stuck it to her wall with chakra.”
Itachi raises a brow and looks to Kakashi, unsure of what he's getting at.
“She came knocking my door down at an ungodly hour,” the grey haired man sighs, “going on about a painting falling from a wall. She doesn’t even know how chakra works, but she puzzled out that something must’ve happened to you.”
“We just missed the tail end of your battle,” Shisui says lowly, “even then, it was close. Without warning you might have died in transit, or before we even located you.”
Itachi looks back to Miyu, and raises a weak arm to brush her hair off her face.
“Clever,” he hums, warmth bubbling fuzzily in his chest. He absently wonders what drugs they've got him on.
“You can say that, alright,” Kakashi huffs, and the look he slants down at the sleeping woman is almost… fond? Itachi blearily tucks that observation away for later.
Now, with a month on medical leave, Itachi is bored.
He makes it four days in before he gets restless enough to go to the police station. His father doesn’t even look up from his desk as he wordlessly pushes over a pile of paperwork.
“Patrol starts at eight and ends at two,” Fugaku’s voice is low and flat.
Itachi presses his lips together as he reads the stiff line of his father’s shoulders. Another clan meeting which hadn’t gone well, he assumed. Most probably Itachi’s fault.
“Father,” he begins, steeling himself for the discussion ahead, “at the hospital-”
“Your mother wants her over for dinner,” Fugaku says it like a command. Itachi snaps his mouth shut.
“It’s a shame,” the older man sets the file he’s working on aside, and rubs at his temples, “the woman seems to care for you.”
“Not a shame,” Itachi’s throat feels too tight. “It’s not a shame. Miyu-”
“Itachi,” his father meets his eyes gravely, “you are engaged to Izumi. Need I remind you that it’s long past the agreed upon marriage terms-”
“By no fault of mine,” Itachi clenches his fists at his side, struggling to suppress his frustration, “and don’t look at me like – like I’m doing something disgusting. Everyone knows about Hana and-”
“It’s different,” snaps Fugaku, running a hand through his neat hair. “You are the clan heir. If this woman were to get pregnant, gods.” He sighs deeply, a scowl beginning to form on his face.
“The match was arranged by the time I was eight,” Itachi knows he sounds stiff and uncomfortable, but he’s been desperate for a word with his father for weeks now. “I didn’t get a say in it, nor did Izumi. She wants this as little as I do-”
“It is your duty,” Fugaku’s chair tilts dangerously as he surges to his feet, “you must make this match, Itachi. This woman,” he spits the word like a curse, “is just a passing-”
“Her name is Miyu,” Itachi intones firmly. “She’s not a passing obsession, or a fling. Father, I lo-”
The door opens with a bang, revealing Shisui with his arm in a cast, and one of their clansmen and senior officers, Tekka, at his back.
“I-ta-chi!” singsongs the curly haired menace, waving his cast about like a maniac, “I had a terrible training accident this morning and coincidentally require medical leave.”
Resisting the urge to shower his cousin in a spray of shiruken, Itachi locks eyes with his father, willing him to tell the other two to leave so they can continue this conversation.
“What is it?” Fugaku sighs, turning away from Itachi without hesitation.
“I’m here to be put on the roster, uncle!” Shisui bats his lashes, smiling widely, “and to request that I’m put on Tekka’s squad-”
“Hell no!” grunts the man in question, crossing his arms with a menacing scowl.
Still, he tries to implore his father with his eyes. But Uchiha Fukagu is not an indecisive man, and once he has chosen a path of action, he can be trusted to follow through on it every time.
Itachi swallows down his burning frustration and flash-steps away, documents still in hand.
He finds himself at Miyu’s – because of course he does.
She’s at work, but the apartment maintains the thrum of warmth she leaves in her wake. For a moment he stands at the balcony door, taking in the sights and the scents of this space that she’s made her own.
Mid-morning light filters on to hard wood floors and tasteful, earth-toned furniture. The bookcase to his left is littered with trinkets – gifts from her students. A colourful shogi set features like a work of art just below eye-level.
Little indoor potted plants sit, a new addition, arranged on various shelves in a way that makes something within him unwind. The faint scent of incense wafts through the apartment from the tiny shrine at the far right of her suspended shelves.
On the low coffee table sits another shogi set – this one more traditional – seemingly part-way through a game.
A blanket is folded neatly over the back of the fine leather couch, and a book sitting on one of its arms, spot kept with a pretty ornament he’s sure is meant for hair.
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The painting Shisui got her – the one that saved his life, in a way – has resumed its place on the wall. Miyu had insisted that he place it there with his chakra. Her hands had been trembling as she gripped the broken frame, so he hadn’t tried suggesting something else.
Warm light filters into the almost obsessively clean kitchen. Itachi had noticed Miyu’s mildly compulsive cleaning before he'd almost died, but in the short time he’s been out of the hospital it’s been undeniably worse.
She sweeps, she mops, she scrubs and scrubs and scrubs until there’s not a speck of imperfection anywhere. It’s the worst in the kitchen, but she’s been getting a little more obsessive over the bathrooms recently, too. Itachi doesn’t know how to approach the issue when she doesn’t seem to think it an issue at all.
Part of him knows it stems from somewhere deeper than the restless energy that tends to seize people in moments of helplessness, but he can’t place it. There’s still so much about her that he doesn’t know.
Sharing her memories had been done in her best interests, of course – but seeing her world, watching her past? That had felt self-indulgent.
It rankles to know that Miyu had been beaten, starved, sold – like livestock.
Worth less to them than a nanny goat, or a pair of chickens.
He remembers the way the fire had reflected in her eyes that night, glinting brown flickering into molten gold.
Who had she been, before? How did she come to be the… property of the Okiya?
He wants to ask, wants to see. Would she show him?
He doesn’t know, and right now he doesn’t dare try.
Itachi wanders to the couch and settles onto it. It’s soft, the leather buttery and supple. Sasuke’s eye for quality has definitely not gone amiss here.
He flips through the stack of documents his father has assigned him. A few cold cases, a few live investigations, and tedious patrol reports in need of reviewing.
He gets started on those first.
Miyu comes home in the afternoon, arms laden with groceries for dinner. Itachi lets himself stare at her for a moment as she neatly toes off her shoes in the entryway.
“I’m home,” she calls into the apartment, and nope – she hasn’t noticed him yet.
Her long hair has been twisted into an elegant low bun, secured with a few matching hair pins. She’s wearing a pretty, plain navy yukata, all neat, crisp lines and quality material.
Her cheeks are tinged pink, probably from her walk up the many flights of stairs. Otherwise, her visible skin is pale. He wonders whether she will develop a tan when summer comes.
Her startled yelp pulls him from his thoughts.
“Gods!” She sets her groceries onto the bench, and sets a delicate hand over her heart, “A little warning, please?”
Itachi can’t help the smile that stretches onto his face. She looks so cute when she’s frazzled. And, well – it feels good to smile freely.
“Sorry,” he says as he rises from the couch, completely insincere, “forgot.”
He did not, in fact, forget.
Miyu’s inherent civilian-ness is on his mind almost constantly. He doesn’t know whether to be glad that she will never see the front lines or terrified of what might happen to her.
“How was your day?” He asks, approaching to help her unpack her haul.
“Busy,” she isn’t meeting his eye. It sets him on high alert immediately.
“Oh?” He takes the tray of eggs from her and slots it into an empty spot in the fridge.
“I - well, I ran into someone at the grocer’s,” Miyu’s voice is calm, polite. All the things she portrays when she doesn’t want you to know how she really feels.
Itachi helps her unpack as he waits patiently for her to decide whether or not it’s something he needs to know.
“Are you familiar with ninja that partner with talking dogs?”
The question almost startles a laugh from him, but he manages to supress it in time. Miyu’s eyes catch on the struggling line of his lips and she raises a brow.
“Yes. The Inuzuka and their ninken are a well-respected ninja clan of Konoha.”
He can’t help the slight quaver to his tone as he tries to contain a chuckle.
“Ah,” Miyu’s lip quirks up slightly, “lucky I had some forewarning in the form of Chikako, then. I only stared at the huge dog for about fifteen seconds before I helped put a dozen apples in the basket it was balancing on its head.”
Itachi does laugh then, imagining Miyu’s impeccably calm face as she tries to process the non-human request in a timely manner.
“You’re probably lucky you didn’t run into their partner. Inuzuka are rather…”
He trails off as Miyu’s face shuts off.
“Ah.” Itachi finishes unpacking the fruit, discreetly watching Miyu’s face as she goes about preparing dinner. He starts helping by peeling the potatoes and carrots that she’s set aside.
“The Inuzuka,” she says after a few long minutes, “are they close with the Uchiha clan?”
Itachi cocks his head, and then hums out, “Not particularly.”
“Hm,” Miyu nudges him to the side to wash the rice. He continues peeling in silence, watching as the gears turn in her head.
“Miyu?” He prompts, only because he’s out of things to peel and she’s washed the rice five times now.
“Oh.” She drains the bowl and moves along, “Sorry. Thinking.”
Itachi dices the potatoes and carrots, cleans up the sink, and turns to watch Miyu as she sautés onion and chunks of beef briefly.
“An Inuzuka woman,” Miyu begins, eyes still calculating, “approached me and told me to keep my ‘claws’ away from her partner.”
Miyu raises a brow.
“It was odd. She seemed… not annoyed. Hm. Furious, is more like it.”
Itachi clenches his jaw briefly before schooling his expression once more.
“She went on to tell me that I will never be accepted by the Uchiha and then she – well, she stole the perfect pomegranate that I had spent ten minutes picking out.”
Miyu’s pouting slightly.
“That upset me more than her words, if I’m honest.”
Itachi turns his next sentence over in his head for just a moment.
“There are… individuals in the Inuzuka clan that are close to individuals from the Uchiha clan,” he says carefully.
She turns her gaze to him, and he wonders if this is what it’s like to be a serious opponent of hers. There is no softness to her brown irises, no reveal of emotion or discomfort in the panes of her face. She looks at him and sees.
“And you are one of these… individuals?”
Itachi manages to clamp down on the involuntary urge to force his face into blankness.
“No.”
Miyu keeps looking at him, intelligent eyes straying from his only long enough to take in the rest of his body language.
“Okay,” she says, leaving the unspoken to weigh heavy between them.
Itachi swallows down the tension he feels, and hopes she will forgive him for his selfishness. He wants these moments – where it’s just the two of them, no clan, no… fiancé – to last as long as possible. It will have to end eventually.
Just. Not now.
They speak no more of the encounter, and as they make dinner Itachi silently flicks through the few Inuzuka women with cause enough to approach Miyu.
There is only one that has any significant relevance to the situation, and he winces at the thought of having to deal with her.
“Has anyone else approached you?” He asks as they sit down to eat.
Miyu shakes her head, “Not outside of work. Ah, well – except for Ensui-san, but that was to request a game of shogi.”
.
Itachi waits until Miyu falls asleep to summon Chikako.
“What’s the situation?” He asks, nursing a steaming cup of tea on the balcony.
“Good evening to you too, Itachi-sama.”
Oh, dear. She’s brought the attitude already.
“The situation?” he prompts, raising a brow.
The crow clucks disdainfully, turning her sleek black beak into the air haughtily.
“Mi-chan would never summon me without saying a simple hello first – why haven’t I been seeing her recently? You never let me around her-”
“The report, Chikako?” Itachi pinches the bridge of his nose and schools his patience.
“Yes, yes,” she rolls her eyes at him, “well, the situation you wanted to calm down so badly? It didn’t calm at all.”
Itachi sighs. He’d known that much.
“Kakashi and the others helped throw them off your scent for a little while, but her trip to his house in the middle of the night started a whole new slew of chatter, y’know?”
Itachi watches as the little bird paces along the railing.
“And then someone saw Ensui on her balcony later that evening, so part of the rumour mill has formed a Nara-Miyu support squad. There’s a lot of romantic shogi talk which I frankly do not understand.”
Itachi huffs a laugh into his cup and takes another sip of tea.
“Anyway, most of that talk fell to the wayside after around ten hours after you were brought in,” Chikako shakes out her wings briefly and does a bird’s equivalent of a yawn. “The moment she set foot in that hospital, the bets were on.”
“Bets?” Itachi can’t help his long-suffering tone.
“On whether there would be a confrontation between Miyu and your mother, Miyu and your father, or Miyu and Izumi.”
Itachi lets out a shaky breath and waves a hand to continue when Chikako pauses to cock her head at him.
“A small portion of the bets were on Hana confronting Miyu, which got paid out this afternoon I’ll have you know.”
Chikako pauses then, and stares at him until he meets her beady eyes.
“Itachi-sama… what are you doing with Mi-chan?”
Instead of answering, he gestures for her to continue and takes another sip from his still-steaming tea. She gives him a spectacular stink-eye before she goes on.
“So, the little hospital spectacle added fuel to the fire and now Mi-chan has met your parents and the Uchiha are openly speaking of her.”
Itachi mutters a curse under his breath and waits.
“This afternoon, Inuzuka Hana approached Mi-chan and gave her an earful. Two Yamanakas, a chunin, three jounin, and that old batty gossip from the grocer witnessed it.”
Chikako huffs in frustration.
“Mi-chan smartly did not partake in any conversation with the Inuzuka, which has been the source of much pride for her supporters and a pain in the backside to half the gossip-mongers in the jounin lounge.”
“Nara Samui and Yamanaka Inoichi cashed out ten thousand ryo each for calling an Inuzuka confrontation within a week of your discharge.”
“How the…?” Itachi lets his sigh trail off and decides not to question it.
“Shisui immediately went on damage control and spread that he saw Miyu napping on Kakashi in the hospital waiting room – which is true, by the way – and Sasuke refused to comment on the interaction between Mi-chan and your parents.”
Sipping at his tea, Itachi thinks that he might just have to cut Shisui some slack now that the bastard is actually trying to help.
“There’s been talk in the Uchiha compound of the clan head possibly extending an invitation to Mi-chan in order to meet her officially.”
Gods, Itachi hopes not. He’s been avoiding home relentlessly to avoid his mother and her razor-sharp presence.
“The rumours Naruto started three weeks ago about Izumi and Hana’s role in hiring Mi-chan to get you to call off the engagement has gained a little traction, many of the mind that Hana confronted Mi-chan too blatantly.”
“They think it was staged?” Itachi grudgingly feels amusement begin to stir.
“Yep. Better yet, Yamato started a branch rumour that Mi-chan ruined the plan by actually falling for you and Hana blew up about overstepping on their contract.”
He can’t help but snort at that.
“I wonder what Hana is making of that.”
“You’d know if you thought to speak to her every now and then.” Chikako bites out. “Or maybe-”
“No, Chikako. Just. No.”
Itachi turns and goes inside before he can lose his temper at the crow.
Though the guest bedroom is comfortable and clean, he finds himself staring up at the dark ceiling, wondering what it would be like to fall asleep beside Miyu.
