Genius and madness go hand in hand

[dangodragon]

Where: Konoha training fields
When: April 18th
Notes: Open, Itachi's having fun setting up a training area for more fun. Come have fun with him?


The training area had a "reserved" sign hung politely on it, and Itachi had been working for several hours now. At times it was obvious he was setting up traps, but he'd also stop and stare at nothing for a while, a frown of concentration on his face. He'd already used up a substantial amount of chakra, but a chakra pill had kept him going and now he was almost finished. He was smeared with dirt and had sticks and leaves in his hair and stuck to his clothes. Frequent breaks were key. He’d gone home and slept for a few hours already, but his mind wouldn’t calm down enough for him to sleep more than that. He'd only run into his father on the way out of the house, which was perfect since Fugaku was the least likely to send him back to bed to get more rest. As he couldn't sleep, the obvious solution was to get ready for putting Sasuke through hell, if he agreed to it.

If not Sasuke refused, then Itachi could always drag Shisui out here to have some fun. That would be a wonderful “I haven’t seen you in awhile” gift. The poisons would all have a day to lose some potency, so they’d be annoying but not dangerous. All the traps were made to immobilize or cause minor damage. All good for testing someone skills when you needed them to stay mostly unharmed. Itachi considered that he probably look a little crazy right now, going here and there and coming back frequently to sit down under a tree and drink water and nibble on whatever snacks he’d brought. He had a small pile of equipment under a tree at the edge of the training area, most of which he’d already pulled out and tinkered with when he was resting.


OOC: Feel free to come and stare or talk to Itachi while he's resting, hanging from a tree, staring into space....whatever.

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[dangodragon]

Itachi looked at his toes again. One of his toenails was split and he'd plastered it back together. His shoes were dirty, and he had a leave caught between his toes from calling through the trees all morning. Itachi took a moment to dissect his nebulous feelings for Ashiko.

"She's polite without being bland, and clever with her words," Itachi started slowly. Of course, he was attracted to people who could hold intelligent conversation. "Her loyalty is admirable, even if it's to a man who doesn't deserve it." She was elegant to, and Itachi was oddly attracted to ideals. She'd caught his eye with her formal kimono and neat manners the first time they'd met, after all.

"I think it's partly..." Itachi paused. This was something he wasn't sure he wanted to admit. "I wasn't anyone to her but a random stranger. I had no significance beyond the time we shared and the words we said to each other. I didn't...whatever I said, it mattered to no one but myself and her. It wasn't colored by my bloodline or my affiliation, nor until recently did it seem like our relationship had any importance to the duties I have to those things. She enjoyed my company simple because she did, not because of what she could gain."

Itachi kept on, the slow dissection of his thoughts aloud something he would only do for Shisui. Everyone else got the perfected words he thought over, not the wondering verbal trickle Itachi was reasoning his way through now. "She made me feel normal." Itachi spoke more quietly now, some unspoken longing in his voice for an unguarded moment.

"I liked spending time with her--I liked her because she liked me even though I was no one special. Even though I was just another face in the crowd..." Itachi paused. "That's not admiration is it? It's infatuation."

[shunshinoshishi]

Shisui listens, silent, thoughtful, watching Itachi as the other listed out what had been on his mind. On any other day, had Itachi told him the same, Shisui would have teased him. It did sound like that sort of attraction after all. And it makes him somewhat sad, somehow, to think that that was the main reason Itachi enjoyed her company. It was understandable, though. Perfectly so. Here, their family name and reputation preceded them. They were Uchiha before they were anybody else, even before they had a chance of coming into the world.

There's a soft exhale a few moments later, and Shisui shifts his gaze back onto the sky, watching a family of birds fly across the horizon.

He mentions nothing about his fears that she just might be fishing for information because she already had a good idea who he was, that he was Uchiha, that he was of importance politically and strategically to Orochimaru (if the man really was her master). He says nothing of the fact that he didn't trust her to be honestly 'normal' with him, that he feared it was all an act, a farce. Because that is what they were supposed to believe, weren't they? That was what had been always drilled into them. If, for even a moment, someone could help him shed that and just be himself-- Shisui knew he'd cling to them like they literally were his lifeline, his means of escaping into himself, sans the hypervigilance, sans the political identity.

And he didn't want to deny Itachi that, although he worried that if it were merely an act on the woman's part... how was he going to take it?

So he says nothing. Instead, Shisui leans forward and reaches around Itachi's shoulders with his arm to pull him into a sideways hug, his fingers digging into the other's arm in a slight squeeze. It was meant to be reassuring.

"It's normal to feel that way."

He tilts his head to touch Itachi's.

"How long has this being going on?" He adds quietly. "And is talking all you've ever done?" The corner of his mouth teasingly twitches into a smirk at that~

[dangodragon]

Shisui doesn't have to mention his worries about Ashiko's authenticity. Itachi can hear them loudly in his own mind, and he knows how Shisui thinks. He knows what he would be worried about if their situations were reversed, but he's almost certain the odd friendship he had with Ashiko was real. She warned him off and allowed herself to be vulnerable around him. He can't imagine her doing that if there weren't something real there.

As soon as Shisui speaks his last words, Itachi opens his mouth to object 'nothing' before his entire face goes red. There had been drunkeness and a lack of clothing, so can he really say that with impunity? Whatever he says now, he's blushing hard enough Shisui probably won't believe him, but Itachi tries to compose himself anyway.

"I told you, we've been running into each other for several year, and yes we only talked." Now that last bit is a lie.

"I taught her to swim," Itachi adds a little helplessly. There's nothing wrong with that, right? And she braided his hair.