sunshineverse | [Closed] Enough cousin

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[Closed] Enough cousin

Where: Konoha
When: May 30th
Notes: Obito finally decides to give this another try, hunting down Shisui.

He'd noticed the way Shisui was on edge at the auction. Just because he'd bowed quickly out of the bidding, after all, didn't mean he hadn't been alert to how his shinobi had been taking those bidding on them. Still, him being that on edge? Not so good, and he'd kept out of it, knowing that he wouldn't be able to help the situation if he waded in. He'd never been... as close to Shisui as the younger cousins.

Hazards of being near his age when he wasn't measuring up.

Still, that didn't mean he didn't care. On the contrary, he probably cared more than he should, but that was fine too, and he finally caught up to Shisui when the man was outside and not obviously training. It was evening. "So. Shisui."

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Shisui had nothing to worry about, Obito would get back to that. "So why do you think she likes Itachi better? There was snipping about that at the auction... have you two still not talked?"

"We have." A lie. A blatant lie. He hasn't spoken to Itachi since. Not without that lingering tension still simmering between them.

And as for why he thought Ami preferred Itachi over himself-- "He's had more time to spend with her in the month I was away. Without a doubt, I'm sure he was a wonderful teacher." He didn't doubt Itachi's abilities one bit.

Shisui waves his hand dismissively though. "Things are fine. I need to get back home now." He was already making to get up and leave, not really wanting their conversation to drag into the issue with Ashiko, or Sakura.

"And... I don't believe you." He gave him a bright smile, but there was a hard edge. "So, about your other student. Name." It wasn't a request.

And he sent him a pout-frown.

He didn't give away the name right away, however: "It's nothing official, really."

"Name, then you can run away." He dropped the smile but the stare didn't waver.

Now Shisui wasn't even sure if Obito would actually let him run away.

"I'll tell you tomorrow."

Goodbye, turning around-- On his way home, whoops! Left foot, right foot--

"I don't believe that either. Name. Shisui." He didn't move, but the tone was positively steely.

Looking up. "Stars. The stars are not in position for this revelation. Tomorrow night!"

"If you run without telling me I'm going to put you on diplomatic duty for the exams."

"What the hell, why're you threatening me with diplomatic duty?! Why does it even matter, it's just a bunch of-- casual occasional meetings. It's nothing official, seriously."

"Then what are you so ashamed of that you won't give me a name Shisui? You had to have been hiding this for at least a few months."

"I'm not ashamed of anything!" Damnit. "And it's been since the Chuunin exams." That should give you a clue. "How do I know they won't get in trouble." He'll tell if you promise they won't get in trouble...

He glared, pressing his lips together before speaking in very measured tones. "Stop treating me like I'm your enemy and tell me."

And Shisui crossed his arms, fixing him a stare as well. "I've never treated you as the enemy." That? That was for all those years of you thinking he hated you.

"Haruno Sakura. You oughta have guessed that one." The shunshin and genjutsu, it was a no-brainer. At least that's what he figured.

"You withhold important information from enemies Shisui." He didn't drop the glare, not immediately. Guessing wasn't confirmation.

"Now that I know I will work on negotiating if she's the only envoy that the leader of Ame will accept or if he's truly set on her. He asked for her by name, but I told him no long term assignments would be assigned while the exams were in the village."

"It wasn't such a big deal to be telling you about in the first place."

And after hearing that bit about Sakura possibly being assigned as an envoy to Ame, he takes a step back. He should have figured; nothing good ever did come out of talking to anybody. "Che. Of course. Whatever. It's not going to hurt either way." Because it was terribly casual, and Sakura was a fast learner. He didn't think she'd have very many problems catching up during what little time she had.

But why was he so sour about the news? Yeah, because it just somehow felt like everything was falling apart around him. And Obito was awful at solving problems. |:

"If it's not such a big deal, you would have told me instead of hiding it from me." He stared at him, then snorted. "I'll see what I can do about not sending her, since you've actually confirmed she has a reason not to leave the village for three months following the exams."

"I wasn't hiding!" Not on purpose! "I just didn't think it was something important enough to tell you." Okay, shrugging, that wasn't all true. "I just .. didn't think it'd be that big a deal."

"Just... stop Shisui." He shook his head and looked away from him, turning so his feet was dangling off the roof again. "You wanted to run right? Had things to do?"

Shisui sucked in a breath, holding back biting words to that. He looked away sharply, scowling at the darkening sky till he calmed down some, and then sighed, taking a few steps closer to Obito when he felt calmer.

"You think I was holding back things from you because I don't trust you." That wasn't even a question. "Sometimes you're so set on your own presumptions, you convince yourself that I hate you. When that's never been the case. If there's any reason why it's so hard for me to come to you for anything, it's because I'm almost always pretty sure you think I'm some kind of snob. Or something. Because that's the vibe I'm getting."

"I've never thought you hated me. I've never thought you felt you were better than me either." He lifted his chin, looking sideways at him. "I just feel like you don't trust me, and apparently, to some degree that's true, if you're with holding such important information from me. Not even from me personally, but from me as Hokage."

He looked forward again, shaking his head. His voice got quieter. "But that isn't the point Shisui. I've always gotten the impression that you dislike me. I grate on you. You go out of your way to avoid me. If that's not the case you've given a fairly good facsimile. And honestly, I understand. I've never been close to anyone in the clan except maybe Itachi and Sasuke, really, as you are. You may have moved away from them but you never ran. It's too much to expect you to act any way other than the way you do. But please, Shisui, could you not extend it past the personal and into the professional too?"

This time he actually made the move to return to his old seat, legs hanging over the edge of the roof.

"I didn't think this was that important to tell anyone. If it helps-- I haven't even told Itachi." And Obito is pulling that 'I never really fit in with the clan' thing again, which makes Shisui frown. "There were reasons why I decided not to tell, besides assuming her training as something rather casual. She is a fast learner after all, and she's been taking leaps and bounds in her work." He fidgets for a bit, then leans over, elbows pressing into knees again. "I didn't want the clan to find out. It's... It might look like I'm selling sharingan secrets, but--" Mrr, he's sighing again. "I guess I am, huh?"

But he pushes that aside to address the more important problem staring them in their face at the moment.

"Maybe your impression of me was built on a false basis then, because I don't dislike you. I've never disliked you. I may not be as close to anyone, not even Sasuke, as I am to Itachi, but that does not by default mean that I dislike you, Obito. And if I avoid you, it's only because I know you're going to pester me for some kind of information that I'd rather keep to myself." He glanced at the other from his spot then. "Believe it or not, I think I consider myself close to you than most people, though not at the same level as Itachi which... I think you'd understand. I don't know how different it needs to be for you to believe me, I--"

He shook his head, clearly at a loss as to what he needed to do to fix things.

"It wasn't just the student thing, though... I've suspected there was something on that front for a while. No, it was the mission thing. You can't up and hide things from me Shisui. Not international things when the alliance is so..." He paused, unable to articulate that heavy sense that something was wrong with it, when it seemed like it was perfect. "When the smaller countries are acting so strangely."

"What do you think I'm going to do? I don't punish people for things that need to happen if I can avoid it, and I don't like that you put me at risk of having to do so. Or worse, compromised the village by keeping the information when they apparently weren't going to give it to me. It could have become leverage to get you killed." He turned a glare on him for that, then drew a deep breath and looked away, calming himself.

"If you consider me closer than most, I'd love to know how you view other people, because I may fumble with you, but I honestly get the impression that you're happy not knowing me at all. If I pester you, it's because it gets me better results than anything else I've tried."

"...I apologize for withholding information about the mission," he mumbles, shifting closer to the edge. It takes him a while to say anything at all, struggling with himself, for words. "I just-- I. I wasn't thinking." He grips the tiles of the roof a little harder. "I was selfish and..." Afraid? No. "Ashamed..." A pause. "I know those aren't excuses, and I'm sorry..." He wasn't going to be cocky and claim he could have escaped assassination or something either. That would be going nowhere, and Shisui was that kind of person who would march to his own execution without a fuss, so talking about how he deserved to be killed really wouldn't do anyone any good at all.

"If it's any consolation, which I... know it's not-- I had assumed they would send you a report as well, which was partly the reason why I didn't end things the way I usually do." That they wouldn't trace the M.O. back to him, or at least, not right away. Shisui usually killed swiftly, a clean slash across the neck from which his victims bled out and wilted into lifelessness in a matter of seconds. Or, occasionally, a quick decapitation. He'd never been known to drag things out. That was outside of Uchiha Shisui's character. He wasn't a man who sought out pleasure in torture. Instead, he usually did everything in his power to try and avoid it.

But what bothered him the most at the moment was being accused of not being 'close enough'. It frustrated, visibly, if the whitening of his knuckles was any indication.

"Obito," he started, pausing first to find words to give his feelings on this matter some sort of comprehension. "I don't think it's fair to assume that somebody ought to be a certain way with you in order for you to accept where they're coming from." He turned then to look him straight in the eye. "I am not you, I don't think like you do, and your expectations are clearly different from mine; but what I get from what you're telling me know is that you are asking me to bend over backwards just to fit into your idea of whatever 'being close' means to you. Perhaps you ought to spell it out for me so I can maybe make the effort to do so, because you don't trust me enough to believe me when I say I do consider you close to me. That I do trust you."

What did Obito want? A comparison to his relationship with Itachi? That was, in Shisui's opinion, incomparable. It warranted no such thing, and he felt it would prove nothing to do so either.

"I don't understand where you're coming up with the idea that I'd rather be happy not knowing you at all. Was I supposed to have treated you as special because we’re family and we’re closer in age? You talk of the clan, and I know you aren’t as close to most of them as I am. Am I at fault for choosing to be close to them as well as you? What do you think I have against you? How about let’s start there—what do you think I have against you? And what the hell is that supposed to mean, how I view other people? You’re taking offense for me being me.”

Sure, he was angry. Just a little bit. It was more frustration than anger, though. He didn’t understand why Obito would even think this way of him. There was a moment’s pause as he thought about the last thing Obito had said.

“And about pestering me. Have you considered that I’m just not the kind of person who opens up to anybody? Have you stopped to consider that perhaps the way you go about it sometimes stresses me out even more than I already would be at the time? I’ve never really been good with words when it comes to talking about myself. You can ask Itachi if you want to; he’ll attest to it.”

It was a bit hard to make eye contact with someone who was staring steadily into the trees of a training field some nebulous distance straight in front of him. Even as Shisui talked, his hands pressed more firmly against the rooftop. body still and taught. Unusual considering his tendency to fidget around.

"There's a difference between opening up and keeping secrets. It's not the first time you've done something like this, I know it. Before I was Hokage, fine, it didn't matter, as long as you told Sensei what he needed to know it was none of my business. At that point if you wanted to be none of my business, then fine, I'd ask and get brushed off, it was standard with you."

He dipped his head, gaze changing from trees to a rooftop that was closer. "What is it you think I'm after? I never expect you to give me anything, to care one way or another about me, most of the time. So you're close to my age, all that gave me when we were young was incentive to stay the hell away from you, and when I was older, well, it was a bit late and you had all these opinions about what kind of person I was. Like now, you're putting words in my mouth. Assuming I'm trying to change you. That I want you to treat me like I'm Itachi."

He gave a snort, shifting his hands to the edge of the roof to grip it in a tight hold. His voice had stayed composed, painfully low and even through the entirety of what he was saying.

He hadn't looked at him once.

"Don't talk to me about how I don't trust you, when you keep going out of your way to not trust me with simple things. You hid your student from me because I'm an Uchiha, if your words were any indication. Not because I'm Obito and you thought I would do anything, but because of the fucking clan. Go figure."

His voice rose a bit at the end of that, then went flat on the last two words, and he shook his head slowly, head tipping further down after to stare at the street right below.

"You don't get to declare I don't trust you when I gave you months of chances to tell me anything, a wait which was clearly in vain as you never intended to tell me a word. I trust you as much as I can, but being related doesn't get you an automatic pass into my absolute confidence. If anything I know that makes it harder for me and I get that that's messed up, but guess what, it is how it is. I work around it, through it, and try my best to get over it. I throw chances at you, and you brush them aside because I'm just pestering you so obviously I have no idea what being sincere means."

He took a deep breath, aware he sounded bitter at that, and he stopped, closing his eyes. Not the time to get overemotional. Definitely not the time to cry, so he just held still and breathed.

Edited 2014-06-12 08:42 (UTC)

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obito, so many naked icons--

But best bitch face

shisui was almost getting the wrong impression there--

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