Chapter 11: Probation: Hammered & The Letter

So, at least one person thinks that Itachi and Kimimaro go well together? Huh. Just remember that they're only (mentally mature)kids, and I did say in one chapter AN that this won't be yaoi. So this is just going to stay a weird cuddly bromance, don't get your hopes up. For further clarification, I have a section at the bottom of my profile that details how I write romances.

Probation Month No.8

Hammered

"Why~"

*Thunk*

"Why~"

*Thunk*

ANBU Bear cautiously approached the half-assembled cupboard from which the groaning and thumping of skull against wood was emanating. "Are...you okay?"

"...yes?"

Bear sat down on the kitchen floor. From this angle he could now see the curled-up form of Kimimaro, head resting against the hard wood, brow sweaty with frustration and red from the banging. "Are you...going to come out?" Bear asked gently.

"I know five different ways to kill someone untraceabley given enough time and preparation, I can recite chakra theory and apply it, I can craft complex seal matrices from imagination, but I can't put up a flat-pack cupboard. Leave me to my misery, Bear."

Bear was lost for words. Nowhere had his training covered the event of genius Kekkei Genkai prodigies secreting themselves in cupboards in a snit of mild self-inferiority. What would Kakashi-senpai do? Wait, maybe he wasn't the best example for this situation. What would Yugao-san do? No, wait, maybe there was too much difference. What would Itachi-san do? Oh, that was better, since the two were friends. So, what would Itachi-san do?

"Would you like to do something else and come back to it later?" Bear asked meekly, unsure of the response. There was an audible huff, a sniffle, and Kimimaro leaned forward to poke his head around the side of the gap. "Okay...but you're doing it with me."

At least Kimimaro's idea of an escapist hobby was cooking, not something bizarre like running around in bright green shouting about youth, Bear thought in relief. Before he could even wander in the direction of the counter though, Kimimaro waved him over to the sink. "Wash your hands. Properly. You'll need to take your gloves off and you may want to take your arm-guards and roll your sleeves up as well; flour gets everywhere."

As Bear dutifully dried his hands and stripped his arm-guards and sleeves off, Kimimaro washed his own hands after pulling out a carton of eggs and a large bag of bread flour along with some weighing scales, a large mixing bowl and a wooden spoon.

"What are we even making?" Bear asked.

Kimimaro hesitated. "It's...best way to describe it is a kind of noodle dough. Except your suppose to make it into little short shapes instead of, well, noodles. It's called pasta."

The word was odd, and clipped in pronunciation. Sounded archaic, or dialect-specific. "Pa-su-ta? No, passta, is that right?"

"Yeah, just with a slightly shorter 's' sound. Pasta's great if you're living on a budget like Juugo and I. You only need to boil it, it goes with anything savoury, you can store it dry for years, you can reheat it...it's really useful. And tasty." He weighed out 600grams of the flour and poured it into the bowl. With sharp movements, he cracked six eggs in as well.

"It's really just eggs and flour?" Bear asked incredulously. Normal ramen noodles had at least five ingredients, he knew that much. "Where did you learn how to make it if nobody else knows about it?"

There was an odd, awkward silence as Kimimaro visibly hesitated, and they busied themselves with mixing the egg and flour.

"I don't really remember, it's gone all fuzzy," Kimimaro said suddenly out of nowhere, a note of anxiety in his voice. "But I do remember how to speak and write the language, I have that."

Behind the mask, Bear's jaw dropped. "You can speak two...those symbols in the scroll holding the Kaguya library...we thought they were just some cipher you designed. But it was just a language only you knew how to read, wasn't it?"

"Yes." Kimimaro smiled shyly. "That's 'yes', by the way." He began to knead the crumbly substance in the bowl. By the time Bear managed to collect his thoughts it had begun to resemble a dough. "This needs to go in the fridge for half an hour," Kimimaro said as he wrapped the mass in plastic film and duly shoved it in the fridge. "So you can ask all the questions you want now."

"Can you say something else in that language; something simple, like, uh, 'my name is Bear'?"

"That would be 'my name is Bear'."

"How many characters are there?"

Kimimaro frowned at that. "Well, it's not based on pictures for individual words like katakana. Instead, each character is a single sound, and you mix and match them to create the sound of the word you want. You can also combine a few to make different sounds and there's rules about how the placement of how certain ones affects the others around them.

In short, if you exclude the combinations, numbers and punctuation marks, there's twenty-six characters, or letters. Each letter has a capital form if you're designating importance to a word, so technically there's fifty-two characters, but most of the time the forms aren't too different.

Bear's jaw dropped again. "Only fifty-two?"

"Yes, but there's a shit-ton of rules just for the spellings, never mind the grammar," Kimimaro groaned. "Then there's contractions, slang, and all the homophones, homonyms and so on. It's really complex. But there's lots and lots of swear-words to ease the process of learning."

"When were you planning to reveal all of this?" Bear asked, serious now.

Kimimaro threw his hands in the air in frustration. "Um, just now? Would it have made any difference? I've always stuck to this language and I haven't omitted anything. I'm sure someone would find studying the rules of a new language extremely interesting, but it's not really applicable!

I did tell Itachi though and he's nearly mastered the writing thanks to his damn Sharingan. He's still working on pronunciation and word order though."

Bear's masked face hit the table with an audible 'thunk'. "Just when everyone thinks they've got you all figured out, you pull something new out of your ass," he moaned. "How are you this hard to understand?!"

"Now you now how I feel about that bloody cupboard."

"I don't know about this," Shisui muttered awkwardly to Itachi. "I mean, we know each other, but we don't know know each other. He has no reason to invite me for dinner. Are you sure my clothes aren't too informal?"

Itachi rolled his eyes. "It's fine Shisui, Kimimaro isn't one for standing on ceremony, he won't even notice your clothes. And for the record? He asked me to invite Sasuke, but Otou-sama objected. You're second-best."

"You're far too bloody sarky for your own good these days, cousin," grumbled Shisui. "Granted, it's nice to see you more relaxed, but now you can obliterate your fangirls at fifty places with one blow of your tongue, and them not realize it for five whole seconds!"

"That was a good day."

"You frighten me, baby cousin, you really do."

Itachi pressed the doorbell and the door opened a few seconds later. Itachi's and Kaguya's immediate response to seeing each other was to hug, properly, causing Shisui's brain promptly dissolved into internal hysteria. Mainly consisting of 'Itachi is actually hugging someone of his own free will!', 'I didn't know they trusted each other that much!' and 'Dear Amaterasu, these kids are fucking adorable!'.

Shisui barely registered being dragged down the hallway and sat on a sofa, but when his brain kicked back into gear, it nearly checked out again at the sight of two ANBU calmly sitting opposite, drinking tea like this happened every day. Not just any ANBU!

Kakashi, My-issues-have-issues, Hatake!

And mysterious ex-Root specialist and Hatake's precious kohai Tenzou!

What parallel universe had he stumbled into?!

"It's okay. He has that effect sometimes," a voice said sympathetically. Shisui glanced up at the orange-haired teen who was the weird shape-shifter, Juugo, wasn't it?

"What effect?" He mumbled, taking the proffered steaming beverage.

"You think you've got him all figured out, then he pulls something new out of his ass," Tenzou, no, ANBU Bear at the moment, chipped in somewhat numbly. "And that's not the worst of it."

Shisui took a deep swig of his drink, relishing the quick kick of caffeine despite the burning temperature. "What?"

"I asked if he was always carefully calculating things to throw everyone off their guard with what he says," Hatake...Hound said, sounding completely at ease, being the chaos-loving bastard he was. "He gave me this odd look like I'd just spoken gibberish and then I realised. So I asked, and I quote, 'You actually have no idea what you're doing, do you?'"

"Then he laughed," Juugo picked up the tale now. "And said 'no, I'm just trying to enjoy myself. But it usually ends up being funny.'"

Shisui only just now realised who was missing. "Where's Itachi and Kimimaro?"

"Our little distributor of chaos and his eager enabler are currently preparing our dinner," Hound said dryly, with a hint of amusement. "I just hope they don't bring out something weird over dinner like last time."

"I shall never look at apple juice the same way again," Juugo said, both he and Bear shuddering at the memory.

Shisui feared for his own sanity...what was left of it, any way.

The Letter

"Are you absolutely sure you're fine?" Itachi asks, looking concerned.

"Yes, yes," I roll my eyes, ignoring the pounding chuu-daiko drums in my skull. "Just a headache and a stuffy nose. Look what I got!" I wave the publisher's letter under his nose and his eyes light up.

"Follow me," he says, "my room's this way."

The house is pretty old and very traditional, as the abundance of paper walls and doors attested. Unerringly, Itachi leads me through the corridors of his house, until we reach proper wooden walls and a more conventional hinged door.

Despite the regimented and austere layout, the room is still very much Itachi's in his own way. The bedspread is of cheap make, unlike the pillows and what I can see of one rumpled corner of the duvet sticking out, but well-worn with love and a soft grey-purple dappled with lint from too many washes. A wedge of notepaper is hastily stuffed between the pages of a geography book on the bedside table. A small, crudely-carved wooden bird sits next to it. The small box TV on top of the chest of draws across the room has a thin sheen of dust and is unplugged, unlike the small radio next to it. The alarm clock has a little bit of sticky tape holding the battery hatch on.

I find myself standing awkwardly in the middle of the room like a lemon until Itachi looks at me oddly. "Aren't you going to sit down on the bed?"

"Well, no, you haven't invited me to do so," I explain hesitantly. "This is your space, your bed especially so, and I'm not going to presume anything."

"But...you let me crash on your bed all the time...you said I didn't even have to ask...'"

"Yeah...and?"

Itachi takes a deep breath and rapidly blinks suspiciously shiny eyes before saying "You can sit down anywhere you like."

I ignore his sudden outburst of emotion, since he obviously doesn't want me to see it, and sit down on the edge of the bed. "Yeah, so look! Gintonbo Publishing House got back to us. I thought we could open it together!" Okay, so I gush a little bit; but being a published author is a dream left over from my previous life. Itachi sits next to me and suddenly I'm nervous. What if it failed epically?

Itachi senses my abrupt anxiety. "Just open it quick and get it over with," he suggests.

I take a deep breath and slit open the envelope with a thin sliver of bone from my finger. Another deep breath lets me remove and unfold the sheet of paper inside. I scan through all the greeting stuff no problem, but it takes a few seconds to process the meaning of the rest of the wording.

A broad grin scrawls itself across my face. "They like it. They like it!"

Itachi snatches the paper off of me to read it for himself, and he smiles as well. "I knew it," is his only verbal celebration, but that isn't enough. I snatch him in a hug and whirl him around, and I soon get him to indulge in a shy cheer to counterpoint my own, much louder, laughter.

"I...you should read the rest," he said eventually, pushing the paper back into my hand. Bemused at what else they could want, I read the whole thing this time.

"'Permission needed to run the illustrations you provided, or to send to potential artists...' what are they talking about, we didn't send any drawings?"

Itachi coughs sheepishly. "I may have copied some of your character and scene sketches and slipped them in the envelope when I posted the manuscript. Sorry, I know you said they were just rough ones, but I thought they were really good."

I punch him lightly on the shoulder. "I'm not mad, you dummy. If you'd just told me you thought I could illustrate it, I'd have done better drawings to send."

He relaxes, before his eyes are suddenly fixed on my face, his mouth thin with worry. "You've gone really, really pale," he says calmly.

What is he on about, it's only a headache...oh.

A fresh tsunami of pain rolls over my brain and the room sways alarmingly. I sit down immediately. "Itachi?" I call, my voice sounding far away and tinny. "I don't feel very well...should probably...get Inoichi-" Why hello, black abyss rushing up towards me.

"Shisui?" Inoichi blinked as the familiar chakra signature made itself known within the swirl of leaves and paper. "What's the problem?"

"Kimimaro," Shisui gasped. "Collapsed, sick. Went berserker. Itachi's watching him. You need to come!"

Inoichi immediately stood, pulling on his coat. "Lead the way."

Only half a minute later, they stood at the gates of the Uchiha Compound, urgency having given them wings. Shisui waved them through the gates, his presence a sufficient pass for the Yamanaka Clan Head and the two ANBU hot on their heels.

The door to Itachi's room was open, but the lights were off. Meaning all the light there was, was the sunlight from the window. Itachi sat upright on the bed, a shivering form cradled in his lap. "He's burning up and drifting in and out of lucidity," Itachi murmured quietly as they approached. "Otou-sama tried to get him into another room, but he just went wild. He won't even let me leave."

"Fever then. Sensitivity to light and mental confusion isn't good." Inoichi muttered. "We need to get him to the hospital, now."

He stepped forward, only to freeze as a feral snarl erupted, head raising for two blank eyes to glint in the dim light. A shift of weight. But Itachi threw his arms around Kimimaro's shoulders even as spurs and spikes erupted from flesh and he tried to lunge forward.

"No; it's fine! He's not here to hurt us!"

A pause, and a shiver, before Kimimaro let out a low groan and buried his face back into Itachi's ribs.

With Itachi's hand resting comfortingly on Kimimaro's neck, Inoichi thought he could just about pick out a glow of raw chakra at the point of contact.

"Itachi-kun, do you think he'd stay calm if you accompanied him?" There was a momentary pause as Itachi weighed the options, then; "yes."

"At least we can put it as a definite on the berserker genes," the medic-nin muttered as he stripped off his rubber gloves and dumped them in the bin. "Fevers tend to go right for the mental confusions symptom with those types of shinobi for some reason. That's why we keep the specialised sedatives."

"But how did he get it and is it contagious?" Inoichi asked from where he sat on the(uncomfortable plastic) waiting room chair.

"A simple case of bad luck, resulting in an extremely bad case of Acute Sinusitis," was the answering sigh as the medic picked up a pen and started rapidly scribbling down his report. "Remember that nasty cold that was going around about a week and a half ago? He got it, didn't he?"

"Not really," Itachi confessed. "Well, he got it. But it was just a blocked nose and complaints of a slimy throat; not the coughing and discharge everyone else got."

"Still counts," the medic gestured idly. "So, basic viral infection, no big deal. Except, from what you just said, the discharge didn't flush properly, something got blocked. But his airways are clear, it all seems over. Then all that muck stuck in his sinus cavities starts breeding bacteria, infects all that delicate tissue and you can't flush it out. Headaches, bit of tenderness around the eyes and nose, fatigue, then the fever kicks in.

Not contagious. Well, you all might want to wash your hands thoroughly and regularly for the next few days. But there's low risk of infection unless he sneezes on you or something. Now, he needs rest, lots of fluids, and I can prescribe some antibiotics. And the Dispensary downstairs will get you some herbal oil for vapour therapy. I'll just file this."

The door closed behind him.

The silence in the room thickened.

"Itachi-kun." It was broken by Inoichi's questioning tone. "Do you know why Shisui came to me, and didn't simply take Kimimaro to the hospital?"

"I don't think Kimimaro would have gone with him, Yamanaka-san. Like I said, Otou-sama tried to get him out of my room, away from me and Sasuke, I think. But..." a hesitant swallow. "Kimimaro's always so careful in how he talks, acts. Like this...I think he only recognised me, but he didn't hear my words. He was just this big ball of hurt and fear. Shisui didn't know what to do either.

Just before he initially collapsed, he said to get you. I don't know why you, but Shisui went to get you. I don't know why he didn't ask for you two," Itachi nodded at Hound and Bear in acknowledgement, "since you were just outside the Compound walls."

"Well, his fever broke, so it's just a matter of time before he wakes up and we can ask him. What was the piece of correspondence he was so eager to show you, anyway?"

"Our story manuscript was accepted by the Publisher."

A slight smile graced Inoichi's countenance. "Well, let me be the first to congratulate you two. In the interests of security though, will you be using your real names, or pen names?"

Itachi took a moment to shake out a crick in his shoulder. "As far as the Publisher is concerned, the manuscript was written by Kama Uchiha and Mikimaru Yaguka." Inoichi visibly paused, mouthed the names, then abruptly covered his face with his hand.

"That boy has no imagination with codes and ciphers. At least he gave a gender-neutral name. But really, Kama? Mythology, much?"

"Yeesss! Not going to the Academy!"

Itachi punched him lightly on the shoulder. "I was worried about you!"

Kimimaro clutched his shoulder and moaned overdramatically. "You hit me! I thought I was your friend!" He hammed.

"He's back to normal," Hound said dryly. "Come on, vapour therapy."

"Uuuuhhh, fine. Sure, let's go steam-boil my face for an hour."

Next Time:

The Eyes Have It

"Of course I know what it is! I'm not stupid or lazy."

The Plan

"We can't keep avoiding this forever, Itachi."

As always, read, enjoy and review what you think will happen next time.