December

December


Chapter Three

Warnings Anal,AU,H/C,Shouta,SoloM,Yaoi


AN- I wasn't going to write an author's note for this chapter, but I've been getting such great reviews for this story that I have to express my gratitude before I begin. I'm elated that December has found an audience that enjoys reading it as much as I love writing it. Trust me when I say that a lot of thought and planning is going into December. This fic is my baby and I'm just really glad that its getting such rave reviews both on the original posting and the reposting, reviews which, by the way, are valued because of their articulation. I like substantial reviews. Every single one of them is appreciated beyond measure. Thanks for being a great audience.

One another note, for anyone who feels like reading something sad, bittersweet and apparently capable of producing tears, click on my bio page and read Requiem for a Butterfly. I'm told it has made a few people cry, although I don't think it's that sad. You be the judge.

Also, I finally figured out bold and italics.

Now for the main event.


September
I. Didn't your mother ever teach you not to talk to strangers?


I hate that summer is so short. It's hot, yes, but summer means Naruto and ice cream and bike riding. Summer is short, but it's happy. Winter is a sad season, and even though summer isn't technically over when school starts, it sure feels like it.

And anyway, I'm not a big fan of school. I don't like sitting in the same desk all day reciting addition problems. Five plus six equals eleven, I know that already. Kakashi's been teaching me money stuff at the bookstore. I can subtract large amounts of money now, and he also taught me to calculate sales tax on the calculator and on paper. The cash register does it all for me, but Kakashi is an advocate of conceptual learning. He says I should understand the process behind things, learn to do what the calculator is doing. That, he says, is the only way you really learn anything.

So while Mr. Umino writes problems up on the board, I'm sketching a bird in the back of my notebook and thinking about what Kakashi's friend Genma said about character quirks. I like the idea of having something that makes me different from other people. Kakashi has more than I can count. His quirks are all of his prayers. If Kakashi suddenly stopped visiting the cemetery on Saturdays and brewing coffee constantly, Kakashi would be a stranger to me.
The bird I'm sketching has an abnormally large beak. I try to balance it out by adding more feathers to the back of its head. I have no idea what kind of bird I'm drawing. It strikes me that it's probably a new species, a hybrid of evolution.

Itachi has character quirks too. He takes cold showers in the winter. The bathroom smells like ice when he's done. He shuts himself in the bedroom some nights, forcing me to sleep on the couch. He spends long hours on the fire escape staring off into nothing. His eyes are usually vacant, but I don't think vacant eyes count as a character quirk.

For that matter, I don't think Genma was right about my hair. I looked up quirk in one of Kakashi's dictionaries. A quirk is something you do, not something you have. As far as I can tell, I don't have any character quirks. When I asked Kakashi about it, all he said was that I should be lucky never to have as many quirks as he has.

Luck. Luck is something Itachi and I have not had a lot of over the past years. Itachi is so busy that he barely has time to sleep, much less poke me in the forehead like he used to. I'm unlucky because Mr. Umino is looking right at me and I’ve been drawing birds and drifting instead of paying attention.

Daydreaming in class. That could be one of my character quirks.

***

Routine for the school year doesn't vary from summer. After school I'll head over to the book store for a couple of hours before Itachi leaves for the café and I leave with Kakashi. Sometimes, I think Kakashi is really the one raising me. I see more of him than I do my brother and he talks more than my brother.

I don't mind, really, being practically raised by Kakashi. He pays attention to me, at least. He feeds me dinner, plays chess with me, teaches me things I only half understand but love hearing anyway. Kakashi treats me like a person. Itachi treats me like an obligation. I hate that about him. I don't hate him. He's my brother. But I hate things about him. All of the little quirks that I like in Kakashi, his periodic strange moods, his silences, his mysterious presentation, his way of talking right above my head on purpose are all things that I hate about Itachi. It's funny that the same quirks can work so differently; they somehow make Kakashi eccentric where they make Itachi strange. Distant, like he's a dream I can't quite remember.

"Is something wrong, pretty bird?" Kakashi says idly. He's paying just as much attention to me as he is to his book, by which I mean that we both have his undivided attention. Kakashi amazes me with his ability to multitask like no one I've ever met. He can cook, read, and pay the bills all at the same time.

"No," I reply lazily. Even with the fans going at full blast, Kakashi's house is at a temperature just above comfortable. I am laying on my back on Kakashi's squishy blue sofa with the canary yellow patch on the cushion. There's a gap in the stitching where I like to poke my finger through to feel the stuffing. Kakashi's friend Iruka did the patch job for him. I've didn't meet Iruka in person until school started, but I saw his picture on the window sill in the kitchen all summer. It's a small picture, barely bigger than my hand. He's smiling and blushing, looking at someone just outside the frame of the photo. Iruka Umino, my teacher. Seeing that picture of him in Kakashi's house makes me feel kind of bad about zoning out during math.

The patch, improvised from a towel by the feel of it, doesn't match anything else in the living room. From what I can tell, Kakashi doesn't know what the words color coordination mean. The sofa is blue with a yellow patch, his armchair is white with brown stripes, the blanket draped over the back of the sofa is a mint-green like a baby's blanket. He has a bunch of oriental throw rugs in all different patterns and colors. His curtains are indigo and aqua tie-dye, a hippie relic, and his walls are painted a light grey. Every single piece of furniture in the room is mismatched, an oak coffee table, mahogany end tables, a sleek black contemporary book shelf. The chairs in the kitchen are all different, some with rounded tops, some with square tops, some with arms, some without. His decorating reminds me of an old cat lady who bought everything for cheap at yard sales. Outrageously mismatched and haphazard looking, but still tidy. Everything in Kakashi's house is ever out of place and yet nothing is out of its place. Things belong when they look like they shouldn't have the right to be so bold as to sit, defiantly, righteously in the hodge-podge.

Kakashi is just like his furniture. I sometimes wonder where he really belongs, because I don't think its here on 522 Thoreau Street. Kakashi belongs in a storybook, a mysterious man with an even more mysterious past. Yet at the same time, he's hard to imagine anywhere else but here. He's like Dorothy, lost in Oz but without any desire to go back to Kansas. He matches because he doesn't match. "You look bored," he says in his pointed way. He's not beating around bushes today, talking like a river that winds for miles before finally emptying into the ocean. He reaches his point when he's good and ready. Today, he's ready from the start.

I am bored. Kakashi's house is a bachelor's house. The chess set is the only game in the house and there's no television. Kakashi is reading, so I can't turn the radio on. He wouldn't say anything, but he'd glance at me over the top of his book and give me a little look that says more than his words could. I shrug in response.

He looks at me over his book. The Japanese writing on the front cover mocks me. "That wasn't an answer, pretty bird."

As if he has any right to lecture me about answers that aren't really answers. Those are his specialty. To spite him, I shrug again.

He arches an eyebrow in surprise, stretching the scar running from the center of his cheek to just above the arc of his thin eyebrow. His eyebrows are darker than his hair, which only enhances the mystery of the grey. I don't know where he got the scar. Kakashi Hatake, keeper of secrets now and forever more, amen. "Feeling vindictive today?"

There he goes talking over my head again. Still, I do feel vindictive. I don't know what it means exactly, but it sounds like a strong feeling. It sounds like spite. I shrug.

Kakashi snaps the book shut. "What's got your feathers so ruffled?" Despite the snap of the book, he strikes me as amused. That's his favorite mood around me, amusement, his favorite expression is a crooked half grin. It's only a half because the other half of the grin is thinking of a way to counter me, show me my place in his world. I entertain Kakashi.

Complaining to Kakashi about school and my lack of quirks will get me nowhere, so I do nothing more than move to pry the sweaty material of my shirt away from my neck. It's beginning to itch. "It's just hot in here," I offer to make him happy. It doesn't sound too much like a complaint.

He rubs the back of his neck. "Can't help the weather. But," he says as he puts the book aside. "There are ways to beat it."

"Isn't that what the fans are supposed to do?"

"Well, when one way fails, we have to try another," he says as he stands up. "Interested in outsmarting Mother Nature?"

If the weathermen can't outsmart Mother Nature then I don't see what Kakashi can possibly do, but I nod and stand up. Whatever he has in store promises to be interesting. I follow him down the hallway and out the back door. His back porch looks like its wilting in the heat. I can see beads of sweat in the graining. Everything is sweating out here. "Kakashi," I almost whine as I take a look around his tiny backyard. Patches of grass fading to brown dot the yard. Pakkun the fat pug dog is lazing under the buckled by heat and age wooden picnic table, panting and ignoring us. The table looks like it might buckle at any moment, sagging in the middle like that. I fear for Pakkun's life. Pakkun rolls over and goes back to sleep. "It's worse out here than it is inside."

Kakashi responds by kicking off his shoes and motioning for me to do the same. You're supposed to take shoes off in the house, but everything about Kakashi is backwards so I'm not surprised. I do as he requests. The wood is warm under my bare feet, too warm to be comfortable but not enough to be called hot. "Stay here," he instructs.

As pointless as I know it'll be to ask, I do anyway. "What are you doing?"

Silence. Yeah, I saw that coming. I wait while Kakashi does whatever it is he's doing ducked just below eye level where I can't see him. It takes forever. I sigh. The heat is making me sticky and irritable. Finally, after what had to be five minutes, I give up on the waiting game and make my way down the steps to see for myself what he's doing. I can't stand suspense under normal conditions, so heat makes me twice as impatient.

My impatience is greeted with a shock of cold ten times cooler than the surrounding air. Wet. Water. Cold water. Kakashi holds a garden hose in his hand, waving cheerily, pretending that he hadn't just sprayed me without my permission. "Glad you finally came down," he says just before dousing me with freezing cold liquid again.

I can't help myself. I shriek in surprise. Through the spray of water, I see that Kakashi is laughing at me. I want to be mad at him, but it's so weird to see him laugh that my anger is overshadowed by amazement. Kakashi usually laughs in chuckles. These aren't chuckles. These are openmouthed Naruto laughs. Until this moment, I've never seen him laugh like that.
He stops abruptly, still laughing. "You look like a drowned kitten," he gets out between laughs. I can tell he's not used to laughing this hard, because his arms are wrapped around his stomach, trying to hold it in without success.

With that comment, my anger is back. He could have warned me first, spraying me with water and then laughing like that. I glare at him fiercely, which just makes him laugh again. His laugh is nice, I decide begrudgingly. I don't much like it, but it's nice on the ears. "How are you going to explain this to Itachi?" I ask in order to bring him down.

He has returned to chuckles. "Don't you worry about your brother. I can handle him."
Kakashi is going to get smacked tonight. The thought makes me feel a little better about being soaking wet. "You are so going to get it," I tell him with a hiss.

"Ow, kitty's got spunk."

"My clothes are all wet."

"You sound just like your brother. You worry too much." He smiles gently, another expression I've never seen on him before, and suddenly I'm scared. Honestly scared of this smiling, laughing man and I don't even now why. He has a nice smile, a nice laugh.

I think he senses my fear. He's good at that, sensing how other people feel. I find it strange since he's so bad at expressing how he feels. A sad look flickers across his face for a second. "You can go inside if you want." Nothing in his voice is sad, but that flicker was there. I am appalled with myself. Did I hurt him somehow?

I shake my head. I don't want to hurt him, even if I don't recognize him right now. "I'm just cold." And I am cold. I have the shivers, though I'm not sure whether or not they're from the water.

"That's a side effect of cold water," he says like the jerk he is. "Shivers. Aren't they a bitch?"

I grin at him, not able to help myself in spite of my fear. I like it when Kakashi curses in front of me. Itachi hates that he does it and I like anything that makes him even the tiniest bit mad. And then, I'm glad I'm wet, because Itachi won't like that either. Besides, I'm not hot anymore. I'm also not scared anymore. Cursing Kakashi is the Kakashi that I know, that I like to spend time with. Laughing Kakashi is more frightening than cemetery Kakashi, his laughter too real for my Kakashi, too real and too unfamiliar. I never want to hear him laugh again.

He raises the hose above his head and douses himself in water. It's cascading down his face, arms, legs, leaving a muddy puddle of drowning dead grass around his bare feet. He's as wet as I am.

At least he isn't laughing.

*^*^

I have officially decided that fighting Dr. Hoshigaki is pointless. I understand his tactic perfectly now. He's tying to lull me into a false sense of security, make me trust him enough so that I won't mind spilling all of my deep dark secret feelings. And it's working. The discomfort I felt in the beginning is gone, replaced by the pleasure of the book in my lap.

Dr. Hoshigaki has figured out my weakness, it seems. I can't even remember the last time I read something for fun, or did anything for fun. I don't have the time working two jobs. Kakashi already looks after Sasuke so much that I think maybe Sasuke likes him better. How could I possibly ask him to do any more for me? I can't, I know that. We're an imposition on his good nature. A moody fifteen year old teenager and an inquisitive nine year old constantly surrounding him. Surely he has better things to do than babysit.

Of course, he does seem to like Sasuke. He might only be nine, but Kakashi treats him just like a very small adult. Like a friend. Dr. Hoshigaki is pulling the same shit with me. I don't believe the act. Once I'm out of his life he'll forget all about me and my problems for the next troubled youth that comes here actually looking for help. I'm his job, not his friend, even if he gives me books and lets me keep my silence.

It makes me wonder if this place is a psychiatrist's office or a public library.

The good doctor is humming something under his breath as he works on yet another crossword puzzle. He must really like those things. Does he do one every day, or just on Thursdays at seven while he waits for me to warm up to him? It's hard to tell. It's not like I know much about him. He has the looks of a rock star and I'm sure that there must be a radio playing constantly in his head, replaying the classics from the moment he wakes up until he hits REM sleep. He's intelligent, more so than I want to give him credit for, but I've never been one to ignore facts. Other than that, I'm at a loss.

I don’t need to know anything else about this man. That's exactly what I don't need. But in accordance with my nature, I can't help the inklings of curiosity I feel. I’m just like Sasuke that way. As a kid I wanted to know everything. I questioned everything in my pursuit of knowledge. Simple kid questions. How does the moon know when to come up? Where do babies come from, mom? Then, I started asking the wrong questions. What happened to your eye, mom? Why isn't dad home yet? Why's he sleeping, its only five o'clock? She tried to keep me safe, but I didn't know any better. Stupid, stupid Itachi, poking your nose where it didn't belong.

"What were you doing, dad?"

"Come here, let me show you."

I've learned to stop asking questions. They only get you in trouble, and I don't need any more trouble in my life. One question killed me. Changed me. Made me paranoid, wary, suspicious, uncomfortable around people. Too old for my body.

Still, I have questions, more than I've had in a long time. I thought I'd learned to suppress my curiosity, but I guess the cat isn't dead quite yet. Four years of fearful nights should have done the trick but here I am with all of these questions bubbling up inside of me. I'm practically dying to know more about him, which only reassures me that holding my tongue is the right thing to do. I don't want to open Pandora's box again. I can't go through it again, I don't need to face it again, in a psychiatrist's office any more than in my own memory. There's a reason I never asked about the scar running through Kakashi's eye. There's a reason I always leave right after picking up my brother. The less I know, the better off I'll be.

So I don't ask the questions I’m wondering. Where you ever in a band? Do you write music? Is it as gorgeous as you are? Do you already know how much I hate you for making me wonder?

If only this book wasn't so good. If only I didn’t care about the fate of the characters. I could put it down and return to the uncomfortable silence and loud ticking of his clock. I’m comfortable with the uncomfortable. Discomfort means that my guard is always up, a wall keeping out unwanted invasions. This book slipped past the wall, right between the cracks in the mortar. No, it came in through the front gate on the back of a wagon. The peddler sold me on my guilty pleasure with a cheap smile.

"Time’s up for today," Dr. Hoshigaki says as the clock chimes eight times. I'm relieved, but disappointed. Then I'm angry because somehow disappointment managed to sneak in and contaminate what should have been unadulterated ecstacy. Get out, get out. Get out before it's too late.

I nod swiftly, but my traitorous hands are gripping the book too tight for my liking. I’m having an out of body experience, I must be, because my hands aren't doing what my brain is telling them to do. Why did he have to pick a good book off of his shelf? Luck of the draw and here I am with a riveting read as opposed to a shitty book with shitty characterization and shitty cliched moral absolutes. It's been such a long time since I sat down and read a book without having something else I had to do.

"You can take that home if you want," he offers graciously. Such a Good Samaritan, this one. "As long as you promise not to lose it."

I won't lose the book. I've never lost anything material in my entire life. Even as a little kid I was meticulous about the location of my toys. I knew where everything was because I don't like not having command of things. I was such an anal kid. I don’t lose things nowadays either. I'm even more anal as a teenager.

Without a word, I toss the book onto his desk. The papers around him flutter in his wake. I don't say "thanks for the offer" or "that's nice, but no." That's asking too much from me. He's asking too much, and this is a step in the right direction. I can tell by the knowing look in his eyes, mourning my backward progress. And just when things were going so well.

I'm never taking anything from him again.

*^*^*

Sasuke stares at the wet heap of clothes on my bathroom floor as if they've personally offended him in some way. I haven't seen such an anal kid since my turn as a nine year old, back in the days where I hadn't learned the fine art of acceptance. When I got older I quickly discovered that denial is only as strong as you are and forgetting doesn't work. Acceptance, remembrance, penance. My mantra. My Hail Mary. My way of paying homage to the things I can't forget.

He belongs on the front of a Hallmark card. He's clothed in nothing but a towel which practically swallows his tiny form. A drowned kitten. I want to laugh at the sight, but he's already miffed. Best not to push it. Really though, it almost makes me want to have kids. Almost. God knows, I'd screw that up. I can pretend for a minute, though. No harm in that.

I bend down and rub a towel into his sopping wet locks. They're black as midnight against his pale skin. His eyes are just as dark, glaring at me for getting him into this situation. He's so cute when he's mad. Funny that he thinks he can actually do anything to me. He certainly can't make me feel bad. He'll look back on this in ten years and laugh. I always look at life in years of tomorrow. It's the only way I can justify yesterday, leaving now as just a stepping stone in-between.

"You're rubbing too hard," he complains.

Rather ungrateful of him. I was trying to be nice. "I didn't realize you were so delicate," I say, lightening the pressure. I sometimes forget how young he is. He reminds me of myself at that age, so grown up before my time. There are some disturbing parallels in our lives, parallels that trick me into moments of deja vu where I can still see all of the blood in the room. It's hard to forget something that seeped into my skin for hours. All of that red, red blood.

I hold back a shudder. Damn fans, creating all of those cross-breezes. My skin prickles with them.

"Are you okay?" Sasuke asks with all the innocent concern of a child who knows nothing. I didn't think my shudder was so noticeable, but then there isn't much distance between us. He probably felt it through my hands.

"Cold," I answer. My voice holds no tremor. Another thing I've perfected is the art of deceit. I lie beautifully, like I'm painting a Monet with each treacherous word. A thousand little masterpieces to my name in the Metropolitan.

He nods in agreement and relaxes into the towel. "I'm going to go put your clothes in the dryer," I tell him with a few final rubs. "You're too small to fit into any of my pants, but you can put a t-shirt on until your stuff is dry again." I had changed almost immediately in my bedroom before assisting Sasuke in the bathroom. Only my hair remained wet.

"Okay." He adjusts the towel to protect himself more fully against the fans as he pads off into my bedroom. The towel has a hole in it, I realize as I watch leave. I'll have to throw that one out later.

I do my best to wring as much excess water out of his clothes as I can before I toss them into the dryer. I got the dryer two weeks ago from a friend of a friend of Genma's. Goodbye, laundromats, and good riddance. Mothers with kids tends to give me disapproving looks when they catch a glimpse of my Icha Icha books. They give the same looks when they pass homeless men on the sidewalks, mentally berating them for having the gall to sink so low in front of their children. The kids are just curious. They don't understand the gravity of the picture on the front cover. They don't understand the ugly things in the world yet.

Back upstairs, Sasuke is drowning in one of my plain black cotton t shirts. He looks like he's wearing an oversized dress. His wet hair is plastered to his forehead, dribbles of ink on porcelain. He still doesn't look happy.

"Hungry, pretty bird?" I inquire before he has a chance to slip in a disgruntled word. I don’t need a lecture from a nine year old.

His brow scrunches in deliberation, deciding if his growling stomach takes precedent over his anger over wearing a cotton evening gown. Hungers wins, because he nods and hops off of the couch to follow me into the kitchen. While Sasuke shimmies into a chair, I open my cabinet and begin to search through my slim supplies. I need to go shopping in an immediate way. All I seem to have are soup and breadcrumbs. And I know for a fact that Sasuke doesn't like broccoli, so this soup is out of the question.

I have better luck in the fridge. There's a large hunk of cheddar cheese and some pepperoni on the bottom shelf and bagels on the counter. It's been a longtime since I've thrown this particular meal together, years in double digits. It reminds me too much of my dad. But since I didn't think Sasuke would like the leftover marinated vegetables from the other night, pizza bagels are my only option.

The term pizza bagel is a misnomer. There is no sauce on my dad's creation and cheddar isn't exactly mozzarella, but anything else sounds wrong. He first made it for me when I was six years old. Back then I was a classic picky eater, liable to throw food before I would eat it. Pizza bagels though, pizza bagels were perfect for my obstinately unsophisticated palate. Dad always ate one with me at the table, grease dripping down his chin.

I have very few fond memories of my father left. I made it a point to throw away everything that reminded me of him after his death- watches, shirts, books, pictures, tools- anything that had a good memory attached to it; back then I thought it would be better to forget the father that I missed before he got so lost in himself. I threw as much of him away as I could and I left him alone in his grave. But pizza bagels will always remain to remind me of a time when I liked him, a time when mom was still around and he wasn't stoned half out of his mind. It's uncanny; I got rid of all of his belongings so that I would remember only his bad days, but that one memory just won't die. That memory alone makes me miss him at odd moments.

Five minutes later, I have two still bubbling pizza bagels set out on the table. Sasuke looks down at them with keen interest. He didn't expect the food to be ready quite so quickly. The chess set is only half finished. "What is that?"

"Bagel, cheese, pepperoni." For some reason, I can't bring myself to say the name aloud in front of him. "Do you have any objections?"

He shakes his head, inhaling the aromatic blend of bread and meat and cheese. To me, pizza bagels smell like laziness, like the too fast passing of time. Five minutes and it's done, another ten and it's over. You have to make them more than once to appreciate them. They become a speciality.

The first tentative bite is hailed with an appreciative nod. Sasuke isn't a picky eater, but trying something new always has two potential consequences. You either like it or you don't. Unlike Sasuke, pizza bagels aren’t new to me. I already know that they taste good. But I don’t like eating them. I hate eating them and I know full well that I'll probably feel sick hours afterward because I've perfected the art of lying so wonderfully that I have a neuron path carved into my nervous system, surpassing reflex and becoming instinct.

He devours the entire thing. I eat slowly, as always, but not because I'm savoring the taste. It's because I'm fighting the urge to eject it from my throat, to purge my body of this memory. What the hell was I thinking? I could have just ordered Chinese. I guess that's the curse of being an artist, making myself sick all the time.


September
II. If you noticed that I'm happy, would you call me on it?


Sundays mornings at the café are slow. The believers are in Church, the atheists are still asleep, and the air wafting in through the open door feels like incense. Curling, caressing, winding around my head until it practically pulls me out of my body.

Genma lets loose an enormous yawn next to me, blinking sleepily. He doesn't really wake up until noon and it's only ten. Another two hours left before he turns into a human being and not a walking zombie. Raido is as awake as ever, bustling around the kitchen, finding things to do in spite of the fact that there's nothing to do. A total of three tables are occupied, one with an elderly couple, one with a mother and daughter, and one with lonely man reading the newspaper and sipping black coffee.

I'm about as awake as I always am, which is not very. I function on about five hours of sleep per night by the time my mind finally shuts down. Dark circles are perpetually under my eyes, the uniform of the restless. I can't remember what a solid eight hours of sleep feels like. Since I always look tired, no one ever says anything to me. The circles under my eyes brand me an insomniac, a workaholic, a drug addict. I have a practically chemical dependence to ice cubes. Not surprisingly, the cold fails to wake me up even as my gums go numb. I think I'm developing a resistence to the only thing that gives me the slightest bit of relief from myself.

Genma cringes as my teeth work through my fourth ice cube. Like most people, Genma drinks coffee in the morning. Hot, steamy coffee with ample amounts of cream. He doesn't understand that some people don't like to burn their mouth, tongue, and throat just taking a drink. Coffee burns going down. "You are going to break your teeth one day, kid."

I continue chewing, the sound of the hard grinding bouncing off of my bones. Maybe I will break my teeth one day. But I don't care, because it's not my body that I'm worried about. The more I chew ice cubes, the more I need to get that numb feeling. Immunity equals an erosion of the wall I've put up. My usual methods of dealing with the heat just aren't working lately. "My teeth are fine," I inform him curtly. It must be the open door that's making me feel warm today. The breeze is balmy, but not cool enough to be a substitute for the air conditioner.

"Hnn," he grunts, too tired to be bothered with a comeback. He pulls the toothpick out of his mouth long enough to take a sip of coffee. "Crazy."

Genma's not the most articulate of people in the morning, especially this one. "How late were you up last night, anyway?" He's never very awake, but he usually comes up with something better than a static crutch. When you can't figure me out, call me crazy. I don't mind.

"Four," he offers readily. Genma will always gladly talk about himself no matter what stage of sleep deprivation, illness, or stress he is in. "There was a party at a friend's house. Me and Raido didn't get home until three or so."

Listening to Raido's whistling in the kitchen, I'm surprised to hear that Raido had been along for the ride. He doesn't strike me as the party type, which makes his relationship with Genma an anomaly I can't even begin to fathom. Just like Kakashi and Iruka, who have something in-between friend and boyfriend status. It's neither nor, but definitely there. For Genma and Raido, their relationship is obvious, but how they manage to sustain themselves I just don't know. Genma likes parties and fights while Raido likes movies and cooking. I just don’t understand how to so very different people manage to mesh peacefully and clash violently at the same time.

"Yeah, I know," Genma says. "He's not a party kind of guy. Stuck it out though."

"What are you, a mind reader?" Has he become so familiar with me that he can tell what I'm thinking? Our conversations are usually rather one-sided.

"Nah. It's just that everyone wonders the same thing. You ought to hear my friends. 'What are you doing with a guy like him? He's so, nice.’ They say it like it's a bad thing he’s so nice." The toothpick comes back out, only this time he twirls it between his fingers thoughtfully. "You know something though, kid? I think I need nice. I've tried dating other versions of me. Didn't work out so good. Can't help but wonder if I need him more than I want him, you know?"

I'm uncomfortable listening to something so personal. What is about quiet Sunday mornings that turns a lecherous knock-around into a philosopher? It must be the breeze that smells like sandalwood incense from the church just down the block that brings men epiphanies. I have to stop myself from shaking my head in agreement. Needing something more than you want something and watching the lines blur together: I know all about that, know every nuance of the poison except the remedy. Need is a dangerous, slow killer, a mental breed of suicide.

"Not that I don't want him. I've wanted him from the start. It's just more than that this time."

"You do realize that I'm as about experienced in relationships as a preschooler, right?" I have to get him away from this subject. It makes me think of Dr. Hoshigaki and that book I was in the middle of reading.

"Not my fault. I try to be a voice of encouragement, but you've clearly got a good pair of ear plugs blocking me out."

"I hear you. I just don't listen."

Genma clutches his hand to his heart. "Ouch, kid. That cuts deep. You've severed an artery or two."

"I was aiming for three."

"Would you two stop goofing off?" Raido says as he leans through the service window. He has a sponge in one hand. "Do something, don't just stand there."

"Yes, ma'am," Genma drawls in an affected Southern drawl. I can easily see him in the role of a mischievous little school boy. It's harder to see Raido in a corset. "My slacking days are over."

Raido throws a sponge at him. Genma blocks it half-heartedly, grinning at the trouble he's stirred up. He uses the sponge to "clean" the counter while I check on the coffee pots. "Seriously, Itachi, why so adverse to a girlfriend? You're young, single, attractive. Most kids your age are in the market."

Most kids my age aren't working two jobs to take care of their nine-year old little brother. "I don't want a girlfriend, I told you that already."

"Yeah, no time and whatnot. It's just that you don't look at girls when they come into the cafe. Teenage boys look at girls, that's the way the world works. You aren't looking though, so. Ohhh," he cuts off suddenly. I don't like the sound of that. It's like he finally unearthed a rare artifact from the earth after searching for ten years.

"Oh, what, Genma?"

He looks at me with crystal clear eyes. "You bat for the other team." There's not even a "don't you" or a "right" tacked on to the end to make it into a question. He's states it as if it were a formula found in a text book.

I think of Dr. Hoshigaki and that wavy black hair that frames his face before I can censor my thoughts. Coffee is suddenly a high priority. The French roast pot is nearly empty.

"I don't know why I didn't think of it sooner," he says as if snapping in the last few pieces of a puzzle. "It makes perfect sense. Some hot guy you got your eye on?"

In a moment purley the antithesis of sangfroid, I lose hold of the coffee pot. It shatters on the floor instantly, spraying hot coffee on my ankles and calves. I hiss as the hot liquid seeps into the material of my jeans and inwardly curse Dr. Hoshigaki's blue eyes for creeping into my thoughts at the mention of a hot guy.

When I was thirteen I had a crush on a boy in school. I can't remember his name. I never actually knew his name. We passed each other in the hall at school on my way to history. We never said hi, never waved, never made eye contact. But that's the first time I knew I was gay. Just in passing. I didn't fight it, didn't struggle with my sexuality. One day I just knew and moved on from there. I'm not naive. I know when people are attractive. Kakashi is hot, Genma is good-looking, and as much as I hate, hate, hate to admit it even in the confines of my mind, Dr. Hoshigaki may be the hottest guy I've ever met. It's just that thinking about him makes me is strange. I'm not used to thinking about people like that, as more than just a cursory observation. The thoughts keep catching me off-guard.

"Christ, Itachi. And here I thought you were the epitome of grace," Genma quips as he observes the mess I've made.

Raido pokes his head through the service window yet again. "What the hell did you do, Genma?" he demands immediately. "What did you break?"

I cut Genma off before he can open his mouth to voice his indignation. "It was just a coffee pot, Raido. I'll clean it up."

I lie smoothly enough that Raido doesn't look down and take notice of my coffee soaked jeans. "You're always breaking something. You broke two mugs last week. Two. Why do you keep dropping things?" As Raido gives him a miniature lecture, Genma shoots me a look of death. I'm going to get you he mouths as Raido goes on. Raido is lenient as far as bosses go. He's not as lenient as Kakashi, but few people are quite as lackadaisical as he aspires to be on a daily basis so most competitors lose by default. Raido understands if I need to leave early or come in late and he doesn't mind if we take breaks when we need them. He does, however, have a strict policy regarding the breakage of eatery. Genma is the worst culprit in that department. In the short time he has worked here, he's managed to break a whopping total of nine mugs and three plates. This is the first time he's being wrongfully yelled at, so his half-irate, half-bemused glare is understandable.

"How careless can you be? We don't have an infinite supply of these things, you know."

By the time Raido is done making his useless speech, I've picked up most of the glass. Genma is trying to placate him by promising to buy a new coffee pot out of his own paycheck. They bicker like an old married couple. Different thought they might be, they see to just work because soon enough its over and Genma gives Raido a quick peck on the lips. Raido slaps him gently on the cheek for it. Genma ducks away.

"Why do I get blamed for everything?" he exclaims as I dump a handful of glass into the trash can. "The one time it's not my fault. You could have just taken the blame."

"Can't. I'm the epitome of grace, remember? It would ruin my reputation."

"Your reputation is already ruined in my eyes," Genma says as I bend down to pick up one of the smaller pieces of glass. "Cause now I know you've got a little old crush on some hot guy. Makes me think you might actually be normal."

"It's not a crush," I correct him. It's my psychiatrist. And it bothers me. God, when and why did these stupid, startling thoughts start running through my brain? If I can block out all those memories about my dad during the day, why the hell does he keep slipping in? I don't want him there. He's making me drop things, for Chrissake.

"Sounds like a crush to me," he says as he waggles his toothpick suggestively. Genma does everything suggestively, talking, walking, breathing. "Stand up though, we have a customer."

Finally. Maybe if it gets busy Genma will stop bothering me about his brand new revelation. Glass still in hand, I hear one of the chairs squeak with newly added weight as the customer sits down. "I'll be with you in a min. . "

The word dies on my tongue as I look up. Speak of the motherfucking devil.

Dr. Hoshigaki smiles at me like the world is perfect and nothing is wrong with this scenario. I'm seconds away from losing my temper. It's bad enough I have to see him once a week, but this is ridiculous. He was just in here on Wednesday.

"What do you want?" I say frostily, hoping he'll take the hint. I have no doubt he know I don't want him here. I just want him to actually leave. I've never seen another one of my psychiatrists out of work before. It feels like an invasion. He's not supposed to be in my everyday world, intruding in places that don't belong to him.

"Frappuccino to go, please."

"That's not what I meant, and you know it."

He props his elbows up on the counter and leans on his hands. "I really just want a frappuccino, Itachi. I have money and eveything."

I grit my teeth, keeping my expression as stony as possible. I'd give anything to really be a statue right now. Statues don't feel the funny mix of things churning in my stomach. I'm angry, curious, impressed, irritated, and panicked all at the same time. I'd don't want to feel all of this. I don't want to feel anything, good or bad. Just the idea of feeling scares the hell out of me.

What are you trying to do?" I shout at him in my mind. Are you trying to hurt me? I want him out, out of here, out of my life where he can't make me feel all of these stupid, confusing things. They just open the floodgates for other things, things that he can't fix. All of the thoughts I worked so hard to suppress feel like they're ready to break out if I don't get him out of here.

"There are other coffee shops on the block." I'm not going to beat around the bush with him. I'm not going to be nice and just sit back on my heels with he weaves his little web around me. "Go find one."

"You can't refuse to serve me. I didn't do anything."

He's done more than enough. "I don't care. Leave."

Our confrontation has caught Genma's attention. He's watching us uncertainly, gaging whether or not he should step in. Dr. Hoshigaki is perfectly calm, watching me unwaveringly. His eyes are so damn blue. "I just want some coffee, Itachi. Then I'll go." He's trying to placate me, just like he did with the book. Lull me into not feeling threatened.

"You'll be back. You always are. Can't you just accept the fact that you can't help me?"

"You won't even let me try," he throws right back. I didn't expect the little iota of anger creeping into his voice, but it satisfies me to hear it.

"And I'm never going to." There it is, plain fact. Maybe he knew from the beginning, maybe he didn't. I'll leave no stone unturned.

He sighs, running a hand through his hair. "I wish you wouldn't be so stubborn. I know you're going through a rough time, but if you'd just talk to me we could. . ."

I silence him by throwing Genma's cup of coffee at him. There's a strange throbbing pain in my hand. I can barely hear the sounds of Genma's protest over it. "I hate you," I hiss as the opaque liquid drips off of his chin. I hate the way he makes me feel, the way he makes me act, the things he can make me do. "I fucking hate you."

Despite the coffee on his face, his expression is steady. He wipes it off with his hand, licking some of it off his lips with his tongue. "You don't hate me. You like me just fine." His voice doesn't drop, but it sounds like a whisper to me. Or maybe I just think that's what it should sound like. "If you didn't, you wouldn't be trying so damn hard to keep me away."

No, that's not it. That's not it at all. I don't like him. He's practically a stranger to me. A stranger who thinks he knows me. "Just leave," I plead. That should be a whisper too, not the command it comes out as.

"Itachi," Genma breaks in softly. "Your hand is bleeding."

I raise my hand. Like Genma said, blood is snaking from my closed fist down my knuckles. I unclench my hand. Glass. I'd forgetten that I never thrown those last few pieces away. The blood now snakes down my wrist, running in reverse.

"Fuck," I manage to get out. Now why did that come out as a whisper?

Genma looks around for a cloth to stem the flow of blood. They're most likely all dirty from wiping the counter and tables. I can't afford an infection. I'm probably can't even afford the stitches it looks like it might need. "Raido," he finally calls out. "Clean towel. Hurry."

The cut strings now that oxygen has hit it. I clench my fist again, hoping that it's not as bad as it looks. Of course it's my right hand, the hand I need.

Dr. Hoshigaki takes my hand and forces me to unfold it again. His hand is really warm and he doesn't seem to care that he's coating his fingers with my blood as he examines the extent of the damage. "It's too deep to heal on it's own. You need to go to the hospital. I can take you, if you want."

He would offer to do something nice for me. I almost don't want to say no. "I'm not sure I have the money to pay for it," I tell him honestly. I paid the rent on Friday, which pretty much sapped away my funds combined with grocery shopping. I'm damn near broke at this point. "Maybe it's not so bad."

A fresh gush of blood tells us otherwise. He frowns, taking off his button-down shirt because Raido is taking too long with the towel. I try to protest, but his warm hand around my wrist distracts me as he wraps the shirt tightly around the wound. I want to tell him that we should clean it first, but those hands of his aren't letting any words come out of my mouth. And worse, there's a mild but uncomfortable burning sensation prickling through my skin the longer he keeps contact. I'm not sure if the dizziness I feel is from his hands on me or the blood loss. Maybe both. All I know is that it doesn't feel right. He's too close. I want to reach up and touch the bristles on his face and tell him how much he illogically looks like my dad right now just because his hands are so warm. I want him to let go.

I wrench my arm away, desperately needing to put some space between us but I can't move because Raido is out with a towel and standing behind me. The shirt is tied in a knot, arresting the flow of blood. His eyes are full of concern. Genma's are too. Raido is asking questions at a mile per minute. I don't answer, so Genma speaks for me.

"How did you not notice you were clutching a piece of glass?" Raido is in mother-hen mode, Genma is trying to keep him calm. Genma's more used to random injuries. He's come in with a cut lip, grinning about it and telling me the whole tale of it's orgin. "Didn't you feel it?"

I shrug. I only felt it a little bit, a dull pain like a headache in my hand. The fact that I was holding a piece of glass just didn't occur to me at the time. I had other things on my mind. Besides which, I usually had a dull pain somewhere in my body, usually my head. Sometimes I swear my bones actually hurt. It didn't seem like an anomaly.

"Dammit," he curses lightly. We've attracted the attention of the few cutomers we have. They're watching the scene unfold like a soap opera. "Do you have a way to get to the hospital? I know you can't drive yet."

Finally about to open my mouth and speak, Dr. Hoshigaki jumps in and cuts me to the quick. "I'll take him," he volunteers. "He shouldn't use public transporation." He makes eye contact with me. "I can get you there a lot faster than a bus, Itachi. And you should really get that looked at."

Behind the dare of refusal, there's something that begs in his eyes. He really wants to help me. I almost don't believe the authenticity of the the plea in the eyes he's probably used to seduce girls while strumming on his guitar. Almost. Maybe it's the diminished blood flow affecting my judgement, but I want to believe that he cares, just a little. I want to believe it as much as I want to say no. I can't bring myself to do either.

He looks relieved when I nod. Or grateful. I'm not sure. There's only one thing I am certain of as I follow Dr. Hoshigaki out the door to his Honda Accord: He's an anomaly in my life and I don't know how to deal with him. I don't like him.

I could though. I really could.


*^*^*

As soon as four o'clock rolls around Kakashi puts the coffee on to brew. That familiar, delicious aroma fills the air and I just know I'm going to be addicted to the stuff before I turn twelve. Kakashi will make sure of that. He has an addictive personality, or at least that's what Itachi said after I told him about the cemetery trips. I don't think he's one to talk. I know Kakashi isn't normal, but neither is Itachi. At this point, neither am I. I'm surrounded by crazy people, outside and inside.

I know I'm not normal because my closet friend is a twenty-three year old college graduate who reads bad books and talks to dead people. I caught some of his craziness. Last week at the cemetery I talked to Kakashi's dead friend. Just a few words at the very end after Kakashi had walked off. I said goodbye. See you next Saturday. He didn't talk back like he does with Kakashi, but I guess that’s because he doesn’t know me very well. He didn’t say anything back, but I'm pretty sure he was listening to me. After all, what else do the dead do all day if not listen? What else can they do?

Kakashi is over at the counter spooning sugar from his mom's bowl into my coffee mug. Colorful Mardi Gras masks are painted on this mug. Like everything else in his house, it’s probably used and bought from a yard sale. There is a chip in the paint near the handle.
"Whose move is it?" Kakashi asks as he slides my coffee mugs around the few of his enemy chess pieces I managed to capture. He has a considerably larger pile on his side of the board. I'm probably going to lose soon. My last move put me in a bad position, but I had nowhere else to go at the time.

"It's yours," I tell him as I blow on the streaming hot liquid.

"Ahh," he says sagely, taking a bishop in hand. "Right. Checkmate, then."

And just like that, it’s over. I lose again. I hate losing. To show him exactly how much I do not like losing, I scowl at him for being so good at this game.

He's amused at me. I can tell from the wry kind of half-grin on lips. I know that grin so well that it's just like a smile to me. "Do you want to play again? Your brother won't be home until eight thirty." He looks at me over the rim of his raised blue and grey speckled coffee mug with the Japanese writing on it, hiding his half-grin. "That's just enough time to beat you several more times."

I contemplate, just for a second, saying no. I’ve never turned down one of his challenges before. Would the world crumble if I didn’t, just once, believe that thing will be different when I miraculously grow up one day?

To answer him, I start putting the rooks, knight, and pawns in their starting positions. I'm too stubborn to believe I'm wrong. I don't get very far. Just as I finish the back row there's a abrupt knock on the door and barely a pause before Kakashi's front door creaks open on hinges that needs to be oiled. "What the hell?" Kakashi murmurs as he shifts his body just enough to look through the gap in the curtains. I look behind me to see who our visitor is.

We're both surprised to see Itachi standing in the doorway. He's not supposed to be here until eight thirty; it's only four fifteen. Itachi never leaves work early unless he has to take me somewhere. I look to Kakashi for a sign that maybe this isn't as strange to him as it is to me. His eyebrows are raised. He isn't grinning, not even a quarter.

"What happpend to you hand?" he asks. Carefully, as if he's afraid of the answer.

His hand? I take a look at his hand and find it wrapped in white gauze circle around his palm, fingers, and wrist. I was so put off by his sudden arrival that I didn't even notice.

Itachi takes a step forward, his feet making a shuffling sound over the tile. He's staring at my coffee cup instead of me or Kakashi, examining it with eyes that blink infrequently. "Give me my brother," he says in an usually soft voice, a striking contrast to the sharp lines of tension in his muscles. I feel it emanating from him in pools, soaking the room. I remember suddenly the night he killed them, the way he wouldn't say anything to me while I cried; that night is in his stance, all the contrary parts of him colliding right in front of me. I feel the urge to crawl under the table and attach myself to Kakashi's leg like I used to do to Mom when I was four.

"Did you cut yourself?" Kakashi goes on as he stands up. He almost makes a moves towards me, bt in the end stays where he is.

Itachi moves closer until he's standing right in front of my chair. From up close I see that his eyes aren't a frightening as they appeared from far away. They're tired, just like always, just exhausted Itachi eyes black as night. Still there's something so wrong about this, the way he's acting. Something that I can't pinpoint. "We're going home," he says as he gently takes hold of my wrist with his uninjured hand. I keep looking at his face to see if I can find a clue hidden there, a sign that I didn't have to be scared of my own brother. I need him to say something that will calm me down, or at least have him look at me.

It is his eyes, I realize, that are wrong. It's more than exhaustion. Because he is looking down at me, barely blinking and barely seeing, shifting in and out of focus. I've seen them do that before, what seems like a long time ago. Itachi hit me for jumping on his back while we were in the park. He hugged me for it, apologized, promised never to do it again. He said I couldn't tell right then, but his muscles hurt really bad. He looked at me and said he was sorry and I felt like a piece of glass that he was looking through because his eyes just kept shifting in and out from somewhere to nowhere and never on me. "I had an accident at work and we need to go home now."

There's an urgency in his words that I can't ignore. Weakly I nod, letting him pull me off of the chair. I look back at Kakashi over my shoulder, hoping he'll say something that will persuade Itachi to let me stay. Kakashi feels safe right now with Itachi's soft voice, hard muscles, and faraway eyes drying my throat.

"Can he at least finish his coffee?" is all he finally comes up with. "He's almost done."

My brother picks up my Mardi Gras mug, still a quarter full of lukewarm coffee with milk and sugar. His eyes stops on each and every one of the masks painted in blue, pink, yellow, red. He brushed his finger over each one as if he's feeling the sequins and feathers through the ceramic. Time slows down a little and I see him lift each of his fingers in what seems like slow motion as he lets go, just lets go of the mug and watches it fall. The crack of its abrupt and fatal acquaintance with earth is louder than loud, like a scream; all I can think about as I stare at the pink and yellow and blue ceramic confetti is how much I liked that mug.

He tugs on my arm, gently still, leading me around the remains of my mug. I throw one desperate plea back at Kakashi, still hoping he can pull me back because I'm powerless against Itachi's decision. But he doesn't. What can he do? He's just the guy who watches me after school. All he does is wave with his fingers and mouth something I don't quite catch. I long for him to do something, anything but watch me leave. I want to him to challenge me to another game of chess. I want him to take me to the cemetery and let me listen to him talk. I want him to call me pretty bird. I want to feel like everything isn't as bad as I think it is. I want something that I can count on.

Itachi may be my brother, but I don't recognize him. He's so different from the Itachi I adored when I was really young, the one used to poke me in the forehead and catch the fireflies that I couldn't reach. He saw me when he looked at me. If Kakashi were to spend an hour in the freezing cold on the fire escape, I would think nothing of it. I'd accept whatever quirks he has as things that make Kakashi different from me, things that make him an eccentric story book character that I've come to know so well, so much better, even though I know there are things about him I'll never understand. But with Itachi, it's different. He is not a character in a book to me. He could be, but he isn't. He shouldn't. Somewhere in-between his unfocused eyes and soft voice and strong arms is the brother I used to know. But not this one. This Itachi who takes cold showers in the winter and locks me out of my bedroom without any explanation is not my brother.

It's then that I realize exactly how much of a stranger Itachi has become.


TBC


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