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He was a lord’s son, most certainly. The way he held himself with that regal air of authority quintessential of a bannerman and his kin – shoulders squared, back arrow-straight – as though dignity were ingrained into his bones. Even his expression carried the stony incisiveness of a military general overseeing his soldiers at morning drills as he stood apart watching the other two, bundled up in layers of thickly padded kimono like a Heian prince. A tiny general, a stolid little princeling, sunk nearly knee-deep in the snow despite his best efforts at standing tall.
His head is lumpy, he observed disapprovingly, in his light and bossy voice, commanding him thus, Roll it out better this time!
You mustn’t talk to Sensei that way, the older brother chided him at once.
Oftentimes, Itachi suspected that he had come to be more of a babysitter than a sword instructor. Countless mornings being tugged this way and that with one boy clasped at each hand, the two of them pulling him excitedly along down the hallway. The maids giggling behind their sleeves as they passed them on the veranda.
Itachi didn’t mind; it was a surprisingly easy job, an enjoyable one, even. His father, however…
Father would probably have an aneurysm if he saw what I was doing right now, he thought.
He sat back on his haunches and pulled his sleeves back, setting himself to the task of sculpting another head for their snowman. Gathering a mound of powdery snow between his palms and packing it tight, down to a firm, spherical base.
When Lord Senjuu hired him to serve in his household, the old man had made it clear that he demanded a certain pedigree of his staff, collecting only the finest tutors for his darling grandchildren: haiku poets from the old capital to teach literature and calligraphy, archery masters and scribes with close ties to the Tokugawa. And then there was Itachi, a prodigious heir to a famous samurai family of his own, the shining pearl of the Uchiha clan. Who, even despite his rebellious streak earlier that year, had been neatly snatched up by the Senjuu daimyo to take on his grandsons as students in the art of the sword. What Itachi hadn’t expected upon his arrival, however, was to find that the children in question were rather small, barely able to hold practice swords upright.
The elder of the two boys crouched beside him to help shape the head, patting more and more snow around the edges until it swelled in size and took form. He glanced over his shoulder at his younger brother, beckoning him with a look. “Does it look better now, Inari?”
The other boy – Inari – shuffled forward to inspect, each puff of breath clouding before the wool scarf wound up to his chin. His eyes had lost their narrowed, scrutinizing edge, now round and glittering with interest.
“Yeah, that’s better,” he decided.
Itachi smiled to himself, at how swiftly children’s moods changed. Carefully, he lifted the head and set it atop the column of snow acting as a torso, balancing it so it stayed in place. He walked with the two boys around the edge of the woods as they scavenged for fallen branches to act as arms, trailing pine needles behind them as they dragged them across the field. They filched small stones and pebbles from the garden for eyes and a nose. When they were done, their snowman stared back at them with a crooked, watery smile.
By now, the sun had begun to dip slowly behind the trees to the west, a rosy, persimmon sheen bleeding into the wintery landscape. Itachi looked at each of the children in his charge, their faces apple-cheeked and ruddy-nosed from the cold, and decided it was time to head back.
As they neared the compound, it began to snow again – light, wispy flakes slowly fluttering through the air. Overhead, the sky was leaden and thick with cloud, promising heavier snow to come. Barely had they crossed the arched gate into the courtyard when one of the boys’ nursemaids hurried forward to usher them inside.
“There you are! You’ll catch a cold at this rate,” she fussed. “Your mother will be cross with me if either of you get sick.”
Itachi stood by awkwardly amid her scolding, inclining his head at the young woman in apology. “It’s my fault. I got carried away and kept them out too long.”
“Oh, no, don’t be silly,” she said quickly, directing her attention toward him with a low bow. “You’re their teacher, you must have much to show them. Sōsuke-kun and Inari-chan are tough boys, really.”
Itachi’s brows knit, the weight of irony looming over him. “Still, I…”
“Yuukiii,” Inari moaned at the woman, pulling against her hand, “I want Itachi-sensei to sit next to me at dinner.”
“Me, too!” chimed Sōsuke.
“No, children, let Sensei alone now. You know he likes to eat with his kinsman in the evenings. And besides, you need to have a bath before dinner. Come.”
They didn’t groan – they were samurai children, after all. However, disappointment showed glum on their faces as they obeyed.
Itachi smiled softly, offering a small wave in sympathy to the crestfallen boys as they were led away, into the bright warmth of the main house.
He sighed then, untensing his shoulders. A shiver rippled through him almost instantly – was it snowing harder now than before? He drew his haori tighter around himself and began to trudge toward his own quarters, carving a solitary trail of footprints across the white-blanketed courtyard.
A bath does sound nice, he mused. A long soak in the steaming water to thaw his limbs, a hot meal afterwards. Only the dread of undressing in the brisk air gave the idea a stutter of a pause.
His mind was weary and muddled with thought when a sudden voice alighted at his left.
“Heading back already?”
Itachi knew the voice – its warm timbre coursed through him in the dark each night.
He halted and turned at once to find the other man lingering nearby, beneath the bare branches of a plum tree. He leaned against its trunk with arms folded into his sleeves, his hair dusted with snow. Smiling that private, enigmatic smile that formed on his lips so naturally.
“Shisui,” Itachi uttered his name, “were you waiting for me long?”
“Not too long. But I was sure you’d notice me.” He straightened from his spot and moved to join him. “Those kids really tuckered you out, huh?”
It was Itachi’s turn to smile, his eyes dropping somewhat sheepishly. “I guess I’ve gotten a bit rusty. All this child’s play is probably dulling my senses and just making me slower.”
“I think your ears are just numb from the cold, my friend,” Shisui pointed out. “You should’ve worn a scarf.”
“Probably.”
“Do you want mine?”
Without waiting for an answer, he unwound the scarf wrapped around his own neck and promptly looped it around Itachi’s. For a moment, as he pulled the cloth snug around the other, the act brought their faces closer together, the mists of their breaths mingling palpably within that small proximity. Itachi stood rooted while Shisui fastened the scarf in front of him, avoiding his gaze. It was still warm with Shisui’s body heat, the ghost of his scent hanging on.
“It would look unbecoming of a swordsman if Lord Senjuu saw you fussing over me,” he murmured.
“Do you think he minds? ‘Cause I’m not so sure. I think he knows more than he lets on. I mean, come on – ‘It’s customary in the Uchiha clan to be attended to by one of our own, so I’ll need someone of my clan to accompany me.’ Surely we’re not so alien to the other great clans that he’d be fooled by something like that, right?”
“Why not? The Hyuuga are known to have strange traditions that they’re very private about. We’re distantly related to them, after all.”
“Yeah, well, either way,” Shisui chortled, brushing a bit of frost from Itachi’s shoulder and letting his hand linger there, “if anyone asks about it, we’re not used to this sort of weather where we’re from – which, isn’t a lie, actually. But this cold is too brutal for us summery folk; I can’t let my future clan leader catch a chill and get sick.”
“Don’t exaggerate too much, Shisui,” Itachi told him drily. “You’ll have the man thinking I’m fragile or something.”
Surely that would be worse, Itachi thought, if his employer believed him weak to the elements. Even worse, perhaps, than if he began to suspect that Itachi was a little overly involved with his companion, the handsome, older man who’d traveled all the way here from Nakano with him. He hadn’t yet ascertained which way people of this region felt about cut-sleeves.
We should probably be more careful out in the open like this…
He pulled away gently and started again for the long residential hall, the other man matching his gait and strolling beside him.
As they walked, Shisui went on, “Still, even if we’re freezing our tails off most of the time, it’s kind of neat in its own way, isn’t it? We never get so much snow like this back home. I didn’t realize it made a sound.”
“How do you mean?” Itachi asked. He considered the combined din of their tread now, the noisy crunch of that top layer of snow beneath their sandals. Of course it made a sound…
“I mean while it’s still falling. Listen.”
They stopped in their tracks and went still, silence closing around them. Itachi concentrated, sensing for any vibrations in the air, a barely perceptible hum, straining to hear what Shisui had heard. All around them, the windless, muffling stillness pressed in. The longer he listened, the more gradually he began to detect something – the edges of it fluttering ever so subtly, softer than the flap of a butterfly’s wings. Itachi peered upwards, a few fat, icy flakes catching on his lashes. The darkening mauve sky was becoming nebulous above them, morphing into a sea of flurries rushing down at him faster than gravity, as numerous as dust motes dancing in sunlight. He blinked the wetness away.
“Maybe you’re imagining it, Shisui. The mind, when met with a quiet so absolute, creates something in its stead. We’re constantly overcompensating and fabricating things where there is a perceived absence. It’s how optical illusions work.”
“Hm. A sound that’s ‘no sound.’ Or an optical illusion, but for the ear.” Shisui sighed, though his expression was fond. “You’re too sharp, Itachi. But you know, I was talking more poetically than philosophically.”
“I thought as much,” Itachi replied. Then, “Sorry. Try as I might, I can’t hear it the way you do.”
“Mn. Maybe I’m not describing it that well. It’s sort of like the color white – a sheet of paper is white, as snow is white. And yet, if I were to paint an image of the landscape as I saw it today, a blank canvas wouldn’t do it justice.” He scratched his chin, his fingers wiggling restlessly, as though he could shape the right words into midair. “There’s a substance to it, that demands to be noticed. To be appreciated.”
Itachi could think of nothing to say to that, as he gazed at his friend. Suddenly, he wished very much that he was more of a poet.
“I have to be stricter with them from now on.”
It wasn’t the first time he’d made such a declaration. Shisui knew it, too, by the catlike pull to his smile, his chin leant against a row of knuckles as he watched Itachi. They sat beside each other with legs folded under the heavy quilt of the kotatsu, a cylinder of golden lamplight casting shadows about the folded screen walls of the room. Sitting out before Itachi were two sheafs of paper, laid flat for the ink to dry – a letter to Sasuke, and the other addressed to his parents.
Often, when he wrote to his father, he said the same thing time and again: “Lord Senjuu is pleased with my service, my students are keeping me busy.” Not a lie, per se, as Shisui had pointed out.
For his part, Itachi had tried his best to retain some form of propriety in the beginning, maintaining a firm tone, carrying out his role as their teacher with exacting standards. But Itachi was gentle at heart, and children, with their perceptive ways, could always sense the softness behind his stern exterior. It hadn’t taken long for them to coax out his lighthearted side, to rope him into being more of a playmate than an instructor.
“Well, don’t be too hard on them,” Shisui teased. “Besides, don’t those two kids remind you of someone?”
“Yeah…”
Two ‘someone’s.
He thought of the younger boy, Inari, with his stubborn temperament, so reminiscent of Sasuke. And the elder, Sōsuke, already adept at diffusing such moods with his peaceful disposition at his tender age. Watching them was like peering into a mirror to the past, recalling how he and his own brother had been as children. Maybe that was why Itachi had grown so quickly fond of them.
“But that’s why I want the best for them. If I go easy on them, they won’t hone their skills properly. After all,” Itachi added, pointing out, “you didn’t treat me with kid gloves when we trained together, Shisui.”
He remembered watching the older boy hungrily, following his movements each time they sparred. Shisui wasn’t so much a harsh taskmaster, however, as Itachi had simply been a demanding student; a boy obsessed with his mentor, desperate to please and determined to be praised.
“True,” the other man relented. “Still, it’s pretty cute seeing you play with them.” He leaned close to Itachi, then, sidling up against him. His lips brushed the other’s earlobe as he murmured huskily, “It kinda makes me want to put a baby in you.”
There was a short, deadpan whap as the back of Itachi’s hand swatted Shisui’s cheek.
“Don’t talk nonsense, you,” Itachi told him. He ignored the other man as he wrenched away out of reach of another smack, the color rising into his face in time with the trill of Shisui’s laughter sliding up an octave. He attempted to ignore, too, how flustered it left him.
Underneath the ridiculousness of such a remark, wasn’t there a bit of truth to the sentiment? A shard of sincere yearning cutting through the desire to indulge in a fantasy?
Were I a woman, I would marry him. Itachi had held onto such a thought once, when he reflected on his and Shisui’s roles in the clan. It didn’t really matter if they couldn’t marry; Itachi loved him. Sometimes, though, as he thought back on those instances when Shisui had helped him look after Sasuke during their childhood days, hadn’t it been tempting to imagine…?
Itachi eyed the other sharply, then, a tinge of humor seeping into his reproach. “Besides, why am I the one having your child? Wouldn’t it make more sense for you to take over that responsibility so I can focus on my job as an instructor?”
“I hadn’t thought of it that way,” Shisui replied. He seemed to consider it seriously for a beat, feigning thought. “In that case, do you what you must,” he sighed, suddenly laying onto his back boneless as an eel and letting the front of his kimono fall open, “I’ll do my best to bear you a son.”
Itachi stared down at his friend, splayed out on the tatami floor somewhere between seductive and silly, and tried to push back against the smile muscling its way into his features. But it was futile.
He pulled the other’s obi loose and peeled his robe fully aside. Gooseflesh broke out across his skin, under his touch, as Itachi laid a hand upon the recumbent man’s chest. He smoothed it away with a warm glide of his palm.
“A son or a daughter, either one is fine by me.”
Outside, the snowfall picked up, whipping into a storm. The howl of wind melded with their breathing, a heated, hushed cadence blooming erratically around them. Breath and wind: wordless as the elements buffeting the wood-panel screens, the soft roar of blood echoing inside a seashell pressed to one’s ear.
When Itachi awoke, he realized he was alone. The place beside him had gone cold in his lover’s absence, the wrinkled bedding seeming even barer in the burgeoning light.
He rose and dressed promptly, draping his haori over his shoulders as he slid the shoji screen open. As soon as he stepped onto the veranda, he found Shisui there, sitting with an array of paints around him in their small jars. Itachi approached his back quietly, the other man rapt with focus in his work.
The morning sky was clear, scraped clean of a single cloud and lighter than a robin’s egg. The storm had left them with at least half a foot of snow higher, the courtyard thick with a fresh layer, piling up and overflowing in some parts onto the wooden floor.
Itachi leaned forward and peeked over Shisui’s shoulder at his painting. It showed the snowy scene before them, the mounds of white snow shaped by contours of pale blues, soft shades of pink and buttery yellow. With a little flourish, he traced along an invisible groove, widening the stroke of his inkbrush into a streak of light upon the ground.
“How does it look?” Shisui asked, glancing at him over his shoulder.
Itachi knelt and rested his chin there, their faces close. “It looks just right.”
He felt, just then, that he could hear something within the painting, too. Maybe it was his imagination only, but it came to him softer than the faint crackle of snow settling. He thought of fresh snow falling around the two of them in the evening hour, quieter than a pair of heartbeats.
Bearing a sound, nonetheless.