"Shit!"

Itachi stared, somewhat bemused, at the cussing blond teenager currently laying on top of him. Taking a moment to orient himself – flat on his back on the cold, hard concrete, with a complete stranger slowly suffocating him – Itachi figured that he was lucky to have avoided any sort of injury. He ignored Shisui's obnoxious laughter in the background; obviously, his cousin would be of no use here.

Before Itachi could say or do anything to remove the teen from his person, the boy had sat up, relieving the pressure on Itachi's chest, and allowing him once again the full use of his lungs. "Shit, man, I'm so sorry!" Bright blue eyes stared concernedly down into Itachi's black. "I didn't hurt you, did I?"

Shisui, calm and coherent by now, tapped the boy's shoulder. "He's fine," he said dismissively. "Although, he might be better if you would let him up…?" The boy followed Shisui's dark gaze to where Itachi was still sprawled on the sidewalk, pinned down by orange-clad thighs straddling his hips (although really, who wore jeans of such an obnoxious color? Who made them, for that matter?).

Itachi felt his lips twitch with amusement as the kid hurriedly scrambled off of him, offering down a helping hand to haul him up, along with an endearingly sheepish grin. "I'm really, really sorry about that," the blond boy stressed. "I was in a rush, and I wasn't looking where I was going, and – hey!"

A finger was suddenly invading Itachi's personal space, pointing directly at his face. Behind him, Shisui was laughing again.

"Do I know you?" The kid was asking. "Your face looks really familiar."

He wasn't surprised. The Uchiha family was rather prominent in Konoha, and they all shared similar features; odds were, this boy knew at least one member of Itachi's extended family.

"My name is Uchiha Itachi," he replied. And that was as far as he got, because a loud gasp had escaped the younger male. Even Shisui's continued snickers died down at the abject shock on the teenager's face.

"You're That Man!"

Well. Itachi and Shisui exchanged mystified glances at the dramatic proclamation. He had been called a lot of things in his twenty-two years of life, but nothing so generic as 'That Man'.

Apparently able to read the puzzled looks on both Uchiha males' faces despite the fact that they were, well, Uchiha, the teen chuckled awkwardly, running a hand through his bright blond hair. "Uh, y'see, er, my name's Uzumaki Naruto, and uhhh, I'm friends with your brother?" It came out as a question.

Sasuke. If Itachi were not so practised at hiding his emotions, he would have been gaping in shock. Sasuke had friends? Sasuke called him 'That Man'?

Luckily for him, Shisui had always been good at reading the situation. He squeezed Itachi's shoulder reassuringly, before gliding forward to take hold of the teen- Naruto's arm, saying cheerfully, "Well, whattaya know! Little Sasuke-chan has friends! Why don't you come have a coffee with us, Naruto-kun, and tell us all about the mischief that my baby cousin's been getting up to?"

Itachi almost rolled his eyes. If Shisui wasn't so adept at reading people, he would have smacked his older cousin across the back of the head. To any normal person, that would have sounded so suspicious; especially with the way Naruto had reacted to Itachi's name. It was clear that the brothers weren't on the best of terms, what with Sasuke's lovely little nickname for him.

As it was, the blond just squinted at them in confusion, the six black lines on his face crinkling with the movement. "I would," he said slowly, tugging his arm out of Shisui's grasp. "But I'm already late home, my mum's gonna kill me, 'ttebayo."

Shisui accepted this with good grace, pulling his cellphone out of his pocket with a friendly grin. "Can I get your number then, Naruto-kun?" He asked. "I'm sure you know already, but Sasuke-chan isn't a big talker. I'm not asking for secrets or anything, but it would really be great if you could meet up with us sometime, just let us know how he's doing?"

Watching Naruto type his number into Shisui's phone, Itachi wondered if this kid was really as naïve as he appeared. He didn't seem to be suspicious of their motives (not that there was anything sinister about them anyway), wasn't asking any awkward questions… But there was something about him, something that was marking Itachi as off.

And when coupled with the fact that this boy was supposedly friends with Itachi's precious baby brother, well.

It appeared that he would have to do some digging.

"Found anything?" A familiarly heavy weight draped itself across Itachi's shoulders, the words spoken right next to his ear.

Itachi casually shrugged Shisui off, spinning his desk chair around to face his cousin, who had quickly made himself comfortable on the end of Itachi's bed. "Of course." Just for that inane, insulting question, Itachi was going to make this very difficult for Shisui.

Obviously, the older man could tell, because he grinned ruefully. "Anything interesting?" He played along, resigned to having to drag the information out of the more stoic Uchiha.

"Very much so." Not very helpful; in their line of work, 'interesting' could mean anything.

Shisui hummed thoughtfully. "Anything threatening?"

Itachi scoffed. If he had found anything that would put Sasuke at risk, he wouldn't even have waited for Shisui.

"Okay, okay," his cousin's lips twitched in what Itachi could tell was a repressed grin. "You're so overprotective, you know that right?"

Itachi gave that question all the attention that it deserved; that is to say, none.

"Right," Shisui answered his own question. "So who is this Uzumaki kid, then? He didn't really seem like the type that Sasuke would want to hang out with."

He left unsaid the fact that they'd thought that no person alive would be the type of person Sasuke would be friends with. Itachi's precious (surly, antisocial, cranky) baby brother didn't appear to have any desire for any sort of human interaction.

"Uzumaki Naruto," Itachi drew the name out, thinking back to sunshiny yellow hair and smiling blue eyes. Certainly the complete opposite to Sasuke's cold, dark eyes and raven black hair. "He's in the same year at Samsara High as Sasuke, and they are in the same form class. He isn't the best student, and he seems to get detention at least once a week."

Shisui raised a brow. "Still not sounding like somebody that Sasuke would want as a friend."

"It would seem that Uzumaki Naruto is generally regarded as a rambunctious puppy by his teachers; most of them comment in his reports that he has a short attention span, is occasionally disruptive, and can be quite slow in comprehending the coursework, but it nonetheless a pleasure to have in the classroom due to his enthusiasm and positive attitude." Itachi drew in a deep breath. That may have been the longest sentence he'd ever spoken.

His cousin whistled lowly. "Are we sure he really is friends with Sasuke? I can't see the kid tolerating that kind of personality, to be honest."

Neither could Itachi. His little brother was so prickly; he could hardly stand to be around his own family, most of the time. Itachi often wondered what had made his happy, smiling baby brother become so closed off. He'd grown out of his childhood cheeriness to be sure, but the Sasuke who had started at Samsara High and the Sasuke who was here now… They were too different for there to not have been a catalyst.

And Itachi considered it the greatest failing of his life that he didn't know what that catalyst was. His own precious otōto, and Itachi had failed to stop whatever it was that had caused Sasuke to build such a thick, defensive wall around himself.

Shisui, perhaps sensing the turn that Itachi's thoughts had taken, poked his toes against Itachi's knee. "C'mon cousin, tell me the rest. That can't have been all you found, surely?"

Allowing Shisui to distract him, Itachi rolled his eyes in contempt. "Of course it isn't." His cousin would have to pry the rest of it from him; Shisui's punishment for continuing to ask such offensive questions, even if he did have good intentions.