~ Welp, I apologize for the lateness. Real Life was hectic. And the company I work for blocked Ao3, so I wasn't able to upload anymore to my lone source of desktop computering. Uploading via mobile just produces messes for me. D:

~ Again, I thank rabidbehemoth for her input years ago for this fic. Go check her out!

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Perched upside down at the eaves of the roof above the screen doors leading to the dining room, Itachi peered, silently observing the impossibly-colored-hair girl's interactions with his mother. With just a few choice words and actions, she has already calmed his mother in the fraction of the time his father could. Itachi didn't know how to comfort her directly except by helping in the household, and his little brother always ran away after one incident of too much wasabi.

Sasuke always refused to elaborate.

Itachi shook his head; he will know one way or another — he hated not being unaware, as that often have dire consequences — and focused on the usual scene of his mother indulging in strange food.

He dearly loved his mother, yet he couldn't bear to leave the shadows. He was aware how similar his lifestyle was to a shinobi's, but unlike them, Itachi truly lived literally in the darkness. That and he lived in there because of the safety the darkness provides; if he couldn't be seen, he wouldn't be forced to do something he didn't want. He wouldn't be ordered or guilted into becoming a shinobi, and the less murderers there are, the better.

Still, he couldn't deny that it was a lonely existence. Random encounters with his followers — some children he freed from an underground facility some years ago — could only go so far since they're all, himself included, silent as a stone. Him, by choice, since he wasn't the greatest conversationalist and he didn't know what to say to children; the children by necessity — they had to cut their tongues off to get rid of those damnable seals.

Conversation consisted of sign language and charades, but the children were obviously happy and lively. It was enough for all of them to keep their sanity and freedom intact. The bandaged man the children call "Danzo-sama" may consider them as valuable weapons, but Itachi is pleased that they're now freed from the shinobi way.

The final clink of spoon against empty bowl signaled his mother's end of indulgence. Slowly, she stood up, and the girl rushed next to her to help her up.

A part of Itachi longed to be the one holding his mother, to touch her belly and feel his youngest sibling kick. He wanted to hug and touch his family again; his little brother whom he held last months after the Kyuubi Incident, and even his father when the latter stared sightlessly at their family picture in his study.

Guilt twinged in his chest. He had coldly dismissed his father earlier with an abrupt change of topic, but the ingrained fear of the early years of his father and the clan tricking him to become something he didn't want vehemently cautioned him. It was obvious that his father was now repentant and trying hard to make amends, but Itachi just couldn't erase the image of his father snapping in rage once things refused to go by his way.

It was easy to remember why, for all intents and purposes, he ran away. He had only seen a small portion of the Third Shinobi War, but it was enough to activate his bloodline limit and engrave the crystal clear stench and color and feel of —

Itachi shuddered, pulling his blanket closer and tried to relax silently. He wasn't there anymore. He was here, at home. Even if it didn't feel like it.

The clink of the bowl being stacked on the dirty plates on the kitchen took his attention again. Mother was apologizing for making the guest help and swore to make Shisui and Sasuke wash the dishes for four months straight or else, smiling all the while. The girl smiled and nodded, apparently mad that the boys forgot to assist a pregnant woman with chores, but very skilled enough to hide it.

The girl has the makings of a shinobi already — cunning, yet kind and sweet — something his mother evidently wanted him to be, but couldn't.

How did it feel to live openly amongst his family? He hadn't activated his Sharingan before being brought to the Horror, so Itachi only have vague recollections of his family life.

A giggle sounded from the girl. It looked like the plan for the boys to wash the dishes extended to six months. Beside his mother, they created a picture of familial bliss and contentment — something that could last without the shinobi lifestyle.

So why on earth was she throwing her life away?

She is naive, Itachi decided as he observed the girl's eyes, different from the eyes of his followers. They were bright and untainted, very unlike the haunted gazes the adults often have around the village. Some wore them openly, but some managed to hide them. Itachi wasn't a shinobi — despite his skills, he wasn't one — yet he had seen and heard enough all throughout Konoha.

"Shinobi are people, heroes," the Fourth had once told him, when Itachi went to him to reveal what his father and clan elders planned to do. He had thought that the Fourth might be more willing to listen, but it turned out that he was more subtle in persuasion. Talking with him had flashed an epiphany with Itachi and he realized then, with stunned horror, how pretty the lies are if the village — and the world — he lived in glorified murderers. His terror further grew when he realized that one of the greatest of them was kneeling before him, smiling.

Itachi frowned. Will this girl dissolve into such a paradox — killing enemies, yet embracing her family with the same hands?

If I had become a shinobi, I would have surely snapped and massacred my clan, Itachi was sure.

Finished with cleaning the kitchen, his mother led the girl away from the room and turned off the lights, leaving him free to silently scurry inside. Itachi could still hear his mother tell the girl to get water whenever she wished ("— but do avoid touching the special cabinet. You'll know it when you see it— ") before he swept further into the house, still attached to the ceiling.

One of the things he unintentionally found as a boon to his situation was his Sharingan. At first, he despised it for marking him as a member of his frightening clan and for giving clear-cut memories of the Horror, but now, in the middle of the night, it opened the world of darkness to Itachi.

Every nook and cranny was revealed, the grains and lines of the wood counted. Add in the angle of being upside down, the world became more surreal than normal, another reason he preferred this position. He glided on his personal floor, the furniture magically hanging above his head with an unseen force. Itachi stopped by a window, and peered down; just after the edge of the roof, endless ocean of air and clouds lay.

It might be something ordinary for shinobi to travel upside down, but for Itachi, it was something worth reveling in.

In the dark, he was free.

He could be whatever he wanted, do whatever he wanted, sometimes daringly out in the open yet still safe. No blatant avoidance of his family, no surreptitious helping of chores, no need to hide like a criminal — like he was the one who regularly partake in awful things. The comforting chill, the symphony of crickets permeating the otherwise peaceful silence…

Childish it may sound, it was all his.

Then a door slid open.

Itachi sighed softly at the sound as he scurried to the corner of the living room. He didn't like it when his special world gets disturbed, but he understood that nature calls at unpredictable times. It was fortunate that it was the girl who stepped down the stairs, noisy in the quiet night. Itachi meant to greet her later, after all, and ask about her heritage and chosen lifestyle. He just didn't think that he would get an opportunity so soon.

The girl entered the kitchen, and Itachi followed, taking sure to be directly above so that he wouldn't be seen unless he wanted to. Nobody looked up unless something called attention from above, after all. As the girl narrowly missed bumping into Mother's special cabinet, Itachi pondered his mental checklist born from his parents' advice on talking with people.

He shouldn't activate his Sharingan, because people found them frightening. Itachi could attest to that, but how would he see the girl? How would the girl see him without revealing much of his form? Itachi disliked being in the open or being in the light — or being seen at all because if people remembered how he looked, the clan would get a higher chance to capture him.

But the girl was his little brother's teammate. Naruto regularly stares at Sasuke's eyes when they were arguing, and since, if he was correct, she has been loose acquaintances with the two for years, so she should be used to it.

The next on the list was to be unfailingly polite, even if the guest doesn't deserve it. An Uchiha must be dignified at all times, he heard his father say to Sasuke several times, and that meant being polite despite the urge to yank someone head's off.

Personally, Itachi thought that anything remotely resembling Uchiha dignity had died ever since the rumors spread. He didn't understand the need to cling to dignity if it only made one look unfeeling or constipated.

The last one was more technical; light. It was understandable for a civilian to be frightened by a voice coming from the dark, like that delegate years ago, but this girl was a shinobi. It was practically in her training to be able to fight (and kill) in various places, especially in unfavorable conditions, so Itachi felt it rather unimportant to switch the lights on for her.

As if in response, a bump sounded from above him. Itachi frowned as the girl uttered a soft "Ow". Maybe she wasn't fully capable at maneuvering in the dark yet? Untrained as she was though, it was very obvious that she was taking pains to keep silent so that the people upstairs would not awaken.

This kind sentiment struck Itachi. Maybe there's hope yet, he thought. An unseen smile crawled up Itachi's face, and he resolved to at least gift the girl the benefit of sight. This once.

In the kitchen, Sakura sighed in relief. She didn't know why, but she felt as if someone was watching her, and he or she just left. The Myth? Itachi-san? Looking around and extending her senses revealed no one, and the feeling bothered her so much that she ended up bumping and bouncing all throughout Mikoto-san's furnitures. It was by sheer luck that she only barely crashed into the Special cabinet, which was ornately carved and drawn with glowing blue kanji of 'Protect'.

Sakura winced as she prodded at her bruised shin. Since no one was barreling downstairs, the noise she made were probably quieter than she thought; they sounded so loud in the dead of night.

"Where is the fridge?" she mumbled as she tried to see around. She should've studied the kitchen before plowing through, or better yet, turned on the light, but the uneasy stalker vibes she was getting from… somewhere… just turned off all common sense. She would've forgone getting a drink altogether if she hadn't felt the gut suspicion that whatever was watching her, it would have no qualms going into her room and provide her water.

Well, from what Mikoto-san had said, Itachi-san was polite, always accommodating, and frighteningly perceptive, but the thought of a glass of water coming from the darkness unnerved her.

"Ugh," Sakura groused. She was thirsty and she wanted to sleep. Simple. She shifted her feet to stand up, but a brush of heat swept her toes. Rattled, Sakura snapped to look up, only to find… wood?

Furrowing her pink brows in an unknowingly cute manner that would've sent the Uchiha matriarch in hysterics, Sakura stood and studied the large, flat wooden surface. A handle protruded from a side, a feature it shared with its cabinet brethren. Like them, it was probably a polished deep brown in the light, but in the dark, it the brown was submerged in black. But it had heat coming from under it, and listening closely, she could hear it… humming?

"The fridge!" Sakura called out triumphantly. A yank on the handle released chill; a small light at the back illuminated through the transparent pitchers, sparkling like treasure. With a happy sigh, Sakura grabbed one and placed it on the kitchen island. Then she paused.

"Where are the glasses?" she asked aloud, torn between being happy of accomplish a half of her goal and anguished that she had to navigate the dark again just to find a glass. It didn't help that except for Mikoto-san's Special cabinet, every furniture looked the same in the kitchen — even the fridge, yes — flat, polished, and dark. The Special cabinet glowed in the dark, calling attention it like a centerpiece of some sort of an artful arrangement, and belatedly, Sakura realized that the kitchen was probably arranged to be that way.

Sakura frowned and looked away. She was beginning to trust the village's talk of how crazy the Uchiha are. Seriously, if Mikoto-san didn't want her Special cabinet to be touched, why make it that so attention-grabbing that it just begged to be touched? Then she shook her head; now was not the time to ponder such things. She should just drink and go to sleep, then hightail it like crazy tomorrow. Simple. But, where are the normal glasses, then?

"At your right, the first drawer."

Sakura nodded, squinting and groping as she made her way to the mentioned area. After five steps, it occurred to her: how did she know about this when earlier, she didn't? Somebody else must've told her, then. She turned to where the voice came from, embarrassed of how lost she must look and how delayed she was at giving her gratitude.

"Thanks," she called out to…

Nothing.

Sakura froze. Then sighed.

It was obvious that she was going mad from dehydration. The Uchiha were extreme, after all, so it would make sense that going thirsty would immediately translate into the end of the spectrum, after all.

Yes, she was going crazy staying in this house.

Happy with that conclusion — she refused to think of anything else — SIMPLE — Sakura exhaled. But before she could turn back, she heard an unfamiliar voice call out, "Up here."

And Sakura could only look up.

Propped up on the ceiling like a brooding barnacle, was someone — something. It watched her with glowing blood-red eyes, glaring through messy black hair that fell in wild waves around it. Some sort of cloth — robe? — swathed the — the thing — person — bat —

A shift of his clothing instantly snatched her attention. Frozen in fear that he would finally release some sort of evil, poor Sakura can only watch numbly as the famous myth retrieved a cylindrical object and… pointed it at its face.

A click, and the flashlight illuminated his — its — face — and oh nooooo he's gonna show his face before it kills meeeee —

"Hi," it said. In the dark kitchen, the sole source of light under the infamous myth's chin displayed its twisted features that contorted in a sick parody of a smile. "I'm Itachi."

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The following morning, another rumor spread that the Uchiha was haunted by new spirit: the Banshee.

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~ Notes: This little story was inspired by three things:

- a line from one of the ItaSaku fics I've read, namely The woes of being Uchiha Itachi by primary colours123 The line in question was:

("He is a myth" reported a particularly gossipy and energetic granny of 90, nodding importantly.)

- the character Kiri Komori from Sayonara, Zetsubou-sensei.

- the shortage of awkward!Itachi fics. I wondered what would happen if I leaned towards the heavily awkward Itachi, lol. :D

~ Anyhoo, that's it for now! To be honest, I didn't mean to post this fic until I've completed the whole series, but then I just felt I should post it. Gah.

So you'll have to wait for me to finish plotting the sequel (which is full of total AU anarchy) before I can start writing it... which I'll do after finishing my other ItaSaku fics, like Salt & Paprika, Home and Where the Heart Is, Of Monsters & Men, Running to Stand Still...