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Itachi’s head was bleeding from a nasty knife cut he had sustained from a skirmish that he had unfortunately needed to partake in. His brother, Sasuke, was a very good hit man and did more than enough for the family at large, but sometimes even he could mess up. So Itachi had jumped in to support him against the target he was supposed to kill and gotten cut up, such was the reality of their everyday life. The most important thing, however, was that Sasuke was unharmed and right back home and on top of that, he didn’t know that Itachi had been injured so he wouldn’t need to worry.
The easiest thing to do would be to go to Tsunade’s practise and get himself patched up, since she wouldn’t snitch to local authority or police and was generally on good terms with Madara and the rest of the Uchiha, but when Itachi figured where his feet were carrying him he realised that instead he was going to the veterinary office.
He had been there a couple of times with his chicken, for check ups and minor injuries and found the vet, Inuzuka Hana, to be a very agreeable company to keep. She was smart and fast, she was interesting and hard working, and she was beautiful, especially when she took care of animals and made sure they were well cared for. In his world of repeated violence and power hungry relations, a soft soul for animals could go a long way.
Maybe that was why he wanted to go see her now and not Tsunade. The latter was still related to this world that he had grown up in, the fighting and the inter clan politics that most of them tried to play from the moment they had been born. He knew Hana at least had the basic training of how to stitch up cuts like this, humans were just animals anyway, at least he told himself as much to justify where he was headed.
It was dark already, her practice was probably closed and when he arrived he realised that he had been completely right about his assessment. The sigh that was easily visible from the street was turned off, and the windows were darkened out, which meant that she was either in the backroom where her office was or she was not at home at all. Itachi knew it would have probably been better to just call ahead and tell her he was coming, maybe make up an excuse or two, but it was too late for this now. All he could do was hope that she would open once he rang her doorbell.
Itachi stepped in front of the door to the practice, looked at her name on the sign next to it. He knew the Inuzuka had a real connection to animals, dogs in particular, but he still felt like Hana was a special case. When she took care of his beloved partner, it felt like she could see into the soul of the animal. There was almost nothing that was more beautiful than that.
He rang the bell. Nothing. He rang it again. Nothing. Itachi sent silent pleas to the sky that she was around after all and as if whoever ran the sky to send the pleas had heard him, the door was unlocked open and Hana looked directly at him.
Her hair was bound up at the back, a sign that she had actually still been working, and she was wearing a lab coat. Hopefully she hadn’t just come out of surgery, he thought, because otherwise she would never forgive him for his intrusion for one measly cut. And the last thing he wanted was for Hana to be mad at him.
“Itachi,” she said, eyes raised in surprise. “What are you do-” Her eyes reached the cut on his forehead and he followed her eyes to the trail of blood on his nose. “You’re bleeding,” she stated.
He bowed his head lightly. “Can I come in?” She scanned his face for something he couldn’t quite place, but then she stepped aside to let him go through.
Hana hadn’t been in surgery, he could tell so immediately when he entered the practice and saw all the urine samples standing around in the open. She had probably just worn the lab coat to analyse for illnesses or such, so that the samples would not be tainted. He let out a quiet, relieved sigh.
“I didn’t know where else to go,” he said. A lie, but it was a lie in good faith so he told himself it was alright. Itachi was an honest man for much of his life, at least when it came to his family and loved ones. But if he were always honest about everything he did, a woman like Hana would never even talk to him, or meet him. If he were honest all the time to her specifically he would rarely have a reason to go see her and he really enjoyed seeing her. Being honest about that sort of thing though came with implications, some that he didn’t feel like touching just yet.
Itachi followed Hana as she circled the table in the centre of the room to reach her samples and close them up tightly. “Do you think you could stitch this up for me?” He offered her a smile.
“You know I’m not a doctor for humans, right,” she looked over her sounder and raised a brow at him. “I have only limited knowledge of human skin.”
Sure, he had suspected as much, but: “I’m sure you can do it. I trust you.” It was true. While he could be initially a spectacle of anyone he met, their objectives and goals, Hana had always seemed very natural and trustworthy around him. Maybe that was because she only tangentially was aware of the life he was leading and what it said about him as a person.
She sighed and then opened a drawer that contained an assortment of what looked like sewing supplies. “I can close it up for you- I can try, I mean- but you will need to go to a hospital to get it checked up.” She turned to face him. “Will you promise me that you will do that?”
Itachi bowed his head down a little: “Promise.” Tsunade would ask him who had done the stitches which would force him to lie and tell her that he had done them himself. Still, a lie seemed easier than to risk that Hana was somehow caught up into his business when she just tried to help him.
Hana walked over and pulled a string through a needle. “You know,” she said, “you remind me a little of a weasel that was brought in here today.” Itachi looked up at her with one brow raised and when she met his eyes she laughed. “I didnt- didn’t even think about your name for a second.”
“Not everyone has the honour to be named after the greatest animal there is: the weasel,” Itachi said with a smile. “I’m glad to be compared to them, they are cute little fellows.”
She seemed to be taken aback by his jokey remark, but caught herself quickly. “Sit down here, you are too tall for me if you stand.” She offered him a chair. Itachi diligently sat down.
“So that weasel,” Hana started again as she cleaned out the wound with a sterile paper she had made wet before, “He was super skittish, always running around according to his owner, restless and wild.” Itachi watched her bite her lip in slight insecurity, but when she put the needle into his skin her hand was as steady as ever. “Needed to be everywhere and see everything, you know? Anyway, he hurt himself while trying to help one of his mates climb out of their owner's enclosure. Needed ten stitches to be fine and a lot of pain killers.”
Slowly, carefully, she moved the needle through the skin on Itachi’s forehead. It hurt more than Itachi wanted to show, so he crawled his fingers into the plastic of the chair beneath him. “Is he fine now, though?” Itachi tried to sound as casual as he could.
Hanna sighed. “I assume he will only rest the time it takes to be sort of alright again. Not sure this little guy can sit still for long. He’ll be back here in no time for me to stitch him up again.”
Itachi hummed in agreement. That did indeed sound like him. He thought of the way he had interfered instantly when he had heard that Sasuke was in trouble, how easily rival gangs could use the knowledge that Itachi would do everything for his little brother against him. This was in large part why Itachi needed to keep Hana out of everything, what he might have felt for her suppressed deep down, so that she could not be harmed in order to hurt him.
“Well either way,” Hana pulled the string, which stung, to pull the wound close together, “Though you promised me that you will go to a hospital after this, I have this very strong feeling that you will be back here quickly after I’ve done this favour for you once.” There was a light in her eyes indicating that she really wasn’t as clueless about the way Itachi was making money as he thought she was.
She moved her thumb over the stitch, the softness of it making Itachi flinch. He wasn’t use to soft touch, at least not since Sasuke was old enough to no longer want to take naps with his big brother.
“Is that a problem?” Itachi asked. “If I would come around another time, I mean.”
Hana sighed and he was half ready for her to tell him that it did in fact bother her, but then she looked up and a wide smile showed on her face. He had seen Hana smile before, when she looked at animals that she thought were adorable (which was almost all of them really). It was like the sun had come out in the middle of the darkness, like he had never seen the light until she had first aimed one of these smiles at him directly. Itachi felt as if his heart had temporarily stopped.
“I would never turn you away if you’d ask for help,” Hana said and Itachi could swear there was a light blush on her cheeks. “Though I would wish you would make better excuses for coming to see me. You don’t need to actually get yourself cut up just to talk to me.” She turned and walked back to her normal table to put the sewing supplies in. “Or bring your chicken buddy to five hundred check ups.”
Itachi laughed to himself, a little embarrassed. Of course, he should have figured that Hana was smart enough to figure something like that out easily. “Oh no, it was that obvious wasn’t it?” He stretched and got up from the chair.
“It was a little, yes,” Hana turned to him again. “If there is one thing you could do for me it would be to just, you know, call me and arrange a meetup like a normal person.” She smiled again.
It was such luck that Itachi was given this magical smile of hers not once, but twice in the span of a few minutes. There was a warmth at his core that filled him while he was looking at her, the same warmth that kept him coming back to her with so many excuses, that made him worry that he might be able to taint her if she’d found out more about his life. The warmth that right now he could not express, because expressing it would mean too much.
“I’m going to try,” he said honestly. Hana laughed: “Well at least.”
He was already half turning to go when he looked back at her. “Can you also do me a favour?”
She blinked at him: “What?”
“Just-”, he felt a little embarrassed again at having to say it out loud, “- never stop smiling. Your smile is like the brightest star in the darkest night.”
When he looked up her entire face was flushed red.