Chapter Text
Until 2nd grade, Itachi never had any friends. In preschool, he never really fit in with the other kids who would all run outside to play the second they got the chance, while he would find a quiet place to read. He would focus on his assignments during class without talking to the other kids around him. At first, some kids did try to talk to him, but after a while, they gave up. He didn’t know the games they talked about and wasn’t very good at talking to other kids anyway. Once they noticed this, they would just decide it was easier to ignore him.
He didn’t mind much, it wasn’t like he had anything else to compare it to. Sometimes his teachers seemed concerned when they asked if he wouldn’t rather play with the other kids, but he didn’t know why they cared so much. He could already read at a much higher level than the other kids and always paid attention in class. Wasn’t that all they needed from him?
He knew his mom worried about it, too. She had asked him dozens of times about his classmates or if he made any new friends, but even she gave up after a while. Every few months, she would bring it up again, hoping that something would change each time. It never did.
The night before starting kindergarten, he had snuck back downstairs for some water and heard his parents arguing about his lack of friends.
“Fugaku, are you not concerned at all that Itachi hasn’t made any friends?” he heard his mother ask, the same worry she had when he told her ‘no’ when she asked him about friends. He thought she had dropped the whole ‘friends’ thing, but it seemed the target of her question had just changed.
“No,” his father’s voice replied. He knew his father didn’t see any problem with his lack of friends. Itachi even asked one time if it was an issue since his mom asked so much. He told him he was fine, that Itachi was different from other kids. That a boy as smart as him would be just fine if he focused on his studies. He would probably skip grades and leave them behind anyway.
“His teachers say he never even speaks to the other kids. It just isn’t normal for someone his age.”
“He just has other priorities. The other kids would probably be bad influences anyway. It would distract him from his studies.”
“His studies?”
“I’m hoping to have him test out of first grade and go straight to second. He would be leaving any friends he made anyway, and he needs to focus if he is going to succeed.”
“He’s five!” his mother snapped. “A boy his age should be worried about whether he can go play at his friend's house, not test scores!”
After that, he was pretty sure his mom stormed out because the room went quiet. He returned to his room without his water. He didn’t know why she was so worried. He was fine alone. He never had any friends, so it wasn’t like he knew what he was missing. His father had big hopes for him as well, so he needed the time to study.
He never heard them bring it up again after that, maybe because his new little brother Sasuke arrived soon after their fight. Taking care of him took up most of his mother’s time, so she had something else to focus on. He went through kindergarten mostly the same as pre-K, not talking to any of his classmates. The main difference was the time he spent studying. His father had him going over first-grade lessons most days after school to test out in the hopes he could skip it. Instead of trying to make friends, he spent his time on those. He didn’t want to disappoint his father.
*****
He did end up skipping first grade. His test scores showed that he was already at a 3rd-grade level, but teachers voiced concerns about his social development, so he only skipped one despite his father's protests. He would be starting elementary school as a 2nd-grader, not knowing anyone or having friends. So really, nothing changed besides the faces around him.
The ride to school had been mostly quiet aside from his father's short comments about expectations for his performance. How he needed to always pay attention, and how test scores would actually matter now that he received a report card. He didn’t say anything that Itachi hadn’t heard before until they pulled up outside the school.
Near where the buses let off, three kids had slipped off to the side instead of going right to the building. A kid with weird silver-grey hair was helping push another kid with a long blonde ponytail up to reach a tree branch. A third taller kid stood a few feet away, yelling something to them that Itachi couldn’t hear. The first boy slipped, causing them both to tumble onto the ground. He blonde boy yelled something, and the other yelled back, but after a moment, they all started laughing.
“Itachi, stay away from kids like them,” his father said, noticing where his gaze was fixed as the car came to a stop. “They’re trouble. They have no regard for the rules and will not go anywhere in life if they do not shape up.”
As if to illustrate his father’s point, an adult appeared by them and without hearing the words, Itachi could tell they broke some kind of rule. The kids didn’t seem worried about it, though. He could hear one of them laughing as he opened the car door and headed for the building. How did they care so little? If he got in trouble, he would be mortified. Plus, his dad would yell when he got home. Did their parents not yell at them?
When he reached his classroom, there was a seating chart up at the front of the room, which he quickly scanned for his name. He made his way to his table near the back of the room. He hadn’t paid much attention to the other names on the list since he didn’t know anyone, but he knew two other kids would soon be joining him. All the other tables had been in groups of four, but his was short a person.
As the start of class drew closer, all the other tables slowly filled up, and only Itachi’s remained empty. Even when the bell rang, he still sat alone. For some reason, he felt almost disappointed, even though it didn’t matter since he probably wouldn’t talk to them anyway. He focused his attention towards the front of the room as the teacher started to talk, but before she could get a word out, a loud voice cut her off.
“I told you it was this way!” the kid he saw outside with the long blonde ponytail yelled, throwing the classroom door open. One of the other kids from outside, the one with the strange silver-grey hair, stood behind him, looking very annoyed.
From this closer view of them, he could see they were even more the type of kids his dad hated than their behavior originally implied. The blonde had his long hair pulled back in a messy ponytail, his t-shirt was stained with paint and some dirt-like white smear he thought might be clay. The other boy’s jeans were full of holes and he wore a necklace with a strange pendant that looked almost culty. Neither of them seemed even slightly worried that they were late.
“No, you said it was the other way, you idiot! I said it was here!” the silver-haired boy yelled, shoving past the blonde.
“Shut up, Hidan! You can’t find your way anywhere, yeah!”
They were both very loud. Itachi didn’t think he liked them either. They were being extremely disrespectful as well, not even bothering to apologize for their tardiness or for using rude language. His dad was probably right about needing to stay away from them.
“Both of you, quiet down,” their teacher’s stern voice finally said, volume just loud enough to get their attention without having to yell. “Since today is the first day, I will look past your late arrival, but I expect you to be on time tomorrow, do you understand?”
Neither of them looked at all sorry as they both muttered an apology, but at least they stopped yelling. Hopefully, he wouldn’t have to talk to either of them. He had never spoken to his classmates before now, so avoiding two of them wouldn’t be too hard.
“Since you are the only two students unaccounted for, I assume you are Deidara and Hidan,” she continued, and before she even finished, Itachi realized what that meant. “Go take your seats. You’re at that back table with Itachi. Please try to behave yourselves.”
As the two of them made their way to his table, playfully shoving each other, he realized avoiding them might be more difficult than he thought. Kids like them would be very hard to ignore. Since they were already friends, maybe could avoid them if they stayed focused on each other. If they did, they may not notice him at all. Of course, there was always a chance they would try to pick on him; some had tried before, but his lack of reaction normally made them give up quickly.
He tried to ignore them as they took their seats, keeping his eyes focused on the front of the room where their teacher was about to begin their first lesson. He just had to hope they would at least wait until after class to speak to him. Unfortunately, the first thing they did upon sitting down was try to talk to him.
“Hey, you’re Itachi, yeah?” Deidara asked, already ignoring their teacher’s command to stay quiet. His grin was a lot friendlier than Itachi expected.
Even with the friendly look, Itachi had no intention of talking and getting on the teacher’s bad side on day one, so instead of responding, he held up a finger to his lips as a sign to be quiet. The blonde didn’t seem to like that at all, his grin quickly turning into annoyance. He chose to ignore it, hoping he would at least give up for the time being, focusing on their teacher’s words.
“Don’t shush me!” Deidara hissed back, despite not getting an answer the first time. “No one likes a goody two-shoes, hm!”
“Deidara!” their teacher snapped, cutting off her introduction and looking their way. “I told you to be quiet. You will have time to talk in just a moment when I hand out your assignment.”
After that, he didn’t talk again, just sat there switching between glaring at his tablemate and their teacher. Itachi didn’t even know why what he did upset Deidara so much. All he did was let him know he wanted to pay attention. It wasn’t like he called him out to the teacher. He didn’t want to befriend his new tablemates, but he didn’t want to turn them into enemies either.
“I am going to pass out a small get-to-know-you assignment,” their teacher explained, bringing him to the worrying realization he had missed the rest of her class introduction. After she called out Deidara, he started thinking and completely spaced out. Had he missed something important? “There are no right or wrong answers, just make sure you fill out the whole sheet. Also, while you fill this out, try to get to know the other kids at your table. You will be working with them on other assignments throughout the year.”
As she moved around the classroom, passing out their first assignment, Deidara finally got his chance to talk.
“Are you gonna be like this all year, hm?” he complained, sounding a lot less friendly this time around. The blonde clearly had a short fuse if he was already mad at him. He also seemed to have a slight verbal tic, adding ‘hm’ or ‘yeah’ after many of his sentences.
“Like what?” he asked, still not sure what he did. He just wanted to pay attention to their teacher. What was wrong with waiting to talk until she was done? Besides, if his dad heard he talked over his teacher on the first day, he would be furious.
“The whole ‘good student’ thing. I was just trying to say hi, hm.”
“What do you mean by ‘good student thing’? I was just listening to our teacher. Also, isn’t being a good student a good thing?”
“Not if it’s your personality,” the other boy, Hidan, responded, tilting his chair back, looking bored. “Then it’s really annoying.”
Itachi had never thought he cared about making friends, but for some reason, Hidan’s question made him wonder if that was why he never had any. Did the other kids think he was annoying? He always assumed they just left him alone since he didn’t talk to them. He didn’t know why it even bothered him since he didn’t care about making friends anyway.
As the teacher placed the worksheet in front of him, he pushed it out of his mind and focused on something he knew how to do: school work. School work always made more sense than friends did. It was straightforward and came with a set of guidelines. Even with this assignment that apparently had no wrong answers, he at least had instructions to follow.
He tuned out Deidara and Hidan, making his way down the sheet, answering strange, pointless questions like his favorite color and animal. For what he wanted to be when he grew up, he wrote that he intended to graduate young, attend an Ivy League school, and eventually take over his father’s company. The same future his father told him would be his over and over. He went through almost the whole sheet very quickly, making sure all his answers were written properly, all of them full sentences without errors. None of them gave him any trouble until he reached the final question: What do you like to do for fun?
When he read the last question, it was the first time he actually had to think about his answer, and even when he did think, nothing came to mind. He spent most of his free time studying, but he didn’t do that because he found it fun, but because he was supposed to. If he wasn’t studying, he would normally work on something else his father put him up to, like his martial arts training, but he didn’t do that for fun either. He liked reading, but most of the books he had he didn’t actually pick out for himself.
“Why are all your answers so long, hm?” Deidara asked, suddenly snatching his paper and looking it over. “You made it so formal!”
His eyes scanned the paper for a moment, far too quickly to actually be reading it until he got to the bottom. When he spotted the blank final question, he looked back up at Itachi. He couldn’t see how Deidara had any right to judge his answers, though, since his own were all fairly short. At least they looked better than Hidan’s, none of which were longer than three words and almost entirely misspelled.
“Do you not do anything for fun?” he asked, and although it sounded like teasing, something in his tone felt a bit like pity.
“When I have free time, my dad normally has me studying so-”
“But is that what you want to do?” Hidan cut in. “Does your dad never ask what you want to do?”
“He’s just trying to help me succeed,” he argued, repeating the words he’d heard his father say so many times. Every time his mother disagreed with a choice he made, his father would just say it was for Itachi’s future.
But for some reason, he wasn’t sure he meant it that time. He’d never been asked what he wanted to do before. His father chose before he even had the chance, and he never saw a reason to disagree. What did he want to do? He didn’t have a good answer. The voice in his mind that spoke in his father's voice told him to just stay focused on his studies, but a new voice asked if there was something else he wanted to do.
“I didn’t ask what your dad is trying to do!” Hidan insisted, throwing his pencil down on the table. “Does your dad ever let you do what you want?”
“I don’t mind doing it!”
He knew his arguments were going to be ignored just from the looks on their faces. At his last comment, the two of them made eye contact and seemed to have some kind of silent discussion. They also seemed to quickly come to an agreement because when they turned back to him, they were grinning.
“Alright, forget your stupid dad this year,” Deidara said, his smile widening. “Because this year we are going to make sure you actually have some fun.”
He was starting to think he wouldn’t be able to escape them so easily. And maybe that was a good thing.