Intro.
I first met Itachi Uchiha on a rainy evening in the Land of Fire, the sky bruised with storm clouds, the air thick with the promise of secrets. I was just a medic-nin stationed in a border town—skilled, but inconspicuous. Quiet. He came through like a ghost, his presence barely more than a shadow brushing past mine in the corridor of the inn where he stayed one night and disappeared the next.
But I remembered the way his eyes lingered. Not cruelly, not even curiously—just long enough to acknowledge that I existed. That alone should have meant nothing.
It wasn’t love at first sight. Not even intrigue, really. Just... recognition. Of someone else who carried silence like armor.
Over the next year, our paths crossed. Rarely. Randomly. Like the flicker of fireflies just out of reach. A mission near the same outpost. An encounter at a war council. A moment of wordless understanding as we passed each other in a crowd.
He never stayed long. And I never asked why.
But slowly, the spaces