Chapter Text
Sasuke was five years old when it happened; the memory remained sharp: the day his brother left home on a mission and never came back.
“Nii-san! When will you be back?”
“It’s just a simple escort mission, otouto. I’ll be back later today.”
It had been such a brief conversation; at the time Sasuke didn’t think too much about it until later became two days, and then four, by the fifth day even everyone in the village knew something was wrong. His father had led the search, joined by other members of the clan and even a few shinobi assigned by the Third Hokage. Sasuke had begged his parents to let him help, to join the search, to do something. But they refused. He was their only remaining child, and it seemed they weren’t willing to risk losing him too. Days stretched into weeks, and still, no trace of Itachi. Desperate, Lord Third even reached out to other nations, wondering if Itachi had gone rogue, but even that led nowhere.
No sightings. It was as if his brother had vanished, quiet and sudden, like a gentle breeze.
Two months passed, and with it, hope began to fade. The search gradually slowed until it all but stopped. Even some members of the clan had pulled back. Sasuke overheard a few of them trying to convince his father to let it go, that he needed “time to mourn.” It hadn’t ended well. Raised voices echoed through the house, sharp and tense. Sasuke had been listening from behind the door, holding his breath. When the argument grew too heated, he quietly slipped away, praying no one noticed him there.
Then one night, Sasuke was awoken by a noise.
At first he thought he was imagining it. He lay there for a moment, rubbing at his eyes to rid himself of the haze of sleep enough for his mind to comprehend what he was hearing off in the distance. Immediately, he bolted up and ran out of his room because that was the unmistakable sound of his mother crying, in an instant he knew why, knew it in his very bones that it had to do with Itachi, he followed the cries all the way downstairs, and found his father kneeling down, pressing a comforting hand on his mother’s back.
“Father? Mother?”
They jerked their heads toward him, for a moment everything was silent, it was as if the earth itself had stopped moving, then his mother’s face crumpled, and she reached out to him, holding him close, “Oh Sasuke, your brother…”
Sasuke stiffened at how broken her voice sounded. “Did you find him? Is he alright?”
His father closed his eyes, jaw tight as he clutched something in his hand. With a heavy sigh, he dragged a hand down his face. “No... he isn’t,” He said quietly. Then, without another word, he crumpled the paper in his fist and threw it to the floor. His shoulders sagged as he buried his face in his hands. Sasuke could hardly believe what he was seeing. For the first time, he was witnessing his father; usually so stoic, calm and sometimes even cold, completely break down over whatever had been on that report he’d tossed away. His mother finally let go of him, and through her own tears, she moved to his father’s side, gently trying to comfort him. “I failed him... I never should’ve—”
Sasuke watched in silence, the image of his parents, the faces of the Uchiha Clan themselves, seemed to be unraveling by the very seams right in front of him. Slowly, he stepped toward the crumpled paper his father had thrown in his moment of despair. Reaching down, he picked it up with shaky fingers. His chest tightened, heart pounding faster with every minute that ticked by. Dread settled in his gut like a weight. He didn’t want to read whatever was on this report, he knew he didn’t, but some part of him also knew he had to. His eyes scanned the letter, over and over again, he read it and reread it ten almost twenty times trying to grasp what was happening.
Tears spilled down his cheeks as he ran out of the room, down the hallway and out through the front entrance. He wasn’t running blind, he knew exactly where he was going, he turned left, then right, and practically threw open the door to Shisui’s place. Because if anyone could understand, if anyone get him out of this nightmare, it was Shisui. He didn’t even bother to greet his aunt and uncle, rushing past them and barreling into his cousin’s room.
Shisui looked up from where he sat on the floor. “...Sasuke?” His eyes were red and bloodshot, he looked like he had been crying just as much as his mother had. “What—”
Sasuke shook his head, holding up the letter, “It’s not true.” He said firmly. “He would never, you know he would never—”
“Sasuke—”
“No! He wouldn’t… This has to be a genjutsu; it's why I came here, you have to break it, you have to, please… If you break it, then we can find out what really happened!”
Shisui looked pained, gutted to his core as he stood up, slowly making his way towards him, “It’s not a genjutsu, Sasuke.” His cousin murmured, voice strained, “If it were, your Sharingan would’ve seen it.”
Sasuke’s heart nearly ceased beating at those words, “My…” He blinked a few times, reaching up he saw blood mixed with his own tears smeared along his fingers. “No…” He couldn’t breathe, shook his head and denied it all with every fiber in his soul, “No, no! He’s not! He wouldn’t do this!” Gently, Shisui reached out, trying to comfort him, but Sasuke backed away. His eyes stung, his Sharingan burned and his heart felt like it was dying, “He wouldn’t! He wouldn’t leave me here all alone! So… it has to be a genjutsu...”
His knees trembled, and he could no longer hold himself upright. He sank to the floor, clutching the paper in his hands, his fingernails digging into it as if it were a lifeline, his heart shattering like glass knowing that his brother’s own suicide note was the last connection he had to him.
“Sasuke?”
He closed his eyes for a moment, not really wanting to answer but knowing he had no option. “Yeah?”
“Your mother said breakfast is ready.”
“Okay.”
Sasuke quickly got dressed for the day, and stepped into the hallway, where he met his father. He smiled up at him, and his father responded with a gentle ruffle of his hair.
“How’d you sleep?”
“Fine.”
His father nodded. “Good.”
Having breakfast with his father was a new routine, in normal circumstances his father was long gone by the time Sasuke woke up. But one morning, he came downstairs to find him sitting at the table, waiting with a smile. He tried to cherish that, but there was a small part of him that knew the reason on why,
“And how’s training coming with the medical nin?” His father inquired while bringing his cup of tea to his lips.
“Good, my instructor said that I’m progressing well. I even healed a bird’s broken wing with my chakra just yesterday.”
His father gave him a knowing smile, closing his eyes for a moment, he seemed to be mulling over his words, “That’s my boy…”
An uncomfortable silence settled between them after those words. Sasuke winced at the sudden tension in the air.
Even after a year, things hadn’t really changed.
His parents still pretended everything was fine, pretended they were fine, when Sasuke knew they weren’t, they hadn’t been the moment Itachi vanished, the only thing that did change however was his father’s sudden protectiveness towards him, made him drop out of the Academy to study medical ninjustu instead. Sasuke found it ironic in a way, he used to wonder what it would be like to have his father’s full attention, but now that he had it, knowing the only reason was due to his father’s own grief, there were moments when it just felt suffocating.
On the outside looking in, the love, the affection, and the constant care seemed genuine, but Sasuke knew that it also came from a place of pain. Because deep down, his parents were still grieving. Still devastated by the loss of their firstborn, unknowingly putting their second up on the same pedestal as his brother.
He couldn’t help but wonder if this was how Itachi had felt, constantly praised for his talents, labeled a genius, and expected to live up to impossible expectations. Always wearing the mask of perfection, even when, deep down, he might’ve just wanted to disappear from it all. Sasuke had only been carrying that weight for only a year, and he was already mentally drained, emotionally isolated, and tired in a way no amount of rest could fix.
Despite the tension in the air, Sasuke opened his mouth to open up a conversation, he's learned since Itachi vanished to be more open when it came to how he felt, no matter what kind of trouble it gets him in, “Father, I was researching the other day and—”
He didn’t even get a chance to finish what he was saying before his father let out an exasperated sigh, as if he predicted this happening, “I will not be having this discussion with you again, Sasuke.”
“But—”
“He’s gone, son. It’s time you realized that.”
Tears filled his eyes; he gripped the fabric of his pants and took a breath. “No! He isn’t! If you just listen to what I have to say—”
“I am not going talk with you about this. You’re six years old; you don’t understand—”
“I do understand!” He insisted, wiping away his tears, before he would have dropped the subject but now he was letting out all the pent up emotions out for his father to finally see, “I understand that you gave up on looking for him, and now you're trying so hard to forget him, and even worse, replace me with him! You never even found a body and yet fully believe that he would—“
A hand hitting the table with an echoing smack! Stunned them both into silence, slowly Sasuke looked to his left to see his mother sitting there, her head bent low with tears dripping down her face.
“Mikoto—”
“Mom—”
She shook her head, her shoulders trembling, then stood up and quietly walked out of the room. The silence that followed was deafening, the guilt that crawled along his back made his stomach churn, and for a moment nothing else was said.
Yes, he felt guilty for upsetting his mother, but he didn’t regret his words, especially when they were true, his father did give up, his father did just believe Itachi would just leave them with nothing but a goodbye note, his father was trying to dull the pain of losing Itachi by replacing one son for another, believing he truly failed as a father, and while Sasuke understood that didn’t make it right.
“If you would just look for him, please,” His eyes searched his father, begging, pleading for him to understand, “I miss him; let me help—”
“There’s nothing out there to look for.” He stated firmly, his face looking like it aged ten years with how exhausted he looked. “I know this has been hard on you, death by suicide is something no one… no one can come to terms with.” Sasuke’s eyes widened when he saw his father’s eyes become misty. “I know you loved him; your Sharingan is proof of that. I’m so sorry, I know I failed him but your brother is d—”
Sasuke ran out of the room before his father could finish.