I'm not sure when it started, but slowly I began to realize that I got this feeling around him. Like I want to stay by his side forever and always support him. But I also felt nervous, not that he could tell. I often had to hide what I thought so I made a mask. It was blank, painted in apathy, carrying an air of casual aloofness.

I'm ten years old and secretly in love.

Years pass and I stay by his side. Things between us are getting strained, because the clan wants to revolt. Against the village. Our village. Konoha. We sit and we plan and we report.

"Itachi," I say. "The clan.." I am not loyal to the clan, nor the village. I am loyal to Itachi and I want to say screw the clan and screw the village but, Itachi. Itachi loves the clan, loves the village more than the clan. Probably loves the village more than anything. We are friends, distant cousins who knows how many times removed but I want. I want Itachi to love me to care for me to notice me as more than a friend.

"The village comes first. We need to stop the coup. Shisui. Are you with me?" He says

"Always." I say, and I mean it from the depths of my soul.

Weeks pass and it gets worse. Thanks to Itachi, I love the village as much as him, thanks to his rants that he has when we are alone.

"Itachi. I will use my Kotomatsukami on the elders." 

We plan. Closer and closer to the day.

It's dark. A flash of cloth and I'm tense. Out of the forest comes Danzo. We fight. Blows are exchanged and I fight. I fight for the village and I fight for Itachi.

It's not enough.

My eye is gone and I run to the cliffs, along the Naka river, where me and Itachi first met. Me, genin, and Itachi, a simple academy student. Simple, but complex and brilliant at the same time. Then I cry. Blood from one eye and tears from the other. I stand and move.

On the edge of the cliff I stand, patiently waiting for the slowly approaching Chakra.

"Shisui!" I smile because the last thing I will ever see is his face. That's all I need.

"Itachi. Here." I look at him with my single eye. I reach up, digging into my eye socket, not even wincing at the pain, and pull out my eye. The optic nerve severed with a snap and my vision is gone. I hold the eye out to Itachi.

"Take my eye and do what you know is right. I will not be able to help you. But my eye will."

I feel a bird land on my shoulder and pluck the eye from my hand. I smile and take a small, backwards leap. My last words as I fall are: " I love you."

The air rushes past me, and I succumb to the darkness.

Tell me. Comment anything. Do you all want me to continue this, or leave it a one shot?