27

Chapter 27: like atlas is crushing me downNotes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Minato is made the Yondaime Hokage on a beautiful sunny morning. The sky is impossibly blue, the air is crisp and the sunlight is warm in the otherwise cool weather. There are colourful banners lining the streets, chatter and music in the air, joy charging through like electricity. There is pride and relief and an anticipatory sort of hope.

Raijin…isn't there.

He'd stayed for the main ceremony and pledge, of course, before letting the crowd separate him from Kushina and Team 7 enough to give him an opening to escape. There would be too many questions and suspicion if he had missed even that. Besides, he wants to be there for Minato. It's a huge day for his brother and Raijin is unbelievably, overwhelmingly proud of him. He's happy that Minato's dream came true today and that he got to see it happen firsthand.

But he had looked around at all the people gathered at the Tower, faces he barely recognises. He had seen their happiness and their relief over a hard-earned peace, and he hadn't been able to fight the surge of crushing loneliness or the hollow sense of resentment because his people, his village never got to have this.

Raijin never got to fulfil his dream. His friends never got to grow up and fulfil their own either. There's no one even left to mourn them except for him.

And he's just one man. One man against time and fate. One man and his lies and his tremendous grief.

He has friends here, he knows. He has people who care. He has elder siblings in Minato and Kushina, and younger siblings in Obito and Kakashi. He has the closest thing he can have to a ward without having a child of his own in Itachi. And Raijin is grateful to have them. He is lucky to be loved by them and to have the chance to give them his own love.

But, fuck, he misses Sakura, Sasuke and Gaara. He misses Kakashi and Captain Yamato. He misses all of Rookie 9, Teuchi and Ayame, Tsunade and Jiraiya. It's unfair. He should have been able to live his life with them. They deserved better. He deserves better.

He wishes he could just be happy for Minato, but he can't turn his head off. He can't help the emptiness inside him, yawning and gaping into an endless void in his chest, and suddenly, Raijin feels like he's six-years-old and afraid of the dark all over again.

No one here even knows his name. They don't know that he grew up hated by a village that he loved so damn much. They don't know he has a chakra beast sealed inside him. They don't know how his friends did their best to help him grow, how they believed in his dream enough to want to make it real with him. They don't know how he grew up aching with the hunger for love until suddenly his life was so, so full of it. They don't know how he has had to be brave every single day of his life and it's unfair because Raijin is so fucking tired of being brave.

He doesn't feel so brave anymore. He's afraid and alone and so, so tired.

He just wants to rest but he doesn't know how to stop. He doesn't know how he's ever going to be able to stop again.

Has he done enough? Will anything ever be enough?

Raijin doesn't know. He hasn't known anything since he grew up and his entire world ended before his eyes.

 He feels like he is five-years-old, stuck in an empty apartment with a storm outside and nobody to help keep his terror at bay.

He wishes someone would tuck him into bed, kiss his forehead and wait with him until the storm passed.

He wishes he could sleep. He wishes someone would hold his hand and stay.

Halfway through the living room window of his little brother's apartment, Minato freezes and stares.

From the nest of oversized pillows and blankets on the sofa, Uchiha Itachi stares back.

"Hello, Hokage-sama," the boy says once the awkward stretch of silence enters painful territory, dipping his head in greeting.

Hearing his new official title only makes Minato cringe even harder at being caught in this position. A week into his appointment as Yondaime Hokage and he still isn't used to being addressed as such. Half the time, he still turns to look for the Sandaime when someone says 'Hokage.' And now this.

It's one thing to break into Raijin's apartment to steal his brother's expensive plum blossom tea while on a rare break from his new duties. It's another to get caught in the act by the heir of a noble founding clan who also happens to be Raijin's apprentice.

Clearing his throat, Minato slides off the ledge and closes the window behind him, straightening out his flak jacket. He's glad he decided to ditch the coat and hat at least. "Hello, Itachi-kun," he returns, wearing a smile that feels like plastic on his face. "I was not…expecting to run into you here."

Itachi's big eyes flicker from Minato to the window he'd just launched himself through. Because he is a wise kid, he visibly decides not to ask. Instead, he volunteers, "Shishou is out getting groceries for dinner. He said he might be a while."

Minato tries not to let his disappointment show at that. He'd been hoping he could spend some time with Raijin. His little brother has been unusually hard to catch a hold of lately, and while it could be nothing, Minato can't help how he worries about the way Raijin's smiles have been harder to find these past few days.

"That's alright, I suppose," he dismisses, keeping his voice deliberately light and waving his hand. "I just wanted a quick cup of tea. The one they're serving at the tower right now is a little too bitter and watered down for my tastes."

Itachi nods sagely, watching Minato make his way into the kitchen like this is house and not his little brother's. "Father said the same thing."

"Yeah, I bet your father hates it even more than I do," Minato remarks, eyeing the collection of mismatched mugs in Raijin's cabinet. "Would you like a cup, Itachi-kun? I'm making the plum blossom one."

Itachi pads his way into the kitchen on silent feet. He hesitates in the doorway for a second before nodding. "If it would not be too much trouble. Would you like some help, Hokage-sama?"

It's not like he needs any assistance, but Minato gets the feeling that Itachi is a little like Kakashi in that helping would help him more than it would help Minato. Smiling over his shoulder, Minato asks, "Can you find the teapot for me, please?"

They bustle around the kitchen in companiable silence, setting out snacks on Raijin's worn dining table while the tea steeps.

"How are you finding lessons with Raijin, Itachi-kun?" Minato asks once they are both seated at the table with a mug of floral smelling tea in front of them.

Itachi nibbles on a cookie as he considers his response. "Fulfilling," he settles on at last. "Shishou is an excellent teacher. He is very knowledgeable, and his lessons are always very engaging. It is my privilege to be in his care."

"And you are comfortable with the arrangement?"

"Yes," comes the instant reply. "I am…happy with how things are."

Minato smiles, prodding at Itachi's chakra gently with his own. "I'm very glad to hear that," he says earnestly.

Itachi's snow-night-ember-smoke ripples like water and tentatively prods back, a shy smile on his face. The smile is quickly replaced by an openly thoughtful look as he regards Minato with a growing sort of uncertainty.

Minato waits, sipping at his tea. Pushing will do no good with a kid as smart and shy as Itachi. It's better to let children like approach on their own once they are ready.

"Hokage-sama," the four-year-old starts eventually, shifting in his chair, "may I ask you something?"

"Of course," Minato agrees readily, trying to keep his body language open and relaxed.

Itachi chews on his bottom lip in thought. "Shishou says that you're a good older brother."

Warmth blooms in Minato's chest, a smile curling at the edges of his lips. "He said that?"

Nodding, Itachi confirms, "He talks about you a lot. He always looks happy doing it." Frowning, his gaze drifts to the stray petal floating on the surface of his tea. "Mother said I'm going to be a big brother soon too."

'Ah,' Minato thinks, seeing where this is going. He has heard of Uchiha Mikoto's pregnancy. Itachi will probably be welcoming a new sibling in another five or six months.

With the war having ended, Konoha is expecting something of a baby boom very soon. It's quite normal in post-war settings when things are settling, emotions are high, and people finally feel safe enough to expand their families. As a matter of fact, most people in Minato's generation are expecting to be parents soon. He knows for sure that the Ino-Shika-Cho trio are all expecting. The Akimichi heir is due in maybe another two months, and then the Nara and Yamanaka heirs will be seven or eight months from now. Inuzuka Tsume is pregnant as well. Aburame Shibi had his son last month. That's almost every major ninja clan head that has a baby on the way then.

A strange sense of foreboding comes over Minato and he stills. He has the strangest feeling that all these children are going to cause him several headaches. He bets this is the sole reason Hiruzen decided to retire. The Sandaime had been around to see one baby boom result in all the current clan heads, and he was smart enough to wash his hands off the village before he could be put in charge of the next one.

Everyone's going to have babies in the house, which means no one is going to be sleeping enough and they're all going to be more miserable than usual and Minato's the one who is going to be stuck dealing with them. Ugh. Maybe he should just retire too.

Ignorant to Minato's bleak future, Itachi looks up with determination etched onto his little face. "How can I be a good big brother, Hokage-sama?"

Minato blinks. "I wish I had a simple answer for you, Itachi-kun," he admits, "but I ask myself the same question all the time."

Itachi frowns, tilting his head. "But you are a good big brother."

"I try to be," Minato concedes, "but I don't really know what I'm doing. I don't think anyone does. My experiences probably won't be of much help to you either because Raijin and I only knew each other as adults. We didn't get to grow up together. We don't have the history you'd expect in normal sibling relationships. Our interactions are very much coloured by the emotional responses of grownups and our individual life experiences."

"I don't understand," Itachi admits.

Smiling wryly, Minato runs a finger along the chipped edge of his mug. "Your baby sibling will never know a life without you," he says, watching Itachi's eyes widen ever so slightly. "They will always have you and you're always going to have them. You're going to take each other for granted sometimes and you're going to fight and hurt each other too, but you'll also probably always find your way back to each other because that's how most siblings are."

"You and Raijin-san are like that too," Itachi points out.

"I like to think so." Minato pauses. "It's different for us though. We will always have had a life away from each other. We have to actively work on trusting and making space in our lives for each other because we spent almost two decades apart. We both grew up as orphans with no one to rely on and that will always affect our dynamic and individual psyches. I won't ever know what Raijin had to live through and I won't ever get to be there for him when he needed me as a kid. He won't ever know how I was growing up either. That doesn't mean I love Raijin any less, of course. I've loved him since the day we met. I've probably waited my whole life to love him."

"Oh." Itachi blinks, nodding slowly. "I understand now. Thank you for explaining."

Minato's eyebrows rise, mouth twitching into a smile. "No problem, Itachi-kun." He hands Itachi the last cookie with a wink. "For what it's worth, I'm sure you'll make a good big brother. You're caring, thoughtful, and very responsible. Just do your best, give your sibling lots of love, and you'll be just fine."

"I haven't met them yet," Itachi says around a mouthful of butter cookie, "but I know I already love them. Is that weird?"

"No," Minato assures, "I don't think that's weird at all."

Still, he finds himself wondering about that. About being with someone and loving them before they are even born. About knowing someone since birth, being their past, present and future in a way that is inescapable and consuming and irreplaceable. Not for the first time, Minato feels the overwhelming loss in not being able to have that with Raijin. In not being able to love his brother through every year, every day, every fight, every smile. In not being able to see him grow up and grow up right beside him.

Minato loves his brother. He wishes he'd gotten to always love his brother. He knows he's going to always love his brother.

"Orochimaru-san is a flight risk," Raijin says softly, breaking the silence of Minato's office.

His gaze is a careful, considering thing when Minato meets it. He can't help but hate that it is directed at him. 'You're safe with me,' he wants to say. To take Raijin by the shoulders and shake the words into him until that uncertain fear abates forever. 'You're safe. I could never hurt you. Tell me anything. Everything. Haven't I done enough for you to trust me?'

Minato swallows the weight of the scream building at the back of his throat. He puts his pen down. "Okay," he says, "tell me why you think so."

"It's a final betrayal," Raijin answers immediately, as though he'd just been waiting to be asked. He puts down the report he'd been working on and spins his pen on the tips of idle fingers. "I've spoken to him once about his team leaving. He's obviously bitter about it because, as far as he's concerned, they left him behind like he wasn't enough of a reason to stay."

Minato blinks, nodding slowly. "Okay, I can see that."

"And then his sensei, one of his last ties here, essentially chose you over him to be Hokage. That'd totally be a betrayal to him even if he hadn't already been resentful. So, now, we have a powerful shinobi whose moral compass was pretty compromised to begin with, and he has no good reason to stay in a village that has never liked him all that much," Raijin continues. "He doesn't even have a war to fight in anymore. He's going to get bored and then he's going to leave."

Stilling, Minato is careful to keep his eyes fixed on the way Raijin fidgets with his pen. There's a very interesting way his brother says things sometimes, Minato has noticed. It's the absolute certainty with which Raijin lays things down in times like this.

Orochimaru will get bored and angry and leave. The Uchiha will grow resentful and rebel. The village will retaliate against a clan that dares to fight it. ROOT will become a problem Minato will be unable to ignore if he doesn't deal with it now.

He thinks about that sometimes. Minato has been thinking about his brother quite a lot lately actually. About Raijin's strange unshaking faith in the way some things will turn out. About his inexplicably large chakra stores and abnormal healing factor. About his advanced techniques and considerable strength and the contrasting absolute anonymity. About the half truths and secret grief that Raijin is mindful to keep to himself.

There is no denying that Minato trusts his brother. He just wishes he could feel like Raijin felt the same way.

"I've been thinking about something lately," he says, smiling wryly at how Raijin blinks at the seemingly abrupt change in topic. "It'd be a good idea to invest in technology and medicine to further stabilise our economy now that we're at peace, and Konoha has always had a rather advanced healthcare sector."

"Uh, okay," Raijin says, tilting his head, awkwardly accepting the shift in topic. "What were you thinking?"

"Mental health support and rehabilitation." Linking his fingers together, Minato continues, "It'd be good to show how we care about our veterans too. I've been thinking about Obito-kun's prosthetics and how we could potentially replicate something like that for other amputees."

Nodding slowly, Raijin hums and closes his eyes in thought. "The mental health thing would be kind of revolutionary too. I don't think any shinobi village has something like that."

"Konoha almost did," Minato chimes in. He smiles thinly when Raijin's eyes flutter open to peer at him in confusion. "Tsunade-san was pioneering the program before her brother's death led to her departure."

"And you—" Raijin pauses. "You want to restart the program."

"I want her to restart the program," Minato corrects calmly. "I will be requesting for Tsunade-san to come back so she can pick up where she left off. It's an important time for us to make sure we are giving back to our shinobi to the best of our capabilities and I'm sure that she, of all people, will be able to appreciate that thought."

Raijin purses his lips but there's a tentatively growing light in blue eyes that have been worryingly dull all week. The horrible, haunted sort of hollowness alleviates just a little. "She's not going to like you summoning her back," he warns, but he's sitting up straighter as if a small weight has been lifted off his shoulders.

If Minato could, he would take burden that bears down on his brother and hold it for him.

"I won't put her back on the roster for active duty." Minato shrugs. "The Sandaime felt personal responsibility and let her be, but I need her back in the village now. She doesn't need to continue serving as a shinobi—we can manage without her—but her research on shinobi rehabilitation will be invaluable to this endeavour. The civilian psychiatrists just don't have the right expertise."

"And the research with the Shodaime's cells?" Raijin prods, guarded. "What about that?"

Leaning back in his chair, Minato considers his brother. "Well, hopefully, it will be enough to keep Orochimaru-san from getting bored enough to leave."

Raijin's mouth falls open. "You're going to put him in charge of that?"

Minato shrugs again. "He has the necessary scientific background in genetics and biochemistry. Orochimaru-san also already has experience working with the Shodaime's cells from when he conducted village sanctioned experiments to try and replicate mokuton."

"Village sanctioned what?"

Pursing his lips, Minato elaborates, "It was during the start of the war. The program was shut down when none of the test subjects survived."

"The test subjects," Raijin repeats. "Who were the test subjects?"

Minato sighs. Rubbing at his forehead, he admits, "Prisoners of war mostly."

Raijin is quiet for a moment. Finally, he says, "That's fucked up."

"Yeah." Minato runs a hand through his hair. "Yeah. A lot of…questionable decisions get made during wartime." He hadn't been pleased to find out about that one. He'd understood the logic behind wanting the firepower of mokuton added to the village arsenal, but still. "Well, the point is that Orochimaru-san is our best bet in getting a whole new kind of prosthetic off the ground. If he can figure out how to artificially synthesise something similar to the Shodaime's cells, Konoha could start a new medical revolution. It'd be good for us."

Hesitantly, Raijin prods, "And you'd trust him with the Shodaime's cells. Just like that?"

Minato removes his hands from his face to frown at his brother. He can understand Raijin's wariness—in fact, he shares it. He has never been particularly fond or trusting of Orochimaru himself. But it wouldn't do to be so openly suspicious of a ninja as powerful as the Snake Sannin.

"Well, there would be a chain of command of course," he says. "I was thinking about assigning the Sandaime as a supervisor to the whole program so he could serve as a liaison between the researchers and me and make sure everything happens ethically and safely."

"Oh." Raijin blinks. "That's—a really good idea, actually. I forget just how much of a genius you are, nii-chan."

Minato huffs but he can't help the relief at hearing something almost like banter from his little brother again. Raijin has been so reticent recently. So uncharacteristically serious and reserved; like he'd gotten his heart broken while no one had been looking. He has doggedly sidestepped every attempt Minato has made to bring it up and it has had him at wit's end.

Even today, Minato had had to beg and whine and all but demand that Raijin come to his office so they could work together if only to spend some time without his brother avoiding him for whatever reason that he is determined to keep from Minato.

"You should probably also have Orochimaru-san leave ROOT," Raijin puts forward carefully. "His idea of ethics is already skewed and so is Danzou-sama's. Putting those two together is a recipe for disaster."

There is that strange certainty again.

Minato watches Raijin, studies the shadows in the blue eyes that they share. He hums. "I'll keep that in mind."

His brother has plenty of secrets, Minato has always known this. Every shinobi does—it's their currency and trade, after all. But Raijin's secrecy seems to be born of something greater, something desperate and heavy that has his brother suffering in ways he feels he cannot tell Minato. Like one man holding up the weight of the world on his back.

Minato would do anything for him. He would do anything to take the pain away and carry the world so his brother wouldn't have to. He would hold Raijin's heart together if he thought it would keep it from breaking any further.

He hopes one day his brother will tell him.

He hopes one day Raijin will finally safe and at ease enough to confide in Minato.

He hopes Raijin knows that Minato will always, always be there to catch him, to hold him, to take care of him, and to stay.

Notes:

I wanted this one to be longer initially but it feels wrong to add more to it. I don't want to take away from a chapter that is so emotion-centric by adding politics or unwarranted humour to it. This is about grief. It will stay this way.

Raijin's façade has been cracking at the edges for a while now, and it's finally obvious enough to rope Minato into it as well. I don't think he knows how to let someone look after him even though he wants it so viscerally, and Minato doesn't know how to help when Raijin won't really let him.