"Itachi! What did you learn at school today?"
The question, doubtlessly familiar to students of all ages from the four corners of the world, was phrased not by a parent, as it typically was. In fact, twelve-year-old Itachi's mother wouldn't be home for another hour to cook their dinner, and his father not until some time after that to join the rest of the family for a late evening meal. When they returned, they too would ask that question. When they asked, his parents, it aggravated him to no end. Because they didn't really care about what he had learned. For them, it was a perfunctory affair, something to be taken care of, like brushing one's teeth. Not something to be enjoyed or cared about much, unless a visit to the dentist was on the agenda, but something that had to be done. A waste of time, essentially, and there was something mildly offensive about that.
"Tell me, Itachi!"
Which wasn't the case currently. This excitable questioner truly wanted to know about what had just been another mundane day. If it concerned his older brother, eight-year-old Sasuke wanted to be included in it. Having got of school about half an hour earlier, he'd been in their home alone since then, minus the time it took to walk to the house from his school. To his dismay, despite the fact that both Uchiha boys attended the same primary school, their classes were completely separate. The only time they saw each other was, briefly, at the lunch hour. Inter-class mingling wasn't encouraged. So Itachi's day was often a total mystery to him. And that simply wouldn't do: brothers were supposed to take care of each other. If someone had been mean to Itachi, he had to know so that he could get them! Plus he was just plain curious.
As his brother got up from the floor where he'd been doing homework, presumably, Itachi poked the smaller boy in the forehead lightly. Scowling, Sasuke back down onto the floor, impatiently waiting as Itachi went through his usual "getting-home" ritual. Finally, finally, he emerged from the kitchen, carrying a plate of cookies and a glass of milk that Sasuke intended for him to share. Sitting down beside Sasuke, Itachi sighed when his brother almost immediately pirated a cookie from his plate. Luckily, the thievery had been anticipated and he'd deliberately brought extra of the sweet treat. Keeping his milk out of Sasuke's reach –little kids spilled and he didn't want to have to clean it up- Itachi thought for a moment before beginning to answer the familiar question that had been posed to him.
"Today was pretty average. Kisame got in trouble for bringing a toy sword to school and poking some crybaby with it." Pausing so Sasuke could laugh and jeer at the unfortunate "crybaby" that had been on the receiving end of Itachi's friend's weapon, he continued when his little brother had quieted again. "Konan made up an emblem for our club. It's really cool." Now another pause was made for Sasuke to interject some whining. Every day Sasuke begged to join that Itachi and his friends had formed, and every day Itachi told him "no". Sasuke was alright, for a kid brother, but there was no way that he was going to be allowed in the club that had been named "Akatsuki" by their leader. He was way too little to keep up, and beside that some of the stuff they did was sort of dangerous, and Sasuke might get hurt.
"There was one interesting thing though. Today, they taught us about sex stuff."
"What's sex stuff?"
As curious as always, the question followed a beat after, a genuinely puzzled look on Sasuke's face. Frowning slightly, Itachi tried to recall the entirety of the lesson, at the same time wondering whether or not he ought to tell Sasuke. His teacher had told their class, before separating out the males and females, that this was a mature topic. Watching as his brother snatched another cookie, Itachi decided that Sasuke was mature enough. Even though he sometimes acted like a kid, Sasuke certainly wasn't a baby, not compared to a lot of other kids. And he hated keeping secrets or lying to his brother: Sasuke could always tell, and though he'd learned not to press the point his eyes always looked so sad that Itachi couldn't bare it.
"It's kind of hard to explain. Here, watch."
In class, they'd had diagrams and models and scientific paraphernalia to aid the teacher, but Itachi didn't have any of that. Getting to his feet, he fumbled a bit with his belt buckle before his pants slid down his legs, pooling at his ankles, followed shortly by his white briefs. Black eyes widening, Sasuke stared up at his naked brother. Though they had occasionally bathed together in the past, this was a lot different. Beneath all the steam and bubbles, not at a lot could be seen, and truthfully he hadn't really been looking, to preoccupied with destroying Itachi's toy navy with his own. But now he was looking right at his brother without any pants or anything, though he had kept his shirt on. Blushing, he looked away. This wasn't… What was that word that the teacher had used when he'd gotten in trouble for taking off his shirt at recess on a hot day? Modest, that was it.
"Itachi, you're not supposed to take your clothes off! It's not modest!"
"Relax, Sasuke. We're brothers, so it's okay."
One day, those words would come back to bite him.