When Love Fades

Chapter 29 - Shattered Emotions

Sasuke put the last pot in the sink while Itachi loaded the dishwasher. Since Naruto had left, Sasuke had started to go up to Itachi's place for their monthly dinners. Itachi hadn't commented about it, letting Sasuke get away with some vague statement about 'taking turns' since Itachi had been driving down for the past two years. Both of them knew the real reason was that Sasuke preferred to not spend time in his apartment on weekends when he didn't have to.

"How is the new team?" Itachi asked.

Sasuke shrugged as he squeezed some dish soap onto the sponge and began to scrub the large pot. "It's not all new. Three of them are the same. We only had to replace the members who worked for our partner company. The transition's still in process, so it's a little hard to tell at this point." Sasuke thought briefly how much his workload was going to ramp up after Neji left. He wasn't optimistic enough to think that Neji's replacement would be anywhere near as good. But Neji had been promoted and the joint part of the project was over, so he'd just have to suck it up.

"Hm. You had seemed pleased with your old team," Itachi mentioned casually.

Sasuke glanced over his shoulder at his brother. Itachi didn't generally ask idle questions, but he didn't see any issue with answering honestly. "The team led from their group was competent. Now that I'm in charge of the whole group, it's more work, but we knew the transition would happen. Neji is training his replacement."

Itachi didn't say anything for a moment, and Sasuke had assumed the topic was done. Except it evidently wasn't. "So you won't be working with Neji anymore."

Sasuke thought it was odd that Itachi had actually used the man's name. He was quite sure he had only mentioned Neji in passing possibly once to his brother. Surely not enough to warrant Itachi's attention. "Not unless our companies decide to collaborate on something again. But Neji has already been promoted, and I will be at the end of the month, so we wouldn't be working together the same way again."

"Hm. He was the one you went drinking with a few times," Itachi mentioned as he loaded the detergent in the dishwasher before setting it running.

Ah. That explained it. Sasuke almost rolled his eyes. Itachi had never grown out of the 'overprotective big brother' phase. "Once. We went drinking once to celebrate his promotion."

"Is he going to return the favor when you get promoted?"

Sasuke rinsed the pot before setting it to dry on a dishtowel on the counter next to the sink. "Maybe. He texted me yesterday about meeting up for dinner but I told him I wasn't going to be in town. It might have been to discuss the final details of transitioning the project over, but I think we've pretty much wrapped that up."

Sasuke could feel Itachi's eyes on him, but he ignored it. Itachi's pager went off on the kitchen counter and both Sasuke and Itachi looked over at it.

"I thought you weren't on call this weekend," Sasuke frowned slightly.

As much as he hated to admit it, he worried about how tired Itachi was. He knew that Itachi's career was important to him, but he wished Itachi would slow down just a little. As much as Naruto had complained about Sasuke's hours, they were nothing compared to Itachi's.

"I'm not on call, Itachi said, ignoring the buzz of his pager as he dried his hands then walked over and began wiping down the kitchen table. "They probably looked at the wrong day. They'll figure it out soon enough and page whoever's on call."

90%

Sasuke rolled his eyes at his brother. "According to Mother and Father, you're the only doctor in the hospital. If you need to go in, you can."