The Wooden Tag Itachi Handed Him

Nao's words—"Keep moving while you hide, don't stop and hide"—stayed with Che until the day he went to collect supplies from the temporary distribution point.

Uchiha Che saw Itachi again at the temporary supply point on the north side of the clan grounds.

That afternoon, Nao had sent him to collect new clothes and practice paper. The temporary supply point had been set up outside an intact warehouse, with a short line at the entrance. Clan members called the children forward by name and gave each one a change of clothes, a pair of straw sandals, several sheets of practice paper, and a few daily necessities.

Uchiha Che stood in the middle of the line, with Saori ahead of him and Kiyo behind him.

Kiyo was still studying his shoelaces. Recently, he had been tying them too tightly, making his feet hurt after only a few steps; but if he tied them looser, he worried his shoes would fall off when he ran. Che watched him struggle for a while, then finally crouched down and retied them for him.

"Will this knot come undone?" Kiyo asked.

"It will," Che said. "But it'll give you a little dignity before it does."

Kiyo did not understand, but Che sounded very serious, so he nodded.

Saori turned to glance at them. "Shoelaces don't have dignity."

"That's why we have to fight for it on their behalf."

Saori hugged her doll and fell silent for a moment. "You're strange."

"Thanks. You're the third person to compliment me today."

"That wasn't a compliment."

"I choose to take it positively."

The clan members at the supply point heard their quiet conversation, and a brief smile appeared amid the exhaustion on their faces. In the days after the disaster, laughter was like a thin medicine. It could not heal wounds, but it kept people from staring at them all the time.

The line shuffled forward.

When Uchiha Che received his clothes, the clan member handling registration lowered their eyes to the roster.

"Uchiha Che, North Side House Number Three, temporary guardian Uchiha Nao. Five sheets of practice paper, one charcoal pencil. Your injuries haven't healed yet, so no training kunai."

Che looked up. "Do I look like the kind of person who'd use a kunai to take apart a house?"

The clan member looked at him. "No, but you look like the kind of person who'd ask why you weren't being given a kunai."

"Accurate assessment."

The clan member handed him his things. "Which is why you aren't getting one."

Che accepted the cloth bundle and was about to step aside when someone suddenly came over and placed a stack of wooden tags on the table.

He looked up and saw Uchiha Itachi.

Itachi was not carrying Sasuke today. He wore dark clothes, his cuffs so neat that he did not look like he had just walked through the disaster-stricken clan grounds. He sorted the wooden tags by category, his movements light and steady. The tags bore temporary housing numbers and children's names, and were probably meant to be hung outside doors or used at supply registration.

The clan member handling registration said, "Itachi, thanks for your help."

Itachi nodded. "There are still two households on the south side that haven't been confirmed."

His voice was soft, but his tone did not sound like that of an ordinary child.

Uchiha Che stepped back half a pace, preparing to leave.

Unfortunately, one of the wooden tags at the edge of the table slid off and landed right by his feet.

He lowered his head and saw the name on it.

Uchiha Che.

The edges of the tag were still pale from being freshly shaved, its lettering neat and the ink already dry. Che bent down to pick it up, but another hand reached for it as well.

Itachi's fingers touched the edge of the tag first.

Both of them paused.

Uchiha Che looked up and met Itachi's gaze.

This was not like that brief glance in the courtyard. They were too close now. He could see the faint exhaustion beneath Itachi's eyes, and the calm in his gaze. It was not an empty calm, but the steadiness of someone who had pressed down too many things inside himself.

Itachi picked up the wooden tag and handed it to him.

"Yours."

Uchiha Che accepted it. "Thank you."

Itachi did not leave immediately.

"Is your shoulder injury any better?"

It was an ordinary question.

So ordinary that Uchiha Che could not tell, for a moment, whether there was any hidden meaning behind it.

"A little better." He kept his tone within the range expected of a child. "At least it hasn't strongly objected to me standing in line today."

Itachi looked at him as if trying to understand the sentence.

Then he said, "When it hurts, don't force yourself."

Che blinked.

Hearing those words from Itachi was strange. The future Uchiha Itachi would bear too much, and make too many choices that could not be judged with simple words. But the child before him was merely handing back his wooden tag at a supply point, then reminding him not to push through an injury.

"Mm," Che said. "I'm pretty good at stopping now."

Itachi's gaze fell on the tag in his hand.

"Stopping also requires judgment."

Something stirred in Uchiha Che's heart.

Again, words like that.

Recently, the Uchiha clan grounds felt as though they had opened a class dedicated to handing him life advice. Nao, Jian, Mine, and now even Itachi had something to say.

He looked down at the tag and murmured, "Then I'll start by judging when not to fall over."

Itachi seemed to show the faintest hint of a smile, but it vanished in an instant.

"You saved Kiyo last night."

Che grew wary inside, though his face showed a trace of helplessness.

"Why does everyone remember that? I don't think I fell very gracefully."

"Itachi said, "Because Kiyo keeps talking about it."

In the distance, Kiyo was talking to Saori while carrying his cloth bundle, completely unaware that he had been mentioned.

Che let out half a breath.

"He has a good memory."

"Your reaction was good too," Itachi said.

The words were quiet, yet they made Che's back tense slightly.

He looked up at Itachi and found that Itachi was neither pressing him for answers nor examining him with the paper-stripping scrutiny of the ANBU. He was merely stating a fact.

Che thought for a moment. "I'm scared of getting crushed."

Itachi looked at him. "Being able to move even when you're scared is good."

Uchiha Che suddenly did not know how to respond.

It was not a test.

At least, it did not seem like one.

It was more like one child who had also seen corpses and firelight offering another child a simple judgment.

Being able to move even when you're scared is good.

He committed those words to memory, but did not let himself seem too serious.

"Then I'll try to make my fear useful from now on."

Itachi did not correct him. He only said, "I still have wooden tags to deliver."

"Then get to it."

Itachi turned and walked a few steps, then stopped again.

"Che."

Uchiha Che looked up.

With his back still turned, Itachi said softly, "The clan will be very chaotic lately. Be careful."

With that, he picked up the remaining wooden tags and left.

Uchiha Che remained where he was, watching his back pass through the light and shadow outside the warehouse. Itachi's steps were steady. He was still small, yet already unlike an ordinary child. He walked through the clan members' bustle and the ruins like a drop of water that had cooled too early.

Kiyo ran over. "Che, what did Itachi say to you?"

Che looked at the wooden tag in his hand.

"He said my tag looked pretty good."

Kiyo lowered his head to look. "Can a wooden tag look good too?"

Saori said, "You're changing the subject again."

Che sighed. "Saori, you'd make a good interrogation ninja someday."

"I don't want to interrogate people," Saori said seriously.

"Then be someone who can tell when other people are changing the subject."

"That works."

Che tucked the wooden tag into his cloth bundle and did not explain Itachi's words further.

Some things could not be discussed casually.

Especially Itachi's warning to be careful. It could have been an ordinary reminder, or it could have meant that Itachi had heard something, seen something, or already sensed that the atmosphere between the clan and the village was wrong. None of those possibilities were suitable topics to discuss with Kiyo and Saori.

After returning to the room, Che hung the wooden tag on the inside of the door rather than outside it.

Hanging it outside would let other people see it.

Hanging it inside was for himself.

The four characters, "Uchiha Che," sat neatly and quietly on the wooden tag. It did not carry the past like an heirloom from his parents, nor did it carry vigilance like his records. It was more like a formal reminder: from this point on, he had a fixed place in the clan's resettlement system.

Having a place was a good thing.

It also meant being located.

Che wrote down what had happened that day.

"Met Itachi at the supply point."

"Itachi handed back my wooden tag."

"Asked about my shoulder."

"Mentioned that Kiyo said I saved him."

"Assessment: Being able to move even when you're scared is good."

"Reminder: The clan will be very chaotic lately. Be careful."

He paused for a long time after writing that last sentence.

Itachi knew things would become chaotic.

That was normal. He was the clan head's son—mature beyond his years, sharp-minded, and a survivor of the Nine-Tails' night. Yet hearing the words "very chaotic" from his mouth still felt like a thin thread leading toward that figure from the bloody night in the future.

Uchiha Che did not want to completely overlap the Itachi before him with the Itachi of the future.

That would be unfair.

But he could not pretend he knew nothing about the future either.

That would be even less wise.

He could only keep both truths in his heart: the Itachi before him would hand back a wooden tag and tell him not to force himself; the Itachi of the future would, on some night, make a choice heavy enough to crush the entire Uchiha clan.

Both were real parts of him.

Time simply had not twisted them together yet.

That evening, Nao came in to check on him and saw the wooden tag hanging on the inside of the door.

"Why didn't you hang it outside?"

"I was afraid people would see how nicely my name was written and feel pressured."

Nao looked at the wooden tag. "Itachi wrote it."

"I know."

"You talked?"

"A few words. He reminded me to be careful."

Nao's gaze darkened slightly.

"He said that?"

Che nodded.

Nao did not ask any more questions. After a while, she said, "Itachi is a very smart child."

"I could tell."

"Smart children usually have it hard too."

Uchiha Che looked at her.

Nao set down the medicine. "You too."

Che opened his mouth, intending to say something lighthearted, but in the end, nothing came out.

After Nao left, he stared at the wooden tag on the inside of the door for a long time without moving.

This had been his first real contact with Itachi.

There had been no hostility, no intimacy, and none of the answers from his old memories that were so heavy they made it hard to breathe. Just one child handing over a wooden tag, asking about an injury, and offering a warning.

But Uchiha Che knew he needed to remember a scene like this too.

Because if one day in the future he had to face Itachi, he could not remember only the name from the night of the massacre.

He also had to remember this wooden tag.

Remember Itachi saying that being able to move even when you were scared was good.

Late that night, Che did not train.

He sat by the edge of the tatami, looking at the name on the wooden tag, and suddenly murmured, "Uchiha Itachi, you're really going to be hard to deal with someday."

There was no response from outside the door.

Only the night wind blowing over the window paper.

Before lying down, Che folded today's record and placed it among the stack labeled "Reality Records."

Old memories were a dangerous map.

Reality records were the ground beneath his feet.

Today, a faint but unavoidable footprint had been added to that ground.