I love when fics/hcs imply Sasori as Akatsuki’s cranky doctor due to his intricate knowledge of toxins, anatomy, etc.

ㅤThe reply was clear, emphatic even, but it curiously tasted so familiar as well. At a visceral level. That kind of thing that... that kind of excuse, more like, that one offers while on autopilot. What is wrong? Nothing. How many times had he said this to others, how many times had it been said to him? And how many of those times had it been a lie? Not even necessarily for the sake of lying, or deceiving... rather, sometimes to avoid unnecessary worry, sometimes simply because the person lacked the energy to elaborate on what truly was wrong. Sometimes, because that nothing was everything. How do you explain everything? Who is ever willing to listen to everything? Was he even willing to listen to Deidara's everything, right there and then? Did he want Deidara's everything?

«I see.»

ㅤShort answers beckon short answers. Again, it could have died at that; perhaps it ought to. But... déjà-vu. The exact same thing happened a few hours prior, when they ought to have ignored each other rather than enter that tavern together, and then again when they ought to have let each other go rather than leave that tavern together. Was it a sign? A cheeky wave from the universe? Fate? Things that Itachi did not believe in, absolutely none of them. There is no causal nexus, only coincidence. But then why did things feel so much like they were happening and developing in the way they were supposed to? And again it didn't feel like it should end at that, not yet. Not in such a constipated manner. How anti-climatic, really...

«It always felt to me like you wanted to do several things. Hazardous, all of them.»

ㅤWas this a provocation? Perhaps a little bit, but it was truth more than anything else. Anyone who'd watched them around each other, back then, would have wagered the same. Right? Deidara had never even tried to tone down his animosity, much less hide it or let go of it. Someone with something to prove, which Itachi could both understand and not really at the same time. Had defeating him truly been that important? Had he truly been that important? Sounded like such a waste of time, to him. So many more better things Deidara could have been doing, so many better persons he could have focused on. But— You were my first love. We don't get to choose, do we?

«I, personally, would like to do something for you.»

ㅤAnd this, did this now come out as condescending? Pity that you would offer to an abandoned animal in the streets, out of the goodness of your heart and yet from a place from up above? Gods, he sure as hell hoped not, because it wasn't the intention at all. He genuinely wanted to do something to atone, to make up for basically having ruined Deidara's whole life with that forced recruitment, and... again, it felt to him so fucking selfish. Was he yearning for it only for the sake of easing his own guilt? How was that fair at all? Why did it have to be so complicated, why must he always try and overanalyze everything? Oh, the joys of simply feeling. Of simply doing and being.

ㅤ«To ease my own guilt, I think,» there, at least he said it, «but also—» But also what? There was more, yes, he knew there was, but what was it and how to express it? Again, the joys of being able to feel and understand emotions like a normal human being. «Not only to repay a debt, so to speak, because that would imply you need my charity. But also... because I wish you could have gotten something better. Or different, at least… who knows if your life would have been better away from the Akatsuki, but at least you would have had a chance to make choices. Which is something I took away from you. And also—» here we go again, third time is the charm? «Because I would like you to be happy. Not necessarily due to something that I did, of course... but just in general. That you could find something to make you smile, something to give you a reason to keep going. We were never anything close to friends, at all, but you were never someone I disliked, either. On the contrary, there are many things about you I admire.»

And that was that. Or, so Deidara thought it to be.

The conversation had finally run itself into the ground. There was nothing left to explain, nothing left to exclaim, nothing left to blame. Silence nestled between them, broken only by the groaning of the old building around them and the groaning of spring mattresses and lust-drunk people in the rooms adjacent. Good. Because he was done.

His dark eyelids had been growing heavier for the last several minutes anyway. The exhaustion he'd been holding back all evening finally won out, washing over him like lazy waves on a beach. His body sank deeper into the mattress, pulled down by alcohol, exhaustion, and the ugly emotional damage of the night. The tension leaving his shoulders one muscle at a time. He was halfway between waking and dreaming. Then--

"It always felt to me like you wanted to do several things. Hazardous, all of them."

A sleepy, breathy chuckle escaped the blonde before he could stop it. Hazardous was a very light way to put it.

There had been a time when the list of things he wanted to do to Uchiha Itachi had felt endless. He had wanted to blow him up, first and foremost. Obviously. That one had always sat at the top of the list. He had wanted to see that perfect Uchiha composure finally crack beneath the burning light of his art, wanted to watch the Sharingan fail to understand true beauty before it and Itachi were snuffed from existence like an insect being stamped on by a boot.

He had wanted to beat him, too. Not just defeat him in the philosophical sense. No, he had wanted to literally beat him. Hands, feet--hell, teeth, too. He had imagined punching that calm face more times than he could count. Imagined the satisfying snap of Itachi’s nose breaking, his neck cracking from his knuckles punching him in the face. Imagined kicking his legs out from under him, driving him into the dirt, standing over him and finally--finally--being the one looking down. Then, grab him by the collar and shake him, screaming in his face, telling--no, commanding--him to look at Deidara, look at the man who finally defeated you! He wanted to make Itachi angry and ugly with humiliation, and finally break his little façade and fickle pride.

And then there were... other things.

Thoughts he dared not linger on for too long. Otherwise, they manifested into uglier, lascivious things. Like opening Pandora's Box.

He had wanted to kiss him.

Kicking his legs out from under him, driving him into the dirt, not standing but straddling Itachi, kissing him...

Yeah, that was on the list--far, far at the bottom. But not the bottom bottom.

The thought drifted up so plainly that Deidara dug his palm into his eye as if trying to swat an invisible fly. Back then, he would rather have swallowed his own clay than think such a thing. Even now, the thought made an uncomfortable heat crawl up the back of his neck. But there it was, nestled among all the violence, like it was the same thing. Gods, what a stupid list. What a stupid, hazardous, humiliating list.

Again, it should have ended there. But no. Because Itachi kept talking.

"I, personally, would like to do something for you." Itachi said. Then, a pause that felt like it went on for an eternity. "To ease my own guilt, I think. But, also--" But also what? Now, Deidara was awake again, and listening--waiting--for the other man to just spit it out! "Not only to repay a debt, so to speak, because that would imply you need my charity. But also... because I wish you could have gotten something better. Or different, at least… who knows if your life would have been better away from the Akatsuki, but at least you would have had a chance to make choices. Which is something I took away from you. And also—" And also? And also? What else was there to say?

Ugh, the only thing worse than a Uchiha who said nothing was a Uchiha who managed to say nothing and everything at the same time. If Deidara wasn't so bone-tired, he might have checked one of those "hazardous" things off his list and wrapped both hands around Itachi's scrawny neck to strangle the cryptic bastard until he learned how to speak like a normal human being. He was lucky that Deidara was too tired to deal with anything on that list tonight. But, perhaps, he had spoken too soon when Itachi finally finished his thought--and what a thought it was.

"Because I would like you to be happy. Not necessarily due to something that I did, of course... but just in general. That you could find something to make you smile, something to give you a reason to keep going. We were never anything close to friends, at all, but you were never someone I disliked, either. On the contrary, there are many things about you I admire."

Happy?

Deidara opened his eyes and stared into the darkness.

Happy...

What a stupid, impossible thing to say. Happy. People talked about happiness as if it were real, something you could grasp in your hands, or something that was waiting just over the next hill, if you survived long enough to find it. But Deidara had never known what that was supposed to feel like. He had never known happiness.

He knew excitement. That electric thrill right before detonation, the second where the world went white, and everything ugly disappeared beneath the beauty of destruction. He knew satisfaction in proving the non-believers wrong. He knew pride in his art. He also knew relief. The temporary kind, like finding food after days of hunger, shelter from the winter cold, or surviving when he shouldn't have. But happiness? No. He had never known happiness.

Not as a child alone in that cold, echoing house, not digging through trash because there was no one there to feed him, not under the hands of adults who struck him down for being a Katsu, nor among the children who pointed and laughed at him, or from his own body. Not in Iwa, not in the Explosion Corps, not in Akatsuki. Not even in his art. His art had been joy-adjacent. Bright enough, loud enough to drown everything else out. Like a baby with jingling keys. But art... art was fleeting. It wasn't a substitute for happiness. Then, a thought bubbled to the surface.

Would Itachi's death have made me happy?

Years ago, he would've answered without hesitation with an enthusiastic "yes!"

Finally defeating the man who had lived rent-free in his head for years, watching Itachi fall and those cursed Sharingan eyes close once and for all while standing victorious over him. Would he have felt happy? The satisfaction would've been immense, sure. But only for a day. Maybe a week, a month if he was lucky. Then what? He'd wake up one morning, and Itachi would still be dead. There'd be no next fight. No new chance to prove himself. No reason to keep looking over his shoulder for those red eyes. And then... he'd be right back where he'd started. Just as empty as before. Just as empty as he was now. Even killing Itachi wouldn't have brought him happiness.

A long, tired breath escaped him, less from exhaustion and more like surrender. Maybe... maybe there was nothing. Not a fight to win, an explosion to create, a masterpiece to sculpt, or a person that could ever make him... happy. Maybe happiness was a lie, and there was no true "happiness", just living from one brief moment to the next. Or... or maybe not everyone was meant to be happy. He took another quiet breath.

"Oh, Itachi-san! I didn't know expect you to come!" The medical nin's smile seemed to brighten at the sight of the Uchiha.

ㅤIt wasn't often that Itachi found himself jealous of someone, even at such a young age believing that life ought to be taken for what it was, for the good and for the bad — and yet here he was: terribly jealous of the people that got to live in Yugakure. How could he not? A village that had broken ties with a past of violence and war and conflict and militarization, for the sake of nowadays living the most peaceful, enjoyable life one could imagine. Farming instruments instead of shinobi gear, onsen and bath houses instead of training grounds, neutrality instead of dubious alliances... Truly, he had been born in the wrong land entirely.

ㅤYearning for it would bring nothing of useful, however, much less whining and complaining, and so he did what he ought to do — focus on the mission. Namely, start by confirming the rumors about an S-rank criminal from the Bingo Book who'd come to hide themselves among the steam and hot water and, if indeed confirmed, dispose of them. Yay. It felt almost sacrilegious, to consider committing such acts in such a tranquil village, but again... it wasn't like he could do much about it. Best to follow his own advice and accept things for what they were.

ㅤThe main problem was, however, that this was pretty much like trying to find a needle in a haystack. Certainly, the sharingan would allow him to easily spot a shinobi among the crowd of otherwise civilians — but, even so, he was convinced this would have been a task better suited for a Hyuuga. Perhaps even Captain Kakashi, along with his ninken. It is what it is, stop whining. Best to start from the start and memorize the lay of the land, first, and then pick a spot to start gathering intel. By the gods, if it turned out that the rumors were no more than that and he'd come all this way for nothing, Itachi was going to send a crow back and notify the headquarters that he'd be spending an extra week just for the sake of relaxing and pampering himself.

ㅤLooking on the bright side, it was easy to see why Yugakure was such a fantastic hub for tourism; never mind the services and entertainment offered, simply basking in the beauty of the vast plains was already therapeutic in and of itself. Quiet and scenic, surrounded by forests, rivers, and geothermal springs... it truly owed nothing to Konoha itself, as far as charm was concerned. And it was in walking and looking around like this that the young ANBU operative chanced to find a place to start his enquiries as good as any other: a small house still by the outskirts. There weren't any neighbors as far as the eye could see, which meant that, if any strangers would have passed by, there was a good chance the inhabitants would have taken notice.

ㅤQuickly heading over, then, and finding no one by the front yard neither the back, Itachi stopped by the door and knocked a few times. Given the secrecy of the mission and the main goal of not spooking away the potential target, he was wearing nothing that might give away his identity nor the fact that he was not a civilian himself. No sharingan at the moment, no leaf symbol to protect his forehead, no Uchiha crest on the back, no tactical vest from the ANBU, even his katana was stored away in a scroll for the time being. Just a child actually young man with nothing suspicious at all about him; plain shirt of dark cotton and matching pants, loose ponytail hanging over a shoulder just for a touch of extra there-is-nothing-to-fear-about-me. The biggest lie since the days of the Warring States.

He woke up at the buttcrack of dawn, had jam on toast (Mrs. Tanaka gifted them a fresh jar of her homemade blackberry jam!), and washed it down with a glass of ice-cold chocolate milk straight from the cows--the milk, not the chocolate. Hidan was still disappointed to learn that chocolate milk, in fact, does not come from brown cows.

As he walked outside, it was a beautiful morning in Yugakure. The sun had only just begun to peek over the hills, bathing the ranch in pale gold. The air fragrant with the scent of dew-soaked grass and cow pie--so much cow pie. Over the years, he'd gone nose-blind to it, though every once in a while, the smell would hit him like a punch to the nose.

The animals, however, had been awake long before he had. As was Mama. She had taken her thoroughbred, Seraphim, and galloped into town to collect their mail and pick up groceries, leaving him to man the ranch in her stead.

First, Hidan trudged towards the chicken coop. The hens greeted him with clucking the moment he stepped into the coop, milling around his dirty boots while he tossed out their breakfast of seed and grain, then made quick work of collecting the morning's eggs while they pecked it all up. One broody hen refused to surrender her nest, fluffing herself into an angry, feathery ball until he gently shooed her to take her single egg--seriously, all that for one egg?

Next came the horses.

They whinnied when they saw him, noses poking over their stall doors in search of breakfast. He filled each feed trough, checked the water buckets, then grabbed a shovel and wheelbarrow. It ain't much, but it's honest work. Stall by stall, he shovelled yesterday's manure and soiled straw into the barrow before spreading down fresh bedding that smelled pleasantly of clean pine shavings. The horses watched on curiously, occasionally nudging his shoulder in hopes he'd forgotten their breakfast. They had one, yes. What about second breakfast? They didn't think he knew about second breakfast.

Then the cows.

The cows were already waiting by the gate. He opened the pasture, tossed out fresh hay, and walked the fence line while they ate, checking for broken boards or loose wire. Wolves had been sniffing around the property lately, and the last thing they needed was an uninvited guest. Especially since their livestock guardian dog, Ol' Black, had passed away at the tender age of nineteen. Blind and crippled by arthritis, the stubborn old mutt refused to give up his post, watching over the cattle until his final day, basking in the warm summer sun before quietly drifting into a forever nap in the middle of the field and surrounded by his black-and-white friends.

Mama kept saying she was looking for a new cattle dog, but Hidan was positive that, like him, she wasn't emotionally prepared for a new dog yet after having Ol' Black for so long. He hadn't just been a dog, he had been family. Even if it meant leaving the herd to fend for themselves, if only for a little while.

By the time he got to the pigs, the swine had started kicking off.

Their high-pitched squeals echoed across the ranch the second they spotted Hidan--or more importantly, the feed bucket. They crowded the fence so aggressively that he had to use his boot to keep them from climbing into the trough before he'd even poured the slop. Within seconds, they buried their snouts in this week's leftovers, grunting happily as if they'd been starving for weeks instead of half a day.

Once Hidan finally got a break, it was high noon.

He had just fixed himself a peanut butter and potato chip sandwich, poured a tall glass of sweet tea, and turned on the radio for the afternoon sermon when--

Knock knock knock!

Hidan groaned with his cheeks stuffed with ooey-gooey peanut butter and white bread. Seriously? Just when he was having lunch? He swore if that salesman was back again, he'd tell him the same thing he'd told him--and Mama had told him twice over!--they didn't want no magic picture box. They had perfectly good eyes for looking out the window and a perfectly good radio for hearing the news. He could take his "television" and shove it where the sun don't shine!

That's who Hidan expected. But, when he opened the door, tongue poised to bark at the stubborn salesman to "go on, git!". However, it wasn't a salesman at all, but a... kid? Not just any kid, but a kid Hidan didn't recognize. And Yugakure being such a small village, everybody knew everybody. And Hidan did not know this kid (he said kid yet reckoned them to be the same age, maybe a year or two shy). Hell, he didn't even look like he was from Yugakure, let alone the Steamlands. It effectively took the albino boy back, and he stared at the other boy, pink eyes blinking in quick succession.

"Uhhh... can I help ya? Ya lost?" He must be, so far outside Yugakure in the flatlands. His only thought was that this boy was on vacation with his family up on Yu and got lost... all the way out here. He knew Yugakure was foggy 'cause all the hot springs, but you had to have the directional skills of a green-haired swordsman to get this lost. Maybe he was a new neighbour?