“Look, Ojii!”

The little girl tilted forwards, reaching out with her hands as if she wanted to capture the wandering kyuu of flame that warmed and lightened the night. Hikaku quickly grabbed her waist and sat her straight on his lap to stop her from rolling onto the ground. Kids in those days were much more fragile than in his time. She would have cried to attract her parent’s attention even though she would be fine. He did not need to suffer an outburst of wailing this close to his ear, even though his hearing had been slowly waning for the last decade.

Hikaku was an old man. He had buried most of his generation.

And here he was, enjoying a rare moment of cosiness with some of his descendants. His granddaughter controlled the long kyuu of flame like it was a kite tied to an invisible string in her hands. She sat on a rock by the koi pond, as her spine wouldn’t allow her to stand still for long. One of her legs was an inch shorter than the other from the war (so many wars, all blurred together as one), but at least she was alive and whole. Her husband wasn’t lucky enough to come home.

Hikaku also buried many people younger than him.

He remembered all of them. Especially that one whom he wasn’t allowed to bury and mourn for.

Hour four kicks off with Zayn and Liam skateboarding onto the set, and Liam is honestly me with his plaintive “I’m really rubbish at skateboarding” as he basically stands on a board that somebody literally pushed in a straight line into the shot.

Zayn’s all excited that this is his first hour (like, he’s literally pumped up for it, and some could argue that he’s as coked up as Harry appears to be, but he’s not as aggressive, he just seems legit happy to be there). Liam’s an old pro by now, and the general mood is positive and calm, in spite of the mega fuckups in hour three and the immediate in-ear issues they’re both already experiencing. Help, they're so hot:

The first segment is about invention ideas from fans, and joining them in the Google+ Hangout (lmaoooo) is Peter Jones (Liam: “a very rich man”) from Dragon’s Den, aka the UK’s Shark Tank, and for all of his cash and presumably all of the D’s, this feels VERY low rent. Way to sell this Google ad, team…maybe that’s why Google+ is a total failure, hmmmm, makes you think. Anyway, the first invention is a 1D Kube, and noah fence to this fan, I’ve made better merch, c’mon, people think outside the box:

Because Peter’s gross, he suggests using nude body parts of the boys instead of their faces, and me as Liam, completely creeped out by that suggestion. The next idea is a 1D pillow, where you go to sleep, and the pillow pipes two 1D songs directly into your brain before powering itself off, but Liam wisely says this might be more distracting than soothing. Peter’s right there with the idea that it should instead offer up soothing pillowtalk (Zayn, take notes!), which instantly worries both me and Liam because it’s weirdly sexi instead of sexy sexi.

The final invention is fart pants, which boils down to deodorized boxers for people like Niall who practically shit themselves when they fart in closed tour buses (paraphrasing). Naturally, Peter likes this idea a LOT, and asks Liam a low-key invasive question about someone stealing his underwear, which leads to a riveting tale of the missing pants and a nervous Liam asking Peter exactly how he knew about this incident. Peter laughs it off as something he found online to embarrass Liam with, but try harder, asshole…they answer worse questions than this before breakfast.

Next, we get Julian “I can’t bother to find out how to spell his last name,” one of the D’s cowriters, in a cringe VT about picking up girls with 1D lyrics. It’s so fucking gross that only Ben Winston could have come up with it, and it goes on FOREVER, even though nothing about it is interesting or cute or witty or anything other than tedious yikes for the women involved. Even Julian knows it’s creepy, and he seems like a guy who’s pretty comfortable with creepy.

We get back in the studio to some actually attractive people who have chemistry together, and, no, it’s not Julian and John “I can’t bother to find out how to spell his last name either” (they make sure to sit far enough apart to maintain their extreme masculinity):

Liam has some good interview questions for these two, such as, “What’s your favorite song that you wrote on for this album,” and John thinks he’s clever by saying it’s both “Little Black Dress” and “Little White Lies,” but the real gem here is the audio of Liam creating “Better Than Words” out of thin air. Look at this fondness while we all listen to Liam’s genius (it’s kind of embarrassing, this whole bit):

We move to fan selfies, and Liam does a terrible Irish accent to request potato selfies for Niall. Moving on to the call box of doom, the two Larries currently rocking out in there seem to dig “Strong” the best (as you do), and Zayn, valiantly battling someone in his ears, politely whispers, “You can crack on listening,” before shutting the door softly.

The VT of randomness from New Zealand prompts Liam to ask, “Zayn, what did you get up to in New Zealand?” (the answer is getting a snake tattoo that’s one of Liam’s favorites on him, in case you’re wondering). But before we can ponder any of that too closely, it’s time for opera singer Rebecca to return for the excruciating opera version of tweets.

Scott’s on the scene to point out the obvious, i.e., Ziam makes it all look so easy, but this next segment is not for the faint of heart. The boys have to blindfold each other (!!) and then feel up crew members to see if they can identify them. Whyyyyy is this so tender:

Someone else blindfolds Liam after he does Zayn (Liam, after it’s done: “Nobody touch me”), and there’s a brief moment where they can feel each other, and Zayn says, “That’s you, Liam,” and fuckkkk me up, wowwww, it’s a lot to take in:

 Anyway, they go on to feel up a lot of doughy white guys to see if they can blindly identify them, and AGAIN, it’s gross because Scott keeps encouraging them to feel this person up below the waist, too (note, they don’t know if it’s a guy or a girl). Fortunately, it’s a parade of doughy white guys until they get to Lou Teasdale, and Zayn identifies her immediately because she’s so fidgety.

We head over to another Google Hangout, and god, words cannot express how good Ziam is at this because even though the same shit happens here as it does in the last hour, these two handle it all like pros. I live for Zayn’s, “Have you been watching the whole show? Are we doing a good job?” with an intense amount of sincerity, and thank god these girls give him the thumbs up because they truly are.

My fave part of this segment is the girls who ask them what their first CD and concerts were. Liam says Linkin Park for CD and Gareth Gates for concert, which earns him boos from the homophobes in the studio, but warm hugs from me. Zayn, who answers this fan question to Liam instead of the girls who asked it, says he can’t remember his first CD, but his first gig was JLS with the boys, and wow, the first date realness here:

Zayn’s genuinely sweet throughout all of these fan segments, asking questions and being invested in the answers, dawwww. The last question is about where they get the inspiration for their dance moves, and Liam says he blags its, but Zayn is here to kill us all by saying, “My inspiration for dancing comes from you, Liam (Louis in the background: “hahahahaha”) because you’re such a good dancer,” and god, I’m not ready for this right now, tbh.

There’s a BSE VT from the fans before a bingo spin to figure out who to follow (again, just follow them all, what does it even matter at this point, ratcha fratcha). But the most annoying part of this bit is that even *I* can hear the in-air buzz of chatter from Ben’s team, so I cannot even imagine how annoying it is in actual ears, holy fuck.

Next up is a live link to Finland, to say hello to the fans who created a massive fanbook that Zayn carefully flips through and sincerely thanks everyone for creating. The VT he introduces next is Louis playing footie, and YES, look at this angel who’s only 22:

Naturally, there are LOADS of technical problems and fuckups, but it’s so refreshing to hear that “hahahahaha” in a massive, empty arena, and to see him practicing a sport he clearly loves.

We’re back with the poor bastards running the Guinness Book of World Records, this time with Liam’s ass smashing balloons (Zayn: “If he wins, do we get our names put down as well?”). The first time is a bust (ha) that ends up hurting Liam’s balls (how, I don’t know):

Everyone agrees they can do better, but Zayn’s not having any further fuckups as he literally coaches Sandy in the background about how best to hold the balloons so that Liam’s ass can smash them in the most efficient manner:

Sadly, it’s not enough to smash the record, much to everyone’s chagrin, but there’s no time to fret or redo, we're off to Stan teaching Zayn’s school to sing (ooops, the VT is incorrect, it’s Scott teaching the X Factor staff to sing “What Makes Your Beautiful,” and they’re the shittiest singers ever, so go off on judging people, I guess).

Madara paused just inside the door, mantle dripping. Raised voices weren't uncommon in a shinobi compound, and especially not in the home of the clan head – everyone had a bone to pick with Tousan, at one point or another, and Uchiha tempers ran hot. Still, it wasn't so often that Tousan and Tsutsui-jisan were the ones yelling. They usually got along pretty well.

Hikaku bumped into his back, and Madara belatedly stepped aside so his equally-drenched cousin could come in too. They stripped their mantles off, leaving them hanging on hooks and dripping into the bowls set on the floor just for this purpose, and wrung the rainwater out of their hair. Then, fearlessly, Madara poked his head into the next room to see what the fuss was about.