"Did it hurt?" I wanted to ask, lying there next to him; "Did it hurt falling from heaven?"
i"There's no such thing as heaven,"/i he would say. i"It's just a bunch of fairy dust."/i
"Kakuzu, how do you know that?"
My partner looked up from his book, looking at me with his piercing green eyes, "Know what?"
"That there's no such thing as heaven?" I rolled to my side, facing him. I curled my knees a little, putting my hands together like I was praying, but putting them under my cheek like a small cherub.
"Technically, I don't know. It's an educated guess on one question: Why would there be?" he said to me, sitting up a little straighter in the bed and setting his book down on his thigh, the old and yellowed pages fluttering to either side, keeping his place. "If there's no god, who would determine what we did in our lives as 'right' or 'wrong?'"
"Then what about animals?"
"Animals go off survival of the fittest."
My eyes darted up to meet his, and I blinked, "Yeah, but wouldn't they all go to hell? All they do is kill, eat, sleep and reproduce."
"That's what everything is meant to do. We're supposed to beat, and kill, and destroy. Really, we're animals. We weren't isupposed/i to colonize and support systems for ourselves. If we got sick, we wouldn't have made medicine; eventually, our species would have become immune to it. It might had taken hundreds of years, but we would either have a mass extinction, or we would grow immune. Understand?"
"I suppose," I murmured, closing my eyes and imagining a world without buildings or structure. No laws, or medicine. It seemed decayed, and horrible. "But what about your money? Money wouldn't be important in a world without structure."
"Money would be reduced to trade. The more of something you have, the more you get in return. That's why we have our entire money-based society. We work, we get paid; we get paid, we go get food; we have food, we eat; we eat, we live. See? Instead of the paper or coins we have, it would skip a step – the getting paid part. We would work, we would get food for our families or mate. Or we would hunt, kill," he paused to take in a breath, picking up his book and dog-earring the page he was on before setting it on the ground next to the bed, "... Which just brings us back to step one. Animals kill, reproduce, eat and sleep."
Apparently his idea of this unstructured world didn't seem so bad. "What about culture? Or love – what about religion and marriage? A-and organizations, music, ieducation?/i" I sat up, arms straining at the sudden weight.
"What of it? Marriage would be courting a mate. Sex wouldn't be for pleasure, it would be to reproducing. Love would still be in effect – penguins have mates for life after they court. The rest of it comes and goes, Hidan." He looked at me with curiosity in his eyes, "When does this matter to someone like you, anyway?"
"What do you mean?"
"Love. When does love become so important to someone like you? A religious man with no intent of keeping a relationship no matter how much time had gone by?"
I blinked. Why had it mattered to me so much? Lying down again on the bed, head resting on the pillow again.
"Did it hurt?" I said quietly.
"Did what hurt?"
"Did it hurt falling from heaven?"
Kakuzu chuckled gently, and from the corner of my eye, I could see the smile on his face, lighting up his eyes like I'd never seen before. The smile was awkward. It didn't fit on his face. Big cheeks got in the way of his glaring eyes, and white teeth showed that were usually never let out of their chamber, behind his lips. But he was happy, how stupid or awkward it was on his face. The smile meant he was happy.
"Don't ask such stupid questions," he said, reaching for my hand, palms clasping together tightly, his warm hands against my cold. He brought my hand up to his mouth, and kissed it, the smile dimming, "Of course it did."