Title: Origami flower

Author: Tuliharja

Summary: It's Konan's day off and the secret Akatsuki hideout is empty aside from her and Leader-sama. Konan had decided to spend the day doing her favorite hobby; origami. But what happens when her peaceful day gets ruined by some other members of Akatsuki? Is her day off ruined fully or can certain someone make Konan's day? One-shot.

Disclaimer: NARUTO belongs to Masashi Kishimoto. I'm merely writing fan fiction about it.

Author's note: Thank you RmsThakoer for betaing this.

✿-Origami flower-✿

Silently, Konan folded the small paper while listening to the falling rain, outside. It was eerily quiet in their secret base that was usually filled with noises the other Akatsuki members made. Most of the members were outside with different kinds of missions, leaving only Konan and their Leader to remain in the base. It was her official day off, which she had decided to spend by practicing origami. Of course, she was already highly-skilled in it, even being praised by her former teacher and one of the three Sannin; Jiraiya. A little practicing, however, never hurt anyone. Plus Konan loved making origami.

She had gotten herself several stacks of paper in all sorts of colors, and had sat down at the big, wooden table in the main room. Usually she wouldn't have even bothered to come to that room, but today was an exception. Today she was guaranteed to be alone, complete silence surrounding her. No one to bother her, to ask ridiculous questions or to point out how cute it was to see her playing around with paper.

Letting out a small hiss, Konan lifted her finger and placed it between her plump lips. She had gotten a paper cut when she lost her focus momentarily in irritation toward the ignorant people who underestimated her skills. Apparently a woman who mainly used paper as her weapon was practically as weak as a small child. But a child could be deadly, if trained well and so could a paper angel, even though her looks would say otherwise. Which at the moment told a little more about her personality, than anyone in Akatsuki had seen.

She had taken off the heavy cloak of Akatsuki, showing an over-revealing outfit that hugged her curved figure like a second skin and even revealed her stomach and the piercing in her bellybutton. All in all, if others had seen Konan now, they would have thought twice about her. Not that she cared what they thought about her, as long as they'd serve Pein-sama and do well. That was all that mattered.

Sighing lightly, Konan allowed her finger to slip away from between her lips, grateful for the day off. Even though she was extremely loyal to their Leader and supported his dream of peace fully, it was extremely tiring at times. Between all the missions and keeping her calm attitude at the base, she sometimes almost forgot she was a breathing human being, even though the Rain Village's people called her 'God's Angel'. It had brought a smile to Konan's lips when she had first heard that. It made her feel special and important, which she didn't feel very often. After hearing that, she felt like they were truly making a change.

Smiling slightly at this small, fond memory, Konan finished folding the cat origami and placed it together with all other origami she had made thus far. She looked at all the animals and flowers she had made for a moment before deciding to make an elephant next. Before she could start though, she heard noises coming from the hallway leading to the main room. Quickly, she stood up and walked to the sofa where she had carelessly thrown her Akatsuki coat and put it back on, just as Sasori walked into the room, followed by a stomping Deidara that was cursing Tobi's stupidity, who whined and apologized to his senpai. Kisame and Itachi brought up the rear, coming in last. Konan lifted her elegant eyebrow as she wondered why they had all come together in a time like this. It wasn't even past midday and the room was already filled with most of the members of Akatsuki. Not that they would usually just gather at the end of day and discuss how their day had been, they weren't like some cozy family or clan to do so. Most of them worked at different times of the day, whenever they wanted or needed to. So it was slightly odd to Konan they had all gathered like this.

"I swear Tobi; one day kill you, un!" Deidara said annoyed tone as the other one merely waved his hand to him: "But senpai, Tobi is too cute and innocent to be killed~!"

Konan almost scoffed at that, knowing Tobi was much more than the innocent, scatter-brained man he portrayed to be. She kept that to herself, though. Instead she shifted her gaze to other members, just to resist the urge to smack Sasori's hands away as he lifted one of her origami and examined it. She silently cursed herself; she had been careless because it was her day off. She should have still remembered, though, not to go into the main room where anyone could walk in at any given time and touch things that weren't theirs. The other members had the bad habit of touching others' belongings and being noisy. Of course, there were a few exceptions and they were all their own individuals, but Konan liked her privacy and preferred that her hobbies, including this one, remained just that; private.

So when Sasori examined her origami, Itachi and Kisame just joining him, she felt partly annoyed at herself and partly at them. She didn't say or do anything, though, not even when Sasori eventually merely squeezed her origami and crushed it or when Kisame accidentally ruined the other origami with his way too big hands. She just stayed there silently; motionless as she considered getting her still-untouched paper and to go to her room to continue her hobby. That idea was also soon ruined when Deidara kicked Tobi, making the man crash on top of her neat stack of paper.

The blue-haired woman watched as the papers scattered all around the room, falling here and there, getting dirt on them or simply got stomped over as the other members of Akatsuki moved. And just like that, something inside Konan clicked.

"Get out," her smooth yet extremely icy and demanding voice suddenly demanded quietly, yet her voice held power that made its way to the men's ears. But the only reaction she got from most of them was them looking at her slightly surprised like they hadn't noticed her until now or to scoff and look at her with the message: 'just go with your dear God.'

For a moment Konan was completely taken back as she realized just how little power she held over the others. She had always assumed they would at least listen to her when she would rarely speak to them. But none of them even gave her a second glance as they returned back to their small conversations or examinations of her origami, each one getting ruined, one by one. She watched as Sasori crumpled those on purpose, making it obvious that he didn't appreciate Konan's artistic abilities as he only thought art that would last forever was worth anything, while Kisame kept accidentally ruining them. She then shifted her look toward Tobi who was now teasing Deidara with her origami, mimicking the animal he was using to make noise, just to lose it as Deidara snatched it away and ripped it apart. And the same things happened again and again. Finally, her gaze shifted to Itachi, trusting the most level-headed member not to ruin her origami, but she was bitterly proven wrong as the Uchiha unfolded her origami and put it away, just to repeat the action with the others. And just like that, in mere moments, all her hard work had been ruined. She had spent hours on those and now all of them were ruined.

Wanting partly to just storm away to her room and lock herself there for months to forget this incident and partly just wanting to throw a few paper shurikens to them, she merely smoothed out her Akatsuki cloak. She knew neither opinion was wise, so just to calm herself she smoothed her cloak as she got passed by Sasori, who was quickly followed by Deidara and then the ever-whining Tobi. She merely listened to their chattering as they went to their chambers, Deidara more loudly than either of the others. She then watched as Kisame had at least the sense to give her a sheepish grin, but the half-attempted apology was quickly thrown out the window as he followed it up with impish grin. He too left to his own chambers, leaving only her and Itachi in the room.

Stopping her actions, Konan considered lashing out at the Uchiha, but she quickly decided against it. She knew Itachi was extremely powerful and she wasn't too fond of the idea of getting herself under his genjutsu for the rest of the day. She could use it to do something she liked and forget this small incident. It wasn't like Konan's world had crashed down when this had happened. It had only been a small thing, not to mull over. But the fact they hadn't listened to her or even shown her any respect, made her feel both bitter and angry. At times like these she wished she could show them just how deadly paper could be, but she knew she couldn't. She had a role to fill, even if at the moment it seemed a pitiful one. She felt like a joke at the moment, but she was pulled away from these sad and dark thoughts when something small that resembled a flower was lifted towards her.

Silently, Konan shifted her look toward the dark eyes of Itachi, tilting her head ever so lightly. The young man held the piece of paper in his hand delicate manner, almost gently as he lifted it toward Konan. The woman didn't know what to say or do as the gesture was obvious yet the message behind it confused her. So, she merely took the paper flower and looked it once again. She could see the sharper and older folds underneath the newer and clumsier ones, making Konan realize the paper flower had been done again. Lifting her gaze now back to Itachi, she lifted her brow slightly, questioning him why he had unfolded it just to fold it again.

The black-haired young man shifted his gaze to the side, staying quiet for a moment yet Konan could see something that resembled embarrassment in Itachi's eyes even he didn't make eye-contact with her.

"…it's not as easy as it seems," he eventually muttered aloud in his smooth baritone voice, making Konan's lips curl slightly up.

"Do you want me to teach you?" she asked the man who was known to be so merciless and proud yet at the moment he reminded her more of a young, awkward teenager than anything else.

"Hn," was the reply that could mean anything between yes or hell no, yet Konan took it as 'yes' as she walked back to the table. Sitting down on the chair, she rummaged through her cloak to find a suitable paper that she started to fold.

Even if she didn't turn to look toward Itachi, she could feel his eyes on her and what she was doing. She could feel him watch her every careful movement as she quickly finished making the origami flower, but not too quickly so the other one wouldn't memorize what she had done. As she eventually turned her gaze behind her, she noticed to her small disappointment Itachi wasn't anywhere to be seen. She thought the Uchiha was probably the cruelest of them all. For a moment she had thought he had been interested in her doings, lifting her hope for a moment. Not everybody thought she was next to useless yet he had merely crashed it by leaving.

Allowing herself to finally show some anger in her features, Konan grabbed the paper flower she had done, just to crumple it and throw it down to the floor. Huffing as she tried to bottle up her feelings back, one by one, behind the emotionless mask she usually wore, she let out a silent noise. She wasn't sure if it was sob or growl as she was feeling both humiliated and angry, probably both. Closing her eyes, she took few deep breathes, before opening her eyes once again. When she opened her eyes though, she noticed the paper flower on the floor wasn't crumpled anymore. In fact, it seemed just perfectly fine as she gave it a closer look.

Quickly scanning over the room she couldn't sense or see anyone, making her puzzled as to how the flower was fine when she approached it. Ever so slowly, she crouched down and lifted the origami up, when she noticed the colors in it. Black, red and white. The colors of the Uchiha clan's symbol. Blinking her eyes at that, her look quickly shifted to the doorway as she saw the dark Uchiha walk down to his chamber, it was obvious though who had given Konan the paper flower.

A small, rare smile made its way to her lips as she stood up and walked to her own chamber, placing the paper flower on top of her cabinet. After that she looked outside the window, only to see that the usual rain had stopped and the clouds had parted to reveal a beautiful rainbow. It was like a sign to Konan whose smile grew larger as she quickly made an origami bird and sent it outside, the bird finding its way to Itachi the next day when he left the Akatsuki base which made the usually stoic Uchiha smirk a bit.

OWARI.