"I'm telling you, true art only lasts a fleeting moment, a flash before it disappears. But that's what makes it so beautiful." came the voice of a young man.
"No, art is something that lasts, something that can be admired by all for a long time!" argued back the voice of a young woman.
The blonde-haired man shook his head. How foolish she was being. "We're never going to agree on this, are we?" he asked.
The brown-haired woman shook her head. "I seems that way."
"Then you can stick to your painting and I'll stick to my clay, hm." Deidara responded, absentmindedly working some in his hand.
The woman sighed. "Agreed. But Deidara, I hope something silly like this won't damage our relationship." she spoke, softer this time.
A troubled look crossed Deidara's face, and he took a step towards her. Taking her face gently in his free hand, he stared into her chocolate eyes.
"Kaori, you know it won't." he said, just as softly. As the woman closed her eyes, Deidara suddenly smiled and touched her nose. She then opened her eyes.
"Women are so sensitive, getting worked up over something like this." he said, taking a step away from her. Kaori gave a snort and turned away from him, back to her painting.
As Deidara went back to playing with his clay, creating something, destroying it, then creating something new, a silence grew between them.
The room they were in was small, and cluttered with old paints, plastic containers of clay, finished and unfinished paintings, and scattered paintbrushes. To anyone walking in, they might think that they were walking into some kind of artist paradise.
All was quiet for several minutes. As time passes, an uneasy look grew on the woman's face, and she finally turned around to face the blonde.
"Deidara, I-"
Without warning, a huge dog bound into the room, ignoring everything in its path and knocking over everything it touched. It headed strait for Deidara, whose eyes widened, and jumped right on top of him.
"Damn mutt! Get it off of me!" he yelled, trying and failing to push it off. The dog lay on top of him, licking the man's face and wagging its tail, thus knocking even more art supplies off of their unorganized shelves.
The woman stood up. "Taro! Bad dog! Get off of him!" she cried tripping over fallen objects to pull the beast off of Deidara, who quickly scrambled out of the way. The dog strained against Kaori's clutches, but soon gave up and sat down, still wagging its tail.
"Crazy dog! Does it have to attack me every single time I come over here, hm?" Deidara exclaimed, wiping dog slobber off of his face with a disgusted look on his face.
Kaori sighed. "He just likes you." she said, pulling the dog out of the room and locking him outside.
Deidara stood up unsteadily, remnants of dog spit still on his face. "Yeah, well, I wish he wouldn't like me so much. Really, he doesn't act like this for anyone else. Next time he does that, I'm going to strap him to one of my fireworks or something." he said, attempting one last time to clean off his face. "So, what were you saying?" he asked, turning to the girl.
Kaori blinked, then turned away from him. "N-nothing." She said.
Deidara stared at her, and shrugged. "Whatever. I'd better get going." he said, picking up his ball of clay that he had dropped and putting in a larger tub of clay. "I'll be back tomorrow."
As he turned to leave, Kaori grabbed his arm. Turning back to look at her with a confused look on his face, Deidara blinked.
"You're going on a mission tomorrow, aren't you?" she asked, lowering her eyes.
Deidara nodded. "Yeah. What's wrong about that?"
"Well… Our country is at war… Even the easiest of missions could turn out deadly… I guess I-I'm just asking you… to be careful, okay?" she finished, feeling slightly embarrassed.
Deidara chuckled, to her immediate annoyance. "Silly. We may be at war, but I can take care of myself, hm. It's you I worry about. Don't worry, I'll be fine. See you in a few days!" he said cheerfully, freed from her grasp, and walked quickly out of the door.
Kaori stared after him, then turned to look at her empty hands. For a while now, she had begun to realize just how attached she was to the young, blue eyed boy. Shaking her head to rid her mind of thoughts of him, she turned back to her painting and submerged herself back into her own world of paint and gentle brush strokes.