BTW: I do not own the Narutoverse :(

Itachi POV:

"Come on, Deidara! You have to let me come over to yours!" Ino giggled, and Deidara threaded his arm around her shoulders.

"It's not really a great time for me at the minute, Ino." Deidara told her with a light-hearted smile. She looked annoyed, and threw his arm from her shoulders so that it hit his stomach. Although not hard, he flinched. She stormed off, leaving Deidara alone, who smiled and answered his ringing phone. "He-llo?"

There was a muffled reply, and Deidara laughed. "Okay, beautiful. I'll see you tomorrow."

Itachi stumbled into the canteen, heading over to Deidara. He flopped into the chair opposite him, tucking into the biscuits Deidara had thrown onto the table top. "Hey Dei."

"Hey Ita." Deidara said as Itachi studied his best friend carefully.

"There's something different about you. You've lost weight." Itachi finally managed to discover the thing that was bothering him.

"Oh yeah, umm… I guess I've been doing a lot more sport recently." Deidara shrugged vaguely, winking at a girl that walked past. "Anyway, I've gotta go." He stood up and waved to Itachi, walking as if he had an injury.

Itachi spent the rest of his lessons being his normal self, quiet and reserved. Deidara was too busy being over-confident to realise this, and instead was laughing and ignoring Itachi.

When Deidara took a break from flirting with the entire female population of the class, he went to talk to Itachi. "Hey, Deidara, when can I come over to yours?"

Deidara's eyes widened momentarily, but he quickly hardened them. "When I can come over to yours."

Itachi stared at him. "Come on, Deidara. You know that's not fair! You know what my parents are like to me and Sasuke, and I-"

"No, Itachi. I don't want to hear it! If you want to be on equal ground, then that's the way it's going to be. Besides, your dad is easy." He stood with a superior expression, and glared at Itachi, who was left wondering what the hell had gotten into his best friend.

It made him angry. Deidara knew his dad beat them all up. He knew that. So why was he being like this? The bell rang for maths, so Itachi made his way there slowly, avoiding talking to the blond when he sat beside him.

Deidara clicked his fingers in front of Itachi's face. "Yo, Uchiha. What's up with you?"

"You." Itachi told him, venom practically dripping from his words. "You know what my father's like, and still you… uugh." Deidara's eyes widened, and seemed to be glistening with something looking like tears.

"Oh, yeah. Because you know me so well." He replied as he stood and walked over to another table, where he sat with a group of students Itachi didn't even know.

During the course of the lesson, Itachi sat feeling more and more upset, and hating Deidara much more than he had before. Deidara, on the other hand, was laughing so much his sides hurt and getting so much attention that even he felt slightly uncomfortable. The group of students he was sat with consisted of Joanne Barton, the head girl who was past caring about the state of the school and had no objections to criticism, Alexis Manor, one of the popular girls with her skirt around her waist and not covering her underwear, and Finn Jordan, probably the most popular boy in the year and it was quite understandable why after a single glance at him.

"Mr Jordan, if you would be so kind as to listen?" The teacher called to Finn, who was in the middle of telling Deidara a joke. Everyone on the table was listening closely, but not to the joke, oh no. To Deidara's laugh, which was absolutely adorable.

"Can you not hear him laugh?" Alexis cut in, and the teacher nodded.

"So what?"

Alexis glared at him. "Are you joking? Are you actually joking with me?" She turned her face away from him, and carried on doodling on Deidara's arm. Giving up, the teacher shrugged and carried on with his lesson, just as Finn carried on with his joke.

The bell rang just as Finn finished the joke, which left Deidara laughing so much that he felt light-headed and almost dizzy. He completely ignored Itachi as they passed by the door to the classroom, and headed towards town with the new group of buddies.

Itachi shrugged, seeing as he had already guessed that was going to happen. He made his way to his meeting place with Sasuke, his younger brother, and sat on the floor to wait. Luckily, it was sunny, so Itachi had no objection to sitting for the ten minutes it would take for his little brother to get to him. When the younger Uchiha arrived, he looked confused for a moment.

"Are you okay, Sasuke? What's wrong?"

"No, nothing. I was just wondering where Deidara is?"

Itachi stood. "Probably in town, I don't know. Shall we go and get sweets before we go home? I can't face dad, not quite yet." He admitted to Sasuke, who nodded eagerly.

"Oh, can we? Yeah! Let's go!" He pulled on his brother's arm, beginning to run. Itachi laughed at his brother's infectious enthusiasm.

"Sasuke, calm down!" Itachi said, to no affect. Sasuke simply carried on running, yelling incoherently about Deidara and something that sounded like brandy. Itachi felt like crying. Even his brother seemed obsessed with the blond.

Sasuke pulled his older brother into the sweet shop barely two minutes later, where his eyes locked not on the sweets, but the group of people standing just inside the door. "Deidara!" Sasuke yelled, dropping his brother's sleeve and running over to Deidara and attacking him with a hug. The blond smiled, dropping his bag onto the floor so he could wrap his arms around the younger Uchiha boy.

"Hey Sasuke. Where's your brother?" Deidara asked, his tone more conversational than actually concerned.

"Umm… Over there." Sasuke pointed to Itachi, who had been lumbered with Sasuke's bags as well as his own. He nodded awkwardly, and Deidara allowed Sasuke to talk to his new group of friends as picked up his backpack and crossed the shop to talk to the other brother.

Itachi glared at him warily, but Deidara simply took the brothers' bags and swung them over his shoulder. "I'll meet you outside." He muttered, leaving Itachi with an open mouth and no weight on his shoulders. He grabbed a bowl as Deidara's group of friends passed him to get to where the blond was waiting outside, and Sasuke followed example, popping up beside Itachi and almost giving him a heart attack.

"Ooh, I want bon-bons. And bubblegum. And jelly beans." Sasuke's muttering echoed around the shop, but Itachi managed to block it out pretty effectively as he quickly chose his lot, pulling Sasuke away from the sweets and towards the counter when his pile began to reach the top of the bowl.

The shopkeeper looked at the two, before bagging the sweets up and handing them to Itachi, who was confused. "I don't understand. I can pay for them."

"No, Itachi Uchiha. You can't." He said, winking at the two boys and disappearing almost like a ghost. Sasuke grinned, running out of the shop with the bag he had grabbed from Itachi's hand. The older Uchiha sighed, following with very little energy.

"Deidara!" He yelled, and Itachi flinched, but Deidara only seemed to have ever lasting patience with the little kid.

"Hey Sasuke. I'm tired, so I'm going home now, okay?" his voice was soft, almost as if it was hiding tears. The youngest Uchiha nodded, taking his bags from the boy and passing his older brother's to him. Deidara smiled, waving over his shoulder as he walked away. Alexis whistled as he turned the corner, grinning at Joanne.

"Dayum, he's hot!"

"I swear he should be female." Finn agreed, folding his arms over his chest and throwing a jelly bean into his mouth.

Itachi and Sasuke walked away, still hearing the group talking about the blond. "Haha. The joke's on them. He's an asshole." Itachi muttered, and Sasuke shook his head rapidly. Itachi raised an eyebrow, but Sasuke began to speak.

"You don't know what he's going through, Itachi! I do. He's only, what… 16? Yeah, he's already a Jonin, and he's working for Pein." Itachi stared at his brother, and Sasuke nodded, almost as if he was proud of Deidara. Pein was a name that everyone had heard. You want someone dead, you talk to Pein and he'll arrange it. You want something illegal to happen, but don't want to get caught, you talk to Pein and he'll do it. The last thing you do is cross him, unless you want to wake up face down in the sea.

"But… What? You have to have a specialized skill to work for Pein, I've heard. What's his?" Itachi asked his younger brother when he remembered he had a voice. Sasuke shrugged, slowing down his pace as they walked up the driveway to their mansion. Itachi shivered, and the two clasped each other's hands tight.

Hello! I am aware this is a short chapter, but I feel like they will get longer! If you'll bear with me, I promise you'll see why I am torturing my (borrowed) characters. Cheerio!
~Theoneandonly