Next chapter is the last one.
Chapter 2: Don't cry for me.
Konan had never felt so tired before. Her body felt very weak, and she lay still on her bed, her chest rising and falling with every breath she took.
Her makeup streaked in black and blue lines down her face, and continued to do so. She had failed to stop her tears for the past few days. Every single time she thought of Hidan she cried profusely, and every time someone mentioned his name her throat constricted.
Konan shakily pushed herself up from her bed. Nagato was probably wondering if she was alright. She didn't want him to send Pein to check on her.
'I wonder if he enjoys my tears,' she thought as she walked into the bathroom and flinched at her reflection. She grabbed a cloth, turned on the faucet and began to wash her face, 'he always mentions Hidan when I'm around... oh, Hidan...'
She nearly threw a fit when more tears seeped out of her eyes.
"What's wrong with me!?" she screeched, throwing the cloth at her mirror. It splatted against the glass and slumped down onto the counter top. Konan sat down on the edge of the tub and buried her face in her hands, sobbing loudly.
'I'm a kunoichi. Kunoichi don't cry this much. Why am I crying? Why? I hardly even knew him!'
She shook her head vigorously and wiped her eyes on her sleeve. She stood, intending to go to the bathhouse and have a bath. That would calm her – warm baths always did.
'Warm baths with roses... ah, I feel better already.'
Konan gave up on washing her face, deciding to finish the job in the bathhouse. She left her room and made her way down the hall, passing by Itachi as she went. They said nothing to each other; Konan was sure he didn't even know he had passed her by.
She turned the corner and bumped right into Kisame's expansive chest. Dazed slightly – he was a very sturdy man – she stepped back and gazed up at him. He stared down at her with an expression similar to horror.
He grabbed her arm before she could make her way around him, "Konan, are you okay? You don't look so good..."
"I don't feel good."
"Maybe you shouldn't have put it on then eh?"
"Put it... ? Oh. Oh right."
Konan placed a hand against her chest, causing the rosary to press against her skin. She clutched it suddenly and whispered fiercely, "I'm not taking it off. You can't make me."
Kisame slowly let her go and backed off so he could look at her better. His eyes were narrowed in caution but his brow was furrowed with worry.
"Konan," he spoke so sternly that it caused Konan to revert back to her usual self, "you aren't being yourself. You're being rather obsessive, if you ask me."
"I'm not obsessed!" she retorted, storming past him. His eyes followed her and he called, "well, you certainly are being a girl!"
Konan had to smile; that was Kisame for you. He made a joke out of everything.
–
"Leave me alone."
"But I can see you aren't well."
"Then you should also see that I want to be alone right now," Konan replied dryly, glaring at Pein's reflection. He shifted his position in the door frame.
"That necklace is damaging you; I can tell. It would be in your best interest to remove it."
"Removing it might kill her. I hope you realize that, leader-sama."
Pein turned his ginger head and Konan submerged herself in the water as he said, "Kisame?"
When Konan burst out of the water Pein was storming out of the bathhouse and Kisame had a nasty looking cut along his cheek. Konan gasped and jumped out of the tub, unaware for the moment of her current nakedness.
"Kisame! Are you alright?"
"Uh... if I don't get a nosebleed, yes."
Immediately Konan blushed and morphed into paper. Kisame backed up a bit and Konan realized that he thought she was going to give him a million paper cuts. She whizzed away from him, toward the back of the bathhouse where the towels were. He visibly relaxed.
Once she had wrapped a towel around her body she walked toward him and blushed lightly. He had looped her cloak over his arm, along with her split tail shirt. He gave her a crooked smile and peeked outside the door.
"No one's around... come on."
She followed closely behind his large form, poking her head out from behind him every few seconds. He stopped at a fork in the halls and looked in both directions; he turned around.
"Uh, your room was...?"
"This way," she replied, turning to the left. He followed her and handed her her clothes once she was inside the room.
"Thanks."
"No problem. By the way, the rosary... is kind of leaving some nasty white marks on your skin."
He turned swiftly and headed down the hall before she could ask him what he meant.
Konan closed the door and looked down at her chest, astonished to find that there were white marks on her chest where the rosary was lying against it.
'… I hadn't even taken it off when I bathed. Something is wrong with me.'
She sighed and got dressed, muttering under her breath the whole while. She hated how Pein flocked over her like a hawk, she liked how Kisame was suddenly so kind to her, she didn't like that Itachi ignored her and Deidara really needed to stop flirting with her or he was going to get hemorrhaged by Pein.
Konan jolted into a standing position, 'when did I start thinking about all of this?'
"Recently. Ever since that, actually. Seriously, Konan, what did you expect?"
Konan stared at Hidan, who reclined like an angel on her bed, staring at her with keen amethyst eyes. Her cheeks warmed under his gaze and secretly she wondered when she had begun developing feelings for the angelic sadist.
His lips curled up from a frown to a knowing smirk and he gently rubbed his thumb over the red heart in his hand. Konan gasped and brought her hands to her chest – her heart felt as though it was being caressed.
"You can't freaking hide anything from me, Konan-chan. Your heart is mine, remember? No thought of yours is secret from me," he informed her. His gaze stayed focused on her heart for a moment longer before he raised his eyes to hers, "angelic? Do I really look angelic?" his face fell, "I'm anything but an angel, Konan."
Her lips moved soundlessly until she finally blurted out, "then your wings -! Where did your wings -?"
He glanced over his shoulder and a hummingbird soft wing twitched its longest feathers, "so you can see them, huh? Think about it, Konan. What am I?"
"A... human...?"
"... you know more about me than that."
"You're immortal."
"Where am I?"
"In a hole."
"So what's the only alternative way that I can freaking travel around?"
"... by flying?"
He stood in front of her suddenly, his form still lying on the bed. Konan's eyes widened as she watched the reclining form continue to move: it looked down at her heart again.
She lifted lachrymose amber eyes to look at the Hidan in front of her. He passed the misty hand that was not in possession of her heart over the rosary, "no, Konan, no. You're not thinking hard enough. Yes, I'm immortal. No, I'm not in a hole. No, I don't travel around by flying," he sighed and cupped her cheek in his hand, "do I have to tell you everything?"
She started shaking her head, tears slipping out of her eyes, "no.... no..."
"But you don't frikkin' get it."
"I'm confused!"
"'Course you're confused. Let me try again: what am I?"
"I-Immortal."
"Where am I right now?"
"Standing in front of me," she replied, tilting her head at him, her tears forgotten for now.
"So how do you think I flipping got here in the first place?"
Konan's lower lip quivered as she thought about him. He was in her thoughts all the time. In her mind's eye she often saw him with white wings, pristine features, a calm expression and the swearing habit was all but gone. Her eyes widened at this realization.
"You're here because I... because I... I..." she threw a small fit and dashed past him, throwing herself onto her bed in despair. Into her pillow she screamed her answer but to him it would only sound like a muffled protest.
His weight settled on the edge of her bed and his hand rubbed over her back – it was no loving gesture, because Hidan could not love – he was only trying to be kind.
"What the hell are you crying about Konan?"
She spoke her answer secretly because he would hear it anyway, "Because I'm falling in love with you, and you're not here. Is that not obvious to you?"
His hand lifted from her back and Konan felt a brush against her heart.
"I only have one true love, Konan, and that is my god. You know that."
"But I want you. I want you to love me back."
She heard him laugh lightly. It wasn't a crazy, sadistic laugh, but a gentle laugh that imitated the sound of a brook. She lifted her head to see him fading away.
"I have to learn how to love someone else, Konan. I have to be frikkin' taught. And," he gestured at the rosary, "I have to get away from that, and to get away from that I need to learn how to love."
Konan snapped out her arm to try and touch his face but her fingers disturbed the smoke instead. All that remained was a lingering echo, "don't cry for me."
Despite his request, she cried profusely anyway.
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Konan blinked at Pein, swallowing a lump in her throat. Itachi stared blankly at Tobi who stood next to Pein, his chest rising and falling with his breaths.
"Tobi couldn't save him... Tobi... Tobi failed," he hung his head, "Tobi is sorry, very sorry."
"Tobi. Shut up," Kisame growled, his head in his hands. Zetsu swayed out of the room, arguing in a low voice with himself about whether or not to go and see if there was anything left in the area. Tobi leaned on his knuckles against the table; Konan sensed fury wafting off of him.
"Sasuke got away," he stated simply, his masked face turning to Itachi before he exited the room after Zetsu. Pein sighed and leaned back in his chair.
"... what?"
He nearly glared at Konan and she immediately recoiled. He sighed again, "Konan. Deidara is dead. He blew himself up trying to get rid of Sasuke..." his words trailed off.
Konan's hands came up to cover her face and she sobbed lightly into her hands. A hand rested tentatively on her shoulder; she reached up and covered the hand with her own. The amount of rough skin she felt told her that Kisame was the one attempting to comfort her.
A few minutes later into her sobbing two fingers trailed along her shoulders. She finally lifted her head from her hand and looked over her shoulder to see that Itachi was leaving the room. She smiled through her tears at Kisame and rose, "thank you."
He nodded at her and stood as well. He stared at her for a moment before leaving the room, and, after exchanging a look with Pein, Konan trailed after him.
'I can't believe it. First Sasori, then Hidan and Kakuzu, now Deidara... who... who's next?'
Konan's answer came next month.
Since Tobi – or rather, Madara – had informed Pein and Konan that they would be the ones going after the nine-tails Itachi had tried to convince Konan to take no part in it.
"It's not because it's my old village, Konan-san. Madara is trying to recreate what happened fifteen years ago, and there is no Shodai Hokage to deal with it. No one else could control the Bijuu like he could; nobody."
Konan shook her head and clutched at Hidan's rosary, "Itachi-san, I can't – I just can't. I have to go along with this."
"You don't have to, seriously. You don't have to follow Pein around like a dog all the time."
She jumped up and nearly knocked Itachi over. Her voice came out soft and timid, "Hi-dan..?"
He smiled at her, "yes, Konan?"
She blinked her eyes rapidly, "I thought you could only... when I... now I... not now I..."
"As long as there's someone around who will eventually think of me, I can frikkin' appear to them. Itachi can't see me though. Did you know he thinks about us sometimes?"
"Us?" she glanced at Itachi while asking this to see that he had activated his Sharingan and was trying futilely to find the source with which she spoke.
"Yeah. Like Deidara, Kakuzu, Sasori... he thinks of all of us. He freaking cares Konan. He wonders that if he had the ability to take on Madara himself we may have been saved from our fates."
"He is strong enough!"
"He's not, Konan. He's sick."
"But if he could have saved you -" she fumed until Hidan shifted in front of her. Itachi jumped back and reached out a hand, his eyes inspecting the air in front of Konan.
"Did he feel that?"
"Yes, he did. He knows that there's something here. Judging by how he's acting, he thinks it's hostile toward you."
Konan followed Hidan's amethyst gaze to see that Itachi had taken on a slightly defensive stance next to her, eyes still roving.
"Itachi, it's... all right. I'm not in danger," he didn't look convinced so she lifted the rosary out from under her cloak. He immediately calmed and flounced down on the couch. Konan continued her conversation with Hidan in a low voice, "but if he could have saved you..."
"Konan, listen. He had to make a choice here. Trying to save us may have resulted in him getting ganged up on by us, he may have been forced to kill us off, Pein may have ignored him, etcetera, etcetera. There's only so much one weak little Itachi can do. We all had our own agendas to fulfill... he frikkin' has his. All I'm saying is that we died for no reason at all. Honestly. For most of us, the Akatsuki is meaningless, seriously."
Then he sifted away with a breeze. Konan whirled around to see that Itachi had opened the window.
"It's nice outside," he muttered.
Hope you like it so far.
