Chapter 2: More Than Partners
The rain was drumming on the roof. That wasn't unusual—this place wasn't called the Village Hidden in the Rain for nothing, after all.
Lightning flashed outside the windows of the tallest tower in the western quarter of the city. The periodic bursts of light illuminated small things within the darkened room at the top of the tower.
Fingers running through spiky auburn hair. Mouths meeting in a kiss that started out soft before growing more passionate. Gray eyes with concentric rings around the pupils gazing at curves that seemed far too delicate to belong to a woman as deadly as she was. Lips trailing along an earlobe studded with piercings, eliciting a low groan.
Thunder masked the soft gasps and the whisper of a name.
"Pein…"
"What the hell?" Hidan stopped dead in the middle of the hallway as he entered the tower. "Do you guys feel that?" Like all high-level shinobi, he could sense the chakra signatures of other ninjas. Right now, he could feel those of Kakuzu and Tobi, which were both normal. He could also sense Pein and Konan's chakra, but those two chakra signatures were fluctuating wildly.
"It's Pein-sama and Konan-san," explained Kakuzu, not bothering to glance up from the calculator he was mulling over.
"I know it's them, but why the hell are their chakra signatures so weird?"
"Eh, they're probably just having sex again."
Tobi looked up from the scroll he was reading. "What's sex?" he asked innocently.
Kakuzu and Hidan stared at each other. "Okay, how about this?" suggested Kakuzu. "We play rock-paper-scissors, and the loser has to answer Tobi's question for him."
Pein leaned back against the pillows with a sigh of satisfaction. Beside him, Konan stretched lazily, then raised her head and looked towards the closed door. "Do you hear that? It sounds like someone yelling."
Pein cocked his head to one side, listening carefully. "It sounds like…it sounds like Hidan's complaining because Kakuzu cheated at rock-paper-scissors."
Konan turned over and buried her face in a pillow. "I don't think I even want to know…"
"Neither do I. Why, exactly, do I put up with them?"
"Because you want to conquer the world?"
"Oh, right. That."
Pein had once overheard a teenaged kunoichi complaining to her older sister about a young man she loved who didn't return her feelings. Why was it, she had asked, that he seemed completely unimpressed regardless of what she did? (This particular kunoichi had just been promoted to jounin, and had completed several difficult and dangerous missions.) The older sister responded that men tried to pretend that they were completely self-sufficient, that they didn't need anyone, least of all a woman. But in the end, they were really only pretending. "Men need women," she had said. "A man could be the most powerful and revered person in the world, but he'll still be miserable if he's alone. Even Daimyos and Kages need someone to confide in, someone they can count on to be by their side no matter what happens."
"Even someone like Pein-sama?" the younger sister had asked.
"Well, sure. Why do you think he chose Konan-sama as his messenger?" the older one had replied.
Laying in the dark, listening to the rain and the thunder, Pein thought that the older sister was more right than she knew.
A/N: PeinKonan is my new favorite pairing. This is the first time I've attempted to write anything even remotely resembling a lemon, so I hope it turned out okay.
I don't know how one would cheat at rock-paper-scissors, but I'm sure Kakuzu could find a way—especially if the alternative is explaining "the birds and the bees" to Tobi.