A/N

All chapters are stand alone. Otherwise things will seem overdramatic. Come to think of it, they are getting pretty out of hand already….

Well, hope you enjoy this and please review!

The Paper Zombie

She always sees him when it rains;

Konan knows to leave Nagato alone once the thunder strikes and the rain falls down, sharp as kunai.

In such violent weather, it is almost a paradox why it suddenly becomes so peaceful and above all, normal in the hide out.

There was the living room, the space that often seemed so dreary in the regular overcast weather. However, when the full storm hits, it becomes brightly lit with florescent, very modern lights. It bathes the whole place in a bright yellow and cheery glow.

The house plant in the corner even contributed to the whole normality of the environment.

Nobody actually knew who had put the house plant there. As far as everybody in the Akatsuki knew, nobody watered it.

Or they thought nobody did.

In fact, each member on some whim would water the house plant on random intervals. Sometime it wasn't watered for weeks, sometimes it was watered as much as five times a day. The plant never thrived, but it never got close to dying either.

But to the general knowledge of every member, nobody watered it and nobody was even sure if the plant was real.

Therefore, it was only in the thundering, horrific rain did the hide out begin to resemble homeliness and safety.

Only in the rain was it not dreary.

But rarely did any members get to enjoy it.

Nagato released his wild anger and desperation when most members were out completing their missions. Konan realized that that was pure Nagato through and through. As much as he was cold hearted and almost dead now, he still retained the sensitivity of his childhood, unwilling to let anyone besides her share in his pain.

It was all very nostalgic really.

However, due to the oddities of scheduling arrangement and constant spills of coffee that further confused things, there was always one particular member that stayed with her in the living room when the storm was raging.

She always shared the living room with him when it rained. The living room after all was the only part of the hide out that did not short circuited from the wild lightning. It had become a sort of ritual. Every time it rained, they met each other there. No one ever said anything and nobody had ever broken their silence. Not even him, which was unusual enough.

He sat opposite to her now, violent eyes dulled by boredom, glancing at nothing in particular as one hand played with a rosary around his neck. He wasn't particularly considerate, lazing horizontally across the one comfortable couch and leaving her to the lumpy and spring laden chair. His body however, was too long for the couch to fully support and his legs dangled of the edge, feet beating a tune on the hard sides.

As he had put it on a non rainy day to her in the corridor, "When the freaking lights go out, I find myself in the dark covered in fucking blood. The hell, I can't even do anything when your bitch goes through his fucking tantrums, why don't you do something about this shit?"

The cloak he normally wore during official missions lay beneath him and he was unsurprisingly shirtless despite the cold that rain invited.

Hidan's insistent tapping and the roaring sound of the rain created a cacophony of sounds that was difficult to bear.

"Do you mind?" she asked. It appeared she'd be the first to break out of their usual routine of quiet. That was ironic.

Her tone was always polite. If Hidan had chosen to ignore her, she would have just got up and left, and to hell with dark rooms. Confrontations were something she had never gotten used to.

The tapping stopped as Hidan glanced over at her as if just noticing she was there.

In one smooth motion, he flipped his legs so that he was now sitting on the couch in the conventional way. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, eager that someone other than his God was finally paying attention to him

With a neat easy grin on his face he said, "Yeah? Can you think of anything better to do?"

Konan didn't answer him, her actions already showing her reply. With a few deft folds of paper, a crane took shape.

"Oh, a crane. How fucking original, seriously."

Konan decided she had a small right to be irritated. She shot him an annoyed gaze, consisting of a raised eyebrow and slightly narrowed eyes, one that only served to widen his smile, pleased he had gotten a reaction out of the usually stoic kunoichi.

With another flick of her wrist, another square of paper separated from her hand and she proceeded to fold a more complicated pattern. This one took the shape of many interlinked stars, weaved together in a pinwheel.

"What the hell is that supposed to be?"

Now, a bit irritable that the young man's approval had not been obtained and wondering why she even cared for the opinion of a child ten years younger than she, Konan tried out another piece – a detailed koi fish with hundreds of interlinking scales and a flowing crumpled tail.

Without her jutsu, this took some time and she was surprised to find that Hidan, young impulsive and easily bored, did not throw in the usual snide comments while she was folding.

She looked at her completed work with some satisfaction. Konan only ever used white paper but that made the texture more naturalistic than any gaudy artificial colours would have achieved.

Looking faintly smug at the young man opposite to her, Konan uncharacteristically folded her arms and sat back. Hidan was quiet, looking at the fish from all angles before giving her a grin and saying, "That shit looks almost as ugly as you. Seriously, are you blind?"

Then, as though extremely pleased at his own words, Hidan proceeded to lie back on the couch again. He folded his arms behind his head.

"Well, as enthralling as paper is, I think I'll go back to what I was doing before."

Satisfied by his sarcasm, his legs began to beat out that same annoying rhythm again.

Konan's irritation subsided. Any emotion of hers never seemed to last long and she went back to her art. While it was nice to have somebody impressed by your talent, it really wasn't necessary.

"Are you a fucking zombie or something?"

She looked over at her companion, startled. Konan should not be surprised as she was already familiar with Hidan's oddities and impulses. He wasn't looking at her, just staring up at the ceiling.

Konan could have stayed quiet. But that would have prompted him to continue talking. She could have answered with: Do I look like a zombie? But that would have simply made him scathing and even more sarcastic.

So, Konan replied with a quiet, "No."

There was an irony that him of all people would call her a zombie. Who was it that was the immortal one?

But, it appeared she misjudged his character again when he continued on with his verbal harassment.

He did that to everybody.

But he was the only one that did that to Konan simply because he could get away with it. Death threats did nothing but annoy him which was surprising. Konan thought he would be amused by them but his behaviour thus far suggested to her that he believed death to be a privilege and joking about it was only insulting to him.

"Seriously, the fuck is wrong with you? I just called you a hag you know?"

"I know," she paused. "It doesn't really matter."

"The fuck it doesn't matter," his voice rose in annoyance though his body remained still on the couch. His agitation could be measured by how his quiet tapping rose into a more violent rhythm. "Only thing bitches care about is whether they're fat, ugly or whatever."

Konan didn't point out Hidan's obsession with his own appearances.

Seeing how she remained quiet, Hidan snapped out.

"Seriously, does nothing bother you?"

Konan glanced up at him from her work. Her gaze appeared wasted for despite all of his quirky and angry statements, he still appeared to be calmly staring up at the ceiling. However, if she could see his face, she'd probably notice how his brows were pulled together in exasperation.

She performed a neat fold before answering him, his tapping increased in pace as he became impatient by her response time.

"Itachi-san doesn't get bothered easily. You do not seem to pursue his attention."

"Guy is a fucking robot, you're not."

For a moment, she considers whether she should be flattered that Hidan thought of her different. The man was so ready to insult, to throw out harsh word after word that she soon realized why his opinion mattered.

The opinion of someone who really did show emotion, the opinion of the only person in Akatsuki that remained optimistic. It was a twisted optimism but even so, Hidan remained the only member who carried attachments to such frivolous things as sentiment.

She liked his view for the same reason why she liked the living room in the rain – it provided something normal, something simple.

"You don't fucking feel anything do you?" he continued.

Silently, Konan realized he must have been referring vaguely to the religion he had given himself to. But she couldn't be bothered to clarify.

In a religion that relishes pain, she wonders if it were sinful of her to remain as stoic and empty as she was. And offhandedly, she wondered if she had somehow indirectly insulted him by her passive attitude to the world around her.

And Hidan was probably too obtuse to realize the hurt of her past and the deep emotional bond with the Leader that proved that Konan was anything but emotionless.

Her feelings did not float around in the open like his did and she needed no facial expression or empty words to convey how she felt to Nagato, the one person who did matter. To all but him, she remained the statue of ice.

By her natural tendencies to remain cold and distant from all other members, she was second-in-command after all, it was no wonder that Hidan targeted her with words and glares of incredulity and vague hatred.

"Do you really fucking think that you understand pain?" Hidan continued, angry.

As stupid and meaningless as his words sounded, Konan realized it was an invitation.

When she glanced up, she realized that Hidan was standing next to her, looking down at her peaceful, kneeling position. She stood up as well, unwilling to be belittled. It did not make much a difference. As soon as you're past the twenties, age is no longer an indication of height and though Konan was far older than the young Jashinist, he stood a good ten centimetres taller. He noticed that too and his smugness grew.

It was childish. The sort of competitions she remembered doing when she was younger, forever comparing heights with Yahiko and Nagato, cheering when it appeared she would be taller before male puberty kicked in, leaving her sullen for a few months.

As her amber eyes met his violet ones, she regarded his expression with disinterest. However, she noticed his features did not hold an expectant look, more like one of daring.

His words themselves were ambiguous at best. Hidan seldom said things in such an indirect way. But Konan found herself understanding his words, realizing what he wanted. Do you really fucking think that you understand pain?

Mixed in his face was an expression of hope and one of disgust. Perhaps it was hope that she would accept what he was offering and the one of disgust was due to the fact he knew she would refuse and simply walk out of the room. Maybe there was even hope that she would walk out of the room.

That was why Konan surprised him when she simply gave him a straightforward easy and complying gaze.

"Hurt me then," she said.

His lavender eyes widened in surprise before narrowing down in genuine pleasure. A scarlet cat-like tongue, in contrast to his pale skin, emerged from his mouth, running quickly over his lower lip.

Should Konan have said that to another, that person might have said "ok" or maybe even an "are you sure?"

Hidan did not waste time with such courtesy and his fist shot out ready to damage her pristine skin, her emotionless face.

No flesh contact was made and Hidan found his hand travelling through a whirling storm of paper, knocking him off balance. Swearing, he regained his footing and stared.

His face watched with an equal mixture of anger and bemusement as the storm of white butterflies left the room.

As far as Hidan could see, Konan was just too pussy to deal with a broken jaw.

He felt a small satisfaction that he, her junior by many years was more familiar with the sting, pleasure and tear of pain.

Later on, he realized the rain had ceased the moment he swung his fist, signifying the end of their small tradition, marking the parting of ways.

Hidan found himself wondering which of the two reasons was why she left.

X.X.X

A/N

Like I said, all chapters are stand alone.

Please review! And review as well if you added an alert or favourite? Don't just leave me hanging!

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