AUTHOR'S NOTE! Ahaha, two stories in one day. Oh, I feel so accomplished. Anyway, this has been sitting in my computer for ages, and I wanted to add more but...Ehh. I decided it was fine the way it was. So yeah. Enjoy this uber late bit of work.
DISCLAIMER! Noooope, My nam'es not Masashi Kishimoto, so I own nothing. (I only wish I own Deidara's ass...)
04. "Beginning Shopping Madness"
God damn! Who in heaven's name would have thought Deidara - the Deidara - would have been such a difficult person!?
Okay, so maybe his...Ah, pride may have been mildly hinted at in the manga, but there was no excuse for a poor, sixteen year-old person as myself having to deal with him! Why me? It's even worse than babysitting!
...Because now, the kid can actually kill me. Cue the nervous sigh.
He sat far off, on the other side of the black limo. His arms were crossed, and he would have had a blank expression if not for the tiny frown that seemed to be imprinted on his face. Cerulean eyes...Cerulean eyes...
Oh damn, I was lost in his eyes. No! Haru look away this instant!
They were such a lovely cerulean color. Having been one of those people who watched the anime only when a few good characters came in, I thought that the coloring of Deidara had nothing on the real thing. His eyes looked more of a slate-blue color in the anime. Here, they were vivid and bright, like the sky on a warm summer day. Hell, I'm really staring now. He better not notice or -
"What are you looking at, yeah?" came the scornful question, instantly snapping me out of my thoughts. I pouted slightly, and crossed my arms as well.
"You can be very childish when you want, did you know?" I countered, frowning a tad. The blonde male scoffed.
"Please. What are you, my babysitter, hmm?"
"Well, let's see. I'm going to have to have you live in my dorm. Eat my food. Pay for your expenses. Make sure you don't go bat-shit crazy and kill everyone -"
"Now that," he smirked, mood seeming to lighten, "Would be Hidan. Not me. But, seeing as you don't know who he is, I can't say much there, yeah."
I smiled inwardly. Of course I knew who Hidan was! Every Akatsuki fan should, or face the wrath of Itachi's Mangekyo Sharingan.
"Tell me about him, then. He's seems...Interesting," I nodded towards the blonde, hoping for some talk. However, my hopes were stomped on as he tossed his head and frowned again.
"Sorry, my memory's vague, yeah."
"Ah. You think I'm some sort of spy, don't you?" I wagged my finger at him teasingly, a tiny smile on my face. In turn, Deidara didn't seem to be entertained.
"Un," was the blunt response. My face fell, and I crossed my arms once more.
"Hmph. Well, now would be as good a time as ever to discuss the...Um, guidelines you have to follow," I offered, looking at the male out of the corner or my eyes. His frown deepened, and I scowled at the mini fridge. It didn't suit him at all, that frown. He looked much better with his little smirk, or a smile even...
"You mean rules, hmm."
"I...Uh...Well, if you want to put it that way. I'm just saying you should at least know what you can and can't do. That way we have as little mishaps as humanly possible," I replied, playing with the hem of my hoodie (which was zipped up tight, despite the blasted heat in the car). Taking his moody silence as permission to continue, I went on to speak.
"Okay then. You have to stay with me at all times. Um, I think you can go into any store you want, since I don't know what you like and stuff. Money isn't a problem, my...Parents always leave a good amount for an 'emergency school fund'. When you get hungry, just tell me and we'll stop for lunch. Also, keep the comments between you and me, please, "I paused here, thinking of what else to say, "Oh! Um...People might come up to you and...Ask questions. If that happens, let me do the talking. Understand?"
"Aye aye, captain, yeah," he responded bitterly. There was silence for the next hour and a half or so, and I found myself staring at the window - a feeling of dread crawling up on me. Deidara did the same as well, looking for anything new as he did so.
For there first hour, he remained mostly silent as there was nothing more than trees - which he was perfectly used to. However, at the first stoplight - he pestered me with questions. And the same happened when we got on the highway. And again when an airplane flew overhead.
I answered each as patiently as possible, finding it all frankly adorable; Deidara was discovering new things with each mile, and it all amazed him. Oh, and his face when we hit the city! Simply adorable.
By the end of the ride, he was pressed against the window, trying to take in as many things as humanly possible trough wide eyes.
I was on the verge of making some sort of comment, but the car was already slowing to a stop. I peeked outside the window, and saw that - in my blatant staring - I hadn't noticed we were already inside the mall's parking structure.
The limo came to a full stop, and not two seconds later, the door was opened. Not saying a word to the driver (as I didn't need questions asked about Deidara), I grabbed the sleeve of the blonde and gently tugged him along. We came to a stop outside of the mall doors. I sighed, and tried to calm my frayed nerves.
"Okay. We're here..." I spoke in a soft whisper. Deidara tugged his arm away from me and ran a hand through his hair.
"So? I don't see why you were so worried about this, yeah. It's just a shopping place."
"Ah-hah. Deidara, you don't seem to understand the situation I'm in right now..." I muttered, idly chewing on the nail of my thumb. He looked at me with a raised brow, but said nothing.
"Might as well get it over then, un," he reasoned, and proceeded to walk up to the doors. I scampered over to him, just in time to hear him give out a surprised gasp at the automated doors. He jumped back slightly, and looked at it with narrowed eyes, causing me to sigh once more.
"You see? This is why I'm worried. You're not used to my world, and I really don't want anything to go wrong. Well, might as well get this whole ordeal over with and hope nothing too bad happens..."
"Excuse me miss, would you like to try this perfume? It's just in from Paris, and -"
"Ahaha! N-No thank you, please. We'll be moving along now!"
I panted, dragging a furiously squirming Deidara away with me, "Why must you be so difficult?! I told you not to go over there!"
"She...She thought I was a woman, yeah!" the blonde fumed, still trying to get out of my grasp and attack the innocent sales woman, no doubt. I huffed, and proceeded to lead him out of the department store.
"Alright. So...Macy's is a no. You are so hard to shop for, you know that, right?"
"Not my fault your world has no good clothes, yeah," Deidara replied, feigning innocence as I led him away from the store and deeper into the throng of people.
So, we were in the mall for an hour already, and all I had was a small bag from Walgreen's with shampoo and other such needs. Which, in itself, was another fiasco. Because who would have thought the Deidara needed a certain type of shampoo? Or else his hair would lose all its luster and sheen? Ugh, such a difficult, high-maintenance person! Maybe if I was stuck with freaking Ino it would've been simpler.
Plus, all the stores we passed had "strange" clothes, or "distasteful" clothes, or "overall stupid-looking" clothes. And this is coming from the guy who wears a half-shirt, fishnets, and a huge, black cloak, right? Why me?!
Oh, not to mention the looks we got from people walking around the mall. And - oho, lucky me - the mall was packed with Christmas shoppers. Couldn't they wait till next weekend? When all the sales (because it's the last weekend before Christmas) came out? Nope! They all just had to shop today. So, because of that, Deidara either received looks because the older crowd couldn't tell if he was male or female (I guess after the Boy George era, they all forgot about effeminate men), or because the younger adult/teen girls thought he was the hottest thing ever.
Mind you, I admit that Deidara is...Good-looking (UNDERSTATEMENT ALERT!), and all. But really! Don't they have anything better to do than gawk at him and glare at me? Apparently not.
"How about this store?" I suggested, raising a slender hand to point at Pac Sun - a generic-enough store for him. It had clothes that were alternative enough, or a little more on the mainstream side if he wished. Like I said, I really had no idea what his likes were. So I tried to point him to the regular-ish stores.
"No." was the blunt response. I sighed, and rubbed my temples. Ignoring my obvious sign of distress, the blonde wandered off ahead of me. Determined not to let him out of me sight, I stalked behind him gloomily. Until I noticed where he had stopped in front of.
And - I swear - I couldn't help it. The biggest smile crept unto my face. The first in a long time, actually. But I really couldn't help it.
Because he had stopped right in front of Hot Topic. And he was smiling.
Thank you, God. Seriously. Thank you.
"Do you want to go in here?" I spoke with just a hint of pleading in my voice. He looked at me and nodded, his cerulean eyes sparkling mischievously.
"Yeah. This one looks interesting, un."
"Alright. Knock yourself out."
Something tells me I'm going to have a lot of fun with this.
"Hmm. My Chemical Romance? Sounds painful, yeah. Aiden? What a strange name. And what is...Mindless Self Indulgence? It sounds like some kind of killer drug, un..."
I laughed quietly, "No Deidara. Those are bands. Surely you have those in your world?"
"Yeah, we do. But not with these names. And they don't sound anything like the music playing in this store; not at all, yeah. But...I kind of like it," he spoke, looking up at the wall of band shirts in Hot Topic with a curious air. I giggled to myself once more at the situation. He looked so adorable!
"Well, why don't you look at the graphic shirts? Because I don't see the point of buying you any band shirts if you don't know who they are. But..." I sifted through the bottom pile of shirts, "Take these. I think you might like this band."
He took the small pile of shirts I handed him, reading the words slowly, "Oh, those Mindless Self Indulgence people again, hmm?"
I laughed again as I led him to the other wall of shirts, "Yes, those Mindless Self Indulgence people. Here, see if you like any of these."
I waited as he looked through the other wall of shirts. He raised an eyebrow at a few of them, and bent down towards me, never taking his eyes of the wall as he spoke.
"Those shirts over there? They're the same as your shirt, yeah. The Nightmare Before Christmas one, un."
"Yeah. It's a kid's movie, but I love it. I used to watch it all the time growing up...Maybe we can watch it when we get back to my dorm, if you want."
Deidara stood in silence, and then nodded, "Sure. And I'll take some of those shirts too."
So in the end, he had chosen fifteen shirts: three Mindless Self Indulgence ones, two Nightmare Before Christmas ones, one of them had a cartoon skull on it (It was actually a shirt that mimicked Gaz's dress from the Invader Zim series, but I didn't bother telling him that now), another one was black with a bunch of colored cassette tapes on it. Very retro.
There a few that had a different patterns (like a few with stripes, a few checkered ones, and so on). I practically forced him to get one with black and white music notes, and that was that. Getting him sweatshirts wasn't much of a problem; he decided on a red and black striped, zip-up hoodie, a simple black hoodie with red stitching, and a white one, that had a skull spray-painted on the lower left corner on the back. I couldn't stop smiling the whole time (luckily, he didn't seem to notice this). After trying a few on, I discovered he was a small; thankfully, all the other shirts he picked out were a small size as well.
But then, the one article of clothing that I dreaded buying came along.
Pants.
I knew full well that the sizing process in the Naruto-verse was probably completely different from the American one. So what pants-size was Deidara? Lord only knows.
And that meant...I needed to ask for help. Damn.
I handed the shirts to Deidara, with instructions for him not to move. Ignoring his protests, I pushed past a few gawking pre-teens and stood at the check-out. Luckily there was no line, so I was free to ask the guy at the register for help.
"Um, excuse me?" I muttered, a little shy to talk to the good-looking guy. He turned to look at me through honey-colored eyes and smiled.
"Need any help?"
"Uh. Yeah...I need to buy pants for my friend but...Uh," I racked my brains for a suitable excuse, "He just moved here from Japan. So I really don't know his size."
"Sure. Where is he?" the guy responded, still smiling.
"Right over there. Under the pile of clothes I left him under."
"Oh....Wow," he sounded surprised, and squinted a bit, "You know. He really looks a lot like that guy...What's his face?"
"You don't mean....Deidara? From Naruto?" I shot back tentatively. Honey eyes widened.
"Yeah! That's the one!" the male snapped his fingers as the thought clicked. I paled, and decided that maybe this really was a train-wreck waiting to happen.
"Hmm, that's one damn good cosplayer."
Salvation! I let out a breath that I didn't even know I had been holding.
"Right! A cosplayer...Yeah. Pretty good, huh?" I managed a small smile as the clerk stepped out from behind the register and towards a rack of skinny jeans. Thanking the heavens that no further questions were being asked, I watched as he dug through the many pairs of black jeans expertly.
"How many do you need..."
"Haru. My name's Haru."
"Cute."
"Thanks..." I read the badge that hung around his neck, "Axel? Your name's really Axel?"
"Haha. Yeah, it is. Not after the Kingdom Hearts dude, though."
"Oh. Right. Wait...You play Kingdom Hearts?"
"Sure do. Oh, so how many do you need again?"
"Oh, right. Um...Ten?"
He whistled, and flipped back his long-ish raven hair, "What are you, buying him an entire wardrobe?"
I laughed nervously, "Yeah, actually I am. His...Erm, luggage got lost on the trip."
Axel shook his head sympathetically, "He's lucky to have you around, then. Well, here you go. There's different styles, so he doesn't get bored with them. Hell, I'd shoot myself if I had to wear the same style jeans everyday."
"Thanks. These will fit him?"
"Yeah, sure. He looks to be the same build as me, so he should be the same size."
"Oh. Well, thanks again!" I smiled, and took the heavy mass of jeans. Axel nodded.
"No problem, see you around."
I nodded, and scurried to where Deidara was standing, looking very bored. I dumped the jeans on top of the massive pile he was holding, and tugged him to the accessories section.
"Anything you like?" I asked, gesturing to the mass of belts, wallets, hats and such. Cerulean eyes narrowed not in distaste - but in thought. I sighed in relief again, and felt as if I must have made a break through.
I soon found myself holding an array of skinny ties, studded belts (all different colors), studded wristlets, a black leather chain wallet with the red anarchy symbol on it, a multitude of different chains, at least ten different bandanas, a few fingerless gloves, a black/white checkered scarf, matching gloves that could turn into mittens, and several fistfuls of buttons.
"Have enough?" I quipped dryly, looking at the overflow of accessories disdainfully. Deidara shot me a smirk and nodded.
"Yeah, I figured I've wasted enough of your money, hmm?"
"I feel the love," I grumbled, lugging the mass of accessories to the register. A second later, all of the clothes were piled on next to it. There was a rustle, and a gasp.
"Holy hell! You weren't kidding when you said a whole wardrobe, Haru!" an astonished voice came in from behind the mass. I blushed, hiding my face in my hands for a moment, until I caught Deidara giving me a strange look.
"H-Haha, yeah. I really wasn't kidding, Axel, I really wasn't kidding..."
Maybe this whole 'getting an uber hot bishie in your world' thing wasnt's such a good idea after all...
KAZ SPEAKS! Heh. Deidara in Hot Topic. xDD One of my few fangirlsh hopes, that Deidara is a total skinny jeans and electra rock advocate. So yeah, that was that. It was kinda filler-ish, but what can I do?
Review and make my miserable hopes for this story better? I'm not sure if I should continue it or not.
Anyway, hope you liked it!!