Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, nor the characters in Naruto. I just manipulate them like my own personal voodoo dolls.
Shards
Chapter Four: Please & Thank You
"Morning." grinned Hidan as he walked into the kitchen.
All activity stopped.
"What?" asked Hidan, affronted. "Would you prefer if I ran in screaming?"
More often than not, that was the case. Whether it was obscenities about Kakuzu or his irritation at not sacrificing to Jashin in the last hour, Hidan was not usually calm when he stepped into the kitchen.
"If you do I'll kill you." hissed Itachi, clearly nursing a hangover, his head against the table.
"I'd like to see you try." retorted Hidan, his anger rising.
"Stop." ordered Konan. Although he didn't want to, the immortal backed down – remembering that a. he hadn't sacrificed anyone in a while and b. he wanted pancakes.
"Hidan, would you like some pancakes?"
The zealot nodded, smoothing back his hair. "Seven please."
Konan's mouth dropped and Itachi lifted his head from the table to look at him. Deidara paused in his construction of a pancake castle.
Kisame stopped chewing, his eyes narrowed. "What's wrong with you?" he grunted.
"Nothing. Why?" asked Hidan, his brow furrowing in confusion, blissfully unaware of the confusion he was causing. The only things he wanted were his seven pancakes.
Konan shook her head, silencing Kisame with a glare.
"Katsu!" bellowed Deidara, shattering what was formerly pancake castle all over the kitchen. Cries of irritation went up all around the room.
"What is wrong with you people? It's impossible for a man to nurse an hangover in peace." exclaimed Itachi, jumping up from the table, rounding on Deidara.
Deidara shrugged. "It's a good thing I'm not hung over then…" he smirked. In exchange, Itachi shot him a murderous glare before resting his head on the table again.
"Well done!" grinned Sasori, clapping Deidara on the shoulder. "But mine is still better."
Sasori had constructed a life-size sculpture of himself. Out of pancakes.
"So how long do you expect that to last…?" asked Deidara. "Aren't the pancakes going to decompose?"
The look of horror on Sasori's face was downright hilarious, his eyes growing to the size of saucers.
"I must inject them with my elixir!" he exclaimed before running off to his workshop.
Konan, Kisame, Deidara and Hidan watched as Sasori came pelting down the corridor with a vial of clear liquid.
"This will make them last forever." he grinned, cackling maniacally.
Konan finally decided to burst his bubble. "Sasori. No."
"What? Why? You let Hidan sacrifice his pancakes to Jashin and Deidara explode his castle. Why can't I keep my monument to myself?" whined Sasori.
"Shut up." groaned Itachi, who had seen fit to sit up once again. "Do you see me playing with my pancakes?"
"You call yours Sasuke." stated Kisame flatly. "You can't talk."
Itachi paused his mouth hanging open.
"You weren't supposed to tell them that…" he hissed under his breath. Kisame simply shrugged.
Hidan chuckled. "Nice." he smirked as he sauntered over to Konan.
"Can I have my pancakes please?" he asked.
A wide-eyed Konan handed him a plate of exactly seven pancakes stacked on top of each other.
"Thank you." replied the immortal, before sitting at the table.
Staring into his pancakes, the zealot contemplated his actions. Hidan was uncertain as to why he was behaving so nicely. It was just happening naturally.
The ritualistic vampire wasn't trying to be nice.
To be honest he hadn't noticed anything different until the other members had mentioned it.
It was odd.
The immortal didn't like it, but he didn't have much of a choice.
Hidan was losing his mind – that fact becoming painfully clear to him.
The problem was that he didn't know how to stop it.
As he absentmindedly carved Jashin's symbol into his stack of pancakes, he came to a grim realization.
Perhaps happy wouldn't do.
[EndChapterFour]