Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

--

4: General

A/N: I'm doing the author's note at the beginning so you'll be forewarned and you won't harass me with "this chapter was so short" and "make your chapters longer" reviews. I'm considering this a filler chapter because I need to put some things in that I couldn't do in Tobi's chapter but I don't have enough to make what everyone will consider a REAL chapter. So bear with me here. It's supposed to be short and I'm doing better with extending my chapters in this story than the last story I wrote. So please, no harassing reviews about how this chapter could be longer, okay? Thanks. When you're done with the filler, please review.

--

Deidara felt horrible. He'd made the choice earlier, but he hadn't taken into consideration that his best friend and boyfriend would tell him that they didn't want anything to do with him if he was going to leave. It seemed so cruel and he had thought he'd had their trust so they wouldn't do that to him when he left. But life was never that simple. He walked down the street sulkily. He should have thought about every possible scenario before he'd decided this. He already missed Sasori; a part of him knew that if he went through with this, there was the possibility that he'd never get the chance to hold him again.

Deidara stopped a few paces from the corner and looked back sadly. He really never did have very many options. He sighed regretfully and turned back around. He'd made up his mind – if that meant losing everyone he cared about to save them, then that's what he was going to do. That's just the kind of guy he was. He turned the corner and stopped again.

"Finally," Asuma muttered, not bothering to pull the cigarette out of his mouth. "I was starting to think you'd refused."

"Likely story," Deidara retorted, scuffing his shoe on the sidewalk and avoiding the other teen's gaze. "You have no idea what I went through to drop them, yeah."

Asuma scoffed. "Right. You were still just debating whether or not you'd come." He hesitated and then lowered his voice. "Did you come up with anything?"

"No," Deidara murmured, lifting his head and meeting the other's eyes. "Why was Anni snooping around here this morning, yeah?"

"Huh? Oh, she must've been assigned this area. How'd you figure it out?" Asuma questioned, glancing around curiously. "I haven't seen here since I got here…"

"That's because she's locked up in Pein's coat closet, yeah," Deidara told him with a chuckle. "She'll be lucky if she gets out. I already broke her arm, yeah. And they'll need someone to take their frustration out on…Where's Kurinai?"

Asuma smiled smugly. "She wouldn't come. She thinks it's a bad idea."

"She's optimistic," Deidara muttered softly.

"Let's get on with it, then. Shall we?" Asuma declared and gestured behind him. Deidara took a deep breath, steadied his nerves and followed him down the street. It was so perfect right then – if only he'd had a knife.

--

Sasori went back to Deidara's house after that to see what was up with the party. He was a little sad to see Ino, Deidara's look-alike, having so much fun with all her friends. It looked like spin-the-bottle had ended awhile ago when someone hadn't liked who they were supposed to kiss because the bottle was in pieces at the base of a wall.

"Where's Deidara?" Ino called, pushing past a few people to get to him.

"I have no idea," Sasori told her gloomily. "He took off about ten minutes into the meeting."

She was quiet for a minute, not really looking concerned yet. "When's he coming back? Mom's gunna be pissed."

"I don't think he'll come back for a few weeks," Sasori replied, wishing Deidara hadn't left this up to him. "He left the gang saying he wanted to protect the people he loved from getting hurt – including his family. I have no idea where he's going."

It finally seemed to sink in and Ino seemed horrified. "He just left?" Sasori nodded solemnly. "This sucks! I thought he was actually going to be here for this birthday – since he's missed two birthdays already – but no. And he was never planning on it either!" She burst into tears as Shikamaru came up.

"What's up?" he asked, wrapping an arm around his girlfriend's shoulder.

"Deidara took off," Ino told him, wiping her eyes with her wrist. "He's gunna miss the rest of my party and then my real birthday. This is stupid. If he hadn't gotten involved with gangs, this wouldn't happen."

"Hey, Ino…" Sasori ventured, wondering if he was asking for too much with this. "This last week, since Tuesday, was Deidara acting different?"

Ino looked up at him almost angrily and desperately. "Yeah. He'd get up like he was going to go to school but Mom kept getting calls saying he was sluffing classes. Wednesday, he kept calling me and asking me to look stuff up for him on the computer and then I wouldn't hear from him until midnight when he'd come home. Mom kept yelling at him then, that's how I knew he was home." She paused, seeming thoughtful. "You know, it reminds me of all that time he was in The Guardian. He'd sluff and come home at midnight and Mom would yell at him – over and over."

Sasori gasped; his head spinning. "What kind of things would he ask for?"

"He'd ask me to look up names and addresses and titles that sounded like they were headlines for newspapers," Ino told him. "There was some pretty random shit in there. He was home for about an hour on Thursday, working on his laptop. He wouldn't let me see what he was doing though. Before we left for school on Friday, he was on his cell phone. He seemed so busy…"

Sasori shook his head, trying to clear it enough that he could get some common sense back. "I think your party's over, right?" Ino nodded, glancing past him at some cars that were pulling up. "Okay, get Gaara, Temari and Kankuro to help you clean up; send them home when you're done. I'm gunna leave some sort of note for your mom and my cell number so you have it." Ino skipped off with Shikamaru on her tail and Sasori set to work. He slipped upstairs and into Deidara's room. He went to his dresser and, in the top drawer, pulled out his laptop. He put it in his backpack with the power cord, shut the drawer and hurried back downstairs. He went to the kitchen and pulled out a paper and a pen.

He was writing the note when Ino came in. "Everyone's starting to leave. Gaara, Temari and Kankuro are gunna stay and hang out like you said for them to."

"Alright, thanks," Sasori mumbled, signing the note and handing Ino both that and his number. "If anything – anything – happens, whether you think it's worth a phone call or not, call me. Got it?" Ino nodded, looking a little scared by his harsh tone. "Good. I don't want to get in trouble if something happens…It's basically so you're mom knows that I didn't leave you without a way to reach me. I'm sorry you're birthday isn't what you wanted." He pulled a packaged out of his bag and handed it to her. "Happy birthday, Ino."

Ino grinned, despite it all, and opened it up. Her grin widened some as she flipped through the clean paper of her new journal. "I got it at a special place and picked it especially for you – so it should feel alright. And you can put whatever the hell you want in there," Sasori explained, feeling really bad for her. "And I know where Deidara hid his present for you, if you want it."

She looked up at him, awed. "I do…" She followed him to the coat closet where he pulled a shoe-box sized package off the top shelf and handed it to her. On the top, a small note was there. She pulled it off and read it: It's for every birthday I missed and will ever miss. Love you and happy birthday, Ino. –Deidara. She tucked the note into her pocket and pulled the paper off the box. It really was a shoe-box. She giggled as she pulled the lid off the top. Ino's snickering stopped when she saw what was inside, her eyes wide and brimming with tears. A jewelry box lay inside, ribbon tied neatly around it. She pulled it out and tugged the ribbon off. It fluttered to the ground as she opened the jewelry box. A simple and soft melody started playing. The tears finally slipped down her cheeks as she gently pulled a silver necklace out of the jewelry box; the gem dangling from it was a simple fairy – its arm outstretched to the sky, the other hand over its heart; one leg was tucked behind the other and its hair flowed down to its waist.

Ino gasped, "It's beautiful – all of it…" She gently placed the still chiming jewelry box on the ground and put the necklace around her neck.

I never thought he cared this much about me…