A few days later, Deidara didn't show up for school. "Any idea where he is?" Kisame asked Sasori.
The puppet master shook his head. "No." He sighed, a worried look spreading across his face. "This isn't good…"
Kakuzu and Hidan were standing off to the side. The banker looked to his friend for an explanation. "Usually, if Deidara doesn't show up for school….it's because he can't come."
"As in?"
"As in his fucking old man beat the shit out of him, so he probably can't even move right now." The bell rang, silencing any further conversation. Kakuzu was glad spring fever was overtaking the school; he couldn't concentrate at all. None of the Akatsuki could.
The door to the apartment creaked open. Deidara stood there, breathing heavily, his clothing torn and hair a mess. There was caked blood along his hairline, and a cut on his cheek. "Danna," he whispered. The red head rushed to his side, ushering the blonde into the bathroom. Kisame growled. "Dammit, we have to do something!"
"What the hell do you suggest?" Pein asked. "Deidara's a minor, remember? His dad is in complete control."
"Shut up," Hidan whispered, frowning.
"But still, we have to do something!" Konan cried, ignoring Hidan. Next to Sasori, she probably hurt the most when Deidara was beaten. "Maybe we could go to the authorities again; we're older, they might listen this time!"
"SHUT UP."
"Or we could just kill the bastard," Kakuzu stated.
"Not a bad idea," Itachi muttered.
"EVERYONE SHUT THE FUCK UP!" All eyes turned to Hidan. "Listen," he whispered, pointing to the bathroom door.
The other Akatsuki members had been so engrossed in conversation they hadn't noticed the yelling coming from the other room.
It sounded like Sasori and Deidara were going at each other with pure malice. Suddenly, a slap was heard. The shouting stopped, and the next instant Deidara ran out of the bathroom, crying. Sasori was on his heels. "Deida-" the blonde kneed him in the stomach before running out of the apartment, leaving his friend on the floor.
Pein was the first to move, and as soon as he stepped forward the entire Akatsuki encircled the red head. "What the fuck just happened?" Hidan demanded.
"We started arguing," Sasori muttered, wincing as he got to his feet. "Things got out of hand." He couldn't look at the other Akatsuki members. "I hit him," he whispered quietly.
The silence in the room was deathly.
Hidan grabbed Sasori's collar and slammed him into a wall. "What the fuck were you thinking?!" he screamed.
The red head struggled against the Jashinist. "I wasn't! I just got mad and lost it, ok?!"
"HOW THE FUCK COULD YOU EVER EVEN THINK OF HITTING HIM, YOU BASTARD?!" Sasori couldn't answer.
"Hidan, put Sasori down. You can kill him later, but right now, we absolutely have to find Deidara." All eyes turned to Itachi. "We don't know what state of mind he's in right now," the Uchiha continued, "so it's imperative we bring him back here to calm him down. Even if it means he doesn't want to be around any of us," he added, looking at Sasori.
The Akatsuki agreed and split up; Hidan, Kisame, and Kakuzu formed one group, Sasori, Konan, and Itachi formed another, and Pein was on his own in Sasori's car. It took them all of five minutes to organize things, and in the next instant they were off in search of the blonde.
--
Deidara climbed out his window as silently as he had come. The empty backpack he carried rubbed against his newest injuries, making him wince. "I won't have to worry about this much longer, un," he said to himself, walking away from his house for the last time.
--
"Do you have any idea of where he'd go?" Kakuzu asked the others.
"Hell no."
"Let's check the park," Kisame suggested.
"I can't believe you slapped him, Sasori!" Konan yelled at the red head as they ran up and down the streets. "If anything's happened to him, I'll kill you!"
"Settle down, our goal right now is finding Deidara, not murder," Itachi reminded them. Sasori hadn't spoken at all since they'd left the apartment. The fight between the artists was replaying itself over and over again in his head….
"Bastard did a number on me, un," Deidara muttered as he walked over and sat down on the toilet seat. Sasori grabbed a hand towel from under the sink and ran cold water over it. Once it was soaked through, he rung it out. "We need to get some of this blood off of you," he said, walking over to Deidara and kneeling down in front of the blonde.
Deidara sighed as the cool cloth brush over his face, cleaning away some of the blood. "What happened this time?"
"Asshole came home drunk last night, and I couldn't get to my room soon enough, un." Deidara hissed as Sasori rubbed iodine on the cut on his cheek. "I woke up at the bottom of the stairs, un."
Sasori shook his head. "With this?" he asked, pointing to the caked on blood.
Deidara shook his head. "Yeah. The cut's from sneaking out tonight, un."
"Why didn't you just wait until school tomorrow?"
Deidara looked at Sasori. "I wanted to see you, un."
Sasori rolled his eyes. "You knew I'd yell at you if you came. You should have just stayed home, brat." Deidara flinched. "I couldn't help it, un."
Sasori smirked. "Yes you could have, but you just didn't want to. You'd rather sneak out and get yourself killed than actually stay home and try to take care of yourself."
Deidara balled his hands into fists. "So I should just stay there and let him beat the shit out of me?!"
"No, you should move in with one of us like I've told you to do so many times, brat."
"Stop calling me brat! And I can take care of myself, un."
"No you can't!" Sasori was yelling by now. "If you could, you wouldn't always end up like this, and I wouldn't always have to clean you up!"
"If it's such a pain, danna, than stop taking care of me, un!" Deidara was on his feet and yelling just as loudly as Sasori, if not louder.
"Brilliant plan, brat. Except that if that happened, you'd end up dead! I have to take care of you, and that's all there is to it!"
Deidara felt tears rise to his eyes. "So what, I'm nothing but a burden to you?!"
Sasori growled and threw his hands up into the air. "Forget it, you're impossible."
"At least I've got a heart, un! You're no different from those fucking puppets you always work on, danna, and they're all you're ever going to have in life, un!"
SLAP
Deidara's eyes widened and he stumbled back from the force of the blow. Tears ran down his cheeks, and he gave a small sob before running out of the room.
"Deidara, please forgive me," Sasori thought as he ran down the streets, calling for his best friend.
--
"The river looks lovely at night," Deidara thought as he walked down to the banks of the water. He set the bag on the ground and unzipped it, kneeling down and putting rocks in it. "How blonde am I?" He thought bitterly. "How could I not have realized how much I was hurting Sasori?" His hands were shaking, and the rock he was holding fell from his hands as fresh tears ran down his face. "Why did it take so long for me to figure out he hates me?"
He picked his bag up and held it for a moment. It felt pretty heavy, in his opinion. "I hope it's enough, un."
--
"Dammit, he's not here," Kisame grumbled, pacing the park. Hidan was tapping his foot impatiently, and Kakuzu was leaning against a tree, thinking. A thought came to him, and as much as he wanted to push it away, he knew he had to say something. "We're going about this all wrong."
"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?" Hidan growled.
"We're checking everywhere Deidara hangs out when he's happy or mad. Sasori's his best friend, and he feels betrayed right now….heartbroken, even." Kakuzu sighed. "I think Deidara might try to kill himself." Kisame froze in his tracks, and Hidan's eyes widened. "I'm not saying that's what's happening now, but if Deidara were to try that, where would he go?"
Hidan rubbed his head, and snapped his head up. "The bridge." The trio took off.
--
Deidara walked along the bridge's walkway, running his hand fondly along the handrail. "Danna told me not to jump off, un. I guess he knew he'd have to take care of me if I got hurt." He sighed as he shifted the bag to a more comfortable position on his back, before climbing over the railing and looking down into the water. "I'm sorry I was such a burden, Sasori. This is my father's fault for beating me, but I still made you take care of me. And besides that, even though you told me over and over again you were straight, I pushed myself on you, un." Deidara was leaning forward now, the only thing preventing his fall the firm grip his hands had on the railing.
Kisame, Hidan, and Kakuzu ran along the river line, not bothering to take the time to climb up the bank and get onto the road. The bridge was in sight now, and as they got closer, the group saw a person on the edge. To their dismay, they realized it was their blonde friend. "DEIDARA!!" Hidan screamed.
"Goodbye Sasori danna. Please forgive me." Deidara took a deep breath and shut his eyes before jumping.
The trio watched in horror as Deidara silently fell through the air before plunging into the water.
"SHIT!" Hidan yelled. Kisame kicked off his shoes and jacket, before diving into the water. Kakuzu and Hidan were left to helplessly watch and wait.
Kisame swam through the water, swearing because of the dark and pollution in the water. His lungs needed air, but if he went up no he'd lose any chance of finding the sculptor. He reached out blindly through the water, grabbing nothing. Finally his lungs couldn't take it, and he tilted towards the surface, kicking up. As he did so, something brushed his feet. Hmm?
He surfaced and took a quick breath before diving straight back down.
The shark reached out again and felt the same something. It was definitely hair.
He grabbed it and pulled it up. It was long, and he could feel a ponytail on top of the person's head. "Thank god Deidara never cut his hair." Kisame wrapped his arm around Deidara's waist and swam to the surface.
As soon as he broke the surface he began swimming towards shore. "I GOT HIM!!" he yelled. He reached the edge of the water and handed Deidara up to his friends before pulling himself out of the water and collapsing, gasping for air.
"What the fuck's in that shitty bag?" Hidan muttered, dropping the backpack beside his friends. He looked closer at Deidara, and his eyes widened. "Shit, he's not breathing!" He set the artist down and tilted his head back, giving the teen CPR. Deidara coughed and hacked up some water before passing out. "Where'd you learn that?" Kakuzu asked.
"Stayed at the fucking YMCA for about a month. Some bitch thought I was there for the damn CPR class and made me sit through the whole fucking thing. Now what the fuck's in the bag?"
Kakuzu unzipped hit. His heart sank. "Rocks. He wanted it to drag him to the bottom of the river. I was right" Hidan swore loudly, as Kisame's cell phone began to ring. Hidan ran over to the shark's jacket and pulled it out. "Hello?"
"Hidan, go up to the street, reception sucks down here," Kisame gasped.
--
"Hidan, where are you guys!? Please tell me you found Deidara, and that he's ok!" Konan's voice pleaded through the phone.
--
"Deidara's not fucking ok!" Hidan screamed.
--
"Hmm? What did he say?" Itachi asked.
"I don't know, he's breaking up pretty badly," Konan admitted. "I'll put it on speaker phone and see if that helps."
"….not……..ok……."
Sasori paled. "What happened?!" he yelled into the phone.
--
"Huh?!" Hidan could barely hear through all the static.
--
"WHAT HAPPENED TO DEIDARA?!" Konan screeched.
--
"Deidara just jumped off the fucking bridge! He almost fucking killed himself!"
--
"Deidara……….bridge………..killed……………..self……….."
"No," Itachi whispered. Konan was shaking. "Hidan, tell me we heard wrong! Hidan?! HIDAN!!"
--
"Shit, the connection went dead!" Hidan yelled, slamming the phone into the ground.
--
Konan was crying, and Itachi was shaking. "Deidara's…..gone?" the two turned to Sasori at the sound of his voice.
The red head was deathly pale, and his face was as blank as his puppets'. He turned around and ran off into the night, and neither Itachi nor Konan had the speed to catch him.