Hidan leaned his back against the wall in the mail room and sighed as he hung out with Deidara for a moment. He still didn't get the whole situation between Sasori and him. He glared at Deidara's pleasantly fat ass.
"Sasori must spend a fortune feeding you all that fancy food."

Deidara laughed and sifted through his mail, "don't be silly. I'm only eating his leftovers."

"Yeah? But you would think by now he would have learned to not cook so much..."

Deidara froze.

"What? Hey Deidara, are you okay?"

"I- oh, no it's okay I get it. It's an early birthday card." Deidara laughed as he read the card. "I still have a few weeks."

"Oh jeeze it's just that. You looked like you had died a little."

"Hm, Nah. Caught me off guard." Deidara chuckled reading the card over once more and then putting it back in the envelope. "Not my fault my family can't remember when my birthday is, un."

"Oh? How about I give you an early birthday present too? One that involves..." he licked his lips and stepped closer, "...me?"

Deidara snorted and shook his head, "Yeah, no thanks Hidan. I have a girlfriend."

Rushing up the stairs and down the hall, "Sasori I need comfort food!"

Sasori stared at Hidan, his shoulders slumped and a overtly pathetic pout on his lips. What an odd look for the fellow. Something must be terribly wrong in his life to be like this.
"No. Go away."

Before Sasori could get his door closed all the way he scowled loudly as a foot was jammed in there preventing it. Hidan proceeded to stick his head in the opening and lament some more, "My heart is broken though!"

Sasori pushed back on the door a little, "Why should I care?"

"Deidara has a girlfriend!" Hidan whined, "I'm sad! Let me eat my misery away."

The pull on the door eased up a little as the news hit Sasori. Big news. Giant news. Humongous news. Terrible news! When had Deidara gotten himself a girlfriend? He knew that the blond mentioned this morning he was sulking as he spoke about going out for lunch but... Why hadn't he told him about this! This must be recent though... but when?

"A couple days ago when he went out for dinner!" Sasori cursed, letting go of the door to clench his fist in anger.

Hidan took this as an opportunity to inch his way inside more, "What's that Sasori? You know something!"

"He went out for dinner with some classmates a few days ago. He must have met a girl there!"

Oh Sasori was of course more devastated than he let on. All that hard work he put into feeding Deidara, leading the male into his bounty of delicious food and worming his way through to the blond's heart through his mouth. How could this have happened? Especially so suddenly! Deidara was always attractive and even had a personality that attracted people; yet he always was single. Suddenly...
"Damn weight gain."

"Huh?" Hidan grunted, "ohh... you mean the few pounds Deidara put on?"

"You noticed?"

"How could I not? He looks so damn thick and sexy now!" Hidan groaned while Sasori wanted to smash that head in with his door. "Plus then he started working out! He looks so fucking hot! It's no wonder he got himself a girl!"

Of course that's how Deidara got a girlfriend. Instead of a scrawny, pretty, young and adryogenous male who couldn't afford to feed himself, he was now well fed, hotter than ever, and probably had pocket money since he didn't need to spend money on groceries because his neighbor fed him.
"Stupid forum!" Sasori hissed.

"Forum?"

Sasori dropped all mentioning of the forum. To change the subject he opened the door all the way now and an invited Hidan in, "It's almost lunch and... I guess I have leftovers since he's probably going on a date today."

"Fuck yeah!"

-x-

Deidara came back from his date sucking back water from a bottle. He could still taste that lunch in his burps. It was awful. Whatever they did to that burger, they did it wrong. She even mentioned his distaste for restaurant food and claimed they made the best burgers around!

"No worries!" She said, "you'll love it!" She said. Like hell they were! Deidara groaned as he remembered the one magical day that Sasori first made him one of his burgers. It was a fresh hand formed patty, perfectly seasoned. It had Swiss cheese, caramelized onions, bacon bits, mushrooms and a mystery sauce. The meaty juices that dropped down his arm as he ate that burger were liquid gold as he licked the skin clean of the precious.

He covered his mouth again as he burped, the charred and seasoned taste once more coming back up, "nothing can be worse that this, what the hell... What the hell!?"

Deidara stared wide eyed as Sasori handed a plastic container to Hidan at the door. Hidan had clearly just eaten something as he hadn't bothered to fully wipe his face clean. Whatever the red that was around his lips and on his cheek, it was probably delicious and worth saving for later.

That wasn't the point though!
Sasori had fed Hidan. Hidan was the one eating the leftovers. His leftovers.

"Oh hey Deidara!" Hidan called out with a huge smile. "You'll never guess what Sasori made today for lunch."

"Ah... what?"

"Chilli!" Hidan yelled, "The best damn chilli I've ever had in my entire life!"

Deidara breathed in. It did smell heavenly in the hallway now that Sasori had his door opened. He still wore his stained apron at the door, new remnants of the chili on it. The look on the little chef's face was surprisingly a tinted with embarrassment, rather than the glee he would see when it was just the two of them. One could only assume Hidan was poor company.

"Yeah Yeah Deidara! It had two types of meat, hot Italian sausage and stew beef! The beef chunks were huge too! Oh it was such a nice spice too..."

"Oh Sasori's spice..." Deidara groaned as he recalled the redheads fondness for adding a kick of spice to his cooking. The delightful spice that wasn't too hot but rather brought out the essence of pure mouth watering flavour. "Oh..."

"Yeah! It was chunky and saucy and beany and covered with two types of cheese! Two! Not just the orangey one."

Sasori sighed, "Orangey? you mean cheddar-?"

"Yeah!"

"And the monterey jack?"

"Yeah! And I don't know how you did it, but I didn't even taste the peppers! In fact any of those vegetables! It was so good!" Hidan gushed on and on, maintaining his loud volume as he spoke happily about the food, "What were those green things on top with the sour cream?"

"...thinly sliced chives."

"Yeeeaaah!" Hidan yelled, fist raised as the delicious meal he just had was recalled. "Oh and the buttered bread for dipping..."

Deidara's lip quivered at the mere thought, "Sasori's homemade bread and freshly churned butter?"

"So good!" Hidan yelled, fists pumping in excitement as he could still taste it all.

Sasori spoke up this time, hoping to get Hidan to stop his boasting. Of course he didn't want to offend Deidara after all. He simply had leftovers and was certainly not reheating it for dinner since he already had a meat marinating.

"I hope you don't mind Deidara. You were out for lunch anyway. I had left overs, I knew where to find a hungry person. It just made sense."

Deidara waved his shaky hand and laughed, "no no it's fine. I ate... a burger for lunch."

"Was it good?" Hidan asked, as he liked those too.

"Yeah... great...un."

Sasori frowned at this.

Hidan took off down the hall humming a tune and a trot to his step, "It wasn't as great as my lunch though!" he laughed. His stomach was full of good food and he had finally gotten a taste of what drove Deidara gaga in regards to the cooking. He could only dream of one day coming back to eat another meal at the upstairs apartment. Maybe Deidara having a girlfriend wasn't such a bad thing after all.

"Deidara. Won't you come inside?" Sasori attempted, wondering if all was truly for loss.

If that burger was really that good, Deidara would be full and have no reason to come inside. Perhaps he would be happily full and still want Sasori's company? Or maybe, just maybe the burger was bad and the blond needed to depend of Sasori yet again; company and all. Maybe he could taint those taste buds, even with just a light snack.

"Sure, un."

Sasori and Deidara sat down where the redhead instinctively made some coffee and placed a plate of peanut butter cookies he had made earlier in the morning.

"Thank you!" Deidara sighed heavily as he downed that cookie so fast to get any remnants of that burger out of his mouth. Instead his mouth was being coated in thick salty, crunchy peanut butter cookies; a mixture of chocolate and actual peanut butter drizzle over every one of them, "These are delicious Sasori! I love the actual peanut pieces. I've only ever had, like, plain ones before!"

"I'm glad." Sasori said, keeping composure when all he wanted to do was ask his neighbor all about his girlfriend. Was this a serious thing? How far have they gone? Did they really meet while out for dinner that one evil night?

He couldn't pry though.

"So Hidan tells me you have a girlfriend? Is she... pretty?" He mumbled, getting some vegetables out to prepare for later.

Or maybe he could.

Deidara opened his phone and slid it across the table so he could drink his coffee in peace.

While he did that, Sasori put his knife to the side and picked it up. Looking down, he saw some photos of the girl from her Instagram. Of course she was very pretty. Petite, stylish and young. Sasori narrowed his eyes at what her aesthetic was. Anime boys, purple crystals and white flowers. He couldn't base an opinion of someone off just their aesthetic though... Sasori glanced at Deidara in the clothing he wore while at his lunch date.

Or maybe he could. He certainly was dressed... flamboyant? Not the like the casually dressed blond at all. Deidara spent way too much time on his outfit and appearance today. The couple could have easily been mistaken for lesbians if they were glanced over too quickly.

What was very prominent after a second glance at the girlfriend, was that based off a photo of her, he could easily tell she was a shorter creature than Deidara.
"You must like to have such a short girl."

Deidara nearly choked on his coffee as he burst out laughing, "Okay you're right you got me! She's shorter than me thank goodness. I don't think I could be with a tall girl." he said, dangling his legs playfully as he thought about his less than stellar height.

Sasori in return sheepishly spread his legs behind the counter, giving the illusion he was shorter. "Don't want to stand on your tiptoes to kiss a girl?" He joked, getting back to slicing vegetables, legs still spread.

"Haha! It just reminds me of kissing my little sister, that's all.

"Ah Yes, Kurotsuchi." Sasori chuckled as he recalled meeting the girl briefly when Deidara first moved in, days before he would even speak, let alone look at the blond. They didn't have a long interaction, it simply went along the lines of, "Warning, he's loud. If he's too quiet for days he's dead. Please check up on him if that's the case. He's my only big brother."

That is how he met Deidara- yelling at him for being too loud.

They had even talked about Deidara's family at length over their meals together. Two siblings, a father, a stepmom and the worlds worst grandparent. Sasori fought him heavily on that. There was discussion on which was worse, the scars of mental or physical abuse. In the end they both agreed they were both terrible and had a toast to their truly awful grandparents.

"How is she doing by the way?"

Deidara laughed as he thought about his stack of mail earlier that morning, "She sent me a birthday card but it came a bit early."

Sasori smiled slightly as thought of his grandmothers rambling cards. They were honestly terrible and were less about him than they were about her neighbor's barking dog. Any moment they were about him they were just criticism.

"How early was it?"

"About two weeks." Deidara devoured another cookie with his mouth full of sticky peanut butter residue, "Really caught me off guard I tell you."

"No doubt."

"Oh by the way Sasori! I have something for you." Deidara suddenly jumped up from his seat, rubbing his face clean of crumbs with the back of his arm and running out the door. "Stay there!"

"Where would I go?" Sasori mumbled to himself, standing up straight again and leaning over to clean Deidara's mess of crumbs and coffee dribbles. When he was done, he wiped his hands on his stained apron and sighed, wondering what could be taking so long. Guess he could chop some more veggies...

A few more minutes passed until his door swung open, Deidara standing there with a gift bag in hand. "Sasori, Sasori I got it! This is for you!"

Sasori's eyes widened at the gift bag and he quickly washed his hands. Deidara said this was for him, right? Not something for his girlfriend he needed advice on! He never dreamed of getting something from Deidara. It always seemed as if he was the one doing all the giving with his cooking and all- and Deidara did all the taking.

Sasori opened the gift and was at first confused at the lump of decorative fabric. It was pretty- pretty strange. Red and golden brown, textures and an almost lattice design? It looks like pie fabric!

Unraveling it Sasori looked at it with an unwavering expression of confusion. It was a apron no doubt, a full body coverage with a convenient pocket in the front. That didn't explain the pie pattern however.

"Get it!? It's cherry pie, un!" Deidara said with such vigor and pride, like he had done something worth an actual award.

Sasori nodded, "Ah... Oh!"

It was ridiculous. He hated it. However one thing stood out as he stared at it a little longer. The fact Deidara took notice of his ratty apron and also,

"Cherry pie, my favorite dessert. It's great Deidara. Thank you."

"Yeah! I knew it was the right choice!" Deidara gave a mighty fist pump in victory, "the lady at the store said a man would rather have a plain black or a white one, but nope! Not after I saw the pie, un!"

Sasori smiled and put the gift down, not really looking forward to wearing such a ridiculous apron. Sure it would only be seen by Deidara, who frankly was the only one who was excited about it. Still the embarrassment that came from the garment was all the same.

"Why don't you put it on?" Deidara asked, face contorted in sadness and frustration.

"I already have this one dirty. When I throw it in the wash, I'll use the...pie one."

Deidara leaned forward over the counter, getting right into Sasori space, and gave the apron a tug, "Why not just throw it out?" he asked.

Grasping at his apron, Sasori immediately got defensive. This was the apron he learned to cook such great meals with! This was the apron he wore when he first started courting Deidara. This was the apron he wore while Deidara was still a single man. This apron had such wonderful and treasured memories. Sasori scowled as he got started putting his vegetables in a dish, seasoning them them and covering them up quickly and slow baking them for later in the oven.

"Sentimental are we, un?" Deidara joked, sitting back in his seat, noting the lack of response he got. "That's fine, that's fine. You look fine."

"What?" Sasori scowled, looking over his shoulder. Something about fines? Is the coffee just fine? Deidara had complimented the cookies, but not the coffee. Was it strange today?

"Nothing, Sasori." Deidara laughed, admiring his neighbors work ethic as he cooked his transient art. It wasn't often he got to see Sasori do the actual cooking in front of him. "Mmm, everything is delicious as always."

5/5 the day the day.. happy bday deidara
bye losers!