Disclaimer: I do not own the Akatsuki.

Breakfast was... mostly uneventful. Yes, it is true that Deidara tried to squirt syrup into Tobi's eye, the red-eyed guy tried to eat, like, fifteen pancakes ("He needs a lot of calories", according to Kisame), Zetsu never showed up, and Sasori just sat on the couch in silence, never eating anything (I knew better than to ask at this point), but it was less than I'd come to expect from these guys.

After a few minutes, I decided to try and talk to them, as stupid a move as it was. "So... uh... where's Zetsu?" I asked.

Hidan didn't look up from his pancakes (which he seemed determined to spill all over my couch... slob.). "Dunno," he replied. "He just kinda disappears sometimes."

"Probably getting his own breakfast," added Kisame, apparently finding something funny about this.

I gave him a wary look and then glanced at Leader and Konan. Neither of them had eaten yet; they just stood off to the side, whispering urgently about something. It appeared that Leader was kind of agitated about something, and Konan was trying to calm him down.

"So... what's that all about?" I gestured toward the pair. "What are they talking about?"

Deidara, who had been one of the few to get to the table in time to get a spot there (along with Red-eyes, Tobi, and myself), answered. "How should we know, hm? They always do stuff like this; not telling us stuff seems to be a specialty of theirs."

"I know what they're talking about," Tobi piped up cheerfully.

"How?" Kisame wondered, looking with curiosity at the masked man.

"It's simple; I think Leader-sama and Konan-san probably like each other a lot, so if they're saying stuff they don't want us to hear, they must be talking about-"

"HELL NO. Tobi, nobody needs to hear that sh*t," interrupted Hidan, wrinkling his nose in disgust. I had to agree with him here.

I glanced over at Konan and Leader again. They seemed to be done talking, but Leader still looked... I don't know. Worried? Angry? He definitely wasn't pleased.

Meanwhile, the conversation had shifted away from the strange pair's secrets. "So, what I'm wondering is," Kisame was saying, "besides what Christie-san has to do with all this, besides why we're here, how are we getting back?"

"Yeah, I'd think we should be more concerned about that, hm," agreed Deidara.

Sasori piped up at this point. "If you ask me, our leader is far too concerned with the cause. If we don't find a way out of this place soon, there's no telling what could happen."

Deidara blinked in confusion. "What do you mean by that?"

Sasori crossed his arms and leaned back against the couch. "We don't know where we are or how we got here," he explained. "As far as we can tell, this is a world completely different from our own. We have no idea how to live here. And you, of all people, know what some of our members are like – there could be no end of trouble if one of us were to snap. This can't end well at all."

I listened to this whole thing with keen interest. What did he mean about this being a world "completely different" from their own? Where were these guys from, anyway? Although the "not ending well" part was certainly true.

"Well, this whole heavy-thought-fest has certainly been amusing, but I'm leaving, if ya don't mind," announced Hidan, standing up and leaving his plate on the couch. "See ya, b*tches."

"Hey, get your freakin' plate!" I called to him as he walked off to who-knows-where. He flipped me the bird in reply. Then something else occurred to me.

"And stay in the house!" I added, jumping up and grabbing his shoulder. He shook me off, glaring at me.

"I can do whatever the hell I want, b*tch," he snapped. "I'll leave if I want."

"But... but you can't!"

He actually seemed to find this comment amusing. "Yeah, and why the f*ck can't I? Who's stopping me?" he sneered as he turned toward the hallway.

I was still trying to think of a good retort when I heard Leader's voice behind me. "For now? I am."

Hidan jumped and spun around to face his leader. "Wait a second, why the hell not? What are we supposed to do, just stay in here forever?"

Leader regarded at him coolly, stating his answer matter-of-factly. "Because it's not safe. We know very little about this world, and chances are, you would stand out quite a lot. We must all stay here until we know enough to blend in."

Despite being very glad he had stepped in, I pouted slightly and stared at the floor, embarassed and frustrated that I could barely form a coherent reason to keep Hidan inside, and yet Mr. Creeper could calmly and convincingly make leaving the apartment sound like the worst thing in the world.

Grumbling, Hidan turned and stalked toward the couch, slumping down next to Sasori and starting to fiddle with the remote.

I walked back to the table, finishing my pancakes (which, though I would never admit this to Kisame, were actually pretty good), and then taking a moment to look around and confirm the locations of each of the Akatsuki members.

Leader and Konan were standing silently by the door, presumably to prevent the others from leaving. Sasori, Kisame, and Hidan were on the couch, Kisame and Hidan arguing over which channel looked the most interesting. Red-Eyes (what was that guy's name, anyway?) was watching in silence as Deidara tried to strangle Tobi for the third time that morning. Kakuzu was standing against a wall, reading the newspaper, and Zetsu, who had apparently returned, was standing in the corner... talking to himself. The hell.

At that moment, I realized that keeping the Akatsuki in here all the time may not be all that great an idea. After all, eleven people would not fit well into one apartment, especially if none of them could leave (What, you didn't think I would leave these psychos on their own, did you?). Either they'd need somewhere else to stay, or I'd need to find a way to get them (safely!) out of the house. Preferably both.

I sighed and stood up to go wash my plate. Guess I'd better start working on that.

"Uh... so, do you think this would fit Kisame, or do we need a bigger size?"

Konan examined the shirt, then shook her head. "It's too small."

I sighed and put the t-shirt back on the rack, then moved on to the next size up. Eventually, I had come to the conclusion that the first step would be getting them some more... normal clothes. And, since I had no clue what sizes each of them wore, I would have to bring one of them along – after all, even if she didn't know all of them especially well, Konan knew the guys better than I did. Plus, it would have to be Konan; I obviously didn't have any men's clothes in the house, so Konan borrowed some of Amanda's (we didn't need to check to know that mine would never fit her).

"What about this one?" I held up a new shirt, this one bigger than the last.

Konan nodded. "That should work," she agreed.

I placed it on the growing pile in the shopping cart and moved on. Normally, EveryMarket was not an ideal clothing store, but affording one outfit each for ten people wasn't easy for a part-time sandwich shop employee. Even if I had a bit of money saved up, I really didn't want to end up spending hundreds of dollars on actual, brand-name clothes. So generic t-shirts and jeans it was.

I had started looking through a selection of jeans when it occurred to me to ask something I had been wondering about. "Hey, Konan?" I asked. "What's that red-eyed guy's name, anyway?"

"That's Itachi," Konan replied. "I take it he hasn't mentioned it?"

I shook my head. "Nope. Actually, I don't think I've heard him say more than a couple sentences this whole time..."

"That's not surprising; he's not very talkative."

"Come to think of it, I haven't heard you say much before now, either," I noted tentatively.

She snorted slightly, her expression the closest thing to "irritated" that I had ever seen on her face. "I don't really feel the need to talk much. Besides, I don't really get the chance around those guys."

I nodded; that certainly made sense. At which point a third question occurred to me.

"How do you put up with them, anyway?"

Konan almost smirked. "Partly from lots of practice," she answered. "Partly because most of them generally try to stay out of my way – and with good reason."

At that moment, I decided to do my absolute best never to end up on Konan's bad side.

"So, you said you had a roommate?" Konan asked.

Although I was taken slightly by surprise by the sudden change of topic, I nodded. "Yeah. She's on a trip right now, but she should be here in a couple of days."

"What's she like?" I cocked my head slightly, and Konan elaborated. "Do you think she could help keep the others under control?"

I thought for a moment. "Maybe," I replied. "She can be kind of... forceful when she wants to be. But I thought that Leader guy had that covered."

"Mostly, yes," Konan agreed. "But we don't know much about this place; drawing too much attention is a constant danger."

I can certainly see what she means... Suddenly, I remembered the mysterious conversation between Leader and Konan. I was wondering whether I should ask about it when I realized that, having been checking sizes and prices on jeans as we talked, we now had enough clothes for exactly ten apartment-invading criminals.

"Looks like we're ready to go," noted Konan.

"Yeah, let's get going," I replied.

To be honest, hearing and paying the total price for all these t-shirts and jeans (their shoes weren't too weird, I guess, and I assumed they were wearing underwear. That is, they better have been wearing underwear) was almost painful. But desperate times call for desperate measures – or something like that – and it wasn't as bad as it could have been. But that by no means meant that I was planning to let them out on their own anytime soon.

On the way home, I was again entertained by the results of a fact that I had discovered on the way to the store: Wherever these people were from, they apparently didn't have cars. I stifled a grin as, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Konan staring out the window at the passing vehicles, opening and closing the window, and fiddling with the seat belt.

On the initial trip, she had seemed a bit embarassed when she noticed me watching her in amusement. After explaining her fascination, and being assured that I could understand her interest, she seemed much more comfortable examining the workings of my car – although I occasionally had to draw the line when she started to mess with something potentially dangerous. Seeing how Konan reacted to the apparent wonders of cars, I would have to keep in mind not to let any of the others near mine for quite a while.

I frowned slightly at this new addition to my ever-growing list of things not to let the Akatsuki do. At this rate, I wouldn't be able to let any of them out of my sight. Speaking of which...

I pulled into the parking lot outside my apartment complex, and Konan and I each took some of the bags from the trunk and headed inside. I looked around carefully; everybody seemed to be there, and I didn't see any gaping wounds or massive property damage. I sighed with relief and dropped my bags on the floor.

"Alright, guys, here ya go. Cheap t-shirts and jeans for all. Don't think this means you get to leave anytime soon," I announced. "And... I guess I'll just leave it up to you to work out what goes to who."

I hurried to my room, hoping to get a few minutes of reading in before another problem arose – I hadn't gotten much free time the past couple days, and any chance I could get to make progress in the novel I had been reading was welcome.

Unfortunately, it seemed that the presence of the Akatsuki occupied even my time away from them. Rather than reading, I found myself staring at the ceiling, thinking about them. Where were they from? Why on Earth would they think I had something to do with this? What was that "energy" that they had been talking about when they first showed up?

Most importantly, who were the Akatsuki? They claimed to be feared criminals, but I had never heard of them – I would probably remember if I had. Their clothes were weird, but not foreign in any way that I recognized. They didn't know what cars were, or planes, and they used all these weird terms that I had either never heard, or that, like the words they kept sticking onto the ends of people's names, sounded vaguely familiar – but I didn't know where I had heard them.

And there was more than that; there were things about them that I simply couldn't think of any explanation for. Why did Sasori seem to have an artificial body? What was up with Itachi and Leader's eyes? What was Zetsu, anyway? Why was Kisame blue?

I had started to form possible answers for some of these questions – some of which involved aliens – when I heard a knock on the door.

I sat up on my bed. "Come in?" It came out sounding like a question. Not many of the Akatsuki would be polite enough to knock.

The door swung open, revealing Red Ey- I mean Itachi – standing in the doorway. "We have a few... questions about the clothing you selected," he informed me in a monotone.

Of course you do. "Okay, like what?" I asked, standing up.

Itachi held up the t-shirt in his hand and pointed at it, raising one thin, black eyebrow. The shirt was black with the words This shirt is now 20% cooler printed on it in blue. Below it was a picture of a very stylized, very blue winged horse with a rainbow mane and tail.

I blinked, then my face warmed slightly as I realized that I hadn't really been taking pictures into account when I was choosing outfits. "Oh, that's... uh... That's a character from this TV show that's gotten really popular lately. It's... actually got a lot of adult fans, so I guess that's why that shirt even exists in that size."

I nervously averted my eyes; having his now-black (don't ask me why) eyes staring steadily at me, with no trace of emotion, as I awkwardly explained the picture, was starting to make me uncomfortable. "You'd think I would recognize the picture, since my roommate keeps trying to get me to watch it and all..."

After a moment of awkward silence, Itachi turned and walked from the room.

"Okay..." I muttered. "I take it that means you were happy with the answer...?"

Or not. I really have no idea... I sighed and shook my head, heading into the hallway, prepared to explain any more strange pictures. If only Amanda were here, I wouldn't be left explaining stuff like this.

A/N: Not entirely happy with the ending here, but it seems acceptable (to me, anyway). Any suggestions to fix it?

Originally, Amanda was going to enter the story in this chapter, but it got too long. The MLP: FiM reference was originally joked about by my sister, then I decided to add it in. And yes, Amanda does watch it. And no, Christie does not know any Japanese whatsoever, including honorifics. Which is why she not only doesn't use them, but doesn't understand why the Akatsuki do use them.

So yeah. As usual, read and review; reviews are the best things ever!