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-

"Remind me, again," Itachi says painfully, rubbing at his eyes, "why this is necessary."

Sakura crosses her arms and makes it a point to address a random spot on the wall, rather than him. "Remind me, again," she counters, gesturing at the group of Akatsuki who are currently dismantling the contents of her room, "why this is necessary."

Before Itachi can reply, Tobi chips in, as he pushes the dresser out of the door. "We are just making sure that you have no way to possibly hurt Itachi-san!" With one mighty heave, the dresser is relocated to the hallway. He skips back into the room and surveys it thoughtfully. "Deidara-senpai, should we remove the bed as well?"

Deidara smirks at this innocent statement, and looks over at the glaring Konoha medic-nin and the equally irate Itachi; who, despite this, appears somewhat less murderous than usual. But then again, it is five in the morning, and by no means is the Uchiha prodigy a morning person. Besides, Deidara has to admit that even Itachi just doesn't look as intimidating in a mere black t-shirt sporting his clan symbol on the back, and knee-length red shorts, not to mention the ever-present Dior sunglasses.

"Leave it, Tobi," Deidara says magnanimously. "There's hardly any danger of them fucking like bunnies, un."

At this statement, Kisame has to cease his last-minute search for pens in order to give Itachi a bear – shark? – hug, catching him in mid-lunge toward the blonde missing-nin, and quietly reminding him of his breathing exercises. Meanwhile, Sakura snarls in what Deidara feels is an unnecessarily menacing fashion. "Unlikely, you…you…fake-blonde bastard! What's infinitely more likely is that I tear the bedposts off and bash his head in with them!"

At this point, just to be safe, Kisame reaches over and pulls a loudly protesting Sakura into his grip as well. "Have you tried breathing exercises?" he asks sternly.

"What – no!" Sakura struggles, to no avail, while Itachi resentfully mutters the requisite series of Om's, having, by now, learned that resistance is futile.

"Tobi!" Deidara yells, meanwhile. "You heard the demented kunoichi! Dismantle these bedposts immediately, un!" He scowls at the demented kunoichi in question, flicking his long ponytail over his shoulder. "And my hair is not fake. Hair dyes thoroughly fail in replicating the true beauty of the colors found in nature. I'm a natural blonde, un."

"Aye aye, Deidara-senpai!" Tobi replies cheerfully, before getting on with the process. "And may I add, your hair is highly beautiful. But where is Hidan-san on this fine morning?" he asks, concerned, as he pries the bedposts free of the bed with hardly any effort.

Deidara winces at the very thought of his profanity-spewing comrade. "Busy nursing his injured testicles, un," he says, with a pointed look at Sakura, who wriggles out of Kisame's grasp with a satisfied smirk and dusts herself off.

Tobi removes the last of the four bedposts, and Deidara sinks onto the bed with a deep sigh. "Wait, why five in the morning, un?" He frowns. "It is an hour thoroughly lacking in artistic merit."

Sakura rolls her eyes, having explained this at least ten times already. "The eyes are freshest and most rested in the early morning. It's the closest I can possibly get to a clean slate to work with."

"An acceptable explanation, I suppose, un," Deidara pulls himself out of the bed and stretches luxuriously. "Tobi!"

"Yes, Deidara-senpai?"

"I am going back to bed now. If you insist on using the shower, please refrain from singing, un. And if you use my plumeria shampoo, I will blow you up in your sleep."

Once delivering this weighty proclamation, Deidara pads out of the room, making no sound as he goes, thanks to the fluffy duckling – and very artistically savvy – bunny slippers that protect his feet from the cold wooden floor. Tobi follows, after bidding Itachi and Sakura a very cheerful farewell.

"Alright, then," Kisame yawns, inadvertently clutching his small stuffed shark closer. "I'll just leave you two alone." He snaps his mouth shut mid-yawn, in order to give both of them very shrewd looks. "If I hear any screams whatsoever, we are all going to have a group yoga session this evening, do you understand?"

"Fine," Itachi mutters, barely able to contain his shudder of apprehension, and Sakura nods her assent.

Kisame trudges out of the room, leaving them both very much alone, standing in a room stripped bare, save for the mattress.

"What's with the shark?" Sakura wonders aloud.

Itachi intends to give this insufferable young woman no quarter, but admittedly, it is a valid question. "…When you squeeze its dorsal fin, it plays the Jaws theme music."

The medic-nin wrinkles her nose, suddenly assaulted by awful flashbacks of being a little girl frightened of the sea, solely because of that movie. "Why would somebody want that?"

"Kisame," Itachi mutters, "finds it soothing."

His voice is kept, carefully, as impassive as ever, but Sakura picks up on the intricacies of that tone – spoken with the quiet resignation of one who has become accustomed to falling asleep to his partner happily humming along to the Jaws theme song every night.

Sakura allows herself one smile, just one, before attempting to tap into her professional side; the one that is, incidentally, so much easier to tap into when she is in a clean, sanitized, brightly lit hospital room in Konoha, tending to familiar patients who are most definitely not clan-killing psychopaths.

"…Take it off."

Upon receiving this medical decree, Itachi nearly chokes on the dry air of the room itself. "Pardon?" he asks, scandalized.

Haruno Sakura stares at him as if he is the village idiot – an expression that has never been directed at him. Ever. "The sunglasses," she says, taking care to pronounce each word carefully. "I can't…" she scowls at the very concept of it. "I can't fix your stupid eyes if those sunglasses are covering them."

Itachi stares back at her, making no move to remove the sunglasses. "Kunoichi, are you suicidal?"

Sakura tilts her head, and appears to actually give some thought to the question. "Not at all," she concludes at last. "And if that statement was directed as some kind of implied death threat because I called your eyes stupid, well – I'm not scared in the least."

He steps forward, effectively bridging the gap between them; unlike last night, she hardly bats an eyelid, and that alone is enough to give Itachi a moment's pause. However, Sakura has no intention whatsoever of telling him that without the Akatsuki cloak and the Sharingan, he is taken down a notch from evidently murderous and psychopathic and clearly dangerous member of the world's most notorious criminal organization to looking like…merely an evidently murderous and psychopathic and clearly dangerous (but otherwise normal-appearing and vaguely metrosexual) young adult.

Sakura is wise enough to know that articulating these thoughts would mean certain death, so she settles with reminding herself that she has previously held her own against several individuals at least as dangerous as this. "Sunglasses?"

It is a few moments before Itachi complies, but at last, he grudgingly removes his most beloved accessory, and Sakura does not miss the adverse reaction his weakened eyes have to even the slight amount of light in the room.

"Very well," she murmurs, lifting her hands, and they blaze with the emerald color of her chakra. The kunoichi offers him a small, somewhat dangerous smile, and Itachi realizes uncomfortably that she is suffering under the delusion that, as she is the one doing the healing, she will be the one to wield the power in this equation. "Sit down, if you will, and let's begin."

Itachi is reluctant to comply with this violent stranger without question. "Can we not do it standing up?"

Sakura raises an eyebrow, reflecting, in a brief moment of twisted humor, that if that weird fake-blonde guy were here, he would probably make some sort of ill-crafted sexual innuendo. "No."

This time, Itachi sits.

-

Kisame is sitting the kitchen, mechanically eating Frosted Flakes out of the box, when he is startled out of his reverie by the sudden appearance of his partner. He jumps, startled—one look at the clock confirms that it had been two hours since he had left Itachi upstairs, with not even a single sound of conflict emerging from the kunoichi's room. Interesting. Itachi might have made a friend.

Itachi, blissfully unaware of his partner's train of thought, proceeds to open and shut each cabinet within reach. "Kisame," he says at last. "Where are the Fruit Loops?"

This question is precisely the one that Kisame had been dreading the most; he swallows conspicuously. "You're not wearing the sunglasses!"

"I am aware." The Uchiha fixes a distasteful glance at the box of Frosted Flakes – sugar disagrees with him. "…The kunoichi claims that my eyes need time to adjust to the neural corrections she performed." He pauses, before deciding to gift Kisame with the benefit of a conversation exceeding two sentences. "She believes that my vision will be fully and permanently corrected within the space of five or six sessions. Where are the Fruit Loops?"

Kisame gives Itachi his widest smile. "How do your eyes feel?"

Itachi considers the probability that the kunoichi will be able to hear him from her upstairs room; just in case, he lowers his voice slightly. "…Highly satisfactory indeed." He glares at his partner, proving that said glare is just as frightening without the Sharingan activated. "If you do not inform me as to the whereabouts of the Fruit Loops, I will feed Zetsu your weekly ration of Vitamin Water."

Kisame nearly chokes on his indignation. "But – it would be totally wasted on him!"

Itachi's fingers tap a deadly pattern on the kitchen counter.

"…Deidara ate them," Kisame confesses. "I threatened to use deadly force if necessary, but he said he would blow up Bruce if I didn't hand them over. But," he adds hastily, "Tobi made waffles. Strawberry waffles. They're in the fridge."

Without further comment, Itachi retrieves the plate of said strawberry waffles, a canister of whipped cream, Deidara's nearly-empty canister of peppermint ice cream, and a liberal helping of horseradish sauce.

Kisame watches with horror as Itachi empties the horseradish sauce into Deidara's beloved peppermint ice cream before stirring it into one, evil-looking concoction. "You know, he's going to cry now," the Mist missing-nin observes mordantly.

Itachi returns the tainted peppermint ice cream to the freezer and begins ingesting his waffles calmly. "He should not have eaten my Fruit Loops."

In an attempt to steer Itachi from this dangerous conversation, Kisame clears his throat purposefully. "So…how's the kunoichi? What's her name, again?"

Itachi sprays a towering amount of whipped cream onto his waffles. "Highly competent indeed," he concedes grudgingly, while sawing a bite-sized chunk off the corner. "Sakura. A rather generic name."

Kisame considers this as he takes another spoonful of Frosted Flakes. "I guess, but it sure matches her hair."

"Her hair is ridiculous and impractical." Itachi stabs a strawberry. "It sticks out like a sore thumb – the sole reason I remembered her from our conflict with the Kyuubi and Hatake Kakashi four years ago."

He eats the remainder of his waffle in a rather savage fashion, while silence suddenly descends over the kitchen table. By the time Itachi realizes that he may possibly have said too much, considering Kisame's nature for undue speculation, he looks up to find that Kisame is already staring at him, openmouthed, Frosted Flakes forgotten entirely.

The shark-man scoots his chair closer to Itachi, lowering his voice conspiringly. "Do you – like her, or something?"

A piece of waffle goes down the wrong tract, and Itachi chokes, horrified. "What?"

"Tree!" Kisame barks suddenly.

"Leaves."

"Blood!"

"Red."

"Strawberry ice cream!"

"Pink."

"Zetsu's fungal cream!" Kisame fairly screams, pounding the table triumphantly.

"…Green."

Itachi realizes apprehensively that his partner has paled to a very washed-out shade of blue instead of his typical healthy turquoise. "Oh, my Buddha, she's like your icon for romance," Kisame breathes, aghast. "Itachi likes a girl!"

As fate would have it, that is the exact moment that Deidara chooses to enter the kitchen, in need of his necessary hourly peppermint ice cream fix. By pure chance, he overhears the shark-man's words, incorrectly interprets the agonized expression on Itachi's face, and a smile of nothing less than dastardly glee spreads over his face. "Team meeting right now, un!" he hollers, his voice echoing throughout the house.

"Why the fuck—" Hidan begins to yell back, from his lair, but Deidara interrupts him, unable to contain the violence of his emotions.

"Itachi likes a girl!"

He has never considered himself suicidal, prior to this, but at that moment, Itachi briefly considers how practical it would be to smother himself utilizing strawberry waffles and whipped cream.

-

Less than ten seconds later, Deidara, Hidan, Kisame, Tobi, and Itachi himself are seated around the round table in the dank, dilapidated Akatsuki basement. This is hardly ever used except for the most serious and dastardly business, as, since he started dating Konan, Leader-sama preferred a more comfortable and familial environment for the members of his organization to enjoy.

Deidara sits at the twelve-o-clock, nearly bouncing with anticipation. Tobi sits at his right, looking rather excited, next to Hidan, who has a rather sickly countenance as a result of his run-in with Sakura the previous night. Kisame sits to Deidara's left, wringing his hands with guilt, while Itachi is seated next to Kisame, trying his very best to keep his expression as dangerous and murderous as possible.

"Okay, we're all here now, un—" Deidara begins earnestly, before Hidan interrupts him with an irritable grunt.

"Yeah, now that you've got us here under false pretenses, you can tell us what you really want to say. You do know that lying is a fucking sin, right?" Hidan asks, fixing Deidara with a beady-eyed stare.

"I'm not lying, un!" Deidara protests, injured.

"Deidara-senpai would never, ever lie," Tobi assures, all wide-eyed innocence.

"Fine, whatever," Hidan scowls.

"Now, now, I think this is all a misunderstanding – " Kisame says, in a brave attempt to rectify the situation.

"It's not, un," Deidara replies confidently.

"There's no need to be insecure, Itachi-san," Tobi reaches across the table, and pats him on the hand, completely unaffected by the dangerous, murderous expression. "I'm sure she likes you very much too!"

"Uh, Tobi, she thinks that he's a psychopathic, clan-killing murderer who's the number one enemy of her village, un," Deidara mutters in an undertone.

"…Oh."

Itachi decides to speak up now, before this madness can escalate any further. "I do not," he says icily, in a tone that brooks no argument, while taking care to fix his murderous stare on each of his brethren. "Like. Haruno. Sakura."

There are a few heartbeats of silence.

"Denial," Kisame, Hidan, Tobi, and Deidara all proclaim in unison.

"What—"

"Wait, un!" Deidara exclaims, before looking anxiously over at Kisame. "Before we start planning, is it even allowed for an Akatsuki member to have a girlfriend?"

"I do not want—"

"Aren't Leader-sama and Konan dating?" asks Hidan, momentarily confused.

"I cannot see why we should be denied the several sunny summertimes of true love!" Tobi interjects anxiously.

"What plans—"

Kisame, who, by virtue of his even temper, ability to restrain any and all homicidal urges to the battlefield only, and seniority in the organization itself, has long been considered the de facto leader of Akatsuki while Pein and Konan are off on missions, as they are now. As such, it is his solemn duty to be the keeper of The Official Akatsuki Rulebook, Version Two Point Zero.

There is a minute of hushed silence as Kisame retrieves the ancient tome from the only cabinet in the room; even Itachi, in all of his righteous rage and indignation, cannot break the near-sacred reverence of the moment.

The table shudders and groans under the weight of the massive book as Kisame sets it down onto the table. "Dating," he says to himself, as he turns to the table of contents. The other members crane forward, in an attempt to see the tiny text better. "That should fall under 'Romantic Endeavors', ah…page…nine hundred and twenty-eight."

They watch as he flips through the book, rough fingers careful against the brittle yellow pages, until he finally arrives at the desired page. The writing is impossibly small and very ornate. Kisame reads the entire page intently, and then looks up at his people, cracking his knuckles in an anticipatory fashion as he begins to translate.

"Dating," he instructs, "is wholly acceptable for members of the Akatsuki. There are a good deal of guidelines, but I think that the most important one is that the intended partner of the member in question must receive official approval from each other Akatsuki member."

Deidara furrows his brow thoughtfully. "Did you guys ever approve Konan, un? She was in when I…was recruited," he says, with a dirty look at Itachi.

Kisame and Itachi had been the only members of the present company who had been in the organization long enough to remember the recruitment and subsequent approval of Konan. Itachi pales slightly, and suddenly becomes extraordinarily interested in examining a tiny chip in his nail polish.

"We approved Konan," Kisame says shortly. "After she had made Orochimaru cry hysterically by insulting his complexion, transfigured Sasori's body puppets into sock puppets, nearly killed Zetsu with her chocolate cake, forcibly fed me shark-fin soup, and had tied Itachi to a chair and French braided his hair with ribbons and bows."

Itachi shudders at the mere memory.

"French braids with fucking ribbons and bows?" asks Hidan, aghast.

"I was thirteen," is the only explanation he gets in return.

"So that means Sakura-san can go out with Itachi-san!" Tobi exclaims gleefully. "She's really nice and pretty and gives good hugs – I approve of her."

Deidara snorts, amused. "I would love to deny Itachi his happiness by disapproving her, but I have to admit that she would be a blast to paint, un," he acknowledges. "And she nearly castrated Hidan with a pen, which takes…skill. Plus, she's demented, which means that she and the Uchiha should get along just fine. The kunoichi has my approval."

Kisame nods his agreement. "I know somebody would have to be truly special to capture Itachi's attention," he says, in what Itachi thinks is a far too soppy and emotional manner. "I trust his judgment fully. And," he adds, as an afterthought. "I speak for Leader-sama, Konan, and Zetsu in that they would approve of her as well."

"Can you do that, un?" Deidara wonders.

Hidan snorts mirthlessly. "Konan and this Sakura chick sound deranged enough to be fucking best friends, so Leader-sama would probably approve as well. And Zetsu doesn't really give a damn either way. Incidentally," he glares at Itachi. "I haven't approved of her yet. And I won't until we settle a score."

"Why?" Tobi asks immediately, worried for the safety of his newfound best friend.

"She fucking stabbed me in the testicles with a pen!" howls Hidan. "That's grounds for a score if I ever saw one!" He stands up, practically twitching with his ill temper. "No matter what you hear – don't come upstairs, until the hour's up, or I'll rip your intestines out and feed them to you, one by fucking one."

With that ominous statement, he storms away, cracking his knuckles and invoking the mighty wrath of Jashin-sama.

"Kisame-san," Tobi says at last. "I think he broke the 'no hurtful language' rule."

"Not to mention the 'no death threats' rule, un," Deidara completes.

"I'll give him two demerits," Kisame assures. "And Konan will take away one of his gold stars when she gets back." He gives his partner a worried look. "Itachi, are you – quite alright?"

Itachi braces his head on his steepled fingers patiently. "I am fine, Kisame; merely counting the seconds until Hidan starts screaming."

-

The screaming starts exactly two minutes later and continues for a very, very long time. It is so traumatizing that Tobi covers his ears and has to sing loudly to himself, Deidara is nearly overcome by giggling fits, Kisame paces back and forth and drinks Vitamin Water agitatedly, and Itachi merely listens, smirking to himself.

-

Fifty-five minutes later, Hidan staggers downstairs; bloody, bruised, and beaten. The rest of Akatsuki stares at him, stunned, and he flings himself back down at the round table irritably. "Fucking kunoichi really did cuss me out," he growls.

Deidara, who has been the subject of Hidan's infamous cussing-outs too many times to count, gapes wordlessly in shock that such a thing is even possible – from a petite little pink-haired, green-eyed kunoichi, at that.

"I guess I approve," Hidan mutters resentfully.

"Yay!" cheers Tobi, and starts clapping.

Itachi blinks once. "Kisame."

"Yes?"

"You owe me a bottle of vitamin water."

"…Damn."

"Okay, un," Deidara declares, banging once on the table for emphasis. "Now, the planning begins."

"Planning?" Itachi asks, sounding somewhat worried.

"You can't carry an unrequited torch of flaming, burning passion for her, un!" Deidara exclaims, shocked. "That kind of shit only works in poetry, and life isn't poetry, Uchiha!" He gets up and paces around the table.

"You surely are not suggesting that I express my interest – if there were any such interest, which there isn't – verbally, are you?" Itachi asks, scandalized at the very concept.

"Aha, so he admits it," Kisame whispers to Tobi, who nods rapidly.

Deidara smirks, enjoying his assumed sense of superiority over the socially challenged Uchiha. "Of course not! That is…mundane, un."

Itachi folds his arms and glares, at the end of his metaphorical tether. "Stop talking in riddles."

"Fine." Deidara smiles in a rather diabolical fashion, and gestures to Tobi, Kisame, Hidan – and himself. "Welcome to Courtship 101, un. These will be your teachers. And your lessons begin…now."

They are the same idiots he has worked with for a good chunk of his life, but right at this particular moment, Itachi is very hard pressed to hide his shiver of apprehension.

Poor Itachi. D: He's in for it now…

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