Found

Y is for Yin

A/N: These next two chapters are short because I had to break them up into two.

Enjoy the end of Found, and thank you for sticking with it. I had a lot of fun.

O O O

Sakura was transfixed on the door, blocking her view of the man behind it. Deidara was transfixed on the geriatrics currently crowding said door and further obscuring their views. Said geriatrics were transfixed on Kenji, who stood beyond the door.

Deidara stood up, but Sakura put a hand on his arm. "Move, grandpa," he muttered, visibly grinding his teeth.

Sakura glared at him. "Sit down. Don't make a scene. If it is Kisame, we can't let on that we know him. It could blow his cover."

"I know," he snapped, "but the suspense is starting to piss me off, yeah."

"It would look weird if we just marched up to him like we were expecting him," Sakura countered, satisfied when Deidara sat back down, his eyes still glued stubbornly to the event unfolding before them. "We're new to the city, remember?" The cold from the wide open bar door forced a shiver down Sakura's spine at that moment, and she let go of Deidara's arm. "Let's just wait a second." She stuck her hands inside her pockets and bounced her legs impatiently.

Finally, after what felt like hours upon agonizing hours, the crowd began to file outside, one by one. The returned seconds later dragging big plastic tubs, setting them inside the bar and stacking them against a wall. Two men carried an enormous snow crab, setting it unceremoniously atop a table. It was still dripping water, though its thick legs and massive claws lay limp. By the time all of the old men had finished carrying in the supplies, there were four plastic tubs stacked along the wall, one large snow crab and two smaller ones, ten bottles of sake and twenty bottles of shocho, and a barrel each of whiskey and plain beer.

"Wow," Sakura said, eyeing the shipment that had been dumped inside the bar. "Looks like Kenji's stocking up for the winter, huh?"

But Deidara didn't answer. He was trembling out of anxiety. Or maybe he was just shivering from the cold. Either way, it was very obvious that the tension was killing him.

"Kenji, holy cow, you got so much stuff this time!" A very familiar voice struck Sakura, and she turned toward it. A young boy, wearing an apron that had "Eye of the Shark" scrawled sloppily across it in marker, skidded across the floor of the bar. Suds clung to his hands, which he wiped off on his apron. He stood on his tiptoes, surveying everything that had been brought in. "You caught snow crab this time? And where'd you get all these bottles of sake? Holy cow, Kenji, holy cow!"

"Deidara," Sakura hissed, the hair on the back of her neck standing on end. "Deidara, I recognize that kid."

"Me too," Deidara said, stiff, staring at the boy intently. His eyes widened after a second and he looked frantically at Sakura. "It's that one kid, from the port town! He had the fishing pole in the woods. The mermaid kid!"

Sakura laughed out of sheer excitement, and her limbs felt light. Her mind was working quickly, making her feel only a little light-headed. "There is no way this is just a coincidence anymore, Deidara," she said, tugging on his arm once more.

"Shh. Just watch," Deidara said, though he was smiling as well.

Kenji finally appeared, carrying in a myriad of fishing supplies. He was dressed from head to toe in a thick grey jumpsuit, and the hood of the jacket underneath it was pulled up over his head. He was turned away from Deidara and Sakura, and he set the fishing supplies down near the plastic tubs.

"I went out early today," he said, pulling the hood back. "And decided to pick up some things we're running low on." His voice…

Disappointment after disappointment had steeled her for this, and Sakura expected that she wouldn't react so violently. But she did. She jumped up from the table, much to Deidara's protest, and dove at Kenji.

"Kisame!"

At the mention of his name, Kisame turned, wide-eyed and on the immediate defensive, and was promptly tackled by a very flustered Sakura. She threw her arms around his waist and swore to herself she wouldn't let go again. His jumpsuit was wet and he was cold, and he smelled like fish and cheap sake, but she didn't care. It was Kisame—granted, wearing his hair down and a little shorter, reminding her an awful lot of what Naruto's hair had looked like instead of Kakashi's crazy updo—in all of his big, blue glory. Kisame with the rumbling voice and the empty threats and the joking demeanor that had faded to something a little more pleasingly tranquil.

Kisame, apparently, had no idea what to do. "S—uh." He patted her head. "Keiko. How—what? How did you get here? What are you doing here?"

She pulled away from him, and Deidara joined her side, smiling sort of lopsided-like and shooting Kisame a very casual, "Hey."

"Makoto?" Kisame blinked in disbelief, and then unzipped his jumpsuit, laughing. He shed the grey thing and laid it beside his fishing gear. "How did you two find me? And why?"

"You didn't exactly cover your tracks, yeah. You advertised this place from here to Sakanamura."

Sakura clicked her tongue disapprovingly and shoved Deidara, who glared at her. "Oh, he's exaggerating. It was sheer luck that we even found the fliers in the first place."

"So what ever happened with your 'let's just wait for a second' plan, eh?" Deidara said under his breath, glaring in a decidedly angry manner at Sakura.

Sakura looked sheepishly away, but Kisame chuckled.

"Hypocrite," Deidara scoffed, but he wasn't really mad. His demeanor changed around Kisame, she noticed, like he put up a tough front. And her demeanor changed around the man as well. He acted as a mediator that allowed Deidara to be brash and opinionated and Sakura to be calm and mildly collected.

"Wow," Kisame managed, smiling a bit and shaking his head. He smoothed back damp hair. "I guess we have a lot of catching up to do." He looked tired in that moment, and much older than he really was. He was wise beyond his years and he he was getting up there in regards to age, but only now—just now—did Sakura really see the jaded composure in his slouch and by the faint wrinkles around his mouth and eyes. He regained that youthful, largely jovial disposition and straightened, though, hands on his hips and chest puffed triumphantly outwards.

"Taro, you're in charge of keeping the customers in line."

The boy nodded, seemingly oblivious to Deidara and Sakura's presences.

"Mr. Fukui, can I ask you to watch the bar for me?"

An older gentlemen laughed a hoary old laugh and stepped deftly behind the bar, elbows on the counter.

"And Mr. Tottori—"

"Minoru, Kenji! Call me Minoru!"

"—Minoru," Kisame corrected, the corners of his lips edging into a brief smile. "Would you help Taro watch the bar?"

"Of course."

And then Kisame settled two large, heavy hands on Sakura and Deidara's sholders. "And you two can help me drag the goods into the backroom."

Deidara complained and groaned and whined, but he acquiesced, lifting—with effort—the twenty-gallon barrel of whiskey. Sakura was intimidated, understandably, especially when Kisame effortlessly hefted all but the barrel of beer toward the back door. She didn't want to use her chakra because she didn't want to risk being recognized, but…

Sighing, she took hold of the sides of the beer barrel and began to roll it in awkward, circular motions toward the door. She was halfway there and suitably pissed when Deidara came behind her and lifted it straight up.

"Having trouble?" he asked around a rather unwarrantedly cocky grin.

"No, I'm enjoying rolling the barrel."

"It's a scientific fact that men are stronger than women, yeah."

"You know I can lift that and then some if I could only—"

"Uh huh," Deidara drawled, teased, disappearing into the backroom, and Sakura decided that whenever he came back she was going to put one of those giant crabs in his hair. Unfortunately, Kisame came out next, and he gathered up all of those crabs and transported them into the back of the bar, as if he knew what Sakura was up to.

Goods cleared of the dining area wall, Deidara and Sakura dutifully followed Kisame to the upstairs portion of the bar. It looked shockingly like a standard-issue house, if not much more humble. The stairs led them through a heavy door—"Just in case," Kisame muttered—and into a white-tile kitchen. There was exactly one archaic-looking coffee pot and one worn teakettle sitting on the stove. The sink was empty, save for a sponge that had seen better days, and the kitchen table was overrun with envelopes and documents and all manner of paperwork.

The kitchen bled into the living room, with hard blue carpet and dingy tan walls. The only sofa was tattered, and the television set was dusty. There was a fireplace full of ashes and blackened bits of wood, as well as a fire-poker lying dejectedly beside it.

Sakura chanced a glance at Deidara, who was busily chewing his lip.

"Hopefully you two don't mind sharing a room," Kisame said, glancing at them over his shoulder. "I'd been using it for storage, but there are only a few empty boxes in there now. We can go out and buy you a futon today."

The hallway was short and crowded, with two doors on the left wall and one door on the other. The linen closet sat at the end of the hallway, marked by a sign that very clearly stated "LINEN." Kisame's bedroom door was wide open, and upon further inspection, Sakura could see an off-white futon, a dresser, a small television, and a myriad of boxes. The other door was cracked, and a small pair of pants snaked out into the hallway. What she could see of the rest of the room was a disaster. She assumed that the little boy, Taro, lived there.

Kisame opened the last door. The room was, like he said, empty except for some overturned boxes and a few rolled up posters. One such poster hung on the wall, declaring "Eye of the Shark: Kenji's Place" in bold, loud letters, with a rather striking design of a shark patrolling a fisherman's wharf. Sakura wondered whether or not Kisame had designed the poster himself.

"It's musty," Deidara complained, opening the window a crack. Cold air immediately swept through the room.

"Yeah," Kisame said, leaning against the door, "I didn't clean this room. The place was a mess when I bought it."

"I can imagine," Deidara said back. "Looks like you're doing okay, though."

"More than okay," Kisame admonished, shifting his weight slightly. "I'm surprised I'm even doing so well. We can catch up later tonight, though, when I close up. For now, I'll have Taro bring you some cleaning supplies."

Kisame made his exit, not quite as grand as his entrance had been, and Sakura collapsed into Deidara's arms. He caught her, grunted, and then demanded to know why she would do such a thing.

"Tired," she mumbled, lifting herself from him. "And I felt like touching you."

Deidara huffed and brushed some dust off of his sleeve. "You don't have to jump on me, yeah. You could just ask."

Sakura rolled her eyes. "Oh, Deidara, may I pleeeease touch you?" And it had barely left her mouth before he was closing the small gap between them—she'd never noticed before now how close they stood, even casually—and put his arms around her, encasing her in a veritable cocoon of warmth and Deidara. It was a very nice place to be indeed, she decided, and so she leaned into him.

"I'm not normally much of a romantic, yeah."

"Liar."

O O O

When Taro walked into the room carrying a bag of cleaning supplies and dragging a large roll-out futon, he became very surprised and dropped said bag right onto his foot. This made him yelp, which startled Deidara, which made Deidara bite Sakura's bottom lip hard, and Sakura quickly disengaged her mouth from her vampiric partner's.

"Gross!" he yelled, in all of his ten-year-old immaturity, and then ran out of the room with threats to tell Kisame that Deidara and Sakura were "practically just having S-E-X in that dirty room!"

Deidara moved to pick up the cleaning supplies, more than a little embarrassed about the incident, while Sakura rubbed her lip sorely.

They got to cleaning the room, though, as easily as one could clean a room while simultaneously trying very hard not to practically have S-E-X in a dirty room, because their kissing had reminded the both of them that it had been too long since their last round of copulation. Considering the last time Sakura had even touched Deidara like that had been in that wretched field of butterflies, Deidara was very anxious indeed, and he cleaned as fast as he could, clearing the boxes, washing down the windows, and dusting all the ledges in record time. When Sakura asked him to help her roll out the futon, he felt giddy with excitement. It was like a kid in a candy shop.

Sakura plopped down on it first, putting her arms behind her head and crossing her legs leisurely. Deidara followed suit, stretching.

"I didn't think it'd be this comfortable," she remarked, tugging his hair playfully. He frowned at her.

"We need to talk to Kisame, yeah."

"He said he'd talk when he closed up the shop."

Deidara snorted, rather unattractively, and then buried his face in Sakura's hair. "In, what, ten hours?" he mumbled.

Sakura stroked his head. "We can take a nap?"

He lifted that head of his, hair all askew, and pouted. "Or…"

"Or…?"

"Or we could finish what we started in the butterfly field?"

She laughed at him for a moment, kissed him on the lips, the cheek, and then the neck, and snuggled fixedly into him. "Not today. There are children around."

So Deidara grudgingly napped, with Sakura wrapped tightly around him. And really, he wouldn't have had it any other way.