Deidara didn't feel good. In fact, he felt far from good. He felt horrible. He thought that maybe he would be over the moon (okay, not really, but at least a little happy) now knowing that there was someone out there who was in the same fucked up situation as him, but that obviously wasn't the case as he found out on Monday morning when he woke up and felt dread consuming every part of him.

Shit.

He had spent most of the weekend – fine, all of the weekend – burying himself in his studies and finishing up all his assignments, some of which were not even due for another three weeks. Basically, he cleared everything. Anyway, that meant that he didn't have time to think, or allow any feelings to submerge. Yet, he stupidly thought that he was feeling normal.

He actually just hadn't had time to digest what had transpired between him and Sasori. That he practically, for some reason, told Sasori his entire life story. Sasori, whom he hated (though albeit for an odd reason) and whom he had only known for a month. He swore that college was doing weird things to him.

Deidara felt like punching the wall, or himself. He had survived so damn long keeping that to himself. It's not as if it was some dark secret, but it was something he didn't want to deal with on a normal basis, if at all. Now, he would see Sasori every day (probably) and be reminded exactly why he was in this position. But he didn't feel annoyance at the older man this time, not even a speck of it. He was still wondering whether that was a good or bad sign.

Still. Would Sasori bring it up? Surely, he – them both actually – couldn't act as if nothing had happened after they practically bared their souls to each other and realised that hey your life is as horrible as mine if not worse.

He could just imagine how awkward it would be between the two of them. Not to mention they now had their weekly Friday night dinner. Honestly, Deidara didn't even know if Konan was serious about the entire but he would be a fool to take any chances with her and indirectly Pein. And Tobi. Gosh, with the way that kid was so excited about the weekly dinner, Deidara wouldn't be surprised if he actually haunted everyone down just to drag them out.

Anyway, that was beside the point.

Now he just felt like skipping school if only to avoid Sasori and postpone any awkward meetings which were sure to follow.

Seriously.

Deidara let out a long groan. He hated skipping school. It may not seem that way but he had never skipped a day of school before and the first time he skipped lecture was during the first year of high school and that happened only once. He just decided to rebel more in college… or it could be Hidan's influence.

… yeah probably Hidan's influence.

Deidara stared at his phone in disdain when it started vibrating furiously on his table. Speak of the devil much.

"Yes Hidan?"

"Fuck blondie! Where the hell are you, you bastard?!"

Oh right. Breakfast with Hidan. Crap actually.

Deidara wondered how he always managed to land himself in this situation where he sits on his bed and allow himself to be verbally (and psychologically) abused by Hidan. This had better not turn into a weekly occurrence.

"Sorry, un," Deidara said once Hidan was finally done. "I'll buy you lunch."

That worked apparent because Hidan stayed silent and didn't start another torrent of curses.

"For the rest of the week."

Deidara really wanted to ask if Hidan was a beggar and if he only managed to get into college by threatening the dean with Jashin or whatever, but that would make Hidan rush over to his apartment and slice him apart and offering every last drop his blood to said god, so he didn't. Instead, he very kindly agreed and said that he would meet Hidan at the café in half an hour.

Seriously, college was doing very weird things to him.

Sasori found his attention drifting as Zetsu went on and on about some magical plant he had encountered on his forest trip over the weekend. Sasori was never interested in plants and knew next to nothing about them (and neither did Itachi, Kisame nor Kakuzu), but the plant lover still kept using the alien terminology.

Really, he couldn't blame them for not listening, though Sasori could see Itachi and Kisame trying to pay attention. Itachi, because he was just polite like that and, Kisame, because he knows that Zetsu always tries to listen to him talk about sharks.

Kakuzu obviously couldn't be bothered and definitely didn't care about Zetsu knowing since he was openly working out his budget. Again. For the tenth time.

It was impossible to tell if Sasori was paying any attention since his usual mask of indifference was in place, but these were his friends and they knew that he most certainly was not listening. Zetsu threw two of them dirty looks every now and then, but he would go back to flailing over the plant almost immediately, so the two of them could hardly care.

During times like these, Sasori usually wouldn't really be thinking about anything, just letting his mind wander to a place far away, somewhere up in the mountains and clouds. But this time it was different and as he expected, he began thinking about Deidara. He hadn't really had time to figure out their conversation.

His Saturday morning was spent on finishing his assignments set and doing some extra work, since he had less homework now because of the upcoming internship. He finished everything at nine at night and spend the next hour researching about Tokyo Hospital, the hospital he was attached to for his internship. Then he went to bed early after deciding that he would pay said hospital a visit just to take a look around.

The only time he thought about their conversation was before he fell asleep. He hadn't really reached a conclusion that night. All he figured out was that he was contented more than anything.

On Sunday, he went over to Tokyo Hospital as planned at seven in the morning. There was a chance that he wouldn't be allowed to have a tour of the place since he hadn't actually gotten any permission to do so, but the head of surgery was more than glad to allow him to when he had arrived and explained the purpose of his visit. Hyuuga-sensei had even gone as far as to grant him special permission to watch some surgeries from the gallery.

That trip took up most of the day, and while he was extremely gratified with the way things turned out and by the overall quality of the hospital itself, he was exhausted. By the time he was home and ready for bed, it was already midnight. In other words, he didn't think about Deidara or their conversation at all that night.

Now that he actually had time (seriously, Zetsu talking about his mystical like he wants to marry it isn't all that important), he could properly think it through. The most pressing question was what he was going to do with their relationship now?

Obviously, they didn't hate each other anymore, but they were barely friends. Maybe people become friends, close friends even, after a heart to heart conversation like that, but not Sasori. No matter what, he knew that he needed time in order to consider someone a friend. And he wasn't sure, but he thought that maybe the blonde was like that too.

"What are you guys talking about?" Konan asked casually as she took a seat beside Sasori.

Sasori immediately knew what she really wanted though. She wanted to know about the situation between him and Deidara, because as far as he was concern, Konan wasn't all that into plants either. Zetsu knew that of course, but that didn't stop him from telling Konan everything about his love. The older student was patient and nice enough to listen for about three minutes before she turned to Sasori instead.

"So?"

Zetsu pointedly glared at her before turning his attention back to Itachi and Kisame. They exchanged looks of dread which went unnoticed by Zetsu. Kakuzu saw it however and was chuckling heartily.

"So?" Konan pressed, slowly starting to glare at him.

"We talked and we're fine now," Sasori said, knowing that Konan wouldn't be happy with such a vague answer.

"And?"

Yeah.

"And we're fine," Sasori repeated. He wasn't about to tell Konan every single thing that had happened in their conversation.

"Hey fuckers!"

It didn't take a genius to figure out who had arrived. And naturally Deidara was there too, looking rather scruffy (not that he was even neat in the first place) but otherwise the same.

"Good morning to you too," Itachi replied calmly. Sasori knew the other man was dying to give Hidan a lecture. He couldn't stand vulgarities, and Hidan was the epitome of that.

"Danna, un," Deidara greeted and took a seat opposite Sasori who looked at Konan pointedly.

Told you.

"Morning Brat."

It took Sasori all of one second to realise that it was deadly silent. Everyone had turned to look at them. Zetsu had even stopped talking about his plant. If Sasori had known that that would happen, he would have asked the blonde to come earlier.

"What happened?" Kisame asked the question that was on everyone's minds.

"Nothing, un," Deidara replied, rolling his eyes. Was it really such a big deal that they were civil again? In the one month they had known each other, at least three quarters of it were civil. Just because they were at each other's throats last week, it didn't mean that they would forever be trying to murder each other.

"You're talking," Kakuzu explained dramatically while the two rolled their eyes. Hidan nodded in agreement, for once lost for words. "When you wanted to kill each other a week ago."

"So we made up," Sasori replied.

"Fucking when?"

"After dinner," Sasori said before adding with a pointed glance in Konan's direction, "As instructed."

Itachi and Kisame exchanged knowing looks while Deidara scoffed at that.

"So it was Konan who asked you to settle it, un? I knew you weren't kind by nature," Deidara said, shaking his head in mock disappointment.

"And you are?" Sasori retorted.

"Now, now, boys," Konan interrupted, giving them both warning glares. "We don't want to start another fight."

Sasori was about to tell her that he didn't really mind another fight but he decided that he could do without Konan's glares and insults. He took one look round the table though and immediately knew that his friends weren't done questioning him. If Zetsu not resuming his talk about his beloved plant wasn't a big enough hint, he didn't know what was.

A glance at Deidara told him that the blonde also knew that they were going to be pestered for answers, and possibly the entire story, in about three seconds. Deidara gave him a look that screamed we need to get out of here. Sasori couldn't agree more, for once.

"We have to go for lectures," Sasori announced and promptly grabbed his bag and stalked away, Deidara on his heels.

They ignored the shouts from their friends - and the threats from Konan – and walked until they were a safe distance away from the cafeteria. After all, there was always a chance that the others would decide to follow, though Sasori highly doubted that. They were too lazy to move, and they would probably corner him during lunch anyway. He rolled his eyes at the thought.

"They're so gonna corner us during lunch, un," Deidara said.

"You took the words right out of my mouth," Sasori replied dryly.

"Let's skip lunch," Deidara suggested and Sasori nodded. Hidan would kill him later, mostly because he would have not bought him his lunch, but right now Deidara didn't really care. He would find some way to make up with the Literature student. Somehow.

It was then that Deidara realised that he was alone with Sasori, the very thing he had wanted to avoid since that morning. He groaned silently. He had been so intent on getting away from Konan that he hadn't realised the situation that he was going to put himself in. But he supposed it wasn't that bad. Sasori was the same as usual and he most definitely wasn't bringing up anything from the conversation. Still, the awkwardness lingering in the air was most unwelcomed.

"So about that talk we had…" Deidara started as Sasori turned to him and raise an eyebrow. He didn't really know what to say so he kept quiet.

"Spit it out, Brat," Sasori snapped in annoyance. Right, the redhead was impatient all the time.

"I don't know, un," Deidara said, trying not to laugh at the glare which he knew would come.

"We'll just be normal," Sasori said eventually. "We'll just not talk about it."

"So we pretend that it never happened, un?" Deidara asked. Fine, so he didn't like the fact that Sasori now knew why he was in med school, but that didn't mean that he wanted to act as if the conversation didn't take place. Seriously, it was not easy for him to tell Sasori about it.

"For a genius, you're a remarkable idiot," Sasori replied, leaning against a nearby tree.

Deidara shot him a glare which he ignored.

"I meant that we would just know, but not talk about it," Sasori clarified as realisation dawned onto the blonde. He had never felt like such an idiot before.

"Right, un."

"I don't know about you," Sasori continued. "But I don't think I want to reminded of it every day."

"Me neither, un," Deidara said as a smile forced its way on his lips. So Sasori felt the same way. But more than that, Sasori was actually being nice. He didn't really know the redhead but he knew him well enough to know that he was trying to make Deidara feel more comfortable and to make their relationship less awkward. After all, Sasori usually didn't talk so much. The effort was definitely appreciated.

Maybe trusting someone wouldn't be that bad.

"So, Danna, we can talk about it if we want to, un?" Deidara asked.

Their eyes met. Deidara didn't whether it was the right thing to do but at least he wanted Sasori to know that he knew fully well that he was offering the key of friendship.

"Sure, Brat."

Yay, new chappie! ^^ First of all, I want to apologise to you guys. I know I told some of you that I would be updating last Thursday but that obviously didn't happen, so I'm really sorry! Some things came up and my family decided to take another trip during the weekends so I didn't have time to write.

On another note, Envyyyy talked about the art is eternal vs art is fleeting argument between Sasori and Deidara, and it made me realise that some of you were maybe looking forward to that in this chapter. If you were, sorry that it's not here! I intend to write it in the next chapter though.

Lastly, I hope you enjoy this chapter and please review~! ^^