Chapter 10: Pretend Hero
"Journaling?"
"When something comes up, just take one minute or two to jot down how you feel. It's not that difficult, yeah?"
Sasori stared at him, seemingly deep in thought for a short while. Then he nodded. "I suppose self-observation is needed."
It felt almost surreal, his partner being so docile and not spouting meaningless refutations. Deidara breathed out a sigh and craned his neck to feel sunlight warming his face.
Meanwhile, Sasori was sitting in the middle of the room, his face buried in his notebook, his left hand skittering across the page to scrawl words Deidara didn't bother to decipher. Wide strips of light trailed down his messy red hair, his face then his neck as the sun crawled across the sky - if only Deidara's hand was doing the same.
"You look so… bright today. Did you get a new body or something?" Deidara asked.
When Sasori looked up, his skin looked almost porcelain. Like his pores were all filled with glass. "I didn't think you'd noticed," he replied with a rare tight-lipped smile and tapped his own arm, which echoed hollowly in return. "Took me a lot of time to transfer everything from my old body into this one."
"Hanasaki clay, I assume?"
"It's way better than wood, I'd admit. I'm starting to see why you keep stealing from Ena's place."
Deidara smirked. "Shall I include you in my next heist?"
"Certainly."
It was then that their lesson began to derail – Sasori began to ramble about all the new improvements he had made to his new vessel, but Deidara did not stop him.
Unfiltered light continued to ooze from skylights above their heads. These windows, glossy panels of glass, were mounted on one side of the roof, letting slanted light shine on just where they were. Deidara was joking when he said they needed to build a dedicated space for studying, but here they were, in a tiny house located in a forest to the north of the Land of Fire, their new "study spot". He scanned the sparsely furnished room: a shelf lined with scrolls and poison bottles, a slightly skewed blackboard on the wall, a desk smelling of fresh wood, Hiruko sitting lazily in the corner; and wondered if his remark about hating gloomy places the other day had any influence on the design of this place.
"I think you'd like this," Sasori said amid his rant and did something he never did. "Since you've been demanding we hold hands every time we walk back."
A mere side effect of Sasori switching bodies, a predictable outcome, a basic fact: Clay absorbs heat . Even so, Deidara fell off the surface he was sitting on when Sasori grabbed ahold of his hand, and he was met with unexpected warmth.
"Finally, I got you to stop sitting on my desk," Sasori said in triumph.
On the floor, Deidara smiled from ear to ear, to which Sasori responded with visible confusion. "Finally, I don't have to feel like I'm touching a corpse anymore."
Monday: I feel fine.
Tuesday: I feel okay.
Wednesday: I feel nothing.
Thursday: I feel all right.
Friday: I feel neutral.
Saturday: I feel like I want to poison my partner.
Sunday: I feel indifferent.
Deidara took a deep breath before shoving the journal back into Sasori's hands.
"Your vocabulary is quite impressive, isn't it?" Deidara asked. "I didn't know 'like I want to poison my partner' is a synonym of the word 'fine'. How strange. It just never occurred to me."
"That part is… a joke."
"Haha. Very funny."
Sasori tilted his head as if he just realized something important. "Do you not like it when I say I want to kill you?"
"No, I love it with every fiber of my being. I just didn't think your condition was this severe." With a sigh, Deidara zipped down his backpack and began digging through its content. Container scrolls, crumpled paper, packaged snacks, nail polish, Kisame's keepsake collecting dust, Sasori's childhood photo. "Nevermind. We'll start from the beginning then. Is there any emotion you know?"
"I can list them, as in, I know the words. But knowing when they're there and naming them is a different thing."
"So you don't really know what you're feeling at all?" Deidara withdrew his needed items from the bag and stacked them upon one another. 'Master your Emotions', 'The Boy with Big Feelings', 'Permission to Feel', 'When Sadness Comes to Call' - the best books on emotional intelligence he could find after browsing the library for hours. Many of them were children's books, but who was not to say Sasori had the emotional capacity of a toddler?
"I get a general sense most of the time. Whether it's positive or negative," replied Sasori.
"Which do you find easier to identify? Positive or negative?"
"Negative things stick to you much more, right? I know when I'm angry or annoyed, generally, but positive emotions are a mess. They're all lumped as 'fine' in my brain."
So that was the reason for Sasori's repetitive entries. Still, one could argue that his feelings were natural. Humans easily fell into routine; daily life was bound to feel monotonous. In fact, it had always been the endless pursuit of newness that drove them to change location again and again.
"What's the difference between feelings and emotions?" Sasori asked, eyeing the pile of books before Deidara picked one up.
"An emotion is a psychological state deriving from one's circumstances, mood, or relationships with others. Psychological. Something you can't see. A feeling, on the other hand, can be physical."
Deidara recited definitions from the book in his hands, then looked at Sasori with a sheepish smile. Today his spot was not on the desk, but on another chair next to his student. "Danna, let's say you're kissing someone."
"Where did that come from?"
"It's just an example."
"What kind of example is that?"
"You'll see." Deidara gulped before continuing, "So. You're kissing a person. The warmth, the softness of their lips – all the things you've rid yourself of – those are physical feelings. At the same time, what you feel inside your body, whether it's disgust or fuzziness or passion – those are your emotional feelings, your emotions."
Sasori brought a hand to his chest, his mortal core to listen for any shift. It reminded Deidara of his C0 practice, which, by the way, hadn't been going well at all. Even with Kisame's help, he still only managed to summon a negligible amount of chakra to his heart.
A sigh barely left his lips when it was met with the warm skin of Sasori's finger.
"What are you-"
"Imagining. What it feels like." Sasori said.
How was he supposed to react? How could he react with enough excitement to seem interested but not entranced? Seconds felt like hours. Deidara looked everywhere but Sasori's face. Then he began to count: one-two-three floor tiles, two eyes, and one finger all on his lips, five billion butterflies in his stomach.
Just as he was about to implode, Sasori pulled away. "No luck. I don't feel anything." He then opened a book and flipped through the pages. "But I get what you mean. An emotion is always a feeling, but a feeling is not necessarily an emotion, right?"
Deidara nodded, crushed under the weight of his own expectations. "Right."
"How would you feel if you kissed someone, Deidara?"
"It… depends on the person."
"How would you feel if you kissed me?"
"That's… an interesting question."
"Just now I imagined kissing a random person, but it was difficult. If it was with you, then I may feel something," Sasori's expression showed clear amusement. "Like disgust, right?"
Deidara scoffed and averted his gaze back to the desk. Of course.
Through well-conducted research and his own intuition, he had concluded that they needed a systematic approach. Sasori was clueless enough that simply learning by feeling would not suffice, and methodical enough that he would probably reject Deidara's spontaneous teaching methods. With this in mind, Deidara asked Sasori for suggestions.
"I've been thinking about it. Maybe we could learn about each emotion via different aspects." Sasori drew a title box on the top of a blank page of his notebook then three columns below it, naming each one. "Let's see. First is the 'Trigger' – the situation surrounding that emotion. What causes it in particular. Second is the 'Physical reactions' – how the body reacts to that emotion."
"Makes sense. Third is the 'Emotional reactions' – how you feel inside, huh?"
"That's going to be the trickiest part."
"The materials I read categorize emotions in many different ways," Deidara said. "But these six are always included: happiness, sadness, disgust, fear, surprise, and anger. Let's deal with them before moving on to other, more complex ones."
After a short discussion, they agreed to make 'anger' their starting point for the day. Clenched jaw, intense eye contact, reddened skin, hand reaching for the nearest object that can be used as a weapon – Sasori listed numerous nonverbal cues for anger in the 'Physical reactions' column. He explained that he frequently observed these things in his opponents in battles.
As Sasori was (looking strangely cute) pondering over the other two sections, Deidara found an opening and snatched the notebook away, then tore apart its pages. Paper shreds drizzled down onto the floor, a few of them sprinkling on Sasori's head, but he gave only the dullest expression in response.
"I know you're trying to get me angry, but really? That's all you can-"
Sasori's words vanished mid-sentence. They happened almost simultaneously: the crash of his chair against the floor as he leaped out of it, the BANG! of Hiruko's head rupturing before hitting the floor as chunks of timber. Sasori stood dumbfounded, his outstretched hand lingering in explosion dust.
Deidara snickered. Oh, Sasori. He never learned. That notebook-ripping act was a mere distraction, meant to draw Sasori's attention away from his precious puppet armor, in which Deidara had planted a tiny spider-shaped bomb.
Sasori was unmoving as he stared at what remained of Hiruko, then his head, and only his head, turned around to greet Deidara.
"Wait, danna," Deidara smiled and raised one hand in defense as Sasori slowly approached him, the other hand still clutching his book. "How does it feel?"
"It feels like I could kill you right now."
"Exactly," Deidara said while dodging a senbon from Sasori's direction. "Here it says, hostile thoughts and desire for revenge are very common responses to anger."
That piece of information alone was enough to stop Sasori in his murderous tracks. He picked up the fallen chair, sat down, and jotted down in his journal. All in one swift motion.
"Can you think of any other instances when you feel anger?" asked Deidara.
A slight hesitation. "The time with that girl."
Deidara immediately understood. "Well, can you sense any difference from this time to that time?"
"That time, I… didn't have hostile thoughts. I didn't want to kill her."
"What did you want to do then?"
"I wanted to leave."
"That, my friend, is a passive form of anger."
The scratching sound of Sasori's pencil against paper filled the room once more.
It was kind of amusing - seeing Sasori aggressively writing down everything he said like his words were the freaking gospel. Not once in Deidara's life had he felt so important, so wise. Normally, people would ignore him, brushing off his art rants as the ramblings of a lunatic, but Sasori had always been the only one who listened.
"Wait, I think the anger's still there. Maybe I'm still upset." Sasori reclined into his chair and twirled the pencil in his hand. "But it's not as strong as before. What should I write? Dissatisfaction? Annoyance? Distress?"
"Can you just stop showing off your vocabulary for one second, yeah?"
"But I don't know how to describe it."
"I think you're focusing too much on semantics." Deidara picked up the torn page Sasori was writing on earlier from the floor and placed it on the desk, flattening it against his palm. Pen in hand, he crossed out the title 'anger' written at the top of the page in full capitalization. "You told me once that words like 'criminal' are made up by people different from us. So think of your emotions in the same way. You don't have to use these common terms. Your emotions are your own, so call them however you want."
"So can I call this feeling 'having my puppet destroyed by Deidara'? HMPDBD for short?"
"I think that's a very charming name, yes."
In retrospect, having Deidara as a teacher might not be the best idea.
Deidara might seem like the pinnacle of an emotional human being in Sasori's eyes, but in reality, he was far from it. He was still partly affected by Iwa's teachings, still somewhat a prey in the sweeping web called the Shinobi Nations. Had he ever laid bare his truth, or had he always held back in accordance with invisible societal restraints?
There might be feelings he wouldn't want to touch, too – corners he dared not visit. But with his research on emotions and tutoring Sasori, that day may come when he has to face the ugly side of himself.
But it wasn't like the one next to him now could help, anyway.
Deidara glanced over at Hidan, who was chugging down shot after shot of sake. His face was beet red, and he was rambling religious nonsense as usual. Deidara did say that he wanted to ask for a new perspective from others, but Hidan was a special case. The guy had never been sober recently, either intoxicated by liquor or intoxicated by bloodlust.
This setting was horrendous, too. A crowded downtown tavern on a Friday night filled with slurred voices and the sound of clinking glasses, reeking with after-work sweat and alcohol breaths, unconducive to conversations whose intelligence level reached past dirty gossip and talking shit about one's spouse. Deidara savored the sake cup in his hand sip by sip. Still, Hidan's choice of booze was so immaculate that the idea of getting drunk was slowly gaining appeal.
As his mind started to sway, something landed on his shoulder. Deidara turned aside to see Saki - Sasori's favorite messenger bird with her iridescent purplish-blue plumage that could be recognized anywhere. He opened the scroll on Saki's back and pulled out an envelope.
"Here you go." He tossed Saki some fried corn kernels before letting her fly away.
"What's that?" Hidan, who was emptying the last drops of sake from a bottle into his mouth, put the bottle down and asked.
"A letter from Sasori."
"Something came up?"
"Nah, nothing serious."
"You guys talk even on off days, and it's not something mission-related?" Hidan wiggled his eyebrows. "I see. I see. You two suuuure are close these days."
"So? Your ass can't survive one second without Kakuzu babysitting you."
Ignoring Hidan ('s attempt of) strangling him with his own hair, Deidara unfurled the seal and opened the letter. He let out a fake gag when the Hidan leaned over to read with him, still tugging his ponytail. "Ew, I'm gonna pass out from your stench first before you can choke me out."
"Even better."
They laughed.
Deidara traced each line of the letter with his eyes, and Hidan followed right along, except for the fact that he was reading everything out loud.
"Let's see… 'Today I made my first experiment on a subject - a random bandit I encountered on my way. How can a man so frail be so noisy? He yelled and thrashed around so much and it made me feel like HMPDBD, but twenty times worse.' You guys have a fucking code language now?" Hidan asked, "Uhh… 'I spent all day experimenting, and in the end, I was SCTT. After that I went back to the hideout. This particular underground hideout is in terrible condition, now that I realize. I came into the storage room and saw a bunch of dead rats. I had to put them away. It was like SHDTNFTFT.' "
It took everything in Deidara not to giggle like a schoolgirl while reading the letter. Having Sasori write daily reports to him was a genius idea.
Contrary to his giddiness, Hidan's reaction veered more towards the bamboozled, hesitantly erotic side.
"HMPDBD? Hugging my precious daughter before death? Humping magical ponies despite busy day?" Hidan made his guess, leaving a very long pause after each word.
"Definitely the latter."
"And this next part, I was SCTT? I was sucking cow titties?"
And Deidara enjoyed it: watching his friend spiral into madness as he unraveled the pieces of what had turned into a bestiality enthusiast's memoir.
Only on rare occasions does one wonder, "Can grass grow through gravel?". Surely some sprouts could squirm their way to the surface, but they could not have formed such a perfect square, nor could they be in that obnoxious green, nor could they reek of cheap plastic. Deidara sighed and skipped over the patch of artificial grass - he was stupid for sparing that thing more than one second of speculation.
Then he stumbled as he tripped over a tripwire. And stumbled again as he swung himself out of the way of a flying ax. Pebbles clattered under his feet. In the distance, a bell rang.
Tayuya emerged from the underground, hands balled into fists. "Are you crazy? It's fucking five a.m! Why are you-"
Aside from the first few words, the rest of Tayuya's tirade seemed to blend into one continuous stream. Babble-babble-babble. Those tiny clenched fists, that stiff fighting stance, that baby voice trying its best to sound intimidating - if Deidara closed his eyes, he could perfectly picture a chihuahua.
A chuckle escaped his mouth.
"Okay, okay. Enough complaining. Now hurry your ass up so we can begin practice." Deidara clapped his hands together, ushering her inside. "By the way, good job with the defense system. As expected of my apprentice! Even though that grass trap was painfully obvious."
Tayuya turned away. "I'm not your apprentice."
"But didn't I tell you not to make anything too dangerous? I cannot help you with hiding a corpse, you know?" He raised an eyebrow.
Well, he could technically pulverize a body, but Deidara was not the best at covering his tracks. If a civilian last spotted around this area suddenly went missing, it could spell trouble for both of them.
"Get lost."
Those were the words Tayuya left him as she descended into her underground house, the one they built together a few weeks ago. There were some rustling sounds of her slipping in and out of clothes, the screeches of drawers and cabinet doors against slides, the thump of her bumping into furniture, and the drawl of cursing that followed right after. Tayuya hadn't changed much since the first time they met, other than the fact that she had given up shooing him away when he arrived at her doorstep now and then. And she smiled more often (like, once a day). It was hard to believe the kid before him now was the kid he saw at the festival.
Before Deidara finished contemplating about how to improve the place's defense system, he felt a tap on his back. He turned around and saw Tayuya standing there with her morning drool gone, her bed hair mostly intact, her sandals worn on the wrong feet, and her piece of ragged outerwear drooping over her shoulders, buttons in all the holes but the one they should be in. When Deidara tried to redo the buttons, she bonked him on the head with her flute. Rude.
Part of the town had woken up by the time they started their walk. Chirping birds, clucking chickens, opening windows; the drowsy purr of a lazy Sunday morning. A few vendors waved them in, offering pancakes, ramen, steaming hot steamed buns. Tayuya pulled her beanie down, covering her face a bit more with each invitation, while Deidara dismissed them all.
They arrived at the local lake after a long walk, after stopping by at the park to forage for seemingly random materials Tayuya asked for. She spilled the things they collected from her bag onto the lakeside bench they were sitting on, and only then did Deidara begin to realize what was going on. He tilted his head at her.
"Are you going to make fishing poles? Why not buy one from the shop?" Deidara gestured to the tiny fishing equipment store right next to them.
Tayuya picked up a tree branch from the slew of materials, then began cutting away shoots, side branches and leaves with her pocket knife like a pro. She flashed him a proud smile. "Why not make it ourselves? It's fun, right?"
"Have you done this before?"
"I'm a master at this shit." She held up the perfect tapering pole for him to see. "Behold!"
He laughed and picked up a branch of his own. "When will we begin practice-"
"After breakfast."
"I have a feeling that you're trying to drag out this breakfast as much as possible, yeah."
Making a fishing rod in the wild wasn't an unfamiliar task – it was one of those basic survival skills they taught in the Shinobi Academy. Still, his inexperience was growing more and more obvious as he struggled to keep up with Tayuya's pace. While he was still fumbling with his stick, she was coiling green vines throughout the pole much much larger than her size. She didn't so much as blink as dirt fell and stained her jacket.
"Who taught you this?" Deidara asked.
"My brother. We used to go fishing all the time."
"You have a brother? Where is he now?"
Tayuya stopped for a second, an indescribable emotion flashing through her face. "I don't know. I'm waiting for him to come back. And he's not really my brother. I just call him that."
"Is that why you refuse to leave the village?"
Her silence was an answer in itself.
"Anyway, I win!" After a while, Tayuya finally looked up. She swung her newly made fishing rod towards him, nearly knocking him off balance. "Isn't it cool?"
"When did this become a competition?"
Tayuya let out a hearty laugh which dissipated as soon as her gaze shifted to the stick in Deidara's hands. "What the hell? You haven't finished yours?"
In fact, he hadn't even touched it for the last thirty minutes or so. All he did was finessing the branch and watching her work with the biggest smile on her face.
"That's not fair. You weren't even trying." She glared.
"Why don't we compete for who catches more fish?"
"How are you going to catch them without a rod?"
Deidara dragged Tayuya towards the fishing pier looking over the lake. "Watch and learn."
Five minutes later, Tayuya watched in silence as he scooped floating fish corpses into his bucket after rupturing the water with explosives. Then she lunged at him like an angry chihuahua.
"That- That's illegal!"
"Nothing about you or me is legal, Tayuya."
"I fucking hate you!" She yelled while punching his chest – the tallest height she could reach, and sent them both crashing down.
Deidara braced himself for the ground, but what his back collided with was freezing water. The lake wrapped its arms around him, pulled him down into its depth despite his hair floating upwards, rushing a forceful hand down his throat. It was only after those initial moments of shock that he regained his composure and swam to the surface. Tayuya reached the dock at the same time as he did, hyperventilating.
They put their elbows on the wooden surface and hoisted themselves up onto the ground again.
Once he finished draining the water out of his throat, eyes, and ears, he looked over at Tayuya. She was still gasping and coughing up water, her palms planted on the ground. Oh God, maybe he had forgotten how weak a little kid could be and blessed her with acute pneumonia.
Deidara scooted over to her place and placed a reassuring hand on her back. He then grabbed a fistful of her hair, preventing stray strands from clinging to her cheeks or getting in her mouth. But he never expected what he saw. Three small black hooks placed like a triangular shape on the back of her neck – Orochimaru's cursed seal.
"You were Orochimaru's prisoner?" Deidara asked, carrying Tayuya on his back. "You were Orochimaru's prisoner?"
Her breaths fanned against his ears as she leaned her head on his shoulder. When she opened her mouth, there was no ounce of her usual brattiness in her voice. "Yeah. You don't have to ask twice."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Does it matter?"
"How was life there, at Orochimaru's place?"
"Bad."
"Hm, not surprised."
"Why do you help me so much?" She asked, the residual moisture in her hair tickling his neck. It was still a little wet although they had taken time to cool off and he had bought her some new clothes. "Is it because you want me to become your apprentice?"
"Honestly, you're too weak to be my apprentice." He backtracked when she pinched his neck. "I mean, I don't need an apprentice. My art is one and absolute, unlike anything you've seen before."
"So you'll be the only one who can do it?"
"Of course."
"So why?"
"Because I think you should become an artist, regardless of what kind of art you decide to pursue." Deidara smiled after she didn't reply. "Surprised? As much of a proud artist I am, I still respect other forms of art, unlike someone I know."
"Do you only help people if they're artists?" Her voice was quiet. "Do people who are not artists deserve to die?"
The answer must be 'yes'. Isn't that the only reason he cared for people like Sasori and Ena?
"No one deserves to die. Everyone deserves to die. Both are true," replied Deidara. "The truth is, people deserve to die when the world needs them to die, when our mission needs them to die. That's how shinobi works. Isn't that right, Tayuya?"
But even that convoluted reply couldn't fool her little head, it seemed.
"Do you think artists are better than other people?"
"Absolutely."
"But why?"
"You're already on the way to becoming an artist. You're already special. Why think so much?" His pace quickened as he made a turn into an alleyway.
"Did too much water get into your brain or something? Why so docile all of a sudden?" Deidara asked again after Tayuya fell into another long stretch of silence.
"Don't come here anymore."
Deidara's steps faltered.
"I'm serious. I don't want to feel like I owe someone."
"First of all, your defense system still needs a lot of work, and the house still needs-"
"I went to the library the other day. I learnt some surroundings… ugh, whatever, genjutsu. Soon, I'll be able to cast it to make the place invisible to people outside. I'm serious. You don't need to come here every week to re-cast it. I can improve the traps on my own. I can fish and hunt and steal my own food. I can practice playing the flute on my own. I won't procrastinate, I promise! I can live on my own."
"It wasn't that much. I only helped a little."
"You already saved my life once, and now this."
"I saved your life? Since when?"
"I knew it. I'm the only one who remembers." She slumped against his back. "I knew it was you when I saw you at the festival. You're just as dumb-looking as you were back then."
"Wait, what? Was this when I destroyed Orochimaru's base?" It was the only string he could think of that connected him and her.
"Yeah!" she agreed, sounding a little annoyed.
A light bulb went off in Deidara's head. What he remembered on his second mission assigned by the Akatsuki – to pursue and capture Orochimaru, the organization's traitor – was his frustration of letting his target escape, then the wondrous spectacle of the ground splitting apart, fiery rocks crashing down everywhere. It was beautiful enough a picture, but who would have thought there were even more layers to it? That under that blinding smoke, amid the fallen rubble, there was a little girl whose life was saved because of his art? Golden explosion dust, his billowing black cloak, the white wings he flew on. Those were a little girl's first sight of freedom.
And now they met again. He wouldn't just make her free, but make her into an amazing artist.
"Tired of playing the hero yet, Deidara?"
Deidara looked up to see a familiar figure entering his vision, one that he would normally greet with a frisky smile and teasing words, one that he now greeted with a defensive stance and drawn weapons in hand. Maybe he could introduce Sasori and Tayuya to each other and the three of them could walk home together, come up with a better plan to refurbish Tayuya's house - all those fantasies died the moment he sensed the killing intent radiating from Sasori.
Tayuya's name barely escaped his mouth when Hiruko's tail swirled towards them, filling his vision with flashes of silver. Deidara fell backwards on his bottom, and when he opened his eyes again, the weight on his back was gone, so was the tickle of her breaths against his skin and the jiggle of her instrument beside his ears. Tayuya lay flat on the ground next to him, Hiruko's tail wrapped around her body and its poisoned end pointing at her face.