A/N: Okay, time to explain a few confusing things.

No, I do not in fact know where anything is in town. I have an extremely vague idea of what town looks like and where things are. I don't know what the buildings look like, I don't know what condition the roads are in, I don't know how the blocks are organized. I don't know what the architecture looks like. I don't know how large the town is in general. I kind of know the approximate locations of all the places that have been mentioned so far (ex: the library's somewhere in the northeast of town and Yahiko's workplace is a little south of it), but nothing exact. All of the exact directions that have been given in this story are essentially what you'd get if you limited a random number generator to numbers between 1 and 5, and did the same for cardinal directions. It was pure, completely unfounded, the dumbest of the dumb, luck that I was able to go back, go to the effort of adding up all the numbers and directions I spewed out to describe how Konan was moving as she looked for Hidan, and conclude that I had somehow managed to place Itachi's gas station due south of the park. The 3 gas stations are in a triangle, so to have that triangle be actually centered and organized was a minor miracle! I really should make offerings to the luck gods someday. They're way overdue for a show of gratitude.

I also do not know what the sun is doing. Readers who are astronomy nerds may have noticed that I've been wiffwaffling on which direction the sun rises from in this story. I think I started out mentioning that the people on Sasori's side of the base (the right side) greet the sun each morning, but then when the plot shifted to Konan (on the left side) there was a mention of morning sun shining directly through her window. I accepted that, thinking it was really convenient anyway because I had already stated that the sunroom (also on the right) receives afternoon sunlight, so that worked out.

But then after writing the last chapter I did something I've never done before, which was apply the cardinal directions to the base. I've always known how the base is oriented, I just never applied this knowledge to draw any conclusions or think about anything whatsoever. Turns out I should have, because Konan's window faces west. I knew that, I just didn't think about it or connect it to any other knowledge before last chapter. And then there was that one scene at the end of Hero, where Konan gave the blanket to Sasori, and the light outside was described as if the sun was setting beyond the lobby doors...which face south.

Hidan knows nothing about constellations because I don't. I can recognize Orion because of the 3 stars lined up so closely together, I may or may not be able to recognize the Big and Little Dippers, and I cannot recognize any other constellation at all. I have no idea where the North Star is or what it looks like. I was aware of this deficit of knowledge, and because of that have done absolutely no description of the night sky, save for specifying what phase the moon was in. Even there, I think I screwed up in one place. The moon was described as mostly full the week after the full moon, but I'm pretty sure it should have been already half dark. I wish I had possessed the same insight into my knowledge of the daytime sky, so that I could have avoided having a sun which apparently moves in a triangle? And Konan was said to have the ability to tell time from the sun as early as chapter one. Don't ask me how she does it; she's a miracle worker, I guess.

I should not ever be hired as an astronomer or cartographer.

.

Nagato

As soon as Nagato was cleared to leave, pretty much the second he entered the parking lot, his phone rang. It was Yahiko, of course. Who else knew his timing so thoroughly?

"Hey," Nagato answered. "You need something?"

"I guess so…" Yahiko said in a weirdly tense voice. "I need my best friend! Come to the park and let's just sit on the bench! I have really good news!"

Nagato relaxed and smiled. He'd been worried at first, but there was nothing to be worried about. It was just the tension of holding back excitement. That had used to be the first thing Nagato would have guessed as a cause of tension, back in the before times. "Okay! Need a ride?"

"Um, no."

Huh? How is he planning to get there, then? "Oookay. I'll have to ask," Nagato warned.

"I took the day off," Yahiko admitted. "For personal reasons. It was worth it, so come on!"

Sometimes I just have a gut feeling that things are worse than they appear. Nagato's gut feeling had not led him wrong before. He wondered if he should start worrying about his friend as he put his phone away. He drove off a little faster than usual just in case.

Once at the park, he found his eyes roaming from side to side as he approached their bench. "Yahiko?"

"Hey!" Yahiko emerged from the dark trail next to their bench. He took a seat, beckoning for Nagato to sit next to him as usual. Nagato sat. Shadows covered the both of them, although the darkness was not quite deep enough to make the light above the bench turn on. Yet.

"Personal reasons?" Nagato inquired.

"Yeah." Yahiko shuffled his feet back and forth. "I've been feeling kind of trapped and anxious lately. I realized I needed to take a kind of mental health day. I made a rule - 'If I ever start to seriously consider having a breakdown of any kind, I must immediately take a full day of rest, relaxation and company.' That was the rule."

"Let me guess. The training tomorrow?" Nagato chuckled quietly. "I'm nervous about that too."

"That's part of it, yeah."

"Company...accomplished?" I only just got here. I hope he hasn't been alone all day.

"Yeah!" Yahiko moved closer until their arms were touching. "I met the snake kid and the demon kid here. The demon kid was nice to talk to and helped me figure something out, and the snake kid taught me more about plants." Yahiko sat up. "But not about healing them! About how to...talk to them. I met a wood spirit!"

"Really? That's amazing! What did it look like?" Nagato pressed closer. The warmth felt good. He was suddenly distracted by very vivid memories of the last time they had sat together here. I almost kissed him. That would have been… What would it have been? A plenitude of options existed. Frightening, he decided. It's safer to have something to talk about.

Yahiko sighed. "Sorry." He shrugged. "The Complete Encyclopedia, I think, said in its preface that only some people have the talent to see nature spirits. I think I don't have it. I didn't see anything."

"Then how do you know it was there?"

"Because the bush touched me!" Yahiko did his best to describe the marvelous, surprising, scratchy yet light feeling of having a bush touch his hair. "It was weird, but I liked it," he concluded.

Nagato did his best to crush a sudden hope that there might be other weird things that he would like. No! Stop it! That's not what he meant, and you know it. Was it normal to have this dirty a mind? He didn't know. "So, um, uh, what did the bush...say?"

Yahiko tensed up, then relaxed like a dam deciding to open up and just spill everything already. He started to tell the whole story of how he had truly seen and connected with the bush, from start to finish. Telling this tale required a detour once he got to the pivotal moment of connection. "I saw it. I mean, I really, really, saw it, as more than just a bush! Like, when you think of a bush, you think of, you know, just a bush. A thing. What it is. But I was able to really connect and understand it as more than that! I saw what it used to be, and what it went through, and what kind of life it had when I wasn't looking at it…"

Nagato took a deep breath. His heart was racing, and it had nothing to do with the glow in Yahiko's eyes, or the energy of his movements, or the way that magical soft light switched on in the middle of his description (and made his hair look like a halo), or anything else. Nagato's heart was not racing out of pleasure, but out of pain. His throat felt dry and his stomach tightened and Nagato could think of nothing else, only I want him to look at me that way. It was a need no less powerful than that of a thirsty wanderer lost in the desert. Nagato felt like he had been able to ignore that thirst for a while, until just now, when he stumbled into a mirage and found it to be real. He hadn't been desperate before, but now he was.

"Yahiko!"

Yahiko, who had just been in the middle of describing what he'd told the bush, stopped short. He had been in a groove, the right words finding their way to his tongue easily and smoothly, in a way that allowed his ideas to flow like dancing. Bewildered, he asked, "What?" in the voice of a disappointed child.

Nagato, in the voice of a hurt child - the very 9 year old he had once been, in fact - looked down shyly and asked, "Would you...look at me that way?"

It was just as if they were both 9 years old again. Nagato glanced up shyly, in a way that suggested a veil of hair should be covering his visible eye. Yahiko looked down at him, puzzled and not quite sure how to handle this shyness. "Okay," he said, sounding a lot more confident than he was. To understand a bush was relatively easy. To understand a human was a master-level task, one that would require mastery of the skills of observation, focus, dedication, and control. Yahiko doubted he could do it.

But as he had when he was 9, he put on a good show of confidence and tried anyway.

The light was to the right of the bench, and Nagato to Yahiko's left, so the lighting conditions were optimal. The pale light made Nagato's hair look dark, a dark shadowy red like blood. Yahiko could see each strand of his smooth, straight hair. If Nagato turned just a little, the hair that framed the left side of his face would cast a shadow that the light would make impenetrable. As it was, Yahiko could just see the dark purple color of the Rinnegan. If he concentrated on Nagato's eye, he could tell the purple parts from the dark rings that surrounded Nagato's pupil like ripples.

However, if he looked away, Yahiko lost his ability to distinguish the rings. Nagato's eyes looked like solid masses of darkness in comparison to his pale skin. His skin reflected the white light, but not perfectly. It was… It was like a solid, self-contained, rather reserved whiteness… Just like the moon. Nagato was just like the moon; bright in his own way, but more reserved than Yahiko was, and surrounded by darkness. Yahiko's eyes widened as he was struck by how true that comparison was! The impenetrable shadows cast by Nagato's dark, blood-red hair around the side of his face made so much sense now. The moon shining at night.

Nagato looked down slightly, stretching the shadows across his face as if to hide. Was he hiding? Yahiko wanted to tell him he did not have to, but he was different. That was the way of the sun. Nagato's way was different. Yahiko swept his own opinions out of the picture. He only had to understand, not judge. Why was Nagato hiding?

Nagato smiled too, just a little. Since Yahiko was looking very closely, he saw Nagato's cheeks darken. Blood welling up beneath the surface… Blood red hair above, real blood below… He didn't know Nagato as well as he thought, did he? Yahiko could see now how much lay beneath, how much was beyond his reach. Without thinking, he reached up to softly stroke Nagato's cheek. No, nothing; it felt just like ordinary skin. It would not yield any secrets to him. Yahiko felt quite lonely after realizing that.

He consoled himself with finally looking straight into Nagato's eyes, which had jerked up to look at him when he touched Nagato's cheek. Yahiko looked back. Nagato's pupil widened, briefly reaching a diameter that suggested milder light conditions, before shrinking again under the force of the light. He seemed to have settled on looking at Yahiko's left eye, and his gaze did not waver. Yahiko saw that the rings seemed to be completely unconnected to his pupil, because they did not move at all as Nagato's pupils expanded and contracted. What was causing his pupils to do that? Yahiko's eyes widened as he saw subtle, very subtle, marks in the space inside the innermost ring. That space was clearly a modified iris, but with the same purple color as the rest of the eye so that it couldn't be clearly seen.

Nagato's gaze began to waver as Yahiko leaned in for a closer look. His gaze darted down, then up, trembling at all times. His pupils expanded and contracted more quickly. Yahiko broadened his gaze to consider those eyes in relation to the rest of Nagato's face. His mouth was tighter than before and his cheeks a little darker. Was it...fear?

"Don't be afraid." Yahiko didn't realize he was going to whisper that until the words were already out. Once said, he was not willing to take them back. He reached out, slowly wrapping his arms around Nagato, and breaking visual contact to hug him close. "Don't be."

Nagato struggled to take a breath against the force of his heart beating. He reached up and took hold of Yahiko's arms. Something about being looked at, being seen like that, made him want to open up and confess everything. "I orbit you," he whispered. "You feel so much greater than I do. I'm caught in your gravity. I...am not the strongest of us here."

"But you're the most solid," Yahiko whispered back. "I don't have anything to orbit, except for life. Like I said, I felt like that bush and I were both picked up by life and a purpose, and we couldn't do anything about it. So that's real, and solid. But nothing else is. I want to feel the pull of gravity for myself. It's lonely."

Nagato was starting to feel extremely lightheaded. Yahiko's scent was getting to him. "I want to - I…" What do I want? "I know that. I want something that will orbit me back."

"I want something that I can feel, that I can see. I want something else that shines the way I do." Yahiko began to sob.

Nagato did not sob. His throat was closed too tightly for him to. Tears trickled down his cheeks. "A nice planet would do…"

"Something that doesn't reflect me…" Yahiko whispered.

"I'm powerless and terrified," Nagato admitted.

"I'm lonely and want someone to see me for what I am," Yahiko admitted.

"I'm so sorry that so much of my own thoughts and my own worries gets in the way and I can't see you clearly," Nagato apologized.

"I'm sorry that I'm so distant and wrapped up in myself and I can't stop dragging you into it," Yahiko apologized.

Nagato sobbed into Yahiko's shoulder. His face ached from producing what seemed like a flood of tears and pain and loss. "'Sokay. I just need to find someone closer, someone I can reach."

"Me too." Yahiko's voice squeaked. "Someone strong and purposed enough to handle me and not feel like I'm dragging them around."

Nagato started to laugh. "Konan's got her own purpose."

"No, she's way too wild," Yahiko answered. "I can't really get ahold of her. Hidan said I could talk to him though."

"Me too. Hidan said he would stop and talk with me and meet me exactly where I am, wherever that is."

"He's a good friend," Yahiko sighed. Several seconds passed. Then he grabbed Nagato's arms and pushed, breaking the hug so he could look into Nagato's face again. "But we are too, right?"

Nagato hesitated. But all the other possible answers were so completely unrealistic that there was only one choice left once he thought about them at all. "Yes. I just need someone a little closer to where I am, and where I am is orbiting you. They're going to have to come along."

"I'll never give up my partner in diplomacy!" Yahiko grinned. "Like the vampire lady said, we work together. We do things right when we work together."

"Life partners," Nagato said with a nod.

"Life partners."

Confidence restored, they let go of each other. Yahiko smiled and wilted down onto the bench in a relieved way. "Thank you."

Nagato slung an arm around his shoulder. "Anytime, partner." Maybe, someday, when I am able… I wonder how it will be when I tell you I always wished for more?

Three moths fluttered overhead, shining in the lamplight.

.

They returned to the base well after dark. Yahiko was surrounded by an aura of strength, and believed himself to be capable of using words as he wished, at least for however long his renewed strength would last. Nagato, meanwhile, had a better idea of what he was going to do. It involved Hidan. But first, he had to navigate through everyone else.

Sasori was on the phone, so Nagato did not have to deal with him. As for everyone else, he offered up Yahiko as bait. "Yahiko has great news to share," he told everyone.

"Hey Itachi!" Yahiko waved. "It worked!"

While the aura Yahiko put out distracted everyone else, Nagato approached Kakuzu. "Do you know where Hidan is?"

"Helping Konan move bowls, and discussing tactics," Kakuzu answered. "I don't know what the bowls are for; some project she has down in the basement. The tactics are for something we could all do without, so please distract him."

Nagato nodded. I was planning to. He went down the right hallway to the top of the basement stairs, where Hidan was leaving a large bowl filled with water for Konan to carry down the stairs into the one room in the entire building that he simply could not enter. Hidan set it down carefully before acknowledging Nagato. "Moonlight. Hey."

"Hey. I want to talk to you," Nagato said.

Hidan tilted his head. "How important?"

"Important enough that I may not have the courage tomorrow," Nagato explained.

"That's more important than testing!" Konan emerged from the basement. Hidan called down to her, "Hey, Nagato's got something important to talk about, more important than testing. Meet you after." Konan glanced between them and nodded. Nagato got a strange feeling like she was smiling, though her mouth did not visibly move. Maybe I'm starting to understand her better.

Hidan paused, turned female, then resumed walking. "I know how much more comfortable you are when I'm in this form," he murmured while locking the door to his bedroom.

"Yeah, I am." Hidan's female form was not itchy or distracting to look at. It was much easier to talk to him when he was female because of that. Nagato shook himself to get any residual traces of nervousness off, then launched into what he wanted to talk about with no preamble. The symbol was beneath him, amplifying his fears. He couldn't waste a single brave second. "When did you realize you were…?"

Hidan smirked. "How d'ya think? Same way everyone else realizes anything." He sat cross-legged on the bed and looked off into the distance. "I always did like getting hugged by anyone that'd hug me, and I always found everyone about equally interesting. I never got what boys in movies and shit say about girls being so weird and strange, while other boys were plain normal. Other boys looked just as worthy of interest to me."

Nagato pulled his legs up in front of himself and hugged them, fascinated. "Heh. Me too. Actually, it was always easier with girls, even though I don't have much in common with most girls interest-wise. It wasn't so complicated or busy around them. I could just relax and not care."

"Yeah, well, I noticed and paid attention to everybody," Hidan said. "So why the fuck would I need to 'realize' anything? Nothing changed. You 'realize' shit that you didn't know before, and I didn't do that, because nothing was new. I did know it before. Nobody stopped being noticeable, or became noticeable when they weren't before, or anything."

He waited for Nagato to say something, but Nagato did not. The redhead sat still, looking at Hidan and thinking. "You never had any parents," Nagato concluded.

"...Yeah?" Hidan scratched his head.

"I always had this vague idea that women were supposed to be interesting somehow," Nagato said. "It was...expectation. The sort of thing you pick up from your parents. I was really happy, it was a pleasant surprise, to find out I didn't have to."

Hidan shrugged. "I dunno if I ever was expected to do anything, but I know for sure I didn't think I was. That's all that matters. No surprises here."

"Who was the first boy you liked?" Nagato asked. "I mean, what was he like? I don't need to know names or anything."

Hidan rubbed his chin. "Give me a sec to figure out how old I was. My memories aren't time-stamped like other people's seem to be." His eyes bounced back and forth over Nagato's head. "15, maybe? That's how old he was, and I don't remember feeling like there was any difference between us. At that age I think a year would be enough difference to remember.

"He was cool, in that 'everybody listens to what he has to say' way. I saw him playing with friends or doing things around town sometimes. Definitely got listened to. You remember that one time somebody asked me about a certain subculture?"

Nagato blinked. "Oh, because...you liked someone in charge. Like Konan, someone who gives you orders."

"Yeah, that's the shit. I hadn't seen anyone near my age who was like that. Nobody near my age could tell me what to do!" Hidan held up his hands. "But this guy, he looked nice, but the first time I got a sense that he was worthy of telling me what to do was when he walked into some place I was. I tossed something at one of his friend's heads, just to see how the whole herd would react. Always liked studying people. And he walked right up to me, and he asked, 'What'd you do that for?' Calmly, like he just wanted to know.

"I said, 'Just to see what you guys would do.' I liked what I was seeing already. His other buddies kind of spread out; none of them looked weak or vulnerable. He kinda glanced at them and said, 'Now you know,' and walked away like of course I wouldn't say a single thing to that.

"I may have started following him around, trying to get a sense of where he regularly was after that," Hidan admitted sheepishly. "I interact with people like that, okay? And I never got a feeling of being skeeved out from him."

Nagato laughed. "I get it," he told Hidan. "The ethics of stalking when you're young and socially inexperienced are already murky. I don't even know what you being an actual cat contributes to the matter. More murkiness. I'm not even going to try to figure that out."

"I'm not exactly a cat…" Hidan muttered.

"Well, close enough. You have the mindset of one. So, he wasn't creeped out, and you were actually capable of knowing that for sure. Ethical issues have been dodged. What happened?"

"I wasn't socially inexperienced! I just wanted to get a sense of his movement patterns. Guess you're right about having a mind like a big cat. Once I had that sense, I walked up to him one time for a closer look.

"I remember declaring him 'cool.' Dunno what his response to that was, but whatever it was, I clearly was happy to just walk right up to him. I don't remember what his scent was like... but I'm sure I would remember if I smelled it again. I think he looked back at me and let me walk near and smell him, but in that way that you know he's deliberately letting you, not just scared or oblivious."

Nagato was leaning forward and rocking back and forth, enthralled by the story. His eyes shone. "Did you kiss then?"

Hidan had been staring off while telling the story, and purring lightly when he stopped speaking. The mood was one of cozy nostalgia. Nagato hadn't meant to, but his words were like a needle, popping that bubble. Hidan stopped purring and blinked in surprise. He looked back at Nagato in confusion. "What? Of course fucking not!"

Nagato stopped rocking and tensed. "Oh…"

"Kissing isn't like that," Hidan started to explain. "It's not something that feels good just, like, all the time! It's warm, yeah, but nothing else. It doesn't feel good unless you know the person and really want to do that with them and really like them. Other things, though… No requirements. None at all. Bar strangers are perfectly fine for other things."

"Most people think the other way around," Nagato said.

"Yeah, I don't know why. What's so special about making or letting someone touch a part of you that you want touched? It's literally just doing what you want."

Nagato raised a hand. "Uh, there are more important things at stake. STDs? Pregnancy risk? The natural hesitancy to do something that requires skill, which you are not skilled at because you've never done it before? How did you feel the first time you found yourself having to comfort someone, with no practice or training on how to comfort?"

"What skill is there in taking someone's wrist and moving their hand around to good spots? And moving fingers? That's not skilled work." Hidan seemed genuinely confused. "The rest… Heh, good point about the pregnancy risk. Not a problem I usually face, so I don't think about it a lot. STDs?" Now he looked downright baffled. "I… I should… But I don't think of that… Why not? Wait, what the fuck? What have I been doing?" A look of horror dawned on his face, before his brows knitted together and he settled down to do some thinking. "No, wait a sec. I'm immortal. Presumably, in my fake memories, I was too, just like how Kakuzu's always had stitches. I wouldn't feel like I was in danger; I didn't feel like I was in danger when I ran so far out of chakra my organs started to cramp. So no danger for me, but I could've passed it on if I caught anything. Unless… Maybe I heal or something and that deals with it?"

Nagato's mouth hung open. "Ug...uh...uh…" What can I say about that? "Please, if you and Konan ever want to… Please get tested first."

"I plan to," Hidan said. "How the fuck have I never thought about any of this before? You know, those fake memories make us oblivious to a lot more things than just our powers."

Nagato nodded. Truer words have never been spoken. "So, what did happen with you and this guy? If he was only 15, he wouldn't have…?"

"Yeah," Hidan grumbled. "Didn't. Damn close, though - good snuggling, and I think he did some good things to my hair. Not that far, though, and of course no kissing. I wanted to, but he didn't, because he's one of those weird other people." Hidan smirked. "Not all other people are weird and different, though. Lost my virginity to a girl not long after. And it wasn't weird or anything, because that's what happens when you have the skill level of a toddler and can control your fingers properly!"

Nagato still winced. "Nope. I can't… Nope. That's not my interpretation of anything."

Hidan held out a hand. "Agree to disagree?"

Nagato looked at it. "Not when I'm actually scared. I hope you do consider pregnancy risk whenever you're with a girl?"

Hidan crossed his arms. "I do!"

"Okay…" Nagato shivered. "Still very worried about you, though. This sounds unhealthy." Hidan hunched up his shoulders and looked to the side like he didn't enjoy hearing that, but something in the movement of his eyes told Nagato he was at least thinking about what Nagato was saying. That's good. I don't know how he gets away with stuff like this! I wouldn't even consider that kind of thing until I'm ready, and I know exactly who I am and I feel confident expressing it. Maybe I'm just projecting myself onto Hidan; he is different from me, more confident and sure. He could've known that at 15. God I hope so.

It felt like a really good time to move on to a different topic. "You know when I realized it," Nagato began.

Hidan looked up. "No, I don't. How old were you when you met Sunshine?"

"I was 9," Nagato said. "We both were. I think we'd both lost our families sometime when we were 8, and we'd spent a while on our own or in the care of social services before we found each other." Nagato's eyes took on a distant look. "It wasn't good back then…"

Hidan scratched his head. "Do you want to talk about this shit?"

"Yeah, I do." Nagato's eyes refocused. "But there isn't a lot to talk about. We implicitly agreed to never ask. We don't ask each other about our families. I don't know his, and he doesn't know much about mine. It would have been a rude thing to do to each other.

"Anyway, we met in the rain. There was a regular activities thing held in a local park," Nagato explained, "and so, one day when it was raining, I decided to go there. I don't remember why, or what I thought I'd find there. I definitely wasn't expecting to find an orange-haired boy with a great smile and the best eyes holding an umbrella over a nest of chicks that'd fallen out of the tree." Nagato couldn't help but grin, and his eyes shone just as bright as those he had described. "I think I fell in love with him right then. Obviously I was 9 years old, but I felt such a conviction that he was the most fascinating being I had ever seen, and I wanted to help him, and I wanted to be there by his side. It was the strongest conviction I had ever had, and still one of the strongest. It has to be a form of love."

Hidan nodded. "That's the sort of thing that's worthy of kissing." He stared wide-eyed at Nagato with his hands wrapped around his knees, just as enthralled as Nagato had been.

"And it hasn't changed." Nagato blushed. "I think that feeling must be a form of love, because when I got old enough to think of kissing, or other things, it felt like those desires were on top of my desire to be next to him and see how fascinating he was. Added on, or maybe even rooted in. I still feel that way about him, and I still think he's too interesting for words, even though I've spent almost my whole life in his gravity." At that, he started to look sad.

Hidan looked down at himself. He wasn't sure if he had ever picked up a feeling like this before. It was kind of like longing but not, kind of like a desire to go out and be in the world but not, kind of like a desire to change who he was, but also a desire to stay just the same. It was contradictory and confusing, like wanting to be in his past and his future simultaneously. Hidan groaned as a shudder of deep unease rattled through him. He didn't have a past.

Nagato sat up and leaned forward. "Are you okay? I wasn't feeling pain just now, only the knowledge that I'm going to spend the rest of my life with him, one way or another."

"I know," Hidan forced out through gritted teeth. "But that feels like bringing together past and future, and I don't have a past." He took a deep breath, hissing on the inhale. "I can feel my lack of it."

Nagato sighed. "I know this'll probably make it worse, but I have to try." He shuffled over to Hidan's side and hugged him. Hidan hugged back. The feeling was worse, but he wasn't going to say so.

"You're sure?" he whispered to distract himself. "You know how you and him are?"

"Yes," Nagato answered. "I know exactly what we are."

.

A/N: I really should get around to publishing The Boy In Red. It was previously the number-2 story on my list of fics to publish, before I started actually writing down In Search Of Demons. I'm not done with The Boy In Red, and in fact I expect it to be a long-runner like this story, so I'm simply not willing to for fear I'd scare people with worryingly long delays. I don't want to scare readers. The story also requires a lot more intensive thinking of the kind I did not apply to the sun in this story, so it's actually a good thing I haven't written very much of it yet. I need to learn how to account for details in a story, so I shouldn't even continue it until I've practiced and gotten more control over this story. Yes. A reasonable cautious move. Totally not cowardice.

I probably should not say why I am thinking of this, in case of spoilers.

So...anyone want to guess which character's getting the spotlight next chapter? Hint: they were briefly mentioned to be up to something in this chapter.

Hee hee.