A/N: Ah, the start of a fourth year of this story! I can't wait to see what happens from here on out. I've got a therapist. I'm off brain medicine. I'm finally getting around to things I've been thinking of for years. I expect this story to pick up the pace noticeably.

To anyone reading this right now: Thank you. Without at least the idea of readers, I could not write this, and I sense the writing of this has been a crucial factor even if I can't describe exactly how. And hey, thanks for following along with me. It's very kind of you.

As for why reading someone else's story that they publish anonymously and you read anonymously and you don't say anything about it is nonetheless a kind thing to do... Read on.

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Hidan

"Excuse me, I kinda need to something something," he said just before dashing off in the direction of home. He had to stop and take a deep breath as soon as he reached the front lawn. He couldn't stop his hands from twisting into all sorts of configurations and his body from bending itself side to side. He was just filled to the brim with a strange kind of energy he'd never felt before. Oh, he'd felt many things that gave him spontaneous urges to dance, but nothing like this. Usually I'm either really super happy excited or I'm panicking. This feels closer to the second one, but it's also kind of happy? Good panicking? Is that a thing? Aahhhh shit! He darted inside.

Where, where, where, where? Oh, duh. He ran to Nagato's room. There, he found the redhead taking deep breaths. A couple seconds passed before Nagato opened his eyes and looked up. "Hey," he said, blushing just a little.

Hidan whined. He buzzed into the room and sat down on the edge of Nagato's bed, suddenly unsure what to say. Hey, what the fuck is this shit? I never have trouble talking! Stop it! But he couldn't figure out what to say. "Hey, so, so, um, you know, I think I said… No I didn't, um, maybe I, no, um, I should just… Aaagghh!"

Nagato laughed. He got up and walked around so he faced Hidan. "I'm sorry, it's just that you're never like this." He bent down and put his hands on Hidan's shoulders. "It's okay."

Hidan took a deep breath like he was going to try to blow down a straw house. He let most of it drain out, then clasped his hands in front of himself like a child offering a prayer. "Boyfriends?"

Nagato gasped. His eyes started to twitch. "Uh, u-u-yeah. Yeah."

Hidan grinned. He rose up off the bed and embraced Nagato, purring loudly. Nagato hugged him back, laughing again. "Oh my god I never thought this would happen!"

Hidan nuzzled his neck. "The others should be home soon. More good news there. Go to him. But, like, in a few minutes." He took deep breaths in preparation, then kissed Nagato. It filled him top to bottom with the good kind of buzzing energy; all his hair stood on end. But such energy was not meant to be felt for long. A few minutes turned out to be all he had the strength for.

Nagato, too, needed to catch his breath. "Oh my god," he whispered frantically. "I still can't believe anything."

Hidan couldn't stop grinning. "This is my first time," he gushed. "You know, my first time feeling like this. It's all new to me too."

"What? No way."

"Yeah, I'm usually like all physical, sexy times, not like - like - hearts and kissing and stuff. Remember how I said kissing to me is like sexy times to anyone else? Well this is my first…"

Nagato took a step back. "What? I took your…virginity?" He blinked in disbelief that he was even saying such a thing. But it was true. Hidan nodded. "I never thought I would do that. Not figuring myself out at this age."

"Hey. Nobody's too old to be a virgin," Hidan scolded.

Nagato raised his hands. "I'm totally not age shaming. It's just that, you know, probability wise?"

Hidan nodded. "Yeah, I getcha."

They watched each other in wonder for a while. Hidan was in awe, not just at Nagato but at his own feelings. I never knew anything could be this much. Suddenly he understood what all those love stories and songs were about. He did not understand the actions often described therein, but suddenly it was clear why anyone would act in such a crazy way. He understood the motivation now. Do people really feel like this all the time? How does the world not explode?

"You're beautiful," Nagato whispered. Was that the same thing he had once reported feeling about Yahiko when first seeing him?

That thought reminded Hidan of what else was important. "Hey. There's still more good news. Go to him. I mean it this time."

Nagato put a hand over his own heart and paid attention. His face settled into a look that could not be described, except that it gave Hidan the impression that he was more of a man. "Thank you," Nagato said. "I can now. See you later?"

"As you wish." Nagato turned to the door, stopped, and decided to put on his cloak first. Hidan was amazed to rediscover how good he looked in it. When Nagato left the room, Hidan flopped back onto the bed and lay there limply, letting his legs dangle. How does the world not go spinning off into the stars?

Yahiko

Yahiko sat on his bed brushing his hair. I cannot believe it. I went into a haunted house, and I was the brave one. I led Deidara through. I solved the puzzle room. He felt so grown up, so capable, so manly. He was brushing his hair in preparation for breaking out the makeup chest and lounging around his room in female form.

There was a knock on the door. "Yahiko? May I come in?"

Yahiko suddenly remembered that he needed to tell Nagato the very important thing. "Yeah, come in. I have something I want to tell you." He put the brush away.

Nagato came in and closed the door behind himself. It shut with a soft click. He and Yahiko looked at each other for several awkward moments. Yahiko had enough awareness by now to sense the tension in the air. Finally, Nagato looked away and turned around. He locked the door. He immediately turned back around and crossed the room, moving too quickly, flopping down onto the edge of the bed too casually. "What is it?"

Yahiko placed his hands palms down on the bed beside him as if steadying himself and looked directly at Nagato with a small smile. This is serious, he tried to say. It's okay to be serious. "Jiraiya told me something I never expected," he said. "He's recently discovered he's bisexual."

Nagato's feigned casualness faded. He stared at Yahiko with a look that made Yahiko think of the word haunted, though he had no idea why that word would apply here. "He… He likes men?" Nagato asked in barely more than a whisper.

"Some men. He didn't know at first because it works better if they look feminine."

If anything, that made Nagato look even more haunted. He worked his jaw up and down. Eventually he took a deep breath. Yahiko sensed anxiety coming off him suddenly. "I never knew we had so much in common," Nagato said.

Yahiko blinked. "...What are you saying?" Nagato's sentence sounded like a non sequitur to him. He had no idea what it could be referring to.

Nagato took another deep breath. He planted his hands the same way Yahiko had and looked at him just as seriously. "Yahiko, I'm gay. Hidan's my boyfriend."

Yahiko blinked some more. Oh. "...Oh. Hey, congratulations." The way Nagato looked at him indicated that this news was supposed to be a great shock. Yahiko didn't feel a great shock yet, but maybe one was coming. He could feel that he hadn't fully absorbed what it meant.

Nagato laughed nervously. "Thank you." He looked away. Another very awkward silence descended. Why was it awkward? They were not supposed to be awkward with each other. Yahiko was just about to reach out and break the awkwardness when Nagato murmured, "I always thought telling you would be different and feel different. Not like this. I thought…"

"I don't fully get what it means yet," Yahiko said. "Maybe in a few days it'll be different."

The awkwardness was broken. Nagato turned to him again. "I have more to say. A lot more. Do you want to know when I first realized I liked boys?"

"When?"

Nagato hesitated. He looked away. Yahiko could see him straining to look back, but it was impossible. Nagato was unable to force himself to meet Yahiko's eyes, or indeed look anywhere near his face. "It was when I met you," he squeaked.

Yahiko blinked. Huh? "When you met me?"

"I thought I'd never seen anyone so beautiful," Nagato whispered. "Or so interesting, or so…magnetic. I couldn't get enough of you. I…I liked you from the start. Yahiko, I've always…"

Yahiko did not blink anymore. His eyes started to itch, so then he did, but he returned to staring afterwards. ********. His thoughts were snow again. **** ******* **. *****...***? *********...

Nagato forced his eyes up suddenly. "I love you," he said.

*******. Yahiko blinked. Nagato looked absolutely terrified, so Yahiko reached forward and hugged him. Nagato gasped, but Yahiko was acting on plain reflex and couldn't stop. ***. Zhjjjsdakzhhkjjzz. Haaaaaaa. Llll… Love?

Nagato hugged him back. They embraced for several moments before Yahiko's brain finally turned all the way back on. He wants to be more than friends with me? All the time we hung out, he was thinking about kissing and stuff? Oh my god. What have I done to him? Yahiko released the hug and pushed Nagato away.

Nagato stared back. Fear creeped all over him again. "Yahiko? What's wrong?"

"Oh my god I'm so sorry," Yahiko blurted. "All the hugging and stuff. And you - I didn't know. I'm so sorry."

Nagato relaxed. "You're not scared of me?"

"What?" Another non sequitur. "Why would I be scared of you?"

Nagato shrugged, waved a hand in the air. "Scared that I would, you know, kiss you or something…"

"Why would I be scared of that?"

Nagato himself struggled to explain. "It just seems like, that, if you tell another guy you've been thinking of him that way, then it's automatically creepy or something?"

"You're not creepy. You're my friend." Yahiko shook his head.

Nagato let out a long, long breath. "Thank you."

Yahiko imagined himself and Nagato kissing. It would be super weird. He's my brother. Yahiko absorbed more of what the news meant. It meant that Nagato had never seen him that way. The whole time Yahiko thought they were having one kind of interaction, and they were really having another. They had never really been in sync at all. Harmony was an illusion. The whole time, there had always been this uncrossable gulf between them and he just hadn't seen it. Yahiko blinked away tears.

"I'm glad I was finally able to tell you," Nagato said.

Yahiko wanted to cross that uncrossable gulf. He wanted it more than anything. His whole body buzzed with that wanting. "I…" he started to say. Huh? Am I trying to say something? What am I trying to say? Whatever it was, Nagato clearly didn't understand. Yahiko wanted him to understand more than anything. So he sat up and, before he knew it, went through a flurry of hand signs.

Only as a faint mist dispersed did he realize what he'd done. Now it was his turn to freeze stock still in terror. He watched as Nagato took in the new appearance. "You look nice as a girl," Nagato said.

Yahiko laughed nervously. "Thank you." Awkward silence descended. He had no idea what else to say. There was so much else to say. Where should he start?

"Wait." Nagato blinked. "Are you trying to tell me… Is this something you…?"

"I have no idea," Yahiko said.

"...What does that mean?"

"Well, it doesn't seem like this is my real body or that I'd like to stay in it. But it's kind of freeing to be in it occasionally. And it changes things. Like how I interact with people." Yahiko blushed as he remembered what he'd discovered with the incubus' help. I should definitely keep that to myself.

Nagato struggled to understand. "So you're some kind of nonbinary?"

"Maybe? Konan says I'm a chameleon."

"Konan?" Nagato's eyes widened. "Oh, that's what she meant! She knew about us both. She's been keeping both our secrets this whole time?"

"Hidan, too," Yahiko realized. "He must have known you liked him, and he's been hanging out with me in his girl form."

Nagato smiled. "I'm glad they did that."

They looked at each other, each with a new understanding of the other. Yahiko now understood that he had been wrong in thinking of Nagato as the very thesis of a normal man, and that he had been wrong in thinking of himself as the very thesis of abnormal. Nagato looked relieved. He's probably grateful that I have this form. It takes so much pressure off of him. If he only likes men, then he doesn't have to deal with wanting to kiss me anymore. We can just be friends.

"I'll admit, this is a little more comfortable." Nagato shuffled over and put an arm around Yahiko's shoulders. "But I do want to spend time with the man I love. Even if I can't kiss you, I still like to be around you. I don't want to give that up."

"It's okay that it hurts you?" Yahiko asked. "I don't want to hurt you."

"It would hurt more to have to be without you just because of my feelings. It would be like I was cursed, like I had to suffer a punishment for something that wasn't my choice. If being too close to you hurts, then it was my choice to get so close. A better sort of pain."

Yahiko hugged him. "Thank you. I don't love you guys that way, but I do love you. I'm actually glad I don't have to avoid you."

"Maybe extended cuddle sessions and laying your head in my lap and stuff like that is off the table though," Nagato added hurriedly.

"Oh. Yeah. I understand that. I'm just glad we can still hug."

"I'm glad for that too." And they hugged.

Sasori

"I really should have expected this."

Sasori looked around at the pile of boxes taking up space in the garage. He was never going to fit the supplies he'd ordered in here with all these boxes in the way. He shook his head at himself for never having thought of where all those boxes Hidan kept would have been put after they were opened. There really was no good place for them. They were useless now: not even scrap metal. They were far too corroded and weakened from being in the earth to be useful as scrap. If they had any possible metallic value at all, only a recycling plant could find it.

He found Kakuzu cleaning up the kitchen. "Hey," Sasori said. "I am informing you that those boxes in the garage need to be recycled or dumped. Either way, your truck has the most carrying capacity. And it needs to be done fairly quickly. I'm expecting some supplies I ordered to get here soon. On that note, I need some money. Several hundred dollars."

"Give me a minute," Kakuzu said. He finished cleaning up and putting everything away, which involved tossing a great deal of vegetable scraps into the garbage. We should get a composter. Then Kakuzu went out, backed his truck up to the garage, put smaller boxes aside, and wrestled out the biggest box he could find. He placed that in the bed of his truck and left it open. He gestured for Sasori to follow him and went inside. Kakuzu stopped in the middle of the hallway, at the first intersection, and listened. Shifting to ninjalike stealth, he walked forward in a way that looked perfectly natural for a man of his size and build yet somehow was nearly silent. Sasori realized he had reflexively started walking the same way. They both heard it; muffled conversation. Kakuzu went up to Itachi's door and knocked.

Konan opened it. "No interruptions will be accepted at this time."

"No need to interrupt," Kakuzu said. "You can keep talking. I just need you to undo the rest of the money bricks."

Konan gestured for Itachi to follow her out into the hallway. "I would need to go back and refresh myself on the rules of word order in Hungarian," he admitted. "All I remember right now is that they are much more flexible but contain certain inflexible parts, and one of those parts is that whatever word comes directly before the question word must be the most important part of the sentence. I think the parts that come after can be rearranged in certain ways. But it has been a long time since I last did a Hungarian lesson."

"Different languages offer different ways of expressing ideas," Konan summarized.

"Yes, very much so. In Japanese, I learned that the Japanese word for 'different' is the root of another word which means something like 'to be bad.' That sort of thinking would never happen in this culture."

"Why do you think different places have different ways?" Konan asked as she went down the basement stairs.

Itachi followed her down with no hesitation, Sasori and Kakuzu following at a polite distance. "Honestly, at this point, based on everything I've seen about what the presence of different ways of living does and does not result in, I've given up. I've decided to ignore the idea of purpose entirely and instead just treat it as a thing that happens. An inevitable consequence of human nature is that people end up living in different ways, and we should just adapt to the reality of that instead of trying to explain what purpose it serves and whether it is good or bad. It just is. Let's all become multilingual and learn how to navigate the cultures right next door to us and stop fighting already."

By now they were all inside the basement. Was that the reason why Itachi sounded so frustrated? Konan handed a stack of money to Kakuzu and raised an eyebrow at Itachi. "Do people of this world really waste their time arguing over whether or not there should be one world culture?"

"Indeed we do."

"What a useless waste of energy."

"No. Not useless. McDonalds in Japan." Itachi blinked forcefully and rubbed his forehead. "What I mean by that is… Is that… There are those who try to make the idea into reality. It's… It is not outside reality, it is… It's a problem."

The symbol seemed to be disrupting Itachi's ability to think. Sasori had heard about the idea he was getting at. For Sasori, the symbol was disrupting his sense of himself as human. He felt more mechanical, oddly removed from his body, more like a puppet with every second. As bad as that was, it mercifully left his thinking intact. "Cultural imperialism," Sasori said. "The idea that when one group of people is especially powerful and dominant over another, their culture will spread and the less dominant people's will die. In the past, when a country could only be dominant over their immediate neighbors, that didn't pose any existential threats to the very idea of culture because there would be another dominant country a few hundred miles away with a different surviving culture. But now, with mass media, it is possible for a country or group of countries to be dominant over the whole world. And even if there's no actual conquest involved, a dominant culture can still defeat a less dominant one. It's not unreasonable to be afraid that the whole world could become homogenized."

"Thank you," Itachi said, shaking his head as if beset by flies.

Konan undid several more bricks, which Kakuzu carried out to his truck, while she thought. "In other words, human beings like for their own culture to become dominant, but only as long as it can't actually happen."

"Yes, in all things," Itachi said. "Like… Challenges."

"Humans evolved in a world where we are limited and there are challenges," Sasori smoothly followed. "It feels good to overcome challenges, because the natural world is always throwing up new ones. You have to progress just to stay where you are. It felt good to go much faster than that, to genuinely move forward, but now we're in danger of moving so far forward that the world we live in isn't the world we evolved to live in. And that would create a massive humanity-wide feeling of I don't belong here, which -" He didn't bother to finish that sentence. He was talking to someone who literally came from another world, after all.

Indeed, she seemed to understand perfectly. "Is that what we nearly did?" she whispered.

Kakuzu came back for more, and she gave it to him. After Kakuzu left again, Sasori asked, "What did you nearly do?"

Konan looked down at the floor. "Nagato and I, we developed a great hatred for the world as it was. Everything that had happened to us, been done to us: we wished such things would never happen to anyone ever again. We aimed to place the entire world in a dream where suffering would never happen."

Sasori's brow wrinkled. "But every single person in that dream world would be alone, because every time people meet other people some small amount of suffering happens. The only way to have a pain-free life is to live it surrounded by visions, not real people at all. But when that happens, your entire life becomes the low-level pain of being alone. You either have minor pains or existential pain. There's no such thing as no pain."

"Existential pain," Itachi said. "That's what I've felt."

Konan pressed one knuckle against her forehead. "We had so much power to do what we wanted that we never had to grow up. Damn it…" Sasori got the impression that she was complaining about being cheated.

The rest of the money transfer was done in silence. Sasori helped Kakuzu carry it all out. Kakuzu looked around, obviously aware of the tension, but did not ask. Not all of the remaining money fit in the large box, but what was left would. Kakuzu decided he could now keep the larger box and dispose of the rest. He closed it and asked if Sasori was interested in going to the bank with him.

"No thanks," Sasori said. "I'll stay here and get these boxes stacked inside each other for an easy trip to the recycling plant."

Doing so was easy, monotonous and routine. It cleared his mind marvelously. Sometime while he was stacking the boxes, Konan appeared. She looked down at him. "Why did you, of all people, have something to say about suffering?"

"I didn't," Sasori replied. "I had something to say about people. A famous philosopher once said, 'Hell is other people.' I know from my own experience that everything is easier when I'm working with machines. All their problems can be solved. The steps are straightforward. You can predict exactly what's going to happen when you do something. People are complicated and annoying. That's why I've generally surrounded myself with machines." He moved a stack of boxes to make it easier to move. "But people are complicated and annoying. That's why I went looking for people, and found Deidara. Ever since I started hanging out with him, and especially ever since I joined this group, I feel more human. Surrounded only by machines, I felt like a machine. I can guess that if I was surrounded by dream visions, I would feel like I wasn't real."

Konan tilted her head. "You, too, know the pain of being alone."

"Existential pain," Sasori corrected. "It's different from regular pain. Regular pain feels like sharp pangs that you can directly sense. Existential pain manifests as a nagging thought that this isn't quite right or there could be more. It's important to distinguish between the two. They mark two entirely different kinds of loneliness."

"Of course. Yes, it is a very different feeling." Konan studied the boxes. "I've heard that Kisame is making efforts to meet and talk to people, and Kakuzu seems to be fighting his defensive tendencies in order to allow himself to belong. Is it possible that everyone in this group knows this pain?"

"I would bet on it," Sasori told her. "Even Yahiko. That guy's a mess."

Somehow, Konan seemed surprised by this. Really? She's way behind the times. Sasori picked up a stack of small boxes. "I would bet that it's why we're all still here," he said to her. "The novelty's worn off. We've seen that there are dangers in associating this way. Anything we hoped to discover about ourselves, you explained early on when you held that funeral for our originals. By now, there has to be something deeper holding us together. Maybe everyone feels the way I do: relieved. Because those nagging thoughts have finally gone."

Konan looked at him in a way she had never looked at him before. Nothing was said. All the meaning that crackled between them was too large to be put into words. Sasori put the small stack inside a larger stack and held out his hand. She took it. They shook hands. He smiled at her. "Thank you."

Those words were the most human ones he had ever said.

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A/N: It goes without saying that they all feel this way because it is a lifelong concern of mine. I... I am glad to have written this story where they are all together. A family. Family, either born or found, is very important. That's what I've come to believe. And it may seem obvious, but it's not, especially not when I believe it for the reasons that I do, which aren't obvious at all.

Writing a story is a means of connection, too. That's why I'm grateful just for anyone who read this, even if nothing is said. *heart*

Please do come back next week.