A/N: Just for fun. Enjoy!

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Hidan

The next morning, Hidan woke up early. He did not initially know why. But then he remembered that there was something he had not gotten around to the night before, something very important. He leaped up from the carpet, put on his cloak and scythe, and crept out into the hallway. Nobody else was yet around.

He put on shoes, went out into the backyard and practiced throwing his scythe around to kill time. It was a lot of fun. Seeing his scythe fly in graceful arcs made him feel like a part of him was flying too, which was actually the literal truth, so he spent a lot of time laughing and whooping. It was a good thing that only one unused room on the second floor overlooked the backyard; he would have woken someone up otherwise.

The exercise helped him relax. Hey, what was I so worried about? There's no need to rush. Actually, it's usually a bad idea to rush things like this. I have to be more careful, especially since it's Kisame we're talking about. Hidan wondered whether what he was planning on doing was the right thing. If he was right about why Samehada hadn't raised a tail last night, what good would spreading that news do? Kisame had said multiple times that he was not ready to handle the idea of romance at all, and especially not with sharks. Hidan pushed aside the crumbled remains of flowers and sat down to think. He usually had a feeling of certainty about his actions. He usually knew exactly what he was doing. Not this time.

Konan found him out there. She assessed him with one look, then walked up the side of the building onto the roof. Hidan guessed she was patrolling. It was surely a habit she'd gotten into back in her old world where everybody was a hostile jerk to everybody else, but what good was it in this world? They had no enemies. Or did they? He joined her up on the roof. "Hey, I just remembered something. How are the vampires doing?"

"I was just thinking the same," Konan said with a slight smile. "It has been over a week since they were last contacted. Another meeting tonight would be wise."

"And the animal people? It's been a while since we hung out with them, right?"

Konan tilted her head. "An excellent idea."

Hidan wondered how this was going to interfere with his plans. Whether or not he told Kisame, he definitely needed to talk to Samehada. Eh, it can wait. "Let's go then!"

They walked through the forest at a leisurely pace, without using chakra. At this pace it was going to be a long walk - perfect for the weather. It was cooler than the day before, and pockets of fog still lingered in the forest. Everything was damp from the rain overnight. Silently they crept through this foggy world, winding separate ways around patches of thorns and bushes. "I always thought the land itself around here was alive," Hidan murmured when they found paths that allowed them to reunite.

"Yes." Konan looked around. "I used to spend time in the forest as a young girl. These woods are not so different."

It was a nice, long time before they came across a patrolling wolf. This one was grey with a dash of white across its muzzle. It gave them both a sniff, then wandered away. They were free to pass. Hidan guessed that smell samples had been passed around at some point. On a whim, he turned away from the outer cabin and headed towards the center of the camp. Konan followed. Hidan had a sudden mental vision of a pair of cats padding across their territory on patrol or perhaps a hunt. That was how the two of them moved. He grinned.

At this time in the morning, the camp was awake and active. The center of it was occupied by two human-wolf pairs playing games that resembled fetch, but had much more of an emphasis on capturing and subduing the ball like it was fleeing prey. The wolves worked together to corner the balls when they were thrown to the same spot and bounced off of each other. Some people of tiger and lizard ancestry watched. Most of the half wolves were gone, as were the wolves that normally stood guard under the porch of the outer cabin. They must have been out on their own adventures.

One of the half wolves that were playing saw them and smiled. He turned in a fluid motion and threw the ball toward them. In a flash, Konan darted out to the left and swiped at the ball with a hand curled to resemble claws. She batted it high in the air, where any real prey would have been helpless against the wolves circling below. One of them caught it in their jaws. A killing move.

Konan returned to her place just behind Hidan and to his left, and the half wolves came to greet them. "Nice move," said the one who'd thrown the ball.

"It's a typical move of a cat," she replied. "You really ought to have more interspecies cooperation on your hunts."

"We've been working on that," said the other.

"Where is Sakumo?"

"He's out right now. And Ruta's at the library."

"That is completely fine," Hidan said. "We just wanted to hang out. It's been a while, you know?"

Naturally, they ended up sitting outside the tiger cabin. "What are you?" asked a woman with slit pupils.

Konan shrugged. "Truthfully, I do not know."

"Neither do I," Hidan said, "though everyone's usually happy to treat me as a cat anyway. Aw crap. Should I have brought over the feather?"

"Hidan alternates between a lion and a domestic cat," Konan told the woman. "Do you have any toys suitable for a domestic cat?"

The woman shrugged and said she could probably find something. She went into the cabin to look. Meanwhile, another half tiger that had been watching the game gave them a glance. "You're those people that Sakumo and Ruta have been hanging out with, right?" he asked.

"Yep."

"Cool." He went back to watching the game. He had never fully turned his head in their direction.

Hidan and Konan looked at each other. It had been a long time since either of them was not recognized as special and important. The game, too, had started up again as if they were not there, so they sat and watched it. The half wolves began to join their companions in the game, throwing the ball and immediately running to join in an interception. They used their human-shaped bodies to full effect on several occasions by sliding across the ball's path like a living gate. They tried the batting maneuver Konan had done a couple times, but they weren't cats so it didn't really work. Hidan found the chasing fascinating anyway. He took the toy mouse the woman gave him and stuck it in his mouth, chewing on it as he watched.

The game eventually ended when the players got tired. The wolves found shade to sit under and pant. Meanwhile, their humans gathered around Hidan and Konan. "What do you guys do for fun?" one of them asked. A half lizard handed him a water bottle, which he drank from gratefully.

"Sit in a circle and talk philosophy," Hidan answered.

The other half wolf looked at him funny. "You don't play games or anything?"

"Talking is a game," Hidan said, offended. "When we're all together and bouncing ideas around like a ball, it feels exactly like a game. Tell me I'm not hallucinating that vibe."

"You are not hallucinating," Konan told him.

"See?"

"Don't you ever play any actual games?"

"I practice throwing my scythe around."

The half tiger woman laughed. "You guys sound interesting. What else do you do?"

"I sometimes patrol," Konan told her. "When I'm not monitoring the group chat for important information or planning, that is."

"What about you?" one of the half wolves asked Hidan.

"Hmm." Hidan carefully considered his options. "I hang out with the demon kid. I play pool. I tease Kakuzu. Sometimes I even earn money." He gasped. "Oh man. Oh fuck. I can't believe I forgot. I can say this now. As of yesterday, I can also hang out with my gorgeous boyfriend." He grinned so hard his face felt like it would fall off.

The half tiger who had been so unimpressed with them turned to look. "Congratulations," the tiger woman said. The two wolves, though visibly startled, also muttered congratulations.

One of them laughed nervously. "I kinda thought…"

Hidan stuck the toy mouse back in his mouth and shook his head, snapping its imaginary neck. He dropped it into his hands and turned to the tiger man. "So, are there any tigers in these woods?"

"Not that we've seen." The man looked away, pretending to return to his unimpressed self. But Hidan felt a little tickle in his gut that hadn't been there before he mentioned his relationship and probably didn't come from anyone else. He'd had plenty of time to relax taking a walk and watching the game. Why not do something productive? It'd been a while.

"Doesn't mean there aren't any," Hidan said. "Do you have a map or something? Show me where you've looked." He persisted, repeatedly arguing that all kinds of seemingly impossible things had already been shown to be true, until the tiger man relented and stood up. They went to the outer cabin. There, in a side room, was a map of the area. The tiger man spread his hand over the whole area of forest pictured, which extended a little beyond the campsite to the north and a ways beyond the vampire dwellings to the west and the boundary of the town to the east, and declared that they had checked all of it.

"Yeah, I figured," Hidan said. "That's actually not why I pulled you out here. Did something about my boyfriend hit a nerve?"

The tiger man watched him closely. Hidan, as always, was sincere. The man eventually looked down. "How are you so open about it? I haven't even told anyone besides my sister."

Fuck yeah. Another closet case. I'm like the expert on this shit. Hidan punched him on the shoulder playfully. "Let me tell you some things about Moonlight."

Kisame

"I would like to spend time today having real experiences. Let's hang out." That was what Itachi asked of him. Kisame agreed. The two of them plus Samehada got into Kisame's car and drove into town. They had no idea what kinds of public places people went to for socializing and having fun with friends. The stereotypical options movies often presented were out by virtue of mutual disinterest. They had no interest in drinking or watching movies. Itachi selected the most fun place he could think of. Kisame thought it an odd choice, but he had nothing better so he drove there.

They parked in front of the library and got out. Samehada's scales clicked on the pavement as he slipped out the back seat and circled the car, licking the air. "He hasn't been here before," Kisame said.

"I am having second thoughts," Itachi admitted.

"You think they won't like having a shark in the building?"

"No. Libraries are too dangerous to spend extended periods of time in."

"Dangerous?"

"I always get too many books. They're too alluring. I get so many I struggle to carry them all. Then I feel guilty as long as that stack lasts, because my enthusiasm fades as soon as I leave the building so I can't read them fast enough and I have to renew at least one or two, which I don't like to do. But I also can't return them because checking a book out is like making a promise. I feel like I'm letting the books down by not reading them fast enough."

"That leaves us only one option," Kisame said.

"What?"

"We've got to sit right down and read some books in the library."

A smile spread across Itachi's face like the first rays of sun along the ground, starting shyly but then widening and spreading until it reached all over his face and had transformed into a full-fledged grin. "That would be ideal." Samehada crawled up onto his back and licked his face. Itachi laughed and tolerated the shark's weight for as long as it took to walk into the library. One of the librarians at the desk looked up, but Samehada chirped in excitement and pointed his tail at a display like any well-behaved patron, so she said nothing. The display was books about cats. Itachi picked up half of them. Kisame watched him, astonished. What the hell happened to Itachi? Or I guess I should say, what the hell was happening to him before? I've never seen him so happy. He's like a little kid.

The library had a reading area right in the center behind the entrance display, with upholstered chairs offering patrons the opportunity to sit and read in comfort. Itachi sat in one of these chairs, and Kisame and Samehada sat at his feet. Now I'm the one acting like a little kid. It felt good, though. When was the last time I sat and listened to a story? Kindergarten? That was such a long time ago. I remember it feeling special, different from reading the book myself. Like I was participating in something. Kisame felt a sudden ache inside. He couldn't wait for Itachi to start reading.

Itachi read them the first chapter of a book about a famous library cat, describing how said cat had been found in the library's book drop as a kitten and rescued. Kisame's recollections were right. This did feel oddly sociable. He smiled as he waited for Itachi to go on to the second chapter.

Instead, Itachi handed the book to him. "I would like to listen to someone else read," he said softly.

Kisame took the book. "Why?"

"Because it is unusual and good to receive information at the same rate as another person. It never happens to me. I would like that sort of bonding experience." He and Kisame switched places. Samehada trilled and flapped his fins, lolling his tongue out.

Kisame cleared his throat and began to read. He soon got so absorbed into the text that he lost all track of his audience. This particular book was as much about the human experience as the cat's experience, or rather the two were the same. He went on to the third chapter without pause or hesitation. No, it was not an illusion. The text dripped with community. A sense of home. Belonging. People being together. The cat was really nothing more than a finger that set the ball rolling. At the end of the third chapter, his voice broke off, though his eyes involuntarily wandered ahead to the fourth chapter. Kisame took a paperclip from his pocket and inserted it as a bookmark. "I'm getting this."

Itachi selected another book from the pile and held it up. "Look, Same. It's a cat that goes on book-rescuing adventures. The book is set in Japan; do you like the art style?"

While Itachi was reading the first three chapters of that, a young person walking by stopped in his tracks. He ended up sitting next to Kisame. At the next chapter break, only then did he ask, "That reminds me of my grandpa. What book is it?" Itachi had been reading the book with it laying against his leg. He held it up so the young man could see the title and cover. "Cool," the young man said. That would have been a perfectly fine cue to leave and find his own copy to check out. But he did not. Itachi resumed reading before the pause could make it seem like he wanted the young man to go.

The library was a surprisingly sociable place after all.

Deidara

"...and that's how I got us out of the creepy basement, yeah."

Laurie laughed. They were relaxing at her place. They had just finished watching two episodes of one of his favorite shows and were about to start a card game. "You might not have the same magic as everyone else," she said, "but that was pretty clever."

Deidara laughed quietly. Great. I don't feel good after hearing that because I claimed Yahiko's accomplishments as my own. Lesson learned. I'll be honest from now on. "Wanna know the truth?"

"What is it?"

Deidara's smile faded. "It's not just the magic. There's a lot of other things I'm left out of too. Turns out I'm the token normal guy."

"But you have mouths in the palms of your hands," Laurie pointed out.

"Yeah, I know, hm. It's really super weird. But a solid half the group is some form of LGBT, and everybody else who's not has some kind of mental issue. I'm the only straight, cisgender, mentally stable person there."

Laurie frowned. "That doesn't strike me as accurate." Deidara understood her well enough by this point to translate that as, I think you're completely wrong.

He began to count off on his fingers. "Itachi has trouble connecting with anyone. Kisame has trust issues. Kakuzu's all defensive. Yahiko looks fine, but secretly he has something he's worried about, and I honestly don't think he lives in the same world everyone else does. Konan has those mood problems. I'm the only person there who's not getting in my own way when it comes to dating and stuff, yeah."

"Oh. Well, yeah, that sounds accurate. I just don't think 'mentally stable' is the right way to characterize that. It kind of implies that everyone else isn't. And I like Kakuzu. I think your friends are nice. They're perfectly fine."

"I don't know how else to say it," Deidara admitted. "Everyone has something preventing them from living the so-called normal life, yeah, and I don't. How do I describe that without going into all the detail?"

Laurie sat back on her couch and tapped her fingers on her arm. "Well… What's a normal life, really? It's just another life."

Deidara flopped back over the top of the wooden chair he sat on and groaned. "That's what we talked about yesterday. It's not. Sasori feels left out of it. Itachi's upset that nobody makes movies about any other kind of life. It's not, it's - I'm weird."

Laurie seemed at a loss for words. Deidara remembered that they were supposed to be having fun. "And I just don't know what to do with that because I've never felt weird before. I wasn't like an outcast in school or anything. But then I got kicked out of the military because I'm the weird guy who likes explosives too much, and then I realized I have mouths in my hands, and then I found a bunch of other people who were just as strange as I am and it seemed like I could belong there and go back to being just another kid, the way I was before… And now I don't get to. I'm still weird." He closed his eyes. "I just want to go back to thinking of myself as just another regular guy, yeah."

Laurie drew her knees up. "You grew up thinking you were nothing special, and all the ways you are have been hitting you all at once?"

"Yeah."

She mumbled something under her breath, something at once affectionate and also a little angry. It might have been, "Lucky."

"What was that?"

"I was bullied all throughout school." Her voice treated it as just another fact, but her body language said otherwise. "You've at least heard of how it is, right? Other kids seize on anything different about you. No matter how small it is, you know about it because other people won't stop reminding you. I don't know what it's like to think of myself as just like everyone else. Some of my earliest memories are of being laughed at in kindergarten because I was the only girl wearing a dress."

Deidara looked away. "I know. My problems aren't as real as everyone else's problems. I shouldn't make such a big deal out of them, yeah."

"No, don't you get it? Your problems are the same as everyone else's problems. You just treat them as new when to everyone else it's old hat." She uncurled. "I think it made me uncomfortable to hear you talk like that, because it reminded me of how bad it felt when it was new to me. I don't still run crying to my mom. I've got ways to make myself feel okay now. I don't want to remember the time before I had them because I felt awful back then."

"Got any tips, yeah?" Deidara was trying to make a joke. But as soon as the words left his mouth, he realized he was not joking at all.

Laurie's brow furrowed. "I…don't know. Hold on. What do I do to make myself feel better?" A pause. "I don't know. I don't remember doing anything…"

Deidara sighed. "So my real problem is just that I grew up later than everyone else. Man, this sucks, yeah."

They lapsed into silence. After it became clear that the silence would last a while, Laurie reached for her pack of cards. "Go Fish? I'm sorry, I don't know any other two-person card games." Deidara nodded. They started to play.

"What do you mean, he looks like he's not in the same world as everyone else?" she asked.

"Fives? I dunno; it's just this look that what you're saying isn't what he's hearing. He's pretty good about trying to listen, but sometimes it's just way too obvious that he isn't really."

Laurie forked over one of her cards. "Queens. Seriously? But he's so friendly."

"Kinda hard to talk to though, yeah."

"Have you asked him about it?"

Deidara blinked. "...You know, that's the first time I ever thought of it, yeah. Go fish."

She drew a card from the deck. "I mean, I wouldn't want to just go up to someone who's really nice and trying their best to listen and accuse them of not really listening to me. That feels wrong. If it's a problem for him, though…"

"He does spend a lot of time wondering why he can't get into a romantic relationship, yeah."

"You've got to tell him about it then. The poor guy!"

"I will. You're a genius, yeah! Tens?"

Nagato

Nagato and Yahiko sat on a lawn watching the stretch of road-turned-forest as it struggled to survive and transform itself into a real forest. Yahiko was expressing his concerns for the health of its residents. "How can they be happy like this? They must be able to sense all their neighbors dying. And the stress of it all. I don't think the snake kid really did these plants any favors. The road would have fallen apart eventually anyway."

"Those ferns seem to be fine…"

"Do you remember any ferns when he first did it? I don't. If his powers are strong enough to make trees grow a couple feet, wouldn't he have made ferns explode? Those ones must have moved in on their own." The ferns in question were small and did not yet shade the soil below them.

"Poor plants."

"Poor plants!"

Nagato summoned up his courage and took a quick look at Yahiko. I don't know how to feel about this. I've always thought it was charming, but… Here they sat, together and alone, not twenty-four hours after Nagato confessed to Yahiko that he'd secretly been in love for the entire history of their friendship. And Nagato seemed to be the only one who felt at all awkward. Yahiko gazed at the plants sadly. The most pivotal and important conversation of Nagato's entire life, which he had spent years hoping for, dreading, fearing: it might as well have never happened.

"Yahiko, I think I know the answer," he said quietly.

"Do you think plants grown in plantations feel badly too?" Yahiko asked at the same moment. "I mean, without any grown trees around, they're like orphans. Why is the concept of orphaned plants so sad?"

Nagato nudged his elbow. This was fairly normal behavior; Yahiko often got so emotionally invested in what he was talking about that he had to be brought back to reality. Nagato had always admired that. Only now did it occur to him that such a tendency might not be admirable. "Yahiko."

"Yeah?"

"I think I know why you've never been in a relationship."

That caught Yahiko's attention. He turned to face Nagato. "Why?"

Nagato took a deep breath. "The place Hidan took me to that night was the gay bar. He took me there because, until then, I'd never accepted myself. I was full of so much fear and confusion that I couldn't just be who I was. I would get stuck wondering if it was okay to show how I felt, how other people would see it, why couldn't I stop worrying and relax and just go ahead and do it. Hidan and I only got together after that because before, I was trapped in my own head. I wasn't able to be with him until I'd accepted myself."

Yahiko gulped. "You think the same is true of me?"

Nagato nodded. "Don't you see how weird this is? You're so caught up with the plants that I can't tell if you even remember what I said to you yesterday. Do you?"

Yahiko flushed. "Of course I remember." The way he murmured that while looking away, however, told Nagato that he only remembered it now.

"I was happy to be your other half, even if I couldn't be so metaphorically," Nagato told him. "Always bringing you back to earth. Always reminding you of the here and now, the reality. You're a dreamer, and I love your dreams, but whenever you start dreaming it means that nobody else can be with you. You're beautiful, but untouchable. I think this is the vibe that anyone who spends enough time around you gets. How can anyone give their heart to a person that doesn't even know or remember that they did?"

Tears welled up in Yahiko's eyes. "You did," he whispered.

"I mean with the expectation of getting anything in return."

Yahiko started to cry. Tears dripped down his face and off his chin, onto his pants. Nagato felt a pain in his heart, but it was nothing compared to the pain he would have felt a month before. He gave Yahiko a smile. I wouldn't tell you this if I didn't trust you. You are strong. You can improve.

Yahiko sniffled. "You're right. Everything you said just now is right. Other people have said it too. When Hidan told me he liked me, it took me more than eight minutes to realize it. He described to me what it was like to like me, and all I could think about was myself. If the things he said about me were true, how I felt about the idea of people liking me that way, what I would do. I was so self-obsessed that I couldn't hear what he was really trying to say." He sobbed. "I'm not really a good person, am I?"

That last sentence hit Nagato like a knife in his chest. "Yahiko, you're doing it again," he blurted. Oh no. No. Please stop crying. "You're thinking about yourself again. Don't. Think about me. Why would I tell you this? Why would Hidan tell you this?" Clearly, the smile hadn't worked. Yahiko hadn't heard that message. Because he was one of the most oblivious people on the planet. Nagato thanked his lucky stars that, coincidentally, the process of accepting himself had also made him strong enough to be as direct as Yahiko needed.

"Huh?" Yahiko wiped his eyes clear and looked at Nagato, blinked. "Why would you…" Nagato could see the gears start to turn. "You're my best friend," Yahiko realized. "You care about me and you want to help me. You think I should know what I'm doing wrong so that I can do something. Because you think I can do something." He lowered his face in shame. "I did it again and didn't even realize. How do I stop doing that?"

Nagato had no idea. He was about to say something vague but hopefully encouraging when suddenly Yahiko cried out. He facepalmed. "I forgot! Sasori told me to stop using absolutist words like good and bad. That whole sentence was meaningless. It doesn't mean anything. It doesn't exist."

Nagato blinked. Riiight, that. Can Sasori really do it? Can he help Yahiko? "That's how you can stop doing it. Just keep taking Sasori's advice."

Yahiko sighed. "That's another thing I've been told before. That I'm already doing the right thing and I just need to give it time."

"Why are you so confused about things you've already been told?"

"I don't know. It's like I didn't believe them before."

"Do you believe me now?"

Yahiko looked at him. His eyes were full of desperation. It was clear he wanted to. But he had to admit, "I don't know."

"Then I'll keep telling you until you believe it," Nagato said. "You're already doing the right thing. You just need to give it time. You are strong and capable. You can change yourself into more of the person you want to be."

"What would I do without you?"

Nagato clapped his hands. "Please don't ask that question ever again. It is not a compliment."

"I know," Yahiko said. "But for now, it's just the truth."

"Let's hope it doesn't stay that way."

.

A/N: Those are real books I read recently. That's the real display I got them from. That's the real layout of my local library. I knew this was an excellent idea. It makes everything so much easier. That scene was such a pleasure to write. The books are "Dewey" and "The Cat Who Saved Books." I don't have them at hand and am terrible at remembering names that aren't usernames, but those are pretty distinctive titles. Hopefully it's enough if anyone is interested in looking them up.

Enjoy the week, everyone! Grab a fan and some cool drinks if there's a heatwave where you are, or a sweater if you're in the southern hemisphere. A tip I heard recently: if you place frozen water bottles or something in front of a fan, it acts like air conditioning. Good luck!

:)

PS Thank you to the person who left a review recently. I believe the last review I got on this story was before I realized that this is really just an openly-published journal. It is nice to know that there are people who happily kept reading even after I admitted that. Seriously, it is. Thank you.