A/N: Being sick sucks! Good luck and good health to any readers who need it!

Anyway, words.

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Nagato

After breakfast, Nagato went outside. "Hey hey hey hey hey." He looked down and found the demon boy pulling on his arm.

He stumbled a few steps in that direction, and still the boy kept pulling. "You could just ask me to follow you."

"That's what I'm doing!"

"Okay." Nagato followed the demon boy into the street. The boy raised his hands and did…something. Nagato had to close his eyes, and his ears weren't happy either. The street was now lined with obstacles. They were probably illusions, but their solid appearance made it clear that he was to treat them as real. "You're going to help me with my mobility problem?"

"Aw yeah! See, you just run, and dodge all the things."

"Sure."

"And some of them come to life."

"I was waiting for you to say something like that. Alright. Here I go." Nagato got into a running stance, then took off. As he approached the first obstacle, he looked ahead and automatically assessed how each one was likely to move if they came to life. Thank goodness for ninja instincts. He leaped over a foot-wide lava chasm that nonetheless scorched his arms, making him wince. He had some trouble weaving through the statues that were placed immediately after. Two of them moved. They only turned their heads, but he freaked out and leaped away, landing too close to other statues that could have grabbed him easily. I've got to calm down!

Calming down was hard when the obstacle course was designed to be not only difficult, but also upsetting. A chalk drawing where the chalk buzzed and glowed with electricity guided his feet past a panel that a harpy suddenly flew out of, screeching right in his ear. The traffic cone course right after that looked completely normal and nothing came to life, which filled him with paranoia. Sparks and bangs made him flinch, nearly throwing him off the balance beam. When he adjusted to them, he almost failed to dodge an explosion in time. At every single obstacle, some fault of his was exploited. When he reached the end of the course and stood on the hospital grounds, he was shaking and on the edge of a breakdown. Why oh why do I do anything he tells me to?

The boy clapped. "Fun!"

Nagato held up one finger. "Give me…a second." He curled up in the fetal position and rocked back and forth.

"You people are silly!"

"You not-people are maniacs," Nagato gasped. "You, the gods, everything that's capable of designing any kind of reality. You're all insane."

"It's more fun this way!"

Nagato ran his fingers through his hair and sat up. "Okay. So. How did I do?"

"Pretty good, since you didn't expect to be fighting anything." The demon boy looked disappointed. "I gotta do this again and have you fight things. That'll mess with your running."

"I went through all that for nothing?"

"Not nothing. It was fun!" The boy vanished. Nagato looked back down the road and saw that the obstacle course had, too. He groaned. What am I even doing here?

Itachi

"...and that's why there should be no legal definition of the word 'person.'"

Kisame and Itachi lay on their backs staring up at the ceiling. Neither of them was visible to the other, unless they looked, which they did not. It was as if they spoke to the ceiling. "I've missed these rambling summaries of all the things you've thought about over the past few weeks."

"Half of that was new thoughts."

"I know. You're welcome. I know you always like to thank me for providing you an opportunity to think, so I might as well say 'You're welcome' in advance."

Itachi smiled. Kisame was right. "Actually, this time I was going to thank you for listening."

"Uh… You're welcome for that too."

"Have you had any thoughts you would like me to listen to?"

Kisame grunted. "I don't know. I don't seem to have a drive to share my thoughts. Or if I do, telling one person is enough."

"That might be another way to distinguish introverts and extroverts," Itachi said. "The two broad categories are distinguished by whether they gain or lose energy from social interaction. It might be possible to define more nuanced positions within the introversion-extroversion spectrum by applying a different measure: how many people do you need to talk to before an urge to share socially relevant news is satisfied? That's still quite rough as measurements go, but it would be an improvement. On the other hand, it might introduce new problems. Someone who gains energy from socializing could be satisfied with telling one person, whereas someone who loses energy may not be satisfied until they have received at least ten responses. Ah, but that might reflect differing values of real life versus virtual interaction. I would expect in-person interaction to be more satisfying to the social sense, since it is visual and auditory and tactile and every other sense that humans have."

"Jesus, Itachi."

"It was only a suggestion."

"I do have something to talk about, actually." Kisame sat up. "Why are we friends, though we're so different?"

Itachi sat up too. They faced each other. "The most obvious answer is that we're friends because we are so different. Do you not enjoy shaking your head and telling me I must be crazy?"

"I do," Kisame admitted. "And I guess it comes in handy whenever I need help. If I can't figure it out, you probably can, since your skills aren't mine."

"Then why are you confused?"

"I don't know." Kisame took a while to think. "I guess… Practically speaking, variety makes sense. Every scientist will tell you a diverse gene pool adapts better. A diverse brainstorming meeting is more likely to have at least one person come up with a good idea. Diversity of talents means we can cover each other's backs, and so on and so on. But emotionally speaking, I hate it. I don't understand why you or anyone else has to be different from me. I love it when we find similarities. I look for people I agree with. But the people I actually find are people that I don't agree with, and I hate that, but it's like my body didn't get the memo because I keep acting like I love it. I have this inner feeling like I hate not being able to understand you perfectly, yet I keep hanging around you. What the fuck?"

"Your body is smart," Itachi replied. "The way to overcome your problems is to face them directly. Not being able to understand me is a problem, so you are driven to attempt to unify with me. Do you feel more unified now that we have spoken for a while?"

"...Huh. I never thought about it that way. I always thought that the feeling was the problem, and the rational thing to do is avoid the situation that causes the feeling, so logically I should be avoiding you. But if everyone avoided everything that made them feel bad, society would collapse."

They laid back down on the floor. "The real question," Kisame continued, "is why I hate that you're different from me in the first place."

"Because on some level you know it isn't true," Itachi replied. "Every thinker and religious leader has proclaimed that all people in the world are one. I've observed it myself - there is no human behavior I've ever heard of that I can't find some cousin of in myself. I'm not fundamentally different from them. It's all a misunderstanding. And I hate misunderstandings."

"You think everyone hates misunderstandings?"

"I think the soul cries out that it is a misunderstanding. But the soul's words are easily distorted, so people misinterpret what it is that is wrong."

"Thanks, Itachi. You managed to turn the source of all evil in the world into a translation error. If we just clear it up, everything will be sunshine and rainbows."

"Did I ever tell you my thoughts on how using Light and Dark to represent good and evil is badly mistaken and leads to very negative consequences?"

Kisame sighed. "You know… I don't think I hate this."

"Me neither."

General

Dinner that night was relaxed. Casual. Not a lot was said, except for a round of good-natured complaining about the demon boy and good-natured teasing of Kakuzu. Sasori already looked tired. He'd spent most of the day figuring out how to install scrolls in a retractable manner. It was difficult work. Without Nagato and Yahiko to help him with putting storage seals on those scrolls and procuring materials, he would have been badly behind schedule. The teasing kept him awake, but as soon as it was over he yawned. "I don't mean to be a party pooper, but does anyone have urgent news?"

Deidara said his training had gone well and his first shift was in two days.

"Wonderful. I'm going to bed."

"Poor guy," Hidan said. "I hate it when anything messes with my sleep."

Nagato accidentally bumped his arm against Hidan's and winced. "Ow. Lava really burns. Movies have it totally wrong." Yahiko used water to apply yet more soothing chakra.

A while passed. Deidara stretched and asked, "Are we meeting outside again? If we do, is there gonna be a procedure to make sure the vampires don't hear anything dangerous?"

"No," Konan said. "I will simply keep note of whatever it is we end up talking about."

"What danger?" Hidan asked.

"Dangerous 'cause it'll make them mad, yeah."

"If we say anything that makes them mad, then they're just mad at us in general. Nothing we can do about that."

"That is the main upside to speaking your mind," Kakuzu said.

With that, dinner was adjourned.

Konan

The next morning, Konan's eyes flew open and memories rushed in. She did not need her phone to remind her. She realized at the last minute that it might be rude to call literally as soon as the building was opened for business, and impatiently waited fifteen minutes. Then she picked up her phone, keyed in the number she had written down on a piece of paper, and pressed Dial. While the phone rang, she went over the questions she had prepared and made sure her pen had ink.

Since phones did not exist in her world, she expected placing a phone call to be a strange and alien experience. But it was not. The formalized, highly structured nature of this particular call reminded her of home. A good thing, too, because it turned out that there was a lot of information she needed to get. There were forms she needed to fill out, and they could best be gotten from a certain place on the company's website, and she needed another doctor to refer her. Konan knew nothing of referrals, so she had to ask what those were and how to get one. Dammit. I don't have a regular doctor. The person on the other end said she could get one from whoever she saw for a physical, because she would also need to provide records of a physical examination. So much paperwork!

After the call, she found Kakuzu. He was relaxing in the backyard in bear form. "Kakuzu. I must use your computer."

He promptly stood up and canceled the transformation. "Don't take it personally, but I don't trust you in my house unsupervised." She did not take it personally. They left immediately. If he had to work to keep up, he didn't say so. Only when they arrived did she finally notice how odd she felt. Yesterday, when Deidara last checked in, she had reported that the metaphorical lava was still in the middle chambers. She checked again. It had moved up. Close. Hmm, it took longer for me to reach this point back in my world. Hidan said he erupts frequently and so it is harmless. It could be a good sign. Then she saw the computer and thought no more about it.

"The amount of paperwork I need is frankly absurd. I will have to see a doctor and get a physical, as well as something called a referral." She navigated the website and found the documents in question. "Why do they put such obstacles in the way of getting medical care?"

"Trading speed for thoroughness," Kakuzu said. "They want to make sure they get everything. Providing the wrong treatments can also hurt people and get them sued, so they don't want to be wrong."

Konan sighed. "Understandable, but even so…"

"Good."

"What?"

"That it's understandable."

She printed the documents and lined them up carefully, not meeting his gaze. "Yes."

Kakuzu offered to walk her over to the nearest doctor. He didn't have anything else to be doing. As they walked, he chuckled in an ominous way and transformed into a bear. Walking the streets as a bear frightened some passers-by, but not as many as she expected. He would likely get arrested if he did not have a human escort.

He turned human again outside the doctor's office and went in with her. With his help, she made an appointment for that Thursday. On their way out, he muttered, "Let's hope that's soon enough."

"If not, I wonder what kind of interesting results he would get?"

"I do not want to know."

Hidan

You know what, fuck it! I'm gonna hang out with vampires! Hidan swung his upper body through the doorway to Yahiko's room, where Nagato was inking more storage seals. "Hey, I'm gonna do something stupid. See ya later."

Nagato followed him out into the hall. "How stupid, and is there anybody I should consult?"

"Tell Konan to message her vampire friend that I'm on my way over," Hidan said with a grin.

"Monumentally stupid. Okay, I'll let her know. Please don't set off another civil war."

"I'll just pick a random basement. They can't have any problems with me visiting some low-ranked rando, can they?"

Hidan actually ended up visiting a medium-ranked rando. It was the overly cocky young man who had been with Soye on her very first meeting with Nagato and Yahiko. That was the only thing that gave him any kind of rank at all. He didn't look so cocky now. "Oh, crap, it's you. Uh…"

"Hey there!" Hidan waved. "I just wanted to see how you guys lived. I've never been in a basement of one of these houses before." He looked around. "A little stuffy, but I like what you've done with the space."

"What are you doing here…?" The young vampire pressed his back flat against the wall.

Hidan's grin slipped. "Why are you afraid of me?"

The young vampire stared him back. There was silence for one heartbeat, two heartbeats, three. I hope I'm wrong. But he wasn't wrong. "You're one of those," the vampire whispered.

Hidan crossed his arms. "I have no idea what you're talking about, kid. One of what?"

The vampire sputtered. They both knew that Hidan did, in fact, understand. "You know…"

"Nope, afraid I don't."

"One of…those…bloodthirsty humans."

Hidan rolled his eyes. "Do I look bloodthirsty to you?"

"I don't know," the young man whispered. He was still flat against the wall, eyeing Hidan warily.

"Even if I was, aren't you guys the same when you're hungry?"

"We're different."

"How?"

"We just are. Why are you here? Don't you have followers to boss around?"

Hidan's fists clenched. "No, I have friends."

The young vampire trembled all over. "Sorry," he squeaked.

"I just wanted to hang out," Hidan muttered. "Way to ruin everything." He went upstairs and sat outside, on the front porch. The carefree anything-is-possible mood had given way to a feeling like his guts were filled with liquid concrete. What's wrong? I just don't understand what's wrong.

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A/N: As you can see, I did manage to keep that self-appointment. Woohoo! On the other hand, it's still going to be a while. Besides everything Konan describes here, there is also a 6 to 8 week waiting list once they receive the paperwork. On the one hand, yay thoroughness, but on the other hand... It's all mismatched. From my perspective, finally taking this step is the end of the process, after years and years of preparatory researching and questioning and making really sure. From a doctor's perspective, this step is the beginning of them going through that exact same process. It's frustrating because it looks redundant to me. But until we invent a way to perform telepathy, I guess it's unavoidable.

Speaking of, I must clarify something. When I say telepathy, I mean the kind of telepathy that would be practiced by people who don't have an inner monologue. Not everyone thinks in words. The ideal telepathy is partially empathic, where you send your thoughts in bundles that contain the concept of what you're saying but not the actual words. So instead of saying "Come," you telepathically communicate a mental image of that person standing by your side, the anticipation of their arrival, the basic concept of traveling, and whatever else is involved. This form of telepathy would truly prevent misunderstanding because it would communicate your exact perspective along with the message. Oh mannnnn empathic communication would be the best. I want that, right after shapeshifting.