Konan's birthday came quicker than she'd expected, and she lay awake the night before, just thinking that in less than seven hours, she would officially be seventeen.
Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me..
She sighed and fell asleep.
When she next opened her eyes, it was still dark. She frowned, blinking. She looked at the alarm clock.
5 am…
She rolled her eyes, flopped back onto the pillow. But she was feeling a little paranoid now. She could have sworn she heard a noise just then… After living in the dorm room for two weeks, she seemed to have developed a kind of sixth sense.
"….Sasori…?" she said suspiciously.
Nothing.
She squinted in the dark but couldn't see anything. After another few seconds of silence, she shrugged and pulled her blankets back up.
Now I'm just being crazy. She closed her eyes.
A few minutes later, she was nearly asleep again when out of nowhere, seven large, heavy, noisy, boy-shaped meteors crashed onto her bed and dogpiled onto her.
"YARGH!" she yelled, trying to wriggle out from under them. "Get your foot out of— Who's fucking… you're squishing me!" she gasped, trying to extract her torso from under somebody. "Whose fat butt is this?" she yelled, punching it.
"That would be mine ," came Hidan's voice. And then he farted on her.
"Oh, gross !" yelled Sasori, wriggling backwards off Konan's legs.
The other boys all scattered as well, crawling off the bed as quickly as they could.
"That's just nasty," Kisame said from near the door.
Kakuzu bent over the bed and wrestled Hidan off Konan, who was having some kind of out-of-body experience, her vision temporarily whited out, her consciousness floating peacefully away, somewhere that smelled of lilies, fresh water, steaming rice… She came alive merely to sink her teeth hard into Hidan's butt cheek before he was dragged off of her.
"YEOW!" he yelled. "She bit me in the ass! What kinda piranha-ass bitch—!? "
"You deserved it," chorused the others.
Deidara came over and fanned the air over Konan with a magazine. "What are you doing, farting on the birthday girl?"
"Put me down, man!" Hidan said to Kakuzu in annoyance, who was holding him aloft like a baby with a poopy diaper. "Hey, I didn't mean to, it just sorta slipped out, you know how it is."
"Don't you dare try pull that shit on my birthday, you cretin," Itachi said in revulsion.
" Cretin!? Come on, it was just one tiny fart! Just a little pfft , like nothing!"
"Apologize, Hidan," Kakuzu said.
"Oh come on…!"
"Konan is still catatonic."
"Fuckin' drama queen," Hidan said, but he sounded amused. "Fine, fine. Put me down , man."
Konan heard footsteps approaching the bed. The will to live still hadn't returned to her. The air around her nose had barely cleared, despite Deidara's fanning.
"Hey, was it that bad?" Hidan asked.
"Yes. It was," she said flatly. "It was like a small creature who eats only carrion crawled into my nose, died, and then shat its guts out post-mortem."
The others howled with laughter as Hidan gaped in disbelief.
"Hey, hey, hey, hey, you're gonna ruin my reputation here, Konan! Come on, it wasn't that bad—"
"…It was like someone filled a syringe from the contents of an outdoor toilet at a 3-day concert where the only food available was Taco Bell, then squirted it into my nose."
"I can't breathe, I can't breathe," Sasori gasped, collapsing on the side of her bed.
"Konan, you—"
"…It was like a body had decomposed in stagnant water for a month, then the remains were put in a blender, turned into perfume, and sprayed directly into my nostrils."
Pain was clutching Kisame to stay standing, positively crying with laughter.
"Okay! Okay, okay, I'm sorry!" Hidan yelled, kneeling at the side of her bed, hands clasped. "I'll make it up to you!"
Konan sat up slowly, gazing down at him. "You. Owe. Me."
"I do! I owe you!"
"A Huge Favour."
"The biggest! Of course!"
"I am your queen for the day."
"Yeah, sure, okay! I'll do whatever! Just fuckin' stop with the… the descriptions… man, it wasn't that bad , was it?"
"It was like—"
"NO! OKAY! OKAY IT WAS BAD!"
For the rest of the day, Hidan piggybacked Konan wherever she had to go, opened doors for her, and vigorously defended her against any and all outside attack, whether verbal or physical.
This was the part that Hidan took to easily and definitely enjoyed the most. Sasori in particular kept getting shouted at.
"Put some respect on her name, you bitch-ass motherfucker!" Hidan yelled that afternoon when a girl in the cafeteria asked Konan if she could scoot her chair forward so she could pass.
Shizune stopped by to deliver two birthday cards which had come in the mail for her. The first was from her mother. It had a watercolour painting of a field of cornflowers.
'Dear Konan, Happy birthday! I wish I were there to celebrate with you. I hope you're well and enjoying life. I hope your dad is taking good care of you. Hope to see you soon. I'm doing fine, so stop worrying about me! I know you are. The rain is peaceful by my window, so I am glad it is raining more. It makes me think of you. All my love, Mom.' Konan thought she recognized the writing of her mother's regular carer, Lianne.
The second was on thick cream paper, and had an embossed golden pattern of flying cranes on the front. She recognized it as being from a set of stationary she had purchased for her father's secretary when she got engaged.
Inside it read, 'Konan, your father wishes you a happy birthday. Hope you're enjoying school.' Beneath the message was her father's signature, stamped on, and the signature of Holly, his personal assistant.
She slipped them into her bag, smiling at Pain, who had watched her open them.
"From my parents," she explained.
That evening, she and her friends had a little party in her room. The boys had bought a cake for her, and all sang happy birthday very off-key as Deidara lit the seventeen candles. It looked like someone had made a swirly figure of her name in metalshop, which was sitting on the icing, reflecting the candlelight. She applauded when they finished, Hidan ending last on a high falsetto youuuu!
"That was great!"
"You're patronizing us," said Itachi.
"Well, yeah, but–"
"Make a wish already!" Deidara yelled.
Konan blew out all the candles but one, which she blew out on the second try. Sasori raised a teasing eyebrow.
"Ooh, Konan's got a boyyyfrieeend… " he crooned.
Hidan slipped behind him and twisted his nipples through his shirt, making him yelp loudly.
"Stop teasing my queen."
"Okay, hating this!" Sasori exclaimed.
Kisame passed Konan a present wrapped in silver paper. She unwrapped a shower curtain.
"Aw, thank you! God, you guys really know me," she joked, hugging it to her chest and laughing. "I'm gonna go hang it up right now!" She got up, giddy.
"Don't you mean I'm gonna go hang it up right now?" Hidan sighed, holding out his hand.
Konan beamed. "Oh yeah! Thank you!"
"Show's over, folks," Sasori said with a sad little sigh, leaning his chair back and folding his arms behind his head as he watched Hidan messing around with the curtain.
"Deidara's the only one who ever got a show, stupid," Pain said, giving Sasori a shove which almost tipped his chair over. ("Hey!") He glanced around when several of the others coughed awkwardly, scratching their noses or looking with sudden interest at the cake decorations. "...Right?"
"God, I wish that were true," Konan said, scowling as she started to cut and serve the cake.
Pain frowned, looking at the guilty faces. "Who exactly has been spying on Konan in the shower?"
"Hey, hey, spying is really a little strong, I was just checking if the shower was free!" called Hidan from the bathroom.
"You broke the bolt on my door!" Konan said, fuming all over again.
"I heard a scream so I came in to drag Hidan out but Konan was still there…" Kakuzu said with a shrug.
"Okay, I am totally innocent, though, it wasn't spying, wasn't the shower, it's not my fault she ran out butt-naked!" Kisame said, raising his hands.
"I forgot my laundry bag in the hall! I didn't know you were there, you said you were going out, and I wasn't naked anyway, I was wearing underwear!" Konan protested.
"...Running right past where I happened to be standing…" interjected Itachi matter-of-factly.
"Okay, okay," Sasori added in, grinning, "I was spying, I mean like I was pretending to spy as a joke, but it turned out that she was actually changing at the time, so I guess it counts, and it was not a bad view, I can tell you, so…" he tailed off before actually getting tipped out of his chair by Deidara.
In the middle of all this noise, Pain got up and walked over to Konan's door, hands in his pockets, staring at the rusty bolt, which, now that he took a closer look, had plainly been snapped in two, apparently by Hidan when he'd barged into it. The metal had just given way, weakened with age.
He pointed at it. "Want me to fix this for you?" he called to Konan.
"Yes, please !" Konan said, walking over to him. "Do you know how?"
Pain gave her an easy grin. "Come on. Of course I do." He glanced at the table, where the others were now arguing over who had been the most innocent of spying on Konan and fighting over the biggest slice of cake. "I'll show you."
Konan followed him down the hall to his room.
"Is it okay to come in?" she asked, pausing on the threshold, hands behind her back.
All of a sudden, she felt kind of shy: she had been in Deidara and Sasori's rooms several times and Kakuzu's once, but nobody else's, and she had never even seen the inside of Pain's room.
He gave her a swift smile, took her hand, and pulled her inside. "Of course! This is where the magic happens."
Konan looked around as Pain passed by her. His room had a similar layout to hers, but mirrored. His walls looked to have been painted in black chalk paint; they were covered in dozens and dozens of diagrams, blueprints, calculations, and illustrations, plus a few silly drawings that had plainly been done by the others (Kisame wuz here, a Hamtaro-style drawing of Deidara, etc).
His desk looked surprisingly small surrounded by the huge floating shelves he had installed all around it, which held many-segmented drawers, coils of wire of different thicknesses, sheets of metal, batteries, bits of scrap, soldering irons, heat guns, drills, toolboxes, wire cutters, bits of wood, a rotary saw, safety goggles, a blowtorch, thick gloves, several tubes of polysporin and bandages, and pumice hand soap. These were the shelves that Pain was currently rummaging in.
A whole other set of shelves hung outside his bathroom door, but these were much smaller, and mostly held products Konan recognized for cleaning piercings and caring for tattoos— rubbing alcohol, saline-spray rinse, second-skin, unscented moisturizer. He also had a glass display of different needle gauges, tapers, gauze, disinfectant, and latex gloves.
Did he do any of those himself!? Konan wondered, a little shocked, glancing at Pain's nose and ear piercings. This guy is crazy.
His bed had the same cover as hers, and his bathroom was the same, except with no shower. He had photos of the others taped on the back of his door, along with photos of people who were surely his family— an older man with auburn hair who looked very like him, and several who Konan took to be his siblings.
Hung on the wall were some of his art pieces — a large eagle with spread wings curved above the door, each feather made of a separate piece of metal, all welded together; a wood block with what must be hundreds of nails of different lengths embedded in it, which shifted into a city skyline as you walked past; several mounted wood burning illustrations of rainbursts under roiling clouds across a desolate landscape.
"These are beautiful," Konan said, gazing around.
"Thanks," Pain said. He sounded a little shy.
Cute .
He came back over to her, juggling several tools and various bits of metal.
"I could replace the bolt, but I can also just put a better lock on your door. I have these just hanging around." He waved a couple blister packs of lock sets.
"Sure, if it's not a bother!" Konan said, gazing at his armful of stuff. "Why do you have all that?"
Pain gave her a mischievous grin as he moved past her, back into the hall. "Uh… a while ago I thought it would be funny to change some of the locks on the building."
Konan followed him. "You mean, like the external door? What happened?"
"That, and others. Tsunade's office, the maintenance office, staff room, metalshop. A few more. Tsunade was mad about it. She made an announcement, and the sanitation staff were of course pissed off. But I put the originals all back a couple days later. I just needed a little time with the old stuff."
"Why?"
He prodded her door open with his foot and set his tools down on her dresser. "I wanted to make copies of the keys."
"How?"
"I took the locks apart. Measured the pins, cut corresponding notches on the new keys."
"Just for fun?"
"Yeah."
"Wouldn't it have been easier to just steal the keys?"
Pain had started unscrewing the bolt mount. He gave her a bemused look. "I mean, sure it would've. But doing it this way was more fun. I hadn't tried it before."
"They didn't get suspicious and change the locks?"
"I mean they probably were suspicious. But they haven't changed them yet. It would probably be too expensive for them to bother with every important door in the place." He popped off the bolt mount and started to dismantle her doorknob. "And if they do, I can just steal and copy their keys, like you said. Because that's easy. "
"So, you've been letting Hidan mess around with WD40, rope, and scaffolding…" she said, remembering Hidan's escape kit he showed her on his tour of the school, "When you have keys!?"
Pain smirked. "Um… yeah."
Konan laughed. "Damn." And then she remembered something else. "Wait, what about the huge chain on the hall doors? How did you undo that from the inside? Are you Harry Houdini!?"
She was only mostly joking. It felt like nothing would surprise her at this point.
Pain looked around at her, raising his eyebrows. "Microgauge blowtorch," he said. "You just slip the nozzle through the crack in the door, put on your safety goggles, and set to work. Gets through that baby in about ten minutes, max. Just gotta avoid setting fire to the wood."
"You're kidding." Konan said, staring at him in disbelief.
He snorted with laughter. " Of course I'm kidding. There's an emergency exit. I know the alarm codes, and all you need to stop it locking after you is an allen key."
"Oh. That's easy."
"Yep."
Konan went to fetch them both some birthday cake before it was entirely devoured by the slobbering horde (the other six boys), and sat down next to him.
"So do you use the keys for anything?" she asked.
Pain popped her doorknob out and started to unscrew the latch bolt. He made a funny face. "Maybe…"
"Like what?" she asked, laughing.
He levered the whole latch bolt out with a screwdriver, rolled it towards her, and fished in his pocket for the screws. "This and that."
"Like what? " she asked, poking him with her foot.
"Was that a kick?" he gasped. "Here I am, slaving away, not even getting to eat any cake because I'm busy fixing your door, and you kick me…"
"Oh come on," Konan said, rolling her eyes. "Here, have some cake."
She used the side of his fork to cut a bite off his untouched slice and held it over to him as he began to screw the deadbolt in. He leaned over, eyes focused on the deadbolt mount, saying "aaahh."
Konan started to giggle. "You have to look , or I'm gonna miss!"
"How are you missing? " he asked, snorting and looking at her.
He turned her head right into the cake, which smushed on the side of his mouth and then fell. She caught it in her hand, and raised it up to his mouth, but he was turning away laughing.
"No, that's gross!"
"I don't want it in my hand! Eat it!"
"I don't want your hand germs on it!"
" Germs? I just washed my hands like ten minutes ago!" she laughed, waving the chunk of cake in front of his face.
"Tee hee hee, eat this cake from my hand," came Sasori's voice, pitched up and sing-song from over by the table.
"Tee hee hee, nooo I'm too shy…" came Deidara's voice, similarly falsetto.
Konan snorted. "Ahem?" she said, raising her voice and glancing back.
Hidan, who had been snickering with the others, caught her eye. He gave her a comically dramatic salute.
"Yes, my queen!"
Then he swiped his thumb through the chocolate icing on his slice of cake, seized Sasori by the head, and smeared the icing across the protesting redhead's forehead so it looked like he had a massive unibrow.
An uncontrollable snort of laughter burst out of Konan, and when Sasori shot her a filthy look, she just laughed harder. His dreamy grey eyes sitting under a Rock-Lee like caterpillar looked ridiculous.
Deidara looked like he was going to piss himself laughing, pointing right in Sasori's face, until Hidan seized the front of his shirt, icing-covered thumb descending towards his own eyebrows.
"No, no, no! Nooooo, I beg you! " Deidara yelled, holding Hidan's arm away from him.
They struggled dramatically for a few seconds until Hidan managed to plant a thumb onto Deidara's upper lip, swiping across to give him ginormous icing moustache.
Everyone was completely paralyzed with laughter, even Sasori and Deidara, who were laughing at each other.
When they got up to wash it off, Konan said, "Wait, wait, wait, I want to… to take a…" but she was laughing so hard she couldn't say picture and was just miming clicking something, which made the others lose it even more.
Pain pulled out his cellphone for her and she got some glamour shots of Sasori and Deidara, posing like models with their huge moustache and unibrow. Even after they stopped and went to wash the icing off, one of them would suddenly snort with laughter and start everyone up again.
About twenty minutes later, Pain was able to eat his cake and finish installing the deadbolt.
"The bathroom itself locks fine, yeah?" he asked, tossing Konan her new front door key.
"Uh-huh."
"You want a lock on the door to Sasori's room?" he asked through a final bite of cake.
"Um…"
Konan felt a powerful gaze burning into her. She turned to look and saw Sasori in full puppy dog mode, looking at her with huge, betrayed eyes, lip quivering.
"Oh, he's so sad…" Konan gasped, only half-joking.
Pain raised an eyebrow at Sasori. "What do you need constant access to Konan's room for, anyway?"
Sasori turned his puppy-eyes beam onto Pain, who seemed a lot more immune than Konan. He gazed back, unimpressed.
"I don't suppose this is because you want an easier route to Deidara's room, because you're a little princess who doesn't like walking on the cold floor outside, hmmm ?"
Sasori blinked imnocently, but it was kind of ruined when Deidara elbowed him in the side and said, "Leave me out of your pervy plans."
"Konan and I had a long talk the other day," Sasori began, unruffled and wistful, his hands clasped together like a melodramatic actor in full monologue. "About how sad she is that she doesn't have any siblings, and how sad my childhood has been without any siblings, and we shared our secret dream to be each other's brother and sister, to build our own bonding memories, and to hang out, and tease each other, and have sleepovers together, and go in each other's rooms for fun, just like siblings do…"
"Uh-huh," Pain said flatly. "Konan, did that actually hap—"
He stopped mid-sentence as he glanced at her, and immediately snorted with laughter. Her face was shining with joy, her hands clasped together just like Sasori's.
"Whether or not the conversation happened… I believe in your dream!" she exclaimed, eyes sparkling.
"Yay!" Sasori said, leaping to his feet and opening his arms wide. "Sis!"
"Bro!" Konan said joyfully, jumping into his arms.
They immediately crashed to the floor.
"You're really weak," she said in surprise, clambering up and giving him a bemused look. "What the hell was that?"
Sasori coughed, lying on the ground like a crushed ant. " That was a 500-pound elephant jumping into my gorgeous yet slender arms, when I was just hoping for a simple hug."
"Hey," Hidan said warningly, pointing threateningly from Sasori's eyebrows to the remaining slice of cake and back again.
"I mean…" Sasori backtracked, "I am but a delicate flower. As are you, of course. But when one delicate flower throws itself with insufficient warning into the arms of another delicate flower…"
"Oh shut up ," Konan laughed.
—
They all settled in to watch Ip Man together, since it was Konan's favourite movie. Afterwards, when the others were trailing out of her room, she remembered what she had been trying to ask Pain.
"Hey, so where do you go when you sneak out?" she asked him, grabbing his sleeve gently as he headed for the door.
Pain paused and turned back to her. "You wanna find out?" he smiled.
Konan blinked up at him and bit her lips. "Like, tonight?"
He grinned. "Yeah."
She thought about it for a second, but couldn't really help grinning back. "Yeah, okay!"
"Cool." He paused in the doorway.
Konan, who had thought they were walking out together now, jerked backwards, looking up at him. He was so tall .
"I'll meet you by our door in two hours. We'll be quiet so we don't wake the others." He looked her up and down briefly.
She felt her cheeks heat up; he'd never done that before.
"Wear black. And a hat, if you have one. Just in case." He grinned at her, winked, and shut the door.
Two hours later, at 1am, Konan was in her black hoodie and leather jacket, black leggings, black boots, and black baseball cap, and standing inside their dorm door, waiting. She heard a quiet click of a door opening, and craned her neck to see Pain smiling at her from down the hall, also in all black. He was wearing a leather jacket, and holding a black motorcycle helmet under his arm.
Konan's jaw dropped, and then she bit her lips together to stop herself from squealing with joy. Pain could clearly tell she was excited, because he looked at the ground to hide his laugh, and then pressed a finger to his lips, looking at her like What are you doing? What happened to quiet ?
Konan mimed zipping her lips, but couldn't stop herself from bouncing on the balls of her feet in giddiness. Pain unlocked the front door, and she followed him out. He re-locked it, and led her down the hall, the opposite way from the main doors, which were chained up on the other side. They went down the hall, past the first-years' rooms, then turned a corner and stopped at the end, in front of a door that read 'Fire Exit. Do Not Open - Alarm Will Sound.'
Konan watched nervously as Pain slotted an allen key into a hole on the push bar and turned it with a click. The bar remained held in place, the deadbolt recessed.
He unlocked and then flipped open the alarm pad on the wall next to it. He tapped in a code — 4525 — and it gave a soft beep. He pushed the push bar quietly, and opened the door for her. Voilà.
They walked silently down the corridors and stairs until they reached the metalshop. Pain took out his keyring, unlocked it, shut the door behind them, and led her to a door on the opposite wall. Through that, they were in the equipment cage the others had shown Konan from the outside during her second tour of the school. Under a grey tarp at the back, behind various kilns and other machinery, was Pain's motorbike.
Pain gave her the helmet he'd been carrying. "Put that on," he said with a smile. "It's a spare."
Konan took off her baseball cap and hid it behind a roll of chicken wire, then pulled on the helmet. It was snug on her face, and squished her cheeks a little. She lifted the visor, smiling at Pain. "This is so cool!" she whispered.
He had pulled off the tarp, opened the door in the chainlink, and was wheeling his motorbike out. He looked over at her and snorted with laughter.
"Sorry," he whispered, snickering at her, "but you look like a marshmallow! Your cheeks are all chipmunky…"
Konan rolled her eyes, smiling, and followed him. They locked the cage door behind them. They walked the motorbike over to the cut section of the fence. If they just rode it there, Pain explained on the way, the noise would probably wake someone up, which would cause unnecessary hassle and might mean more eyes watching the place at night.
Once on the other side of the fence, though, once they reached the road, he got on the bike and held it steady for Konan to get on behind him.
"I've never been on one of these before!" she whispered, putting a hand on Pain's shoulder to brace herself as she swung her leg over the back.
"I know. Happy birthday," he said, glancing back at her with a smile before he lifted his own helmet and put it on. "Now lift up your feet and put them on the pegs."
Konan did as she was told.
"You're gonna want to hold on pretty tight."
Konan placed her hands on his waist.
"Way tighter than that."
"Is this you asking for a hug? You could just say so."
Pain laughed, and picked up her hands one by one, wrapping her arms around himself.
" No , this is me telling you we're about to go fucking fast and I don't want you flying off or getting whiplash."
"O-kayyy, whatever you say," Konan said jokingly, like she didn't believe him, but she held him tightly, pressing herself against his back.
"Ready?" he asked, starting the engine
"Yeah. Are you about to say 'hold on spidermonkey,' or something stupid like—"
The bike shot forwards and the rest of Konan's words were lost in a scream of delight.
They zoomed down the road so fast the trees on either side were a blur. Konan could feel the wind pressing in against her arms and thighs, and she re-tightened her arms around Pain as he leaned to the side for a turn.
"This is amazing, it's like we're flying!" Konan screamed, not even caring that Pain surely couldn't hear her against the roar of the engine and the wind.
It felt like barely ten minutes until they were pulling into a corner store parking lot in the village.
Pain turned the bike off and held it steady as Konan swung her leg off and got down. Her legs felt a little shaky from the adrenaline and excitement. She tugged the helmet off and watched, beaming, as Pain kicked down the stand, dismounted, and pulled his own helmet off.
"Fun?" he asked simply, grinning at her.
"Uh-huh! It was amazing! It was the best thing I've ever done in my entire life!" she said, breathless.
"Wow, okay. I guess I'll be taking you out again, huh?"
"You'd better!"
Pain was watching her, holding a hand up to his mouth, rubbing his lower lip, like he was trying not to smile. Then he looked away and shook his head, giving up and letting out a breath of laughter.
"What?"
He glanced back at her, biting down on a huge grin. "You're just cute," he said.
She stared at him. He shrugged and raised his eyebrows, like What can I say?
He shook his head again and walked towards the store. "I'm gonna grab a drink. You want something?"
"Uh… maybe chips?" she said faintly, following him, feeling her cheeks heat up.
You're cute… you're cute… you're cute…
His voice played on a loop in her head as she followed him around the shop, not paying attention to anything, nodding vaguely when he waved a bag of Lays at her. As he stood in front of the refrigerator, deciding between 7-Up and Ginger Ale, she caught sight of her reflection in a security mirror, and her jaw dropped in horror.
Her face was bright pink, her hair was staticky, and several strands were stuck down stupidly to her forehead.
"Why didn't you tell me I looked this stupid!?" she hissed to Pain as he paid, trying to flatten her hair and flapping her hands at her face to cool it down.
"You don't look stupid." He turned around to see her mid-hand-flapping. "Well, maybe now you do…" he said teasingly.
"Hey!"
He snickered and tossed her the Lays as they exited the store.
The parking lot was deserted. There was a series of tall concrete barriers blocking the ends of a few parking spaces. Pain sat down on one and opened up his 7-Up. Konan ate her chips, sharing a few with Pain. Then she clambered onto the barrier and started to walk back and forth along it, trying to keep her balance.
After a few minutes of quiet, Pain spoke.
"This might be a little awkward, but I was wondering…"
"Mmm?"
"You got birthday cards from your both your parents—"
"Yeah, kind of."
"What do you mean?"
"My mum sent a card… Well, the nurses probably wrote it for her, but she chose it. She knows I like flowers. My dad's secretary sent his card, and it's a copy paste of the last ten cards from him. They even used a stamp for his signature." She snorted. "I don't think he even knows it's my birthday."
Pain shook his head, clearly a little baffled but he didn't pry. "Okay. But… What about your friends?" He paused when she didn't say anything. "Did they text you?"
Konan kept balancing on the concrete divider, but her gaze dropped away from him and her smile faded.
Pain finished the 7-Up and leaned over to put the bottle down.
"If you don't want to talk about it… don't. But… you told us you used to go out with friends, sneak out. Go to parties. But I never see you texting anybody, or calling anyone. I was just wondering… why."
Konan chewed her lips for a few seconds. "It's not a very interesting reason," she said eventually.
"It doesn't have to be."
"I do have friends , you know. I wasn't lying. I do… I did."
"I believe you."
"Then why do you want to know?"
It came out angrier than she thought. She bit her lips together again, looking down.
"Hey," Pain said softly after a moment. It's okay."
She didn't react, just watched herself scuff the toe of her boot on the surface of the concrete..
"C'mere. Look at me."
If they hadn't had that conversation in the hallway, a few weeks back, she wouldn't have done as he asked.
Talk to me . Please .
She hesitated for a second, then walked along the divider and sat down facing him, one leg either side of it, her arms folded, but looking at him.
"What happened?" he asked gently. His gaze was soft, concerned.
"It's nothing to like, be worried about, or sad for me about," she said, half-warningly. "It's not even anything, really."
"Okay, noted."
Konan chewed her lips again, scraping a nail along the concrete divider, chipping off her nail polish.
"My dad found out that I was sneaking out with some of them. My friends. He found out I was texting them. I think he got suspicious somehow, and he probably got someone to take my phone and show him the chats. That's what I think , anyway," she said with a shrug, "I could just be paranoid. But one day I looked at my phone and my contacts list had been wiped of anyone and everyone who wasn't my dad, my dad's secretary, my mom, the hospital, my tutor, and the front desk of my dad's building," she said, ticking them off on her fingers.
"And then," she continued, trying hard to keep her voice offhand, "Then… All my friends were basically his employees' kids. He fired all of their parents. One day, they were just gone. And it really sucked, because… Like, my friend Bella's dad, he was the doorman at my dad's main building forever, for as long as I can remember. I called him 'Uncle.' And I'll never… see him again." Her voice caught in her throat. She cleared it hastily.
Pain shifted forwards until their knees touched. Konan closed her eyes and sighed.
"Anyway. Dad took my phone. Told me he was going to incinerate it. Got me a new one, new SIM card, so I lost all their numbers. Despite that, I tried to keep messaging them, on like Facebook and stuff. But nobody ever replied. So…"
Somehow, saying this out loud hurt a lot more than she thought it would. She had been trying not to think about it, had pushed this all out of her mind for weeks and weeks, trying to forget.
She couldn't look up at Pain. No matter what face he was making, she knew she would cry. She kept her eyes on her fingers, pressing into the grain of the concrete, focusing on the dull stabs of the grit.
"So… I don't know. Like I don't know why, but… I kind of think… my dad, or people who work for him, must have like. Talked to their parents or something. Forbidden them from letting their kids contact me. And obviously he wasn't going to tell anyone that he was sending me here . I think he sent me here because he was sick of dealing with me. Maybe he was mad he felt he had to fire his employees over me or something. I dunno why he does anything he does."
She was rambling now, but Pain didn't interrupt. Konan gave a huge sigh and tugged on a smile, or as close to one as she could get.
"But basically, that's why I didn't get any other birthday cards or texts."
"Konan, I'm really sorry."
Pain put a hand on her shoulder. She didn't move for a moment, then shifted forwards a little. He slowly welcomed her into a hug. She leaned forward and pressed her face into his chest. She was holding herself stiff, trying to keep it together. But as he began to rub her back slowly, she started to cry, trying to muffle the sounds in his shirt. He wrapped his arms tighter around her, pressing her against him. She felt his chin tuck down on her head.
After a while, she calmed down and pulled away, rubbing her eyes on her sleeve.
"Can I ask you about any of that?" Pain asked her quietly, one arm still around her shoulders.
"Sure," she said, then "ugh." She sounded like she had a bad cold.
"Need some tissues? I'll grab some," Pain said, getting up at once.
"Thanks."
"Anything else?"
"Maybe a Snickers."
Pain smiled. "'Kay. I'll be right back."
Konan listened to his footsteps receding, feeling pretty sorry for herself.
It was such a nice day. I had an amazing time biking out here, spending time with Pain. And now he knows my dad is crazy and I've blubbed all over him. Probably got fricking snot on his jacket or something.
Pain came back two minutes later and handed her the Snickers and pack of tissues. She thanked him in a thick voice and blew her nose. When she snuck a glance at his front as she opened the Snickers, she was relieved to see there was no snot snail trail.
Thank Christ…
"Want some?" she asked, offering the chocolate bar to him.
"Sure." He leaned forwards and took a bite.
She smiled. It felt like maybe they were getting back to normal, a little.
"So, can I ask… why didn't your dad like your friends?"
…or maybe not.
Konan took a bite of chocolate and chewed. Crying had helped her calm down a little. She leaned back and looked up at the moon, thinking.
"Well, he didn't know them, so there's no real reason he wouldn't have liked them. He might not have liked that they were his employee's kids. I don't know if it was some kind of… like, if it was him being snobby."
"He's not like that?"
"No, he definitely is like that," Konan said with a scowl. "He's the kind of guy that would rather catch fire than sit in coach, or take a bus. And he'd have a heart attack if he knew half the stuff I did, living away from him. He'd always make me dress different, act different. He couldn't have people see his daughter on the bus, or at a concert, or shopping at a mall, or whatever."
She shook his head. "I mean, dunno if that is why, but maybe he thought it was inappropriate that I used to eat dinner at the home of the woman who vacuumed his floors."
"He's pretty rich, huh?"
Konan nodded. "Yeah. Like asshole-rich. He talks a lot like normal people aren't really… people… in the same way that he is."
She caught Pain's raised eyebrows and sighed.
"I don't like talking about him. Or thinking about him. He's the CEO of this big company he founded, MIRAI. They do a lot of stuff, mostly in biotech and stuff like that. He owns a load of labs around the world, and funds all sorts of scientific studies. Packages the result as vaccines, cryogenic pods, anti-aging creams, that kind of thing." She shrugged. "He doesn't talk to me about any of that. Which is good, because I hate all of it."
"So, basically, you've been saying… that I paid for chips, tissues, and a chocolate bar… for an heiress?" Pain asked, grinning.
Konan blinked innocently at him. "You offered to! And anyway, he doesn't give me money for stuff. If I'm going somewhere with him, his assistants get clothes for me to wear and things, so I don't embarrass him, and then they take them away and re-sell them. Because the school fees include food and uniforms, I don't have an allowance or anything. I have some money from working part time and stuff, but," she shrugged, "not that much. Anyway, he's always said not to depend on an inheritance from him, so heiress is out of the picture entirely."
"And you mostly lived near your mom?"
"If I could, yeah. I spend the most time with her. We had a little apartment near the treatment facility where she gets her full-time care. Sometimes she'd need to see a specialist for a while, far away, and I couldn't visit, so then I'd go see my dad. Or if he was going to a particular kind of conference or summit, or banquet or whatever, he'd say it looks better for him to be supported by family, and he'd make me go. Sit at his table in total fucking silence for the fancy dinner."
She was pressing her knuckles into the surface of the concrete again, frowning. "I don't use his last name. I use my mom's. I never spend time with him , anyway. I never really did. If I'm "with him," I'm with his security team, or his secretaries. I tried to emancipate myself last year, but it upset my mom so much she got worse, so I gave up…"
"Could I ask… what's wrong with your mom?" Pain asked.
Konan sighed. "Uh, quite a bit. It's okay," she said quickly when Pain started to say I'm sorry, you don't have to, "She's been sick for a long, long time. She has an auto-immune disease, but her doctors can't seem to diagnose it properly, so it's really rare. And now she keeps getting diagnosed with other things. Chronic fatigue syndrome's the usual, hyperthyroidism, anxiety, BPD…schizophrenia," Konan said quietly, watching Pain under her eyelashes. He nodded. "She's usually… pretty out of it. Her treatment plan keeps her pretty drugged up a lot of the time. But almost always sweet, when I see her. Gentle," she whispered. "Totally the opposite of dad."
An old anger flared inside her. She frowned down at her hands.
"He doesn't even visit her. All the nurses and doctors talk about sending him reports and stuff, but he hasn't been to see her in years."
Konan caught Pain's look and shrugged. "Don't ask me why they're not divorced. Maybe my dad thinks it's unacceptable to do so. But if my mom was legally allowed to sign her own divorce petition…" She trailed off on a hollow laugh.
"Anyway, my mom being sick is basically why I started the term late. Even though my dad doesn't care about my mom , he cares about me . Mostly about my health. He's always paranoid that I'm going to get sick like her. So after the whole thing with my phone and my friends cutting me off, I stayed up in my room and didn't eat for a couple days. I was just angry, and really upset." She shrugged. "But he said I was looking weak or sick or something and sent me off for a load of tests and stuff."
"What kind of tests?"
"Dunno," Konan said through the last mouthful of the Snickers. "Bloodwork, heart monitoring... Weighing, measuring. Load of different scans. Lots of injections of this and that. They had me on an IV drip for a while. Nutrients, whatever. They never tell me, because presumably they just tell my dad, and he's the only one that needs to know. He always makes them run through that kind of stuff. About once a year he decides I look sick, or I'm not growing enough, or I've done something to annoy him and he sends me to a private clinic for a few weeks. It's stupid."
"Huh. That's kind of weird."
"Tell me about it."
Pain was quiet for a moment, thinking. Then he asked abruptly, "Can I see your phone?"
Konan raised an eyebrow. "Why?"
"I wanna see how the other side lives," he said with a teasing grin. "Me with my five year old beat-up hunk of junk…"
Konan snorted, pulled out her cellphone and handed it to him. He whistled. "Pretty nice."
She rolled her eyes and looked back up at the sky as he fiddled around. There was a waxing crescent moon, a shining sliver of nail hanging far above them in the darkness.
"Do you use your phone a lot?" Pain asked. There was a note in his voice that made Konan feel uneasy.
"Not that much anymore. I mostly use it for music, and taking pictures. I call my mom. I don't text anybody. If I want to talk to you guys I just walk down the hall. Why?"
"Well… I don't want to concern you, but there's a mirroring app installed on your phone."
"What does that mean?"
Pain turned the screen around. He was in her app list. There was one with a grey square with a red circle in the centre, labeled 'Data Protection Software.'
"I mean… that didn't just come pre-installed? It's a privacy setting thing, isn't it?"
Pain shook his head. "It's not, Konan. It's really, really not. It mirrors everything on your screen onto a different device." He handed her back her phone. "It might be how your dad – or something – saw who was in your contacts, who you were messaging."
It felt like Konan's throat was starting to close up. Her breathing was getting shallower. "What – what do you mean? Why? What should I –"
"It's okay. Breathe. Here's what we'll do," Pain said calmly, holding her shoulders.
"No, why would he–?" Konan squeaked.
"Hey. Look at me, okay?"
His voice was calm and warm. She looked into his violet eyes and her breathing slowed. She inhaled and exhaled with him. Her heart beat slowed down. He grinned.
"There you go. We'll be just fine. Now, do you have any of our numbers?"
"Um… no. I mostly just talk to you guys."
"Okay. Did you take any photos or videos of us?"
"Yeah."
"Okay. I'll send those to myself, and we can delete them. I think it's best if whoever's watching your phone doesn't think you're friends with all of us, or that you're remaining friends with all of us."
"Won't they… whoever… see your phone number if you send them?" She wasn't sure why she was whispering, but she couldn't help it. She was scared.
As if he knew what she was feeling, he gave her a reassuring smile and said, "It's okay. Watch."
She watched obediently as he popped out his SIM card, opened up the back of his phone case, pulled out a sheet of tiny QR codes, and scanned one. After scanning it, he tore it off the sheet and put it in his pocket. "It's an e-SIM," he explained.
"Why do you have so many?"
"Emergencies like these?" he said with a smile. "Not really. I got them for sometime stupid. A prank or something. But I kept them because they're just kind of useful to have on hand, in case," he shrugged.
He set up his phone again with the new number, downloaded Whatsapp, then sent Konan's photos of all of them having fun outside, of Kakuzu pushing Hidan's face down into a bowl of cereal, of Sasori's icing unibrow, to himself.
"Ta-da! I'll send them back to you once we get you a new phone, and I'll switch my SIM card back."
"A new phone? Won't they notice if I stop using this?"
"So keep using it. For music, and to call your mom. Take pictures of birds and things. But use the new phone for texting us if you want to, and taking pictures of your friends. For anything you don't want… whoever… to know about, in case it causes a problem."
"Okay." She bit her lips. The mass of roiling panic and paranoia inside her ( Who installed a mirror app on my phone? Why? Was it Dad? Why!? What has he seen? Have I watched any porn on my phone, oh my god!?) felt muffled slightly, like a powerful current hidden beneath gentle waves. Shining above them was a thought that gave her a warm feeling of safety: Pain is here. He's looking after me.
"Thank you," she said, nudging his knee with hers as he handed her back her phone. "You're a really good friend."
His eyes flicked down for the barest half-second, then he smiled at her.
"Anytime. And now… we should probably be getting back," he said, patting her leg and standing up. He grabbed her helmet for her and they headed back to the motorbike.
The ride home passed in a blur of wind and racing thoughts. Konan followed Pain back inside the equipment cage, through the classroom, along the hallways, and back through the emergency exit in a daze, running through their entire conversation, coming back over and over again to her phone, and whether or not it was her father who was spying on her.
It was only later, after she'd showered and crawled into bed, that she realized what she'd said. Fuck! She slapped her hands to her forehead and groaned in embarrassment.
Thank you… you're a really good friend.
Really good friend…
Friend. Friend. Friend.
Did I just friendzone MYSELF!?