Late the next morning, Sasori came in to poke her awake, Deidara following behind him with a tray of food.
Konan moaned in gratitude at the smell of bacon and eggs, and then moaned in pain when she sat up.
"Are you okay?" Deidara asked, sitting on the end of the bed, and looking so worried Konan forced a smile to reassure him.
"Mostly," she said, scooting into a sitting position with a wince. "My arms just really hurt, and my head really hurts…"
"How come?"
"Um…"
Sasori set the tray down on her lap and snorted at Pain, still asleep, curled over on his side.
"Look at Sleeping Beauty over here." He gave him a sharp poke in the ribs.
Deidara rolled his eyes. "Like that's gonna work."
Apparently, Pain was an extremely heavy sleeper, so it took quite a bit of nudging and increasingly irritated greetings from Sasori, plus Deidara pulling the blankets off of him, to get him to finally open his eyes.
"Morning sunshine," Sasori said sweetly in response to Pain's grouchy squint. "We brought Konan breakfast, and imagine our surprise… you were also in here."
Pain sat up slowly, rubbing his face. Konan offered him a piece of toast.
"When did you guys get in last night?" Pain asked Sasori, taking the toast absent-mindedly.
Konan, meanwhile, was three big spoonfuls into scrambled eggs, hardly listening, mostly concerned about her gnawing hunger, headache, and the dull throb in her head and arms.
Sasori glanced at Deidara, who blushed and gazed pointedly at the ceiling, shrugging. "Uh… call it 3am?"
Pain took a big bite of the toast. "Uh huh. Did you talk to anybody?"
"Anybody like who? About what?"
Konan glanced up; neither Sasori nor Deidara were looking at her.
They don't know anything happened.
Pain caught her eye, giving her a little inquiring lift of his eyebrows as he chewed. Do you want them to know? Who should tell them?
Sasori was giving them both an extremely weirded-out look.
"I leave you alone for a few hours and suddenly you have your own silent language, and lest we forget, you're in her bed, " he said teasingly. "You dog…"
Konan finished the piece of bacon she'd been chewing and shifted the tray onto Pain's lap.
"I'm gonna take a shower," she announced, giving Pain a little nod as she got out of bed. You can tell them what you think they should know.
He nodded back to show he understood. She padded over to the bathroom, stopping on the way to grab clean underwear, a new hoodie, and a clean pair of pyjama bottoms, having no intention to leave the dorm today.
She locked the door behind her and pulled off her clothes, ignoring the low hum of Pain's voice on the other side of the wall.
She gasped. "Oh my god… "
"You okay?" came Pain's voice immediately. She had been louder than she thought.
"Uh… Yeah, I'm fine," she called back. "Just… bruises."
She stared at herself. Her hair was messy — whatever. There were flakes of dried blood on her forehead — fine. But what had startled her were the blue and violet bruises that had blossomed across her skin overnight. There were huge bruises on her biceps, where Zaku had knelt on her. Her forearms and legs were also dotted with purple splotches.
She took off her underwear, and noticed something she'd missed the night before — fingernail scratches in her inner thighs.
That motherfucker…
She bit her lips angrily and turned on the shower.
By the time she had brushed her teeth, pinned back her hair as well as she could without touching the sore patches on her head, washed her face, applied moisturiser and deodorant, and gotten changed, it was obvious that Pain had told Sasori and Deidara what had happened last night.
She came out to slightly less breakfast remaining on the tray, Pain sitting fully upright, looking more awake, and Deidara and Sasori obviously trying not to stare at her.
"Is it cool if I use your shower?" Pain asked, getting up. Konan nodded, and he shuffled past them to the bathroom, yawning.
Konan sat back down on the bed and helped herself to more food. "Thanks for bringing this," she said. "It was really nice of you."
Sasori and Deidara were both sitting at the end of the bed, looking very awkward, and very sorry for her. She smiled at them.
"You guys look really stupid, though. Stop staring at me!"
Sasori snorted and looked down, while Deidara looked at the ceiling.
"That's not what I meant!" Konan laughed. "I just mean… Just be normal! Please? Otherwise I'll feel…"
She trailed off, shrugging when she couldn't think of exactly what she would feel, other than an overwhelming loss of hope that anything would ever go back to the way things were.
"Okay," Sasori said seriously, getting comfortable and helping himself to the last piece of toast. "So. What exactly happened with you and Pain last night, hmmm?" He smirked at her, completely his usual self. "Sharing a bed I see. Under the covers, too. Did you make some progress, or what?"
Konan rolled her eyes, laughing. " That's more like it."
"...Is what you said last night?"
—
After Pain came back from the shower, he and Sasori left to go for a walk, and Konan asked Deidara if he wanted to hang out.
"Sure, hm. Do you want to go anywhere?" he asked.
He had had more trouble acting normally around her than Sasori, but talking about something other than the night before seemed to be helpful.
Konan shook her head. "I have to go to the village tomorrow to get a swimsuit, so I'd kinda like to stay here today."
Deidara raised an eyebrow. "You don't have one? Did you forget it?"
"No, I can't actually swim," Konan confessed, moving the empty food tray to her table.
Deidara laughed. "Seriously? You never learned? Have you ever tried?"
"No… But like, I can stand in the water at the beach, and I can float in an inner tube, and I can sit in a hot tub just fine, and…" she trailed off, realizing how lame it sounded as Deidara laughed harder.
"So, you can't swim, and according to Sasori, you can't play volleyball…"
"Hey!"
"Did you never play any sports or anything? Can you even ride a bike?" Deidara asked teasingly.
There was an embarrassed silence.
Deidara gaped at her. "Wait, I was joking! You seriously can't ride a bike!? "
"My parents never taught me, okay?" Konan said defensively. "But I did other things! I can play piano and violin! I did horseback riding, I learned to play tennis, and golf, I did dance, and gymnastics, and…"
Deidara snorted. "Wow, slow down, Fancy Nancy. Horses? Golf?"
Konan shrugged, grimacing.
"But you can't ride a bike? "
"I don't know why!" Konan said, laughing too now. "And to be fair, I didn't like golf, it was fucking boring. I liked gymnastics, though!"
"Why did you do golf if you didn't like it?"
Konan shrugged. "My dad picked everything. He didn't let me play soccer, I remember... Anyway, I was wondering…"
She scuffed her foot shyly on the rug, hands behind her back, smiling at Deidara, who immediately looked wary.
"What?" he asked suspiciously.
"Um… Sasori told me a really beautiful story…"
As soon as she said Sasori's name, Deidara rolled his eyes, but couldn't keep a little smile off his face.
"Whatever he's told you is probably 80% bullshit."
"It was about how you guys started dating. It was so cute!"
Deidara gave a huge sigh, covering his face. "You want to talk about that? You don't want to do anything else?"
"I could braid your hair while you tell me?" Konan offered. "I'm pretty good…"
To her surprise, Deidara uncovered his face, eyebrows raised. "Really?"
"Yeah, totally. I'd be happy to."
"Cool, yeah, let's do that," Deidara said, getting off her bed. "Let's go to my room, though. There's more privacy."
"Sure!" Konan followed him out the door. "Do you like getting your hair braided?" she asked curiously.
Deidara shrugged, opening the door closest to hers in the hall, which was covered in bright 'No Entry,' 'Caution,' 'Unstable Contents,' 'Explosives Within,' 'Private,' and 'Trespassers Will Be Prosecuted' stickers.
"My sister used to do it. I just like people playing with my hair, honestly. It feels nice," he said as they headed inside.
"Wow, your room is so cool!" Konan said, looking around.
She hadn't been inside Deidara's room yet. Like Pain, he had erected lots of shelves around the walls, but Deidara's were covered with what looked like at least a hundred white clay sculptures of animals and human-like figures with wide hollow mouths and large hands.
Unlike Sasori, Deidara didn't have dozens of polaroids taped to the walls, but he did have a framed photo of blonde people who must be his family, a few with the whole friend group, messing around and laughing, and one whose frame lay face down.
"One of your pictures fell over," Konan said, reaching for it.
Deidara glanced over and made an embarrassed noise.
"Is it secret?" Konan asked, her hand freezing in midair.
"No…" Deidara said, looking a little flustered. "I just… I can't look at this thing every day, and Sasori doesn't like seeing it, but… Ugh, it's seriously nothing…"
He reached past her and jerked the frame upright.
It was a candid photo of Sasori. It had obviously been taken at night, and the flash had gone off, whiting his whole face out into a near-featureless moon. He also looked to be mid-sneeze.
Konan burst out laughing. "He looks so stupid!" she exclaimed, staring down at what had to be the worst photo of Sasori in existence.
Deidara grinned. "He hates that I keep this here. He hates this photo, but Pain printed it out for my birthday last year and it's just so fucking dumb…"
"Wait…" Konan looked around his room again. "Is this the only picture of Sasori you have here?"
Deidara was trying so hard to keep a straight face, but just couldn't under her incredulous gaze. "Uh… yeah."
"No wonder he hates that!" Konan yelled, completely losing it as she looked again at Sasori's half-closed eyes, the blur of his open mouth, the overexposed white blob of his face.
It took them a while to stop laughing, but they eventually caught their breath and sat on Deidara's bed, Konan leaning against the wall, Deidara leaning against her legs so she could braid his hair.
"So," Konan said after a few minutes, running a brush gently through Deidara's long blonde hair, "Um, like I said, I had asked Sasori about how you guys got together, and it was a really cute story—"
Deidara gave a derisive snort. "Yeah, okay, sure. "
"Well, I was wondering if you could tell me, like your side of the story, because it sounded really romantic…"
Deidara gave an enormous, soul-weary sigh.
"...and I would love a distraction from like… everything that happened…" she wheedled.
"Yeah, yeah," he relented. "Okay, well, before you start, you know, taking Sasori's word for it, and imagining some kind of rom-com, meet-cute, rose-tinted love affair… whatever the hell he said…" He said darky, "You should know that the very day I came to this school, one year ago…"
Konan grinned, watching him settle in, folding his arms and leaning back, gazing into the middle distance like he was about to embark on an epic war story or something, like he was about to begin, T'was a dark and stormy night…
"Within the first five minutes of being in this building, I knew that I had entered hell."
Konan gave a little splutter of laughter. "What do you mean?"
"While waiting to meet with Tsunaboobs and get my orientation package, I was suddenly cornered by this smug, piece of shit, five-foot-nothing pervert."
Konan giggled. Deidara was completely getting into it now, considering he hadn't wanted to tell her the story — she genuinely felt like a hairstylist and he was giving her all the drama, pausing for her laughs and gasps.
"And, if you can believe it, this dickhead, okay, he used to walk around with a fucking lollipop sticking out of his mouth."
"What!?"
"I know , fucking lunacy. So I was like, just standing there, holding my transfer papers or whatever, and he came up, and…"
He was obviously getting a little flustered already. Konan grinned as she saw his ears and the back of his neck had turned pink. She could totally see why Sasori had said that he had loved to tease Deidara. He was really cute when he was embarrassed or annoyed.
"He just fricking like pins me against the wall, completely in my personal space, I don't even know this guy, so like… what kind of first impression is that…?" Deidara demanded.
"Yeah, that's pretty… crazy," Konan agreed, visualizing the scene in her head.
Deidara, wide-eyed, pressed up against the wall; Sasori, in a classic make-out-against-a-locker pose, hands splayed on either side of Deidara's head, a lollipop sticking out of his mouth.
Sasori… You maniac…
"So, he pisses off, I talk to Tsunade or Shizune, whatever, and then , they assign me to a room," Deidara said with a huff. "And for a little context here, the 5th years have this dorm set-up right? But the lower years are like three or four to a single room. So I head in, meet my roommates. That's when I met Pain."
Deidara scowled and sighed again. "And I'm pretty sure I was in the middle of telling him all about this dickhead I had met, when who should come through the door…? Sasori. So it turns out that this fricking creep is actually also my roommate, so you can imagine…"
"Oh no!" Konan gasped, being the perfect audience. She started on a new section of braids as Deidara muttered under his breath.
"So, I guess you couldn't even talk to Pain about it, could you? 'Cause he's really close with Sasori right? Did you have anyone you could talk to?"
"Not really!" Deidara said, annoyed. "Not to mention, okay, after a while, Pain started to… like, okay, he's Sasori's best friend, he knew Sasori was…" He trailed off and gave an irritated little scoff, "You know… interested in me, or at least, interested in harassing me, and he just started stirring shit, basically."
"Pain did?" Konan asked, giggling.
Deidara snorted. "He sure fucking did. 'Oh, let me just lock you guys in a closet for an hour, let me just impersonate a fucking taxi driver to take Sasori to the airport to see you…'"
"Are you serious!?" Konan exclaimed. "It's hard to imagine him doing that…"
"Nah, he loved it," Deidara snorted. "I kind of think I was their hobby. Like they were both completely obsessed with annoying the shit out of me."
Konan patted him on the back, giggling. "I'm sorry, Deidara."
He laughed. "I mean, okay, I'm making it sound pretty bad. And it did suck… but… the thing about my man Sasori, is that he…" Deidara trailed off, humming, like he was trying to find the words.
Konan ran her fingers through his hair, separating another section. "What?"
"Well, okay, I mean, as repugnant as I found him to begin with," Deidara said, very primly, making Konan bite down on a smile behind him, "And as difficult as I found it to get over the near-insurmountable barrier of his terrible first impression, and his personality, and lack of respect for other people's personal space…"
Konan was full-on killing herself trying not to burst out laughing.
"Eventually, I was sort of able to… you know… there were small moments in between being pissed off all of the time, where I could kind of see that he was… alright… and not, not… terrible to look at…" Deidara grumbled, the back of his neck reddening again.
"So, you guys became friends?"
"Well, yeah, I did hang out with him and Pain… and pretty much only them at the time… so… yes, we were friends. But it was a complete Stockholm syndrome situation," he said defensively. "I didn't really have an option, we were all living together…"
"But like, you… you did like him, though right?" Konan asked, now a little uncertain, "I mean, you… he didn't like, harass you into a relationship, or like wear you down until you gave in… like, you're… you were happy, right?" she stammered.
She was starting to get a tiny bit worried, like she'd asked a sweet elderly couple about their love story and been told they had a twenty year age gap and had met when she was fourteen, or something.
Deidara laughed, clearly picking up what she was putting down. "Okay, okay, I might be misrepresenting things. It was all good, Konan."
"Okay, but like… you sure?"
"How do I say this… If someone you really… argh…" Deidara tilted his head to one side with a loud sigh, obviously struggling to explain. "Okay, yes, he invaded my personal space when we first met. And, actually, every fricking day. But, I don't… like it was annoying, for sure, but I'm not really a guy who needs a lot of personal space…"
"Okay…" Konan said slowly.
"And yes, he was constantly like, flirting with me or whatever… But the thing is… even at the time, I did think he was pretty hot, even if I didn't, I guess, want to admit it because I hated him… but I didn't hate him… I mean, I kind of hated everything he did, but like… not really…"
Konan nodded slowly. "Gotcha."
These guys were a fucking mess , she thought, mystified. Sasori's out here pinning random strangers to the wall and sexually harassing his roommate. Deidara is apparently the god of playing hot-and-cold, hating everything about Sasori while also being incredibly turned on by everything he hates about him. Jeez… Talk about sexual tension…
She suddenly snorted with laughter, imagining what it must have been like for Pain , living with both of them, just waiting for them to stop fighting and start dating when they were so clearly obsessed with each other… No wonder he started messing with them all the time. She kind of wanted to ask him about it.
"Okay, well, Sasori kind of skated past all that stuff," she said. "He just said that you thought he was like, messing around, and didn't think he was actually into you, for real."
Deidara shrugged. "Yeah, I mean, sometimes even now I think that."
"Seriously?"
"I mean, yeah. He's still basically the same as he's always been. And yeah, last year I thought he was just messing around because he thought it was fun to piss me off, or try to hook up with me, or whatever. But… I know he keeps trying to like, prove he's serious. But now it's kind of…" He shrugged again.
"You still think that he's not actually into you?" Konan asked, starting on a new braid and giving him a little pat on the shoulder. "What do you mean?"
"It's just hard to understand him sometimes. He wasn't serious about anything when we met, and now it's like he's too serious, or something."
Konan frowned, a little worried; this was so different from how Sasori had talked about his feelings, and his relationship with Deidara.
"Deidara," Konan said firmly, "Sasori basically told me that he can't fucking breathe without you."
Deidara was quiet for a moment, the side of his face flushed. He picked at a piece of lint on his duvet. "I mean, he would say that. He says all the time," he said, softly and a little sulkily.
Konan frowned as she finished another braid, confused by Deidara's reaction.
"You don't believe it when he says that? Or what? It's kind of intense?"
Deidara shrugged. "I mean, I know he's obsessed with me. I know he like, loves me, hm…" He was still embarrassed, talking into his knees. "He always talks in like forever and always , but…"
Konan wrapped an elastic around her current braid and tapped Deidara to get him to lean forward. She scooted around until they were sitting facing each other.
"What's up?" he asked hesitantly.
Konan gazed at him, biting her lips anxiously. She wasn't totally sure how she could broach the topic… or if she should even try.
"Hey… I know we haven't known each other that long," she began, a little nervously. "Obviously I haven't known you as long as Pain and Sasori have, and I know we haven't really had a lot of long talks before."
Dediara blinked at her, a little bit nonplussed. "Uh huh…"
"And I know this is like, awkward, but I just wanted to say…" She took a deep breath, "...that if you would like to talk about anything, I'm happy to listen, always. I know you have lots of friends, and I know you're really close with Sasori and Pain, but if you ever want to talk to someone else, I'm here."
Deidara still looked confused, but he smiled a little. "Okay, Konan. You're on."
"I'd be happy to. Anytime."
Deidara raised an eyebrow. "Not to be overly suspicious, and I do appreciate the offer, but… is there any particular reason you're saying this now?"
Ah. How do I say… 'Because I apparently can't stop myself from diving into the personal business of my friends, and I am worried that you can't seem to accept that your boyfriend loves you'?
Konan shrugged and tugged the neck of her hoodie up to cover her mouth, feeling nervous.
"Well… I'm sure things are different now… and I know Pain and Sasori are wonderful friends to have, but I guess I felt a little sad hearing you talking about how your friend group last year was basically just them, and since they've known each other longer, and since Sasori was trying to go out with you… it just sounded kind of lonely, if maybe you couldn't share how you were feeling to someone uninvolved." She shrugged, glancing at Deidara to try see how he was taking this.
His eyes had widened in surprise, and he sat up a little straighter, but he didn't say anything, just watching her.
"And," Konan said, forcing herself to be truthful, "Even though I know you and Sasori express yourselves differently, and I've talked more with him so far… it made me a little sad to hear that you don't seem to really, completely accept how much he loves you."
She hugged her knees, really feeling like she was crossing a line, but unable to stop now.
"And I might just be reading too far into it, and I'm really sorry if that's a total overreach, but it's just… that's why I wanted to say, if you ever want to talk about anything with someone who's not Sasori, I'm here."
"What are you, some kind of little friendship fairy?" Deidara said with a snort of laughter.
Konan sighed. "Okay, nevermind. Sorry. Forget I said anything."
She got up to leave, but Deidara grabbed her wrist. "Wait… I'm sorry. Don't go."
Konan turned. Deidara was looking down, blushing, as he pulled her back towards the bed.
Is this what life with a tsundere is like!? Jesus, Sasori must have a heart of steel…
"What?" she asked, sitting back down.
Deidara folded his arms, avoiding her gaze, but still pink in the face. "I'd like that," he said.
"To talk to me?"
"Yeah."
"Okay."
"Not today, though."
Konan grinned and sat back down on the bed. "Okay. Could you give me some dating advice, then?"
Deidara rolled his eyes but smiled, too. "Sure. Like you need any help… Didn't you guys wake up together?"
"Yeah, but… Okay, it's kind of a long story, but basically he kind of implied that he likes me, too, in a roundabout way, but he's waiting for a good moment to ask me out."
Deidara snorted. "How about this: 'Konan, how's it going?' 'Good, thanks.' 'Wanna go out with me?' 'Sure do.' Tada!"
Konan laughed. "I mean I'd be down for that, but I guess he's really focused on like… the right atmosphere? I'm not sure. Probably a day when my head isn't all scabby."
Deidara wrinkled his nose, but said "Fair, I guess."
"Anyway," Konan continued, getting up and pacing back and forth. "I've been thinking about how to create the perfect moment."
Deidara smirked. "You live for drama, huh?"
Konan lifted his legs so he fell over backwards, laughing. "Hey, hey. Where's my advice man?"
"Alright, alright. What are you thinking?"
"Okay, so I don't personally have any dating experience, so all these ideas are from rom coms…"
"Uh huh. We're off to a good start," Deidara said sarcastically, grinning.
"Shush! Alrighty, well, first up I was thinking of the Bridget Jones' Diary approach, but the Mark Darcy romance is really hard to replicate, since they hated each other at first, and we don't hate each other." Her eyes fell on a roll of drawing paper and supplies on the floor. "Could I borrow this?"
"Knock yourself out," Deidara yawned, leaning back against his pillows, crossing his arms behind his head.
A few minutes later, Konan had taped several large sheets of paper to the wall, and was tapping a felt marker against her chin thoughtfully.
"Okay, but later, Mark Darcy sees her laughing in a rowboat on the lake, and she's really happy and gorgeous…"
She wrote 'laughing on rowboat' on the paper.
"...and then later he sees her in a playboy bunny outfit, and that's definitely powerful…"
She added 'playboy bunny' to the sheet.
"And then they make dinner together and have some fun."
She added 'cooking.'
Deidara was staring at her with his eyebrows raised, plainly trying not to laugh.
Konan ignored him. "Not necessarily a lot to work with there. So then I was thinking about Legally Blonde , where Elle Woods falls in love with Owen Wilson's brother. And that's mostly personality-based, plus the fact that she's Reese Witherspoon, so obviously she's gorgeous…"
Konan wrote 'personality' on the sheet, and then 'hot celebrity / duh.'
"But the interesting thing is that he sees her also dressed up as a playboy bunny!"
Konan circled 'playboy bunny' on the sheet several times.
"Another one I was thinking about was 10 Things I Hate About You, but there's a little trouble there, because you guys would have to pay him to go out with me, and I don't have a sister so that subplot's kind of out, and you need to pay him because I have a reputation as being a huge bitch who nobody wants to date, and then he falls for my personality, but then there's a dramatic showdown where I find out that you guys were paying him, but I still love him, so…."
She was busy scribbling 'pay to date,' 'lies,' and 'huge bitch,' on the paper when Deidara burst out laughing.
"Come on! You're falling at the first hurdle with the no-sister thing, and then you slam into the next hurdle because you're not a huge bitch, and you just fricking barrel roll into the third hurdle, because Pain doesn't need paying to ask you out, and even then, Kakuzu wouldn't lay down a red cent for something so stupid!" he laughed.
Konan couldn't help laughing, too. "Well, help me then!"
"Uh… How about The Notebook ?" Deidara asked. "How do you feel about emotionally blackmailing Pain into being your boyfriend by threatening to kill yourself if he doesn't go on a date with you?"
"Um, not great? Is that what happens in the movie!?"
"Yeah. It's supposed to be romantic…"
"...Yikes."
They spent the next two hours making more and more outlandish suggestions and laughing their heads off. By the end of it, Deidara had an extremely elaborate, Game of Thrones- style braided hairdo, and the papers stuck to the wall were completely filled with ridiculous scenarios and suggestions, including several drawings of Konan in a bunny outfit.
Eventually Sasori stuck his head in to ask what they wanted for lunch, only to get distracted by the posters full of crazy stuck to the walls. He walked over and squinted at them.
"'Fall in fountain together,'" he read out, "'Learn the drums,' 'Defeat the evil exes in hand-to-hand combat,' 'Disguises as woman to run from mob, joins band in drag, then un-drags for date with me?,' 'Run to him in snow in underwear,' 'Yell out secret phrase revealing true identity while rolling down hill to possible death,' 'Be sex worker then get paid to be fake girlfriend,' 'Replace dance partner, learn to dance,' 'Get pregnant, give baby up for adoption, then start dating?,' 'Fight, tumble down hill, have sex on grass under stars to Elton John song (as lions),'..." Sasori trailed off, turning to look at Konan and Deidara who were both nearly crying from laughing.
"I don't even want to know…"
–
That night, before going to bed, Konan knocked on Sasori's door.
"What's up?" he asked. He was lying on his bed, reading a book.
"Nothing, just looking," Konan said with a shrug, walking over to the wall he had covered with polaroid pictures.
"Okay…" Sasori said, watching her.
She looked at the photos, hands behind her back like she was at a gallery, smiling at the dozens and dozens of photos Sasori had taken of their friends, laughing, fooling around, posing. It was cute seeing photos from a year or more ago, where they all looked younger. Sasori seemed to have had a curly mullet when he was fourteen or so.
There were at least thirty photos just of Deidara. Deidara smiling, laughing, sticking his tongue out, kissing Sasori, asleep in the back of a car, Deidara climbing a tree, laughing by the lake, lying on the floor, eating pizza, making a silly face… There wasn't a single bad photo of him.
"Wow, these are all really good," Konan said, smiling at one of Deidara scowling at the camera, hands in his pockets, his hair blowing in the wind.
"Thanks."
"Deidara's really photogenic."
"Yeah, he is."
Konan was trying so hard to keep a straight face.
"If only we all could be so lucky," she said, her voice breaking as she tried to suppress a giggle.
"What do you… HE SHOWED YOU THAT STUPID FUCKING PICTURE OF ME SNEEZING, DIDN'T HE!?" Sasori roared as Konan burst out laughing, running from the room as he chucked his pillows after her.
—-
The next day, Deidara did another breakfast run to the mess hall for everyone, and they ate together on the floor of Konan's room, as she didn't want to head into the main part of the school sooner than she really had to. The gang wanted to go to the village to shoot pool, and Konan mentioned that she'd need to stop by the store while they were there to pick up a swimsuit.
"Swimsuit shopping, huh?" Sasori asked, rubbing his chin. "Sounds fun, I'll come with you."
"I mean, we might as well all go," Itachi said over his mug of tea. "It won't take too long."
"You forgot your swimsuit, hey? That's a pain," Kisame said to Konan, who shook her head.
"No, I don't actually have one…"
"Konan can't swim!" Deidara said, making a 'tada' gesture around Konan's head, complete with jazz hands. " And she also can't ride a bike!"
Konan rolled her eyes as several of the others looked at her in surprise and Hidan burst into derisive laughter. " Thanks, Deidara."
"However! She can play piano and violin, ride a horse, dance, play tennis and golf, and she did gymnastics," Deidara rattled off, like he was a first grader telling them cool facts about his favourite dinosaur.
"Gymnastics, huh?" Sasori said, raising an eyebrow.
Konan knew where he was going with it, and pointedly continued to drink her coffee without taking the bait.
"So, you're pretty flexible , huh?"
Bingo.
When she glanced up, as expected, Sasori was waggling his eyebrows suggestively at Pain. He was so predictable.
"Leave her alone, Sasori," Pain said mildly, stealing Sasori's last bite of bagel from his plate.
Sasori ignored him. "Bet you thirty bucks you can't do the splits all the way to the floor," he said to Konan.
Before she'd even opened her mouth to reply, Kakuzu piped up, "I'll take that action. Make it fifty."
Konan stared at him. Kakuzu held a hand against his cheek, blocking Sasori's view, and mouthed Don't screw me on this! at her. Konan shot him a harrassed eye roll.
Everyone else was piping in with bigger and bigger bets, until it seemed like they would get a grand total of $200 from Sasori if Konan could do both side and middle splits to the floor, put her hands on the floor backwards from standing, and touch Hidan on the shoulder with her foot standing two feet away or less.
Konan grinned at Sasori, raising her eyebrows. "If I throw in something extra, will you pay for my bathing suit?"
Sasori, who was starting to look concerned he might actually have to pay up, gave her an appraising look. "Only if I get to pick it."
"Hell no."
"Fine. You have to pick something from my top 5 choices."
Konan bit her lips. They were both looking at each other so suspiciously, Deidara was laughing at them.
" Deal," she agreed.
"Can you actually do all this stuff?" Pain asked Konan, hands in his pockets as he backed out of her way.
She smiled at him. "You saying I can't?"
"I'm ready to be incredibly impressed," he grinned.
"Okay…" Konan scooted her chair out of the way as the others moved all the plates, giving her as much room as the space would allow.
She pulled on a pair of socks and did a couple deep stretches to limber up.
Good thing I wore leggings today…
She stood up, raised her eyebrows, smiling at Sasori, and slid easily down into a side split, hitting the floor. The boys all yelled; Hidan was staggering around, clutching his hair, going completely crazy; Kakuzu pointed at Sasori.
"That's fifty," he said, drawing a thumb across his neck, grinning.
Sasori rolled his eyes, then dropped his jaw in shock as Konan pressed against the ground for support, lifted up, switched her hands so they were on the same side, rolled her hips, and sank back down again into a middle split, lowering her torso flat on the ground, laughing as the guys screamed again, yelling "A hundred!"
Konan caught Pain's eye as she lifted out of the splits and got to her feet. He was cheering with the others, his ears pink. Sasori leaned over to him, arms folded, and whispered something in Pain's ear, but Pain just shoved him off, laughing.
Konan shook out her arms, rolled her shoulders back, and then dipped into a smooth backbend, planting her hands on the floor, and just for fun, lifted her legs over in a walkover.
"A hundred fifty!" The boys screamed around her as Sasori groaned loudly.
"Who the fuck cares she can't ride a bike!? This is sick! " Hidan exclaimed, gesturing at Konan, who took a little bow as she straightened up. "Cirque du fucking Soleil over here!"
Konan beckoned him over and he came, grinning. Deidara measured two feet between them, and Konan stood, holding his arm with one hand for extra balance – it had been a while since she was doing gymnastics regularly, although she did still keep up with her stretching. She slowly raised her right leg to the side and up, biting her lips as she focused on her balance. The others around her were going "ohhhhHH—" as she rotated her leg and brought it up nearly vertical and rested her heel against Hidan's shoulder.
"TWO HUNDRED!"
Sasori had collapsed into a chair, where Deidara stood, simultaneously laughing at him and patting him sympathetically on the shoulder.
Konan lowered her leg and shook it out, grinning at Sasori. "You ready to buy my bathing suit?" she asked.
"This better be worth it," he said grumpily.
"Yeah, I think so. It's been a while though." Konan scanned her friends, assessing their height relative to hers.
She stepped over to Pain. "Could you be my volunteer?" she asked, smiling, a little out of breath.
"Need me to hold your foot or something?" he asked.
She shrugged, grinning. "Or something. How's your core strength?"
"Oooooooh," the boys chorused teasingly.
She hadn't meant to say it, had just blurted it out, but there was definitely something in Pain's eyes that told her he liked it.
He blinked at her, taken aback, then smirked. "I'm sure I can take it."
Konan raised an eyebrow, smirking. "Okay, if you say so."
She caught sight of Sasori and Deidara, looking at each other gleefully and whispering. She was pretty sure she knew why.
Somehow… I'm 1000% flirting with Pain in front of fucking everybody. On a Sunday morning. On god's day. Oh well.
"Okay," she said, refocusing, knowing she had to give him a heads up otherwise they were both going to go completely crashing to the floor, and he'd probably have some serious neck pain. "I'm going to run at you, push off with my hands, and land on your shoulders. And you've got to stay standing, and kind of catch me. So you need to brace yourself. Sound good?"
"Uh…" Pain said, staring. "Yeah, sounds good. You can do that!?"
"It's way easier on a spring floor, but yeah. I'm not going that high."
He whistled.
She positioned him at the end of the hall, which would allow her enough run-up space, and which thankfully was high-ceilinged and not too narrow. Then she pulled off her socks, not wanting to slip. She tried to ignore the fact that every single one of the others had their phones out, recording.
"Ready?" she said.
"Ready for the sickest thing ever!? Fuck yeah!" Hidan cheered.
"Ready?" she said, quieter, looking right in Pain's eyes. He nodded, legs braced, arms out and ready.
She nodded at him, took a moment— then ran down the hall, timing her steps. She got her hands down, felt the familiar impact slam in her wrists, the vibration in her arms, straight and strong as her legs soared up behind her and she flew up, flipping, opening her legs and wham– Pain caught her as she landed on his shoulders, curled around him, his arms holding her thighs, her legs crossed behind his neck, her hands cupping the back of his head.
There was an explosion of cheering from behind her. "You gotta buy her swimsuit!"
She felt Pain breathing hard into her stomach and laughed; it tickled. She loosened her grip around his head, slipping down as he supported her, and met his gaze, grinning at him. His eyes were wide and dark as he stared at her.
"How… how do you get down?" he asked faintly.
"Uh, it's easiest if you're able to take a knee. Be careful though," she said. He slowly lowered one knee to the ground, keeping his back straight, holding her in place.
She bent backwards, spine curving until she could touch the ground with her fingers, loosening her thighs' grip around his neck so she didn't pull him over, then brought her legs arcing down, and stood up.
"You okay?" she asked when she was able to get a good look at Pain as he stood up. "Did I hurt you at all?"
He shook his head, but he looked a little dazed. "All good," he reassured her, patting her on the shoulder and heading over to Sasori, who was pretending to cry into his wallet.
Deidara sidled up to Konan.
"Is your idea of creating the 'perfect moment' crushing his head with your thighs?" he asked her in an undertone, grinning.
"Shh!" she giggled. "And no… But do you think… I dunno…" She blushed, not even sure what she was trying to say. "Do you think it would make him kind of interested though?"
Deidara patted her on the back. "You just backflipped your pussy into his face. If he's not thinking about that for the entire year, I'll be surprised, hm."
—-
They took the bus into the village, and split up outside the pool hall; Kakuzu, Kisame, and Itachi went to grab a table. Kakuzu was already plotting out bets to double his share of Sasori's money, and they promised to order nachos for the others. Konan wasn't entirely sure why she had a whole entourage with her just to get a bathing suit, and she felt it was a little ridiculous when she, Sasori, Deidara, Pain, and Hidan all filed into the tiny boutique, taking up about 60% of the floorspace.
Konan sat on a loveseat by the dressing room with Pain as Sasori, Deidara, and Hidan ran around picking swimsuits for her to try on, laughing and yelling and generally being kind of annoying. She glanced occasionally at the sour-faced cashier, who had tried to help them at first, but had quickly retreated when faced with Hidan asking 'Where the fuck are the fucking bikinis?'.
If they get us kicked out, I'll have to swim in my gym uniform, I guess… Honestly, that might be less embarrassing than anything they pick…
She and Pain were part-way through their third game of chopsticks when Sasori and the other two approached, each holding about four swimsuits. Konan raised her eyebrows; several of them seemed to be made of 90% string.
"Alright, so the deal was…" Konan began hesitantly.
"You have to pick a suit from my top 5," Sasori said, smirking.
"Right…. And the reason you seem to have collected a load of butt floss pretending to be swimwear is…?" she asked, pointing to one suit which fully had a g-string as the bottom bikini piece.
Sasori gave her an innocent shrug. "That's all they have!"
"No it isn't —"
Sasori interrupted her, lifting her to her feet and pushing her into the changeroom; "Yes, yes, yes, now get to trying these on! And I want to see them all," he called over the closing door.
"Maybe I'll just buy my own swimsuit," Konan called back.
"Nevermind, just show me the ones you like!" Sasori amended sweetly, and she snorted, muttering about the hassle of being friends with a massive pervert.
The trouble was, none of the boys seemed to have picked a single swimsuit that seemed likely to stay on for more than ten minutes.
Good thing I went for a wax recently, she thought glumly.
"This counts as sexual harassment, right?" she asked, scowling as she came out in the first swimsuit, a bright pink halter one-piece which was cut so high it was three inches over her actual hip, and had a large oval cut-out at the stomach.
"It looks like it's giving you a wedgie," Deidara said, wincing.
"Yeah, well, it is."
"What the hell are those bruises?" Hidan asked, pointing at her arms.
Konan flinched; Sasori and Deidara both looked at Pain, who looked at Konan, who, after a beat, smiled sardonically and said, "You should see the other guy."
Hidan grinned at her. "That's my girl!"
Konan gave Pain a bemused little smile before turning back to the changeroom. He raised his eyebrows in return.
Konan tried on the next swimsuit, which she did like despite the fact that she would never in a million years want to swim in it, let alone spend more than half an hour in it. It was the kind of thing she'd have found sexy if someone else were wearing it, but she didn't want to wear it herself.
The bottom half was a black thong, and the top half was mostly string, which wrapped and criss-crossed up her waist into two black strips of fabric for the cups and a halter neck.
"Tada," she said sarcastically as she came out to show them, trying to cover what she could with her arms.
Hidan Deidara, and Pain whistled. Sasori was resting his chin on his bridged hands, like an exam proctor or a wizened sage.
"What's up? Not enough string?" she asked.
"Move your hands," he said.
"Ok, I'm getting sick of this. I'm not your dress-up toy! I'm just gonna choose one myself," she snapped, irritated, turning to head back to the changeroom.
"Ah- ha!" Sasori crowed suddenly. "TATTOO!"
Konan put her hands on her hips and tipped her forehead against the changeroom door with a huge, annoyed sigh.
"Is that what this is all about!?" she demanded, turning back around to glare at Sasori, "Because you could've just asked me!"
"A tattoo in a place 'you'll never see, ' you said!" Sasori said triumphantly, totally ignoring her. "Mystery solved!"
"Is it cherries?" Deidara asked, getting up.
"Yes…" Konan sighed.
She had gone to see The Runaways for Kristen Stewart, become obsessed with Elle Fanning's cover of 'Cherry Bomb', and had stopped at a drop-in tattoo parlour on the way home, correctly assuming that they wouldn't check ID, and that her father would never find out.
"Can we take a picture?" Sasori asked.
"What!?" Konan asked, turning around angrily, to see him holding a blue polaroid camera with a silver star bow.
"Is that…?"
"It's a present for you," Pain said. He was still sitting on the loveseat, arms folded casually across his chest, smiling at her.
"We got you a new phone, too!" Dediara said, holding out a box wrapped in blue paper.
"We did?" Hidan asked.
"You owe me some money," Pain said, grinning at him.
"Are you… really?" Konan squeaked as Deidara passed her the box with the new phone. She couldn't believe it. "That's so…"
"So can we take an inaugural picture? The old champagne-against-the-boat thing?" Sasori asked, waving the polaroid camera.
"Okay, sure," Konan said, relenting in the face of the gifts. She looked at Pain, smiling at her, and mouthed Thank you . He winked.
Pain took the photo. Konan looked over her shoulder with a peace sign, while Sasori, Deidara, and Hidan crowded around her on their knees, pointing at the tattoo on her butt cheek.
Konan changed into another swimsuit as they waited for the picture to develop.
"Can I just go with this one?" she asked Sasori, emerging in a plain black string bikini. It was cute, not as revealing as the others, and while she didn't feel super confident about the strings, she wasn't about to be Michael Phelpsing her way around the pool, anyway.
"Hmm… I approve!" Sasori said. "I'm getting bored, anyway, and the others have probably eaten all the nachos. Let's go!"
"Hey! You have to pay for this, dummy!" Konan called after him as he got up to leave.
After Konan had changed back into her leggings, sweater, and raincoat, and Sasori had proceeded to the cashier, Pain pulled her aside for a second.
"Thank you so much for the new phone and the camera!" she said breathlessly before he could speak. "I can't believe you did that…"
"No worries. You can make up for it by texting me first," he said with a grin before kind of refocusing, rubbing the back of his head. "Uh, it has a SIM card, all our numbers are in there already, you just need to figure out a phone plan."
"Amazing!"
"I thought you'd like the camera," he said quietly, nodding at it, "Because you can take as many pictures as you like, and you never have to worry about anyone seeing them on your phone or email or anything."
Konan nodded. "Plus I can make a cute wall of polaroids, like Sasori's!"
"Starting with one of your ass," Pain snorted, handing her the picture, which had finished developing.
"Jesus…" Konan giggled, looking at everyone making stupid faces. She put it in her pocket, then suddenly remembering something she had wanted to tell him, gasped with excitement, grabbing his sweater.
"What the—"
"I saw the photo! The photo of Sasori sneezing that Deidara keeps in his room!" she whispered excitedly.
Pain burst out laughing.
"It's so good, right!? I took it last year."
" Yes, it's fucking amazing! And, it's… it's…" She was giggling so much she could barely talk at this point. "It's the only picture of him… in the whole room…"
"Shh, he'll hear you…"
"But Sasori has so many of Deidara, and they're all perfect …"
They were both dying from laughter, trying to be quiet and completely failing. A loud AHEM from Sasori sobered them up.
"We're going!" he said tartly, with a face that told Konan he knew exactly what they had been laughing at.
They dissolved into quiet giggles again as they followed him out of the store.
—
By the end of the day, Konan had five other photos printed from her new camera; one of her on Hidan's shoulders, holding their pool cues like swords after they beat Itachi and Pain at pool and won all the money Kakuzu had bet on the game; one of herself, Sasori, and Deidara all sharing a milkshake; one of the whole group with their arms around their shoulders; one of Pain winking at the camera while Kisame gave him bunny ears, and one Sasori took of her and Pain sitting together on the bus ride back.
When they were back in the dorm, Itachi, Hidan, and Kisame went to grab dinner and bring it up; they were all going to watch John Wick together. Pain came up and asked Konan for a quick chat, so they went into her room.
"Shizune called me," he said quietly, so the others couldn't overhear.
Konan frowned, then remembered. "Oh," she said. "Okay… Did it go alright?"
"She didn't seem to realize it wasn't him, at least. I mean, hopefully she hasn't spoken to your dad before."
Konan snorted. " I have a hard time getting him to come to the phone. I doubt he'd take her call."
"Okay. Well, all she said was that you had been involved in a violent incident, that she had recommended you go for a blood test to check for illicit substances, and that the other students involved had been punished."
Konan groaned and flopped onto the bed. "Thank god she called you. He'd have fucking helicoptered me out of here and locked me up somewhere."
"He's that protective?"
"He's that paranoid ," Konan grumbled. "I mean, when I wasn't with him, he didn't seem to particularly care what I did. But if he ever heard I'd snuck out, or if he thought I was seeing someone, or doing something 'dangerous', he'd go crazy." She snorted. "I think he'd have a heart attack if he knew what actually happened."
"I mean… any parent would, though, right?" Pain said quietly.
Konan shrugged. "It's hard to explain."
She didn't want to explain.
—
"A young lady such as yourself must remain pristine," he said tightly. The shards of glass that had once been a beautiful desk ornament lay scattered at his feet. He was still staring at her new labret piercing, eyes bulging.
"You hardly ever see me, why do you care!? It's my body!" Konan screamed back, near tears.
He slammed a fist on his desk, making her flinch.
"No, it isn't!" he yelled. "I have invested a significant amount of time and resources into ensuring that you become a desirable woman, ensuring that you make a profitable marriage, ensuring that the most powerful men on this earth will want you."
"I don't care! " Konan screamed back, clenching her fists. "I don't want any of that, I don't care about any of that! I just want to—"
Her father continued as though she hadn't said a word.
"I am ensuring that you are capable of carrying yourself like a woman of high value; elegant, pure, and well-educated, even if you choose to spend your days wasting that training, tearing about like a hallion, but I will not have you lowering your worth through this teenage willfulness!"
He forced her back into her chair at the desk, gripping her shoulders and pointing his finger in her face.
"When the day comes when you must meet with your destiny, you will NOT have this unsightly mutilation. It shall be removed, along with any others."
"Mutilation!?"
He narrowed his eyes. "Konan, you must be a good girl. Your body is to remain untouched, unblemished, and unviolated until you are eighteen, is that clear?"
"What are you talking about!?"
"Is that clear ?"
Konan stared up at him, jaw clenched, furious tears welling in her eyes.
He stared back, then released her, adjusting his cufflinks. He walked around his desk, dress shoes crunching on the broken glass in the carpet, and sat back down, slicing open an envelope with his letter opener.
"Konan?" he prompted coldly, reading the letter like she wasn't there.
"Yes." Konan said, hating him.
"Yes..?"
She dropped her gaze, reaching for the icy shell she wore around him. She tucked her hair behind her ear as she sat up straight. She slipped a polite smile on her face as she readjusted her skirt and let her gaze go flat, burying her outrage deep inside her. Staying angry would do her no good at all, she knew.
"Yes, sir," she said sweetly.
"There's my good girl," he said, smiling at her. "Your reputation is my reputation, Konan. And I cannot have you putting that at risk, do you understand?"
"Yes, sir. I do."
—
"So… anything else?" Konan asked, shifting uncomfortably.
"I mean, I have detention again, with Kisame."
"I'm sorry. They found out it was you guys there?"
"Yeah, but it's seriously all good," he said with a grin, then his expression shifted. "Both of those guys have been expelled from the school."
Konan stared. "Really?"
"They're never coming back," he said reassuringly.
She pressed her hands to her face, trying not to cry. But she was so relieved. She felt lighter, closer to normal.
"Zaku won't be arrested unless you press charges, though," Pain said. "It's up to you."
"I couldn't do it anonymously?"
Pain shook his head. "I seriously doubt it. Plus, you're still a minor, so you'd probably need one of your parents there to sign any kind of witness statement. Your name couldn't be published, and neither would his, but…" He shrugged. "Up to you."
Konan frowned. "Okay, I'll think about it. Thanks for telling me."
"Anytime."
She teetered on the edge of reaching for a hug. It felt a little weird; he had been holding her for most of the previous night, curled together in her bed, totally naturally, and today they were back to normal, back to three feet apart.
After a brief hesitation, she stepped forwards and he opened his arms for her immediately, smiling slightly, wrapping her in a soft hug and holding her close to him, tucking her head under his chin, easy as he had last night.
"Thanks," she whispered again.
—
After dinner and the movie, Konan went to bed and lay awake for a long time, mulling things over, unable to get away from the heavy certainty in the pit of her stomach: that she had majorly, irrevocably fucked up.
She couldn't file a police report without telling her parents. Her mom couldn't leave the hospital, so it would have to be her dad. Even if she somehow got her mom to make the long trip, or even if she were able to file the report at a station closer to her, her mother would tell her father.
Her father would demand to know why the school hadn't contacted him.
I shouldn't have let Pain change the number. I should've just let things happen as they were supposed to. I'd have had to leave, but at least…
Expelled or not, without an official report, Zaku could easily go on with his life doing the exact same things, and much worse, to other girls. He would have no criminal record.
I have to report him… But my dad could sue the school or something… And I have no idea what he'd do to me…
She stayed up worrying for hours, tossing and turning until the early hours of the morning.
—
Pain lay awake in his bed, staring at the ceiling in the dark.
It had been a long day. And a pretty humbling one
In the morning, he'd felt pretty good, all things considered; as completely fucking horrible as the circumstances had been, he'd been happy to be able to be there for Konan, happy to have had deep conversations with her, to have been asked to stay the night, to have held her as she slept.
He'd got an ego boost and some serious long-lasting elation, knowing for sure she liked him back; figured when it seemed like she was doing better, when time had passed and she gave him a signal or something, he'd ask her out. No problem.
But things had gone haywire from the minute Sasori had asked her if she was flexible.
"How's your core strength?"
She couldn't have known, surely , that that line was going to be on repeat in his brain all day. Core strength. Core strength.
That was incredibly sexual, right, I'm not crazy? I'm a red-blooded teenage guy, how else am I gonna take that!? She was basically asking how long I can go for , right?
And she had been giving him a little challenging look, quirking an eyebrow at him, biting her lower lip as she did when she was teasing.
Come on…
—-
"You okay? Did I hurt you at all?"
His brain wasn't fucking working. He had barely recovered from the impact of her slamming into him, the weight of her, from her fingers in his hair, from her thighs around his neck, from the hot breath of her laughter, the smell of her, wrapped up in her. Her flushed face and sparkling amber eyes swam in front of him.
"All good," he heard himself saying. She smiled and he wobbled his way over to Sasori, who was shaking his head, laughing at him.
"Is she trying to kill me!?" Pain whispered, eyes wide as he slumped into the chair next to him, heart pounding like a bass drum.
"Neck pain?" Sasori whispered back sarcastically.
Pain shook his head and ran both his hands through his hair. Every nerve in his body felt electric, buzzing.
"Bro … I'm fucking knees weak, arms spaghetti over here," he breathed, leaning his head on Sasori's shoulder. "Did you see that!?"
"I would've just fucking nutted right there," Sasori said, grinning, flipping through the cash in his wallet. "I bet Kakuzu won't accept an I.O.U…"
Pain laughed breathily, running a hand through his hair, blinking fast to try and reconnect his brain to the rest of him. "Man…"
—
As he waited on the loveseat outside the changeroom, Pain was biting the inside of his cheek, trying not to listen to Sasori describe the various tangles of thongs and bras he had persuaded Konan to try on for him.
He had been torn on accompanying them all to the swimsuit store, rather than heading straight to the pool hall with Itachi on the others. He had known this was going to be fucking torture, but he was human; he wanted to see, too. And he didn't want to abandon Konan to Sasori's mercy, even though she could handle herself just fine. Sasori could get carried away, and it wasn't like Deidara or Hidan were exactly good influences on him.
He was trying to take deep, calming breaths without looking like he was having to take deep, calming breaths before she had even appeared in a swimsuit.
His imagination was completely running away with him, and he could feel the back of his neck heating up, remembering the weight of her on his shoulders, her hands in his hair…
Oh god, I'm pathetic. I'm a fucking degenerate. I can't look at her…
He was about to get up to leave, muttering something about being hungry, when the change room door swung open and Konan stepped out, looking unimpressed.
"This counts as sexual harassment, right?" she asked, hand on her hip.
She was wearing a hot pink one-piece that showed off a lot of leg and then some, curving all the way to the top of her hips, like the swimsuits from Baywatch. A huge cut-out in the centre showed her stomach and belly ring.
Pain was working so hard to keep his eyes on her face.
After Hidan had asked about the bruises on her arms and she'd headed back into the room, Pain exhaled, realizing he'd been holding his breath. He could tell Sasori was trying to catch his eye, and closed his, rubbing the bridge of his nose.
She's gonna kill me. Oh my fucking god.
When Konan came out in the second swimsuit, Pain nearly lost it completely. He wolf-whistled her jokingly with the others, and then sat with his nails digging into his thighs.
She was holding her arms around her stomach, but as she argued with Sasori she moved them and Pain's eyes snapped immediately to the black string which crossed over itself right in the soft part of her waist, pulling her in and digging into the skin like rope. And as soon as the rope thought had occurred to him, he was completely lost to any logical conversation for about five full minutes.
The bikini bra had no cups, so the fabric triangles covering her chest just showed her natural shape. Without any padding, he could just see the indents of her nipple rings through the fabric. His breath caught in his throat.
Oh my fucking god, I shouldn't be allowed in public. Think about something else, think about something else…
The others were arguing. He was barely listening. Konan was turning around. The bikini bottom was just a black thong. She had a fucking amazing ass. He was biting down on the inside of his cheek, trying to focus on what Sasori was saying. Tattoo . He stared, unseeing for a second, and then with blazing clarity, at the small cherry tattoo on her right butt cheek.
"Oh my god ," he whispered, covering his mouth with a hand and closing his eyes.
The one she finally chose was only slightly less eye-popping. A black string bikini. Pain was giving himself a very stern mental talking-to about how he was not allowed to imagine himself pulling the strings.
As Konan changed back into her clothes, Sasori slung an arm around Pain's shoulders and leaned into him.
"How are you doing?" he asked, grinning, unscrewing the cap of his water bottle.
"Hey, remember when you thought it would be funny… for me to start coming to lunch after having a shower, or after working out?" Pain said lightly, leaning back in the chair, eyes closed.
"Yeah?"
"And I did it, and it was really fun to see Konan's reaction? And you said she thought I was hot… And that was like a nice ego boost for me?"
"Yeah…?"
Pain sighed. "I am a fucking worm at her feet, man."
Sasori choked on his sip of water, laughing.
—-
Pain punched his pillow into a more comfortable shape and rolled onto his side. He tried to focus on what they'd been talking about, on the worried crease on Konan's forehead when she had asked if she could file a police report anonymously.
Maybe I fucked up? I shouldn't have changed her dad's number. Will she be able to make a report? Maybe Ino could do something… she seemed pretty invested in helping Konan avoid trouble… Said she was just being nice, but that's really far to go just for that…
Konan smirking as she slid all the way down in the splits flashed before his eyes.
He shook his head, rolled over again.
Fucking god… Okay, how to solve this problem… First we need to see if Konan actually does want to make a report, and if she does, come up with a believable reason the school didn't contact her dad, or reason for a delay…
The outline of her nipple rings poking through the black fabric cups of the string bikini… Konan turning around to head back into the changeroom, black strings criss-crossing her torso, cutting gently into her skin, pressing into the flesh of her waist, zig-zagging across the delicate greyscale angel wings tattooed across her back. The black thong swallowed in the curve of her ass cheeks, the little cherry tattoo, and he wanted to fucking bite it…
Okay. Tomorrow… Talk to Konan. Police report.
Konan looking at him from the end of the hallway, checking in, reassuring. Then the burning look of her running towards him, her body disappearing down then flipping up then fucking slamming into him as he braced for her, her legs sailing either side of his head as she folded herself around him, her legs crossing behind his neck, her lower stomach pressing into his face before she fell back an inch, his hands holding her thighs, feeling the softness over the hard muscle, the heat of her, his breath hot right there as she laughed, breathing down on him, arms wrapped around his head, fingers in his hair.
"How's your core strength?"
Oh my fucking god…
Pain closed his eyes, pulling off the blanket as his body temperature rose, dropping his hands from where they had been clutching his hair, sliding one down, biting down on the inside of his cheek as he sunk fully into a fantasy, all the images blazing in his memory blending together, intoxicatingly, maddeningly vivid.
The scent of her, jasmine body wash and vanilla shampoo, her body soft and curving into him, his arm reaching around her waist to pull her in closer, roll her onto her back, kissing her face, watching her reactions as his hands skim down her body, grabbing and pulling her ass cheek up, hand sliding inside her thong, kissing down her neck as her legs wrap around him, pulling him in. Her silver nipple rings, the curve of her breasts, her soft stomach, the cold metal of her belly ring, thin black strings crossing over her waist, pulling tight into her skin, making a groove he follows with his mouth, and his fingers pull at the string ties of her bikini bottom and she squirms beneath him, laughing, her thighs so soft, his arms sliding under them, around, lifting, hands gripping them, fingers digging into the flesh as he slides down and exhales hot against her pussy and she wraps her legs around his neck, her fingers twisting in his hair, and she pulls him right into her and he's opening his mouth, and his tongue is wet and so is she , and she's grinding against his face, and his whole entire body is throbbing, fucking aching for her…
FFfffuuuuuuuuuuuckkkk…