A/N: CW for deepfake porn, child pornography mention (no descriptions)
Konan bit the insides of her cheeks and slipped into the bathroom. There was no one else inside. She locked herself inside a stall, focusing on the vibration of the train, listening hard for the announcement, waiting to feel it slowing down at her stop. She was trying very hard to be calm.
When the train stops… no, before it stops, I'll leave and go to the end. When I get off, I'll find a payphone… no, I'll find a station guard, and ask them to stay with me as I use the phone… but am I being too paranoid?
Konan heard the bathroom door open and lifted her feet up automatically, but she sighed with relief, hearing a woman and her daughter talking as they came in. When she heard them washing their hands, she came out, washed hers, and followed right behind them as they left the bathroom. She didn't see John anywhere. The train was slowing down. The woman and her daughter were returning to their seats, apparently not getting off yet. Konan stayed as close as she could, pretending to be texting, standing by the door closest to them. As the train slowed down, she looked out onto the station beyond, and felt her heart lift with relief; Pain was standing, hands in the pockets of his winter coat, looking at the train. She waved frantically to him through the window; after a few seconds, he saw her. He waved back and started walking over.
The train slowed to a halt. Pain loped over as the doors opened, grinning, but his smile faded quickly as his eyes slid behind her. Konan stepped off the train as an arm slid around her shoulders, holding her.
"So, this is your friend?" John's voice asked from her side.
"Yes," she breathed.
"Hi, I'm John. I was looking after her on the train." He held out his free hand, apparently for a handshake.
Pain didn't take it. His gaze had slid back to Konan's face. His mouth thinned, his jaw tensing.
"Don't touch her."
"No worries," John replied, his arm leaving her shoulder but sliding down to her waist.
Pain reached forward and grabbed Konan, pulling her away from John into his chest.
Konan heard the warning ding of the train doors.
"Happy holidays, Konan," John said as they shut, and the train began rumbling to leave the station.
Konan's breath was shallow as she pressed her face into Pain's chest, only half-believing she'd actually made it to him. He wrapped his arms around her, but it was a minute or two before he spoke. She could tell he was watching the train leave.
"Who was that man?"
Konan shook her head against his chest, holding him tighter. "I don't know him."
"He knew your name?"
"I don't know why. I didn't tell him." She took a deep breath and lifted her head, rubbing her eyes. "I don't want to talk about it. Thank you so much for coming to meet me!"
"No problem," Pain said, still looking very concerned. "Are you okay, though?"
Konan tried to nod, but the mixture of relief and leftover stress were making her throat close up like she was about to cry. She tried to clear it. "Kind of," she said.
"Kind of, huh?" Pain asked, putting an arm around her as they started to walk out of the station. "Want to tell me about it?"
"I guess," Konan replied in a thick voice. "But first, could we please get some food?"
—-
They found a McDonald's a couple blocks from the station. Konan used the last of the money on her card to get herself a burger, fries, and a drink. She told Pain about feeling uncomfortable at the airport, about the jeans being too small, her dad canceling on her, her calls with Holly, her attempts to sell her sunglasses, John and his questions, John following her down the train.
"And I couldn't text you or anything because I didn't want the stupid mirror app on this phone to record your number," she said, chewing a fry and reaching into her pocket for her cellphone.
It wasn't there.
She tried the other pocket, inside pocket, jeans pocket. She dug her hand through her bag. It wasn't there.
"Not to be paranoid," she said slowly, "but I think he stole my phone."
"The guy on the train?"
"Yeah…"
Konan stared into space, eyebrows pinched close with worry, eyes unfocused for a minute. What had she lost, really? She knew her parents' contact info. She hardly used that phone anymore, anyway.
"Oh well, it doesn't really matter."
Pain was watching her, leaned back in his chair, arms folded, a concerned look on his face.
"And you've never, ever met him before?"
Konan shook her head.
"What kinds of questions was he asking you?"
Konan shrugged, taking another bite of her cheeseburger.
"He asked why I wasn't seeing family for the holidays, blah blah blah. I thought he was watching me after a while."
Pain shook his head. "How do you think he learned your name? After he stole your phone, maybe he read a text to you?"
Konan shrugged. "Maybe."
Pain ate a fry thoughtfully.
"You said your dad makes you wear expensive clothes at the airport, and when you accompany him to public-facing events. And he doesn't want you talking to people he might be in business with, right?"
Konan nodded, rolling her eyes. "It's stupid. Anyone he really cared about would be on a private plane."
"Maybe your dad thinks you're easily recognizable. Maybe that's just what it is, if you're the daughter of a famous or very wealthy person."
Konan rolled her eyes as Pain took out his phone. "I doubt it. Nobody would know or care about me," she said.
Pain snorted. "Actually…"
He slid his phone across the table. It was on a Google image search for her name. There was stuff she knew about – logos or promo images for art exhibits or programs she'd taken part in, photos from show jumping competitions she'd done when she was younger, a blurry photo of her in a tutu. The kind of things that ends up on the internet if you do activities that have open showcases or an eager PR person putting all participants' names on the blog or website.
Then there were photos of her at some of the fancy events she had been dragged to by her father, various openings or benefits, entering or exiting a building in various gowns. She never posed for photos, so they were just her from behind or a distance, walking.
The weird ones were the ones of her obviously at the airport. She recognized the mint green athleisure look she'd worn two years ago, another outfit with a teal crop top and tracksuit bottoms into snakeskin boots, which she'd absolutely hated. She was always in sunglasses.
"Wait, that's from today, " she said suddenly, pointing to a photo of her in the mask, sunglasses, black boots, jeans, turtleneck, and long black coat.
Pain clicked the page the image linked to. It was an airport fashion blog. Konan stared at it, mystified. There were a couple comments.
Not the Birkin bag, too…
Are the boots Weitzman or Chanel?
Who is she!?
Konan Arakaki. Nepo baby. Them stylists tho
Konan slid the phone back over to Pain. She felt sick, humiliated, and suddenly hot, like she was sitting under a powerful lamp.
"Well, that explains it, I guess," she said shortly.
She stood up abruptly to return their trays. She felt Pain's eyes on her.
"Can we go?" she asked.
He got up. "Sure. We have to catch a bus soon anyway."
They walked in silence to the stop a few blocks away. Konan felt bad for venting her anger on him, and couldn't even articulate properly why what they had seen had made her so angry.
I hate that there are pictures of me on the internet. I hate that my father is right, and that some people out there clearly know who I am. I hate that that's only because of him, that I'm never not going to be associated with him. I hate that that's me . I don't want anybody to know me. I want to disappear…
Pain slipped his hand into hers and squeezed it gently. Konan leaned against him with a sigh. She leaned her head against him, then, feeling her throat tightening again and tears prickling at the corners of her eyes, she fully turned into him, hiding her face in his neck. He wrapped his arms around her, rubbing her back.
"It's okay," he murmured.
She let out a long, shaky breath. "I'm sorry."
"Me too."
"I was really stressed, and scared." She sniffed. "I hated seeing those photos."
Pain nodded, his cheek pressed against her hair.
"I don't want to talk about anything from today anymore, if that's okay."
"Sure."
"I don't want to go see my dad ever again. I don't want to talk to him. I don't want to talk about him."
"Okay," Pain said quietly.
Konan sighed again. She realized she had been holding herself stiff and finally relaxed into his arms. He kissed the top of her head.
"I missed you," she said into his coat.
"I missed you, too."
She tilted her head up to look at him. "I'm happy to see you," she said.
"I'm happy to see you too."
He kissed her gently.
—
When they got to Sasori's place, everyone else was already there, laying around watching Die Hard. They yelled greetings to Konan as she waved, following Pain around as he gave her the tour. On the bus ride there, Pain had told her that Sasori had inherited the cottage when his parents had died, and since his grandmother had moved into a home, he often invited them all to stay during school holidays.
It was on a windswept hill, with long grasses outside, currently hidden by a thick blanket of snow. The exterior was stone, and the inside was furnished simply, and was quite cozy. There was a little kitchen, one main bathroom, a master bedroom, two guest rooms, and a pull-out couch in the living room, which would be where she and Pain would be staying. Konan smiled at the framed photos on the mantle, of Sasori's grandma, or Sasori as a child, smiling with his parents, and then of him as a twelve or thirteen-year-old, clearly not wanting to be photographed, frowning among wildflowers.
Part-way through the tour, Sasori joined them, showing Konan where the towels were kept, and giving her a little heads up about the house.
"So, yeah, my grandma used to live here, and she had some live-in help before she went to the nursing home," he said, leading her back towards the main floor bathroom, which was just off the living room. "So, as a heads up, there's no locks on the bathroom right now—"
"Oh my god, okay."
"Yeah, it's a project for the break," Sasori said, grinning. "I gotta pick up some locks, and—"
"Sasori!" Hidan called, getting up off the couch and coming over. "Tell her about the high seat!"
"The what?"
Hidan grinned at Konan, pushing past Sasori and leading the way, opening the door like he was a tour guide. "Behold!"
"Is that…"
Konan blinked at the four-inch high plastic seat perched over the actual toilet seat. "Does that come off?"
"Yes, it does," Sasori said, sounding impatient, "And nobody's supposed to use it, it was in the closet, but—"
"But you can be really high up," Hidan said enthusiastically, "And there's like a super long wait before before your shit hits the water, and you feel like fucking King Kong!"
"How is that King Kong!?" Pain asked.
"Why is that your King Kong fantasy!? Just shitting from really high up!?" Konan giggled.
Hidan frowned at them. "Hey, hey, hey, don't yuck my yum, it's good stuff—"
"Why is that your yum!?" Sasori asked, sounding aghast.
Hidan flipped them off as they laughed and returned to the couch.
"Anyway, as I was saying," Sasori continued, "Yeah I have to go to the hardware store, get some locks, and I'm going to be doing a lot of sorting of my grandma's stuff, since she said to get rid of anything I don't need, so if you want to help, that would be great." He smiled expectantly at Konan.
"Er… of course! What are friends for?"
"Not to be cynical, but is that why you were so eager to invite everyone over here, even though it's your first holiday break since getting engaged to Deidara?" Pain asked drily, leaning against the wall.
Sasori smirked. "It's like Konan said – what are friends for? Cheaper than paying for a service to do it, anyway."
"Yeah, I respect that," Kakuzu said as he passed them, heading back from the kitchen with a beer.
"Anyway, you and Pain will be sharing the fold-out sofa bed. Is that cool?" Sasori asked as they walked back to the living room, where the others were just finishing the movie.
Konan glanced at Pain, who raised his eyebrows at her. "I mean… yeah?" she said. "I might need to borrow some clothes though. Like pyjamas…"
"No problem," Pain said.
"Dibs on shower first!" Kisame said as the credits rolled, leaping off the couch and zipping into the bathroom.
"Can I go second?" Konan asked. "I smell like an airport. And a library. And a bus."
"Yeah, you reek," Sasori said cheerfully as he headed past her into the kitchen.
"Hey!"
Pain was laughing until he caught Konan's eye and immediately scowled at Sasori's back.
"How dare you, you take that back right now," he said sternly, but his voice was shaking.
"Unbelievable," Konan muttered, but she was grinning too.
—
Once Kisame finished in the shower, Konan asked Pain to borrow something to wear for bed when she was done, and he passed her a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt. She took them and headed into the shower.
"Okay, I'm going into the shower," Konan called loudly, "As there is no lock, please don't come in until I say I'm coming out!"
There was a chorus of vague assent from the boys, all scattered in their rooms. Konan went in the bathroom, and nearly slipped on a huge puddle of water Kisame had left on the floor.
Jeez.
She peeled off her clothes and chucked them in a corner, scowling in the mirror at the red marks left on her skin from the too-tight jeans. She took a lovely hot shower, taking time to wash her hair and wash all the memories of the past two days away. She stepped, reaching for a towel.
Immediately, her foot slid away from her, skidding along the wet tile on a dropped bar of soap. Konan screamed as she collapsed to the ground with a huge crash, landing in Kisame's cold puddle on the tiles, her back hitting the side of the tub, her towel falling off the rail on top of her.
"What the fuck are you screaming abou– WARGH!"
Hidan had pushed open the bathroom door, covering his eyes and immediately stepped on the bar of soap, too, which had shot from under Konan's foot to the other end of the room. His foot slipped back and he toppled forwards, diving at Konan and landing in a heap on top of her as she screamed again. Hidan squashed her back down onto the ground just as she was trying to sit up.
"Are you okay, what the hell is happening— ACK!"
Pain had come charging in and immediately tripped over Hidan's flailing legs, soaring over them and crashing down in the shower, his knee hitting Konan in the face.
"OKAY, NOBODY ELSE COME IN HERE OR I'LL FUCKING KILL THEM!" Konan screamed as both the boys groaned in pain.
Sasori and Deidara opened the door, but stayed standing in the hall. Deidara took out his phone to take a picture.
"GET OUT!" Konan screeched, throwing the bar of soap at Sasori's head.
It took about two minutes for Hidan, Pain, and Konan to get to their feet, all groaning and moaning and muttering, but unable to stop themselves from laughing, too. Konan turned the shower back on so she could warm up again before bed.
—
Konan fell asleep quickly, exhausted from the last couple days. Pain waited until her breathing had slowed down, curled up on one side of the pull-out bed, before heading into the room Itachi and Kisame were sharing, knocking on his way in.
Kisame was lounging on his bed, playing a game on his Steam Deck. Itachi was sitting at the desk, typing on his laptop.
"Hey, Itachi," Pain said, pulling up a chair to join him. "Can I ask you for a favour?"
"What's up?" Itachi asked, turning his chair to look at Pain and re-tying his ponytail.
"Okay, I know this sounds a little weird…"
He told Itachi about the photos of Konan on the internet, about the guy on the train knowing her name when she hadn't told him, about her father potentially ordering the mirror apps to be installed on her phone, and summarized what Konan had told him about how protective and obsessive he was about who his daughter was talking to or spending time with.
Itachi's face remained quite neutral as usual as he listened, merely raising his eyebrows.
"He sounds like a pretty interesting guy," Itachi said. "What's his name?"
"Shin Arakaki."
Itachi turned back to his laptop, tapping away. "CEO of MIRAI, huh?"
"Yeah."
"Interesting."
Pain watched Itachi's fingers whizzing over his keyboard for a minute.
"Other than telling me about it, what did you want me to do?" Itachi asked, his eyes on the screen.
"Well, I'm probably being paranoid," Pain prefaced, "But I just think it's unlikely that this guy on the train follows airport fashion blogs."
" She's an airport fashion girl? With her taste?" Itachi scoffed. "She's literally lying over there in a raggedy old Bikini Kill t-shirt!"
Pain kicked his leg lightly. "Hey! That's my shirt, aside from anything else. Anyway, her dad's super rich, obviously, and he hires stylists for her if she's going places she'll be seen, it seems." He shook his head. "Anyway, this guy on the train… the vibe just felt so weird. Why would he steal her phone? What's the point of that?"
"You want me to look into it?" Itachi asked, glancing at Pain, who shrugged and nodded.
"Just if you have time."
"Sure."
"Thanks, man."
Pain put his hands in his pockets and stood up, bending over Itachi as he clicked open a new window and started typing in commands, pulling up TOR.
"Um…" Itachi turned to look at Pain, eyebrows raised. "This isn't like the movies, you know. I'm not going to just type three things and go 'I'm in.' This will take me a minute." He grinned and turned back to the screen. "So like, step off, bro."
"Step off!?" Pain said, laughing in surprise.
"I said what I said."
"Fine, fine," Pain said, and headed over to join Kisame, watching him play his game.
About fifteen minutes later, Itachi called him back over.
"Well, I did find something kinda weird."
Pain padded over excitedly. "Ooh, on the dark web? How fancy!"
Itachi scoffed. "Just look ."
Pain bent over his shoulder, watching as Itachi scrolled slowly through what looked like some kind of forum. As he saw more and more, his jaw tightened and he started flexing and clenching his hands, trying to stay calm even as his stomach was turning.
There were dozens and dozens of photos of Konan posted there. Some of them were ones he'd already seen earlier that day, available on Google Images. Photos at events, galas, at airports, but there were many more. It looked like Konan had done some modelling when she was younger, or possibly they were posed family photos that had somehow gotten online. There were photos of her clearly as a young child, dressed up for a special occasion, sitting on a chair, holding a teddy bear, or posing with a watering can. There were more of her looking like a pre-teen, her hair long and in an updo, wearing a white dress and long silk gloves. There were dozens of low-resolution ones of her at what looked like a gymnastics tournament. There were several of her in dance costumes, wearing stage make-up. There was one of her on a horse. One of her doing the splits, posing with a gymnastics medal, had dozens of disgusting comments under it.
Somehow worse than all that, a number of the photos had been edited, as though they were trying to age her up. Her chest was bigger, hips wider. Several of them had edited photos to make her blonde, for some reason. There were comparison posts weighing up her facial structure with that of several famous models. There were loads of deepfakes, explicit photos where her face had been edited onto a porn star's body.
Pain closed his eyes, trying to breathe normally, opening them again as Itachi scrolled down to a post with dozens of comments about how old she was, a countdown until she was eighteen. One of the more recent photos of her at the airport had comments speculating about what kind of bra she might be wearing. Pain frowned, noticing several commenters had just put the letter 'A,' with no context.
"So, this continues for a while," Itachi said. "It looks like a lot of these have been re-posted from elsewhere, so I doubt this is the only page like it. But, if we go to the most recent posts—"
He clicked a few times. The posts changed, and Pain gasped.
"What the fuck!?"
There was a long chain by user Cattlebrand56, started a couple hours ago
This chick on the train looks like her haha. Thinkin bout it.
It was a photo of Konan, in the exact outfit she had been wearing that day, sitting in a seat on the train, looking out the window.
"This must have been him. John," Pain said quietly. "Scroll down, scroll down."
They read the comments.
Gonna take her?
Wait but that IS her right?
That's a $35,600 Birkin. Boots are Chanel – see link.
Coat's Sally LaPointe.
Could be her?
Wait – found this on IG. Airport fashion girl.
The photo of Konan at the airport.
Zoom on the boarding pass?
Flight to Milan. This is literally her.
A.
Hard to see how shes lookin in the photo tho
Cattlebrand56 jumped back on: jackpot. She left with some emo guy but i got her phone
Oh my fucking god
She got pics on there?
Lol lucky fucking guy. Have fun man
While u can
Post it post it
Nudes?
Cattlebrand56: unlocking it gimme some time
We salute you sir. Post if you need advice
Judging by the timestamps, John had taken an hour and a half to get home, unlock the phone, and upload the photos, which implied he had cracked phones before…
Cattlebrand56: Jackpot
There were selfies Konan had taken while lying in bed, sitting in a car, standing by a lake, laughing holding a beer, smiling at sunset. Pictures she'd taken in the mirror, trying on clothes, playing with her hairstyle. Some people on the chain were excited about the pictures that showed her feet. Most were going crazy for a photo she must have taken the year before, of her grinning happily in the mirror, showing her bare chest and freshly pierced nipples, but they were also all asking why her tits were so small.
Pain's nails were digging into his palms, wishing he knew each of the commenter's precise location so he could tear their spines out their assholes.
John had listed her top-played songs, and the chat was commenting on her apparent love of Muse and Paramore, asking what her Spotify account was, what her playlists were called, asking if he could find her login info for different websites, if she had a private Instagram.
The chat was super long after what looked like the most recent selfie, one of Konan smiling in the snow outside the school.
What building is that?
This was taken a few days ago, damn!
Found it.
A Google Maps link to St. Misery's. Pain and Itachi exchanged glances.
It's a boarding school! She goes here!?
Man we should roll up LOL
"This is so fucked up," Pain whispered.
"So, I guess this user is your John from the train," Itachi said, clicking the profile of Cattlebrand56. "Wait…"
The page was blank, showing an error message.
"It's deleted," Itachi said, shrugging. He clicked back to the forum. Another error message.
Itachi started typing, text filling up his command window after he pressed enter. "I'll just try save some of this data, before… yup."
He hit reload. Error message: This page does not exist.
"It's gone? The whole thing?" Pain asked.
Itachi shrugged. "Might be crossposted. Might not be. But yeah, someone is trying to clean up this mess."
"Who?"
"Could be a moderator. Unlikely. Probably someone who's monitoring this side of the internet for stuff about her. Maybe the stuff about her school was too much. Someone doesn't want her to be so easily found."
Pain nodded slowly. "People working for her dad?"
"Could be. Not a bad thing, to take that down. It's not safe for her."
"Those guys… are so fucked up," Pain said through gritted teeth. "Fucking disgusting pieces of shit."
Itachi shrugged again. "I mean, yeah. It's not the craziest thing to see on here, though, honestly."
Pain couldn't say anything in reply. Whenever he closed his eyes he saw the photos of Konan as a child, smiling at the camera. The edited photos of her face on someone else's body. The comments excited for her to become legal.
"You want me to keep an eye out for this stuff?" Itachi asked eventually.
Pain took a deep breath. "Yeah, maybe, if you could. If it's just people being fucking creepy, then I guess… if you could let me know if anything feels significant, that would be great." He shook his head. "She… she told me once that she thinks her dad is so rich, he doesn't think of normal people as being real. He doesn't think in the same way as everyone else . But I think she's kind of… the same, sometimes."
"What do you mean?" Itachi asked, looking confused. "She seems fine to me."
"I just mean… She's so pissed off with him, rightly, because he doesn't understand her, and he pulls all sort of shit that hurts her, or puts her in fucking danger like today… I don't want to get into it, because it's her business, but…" Pain shook his head. "I think because he treats her how he does, she thinks he's wrong about everything. But it seems like he's not wrong about this kind of thing." He gestured to the laptop screen. "He's trying to protect her, I guess. He must know if you're in the public eye then fucking creeps are going to do shit like this. And she never thinks it's possible."
Itachi shrugged. "It's not something anyone would want to have to think about, I suppose. I'll keep some feelers out, just to check on stuff."
"Thanks, man."
Pain said good night and headed back out to the living room, where Konan was still asleep. He pulled his hoodie off and turned off the hall light, then slipped into bed next to her. He lay on his back, listening to her soft, slow breath. He reached his hand out slowly, just until his fingers pressed softly against her back. He focused on the feel of the shirt she wore, on her breathing, on the warmth of her body against his hand, trying to clear his mind. The only thing he knew with certainty about everything Itachi had shown him was that he would never, and could never tell Konan about any of it.