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Title: 1117
Author: Evandar
Fandom: Naruto
Rating: T - NC-17
Pairings: established Kakuzu/Hidan, future Kisame/Itachi and Sasori/Deidara
Genre: Humour
Warnings: AU, yaoi, swearing, details of the hospitality industry, and probably OOCness.
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto and I am making no profit from this story.
Summary: Backpacking through Cloud, Itachi runs out of money and runs out of luck. He ends up working for accommodation in a hostel, surrounded by crazy people and flagging hygiene standards. Good lord.
AN: This fic still amounts to therapy, and I know I've got two big bangs to worry about, but I'm writing? Also, Kou Nakagawa is the composer of the Geisha vs Ninja soundtrack.
It's finally happened. He's run out of pants. A thorough and increasingly panicked rummage through his backpack has revealed a distinct lack of clean underwear. His dirty clothes are all in a bag in the locker under his bunk bed - there's two; one for him and another for Kisame – and the bag's beginning to overflow. Just a little.
"How much is the laundry?" he asks the room in general. He can't quite hide the note of fear in his voice. His first night in the hostel and a few groceries have drastically cut into his remaining funds and as much as he tries not to think about The Money Situation, it's becoming a thing of nightmares.
"Four dollars for the wash," Kisame tells him, leaning over the side of his bed to peer at Itachi . Itachi blushes and tries to ignore him. He does not want to be studied while he's sitting on the floor, surrounded by his few possessions, wearing only a pair of boxers and the T-Shirt he sleeps in. "And two dollars for forty minutes in one of the fucking useless dryers."
Six dollars would feed him for a day.
The slowly shrinking part of him that is still used to the Uchiha standards of living howls in rage. The rest of him just shrinks in on himself, wishing that he really didn't have to worry about this. "Oh."
"You can always just do it in the laundry room later," Hidan speaks up. "It's the industrial machine, though, so your stuff'll shrink and smell of tea towels, but it's free."
"We can do that?" Itachi asks. The word 'free' gives him an unreasonable amount of pleasure.
"Sure, when 'Kuzu and I are working," he says. "We're unsupervised."
Having received a good measure of Hidan's personality over the past week or so, Itachi can't quite believe that someone would ever let Hidan roam around the hostel, with the master key, unsupervised. Kakuzu, maybe. He doesn't seem to have a sense of humour at all – or, at least, it's never shown itself in Itachi's presence. But Hidan is nothing short of batshit insane. That he has even a modicum of responsibility is potentially catastrophic.
He struggles to keep a straight face.
"We're not supposed to do it," Hidan continues – either not noticing or ignoring Itachi's struggle for decorum - "but what the fuck. Like we're going to spend money on the shitty public washing machines when we can do it for free."
"Didn't realise you cared that much, un," Deidara pipes up.
"I don't, but 'Kuzu's in love with the budget, seriously."
"What time do I bring it up?" Itachi asks, before the conversation can stray too much from its original topic. He wants free laundry. Smelling like tea towels is a far more acceptable price than six dollars.
His inner Uchiha is completely disbelieving of that fact, but it's not the one with a two-digit bank balance.
"Eleven's usually a good time," Hidan says. "We're usually on break by that point." He pauses, tilting his head to the side to consider it. "Most nights. It's before the kitchen cluster-fuck, anyway."
Itachi nods. He's not entirely sure what the nightshift entails beyond Hidan being rude to customers and the kitchen being cleaned, but he supposes they have to do other things to fill the eight hours. Nodding is his failsafe when he wants to ask potentially idiotic questions.
…
At eleven, he finds Hidan and Kakuzu in the laundry room, sitting on the workbench. Well, Kakuzu is sitting. Hidan is sprawled out with his head in Kakuzu's lap, apparently not caring that his forehead is being used as a desk – Kakuzu is doing a crossword. They're both dressed entirely in black – combats and tank tops stained orange-red in places, presumably thanks to bleach. It's comforting to think that it's used somewhere in the hostel – and they radiate the kind of calm usually seen in elderly couples.
Or graveyards.
"Supporting the destruction of the church, twenty eight letters," Kakuzu says. The only sign that he's even seen Itachi is a slight nod in his vague direction. Kakuzu is probably the most antisocial person Itachi's ever met. Ever. And he's an Uchiha.
"Antidisestablishmentarianism," Hidan replies.
Itachi double takes. Hidan is probably the last person in the world he would expect to know what that meant. There's just something about him – Itachi's not sure what – that makes him think that he wasn't all that well educated. Hidan somehow catches the look from underneath the pages of the puzzle book – one apparently sourced from hell, if it has clues like that – and waggles his fingers in greeting.
"Machine's empty, so load her up," he says. "Then shut and lock the door, press forty and the power button, and you're good to go. Takes half an hour."
"Mouth instrument, seven letters."
"Ocarina."
Itachi can't help it. The domesticity is just too surreal. He wonders how long they must have been together to achieve the affect. "Is this what you do all night?"
"No," Kakuzu says. "Just most of it." He doesn't even bother to look up.
"We do errands for reception, finish the laundry, check the bathrooms have enough paper towels and toilet roll, clean the kitchen, vacuum the main area and take out the bins. That's all we really have to do – it just depends on reception and how much laundry the dayshifts leave for how long it takes."
"Distinct, nine letters, third letter 's'."
"Disparate."
Itachi loads the machine and follows Hidan's instructions. Nothing explodes. Instead, water begins to fill the machine and the drum starts to turn. "Half an hour?" he asks.
"Yes."
Itachi can always trust Kakuzu for the shorted possible answer. But, he thinks, at least he hasn't devolved into grunts and cursing like Sasuke. Kakuzu, at least, still has a grasp of language. "Is it okay if I leave it and come back later?"
"Sure," Hidan replies. "Go grab some noodles with Kisame or something."
Itachi feels himself turn red at the insinuation. There was definitely an insinuation in there. There had to be. Even if he's not sure where.
"Or just grab Kisame."
There it is. Kakuzu snorts, and Itachi can just see the edges of an evil grin under the pages of the book.
"Maybe I will," he says, uttering quite possibly the lamest comeback in the history of forever. And damn his intellectual abilities for not stretching to social situations, anyway. The grin widens. "Oh fuck you," he grumbles.
Apparently he has devolved into Sasuke. Ugh.
Kakuzu, rather unexpectedly, decides to save him with a softly uttered "first canonical hour, six letters" which transforms whatever Hidan had been about to say – the sadistic, psychotic prick – into "matins" and gives Itachi time to flee the room with his dignity still partly intact.
…
Half an hour later, he's faced with the monumental task of actually finding them. The door to the laundry is shut and locked and can only be opened by the master key. Not that knowing that stopped Itachi from tugging on it hopelessly a few times on the off chance that the universe would take pity on him.
He turns to Kisame and shrugs. It's already been proven that it's not his night for the spoken word, and the last thing he wants is to make himself look like even more of an idiot. It's bad enough that he's been reduced to blushing like a schoolgirl every time Kisame so much as looks at him. He focuses on the ridge of Kisame's collar bone rather than his face and resists the urge to nibble on it. "So how do we find them?" he asks.
"Follow the sound of maniacal laughter," Kisame says. (Itachi feels slightly relieved that he's not the only one with that impression of Hidan.) "Probably." He checks his watch. "Or we could just head to the kitchen. They should be starting to close it in fifteen minutes."
The kitchen is a place that – if he had a choice – Itachi would be happy to avoid. It's a large room with a red formica floor. Stainless steel work surfaces take up half of it, and mismatched tables and chairs in varying states of disrepair take up the rest. It smells of burnt food and pungent tea towels. The stove-tops are littered with dirty, used pans and miscellaneous pieces of food – mostly pasta or dried noodles – and the two huge fridges are full to bursting with blue cooler bags.
There's an old stereo on a shelf between one of the fridges and the units – over a table holding a grill and two microwaves (one of them broken) – playing classical music just loud enough to be annoying. The room is empty. Apparently Kou Nakagawa is more than the average backpacker can stand. It strikes Itachi then that, since he knows the composer, he probably classifies as a bit weird for a backpacker.
Kisame gives a low whistle. He's peering into one of the sinks. It's piled high with dirty dishes, scummy, brownish water lapping at grease-encrusted pans. "I don't envy them this," he says.
"Sasori does."
It's Kakuzu. He looks utterly bored, but there's a faint spark of satisfaction in his eyes as he looks around the empty room. He could, Itachi thinks, almost be handsome if he didn't have such an aura of 'complete and utter evil bastard' around him.
"Busy night?" Kisame asks.
Kakuzu shrugs. "Someone was smoking weed on the sixth floor," he says. "Hidan's in the laundry."
Itachi takes that as a hint and makes for the door.
…
The laundry door is open and welcoming, and Hidan is piling tea towels and cleaning rags into a basket apprehended from the local supermarket. The master key hangs on a yellow strap around his neck, bouncing off his sternum as he moves. There's a bleach stain shaped suspiciously like a handprint on his ass.
"Can I use the dryer?" Itachi asks, and tries desperately not to smirk when Hidan jumps. Revenge is sweet.
"Eh, sure." Hidan replies. He waves a hand in the dryer's direction.
There's an awkward silence. Itachi searches for a topic that won't lead to uncomfortable comments on his attraction to Kisame. Again. The last thing he wants is for Kisame to catch on, and he will if Hidan keeps rubbing it in his face. "Weed on the sixth floor?" he asks.
Hidan grunts. "We green-sprayed the shit out of it." He glances over at Itachi and grins. "Have you read the warnings on that stuff? You're not supposed to inhale it. I mean, it's fucking air freshener."
"Air freshener?"
He knows it's a stupid question. The only thing that stuff seems to do is to smell mildly more pleasant than BO and unwashed socks, but in a completely indescribable way. Ordinarily he would have immediately realised it was air freshener, except for the fact that…
"We clean floors with air freshener?"
"Yep."
Itachi swears then and there never to go into the bathroom with bare feet ever again. Hidan pats him consolingly on the shoulder. "Cheer up. You haven't got cholera yet."
There's something in his tone of voice that implies it's only a matter of time.
"Thanks for that."
The dryer seems to work on fuzzy logic and a few strategically placed kicks, but soon enough it's spinning his clothes around at a temperature practically guaranteed to make them shrink a size. There's a faint orange glow escaping from cracks in the plastic casing. He tries not to think about it. Free laundry is a good thing, no matter how dangerous the machinery makes it look.
…
Hidan heads straight to the radio on his return to the kitchen, ditching his basket on top of the bins, next to a stack of pizza boxes. He fiddles with buttons and knobs for a moment, and then the kitchen is filled with the sound of rock music – someone growling along to a guitar in what sounds like Lightning dialect. Somehow, it doesn't surprise him that Hidan likes that sort of thing.
Kakuzu is up to his elbows in hot, soapy water, making a start on the mammoth task of washing the dishes. There's another half an hour until Itachi can grab his things, and he feels slightly awkward watching them clean – Hidan has moved onto clearing tables of leaflets, tea towels, dishes and leftover remains of food. He never really used to mind at home. He was too used to drinking his morning tea while his mother wiped down benches and packed lunches, watching her as she happily prepared food for her family.
Now it just feels wrong, and homesickness twists inside his ribcage. He realises that he can barely remember what she looks like.
"Want some help?" he asks. Kisame looks at him like he's insane. Itachi ignores him.
"No."
"It's cool. You don't have to." There's a pause and a look from across the room, and Itachi silently damns himself for constantly underestimating Hidan's intelligence. "But if you really want to then you can fill a pan with soapy water, grab a scourer and a rag and bring 'em over here."
Itachi obeys mechanically.
"Thanks," he says, placing the pot on the table next to Hidan.
"I wash; you dry," is the only response other than a look that's far more perceptive than it should be.
…
"How did you and Kakuzu get together?" he asks, folding his now dry and snugly warm laundry and placing it neatly back into the bag he'd brought it up in.
Hidan, who's tossing tea towels into the washing machine, doesn't look at him. "Met at university. Exchange trip."
Itachi practically bites his tongue off trying to stop himself from asking 'you went to university?' and looking like a dick. He really has to stop making assumptions about people based on his dubious estimations of their sanity. "What did you study?" he asks instead.
"'Kuzu did accounting," Hidan says. "I did divinity."
Itachi makes some sort of inarticulate noise low in his throat. He tries to stop it, and ends up sounding like he's choking on a mouse.
Hidan looks at him over his shoulder and grins. "I get that a lot," he says. "Apparently 'ordained priest' isn't exactly the impression I give people."
Itachi's face – quite against his will – twists into an expression of absolute disbelief.
"My point exactly," Hidan says with a nod, and turns back to his rags. The pause in conversation gives Itachi a moment to get his face back under control and his thoughts in some semblance of order.
Hidan, despite looking and acting like a hedonistic pretty-boy with no self-control and fewer scruples, is a priest.
What religion is this? and Was it started on the internet? are the two main questions running through his mind. The first one is harmless enough to ask.
"Jashinism."
AKA 'a death cult most commonly known for ritual self-sacrifice' according to one of Itachi's high school text books. Hidan looks awfully alive for one of its practitioners.
"So anyway, he came to Yuugakure on an exchange programme and I got to bug the shit out of him until he tried to kill me. We've been together ever since. It's been about three, four years now."
"You count murder attempts as romantic?" Itachi asks. He can't quite believe that he's become so detached from the real world that he's even having this conversation. But then, the real world had never quite been this darkly fascinating.
Hidan snorts. "Since he gave up and started making out with me half way through? Sure. Why the fuck not? At least we started out with a reasonable estimation of each others' personalities. 'Kuzu's a possessive, selfish bastard with a bad temper and a money fetish, and I'm a masochist with the self-preservation skills of a lemming on a motorway."
Itachi stares. "Oh," he says faintly. "Good to know." He places his last T-Shirt into his bag just as Hidan shuts the washing machine door.
Hidan offers him a grin that, under the circumstances, isn't in the slightest bit reassuring. "Look at it this way, if you start off knowing the absolute worst about someone, you can only ever be pleasantly surprised by them."
Author: Evandar
Fandom: Naruto
Rating: T - NC-17
Pairings: established Kakuzu/Hidan, future Kisame/Itachi and Sasori/Deidara
Genre: Humour
Warnings: AU, yaoi, swearing, details of the hospitality industry, and probably OOCness.
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto and I am making no profit from this story.
Summary: Backpacking through Cloud, Itachi runs out of money and runs out of luck. He ends up working for accommodation in a hostel, surrounded by crazy people and flagging hygiene standards. Good lord.
AN: This fic still amounts to therapy, and I know I've got two big bangs to worry about, but I'm writing? Also, Kou Nakagawa is the composer of the Geisha vs Ninja soundtrack.
It's finally happened. He's run out of pants. A thorough and increasingly panicked rummage through his backpack has revealed a distinct lack of clean underwear. His dirty clothes are all in a bag in the locker under his bunk bed - there's two; one for him and another for Kisame – and the bag's beginning to overflow. Just a little.
"How much is the laundry?" he asks the room in general. He can't quite hide the note of fear in his voice. His first night in the hostel and a few groceries have drastically cut into his remaining funds and as much as he tries not to think about The Money Situation, it's becoming a thing of nightmares.
"Four dollars for the wash," Kisame tells him, leaning over the side of his bed to peer at Itachi . Itachi blushes and tries to ignore him. He does not want to be studied while he's sitting on the floor, surrounded by his few possessions, wearing only a pair of boxers and the T-Shirt he sleeps in. "And two dollars for forty minutes in one of the fucking useless dryers."
Six dollars would feed him for a day.
The slowly shrinking part of him that is still used to the Uchiha standards of living howls in rage. The rest of him just shrinks in on himself, wishing that he really didn't have to worry about this. "Oh."
"You can always just do it in the laundry room later," Hidan speaks up. "It's the industrial machine, though, so your stuff'll shrink and smell of tea towels, but it's free."
"We can do that?" Itachi asks. The word 'free' gives him an unreasonable amount of pleasure.
"Sure, when 'Kuzu and I are working," he says. "We're unsupervised."
Having received a good measure of Hidan's personality over the past week or so, Itachi can't quite believe that someone would ever let Hidan roam around the hostel, with the master key, unsupervised. Kakuzu, maybe. He doesn't seem to have a sense of humour at all – or, at least, it's never shown itself in Itachi's presence. But Hidan is nothing short of batshit insane. That he has even a modicum of responsibility is potentially catastrophic.
He struggles to keep a straight face.
"We're not supposed to do it," Hidan continues – either not noticing or ignoring Itachi's struggle for decorum - "but what the fuck. Like we're going to spend money on the shitty public washing machines when we can do it for free."
"Didn't realise you cared that much, un," Deidara pipes up.
"I don't, but 'Kuzu's in love with the budget, seriously."
"What time do I bring it up?" Itachi asks, before the conversation can stray too much from its original topic. He wants free laundry. Smelling like tea towels is a far more acceptable price than six dollars.
His inner Uchiha is completely disbelieving of that fact, but it's not the one with a two-digit bank balance.
"Eleven's usually a good time," Hidan says. "We're usually on break by that point." He pauses, tilting his head to the side to consider it. "Most nights. It's before the kitchen cluster-fuck, anyway."
Itachi nods. He's not entirely sure what the nightshift entails beyond Hidan being rude to customers and the kitchen being cleaned, but he supposes they have to do other things to fill the eight hours. Nodding is his failsafe when he wants to ask potentially idiotic questions.
…
At eleven, he finds Hidan and Kakuzu in the laundry room, sitting on the workbench. Well, Kakuzu is sitting. Hidan is sprawled out with his head in Kakuzu's lap, apparently not caring that his forehead is being used as a desk – Kakuzu is doing a crossword. They're both dressed entirely in black – combats and tank tops stained orange-red in places, presumably thanks to bleach. It's comforting to think that it's used somewhere in the hostel – and they radiate the kind of calm usually seen in elderly couples.
Or graveyards.
"Supporting the destruction of the church, twenty eight letters," Kakuzu says. The only sign that he's even seen Itachi is a slight nod in his vague direction. Kakuzu is probably the most antisocial person Itachi's ever met. Ever. And he's an Uchiha.
"Antidisestablishmentarianism," Hidan replies.
Itachi double takes. Hidan is probably the last person in the world he would expect to know what that meant. There's just something about him – Itachi's not sure what – that makes him think that he wasn't all that well educated. Hidan somehow catches the look from underneath the pages of the puzzle book – one apparently sourced from hell, if it has clues like that – and waggles his fingers in greeting.
"Machine's empty, so load her up," he says. "Then shut and lock the door, press forty and the power button, and you're good to go. Takes half an hour."
"Mouth instrument, seven letters."
"Ocarina."
Itachi can't help it. The domesticity is just too surreal. He wonders how long they must have been together to achieve the affect. "Is this what you do all night?"
"No," Kakuzu says. "Just most of it." He doesn't even bother to look up.
"We do errands for reception, finish the laundry, check the bathrooms have enough paper towels and toilet roll, clean the kitchen, vacuum the main area and take out the bins. That's all we really have to do – it just depends on reception and how much laundry the dayshifts leave for how long it takes."
"Distinct, nine letters, third letter 's'."
"Disparate."
Itachi loads the machine and follows Hidan's instructions. Nothing explodes. Instead, water begins to fill the machine and the drum starts to turn. "Half an hour?" he asks.
"Yes."
Itachi can always trust Kakuzu for the shorted possible answer. But, he thinks, at least he hasn't devolved into grunts and cursing like Sasuke. Kakuzu, at least, still has a grasp of language. "Is it okay if I leave it and come back later?"
"Sure," Hidan replies. "Go grab some noodles with Kisame or something."
Itachi feels himself turn red at the insinuation. There was definitely an insinuation in there. There had to be. Even if he's not sure where.
"Or just grab Kisame."
There it is. Kakuzu snorts, and Itachi can just see the edges of an evil grin under the pages of the book.
"Maybe I will," he says, uttering quite possibly the lamest comeback in the history of forever. And damn his intellectual abilities for not stretching to social situations, anyway. The grin widens. "Oh fuck you," he grumbles.
Apparently he has devolved into Sasuke. Ugh.
Kakuzu, rather unexpectedly, decides to save him with a softly uttered "first canonical hour, six letters" which transforms whatever Hidan had been about to say – the sadistic, psychotic prick – into "matins" and gives Itachi time to flee the room with his dignity still partly intact.
…
Half an hour later, he's faced with the monumental task of actually finding them. The door to the laundry is shut and locked and can only be opened by the master key. Not that knowing that stopped Itachi from tugging on it hopelessly a few times on the off chance that the universe would take pity on him.
He turns to Kisame and shrugs. It's already been proven that it's not his night for the spoken word, and the last thing he wants is to make himself look like even more of an idiot. It's bad enough that he's been reduced to blushing like a schoolgirl every time Kisame so much as looks at him. He focuses on the ridge of Kisame's collar bone rather than his face and resists the urge to nibble on it. "So how do we find them?" he asks.
"Follow the sound of maniacal laughter," Kisame says. (Itachi feels slightly relieved that he's not the only one with that impression of Hidan.) "Probably." He checks his watch. "Or we could just head to the kitchen. They should be starting to close it in fifteen minutes."
The kitchen is a place that – if he had a choice – Itachi would be happy to avoid. It's a large room with a red formica floor. Stainless steel work surfaces take up half of it, and mismatched tables and chairs in varying states of disrepair take up the rest. It smells of burnt food and pungent tea towels. The stove-tops are littered with dirty, used pans and miscellaneous pieces of food – mostly pasta or dried noodles – and the two huge fridges are full to bursting with blue cooler bags.
There's an old stereo on a shelf between one of the fridges and the units – over a table holding a grill and two microwaves (one of them broken) – playing classical music just loud enough to be annoying. The room is empty. Apparently Kou Nakagawa is more than the average backpacker can stand. It strikes Itachi then that, since he knows the composer, he probably classifies as a bit weird for a backpacker.
Kisame gives a low whistle. He's peering into one of the sinks. It's piled high with dirty dishes, scummy, brownish water lapping at grease-encrusted pans. "I don't envy them this," he says.
"Sasori does."
It's Kakuzu. He looks utterly bored, but there's a faint spark of satisfaction in his eyes as he looks around the empty room. He could, Itachi thinks, almost be handsome if he didn't have such an aura of 'complete and utter evil bastard' around him.
"Busy night?" Kisame asks.
Kakuzu shrugs. "Someone was smoking weed on the sixth floor," he says. "Hidan's in the laundry."
Itachi takes that as a hint and makes for the door.
…
The laundry door is open and welcoming, and Hidan is piling tea towels and cleaning rags into a basket apprehended from the local supermarket. The master key hangs on a yellow strap around his neck, bouncing off his sternum as he moves. There's a bleach stain shaped suspiciously like a handprint on his ass.
"Can I use the dryer?" Itachi asks, and tries desperately not to smirk when Hidan jumps. Revenge is sweet.
"Eh, sure." Hidan replies. He waves a hand in the dryer's direction.
There's an awkward silence. Itachi searches for a topic that won't lead to uncomfortable comments on his attraction to Kisame. Again. The last thing he wants is for Kisame to catch on, and he will if Hidan keeps rubbing it in his face. "Weed on the sixth floor?" he asks.
Hidan grunts. "We green-sprayed the shit out of it." He glances over at Itachi and grins. "Have you read the warnings on that stuff? You're not supposed to inhale it. I mean, it's fucking air freshener."
"Air freshener?"
He knows it's a stupid question. The only thing that stuff seems to do is to smell mildly more pleasant than BO and unwashed socks, but in a completely indescribable way. Ordinarily he would have immediately realised it was air freshener, except for the fact that…
"We clean floors with air freshener?"
"Yep."
Itachi swears then and there never to go into the bathroom with bare feet ever again. Hidan pats him consolingly on the shoulder. "Cheer up. You haven't got cholera yet."
There's something in his tone of voice that implies it's only a matter of time.
"Thanks for that."
The dryer seems to work on fuzzy logic and a few strategically placed kicks, but soon enough it's spinning his clothes around at a temperature practically guaranteed to make them shrink a size. There's a faint orange glow escaping from cracks in the plastic casing. He tries not to think about it. Free laundry is a good thing, no matter how dangerous the machinery makes it look.
…
Hidan heads straight to the radio on his return to the kitchen, ditching his basket on top of the bins, next to a stack of pizza boxes. He fiddles with buttons and knobs for a moment, and then the kitchen is filled with the sound of rock music – someone growling along to a guitar in what sounds like Lightning dialect. Somehow, it doesn't surprise him that Hidan likes that sort of thing.
Kakuzu is up to his elbows in hot, soapy water, making a start on the mammoth task of washing the dishes. There's another half an hour until Itachi can grab his things, and he feels slightly awkward watching them clean – Hidan has moved onto clearing tables of leaflets, tea towels, dishes and leftover remains of food. He never really used to mind at home. He was too used to drinking his morning tea while his mother wiped down benches and packed lunches, watching her as she happily prepared food for her family.
Now it just feels wrong, and homesickness twists inside his ribcage. He realises that he can barely remember what she looks like.
"Want some help?" he asks. Kisame looks at him like he's insane. Itachi ignores him.
"No."
"It's cool. You don't have to." There's a pause and a look from across the room, and Itachi silently damns himself for constantly underestimating Hidan's intelligence. "But if you really want to then you can fill a pan with soapy water, grab a scourer and a rag and bring 'em over here."
Itachi obeys mechanically.
"Thanks," he says, placing the pot on the table next to Hidan.
"I wash; you dry," is the only response other than a look that's far more perceptive than it should be.
…
"How did you and Kakuzu get together?" he asks, folding his now dry and snugly warm laundry and placing it neatly back into the bag he'd brought it up in.
Hidan, who's tossing tea towels into the washing machine, doesn't look at him. "Met at university. Exchange trip."
Itachi practically bites his tongue off trying to stop himself from asking 'you went to university?' and looking like a dick. He really has to stop making assumptions about people based on his dubious estimations of their sanity. "What did you study?" he asks instead.
"'Kuzu did accounting," Hidan says. "I did divinity."
Itachi makes some sort of inarticulate noise low in his throat. He tries to stop it, and ends up sounding like he's choking on a mouse.
Hidan looks at him over his shoulder and grins. "I get that a lot," he says. "Apparently 'ordained priest' isn't exactly the impression I give people."
Itachi's face – quite against his will – twists into an expression of absolute disbelief.
"My point exactly," Hidan says with a nod, and turns back to his rags. The pause in conversation gives Itachi a moment to get his face back under control and his thoughts in some semblance of order.
Hidan, despite looking and acting like a hedonistic pretty-boy with no self-control and fewer scruples, is a priest.
What religion is this? and Was it started on the internet? are the two main questions running through his mind. The first one is harmless enough to ask.
"Jashinism."
AKA 'a death cult most commonly known for ritual self-sacrifice' according to one of Itachi's high school text books. Hidan looks awfully alive for one of its practitioners.
"So anyway, he came to Yuugakure on an exchange programme and I got to bug the shit out of him until he tried to kill me. We've been together ever since. It's been about three, four years now."
"You count murder attempts as romantic?" Itachi asks. He can't quite believe that he's become so detached from the real world that he's even having this conversation. But then, the real world had never quite been this darkly fascinating.
Hidan snorts. "Since he gave up and started making out with me half way through? Sure. Why the fuck not? At least we started out with a reasonable estimation of each others' personalities. 'Kuzu's a possessive, selfish bastard with a bad temper and a money fetish, and I'm a masochist with the self-preservation skills of a lemming on a motorway."
Itachi stares. "Oh," he says faintly. "Good to know." He places his last T-Shirt into his bag just as Hidan shuts the washing machine door.
Hidan offers him a grin that, under the circumstances, isn't in the slightest bit reassuring. "Look at it this way, if you start off knowing the absolute worst about someone, you can only ever be pleasantly surprised by them."
