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immoralimmortals · 3 months

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A Song With Ten Names

Chapter 18: Lemon Boy (2)

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Summary of chapter: You change people. People change you. Kakuzu learns that this is inevitable, but he doesn't know yet how to feel about that.

Author's Note:The song for this chapter is again Lemon Boy by Cavetown. Alternative opening: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia theme plays and title card reads "Kakuzu and the Performer Become Fucking Communists Overnight".

CONTENT WARNING: More of the general warnings I have for the fic. Mentions of suicide, suicidality, and low self worth.

“Read this one to me.”

How lax things have become since the conversation started with her needing to hold her instrument simply to feel prepared to speak, to perform her words to be understood. Chin propped onto her palms and elbows propped onto the couch cushion, looking up at Kakuzu, her finger gestures to the book he had set aside upon her entrance, the one that provided him unfortunate but important memories.

“...Sure,” he answers, picking it up and flipping open again, but he has misgivings. “Don’t think you’ll like it, though.” The woman purses her lips, big eyes pouting up at the man.

“Why not?”

“It isn’t happy enough for you,” he answers bluntly, as he always does.

“That’s okay.”

Oh, so we’re going this route. The book flops onto his lap as wrists go limp, his gaze on her pointedly. She is undeterred, seemingly to the point of denial. “It’s nonfiction,” he tries to clarify. But she just lights up.

“I love nonfiction!”

“…” His eyes narrow down at the lady who has positioned herself much like a child would near his lap, waiting for a bedtime story. “...Are you saying words just to hear them?” But she shakes her head, eager as ever, especially just after being emboldened to be so goofy— a fatal mistake on Kakuzu’s part.

“Nonfiction is easier for me than fiction,” the stranger explains, and the quickness of the answer leads him to believe she’s said this aloud before. “With nonfiction, you get to be more detached, you get to learn. It’s silly—” As she always is. “—But stories are...hard for me. I get emotional really fast.” And then, softer: “I like knowing how stories end before I begin. I get to feel prepared.”

Oh? That’s not something Kakuzu’s ever heard before, not once in all his years. Usually fairy tales and the like are used to escape harsh feelings. That’s why he never liked them; hard emotions made him stronger. As he mulls this difference over, the girl continues, her tone bashful:

“And...I kinda...need to learn about you guys. About where I am.” Ah, here we go again. Kakuzu is as neutral as possible on whether or not the nonsense she spouts about another world is literally true; it is clear as day, regardless, she has a lot to pick up about the world she is currently in. Sheltered or spiraling from another dimension, it does not matter. She has to be educated...so she’s got him there. He sighs the way he so often does, not a vocalization but a release of a breath to prepare the next one.

“...I suppose so.”

Pages flutter like wings as he aims to skip the so-embarrassingly slanted narrative about the Hokage that ruined his life. Green irises blink at something they spot. Oh, that’s appropriate. She can at least become a better liar if the time comes to protect herself. He tries his best to ignore the way her plump cheeks squish in her palms, though he can’t manage to turn his head far enough to push it out of the corner of his eye. He reads:

In contrast, the Land of Bears homes the ancient Hoshigakure. The oral tradition states that the village was formed following a meteorite striking the earth after falling from the heavens. It produced such a spectacle and affect upon nearby societies that the staggered groups gathered to worship the “star.”

For such a gruff voice...it makes a wonderful narration. Kakuzu’s words are easy to follow, neither too dull nor too enthusiastic. Her gaze softens as she drinks his sound and knowledge in. He’d make a lovely audiobook actor, the way the gravel so gently tumbles in his throat. Kakuzu ASMR...the performer ponders, half-closing her eyes and seeing if she gets the well-known “tingles” sitting so close to the source of such pleasant, low sound.

A merged society formed as travelers mingled and exchanged culture, eventually large enough to dub themselves “Hoshigakure”: the Village Hidden in the Stars. Although unrecognized by the Five Great Shinobi Countries despite the insistence of the Hoshikage, it is nevertheless a successful economy, largely self-sustained but still receiving notable tourism for its clear view of the night sky.

She’s quiet now, a dreamy but troubled look upon her face as she no longer sees Kakuzu but through him, watching her own thoughts wash over his shape in a haze. Distinctly, her smile is gone. Perhaps she was hoping for something a bit more grand for her crazy backstory, Kakuzu notes, but he’s off the mark.

The performer doesn’t end up singing for him like she planned on, walking in with her guitar. She’s got other things on her heart now. Other things she needs to figure out first in rehearsal.

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

But soon his bittersweet started to rub off on me

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Knock knock.

It isn’t like Kakuzu to receive visitors after bedtime, but today’s a special kind of day. It somehow even surprises him that it’s the woman he named is the one at the door tonight. He sees her face first and his eyes crawl down the length of her nightgown second, them alone moving and nothing else as his bare arm holds the door open by its thinnest side. The gaze finally comes back up to where is appropriate to look at a lady, and he finds his tongue. “Can I help you,” he says more than asks.

“I…” she stammers for a different reason this time than the hours before. Kakuzu follows her stare past the shape of his glossy hair, draping like a curtain down as he tilts his head forward, and then it hits him. Oh. That’s right. He decides at least one of them should dress appropriately.

THUMP.

The door closes in her face, leaving her stunned. “I...oh…” she deflates. The dreamer considers if it’s better to walk away or try again, as if another knock will fix everything, and the decision hangs until in as quick as a flash the door reveals a different man, mask thrown on and the Akatsuki garb buttoned shut, lest she ogle at his stitches any longer.

Unlike some hours before, this time she does need a good prodding. “Speak up,” he commands.

What had she seen…? It was so fast that she begins to doubt if her eyes are starting to play make believe. He looked so…so...—

...Nerves and rudeness are swallowed, aware she’s leaving him in wait. “Can I talk to you about something?” But Kakuzu’s eyes narrow. They’re talking now. Get to the point. A couple seconds pass before she elaborates: “...Outside?”

…

A strange request is answered with yet another sigh, the man exhaling as the gift he did not ask for so bizarrely requires they be under the night stars. Shame on him for signing up for this, for feeding stray cats and not expecting them back for more.

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

You'd think smelling like lemon zest would be pretty neat

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

The grass seems even taller and wilder after hours cooling in the midnight. The thinnest sliver of a waxing moon gleams down the edges of leaves and budding dew that waits to be seen in the morning. The insects sing, chirps and cheeps and chirrups becoming a symphony that if you listen too closely, the vastness in their unified melody will begin to overwhelm, begin to make you realize the world is so much bigger than just you, than just one little cricket. Many people and many crickets there are...and another thing

Another thing, which is what she can’t let go of.

She looks ghostly in her long sleeve nightdress, pale and frilled under weak light. The barest hint of yellow gleams from the gangly weeds, a gold complimenting her silver. “I’ve never seen this before,” she whispers as if it’s a transgression. As Kakuzu finishes trailing behind, he looks at her back; she won’t turn to see him, to evaluate a response as she so often seeks.

“What…?” He tiredly turns his head for something to blame, him being woken up this late. Something rattles in the grass. A bug, he quickly identifies with a sharp eye. But she doesn’t look at it.

“...Hn,” he mumbles to himself. A shape swirls over a small boulder. A snake?

But she doesn’t show him that, either. No, not a creature low to the earth just as she may be. She points.

...She points up at the sky.

He tilts his chin up to follow. It’s a quiet night, clear as clear can be with not a cloud to hide the heavens. His brow knits under his slashed headband. Perhaps a bird? No, not that either. The answer is hidden in plain sight. Her hand falls as the thing hypnotizes her, leaves her mystified till numb.

“Stars.”

The word is tinged— deeply, deeply sad. She had heard about it— had accepted it— and yet you cannot miss what you don’t truly know. Even when she visited family in the farmlands, the nearby cities still lit up the horizon, still tainted the view of the firmament that was once the birthright of every living creature. The stranger never realized how far the light clouded, how much vision it took away. She did not know until now that this, as it is tonight, is how the sky is supposed to be. She’d seen it before, even in this world, yeah...but not as clear as now. They aren’t mere dots, mistakable for satellites. They swirl with color and shades across the rainbow, a prism of everything holy, a glisten made for the dressings of God. They twine such shapes and depth that now, suddenly, she understands what constellations really are.

How they’re more than just imaginary lines on black space.

A man raised by suffering and time steps forward to her side, tilting his head down to watch the reflection in her eyes, the galaxies and planets that yearn to find home within her soul. The stranger’s pupils are so wide like maybe if they’re big enough, the night can slide right in and fill her till she’s stars inside and out. She’d like nothing more. Kakuzu’s shoulders rise and fall with a sympathy-laden breath he wishes to lessen the load of.

“You’re not going to get far if you can’t pretend you haven’t seen them all your life.”

An abrupt awakening, but it isn’t as rude as her ears first mistook. By the time she looks back to him, he’s averted his gaze, studying the lights themselves. He gestures up too, briefly to redirect those big watchful eyes off himself, and he lets his arm swing back down. “Hoshi is the village of the stars. You remember, don’t you, girl? You’ve seen them all your life. You know them.”

…

The humor in his voice is rare but not so foreign to the performer’s ears that she can’t, eventually, follow.

“...Are you offering to teach me how to lie to people?” The mask doesn’t hide how the underneath of his eyes crinkle, the fact that he’s smiling.

“Not at all...Just filling in the gaps of your piss poor memory.” Almost quick enough to make her flinch, his hand rises again, but the direction it picks is right over her head. “Look,” he instructs. “Tell me what that is.”

She does a double take between him and the spot of space his fingertip tries to touch. Confused eyes blink.

“...A...star?”

“Wrong.” Well, kind of right but for their purposes wrong. “Leo.” His firm stretch aims a little lower. “This,” he demands. The traveler guesses his pattern:

“...Virgo?”

“Gemini.” The target returns to the first point of interest. “This.”

“...Leo.”

“Here.”

“Gemini.”

“Good.”

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

I found out that my friends are more of the savory type

And they weren't too keen on compromising with a nice lemon pie

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

“I don’t want to sleep.”

It’s late enough now that if the dreamer begins, it’ll be noon when she wakes up. Kakuzu is used to a night watch, but she, of course, is not. “You’ll be insufferable if you don’t.” She frowns; her feelings are hurt. He blinks in lieu of rolling his eyes. “Am I wrong?” Beside herself, the answer is obvious; she puts her hands behind her back and rolls the tip of her right foot on the floor.

“...No.”

“Then go.”

He’s trying to dismiss her as she stands in front of his bedroom door once again after escorting him back from their astronomy lesson, but she’s stuck like glue. Why is she being so stubborn? What else is there to say? Isn’t the making up over?!

“Please...—”

It’s already so much, so improper of him to be swept away while she’s hardly dressed, a thin smock covering her skin as they escaped under the stars together, when no one else can see. What more could she want? She’ll have to explain herself.

...

...But she’s having trouble. She can’t speak it in time, beholding in her mind alone the bizarre lines behind his masked mouth that speak her rejection.

“Goodnight.”

The door closes in her face for the final time on a day she was hoping wouldn’t end. There’s only so much an old soul like him can handle before the sun is up.

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

So Lemon Boy and me, we just gotta get along together

I helped him plant his seeds

And we'll mow the lawn in bad weather

It's actually pretty easy being nice to a bitter boy like him

So, I got myself a citrus friend

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

There she is, standing at the entry of the old little library again with a guitar around her neck, this next morning, just as she did yesterday. There’s no fear on her face, though. The dress rehearsal has been done, and the script is tattooed on her heart... She’s ready this time.

Much to his chagrin.

“I want to give you something.”

Moss green on light red sclera look back. What’s behind that cloth on his face, she wonders? The blurry memory scratches her brain as she stares where his mouth should be. Lines...lines...lines of what? Meantime, he lets his silence do the talking: do continue, despite any potential annoyance you may be to him. So she must.

“I want to give you a song.”

The bounty hunter is helpless but to evaluate her; clearly, despite the opportunity, she didn’t sleep a lick. The underneath of her eyes are dark and there’s a shake in her hands as fingertips rest over the strings. Foolish as always. It’s enamoring, unfortunately. All the more reason to close it off.

“It isn’t necessary. I don’t want it.” Harsh words, but she swallows them down:

“It’s more for me.”

…

As if to make a habit of it, the woman has now forced Kakuzu to set his book down to give her a look. “Why do it here, then?” he questions, “I know how you sing.” Those damn eyes won’t stop watching him. What? What? What could she get out of this?

“I...want to,” she murmurs.

She’ll need a better reason than that.

“No,” he says, picking the aged tome back up so as to end this conversation; he speaks not unkindly but neither is he kind. Their make up doesn’t need to be made a big deal out of. His knowledge of the stars has no such whimsical price, not like one of the fairy tales he heard all these years of walking the earth.

He should know, then, that magical women in those stories do not take no for an answer. Not unsoundly.

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

But what if I run out of fertilizer?

What if the clouds run out of rain?

What if Lemon Boy won't grow no longer?

What if beaches dry of sugar cane?

Oh well

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Knock, knock.

...You’ve got to be joking.

The bounty hunter pinches the bridge of his nose as for the second night in a row he is asked for at an ungodly hour, though having sense to learn from mistakes and put on his cloak before opening the bedroom door to the woman he named. “What the hell is—” Once his rubbing stops, so do his words. Lifting eyes see her, fully dressed not only in her pastel sundress and sweater but her hat, shoes, sunglasses, and letter-shaped bag. Blue and white and pink, this is a lot to take in at 12AM. His cheeks pinch upward, lifting the bottom eyelids into a more scrutinizing stare. The sight makes him forget he hasn’t yet hidden his face, the shape of it memorizing in her brain like an afterimage when you look at the sun too long. Lips part, held open for a couple seconds before forming a single syllable she gets to ogle at: “...What.”

“Please come outside with me,” the performer insists, voice quiet as to not alert anyone else asleep behind walls but urgent nonetheless.

“Takara—”

“Please.” Despite it being a word common in her defensive politeness, this is also way the woman makes her demands. Kakuzu isn’t so naive to not know this. To ignore this means to have it happen again, night after night, until he gives in.

“Fine.” The ridiculous girl will be humored despite the grumbles from his unmasked mouth. She sees it now, every minute twitch and leer and frown. She’s gotten so used to reading just the upper half of his face that abruptly it’s like he’s emoting twice as much as before. He’s almost a whole new person.

But she has gotten what she asked for, and a hungry gaze will tear away in order to carry on as planned.

They weave through the corridors, go outside, step onto the porch. The air is brisk, like the stars are ice cubes dropped into the galaxy and poured around them.

“...Another lesson,” Kakuzu presumes, tilting his chin at the sky once more. He has no idea how correct he is.

One of his five hearts stops beating as she takes his hand and runs.

It’s an easy pace to keep up with, of course, as she is no ninja nor even a runner, but the adrenaline is contagious. He finds himself unwilling to argue— perhaps even too stunned to— as they traverse the length of the small plain in front of the adopted home and slip into the forest. They’re mere specks, their shadows simply blades of grass taller than the others, moving underneath the vastness of velvety night. No explanation from her lips come, no matter how urgent this seems. Once they hit the line of trees and out of sight of the house, he has to ask:

“Where are you going?”

“You’ll see!” is all he gets, breathy and giddy. “You’ll see!”

Kakuzu second guesses himself, as he has come to do each time he is in her presence. So much younger than he, but he trusts her. So much more ignorant than he, but he believes her. So much different than he...but…

But as she takes him somewhere he finally needn’t worry about others judging, he understands her. He understands all too well.

“This.” The traveler puts it simply as she catches her breath, and indeed such magnificence needs no further introduction. Her hands guide one of his as they walk through the final layer of brush to a short cliff-side. The world is so vast, an expanse of woods shaded in different indigos and purples underneath the blanket of an unpolluted night sky, rolling until you can no longer see leaves, then branches, then individual trees. It’s a depth of detail so beyond the human eye that it makes you understand what the impressionist movement of art was about, trying to capture the things photos cannot. Underneath it all is the clearest view of the heavens, even more so than at her new home where she’s learned the horoscope.

Underneath it all, the stars are twice as many. A pool reflects them all back up, nearly as bright. Thrice as many, shining in her eyes.

“This is what I was talking about last night,” she reveals, sweet as nectar from her mouth. That’s all a wary Kakuzu needs to piece it together: She snuck out, ran home, and he was the first she told of what she found. A dangerous adventure. It deserves a scolding.

“...You’re not coming out here again without me.”

A now familiar tone, even if rare, even if he frowns. His teasing is oh so welcome, and she wouldn’t want anything more. The smile she provides in turn is as mischievous in kind. A couple giggles slipping past containment precede her punchline. “...Can I give you my song now?”

Ribbit.

One of the frogs wading among cattails in the water below has already started, long before the next main act arrived. It’s a sound that vibrates deep in one’s chest, the little croaks. Kakuzu’s eyes hood, and gradually, one corner of his lips rise in a smirk. It makes her heart flip, having such a look to match the voice. He’s so much...younger than she expected, at least younger looking. He speaks like he’s traveled the universe, end to end, seen everything there is to see.

“...What a trick to pull. It’s impressive.” The performer takes the opportunity to wink. Gotta know something in her brain full of cotton and glitter. She sits down at the edge of the cliff, legs over the side, and pulls her guitar off her back.

“But,” Kakuzu adds.

Her smile is gone.

“I still don’t want it.”

Ribbit.

They’re taking turns now, him once silly and her now serious. The scent of lake water fills her nose and wafts down the throat, puts an aftertaste in her mouth. “Can I ask why?”

“…”

Silence is the reply. He doesn’t want to enjoy it. How can you put that into words without seeming weak? He didn’t live this long being vulnerable. The performer beats him to the punch:

“I thought life wasn’t worth it unless you’re a little silly.”

The way his lips curl in disdain is utterly delicious, no possible better response to the pastel clown, the way his silky brown hair drifts down at an ever-so-slightly different angle as he tilts his chin lower. “...You said that,” he chastises. “Not me.”

“But you didn’t disagree!” Her own irises become half covered by their lids, an expression somewhere between playful and challenging. She raises a smooth but accusing gesture of her open palm, reaching forward to welcome excuses. “And you called me ‘duckling’!”

His glower narrows even further as he’s presented the truth. ...Touche. Let’s get to the point, then. “Why do you want to give it to me?” he counters a question with his own. She’s ready to the draw like a pistol’s at her hip.

“Because I love you.”

The bluntness of it…!

“You shouldn’t say things like that,” Kakuzu snaps. It’s clear now that the upset on his face since being accused of lightheartedness is, in all entirety, real. She is making a grave mistake. “People will misunderstand you.” She loves everyone...everything...people will take it personally. People will take it harshly. People will simply take it— take her as a possession.

How hypocritical, he knows. But that doesn’t stop it from being true. Something else is, too, she counters:

“But I mean it.”

Stupid, stupid, stupid. Even if she does, even if somewhere in one brain cell, in one iota, one molecule of her being...even if she loves him, then...—

Kakuzu spits the answer back.

“...Then you shouldn’t love me.”

He’s so beautiful in the moonlight, even when he’s mad. Maybe especially so.

“And yet I do.” A patient tone, as if she knows everything, as if facts do not change at all just because you believe in them. The back and forth is too quick for his liking; this is something she has given thought, a script to follow. It needs to end here...no matter how painfully.

“I’ve killed, Takara,” he explains, cold as the water, cold as the furthest star, throwing a list of reasons over his shoulder at her like knives. “You know this. Among killers, I am the worst. I’ve created nothing but dead bodies and stacks of cash, neither of which you’ve expressed interest in having. Stop loving me.”

He’s done it. He’s said it all. There’s no way for her to squirm out of this, to make-believe an answer she wants instead of one she needs. The hunter’s brow pinches further as she loses the joy in her face. His frown stretches wider to reveal teeth as her sweet lips part. His eyes shake in their sockets with the effort he takes to lock onto her, to make it seen without a shadow of a doubt that he is not, will never, be worthy of her trust.

But even the frog knows to stop singing when it’s time for truth to ring. There’s only silence until the woman finds her voice.

And merely, once again, she smiles.

“Kakuzu… Do you think I’m stupid?”

What? In a flash, his confidence gone, wiped away in millimeters of shifting muscles that make his expression from one of faux rage to that of stupor. The performer, in all her practice, has the upper hand of changing faces with ease.

“There’s a reason I’m like this, you know.” Smiling, smiling, and it reaches her eyes— it reaches her eyes, so it must be true. It boggles Kakuzu, even more so as she goes on. “I know what death is. I know about starvation and poverty and the goddamn feeling that nothing you can do matters. Kakuzu—” Her voice raises, “—That’s why I’m here!”

It’s so sweet, her voice. It’s saccharine, words dripping from the humidity in the air to trickle down his throat. It’s like he’s tasting arsenic again, horrid as his dismissive, childish nickname for her. Duckling. Oh, silly duckling, what did you do? What do you know?

“I fucking killed myself because I lost my goddamn job.”

The hell…? Suicide… Kakuzu could have believed she didn’t know what suicide was if you had asked him only yesterday. Literally or otherwise, clearly the woman means something grave by the tale she’s weaving. Why then why does she sound so hopeful?

If he’s in a world of shock, then he’s about to be electrocuted to the other dimension.

“I’m in debt 40,000 fucking dollars on a useless degree when my parents didn’t even teach me how to open a bank account, when they instructed me to slave away a decade of my life to get said degree to keep myself alive.”

The performer begins to talk with her hands, arms stretched wide with the massive stage backdrop of dark blue night. She is an actress, and she gets to spin the tale of her demise just for him to see.

“I know that even though things are really different here, humanity is still shitty and there’s always going to be assholes and politicians and war.”

One, two, three. She’s stopped looking at Kakuzu and instead using her index finger to point where she imagines the three words to be.

“That sometimes, no matter what you do or pick, things aren’t going to go well. If you’re the worst person I’m going to meet...I don’t care!”

Palms face up and open the space in front of her in full, sarcastic welcome.

“I’m dumb and silly and do stupid things as a choice because I don’t want fear to keep me from doing anything at all. I did it all already!”

Quieter, now. He is helpless but to stand there, to listen, to feel but even a sliver of what has happened to her to make her like this.

“I did the serious life and talked to no one except who I had to, worried about so much as existing in front of other people that it has become ingrained in my FUCKING DNA.” A firm pinch on the skin of her forearm before letting it go, letting her arms sink. “...That I’m just a nuisance that doesn’t know how to talk to anyone. I did it all. Did it all without a goddamn thing to show for it. Kakuzu, I didn’t expect a round two at the whole ‘life thing.’ If I end up dead for giving it another shot…” The woman shrugs, casually with nothing she can do to change fate. ��...I have nothing to lose!”

Kakuzu has no mask to hide how his lips part, how his jaw drops. She motions dismissively with both hands, palms downward and flat as they cut sideways in the air as if to part it while she stands up.

“I’ve had enough!” she puts as simply as giving up her place in line at the DMV. “I told you how I felt and that’s all I can do. Not gonna wait for other people again. You can find me if you need—”

He grabs her wrist. All confidence leaves her voice, turning it into her mousy squeak once more.

“...Me.”

Ribbit.

The silence is long. It is awkward and painful and so very, very desperate. Even such a calculated mind needs time to sparse the details, effort to read past the raw emotion.

The question he has is, perhaps, not the first she expected, so soft it’d be unheard if he wore his mask:

…

“...How much is 40,000?”

A hum and a glance to the side before she returns to him, calm as can be. “So you know how a cup of soup costs 300 ryo?” He grunts. “That’d be like...six dollars.”

His brow furrows, though eyes stay wide as he runs the math, darting eyes counting with stars on an invisible abacus. “How,” he can merely breathe, “Did you get 2 million ryo in debt?!”

It’s criminal how she only shrugs to that number. That’s one that’d create a domino effect for a small nation, let alone ruin a single human being. There’s only one way you can speak about the bullshit, of course, and it’s with irony and humor, something the old man should be more than familiar with. “It’s the normal,” the performer sighs boredly. “Whole generation of kids got indoctrinated to believe that if you pay for higher education, you won’t be homeless. Hiked up the prices of college, and voila!” Her arms spread in presentation, a shit eating grin on her face, which she then points a finger into either cheek and twist around till it puts red marks on her skin. “You get a societal failure like me!”

Ineptitude of this grandiosity is impossible to wrap his mind around at the pace she’s running. Fake or not, this is quite the concept to imagine. “And you say this is normal?”

“YES!” He has never, ever, seen her more passionate about something, even singing, and perhaps he never will.

“The hell did you learn worth gambling your soul over?”

“Sociology,” she answers sharply with a point of the index finger; he’s beginning to see where she channels her body language from when performance is needed. She is, indeed, angry. He didn’t think it possible. She claps her hands every fourth word in the next statement. “I studied to be a goddamn sociologist because that’s what I’m interested in! Guess what I did for a living!”

The woman slaps her knees in rhetorical wait for a guess. She’s nearly manic, fire scorching in her eyes.

“I worked CUSTOMER SERVICE! I had to go to work the day my grandma died because they said they’d fire me if I took a day off, and then I performed so shittily that I got fired anyway!”

Kakuzu has never had so many questions in is goddamn life. “Specialization like yours...—” He tries to remember. Sociology...the study of societies, yes? That explains a lot about her, he guesses. Her tolerance for things, her willingness to withstand even Hidan’s religion. “—...worthless.”

“Apparently! But I’m not special.” Kakuzu follows her weaving of an economic nightmare with ease after seeing many in his own time on earth, words quiet on his tongue. Understanding doesn’t make it easier to swallow, though. He has to summarize, lest it all escape him:

“...An entire society of people so vastly in debt that they’re in servitude for all eternity.”

“Yes!”

“Despicable.”

“I know!”

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

The whales start to beach themselves Tortoise shells tear away from their spines

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

“And that’s how my country successfully functioned as a war-based economy.”

Kakuzu is beside himself, laying on his back next to her as they stare at the constellations, some of which she can name. He only managed to delay the inevitable. He did, after all, stay up till morning with a woman who should really be in bed.

“I…underestimated your knowledge.”

Too tired to add much more, she just shrugs. “It’s okay. I can’t blame you.”

But it can’t stop there; he has to wrap around to something she mentioned so briefly in passing, minutes and maybe even hours behind several adjacent topics of conversation. Question is...if it’s all theoretical or otherwise.

“...You said you killed yourself.”

Ribbit.

The frog continues on his own as she’s quiet now, no longer just thinking of herself as a statistic, as a symptom of a weary and sick society. The stranger is her own person, the only one that can be responsible for herself. Such care is overwhelming, exhausting, and so she can’t manage to repeat herself. Kakuzu sighs, this time finally in a way meant to be heard.

“...This is all hard to believe.”

“I know,” she answers, unaffected, eyes missing above. “You don’t have to.”

That’s something they have in common. They don’t have to believe any of the details about each other in order to know the core of the matter.

But that does leave one more thing…

“Don’t tell anyone. Okay?” He stares, stares with his whole uncovered, stitched face, but even if he’d beg, the woman couldn’t bring herself to look back as she pleads for her life. “That’s the only thing interesting about me… That’s...my whole backstory. Okay?”

Defensively, that ‘okay’ is said. Tired eyes draw closer to shut, lost in space, lost in wherever her soul may have flown off to so long ago.

“...That I’m a fucking failure.”

She whispers her deepest sins, sans pity-worthy details. Somehow she cries even more over the welfare of two bloodthirsty ninja than her own poor self, not even a tear. Perhaps they’ve all dried up long ago over this thing, this ghost that haunts her.

“I didn’t even kill myself right.”

There’s no choice in his mind. He has to touch her. He has to bring her close. He begins by reaching forward, slow as not to frighten the delicate creature. His palm merely brushes against her cheek, merely asks it to move to face him through the chilled grass instead of force it to. But he can’t make her eyes look back. She’s biting the inside of her lip, both to shut herself up and to punish for that which she feels shame. She talks too much. Thinks too much.

Yet not enough at all.

She’s so tired of trying to figure it out. What more does he want? What can she say to make him feel better, stop worrying? The whole speech she gave was supposed to make it better, to make him less upset. She’s still a fuck-up. Such a fuck-up...

“I don’t have more to offer,” the dead dreamer consoles, wondering if he can feel her disgrace through a shiver she has in this night air, upon the near-morning dew. “People are...being so nice to me. Treating me precious. Your leader thinking I’m special.” A bitter chuckle. “...I think if the whole ‘Jashin plopped me down from the stars just to meet Hidan’ bit was true, it’d make more ironic sense. At least God would be funny about the whole damn thing.”

Wit, resentful wit. It tastes familiar in his own mouth, but doesn’t sound the same arriving to his ears. Not from that voice which puts tales of fairies and unicorns to shame. It’s too pretty for this. And yet…

And yet.

Ribbit.

He has a solution, at least of some sort. Kakuzu replies to his musician:

"...More ironic than finding success?" It stings. It fucking stings. Her eyes squeeze shut, teeth grit, and Kakuzu’s afraid to move even an inch, even to take his rough hand away. Tears finally find a way out. They’re hot against his skin.

His skin feels like home. Even if she doesn’t know what that is.

As a hand with no ring comes up to clasp his, the bounty hunter notices something he’s never seen before. His whole life, he’s been one color. Let’s say...blue. He sees others, the way they affect one another, and sees their colors hope to make something beautiful but begin to muddle, begin to be unsightly and regretful and permanent. He keeps his hands to himself; he will not take part, not any further than the betrayal of his homeland turned the sclera of his eyes bloody, bruised red. And then, so long down the road, it surprises him when someone brave enough to ignore the warning signs grasps his hand herself, holds it so lovingly. She’s yellow, like tart lemons and stripes on bumblebees. She catches onto him long enough to dye him, at least a little, the stain reaching further and further up his arm like watercolor on wet paper. Being yellow means he is no longer just blue; he is no longer what he knows, what he can control. It’s scared him. So foolishly, it has, and yet he had reason to fear; his dyed hand, after all, is the one that hurt her.

What he didn’t see till now is that she’s more than one color, too. A drop, intense as condensing all of the ocean but small as the beads of dew, has found its way from the top of her scalp, dripping its hue downward in a line over her lips. She is changed. It just took time to bleed down from where cool-toned fingers pat a warm head of hair.

In front of him, his blue is crawling down her body. He’s feared it all along, and yet...it is not the worst, not the thing he truly did not want.

Despite it all...he never realized he was blue at all, that he was acting so defensively. That he had been afraid of being anything. It’s a lot to realize about yourself all at once:

That he is changed, too.

Sunshine’s aura washes into the fingers of his that touch her, from too the fingers of hers that touch him back.

Ribbit.

The quivering of holding back sobs eases away. Eyes drenched crack open. Her thumb evaluates how stitches feel. Calming, lake-toned azure eases her suffering, at least dulls it into a more distant throb than a sharp pang. His skin feels like...leather. It matches the color, a soft shade of brown. She wonders if this is part of why threads weave into him so easily. "Kakuzu..." He returns, not with her name but what she is to him:

“Takara.”

She still does not know what her name means. She asks something nearly the same as asking for that:

“Why are you so nice to me?”

She speaks of it as if it’s worse than her trying to die.

“I don’t know.” But he does. But it’d taint her more to admit it. Gently, oh so gently, she moves their hands to be clasped over her heart.

“Don’t tell anyone,” she whispers, soft as soft can be, like even a feather could tip the balance and collapse it all for good, things too good to be true crumbling until it turns to dust, the ashes of her cremation. “I’m not ready. I’m not ready for the dream to end.”

…

Kakuzu makes a gamble. He imagines her hand in his as rolling the dice, feeling luck and magic on his fingertips, making him breathless with risk.

“...Then make me a promise.”

“Anything.”

…

“You say you love me,” the man finally speaks. His volume so small matches hers, matches the wicked feelings. “How much do you love me?” There’s no time for her to interrupt his answer. “Enough to live?”

The most he could ever ask of her. It’s the challenge of a lifetime. His voice, so soft, so low, sends tingles down her spine. The answer is clear, even if impossible:

“Yes.”

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

It happens all the time

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

The next day, she finally does it. Rose-tinted glasses and bow-tied hat on, she holds her guitar in the piano room and has told everyone she has a song to sing. But it’s for him.

It’s for all of them, but it’s for him.

Kakuzu ignores Tobi’s excited shoving of Hidan’s arm, bumping the Jashinist into his side. The swearing washes over him, distant and meaningless. The piercing gaze of the Uchiha is no more, nor is the sharp teeth of the animal he calls his partner. Everyone is here, but all eyes are on her.

A strum of the strings, a flick of her wrist, and she practices making a second chance worth the while.

It’s a childish song, the dreaded “s word” that Kakuzu has thought so much, heard too much. It’s about a man that grew out of the ground with a goofy grin on his mug, follows you around like a smiley-face tick. You carry on with your mundane, useless chores, sappy and homey and ridiculous all at once. You change one another.

For better or worse. Bad things happen. Tragedy is inevitable.

Oh...oh...oh… Her melody hums, thick as honey from her tongue. Kakuzu is certain this song is about him, and it is. But it’s also about her. And she’s not willing to let this song end as badly as a prior lifetime. The last “oh” starts low, but it soars, high and hopeful to the heavens. Her stance widens and she looks up to the sky as if it’s hers to claim.

Lemon Boy and I, we're gonna live forever

Like Snufkin and Little My, we'll get around wherever

She wishes she knew how to drive a motorcycle, longs for the wind in her hair and the excitement; it’s what she feels, it’s what would be appropriate. She closes her eyes and arsenic has the aftertaste of adventure. The image pops in her head: her hands on the handles, coolest leather vest in town as a leather-textured boy hangs on her back, her for once in charge of there they go. She has no idea that this is the case all along. Wherever Kakuzu’s arm is dragged, he now follows his treasure to the ends of the earth. The lyrics repeat, the names unknown but the sentiment as clear to the treasurer as their starry night sky:

Lemon Boy and I, we're gonna live forever

Like Snufkin and Little My, we'll get around wherever

Yellow and blue make such a refreshing shade of green.

It's actually pretty easy being nice to a bitter boy like him

'Cause we're the bitterest boys in town

Yeah, we're the bitterest guys around

It’s far too audacious as she abruptly walks over, goes from one man to the next, how she finishes by leaning into Kakuzu’s free side as if he’d have nothing to say about it. He is cloaked, garbed in red clouds of death and a dark mask to conceal his face. To everyone else, he is pretending not to notice...

...But to the stranger, he cannot hide how the smile reaches his eyes, even if he's still unsure to welcome the emotion or try to shove it away. He’s learned so much from the person he’s intended to teach.

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

And I got myself

A citrus friend :)

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

#kakuzu x reader #songfic #aswtn fic #akatsuki x reader #this chapter is ALL kakuzu baybeeee!

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sasuhinasno1fan · 2 years

Text

A wish for a different life - Adrien AUGreste Day 11

Short, but I’m on time! I knew this would be a short one and it’s a slight build up for the next part. I also thought to give a bit of insight into how Juleka was still akumatized. Plagg just wants his kitten but also wants him to be happy.

Camembert

Adrien wasn’t that amazing of a sewer. He’ll admit, for harder cosplays, he’d mail them to his nonna and ask for her help. Simple things, he’d gotten good at. A mini sewing machine came with him to every place after his dad got it for him and it meant he could sew while binging anime. He’d gone to very few cons, but enough to know that con crunch was a real thing. cosplay photoshoots were similar.

After the success of their Shugo Chara OC shoot, his classmates – and Marc who was now considered part of the group once he finally talked to Nath and they started their comic – expressed interest in doing another one. They decided to do OCs again, this time from Naruto, since it gave many options for people to choose from. With Marinette’s help, they were able to make a list of small things to make for their classmates. Luka was even going to join them on this, as a member of the Sound Village. They’d joked that he could be like Mitsuki from the Boruto series, though Luka already expressed distress in having to sit still to have white painted on his body.

Currently, he was waiting for Juleka to come over. She had decided to be part of Hoshigakure as a Star Ninja, since she felt the main ones didn’t suit her. He was working on her boots and skirt and she was coming for a fitting. And probably tease him about Luka again. Since he’d been akumatized and he said those things to Luka, she and Rose took every opportunity to playfully tease him, Alya being no better. He didn’t mind it much; Luka had definitely given him more looks and smirks than usual. It was when he bit at his lip piercing.

“God, pure thoughts Adrien. His sister is coming over.”

He was trying on his own pants when the intercom went off and he let Juleka upstairs.

“Hi. I hope I’m not late. I had to go pick something up.” She said lifting the bag in her hand. There was a mild odour coming from it. Not a horrible smell, just…

“Is that cheese?”

“Camembert, it’s the cheaper version. It’s a good studying snack.”

Now, Adrien had been to the Liberty a fair number of times by now and there was something he noticed. In the fridge, there was always camembert. But he couldn’t for the life of him ever remember seeing any member of the family eat it. Even the one time they were studying in the sitting area under the pavilion and their mom brought out a charcuterie board – one client of her never ate on their yacht trip she captained for and the on-board cook told her to take so it didn’t spoil – it wasn’t there. Brie and gouda and a small pile of blue cheese, but no cooked camembert, because who would eat it raw?

There was another thing about seeing it. For as long as he could remember, seeing it made him feel a certain way. Not scared or nervous or anything, but there was this little thing that would be nudging the back of his head, hounding him like a fairy in Ledged of Zelda. Something he should remember or know. There was always a weird mix of feelings he had towards the cheese. Some annoyance over the smell, but also, the weird feeling of safety? He had no clue why. His parents didn’t really eat it, preferring Italian cheeses, nor did anyone else in his family. He had it a few times with friends, usually they had it during sleepovers if they were feeling expensive, though it tended to only get eaten halfway unless it had certain things on it.

So why did something as simple as cheese make him feel this way?

“You ok?” Juleka asked, her dark eye staring concerned.

“Yeah, I’m fine. You remembered to get the headband from Marinette? You left your shirt here so we could do a quick cosplay check, finalize things?”

______________

Plagg held the oversized cracker as Juleka lift the cover for the cheese dish. The scent of camembert was mingled with garlic. To be honest, he preferred it plane but the siblings couldn’t stand the smell in their cabin. He looked over at Tikki, who sat on a box from Tom & Sabine Boulangerie Patisserie. She rubbed a paw on the logo, one that Marinette had designed herself. Before, he knew Tikki had been encouraging Marinette as she worked on it for the Patisserie’s new upgrade. This time, Marinette did it alone but it still was special.

“Not hungry?”

He looked at his holder. Most of his holders had been male so it was always interesting when he had a female holder. He remembered bits and pieces of Roarr’s cub, mostly from when she hung out with Adrien or from what Roarr told him. He enjoyed getting to know her now, beyond happy that granting Lila her wish meant he wasn’t with her. No, instead of Marinette saving Fu and Adrien performing an act of kindness in a small rebellion, there was Juleka and her brother, who’d walked with her to school to get bread from the Patisserie, pulling Fu out of the way of the car, close to calling the ambulance before he managed to give them the slip. Juleka was sent to school, Plagg hidden in her bag and Luka tried looking for him and eventually having to give up to get to class, where Tikki was waiting on top of his laptop.

It was different, he came out in his usual way, knowing he’d have to change it up a little but he didn’t realise how much. As much as Juleka lived for supernatural and horror stuff, the idea of being responsible for Paris in defeating Akumas terrified her. Luka was her usual cheering team, finding her and pumping her up to join him in saving Paris, but Plagg hadn’t been a big help. He acted like he did with Adrien, who took a decent load of his abuse for he managed to wiggle his way into the god’s heart because he wanted so desperately to get out of his home. Juleka had a happy home, with a massive support system and support when her anxiety kicked in. during picture day, he’d been a bit callous with his words and she yanked the ring right off. He left the box in the bag and Luka found him as Scarlet Bug. She had somehow managed to hide her identity from Hawkmoth when she’d been akumatized, though if he had to guess, she probably didn’t feel like Catseye to say anything until after they talked that night.

“my last holder, his home life wasn’t great and it took a while for me to see that. He had to beg to go to school, to live a normal life. I didn’t really get a chance to say goodbye to him. I guess I forgot that not everyone is like him.”

“Was he nice?”

He laughed, remember his kitten, the one who dug his way into his heart more than anyone. “he was amazing. Complained about my love of camembert but he still got it for me.”

That night, Juleka made the first one and while he knew she didn’t love the taste, he felt lucky that she did it for him, even after how he’d been. When he saw Adrien standing in the front of the class, he wanted to rush over to his kitten. He relished in seeing him rip into Lila without hesitation. He was happier and more open and free. He was living his life they way he wanted to.

But honestly, all he wanted was to just share his favourite cheese with his kitten, just one more time.

“Not really. Sorry I made you go through all that Blacky.”

Juleka rubbed at his head, covering the cheese again. “It’s fine. This one was about to go bad soon anyway. No use getting sick. I was wondering if you could tell us more about your holders? Since Fu still thinks only Luka should be trained?”

“I thought I got through to him during Syren. I’m trying, I promise.”

“Well, my last holder was an amazing musician. His father wouldn’t think so, but he got so happy when he played.”

Adrien was happy now. But did he wish he gotten to keep him.

#adrien augreste #adrien august

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