Hidan is completely different at night. His sleep is not as deep as it is during the day, but extremely fitful. He is moving a lot, his body almost constantly jerking and twitching, his head thrashing back and forth on the pillow. He gets up once to go to the bathroom, and when he comes back, he is so sleepy he doesn’t even realize that Kakuzu is still awake.

The miser hasn’t closed his eyes one single time. He isn’t tired at all, but nonetheless he remains lying in the bed right behind the silver haired and watches him.
After a while, he starts talking in his sleep, and Kakuzu can’t help but chuckle to himself. Even at night this little guy seems to be unable to shut up. Whispered words are escaping his throat without interruption, but the banker doesn’t understand a single one of them. Not because they are articulated too quietly or not clearly enough, but because he has never heard them before. He is pretty sure that they are no absurd babbling, though, but parts of a language. One he doesn’t know. An ancient one, presumably.
First he is amused by Hidan’s behavior, but soon he starts to wonder what is bugging him so much. He considers his injuries the reason first, but then quickly abandons this thought again. If it was pain that kept him from sleeping, he wouldn’t be dead to the world during the days.

Even though the miser doesn’t know what the boy is saying, he can tell that Hidan is having a dream. A very intense one, and obviously a very bad one.
He sounds scared, frightened, and there is this strange word, this word he has been repeating all the time, khish – if only Kakuzu knew what it meant. It is dark in the room, but nonetheless he can see that Hidan’s face is flushed, and his pale skin is sparkling with sweat. His hands are clutching the blankets tightly, as if he was trying to get hold of something, and his small body is trembling under the covers.
He looks so miserable that, after a short moment of hesitating, the miser can’t hold back anymore. He just has to wake him up.
“Hidan…”, he mumbles softly, but loud enough to be heard, and gently pokes the other male’s side.

The silver haired doesn’t react the slightest bit, neither to the call nor to the touch. He doesn’t even twitch.
“Hidan”, Kakuzu repeats, addressing him considerably louder now.
He puts his hand onto the boy’s shoulder, but is startled badly the next second. Hidan seems to be burning up. His body is terribly hot and sweaty and awfully tense, way more than it was a few hours ago.
Suddenly his voice raises, his breath quickens, and soon his body is thrashing around on the bed wildly, as if trying to escape from an invisible enemy. A tortured moan escapes his lips, and quickly it has turned into a cry, a scream, his voice loud and cracking now.
Kakuzu isn’t amused anymore, he is worried now. He roughly grabs his counterpart’s shoulder and starts to shake him.
“Hey, Hidan”, he huffs again, “wake up.”

This time, the silver haired does react, and instantly starts flailing. Without hesitation this time, Kakuzu wraps his arms around the small frame and hugs him to his chest, as tightly as he can. He can’t stand seeing him like that. He absolutely can’t. Usually he likes to see people suffer, but now he can’t bear the sight.
“Damn, Hidan, wake up already!”, he says, almost yelling now.
He tightens his grip, and the moment he starts to think about smacking him, his partner wakes up. Once he has gotten aware of where he is, Hidan stops fighting, but he is still panting hard, his whole body convulsing with effort in the miser’s arms.
“Shush,” Kakuzu huffs, desperately trying to calm down the trembling figure.
Almost too late he realizes that Hidan is hyperventilating, and instinctively covers his mouth and nose with his hand, pressing down hard.

The silver haired struggles against the hand on his face, panicking at the sudden lack of oxygen, but it successfully keeps him from passing out. Slowly, very slowly, his desperate tries to draw breath get weaker, and Kakuzu removes his hand before the body in his arms starts to go limp. After a short moment, Hidan turns his head to him, giving him an anxious look.
“Nightmare?”, the miser asks, and his counterpart weakly nods his head.
He looks tired, exhausted, and the fact that he isn’t talking confuses Kakuzu. He doesn’t know what to do with a silent Hidan. Not at all.
“You okay again?”, he frowns, but he still doesn’t get any reply. The boy clutches his shirt and snuggles up to him, resting his head against his chest with a sigh.

The banker can’t help but hug him again. He doesn’t know why. He just has to. Involuntarily his hands start to stroke his back, and Hidan relaxes.
“Like that, huh?”, Kakuzu asks, “Feels good?”
“Yeah”, Hidan says. Finally.

The miser keeps stroking him, not even wondering why anymore. He feels the urge to comfort the little guy in his arms, to protect him.
The thought he always tried to fight has settled down on his mind in the end. He can’t deny it anymore. It feels good to hold someone. It feels good to touch someone. It feels good to be so close to someone.
Oh shit, it feels good to be so close to him.

Kakuzu can’t avert his gaze from the little silver haired, whose eyes are already closed again. He knows he hated the boy a few days ago, and he will hate him again tomorrow, but for some strange reason, he can’t hate him now.
“Hey, Hidan?”, he asks, his voice soft for once, and he gently brushes the silver strands out of the pale face.
One night. Only one night. Only for one night he will admit himself to feel like this.
“Hmm?”, the other male drawls, “What?”
“What does khish mean?”

Hidan starts to rub his eyes, his face still buried to the miser’s chest.
“Whaaat?”, he yawns.
He sounds as if he was drunk, and it amuses Kakuzu to no end. He will never understand why people are like that when sleepy. Never.
“Khish”, he repeats, “you said that in your sleep. What does it mean?”
The silver haired hesitates for a second, then continues to rub his eyes.
“Oh”, he slurs tonelessly, “nothing.”
“Come on”, the miser growls, “tell me.”
Kakuzu is curious about this, he really is. He has never heard that word before, and he wants to know what it means. Now. He hates not knowing things.

The other male lifts his head, his crimson orbs sparkling angrily.
“I did tell you”, he whines, “it means nothing.”
“Oh.”
Hidan rolls onto his other side, facing away from his partner. He starts trembling again, and Kakuzu can’t help but put his hands around his body once more. It is sympathy, mixed with a slight bit of sadistic pleasure that keeps him going.
“What was that dream about?”, he asks, slowly moving closer to the pale boy.
“Nightmare”, Hidan snaps.
The miser frowns, for a short moment startled by his counterpart’s sharp tone.
“Nightmare”, the silver haired then repeats more quietly, “not dream. A fucking nightmare.”

For a moment, it seems as if he was sobbing, and Kakuzu can’t help but grab his chin and tilt his head to the side, forcing him to face him.
“What?”, Hidan asks, his voice all whiny again.
To the miser’s surprise, no single tear is visible in his crimson orbs. On the contrary, they still look somewhat angry. Hidan can hardly keep them open, though – this dream must have really exhausted him.
Once again, Kakuzu is fascinated by the boy. He is definitely one of the toughest guys he has ever seen.
“You never cry, do you?”, he asks.
“No”, the silver haired says, “never.”


For the rest of the night, Hidan stays sound asleep, and neither talks nor screams one single time. Kakuzu falls asleep for a few hours himself, and when he wakes up, the boy’s head is rested against his chest again.
He is snoring quietly, and a faint smile has appeared on his face, making him look all peaceful and happy in his sleep.
How cute.
Without thinking, the miser pulls down his mask and plants a little kiss on Hidan’s forehead, just to pull back again a second later.

He still doesn’t have a clue what is going on here. A few days ago he wanted to kill that guy, to shatter him to bits, but now the only thing he can think about is how to make him feel better. He tries to persuade himself that all this is just because he wants a strong team partner, a partner who supports him in battle, but of course he knows he is fooling himself.
Team partners don’t sleep with each other. They usually don’t even spend nights with each other. Well, Pein and Konan do, but they are a couple. All the others just pair up with their partners to go on missions, and after finishing them they go separate ways again.
Slowly the miser sits up and puts on his mask.
Only one night. That’s what he told himself. Well, that night is over.

It isn’t easy to get out of the bed, since he has to crawl over Hidan in order to do so, but finally he succeeds. After he has straightened himself, he notices that the small frame in the bed is trembling again. The blankets have fallen down onto the floor due to his movement, and although he is still asleep, the boy rolls onto his back with a frown, letting out a small sigh.
Jeez, is this kid always cold?
With a groan Kakuzu picks up the covers and places them on the pale body, quickly pulling them up to Hidan’s shoulders. He curses himself when he notices that this is the little detail he’d better not done – Hidan twitches at the touch and wakes up. Yawning and smiling and slowly stretching his limbs he turns his head to face the other male.

“Hey”, he says with a smile, “you up already?”
Kakuzu feels paralyzed, unable to move under the crimson gaze, but at least he is still able to produce some snappy answers.
“Looks like it.”
“Yeah”, the silver haired says, “you gonna get breakfast for us, right?”
“Yes.”
Hidan snuggles down in the blanket and closes his eyes again, smiling even more.
“Fine”, he mumbles, “I like sweet stuff in the morning, so make sure you get some dango or something.”
Usually Kakuzu would get angry about being given orders by the boy, but now he doesn’t care. He doesn’t even bother to give a proper reply. It doesn’t matter anymore.
“Sure”, he just says, and off he goes.


Only when he opens the door to his apartment, he is struck by his guilty conscience. Of course he has not gone to get breakfast. He has left the lair in order to go home, and he doesn’t intend to return.
He is sure that Hidan fell asleep again after he left the lair, and he wonders what will happen when he wakes up and finds out that Kakuzu is gone. Will he be confused? Angry? Or even – sad?
He can still see Hidan’s hands reach out for his mask in front of his mind’s eye, can hear his moans, can feel his hot body rub against his. He remembers every move he made, every sound he made, every word he said while he made love to him.
Wait – love?

Kakuzu almost bursts out laughing at his own thoughts. He hasn’t used this word in a while, and he wonders why it comes to his mind now.
The only emotion he is familiar with is hate. It is what keeps him going, what makes him accomplish his missions without feeling the slightest bit bad, what makes him enjoy killing. Hate has been inside of him all his life.

Oh, he has tried to get rid of it, of course he has. Many, many times. Especially as a child. He tried to love, he tried to like other people, he tried to trust them back then, but every time he did, he was deceived.
He lost his parents at a very young age, and after their death, there was no one to take care of him. He never got an embrace from anyone, never got a hug, and after a while, he didn’t even want one anymore. Since then, he never wanted to hold anyone in his own arms, either.

The only thing that always felt good in his hands was money. Money doesn’t talk, but yet it tells people what to do. Money doesn’t fight, but yet it decides wars. Money doesn’t breathe, but yet it outlasts ages. Money, after all, is the only thing real to him.


A squeaking noise suddenly startles the miser out of his thoughts, and with a jerk he lifts his head. His hearts almost skip some beats when he notices he has forgotten to close the front door, and quickly he jumps to his feet to shut it.
Jeez, this kid keeps distracting him although he isn’t even here.
What is going on with him? Again he has run away. From Hidan? No. Rather from himself. For God’s sake, he is an S-rank shinobi, he can’t allow himself to feel like this. Emotions other than hate only lead to weakness. That is what he experienced all his life.

Kakuzu is angry that he can’t stop thinking, and so he goes to bed early. But even when he lies down, pictures come to his mind instantly – Hidan snuggling up to him, Hidan twitching, Hidan talking in his sleep. Khish. The miser still hasn’t forgotten that one. Nothing.

The next morning, he looks after the word in a few of his books. He wants to know which language it belongs to. Where it comes from. Where Hidan comes from. Konan said he was battling a clan from the rain village, but Kakuzu doesn’t know if the battle took actually place there, and even if it did, it doesn’t automatically mean the boy is from there.
Unfortunately the banker can’t find a single hint on the strange language Hidan has been talking in, and so he dedicates himself to his bills and calculations once more. As usual, it distracts him very quickly, and after a while, he manages to stop thinking about his partner.

In fact, he stops thinking about him for more several days, until one morning his door is almost kicked in by an unexpectedly angry Konan.
“What the hell?!”, she yells, and Kakuzu can tell both from her tone and choice of words that she is really, really pissed.
“Didn’t I ask you to take care of Hidan?”, she asks.
“Yes”, the miser says, for some reason sounding oddly calm, in contrast to Konan.
“And didn’t you say yes?”, she asks now.
“I did.”
“Why are you sitting here and doing some paperwork while he is destroying the lair, then?”
Kakuzu pricks his ears.
“Destroying the lair?”, he asks with surprise, but then smirks at the blue haired woman, “Kidding me again, right?”

“No, not at all”, Konan huffs. She sits down onto a chair and takes a deep breath, trying to calm down. It happens very rarely that she gets that upset. Usually, she is calm and friendly, if a little mean from time to time.
“Pein and I came back from the mission today in the early morning”, she continues, “and the lair looked as if a fight had taken place there. We were afraid you two had been attacked or were gone because someone had found our hideout, but then we found that Hidan was still there. On his own.”
“I thought he would be fine”, Kakuzu shrugs, not even trying to sound apologetic.
“Well, he is not”, Konan says, “I don’t have the faintest idea why, but he seems to have gone completely wild during our absence. He crashed almost every piece of furniture, broke several windows, and even daubed some walls. At least we think it was him, or was it you?”
“No”, the banker says quickly.
He doesn’t break things on purpose. Except people’s bones from time to time.

They keep quiet for several minutes, both of them thinking about what to say, and then their argument gets even worse.
“Why did he do that?”, Konan asks.
“I don’t know”, Kakuzu says, “since I wasn’t there.”
“Well, you should have been”, the kunoichi yells, “and you should be there now! I want you to go back.”
“No, I won’t.”
“Yes, you will. Now. I don’t want Hidan to be at the lair on his own, so you either stay there and keep an eye on him, or you take him with you.”

The miser raises an eyebrow.
“Take him with me?”, he asks, “Where to – my apartment?”
“That, Kakuzu”, Konan huffs, “is completely up to you.”
Kakuzu can’t suppress a laugh now, and it makes his counterpart even angrier.
“You’d better stop laughing, my dear”, the kunoichi hisses, “I’m deadly serious. It’s your job to take care of him, since you are the one responsible for your partner.”
To that, he miser just groans.
Responsible. He isn’t responsible for anyone, except himself. He doesn’t want to take care of others, and he certainly doesn’t want to take anyone home with him.
“And apart from that”, Konan finishes her rant, her voice much calmer and friendlier now, “he seems to like you, Kakuzu. Really like you.”