Akatsuki Babysitters? Rewrite.

Deidara

He didn't know what to do with this... kid. She was too young to know any jutsu and she wasn't old enough to know anything about his art, but he was the only one available at the base. So he was ordered to take care of her.

And since when did Leader and Konan have a kid anyways? Wasn't that something that they should've been informed of four years ago? When she was born?

Deidara stood up from his spot on the bed and dug around his closet for a bit before pulling out a plastic container filled with light gray clay. He brought it to what he dubbed the 'living room' of the base; a large room filled with a coffee table, a couple of old couches, and a TV. When he walked in, he spotted Sakura laying on the floor with her head propped up in one and and sheet of paper in front of her. Curious, he crouched down beside her.

"What're you doin'?"

"... Thinkin'."

"Thinkin' 'bout what, hm?"

"What to draw," she answered. "What do you like to draw, Dei'dra-san?"

He blinked. In all the years he'd been in the Akatsuki, no one had ever asked that before. He took a few seconds to pick out his thoughts. "People, hm. Sometimes nature."

Her eyes went wide in understanding before they trailed down to the bag in his hands. She pushed herself off the ground and fell back on her bottom. "What's that?" she questioned curiously. His lips quirked as he took out a part of the soil-smelling substance and placed it into her small hands.

"Clay, yeah. Play with it, mold it, do whatever. You're free to do what you want."

"An' it'll be art?"

"'Course!"

Sakura stared down at the cool argil, then smiled as she squished and rolled it between her palms. Deidara watched her for a few minutes before he grew bored and pulled off a piece of clay for himself. Expert hands took ten minutes to press out monarch butterfly that he sent fluttering around the room. For a moment, it was beautiful, but the next, he was angry. It was so free, so uncaring, so—

It blew up, sending dust across the room.

The little girl blinked at the powder in the air before looking at her current caretaker. "It was free, Dei'dra-san. Why'd you make it go away? Did it make you sad?"

He pressed his lips together and looked away. When Sakura realized she wasn't going to get the answer, she carefully placed the clay back in the bag and went back over to her paper. Her brows pulled together in the perfect picture of concentration as she grasped a jumbo crayon and took her time creating her perfect masterpiece. Half an hour later, she hopped on to her feet and trotted over to Deidara with a wide smile.

"Here!" she exclaimed, handing him the paper. "Jus' for you."

Reluctantly, he took the paper. There was a stick figure with yellow scribbles on its head, uneven blue circles—which he assumed were eyes—inside the biggest circle, and a line curved into what resembled a smile. Odd orange shapes sprouted from its back.

"What's this, hm?"

"It's you, silly! With pretty butterfly wings! I picked orange 'cause maybe you din' like purple or red, and I couldn' use yellow 'cause I already used yellow for your hair. Okay?"

Something ached in his chest as he kept staring at the picture. But there was something pink on the figure's hands, and he pointed to it. "What's that?"

"The pink thingies on your hands!"

Pink thingies...?

Deidara cracked a smile.

::

EDITED 1/29/18