Living a Lie

Chapter Eighteen - Looks Like Rain

The sun was shining through the trees, and judging by the angle the rays filtered through the limbs, I'd say it was around three in the afternoon.

Deidara and I had just finished a sparring session, where copious amounts of clay were used and exploded and the clearing we were currently resting in had developed a wider perimeter than it had mere hours ago.

We were lying on our backs, side by side. He had his hands behind his head, and I rested mine on my stomach. We were looking up at the sky, watching the birds as they flew overhead, probably judging the area a little safer now that the deafening explosions had ceased.

"Look, un," Deidara said, pointing suddenly up at a cloud coming into view. "That one looks sort of like a sparrow. See the tail?"

I nodded, smiling. "And that one," I said, pointing towards a different section of the sky. "That one looks like a bunny."

"No it doesn't," he argued. "It looks like a lion."

"Nuh-uh."

"Yeah, un."

I sighed, giving up.

I noticed his grin of victory out of the corner of my eye.

Seemingly out of the blue, Deidara sighed and said, "I sort of miss arguing with Sasori."

I felt a twinge of regret. That's the hardest part of being a ninja. You kill people, but you can't concentrate on who else you're affecting when you have to follow orders and get rid of your target. You basically have to de-humanize the whole thing.

And killing Sasori meant that I hurt Deidara.

"I don't blame you, though. Like you said, orders are orders. And he was a dick, un," he said, laughing slightly.

"What would you argue about?" I asked, turning to look at him.

He smiled. "About the meaning of true art. He'd say 'true beauty lasts forever'."

"But you don't agree?" I asked, slightly confused.

He turned and raised himself up on his elbow, watching me. "I don't. True beauty is found in that split-second before something is destroyed. You can't truly appreciate how beautiful something is until you watch it disappear. If something's always there, you never have the chance to miss it, to want it. If something's there one second and gone the next, you can reflect on it and see how precious it was just before it was lost forever."

I thought about what he said. It made sense.

"But," I countered. "What if, say, a painting was to suddenly disappear? You'd forget every small detail if it wasn't around for you to look at every day. You'd eventually forget it forever."

He smiled, shaking his head. "That's not true. You'd remember that it disappeared, wouldn't you? That's remembering that something beautiful existed, and it'd stay with you for the rest of your life."

"But isn't that like living forever? Like being eternal? That's what Sasori believed, right?" I asked.

He shook his head again. "No, un. Sasori was more materialistic. Why do you think he created all of those puppets? If he admired someone's jutsu, he took that person and made them into a puppet so he could keep them forever. He didn't want to just remember that they had a specific skill; he wanted to own that skill."

I soaked this information up like a sponge. I had never been very artistic myself, but this new knowledge about Deidara made me appreciate him more as a person, not just a shinobi.

"You really like art, don't you, Deidara?" I asked, somewhat rhetorically.

"Art isn't just about liking or disliking," he replied.

I looked at him questioningly.

He lay back down, folding his arms behind his head and turned his attention back to the sky. "It's a passion. Saying you like art is just telling someone that it's a hobby or a passing interest. For me, it's a passion."

We relaxed in the grass for about an hour after that, until I pointed up at a particularly ominous cloud moving in rather quickly.

"That one looks like a thundercloud," I stated intelligently.

"I'd have to agree, un," Deidara replied.

I calculated that we'd have to start running for the compound within the next thirty seconds or risk being drenched. "I think we should go back," I said, standing up.

Deidara did nothing except close his eyes and smile softly.

If I didn't know any better, I'd say he was the most innocent guy in the whole world with that expression.

But I did know better, and that look meant that he was trying to hide the fact that he was considering something particularly devious.

"Deidara, come on," I said a little more urgently, looking up at the dark cloud. I could feel the temperature dropping and the wind picking up. The humidity level started to rise, making the air seem thicker than it was earlier.

Still, he didn't move.

"Deidara," I said sternly. "Get. Up."

It was then that he opened his eyes, and looked at me with the most serious expression I'd ever seen on him. He opened his mouth to speak…

"I'm not moving until you kiss me, Sakura."

I froze. That had not been what I expected him to say.

The whole world seemed to get darker as the cloud approached, and the sudden decrease in light woke me up. "Hell, no. Now get up and let's go, Deidara," I insisted, holding out my hand as an offer to help him up.

He shook his head. "I'm serious, un. Kiss me, and I'll go back with you."

I started to say that I could just leave him and run back myself when the rain started. I could hear it coming through the trees, hitting the leaves farther off, and then rushing towards us like a wave.

Just as it started raining on us, he said, "You wouldn't leave me. You know that I'm serious. I'll stay out here all night, if I have to. And then I'll get sick and die and it'd be your fault for being too much of a prude to just give me a simple, little kiss."

I frowned, already soaked to the bone. He had a point, though. If he stayed out here like he said he would, he'd end up catching pneumonia or something worse.

Inner picked that moment to start griping at me, saying, 'Come on! What's the worst that could happen if you kissed him? He's kissed you before.'

I proceeded to mentally punch her (don't ask how; you'd have to have an Inner yourself to know how it's done) and then, reluctantly, knelt down on the ground beside him.

I put my arms on either side of his shoulders, leaned forward, and said, "Don't you even think that you can do this again, Deidara. I'm only doing this to save me the trouble of wasting my chakra on you."

He grinned, said something to the effect of "yeah, whatever", and pulled my face to his, kissing me gently at first, and then more heatedly. I gave in, ignoring the warning voice in the back of my head (which wasn't Inner, it was my conscience, there is a difference), and forgot about the rain. I felt his left hand slide down to my waist where my skin was showing, and the mouth in that hand proceeded to trail kisses across my hip. It was a strange sensation, but I concentrated more on trying to remember how to breathe.

I brought one of my hands up to his face, brushing his bangs back from his eye and the scope that he kept in place there. Pulling back, I opened my eyes and noticed the slightly triumphant, if a little hazy, expression in his one visible blue eye. He smiled.

"Now, that wasn't so bad, was it?" he asked.

I frowned, smacked his chest and got up, forcing him to release his hold on my hip.

"Let's go, before we both catch pneumonia," I said, trying to seem unaffected.

He jumped up and grabbed my hand, interlacing his fingers with mine as we ran back to the compound together.

The next morning, we both woke with 'the sniffles', as my mom would call them, and sore throats. I healed myself, and left him to suffer; at this he called me a 'heartless bitch', but grinned triumphantly at the same time. I blushed and ignored him.