“Deidara-senpai?”

Deidara didn’t answer. He was bent over his sculpture, blocking out all excess noise and interruptions.

“Deidara-senpai?” Tobi asked again, making his voice a little louder. Tobi was sitting in the chair next to Deidara’s at the desk, watching as his partner manipulated the clay.

“What?” Deidara growled, glaring irritably at the mouth on his right hand, which was chewing furiously but not fast enough to suit him.

“What’re you doing?”

Deidara clenched his teeth. “You tell me, Tobi. You’ve been watching me for the last hour or so.”

Tobi scratched his dark spiky hair. “I can’t tell what you’re making. It looks kind of like a broken lamp. Are you making a broken lamp? We already have one of those.”

Deidara didn’t trust himself to open his mouth. He forced himself to think rationally before he attacked Tobi. Tobi was an idiot. Idiots did not understand art.

For the fourth or fifth or fifteenth time that day, Deidara wished to go back to the days when Sasori-danna was his partner. Despite their quarrels and disagreements, Sasori had understood art. Maybe not in quite the same way, but it was better than Tobi. All Tobi understood was...well, practically nothing. The blithering moron.

Ignoring Tobi, Deidara continued his work.

Tobi, meanwhile, was finding his own ways to amuse himself. After sensing that Deidara-senpai needed some “alone time,” he sat perfectly still and said nothing so there would be absolutely no reason to throw him out.

Five seconds later, Tobi was sick of not being a bother. Maybe sleep will make me feel better, he thought. So he leaned back in his chair to get in a more comfortable position.

His weight was a bit too much, and the chair began to tip back off the front legs.

Feeling a thrill of fear for an instant, Tobi grabbed onto the table for support and brought the chair back to its original position. The chair made a loud BANG as it fell back onto its front legs.

Tobi giggled. That had been fun.

He leaned back again. The chair creaked as it went back. He let it down again. BANG. Tobi giggled madly.

Creak. BANG. Giggle. Creak. BANG. Giggle. Creak. BANG. Giggle. Creak. BANG. Giggle. Creak. BANG. Giggle. Creak. BANG. Giggle. Creak. BANG. Giggle. Creak. BANG. Giggle. Cre—

“GODDAMMIT, CAN YOU STAY QUIET FOR MORE THAN TEN SECONDS AT A TIME, HMM?” Deidara raged, throwing his half-finished sculpture on the ground.

It exploded.

“Deidara!” A voice from several rooms away yelled. “What did I tell you about using your damned clay toys inside?!”

“That Leader-sama,” Deidara muttered, looking darkly at the door. “Not a speck of art appreciation in his body.”

Getting back into his chair, Tobi brushed the dust off his robe, making the clouds red again.

Deidara settled back in his chair, taking a fresh batch of clay and feeding his hand-mouth some from his bags.

“Whatcha making now?” Tobi said, sitting down. “Could you make me?
I’m cute. Aren’t I? I would make a good sculpture.” He struck a dramatic pose. “Here, is this good? Will you sculpt me now?”

Deidara didn’t answer.

“Let’s talk about people. Like, say, Kisame. Do you think he’s a fish? A shark? I think so. He must be. Ugh, I wouldn’t want to be his partner. Poor Itachi-san, hanging around with that ugly guy. Yuck. You’re my partner, though, and you’re not ugly. You’re pretty. Girl-pretty, almost. Not that that’s a bad thing. I like your hair. You have nice hair. Mine is just spiky. Yours is long and pretty. You should wear it some other way, though. It’s too...I dunno...poofy. Also, you should cut your bangs. Why are they so long, anyway? Oh, yeah, you have that scope thingy. I would never do that to my eyes. I mean, eye. That’s just weird. But then, you also have that mouth thing, so a scope is no big deal. Where’d you get the hand-mouths, anyway? Can they talk? Or eat? Or sing? Where’d they come from? Were you experimented on as a baby? That’s too bad. Poor you. Maybe that’s why the leader took you in, because your family was mean. Why is the leader always in shadow, anyway? Why stay secret from us? We wouldn’t tell anyone about him. Right? I wouldn’t.

“Why do you make clay explode? On me? I don’t do anything bad. I’m a good boy. Do you like Zetsu-san? Zetsu-san thinks I’m a good boy. Do you? I do. I am a good boy. I’m the best—"

There was a loud boom as Deidara’s second sculpture exploded.

“DEIDARA! Do NOT make me come in there!” the leader shrieked.

“AS IF IT’S MY FAULT!” Deidara yelled back.

“It kinda is,” Tobi put in.

“SHUT UP!” Deidara retorted.

“WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY TO ME?” the leader screamed.

“I WASN’T TALKING TO YOU, HM!”

“EVERYBODY SHUT UP!” a voice shouted.

No one said a word.

“That was—Sasori-danna's voice...” Deidara said.

There was an awkward silence.

Tobi, who couldn’t keep the silence for long, spoke. “Hey, Deidara-senpai, have you ever…” His voice grew softer. “…killed anyone?”

Deidara, who had been looking around for Sasori’s ghost or whatever had spoken, now returned to his seat. “Hm? Oh yeah, loads of people.”

If Tobi could look horrified, he surely did now. “L-loads?”

Deidara began to work at another sculpture. “Uh-huh. I use my clay to blast off various parts, un.”

“Various parts?”

Shaping his clay, Deidara smirked. “You know, arms, legs, heads, the works.”

Tobi began to shake.

“Too bad that exploding clay can be so messy. If I accidentally blow something up, say, a person, it’s a big mess to clean up, un.”

Deidara heard a thunk.

“Tobi?” he asked. “What--?”

Tobi was laying on the ground, out cold.

Deidara waited two minutes before saying, “OK, that’s enough. Get up.”

Tobi didn’t.

“Get up!” Deidara yelled.

BOOM.

In all honesty, Deidara hadn’t really meant to do that one. Coughing and unable to see, he tripped over something and fell on top of it.

“Ouch...” it groaned.

“Tobi?”

The Akatsuki Leader graciously chose that moment to enter the room, saying, “Deidara, I have told you a million times about your stupid—“ and he stopped.

The smoke had cleared, and Deidara was still on top of Tobi from when he had tripped.

The leader’s eyes widened and he backed out of the room. “Uh—excuse me,” he mumbled, closing the door.

From the other side of the door, he called, “Guys! Guys! Guess what I just saw?!”

Deidara just stared at the door, wide-eyed and dumbstruck for about a minute, until Tobi’s muffled voice said, “Uh, Deidara-senpai?”

Deidara scrambled to his feet. “This was an accident, Tobi. Got that?”

Tobi nodded mutely as he got up.

Sitting down at the table yet again, Deidara began his fourth sculpture and tried to forget what just happened. He made a mental note to kill the leader. And, while he was at it, Tobi.

“What are you making now?”

Deidara didn’t answer, but continued shaping the clay.

“Hey, it looks a bit familiar. Is it someone I know?”

Silence on Deidara’s part.

“I think I know!”

Deidara finished the body and began the head.

“It’s…it’s…”

A spiky-haired head, with a mask.

“Me! You made me!”

Deidara smirked.

Tobi hugged himself with joy. “I’m cute after all!”

The smirk widened as Deidara put the clay Tobi aside and began on a new piece.

“What’s that? Are you making yourself? Yay! Best friends, Tobi and Deidara-senpai!” Tobi danced around the room.

Deidara finished himself. Next he began rolling on thin snakes of clay, making them sharp at both ends.

Tobi stopped dancing. “What are you doing now?” he asked, sounding worried.

“Shut up, hmm. Needles aren’t easy to make.”

Tobi quivered. “Needles?”

When Deidara had finished about twenty needles, he turned to Tobi. “Scram. I’ll show you when I’m done.”

Tobi backed away.

Deidara worked silently for a few moments, then moved away from the table. “Finished!”

The clay Tobi was lying down on the table, looking a bit like a pincushion from all of the needles stuck in it. Standing over it was the little clay Deidara, ginning evilly.

The real Deidara laughed, then stopped when he heard how, well, evil he sounded. Looking over at Tobi, he saw that his partner was sitting with his arms around his knees, a snuffling sound coming from his mask.

Feeling bad, Deidara crushed the clay pieces and addressed Tobi.

“Hey, Tobi, that was a joke, un.”

The snuffling continued.

“Tobi, come on. I don’t hate you or anything, you’re just annoying sometimes. A lot of the time. Most of the time.”

Tobi was shaking.

“Aw, Tobi!” Deidara walked over to him. “I’m—I’m…” he paused. He really didn’t want to say it, but…

“Tobi, I’m—sorry.” Deidara said, sighing.

Tobi looked up, letting out not a sob, but a laugh.

“Porcu—pine—funny—you made a—porcupine!” Tobi laughed, gasping for air.

Obviously not the response Deidara was hoping for.

But before he began to form seals, Deidara forced himself to think rationally. Tobi was still an idiot. He was laughing at what he thought was a porcupine, for God’s sake. What was funny about a porcupine? Tobi was just stupid. Yes, he, Deidara, as the more mature of them, should feel pity and not anger. Tobi was a pathetic fool meant to be pitied.

“Guess what, Tobi? You have officially used up all of your chances, hmm.”

“But, Deida—“

“Let me finish,” Deidara continued, putting up a hand. “Since I and so kind and forgiving, I will not strangle you and use your head as a bowl for my bombs. Instead—“

“You want me to leave, don’t you?” Tobi asked.

“Yes,” Deidara answered, surprised that Tobi had caught on so fast.

“OK,” Tobi said obligingly. “But before I go, can I ask one question?”

Deidara shrugged. One answer wasn't much of a price to pay for peace and quiet.

“I’ve been wondering for a while…why don’t you ever ask me about what’s under my mask?”

Easy one, Deidara thought. “Because it’s not important, un.”

Tobi tilted his head. “So you don’t care?” he asked.

Deidara stopped and thought for a moment. Then he said, “The deal was one question. Get out of here.”

“Yes, senpai.”

When Tobi was gone, Deidara heaved a relieved sigh and collapsed onto his chair. “He’s finally gone,” he said aloud.

Five minutes later, Deidara was hard at work on his sculpture. All was going well until his mind strayed from developing a faster bird design to Tobi’s question.

Deidara had answered that it didn’t matter, but the truth was that he had never really thought about it. But now that he was…

What was under Tobi’s mask? Was he ugly? If he was, then that would be the last straw. He was annoying, never serious, stupid, and now ugly? Leader-sama would have to assign him a new partner, because this just wasn’t fair.

But what if Tobi wasn’t ugly? What if he was good-looking? More so than Deidara? That would be even worse.

“Stop it,” he told himself.

But Deidara couldn’t. He was so consumed with curiosity that he couldn’t concentrate on his art.

“Tobi,” he muttered. “How is it that you can annoy me when you’re not even in the room?!”

He had half a mind to call Tobi in the room and demand that he remove the mask, but he was sure that Tobi had asked the question only to annoy him, and Deidara didn’t want Tobi to know that it was bothering him.

After struggling with it for a few seconds, Deidara decided that he would find out what was under Tobi’s mask—but later. Eventually.

Satisfied, he returned to making his new design.

Finally, he thought. Undisturbed time to work on my art and nothing else.

~Ten minutes later~

Deidara was bored out of his skull. It was too quiet. Nothing was happening.

He had finished six sculptures and was working on a seventh. But where was the action? The Leader had forbidden exploding the clay. Tobi was gone. God knew where the other Akatsuki members were.

Deidara was all alone.

He sighed. Only one thing to do.

Deidara walked to the door, pulled it open, and called, “Tobi! Come back in.”