Work Text:
Kakuzu hated the holiday season.
He hated how the office turned into a jungle of small trees on everyone’s desk. He hated the small talks, and secret santas, and general slacking off.
As the head of the accounting department, the only part of the holiday he enjoyed was closing of books by the end of the year, and even this he couldn’t properly enjoy. Everyone was either late or slacking, and chasing each bill turned into a whole-day affair. And it meant, the idiots, the other executives, were up to their usual shenanigans: holiday parties and decorations (utter waste of money), gifts and ridiculously unattainable new year’s resolutions (these typically led to other senseless spending).
Most importantly, it was the time of the year when those idiots became obsessed with Konan’s vacation plans.
And he didn’t want to think about that. Or her.
Kakuzu pressed his ruler on the page, hard, following the row of numbers with his index until he reached the last column. There, he subtracted the expense of the new computers from the previous balance.
With his calculator, Kakuzu punched in the number and calculated the tax return. Just as he was finishing writing the deduction on their tax form, Hidan barged in his office, the glass door vibrating behind him.
“Yo! Where’s your fucking tree, Kakuzu?”
Kakuzu only groaned in reply.
‘Those idiots,’ he thought savagely.
Ink pooled on the page until he lifted his pen off. Until Deidara entered just as loudly, dragging a bored Sasori, and Kakuzu gave up altogether.
“He doesn’t have a tree!” Deidara yelled, pointing at Kakuzu, and Hidan swore at him: “I just said that, half-wit!”
“Hellooo!” Obito greeted them cheerfully, before deadpanning: “Where’s your tree, Kakuzu? How could you get rid of Zetsu?”
Kakuzu scowled. His pen rolled off the books. Blood pounded at his temples.
Hidan and Deidara started another shouting match, and Obito started lecturing Kakuzu, half-serious, half-cheerful, on the importance of the tree, Zetsu, he had put especially on his desk. Obito slipped back-and-forth, a clown and an angry vice-president, both roles sticking his body in awkward positions.
Ignoring them all, Kakuzu leaned back in his seat, waiting for Itachi’s quiet entrance amid the circus. It didn’t take long before Itachi knocked on the glass door. With a nod of greeting, he sat on one of the sofas facing the desk. Kakuzu glared at him. He should have had all the sofas thrown out if he knew Itachi was going to take part in the others' shenanigans.
"Oi, grandpa! Ever heard of computers? They can calculate all of that for you," Deidara said now, swirling his finger at his books and tax return.
Sasori pinched his lips, arms crossed over his chest. He could act as detached as he wanted, Kakuzu thought, but he knew Sasori wouldn’t be here if he didn’t want to.
Kakuzu tuned them out. Hidan and Deidara had already started another shouting match, with Deidara constantly trying to include Sasori in the argument. Disapproving, Itachi coughed discreetly, a handkerchief pressed to his lips.
Kakuzu narrowed his eyes at them.
They gestured. They grew louder. They invaded his office and time. And they did this every year.
Kakuzu truly hated the holiday season, even if it was just one more season when he wondered how furious Konan would be if he decided to kill all of those idiots.
Kakuzu stilled, his attention slipping and drifting across the hall to her office door. He could see her on the phone through the blinds.
Konan was always a dangerous thought during the holiday season, so Kakuzu focused on the books in front of them.
He focused on the numbers.
He focused on closing the books before the New Year.
He forced his mind out of the loop of tangled thoughts: Konan and the holidays. The holidays and Konan. And him.
Kakuzu thought about how those idiots didn’t care about the books unless it directly impacted their salaries. Even then, Kakuzu was certain Hidan and Deidara would be the last to notice if their pay was overdue. Itachi and Obito probably wouldn’t care, considering their family's wealth.
Again, he groaned.
"I apologize, I'm late," Kisame said with a toothy smile and bowed his head slightly at Kakuzu.
"Get out. All of you," Kakuzu said menacingly. He lowered his ruler to the next row, and Hidan slammed his hand on his book.
Kakuzu glowered at him.
"I'll kill you," he said low, and the sliver of a smirk broke Hidan’s frown. He would enjoy that.
“We love you,” Obito chimed in and giggled in the terse silence.
Hidan’s smirk stretched, slow, his eyes flashing with a daring intensity.
"Well, fuck you too. We need to do the thing. Come on!” Hidan gestured at his books. “Just close everything.”
“No,” Kakuzu snarled.
They all ignored him, expanding, touching his things. Hidan sat on his desk, chewing gum, while Sasori sat on the free sofa with Deidara perched on one of the armrests, despite his protesting. Obito kept moving between everyone, muttering to himself that “he knew he had decorated Kakuzu’s office”. Kisame leaned against the wall behind Itachi.
“None of us can be trusted,” Deidara whined and pulled at his earlobe. “And you don’t even bet, huh.”
Kakuzu closed his eyes. It was the same every year, and everything circled back to Konan.
“Get out of my office.”
“Get your book out, old man!” Hidan shouted hotly.
“Let’s just do this properly,” Kisame suggested with a savage smile. He opened his wallet and emptied it on Kakuzu’s desk.
Kakuzu sighed before he moved slowly toward the cash, his eyes now fully open. He counted the cash, numb, his fingers working faster than his heart, faster than his brain.
He sighed again before he opened the first drawer of his desk to retrieve a black notebook.
In it, he wrote Kisame’s name and the sum.
“Place your bet,” Kakuzu grumbled.
“She goes to the beach,” Kisame said simply.
Kakuzu stiffened. The numbers danced in front of his eyes.
(The first year Konan disappeared, even Pein didn’t know where she went. She gave notice for her two-weeks vacation and left. They all assumed she wouldn’t be gone-gone. They all assumed she would only be unavailable on papers as she usually was; at home, working, sending back emails or taking her calls at odd hours.
Pein called her, over and over again, panic rising, settling in his voice, etching its way in his heart. Konan was always by his side. She was his right-hand, his second opinion on everything.
“Any news?” Pein would ask, over and over again, extinguished, through ashen lips. He hung by a thread, and Konan was the thread.
Kakuzu didn’t flinch.
He didn’t say anything.
He knew. Because he held the books. Because she bought her plane ticket with her company card by mistake and had to reimburse the company.
He knew.
He knew everything there was to know about her, so he said nothing. Because he was jealous, he said nothing.
He let her disappear and cleared her repaid debt from the books.
When she came back, Pein told her he loved her, and Kakuzu also realized he was also a man held together by threads.
And he suspected he may actually love her.)
They all froze, and for a split second, Kakuzu wondered if they knew what he knew. Then, Hidan exploded and aimed a kick at Kisame’s shin: “You shithead! Take this seriously! Have you ever seen Konan being anything short of as pale as my ass?”
Kakuzu’s fingers relaxed around his pen, then one limb at a time, and he felt himself sinking in his chair. He watched them, searching their faces as they booed Kisame and shoved each other.
They knew better than to try to shove Kisame, who was a bigger, quicker, and more dangerous target than any of them combined.
“No one is interested in your ass, voodoo boy,” Kisame replied calmly, undisturbed, and returned to his place behind Itachi.
Before Hidan could launch himself in another swearing monologue, Kakuzu spoke above them: “Every year, you disturb my peace with your nonsense. State your bets, then get out.”
Hidan dug in his pocket, red-faced, and let coins fall on his desk by opening one close fist after the other. Kakuzu raised an eyebrow at him. They had an understanding that all bets should be above what he had dropped on his desk. Before Kakuzu could remind Hidan of the rules, he stood up to retrieve a bundle of cash from his back-pocket.
Hidan tossed it on his desk.
“She visits Pein’s tomb.” Hidan said ruthlessly and sat back down on the corner of his desk.
Kakuzu stiffened again. Something gnawed at his gut, his heart, his mind: Pein. Pain.
(Konan dated Pein, like she did everything: half-erased, mysterious, and cool, but she kept disappearing during the holidays.
Pein begged her to tell him where she went.
He begged her to stay.
He begged her to take him along.
She refused him, her who never refused him anything. This, she wouldn’t compromise on.
She never made the same mistake twice with her plane tickets, and left no trace the following year, and the one after that. No plane ticket, no unusual spending.
Kakuzu wished she did. He wished there were numbers to add up. He wished he could subtract himself, his heart, from the price of her workaholism and her happiness with Pein.
Then, Pein died, and she disappeared for a whole month.)
After a moment of silence, Deidara shifted uncomfortably, then whistled: “That’s cold, huh.”
“I’m taking this seriously, unlike some people,” Hidan snapped and scowled at Kisame.
Kakuzu felt like he had five hearts pounding in his chest. His mind swam, thudding. And, involuntarily, his eyes drifted back to Kisame’s left where parts of Konan’s office were still visible. Again, he counted and wrote everything down before announcing the amount of the bet tonelessly.
“Camping,” Itachi said flatly and pushed an envelope of crisp bills toward him.
(“You should go camping in the middle of nowhere, if you want to be alone this much,” Kakuzu murmured one year after Pein died.
Konan looked over the report on her desk, her pen spinning between her fingers. It was the middle of the night, the day before she left for vacation, and there were only a lit lamp and quivering shadows between them. She still refused to be called their CEO.
“I do want to be alone,” she said coolly, her orange eyes flashing, sunk in, “but I hate bugs.”
Kakuzu flicked the origami butterflies suspended on the ceiling, testing her. She merely blinked, but her chest heaved, her breath shortened.
Everything he could count and add up, he noticed about her: her weight loss, her shortened hair, her billable hours.
“Those are paper, not insects.”
Konan frowned. She signed the report and pushed it back toward him.
“Are we done?”
Kakuzu looked at the report, then at her.
Konan put the cap back on her fountain pen before she stood up, crossed something off her to-do list and picked up her phone. She raised an eyebrow at him.
“Don’t forget to send in your last billable hours before you leave,” Kakuzu said coolly and left.
He thought he would be different from Pein.
He thought he wouldn’t care where she went.
He thought this, this alone, would be reason enough for her to choose him now.)
“There’s a goth-camp, you think?” Obito’s smirk turned into a grin, just as his face slacked. He glanced around at them, wide-eyed, but none of them reacted. His chest puffed, a pout now forming on his lips: “I said-”
“We know what you said, now shut up, it’s not your turn,” Hidan snapped mercilessly without looking at him.
Obito gaped at him, hurt.
Deidara counted his cash, eyebrows furrowed, his tongue poking out of his lips, before dropping the bundle on Kakuzu’s desk.
“The answer is obviously art. She goes to museums, huh.” Deidara nodded, satisfied, and crossed his arms over his chest again.
Kakuzu counted the bills fast. It was just like Deidara to bet the minimum.
Sasori clicked his tongue, his placid face revealing nothing.
“She’s a civilized woman. She makes art,” Sasori countered and handed Kakuzu the cash directly. Kakuzu almost growled out in frustration. Sasori always made it a point to bet slightly more than Deidara; enough to show he was better than his colleague, without splurging his money.
(“I’m waiting for a call,” Konan explained when Kakuzu looked between her and her origami paper. She folded the corner of the bright red paper before flipping it. The other side shone, glossy dark with random matte lines.
“You’re leaving tomorrow,” Kakuzu remarked uselessly, staring at her hands.
Konan didn’t answer, folding and refolding the paper to make a flower. Her fingers stilled as she craned her neck to look at the time on her computer. Shaking her head, she returned her attention to the flower.
“Couldn’t that wait until tomorrow?” Kakuzu asked, nodding at her unfinished piece, and picked up a file from her desk. “When you’re on vacation.”
Konan smiled, slow, strained, still bent over paper and flower.
“Don’t worry, this isn’t billable time.”
He didn’t know if he would ever not be worried about her.
She held it up after one last fold: “It’s a lily.”
Kakuzu didn’t move. It looked like a spot of blood, a spot of death pinched between her fingers. Red and black.)
“Are we done?” Kakuzu snapped when no one said anything else.
Obito spun, waving his arm: “Me, me! It’s my turn!”
“Just make your stupid bet!” Kakuzu and Hidan snapped in unison before scowling at each other.
Obito retrieved an envelope from the inner pocket of his suit, his eyes burning. His face grew serious, sharp edges over the ragged skin of his scar. He handed the envelope to Kakuzu.
He was once more their vice–president.
“She goes home,” he said coolly and tugged at his sleeves to cover his cuffs. “I have a meeting now, if you would excuse me,” Obito added and waved them off without another word. He shut the glass door delicately behind him.
(“Do you miss it?” Kakuzu once asked Konan, late at night, minutes before she left for the holidays.
“Your home. Do you miss it?” he repeated when she merely looked at him, bag in hand, coat on, waiting by the elevators.
They were alone on the floor. It always seemed that way; they were the first ones to arrive and the last ones to leave.
Yet, Kakuzu couldn’t ask her what he really wanted to know: ‘Do you still miss him?’
“No,” she said simply, but her face said it all.
She looked haunted, disheveled like a brittle, dying flower. Like the red lily with the dark core she once held up between them.
A lily in parentheses.
A CEO in parentheses.)
“Now that we are done, get out. All of you,” Kakuzu growled when he finished recording Obito’s bet.
As expected, none of them moved. Their bodies were now oriented toward Konan’s office.
Deidara blew strands of hair out of his face.
“When is she leaving?” he asked, uneasy.
“In two days,” Itachi answered reluctantly before standing up. “Let’s get back to work.”
As they shuffled to their feet, stretching their backs, and shoving each other to exit his office, Kakuzu’s eyes drifted back to Konan’s office. The blinds were closed as they always were during her lunch hour.
Kakuzu closed his notebook, stone-faced, his heart threatening to burst.
Maybe, if he did have five hearts, it would hurt less- her being so near, across the halls, yet so far out of reach, so far away, wherever she went.
Two days later, Kakuzu couldn’t leave the office.
He glanced at his watch. He paced. He willed himself to move forward, to press the elevator button, and leave. Barely a minute had passed before he glanced at his watch again, tendrils of hope holding him back, threads of shadows binding him to her.
At 11:59PM, Konan stepped out of her office, and he couldn’t help but follow her out of the corner of his eyes, until she was by his side. Reflected in the metallic doors of the elevator, they looked, grotesque, misshapen, more diffuse than solid.
“Were you waiting for me?” Konan asked, straight-forward.
“No,” Kakuzu replied gruffly and pressed the button with the joint of his index finger. He was terribly, dangerously aware of her. Her perfume hung between them, floral and crisp, while they waited for the elevator.
She let her purse fall in the crook of her elbow and rummaged through its content, before she found her car keys. They clicked softly as her fist closed around them.
They waited in silence, and it buzzed, oppressing, like the shouts of those idiots had been two days ago.
Once they stepped inside of the elevator, Kakuzu pressed the button of the first floor of the parking lot for her and the one of the ground floor for himself. He didn’t have a car; he preferred living near his office to cut down on travelling time and cost.
Konan’s hand played with her keys again.
“Did you boys place your bets?” she asked, and Kakuzu turned his body toward her.
He couldn’t read her face. He wasn’t surprised that she knew, but he was that she would address it.
“Remember when Pein would beg you to stay?” he asked.
They were both off the clock, off the books, off script. And suddenly, he didn’t care that his heart was throbbing hard enough for him to feel he had too many of them. He didn’t care that her lips pulled back, almost a snarl, before her face relaxed, cool and distant.
“Who bet I will go over his tomb and cry throughout the holidays?”
“Hidan,” Kakuzu replied, watching her intently. “He has no imagination.”
“Hn.”
He drew closer.
She looked up at him, refusing to look away. Paper crumpled. Paper wrinkled. She didn’t. She wouldn’t.
She didn’t want to be folded and refolded into different shapes, like she was origami herself, her folds, her wounds, for everyone to see, and deconstruct and reconstruct. Pein had once told her, in pain, on his hospital bed, that she should make herself some wings out of paper and see if she could fly.
‘After I die, we could still be together if you were an angel,’ he had coughed and laughed, feverish and delirious.
Pein died two days later.
(“Do you think I would make a good revengeful angel?” Konan once asked Kakuzu, late at night, after she officially took over Pein’s position.
She swirled the expensive whisky a client had given in her glass before downing it. She grimaced, then gestured for him to fill her glass again.
Kakuzu grunted before obeying when she wouldn’t look away. She licked her lips.
“Well? Do you?” she asked softly, but her voice was high-strung like when she was furious.
“No.”
Konan stiffened, her pain swimming in her glazed over eyes. She blinked. Her jaw worked. Then, she laughed, bitter and wounded, and reached for her glass again.
Konan knocked the whiskey back. It set her ablaze. She shook her head. How couldn’t Kakuzu see it when he knew nothing but a perfect, even scale: she constantly imagined herself soaring through the sky, bursting with her bottomless anger.
Couldn’t he see how angry she was? How it choke her, constantly threatening to rip her open and leave her bleeding it out; the darkness pooling inside her.
Wasn’t she weak, crumpled like paper, to feel all of this like he had died yesterday?
“I think you’re like that lily.”
“What lily?” she wiped her lips with the back of her hand, her head swaying back against the headrest of her seat.
“The red one,” Kakuzu said and filled her glass again. She looked at him through her eyelashes. “With the dark core.”
He set the bottle back on her desk, only reluctantly letting it go.
“You’re angry, not revengeful. There’s nothing to make for what you’ve lost. It would never balance out.”
“Why,” Konan rasped later after Kakuzu had left, caving in, her chin falling to her chest. “Why?”)
“This isn’t why I’m mentioning him,” Kakuzu said softly.
Her cheek trembled, and her car keys dug into her palm. She rolled her shoulders back.
“Then, why would you mention him?”
“Because I’m not going to stop you. And I never placed any bets.”
This time, Konan was the one who drew closer, a glint in her eyes. Maybe she was as mad as him.
Maybe she didn’t hope for wings anymore. He hoped, he hoped, she didn’t think of herself as Pein’s revengeful angel anymore.
“Because you’re cheap,” Konan said tonelessly.
Kakuzu cocked his head to the side, searching her placid face.
“I don’t mind investing money.”
Konan turned back toward the doors and only hummed in reply.
He was distracted by the way her eyelashes fluttered, by the gulp that was caught in her throat, and how she appeared to struggle to breathe, to live.
“Konan.”
The elevator slowed to a stop.
“I don’t invest money like this, and…” Kakuzu shook his head, lost in thoughts, lost in her. He let go; he had done it too many times now. It came naturally.
“I’ll see you in two weeks,” Kakuzu said over his shoulder as he got off the elevator.
He never looked back.
Kakuzu stepped outside in the frigid night and looked up at the sky. It hung heavy with snow and thick clouds, erased by the lights of the surrounding skyscrapers.
He shook his head and started walking toward his apartment.
Yes, Kakuzu truly hated the holidays.
He hunched his back against the snow drifting and the wind, his collar up. He put his hands in his pockets and froze.
His fingers played with it before he took it out from his pockets, barely pinching the glossy paper. The lily bloomed, red, between his fingers, held up, its core invisible in the darkness.
The flower hadn’t looked this delicate when she had held it up for him to see; it had shone like blood, like death. It felt like Pein. It still felt like pain.
Now, he didn’t know what it was.
Kakuzu kept walking.