I was going to spend a few months writing this on and off, about maybe twenty-thousand words in a big one-shot, then I thought PSHAAAAW and decided to break it into chapters. This should hopefully be a peaceful story about the sky, planes, paper, OCD, religion and a few other things :)

In my opinion, we don't see enough of Konan, and she is a very, very awesome character. I know she's very stoic and badass, but I thought it would be interesting to give her a flaw, and I immediately thought control. So I layered her iron-clad control with obsessiveness and sprinkled her with various neuroses :D

And I know it was Yahiko who died in the manga, not Nagato, but to avoid confusion with Pain and Yahiko and (my brain hurts just thinking about it), I've killed off Nagato and merged Pain and Yahiko as one.

As for the crack pairing, I dunno, I kind of like the foul-mouthed heathen and the emotionless origami artist as a couple. We'll see how they do :)

A fire cannot be wrapped with paper – Chinese Proverb.

Konan sat with her hands on the steering wheel, her orange-painted nails tapping an impatient rhythm as she waited in the traffic.

She had five minutes before she would begin to get anxious. In five minutes, she would only have thirty-five minutes to get to her appointment. She disliked not having at least forty minutes to reach her destination. A few friends of hers had called this part of her character 'anal,' and never understood the nagging sensation of fear that would chew at her if she thought there was the slightest chance she would be late. It was a fear that had clung to her since she was a small child, and the logical part of her despised it.

Her fingers twitched, wishing she had could be at home, folding paper in her cool, dark apartment, not stuck in this cramped, over-heated car.

The sky was an obnoxious shade of bright blue, with cartoonish fluffy white clouds dotted about. To anyone else, this would be ideal weather, but Konan disliked heat. She wore a long black overcoat zipped up all the way, and thick woollen leggings and boots. Most people would have chosen to wear something less restricting, and certainly not black, but Konan was a stubborn kind of girl who refused to let the weather influence her wardrobe.

She chewed at her bottom lip, beginning to feel the first fluttering of anxiety in her stomach.

The cars behind her were honking their horns, as though it was her fault that they were all stuck in a traffic jam.

Admittedly, her car being exceedingly old and painted burnt orange, she attracted more attention than she ought to.

A line of shining, brightly-coloured cars stretched out as far as the eye could see. A brilliantly white plane slowly traced the outline of the sky, heading back to the airport, judging by the direction. Konan squinted, and caught a glimpse of the tiny metal wheels extending from below the plane, catching the light of the sun.

She wound her window down, desperate for a flush of cold breeze. Nothing. The air was stiff and hot. Her arm rested on the window, an inch of pale skin visible between her sleeve and glove. She could smell cooking meat on the air, smoke from a nearby barbeque drifting by. It made her long for Autumn, the time of year when bonfires lit up gardens and burnt away the old. The scent of smoking bonfires was far preferable to charred burgers from some family get-together.

Summer was too intense. Too hot, too long, too much colour, smells, sounds, shrieking children playing with hoses in the streets, the tinkling tune of the ice cream van. It was a time of chaos, of people running to hail taxis to the airport, of frantically packing suitcases, forgetting things, losing passports, spilling sunscreen over clothes, missing flights, getting sunburnt, sunstroke, mugged, falling downstairs –

She cut off her rampant train of thoughts. Summer was harsh and everything she despised. It wouldn't do to get worked up about it, however.

Spring was her favourite season. Blossoms decorating every tree, frail, new flowers tentatively beginning to grow, the sun rising quicker and setting later, pollen on the air, lambs suddenly running amok in the fields next to the road she took to get to work – Spring was mild, beautiful and fragile.

She was tired of the endless hot days and burning sun.

"Hey! Blue-san!" A loud, jarring voice called from outside the car.

Konan flicked a look at the man running towards her stationary vehicle and began to wind the window up again.

"Hey! No need for that! Let's be friendly here!" The man hollered, finally reaching her window. He paused to smirk triumphantly at her. She scanned him. Slicked back silver hair (dyed, her mind supplied, and dyed often), odd, purplish eyes (contacts?), tanned skin and - ah, a rosary. Specifically the type Jashinists wore.

Was he really spreading the word of Jashin through traffic jams?

"What do you want?" Konan asked, her voice blank and toneless as always.

Her coolness disturbed him, she could tell, the smirk faltering slightly. Did he expect the woman with piercings, dark eye makeup and a beat up car to be receptive to his religious nonsense?

"Can I have a lift, please?" He asked, and something about the way he squirmed and clamped his mouth shut after he spoke made her think he would not normally ask so civilly. His cheeks flushed red.

Konan examined her watch. Her five minutes were up. Predictably, her stomach churned with anxiety.

"Where to?" Konan asked courteously, wondering how long it would take for this particular traffic jam to start moving so she could drive away from this strange man.

"Not far," He insisted, "I'd walk but it's fucking hot and I'm gonna fucking melt out here if you don't let me in soon, man."

She gave him a measured look. He wore, bizarrely enough, a mesh shirt that looked hideously uncomfortable. Her mind immediately picked a memory from her old school days, pictures of hair shirts arising. Contrition, penitence, atonement. Religious ideals. However, it was unlikely that this man's mesh shirt caused him pain, and since Jashinism was a fairly isolated religion, she imagined it would spurn other religious principles such as self-flagellation.

"If you can gain entrance to this car," Konan said graciously, "You may have your lift."

She neglected to mention that the only door that worked was hers.

"Yes!" The man cheered, and plunged head-first into the car through her window.

Suddenly, she had a lapful of religious maniac. He squirmed in her lap, wriggling through the window, his legs kicking furiously as he tried to manoeuvre his way into the car. She could see people stop walking in the street to stare at the spectacle.

"Get. Off. Of. Me." She hissed, close to exploding with rage.

The man froze, then made swimming motions with his arms, trying to gain enough momentum to land in the passenger seat.

The people in the cars behind her were leaning on their horns. She looked up and realised the cars in front had started to move at a quick rate.

She grabbed the man's legs, tipped him into the seat next to hers and slammed the car forward, rolling up the window with her elbow.

For the first time in ages, she began to seriously consider the possibility of actually being late, not just worrying about it.

"Just what were you intending to accomplish with that little stunt?" Konan asked icily, eyes on the road, not trusting herself to remain composed if she looked at the man.

"You told me to get in, I got in," He replied, stretching out lazily in his seat, "I figured your car looked crappy enough that your doors'd be stuck, 'specially since you were so confident I wouldn't get in."

Konan glanced at him and tightened her hands on the wheel, "Do your seatbelt up." She ordered him, disliking the way he sat in the chair, messily sprawling, his feet up on the dashboard.

The man raised a silvery eyebrow – not dyed then? – that was bisected by an old scar, "What's the point? Just gets in the way when you wanna get out again."

"It prevents injury and death," She countered, turning the car as the road wound left, "I believed that was common knowledge."

"No fucking duh, lady."

Konan wondered if he had a problem, what with the constant obscenities he continually used. No, she decided. It wasn't so much a verbal tic as a predisposition to profanity.

"My name is Konan," She said evenly, "Not lady."

"Konan, huh?" He looked at her sideways, fiddling with his rosary, "My name's Hidan."

"That's a nice name." She said mildly, despite the fact that names usually left her cold. She had never been very interested in the way people seemed inclined to one type of name over another. However, Hidan's name suited him, somehow.

He gave a rough laugh, "Whatever."

"Where did you want to go?" She asked, remembering he was hardly coming along to her appointment with her.

He shrugged lethargically, "Aw, just drop me off wherever."

"You do not have a specific destination in mind?"

"My destination was 'get the hell out of this insane fucking heat, oh that chick's got one of them fans in her car, might as well get a ride to any-fucking-where'."

She was displeased by this. How could he be happy getting into a stranger's car and being dropped off somewhere completely random? Surely he would have trouble getting home if he didn't know where he was…

More traffic lights forced her to stop, so the car rolled to a smooth halt.

She reached over to him in an equally smooth, unhurried movement, and drew his seatbelt across his chest, ignoring his exclamation of surprise (Fuckin' hell, she noted), neatly clipping it in place.

Then, she sat back in her chair, spine straight, no hint of a slouch in her posture, and returned her hands to their optimum position on the steering wheel, watching the traffic lights like a hawk.

"…You got a fuckin' problem, lady." Hidan finally swore with such conviction that she blanched. There was, however, a note of amusement in his voice that offset the potential rudeness of his statement.

"My name is Konan." She returned in her level voice, fingers tapping the wheel.

"Whatever."

"There is a fan in the glove compartment." Konan replied, noticing the way his hand kept reaching up to idly fan his face.

Hidan pushed the button and grabbed the small, softly whirring fan. He gave her a look.

"No offence, but you look like you need this more than me."

"The heat does not bring me discomfort."

"Bullshit," He laughed, lunging forward and curling a hand around the edge of her face, under her hair, where sweat dampened her skin, "Look at this. You're fuckin' boiling in that neat little coat."

Konan moved her head away, lips pursed in mild annoyance, "Please refrain from touching me."

"'Kay. I'll do my best to 'refrain.'" Hidan rolled his eyes.

For a while, there was a silence that was almost companionable.

Then Hidan turned the fan on her.

Konan calmly raised a hand to stop her hair flying in the sudden breeze, and requested that he cease his antics immediately.

He did not.

"I'm saying you look hot, is all," Hidan insisted, keeping the fan stubbornly trained upon her despite her obvious annoyance, "And I mean that in the temperature sense."

"Your observation has been noted. Now please remove the fan."

"Nah."

"...Are all Jashinists so stubborn?" Konan asked, genuinely curious. She knew practically nothing of the religion, just that it was extreme and very much looked down upon by society.

Hidan's eyes bugged out almost comically.

"Wait. Fucking wait one minute, you know about Jashinism? Are you a –"

"No, I'm an atheist." Konan said primly. Well, if one didn't count absolute devotion to one's boss as worshipping a god, she was certainly not a woman of faith.

"Oh." Hidan sat back in his seat, obviously disappointed, "Still, how'd you know?"

"Those are the specific rosary beads Jashinists use," Konan pointed where they dangled at his chest, "I recall the size and colour of the beads from a textbook. Unusually large beads and that symbol, the triangle inside the circle… It was not difficult to –"

"Textbook," Hidan snorted, "Who the fuck writes about Jashin?"

"I believe it was a quote from Jashin's primary religious text, which, unusually enough, is written in blood as far as I know –"

"Still, it ain't every day some chick knows 'bout Jashin." Hidan interrupted, eyeing her with interest.

"I am not a chick," Konan said evenly, ignoring Hidan's amused snort, "My name is Konan."

"Fuck, you some kind of robot? Is that all you can say, 'my name is Konan,' little Miss Priss?"

"Where do you want to be dropped off?" Konan asked, wondering how long she had until her appointment began. She didn't feel anxious about it for some reason – perhaps her irritation at her sudden companion was too distracting?

"Ugh, just drop me off here, 'kay?" Hidan snarled, jabbing his thumb at the window.

Konan glanced outside. If he got out there, he would have difficulty backtracking if that was his intention, and the traffic was getting worse and worse. He would undoubtedly find it hard to gain passage on any public transport at this hour.

"If you have somewhere you can go that is not far away, I will drive you." She said politely.

Hidan fidgeted in his seat, "You don't have to do that. Lemme out here."

"I think there is a Jashinist church a few miles away," Konan pressed, "If I drop you off outside, I will be content knowing you aren't –"

"What the fuck do you care." He glared at her, not asking her a straight question. His teeth were bared in challenge. "Seriously, lady, what the fuck do you care?"

"You got into my vehicle willingly after I offered to take you where you wanted to go. It is my responsibility to –"

"Fucking hell, woman, you got some problems." He said, his oddly-coloured eyes flicking up and down her body and back up to her face. He shook his head as she drove past where he wanted to be dropped off.

"See ya," He said casually, waving a hand, "Jashin'll see you get rewarded for helping me out, even if you are a fucking weirdass robot."

Before she could – thank him? be offended? – he kicked open the busted car door. It swung messily out, scraping the tarmac.

She let out a protesting noise, slowing the car down and reaching out for him, "Hidan –"

"Bye."

He leapt out of the car, rolling onto the pavement. Konan watched, mouth open slightly, as he jumped up, seemingly unharmed. What on earth…?

He gave her an oddly formal salute, what she could only describe as a 'shit-eating grin' on his face.

She drove off, heart pounding, slightly in shock, her car door trailing the floor all the way.

xxxxxxxx

"If you do not speak at all during this session, Konan-san, I'm afraid we will not achieve anything."

The psychologist was too young. She had, foolishly perhaps, pictured an elderly man, bristling with wisdom, with a warm smile. Someone she could actually open up to who didn't have multiple facial piercings, orange hair and a shared past.

Uchiha Itachi was a pale, dark-eyed young man with a tendency of rubbing his eyes as though they pained him whenever she failed to respond to a leading question. He was serious, quiet, and had an intense, focused gaze.

"I have spoken." Konan replied.

Itachi gave a thoroughly insincere smile, "That is not what I mean, Konan-san, and you know it."

"What do you want me to say?"

"We may as well begin at the beginning. Your childhood. Describe it to me."

"You should have a thorough record of my childhood in the files my office had faxed over." Konan said, quietly ignoring the bait.

"Indeed I do. It was written by a fellow psychologist, however, and thus contains inevitable bias. I would ask that you describe it to me in your own words."

Konan gave a small, almost inaudible sigh and nodded.

"I grew up in an orphanage," She began tonelessly, "I am an orphan. I know nothing of my family. I made two friends in the orphanage. One of them died. I was moved to another orphanage when the first was closed down, and was separated from my other friend. I grew up."

"Anything you wish to elaborate on?"

"No."

"Tell me about Nagato." Itachi said abruptly, leaning forward in his chair. The leather creaked with the movement. Konan's eyes were drawn to the chair by the movement. It was a safe way to not have to look into those awful eyes. The ones that demanded honesty.

She said nothing, staring at the chair until he shifted again and she looked away.

"Your loss was recorded in your file by the previous psychologist you saw," Itachi said gently, "He wrote that you seemed to feel guilty for Nagato's death."

"Survivor's guilt is a common, unremarkable thing." Konan stated, not looking up.

"Survivor's guilt? It says here he died of malnutrition."

"So he did. They didn't feed us right in that orphanage," Konan said, her voice barely audible. She was lost in her memories. Poor Nagato had been born smaller than most kids already, and had never grown. He was sick anyway, but he could never eat anything, not even the stuff she and Yahi – no, not Yahiko. Not anymore. Pain, "They closed it down after he died and Pain and I were sent to different orphanages. Pain and I ate more than Nagato. He gave us his own food, even though Pain didn't want it. I did. I was very hungry."

She glanced up. Itachi's gaze was coolly assessing, his chin resting on his fist.

"And you believe if you hadn't eaten his food, he would have lived? It says here that he was dying of an illness he'd had from birth anyway –"

"Do not say anyway." Konan said coldly, "His death was not a question of now or later. It would have hurt regardless of time. Knowing that he would die a year, two, three years later, does not change the guilt I feel because he didn't have those years. If he hadn't died then, he could have lived longer. So yes. Guilt is what I feel."

Itachi sat back, fingers laced together.

"Very well. It says here that your superior, 'Pain,'" Itachi's lip curled at the name, and Konan decided there and then that she disliked him, "believes you have obsessive tendencies."

He made a point of flipping through some papers, so she got the point.

"I see." Konan said, "That is indeed possible."

"You appear to have a great deal of control over your emotions, Konan-san," Itachi said, the first genuine smile gracing his lips since she'd sat down, "You have barely reacted to anything I have said today."

Is that the point of a psychological evaluation? Konan wondered, to get a rise out of your patient?

"I have adequate self-control," Konan said stiffly, "Thank you. As for the obsessive tendencies… I suppose it would irritate you if I said I have self-diagnosed myself with OCD?"

Itachi gave a humourless laugh, "I would ask on what basis, but I can picture you forming a file of all your illogical, compulsive thoughts and obsessive rituals and drawing conclusions from there."

Konan knew her expression did not change at all, but her cheeks pinked a bit.

So she had a folder of her own dysfunctions. What did it matter? Other people kept files of their achievements. She wanted a record of her shortcomings. How else would she improve?

"I would hesitate to say anything for definite, but you do appear to have trouble with obsessions and compulsions, as detailed in your own report."

After that, the appointment became routine, just going through the basics. They both pointedly avoided the subject of Nagato for the rest of the session.

xxxxxxxx

Mindlessly scrolling down a list of names, references and numbers was not how she would have spent her evening if given the choice.

She sat cross-legged on the floor, chin resting on her fist, a deep frown creasing her forehead as a headache pounded at her temples. She tapped a pen against her cheek every so often, deep in thought. The other hand occasionally flashed across the keyboard of her laptop, to type a name or scroll down the page.

Akatsuki needed another co-owner. It was Pain's belief that things worked best when a pair was in charge – two hands, opinions, double the time and commitment to the job, teamwork, etc. He often pointed out how he and Konan both worked effectively as a team together, and wanted to utilise this effect within the business.

For some of the nightclubs Pain owned, this worked well.

Sasori and Deidara, for example, hated each other's guts. They treated each other with contempt, sneered at the other's beliefs, philosophy, art, everything. They argued bitterly whenever they were put in the same room. And yet, should anyone ever threaten their business, try to change how they ran it, they would gut them. They were complete opposites, and worked in complete symbiosis. Deidara's chaotic energy and Sasori's endless patience combined perfectly.

Not to mention the fact that they somehow managed to both despise and care for each other. A young, pink-haired college student had once driven her car onto the pavement to avoid hitting an old woman, and had instead struck Sasori, nearly killing him. Deidara had not been there, but when he was informed of the incident, he was dragged out of the hospital by security, screaming that he was going to blow up the girl's house.

Akatsuki's employees had an alarming tendency towards mental dysfunction, Konan privately thought.

Sasori and Deidara both ran one of Pain's chain of nightclubs, and theirs was probably the most popular and ran more smoothly than any other. The only real threat had been when an enthusiastic young man named Obito had attempted to buy out Sasori's share, wanting to work with 'Deidara-senpai.' Needless to say, the threat was quickly vanquished by an uncharacteristically annoyed Sasori.

Kakuzu showed great promise in his ability to run one of Pain's rougher, less popular nightclubs. He had an incredible control over his finances, he never ran over his limit, he never spent a penny more than absolutely required. He also ran a great deal of seemingly cheap promotions, raking in more customers and essentially conning them out of their money by providing brightly coloured, cheaply made drinks for a 'special price offer.'

However, he held Pain's 'two heads are better than one' ideal in contempt, stating that having a partner would just slow him down. It had gotten to the point where any potential candidate Konan sent his way often ended up ducking a beer bottle as they made their hasty retreat. He simply infuriated, terrified or bullied any co-worker until they quit.

Now she was the one having to search fruitlessly for someone who had the skills to work in an Akatsuki brand nightclub and the courage to withstand Kakuzu's general unpleasantness.

Konan blinked when she realised she was scanning the latest candidate's CV automatically, looking to see if they had any religious requirements, certain days they needed off, for example. She rubbed her eyes delicately with her fingers, sighing deeply.

That Jashinist she had met… his pale, grinning face was etched into her memory. It wasn't as though Hidan had made any particular impact upon her – it was merely the usual burden her photographic memory placed upon her. Nagato's wasted form, the protruding sharp shoulder blades, like a baby bird's fledgling wings, would forever be imprinted in her mind.

Hidan was one of those rare, interesting people who interrupted her life, shaking its rock-steady foundations. Uzumaki Naruto had been such a person, a stubborn, determined living force of pure energy. He was exhausting to know. They shared a mentor, Jiraiya, who had once taken Konan under his wing when she was still very young. He hadn't been an outstanding teacher, but he passed on more to his students than most because his lessons involved real life, not textbooks. She was not certain he was a positive influence on the malleable Naruto, who would absorb any lesson Jiraiya had to offer like a sponge. He had his own dream, a powerful motivating factor.

Konan's fingers stuttered at the keyboard.

Dreams.

She had once had a dream. Not her own, she shared it with Pain.

But that dream had since been forgotten, it seemed.

It didn't matter. She would follow Pain to the end of the Earth without question. A childhood dream could wait.

But Nagato – her mind protested before she cut it off sharply.

She was still fresh and raw from her appointment. It wouldn't do to dwell on the past when she had work to do.

Her eyes itched, the lids drooping. She was tiring quicker than usual. Her lethargy was probably owed to the shock of a man actually leaping in and out of her car and the pain of dragging up old memories.

She stood up, feeling her muscles ache at the sudden stretching the movement brought. The slice of sky visible through her window was dark blue and littered with stars.

She could do with a ten-minute break.

She balanced her laptop on her hip, the files in one hand and a mug of black coffee in the other, and opened the kitchen door with her elbow with practised ease.

The garden was washed with a bright glow as the security lights registered Konan walking down the path. The grass was neatly shorn down, bone dry from the heat of the day, so she didn't have to wade through long, wet weeds as she did when the gardener failed to show up.

Even at night, with the Sun tucked away bothering some other part of the world, it was fairly warm, enough so that she regretted keeping her thick coat on.

She carried her burden carefully and began to climb up the old slide's ladder.

Her house was a small, semi-detached wreck.

She had bought it when she was only in her teens, the money fresh in her hands. She and Pain had begun to make money and she had stupidly bought the first house she deemed within her price range.

Pain often tried to reason with her over the subject of her home, pointing out she could afford to buy a much nicer place, that the area was rough, that the neighbours were rowdy, and yet she stayed.

She had lived there for years now, and she had no intention of moving.

The people who had lived there before clearly had children, because there was an aging playground in her garden, a half-buried sandpit, a weed-strewn swing set, and a rusting slide.

She indulged her ridiculous side every so often, using the slide as a perch to view the sky.

She sat down on the cold plastic top of the slide, sipping her coffee. The night sky was set out before, a complex mixture of dark blues, an infinitesimal amount of different colours painted together and a web of far-off stars.

Her real interest was slowly drifting across the sky.

At night, planes looked like UFOs, the form indistinct from the dark sky, the lights flashing in alien patterns. Konan lived near an airport and thus had plenty of opportunities to watch planes travel past her quiet corner of the world.

She sat peacefully for the rest of the night, typing quietly, her stone cold mug nestled in the grass beneath her, planes occasionally drifting overhead.

If the memory of Hidan exploded in her mind like a firework disturbing a night sky every now and then – well, she dismissed it as a side-effect of heatstroke.

A story about summer and stars, maybe, and some cool paper tricks and difficult childhoods and an exploration of what it must be like to be so devoted to a religion everyone else sneers at… and a look at the various interruptions OCD has in a person's life, even one as controlled as Konan.

I love, love, LOVE opposites attract pairings. They are like crack to me. The idea of falling for someone completely different from you is so interesting… so Hidan's constant profanity and violent religion should provide a beautiful contrast to Konan's smooth, practised poise.

I hope you guys like this, it's very different from my usual stuff. I really enjoyed writing it, and I hope the rest of the story will be just as fun to write :)

The rest of Akatsuki and maybe a few other characters will have cameos, a few actually having important roles to play :D

Quick poll for fun: Favourite Akatsuki pairing? Tell me why you like it so much :)

For example, mine is SasoDei.