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paperbackcat · 7 years

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Hues (Sasodei fanfic)

Set in an alternate universe where the characters are college students, Deidara finds himself stuck in a rut, having to team up with the most infuriating piece of work, in the entire universe. (Okay, maybe he’s over-exaggerating but) Of all people, he had to partner up with the least liked student in the entire class. (A/N: Was supposed to be a one-shot but welp)

Chapter 1: First quarter

Words: 7,199k

Saturday

From the looks of it, he knew he was in deep hot soup.

Or it could probably be because he was literally staring at the steaming warm tomato soup in front of him. Recoiling from the thought, he stabbed his wooden spoon into the bowl, splattering droplets of scarlet onto the table. Burgundy cherry red that sounded daintily beautiful, but was definitely not a picture-perfect combination to a bed of scraggly hair. Picture perfect, huh? What an irony. He speared his thickening broth once more, frowning in abhorrence.

“Why are you taking out your wrath on the soup?” Came the snort of disbelief, “What’s it done to you?”

Gunmetal pools darted ahead, glaring directly at what was in front of him. Russet brown stared back challengingly, tawny-coloured eyebrows raised in a jeering sort of way. Biting back a crude remark, the slate eyed individual stuck out his tongue and continued his massacre of his soup. It had been his dreadful luck anyway to get stuck with none other than the most infuriating piece of work in the class. Running his hand down his face, Deidara took a deep breath, trying to calm himself down, ignoring the weird scowl coming from his art project - partner.

It’s not like he desperately wanted to pair with the bored ashy looking teenager in the first place, it was of unfortunate circumstances – of which included his best friend completely dumping him for another. In Hidan’s defence, Deidara swaggered into the classroom almost two hours late for class and had been forcefully paired up with the only other person in class who didn’t have a partner. Of course it had to be him. Of all the people in the world, it had to be Sasori.

Letting out a sigh of annoyance – possibly defeat – Deidara shoved his bowl away, losing his appetite at the bothersome scowl on Sasori’s pale face. The other male’s lips were pursed thinly as if he was no more exasperated than the flaxen haired artist. Fluttering his gaze else, Deidara glance pointedly out at the window behind the ruby haired male, wanting more to be anywhere else but sitting sedentarily on his dormitory room chair.

Tall chilled windows gave way to the snowy wasteland, hypnotizing snowflakes cascading down and covering up the empty street. After all – everyone’s left for the weekends, the blonde thought solemnly, the lord only knows if Sasori’s some insane sociopath, just waiting to prance and kill me. It did look as if the red-hair individual had a bone to pick with him by the way that the glare was fixated menacingly. Sighing again, Deidara glazed out from the frosted window still. The street looked like an almost unfinished painting – the snowy white ground was like a giant canvas, waiting to be painted. Aside from the brown of the denuded trees, the only other colour was from the warm ginger glow of sunset, staining the grey tinted skies.

“Earth to Deidara,” Sasori’s frosty bite broke his thoughts, “Aren’t we supposed to be planning our project out?”

Part of the blonde cursed himself for deciding to stay during the weekends. He thought that no one else would be around, he could rock out to loud music, maybe even blast it down the hallway and just dance wildly to it – or just laze his Saturday and Sundays away, just doing absolutely nothing. Little did he know, Sasori had decided to take that opportune moment to discuss their art project plans, tipping Deidara’s weekend plans over like an iceberg to the titanic. The irony that the red-haired pest was just as icy cold too.

What was there to plan anyway? Deidara scoffed internally, it was just a simple project. They just needed to paint something. Something – anything, it really didn’t need much thought. Deidara never put much though in his projects anyway. It was more of an instinct, he thought to himself, like how a bird knows how to fly north for the winter.

And he relayed those exact thoughts to his perpetual bored looking partner.

“Instinct?” Came the sneer of disbelief.

“Yes.” Deidara nodded self-assuredly, folding his arms and shooting a proud smirk at the other male.

“Ridiculous.” Sasori seemed to be fond of his one-liners as he folded his arms as well, blatantly unsatisfied with Deidara’s ideology of art.

Huffing, the flaxen haired boy clenched his fists.

“It’s not ridiculous,” He snapped, “I’m clearly doing it right since I’ve never once failed any of my classes. It’s – it’s,” Deidara fumbled around searching for a better word, wildly flinging his arms around, “Intuition. Just like how birds fly north for the winter, I know what I’m doing.”

“Birds fly south.”

“It really doesn’t matter where they fly now, does it? All that matters is that they fly off during the winter.”

“Some birds don’t.”

“How would you know, you’re not some sort of bird whisperer.”

“It’s called an Ornithologist.”

“That’s a dentist.”

“Were you knocked on the head as a child?”

Deidara sent a death glare over to the other male, but before he could open his mouth to spill out a couple of curses that would probably sent his own mother off crying, Sasori cut him off.

“I’ve concluded that you are a simpleton. ("Oi.” Deidara sulked at that darkly.)“ The red-head boy lifted a bony finger and pointed it ominously at Deidara, "So I suggest you listen to me, that way we’ll both finish this project faster and end the horror our teacher calls ‘project work’. I’ll be on my way and we’ll never cross paths again provided you get more loyal friends – or come to school on time for once.”

“It was just that one time.” Deidara hissed frigidly and Sasori interrupted him once more.

“I’ll take the reins for this project.” He fumbled at his haversack and pulled out a few pieces of paper. “And ironically enough, your stupid attempt at explaining yourself gave me an idea.” Those doe shaped russet eyes seated upon his face twinkled in a strange almost alluring way, as he picked up a pen at his side and scribbled hurriedly on a piece of paper.

He lifted it up to show Deidara what he had scrawled. The words 'sky’, 'birds’ and 'clouds’ were virtually incomprehensible but the blonde had managed to decipher them. Even though he was partially still affronted that the other male had been viciously rude to him, he couldn’t help but favour the idea.

Still, he didn’t want to show his delight at the fact that he actually liked the notion of painting the sky.

“Isn’t painting just the sky too easy?” Deidara tilted his head up arrogantly at Sasori, narrowing his lambent melt-water eyes.

“No it’s not.” The red-haired male snorted back, scribbling some more on the piece of paper, “It might seem unassumingly easy, but to capture the essence of the sky, it is close to impossible.”

“I’ve done it a million times before, it’s plain sailing.”

“Discussion over, Deidara.” At that, Sasori grabbed his bag and left.

Once more, the blonde was left in the dormitory room, faced with his double bunk-bed of cheap stripped pine with their rough canvas mattresses, jammed end to end on both sides of the long drafty room. It seemed strangely empty now that the other male had left, the evening dim light shining dimly through the frost tinted glass. It was slowly bleeding into grey, just like how the dormitory was coloured, and the boy wondered about the abundance of diverse colours the sky had, flowing from a bright warm auburn glow to a bitter ancient grey.

Deidara found himself flopping onto the bottom bunk of his shared bed. It was an exhausting day, he pondered as he reverently rubbed his fingers along the tattered ragged mattress. Pressing his cheek to the cool clothed pillows, he let out an blissful groan at the datum that he was finally alone. Sitting at the table with Sasori’s lunar shaped eyes constantly on him was about to make him foam at the mouth. With his ruminant personality, the other male always left his ruby hair tussled, in a casual jumble and it irked Deidara that he seemed effortlessly stoic even though he obviously did not look the part. Kinda like the sky, he thought, wiggling his toes into the comforter. Fiery warm red and cold silver bitter.

Deidara flipped over to lie on his belly, placing his hands on his chin, propped up with his elbows. Justly, the red-head had never really talked to him before. Once, at the cafeteria, he recalled, whilst he was daydreaming in line for the food and Sasori had unceremoniously kicked him in the shin, telling him to get his head out of the clouds. It wasn’t a wonder why he was infamously disliked in the class.

Disreputably, the blonde boy wasn’t as well liked himself, but it didn’t matter to him either way. Hidan, his particularly psychotic best friend had his back most of the time – excluding now, he thought darkly, in which the albino haired teen had not apologised for his timely ditch-fest. In fact, he left the classroom, smiling meekly with his new art project partner and promising he’d make up for the mess he made.

They were given a week and a half to finish their project. An A0 sized painting of either acrylic, oil paint or water colour and because of Deidara’s tardiness to class, Sasori had decided for the both of them that they would be using paper instead of canvas, watercolour instead of oils. The blonde wasn’t a fan of watercolour but had to stiffly agree to it, since at that time, he was completely fraught at the fact that Hidan ditched him. Watercolour was flowing, delicate and intricate with smooth elongated strokes that did not play well with Deidara’s rough stubby fingertips. He preferred bold, course dramatic strokes with sketchy glazes across canvas and dramatic thick acrylic – with splashes of tawny brown, pastel and vibrant blues.

It was too late anyway. He couldn’t opt out and he couldn’t change partners. Then again, it wasn’t as if Sasori was causing a lot of distress as of the moment. In fact, they seemed to be going in the right – same direction. Maybe it wouldn’t end up as badly as he thought. Flipping back to lay on his back, Deidara smirked to himself. Maybe they can actually do this together.

He was wrong.

Oh so very wrong.

Sunday

Deidara stabbed his spoon viciously into his soup bowl. Today it was minestrone, a clear mix of cantaloupe orange and burnt sienna. Sipping thinly from his wooden spoon, he swung it wildly at Sasori, who reeled in disgust at the splattering liquid. Sneering, the red-head brushed at his sleeves, giving Deidara a menacing stink eye. He had no right to mock Deidara, after all, Sasori was the imbecile who agreed to the daunting task to pairing up with the blonde. He could’ve opted to work solo, perhaps even switched partners with someone else in the class with similar artistic ideologies. Deidara glowered at the other with livid infuriation. Now, he was stuck with a stubborn artist who thought that rulers were needed in abstract painting.

“It’s not abstract.” Sasori hissed.

“Yes it is.” Deidara snarled back scornfully, returning his spoon into the bowl and splashing the carmine coloured soup on his table. “I have a say in my ("our” sasori added grumpily) work.“ The blonde his fingers onto the table furiously, irate with the sullen boy.

"We are painting it my way. It’ll get done easier.”

“I don’t like 'your way’,” Deidara mimicked the other boy’s morose voice, “You picked the materials, so now, I get to pick the style.”

Sasori folded his arms indignantly.

“I say we paint it like an abstract painting. We’ll use different colours, like pastels, cupcake pinks, teals and a dash of creamy beige.” The blonde declared, sipping his soup once again, tilting his chin at the red-head, smirking proudly at his explanation.

“The sky isn’t made out of candy, brat.” Sasori derided, “It’s granite. Hues of overcast azure and pewter.”

“I am not painting a graveyard.” Deidara retorted back, shaking his head eagerly. “I want something wild,” his bright eyes gleamed with mad zealousness, “Like an explosion of colours.”

“I don’t know what sort of world you live in, but it’s certainly not what normal people see.” The red-head pointed intentionally at the window glass still. “Look outside, does it look as if the sky is covered in a variegated hue?”

Deidara ignored his finger and shook his head.

“I’m not painting some granny grey sky.” He grumbled, “It so boring. The point of art is to uncover and explore – to see beyond what you don’t normally see.”

Sasori pinched his nose bridge seemingly in frustration.

“No, it’s not. It’s to create the beauty of what you see, so that it lasts for eternity on paper. It’s exquisiteness translated into parchment, representing the subject matter truthfully, avoiding implausible elements.”

They exchanged cold glares.

“It works better with watercolour.” Sasori continued briskly, turning away from Deidara’s frigid gaze. “I’m the one with seniority here. You should listen to me.”

The baby blue eyed blonde clenched his fists in frustration. The red-head was the complete opposite of what he was – their ideologies, their personalities – it was almost impossible to come to a decision with the other constantly on his tail. They were principally like night and day. A harmonious discord, or a deafening sort of silence. They were contradictory and Deidara did not like that. He did not pleasure from the relentless arguments they had – in fact it was just slowing their progress down.

“We need to start today,” Sasori concluded casually, running his hands through his messy locks. “I don’t like waiting.”

Deidara’s right eye twitched in annoyance.

“Well we can’t start today can we?” He snapped, stabbing his soup once more, watching the ginger liquid frolic and ripple. “I’m not going painting some dull ass piece of work. Until we reach some sort of agreement, we won’t start painting.”

“Then agree with my terms so we can begin.” Sasori sounded relatively bored now, his fingers tapping on the table, another hand cupping his cheek as he stared grimly out the window.

“No.” Deidara hissed harshly.

There was a sigh.

“Fine. We’ll compete for it then.” The red-head stood up, slamming his hands onto the table. “We’ll each paint a sample on a piece of A4 paper and we’ll decide, tomorrow, whose is better.”

The mesmerising deep set russet brown eyes stared pointedly at Deidara, who managed a small 'hmph’ of agreement.

“May the bloody better artist win.” The blonde waved his hand, motioning it for Sasori to leave the room.

“It is already decided.” With that Sasori fled the scene, taking his bag of art supplies with him.

After the dormitory door slammed shut, the blonde let out an infuriated shriek of rage. What was he even thinking? That they would’ve happily decided on working on the same sort of art style? No wonder people hate the guy, Deidara snorted inwardly as he flung himself onto his bed, burying his face into his pillow.

Now he’d had to do extra work.

“Ugh.” He murmured into his pillow.

It was evening when he finally dabbed the last piece of pink coat onto his sample size painting.

The sky was darkening and the winter chill entered the dorms, swirling snowflakes creating patterns on his window pane. Deidara sighed, rubbing his temple with his paint soaked fingers, unintentionally painting his own face. It didn’t matter away, the only people left in the dorms were just Sasori and himself. Swiftly, the blonde gently placed paperweights over his masterpiece, hoping for it to dry overnight. Silently, he wondered how the red-head was doing. Was he already done as well or was he still painting?

Shaking those thoughts out of his head, he decided to take a shower instead.

With everything that happened today, he just wanted to sleep and get over with it. Obviously, he’s going to win the competition – right? Whatever it was, he would have it his way. Sasori’s greyscale painting would be nothing compared to his work of genius. Grabbing the soft cloth from his shared cupboard, he flung the towel over his neck and worked on getting to the door, to the hallway toilets, when the lights went out.

Frozen in place, Deidara let out a slow hiss of surprise.

Oh god. Don’t tell me – the electricity’s gone out? He let out a groan of despair. That meant that the heater would be out as well. It wouldn’t be the first time, he frowned to himself, hastily flicking his light switch on and off. The last time the electricity went bust, it was summer and the fans died out – Hidan was rambunctiously loud about how much it was killing him and they both decided to sleep out at a nearby 24 hour coffee stall instead.

Since school’s starting up tomorrow, at least it’ll be fixed up by then. Deidara frowned, slouching down near his door, sighing into his towel. He just wanted a hot bath but no, hell have no fury. To be stuck with an infuriating red-head and to be stuck without a heater. At any rate, he had Hidan’s spare comforter.

Before he could get up again, there was a loud knock on his door.

Blinking, the blonde sat in place, unmoving. Who was that? The only people left in the dormitory were just him and Sasori – why would the red-head even want to come over to his room? Could it be something else – something supernatural? He bit his lip in anxiousness and remained still. Maybe if he didn’t move, the knocking would go away.

It didn’t.

In effect, it became a more violent sort of slam.

The sudden frantic knocking made Deidara gasp in surprise, terrified by the unexpectedness of it all. Struggling to stand back up, he fumbled for his phone in his slacks and shone the dim phone’s glare onto the doorknob of his room. Was he going to open it? He hurriedly backed away to the counter top where Hidan had placed a bottle of salt and grabbed it. Well, apparently being paranoid came to good use – Deidara gulped as he approached the door, one hand clutching desperately on his phone’s dim light and another on the opened bottled of salt.

Heaving in a deep breath, he flung open the door and threw the whole bottle onto the figure in the dark hallway.

“BE GONE DEMON!” He shrieked, frantically shining his phone at the annoyed looking pair of brown eyes – wait. Wait.

“Brilliant.” Sasori’s dead voice sounded hilariously comical at the moment.

“The electricity is out.” Deidara explained weakly, shrugging. Sasori pushed his phone away, barging into the room with a backpack. “You could’ve just said it was you instead of knocking violently at the door like some sort of maniac.”

Under the dim glow of the purple evening sky, the red-head settled down begrudgingly on Deidara’s bed, brushing his salt-covered hair.

“I can’t paint without lights. I can’t see.” He groused. “You need to hold my flashlight up so I can paint.”

At that, Deidara let out a maniacal laugh. Oh the irony of it all. He wasn’t going to just let his enemy waltz into his territory and order him around.

“Oh contra!” Deidara clapped his hands gleefully, “What makes you think I’m going to do that?” A wicked smirk was plastered on his face as he shone his phone’s light onto his face, presenting his diabolical sneer to the other man.

Sasori narrowed his eyes, even in the dim lighting of Deidara’s dorm room, he could tell that the other male was beyond irate.

“Aww, is lil Sasori mad?” The blonde savoured the sulk on the red-head’s face. “Too bad. If you had just listened to me instead, you wouldn’t be stranded here in my room or trying to paint blindly!” He grinned triumphantly, sticking out his tongue.

“I win!” He pointed keenly at his own painting on the table, “I win, I win, I win!”

Sasori peered over Deidara’s finger, eyeing the lopsided painting.

“What,” He began, “On earth,” He recoiled as if the painting had stung him, “Is that?”

The blonde shot the other with a knowing glare.

“It’s the sky.” He concurred.

“It’s disgusting.”

“You’re disgusting.”

“Stellar comeback.”

Sasori frowned deeply and pulled out a piece of paper from his backpack.

“If you help me hold the flashlight,” He unravelled an unfinished piece of work, and looked up at the blonde, hesitantly sighing, “I’ll show you what I can do.”

“I don’t want to.” Deidara turned away and waltzed to the door, flinging it open. “Get out.”

Sasori rubbed his temples.

“Stop being such a brat. We’re still partners nonetheless and I need your help.”

The blonde was caught in a dilemma. He didn’t like Sasori, no not at the least, but it intrigued him to no end to find out how Sasori was going to paint his sample. For a favour, Deidara smirked darkly, shutting the door once more. Maybe.

“Alright. An eye for an eye then.” The blonde twirled his phone around his fingers, grinning. “I’ll help you but only I get to pick the winner for the competition.”

There was a long pause.

Sasori let out resigned exhalation.

“Fine.”

Internally shrieking in victory, Deidara skulked over to where Sasori had planted himself onto, curling up near with a small little wiggle of glory.

There was a vehement press of plastic on his hand as the red-head passed a rather large torchlight. The blonde flicked it on and the bright burst of luminescent cream-coloured light showered the dark room with a glow. It was only then that the blonde had a good clear look of how Sasori’s unfinished painting looked like.

Struggling to keep his gasp of astonishment in, he stared fixedly at the greyscale work of art.

Painted with flat smooth lines, graduating from a woollen grey tone to a misty concrete colour, and even with muted colours, it looked quietly intense. A mix of unvarying subdued colour tones, Deidara never thought grey could be so uncannily bright. Illuminated by the glow of the torch, he watched, fixatedly at the way Sasori spent little time digging out his supplies and began to paint over the white sheet of paper, the way his wrist curved smoothly alongside the paint brush – it was alluring.

The clouds were as white as a moonlit sail, buffeting through the slate blue washed sky. It was insipid, almost hypnotizing. If anything, the red-head artist was precise as his strokes, quick, regular systematic movements, creating the lush landscape with nothing but grey.

Backed up with only a thick wooden block, the paper was glowing with wet watercolours, slowly seeping into the piece of painted canvas.

“I need to let it dry.” Sasori’s voice broke Deidara’s thoughts.

Nodding, the blonde moved aside and let the other boy place his own art work next to Deidara’s own, weighing it down with his brushes.

“You’ve been awfully quiet.” The red-head remarked, settling himself beside the boy once again, tapping the blonde’s shoulder.

Still in a trance like state, the blonde shook his head, passing the torchlight over to his partner. The painting had such a sense of depth, so sharp and detailed – he had never thought the other artist would be so capable of such work. On the other hand, he never thought anyone was better than himself.

There was a click as Sasori turned off his torchlight, the illumined room dimming away into pitch black darkness, the moon as the only source of light, seeping into the room. It’s to save the battery, Sasori mentioned casually, tucking the torch under his arm. Deidara felt somehow relieved that his expressive face was now shielded in the dark, he didn’t want the other boy to see him entranced by the other’s painting. It was disconcerting.

“So,” The red-head began, “I can conclude that you like it?”

Deidara let out a snort.

“No.” It didn’t even sound convincing to himself.

“I’ve not heard you say you dislike it.” He could literally hear that other boy’s sly smirk.

“I don’t,” Deidara paused for a moment, weighing his options, he could say he didn’t like it – it was ultimately a stab to the other’s pride, but it wasn’t the truth. He liked it but it wasn’t worth losing his egotism over. “I don’t –”

But he wanted to know how the latter managed to pull off such a stunning work of art.

“It’s average.” He finished lamely.

“It’s average.” Sasori mimicked coolly.

Deidara could feel the smugness radiantly off the other male.

“To be fair, I’ve never seen anyone paint like that before.” He elucidated quickly, grabbing his pillow and hugging it to his chest. “I think it’s average but mine’s obviously better.”

There was a light scoff.

They sat side by side in silence for a long moment.

“Where did you learn how to paint like that?” Deidara broke the stillness, pulling his comforter around his shoulders and sighing in bliss. The winter night air was getting cold, and the heater was still malfunctioning, thank goodness for warm blankets.

Sasori was still, probably deep in thought.

“Instinct.” He spoke up after a while, sounding self-satisfied.

Deidara let out a scoff.

“Like birds?” He let himself chuckle a little.

“Yeah.” The red-head’s voice seemed kinder now. “Like birds.”

Deidara found himself pressed shoulder to shoulder with the other boy, relishing the company. It was nice, to say the least, to have someone around. It was strange, having yesterday’s appreciation for solitude and today’s obligation for company. Today, it felt like fiery warmth, sinking in and eloping him with its gentle caress and it was stranger – having the warmth come from iron grey.

“Hey.” Sasori’s voice roused him from his daydreaming, “I’ll bunk up top okay?”

Deidara nodded, whining inwardly when the red-head moved away from him, feet clanking on dusty wooden stairs up to the top bunk bed. There was a tired creak from the top and a whisper of a goodnight before the blonde drifted off to sleep.

Monday

“Don’t you ever get tired of soup?”

Sasori’s half hidden brown eyes peered from the top bunk bed, an eyebrow raised in perplexity.

Deidara rolled his eyes, hands cupped onto a small bowl of soup. Today’s menu included a blend of mulberry red and vermillion, one of his favourites: the rouge-ish coloured chunky red pepper potato soup. He sipped onto it, ignoring the snort thrown his way.

“Want some?” He asked, raising his soup spoon at Sasori’s direction.

“No.” Came the scoff.

Smirking to himself, the blonde traversed to his table, where the two paintings sat side by side. Completely different, yet contrastingly the same sky. Deidara’s own lopsided abstract painting seemed amateurish compared the realistic grey sky that Sasori had created. He frowned, running his fingers through his textured art piece, obscured colours overlapping each other like the waves of the sea. Glazes and hatchings of splattered cerise pink and olive greens, uneven hues of butterscotch and blue. It seemed like Sasori had the better painting, but Deidara wasn’t about to admit that just yet.

“Now then I see it in broad daylight,” Sasori murmured from the top bunk, still sounding sleepy, “It’s not what I thought it was from yesterday.”

Deidara’s heart skipped a beat as he glanced up at the sorrel brown eyes.

Is he praising it?

“It’s uglier than what I thought it was.”

Frowning darkly, Deidara found his ego deflate almost immediately as he hastily turned away from the red-head’s low chuckle. Well so much for being sympathetic yesterday. He found himself stabbing his soup, - why is he always stabbing his soup whenever Sasori’s around, and glowering fervently at the paintings in front of him.

“I win.” He snorted grumpily, pushing Sasori’s painting aside, earning an incensed 'hey’ from the bed.

“Very mature, brat.”

There’s that annoying nickname again. Deidara huffed thinly and sat himself down on his chair.

“There’s a clear winner and that’s me.” The bored voice concluded, “Now we can start on our painting.”

Before the blonde could curse at the latter, he heard a loud slam of his dorm door opening and a loud proclamation of “Eh blondie, did you miss me–”. Deidara turned around to greet his friend, but before the indigo eyed being could say anything else, his eyes darted over to the figure lazing calmly on the top bunk.

“What the fuck is he doing on my bed?” Hidan’s mouth formed into a lopsided frown as he glared harshly at the red-head, who was surprisingly unfazed by all the shouting.

“You ditched me so I’m replacing you.” Deidara snorted briskly, sticking his tongue out. The snow-white haired individual shot him a dagger glare, knitting his eyebrows in frustration. The blonde was still sore that the jashinist had completely dumped him because he was late for class, and he wasn’t just going to forgive Hidan simply.

“Hey.” Sasori greeted coolly.

“Don’t hey me, asshole.” The albino haired teen growled, flicking his middle finger out and gritting his teeth.

Instead of getting irate, the red-head simply ignored the gesture, rolling his eyes. Still, he stepped down from the top bunk and grabbed his backpack from the floor. Side-stepping the fuming Hidan, he waved a hand at the blonde.

“I’ll see you in class, brat.”

With that he slinked out the door.

“Did you two fuck?” It was an exclamation, not a question.

“No.” Deidara grunted back, surprisingly composed. “We were discussing about our art project.”

“Art project huh.” Hidan winked sickeningly at him.

The blonde rolled his eyes.

“The art project we were all supposed to do?” He emphasised on the word all, narrowing his eyes at his bunk mate.

Hidan blinked, stunned for a moment.

“Oh fuck.”

Deidara dumped his sketches and colour compositions sheets on his bed, frowning darkly at the immense amount of work he had to put in for some silly painting of the sky. Behind, Hidan trudged back into their shared room, groaning in despair.

And behind the white-haired male, was the ever annoying red-head.

They had finished up the last class for the day and Sasori, being the obvious aggressive one in their partnership, wanted to at least start working on the sky-scape of their painting. Deidara was still unsure about how they were going to do it, noting the fact that the latter wanted his 'magnificent’ style to dominate their project work.

The blonde sighed and walked up to the table where his painting sat, before eyeing Sasori’s one on the floor. It was a tiring day and he really didn’t want to deal with the brown-eyed boy’s constant nagging about how his art was more superior as compared to the blonde’s – but they needed to figure a fair way to find how to paint their masterpiece.

Something clicked in his head as he watched Hidan climb up to his bunk, letting out a blissful moan of content when he laid his body down to rest.

“Oi, Hidan.” Deidara called out, picking up Sasori’s painting and placing it side by side with his own, on the table. “Pick your favourite.”

“Anything.” Came the noncommittal reply.

Sasori scoffed, taking a seat next to the blonde.

“Hidaaaaan.” Deidara whined, slamming his fist on the poles of the bunk-bed. “Just pick one, please.”

There was a long tired sigh before Hidan peeked out from a nest of pillows, his white-hair in an adorable mess, eyes wide as he observed the two paintings on the table.

“Can I have one of that for my project?” he enquired sweetly, grinning and baring his teeth.

Infuriated, Deidara rolled his eyes and ran a hand down his messy locks.

“No.” Sasori answered for them, frowning.

“Then don’t ask me to pick.” The jashinist went back into his stack of pillows.

“But we need to figure out what we should paint!” Deidara growled, exasperatedly pulling his hair now, “I say we do it my way!”

“We’ve been through this, brat. My art work is much better than yours.”

“No, you owe me one and I get to pick the winner of the competition – and it’s me. We are doing it my way, end of story.”

“You call that a piece of art? It’s amateurish. The sloppy brush strokes and contrasting colours, it’s all over the place. It looks like a train-wreck.”

“I concur.” Hidan’s voice came from under the stack of pillows.

“Whose side are you on, asshole?” Deidara snarled, rapping the bed-bunk poles once more.

“The Satanist has spoken.” There was that smug grin plastered on Sasori’s face again, as he folded his arms triumphantly, eyebrows raised. “We do it my way.”

Pulling out a piece of paper, the red-head scribbled a number on it and passed the note over to the blonde.

“I don’t have a shared room so I have space to put my easel. We’ll work there instead, I don’t want to disturb your good friend there.” He waved a hand over to the direction where the white-haired teen seemed to be dead asleep. “I’ll see you tonight, 8pm sharp.”

“Tonight?” Deidara’s jaw dropped. “Are you crazy? I need to sleep.”

“We need to get work done. We’ve wasted a weekend deciding what to do. I’ll see you later, don’t forget to bring your paint supplies.” Sasori grabbed his sample painting and waltzed out hurriedly, disregarding Hidan’s sudden declaration “I’m not a Satanist, it’s jashinist.”

Deidara laid his head on the table, cursing his fate. Why was the red-head so implausible to read? One moment he’s nice and sympathetic, another moment he’s like the devil. Sighing, he glanced sideways at his painting. Not looking up, he murmured, “Is my painting really that bad?”

“Not really.” Hidan’s voice was muffled by blankets. “I just wanted you to suffer.”

“What a lovely friend you truly are.”

“But really,” His bunk mate’s voice sounded clearly now, as if he had moved away from his nest of pillows, “You’ve been doing that same old abstract oil painting for years, it’s time you tried something different.”

Deidara sighed tactfully. He had a point, but to be painting beside that infuriating piece of work, it was going to be tough – especially since now they had to do it Sasori’s way. He could foretell that the week wasn’t going to go well.

“Where’s my salt bottle gone to?”

Exactly.

It was 8.15pm when Deidara found himself standing outside room 303, arms draped with his backpack of art supplies and a light scowl on his face. Sasori’s dorm room was a floor above his and the blonde had to make his way up the stairs with his heavy equipment and all. Groaning, he kicked on the oak wood door irately, grunting his disapproval at the situation he was in.

There was a click and a creak as the door opened, revealing the sleepy looking male. Deidara blinked, realising it was the first time he noticed the red-head up this close. Expressionless deep set eyes stared back, eyelashes framing his eyes like black lace, as the blonde marvelled at his unnaturally pale porcelain skin, defined cheekbones and an earthy scent swirled around him. Up this close, Deidara realised that Sasori’s doe shaped eyes were blend of gunmetal and coffee.

“You are late.” His aggravated sneer crashed the moment.

“I was busy.” Deidara snapped back, annoyed.

“I’ve started without you. I hate waiting.” Sasori turned away, beckoning the blonde to follow.

Wide-eyed, the flaxen haired boy observed the single dormitory room and at once, wished that he had picked that instead of a shared bunk. With the same greying walls, Sasori’s room contained only a small bed, neatly made up with two straight backed chairs and a small table. His window was shut tight and covered by dreary looking curtains. In the middle of it all stood the boy’s easel, holding up their A0 sized sheet of paper, covered in a light tint of cream beige.

“I’m going to cover it with eggshell white – the paper is too blaringly silvery white, so I need to dull the colour to achieve that muted grey tone.” Sasori clarified, lifting his brush from the pocket of the easel. “You can start mixing some colours.”

“Mixing?” Deidara blinked, placing down his backpack in curiosity. “Can’t we just splatter it then mix it?”

“It’s watercolour, you idiot.” The vermillion haired boy barked, turning his back from the blonde. “You can’t just mix it on the canvas itself, it’ll melt the paper.”

The blonde sulked.

He knew that.

Grabbing his paint set and palette from his backpack, he skulked over to the lone chair and sat on it grumpily, sighing at his fate. Painting was supposed to be fun, not dull and mixing colours on a palette – where’s the spontaneity in that? He never used his palette before, half the time, Deidara found himself just mixing colours on the canvas as he pleased, feeling before thinking. Perhaps it was part of his downfall too, he pondered, dabbing black and white on wood, he had been known to come up with the strangest of paintings after all.

Grey. He dabbed.

Grey again.

He sighed.

Granite, dusty, charcoal, metal, pewter, soot, storm. After a while, they all looked the same to him.

Hastily, he glanced at Sasori, who seemed fixated at his painting. Deidara inspected the piece of paper, perplexed to see it just a shade of merely nude beige. He spent thirty minutes doing that? The blonde’s eyes widened in surprise. Why would he even waste so much time painting just the backdrop?

“Are you done?” The steely voice echoed through the dimly light dorm room.

“Yeah.” Deidara turned away hesitantly, looking at the odd blend of colours on his palette. If he remembered correctly, these were the colours that Sasori used in his sample painting. Dragging his chair over to his partner, the blonde gestured at him with the wooden palette filled with a fusion of different hues of greys. Not even glancing back at Deidara and his palette of dull colours, the red-head waved a hand dismissively, shaking his head.

“That’s not enough.” He remarked dully, “Mix some more.”

The blonde clenched his teeth, glowering darkly at his so-called partner before retreating back to his spot, where he heatedly started piling different whites and blacks, stabbing his paintbrush ruthlessly on the palette. As he did so, he examined the way the other painted, with skill and precision, the red-head’s hand moved, gliding across the paper and letting the wet water paint dry from time to time. It was entrancing but the man himself wasn’t. Even so, there wasn’t anything brilliantly unique about Sasori’s painting, even as a backdrop it was dull – likewise, Deidara felt awfully dulled.

“How much soup do you have to taste to know it’s bad?” The red-head broke the silence, halting his movements and turning to the blonde, who blinked back in surprise.

He didn’t expect the other to neglect his work to ask a senseless question.

“That question’s very subjective isn’t it?” Deidara chose his words wisely, enunciating each word carefully as he observed the dispassionate look on the other’s face.

“I’m asking you, specifically.” Sasori grunted, folding his arms.

Deidara frowned but kept silent, thinking for a moment. Surely the red-head didn’t make such an imprudent enquiry for nothing.

“I don’t know, maybe one spoonful. What’s with the question?”

“It’s an analogy.” Sasori’s eyes were fixated intently onto Deidara’s. “For human behaviourism.”

The blonde eyed the red-head with complete confusion.

“What does that have to do with me?” He inquired coolly. “I like my soup.”

“The power of a 'first impression’,” his partner pointed at his painting, “You think this is ugly, don’t you?”

Deidara scrunched his nose.

“No.” He lied through his teeth.

“I can tell by the way you look at the paper, brat.”

Sasori sighed, rubbing his temples as if he was dealing with a difficult child.

“Akin to how you assess your soup: if it’s not happening in the first few seconds, your instinct tells you it probably won’t get better. You barely sample before deciding to assimilate the whole thing – just like this painting. You assume it’s not good just because I’m taking my time to do it.” He gestured to Deidara’s palette.

“You have a lack of endurance. Look at that, you aren’t even focused.”

“I do better in the spur-of-the-moment.”

Deidara stabbed his palette forcefully, frowning deeply.

A heartbeat passed.

They remained in silence.

Sasori let out another sigh before turning back to his painting.

“Leave it,” He grunted, waving his hand glibly, “You are dismissed.”

Huffing, Deidara set his palette down, eyeing the other suspiciously.

“Just because I do things differently from you, doesn’t mean I’m wrong.” The blonde gritted out, grabbing his phone and essentials, leaving his supplies on the chair.

“Same goes for you, Deidara.”

Letting out a groan of frustration, the blonde stormed out but before he reached the door, he halted, brain forming a good comeback.

“Hey Sasori,” He turned around to glare at his partner, who levelled his scowl back.

“How much of you do I have to taste before I know it’s bad? One spoonful.”

And he whipped around, grinning wildly, slapped the door and left.

#sasodei

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