The day began like any other day for Deidara; wake up, talk to Sasori for approximately three seconds, and then get yelled at.

"Brat, can't you see I'm busy?!" Sasori snapped. He spun around in his chair, holding up a puppet arm and a piece of sandpaper to emphasize his point.

"Well sorry, un!" Deidara sarcastically shot back. "It's normal to tell someone good morning when they get up, danna!"

"Don't you have something better to do than annoy me?" the puppet master inquired, completely ignoring the blonde's valid argument.

Huffing indignantly, Deidara hopped out of bed, hurriedly dressed himself, and then stormed out of the artists' shared bedroom, slamming the door shut behind him. Sasori stared at the door for a few seconds before shrugging his shoulders and returning to his work. The puppet's arm wasn't going to sand itself, after all.

Meanwhile, Deidara stood in the hallway, growling angrily under his breath. Stupid Sasori danna, ruining his morning before he'd been awake for ten minutes! His growls subsided, and proceeded to change into soft sighs. Why did his danna have to be so mean to him? They were more than partners, after all. The artists had been lovers for several months now; come to think of it, they were closing in on their one-year anniversary. Yet the redhead always seemed to find some reason to be cruel to the little blonde sculptor.

"Maybe if he wasn't always working on those puppets, he wouldn't be so cranky," Deidara mumbled as he trudged down the hall. He may as well eat breakfast now, since he'd all but been thrown out of his room and obviously couldn't go back yet for either clay or weapons to train with.

He arrived in the kitchen minutes later to see Hidan sitting at the kitchen table, glaring into his coffee and swearing to Jashin under his breath. The priest looked up when Deidara entered the room. The blonde stopped walking, and their gazes locked. "Sasori?" Hidan inquired.

Deidara nodded. "Kakuzu?" he replied in a knowing tone.

"Yup," Hidan answered. Deidara shook his head and crossed the dining room to reach the countertop. He grabbed hold of the coffeepot and a stray mug, pouring himself a cup of the steaming beverage. After adding a few spoonfuls of sweetener, he walked back across the room and sat at the table beside Hidan. Rarely did the two Akatsuki members see eye-to-eye, but when it came to boyfriend problems, they were the best of comrades. "What happened?" Deidara inquired, knowing that Hidan would be too pissed to listen to Deidara's woes if he couldn't go first in the story-telling.

The priest grumbled something under his breath, and took a swig of coffee before he spoke. "The bastard promised that we'd go to town today, since we've been trapped in this hellhole for so long."

Deidara nodded in understanding. Pein had decided that the Akatsuki needed to lay low for a time; something about preparation for a big mission in a few months. As a result, missions were few and far between nowadays, and because of Hidan and Kakuzu's destructive reputation, the duo hadn't been assigned a mission in over a month. Needless to say, they were beyond restless. "And?" he prodded.

"This morning, the first thing he tells me is that he can't fucking go because he needs to balance his Jashin-damned checkbook!" Hidan exclaimed, slamming his fist down on the table as he spoke.

"But you can still go, right, un?" Deidara inquired, hoping to calm the Jashinist down.

Tragically, his comment only made the zealot madder. "Hell yeah I can go, but that's beside the point! He told me he'd come, and then he backs out at the last minute?! Son of a bitch…"

"So it's the principle of the matter?" Deidara concluded with a sip of his coffee.

"Pretty much," Hidan admitted. "And what'd puppet boy do to you?"

The sculptor frowned as he began speaking. "Hidan, what does Kakuzu do when you tell him good morning?"

"Same thing as when I tell the dumbass anything. He grunts and then goes back to whatever the hell he was doing. Why?"

"Because Sasori danna called me a brat and basically told me to get out of our room when I said that to him, un," Deidara grumbled, his stomach twisting at the memory.

"Ouch."

"Yeah." Deidara looked down into his half-full mug and frowned again. "Hidan, you need to get a boyfriend who actually keeps his promises, un."

"And you need a guy that doesn't act like a total jackass every time you open your mouth."

"But of course we love our guys too much to actually do anything, un."

The two ukes let out twin sighs at the same time. "We're pathetic," Hidan stated. Deidara nodded in agreement, and took another slurp of his coffee.

"Interesting how you talk about finding another 'guy', instead of guy or girl, when both of you claim to be bi."

Hidan and Deidara looked across the room to see Itachi standing in the entryway between the kitchen and the living room. "It makes an excellent argument for you two actually being gay."

"Dream on, bitch," Hidan growled. "You're the only full-blown fag around here."

Itachi shrugged his shoulders and crossed the room to the coffeepot, pouring himself a mug of java in silence. "Where's Kisame, un?"

The Uchiha took the time to add creamer to his coffee and sip the beverage before answering. "I don't know."

"He didn't tell you where he was going?" Hidan asked in surprise.

"He never does," the weasel explained calmly.

"Aren't you worried about him?" Deidara queried.

"Hn." The Uchiha took another drink. "Kisame gets annoyed when I bother him about trivial matters such as that."

"You're his boyfriend! You have right to know where he is, un!" Deidara declared.

"Tell that to a six-and-a-half foot tall shark with a bigass sword," Hidan muttered under his breath.

"Exactly," Itachi said. "There's no reasoning with him on matters like these."

Deidara groaned and leaned back in his chair. "Well, it's official. We all have lousy taste in men."

"I'll drink to that," Hidan stated, raising his mug in the air. Itachi and Deidara followed suit, and as one the group downed their drinks.