Hidan woke to his alarm clock shrieking in his ear. Hidan knocked it off the bed stand and the shrieking subsided slightly. Hidan rolled over ignoring it. He couldn't even remember why he had set it this early. The alarm kept ringing until Hidan finally realised why he had to get up.
'Fucking community service,' he said with a yawn.
He hadn't done community service since last year, which wasn't really saying much since most people haven't done community service before. He wasn't exactly happy that he no longer had any sleep-in days. With community service he probably didn't have any free time at all.
Hidan got up, showered and went down to the breakfast table, where he met up with the rest of the gang.
'Hey guys,' he greeted.
Tobi cheerily greeted him back while the others grunted in response, obviously not happy about spending their Sunday doing community service. After eating breakfast the group went down to wait at the gates.
Ten long minutes later four cars pulled up. The group broke off into their pairs and went into a car. Hidan and Kakuzu's driver was a young woman with a mass of frizzy orange hair and glasses with thick green frames.
'Hi guys! I'm Lucy,' she greeted cheerily. In fact a little too cheery, she sounded highly strung.
Hidan and Kakuzu nodded in reply.
'So you're the two boys who are coming to help us today. Well, that's great, we need some extra hands; we're extremely short staffed at the moment. So two strong young boys would be a great help,' Lucy said.
'Is that so,' replied Hidan, not really listening.
'Oh, yes. You two are going to have a great time. You know what they say, there's no place to learn but the library,' she said.
'They say that do they?' said Hidan.
Throughout the car trip, Lucy made desperate attempts at conversation, then finally gave up and began talking to no one in particular. She talked about the library and how great it was to finally have some extra help. By the time they arrived, Hidan and Kakuzu were grateful to see the library, to get away from this horrible chatterbox.
'We're here,' Lucy announced when the car stopped and everyone exited the car.
The state library wasn't anything special. It was a grey stone, two-storey building with a few windows and a garden out the front. Inside, was a circulation desk, a help desk, a row of ancient computers and thousands of rows of shelves containing dust covered books. All in all it wasn't the place you would want to spend time in.
A few elderly and middle aged people shuffled around with books or stared at the computer monitors.
'Hey Jean, they're here!' Lucy announced to a middle-aged lady with short brown hair and flowery dress.
Jean looked up and gave a friendly smile, 'Great. We'll put them to work straight away.'
The two ladies obviously thought this was the funniest thing they had ever heard because they began giggling like little school girls.
'Follow me boys. I'll give you a quick tour,' said Jean.
Jean showed them around and then brought them behind the circulation desk to a small, dank room filled with mouldy old books that probably hadn't seen daylight since the Stone Age.
'This is where you'll be working today,' she said, turning on the light. 'You'll be sorting these book alphabetically and, if they are broken or damaged, you will put them in that corner over,' she gestured to the corner to their left.
'If you need any help, give me a shout. I'll come and get you for lunch,' said Jean as she shut the door, leaving the two boys to stare in dismay at the work they had to do.
Hidan sighed. 'Excellent. Just what I wanted.'
'We're never going to get this done,' said Kakuzu.
'Man, I wanted to sleep in today. Seriously, though, it's better than caring for the elderly; they smell funny,' said Hidan.
The two boys began to sort the never ending pile. Dust was spread with every book that moved.
'Hey Kakuzu. Can I ask you a question?' asked Hidan.
'Sure,' replied Kakuzu.
'How did you get all those scars? You don't have to answer. I mean, if it's personal, then seriously, its ok,' said Hidan.
Kakuzu froze. He considered not telling Hidan. 'Car accident,' he said.
'Oh. Ok,' replied Hidan.
'Killed both my parents.'
'Sorry,'
'Don't be. I was only three at the time, so I don't really remember that much about them.'
Hidan didn't really know what to say. From his experience, parents weren't all the movies say. They weren't happy and forgiving, they weren't tolerant or caring. They were abusive drunks who probably didn't even mean to conceive a child.
'You're not missing much, really. I think you're lucky,' blurted Hidan before he could stop himself.
Kakuzu looked over at Hidan.
'That sounded bad. Seriously I-' Hidan was interrupted by Lucy who opened the door, knocking a pile of books in the process.
'Lunch time! You boys need to keep your strength. Oops, sorry about that,' she said.
Hidan was thankful for the interruption. He'd got a distinct feeling that the conversation was not going to end well.
'Well? Come on, do you want lunch or not?' said Lucy impatiently.
Hidan and Kakuzu followed Lucy to a table with leftover sandwiches and buns. It didn't bother either of them though, they expected this. Obviously the staff didn't feel comfortable around delinquents.
'Well, dig in. By the looks of it, you've got a long way to go,' she said.
Deidara looked down at the scratches on his palms. They were red raw and stung like crazy.
'Come on, no time for breaks. You still got a long way to go. It's you punks who mess this place up, so you should have to clean it up,' said Deidara and Sasori's supervisor.
It was just their luck that their supervisor was old, cantankerous and had a grudge against kids.
'If we cleaned it up, yeah, wouldn't we get paid, un?' said Deidara.
The supervisor scowled. 'Shut up and get to work!'
Deidara shrugged and began cleaning the park again. It was the worst community service he'd ever had to do, and that was saying something.
'Deidara, you're not helping our situation. He already hates us,' whispered Sasori.
Deidara shrugged. 'It's not my fault, un. He just can't take a joke.'
Sasori rolled his eyes and glanced at their supervisor and looked back at Deidara.
'I guess so. I still can't wait for this to be over. We've been picking up this shit for three hours straight,' said Sasori.
'Tell me about, un. My hands are killing me. Why can't we just blow this park up? I'm sure I could get my hands on some gelignite,' said Deidara with a gleam in his eye.
'Then we'd probably have to away or the damage from the gelignite, so it probably wouldn't be worth it,' said Sasori.
'Probably,' shrugged Deidara.
'Oi! Stop yer chattering and get to work,' shouted their supervisor.
'I swear I will kill him,' muttered Deidara.
Four hours later Deidara and Sasori met up with the others. They were both hot, exhausted and Deidara was on a short fuse.
'Wow Deidara, you look like shit,' said Hidan.
Deidara glared at Hidan and gave him the finger.
Everyone was sitting down eating their food. Occasionally people would pat or congratulate them on their stunt, but most really avoided them. They were all exhausted and finished their food quickly.
They then went up to their dorms, showered and went to bed. Collapsing onto the bed, Deidara knew this was going to be the worst week of his life.