ItaDei: Star Struck (Ch. 2/?)
Title: Star Struck
Fandom: Naruto
Pairing: Itachi/Deidara
Genre: Romance/Humour
Rating: M
Status: In-progress
Summary: When Deidara receives an opportunity to act in a big movie, he jumps at the chance- Only to find out that his rival, the famous Itachi Uchiha, will be his costar. Someone up there must really hate him.
Shizune felt like she was going to die.
They had been holding auditions for the role of Akashi Hayato for days now, and Tsunade was not satisfied with any of the candidates. They must have already met and recorded the auditions of hundreds of people, and still, Tsunade had flat out rejected every single one of them, even the talented and famous ones, saying that they were not right for the role. Tsunade was so unhappy with Shizune's choices that the woman had decided to come to judge the auditions as well. After watching so many abysmal auditions, it was no wonder that there was a vein throbbing in Tsunade's temple.
But it was not only Tsunade who was frustrated. The rest of the crew were as well, especially since Tsunade had joined the judging. Her wrath was formidable.
Sighing, Shizune propped her chin on the palm of her hand as she watched Tsunade stop a candidate halfway through her monologue.
"What are you even doing here?" Tsunade snapped at the surprised girl. "Have you not read the script?" She jabbed a red-painted nail at a sheaf of papers in her other hand. "Akashi Hayato is supposed to be a male." The vein in her temple pulsed. "Male."
This was going to be a very long day.
Tsunade whirled on Shizune, glaring. "How did her resume get accepted, anyway?"
A very, very, very long day.
Without even waiting for a reply, Tsunade hollered, "Bring the next one in!"
For her own sanity, and the rest of the crew's, Shizune hoped that their Akashi would be found by today, else they suffer from Tsunade's wrath once more.
Two weeks had come and gone.
For two weeks, Deidara had rehearsed the two scenes in the script to death - so much that Hidan had avoided coming round to his apartment, for fear that Deidara would force him to practice the scenes with him, over and over and over again. But of course, in the end, Hidan had practiced with him; albeit half-heartedly.
There was a moment of silence as they held each other's hands and gazed into each other's eyes, both actions filled with tenderness. Deidara tightened his hold on Hidan's hands and leaned forward, his lips parted ever so slightly. Blue eyes looked up into Hidan's under dark lashes. Not once, not once did they break eye contact. This was it. The moment of confession. This was... it was... Deidara licked his lips, nervous.
"Kei," Deidara murmured. He reached up to caress Hidan's cheek. "I love you."
Hidan's reaction was instantaneous:
He shuddered.
"Forget this," Hidan said, letting go of Deidara's hand, his face pale. "This gay crap is making me wanna shit in my pants. You may look like a chick, but this is too fucking creepy."
It took Deidara a whole hour of yelling to convince Hidan to continue acting with him.
Hell, he had even made Hidan watch every single one of the monologues he had prepared, and Hidan, being Hidan, was not very helpful at all. All the man said about Deidara's monologues was, "Yeah, yeah, they're all fucking great. Can I leave now?". Not that Deidara minded, really. He already knew which monologue he wanted to do; all he wanted was an audience.
Now that two weeks have passed, Deidara was more confident than ever.
He was going to nail this audition. He just knew it. He could feel it in his very bones. He was not just being confident this time - he just knew.
This was not going to be like before. He had worked so hard for this. There was no way that he could be wrong.
Satisfied with this thought, Deidara ran a brush through his hair one last time. His long blond hair fell and framed his face for just a moment before he swept half of them up into a half-ponytail. He had to make sure that he looked good. He needed to make a good impression on the judge or judges, whoever they were.
"Oi, Deidara-chan," came Hidan's voice from outside the bathroom. "I know that you wanna look good and everything but... What the FUCK are you doing in there?"
Deidara did not bother to answer him.
"Are you shaving your legs?" Hidan demanded.
Tch.
Without taking his gaze away from the mirror, Deidara snapped, "Will it hurt for you to just wait, you bastard?"
"Yes, it hurts, thanks for asking," Hidan responded. "I had to clear my freakin' schedule for this, and I had to wake up too damned early, too." Of course, Hidan definition of 'early' was far from his. Deidara could hear Hidan plop himself onto his bed. "There're a heck of a lot of things I'd rather do than babysit brats. For instance, stabbing myself."
Deidara rolled his eyes. Such a drama queen. Hidan had been complaining since yesterday, after Deidara asked if he could give the blond a ride to the audition, and he had been complaining even more since he arrived here. If he was going to complain so much, he should not have agreed to it, Deidara had told him - "But I was drunk when I agreed!". He chose to ignore Hidan, knowing very well that if he retorted, their argument would escalate, and he did not want to waste his energy on that. Besides, he needed the ride, and it was too late to find another one. It would take time for a taxi to get here.
"You know, we wouldn't even be having this conversation if you'd just get a damned driver's license."
He unzipped his bag and checked its contents, Hidan's rants now reduced to mere background noise to him.
"There're a heck of a lot of things I'd rather do than wake up at ungodly hours in the morning. For instance, stabbing myself."
His resume and headshot? Check. A change of clothes just in case the ones he was wearing got dirty? Check. The script? Check. A list of emergency telephone numbers and extra headshots? Check, check.
Deidara took in a deep breath, then released it.
"There're a heck of a lot of things I'd rather do than drive you around. For instance, stabbing myself."
He had memorized his monologue - he had practiced it so much, he knew it by heart now. With the exception of the audition, he was completely free today - he had made sure of that. He had also gotten a good night's sleep.
"There're a heck a lot of things I'd rather do than lay down here completely sober. For instance, stabbing myself."
He was ready.
"Then why don't you stab yourself?" Deidara said dully.
He zipped up his bag.
"Because, there're a heck of a lot of things I'd rather do than stab myself. For instance, living."
He swung the bag over his shoulder and walked over to the door. He could practically feel Hidan's impatience radiating through it.
"Dammit, while you're busy growing pubes in there, mine are turning silver! Just hurry the fuck up!"
Deidara was almost amused. Almost. That bastard was still talking?
He placed his hand on the doorknob, and twisted it.
"Che." The door creaked open, revealing a well-dressed Deidara, a Deidara who was ready to kick the asses of the rest of the candidates. "You know, assuming that your hair is naturally silver," Deidara said as he stepped out of the bathroom. "Then you should be silver down there too, hm."
"..." Having no suitable comeback for that, Hidan just growled, "Wiseass," then dragged a smug Deidara to the car.
When they reached their destination about half an hour ago, Hidan had finally cooled down enough to stop the string of curses that had been flowing out of his mouth since they started their journey. He was even in a good enough mood to manage a grin. They had arrived quite early, so they could sit in the waiting room for awhile. Cracking his knuckles, Hidan looked around the room.
The room presented to him the usual image of hopeful candidates rereading their scripts, some of them mouthing their lines as they read, some of them reading aloud, some of them scanning the pages before them silently. The candidates comprised of the famous, the somewhat popular, the unnoticed, the has-beens and the newbies. Some of the hopefuls were with their parents, some were alone, very few were with their managers (I'm too damned nice for my own good. Deidara-chan should be grateful to have an awesome manager like me). He recognized quite a number of people out of all the faces present here.
The air was filled with tension.
Heh, Hidan thought, picking out a few white-faced teenagers. These kids have nothing on Deidara-chan. He paused when his eyes caught sight of a spiky-haired man sitting in a corner, a fidgety young man sitting right next to him. Looks like Kakashi is accompanying a brat too.
While Hidan was busy measuring the competition, Deidara kept turning the script over in his hands. Though Hidan had told him that it was not necessary for him to memorize the script, that the judge would just want to see how he would be able to deliver those lines, he did so anyway. He wanted everything to be perfect, after all. Bored, he flipped through the pages of the script, more out of habit than anything else, his mind hardly taking in anything written on it. When was it going to be his turn already? He was so fucking ready. They had come here early so that they would not miss their appointment, but this was taking too damned long.
Sighing, Deidara gave up and read his script again.
Again, he was met with the contents of the script. The character that he was supposed to play was called Akashi Hayato, a high school student who had just moved into a new house with his family. Akashi had done so reluctantly, because he could feel the presence of a ghost in that house, and from experience, ghosts were not too pleasant to hang around; sure, some were nice, but there were those that had been walking on the face of the Earth for so long, they tended to be rather clingy... or crazy. This ghost, Kei Takahiro, however, was different. Kei was perfectly content with solitude. He wanted nothing do with Akashi, and refused to move on.
And then somehow, they fell in love, blah blah blah-
"Deidara." A woman opened the door to the audition room. She pushed the glasses up the bridge of her nose, her eyes trained on the clipboard in her hands. "Mr. Deidara, it's your turn now."
Sitting up straighter, Deidara could feel anticipation well up in his chest.
This was it.
"Oi."
"Hm?" Hidan tore his eyes away from Kakashi and looked at Deidara. "What?"
Deidara stood up. "My turn, hm."
"Ain't gonna wish ya luck. I know you'll do just great, kid."
"Thanks." Deidara smirked. "Also, Hidan, un?"
"Yeah?"
Deidara stomped on his foot. "This is for signing me up for this role without asking for my permission or telling me that the movie is totally gay."
Hidan winced. Bloody motherfu- Biting his bottom lip, he said, "Fair enough." He rolled the magazine he was reading into a tight roll and promptly smacked the back of Deidara's thigh with it. "Now, get in there and floor 'em, bitch."
Having just handed his resume in, Deidara stood in the middle of the stage, smiled and bowed to the people gathered in the room out of respect. It would not do to get cut out of the running just because he was rude.
Blue eyes scanned the room that he was in, taking his surroundings in. There was the cameraman who was going to record his audition, the judges, and a few other people. Out of all the people gathered here, he only recognized one of them, and that was the director, Tsunade. Though some of them smiled back at him, the looks on their faces told him that they were all tired and just wanted him to get down to it. Tsunade, in particular, did not look very happy. She eyed Deidara, her face fixed in a frown and her lips drawn into a thin line, as she tapped her pen on the table impatiently.
He would have to be careful with her - he had heard that she was ruthless.
"My name is Deidara and-"
"We know that already," Tsunade interrupted. "Just show us what you've got. Act out the two scenes in the script and show us your monologue." To a pale, dark-haired male, she said, "Sai, get your butt up there and act with him."
Sai did so without question. He bowed before walking up to the stage.
Yeah. Definitely ruthless.
Deidara, who had a temper of his own, had to bite down on his tongue to stop himself from retorting. Apparently, everyone else was used to her snapping at people as they did not even bat an eyelid when she snapped at him.
She's going to be a difficult person to work with, he thought.
He slipped his script into his back pocket, and barely managed a smile. The dark-haired woman sitting next to Tsunade returned the smile. Tsunade, however, did not, choosing to study him with a critical eye. Figuring that that was the best he would be able to get out of her, he turned around to face Sai, and was about to open his mouth to start when-
"Deidara?" One of the women in the room perked up. "The very same one that acted in The Outbreak?" When she saw that it was indeed the very same Deidara, a light shade of pink spread across her cheeks. "I- I'm a big fan-"
"Shut it," Tsunade snapped. "Just let the boy do his thing." She turned to gaze at Deidara, as she twirled her pen. "Start," she commanded.
And so, with his mind clear of everything else but his role, Deidara started.
After hour upon torturous hour of watching and analyzing each and every audition, they were all finally able to rest. But not for Shizune, though. She was busy rifling through the resumes of all of the candidates. Every time she showed Tsunade someone she thought might make a good Akashi Hayato, Tsunade would frown, shake her head, and promptly put that resume onto the Reject pile.
The Reject pile was bigger than the Maybe pile. In fact, there was none for the Maybe pile.
Shizune could feel a bead of sweat slide down her brow. Tsunade could be so difficult at times. If she did not pick someone now, they might just have to schedule another round of auditions for Akashi. Remembering the blond that had auditioned a few hours ago, she pulled out Deidara's resume. A headshot of a smiling Deidara that was stapled to the resume stared back at her.
"Hm..."
For someone who only had one movie to boast about, the boy was quite good. His performance had kept her on the edge of her seat. Being able to pull off something like that even though Sai had the acting skills of a plank was definitely something - it was not easy to act with someone who barely had any emotion put into his acting. At least, that was what she thought. She did not know what Tsunade thought of him, but since Tsunade had kept demanding him to repeat his scenes in different ways ("Sound angrier!", "Look happier!", and so on), that must have been a good thing. It meant that Tsunade was interested in him. He was one of the very few that had to stand her abuse today.
"How about this one?" She showed the director the resume.
Tsunade looked at the resume for a long while, her eyes narrowed as she bit her nail - a bad habit of hers.
If she looked at the paper any harder, Shizune was sure that it would burst into flames.
There was a pregnant pause.
Tsunade turned her face away with a "Hmph". At first, Shizune's heart sank, thinking that they would have to go through another round of judging, until she heard the older woman say in a soft tone, "He'll do."
Even after they went through all the resumes, Deidara's was the only one that was in the Maybe pile.
It looked like they had their Akashi.
Now that he had sent Deidara home, Hidan was able to do whatever the hell he wanted without having to listen to that prissy little princess. Having met Hatake Kakashi just now, he had invited the man to meet at a coffee shop for a drink or two. He had not spoken to Kakashi in awhile, so they had a lot to talk about.
"So." Hidan popped his canned drink open. "Do ya have any idea who's gonna be Kei..." He tried to remember the name of the other main character. "Kei Takahiro, right? Yeah, that's the one." He gulped down a bit of his drink. "One of the main characters. Any idea? Or they haven't chosen yet?"
Kakashi looked to the left, to the right, then at Hidan. He leaned close and whispered the name of the chosen actor into his ear.
Hidan nearly spat his drink out.
"You fucking serious?" he choked. "That guy is gonna be Kei?"
Kakashi nodded. "He's away right now, but he'll be back soon."
Oh, hell... Hidan rubbed his cheek, as he digested this new piece of information. He groaned inwardly. Deidara-chan ain't gonna be happy...
He could already picture Deidara throwing a tantrum over this in the very near future.
It was not going to be a pretty sight. The last time Deidara had gotten angry over that guy, he had pretty much smashed nearly every breakable item in his living room.
...
Actually, now that he thought about it, it would be hilarious to watch those two work together. If Deidara got the part, of course, and Hidan was sure he would. Smirking, Hidan tipped his head back as he drank from the can again. Damn fucking hilarious.
Have fun working with Itachi Uchiha, Princess.
Disclaimer: Naruto is not mine.
Fandom: Naruto
Pairing: Itachi/Deidara
Genre: Romance/Humour
Rating: M
Status: In-progress
Summary: When Deidara receives an opportunity to act in a big movie, he jumps at the chance- Only to find out that his rival, the famous Itachi Uchiha, will be his costar. Someone up there must really hate him.
Shizune felt like she was going to die.
They had been holding auditions for the role of Akashi Hayato for days now, and Tsunade was not satisfied with any of the candidates. They must have already met and recorded the auditions of hundreds of people, and still, Tsunade had flat out rejected every single one of them, even the talented and famous ones, saying that they were not right for the role. Tsunade was so unhappy with Shizune's choices that the woman had decided to come to judge the auditions as well. After watching so many abysmal auditions, it was no wonder that there was a vein throbbing in Tsunade's temple.
But it was not only Tsunade who was frustrated. The rest of the crew were as well, especially since Tsunade had joined the judging. Her wrath was formidable.
Sighing, Shizune propped her chin on the palm of her hand as she watched Tsunade stop a candidate halfway through her monologue.
"What are you even doing here?" Tsunade snapped at the surprised girl. "Have you not read the script?" She jabbed a red-painted nail at a sheaf of papers in her other hand. "Akashi Hayato is supposed to be a male." The vein in her temple pulsed. "Male."
This was going to be a very long day.
Tsunade whirled on Shizune, glaring. "How did her resume get accepted, anyway?"
A very, very, very long day.
Without even waiting for a reply, Tsunade hollered, "Bring the next one in!"
For her own sanity, and the rest of the crew's, Shizune hoped that their Akashi would be found by today, else they suffer from Tsunade's wrath once more.
Two weeks had come and gone.
For two weeks, Deidara had rehearsed the two scenes in the script to death - so much that Hidan had avoided coming round to his apartment, for fear that Deidara would force him to practice the scenes with him, over and over and over again. But of course, in the end, Hidan had practiced with him; albeit half-heartedly.
There was a moment of silence as they held each other's hands and gazed into each other's eyes, both actions filled with tenderness. Deidara tightened his hold on Hidan's hands and leaned forward, his lips parted ever so slightly. Blue eyes looked up into Hidan's under dark lashes. Not once, not once did they break eye contact. This was it. The moment of confession. This was... it was... Deidara licked his lips, nervous.
"Kei," Deidara murmured. He reached up to caress Hidan's cheek. "I love you."
Hidan's reaction was instantaneous:
He shuddered.
"Forget this," Hidan said, letting go of Deidara's hand, his face pale. "This gay crap is making me wanna shit in my pants. You may look like a chick, but this is too fucking creepy."
It took Deidara a whole hour of yelling to convince Hidan to continue acting with him.
Hell, he had even made Hidan watch every single one of the monologues he had prepared, and Hidan, being Hidan, was not very helpful at all. All the man said about Deidara's monologues was, "Yeah, yeah, they're all fucking great. Can I leave now?". Not that Deidara minded, really. He already knew which monologue he wanted to do; all he wanted was an audience.
Now that two weeks have passed, Deidara was more confident than ever.
He was going to nail this audition. He just knew it. He could feel it in his very bones. He was not just being confident this time - he just knew.
This was not going to be like before. He had worked so hard for this. There was no way that he could be wrong.
Satisfied with this thought, Deidara ran a brush through his hair one last time. His long blond hair fell and framed his face for just a moment before he swept half of them up into a half-ponytail. He had to make sure that he looked good. He needed to make a good impression on the judge or judges, whoever they were.
"Oi, Deidara-chan," came Hidan's voice from outside the bathroom. "I know that you wanna look good and everything but... What the FUCK are you doing in there?"
Deidara did not bother to answer him.
"Are you shaving your legs?" Hidan demanded.
Tch.
Without taking his gaze away from the mirror, Deidara snapped, "Will it hurt for you to just wait, you bastard?"
"Yes, it hurts, thanks for asking," Hidan responded. "I had to clear my freakin' schedule for this, and I had to wake up too damned early, too." Of course, Hidan definition of 'early' was far from his. Deidara could hear Hidan plop himself onto his bed. "There're a heck of a lot of things I'd rather do than babysit brats. For instance, stabbing myself."
Deidara rolled his eyes. Such a drama queen. Hidan had been complaining since yesterday, after Deidara asked if he could give the blond a ride to the audition, and he had been complaining even more since he arrived here. If he was going to complain so much, he should not have agreed to it, Deidara had told him - "But I was drunk when I agreed!". He chose to ignore Hidan, knowing very well that if he retorted, their argument would escalate, and he did not want to waste his energy on that. Besides, he needed the ride, and it was too late to find another one. It would take time for a taxi to get here.
"You know, we wouldn't even be having this conversation if you'd just get a damned driver's license."
He unzipped his bag and checked its contents, Hidan's rants now reduced to mere background noise to him.
"There're a heck of a lot of things I'd rather do than wake up at ungodly hours in the morning. For instance, stabbing myself."
His resume and headshot? Check. A change of clothes just in case the ones he was wearing got dirty? Check. The script? Check. A list of emergency telephone numbers and extra headshots? Check, check.
Deidara took in a deep breath, then released it.
"There're a heck of a lot of things I'd rather do than drive you around. For instance, stabbing myself."
He had memorized his monologue - he had practiced it so much, he knew it by heart now. With the exception of the audition, he was completely free today - he had made sure of that. He had also gotten a good night's sleep.
"There're a heck a lot of things I'd rather do than lay down here completely sober. For instance, stabbing myself."
He was ready.
"Then why don't you stab yourself?" Deidara said dully.
He zipped up his bag.
"Because, there're a heck of a lot of things I'd rather do than stab myself. For instance, living."
He swung the bag over his shoulder and walked over to the door. He could practically feel Hidan's impatience radiating through it.
"Dammit, while you're busy growing pubes in there, mine are turning silver! Just hurry the fuck up!"
Deidara was almost amused. Almost. That bastard was still talking?
He placed his hand on the doorknob, and twisted it.
"Che." The door creaked open, revealing a well-dressed Deidara, a Deidara who was ready to kick the asses of the rest of the candidates. "You know, assuming that your hair is naturally silver," Deidara said as he stepped out of the bathroom. "Then you should be silver down there too, hm."
"..." Having no suitable comeback for that, Hidan just growled, "Wiseass," then dragged a smug Deidara to the car.
When they reached their destination about half an hour ago, Hidan had finally cooled down enough to stop the string of curses that had been flowing out of his mouth since they started their journey. He was even in a good enough mood to manage a grin. They had arrived quite early, so they could sit in the waiting room for awhile. Cracking his knuckles, Hidan looked around the room.
The room presented to him the usual image of hopeful candidates rereading their scripts, some of them mouthing their lines as they read, some of them reading aloud, some of them scanning the pages before them silently. The candidates comprised of the famous, the somewhat popular, the unnoticed, the has-beens and the newbies. Some of the hopefuls were with their parents, some were alone, very few were with their managers (I'm too damned nice for my own good. Deidara-chan should be grateful to have an awesome manager like me). He recognized quite a number of people out of all the faces present here.
The air was filled with tension.
Heh, Hidan thought, picking out a few white-faced teenagers. These kids have nothing on Deidara-chan. He paused when his eyes caught sight of a spiky-haired man sitting in a corner, a fidgety young man sitting right next to him. Looks like Kakashi is accompanying a brat too.
While Hidan was busy measuring the competition, Deidara kept turning the script over in his hands. Though Hidan had told him that it was not necessary for him to memorize the script, that the judge would just want to see how he would be able to deliver those lines, he did so anyway. He wanted everything to be perfect, after all. Bored, he flipped through the pages of the script, more out of habit than anything else, his mind hardly taking in anything written on it. When was it going to be his turn already? He was so fucking ready. They had come here early so that they would not miss their appointment, but this was taking too damned long.
Sighing, Deidara gave up and read his script again.
Again, he was met with the contents of the script. The character that he was supposed to play was called Akashi Hayato, a high school student who had just moved into a new house with his family. Akashi had done so reluctantly, because he could feel the presence of a ghost in that house, and from experience, ghosts were not too pleasant to hang around; sure, some were nice, but there were those that had been walking on the face of the Earth for so long, they tended to be rather clingy... or crazy. This ghost, Kei Takahiro, however, was different. Kei was perfectly content with solitude. He wanted nothing do with Akashi, and refused to move on.
And then somehow, they fell in love, blah blah blah-
"Deidara." A woman opened the door to the audition room. She pushed the glasses up the bridge of her nose, her eyes trained on the clipboard in her hands. "Mr. Deidara, it's your turn now."
Sitting up straighter, Deidara could feel anticipation well up in his chest.
This was it.
"Oi."
"Hm?" Hidan tore his eyes away from Kakashi and looked at Deidara. "What?"
Deidara stood up. "My turn, hm."
"Ain't gonna wish ya luck. I know you'll do just great, kid."
"Thanks." Deidara smirked. "Also, Hidan, un?"
"Yeah?"
Deidara stomped on his foot. "This is for signing me up for this role without asking for my permission or telling me that the movie is totally gay."
Hidan winced. Bloody motherfu- Biting his bottom lip, he said, "Fair enough." He rolled the magazine he was reading into a tight roll and promptly smacked the back of Deidara's thigh with it. "Now, get in there and floor 'em, bitch."
Having just handed his resume in, Deidara stood in the middle of the stage, smiled and bowed to the people gathered in the room out of respect. It would not do to get cut out of the running just because he was rude.
Blue eyes scanned the room that he was in, taking his surroundings in. There was the cameraman who was going to record his audition, the judges, and a few other people. Out of all the people gathered here, he only recognized one of them, and that was the director, Tsunade. Though some of them smiled back at him, the looks on their faces told him that they were all tired and just wanted him to get down to it. Tsunade, in particular, did not look very happy. She eyed Deidara, her face fixed in a frown and her lips drawn into a thin line, as she tapped her pen on the table impatiently.
He would have to be careful with her - he had heard that she was ruthless.
"My name is Deidara and-"
"We know that already," Tsunade interrupted. "Just show us what you've got. Act out the two scenes in the script and show us your monologue." To a pale, dark-haired male, she said, "Sai, get your butt up there and act with him."
Sai did so without question. He bowed before walking up to the stage.
Yeah. Definitely ruthless.
Deidara, who had a temper of his own, had to bite down on his tongue to stop himself from retorting. Apparently, everyone else was used to her snapping at people as they did not even bat an eyelid when she snapped at him.
She's going to be a difficult person to work with, he thought.
He slipped his script into his back pocket, and barely managed a smile. The dark-haired woman sitting next to Tsunade returned the smile. Tsunade, however, did not, choosing to study him with a critical eye. Figuring that that was the best he would be able to get out of her, he turned around to face Sai, and was about to open his mouth to start when-
"Deidara?" One of the women in the room perked up. "The very same one that acted in The Outbreak?" When she saw that it was indeed the very same Deidara, a light shade of pink spread across her cheeks. "I- I'm a big fan-"
"Shut it," Tsunade snapped. "Just let the boy do his thing." She turned to gaze at Deidara, as she twirled her pen. "Start," she commanded.
And so, with his mind clear of everything else but his role, Deidara started.
After hour upon torturous hour of watching and analyzing each and every audition, they were all finally able to rest. But not for Shizune, though. She was busy rifling through the resumes of all of the candidates. Every time she showed Tsunade someone she thought might make a good Akashi Hayato, Tsunade would frown, shake her head, and promptly put that resume onto the Reject pile.
The Reject pile was bigger than the Maybe pile. In fact, there was none for the Maybe pile.
Shizune could feel a bead of sweat slide down her brow. Tsunade could be so difficult at times. If she did not pick someone now, they might just have to schedule another round of auditions for Akashi. Remembering the blond that had auditioned a few hours ago, she pulled out Deidara's resume. A headshot of a smiling Deidara that was stapled to the resume stared back at her.
"Hm..."
For someone who only had one movie to boast about, the boy was quite good. His performance had kept her on the edge of her seat. Being able to pull off something like that even though Sai had the acting skills of a plank was definitely something - it was not easy to act with someone who barely had any emotion put into his acting. At least, that was what she thought. She did not know what Tsunade thought of him, but since Tsunade had kept demanding him to repeat his scenes in different ways ("Sound angrier!", "Look happier!", and so on), that must have been a good thing. It meant that Tsunade was interested in him. He was one of the very few that had to stand her abuse today.
"How about this one?" She showed the director the resume.
Tsunade looked at the resume for a long while, her eyes narrowed as she bit her nail - a bad habit of hers.
If she looked at the paper any harder, Shizune was sure that it would burst into flames.
There was a pregnant pause.
Tsunade turned her face away with a "Hmph". At first, Shizune's heart sank, thinking that they would have to go through another round of judging, until she heard the older woman say in a soft tone, "He'll do."
Even after they went through all the resumes, Deidara's was the only one that was in the Maybe pile.
It looked like they had their Akashi.
Now that he had sent Deidara home, Hidan was able to do whatever the hell he wanted without having to listen to that prissy little princess. Having met Hatake Kakashi just now, he had invited the man to meet at a coffee shop for a drink or two. He had not spoken to Kakashi in awhile, so they had a lot to talk about.
"So." Hidan popped his canned drink open. "Do ya have any idea who's gonna be Kei..." He tried to remember the name of the other main character. "Kei Takahiro, right? Yeah, that's the one." He gulped down a bit of his drink. "One of the main characters. Any idea? Or they haven't chosen yet?"
Kakashi looked to the left, to the right, then at Hidan. He leaned close and whispered the name of the chosen actor into his ear.
Hidan nearly spat his drink out.
"You fucking serious?" he choked. "That guy is gonna be Kei?"
Kakashi nodded. "He's away right now, but he'll be back soon."
Oh, hell... Hidan rubbed his cheek, as he digested this new piece of information. He groaned inwardly. Deidara-chan ain't gonna be happy...
He could already picture Deidara throwing a tantrum over this in the very near future.
It was not going to be a pretty sight. The last time Deidara had gotten angry over that guy, he had pretty much smashed nearly every breakable item in his living room.
...
Actually, now that he thought about it, it would be hilarious to watch those two work together. If Deidara got the part, of course, and Hidan was sure he would. Smirking, Hidan tipped his head back as he drank from the can again. Damn fucking hilarious.
Have fun working with Itachi Uchiha, Princess.
Disclaimer: Naruto is not mine.