Fighting With One's Self

Chapter 18 - Yoku's Real Secret

 It was Dei-kun who called me for dinner that night. He apologized for being so distant for the past two months. He said that everyone had done the same to Yume-chan - they were distant with her, as well, and pushed her just as much as they pushed me even though she didn't know it. He said it had been the Leader's orders.

After telling me all this, he kissed me lightly and we went to dinner, where everyone joked around with Yume-chan and me. Whereas my explosion had been fairly quiet, and only targeted at Kisame-sensei, Yume-chan went full-out on everyone in the Akatsuki. She blamed Hidan for being the one to change the settings on the practice dummies, Kakuzu for not healing her properly at night, Zetsu, Kisame-sensei and Dei-kun for simply being in on the joke, Tobi for keeping his mouth shut for once, Itachi-san for being the centre of her exhausting training, and even me for not offering her comfort.

This was such an outrageous accusation, but of course I could not defend myself. Instead, I just banged my fist on the table and glared at her.

"Don't you give me that fucking look, you! I am so sick of this crap!" she said angrily, "I'm gonna rip your small intestine out your mouth, and pull your large intestine out from your ass, and use you as a skipping rope. Then you'll have a proper excuse for not being able to talk!"

At this point the table went deadly quiet. I burned to ask her "Was that really necessary?" but I couldn't.

"Hidan, you're a bad influence on her," Kisame-sensei tells her.

"That's bullshit," Hidan says, "I didn't fuckin' do anything."

"Fuck this shit," Yume-chan said, and stormed out of the room.

"She took it worse than this one," Kisame-sensei says, nudging his head in my direction.

I am the only one who knows the reason. Yume-chan hates it when people play pranks on her. She hates not having control over something in her own life: she didn't have control over the pace she climbed in strength these past two months. That exhausted her. She likes to improve on something at her own pace, because then she enjoys it, and when she perfects it, she will boast about it, because she perfected it by herself and at her own pace, and enjoyed doing so.

But I can understand the Leader's side of things, too. We were liabilities. We had to be knocked out and carried during emergencies. If any of those Jounin had caught up to us, the two of us would have died during the first five minutes. That's the cold, hard truth about it.

But why go through the trouble of making us stronger at all? Why not just execute us and save yourself the trouble?

This thought stays in my head for several days. I could not discuss it with Yume-chan, because she continued fuming by herself, ranting in whispers all through her training. When I raised the topic to Dei-kun's attention, he said that he had no idea what the reason could be, and he doesn't really care, as long as I'm alive. I'm flattered, but that's not what I wanted. I want answers.

Finally, four days later, Yume-chan is sitting quietly on her bed, reading a magazine, and I decide that it's time to confront her.

"Hey, you know, this prank they pulled-"

"Don't even start," she interrupts me, glaring at me over the pages. "That is one word I never want to hear again."

"I get that," I say, "I know that you're angry, but won't you think about it for a minute? You and I both know that Pein is not the kind of person to make jokes. Or waste time on people he thinks are weak. He told us that, more than once. Why do you think he bothered to make us stronger at all, instead of just killing us."

"Probably just wants more people to push around."

"Seriously, think about it for-"

"I don't want to, Yoku!" she says, slamming the magazine down next to her, "Ever since we came here, no one's appreciated anything we did. We're looked down upon by everyone around us. If we try to escape, we're tracked down and killed. Evidently, Konoha nin aren't as angelic as we thought they were. We just ... we don't belong here..."

I keep quiet for a moment, silently fuming with rage. "So you'd rather go back?"

"I don't know - I - maybe," she replies, looking down at her knees.

"You'd rather go back to the place where we fit in even less? For our entire lives? You were emotionally abused by everyone in your family! Nothing was ever good enough for them! You got into fights daily! You had detention every weekend! All the bullies were forever trying to mess up your hair and they called you a wannabe!"

"I know-"

"No, you don't know! You don't know anything! You think you know, but you don't! You're the one who always wanted to come here. You even did research to see if people have found ways to enter other dimensions. I saw your Internet history, you know. You called Itachi-san Jake when you talked about him to other people, as though he was really your boyfriend!"

"I know, but-"

"You try to look so tough, but I know you're not-"

"You can't even talk to people!"

"And for good reason!"

"What? A few people died and you got bullied? Wake up, girl, that happens to just about everyone."

"Those aren't the real reasons," I say, slumping back into my pillows.

"What?" she asks. "What do you mean?"

"I've got selective mutism," I say.

"What, like Raj from The Big Bang Theory?" she asks. I nod. "Well, duuuhhh."

I slap my forehead, "It's a genuine mental disorder, you prick!"

"So what caused it?"

"I don't know. My mother said that when I was about two years old, I just stopped talking to some people. I could sense if they have the potential to bring harm upon me. Like, literally, sense it. Then I can't talk to them."

"That doesn't make sense," she says, "No one here, except Pein, will hurt you."

"Are you sure about that?" I ask, rolling my eyes, "Zetsu will eat me if he sees me trimming a tree. You know Itachi-san takes his orders more seriously than his feelings. You know who Tobi really is, and what he's capable of. If Hidan gets a hallucination where Jashin tells him to kill me, he'll do it in a heartbeat. Konan will do anything Pein orders. And Pein and Kakuzu, I don't really need to explain."

She considers it for a moment, "Suppose it makes sense. Although, how do you know if someone wants to hurt you?"

"I can't talk to them..."

"I get that!" she says, rolling her eyes, "But why?"

"No idea."

_________________________________________________________

A/N: Yeah, I know. This was like one of those nightmarishly boring filler eps. But all I really wanted in this was Yume's fit, but I couldn't only put that in, so ...

The fic's slowly coming to an end now, so stick to it. The real excitement's about to start now XD