Chapter Text
The bell that hung over the door softly jingled, causing Kakuzu to look up, expecting to see a customer, instead it was Hidan, back from a delivery to a funeral. He seemed to be in good spirits, flashing a smile at Kakuzu. Funerals seemed to be Hidan’s specialty, both the arrangements he made and dealing with those who came in needing flowers for them.
“You’re certainly in a good mood for someone who’s just been at a funeral,” Kakuzu said as he went around, making sure all the plants and flowers were well watered and nothing was wilting.
“It wasn’t mine, so yeah, I am.” Hidan simply shrugged. “And even if it was mine, I’d be dead so like, I wouldn’t care anymore. I’d be in heaven and—”
“You in heaven?” Kakuzu snorted in amusement. “Ony when Hell freezes over.”
“Hey! I’ll have you know–”
“Yes, yes, you’re so religious.” Kakuzu rolled his eyes as he returned to the front desk and opened a spreadsheet. “It’s going to be your funeral if you don’t get in the back and go through that delivery we got in while you were off having fun at the cemetery.”
Immediately Kakuzu regretted his choice of words when Hidan grinned and raised a single gray brow at him. “Get in the back, hmm? Sure, I could do that. With pleasure.”
“How old are you again? Twelve?” Kakuzu went to reach for the nearest thing to throw at Hidan, an apple blossom stem, but thought better of it. He didn’t want to inadvertently send the wrong message and besides, it was highly expensive with it being out of season. A quick glance at what else was within reach: a pen or a yellow carnation. Kakuzu settled on the yellow carnation which Hidan had no trouble catching.
“If you keep throwing these flowers at me, I’m gonna start thinking you like me!”
“Get to work. I’m not paying you to stand around making inappropriate jokes that would get you written up for sexual harassment elsewhere.”
From the corner of his eye, Kakuzu watched Hidan stick the flower in the pocket on his shirt. Cute, though the meaning that particular flower held had gone over his head. He looked over at the selection of flowers, and decided that tomorrow, he would throw Hidan a geranium.
What had started as a money laundering scheme, had somehow quickly turned into a legitimate business. Kakuzu had found it relaxing, a welcome change of pace from the world of loan sharking where he had to chase people down and use threats, coercion and even force in order to get them to pay back what they owed him with interest. Dealing with flowers was much more pleasant, as people paid up front and went on their way, either with their flowers in hand or waiting for deliveries.
The only thing Kakuzu hadn’t anticipated was Hidan wanting to continue their business partnership and insisting Kakuzu hire him on at the flower shop.
“I always did good work for you, c’mon, what do you have to lose? If you think I suck, you can just fire me!” Hidan had gotten in through the back of the shop, pretending to be a delivery man. In fact, Kakuzu wasn’t sure what happened to the actual delivery man, he never saw him again and didn’t want to ask. The possibilities were one of only a few: Hidan had either sweet talked him, scared him off, or killed him and disposed of the body somewhere. Hidan had disposed of a number of bodies for Kakuzu in the past, and wasn’t lying when he had claimed he had done good work for Kakuzu. He had, there was no denying it. They worked well together, and that was something Kakuzu hated to admit.
“I don’t have time for this right now,” Kakuzu told him. “It’s busy out there. Seems weddings and funerals never end. Not to mention the idiots buying flowers for their wives thinking it makes up for forgetting important dates.”
“If someone forgot me and gave me flowers, I’d shove ‘em up their ass.”
Kakuzu snorted at that, and then scowled as someone rang the bell at the front reminding him that he had left a grieving widower waiting. As if that wasn’t bad enough, she was pregnant and something about the name was familiar.
“Let me help, I’ll prove it to you I can do more than mur–”
“Keep your voice down. It’s a funeral, if you can manage not to screw up the flowers for that, and not make that customer walk out, I’ll consider it.”
“Deal!” Hidan smiled at him, a genuine smile that reached his eyes, not like the ones he used to give after returning from jobs he had done for Kakuzu, blood dried on his shirt sleeves, and Kakuzu didn’t like how it made him feel something. He just wasn’t sure what that feeling even was and wasn’t sure he liked it and thought about throwing Hidan out of his shop then and there. But he had always enjoyed working with Hidan, and had always enjoyed the added benefits of sex to take the edge off things when things got too stressful…but he had never actually felt anything for him before other than anything purely physical and he quickly left Hidan to take care of the woman up front.
“Want to get dinner after we close up?” Hidan had asked at the end of that first day while Kakuzu organized his desk and made sure everything was ready to lock up.
“No. I want to go home,” Kakuzu said, adding, “Alone.”
“Ok, so…am I hired or fired? You never actually fired me from our last agreement, y’know. You just stopped answering my calls and texts.”
“I blocked you and changed my number.” Kakuzu ignored the hurt that showed on Hidan’s face. “How did you even find me here?”
“Not that fucking easy. And wait, why’d you block me?!”
As if it wasn’t obvious. “I’m trying something new here, alright? And if you’re going to try and fuck this up for me, don’t come back tomorrow morning.”
“That woman I helped, the pregnant one? You want to know what’s kinda funny but also fucked up? I think we killed her husband.” Kakuzu narrowed his eyes at Hidan. “Or… I technically did it if you want to be pedantic.”
Hidan actually knew what that word meant?
“Whatever,” Hidan went on. “But don't forget you were there, too.”
No wonder her name had sounded familiar.
“Anyways, I want to try something new, too. And since we were both doing that other shit together, maybe we can try this new shit together.”
“If you do anything to screw this up for me—”
“I won’t!”
“I’ll kill you myself. I mean it.”
Hidan nodded. “Yeah, I get it. I know when you’re serious about something.”
Kakuzu had waited for Hidan to leave so he could lock up for the night, and he was only half surprised when the following morning he found Hidan holding two cups of coffee and waiting for him to open the shop. The more surprising thing was that Hidan had actually made an attempt to dress the part in a nice pair of pants and a button-up shirt. He looked a little softer around the edges, more approachable by customers, and a good thing, because Kakuzu had absolutely no patience for the grieving group of friends who had stopped by shortly after they opened followed by a bride-to-be. He would much rather deal with the men who had forgotten birthday's or anniversary's, and stick a few flowers into the bouquet that declared they were idiots begging forgiveness, or the women who came in looking for a new houseplant to add to their collections who were always his favorite customers.