The Morning After.

How to tell the truth:
You look like, he says breathlessly at nine o’clock in the morning,
You look like, he says.

Silhouetted against yellow tissue paper drapes, Tablo looks at you and scribbles into his notebook-love stories, love rhymes, love love love you hum under your breath absentmindedly.

He says from his desk, not looking at ( Read more... )

After what seemed like waiting on the bridge forever, Mugen slumped from the railing, eyeing Jin who was approaching quietly.

"Geez, what the hell took you so long? And where's Fuu?"

"I haven't seen her. It seems that she has gone missing."

"What? AGAIN?!"

"I wouldn't be surprised-"

"DAMN THAT BITCH!"

"...that you would chase after her, you horny ( Read more... )

Glitter and Smoke.

Nah, Jiyoung refuses the cigarette Tablo offers him in the middle of the night, in the middle of Seoul, (soul-searching somewhere only the dust breathes, cold and numbingly real) I got beat when I was younger, I don't do it no more.

Shoulder to shoulder they stand in silence on the bridge overlooking the river. Underneath their ( Read more... )

Repetition as a literal device.

Tablo is a wordsmith of the poetic kind. The kind that soliloquizes white petals on black branches, shapeless faces in shapeless dreams; he’ll write it into truth, that was his style, that was Pieces.

Jiyoung smiths words too, if only he does so with arrogance and not eloquence. Tablo thinks it’s stupid, but there’s ( Read more... )

Genma doesn’t take it out, she notices.

She can taste the blood sliding between their lips, as the senbon works its way inside their cheeks. He doesn’t play nice with her, even when he wants to, and that’s just the way Tenten likes it. No man has ever tried hard enough with her; never, never- and they don’t push, and she savors the bitter taste of ( Read more... )

For once, she doesn't feel the sting of electricity in the air. The night seems to still and her breath slows. She drops her weapons; the kunai, the shuriken, and the blood dappled sai all land on the weathered ground with a muffled thump. It takes all of her self-control to restrain that's mine, that's mine, give me back my mask-

She is a tool, but ( Read more... )

"Kakashi-sensei, I don't understand this problem," Sakura said, bringing the math book to the teacher desk. "I've tried everything! I've tried graphing it, making a table, and even taking it to the lim, but--"

"You know, you should ask Sasuke to the dance," Kakashi said.

"I can't figure-- what?"

Kakashi shrugged and began rummaging around the papers ( Read more... )

He waited until her friends left before he approached Ino. Normally she would have been extremely friendly if the school hottie had come by her locker, but when Sasuke demanded to know where Shikamaru was, her expression soured.

"I don't know where he is," she said, pulling her pom poms out of her locker and stuffing them into her duffel. "We're not ( Read more... )

It was a rainy day: Sasuke slid the soccer ball out from underneath Naruto's feet and ran with it towards the other end of the field. Naruto called Sasuke a bastard and chased after him. He didn't catch up until Sasuke was right in front of the goal Sakura was protecting, but by then it was too late. Naruto, in a last ditch effort, tackled Sasuke ( Read more... )

"What is that?" Neji said, pointing to the lumpy, beige mass on Tenten's tray. "Mystery meat?"

Tenten stabbed at the thing with a plastic spork. It jiggled. "I'm not sure if it even is meat." She sighed.

Neji eyed the thing warily. "That's what you get for buying school food."

She scowled for a moment, then resigned herself to poke at the thing once ( Read more... )