#lveyshou

[chiariuchiha]

I mean we are generally in agreement that it’s like -

A salad bowl right?

One of the big serving ones?

[kurenbye]

[SENDER passes RECEIVER a note that says “If this note is on your person at the end of this meeting, or if you are discovered by Shikaku, you pay for drinks tonight.”]

Gai nods earnestly as Shikaku speaks, the genial smile on his face offering no indication of the note he’s passed to Kurenai on his left. No way he’s going to be caught with that note on his person, not in a jonin meeting. And especially not when the handwriting looks suspiciously like Genma’s.

RANDOM ACTS PROMPTS.

Kurenai had been listening intently (well, more intently than her peers she wagered) to Shikaku when she felt the note land on her lap. As if on instinct, her hand immediately covered it until she found an opportunity to glance down to read its contents. She nearly let out an obvious exhale through her nose in amusement, but managed to catch herself before she risked dooming herself to being stuck with an alcohol bill that would have her begging for S-rank missions to cover it.

What a ridiculous situation to find one's self in at their age. Really... passing notes in a meeting? It was like the academy all over again.

At yet, here she was, eyeing the room discreetly to find out who her victim would be— so she really was no better. Perhaps she was the worst of all, because she knew that the only target she could really choose was sitting to the left of her and she also knew he would think she was trying to slyly intertwine their fingers when in reality she was sealing his fate of a future debt. Well, he was the third Hokage's son... he could handle it. Or at least that's what she told herself as she left the note in his palm and pulled her hand back to fold her hands on her lap once again.

Once her safety was secured, she chanced a glance back at Gai, hoping that her eyes conveyed disappointment in his sly attack on her rather than reflected her real amusement at the entire scenario. She really was no better than the rest of them. Or maybe she could already hear the alcohol flowing. It was all Genma's fault anyways. He could blame him.

[copycaat]

@lvyeshou asked:

really anywhere quiet at midnight, the air vibrates

It would be foolish to sneak out of the hospital with his injuries still so severe-- he'd had more bones than not broken, many of them shattered, significant blood loss and a head injury, and it's been a long, painful recovery from that. From nearly dying. He'd been refusing visitors, in too much pain to do anything but snarl at them and too afraid to see who would come and who wouldn't to keep letting them in after Tenzo had stormed around his room shouting at him for an hour while he drooled into his pillow.

Tonight might be the first night he hasn't been given enough painkillers to keep him in a dreamless sleep for ten hours straight, and of course he is taking ruthless advantage of the nurses' trust in him by slipping out of his room and struggling up five flights of stairs to the roof. It's a long trek, one that leaves him gasping and trembling like a leaf once he gets to the emergency door, but as soon as he's out in the cool night air something in his shoulders relaxes and he slumps to the ground right there.

The moon hangs directly above him like a fat worm, and he goes from mostly-kneeling to laying flat on his back and staring up at it with a lone eye. He can't tell if it's hot or cold outside, but his hands shake when he roots around in his sleep pants' pockets and finds a crushed carton of cigarettes-- courtesy of Genma, probably. He shakes one out and lights it, taking a few long, shaky drags on it before his lungs rebel and he starts coughing, like the action might pull every last bit of filth out from inside of him. He coughs until he can't breathe, until there's blood in the back of his mouth, and then he rolls onto his side and coughs until the roof in front of his mouth is splattered with rotten-tasting blood.

When his coughing fit is over, he lifts his shaking hand back to his face and takes another drag of the cigarette.

It feels as if there is something small and quivering clawing and shrieking to escape from within his chest. As if he was a frightened animal, or his heart was a frightened animal, liable to crawl out of his mouth and run from him and his cold, rough hands and his idiotic life. He takes a few gasping breaths, cigarette-free, and presses his left hand to his sternum until his heartbeat settles to something a little more normal.

Then he sits up. Then he half-stands, and stumbles closer to the edge of the roof. His cigarette burns down. He smudges it out on the ground and drops the butt in his pack, and then lights another, trying to get his hands to settle. He's outside. He's alive. He's awake. He's sick with healing pain. He's alone, and he has only himself to blame.

When I got home I meant to give you some sweet chrysanthemum / The wind chimes were ringing all wrong and you were standing / In the doorway singing along / And I tried to remember how nice it had been / A long long time ago