Fingers drag across the glass, mine are ever-following.

As he steps to the side, I do, too. As blood drips from the biting, ever biting of his fingers, the pain hits me, and crimson globules hit the floor, spraying tinier splashes on the fabric of his white trousers. I say white.

They are no longer white. Scattered blood stains dirty them, some new and fresh, some old and dark, and some which he has tried to scrub out, a faded patch here and there, and threadbare strands that show where he has torn my trousers.

For they are mine, and his. They are not ours. There is not an us. There is him, and me. He and I do not share, he and I steal. One of us for one moment, and then another. He shrieks, but it is my voice that tells him where he is, the words echoing out into the empty room. That he is screaming, and fearful, and wants to go home.

But he can never go home. Not now, not ever. I won't let him. Neither can I. He won't let me. I miss them, sometimes. He doesn't. He only misses the fibrous feel of their flesh as is tears. But I miss them. I don't remember them, but I miss them. He remembers everyone, and he taunts me with his knowledge.

I cannot remember anyone, they are all shadowy figures with monotone voices and holes for eyes and mouth. He remembers each person, and how they looked with tattered mouths, and carved-out eyes. He speaks again, as the boy enters, in a lower tone this time, in the voice I have come to remember, though his features escape me

. "Avete occhi graziosi, il mio caro. Li darete io?" "You have pretty eyes, my dear…give them to me?"

He speaks Italian. I speak English, but even I have come to know this phrase. I weep,

but tears appear on his body, even as he raises the knife. It is the phrase he uses when he is tired of them, the ones I can remember. I can only see them one person at a time.

I will be on the train, the street, the house, and then I will see a face, and I will know.

That is them.

He will know too. He marks them for killing. I mark them for love. One day I dream that I will cast him out. He dreams the same thing in reverse, that he will cast me out, that he will be able to kill unrestrained by my desires.

I dream that I can love, without dooming them. For that's what I do. I doom them to him. Just as long ago, someone did to me. If they survive, that is. Most of the time he kills them, even if the knife does not. He wipes the knife in the boys mouth, spreading himself in the form of his cocktail of chemicals, onto the child. And as he takes root, the boy splutters and chokes, as he causes the boy to foam and the mouth, to writhe.

Now it is I who is stealing the moment, stroking his hair, cooing to the boy softly, the boy with brown hair, and red tattoos on his face, and he is slowing, becoming more peaceful, and his face is going, the blackness is enveloping him, and I smile. He is at peace. They are all at peace, the faceless ones.

The faces are not. He knows this, and this is why he lets me love them first. The faceless that move around are not always at peace. Sometimes I will catch glimpses of their faces, a nose, a cheekbone. The facelesses that are still are always at peace. But they are inconsequential. It is not them who matter. It is the faces. He knows this, I know this. It is the one time he and I are in agreement. They must go.

I beat him once. The boys' face disappeared before he could kill him. I made him at peace, happy, content. And then I told him to run, and he wouldn't. I showed him the other. He ran. I still remember one thing about him. He had soft hands. He remembers nothing, swears he doesn't exist, that I am deluding myself.

But I know it is the other way around, that he is deluded, that he existed, and he cannot bear it. I smile, and put the boy on my back. He is the face that got away. A name flutters through my mind. Sasuke. I clutch at it, but He rips it away.

He howls, but my body is strong now, and I am in control. The boy must be burnt. Fire is happy. It has no face. And so I lug him to the pile, my pile. There are two piles, but my pile is bigger. He almost always loses here. But there are two on his pile, and I care not for them. They were never at peace, so I killed them. Even when he stabbed them, they survived, and their faces would not go. They would not go! That is what he does to you. He stays your face. I bring a hand up to my face, and I shudder.

Then I reprimand myself. It is not my day. It is certainly not his day. It is the boy's day. I smile, and he howls again, trapped by love. I like that. It sounds like a song. He is trapped by lo~ove.

And I am then humming, a tune forming in my mind, as the fire licks and leaves ashes, and I brush them to the pile, and replace the old drum over it, so they do not blow away. He fights to wrest control, but the boy helps me keep it, faceless visage full of peace, even as it slips away, as I forget.

He laughs, and walks back to the house. And now I am following again, ever following, forced to mimic his movements, one by one. He is not me. A face said that once. A face who headed to his pile. She, for I remember that much, said that he was exactly the same as me. That he and I were a we.

Another name. Sakura.

That we are one … That is not right. Maybe that's why she never got faceless, because she was always wrong. He grins, licking the blood of his fingers, and I shudder as the metallic taste rings in my mouth.

I wrest control, barely. I don't want this.

But I cannot leave him to hurt the facelesses. They're so beautiful, so at peace.

Even the flickerers, the ones whose full faces appear temporarily. I follow them, to check they aren't a face. But they never are. There face soon disappears.

Sometimes it takes months, others years, but they go. I know this. I know as soon as I see them they aren't faces.

They don't look so…broken.

More names flick through my mind. Facelesses, I am sure of that. None of them survived. They are all dead. But who can stand against… Another name flicks through my mind. Kyuubi. I blink. He has a name? Then surely I have a na-

"Naruto." I can almost hear Sasuke's voice.

And then He steals my memories away again, and I remember nothing.