A/N: Blame the insane number of Team 10 angst fics on this site for this. As always, please review because you know that there's nothing worse than having 400 hits and 3 reviews.
I do not own Naruto.
Lazy. That's Shikamaru.
Vain. That's Ino.
Obese. That's Chouji.
Sloth. Pride. Greed.
They are the words that are bandied about by the gossiping housewives and the mistrustful comrades.
Ino-Shika-Cho breaks 3 rules per second, sometimes more.
A spiky black head lolls backwards on slumped shoulders. A tail of platinum blonde is frozen in place, stiffened by hairspray. Crisp crumbs are inexplicably caught in red-brown tufts of hair.
He sees them from the back. He can't look at their faces, because he sees his own sins reflected back at him. Broken rules, unbroken promises. Sometimes the promises are broken as well, and this is what he fears the most.
Immoral, uninhibited, pitiless.
Sinful.
He hopes he can bring back these sinners from the edge of the proverbial cliff, but it's proving as difficult as it was for his father.
Eventually, he'll have to let them fall. There'll be other hands to clutch at, but he won't be there to see them.
Because when Team 10 topples over-what a perfect number for such an imperfect team-he'll plummet right along with them.