Author's Note: Gnaaaaaw. Gai/Shizune. I'm obsessed. Watch out for Green Beast Angst and cheating girlfriends in this one. Anyway, I think I might just start a series of drabbles on this couple after this.

... I just realized; Including mine, there only 4 fanfictions on this site with this pairing... Talk about crack...

Joked me something awful, didn't you?

You're the world's greatest comedian, a microphone knit into your hand like your fingers were moulded around it. Your audience sits feet away from the edge of the polished stage, choking on dignified sips of their peach and lime daiquiris, as they anticipate the throbbing of your ruby-red lips into another saying that will send them into sporadic fits of laughter.

You're the one who brings the smiles to their lips, with the mere twist of the knife-blades I used to capture in the sweetest embraces with my own. The humorista herself, bearing humor like you're bared to him as you two sit on the couch we used to cuddle together on, in front of a plotless romance movie.

The screen flashes, and I dare blink as the audible sound of teeth against tongue bring a lump to my throat. It's a joke. It has to be. There's no way he has what I wanted. It simply has to be a riddle of vision that I have to see at a different angle to understand completely. Maybe than I can laugh as hard about it as you are.

Laughter. It curdles toward me like the bitter smoke that wafts from an incense burner. It bites at my skin like you did, snipping like insects until I break out in a rash that I can't scratch, even if I tore my skin apart with my fingernails. It pierces the part of my heart you were in, until every bit of blood in my bleeding heart leaks out to leave an empty hole in my chest.

Humor. I fail to see the humor in this.

You notice me, and it's something dry and persnickety that makes your lips curl up. An insult. Now you're an insult comic, bringing others down to raise yourself up. Proving that you are great and alive, while others are small and dead. Beneath you. Not good enough for you.

You're an insult comic, and I'm the target of your punch line.

He's a pig, his face to your breast like that. If he were ever my Eternal Rival, he is now: even if I don't stand a chance of beating him at this challenge. Get you face out of there, and your hands off of her- Don't you have any sense of propriety, or feeling of obligation towards me or her?

It's very impolite to make-out with a man's girlfriend when they're standing in the doorway of her apartment. But than, angry people are rarely wise. Funny people are rarely polite.

He's laughing, now: a hard, coughing laugh that sounds more like a hissing scoff than anything. Is the bouquet of flowers I hold something to be joked about? Or the penguin-printed tie laced around my neck? What about the suit jacket I have on? Lee made me wear it. He told me it would look impressive when I got down on one knee- It would help with the dramatics of the moment. Although I dare say that this moment is more dramatic than any one I could have created.

He's snorting like the pig he is. I can smell that sharp scent that tells me you couldn't just wait; I still have some sense of duty, what's right and proper. But carnal lust has clearly spoken for you in this case. Your desires are perfectly clear, and as bared to my eyes as you are to Kakashi's. Or were, before I knocked down the front door.

The stunned realization in your eyes fades into the hungry, tempting smile of a seductress. It's too bad I'm trying to forget everything I'm seeing a million times in this single second: If I weren't, I might notice that your face is beautiful when it's framed by moonlight. Even more beautiful than I could have imagined it when it lit up with joy at the offer I was going to make. Even more revolting than a mangled arm, or a cadaver carved with kunai knives.

Your face is as beautiful as the lust that drove you to cheat tonight. As beautiful as a perfectly-executed joke.

The world's greatest comedian, in all the resplendency of a crown knit from snakes. Reveling at the sharp taste of her own sarcasm on her silvery tongue.

Was I not funny enough for you? Was I joke material, to be thrown away when the crowds decided I wasn't enough to make them cry with laughter? Was that all I was? Please tell me, so I can stop thinking that this was my fault somehow.

Oh, please, relieve us all- Tell me why I'm standing in your doorway like the complete and total idiot I am, a bouquet of chrysanthemums in my hands, a golden band in my pocket, and a heart that just fell into my shoes.

I can tell a lot of things at first glance. I can tell by his sneering smirk that he's thinking of his triumph over me once more. He beats me at backstroke racing and raising Students Who Will Grow Up To Be Prodigies. He beats me at dealing with life, and at the count of tragedies Fate has dealt all of us. He's clearly beaten me to a special place in your heart. The proof is right in front of my eyes.

There's no use gazing hopelessly into your eyes. All I'll see there is humor, mirth at my loss. My suffering is funny. The first few seconds of the life I'll spend mourning for what we could have had, and you're already laughing.

The flowers hit the ground, and the velvet box that represented the rest of our lives pats the carpet. The wedding band I wanted you to wear as a sign of our dedication tumbles out, and loses itself in the fibers of your blood-colored carpet. As red as the blood pouring out of my bleeding heart, getting trapped beneath the skin to bruise the most tender part of me; the part you just broke into a thousand jagged pieces.

There isn't time to breathe the beginning of an apology; I know you won't. There isn't time to pick up the pieces, or pinch myself to see if it's a nightmare in front of my eyes.

There isn't even time to tell you that I still love you, even though I just caught you cheating.

I turn and run, sandals sparking the carpet as chakra I didn't know I had singes the fabric through the soles of my sandals. Pieces of my heart stay in that darkened apartment with you, and although I can't hear it, the moaning and grunting pierce the tender beginnings of my hardened soul as it tries to regrow itself within me.

That's right. You're the world's greatest comedian, Shizune. I came to ask you to be a part of my heart forever. Instead, you take my heart, and shatter it in front of my eyes as you hand yourself away to another.

You're the world's greatest comedian, my love. And you just made a big joke out of everything we ever had together. The joke that made your career, and has every inner demon within me laughing so hard that they can hardy breathe. The joke that you two quietly titter over as you lock into the state of bliss we could have had.

The world's greatest joke, for your audience, your people, and the cheating little part of you that couldn't stand to see me happy. I just have one question.

If it's so great, how come I'm not laughing?

A/N: -angsts- Clay Aiken and jerk boyfriends. What a weekend. Review, please.