Just...something that turned up on my computer a few months back. Everyone could use a tiny bit more Chouji in their lives anyway.


It begins as nothing more than motion caught from the corner of his eye. The lines are thin, fragile, almost insubstantial and yet somehow they are death to almost any who cross them wrongly.

Blue tugging on white, a plea for help.

The morning is devoid of sound in light of it, and it seems right that way.

For a brief moment, he stares: thinks he can understand the mindless struggle to simply survive; a faint fluttering movement standing out against the stillness and ultimately doing nothing.

For a brief moment, he is tired. Sixteen years of existence manage to weigh him down in more than body, now, though he is not often taken to considering the fact.

It ends as quickly as it began, a seeming eternity of struggle brought to its demise with the whisper of leaves underfoot, a brush of calloused fingertips.

Dark, flaking red consumes everything in the silence. Fighting ceases to exist for him in another short-lived stretch of time. Chouji comes to the realization that he's not as innocent as he used to be.

He lets the butterfly go.