A/N: um… I found this underneath many, many folders in my computer. I think I wrote this back in… July. So I'm just posting this now since I haven't posted anything for a while.

dang. don't you hate it when you post something, then read it again and realize you made mistakes? I realize that I have to resubmit almost every single one of my pieces because I don't do a good enough job of editing beforehand. How hard is it to edit 250 words?

It's the little kisses in the dark that do it for him.

Unknown to everybody else, it's she that is always there to satisfy his insatiable hunger for something more, though anybody in his place would be perfectly content with what he already had.

It's shameful and embarrassing, yet addictive, like a seductive poison. And he's falling, ever deeper and deeper into glittering pools of acid that threatens to submerge him.

His wife is noticing his absences, little by little. And he knows that she suspects something, though she is still fighting with herself to give her husband the benefit of the doubt.

And he feels guilty for a moment, but seeing her again in the middle of the night chases all his inhibitions away, and as they make love at her rented apartment, it's she that's all he thinks about.

He wishes it would stop. He hates being caught in the middle between two equally headstrong girls. Both alike in so many ways and yet, detest each other with every ounce of their beings.

Shikamaru for once comes up at the biggest loss of his life, as he lies naked next to a sleeping Temari, yet still somehow thinking of his wife, Ino who's fighting her own internal battles from just three apartments over.

Review?