Characters: Hinata, Shino, Kiba
Summary
: He'll take his medicine for three very simple reasons.
Pairings
: slight ShinoHina
Author's Note
: I've decided that, while KibaHina does absolutely nothing for me, ShinoHina is a pairing I can harbor a soft spot for without shame. Possibly this arises from the fact that their English VA's voice another pair of characters I have a soft spot for shipping-wise.
Disclaimer
: I don't own Naruto.


Shino sneezes, Kiba snickers and Hinata nibbles on her lip as she and her under-the-weather teammate sit on the dingy hospital floor. Kiba is standing near the window filtering in gray afternoon sunlight, ostensibly keeping the lookout but really afraid he's going to get sick himself from Shino's "sick germs" as he's so eloquently labeled them. Akamaru whimpers a little; the huge dog edges closer to Kiba at the window, sensing Shino's discomfort and wanting to move away from it.

Hinata feels the close-knit carpet putting impressions into her leg and her teeth nearly draw blood from her lip as she looks at her ill teammate. "How do you feel now, Shino-kun?"

All the answer she gets is a decidedly ambivalent grunt.

After some pleading, Hinata finally got Shino to remove his heavy jacket, his shirt and his face mask. Even now he refuses to take off his sunglasses for reasons neither Hinata nor Kiba can fathom—he doesn't sleep with them on, after all, though he does take care to only go to bed after his teammates have gone to sleep and always makes sure to wake up before they do.

"Where is the pain?" Hinata asks; she knows that Shino would deny feeling any pain if he had the chance, so maybe pulling the rug out from under him from the start is the best policy.

Shino gestures to just above his eyebrows and on either side of his nose, not saying a word, though it's clear to Hinata and Kiba that he's embarrassed both at being sick and that so many people are paying attention to him at one time. Then, he sneezes.

Hinata winces sympathetically; combined with a low-grade fever and a sore throat, she recognizes the symptoms. "You have a sinus infection, Shino-kun; it's not contagious, Kiba-kun," she tells him, her patience with Kiba nearly expended; when he heard the words "sinus infection" he looked ready to jump out the window.

"Ah." Finally, Shino speaks. Straining to speak normally and not sound as though he's holding his nose, he asks, "And how long can this be expected to last?"

"That depends on how long it takes to find antibiotics for you. For now—" Hinata reaches over into her bag "—I have Tylenol and a packet for chamomile tea to help you sleep."

Though it's hard to tell since his eyes are well-hidden behind the dark sunglasses, it's reasonable to guess from the way his lip curls that Shino is looking at the medicine in Hinata's hand—the tea mix, not the pills—as though it's a large carnivore that's about to jump up and murder him. Shino does so hate having to take chamomile tea.

"Hinata," Shino mutters firmly, "I'm not taking that. You know I don't like chamomile tea."

Hinata only smiles gently. So many people make the mistake of believing that because she is mild and quiet to the point of being a near-mute that she is weak-willed. Shino isn't one of those people, though he's still foolish enough to attempt to circumvent her will when she's at her most determined.

It won't last.

Shino knows as well as Hinata that eventually, he will take the chamomile. He'll do it because she asks him to and because he needs to sleep and because when it comes to the health of her teammates Hinata always gets her way. That's just how it works.

He doesn't have the heart to argue with her for long.