Confessions of a Confidant

"Kiba's playing today, Sasuke, want to go watch?" Ino asked Sasuke. The latter had never been much a fan of sports, but never objected to watching Kiba. Although he really didn't want to seem too eager to accept. Ino never really asked him to go watch games with her, for she was a cheerleader and a great sports fanatic, and Sasuke really wasn't.

However, they were sitting at a cafe that was close to the school's soccer fields and if he had to go someday, today was perfect, he had nothing better to do. So therefore, to uphold the illusion of disinterest, he frowned and looked up at the sun, "it is good weather today." He said, he looked at his blonde friend and she was cheerful as ever, "I guess I won't mind sitting in the bleachers for once."

Ino's smile spread and it warmed Sasuke's heart that she was so happy at his answer, though it made him feel a little bad that she thought he did it for her, while it was actually a fully selfish decision in disguise.

"But you're not painting my face."

She merely giggled at that and moved her hand to his upper arm affectively, "you can just sit back and watch good-looking jocks run across the field, possibly shirtless, because it's rather warm today…" she winked. Other than her, he'd told no-one of his sexual preference. He feared that telling Naruto might cause the latter to pound on him and worse, telling Kiba might scare him off. He did play with the idea of telling Sakura, just to make her bug off. But she'd tell the entire school before the period was over and he really didn't feel like being scrutinized by all of Konoha High.

Now it wasn't that their school was especially homophobic or something. There were some openly gay people –Naruto was one of them- and they were accepted in general. But there were always those couple of jackasses that would shove them in the hallways, hit their food trays from their hands or spray paint their lockers and Sasuke was not ready for that kind of attention. Telling Ino was a huge relief, though, because she honestly had no problem with it, apart from, then, the fact that he hadn't told her that he knew he was gay because he was more or less fawning over Kiba.

So the two of them made their way over to the soccer field. At Konoha high the big sports were hockey, basketball, football and soccer. Especially the football and soccer team were really good and placed first or second nearly every year, together with their rivals from Oto High. Kiba played in both teams, as well. In fact, he was the captain of the Konoha High soccer team and famed quarter back on the football field.

Sasuke never understood why everyone was so excited over school games, why, when Ino and Sasuke arrived, the bleachers were nearly filled up, and why the game would often be the talk of the day. Today, they played against Suna High. Another strong team, if Sasuke were to believe Ino. By the time the referee whistled the start of the game the bleachers were filled up with students and there were even ones that couldn't find a spot so they stood by the side-line. Not even half a minute in the game, Sasuke's phone buzzed.

"Yeah?" he answered, listening to Naruto asking him to get coffee at the mall in half an hour. "I can't, I'm watching the game with Ino." There was some confusion on the other side before Naruto requested he'd come watch with them, "sure."

"Is Naru coming?" Ino asked, not taking her eyes off the ball.

Sasuke nodded, which Ino could therefore not see, but it didn't matter, because she was not that interested in his answer after all; Kiba had the ball. He was running with the ball at his feet towards the goal, where one of the opponents was closing in on him. Kiba looked around frantically and shouted something to his own team, there was no-one that came to help the captain out. Kiba manoeuvred the ball from left to right and with quick and precise footwork, passed the opponent in his confusion. While his team tried to get lose from the opponents that blocked their ways, Kiba was once again left alone. Another defence player from the other team ran at him from the front and slit over the floor kicking at Kiba's feet. Kiba fell down and rolled a couple of times from the sheer force of the fall before he laid still. Grabbing his shin in pain. The referee and a couple of Kiba's teammates ran over to see how he was.

"That's a penalty, ref." Ino hissed under her breath. The bleachers seemed to agree with her as they shouted in anger at the referee's indecisiveness. The Sunan player that had kicked Kiba held out his hand for Kiba to grab and he pulled him up. Kiba gave the player a pat on the back to show him that they were good. And finally the referee whistled for a penalty. The bleachers went wild at this as, apparently, Kiba was a good shot and would never miss a penalty. They were right. The shot was made and it hit the net in the upper right corner where the goalie's hands missed it by inches. All of the home teams' players ran at Kiba and hugged him, lifting him up and swinging him round in pure ecstasy.

Ino and the other people at the bleachers stood up and shouted his name. Sasuke stood up, too, but merely smiled. Through all the shouts and cheers, Sasuke made out Naruto's voice, "Sasuke?"

When everyone sat down, he could see the blonde walking up the bleachers, he waved his arm to signal his friend where they sat. And looked back at the field just in time to see Kiba's eyes following Naruto up the bleachers.

The Konoha Wolves were winning the match with a victorious 3-1 and only three minutes to go, Kiba had scored all three. After the third one, Ino'd looked Sasuke in the eyes, "that was his first hat trick this season!"

Although Sasuke was not familiar with the soccer term, he assumed that it was a 'hat trick' because he made the goal with his head. It was truly fascinating.

Naruto and he hadn't talked at all after he'd joined them, but Naruto seemed way more up-to-date on Kiba's past matches as he went in discussion with Ino on her statement of the hat trick. Saying that in the match against Kiri's Sharks, Kiba had also made a hat trick, but the referee had cleared the ball for it was supposedly an unfair 'offside', whatever that might mean. Ino agreed with him on it, anyway.

It was when the referee had signalled the end of the match that Sasuke had truly been unable to take his eyes off of Kiba. The brunette had taken off his shirt and was running around the field showing off to the cheering audience. A couple of girls ran at him and Kiba wrapped his arms around one of them and swung her around like his teammates had done to him after his first goal. Ino growled lowly and grabbed Sasuke's wrist as they made it down the bleachers and onto the field, Naruto trailing behind them.
Luckily, Kiba put the girl down and paid no mind to her anymore when he saw his friends coming down the bleachers. He threw his shirt over his shoulder and left it there as he walked towards them, grinning.

"Congrats Kiba, you were great!" Naruto chimed happily as he hugged Kiba. "Ahw, man! You stink!

Kiba laughed at that but thanked him anyway. Ino congratulated him and hugged him, too. To which he also laughed as he laid his hand on the small of her back.

"Never expected to see you at the game, though, Sasuke." He said, finally standing in front of Sasuke, his abs and chest exposed, his shoulders going up and down as he was still breathing heavily from the excitement and the match. His skin was glowing from sweat and Sasuke could smell him, too. He didn't think Kiba smelled bad at all. He loved the stench of sweat on the brunette for it was a part of him to be sporty and athletic.
"Yeah, well I figured I'd come cheer you on, for once."

He rubbed the back of his head, grinning, "I hope I didn't bore you, then."

Sasuke wanted to reply but one of Kiba's teammates called him, "Inuzuka, you coming?"

"Yeah, coming, Neji!" Kiba shouted back before turning to his friends, "hey, I've got to go, you guys."

Ino smiled at him, blushing slightly, "want to go have a drink with us when you're done, my treat?" making Sasuke eye her suspiciously.

Kiba gave her a dashing smile and laid his hand on her upper arm, "I'd love to take you up on that offer, but I promised I'd meet up with Hinata in the park after the game. Another time?" He waited for her to nod and she did, although slightly disappointed. Kiba turned to Sasuke and Naruto, "I see you guys at my place around 8?" He said this while walking back and when Naruto confirmed this he turned around and ran towards where his comrade stood, still waiting for him.

When he was out of sight the two girls that had come to embrace Kiba earlier stepped over to Ino and got in her face. "Really, Ino-pig? 'Come have a drink with me'?" they laughed at her. "Pathetic."

Ino huffed angrily and inched closer to Sasuke, who knew that his best friend was not one for confrontation when she was called out upon her insecurities, such as Kiba.

"Bug off, sluts." Sasuke growled at them as he wrapped one arm protectively around Ino. He normally didn't really react to people like those two, but he'd felt a pang of jealousy when Kiba'd hugged them earlier on, and now they were getting in Ino's face and he was getting really fucking angry with them.

Suddenly their eyes went watery and big as they looked at him, shocked, "S-sasuke?" The one that had been twirled around by Kiba said. "I'm sorry, we d-didn't know she was with you…"

The other one, the one that had insulted Ino, softly ran her finger down Sasuke's free arm, "why don't you come celebrate the victory with the boys and us?"

It shot through Sasuke's head that she'd meant Kiba's soccer team with 'the boys', and he felt tempted to go in on the offer, but then he realised that Kiba'd said he had plans with Hinata, so he wouldn't be there anyway. Besides he couldn't give in to these girls, they were terrible.

Without giving them an answer, Sasuke turned away from them and walked off the field, Ino still protectively tucked away under his arm. When he looked back to see where Naruto was, he found him still talking to the girls. When the girls and Naruto split up, the latter ran in the direction of the boys' changing rooms… what?

"Thanks, Sasuke." Ino pulled him back from his thoughts, "thanks for sticking up for me."

Sasuke didn't react to that and instead just asked her, "shall we go get that drink you wanted?"

But Ino didn't want it anymore, she excused herself with a kiss on the cheek for Sasuke and strutted over to her car. Sasuke did feel bad for her, but he knew he was not the person to comfort someone that didn't want to be comforted. Instead he looked around, and found Hinata waiting by Kiba's car. He walked over to the shy girl that had been Kiba's best friend for a long time. Sasuke and Hinata weren't really to be considered 'friends', but they were nice to each other.

"Hey, Hyuuga. Waiting for Kiba?" Sasuke greeted the petite pale girl that was looking at her phone.

Hinata jumped a little, not having expected anyone to address her presence. "O-oh, hi Sasuke." She smiled politely, "yes, I-I am."

For some reason Sasuke never dared to be his own harsh self with this girl, because he always feared that she would break out crying if he did. And making Hinata cry would not sit well with Kiba. "Mind if I wait with you, Naruto's run into the changing rooms with him."

Hinata looked slightly shocked at this, and Sasuke could swear that an angry looked had crossed her innocent eyes, before it passed over and she flushed slightly. "O-oh, I see."

"Are you okay, Hinata?" Sasuke asked, worrying what had caused this reaction. He knew that the girl had the hots for the blonde idiot, but him being in a changing room with Kiba shouldn't have sparked up such… jealousy. Or should it?

"N-no, it's nothing." She stated, clearly lying. The blush on her cheeks darkened as she felt uncomfortable talking about the subject. Almost as though she had a secret.

"Is something going on between Kiba and Naruto?" Sasuke asked, thinking he'd figured it out. His suspicion was confirmed by the girl going beet-red and wide eyes while shaking her head ferociously.

"N-no! Why w-would you t-t-think that?" Sasuke merely narrowed his eyes at the girl's obvious lies. Although he felt bad for forcing the shy girl to say the things she didn't want to say, he had to continue on for his sanity's sake.

"Is Kiba in love with Naruto, Hinata?" He said sternly.

Hinata, who'd now realised lying wasn't working gave in by no-longer denying it. "Don't tell anyone."

AN:

Thank you for reading, please comment and I'll try to get the next chapter up soon, I promise it'll be longer. The next chapter will be called Change of Plans. See you next time!