My second fic ever! This story is a sequel to my first fic I Missed You (please be a lovely and check it out? ), taking place around 3 months afterwards.

The Cookie

Hinata was looking out of the car window, staring at the rows of buildings at the side of the road.

"What are you thinking about?"

Hinata turned her head to Kiba Inuzuka, who was driving leisurely next to her, a grin etched on his face.

Hinata smiled at her boyfriend, "Nothing."

Kiba pouted slightly, "Tell me."

"I really wasn't thinking about anything," Hinata replied, still smiling at him.

Kiba sighed, looked back ahead and brought one of his hands to scratch the back of the big white dog seated comfortably on his lap. Akamaru yawned at that.

Kiba's phone buzzed at a new message. The brunette picked it up and read the message. He smirked, and then passed the phone to Hinata, who took it and read:

If you guys don't reach here in two minutes I'd have to kill someone.

Hinata chuckled, locked the phone and put it back on the compartment between the passenger and driver seat. "You should drive faster."

"Honestly, I'd like to see Shino killing someone," smirked Kiba.

"I don't want any manslaughter in my house, please," Hinata grinned.

Kiba sniggered and increased the speed of the car to one still within Hinata's comfort. It was half the speed of that if he had been driving alone.

They reached the Hyuuga compound in a short while, and Kiba turned his car to park it near the entrance, next to a sleek black sedan which was already sitting there. Both of them exited the car and entered the big house.

Shino Aburame was standing in front of the bookshelf next to the television, checking out the novels stacked there. Neji Hyuuga, Hinata's older cousin, was sitting on the sofa nearby, clearly bored and slightly annoyed. The two boys turned as Kiba and Hinata walked into the room - Akamaru right behind them, his waggling tail pointing up. Shino's eyebrows were taut with annoyance.

Kiba looked at him and smirked, which made Shino scowl.

"I brought you a present," Kiba grinned to his best friend – who looked like he was ready to tackle him and roundhouse him in the gut. He raised a hand and lifted a paper bag full of popcorn inside. "Buttery, from Garrett. Your favourite."

Shino snorted, and snatched the paper bag from Kiba.

"A 'thank you' would be appreciated," mumbled Kiba grudgingly.

Hinata chuckled and started walking up the stairs. "You guys coming?"

"Let's go," Kiba nudged Shino and followed Hinata up the stairs, grabbing her hand and holding it in his. Hinata blushed slightly.

Neji stood up and walked up the stairs as well, his hands in his pants pocket.

When they reached the top, Hinata led them to one big room and turned on the light. There was a widescreen High Definition TV up on the wall. The entire room was carpeted, including the walls. On the top corners of the room hang high quality speakers. Some distance away from the TV were comfortable, soft sofas and beanbags.

All of them entered the room, Kiba plopping onto one of the beanbags. Neji took a seat at one end of the sofa. Hinata and Shino approached the DVD player, the boy taking out the DVD box from his jacket and handing it to Hinata. She took it and loaded the disc. Then Hinata seated herself on a beanbag nearest to Kiba – which the brunette had brought close when she wasn't looking, earning a snort from the older Hyuuga – and started the movie.

Kiba had actually watched the movie, but Hinata and Shino hadn't, so he just accompanied them. He didn't know if Neji had but he didn't really care. He didn't exactly like talking to Neji, and neither did Shino.

Neji was Hinata's cousin; his father was Hinata's father's younger twin brother. When Neji and Hinata were younger, Neji somewhat hated Hinata because he couldn't accept the fact that Hinata - in his eyes then, a weak girl - was going to inherit the entire Hyuuga company. He even requested to meet his uncle when he was fifteen to persuade him to inherit the company to him instead of Hinata.

Neji's hatred for Hinata was terrifying, to the point where Kiba suspected that Neji almost intended to inflict injuries upon the girl in an attempt to prevent her from being the heiress. But that was several years ago. Thankfully, Neji was fair and wasn't blind to Hinata's hard work in showing that she deserved the company. Hinata had started studying business and management when she was fourteen, upon her own wish. That was in addition to her going to the regular private school she had been attending. It was a great pressure to her, especially during her final examination period a year ago. For this reason she didn't even have time to contact Kiba when he was in Japan for two years. Hinata had to manage her time well and even frequently pull all-nighters to brush up her skills and get all her assignments done. Her hard work had been made known to Neji, and he decided that Hinata wasn't weak after all. Since then he had carefully ensured that Hinata was doing well on her studies, and even offered help if she needed any.

But it didn't mean that Kiba and Shino liked him.

Kiba and Shino had already been friends with Hinata when Neji still hated her, and they disliked Neji very much. They saw Neji as a threat to Hinata's well-being and safety. When Hinata told them that she had started studying business and management off-school, they had almost coaxed Hinata out of it because it would mean less time spent with the girl, plus the high possibility stress and fatigue. Nevertheless, Hinata didn't. She told them that she hoped by improving her skills in company management, Neji would accept her better and their relationship would also turn for the better. That said, the two boys couldn't say anything else but to support her.

After all, it was quite a rarity that Hinata showed her strong willpower.

And that was then that Kiba started to fall for Hinata.

Kiba glanced at the Hyuuga next to him, whose hand he had been holding. She was watching the film intently, making sure she didn't miss any detail.

He gave a small squeeze on her hand, knowing that soon enough, now that she had almost graduated from said business school, she had to start helping out with her family's company, which translated to even less of her time available for her boyfriend.

Namely, me, he thought smugly – at the same time, sadly.

Hinata's head turned to see him, a questioning look in her eyes. Kiba smiled at her and kissed her temple. Faint pink tinge appearing on her cheeks, Hinata smiled back, returned the squeeze and rested her head on Kiba's shoulder.

Kiba returned his eyes back on the movie but couldn't, finding his mind focused more on the head on his shoulder.

Midway during the movie, Kiba excused himself to go downstairs to find some food. He had always been a big eater and had to munch on something between meals. Shino refused to share the popcorn Kiba bought for him, so he – grudgingly, of course – had to leave the movie because he was so hungry.

"What's so good about the damn movie anyway," he grumbled as he made his way down the stairs, alone.

Hinata had apologetically declined to accompany him to get the food, because his stomach had to choose the most interesting part of the movie to loudly growl and he had to give up. Sighing loudly while rubbing his poor stomach, he descended the stairs and entered the kitchen.

Being best friends with Hinata since primary school plus lover since three months earlier, Kiba knew the Hyuuga house very well. He was used to making himself at home there, and he knew where the appliances and food were located. He opened the cabinets and searched.

Unfortunately, after a thorough search, the Inuzuka couldn't find anything – which was surprising, since he wasn't a picky eater and the Hyuuga very rarely ran low on any kinds of food, what with them being the wealthiest family in the region plus Kiba's frequent visits required them to stock up on food - and now he was desperate.

Groaning, he crouched and pulled the handle of the cabinets below the counters with more force than necessary, his eyes darting to the left and right in his search to satisfy his stomach.

Then finally his eyes fell onto one white packet with red and black words on it. The snack that he hadn't been eating for quite some time now.

He glanced over his shoulders, finding himself alone in the kitchen. He extended his arm to reach the bag of cookie, grabbed it and saw that it was already opened. Opening the package carefully – he didn't know why he had to be as silent as possible; he was entirely alone in the room, but he just saw the need to, somehow – he reached into the bag and took one piece, swiftly putting it into his mouth.

He closed his eyes and enjoyed the taste he had missed. Hinata knew what brand of the cookie he preferred. He had told Hinata before he left for Japan two and a half years ago, and he was kind of glad that Hinata still remembered.

He munched on some more of the snack until his stomach was fairly satisfied, and then folded the top of the bag like how it had been, slipped it into its prior position in the cabinet and stood up - he had been sitting down on the kitchen floor while eating the cookie goodness. He took a glass from one of the cabinets, filled it with cold water from the refrigerator and gulped it down.

"Kiba?" He heard Hinata's voice calling out from outside the kitchen.

He walked outside the kitchen, still holding the glass and called back out to his girlfriend, "Yeah?"

Hinata turned her head to his direction, noticed him and walked into the kitchen. "What took you so long?"

Slightly taken aback, Kiba intelligently replied, "Huh?"

"You haven't come back to the movie after half an hour. I got worried, so I looked for you," Hinata said, concern evident in her eyes. "Are you okay?"

I ate for that long?

"I'm fine!" Kiba blurted out, panic starting to take over him. "Sorry I was out so long, it took me quite some time to find something to fill my stomach," he grimaced awkwardly, his hand went up to scratch his head.

"Oh," Hinata answered uncertainly. "So have you found what you wanted?" She walked past him and reached the refrigerator, inspecting the content.

"Errrr, yeah!" Kiba felt cold sweat starting to form on his forehead, panicking. He put his hands on Hinata's shoulder and pushed her out of the kitchen, "Let's go back upstairs and finish the movie!"

"Okay..."

While being pushed by her boyfriend toward the stairs, Hinata caught the sight of Akamaru from the corner of her eyes. She stopped and approached the big white dog, crouched next to him and saw that it was sleeping.

"I need to fill up his food container, he will want to eat when he wakes up," Hinata whispered to Kiba, not wanting to wake up Akamaru. She started walking back towards the kitchen, leaving the brunette behind her stoning in front of his dog, his face pale.

No!

Kiba dashed to the kitchen, where his girlfriend was crouching in front of the cabinet, just like him twenty minutes ago. Hinata reached her hand in and pulled out the white bag Kiba sealed back earlier. His eyes were wide with horror when Hinata stood back up, unfolding the opened flap of the cookie bag.

Shit!

Hinata frowned when she saw the content of the cookie bag. She was sure that the bag was at least more than half full when she fed Akamaru this morning. Now there was only a quarter of the bag of dog cookie left. How come...?

As if struck by some kind of enlightenment, she turned around, only to find that she was alone in the kitchen. Scowling, she put the cookie bag on the counter and made her way up the stairs, Akamaru still fast asleep in his cot.

She opened the door into the room where Shino and Neji were still watching the movie - Hinata could feel the slight murderous aura from Shino when he turned his head to the door to regard Hinata, for leaving him alone with the older Hyuuga. There were only two of the guys.

Then she heard a car engine being started, and half-ran to the balcony to take a look of the front gate. She saw her boyfriend's red Ferrari screeching through the barely opened gate, as if making the run of his life out of a haunted house.

Gritting her teeth, she paced back into the room, took her phone and dialed a number, putting the phone onto her ear. Shino paused the movie, himself and Neji wearing the same questioning look on their faces.

After almost eight dial tones – the girl about to hang up and recalled a certain runaway Inuzuka – surprisingly she heard a weak "Hello," from the other line.

"I told you to stop eating Akamaru's dog food!"

Kiba could only whimper.

Shino snorted and rolled his eyes, "Again?"

Neji snickered.

END!

A/N:

Thanks so much for reading! Reviews will be very much appreciated! ^^