Author's Note: Hi, there! This is just a fluffy KibaHina oneshot I wrote in Kiba's POV a long time ago and found recently. Please enjoy and review to let me know what you think!
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.
"But Iruka-sensei, I liked my old seat!" I remember complaining to the Chuunin whose number one rule, no goofing off, I had broken for the umpteenth time.
"Well, maybe the seat change will make you think, Kiba," he tutted. "Now why don't you go eat your snack in your new seat instead of throwing it in somebody's hair?" I opened my mouth to argue, but all that came out was a nervous murmur.
"But it wasn't…" He looked back at me from his lesson plan.
"Then who, exactly, tossed the graham cracker at Sakura's forehead, Kiba?" Iruka asked with as much patience as one can have with an eight-year-old.
"Um… Shino?" I tried with a smile. He gave me a look that said he'd rather bang his head against his lectern repeatedly than listen to anymore of my see-through lies.
"Just sit down, Kiba." With a groan I trudged to my new location in the rows of seating. On my way up the stairs Uzumaki Naruto, then class clown and my sometimes companion, gave me a smirk that clearly said, "Busted!" Then he laughed. We both knew just as well that he would've done the same thing; everyone picked on Haruno Sakura, a crybaby whose insecurity about her forehead was no secret. Little did either of know he'd fall hard for her in a few years as her status in popularity rose, thanks to a push from Yamanaka Ino, the most popular girl in our class.
At last I arrived at my designated seat. With an almost disgusted look I took in this side of the room; there was Chouji, eating himself into oblivion, a good view of Ino on the opposite side of the seating arrangement, and… with horror, I realized there was no one I really hung out with where Iruka-sensei sat me. I was in a panic and had to seat myself so that my prepubescent mind could sort this "terror or all terrors" out. That was when my sharp Inuzuka nose picked up for the first time what I would soon come to know as "the best scent in the world."
I turned my head to take in my neighbor, a shy girl with dark hair and pale skin whose face was cast down in apparent embarrassment upon my arrival. She must've realized that I was staring at her, because slowly she turned and looked my way briefly.
"H… h…" she gulped. "…hello."
"Hi, there!" My loud proclamation seemed to scare the living daylights out of the girl as she ducked her head and squeezed her eyes closed. I checked the clock, which I was starting to get the hang of. Okay, scratch that, I was miserable with numbers. But as far as I could tell, fifteen minutes remained in snack time, and although that may have seemed like an eternity to an ADD kid like myself, I figured that it would take far longer if I were ever to strike up a conversation with my new seatmate. I stared into the aisle on my other side with a weary look.
"So, what's your name?" I tried, completely overlooking the rule of common courtesy that said one should always introduce themselves first.
"Ah…" She hesitated for a second, and then continued in her small voice. "It's Hinata." With a smile I excitedly stated my own name, seeing that perhaps the shy girl wasn't so bad after all.
"Yes, I… know…" she murmured. With a nervous smile she added, "You're––– you're friends with… with Naruto-kun, right?"
"Yeah, sorta. You know him?" She didn't answer the question, but it didn't matter; once I had an audience I wouldn't stop until their attention was completely riveted on me. And at that time I had a bottomless supply of energy to draw from.
"Yeah, he's an idiot, but he can be pretty funny, too…" I yammered a bit, but I didn't really want to talk about Naruto, seeing as though he had just laughed at me for my punishment. I watched her for a moment, making a rosy blush rise to her cheeks as she glanced from the corner of her eyes. Eyes… The more I looked at them, the more I couldn't help but say something.
"Your eyes are beautiful," I found myself blurting out. This caught Hinata by surprise. It was only later that I would learn that despite giving her the powers of x-ray and binocular vision, and bestowing upon her family the prestigious title of "royalty," Hinata had always had a peculiar complex about her pupil-less optics not unlike Sakura and her forehead.
"You… you r-really think so?" she managed at last. And so began a discussion of our separate clans, interrupted by my stray comments that there was no way an entire clan could have eyes that pretty! But Hinata assured me it was true, just in time for snack time to end. An eternity had whizzed past, many more following suit. And the more time I spent with this odd girl, the more I wanted to know. She had a strange air of mystery that had a powerful magnetic affect on me; an image of a buried chest that persists to stay locked, or a mountain that is to be conquered comes to mind. It was only several months after our initial meeting that Hinata ventured to ask what she smelled like to the superior olfactory senses of an Inuzuka member, something I'd been wrestling with for a long time.
I wanted to answer "flowers" originally, but Ino also smelled like flowers because of her family's business, and I had now come to the point where I found comparing Hinata to past loves like Ino was like comparing apples and oranges. And in this case, the oranges faded in comparison to the apple of my eye.
I stalled. How could I begin, as an eight-year-old only beginning to experience the world, possibly put the mesmerizing smell of dried herbs, clears nights when one could see the full moon, fresh snow, and stardust into words? Fumbling through my meager vocabulary, I finally stumbled on the perfect synonym.
"You smell sweet," I began, and then smiled sheepishly. "…like Heaven."
We were innocent in those days, oblivious to what either one of us felt for the other. But things would happen, people would happen, and we would be torn apart. And as the world became a darker, scarier place, there would be doubt and mistrust. But one thing is for sure: for better or worse, I have always cherished that first day.