I don't nearly write enough fluffy fun stuff anymore because of school. A request gave me the opportunity to do so. So here we are. :)
Title: Draw The Circle
Summary: Modern!AU. Strangers to friends. They had always been friends, until they weren't. Friends to strangers. Yet, even when they become strangers, they find each other again and again. Strangers to lovers. Until the circle is complete. KibaIno
Main pairing: KibaIno
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.
-X-
The Mountain
by Clementive
For Naruto1389 because we both agree this world needs more KibaIno.
Hope you enjoy it, my dear! ^_^ I know you mentioned only Neji and Kiba as friends, but friends to lovers is my favourite kind of love story. ;)
-X-
It starts with a mountain that she refuses to leave and one he was pushed down from.
Ino is fourteen and she needs a victory. Today. Now.
Even if it's a mountain of dirt and crumbled melted snow. Even if the wind is harsh and thick in her lungs and she can barely breathe. Soaked in grey, the sky seems to hover around her head with hesitant snowflakes that do not gleam or crown her, and Ino is puffing and panting, her heart hammering against her ribcage. She has seen his scowl before his boots or his hat. The other children have gone home and it's only her, at the top of the mountain, before he has reached the bottom of the pile of dirt and snow she has claimed.
Ino doesn't want to know another defeat because there's always the one of going home. Stepping out of boots, shaking off the snow, the cold, even though the inside of her house is as frozen as the other outside. There is no hope of spring and the ashes in the chimney remain cold because there's also the defeat that is the pink ribbon in her pocket.
"What was that for?" The boy yells, shaking his fist towards her and her chest expands a bit. There is room again for cries and fights and wins. People glancing back at her. She isn't invisible, avoidable, the reason people turn away and close doors and lower their voices.
No.
She is merely lost.
She merely needs a mountain.
Ino has pushed him with more force that was deemed necessary, but if she knows anything is that things break and they are rarely meant to be mended. Every day, she wants to break more and more things. She wants to be surrounded with shattered objets that are both meaningless and meaningful. And she wants the world to crowd with silent faces and unmoving limbs until she shatters it all. Bend them until they move only for her, before her eyes, so that there's no mistake. A growl of pain and coughs and spits onto the snow and she can finally look out the horizon without feeling she's the brittle thing at the bottom of the mountain of rocks and snow.
"I'm the queen of the mountain," Ino mutters in the grey air that fills her mouth.
She shivers looking above his head. The street lamps burn orange halos in the greyness of the day ending. Soon, it will be dark and there will be no escape.
"Hey! I'm talking to you!"
Ino clicks her tongue with annoyance as she glances at the boy again. She has seen him at school, but they have always seemed to belong to different circles. During lunch period, two weeks ago, he came back to school with tattoos on his cheeks. She had scoffed then with the rest of her friends. Attention-seekers. Troublemakers. Now, she wishes she had a tattoo or a louder voice. Or both. She wishes she could harden her skin until nothing hurts anymore and she could turn away from friendship. Be the one with the shaking fist until her father stops closing the door in front of her whenever he wants to discuss with the doctor.
No mistake.
"OI!"
"Shut up!"
She clenches her fists at her sides, trembling, and the cold severs the tears are the corner of her eyes. They stung and he narrows his eyes at her. Grumbling, he looks down and starts kicking at the hardened snow. Every time he explodes, his boot knocking off some of the snow, she has to fight down a yell. What if he brings everything down? What if everyone is truly meant to come and go, a mountain of snow and dirt? Nothing pristine, nothing eternal. Just grey and people walking away, without turning back.
She can't breathe.
She thinks of Sakura who let Sasuke come between them. She thinks of the ribbon deep in her pocket and Sakura's retreating back. Then, there is her mother's face and the sickness gnawing at her bones.
She can't breathe and there is nothing but death on her mind.
Until the snowball biting at the frost on her cheeks. Until it knocks the air back in her lungs when she screams, stung and hurt.
"YOU! YOU!"
"Pushing down people isn't nice," he huffs tugging at his earlobe because he has noticed the tears and he knows better than to mention them.
He tries to give her space, trumping at the snow but she just holds her cheek, her pale eyes staring at him.
"You're Kiba, right?"
He opens his mouth, readjusts his hat and tastes nothing but snow. He chokes and she laughs bitterly. Lately, it seems like the only right sound between her mother's coughs and Sakura and her drifting apart.
Kiba bends down and grabs at the snow, glancing up only to see her doing the same. If they are to bring down the mountain, it would be one fist at the time while small rocks bite at their hands through their mittens. They share a mountain of snow and dirt until they are exhausted, their muscles strained from throwing snow balls. When night falls, none of their parents come at the bottom of the mountain to claim them. They both pretended not to notice. They barely speak, their boots kicking at the snow until small parcels of dirt cling at their snow pants.
They sit atop the mountain, in silence, and his gaze drifts to her mouth, pale and cracked with the faintest smirk.
"Don't even think about it, Inuzuka."
Ino throws the snow ball she had been holding on to in front of her and they become friends.
-X-
I'm still hesitating about whether this would be a collection of 4 or 5 one-shots. I'll see. :) For now, please take the time to let me know what you thought. ^_^