Crushing on You

Chapter Two: Something More than Friends

Disclaimer: I don't own anything.

…

I read today in the newspaper that the moon is going to be twenty-four percent bigger than normal, the biggest all year-round. This is a good sign considering the one I'm going after is my best friend, Kiba. He always did remind me of a wild, cute, and loyal dog. He does have a dog-named Akamaru that hides in his bag whenever Kiba knows he's going to take a test. For me personally, I wasn't ever extremely fond of dogs; I always thought cats were pretty cool. But then again, this is a good example of how opposites attract…I guess.

I had always had stupid fantasies about what it would be like if I were to end up dating my best friend. I've known Kiba all my life, and he's the only one who knows everything about me, and vice versa. I don't think there would even be any awkwardness between us if we were dating because we're so comfortable with each other.

Still, I was nervous. My plan was to outright ask him on a date. I mean, Kiba respects straight-forwardness, and he'd never date the type that leave notes in his locker or something. It does take courage though, and right now I'm lacking it. I've been standing out in front of his homeroom classroom for a good ten minutes, trembling, and replaying over and over the worst results of my little experiment.

Then I see them coming down the hall and I want to hide. My friend Sakura Haruno and my rival Sasuke who looked so dumb in that tight blue cardigan that almost literally hugged his body the way Sakura's pink cardigan should've been doing instead of hanging off her shoulder. They look like a pair of colorful Skittles.

I wait until they get close enough before I smile and wave. "Good morning Sakura!" Then I grunt my 'good morning' to Sasuke who grunts right back at me and avoids my gaze. Sakura gives me a tight hug but her perfume is too heavy. Jeez, how does Sasuke stand it?

"What are you doing waiting out here?" She peers into the door's windows at Iruka's homeroom class, searching for something unusual. I spot Kiba through the window surrounded by a group of unknown people, making jokes and laughing. My face turns red.

"I was just…waiting for Kiba." Then things get incredibly awkward for me because I can feel this intense gaze that I know is not from Sakura and my eyes immediately drop down to the floor.

Sakura waves a hand. "Kiba? Oh, here, I'll call him for you." Thank god for Sakura and her distractions! She starts making all types of hand signals through the window to catch the brunet's attention. I am extremely grateful, although I would have rather Sasuke not be standing less than fifty meters away.

I glare at him and he glares back and we do that silently until all of a sudden Kiba slips out of the classroom door and Sakura is pulling Sasuke's arm down the hallway whispering about keeping our privacy.

I almost want to laugh at his disgruntled expression at being dragged along. He hates Sakura.

Kiba puts both hands in his pockets and leans against the wall with a neutral look on his face. "So? What's up Naruto?"

I hesitated on an answer and started doing that thumb-twiddling thing I always see Hinata do when she's talking to me. It doesn't help. It actually just makes my thumbs sore.

"Well, I…"

I paused again and began to blush. Kiba's smile was slowly started to fade from his face, and the confused look began setting in. Part of me hoped that the blush was working to boost my 'cute' effect, well, if I had one. Y'know.

"I was thinking, well, hoping…"

I can tell he's getting impatient with me now and I know that if I don't hurry up and tell him now he'll blow it off as a joke and go back inside. I blurt it out suddenly.

"!"

He blinks a few times, and then the wolfish smile comes back on his face. I've never felt more relief in my life. My heart is thumping way too fast.

"Sure. Today?" He grins at me, and I smile back. "Where?" He pauses and then his smile fades. "You're paying though, right?"

I laughed despite myself. One of my romantic dreams had something about being on the top of a building around sunset. I suppose that will work fine here. "Oh, uh, well, we can meet on the roof after school…"

He nods, bumping my arm with his fist and then wordlessly goes back into his classroom, and I'm so glad he didn't notice all the emotions running across my face. I almost wondered if he actually knew that he made a date with his best friend, but then I stop because that's not what I should be thinking about.

Then I smile wickedly as I march off to my own homeroom class. Nothing else matters right now, I've got a date with Kiba Inuzuka and life is good. For me, at least. When I get to homeroom Sasuke's face is so twisted up it looks like someone shoved an even bigger stick up his ass than usual.

He keeps growling and staring at my back throughout all my classes. So when I try and play a joke by flinging a paper ball his way he literally sent his fist flying into my jaw! And while we're scuffling during math class all I can think of is why Sasuke is so pissed off and why he's taking it out on me.

Yeah, I have detention now. It doesn't mean I'm going though; Sasuke can sit in that empty room by himself. I have a date, although no one knows about it but me, and I don't have any classes with Kiba at all. The best I can do is give him my version of a lustful look that Sakura says makes me look constipated.

Whatever. I've got a date.

But now school is nearly over and I know this because Sasuke keeps shooting me these angry looks now that he remembers he has detention right after this. I stare right back at him, and blow him a raspberry. He rolls his eyes. I give him the finger.

I hate him.

The bell rings and my heart sinks into my stomach so I take my time packing up my things, and Sasuke does too. He throws me a bored look.

"Don't be late," he murmurs and walks off.

I snorted at his retreating back. Since when have I ever served my detention with him? The last time we served detention together he fell asleep and I wrote things on his face with my trusty Sharpie pen. Then we fought, and got another detention.

But it doesn't matter, Grandma Tsunade be damned, I'm going on my date today. I waited until the back hallways were empty of students before I made my move and snuck up the fire escape to the roof. There's a nice breeze up here, I noticed when I moved to the edge and watched the other students leave the school.

I checked my watch. It was only three-thirty, and now I regret that I didn't set a time. Sasuke probably knows now that I'm not coming and my god, I hope he doesn't go telling Tsunade about my disappearance. I'll put horrible things in his locker tomorrow if he does.

While I wait for him I start eating the leftover chocolates Sakura dumped on me during lunch because she didn't like the taste of them. I'm on my third to last one when Kiba finally shows up, and waves.

"Hey, sorry it took my so long, Asuma-sensei thought he could teach me biology…again." He grinned at me and tossed his bag aside, sitting right next to me. I don't miss how our thighs are already touching.

"No teacher can teach you anything." I laugh, and he joins in and soon we're making jokes and having our normal conversations.

I offer him a piece of chocolate, and then I have another piece for myself.

Kiba tilts his head up to the sky. "The roof scenery up here is pretty sweet, isn't it?" I nod.

"We should do this way more often, there's no one up here to bother us. Haven't had a good conversation with my buddy in a minute." He shrugs and waits for me to answer, but I can't. I stutter out my approval and he starts talking again because my mind is filling up with all types of thoughts and ideas on how often we'll be able to do this in the future, especially after the festival.

Then we talk some more and Kiba does a really great Sasuke impression. It's hilarious. We're laughing so hard that it takes my hand to fall on top of Kiba's for me to remember that this is supposed to be a date and not another hangout session.

I look down at our hands. We were both reaching for the last piece of chocolate. I start blushing. "Uh, sorry, you can have it."

He raises and eyebrow at me. "Nah, it's cool, it's yours anyway. You eat it." I'm about to open my mouth and protest but he gives me a look that shuts me up right away, so I nod and eat the chocolate, chewing slowly.

"You're chewing it like it's pretty damn tasty." He laughs and I smile at him with a new idea.

It's bold, but I decide to go for it. "You wanna taste it?"

Kiba is confused, but I take the advantage and lean forward. The kiss is light, since he is my first and I'm pretty shy. It's awkward to be kissing your best friend, but I'm getting some sort of thrill from it. He blinks a few times, and then his eyelids flutter shut.

"Sweet…" he murmurs and kisses me again, shyly, like this is new to him too. I think the rumors were right; Kiba is a good kisser although he's the only person I've ever kissed. I can tell he's being gentle, but it makes me self-aware of everything going on around us. Then suddenly the kisses are feverish and it takes me a long while to get used to kissing back with my tongue. My fingers bury deep into his hair like I see people in movies do. It's nice.

When we finally break apart for air, he's laughing at my face. "Are you okay?"

My head is still swimming from lack of air, but I nod. "Yeah…I just…didn't expect that." He laughs again and sits up, pulling me into a sitting position again. I smile and rest my hand besides his.

"I knew you liked me as much as I liked you." I give him my brightest smile, but the look of confused on his makes me regret what I said. Maybe it was too soon.

"Yeah, sure…huh?" I take back my hand. He shakes his head at me, with locks of chocolate brown head nearly slapping me in the face from sitting so close to him. I take a good look at our surroundings; the sun is beginning to set.

"W-Well, maybe not like but…" Now I'm the one confused. Shouldn't we be confessing instead of having an awkward conversation?

"You make it sound like we're in some type of relationship or something." He was laughing at my face…probably.

I hit him in the arm, blushing slightly despite my frustration. This wasn't what I had pictured after giving him my first kiss. He stops his laughing for a moment and then his face gets serious and he puts either hand on my shoulder.

"Naruto, you know how close you and I are, I didn't think you meant this in a romantic way…I thought you kind just wanted to hang out and stuff…"

I wasn't ready to go down that quickly. "B-But that kiss…"

"It was nice. Really, really nice." Now we're both blushing. "But I thought you were just curious, and besides, you look like a girl. It's easy to forget." The blush is gone, and now I'm scowling at him. I punch him in the arm and he laughs. "I'm kidding Naruto! What I'm trying to say is, I don't want a relationship or anything. We're more like the non-physical friends, uh, what's the word…platonic, you know?"

Platonic.

Ow, that word hurts. But I nod anyway and wish him well when he grabs his things and leaves me alone on the roof. Ah, the sun is setting and I should probably get home too, I just didn't expect this not to work out well since it was just Kiba and I but I guess—

"Oi, dobe, what are you doing up here?"

I nearly jumped out of my skin at the sound voice of his deep voice. I turn around and my jaw drops to see him actually perched on top of the roof's entry door. I know he's pretty athletic and all but isn't that overdoing it just to look cool? And his pissed off face is ruining the cool entry anyway…

"S-S-Sasuke! What are you doing here?" I'm rubbing at my arms just to keep from fainting from the scare of seeing him suddenly after, well, technically after I got dumped by my best friend. It's a lot of take in, you know.

He raised an eyebrow at me, clearly annoyed. "Shouldn't I be asking you that? Tsunade-sama's looking for you, and I can't go home until we serve our detentions at the same time so move your ass, we're going." He leaps down gracefully and starts moving through the door. For once, I don't have anything to say in return so I grab my things and start following him back down the dark fire escape.

"Sasuke?"

"Hn." I'll take that as him wanting me to continue.

"Did you…see anything?" My face feels entirely too hot. He stops and whirls on me, nearly pushing me against the staircase wall.

"What?" His eyes are making me nervous. I gulp.

"I mean…anything…before…"

There's a knowing smile on his face. "I showed up as Kiba was leaving." His breath is washing over my face and smells like oranges he must've eaten. I believe him, and I'm incredibly thankful that he didn't see anything; how embarrassing would that have been.

He stares at me for a while longer and then with his thumb he starts wiping the corner of my mouth, like a mother would do to her child. His fingers are warm.

"What the hell? Stop that!" I slap his hand angrily and huff, blushing oh-so-against my will. He looks smug for a moment and then rolls his eyes, beginning our trek down the stairs.

"You had a smudge of chocolate left," he says quietly, but loud enough for me to hear. Now I'm the angry one.

"Hey, how did – S-Sasuke! Oi, Sasuke! Stop walking so fast and answer me damnit!"

I guess I can go and cross Kiba off my list when I get home and list due to 'platonic' reasons. That's fine, I still have five more days left and six guys.

And I'm not giving up just yet.

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