Chapter Nine ((Henge no Justsu- Confirmation of Insanity))
by Ember
A/N: My friend came back from Japan and got me a Very Pretty necklace. It's awfully pretty. I wish you could see it.
On another note: in this chapter, Naruto follows something he saw in a magazine to finally get Kiba to admit his true love- a plan that has rather fantastic backfire potential. I don't know if I like this chapter. I mean, it moves suddenly a lot faster, and I don't know if I like that at all... But I think we're all ready for at least a little lovin', aren't we? After all, we got through eight chapters of barely hints of affection, so now it's time for it all to come barreling downhill. And this is where it's the most fun for me.
Review Replies: (And I doubt you remember what you wrote, but I had to give you all nice replies. We made it to my goal of 75 reviews! This makes my day. I'm pulling (tentatively) for 100, but... well, 75 is quite nice, too. :D)
ST: -grin- I'm so mean to these characters... Thanks.
NarutosGirl: Good to hear it:D Hey, I'm in Maryland, so I was right between you two. Thanks for the review and I hope you had a good vacation!
Turtle Kid: That's actually very heartening. () Thank you!
Pickle-Kitten: Thanks so much:D
nighinvisible: Pervy reviewers rock. I don't think I could get away with ending this without smutt. () Thanks so much for your review and encouragement, and sorry this chapter took so long!
Hey J: Grammar's not really my thing. XD Thanks so much for your review, it made me go kwaa. :D
Kanemoshi: Sorry this took so long! I'm horrible! ;-;
Shades of Hades: Heheh, sorry. I'm slow. Thanks again!
Jasmine Starlight: That's very true, but still, it's never a character's fault how they were written. I just either like them, or I don't. I love Sakura, for instance. Thanks for the review, and for it being my 75th:D
--
Show me the bedroom floor
I'm feeling this
Show me the bathroom mirror
I'm feeling this
We're taking this way to slow
I'm feeling this
Take me away from here!
--
It was official, now; certified- all that was left was for it to be written down, filed with all other facts and laws, and signed by the god of the human condition. Inuzuba Kiba was officially, legally insane.
He thought about it while watching Naruto torment his dog with the bone, he thought about it while ripping his gaze away guiltily, he thought about it while staring at his cooking with unnecessary intensity. He thought about it while eating- silently, which Naruto seemed fine with- and he thought about it while watching television with the blonde just down the couch. He thought about before bed, when the edge of sleep took away the guard in his thoughts that normally prevented such uncouth contemplation and when the blur of dreams made his thoughts turn... weird. Weirder. Inappropriate.
He thought about it waking up, he thought about it getting dressed, he thought about it brushing his teeth and half-heartedly taming his hair. He thought about it calling Shino and thought about it walking down to the insect-nin's home to train. He thought about it getting home, feeding Akamaru, and changing into clothes that weren't streaked with sweat and dirt. He thought about it lying down on his couch and staring at the black TV. He thought about it when the doorbell rang, and then he thought about letting it ring, because he was too tired to deal with it right then. Contemplation of the loss of your own mind takes something out of you.
But when it rang for the fourth time, he finally shouted at whoever was outside to shut the fuck up and wait for a fucking second, then dragged himself to the door- stepping over Akamaru who, having finished lunch, was barking like mad at whatever intruder was there- and opened the front door.
To see Hinata standing in the bunny suit on his front porch, blinking dark eyes in a very seductive, extremely un-Hinata expression up at him, her short hair hanging in wisps around her face.
In a bunny suit.
On his porch.
Staring up at him, flicking the drooping bunny ear out of her eyes, and whispering, plaintively, seductively, "Kiba... I'm in love with you."
It was official- Kiba was completely insane.
--
Ino looked down at her hand, a look of contemplation foremost on her face, her blue eyes narrowed in concentration. Everything was going perfectly for her, and all that was needed was a little more persuasion, a little more tweaking in the situation...
"Do you have any five's?" she finally asked after a long and tense hesitation.
Shikamaru wasn't entirely sure- his cards were face down on his left knee and he hadn't looked at them for several turns, now- and he didn't really feel like checking. "Go fish." It wasn't really cheating, because he wasn't really playing to win, he was playing to alleviate Ino's boredom.
Chouji- currently munching on a bag of pretzels- watched the card Ino was picking up and stuffed another handful in his mouth. "What're we doing here, anyway?" he asked the blonde, half-heartedly.
"Don't talk with your mouth full," Ino muttered halfheartedly, passing her single two over to Shikamaru, eyes narrowed. "And we're waiting for Sasuke."
"Why are we ever anywhere?" Shikamaru pointed out, putting the two blindly in his hand.
Ino put her hands on her hips, keeping her cards angled away from her teammates while glaring down Shikamaru with her best leer. "I want to be the first to tell him that Naruto has been seduced by Kiba," she said, smirking.
"You seem pretty confident that your plan is going to work," Shikamaru pointed out sleepily.
Ino shrugged. "Why wouldn't it? I can see why you're lost, Shikamaru, it's not complicated enough for you to wear yourself out on, but it's easy as good chemistry. It's an idiot-plus-idiot situation, it's simple."
"It's idiotic," Chouji interjected helpfully.
Ino rolled her eyes. "Then call it woman's intuition. And speaking of intuition." She grinned and folded her arms knowingly over her chest. "Do you have any nine's?"
"Go fish."
--
Eventually, no matter how warped and twisted the mind was, it eventually worked around itself to try and figure out why Hinata would be proclaiming her love to him on his porch in a bunny suit, and Kiba's brain was no different. And, after a minute or two of thinking it over, it couldn't come up with a single reason why his shy, quiet teammate would possibly have for being out here in that doing this.
Ninjas were trained to see through every possible deception, so it wasn't really surprising that his next thought was, Henge no jutsu!
But who would possibly have a reason to try and get Kiba to believe that his teammate was wildly in love with him?
Well, who had been trying to hook Kiba and Hinata up for the past two weeks?
Naruto.
And who would have the balls to Henge into a girl, dress like a slut, and scream his- her- affections for a canine-nin he could barely stand?
Naruto.
And who would possibly he stupid enough to think that even if Kiba did like Hinata and Hinata did like Kiba, this stunt would bring them any closer together at all?
"Naruto," Kiba growled with a slight smirk, "you're making an idiot of yourself. Again."
Every muscle in Naruto's body suddenly tensed, as one thought flew madly through his head- He's onto me! But calm down- all the kitsune's experience taught him that hesitation only reaffirmed suspicion, and he had to deal with the threat before Kiba could be convinced into believing it. So, quickly but smoothly, he cut in, "Naruto? Who's Naruto?"
The canine-nin snickered. "Hinata knows who you are, jackass."
...Fuck. Well, he could save this, he knew he could! "Heheh, just kidding," he chirped in his most Hinata-ish voice (although he left out the stutters). "I haven't seen Naruto for a few days... like, a week! Have you? Erm... I mean, you live with him, so..."
"Naruto."
He was getting uncomfortable, now; it was a lot easier to be Hinata in a bunny suit in front of Kiba than being himself, and he didn't know why 'cause he'd never felt this uncomfortable in his own shoes before. "I don't know why you keep calling me by-"
"Naruto."
And just like that, the blonde-turned-brunette faltered, stuttered, and broke the jutsu he was holding with a quiet 'poof,' leaving a yellow-haired and very male kitsune staring up desperately from behind drooping white bunny-ears up at his canine roommate.
And Kiba, always helpful, started laughing.
"What's so funny, fleas?" Naruto snarled, crossing his arms over his now-empty corset and shaking his head to try and get the ears out of his face. Embarrassed was a pretty new emotion, and even getting his ass kicked by Sasuke had never resulted in this kind of feeling, like butterflies were eating portions of his intestines. He'd pulled off a lot of crazy shit, gotten caught, gotten teased (he thought he'd never hear the end of Sexy no Jutsu; most classmates hadn't thought turning into a naked chick in the middle of the class was the most dignified of all scholastic achievement) but he'd never felt quite like this before, like he'd told some sort of guarded secret and had it thrown aside.
"You are," Kiba retorted, and a light blush started across Naruto's face. "What the hell made you think I'd buy that, hmm? Was it Hinata's rodent tendency?"
"It just-" the pink fox started.
"Why would you try and seduce me as Hinata, anyway? If I had fallen for it, what would it do? What did you hope to pull?" Kiba didn't even realize that the humor was fading away from his voice. He doesn't understand, I don't love Hinata like that at all.
"I wanted-" Naruto stammered, the blush deepening.
"Why have you been doing any of this shit? Forging letters, trying to make me jealous; you're an idiot, they weren't working, so why?" He doesn't understand that it was never Hinata at all.
"Because..."
"Why did you think any of it was your business anyway?" He doesn't understand that I dragged him into the middle of it like a selfish idiot.
"Because..."
He doesn't understand any of it. "Why do you go and make yourself into an asshole to try and get me with my teammate, Naruto, even if you did think it was right?"
Bright red skin clashed with sun-yellow hair, but the way his eyes flashed made it obvious that Naruto was ready to say his part, now. "Because I love you!"
And then they were quiet.
"I didn't say that," Naruto muttered, after a long and breathless minute, obviously mortified by the shake in his voice.
"Yeah, you did," Kiba assured him, sounding a little shaken himself.
"No, I didn't." Naruto was having a little trouble wrapping his mind over the weighted words that he didn't remember recognizing before they'd come out of his mouth. But they're true, aren't they? He didn't know what to tell himself. But he knew there had been a reason behind what he'd done, and he knew he was happier around the canine and he knew he'd been knocked breathless by only being about to kiss him and didn't know what would happen if they actually did... He wasn't sure what he was feeling and he wasn't sure what he was thinking and he wasn't sure if he was breathing.
Eyes narrowing in concern, Kiba stepped forward, only to have the blonde step back in concert with him. "Naruto..."
But Naruto was already running down the hall of the apartment complex, shooting for the exit at top speed, ears, tail and all.
--
Shikamaru rolled his eyes, leaning against the side of the building they were playing in front of while Ino dealt her and Chouji hands. (She had given up on playing with Shikamaru; he cheated and didn't really care if he was caught, at least Chouji played fair.) "So," he drawled, idly counting the cards as they hit the pavement. "Explain to me again. After the dramatic love confessions you seem so certain are going to be ripped from one throat or the other, and then the tearful parting."
"She never said tearful," Chouji put in helpfully.
Ino picked up her hand, scouted over it, and leered knowingly at Chouji before answering Shikamaru. "I never said tearful."
"Whatever."
"Not whatever. They'll be embarrassed, not tearful. That's important."
"Why the hell is that important?"
"Because that's what everything was about, that's why! Everything was about them feeling comfortable enough that they're not scared to say it, them feeling at home with each other." She suddenly stopped, though it was obvious she could have gone on, and, seeming to realize how much like a crappy self-help novel she sounded, blushed pink and muttered something like, "Gimme all your Jacks," at Chouji.
Shikamaru, who couldn't deny that it was a logical point, at least, instead rolled his eyes and drawled, "Fine, so they're running away from each other, having 'fessed up and gotten cold feet. Then what?"
Ino frowned, just a casual little dip of her lips, quiet and cute. "This is the part where it's sort of a gamble."
"Really? There's an iffy part to your plan?"
"It depends on them thinking," the blonde said, with a look of slight regret on her face.
--
It takes physical precision and excellent timing to slam someone on the head with a two-by-four and twist their innards around in circles at the exact same time without causing visible damage, but someone out there was remarkably good at it because it seemed to happen to Kiba more times than he would like to admit, if it's all the same to you.
He was more or less aware of what had just happened, and a little part of him was slightly embarrassed- love, like, love, or just really good friends?- and a large part of him was really confused- like, love?- and a very large part of him was just shocked numb, until all he could get out were two- or three-word sentences.
He stepped forward, stuttered out the blonde's name even though he didn't have the slightest clue what he was supposed to say if Naruto decided to throw himself into the canine's arms and start dry-humping him, or start crying, or burst out laughing at the end of this great joke. But Naruto stepped back with him. And then turned around and ran.
Leaving a very confused shinobi standing in front of an empty apartment with a quiet little tan dog and a slowly spreading heartache.
Well, that had gone well.
Kiba groaned, listened with slight shock to hear the groan turn into a growl, and paced back into his room, slamming the door behind him, almost onto Akamaru's tail. This was crap. He had barely been able to get his mind around wanting to make out with the little idiot, and now he was running around, spurting love confessions like it was the easiest fucking thing in the world, and then running away and leaving Kiba feeling like some sort of ravished shell of a ninja, like a parody of who he'd been.
He collapsed against the wall, let his head fall back and onto the support, and sighed, deeply, unable to quiet get what exactly he was supposed to do.
"Hey," he said weakly, suddenly figuring something out and standing upright as it came to him. "I won the bet."
But he'd lost something, too. He'd lost a lot. He'd fallen for the fucking fox, too.
"Now what do I do?" he asked Akamaru, sounding so hopeless that he could almost see the little dog rolling its eyes. It gave him a cool look and a little bark that almost any Inuzuba could translate as meaning, "Go after him, dumbass."
--
"And so," Chouji put in, tossing two eight's over to Ino and grabbing a handful of corn chips, "they think."
"They can't just think, either," Ino said with a sigh. "They have to be right. They have to put two and two together and actually get four this time. They have to figure things out for themselves before they can go and find each other again."
"And then they meet in the middle," Shikamaru quipped.
"And then they meet in the middle."
--
end chapter eight
