"What was all that about?"
"Nothing, really." Chouji mumbled as he tried to swallow down the guilt he felt rising up in him that came from lying to his best friend. "Kiba found something interesting..."
It wasn't right to lie to his best friend. It felt all sorts of wrong and he hated it. But he had promised to keep the old man a secret all that time ago, to make sure they didn't get into trouble for mentioning him ever again. He was supposed to be their greatest secret. And even though Chouji didn't like the idea of lying about him, he had agreed to keeping quiet about the man.
"And I can't go because it's supposed to be some big secret between you three?" Shikamaru's eyes were narrowed in that way that let Chouji know he was smart enough to figure out what was happening around him, "Alright. I won't get in the way of your big secret." The Nara grunted, and then sighed, "We're best friends, Chouji. You don't have to lie to me just to spare my feelings. Just tell me what's going on and I'll be fine."
Shikamaru was much too smart. And while Chouji enjoyed this most of the time, his best friend was great for conversations and an excellent source to learn from, it made keeping secrets from him extremely hard. Not like Chouji constantly needed to hide things from him, but when he did, it was extremely hard.
Turning his eyes onto the floor before him, Chouji breathed in. He couldn't really tell Shikamaru why it was that he was leaving him. Kiba and Sakura would get angry with him if they found out that he had told them about something that was supposed to remain hidden. So he would have to lie to his best friend if he wanted to keep his new friends... This wasn't really fair.
"It's a secret, Shikamaru." The plump boy muttered, keeping his gaze on the floor. "Go home. I'll... Uh... We can hang out some more tomorrow. I'll go and get you and we can have some fun, like today."
He knew that his best friend was looking over him, eyes boring into him to try and get answers out of him. But Chouji couldn't tell Shikamaru about the old man. What would he think? What would he say?
Even though Shikamaru was calm and nice most of the time, there was no telling how he would react when it came to the old man. He could tell Chouji to stop hanging around him, that he was a bad influence that didn't care for any of them. He could even tell their parents about him and then the old man would be in a lot of trouble.
Chouji couldn't risk that.
After a few seconds of avoiding all kinds of eye contact, Shikamaru let out a puff of air and spoke up, "Alright. I'll see you tomorrow then."
Guilt gnawed at Chouji's insides as he watched his best friend walk away from him. But he still tried to comfort himself with the thought of being able to see the old man once more.
"I didn't give you any stinking necklaces. Why would I spend time of my life finding gifts for you brats?"
Sakura pursed her lips at the old man's growl, then looked over at Kiba to find that her friend was outright glaring at the old man.
Her favorite necklace hung proudly over her chest, for once not hidden by the clothes she wore. Kiba's own was also out, for he had told her that the old man had been the one to leave them. And Kiba wanted the old man to admit that he actually liked them enough to give them the necklaces.
The old man glared down at the both of them, then crossed his arms over his chest.
"Why are you incredibly annoying?"
Sakura did not like being insulted. But the man wasn't growling in anger, so she guessed that he wasn't completely annoyed with her and Kiba. Instead he sounded more tired, as if he didn't have enough energy to deal with them.
"Because I'm an Inuzuka. We're stubborn and awesome." Kiba answered with a smirk, then shrugged, "That's just how it is."
If there was anyone that could back up the 'stubborn' claim, it was Sakura. But before she could tell the old man just how truly stubborn her friend was, the man was breathing out heavily and allowed his arms to drop from his chest. "Stubborn or not; it doesn't matter. Don't you kids have anything better to do other than just annoy me?"
"Nope."
Sakura honestly wondered how it was that Kiba could answer things so quickly. Did he think before he answered? Or did the Inuzuka just spout off the quickest thing that managed to arrive at his lips?
"We want to spend some time with you, though. Where have you been all this time, old man?" Kiba questioned as he walked up until he was even closer to the man, forcing him to crane his neck to look down at him. "And do you have any name? 'Cause old man's not a pretty good name."
Sakura could hear the old man let out a sound that reminded her of a groan, but could also be taken as a growl. Then he grunted out, "You can call me Kuzu."
The pink haired girl's eyes narrowed slightly at the name, but she didn't question it. There were names of all kind. Even though this one didn't sound like a proper name, she wasn't about to tell the man. What if he really loved his name and felt insulted by anyone questioning him about it?
No, it wouldn't be right to tell the old man that Kuzu didn't sound like a good enough name for someone as awesome as him. And her mom had always taught her to respect people and try her best to not hurt their feelings. So she wouldn't tell him about how his name was a really weird one.
"Alright. Kuzu." Kiba tried the name out and found himself smiling soon after, "Wanna go get some dinner?"
The old man with the coolest eyes in the world had been a gem to find. Kind of like the gems he refused to admit to having brought to them. But Kiba knew that it had been the old man, his scent had clung to the necklaces for a good month before it had been taken over by his and his friend's own scents.
From his place seated at one of the tables in the very back of the tea shop, the old man growled softly down at him. But Kiba wasn't affected, he'd faced much scarier people and dogs before in his life after having gotten into trouble. The old man growling at him now over being an overly grumpy man did nothing to him.
"I'm not going to spend any money on you mongrels."
Kiba frowned at the insult, but didn't have to point out that he was the person inviting. Sakura decided to speak up at that point, "That's alright. Kiba and I can pay. Right?"
With a wide smile, Kiba nodded. "Of course we'll pay, Old Man! We offered, didn't we?"
At this point, Kuzu grumbled something or another that was too low for even Kiba's ears to pick up. But the Inuzuka did not care to understand the words too much; they sounded more like grumbles of annoyance than actual anger.
"Now let's go!"
"Don't we have to wait for Chouji?" Sakura stopped him from running off by quickly pulling him back by the corner of his shirt, making the Inuzuka frown as he was thrust back.
… She was stronger than she looked…
Sniffing at the air, Kiba looked over in the direction that he had smelled the Pork Chop's smell coming from. And in a couple of seconds, the plump boy appeared, eyes going wide as he saw the old man sitting down in the table behind him.
"He's right there." Kiba pointed at the last boy to arrive, then looked over at Sakura. "We can go now, right? Let's go!"
"Yeah! Let's go, Kuzu." Sakura nodded as she smiled at the old man.
The grumpy man merely mumbled wordlessly, took his sweet time standing up, and finally began to follow after all three of them.
It was when they had all walked into the streets that they noticed the biggest problem with going to eat with the old man.
"Where are we going, Kiba?"
"To eat, of course."
Chouji rolled his eyes at the immediate answer, but still spoke up his worry, "Where are we going to eat, Kiba? I thought you wanted to keep the old man secret… All of the owners of the places we usually go to will ask us what we're doing with him."
He was somewhat annoyed over having to leave Shikamaru behind. His best friend deserved to be a part of his life after all. But he had promised to keep the old man a secret with Sakura and Kiba. So he would. Because he had promised. And if someone broke their promises, they were the greatest scum in the world.
Kiba's hurried and energetic footsteps slowed down to a complete stop as soon as Chouji had pointed this out. Then he let out a loud curse and groaned loudly.
"You're right! And we're not supposed to be going to the bar area of the Village anymore!"
When Chouji looked over at Sakura, it was to find her with a very large frown of disappointment on her lips. But when he looked up at the old man, it was to only find his eyes narrowed in what Chouji guessed to be annoyance.
The man was grumpy.
"We can't take him to any of our houses for dinner either…" The pink haired girl whispered dramatically, then looked up at the man with wide eyes. "We can't take you anywhere, Kuzu!"
"Hn… I told you kids I don't care about any of this…" The man grumbled out, but soon sighed and offered them a solution. "I don't like restaurants or anything of the like either."
Chouji thought about how odd this was, especially because they had seen him inside of the same tea shop at least twice now. But he didn't question it and instead began to wonder just where they could go to buy some food (he was hungry) without having to worry about people they knew ratting them out to their respective families.
The problem with him and Kiba being part of two of the biggest clans in all of Konoha was that they were easy to point out. And if any of their clan members saw them running around with a man like the old man… Well, they knew that problems would arise. There was no doubt about that.
"Then what're we supposed to do? I'm hungry and refuse to let Kuzu leave us again." Kiba hissed in irritation, crossing his arms over his chest with a stomp to the ground. "What're we supposed to do?"
Normally, Kiba was the one to offer solutions. But because he seemed incapable of it, Chouji decided to give it a try.
"Well… How about we go to that park we went to a couple of days ago?" Chouji questioned slowly, still thinking of his idea as he voiced it out. "We could stop at a food kiosk, then go there to eat. Because it's so quiet and secluded, we shouldn't have to worry about people seeing us with him."
"Hey… That's actually a good idea!"
Chouji beamed at the proud smile Kiba offered him, then nodded in gratitude. Kiba nodded in turn, but turned around to point up at the old man.
"Follow me, Kuzu! And don't lag behind; I'm not slowing down for any slowpokes!"
Chouji could see the eye roll the old man made. But Kiba didn't; he was much too busy running off to see it.
With a small smile, Chouji began to follow after Kiba.
Okay, even though he didn't have Shikamaru with him, he was just happy that he was able to see the old man again. Especially because now they had an actual name to call him, rather than the nickname Kiba had assigned him all that time ago.
Before they arrived at the park at the edge of Konoha that they had only gone to once before- during the second day they had run around together-, Sakura and Chouji went over to one of the food kiosks near the tea shop they had left to buy some food. There they bought all kinds of fried foods and a few sweets, then ran back to Kuzu and Kiba with twin smiles of excitement.
Sakura had worried that Chouji wouldn't be as enthusiastic about seeing the old man again because he had wound up having to say goodbye to his best friend. But after a couple of minutes of being together and telling the old man all about their adventures together and how their project had gone, Chouji was smiling as broadly as he deserved to.
Sakura liked seeing him smile. It was such a pure and energetic smile… Not many kids smiled like that when she was around. Even Kiba's smile looked more like a smirk whenever she was with him.
"And then I pulled out his heart, just like you did!" Chouji just about shouted in pure joy through the stick of dango in his mouth as he bounded beside Kuzu, all the while Sakura struggled to run after them all with all of the bags in her hands.
At first, she and Chouji had taken turns carrying the two large bags stuffed with oily and delicious foods. The old man hadn't offered to help, and they hadn't wanted to bother him, so they had not asked him to aid them. And Kiba was busy sniffing out the trail to the park he was taking them to, so he couldn't be bothered either.
Sakura didn't mind carrying the things. Really, she didn't. Chouji looked really happy, Kiba was busy, and she didn't want to annoy the old man. So she followed them as best as she could without making a single sound to show off how much she was struggling.
Luckily for her, Kiba wasn't setting a brutal pace like he usually did. Not because he was being nice; no, he would never slow down to make sure the rest was following him. He was being slow because he said the terrain around the park was dangerous and they needed to be careful if they didn't want to lose their feet.
Sakura wasn't completely sure if what he claimed was true. But she did her best to follow in Kiba's footsteps just in case what he said was true.
As she hefted the bags up higher into her arms for the fifth time since they had entered the dense tree surrounded area, Sakura heard Kuzu hn'ing in what she guessed was more pride than annoyance.
"Did you? And who was the beautiful woman of green?"
"The only beautiful girl around, of course." Chouji answered immediately, making Sakura's cheeks redden suddenly.
She… She was beautiful?
"I see…" Kuzu murmured softly, then grunted out, "What was your final grade?"
Both Chouji and Sakura paled at the mention of the grade they'd received for the project.
Luckily enough, before they had to answer, Kiba returned to them with a sharp shout of, "Found the route! Come on!"
His eyes zeroed in on Sakura for a moment, and she tried her best to look as if she was able to carry the bags without any difficulty. And she thought that she had done a good job of it… Until Kiba walked towards her, plucked one of out her hands, and pointed forward with his free hand.
"Let's go!"
Sakura felt both offended and grateful that Kiba had taken some of the weight off of her. The fact of the matter was that the bags didn't weigh much. But they were really big and her small arms were only able to carry so much at a time!
Still, she followed after all of the males in front of her, more than happy to be part of their group.
Ever since she had befriended Kiba and Chouji, she'd begun to feel much happier. She had friends! She hadn't had friends before! And she'd thought that she wouldn't in all of her life because she was so weird… They were nice to have around, though. Especially Chouji. She liked Chouji. He was really nice.
When they reached the main clearing of the forest Kiba had taken them to, it was to find the large trunk of the very beautiful tree they had lounged around the first time they had come here. And, just like last time, they all walked over to the huge roots by the floor and immediately got comfortable within.
The old man didn't. He just stood in front of them, looking down at them as if they were insane. But Sakura just smiled up at him and offered him the first thing she pulled out from the bag, a stick of fried fish.
"It's delicious!" She promised, prompting him to take it from her hand.
Slowly and with a soft huff, the man leaned down and grabbed the stick offered to him. But he soon turned away from all of them, showing them his back.
Sakura immediately guessed that it was because he was trying to hide his face from them all. And she didn't mind, she'd heard from Kiba that some ninja refused to show their masked faces because of horrifying injuries that marred them.
"Good food… Why don't we buy fried shit more often?" Kiba questioned as he tore into his own fish, which made Sakura look at him in slight disgust.
"Fried stuff is bad for you, Kiba…" Chouji muttered as he pulled out a stick of his own, "It's okay to eat every now and then, but not all the time."
The Inuzuka always ate like a savage. Seriously, he made it look as if he was always starving. Which Sakura found hard to believe, he came from a clan. Clans always had food. That's what her mother always told her, anyway.
Adopting a much more sedated pace, Sakura ate her own carefully. If she got an oil stain on her clothes, she knew her mother would grow annoyed. Especially with all of the grass and dirt stains that already covered her from head to toe.
After a while of them all eating in relative silence, Kuzu turned to look back at them.
"You never did tell me what grade you got on that project."
Looking away from him, Sakura began to nibble worriedly on her food.
"Cause we flunked and got our asses handed to us!"
Really… She wasn't sure if she was taken aback by Kiba's outburst or grateful for it… But, when she thought about it, Sakura really shouldn't have been surprised by it at all. Kiba was the one person she could always count on for blunt honesty.
"What do you mean?" Kuzu grunted, which made Kiba shrug slightly as he pulled out another fried delicacy to eat.
"Teacher thought we had made the story up. So he screamed at us. And because we also glorified the death of Konoha Shinobi… And because we pulled out someone's heart in the middle of the classroom and he thought that was too violent." He explained nonchalantly, somewhat annoyed with Iruka Sensei's stupidity, but not angry with him anymore.
Fact of the matter was that, even though their teacher didn't see the truth, he and Chouji and Sakura knew that the old man was real and everything he had done had happened. Besides, it was because of the old man that they had come together as friends. He was their best kept and most important secret. As long as they knew the truth, everything would be fine; at least in his mind.
"That's bullshit." Kuzu grunted immediately, sounding somewhat more annoyed than usual. "Those things actually happened."
"Iruka-Sensei said that no normal shinobi could do the things you did, Kuzu. I think he thinks we came up with it because what you did was pretty amazing." Sakura cut in quickly, even though she kept her eyes on the ground and away from Kuzu's own gaze.
Kiba wasn't surprised by this. She had a bit habit of keeping her eyes glued down to the floor whenever faced with terrifying adults.
He could let it slide for now… But if he continued to hang out with her, he would teach her how to look scary people right in the eyes. None of his friends would be submissive if he had anything to say about it!
"Normal shinobi can't do it…" Kuzu grunted softly. When Kiba looked up at him, it was to find him shaking his head.
He was still wearing that black cloak with the red clouds. And the same hat. And the mask looked the same. So he looked exactly like he had when they had first met him.
"Violence is a normal part of Shinobi life. You can't prepare the next generation of ninja without letting them see blood and guts. They need to know what they're getting into." He growled softly as he moved to sit down on the root beside Kiba, immediately making the boy scoot a bit away to not be in the way.
Chouji and Sakura sat side by side, eating from the same bag. So Kiba had been afforded the luxury of not having to share at all because no one was beside him…. Although… now that the old man was with him, he might lose that luxury.
"I know!" The Inuzuka nearly shouted out dramatically, the stick of his food sticking from his mouth. "They're raising us to be a bunch of babies that'll get killed in the field."
Kuzu's (freaking awesome!) eyes seemed troubled upon hearing this. But soon enough Chouji was speaking up, taking Kiba's attention away from the old man.
"We won't die, Kiba… I mean, yeah, we're not the toughest right now…" The Akimichi murmured softly with a slight shrug, "But we've got years to learn before we go out in the field… Besides, I won't let you die. As long as I'm around, you won't get hurt."
His words were strong; heavy with promise.
Kiba found himself actually believing them.
Beside Chouji, Kiba could see Sakura nodding quickly. "Mm-hmm. That's what friends are for, right? We'll protect each other. And we won't be like Kuzu's evil friend- we'll never betray one another… Right?"
Kiba looked at Chouji first and took in his determined stare and promising smile. Then he looked over at Sakura and found eyes wide with hope and a slight tremble of her lips.
She always got pretty emotional pretty fast…
"Yeah. Right." He nodded, then waved them both off, "We're a pack, idiots. And pack never turns against each other."
"Pack?" Both kids parroted quietly, all the while Kuzu looked down at him with a quirked eyebrow.
"Yeah: Pack." The Inuzuka nodded sagely, pulling his food out from his mouth so it wouldn't disturb him as he talked. "A pack is tighter than family. And stronger than even a clan. There're a bunch'a different packs; small family ones, bigger clan ones, the like… But us four, we're a pack. And an awesome one at that."
"Four? Kid... I'm not looking for family."
"Didn't you hear Kuzu?" Sakura asked in genuine confusion. "He didn't say family."
"Yeah. You're not family. You're pack." Chouji agreed with a broad smile, making Kiba's own face break out into an accompanying one.
His very own pack… He liked the sound of that.
Sure, his Clan counted as a pack of sorts… But they weren't a tight pack.
With these four, though… he was sure they would be the best pack around.
..~..~..
It's been so long since I last updated this story! But do not fret, I've got at least two more chapters prepare before I lose all hope with this story! So you'll get a few more chapters before I disappear off the face of this story again.
I hope you all enjoyed this chapter! And please remember to review! I do so love reading your opinions.
