Akamaru had been trained since birth to be a nin-ken, a hunter, Kiba's shadow.
He could read his human's mind in the blink of an eye and the twitch of his nose. His human's smell was background noise, like the way the golden sun filtered through the leaves and how the grass swayed gently in the breeze during those long summer days when he and Kiba were both pups and played under the sky for hours and hours. At least until the Pack Head, Kiba's mother, barked and snarled at them for making a gross mess and forced Akamaru into the bathtub, brandishing a soapy sponge like it was a shuriken.
It was terrifying. He preferred the shuriken.
Let no one say that Akamaru loved how the Pack Head would force him to bathe.
When Kiba graduated from the Academy and was placed under a new Pack Head, Akamaru had high hopes. This new Pack Head was a scarlet-eyed woman, Yuuhi Kurenai, calm and cool and savvy and with a smell like smoke and sake, not at all like the Pack Head back at home. She smelled a lot like the Pack Head for Team 10, Sarutobi Asuma. Especially the smoky scent. He tried to tell this to Kiba once, but his human remained as oblivious as ever. Oh well.
Anyway, like he was saying, when Kiba was assigned to this Pack Head, Akamaru had high hopes.
Maybe this new woman wouldn't bark and snarl at him for rolling around in the mud and making a mess. Maybe she would let him run around like a wolf. Not like his mother, Pack Head Tsume, back at home with her awful sponge and awful baths.
Maybe he was wrong on all counts. Pack Head Kurenai made Pack Head Tsume look like a fluffy, cuddly pup, like one of Akamaru's newborn cousins back home with their happy squeals and wagging tails. Oh, she was still calm and cool and savvy with her oddly tantalizing smell of smoke and sake, and she didn't force him to get into a bathtub, not even once.
No. She was worse. Far worse.
Akamaru whimpered in horror as he caught sight of an onsen, the heat of water vapor suffocating his nose and dulling his senses.
Pack Head Kurenai's voice drifted into his ears as terrifyingly as an enemy nin would throw a shuriken. "Okay, team, since you've all done so well, we'll be staying overnight here! My treat!"
He ran. Or at least, he tried to. Before he could hop off Kiba's head and flee, Pack Head Kurenai reached out and grabbed him by the scruff of his neck, like his mother, Pack Head Tsume would.
She smiled at Akamaru, red eyes squinted shut, showing him all her teeth, and it was then that Akamaru knew that she could smell fear, just like he could.
"You'll be a good boy and do what I tell you, won't you, Akamaru?" It wasn't a question. It was an order. "Good hygiene is important for nin-ken. What if someone were to track you through strong smells?"
She took him neatly off a quizzical Kiba's head, plucked a tick off his ear (what eagle eyes she had), and grinned again. Her smile was iron.
Oh no.
Still, there were moments when Pack Head Kurenai wasn't so scary with her forced baths and tick removals. After training, exhausting, exhausting training, she'd always have a pack of biscuits ready for him. She somehow knew his favorite flavor (grilled chicken), and as he eagerly rushed towards her, her fingers gently stroked his ears, just like Pack Head Tsume and Older Sister Hana would.
He'd lean into her hand, and her smile didn't show nearly as much teeth as it used to.
There were other moments too. Moments when she wasn't that scary. Moments when she'd sit next to him under a tree, combing his coat meticulously. The bristles of the brush didn't hurt, not at all, and his eyes would drift shut in response to her rhythmic strokes over his back, his tail, and that spot on his neck where he loved getting massaged (she made sure to massage it).
She could smell fear, just like he could. This was something he only truly understood once he woke up one day, bandaged from snout to tail in the wake of his and Kiba's fight with those horrible twin test subject boys from Orochimaru.
His nose scrunched up in distaste at the gross, gross smell of a hundred percent ethanol and bleach and medicine. He squinted his eyes at the overbright fluorescent lights and red-rimmed eyes –
He froze and looked up.
Pack Head Kurenai's eyes. Red-rimmed. Salty smell. Not her usual. Red-rimmed. Dark circles under her eyes like a zombie. Red-rimmed.
Akamaru's heart beat slowly, achingly, his vision clouding up a little, just like hers must have with those red-rimmed eyes.
Pack Head Kurenai's eyes met his and she gave him a watery smile.
"Be a good boy and don't scare me again, will you, Akamaru?"
Her hand drifted to his ears, and Akamaru realized with a start that there was no itching, no ticks, none at all.
Akamaru had to concede a little grudgingly that she knew what she was doing as the Pack Head.
He still hated the onsen trips, though.
Shino was calm, quiet, sensible. He smelled perfectly normal. He used a mild aloe vera-scented soap from the 24/7 convenience store in the middle of Konoha. Akamaru approved. Clearly a good pack mate.
Shino was calm, quiet, sensible. Kiba had been background noise for years, his loudness and his smell just like the sun filtering through the leaves and the grass blowing in the wind. Shino was conspicious in his calmness and sensibility.
He never had to interpret through Akamaru's barking and whining and yipping. He knew through just Akamaru's heavy breathing when to persuade the others in the pack to rest. He knew through Akamaru's drooling when to ask Pack Head Kurenai to give him biscuits. He knew through Akamaru's annoyed swatting at his ears to rub anti-tick medicine on his fur. Shino knew a whole bunch of things without anyone telling him.
They were in perfect harmony about a surprisingly high number of things. When Pack Head Kurenai needed to be cheered up after Pack Head Asuma died. When Akamaru had woken up after the war, tired and battered, and Shino had wrapped his thick jacket around Akamaru. When Kiba started dating that cat girl Tamaki and Akamaru was horrorstruck. Most of all, when Mirai needed piggyback rides (actually, they did fight about that, sometimes).
Akamaru approved.
Hinata smelled like ramen.
Akamaru didn't understand this, just as he didn't understand a lot of things about her. He didn't understand why she'd smile and it was the saddest thing ever, like someone was pulling her fingernails out and she was trying to hide her pain. When he was in pain, he just howled. He didn't hide it and hoped no one noticed.
He didn't understand why she was more reckless than he and Kiba and his pack mates back at home combined, when she rushed at Pain, a god on earth from everything Kuromaru and Pack Head Tsume had told him. The scent of blood on Hinata was truly horrifying, worse than Pack Head Kurenai's red-rimmed eyes from when he and Kiba fought Sakon and Ukon. He never wanted to smell blood on her again, if he could help it.
So he was relieved when, after the war, the scent of ramen grew stronger and stronger. He didn't understand it, just as he didn't understand when her smile actually started looking happy, not like she was pulling her fingernails out and trying to hide her pain.
He'd asked Kiba the other day why that was, and his human had given him an incredulous look, like he couldn't believe how oblivious Akamaru was being. Oh well.
Hinata smelled like ramen, and while Akamaru didn't understand why, he was happy for it.
A/N: So Team 8 has become my new favorite team and I've been receiving requests for little one-shots about them. This is for the prompt, "Akamaru's thoughts on the team."
Please send any story ideas/prompts you may have and let me know what you think! :)