Beta: Windshades. Love you babe.
He hasn't seen Hinata on her own in a while. Usually they only cross paths when they're on joint missions, or when he sees her team on the training grounds.
There's a festival coming up though, for some god or other. Or maybe the celebration of a past feat. The calendar on his wall is more preoccupied with which pretty girls were born on which day than by dusty, stuffy old events, and he's never been good at listening in history.
She asks him if he's going. He's about to say no, and shrug it off -- but, for some reason, he watches her more closely instead. He's not sure, but her scent, the tilt of her head -- it isn't a meaningless question.
No, he doesn't have anyone to go with.
Kiba has asked her to go with him. She doesn't know what she will do yet.
He watches her. Usually, he never gets the meaning underneath that sort of stuff. But today, for some reason, he has an epiphany -- and not hours after the fact either.
She keeps talking softly, describing the fair and the many things to do there. He's distracted by the memory of the possessiveness he -- Kyuubi -- felt toward the silver vixen, the one that reminded him so much of her. He would have flayed alive anyone who dared to even look at one of his females. Hinata doesn't belong to him, though -- she never has, because he never took her up on the silent offer -- and this is what makes him choose. He's not going to agree just because it's the last time she will ask. It's so nice to know that he's wanted, loved, but he remembers all too well the kids who destroyed the cheap presents their parents got them, or threw their ice-cream down ; even if they didn't want them, no one else was allowed to have them anyway. He doesn't want to be like that.
He smiles at her, and lets her go. She will have fun with Kiba. And if she doesn't, he'll beat up the mangy dog. That's a promise.
She closes her eyes to hide the rising wetness there; after a moment, she smiles.
He berates himself for a good hour because he wasted a perfectly good chance with a really nice, cute and stacked girl, and then he meets Sakura coming back from the mall. She bitches him into carrying half her purchases, even though they both know he'd do it even if he wasn't asked. After a half-hour, his arms are aching and his fingers red and numb, and he's been smacked over the head three times, but he's laughing so hard that it doesn't matter so much.