Disclaimer: Beautiful, I don't need to own Naruto to write fanfiction.

Penname: LiveLoveLaugh

FanFiction Story: Dirty Gamble

Summary: (Prequel of Dirty Talk) They were the emulsion of oil and water, their love was not immediate. Their friendship was rocky, but at the end of the game, they win more than just a prize. (ShinoXSaku)

This chapter is dedicated to Sakura's very belated birthday; also I felt a strong urge to update.

Over the Ceramic Bowl

"Oh man! Is that Shino?"

"Yes, it is, can you please help me…?"

"But Sakura! Look at him! He's totally wasted!"

"Kiba, don't. Hand me that chair."

"Hey, why is he covered in—"

"No he's not. I don't know. Can you drop the subject please?"

"Ha! This is excellent! If only I had my camera—Ow! Damn woman! Stop hitting me!"

He threw up in Kiba's bathroom toilet. Sakura looked uneasily at the locked door, tugging harder on the navy sleeves of his dress coat and crossing her arms together tightly. Whenever the nauseating sound of gurgling and flushing came about, the corner of her mouth twitched. He had been at it again that Kiba had complained loudly of the mess he must have made—god—she didn't even want to think about it. It wasn't at all like the bug shinobi she used to know, whose reputation was well-known for his strictly polite mannerisms and little to no words, besides his awful hair and destruction insects though she didn't really want to mention now.

He always looked like a decent man, a kind of decent that didn't exactly earn him the kind of respect the village had reserved for prodigies like Hyuuga Neji or Hatake Kakashi, but he was respected for what he done nonetheless. He had always seemed distant and cold from the rest of the herd, minding his business and only spoke when necessary, unless in certain circumstances where he would be riled up by his teammate Kiba—then again, no one could blame him.

Maybe he didn't like being in a crowd, everyone had figured, maybe he's indifferent to all of us.

And so everyone, including her, had moved on and saw to Shino as another flower on the Konohagakure wallpaper. Now that she thought about it, she, along with everyone else, had no idea who the real Shino was. Sure, people knew of him—but it was not the same as knowing him. It was difficult to explain, really, to talk about Shino because he was so mysterious in his own way, if not intimidating.

His careful approaches in language structure and politeness had only been the façade that people had noticed, besides the puffy jackets and the goddamn sunglasses. People, who were suspicious of him, had watched him closely if they could get close enough and had later noticed only his carefulness with every movement he had made, as if he knew he was being watched.

That night, he said many things that he wouldn't have said in his right mind, that she wouldn't have guessed in a million years. His arms were wrapped around her shoulders when she dragged him away from the streets, she pretended that he wasn't pressing against her, that the tips of his fingers had not accidentally smoothed down the swaying fabric of her light blue dress; his mouth was close to her ear when he whispered his dirty little secrets, one of which included a personal fetish for tube socks. He listed the lovely collection he had back at home, each of selected colors, patterns, where he had bought them from, and it turned out the fuzzy woolen pair with the little smiling beetle designs was his favorite. She nearly chewed her tongue off to stop from letting out a giggle.

It would have been funnier if Shino had not spontaneously slipped off of her and landed in the mud puddle.

"That better not be what I think it is…" Kiba grumbled, pinching his super-sensitive nose while he watched Sakura wipe Shino's face off with wet towels. Her hands delicately but firmly scrubbed the dirt off the bridge of his nose, she had even gently scrubbed his nostrils that were clogged with dregs of mud. When she wiped his hands, she noticed how soft they were unlike the rough blistery kinds with chipped nails that other shinobi had. She assumed it was the use of Kikai that gave him the advantage of never having to use kunai and shuriken excessively.

And still, even after she left Shino in the canine shinobi's care, she had been wondering more and more about the texture of his hands. It was much too soft for a man's, the glossy lines that crossed over the palms like written messages passed down from the stories of his past.

Before they both ended up in Kiba's place, she had found him almost passed out in a dirty bar and carried him to the closest possible shelter she could reach in a short time, walking right into the Inuzuka's apartment when he was about to take out the garbage, knocking him on the floor to push in the massive heap of the unconscious drunken Shino. He was propped up on one of the fold-up chairs in the adjoined kitchen and dining room, being watched closely by both of his fellow Rookies with looks of pure curiosity and pity. Their faces were so close to his, their noses could have brush against the frames of his sunglasses.

Soon he was able to breathe again, although it was harsher; she imagined his eyes fluttering awake at the sight of his best friend's bachelor's pad with peeling white walls and moldy orange-brown carpeting. She imagined his eyes, whatever color they werethough she imagined them to be a dark hue, that he could be watching the two other ninjas bent over staring and speculating him in a creepy way. Not until she let out a sigh of relief, when an awful grumbling noise came from the pit of his stomach that caused the cheeks of Shino's sickly pale face to expand and bubble into two fleshy globes that didn't look right with his slender shape. He slapped one of his hands over his mouth before hell let loose and ran to the bathroom to relieve the aftermath.

He was sprawled over the ceramic bowl of the toilet, his head bent over into the shadows of the clear whiteness. His breath was heated by flowing throw-up of his dinner; his nose was full of the disgusting smells of vomit and chlorine. Even alone, he was ashamed of himself. He was covered in smears of mud and dirt water he had fallen into, his hair was messier than ever before, his sunglasses went so low down the bridge of his nose that it could have fallen into the pool of toilet water. He washed his hands for long periods of time, trying to cleanse himself of his shame and humiliation even though he knew it could not be washed off so easily with antibacterial soap suds.

Even after the attempts to cleaning himself up, he flew across the tiles of the bathroom floor only to find himself over the bowl again. He felt so pained, that sticky sweat had formed over his hot skin. His throat burned with acidic bile that rose and rushed out of his mouth, his chest and bowels had tingled and flushed out the rest of his drunken grandeur.

He hated himself for the noises he made, when he spit out the last of what looked like corn into the toilet.

He didn't even eat corn that night, damn it.

It was a few minutes after midnight when Shino finally came out, carefully closing the door behind him as if nothing happened even though the sounds of toilet flushing had polluted the pregnant silence. He peeked behind his back, to check for any small spectacle of mess. Kiba was sitting uncomfortably on his favorite chair, the one that was so squishy it looked like it could swallow anyone who sat on the weary leather. Sakura leaned against the wall near the large blinded window. Her glowing green eyes staring at the towering young man with such sympathy, it almost reminded him of…of what his mother would have looked at him with if she knew what he had done.

Kiba smirked, the first to break the quiet with an abrupt jab in the ego, "Boy, I'm making you pay for clogging up my toilet." But Shino had only eyes for the pink-haired girl.

She let out a breathless gasp and pulled herself from the wall, ran towards the bug shinobi.

"Shino…! We were so worried—"

"We? I was more worried about my toilet," Kiba voiced out sarcastically, but was ignored.

He held up a hand that stopped her from coming closer, perhaps before she threw her arms around him in a death grip. "Sakura-san," his voice was slightly weak but deep if not deeper than usual, he probably had feared for his skin. "Don't bother."

Her eyes were brimming with such concern, something he hadn't seen in a while it made him want to look away, "You still look awful. At least let me help you…" Her voiced trailed on, as both of their eyes were trapped on the rise of one of her hands that reach over to him, to maybe grasp his shoulder in a reassuring gesture. But he took a fraction of a step back that her fingers missed and could barely stroke the buttons of his mud-drenched dress shirt, so she could not touch him.

Shino was so quiet, so determined tonight.

"You should probably go home," he said, suddenly appearing behind her in a flash and using his two impossibly soft hands to push Sakura to the door while she wildly protested. His wince went unnoticed when she scratched his arms when she yelled at him. He was persistent, unwilling to see extra visitors, "You need your sleep."

"So do you!" she yelped, twisting around while the both of them fumble in a race of flailing arms and loud objections, "You need more rest than me! Let me help you! You could have a fever or worse—"

Already one of his hands was twisting the doorknob, while the other gripped her arm to stop her moving. Her cries, his helplessly strict voice that tried to reassure her of his wellbeing, Kiba's echoing cackle in the background. It must have been quite a scene: Shino tossing Sakura out of the door.

Kiba watched everything with such amusement, making his chair his throne as he watched his pestering subjects fight over misconceptions. Shino had shut the door, quickly connecting the latch and hook. Before he could lock it, Sakura pushed it open as far she could without breaking it that only a narrow strip of her was seen. Pink strands of hair, the edge of her open lips, and a pretty nose poked through. Her voice had probably woken up the dead.

"SHINO! Let me in now! I'm the village's celebrated MEDIC! You're insulting me if you leave me out here!" Sakura screamed in a high-pitched voice, vibrating off the walls and rooftops of the Hidden Leaf, "Let me in this instant! Aburame Shino! You're such a jerk!"

"Shino! You're such a jerk!" Kiba mimicked in a loud creepy girlish voice, fluttering his eyelashes exaggeratingly before laughing. Shino closed his eyes behind his sunglasses, repressing all desire to kill him, before opening them and whispered to her through the doorframe crack.

"Sakura-san. You're embarrassing us," he murmured.

Sakura suddenly stiffened and then banged on the door many times. When he noticed that she moved her face away from the frame, he closed it quickly before locking so he wouldn't have to snap her nose off with the door. Accidentally-on-purpose.

"Jerk! Jerk! JERK!" she shrieked before tossing up her hands in the air, and walked away muttering to herself angrily.

Kiba stifled his laughter, both of his hands clasped on his sputtering mouth when he watched Shino walk right into the empty guest room with nothing to say. When the bedroom door closed, Kiba let out a howl of demented mirth. It went on for a while, that Shino had enough time to change into some extra clothing and curled himself up in the bed.

He called out to him, since the walls were so paper-thin. Even when he doesn't seem like it, Kiba knew Shino was always listening, that he yelled, "Do you have any idea how pissed off she would be at you in the morning?"

Later that night, Kiba found hundreds of Kikai bugs in his bed.

To Be Continued

I love writing this chapter. Sorry for the toilet jokes.