Hello my lovelies, long time no see. I just want you to do something for me really quickly. Look up at the top of your screen. Do you see the story summary? Do you notice anything different?
Why yes, I did just bring Kiba into my little Naruto-verse. Isn't that amazing?
Just a small warning: this is not the best chapter I've ever written (And I'm not used to writing for Kiba and I'm really worrying that I didn't do it right). But it gets that character out there (finally).
Now, this is for xFallingxCastlexWallsx, a sweet little dear who I promised this to... almost four months ago, and I mentioned writing this a few months before that.
Yeah... I suck.
Well, enjoy!
"Hello. My name is Hikari Eri and from today I will be your new assistant. It will be a pleasure to serve you, Hokage-sama." Eri stated calmly, staying still and silent for a moment before peeking up from her respectful bow to look into the full length mirror she was practicing in, searching for any possible imperfections with her greeting towards her new boss.
Her bow was too low. She didn't want the man to think that she would grovel at his feet so she'd have to rise up a bit, though she couldn't go up too much since she still had to show respect. Just the littlest bit higher and... there. Perfect.
And her voice. It needed to be less... everything. She needed to sound professional and reliable so that they could see that she was right for the job and she did not have to sound like she was trying to get hired onto a phone-sex service. But it was just how her voice was and there really wasn't much she could do because she knew that even if she tried her hardest to hide it it would slip some day and it was best not to hide even the tiniest of things from very powerful and very suspicious ninjas, especially when dealing with their precious Hokage.
Well, she could at least get rid of the mention of servitude. She didn't know what the Hokage was like and she certainly didn't want to give him anything close to the wrong ideas.
With a smooth smile that professionally hid everything Eri bowed once again -no longer or deeper than was strictly respectful- and tried once again.
"Hello. My name is Hikari Eri and from today on I will be your new assistant. I look forward to working with you, Hokage-sama."
After another pause she straightened and nodded at her reflection, viciously shoving the pins in her hair into place so that no stray hairs could slip from their places in the sleek up-do. The person who had contacted her about the job had told her just to wear whatever she was comfortable with -after all they were ninjas, not board room stiffs- and despite the looks she knew she'd receive for her less than regulation attire she had on it was what she was the most comfortable with in the situation.
Though, she supposed that it was a bit strange that what she was most comfortable with was a slate gray pencil skirt and a matching jacket with a pale pink blouse, but she enjoyed looking professional for work. It reminded her of the new direction she was going to lead her life towards.
Walking to her door she slipped on dangerously high and vividly red platform pump stilettos that added far more inches than were necessary to her height -the only nonprofessional article she would allow herself- and gave herself a short and bracing mental pep-talk before stepping out the door to start the walk to the Hokage tower.
She got a few looks on her way, most from women wincing in sympathy over her excruciating looking footwear, but she also caught a few of the eyes from a few highly skilled and perceptive people who realized that she was not just some civilian and wondered what kind of a ninja wore a suit when not on an undercover mission.
Once inside of the tower she went up to the level that the Hokage's office lay and stared in shock at the complete chaos that greeted her when she stepped into the spacious front office.
The drawers of filing cabinets were throw open and paperwork was strewn about, teetering stacks of files and folders preforming a precarious balancing act on the edges of chairs. The skeleton of what could have once been a plant lay shriveled up in a corner, and what could have been a desk was buried beneath mountains of scrolls and she could just barely see the top of a messy head of brown hair over the overwhelming pile.
"Hello?" Eri called out to the head, watching as it popped up to reveal a boy who narrowed his eyes at her when he finally got a good look at her.
"... Who're you?" He asked rudely, but Eri didn't let his tone faze her. Really, she'd be rude to anyone who bothered her if she was stuck alone with this mess too.
"Hikari Eri. I am the Hokage's new assistant." She didn't know what she had been expecting as an answer to her statement but it certainly wasn't the look of complete contempt that he shot towards her.
"Oh. Well, that's just great. You people just keep coming and coming and you absolutely refuse to stop making everything a bigger mess then it already was! Do you see all of this?" The boy practically shouted, motioning to the disaster around them. "This was done by the last assistant, and Nii-chan's office is even worse! You know what, you should just leave now because I think he should have stopped bringing you people in after the third one because these last twenty have been unbearable!" He shouted, turning and stomping through the thick double doors that separated them from the Hokage's office, the door slamming shut behind him.
Eri stood in the middle of the empty room, surrounded by the disaster apparently caused by the Hokage's twenty-third assistant and wondered at what had just happened.
Apparently she was supposed to just go away because some kid got pissy and told her to. Well, she didn't care what some little brat said, she was staying. She had worked far too hard to get this chance and she wasn't going to scurry on home with her tail between her legs.
Shrugging it and her jacket off Eri rolled up her sleeves and steeled herself from the harrowing task ahead of her.
Nearly six hours later a pair of men -one with brown hair and the other with yellow- stepped out of the Hokage's main office and into the front office, stopping to stare in shock at the nearly fully cleaned office. Eri sat in the slightly uncomfortable office chair and was going through disorganized stacks of papers and scrolls, sorting them out to her preference and barely sparing the pair a glance.
"One of the filing cabinets is broken so another will need to be ordered, and I need the key to the records room so that I can put all of these completed mission scrolls up and get them out of the way. All of the pens were involved in the breaking of the cabinet -a very skillful and angry sabotage, might I add- so more of those will be needed, and a very nasty profanity was written on one of the walls in lipstick, so it would really be best to get that taken care of soon." Waiting for a moment for one of them to reply Eri looked up, studying their stunned faces with an air of professionalism.
"Ah... Konohamaru? Who is this?" Naruto asked to boy standing beside him who simply shrugged before shaking his head.
"Apparently your newest assistant." They watched as the woman decided to ignore them and instead get back to the papers, "It actually seems like she knows what she's doing though."
Naruto waited for a minute before nodding and turning to leave and take a much needed Ichiraku break, pausing before he was out the door. "Go ahead and order the stuff you'll need, I guess." He sighed, preparing himself for yet another strenuous assistant. Really, If Konohamaru wasn't as bad -worse even- with paperwork and dealing with people as he was he would have got the job, but the fact that he had no assistant skills other than being likable and also the fact that he wished to remain on the active roster and take missions kept him from getting the job, though he did help out in times of desperate need.
Eri looked back up from the papers and smiled professionally at him. "Thank you, Hokage-sama. I am Hikari Eri and I look forward to working for you."
Naruto nodded and turned away, wondering what was going to be wrong with this assistant. At least it seemed like she was pretty good at tidying messes, something a vast majority of his past assistants couldn't claim.
Eri hoped that all of her hard work was starting to change the Hokage's mind over whether or not she was going to work out as his assistant, because the looks that people were shooting her –surprised that she was still there and questioning when she would leave- were starting to grate on her nerves. And sure, she could see that after twenty-three previous misses he wasn't exactly expecting to finally get it right with her but she was working her butt off to fix everything that had been made askew by the apparent morons who had tried to do so earlier.
Konohamaru had come back after a week to lay out the rules for her, grudgingly admitting that she was doing a decent job and that he didn't want them all to go through all of it again so she had better not mess it up. He had said that she needed to at least tolerate the Hokage's children and friends because Naruto hated people being rude to them, which Eri knew she would have no problem doing. She might not have had too much interaction with children but she did know how to hide her own feelings beautifully, so even if they annoyed her to no end there was only the most miniscule chance of her slipping.
The next rules were that she couldn't steal and she couldn't leak any information or sabotage anything. She was not allowed to just up and disappear without getting permission and she wasn't allowed to let personal issues like grooming herself -this rule explained why she had found nail clippings beneath the desk- affect her work. Complaining was not to be tolerated and she was basically just to help out with as much paperwork as possible and make sure the Hokage didn't overwork himself or skip out too much.
The last rule was that she could not, under any circumstances, try to seduce the Hokage. Apparently some had tried this before, one even attempting to drug him so that he'd be more receptive, and they were all quickly fired. Eri had absolutely no problem with falling in with this rule immediately.
From what she had observed the Hokage was madly in love with his wife, pulling out pictures of her and their children if even the tiniest of mention of them was made. She hadn't even seen him so much as glance at another woman in interest, let alone her, and she had never seen such devotion and love before.
It was kind of incredible.
Weeks passed and they fell into a pattern of her eventually gaining more trust and in turn receiving more work. She had no complaints, however, with her growing work load because it gave her a sense of satisfaction that she had rarely felt before. She was working hard at something worthwhile that brought no sense of shame to her and she was happy.
She'd almost forgotten what happy was like.
One day, after a particularly wealthy and nasally merchant was let into the Hokage's office to discuss a high profile mission that he had requested and that had been completed -though from the disdainful curl of his lips when she had gone in to serve him tea and discreetly give the Hokage a breather from the man, it hadn't gone the way he would have liked.
Keeping an ear on the door just in case the sounds of the Hokage losing his temper over the stuck up attitude of the other man and then attacking him leaked out, Eri accidentally knocked over her pen holder and before she could catch it pens spilled out and rolled off of the smooth wood of her desk and onto the floor.
Muttering silent curses under her breath Eri walked around to the front of the desk and got down on her hands and knees to pick up the evil little demons that seemed to almost be leaping away from her searching fingers. She hissed as she spotted one that had rolled all the way under the desk and had lodged magically under the desk itself and crawled underneath to it, hissing again when she heard the door open and somebody enter.
Well, she grumbled to herself, finally getting a hold on the pen and yanking, This is just great.
Kiba grumbled as he made his way up the steps of the Hokage tower, Akamaru trotting faithfully at his side. He was used to getting a mission, completing the mission, turning in the mission scroll and report and then being done with it. He was not, however, used to having the person who commissioned the mission wanting to discuss it, especially since the damn thing had been a success. He wouldn't have even come if it hadn't been for losing a stupid bet to Naruto.
He couldn't remember what it had been over but he did remember that he had lost -though her would assure anyone that asked that it hadn't been by much- and apparently Naruto had gotten pressure from the council about meeting with one of their lofty benefactors, which in turn forced him to cash in on his favor.
Already ready to turn around and head back home Kiba pushed through the office doors and was forced to a halt at the sight that he was met with.
The first thing that hit him were the shoes. They were very... red. Very red and very high and very... God, those were some shoes. The legs that led off of the heels were pretty fantastic too, and though he couldn't get a good look at anything else since she was hidden beneath the desk she had apparently crawled under if he judged by the way her skirt stretched over her ass the girl was definitely something to look into.
With a wide grin Kiba sauntered over to lean against the desk, smirking down at the woman.
"Need any help down there?" He called and Eri froze, rolling her eyes as she finally pulled the pen free and slid back so that she could get a good look at the man who had decided to try and attempt to flirt with her.
She could see that his leather jacket hid firm muscles, and from the markings on his face he was from a clan –Inuzaka, if she recalled correctly. His hair was messy and his smirk was cocky, and he had an air of wildness around him that she could see appealing to most women. But not her. She had a plan and there was no room in it for any attraction of any kind towards some random, hot and horny guy.
The way her eyes studied him almost as if he were something smeared on a petri dish set him on edge, so he decided he might as well do the same and get a good look at her.
Her hair was a pale bleached blonde and was sleekly held at the back of her head in an elegant hairstyle that didn't have a single strand out of place. Her eyes, when they met his, were a flinty slate gray that held a promise of immovable strength and currently shined with a cool professionalism that cloaked her in dignity even as she sat down on the floor clutching a now slightly bent pen.
"No, thank you though." She said, gracefully and amazingly getting back on her feet without any help or a wobble from the heels. "Do you have an appointment with the Hokage?" She asked as she smoothly slid back into her seat and making the man opposite of her blink.
"Ah... so you're the new assistant?" He asked, suddenly taking in her smooth navy skirt and white blouse. He was certain he'd never seen an assistant like that since all of the ones before -even the ditzy ones who dressed like hookers- had been skilled ninja. Perhaps they were more worried about the quality of Naruto's paper work and had hired out from a secretarial company.
"Yes, I am. Do you have an appointment, Inuzaka-san?" She asked once again, coolly.
"Yeah, the idiot-" He started, but was interrupted as the door was practically thrown open with the sheer force of the desperation the blonde haired Hokage was exuding after having finally heard Kiba's voice.
"Kiba! Hotaka-san has been waiting for you to get here for a very long time with nothing to do but talk. To me." He said, his blue eyes shining with desperation and pleas. Kiba sighed wearily and shrugged, sending another short glance to the blonde woman who was now skillfully ignoring him before looking back towards the Hokage office and grimacing.
"Yeah, well, I didn't really want to come in the first place and then Akamaru found something much better for us to do and we-"
"Is that a dog?" A nasally and whining voice spoke up from inside of the office, making the Hokage's eye twitch. "I'm allergic to dogs. If I get anywhere near a dog I'll start sneezing and I won't be able to stop and then I won't be able to breathe and I'll start wheezing and-" He was forced to stop be a sudden body shaking sneeze.
"See! It's already -Achoo!- starting! Get that animal -Achoo!- out of here!"
Naruto was gripping the door jamb so tightly that Eri thought there was a serious chance of the wood shattering to splinters beneath the overpowering strength of his annoyance and anger. The Inuzaka -Kiba- looked extremely pissed off and even the large dog that had come to stand by his side looked mad.
"Kiba," Naruto managed to grit out, "Could Akamaru stay out here?" He asked, trying to keep his head since the council had already warned him what pissing this guy off would do. He controlled nearly a third of the imported goods into Konoha and Naruto -even though he still wasn't the best at figuring things like this out- knew that if the guy decided for some reason to withhold his goods the markets and a vast majority of the people who depended on said markets were screwed.
But even knowing this a tiny part of him still wanted to tell the guy where he could shove those goods of his and wipe his hands of the whole thing.
"What?! No way in he-" Kiba started only to be interrupted by a still disinterested looking Eri who was writing something out on a scroll.
"Inuzaka-san, please go on with your appointment. Akamaru-san may stay out here and keep me company, if it does not bother you." She said, lifting her eyes from the scroll to meet Kiba's and send him a professionally collected and somehow comforting look.
After a silent moment of fuming Kiba growled out something that sounded like "Fine," and then angrily strode into the office, an almost equally annoyed Naruto closing the door behind him.
Eri sat still in the office for a moment before turning and looking to the overly large shaggy dog who sat alone in the center of the room, staring at her with a surprisingly steady and clear gaze. They watched each other silently for a moment, assessing, before Eri's face relaxed into a smile.
"Hello, lovely." She murmured warmly, rolling her chair back so that she could allow the dog to trot over and testingly sniff her. Holding her hand out for permission she waited for Akamaru to nudge her hand before petting him, scratching the top of his head and playfully ruffling his floppy ears, absolutely adoring the sweet way his tongue rolled goofily out of his mouth.
Forty-five minutes later when the merchant strode out of the office with his nose high he didn't notice Akamaru laying down at her feet and he didn't even sniffle.
After the door shut behind the pretentious and whining prick Kiba was unable to hold in his growl anymore and threw the packet of papers that the man had so kindly gifted to him -papers that outlined all of his mistakes on the mission and how he could fix them- at the door.
"Naruto, that damn bet is clear and you owe me now. You owe me big time." Kiba growled, angrily pacing to work off the furious energy.
"Yeah, well, I'm not all that happy about this either. I wanted to throw him out of the window before you even got here, and all of that sniffling and stuff about dog hair after you sat down made me want to rasengan him in the face before doing it."
Kiba roughly chuckled before flopping down in one of the chairs across from Naruto's desk, sighing as he stared up at the ceiling.
"So," He said in what he thought was a casual way, "About that new assistant of yours..."
"Oh no!" Naruto shouted, jumping up and pointing a scolding finger at the other man. "You don't go near Eri! She's the best assistant I've ever had! She does paperwork and sorts through the requested missions and she files things in these files that are organized and color coded and neat! She doesn't try to sleep with me or anyone else that comes through and she's as close to perfect as I'm going to get with this and you are not going to ruin it for sex!"
Kiba winced at how high the blonde man's voice had gotten and held up a hand to placate, not wanting to listen to an hour long high-pitched lecture. "Yeah, yeah, sure. I was just wondering how you got the council to agree to a civilian assistant." Naruto blinked at him for a moment in confusion.
"... Is she a civilian?" He asked, only to have Kiba shrug.
"I guessed so because of how she dresses and because she just doesn't feel like a kunoichi." Naruto contemplated this for a moment before shrugging.
"Well, we could ask her and see what she says." He said, going to the door and into the other office with Kiba, finding Eri dutifully at her paperwork as usual, though her usual professional look was ruined by the fact that an oversized dog's head was propped into her lap, eyes gazing up at her adoringly.
"Hey, Eri," Naruto said, making the other blonde look up at him. "Are you a ninja or a civilian?"
Eri stared at him a moment before taking the question in stride and shuffling her papers so that they were perfectly alined.
"I am a trained ninja, Hokage-sama."
"Oh."
"You're about the same age as us, right?" Kiba asked, still curious and now even more so at seeing how Akamaru had taken to her.
"If you are the same age as the Hokage then I am twenty-seven to your twenty-six." She stated simply.
"Then we would have seen you around, wouldn't we? Around the exams or when we were getting missions."
Eri sighed, already having seen this as inevitable. At least after she explained, as a ninja and the Hokage he would understand and if he didn't he would have to simply judge her on her work ethic.
"My clan does not go to the regular ninja academy and instead we are privately tutored. And the kind of missions I do are solo missions that are passed to the head of my clan by the council because she knows who best to send on them. Better than the Hokage, at least -and my apologies for saying so, Hokage-sama."
"So," Naruto started, his forehead furrowing as he tried to figure it out, "What is your clan?"
"It is very small and extremely private, and it it one that is not often mentioned in polite conversations. We are used expressly in the more serious seduction missions and as such are trained from a very early age for them and have no time nor need for the usual training."
"Serious seduction missions?" Kiba asked, slightly puzzled. Quite a few ninja went on seduction missions and he had to wonder at what made one more serious than others.
"Ones that can drag on for even years at a time and that require me creating intricate relationships and personalities that I must be able to destroy with a single breath and without feeling any remorse." Eri said watching them for a moment before bluntly adding, "In my clan we are trained as seductresses and whores, if that helps you to clear things up."
Ignoring the slightly shocked looks they sent her Eri picked up her papers and a pen, turning to hold them out to the Hokage, who just proceeded to stare at her like she had multiple heads sprouting from her butt.
"Hokage-sama, I'll need you to sign this."
Eri did not take vacation days and she did not get sick so she did not take sick days, but that did not mean she was a workaholic and she certainly never complained about her days off. Her days off were the days that she could do anything she wanted and could go any and everywhere.
So on these days she slipped off her heels and put on a pair of sweatpants so that she could lay back on her couch without a care in the world and watch horror movies with messy sandwiches and pints of ice cream while she drank beer.
God, she loved her days off.
She paused the video when a knock sounded on her door and walked over to it, stretching the kinks out of her back and wondering at what she should do for the next movie. There was that one with the cannibals -a classic- or she could go for her newest addition about a ninja spirit that completely tortures and slaughters an entire island.
Mulling over her thoughts she opened the door and found herself face to face with a certain Inuzaka who had been undeterred in his flirting in the past months. Really, the only reason she even paid him any mind was because he was relentless at using his dog to get her to pay attention to her. She figured that the only reason he was even bothering was because he learned about her training and figured that she would be a good lay -and she would be. She would blow his little mind and leave him as a panting puddle of hormones without even breaking a sweat.
But she had a plan, and he was not in it.
Sighing and crossing her arms under her chest she leaned against the open doorway and wondered how weird it would look to pedestrians if she just started banging her head against the doorjamb.
It was her day off and she just didn't want to deal with it.
Kiba didn't really know how it had started. After that whole "special training seductress" thing he had started to wonder about her because sure, she was hot, but the way she held herself was just way too professional to be sexy in the usual sense and she was just so... professional.
But after coming into the office a few more times and watching her a bit -not in a creepy way- he found little bits that continued to pull him in and make him wonder more about her. Her shoes were a big part of it, mostly because he couldn't believe that someone could actually walk in them, and then there was the way that she always looked effortlessly perfect and smooth. It was almost unnatural the way she pulled it off so effortlessly.
And so he watched her some more and became more and more intrigued as time went on. Akamaru adored her, which was something that usually took a lot of effort and was something that no other woman but Hinata had managed. Akamaru had really seemed to tolerate the others because at that time they made him happy, and Kiba just couldn't figure it out until one day he walked in and smelt roast beef heavy on the air and his dog licking slim fingers, though he knew the food was only a part of it.
He knew that he might be a little obsessed but she was like a puzzle he had to piece together, so it was easy to get Akamaru to swipe something of her's -a little silver compact mirror- so that he could have the excuse of coming over to her place and seeing her in her natural environment.
He didn't know what he had been expecting but it certainly wasn't an apartment building that was so far past it's prime that it was standing on crutches and it certainly wasn't the woman who was staring in front of him with a hint of exasperation in her usually professional eyes. Her usually sleek hair was pulled back into a tangled ponytail -almost like she had just woken up and simply slipped the hair-tie into it- and instead of her usual suit or the slacks he had anticipated she was wearing a pair of comfortable gray sweatpants and a tight white wife beater.
And he could suddenly see the sexiness.
"Yes, Inuzaka-san?" She asked in her usual professional tone, though by the way her eyes were dangerously narrowed and her hip was slightly cocked she was feeling anything but professional.
"Here." He said, holding out the compact for her to take, "I had Akamaru steal this from you." Eri blinked at the compact for a moment before laughing so hard that she wrapped her arms around her stomach, the loud belly laughs making her whole body shake and bringing tears to her eyes.
"That... That is really quite forward, Inuzaka-san." She chuckled, and Kiba sent a sharp toothed grin towards her that would have made a lesser woman swoon.
"Well, since I've stolen from you and gone into your apartment without permission," He said, and she noticed that he had taken advantage of her lapse in concentration to step into her apartment before she could say anything, "I think it's about time for you to start calling me Kiba, Eri."
"Alright then. Kiba, leave my apartment." She said, pointing out her still open doorway, "Now, if you'd please."
"Well, I figured that since me and Akamaru are here we might as well hang around a bit. After all, Akamaru seems to have taken to liking you." He said, and right on cue she felt a heavy and warm and furry weight settling against her side, big eyes pleading with her and making her lips twitch.
"I'm not sleeping with you."
"Thought never crossed my mind."
"You have to go buy more beer."
"Obviously."
"And Akamaru is sitting with me on the couch. You can have the chair, though you'll have to be careful since there's a loose spring."
He sighed. "Of course."
She really didn't know why she decided to let them stay. Maybe as a test to see how long it would take for Kiba to crack and ask for a first hand experience with her famed talents and maybe to see if he even would, but next thing Eri knew Kiba and Akamaru were frequent visitors.
Kiba was nice. He had a somewhat crude mouth if he wasn't paying attention and he got angry quickly, especially if people he cared about -especially his dog- were involved. He was fiercely protective and he had a somewhat twisted and slightly perverted sense of humor, and he was fun. But most importantly, he didn't ask her for anything inappropriate or sexual.
Kiba was learning a lot with their time too, and the more he learned the more intrigued he became.
She loved horror movies, and laughed when watching them like they were a raunchy comedy instead of a movie about the physical and mental torture of dentists, or some such thing. She liked not caring about how she looked and she always managed to look amazing when she did so, and she didn't just like Akamaru and feed him because she seemed to generally adore dogs. She ate whatever she felt like eating and when she loosened up she was witty and had an appreciation of his perverse humor and could give it right back to him, and she made it clear that if he had problems with who she was he knew where the door was.
And then back at work she was still as professional and perfect as always.
During one of her off days while they were watching some type of idiotic drama while they waited for their food to be delivered Kiba turned to her -he had finally graduated up to the couch level- and decided to ask a question that had been on his mind for quite some time.
"So, how exactly did you decide to become the Hokage's assistant?" He asked, watching as she shrugged and took another swig of her beer.
"I didn't, really. I just decided that I had to get out of my clan, and that eventually got me to where I am now." Seeing that he didn't understand and would demand a better answer she sighed and turned towards him, tucking her legs up under her.
"In my clan you start training in the usual way at the same time as everyone else, but when we turn ten we start on our more personalized 'whore training', and no, that is not what it is actually called. We have to be extremely good with chakra because we can't bulk up or get any unpleasing muscles -plus there are a lot of sexual acts that chakra makes very interesting- and we learn as much about sex as we can without actually doing it until we turn fourteen. After that it's another year of training and then we get out first mission." Feeling a bit uncomfortable with the way he was just watching her and wishing that she knew what he was thinking, Eri had to force herself to not fidget.
"For twelve years I worked as a prostitute for this village and I feel no shame in it. I saved lives and I helped people, and I can never regret that. But twelve years of false 'I love you's on my part and twelve years of being on my back and pretending to be dozens of different people that I am not wore me down to where I couldn't take it anymore. And I couldn't stay in my clan after I stopped taking missions since one of the rules is that once you stop taking missions you have to get pregnant to continue the clan and I wasn't ready for that. So I was wandering around the Hokage tower just trying to figure out what to do after I ran away and I overheard some people discussing applications for the Hokage's assistant. I've played secretary numerous times and something just felt... right about it. So I slipped my application on top and fudged some of the others and a day later I got a call and got the job."
"Right now, all I want to do is be this professional, composed, hard working person. I want to make something of myself so that I don't have to look back anymore and wonder if the person I think I am is even real. So I'm working as hard as I can to make sure that I don't screw anything up, and I'm actually pretty happy." She said, shrugging and turning back to the TV just in time to see one of the characters kissing another.
"No! What are you doing? You love Miki, not this floozy!" She groaned angrily, practically growling as the two characters started in for the bed. "God, this is so stupid. Why are we watching it again?" She asked, though she didn't try to tear her eyes away from the screen.
And Kiba watched her for a moment before shrugging and turning back to the television, smirking slightly as he slipped a few more pieces into the puzzle.
It had been nearly an entire year from the time she had first stepped into the Haokage's office and nearly a year from the first time she and Kiba had met, and Eri found that she had a lot to think about.
She loved her job and she was doing great at it, and there was no way she was going to give it up, especially now that she had gained the trust of everyone involved. She went in every day and now had a happy little life as proof of her hard work. Everything had gone perfectly to plan.
But for Kiba.
He was her best friend, the first one she had ever had outside of a mission and the first one she was determined to keep. He was funny and rude and he had a great dog, and he never seemed to mind the fact that once upon a time she had been, as she liked to say, nothing more than a prostitute for the village. He laughed right along with her when they watched the horror movies and though sometimes she swore he sent her this little searching, searing look, he never acted on it or ask her to break the no sex rule she had laid out that very first day.
And he had managed to perfectly ruin her plan by making her start to fall in love with him.
She had started down this road a few times before, but the guilt of knowing that she was not who they thought she was or the thought of her inevitable betrayal had stopped her from doing more than fancying the notion, but with Kiba she didn't have any of that to hide behind. She only had herself and she was growing more worried by the day about the steep and jagged cliff she was standing over. She just didn't know what do do.
And the clueless man she was feeling all of this towards wasn't helping things either, though all he was doing was being himself.
So, one day when watching him from his little kitchenette in his apartment as he sat watching some comedy show on the television, his feet propped up on the coffee table, Eri came to a decision.
Closing the fridge and walking over to him, she waited until he looked over at her.
"Oh, is there no more beer? I could have sworn that-"
"I have," She said, shamelessly interrupting him, "Slept with numerous men, and even some women, but only one has been out of my own choice while not during a mission or training, and it was out of pity more than anything. I understand how relationships work, though I only went into them during a mission so it feels like a lie to say that, and I know so many ways to seduce a man we couldn't even go into half of them tonight. But right now I'm not going to use any of those skills and I'm just going to ask you straight out if you would like to have sex with me."
The way he was staring at her was so hilarious that had she not been so nervous -and she couldn't quite understand why she was- she would have been laughing at the dumbstruck look on his face.
"Um..." He said dumbly, "What?"
"Sex, Kiba. I want to know if you'd like to have sex with me."
"Wait," He said, sitting up and staring at her intensely, "Are you saying that you want to have pity sex with me?" He asked, latching onto one of the least important parts of her little speech.
Eri knew that with the heavy knot in her stomach she shouldn't be laughing, but she just couldn't help it. Chuckling, she shook her head at the insulted man and sat down on the arm of his couch.
"No, God no." She said, blowing a strand of hair out of her eye as she tried to figure out what to say to get him to believe her.
"I've got... feelings for you. You're my best friend, but my feelings go deeper than that. I'm attracted to you for a small part, and a much bigger part is that I love you, and am falling in love with you." Eri paused for a moment and studied the slightly shocked expression on Kiba's face. "And those are two different things."
There was a beat of everlasting silence before Kiba finally spoke up.
"So you want to have sex." He waited for her to nod, "Not pity sex, but feelings sex," Another nod, "Because you like me as a friend and as more than a friend," One more nod, "Because you both love and are in love with me, which are two different things." She nodded once again.
"Well..." He said slowly, as if he had to think about it, before grinning his usual feral and smug grin, "It's a little strange since we haven't even kissed yet, and usually there would be no way you would get through this without buying me dinner first, but I suppose that I can. Though I do feel a little cheap." He teased as she grinned, hiding how relieved she was that she hadn't just been denied and ruined everything.
But just before they entered the door to Kiba's room -both of them coming to a silent agreement that a bed would probably be best for what they had in mind- Eri stopped and turned to him, grabbing a fistful of his shirt before jerking him towards herself and kissing him in a way that she knew was guaranteed to turn even the steadfast of men into a puddle of malleable goo.
She might have told him that she wasn't going to use her skills, but that was just for getting him to go along with her. Once they started on that path she wanted to make sure that he knew that neither of them were going to hold back, and she knew that by the end of the night he was going to be eternally grateful.
Pulling back she smiled at him. "There now, now you don't have to feel cheap about that whole 'no kiss' thing." She said before turning around continuing back into the bedroom, grinning widely when she heard a growl and felt him come up behind her, giving her a good solid push towards the bed.
A few hours later, both of them properly tired out and sated, they lay looking up at the ceiling, their breathing calming and the sweat on their overheated skin beginning to dry uncomfortably. Eri was in the middle of an inner battle where she was trying to decide if she wanted to move and put forth the effort to reach for the sheet that had probably ended up tangled somewhere on the floor when Kiba interrupted her private little self discussion.
"Those feelings and things you were talking about earlier? I've got them for you too." He said, and it wasn't even close to the most eloquent confession she had ever heard. It was probably actually the worst but laying there knowing what he really hid behind his words she knew that the falseness of the most beautiful poetry ever written would have ruined it.
There was a beat of comfortable silence before Kiba decided to speak up once more.
"So... You and women, huh? Exactly how many?" He asked, trying to sound casual, "And were there more than one at a time?"
Eri had to admit that there was something to be said about a man who could make you laugh so much that it hurt while you were laying naked after a nice long round of good sex.
Well, that's her. And like I said, not my best.
Here's the story of Eri's reckoning:
I work as an office aide at my school, which probably influence the character a lot (I love the job and I find filing paperwork surprisingly soothing). The story of the suit is that I made a doodle of this girl in a suit and it just connected in my head that she would wear a suit (I don't know why. I no longer question these things) and the only heels I could draw were the dangerously high "hooker heels". And also, one day when I was in the shower it just randomly came up in my mind that oh, she's also a trained ninja-prostitute.
Well, tada!
To my newest darlings:
systemman- Thank you for your thoughts and support! You keep on rocking your bad self!
TheCookieMonster77- Hmm... I sense an idea for a chapter. But really, Hinata had a very big influence over that part of the kids' personalities, though I'd have to say that Yuka would be. Leo's too determined to not waste his time (unless it would bother Yuka) and Mino's too... Mino, and Kori just wouldn't be interested unless it was on a small scale against her friends, and Yuki is too busy trying to make sure that Yuka doesn't get in trouble.
Nameless little guest- Thank you! Your're so sweet! (But really, only 90%? I think my dazzling personality should add on another 2% easy)
And to one of my not-so-new little dears xFallingxCastlexWallsx- Yes, that is actually a pretty big part of it, all wrapped up and pretty. I guess some of it is that Mino sees the innocence in Kaya that he didn't really get to have for very long, and he cherishes and protects that part of her because he can't have that anymore. Another part is that (in my head) Kaya exudes the same calming vibe as Hinata, and Mino is just a little Mama's boy.
I guess I have to apologize to everyone about getting them so attached to MomoMino, but truthfully I had Kaya planned before Momo and the two of them would never be more then friends in my mind.
Momo gets her heart broken, but it's a young heart break and she'll get over it and she'll move on, though Mino will always be her first love. I've already got someone else for her, so she won't be lonely.
Things new with LadyArinn: Worrying a lot about college; Thinking about starting to watch Doctor Who; I had supreme pizza (yum, veggies); I ate eighteen mini Airheads in less than two day (I am ashamed and I want more).
Onward, my brethren! We go to slay the vampiric Poptarts in their sadistic layers! Ha ha ha!