Chapter Two

Hinata woke up before everyone else. She started to cook breakfast for Shino and Kiba, but decided to make breakfast for Kiba's family since she was using their food. She took what she knew about Kiba's tastes and applied it to his mother and sister as well. Soon the house was filled with the smell of sausage and bacon sizzling, as well as rice balls for Shino. She made bacon omelets, and was making up some toast when three Inuzukas and a few dogs came floating into the kitchen by their noses.

"Wow, Hinata. This smells amazing. You should spend the night more often." I said in awe as my olfactory senses were battered with the smell of meat sizzling.

"Hinata! You never told me you could cook!" My sister said as she took a seat at the table, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes.

"Thank you very much, Hinata. You have my gratitude. I am usually the one who does the cooking, so you have no idea how much I appreciate this."

My mom was trying to express her gratitude as both a mother and a clan leader. I took a seat between the two. Hinata served us each a plate, and even had some sausages for the dogs. Like good hosts, we waited until Hinata had taken a seat with a plate of her own. I looked down at my breakfast. Two fat links of sausage, two slices of bacon, and a bacon omelet. My mother and I all had the same thoughts: we were so happy we could kiss her. I have told my family of Hinata's cooking skills, so they were expectant.

Breakfast was like an orgasm on our tongues. We all thanked Hinata, and Hinata and I took off with Shino's plate, which consisted of two rice balls and a link of sausage. Shino wasn't a big meat eater, I could never understand why.

Halfway there, we stopped at a bench to slip the pills in.

"How are we gonna do this? Should we crush it or just stink it in?"

That was a good point. With our luck, he'd bite right into the pill and crunch it, and we'd be out of luck.

"We better crush it. Mix it into the rice, then reform the balls. Put one pill in each ball. That ought to work."

Hinata took the pills in her hand, put one down on the bento pack, and crushed the other in her hand, using chakra do doubt. She poked a hole in one rice pall and poured the powder inside. She did the same with the other. Brushing off her hands, she retied the bento. We both hopped on Akamaru and sprinted to the meeting spot.

Of course, Shino was already there. I greeted him.

"Oi, Bugboy, good morning!"

Flash."…" Shino said. Those damn blinding glasses.

I tried again. "Hinata made you some breakfast. You should try the sausage, it's awesome."

He brightened, only slightly, at this. Nobody can resist Hinata's cooking. He took the bento from Hinata, and started to eat the food inside. Hinata and I pretended to hold a conversation, but watched him out of the corners of our eyes. He ate half of the sausage, then fed the rest to Akamaru. He ate both rice balls. Nothing. No change. Oh well…it may take an hour to kick in.

Kurenai came about ten minutes later. She paired up off to spar for an hour, so later we could do a D-rank mission. How fun. I almost jumped for joy when she paired Shino and I together. I would be able to see if this works or not. Crazy ideas were already running through my head.

Shino got ready, and Akamaru and I did as well. I made the first move. I ran forward, feigning a kick and immediately following up with a punch. Of course, he dodged. He threw a punch at me, feigning right and throwing left. I got grazed on the side of the head. I flipped backwards, landing on top of Akamaru.

"Man Beast Clone!" I shouted, and Akamaru poofed into a animalistic version of me.

"Beast Mimicry!" I shouted again, and I felt all my senses heighten.

We bother ran forward, crisscrossing our paths, then jumped in the air.

"Fang Over Fang!" I felt us collide with a body. "Yes! Direct….hit?"

Shino had used a bug clone and appeared right behind us, grabbing our heads and slamming them together. Both Akamaru's ears and my own were ringing.

The fight went like that, neither side gaining. Then, something amazing happened.

It was nearing the end of the sparring hour, and I jumped on top of Akamaru, but over balanced and fell off the other side. I landed on my head.

"Ouch.." I complained.

Then I heard some snickering. I got up and peered around my dog to see Shino with one hand over his mouth, snickering like an idiot. I felt a vein in my forehead. I stomped up to him.

"You think that was funny?!" I demanded.

His only response was to double over laughing. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Kurenai and Hinata stop dead in their tracks, eyes widening at Shino's behavior. I quickly realized that my plan had worked. I heard a sniffle, and Shino straightened up.

"Sorry. I didn't mean to laugh." he said with a goofy grin on his face.

I left Akamaru with him and went over to Hinata to tell her the good news. Kurenai was already headed to the Hokage's office for the mission.

"Hey guess what! It worked! I can't wait--"

"Uh, Kiba?" my smile dropped when I saw the expression on her face.

"What?" I asked, confused.

"YAHOO! YEE HAW! WHOA!!"

I felt my face freeze. I turned around, a drop of sweat already forming. My jaw hit the ground when I saw what Hinata was looking at. Shino was sitting atop Akamaru, holding onto his scruff with one hand, and had the other in the air, holding his jacket and swinging it around. Akamaru was trying to dislodge him from his back, running and jumping around like a bucking bronco.

"WOOHOO! KIBA! YOU NEVER TOLD ME HOW MUCH FUN THIS IS!! COME ON, AKAMARU! TO THE HOKAGE!"

Akamaru chose to take that moment and listen. He became a streak of white, flashing by on the way to the Hokage. Hinata and I could hear Shino screaming at the top of his lungs as they flew by.

Shino's jacket floated down from the sky in front of us.

"What.." Hinata started.

"Have…" I said.

"We.." Hinata said.

"Done?" We said in unison.

I picked up Shino's jacket and we raced to the Hokage's office.

Shino was standing next to Kurenai, who had a large drop of sweat going down the side of her face. As I got closer, I could see that she actually had a firm grip on his ear, keeping him in place. Akamaru was lying on the ground, panting. We all went inside and received our mission. Kurenai never let go of Shino's ear.

We all walked out to the rice field where our mission was. It needed to be weeded. Taking off our shoes, we took off our jackets, with the exception of Shino, who seemed to have misplaced it after I returned it, and rolled out pants to our knees. We waded in the water and began work.

About fifteen minutes in, Kurenai waded her way over to me.

"Kiba? What was that about earlier? Why the hell was Shino riding Akamaru? And why is he so…happy?"

"Well, after the spar, I went to talk to Hinata, and when I turned around, Shino decided to play cowboy. Akamaru was jumping up and down trying to shake him off, and he was laughing like a lunatic, swinging his jacket around over his head like a lasso or something. Then, they just took off."

I made it a point to avoid the "why" part.

She sated at me for a moment, then left to go talk to Hinata. I returned to work, but it wasn't even five minutes later and my head got plastered with a mud ball.

"Alright, who did that!?" I glanced around, and noticed Shino trying to keep a straight face amongst his weeding. I immediately knew who it was.

"You Bug Freak! Take this!" I made a bigger mud ball and threw it at him, right as he looked up, and it smacked him right in the face, knocking him backwards into the water.

Shino got back up, took of his glasses and wiped them off, keeping his eyes closed, and replaced them. He looked at me and cleared his throat.

"MUD WAR!" he shouted, and produced a ball out of nowhere, throwing it at me. I dodged it, but it hit Hinata instead, right in the butt. She turned around, glaring, and Shino had the most priceless expression of shock on his face.

Hinata expertly created two mud balls and flung them both at us, hitting us both. There was no chance of us finishing this mission.

Kurenai was looking at us, aghast, but apparently she decided not to end our fun. How often do we, especially Shino, really loosen up?

When we were finished, and we still had to finish weeding, we were so caked with mud that we were indistinguishable. Akamaru had stayed home for this mission, last time he had come on a rice weeding mission he had to have a bath, and let's face it, there's a helluva lot of dog to wash nowadays.

It was only midday, so we still had plenty of time to have fun. Kurenai thought she'd have her own fun, so when we walked my a clean pond, she used a small water dragon jutsu on us, half drowning us, but were clean afterwards. I got down and shook the water off. Shino, deciding that looked fun, tried to do the same thing. We all stared at him, and when he stood back up, his 'fro had poofed out, reminding me of a sixties disco dancer.

Kurenai left us alone for the day, our mission was complete. The three of us went to the training field and collapsed, trying to dry out. We were laying there for a while, when Hinata and I both noticed that Shino was mumbling under his breath. We didn't say anything, but shared a confused sideways glance. Suddenly, out of nowhere, every insect within the area decided that Hinata and I would be an awesome place to crawl on and jump on. We both shot up, trying to shake the bugs out of our clothes. I glared at Shino, who was presently lying on his back laughing his buggy little ass off. I stalked away to go pick up Akamaru. It was safer with him around anyways.

Hinata followed me, to get away from our psychotic teammate. We both heard a loud buzzing sound behind us, and stopped dead in our tracks, not daring to turn around. We didn't have to. Shino floated by us, cross-legged, stupid grin on his face, with one hand pointed forward and the other on his leg, with his elbow pointed out. He was riding on a massive cloud of kikaichu, who were apparently not used to being ridden. I could feel my eye twitching.

WE made it to my house, and picked up my dog. I hopped up and we all took a walk to a new restaurant that served sushi. And that road, unfortunately, went past the Aburame Complex.

Shino decided that it was a great idea to visit his father right at that moment, and floated over the wall, before the exhausted kikai couldn't hold him up anymore. He fell through the black cloud as soon as it got past the top. And the walls had to be at least fifteen feet high.

I sighed. "Hop on Hinata. We better get over there."

She got on behind me, hanging on tightly so we didn't make another crash landing like last time. Akamaru went backwards a few yards, then broke into a dead run at the wall, clearing it and landing on his feet, neither humans falling off of his back.

I almost laughed at what I saw on the other side of the wall. Shino was lying on the ground, left lens cracked, arms and legs going in different directions. Some of his kikai were still buzzing around him. It gave him the image of a rotting corpse. Lovely.

Several members of the Aburame clan were staring at the boy, and us, but the most apparent was Shino's father, whose mouth was hanging wide open in shock. I took the opportunity to wake Shino up. I hopped off my dog.

"Yo, Bugboy, wake up." I poked him with my foot. The only response was a groan.

He sat up slowly, then looked around at all the faces staring at him. He put that stupid grin back on his face.

"Hey."

If at all possible, I think Shibi's mouth grew wider in shock. His eyebrows were nearly lost in his hairline. Shino mumbled something.

"What was that?" I asked him, dragging him to his feet.

"That. Was. Awesome." I could have sworn I heard a cricket. Shino smiled stupidly at everyone. A piece of his left lens popped out. Everybody watched the shard of black glass fall to the ground. You could have heard a pin drop. I took the initiative to ruin it.

"HAHAHAHA!" I burst out laughing, just to be joined by Shino, who had no idea why the hell I was laughing. Several Aburames left, and Shibi was the only one left standing.

"Wh-What did you do to my son!?" He asked me incredulously.

"I would, uh, rather not say at the moment." I said. Instead of the verbal assault I was expecting for that smartass remark, I was rewarded with laughter.

"Well, whatever you did, I have never seen my boy this happy since before he enrolled in the academy."

We were distracted by our conversation when we heard Hinata yelp and Shino start shouting. We looked over to the source of the sound, seeing Hinata on the ground and Shino once again attempting to ride Akamaru.

"Hey Dad! You gotta try this! It's amazing! YAHOO!!!!"

Silence. Then, gut-busting laughter. Akamaru had successfully dislodged Shino from his back, flinging him through the air onto a random rooftop.

"Can I try?" I heard him ask me.

"Knock yourself out." I walked away to rescue Hinata and find out where my dog flung Bugboy. We found him on a roof two houses down. We decided to leave him home.

When we came back to get Akamaru, Shibi was expertly riding the nin-dog, having a blast. Apparently Akamaru was only opposed to Shino riding him. He must still remember that time when his bugs attacked him.

"Hey, Bug Man! I need my dog back now!" Shibi laughed and jumped off, and Hinata and I left. We went to Ichiraku's instead, we lost our taste for sushi.

Unknown to us, Shino wasn't done for the day. It was only beginning.

Alright! Shibi finally got to ride the horse dog! Shino has blown a gasket and completely lost his jacket. I guess I never mentioned it, but he was wearing a black t-shirt underneath, so he wasn't shirtless. It will get better, you guys aren't supplying me with any good ideas, so I have to make do with what I can think of. As always, please review! Thank you, Cougar.