Author's Note: I dedicate this chapter to the people who signed up for alerts for this story, reviewed it and even FAVED it? Man. Wow. You guys are pretty awesome.

Also, I wrote this instead of studying for a math final. AP Calculus, to be more specific. Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu-

End Author's note

"So can we start training now?" asked Kiba impatiently, a bit disturbed by the wide grin his instructor was wielding.

"Of course," Kurenai replied softly, her smile becoming more mysterious. "A serious young man like you needs all the practice he can get." And as Kiba glowed with pride, happy that his father's advice to be more serious on the first day had worked, she promptly disappeared.

"Aw man, why do we have to go around looking for our teacher on our first day?" grumbled Kiba, punching a branch so it came back to hit him in the face.
"Are you okay, Kiba-san?" asked Hinata, getting used enough to her team that she was able to speak normally, albeit in a whisper. Really, her grammar teacher almost cried when she saw her star student meet the Hokage for the first time and get so flustered that she called him "Sarutobi." Without any suffix whatsoever!

"Yeah, I'm fine," said Kiba, rubbing his cheek so the red paint smeared a line from his jaw to his hairline and grinning. "The other reason I didn't tell her for wearing the paint is it hides these small kinds of bruises from my mom. She would go nuts if she knew I got hurt on the first day."

"It sounds like your Mom really cares about you," said Hinata quietly, and a bit wistfully as well.

Kiba gave a loud bark of laughter.* "No, she would be more upset that I didn't weave my way through all the obstacles without injury. She's expecting me to come home after proving my toughness, meaning that even if a branch hit me it shouldn't leave a mark."

"Can you track her scent?" asked Shino. "I have the feeling you're just leading us on a wild chase."

Kiba laughed again, but this time sounded more nervous. "Do you have any better idea? It's not like I have anything with her scent on it, and she didn't just walk away; she used a jutsu."

"Since you do not know where she is going, follow me." At this statement Shino turned around and started trailing a bug that had flown out of his arm. "I left a female bug on her myself just in case."

Kiba stared at him for a second before scrambling after, with Hinata bringing up the rear of their line-up as Shino added, "Your face paint is a little smudged."

They stopped at town for Kiba to redo his face paint in the bathroom, leaving Hinata and Shino on a bench outside waiting for him. Given their personalities, this setup was not very ideal for most authors. But the two ninjas did not know this, so they sat in silence for a few seconds.

"…You like bees," stated Shino simply after a while, and Hinata nodded.

"Yes."

More silence.

"Do you- want to know why?" asked Hinata

"Not really," replied Shino, prompting another lapse into silence.

"It's an interesting story," whispered Hinata to herself.

"I like interesting stories," said Shino encouragingly. Not in an encouraging tone, but the words themselves were encouraging; this was enough for the auth- Hinata to work with.

"When I was little my mother loved visiting the garden with me," she said dreamily. "She used to count all of the flowers, and was amazed by the smallest differences in each one- one a little off-color, another a bit larger, and the late bloomers. She always thought of sunflowers as the most optimistic, always looking towards the light. But my last name was already Hyuuga, so she named me after the sun itself.**"

"That did not explain why you like bees."

"I guess that I loved bees because they were the reason my mother was able to enjoy watching the flowers grow. They made every flower stand out in some way, and were the reason flowers existed at all. The flowers made by accident because of bees were always much more beautiful than any the gardeners planted- more wild and unpredictable."

"Bees are fine with me," replied Shino. "I like bugs."

Hinata smiled. "Your bugs are convenient, aren't they?" she asked, feeling almost relaxed with the conversation, but Shino frowned in return.

"I do not like people, things or bugs just because they are useful to me," he said plainly, and Kiba exited the bathroom before Hinata could explain herself. Besides, she was not the one to blame; her father had taught her the world thought that way.

"Which way?" asked Kiba cheerily, and they went forward a few blocks to see Kurenai sitting at a dumpling shop, chatting cheerily with a bearded ninja holding a cigarette.

"C'mon, just one piece to celebrate. You have a great team!" he said, waving a plate of chocolate cake under her nose.

Kurenai wrinkled said nose at the smell, and pushed the dessert away to continue eating her salad. "You know I think that tastes disgusting. I'd rather have a horrible team than be forced into eating a piece of that… thing.***"

"Kurenai!" shouted Kiba, and he went bounding up to her table with Akamaru, the image of a 'serious young man' now ruined. "Why did you leave?" He noticed the young man and added another question, "Who is this? Your husband?"

Asuma/The bearded man (for those who did not figure this out) stopped in the middle of drinking his coffee and spit it onto the floor, narrowly missing Kurenai's shoes.

"We're just friends," replied Kurenai calmly, but Shino had also arrived and raised a brow at this. Even Hinata looked disbelieving.

"It's true!" she exclaimed, panicking.

"She's waiting for another friend!" added Asuma.

"Yeah! A friend!" said Kurenai, latching onto the idea. "Asuma, you are a GENIUS," she thought.

"Who?" asked Kiba, and they stared at him blankly.

"Here's cake," she said, shoving the plate into his hands.

"Score!" said Kiba, even the 'man' part of 'serious young man' seeming dubious as he split the cake in half, taking his portion and eating it from his hand while Akamaru got the plate.

"Why aren't you guys practicing at the grounds by yourselves like I told you to?" she asked Shino, but Hinata answered. Apparently she had experienced some character growth during her five hours in the forest.

"You never told us to practice. You just told Kiba 'a serious young man needs all the practice he can get' and disappeared."

Hinata was right; in her rush to go home and get ready for… 'accidentally meeting' Asuma, Kurenai had forgotten to tell them what to do without her. Thankfully, she was an instructor for ninjas, meaning she could get away with this kind of thing at least one a week, though Kakashi stretched this for himself so it worked for every day. But he was a special case.

"Look underneath the underneath," said Kurenai wisely, though this was a little underscored by the spinach in her teeth. "I said a serious young MAN needs more practice, didn't that anger you at all? I was expecting you to fight him or Shino, trying to prove you deserve training as well."

Hinata started nodding in agreement; after all, the teacher was always right, but stopped, remembering Shino's words. 'I don't like people just because they are useful to me,' she thought, and then realized her teacher was, just this once, wrong.

"I'm not going to use my teammates to prove myself," she said, loud enough to be clearly heard. "I like them too much."

Asuma laughed and patted her hand as Kurenai' jaw dropped and Kiba looked confused, as though he were starting to watch lost from episode 1.

"A great team indeed."

*INSERT LAUGH HERE

**Hyuuga – towards the sun, Hinata- sun OR a sunny place

***Cake "Well you don't taste so good either! And have you smelled your breath first thing in the morning? Phew!"

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