Author's Note: Yes, feeding time! It took me forever to write that long rice-shoving paragraph.

Eight. Heading Home

Kankuro

By the time we had taken the goons to the prison, it was nearly sunrise. The sky had painted itself a bright pink-orange, and the rain was falling lightly. Kiba walked next to me, looking very lost in his thoughts.

I reached a hand over to touch his. "Hey," I said softly. "You alright?"

"Just nervous."

"Nervous about what?"

"That—that thing between us, last night."

I smiled more deeply and thoroughly than I ever had before in my life. "You mean the kiss?"

He winced at my words. "Yes. That."

"What are you afraid of?"

"Shino will know," he said. "I don't want him to know, but he'll know. He has a way of finding things out. The insects tell him everything."

"Then we should finish up here," I whispered, pulling him into the shade between two houses.

He pulled away, staying in the warm glow of the morning sunlight. "I still…I'm not sure, Kankuro. I don't know…if this is…what I feel."

I leaned back further into the shadows and beckoned him with a finger. "Come here, and then we'll see how you feel."

He obeyed, slipping into the shadows with me. We were both muddy and covered in dirt—we blended right into the darkness. I pulled Kiba up into a kiss, trying to see how he would react. His breath shortened, and his body shook. I touched one hand to his stomach, feeling muscles though the fabric. I slipped underneath, trying to feel his skin.

He yelped and pulled back, clutching himself tightly. "Kankuro," he said. "Don't do that! Please—don't go there. I'm not ready yet."

"But that does mean you're ready for something, doesn't it?"

"Yes," he whispered. "Something."

And, although he didn't mean for me to catch it, I still heard the words he said to himself underneath his breath. "I just don't know what."

Our arrival back at the house did not go unnoticed. It seemed that Hinata had woken up sometime during the night, noticed our beds empty, and come to the conclusion we were kidnapped.

She was hysterical up until the point when she woke up Shino, who tried his best to calm her down. They were all eating breakfast when we arrived, but it seemed Shino's efforts had not been successful: Hinata was still obviously upset.

"Kiba!" she cried when we tramped into the dining room, mud-splattered and a little worse for the wear. I, at least, was wearing clothes. Kiba was still in his t-shirt and boxer shorts, not even wearing any shoes.

Kiba rubbed his head and yawned. "Hinata," he said. "Good morning."

"Oh, Kiba," she sobbed, clutching onto his rain-soaked t-shirt. "Shino and I thought you'd been kidnapped! Oh, and it was awful! I was sure you were somewhere dark and cold, being kicked around by some nasty shinobi…I'm so glad you're safe."

Kiba rolled his eyes. "That's one way of putting it," he mumbled.

Shino looked up from his bowl of rice. "You were the one who though they'd been kidnapped, Hinata. I just said they probably went for a walk."

I cracked an arrogant smile and began to laugh. I grabbed some chopsticks and a bowl of rice from the table. "If going for a walk," I said, unwrapping the chopsticks, "means that Kiba and I here nearly got killed, then yes, Shino. We went for a walk." I began to pick up rice and shove it into my mouth, insanely hungry from the previous night.

"You—you nearly got killed?" Hinata squeaked.

"Yep," I answered, passing Kiba the bowl of rice. "Eat up, Kiba. There's a good chance you're going to need all the energy you can get."

"I'm not hungry, Kankuro," he muttered, even though he was clearly in need of food. His stomach gave a loud tell-tale growl. I eyed him carefully, but he just glared, evidently not pleased his body was giving away his cover so easily.

Shino put his chopsticks down onto the table with a loud snap. "What happened?"

I shrugged, attempting to shove rice into Kiba's mouth. He kept dodging the chopsticks, like a reluctant infant. "Nothing much," I said, finally making a stab and hitting Kiba's lower lip. "Just the standard stuff. We went for a walk,"—my next stab with chopsticks hit Kiba's cheek, leaving a sticky trail of rice grains—"and next thing we knew we heard breaking glass. Two goons had broken into someone's house. We went over to check it out." My next stab hit Kiba's lips again, and they parted slightly. I managed to shove some rice into his mouth before continuing. "I took the first two goons easily, but then there was this third guy,"—I attempted to shove more rice into Kiba's mouth, but he blocked my stab with his hand—"and he put a sword to Kiba's throat and threatened to kill him. But, using some excellent diversionary tactics,"—I flipped Kiba onto the floor, placing my foot on top of his chest, attempting to feed him while he was lying down—"dammit, Kiba," I growled, rolling my eyes as he started to gag, "why do you have to make everything so difficult? You need to eat. But anyway, Kiba got away from the guy by stabbing him in the leg with a kunai knife and I kicked him in the head and we took the three of them to the prison, only to come back here to find out we'd supposedly been kidnapped."

I managed to finish the entire story with a straight face, much to my surprise. It really was quite an odd story, and it was unusual for me to sound so happy. I barely recognized my own voice.

Kiba shoved my foot off his torso and took the bowl of rice and chopsticks from me. "Fine," he growled. "If you're going to make me eat, I can at least feed myself."

I grinned. "There's a good puppy," I said, patting him on the head.

The rest of the table started at us in mute shock.

"Went for a walk?" one of my Jounin said.

"Nearly got killed?" Hinata exclaimed.

"You have excellent diversionary tactics?" Shino snorted.

"Yes to all three," Kiba grimaced, shoving down the rice. "Even if 'diversionary tactics' is a bit much. It was only a rag doll, Kankuro."

"But it worked, didn't it?"

"I suppose."

Shino frowned. "Are you saying that you two caught the goons that were troubling the village? Does that mean we're free to head home?"

Kiba shrugged. "How am I supposed to know? We weren't ever informed how many goons existed in the first place—there could still be very many left."

The front door slid open, and Mr. Mizuki stumbled into the room. "Good morning, Saviors of Waves!" he greeted us. "I heard you caught our troublemakers during the night—congratulations. It seems our village is free from harm once again."

If Shino hadn't been wearing sunglasses, I was sure I would have seen him roll his eyes. "So the village is safe and we can go home?" He tapped his chopsticks softly on the table. "That was pointless. Hinata and I didn't even do anything."

"You win some, you lose some. Some you don't even get to help with at all," I shrugged. "What can I say? It was just a matter of placement and timing, I guess. And we happen to be at the right place, at the right time. Don't get on our case about it."

"So we're going home?" Shino confirmed.

"You're going home," I said. "And I'm going with you."