Author's Note: Thanks to everyone who read my previous chapter, I hope you enjoy this one as much as you did the last, and I hope you enjoy the many more that are to come!

...After handing Naruto his permission slip to pass forward, Kiba heard the bell for the end of class. He breathed a sigh of relief at not having to be in the same room as Naruto anymore. Not that he didn't want to be in a room with Naruto, he wanted quite the opposite in fact, he wanted as much time alone with him as he could get, but he was having trouble adjusting to his new life. He was having a hard enough time adjusting to his being gay, well, he didn't want to jump to conclusions. He was having a hard enough time adjusting to the possibility that he was gay, let alone getting a crush on one of his oldest friends, and potentially getting to see said friend topless, with a six pack and... Kiba growled to himself as he walked down the hallway, he couldn't even control his own thoughts anymore.

Kiba couldn't stop the battle that was raging in his mind. He spent the majority of math class with his head on his desk; his resemblance to a pouting dog was uncanny. There were two sides to this cerebral battle, one that wanted to explore this new life and wanted to accept it and just "roll with the punches" as it were. The other side argued that he should suppress these feelings and hope that this actually was a phase. It was as if he was in the middle of a war with artillery landing everywhere and the constant sound of bullets whizzing past him. It gave him a headache and just pissed him off in general. All he wanted to do was get one moment of peace, but his mind wasn't about to acknowledge this. This went on for the remainder of the school day. After school, Kiba went home, went up to his room, locked the door, closed the blinds, and collapsed on his bed from exhaustion.

When Kiba woke up, it took him a second to realize where he was. When he regained basic motor skills, a feat in and of itself, he got up from the bed and looked at his clock. The green lights read 8:42. He opened the door to his room after remembering to unlock it and was instantly blinded by the hallway light. He went downstairs to see his mother reading a magazine in the living room and his father reading the news on the office computer.

"How was school, honey?" His mother asked, without even bothering to look up from her magazine.

Kiba's response to this was a simple grunt, but she understood what it meant. He made his way to the family room and turned on the TV. Of 894 channels, none of them had anything that interested a teenage boy dealing with his sexual orientation. He sat on the couch staring at the blank TV screen as he recalled the past week and how he went from being ecstatic about this trip, to wanting to avoid it altogether. It must have happened in the courtyard earlier that day. Up until that point he never really pictured Naruto when he would have his little fantasies, his face would always be distorted, probably because he would vomit if he pictured his real face, not because Naruto was repulsive, he was anything but that, but there was no way Kiba could handle seeing, really seeing Naruto's face. Seeing him in that courtyard must have freaked him out more than he thought.

"Ok," he thought, "I need to straighten this out. I know that I have a crush on Naruto, and I'm pretty sure that it's not going to just go away, so I should just face it. But, on the other hand, I don't want to be gay. No one would like me anymore and I could get beaten up and, God only know what else. Well, I guess I will get to find out who my real friends are. I don't think Chouji will care, and I doubt Neji will even say anything. But, what about Naruto, what will he think? If he rejects me, then there's no point in coming out at all. Then again, what if he's also gay? I could end up with the guy of my dreams. Well, I guess there's no harm in trying. Tomorrow I'll tell Chouji and see what his reaction is. If he freaks out, then I have no idea how I'd be able to tell Naruto."

Satisfied with the fruits of his reasoning, Kiba got off the couch far more happier than he was when he sat down on it. It was a warm night out and there was nothing better than a walk around Konoha when the air was warm enough so you don't have to wear a jacket, but cold enough so that you don't have to start sweating. After finding Akamaru hiding in a pile of dirty clothes in Kiba's room, he headed out the door. Kiba always felt better when Akamaru was with him, it was like having a kind of walking security blanket. Any stress that remained was blown away as the wind found its way around Kiba's chest. Kiba spent the better part of two hours walking around aimlessly when his cell phone vibrated and his mother told him to come home.

-Friday-

The day he had been looking forward to for over a week had finally come. He ran to school like he did on Wednesday and eagerly sat outside of Iruka's room waiting for him to come open the door. Every minute seemed like an hour. When Iruka finally arrived, Kiba ran past him and eagerly took his seat at the back of the classroom. Iruka gave him the oddest of looks, obviously wondering why Kiba had come to class so early. Kiba was still too excited to sit still, he tapped the desk, drummed his fingers, whistled, and anything else the guy next to you on a plane might have done. Students began to filter in, many of them obviously wearing their bathing suits under their clothes. Iruka said that the best oysters were a few feet underwater, so at low tide, everyone was going to have to get in and get wet, which Kiba didn't mind at all. Since the bus was leaving 10 minutes after class started, they'd have a good two and a half hours before low tide, and Kiba intended to spend every second of it stealing glances of Naruto.

15 minutes into class, they were still in the school and no one could figure out why. Iruka had left 5 minutes before to check on the buses. But, that's not what worried Kiba. What he was worried about was the fact that there was one student who decided not to come to class that Friday. Needless to say, the enthusiasm that Kiba had built up Wednesday night had all but disintegrated by now. Iruka came back and announced that the beach they were originally going to go to had a storm approaching it, so the local authorities had closed the beach. However, he said that there was another one a little farther away and that it would be just like the first one.

The class boarded the buses with the same excitement that they had had when they came to school that day. Kiba, needless to say, was the only one who wasn't cheering or having a good time. The only reason he was looking forward to this trip was Naruto who was apparently sick. Kiba took a seat near the back of the bus and stared out the window hoping to see the blond come running up to the bus before it pulled out, saying that he was sorry he was late, and that his alarm hadn't gone off. But, Naruto never came running up as the buses took off. Kiba looked back at the school until it disappeared on the horizon. He then sat with his arms folded over his chest for the remainder of the trip.

-8:24 am-

The buses had pulled into the parking lot near the beach, and as soon as the doors opened, the students poured out faster than anyone thought possible. Kiba was the last on off, still feeling depressed from the lack of a certain sexy tan chest.

"Alright guys, we have about 2 hours and 25 minutes until low tide, so at 11 we'll all meet back here, ok? Now, I don't want anyone running too far off, stay within earshot, or at least don't let me see you wander off, I'd like to have that whole plausible deniability thing." Everyone knew that this trip wasn't about oysters or muscles or clams or whatever, it was about having a good time at the beach when the sun was nice and warm, and there was no one else around. A couple kids brought an inflatable volley ball, and made a makeshift court. Most of the girls spread a towel out on the sand and read a book as they sunbathed. Kiba, as one could imagine, was not participating in any of these activities. He walked along the beach letting the small waves wash his sandaled feet. He found a place that no one had claimed yet and took off his shirt, sandals, and shorts leaving only the bathing suit underneath on.

He walked along the beach enjoying the feeling of the sand against his bear feet. All there was in front of him was a lot of beach, a pier, and a lot more beach. Because the tide was going out, the columns that supported the pier were starting to become visible, it looked like a place where kids would go when they cut school and wanted to get high. There wasn't anyone getting high, but there did appear to be someone laying facedown on a towel after falling asleep while reading a book. Kiba kept walking until he noticed something. The book the man was reading looked oddly familiar. He walked over carefully so as not to wake whoever he was. He had to get on all fours to see the cover. When he saw the title he nearly had another heart attack. Remember Faster Longer.