My Boss The Genius
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INTERLUDE EIGHT
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Her pace was brisk, like the cold night air that seeped under her jacket. Beside her, Kiba's stride was lazy but he was taller and his steps longer, so he easily kept up with her. A large dog trotted next to him, its tongue lolled out. Every now and then Kiba would reach down to pat the dog's head, and it would look up at him with a smile on its face.
Temari glanced over at the dog, grimacing a bit at what happened when the elevator got down to the lobby. The dog had taken one look at her, and suddenly walked to her side. She tried to ignore it, but it had simply followed her out of the apartment complex. It puzzled her at first, why this dog was following her, but the answer soon became clear once Kiba had jogged up to her and patted its head. "Good job Akamaru!" he said to it. She had simply glowered at the mutt, her lips pursing but refusing to acknowledge her babysitters.
"So..." Kiba said, glancing at her from the corner of his eyes. "Temari, is it?" he asked. She glowered at him too. He held his hands up defensively. "Hey, just clarifying. Don't wanna accidentally get your name wrong so you have an excuse to beat me up, y'know?" He grinned, trying to lighten the mood, but she simply turned up nose up at him and kept walking. Kiba sighed, scratching the back of his head when she didn't reply. It was pretty obvious she was angry, but he had absolutely no idea why.
Well, no that was a lie. She was probably angry that he was being ordered to walk her home when she seemed against the idea of any type of protection. But tough luck, because even if Shikamaru didn't tell him to, he would have walked her home anyways. It was late, almost midnight, and his moral code rebelled at the idea of letting a woman walk home alone, no matter how independent she was or whether she was willing to comply.
Kiba snuck another glance at her, letting his gaze rest for a prolonged second, seeing the hard slant of her eyebrows. Her jacket was slung over her forearm, and her purse haphazardly hanging off her shoulder. She wore a simply gray skirt and white blouse and normally Kiba adored a woman in a suit, but she just looked so... dowdy. Even now, the Inuzuka had no idea what drew her to him in that coffee shop. It wasn't like she was drop-dead gorgeous either; of all the women he knew in his life, Ino was probably the only one allowed that kind of compliment. (I mean c'mon, Sakura has a big forehead, and Hinata was cute, but she definitely wasn't gorgeous.)
For others she didn't stand out in the crowd, but why had she stood out to him?
"So you work with Shikamaru?"
Kiba looked over. Temari wasn't looking at him, still stubbornly fixed on the street in front of her. But she had asked a question, and he took that as a good sign.
"Well, not really," he chuckled, and Akamaru barked with him. "We were trainees for the bureau together. All of us were stuck in the same class." He grinned widely as he remembered those days. The five of them – Naruto, Shikamaru, Chouji, Akamaru and himself – were such shit-disturbers. They cut class all the time, hung around the weight room or out at the shooting range and always got in trouble. The only reason they didn't get kicked out was because all of them had connections inside the bureau.
"We?" Temari questioned, her eyes wrinkling in thought.
"Yeah, a bunch of us. Let's see... Naruto and Sasuke, Sakura—the doctor in charge of Ino—oh and Ino of course, with Chouji and Shikamaru too. Shino and Hinata, plus her cousin Neji and Tenten and Lee—"
"I don't know those people," she cut in. But she then continued on to ask, "So you're friends with them? Shikamaru, Ino and Chouji?" Kiba looked over at her, curious as to why she was asking. But at the same time, he sort of already knew. The look in her eyes when they were at Shikamaru's; he had seen it on Hinata's face a dozen times. It irritated him, making him wonder why no one ever looked at him like that.
"Uhh, more Shikamaru and Chouji, but yeah I know Ino." She was a hell of a firecracker. He was glad he wasn't put on her team; that girl would have destroyed his sensitive eardrums. And Kiba would have told Temari that too, had she not lapsed into silence. He watched her think for a moment, the contemplative sheen of her teal blue eyes both mesmerizing and beautiful.
"What was she like?" Temari asked, and Kiba was taken off guard by her question for a moment.
"Who, Ino?" he asked to clarify, and she nodded. Kiba shrugged. "She was annoying." He laughed. "Her and Sakura would have huge shouting matches over Sasuke in the middle of the classroom before the lecture started. And if it wasn't about Sasuke, it was about how one of them would kick the other's ass." He shook his head at the memories, marvelled at the fact that they were so carefree once in their lives. This job... it could suck out all the joys in life. It was that thought that made him frown.
"Come to think of it," he muttered to himself, although Temari could hear him, "She's grown up since then." He sighed. Temari figured he was reminiscing about the time she was kidnapped by that Hidan thug. She wasn't a therapist, but it was almost a given that something like that did a number on the psyche of a person.
"Don't we all?" she asked him, and he smirked and shrugged.
"I don't know," he said, "Naruto seems to be doing a pretty good job of staying a kid."
He laughed at his joke, but didn't seem to mind that Temari didn't. The small smile she was trying to hide was good enough for him.
They reached the lobby of her apartment, and Kiba scratched his head. "Guess this is where I leave you," he told her. Temari nodded, thankful that he wouldn't persist to her front door to make sure she made it in alive. Kiba grinned widely at her, holding his hand out. "We never really got to formally introduce ourselves. I'm Kiba Inuzuka."
Temari stared at his hand for a moment, and then grasped it tightly. "Temari no Sabaku." They shook once, and then let go. "Thank you for walking me back," she said. "I know you probably didn't want to." Kiba blinked in surprise, and then made a noise of disagreement.
"No way," he chuckled. "A man never complains when he has to walk a beautiful woman home." And here, his roguish grin finally appeared.