Last chapter was in Ino's POV, so this one is in Kiba's POV. I hope you enjoy it! :)
-X-
The Jail Cell
by Clementive
-X-
They haven't talked in years.
Kiba laughs when he recognizes her, even claps until Ino bristles and pesters taking tentative steps in the jail cell. Dazed and grumbling, she sits on the hard bench, her hair hanging loosely on her neck, her eyes narrowed to slits but she doesn't stop him. Her makeup is smudged and he can smell the alcohol on her breath.
"I thought I would only see one Yamanaka today," he snickers and she manages to roll her eyes even if her movements are slow and she barely stands.
"Kiba, please... This is a family matter," sheriff Yamanaka said uneasily, his fingers nervously twisting his keys.
"Daddy!" Ino hisses.
"I'm sorry, sweetheart, but I have been clear about... drinking."
"Daddy? You still call him daddy? How old are you?"
"God, Kiba! Mind your own business, would you?"
When Ino turns toward him, her pupils are enlarged, her lips pinched and he feels nothing.
Kiba doesn't know when the soft edges of their bodies disappeared affecting their speech, their walk, to the way they looked at one another and left conversation unfinished or merely unsaid. For now, he merely laughs because they are two teenagers in a jail cell and he is done waiting for the miracle they hoped for in their childhood. Before they stopped talking, there were times when he would clutch his phone a text he sent left unanswered, and he couldn't help but think about the way she kept walking away from him. How cruel and petty she was. Then, he would wonder about the moment he started doing the same. How hypocritical he was.
He doesn't know when they stopped being friends. He only remembers, one day, not hanging on to slivers of her anymore and they never spoke again afterward. They buried their childhood together, pieces of her loudness, the way her lips would quiver because she refused to cry when watching sad movies, her nails digging in his skin the first time he drove without his license. Now, she is head cheerleader with a scholarship going to college next year, and he still isn't sure where he is headed. There are punk clothes, illegal gatherings, and the animal activism, but nothing truly anchors him anymore. Here or there, everywhere is the same. Except, they aren't. Not to each other.
When their friendship still hung between a scowl and grin, unbalanced, it used to be easier, everything flowing between them. Then, everything rested on jealously and unspoken promises and searing anger.
Why him and not me?
Why can't you act like a friend instead of a disregarded lover?
Why did you hide him from me?
Why did you let me go?
There wasn't a moment when it all shifted Kiba decides then, still grinning while her fingers dig in her scalp and her father closes the door cell. It wasn't a time or place. It was him. It was her. They slid out of touch, out of reach, and she began dating Shikamaru and he was looking at no one but Hinata. And they felt it was wrong. It should have been them, together. Years later on top of a mountain of snow where they would count the snowflakes drifting away from them.
The metallic sound of the door locks him with her and all their shared could-have-beens. For the briefest moment, he falls out of love with Hinata when Ino lowers head between her palms. For the briefest moment, they are friends and they can laugh at one another for having been stupid and got caught. For the briefest moment, they are friends again.
"You two have some thinking to do," sheriff Inoichi Yamanaka coughs uneasily and Kiba knows his mother still refused to pay bail.
The moment is gone.
Kiba hears the drifting of sounds of his girlfriend's quiet pleads in the sheriff's receding steps, alongside his mother's yells and his sister's heavy sighs. He will spend the night and his sister will probably be the one to pay bail in the morning. She will remind him that soon, she will give up on him and then he will be alone. And he will almost tell her that he has been alone ever since she moved out. Ever since their mother saw their father in him. Ever since she threw him out of the house in the snow and turned back to Kiba, the momentum of her whole body not dying and receding like it should have, because a part of her expected him to leave too.
"Big night out, Ino?" He yells because she used to be the only one who didn't tell him to tiptoe around. Shut up. Be calm. Be good. Or else.
When Ino winces and moans, slowly lowering herself down onto the bench until she lies on her back. He takes her all in, the ragged clothes, the alcohol and the piercing blue eyes that shift too quickly between him and the door. She used to dream of escaping, he remembers. But then so did he.
"Shut up, Kiba," she growls massaging her forehead. "At least, I'm not dressed like a fashion fascist. Since when are you punk, anyway? Ugh. We should go shopping."
He closes his eyes, hitting slightly the back of his head on the wall behind him in an impatient gesture. The words seem to have tumble out of her lips before she could stop them and he can imagine her stiffening, ready to pretend she hasn't spoken them.
"Your head is too full of human pyramids for you to notice some underling like me," he grins, but his reply is dulled by the years they have ignored one another. "It has been years."
He thinks it should have been easier, picking up the pieces, their last words, as if all along they have simply forgotten to hang up the phone. As if, all along, they have been waiting for the other's voice. He stares at her, certain there should have been something that was indelible between them. She should have felt it, or he should have. She stares at the ceiling, her bracelets clicking around her wrist as she keeps massaging her forehead. He clenches his jaw, when she gives him nothing but silence.
"Or probably because all you see is Shikamaru's pretty eyes. And by eyes, I really don't mean eyes."
Outside, no passing car moves the dust and he wants to hear her breath catch in her throat, a halting sound, a fight rising in her chest. He wants outrage and her finger pointed and waved under his nose and her face red. Word choked out. Words thrown carelessly. Words that would hurt and set him free.
Words he's used to now.
If Ino isn't his friend anymore, she should be his executioner. His mother. His sister. All the women of his life who have given up on him or are about to. She looks up at him, instead, her hair sticking to her moist skin. They lock eyes and he wishes she were Hinata. Maybe then she would have the right words to make him stop wanting nothing but the extreme.
"Are you mentioning his dick because even your girlfriend doesn't want to see yours and you're jealous? Or do you just act like a dick as a general rule? You know what? Either way, just shut up."
Kiba shifts on his bench, frowning. Each time he turns back towards her, he sees something new, something he should have remembered, but he still doesn't know how it all falls together: them in a jail cell after all this time, him tired from running from cops at an illegal gathering for animal protection and her drunk and slurring her words.
"I would have you know I'm a saint if anything. Before I was cuffed by Daddy Yamanaka, I was trying to save dogs from a horrible death at medical testing facility. When was the last time you tried to save anyone, Ino?"
She blinks in the darkness and he almost raises up to crouch down next to her to see what she sees. To understand when they became so bitter. If it was a moment or if it was just them; who they were, stretched to the bone when imprisoned with their demons.
"Right now, I'm just trying to save myself from a headache," Ino whispers to the darkness. He doesn't think she cares whether he hears her or not and he only gulps down his anger. She never tried to save him. Being locked up with him, he has hoped she would have seen as much.
He walks to the barred window, his hands deep in his pockets. He doesn't understand how much he expects of everyone when no one expects anything from him anymore. He's hungry, hanging up on the next word she would utter in his direction like he's hungry for Hinata's forgiveness and his sister's phone call every week.
"God, I think I'm going to be sick," Ino moans, suddenly sitting up.
Kiba grimaces and jerks back towards her. His palms prickle with the knowledge that her father would come back for her if she retches. His punishment for her drinking would never extent beyond that. He stands in front of her because he is selfish and the thought of being alone gnaws at him. Delicately, he brushes her hair out of her face, tucking strands behind her ears. He trembles slightly and she flinches.
They haven't touched in years.
"Just breathe deeply through your nose."
He feels her forehead and she moans again, her eyes fluttering under her lids. Sighing, Kiba lets himself fall heavily on the bench next to her. She shifts, reflecting, hesitating, before she lets her head fall in the crook of his neck. He pulls her closer even if he knows it doesn't change the fact that they aren't friends anymore. She has given up on them, before he has. It makes him both angry and desperate for more.
But everything barely eased out of their past only belongs to this moment.
These walls.
This prison cell.
He kisses her forehead, knowing there would be no trace of it tomorrow.
-X-
2/5
I don't know why this became so bittersweet, but I'm not sorry. Hope you enjoyed it! I would really appreciate it if you would take the time to leave a review! :)