I have nothing but love for the KibaIno ship, even if it's not popular or anything, these two together just warm my heart. Thank you for reading my fic and shipping them as hard as me! Now onward to the epilogue ^_^
-X-
Two years later...
The first time Kiba tries to propose to Ino, he loses the ring. His fingers twitch over his jacket, and he laughs absentmindedly at Ino's comment, still patting his chest. He then discreetly reaches for his pantsuit's pockets. Desperately. Urgently. Until, he jerks, he shakes with all limbs, and he is almost feverish when he freezes, his palms ice-cold, his mind numb. He briefly catches her glance, her repetitive blinks, her confusion, and he smiles wolfishly in reassurance.
"Happy anniversary, hun."
"And to many others to come..." Kiba replies, his mind swimming with her lost ring.
When Ino reaches for his hand, he squeezes back, staring blankly at her empty wedding finger. In the way, she runs her fingertips up his sleeve, he can tell, she thinks it's about a case, and she is trying to pull him back, inch by inch, until they are alone in the restaurant where the clang of silver and plates echoed muffled and their heads lean toward each other. The candlelight accentuates her features and her dress is the purple one she wore for their first date two years ago. He doesn't know if she realizes how it cuts through him, draws out his breath as if they have travelled back in time, to two years ago, when he wasn't certain she would show. Two years ago, he had waited for her, his gaze skipping, jumping, from one entrance to another.
"I love that suit."
Kiba stills, deflated, his mouth slightly open as he stares at her.
"What's wrong, hun?"
"I changed my jacket when I came back from work," his face blank, Kiba sucks in a breath when he realizes he is the architect of his own failed proposal. Over her wine glass, Ino raises one eyebrow at him. For a moment, he is distracted again, because she looks beautiful, her dark lips, closing around a sip, before setting the glass back down.
"Yes... I told you that jacket would look better and Akamaru yapped in approval."
His lips twitch when he presses her hand to his lips.
"You always have good ideas," he mutters weakly.
"I have good taste, Kiba, there's a difference," she replies coyly, and he shivers when her mouth brushes against his neck. He wants to turn toward her and press her against his chest, nuzzling her neck, but all he can think about is the jacket on the sofa, the ring inside, and all the scenarios about her discovering the ring when they return to the apartment flash through his mind.
He gulps.
-X-
Epilogue: The Restaurant
by Clementive
-X-
The second time Kiba tries to propose to Ino, the doorbell rings one hour before his restaurant reservation. He stiffens under the weight of Ino's body pressed against him. Her touch spreads fireworks under his skin, his hands tangled in her hair, aching for more, matching her warmth, the curves of her body.
"Are you expecting someone?" Kiba mutters, his breath laboured and hot against her neck. Ino slides off him and he moans, gripping her hand before she can straighten her blouse and smooth back her hair. He grins wolfishly at her despite his shivering with the loss of her.
"Let it ring. We are not there. Now, come back-" Kiba begins huskily.
"Inuzuka, I know you're here. I can see light inside your apartment."
Even apart from him, he can feel Ino's body turned to lead. Growing heavy and mechanic, it jerks, spins away from him. She pulls at her shirt, roughly, and her blue eyes flash, dangerous and uncertain.
"Oh look, your other girlfriend is here," she hisses at him, shaking his hand off, then louder she shouts: "It's open!" Ino glares down at him as she ties her hair back into a ponytail. She then spins on her heels.
"Ino!" He tries miserably before sitting up, stunned.
"You forgot we were supposed to work on the Shan case." Neji states placidly from the hallway.
Neji's silhouette blurs, as he sits down, because all Kiba can see is Ino retreating into their bedroom, after she nods curtly at Neji. When she slams the door, he feels nothing but the weight of his work, imprisoning them in a city she likes, but doesn't love, among plants, she knows but doesn't love. He winces, running a tired hand on his face.
"Normal beings begin conversation with "hello, how are you?"" Kiba snaps at his colleague. Neji gives a noncommittal grunt, already neatly setting the paperwork on the coffee table.
"You look disheveled. I thought it would be best to avoid prolonging your embarrassment by jumping straight to work." Neji looks at him, expectantly, as he normally does when he is unsure of the social response.
"You never said tonight-tonight."
"I said exclusively tonight," Neji replies coolly. "Tenten insists that we visit her parents tomorrow and court begins the day after tomorrow. It's all logistics. Now, where are your notes?" His tone brushes by him and Kiba's body suddenly aches, exhausted, and flushed. Even if Neji and him have settled in their old dynamics from College, he recently only takes his role grudgingly. Ino expects privacy and intimacy when his colleague expects work and results.
"Hold on, I need to cancel a reservation." Kiba reaches for his phone, automatically dialling the number of the restaurant.
"You really need to hire a better secretary. You're disorganized and all over the place."
"He really is!" Ino snaps from their bedroom.
Neji nods curtly, one eyebrow raised, as if to punctuate Ino's intervention. Kiba clenches his jaw, pressing his phone harder to his ear.
"She's a very sensible woman unlike your other conquests."
"Thank you!"
Kiba only grunts in response staring at his jacket spread out on the sofa closest to him. His proposal was the one thing he had planned; their restaurant, the ring, the jacket with the ring inside.
"Hi, yes, this is to cancel a reservation for tonight..."
-X-
The fifth time Kiba tries to propose to Ino, his eyes are narrowed to slits, his jaw clenched hard, painfully locked. Despite his anger, his annoyance, he forces a laugh that matches Ino's excitement when she reaches across their table to embrace her friend. Proposals number 3 and 4 were also interrupted by Neji and Tenten.
For five days in a row, he has reserved their table and brought the ring and it never happened.
"God, you've already ordered drinks?" Tenten laughs and slides across the booth, shrugging off her coat. "I'm starving! What's good here?" Her eyes twinkle when she looks up at Kiba. "I mean you keep suggesting this restaurant, Kiba. You could vary it a little. You know, live a little, all that mumbo-jumbo from the old wild west. It's the third time we come here this week."
Kiba presses his glass of wine to his lips, trying to catch Neji's eye. Inwardly, he boils, he expands, he carries them out with anger, turning to hatred. His fingers clench around the foot of his glass as they order their drinks, even if Ino smiles at him.
"Kiba is loyal to a fault," Ino answers and squeezes his knee, but he barely feels it because he realizes Tenten is a saboteur. Tenten, with her military tattoos snaking up her arms, and her body as graceful as deadly. Tenten, who once unflinchingly explained to him in macabre details, all the ways he would suffer if he hurts Ino. "He brings me here all the time, especially in the last few months. Excuse me, gentleman. Tenten, you coming?"
"Yup. I'm all for woman bonding experiences," Tenten laughs, her muscles rippling, severing, across her arms and back as she stands up and follows Ino. The two women walk, hunched, other each other, their whispers and laughter vibrant, even if they clash, one in a pale pink dress, the other in a black one. When Kiba is certain they are out of earshot, he leans over to Neji.
"You need to make Tenten stop with this nonsense." He snaps and shakily, he empties his wine glass. The alcohol glides bitter in his throat, his chest already hot and uncomfortable from his suit, his tie, his anger collapsing within him, beating at his rib cage.
"Make her stop, what?"
"She's sabotaging my relationship with Ino."
"She's not."
"Yes, she is!"
"She's not, because I am." Neji answers briskly and Kiba flinches. "I figured if I showed up 80% of the time, it would stress you out and your plans would unravel."
"You fucking bastard!" Kiba quells his reflex to slam his palm on the table and shout. Instead, he knocks his knuckles on the tablecloth, as he looks around at the poised businessmen and rich couples leaning on silent conversations. He still doesn't fit, his suit feels suddenly too big, the texture too rough.
Inwardly, he is free and he rages, and he is as loud as he wants to be.
He leans across the table, his nostrils flaring.
"I can't believe you did this! I was trying to propose!"
Neji should have known how important it was for him; belonging, committing to a family.
"I know and I believe the correct terms are, "I'm screwing with you"."
Neji watches him pointedly, his watch gleaming as his long fingers slide up and down the foot of his wine glass. His cold white eyes follows his reaction, smashed, condensed, alternating between shock and realization.
"I thought we were good." Kiba hesitates, frozen, his lips barely moving.
"We are," Neji briefly glances over to the entrance of the lady's room, then he returns his gaze toward Kiba. "You were my only friend during college. After my accident, you probably were my only real friend. I know things change, but I hope this wouldn't. We used to test each other repeatedly- which you wrongfully called pranks. I know your life is now... past your bachelor status, but you should have mentioned you were proposing."
"You're mad, because I didn't tell you?" A part of Kiba softens, because things do have changed. Suddenly, he realizes that as overbearing as Neji has been recently, he has also been concerned and dedicated to their friendship.
"This isn't the issue. We're just both... growing apart, I suppose. I thought we would do one last 'bromance' escapee as we used to." Neji clears his throat, looking away. "Now, I booked you a table at the Thousandth Stairs."
"Here is where Ino and I went on our first date." Kiba groans, his mouth twitching between a snarl and a smile. It all vanishes when Neji looks around with disdain. While Kiba sees red curtains and formally dressed waiters, Neji sees beyond the façade and it guts him, thinking of all the ways they still didn't belong in the same world. Once their story, their friendship, included Neji teaching him good manners and secrets of a world Kiba had only glimpsed at in movies. Once, Neji didn't understand friendship until Kiba showed him that it didn't have to be twisted and painful, until he didn't have to leave him for dead to have his back.
"The table near the window would have been a better choice," Neji says slowly, watching him carefully and Kiba grins back. 'Bromance, indeed...'
"This is the table where we had our first date. Symbolism counts, you robot," Stubbornly, Kiba points at the table.
"Hn. You really should have booked the best table."
"Shut up!" He reddened. "What about you and Tenten?"
Neji's expression hardens, but it is quickly swallowed back, his jaw unclenches, his fingers spread neatly on the table cloth, back on momentum. Kiba wonders if he has imagined it at all; the slight quiver in his shoulder, then the inclination of the head.
"Tenten and I aren't like Ino and you. She serves her country and it comes first. I serve the Law and it comes first."
Kiba tilts his head on the side, watching Neji's cold expression, expecting a hint of dismay, a hint of something that would finally help him make sense of Neji and Tenten, together. They bend and shift in opposite directions, Neji, cold, and stiff, and Tenten, pretended warmth and fluid.
"I just hope you don't come to regret it one day, Neji. Commitments don't have to be scary and to mean that you sacrifice the Law with a capital L or the Country with a capital C."
"Hn. So do you want the reservation or do I use it for myself?"
"Yes! Just give it! And the champagne is on you."
Neji nods briefly with a hint of a smile, holding up his hand for Tenten as if on cue. He doesn't let her sit back down as he slides off the booth.
"Come on, Ten, Kiba has expressed the need to be alone with Ino. You were right."
"A-alright..." Tenten cocks her head on the side, a faint smile on her lips. She doesn't break eye contact with Ino when Neji drapes her shoulders with her dark pashmina. Kiba rolls his eyes at Neji and pretends not to see how pleasantly flustered Ino is.
"I'll call you, I guess," Ino raises her glass at Tenten.
"Have fun, kids!" Tenten waves at them and her laughter ripples from her throat to her back, as always, as if parts of her are broken, misaligned. They walked away, in long strides, Neji's hand nested in Tenten's low back. She already gestures, as if they are resuming a conversation they have suspended when they joined them. When they cross the doorway and disappear in the night, Kiba leans back about the booth, watching Ino carefully.
"I don't get them." He admits as he moves closer to her.
"Really? I think, I do. They're both workaholics."
"Okayyy, now let's talk about us. Two hotties in a very fancy restaurant. How non-workaholics-ish."
Gracefully, she avoids his lips, shrugging him off slightly.
"What is it?" He pouts and pushes a loose strand of her hair behind her ear.
"I don't know why we keep coming here, Kiba. Tenten is right... We should vary our outings a bit. Lately, it feels like you've your own plans about where we eat and you seem so stressed out lately! I know you are loyal to your tailor, your dog, your cereal brand... But five days in a row, Kiba!"
He winces plays with his thumb rings, until he knows how to avoid the traps he had set to himself. 'The architect of my own demise... For crying out loud,' He thinks.
"Hey! My dog, my tailor and my food are all loyal to me! It's only fair I choose them over and over again."
Ino laughs, rolls her eyes, and he watches her face, the curve of her neck, hungrily. He shakes himself and snaps back to reality before he can derail from the plan again.
"I guess I can cheat on this restaurant a little. How about the Thousandth Stairs?"
"Did you get a reservation...?" Avidly, Ino searches his face, her perfume assaulting his sense. Dating her is like walking through forests, skipping through gardens and reaching the top of a mountain. Floral. All senses mixed and changing constantly.
"Yeah, someone owed me a favour. We'll even drink champagne on his tab." He draws random patterns on her naked arm with his fingers, relieved she doesn't see through his smoke screen.
"I love you."
"You mean you love that you can call Sakura to brag about it."
"I can have many agendas, honey." She inclines her head, delicately, her expression, secretive.
"Fine, in that case, I love you too."
Kiba kisses her roughly, his hands gentle, and her mouth answers, opened, willing, as her body moulds against him. As demanding, as brash. When they break apart, customers and waiters are staring at them disapprovingly, but she smiles, serene, happy, ignoring them. This is one of the many reasons, he was drawn to her again and again. She stares straight ahead, dedicated to herself, to the people she loves and not even once, pausing to wonder about what others think.
-X-
Ino shivers in the brisk wind as she sits down at their table. Her long blond hair hangs freely down her back, tickling at her neck. Her glance gleams, amused, darting back to him and the waiter as he pushes the chair below her to allow her to sit. Kiba knows then he never needs to pretend, Ino finds all of it ridiculous, amusing, and she folds in out of the places he brings her to, always herself, always honest. He opens his serviette with a flourish before setting it across his laps just to hear her laugh. They face each other, their hands already reaching, gripping each other, guiding their gaze across too many forks and knives. The terrace of the Thousand Stairs overlooks the city, turning bluish and orange as the sun sets, as the lights of the city ignite and spread.
"This is amazing," Ino says, but she looks only at him.
"You're amazing."
She blushes faintly. He has planned to wait until the dessert, but he doesn't care. She had seen him, yelling at the bottom of a mountain of snow, in jail, and he has felt her body and kissed her for the first time, after following her to a roof. There shouldn't be formality or a specific plan, because they are together, and he needs to stop thinking she may leave or that he doesn't fit, because they fit together and it is all that matters.
Before the waiter appears again, he opens the jewellery box, both his elbows on the table, despite the cutlery and the serviette and the ambiance. Her eyes widen. He had chosen an amethyst instead of a diamond, the white gold band sparkling and dotted by the reflection of the light caught in the gem.
"Kiba..."
"I never had a normal family growing up, but since two years, you've shown me that a house full of love, a family, could be two people and a dog and I've never been happier."
"Oh, you idiot..." Ino laughs softly, squeezing his hand.
"I love you and I can only hope to survive whatever jungle-"
"They are potted plants, Kiba!" she interrupts again, and he laughs, careless, unshakable. She could interrupt him a thousand times that he would still find her way to her, because they are loud and unapologetic. And they interrupt each other even when they listen to each other.
"Jungle," He insists with a grin, "you'll grow next. As long as it makes you happy, because that's all I ever want, to make you happy. Ino Yamanaka, will you marry me?"
"Yes, I'll marry you. Of course."
He slides the ring on her finger and he grins, bursting inside out with excitement, happiness. He laughs quietly against her mouth when she grips his collar, kissing him hungrily. Abruptly, she breaks away.
"Now say potted plants," she whispers in his ear, licking his earlobe.
"Potted plants," he answers breathless, and he presses her to his chest until their shadows merge, drawing a single circle of destiny and love.
-X-
I intend to write companion fics for this universe (coined the Forced Encounter series), one for NejiTen and a second for NaruSaku. Possibly/potentially/eventually I may add one for SasuHina.
Please, let me know what you think! Thank you! :)