Foreword: Made you look!
Grains of... Half-truths.
Oneshot Series x Spam
Ficlet Four: Bad Habits
Character: Kiba
Everyone has a habit.
Sometimes a bad habit, but a habit nonetheless.
Now, one must keep in mind that dogs are creatures of habit.
And a ninja clan having an affinity to those particular mammals is just prime for habits too.
So it can be easily assumed, that it would be doubly difficult to break a habit once formed, if you just happened to be a part of that clan.
Kiba happened to be a part of that clan.
And the habit had first started off as cute.
No one could deny it.
People would remark on it and coo about this and that.
The praise had encouraged him.
But with time, it got... disturbing. Uncomfortable. Awkward.
But by then, it was far too late to break the habit.
---
Kiba was meeting up with his team today. He drew alot of unnecessary attention. It couldn't be helped.
"Hey guys!"
There were some unenthusiastic returned mumbles. Well, it was Hinata who decided to politely mumble, whilst Shino just chose not to respond at all.
Kiba got closer and waved a hand, greeting Hinata openly.
"Hey Hinata! How're things?" He greeted his female teammate.
Hinata had her fingers interlocked nervously as she looked down to meet his eyes.
"H-hi Kiba. Umm... Things are f-fine." Her voice wavered.
"I've been doing pretty good myself!" Kiba continued the conversation, despite the fact no one asked him his opinion.
A few minutes drew by and she was unable to take it any longer, so Hinata took a step back. It was just too uncomfortable to have a teammate's face that close to your groin.
Kiba didn't notice how uncomfortable he made her and assumed that it was a movement for him to politely greet the other teammate. So he turned to Shino.
"Hey Shino, my man!"
Shino also backed away. He, too, did not appreciate Kiba's face that close to his nether regions. Kiba had let it go as a Shino thing.
Before he could make his teammates more uncomfortable, their teacher had arrived.
Yuuhi Kurenai glanced over Kiba's predicament and an eye twitched.
"Dammit Kiba! I told you to stop that! It's just plain stupid!"
"Is not! I've always carried Akamaru like this!" His same argument everyday for a while.
And thus lay the problem.
When Kiba was twelve, Akamaru was a puppy who either sat in the hood of his jacket or drawled over his shoulders or head. People had complimented him on it and Kiba kept the habit. Now, years down the road, no one ever expected him to keep that particular habit, nor did he really consider Akamaru growing bigger.
So here we are, Kiba hunched over enough so that his face was at people's groin level, while a rather large dog that appeared as heavy as he was, laid on top of him.
If you can picture that, you'll be able to understand how awkward it is for everyone involved.
And if you can't, let's just say it elicits children to remark to their parents how that dog looks to be trying to jump over that man but can't quite get over. Needles to say, their eyes were covered or they were quickly shushed and to not encourage the pervert-man.
Luckily, Kiba is always fully dressed. Thank God for small mercies.
"As your teacher, I cannot in good conscience let this continue. It is bad for..." 'Your teammates and your teacher, having to be seen with you.' Kurenai wanted to say. Instead, she finished with, "your back. Bad for your back."
"Nah, it's okay teach'. I can easily carry Akamaru like this for the whole day." He replied cheerfully. He even went on to hop up and down to prove his point, the motion causing horrible mental scarring to the rest of Team 8.
"That's what I was afraid of." Kurenai mumbled, her hand covered her eyes.
And that was always an occurrence too. Someone (mostly Kurenai) would try to convince him that his habit was not a good idea, but Kiba always shrugged it off in a ridiculously naive manner. It was very unnerving how impervious to logic he was!
So she gave up like, she always does at this point, and called the attention of her team for her announcements.
"Okay everyone, if you haven't heard yet, Naruto's back in town..." She paused as her team looked to each other, a little excited at the development. Or in Shino's case, stay rigid. But the moment didn't last long as far as Hinata's briefly happy moment got, she took one glance at Kiba and promptly became a little disheveled.
"Anyway, I've decided we could drop by and then we can pick up on our training afterwards." Their teacher stated.
The team agreed to that and started walking into town.
"So Kiba..." Kurenai started.
"Hmm?" His noncommittal reply pushed for her question to continue.
"How about taking Akamaru for a walk?" She asked, hoping to avoid the embarrassing stares if the dog was at least walking on its own.
"Nah, I already did." He grinned, completely unaware of the situation.
Kurenai could only sigh in resignation. Hopefully, she'll be rid of him the next chuunin exam (whether promoted or six feet under, it was starting to matter less and less to her). In a few years, she'll realise to just pawn him off to another genin team, since although Kiba would win many chuunin tournaments, no one felt comfortable enough to promote a guy a who looked like his dog was trying to...
ahem
Finding themselves at the tower (and the centre of attention thanks to Kiba), Kurenai turned to address her students...
...and completely gaped at seeing Hinata and Shino having taken desperate measures to not have to be associated with their teammate.
Hinata had taken the guise of her older cousin; Neji (who apparently was already subject to rumor and this stunt was fuelling the fire).
Shino thought he would be more inconspicuous if he wore a brown paper bag over his head.
Kurenai was torn with two different emotions. The first being pride for how clever her students had been react to the problem. The second had been scandal as being the only person to be recognised amongst their team with their unfortunate member.
She'd just been about to confiscate Shino's brown paper bag, when one of the office doors burst open and Naruto exploded onto the picture.
Unfortunately for the team, Kiba was the first to notice him.
"Hey Naruto! Been a while since you've been back!" Kiba shouted, bringing much more unwanted attention on his team yet again.
"Hey dog-breath! I-" Then Naruto paused in mid-turn, his eyes went wide.
"OH SWEET MOTHER OF--" He caught himself, shook his head and tried to gather his control.
"That is to say... Ummm..." Completely at a loss to what to say, the blond genin attempted to scrounge together a polite reply.
"Congratulations...?" Of course, Naruto was never really subtle either. No matter how hard he tried.
At Kiba's confused face, Naruto gestured to Akamaru on top of Kiba's back and tried again.
"Condolences...?" Again, his subtlety suffered as much as his subterfuge.
Kiba realised where Naruto was heading with this (well, not really, he just figured that Naruto was talking about Akamaru) and laughed it off.
"Haha! Nah man, it's just Akamaru, you remember? That puppy that sits in my hood all the time?" He corrected Naruto's forgetfulness by reminding him of his dog.
Naruto glanced back between Kiba and the dog.
"Ermm... Right." And no matter how clueless the orange-clad boy is, he knows when to drop subjects that get far too uncomfortable.
Even for him.
Then Naruto stepped back. Kiba's face was too close to his groin for his liking.
---
Dogs are creatures of habit.
More so, if you're from a ninja clan with an affinity for dogs.
And though it's possible to break habits, it was too late for some people.
Author's Notes:
I thought I could do better and push the envelope, but then I realised I didn't really want to. It made me too uncomfortable to even think about it further...
Anyway, I'll be doing either: Neji or Tenten, since both will have a connected fic. Then it'll be Sasuke's afterwards for all you Uchiha fans.