Simple Addition
by Ember
Warnings: Yaoi, possibly some het, but most people aren't vehemently against that, maybe a little violence, probably some smex, that is; definitely some lime, maybe some lemon. Don't look at me that way. I take no responsibility for sugar-induced cavities influenced by the fluff in this fic so please check your dental plan to be sure.
Pairings: Kiba/Naruto, possibly Shikamaru/Sasuke, maybe a couple others.
A/N: Naruto and all characters therein belong to Kishimoto. The below lyrics are by the Killers, 'Mr. Brightside.'
So. I'm almost finished with Fireworks and I needed something else to occupy my mind. Besides, you know, all the homework and such that always comes with the school year. So I poked around Naruto fanfics and realized that I, myself, have never seen a KibaNaru fic.
I love KibaHina and KibaShino, and of course SasuNaru, but it occurred to me it could be a lot of fun to write KibaNaru. I mean, they're fun characters. They desecrate things. And so... Enjoy, my minions of yaoi fluff. Enjoy.
--
Coming out of my cage
And I've been doing just fine
Gotta gotta be down
Because I want it all
It started out with a kiss
How did it end up like this?
It was only a kiss
It was only a kiss
--
It was going to be brilliant. Absolutely, undeniably brilliant, in a way that no one, no matter how stuffy, or stupid, or old, or thick, or blind, could possibly deny. In years to come, in generations to come, they would still be talking about it. You just don't stop thinking about something like this overnight.
Naruto knew a lot about brilliance. By his own reasoning, he owned a great deal of the brilliance of Konoha, if not in the three-second-problem-solved way Sakura had, at least in a more practical and infinitely more interesting way. To himself, he called it Naruto-brilliance. To everyone else, he just called it incredible.
Shikamaru- who was, to the blonde's mind, the only challenger for his title of the Most Brilliant Genin of Konoha- called it 'incredibly lucky,' but Shikamaru didn't know how much work went into every little detail of every little prank. He couldn't have possibly pulled these things off without thinking; how exactly did someone make a life-size doll of the Third Hokage drop down from the ceiling when Iruka pulled down the overhead projector, dripping fake blood onto teacher and floor respectively, without planning it out perfectly, breaking into the school after it closed, and hooking it all up to perfection? How did one botch the fireworks display so completely that the only ones that took off made sickly little showers of pale-colored sparks without even writing out the details of one's plan?
And how exactly did one change the flow of the irrigation of the entire village to make a giant wording of "Naruto" in water and mud- not an easy medium- in the Hokage's front yard without the careful engineering that only Naruto could ever, possibly pull off?
He grinned and, turning over the last bit of dirt to complete the 'o', threw the cheap shovel onto the ground. It bounced and lay still and the kyuubi vessel, humming to himself, ran back over the 'N' and buried the hose nozzle into the loose dirt. If he timed it perfectly, the water would turn the wording to mud without blurring it into the dirt and lawn around it. It had taken a few days and the lives of several brave flower and grass blade sacrifices, but he'd managed to get his entire name in the old whore's lawn while Tsunade, with all her Hokage business, spent the nights in the office. It might take a couple weeks for the yard to dry out completely and maybe a few months to get the grass replanted but it would be worth it for that one moment when everyone would see who was really meant to be in power, who was really the coolest and most awesome shinobi in Konoha, if not the world.
He walked around, looking for the knob to turn on the water, when he heard footsteps. Damn. No one was supposed to know about this yet- but hiding the evidence would prove to be too difficult at the moment. This wasn't like most of his graffiti, this couldn't be covered up by shoving paint under a blanket until the danger passed, or pushing a spray-paint can down his pants and pretending the intruder chased Sakura away. (That had only happened once, and it had almost worked when he had sneezed and ended up accidently pressing the tip of the spray, getting a glob of bright, electric blue on the inner crotch of his orange pants. A little embarrassing.) Faced with the choice, he ducked under a row of untrimmed hedges in the Hokage's front yard and knelt in the dirt, waiting for the late-night visitors to leave.
"God dammit, slow down." The voice was high-pitched and whining; unmistakably Ino. Naruto pulled a face even though there was no one there to see him. A lot of guys thought Ino was cute (though she, of course, had eyes only for Sasuke) but Naruto couldn't see why. Sakura was cuter and cooler. Like Naruto was cuter and cooler than Sasuke. They were made for each other.
"Why don't you try and keep up? You're the one that wanted to come, you know." The voice was loud, half-yelled, and almost rough, and Naruto almost cursed aloud. He bit his tongue to keep from actually speaking and frantically started clawing at the ground, trying to get the wetter dirt near the air so that even he could smell it. Maybe the stronger scent would mask his. It was hard to hide from Kiba, and the bastard would be thrilled to find him here. Naruto gritted his teeth. Stupid Kiba.
Ino snorted and it was quiet for a second, the footsteps slowly shuffling closer. "I don't even know why we're here, Kiba. I mean, you didn't tell me all of it." There was a short scuffle and Ino cursed quietly; Naruto wondered for a second before he realized the girl had tripped. The footsteps continued. "Doubtlessly, you want to vandalize something, but..."
Kiba barked out laughter, and the footsteps paused for a second before starting again. "Heh. Yeah, well, Shino didn't want to be a part of it and Hinata hated the idea so it was you, Shikamaru, Sakura, or Choji. Shikamaru, I didn't even bother to ask; he wouldn't want to bother. Choji's a fat ass. Sakura's out, she's a pussy in the end of things."
Hey, Sakura was an option but Naruto and Sasuke weren't? Okay, Sasuke wouldn't want to be a part of it, he was a prick, but Naruto...
"Naruto?" Kiba's voice grew a little quieter and a trifle more rough, and Naruto tensed before he remembered his writing in the yard. Fuck! Now, Kiba would start to try and smell him out, make sure he wasn't hiding... He couldn't hear the indrawn air or see Kiba from his angle and obscured as everything was by the prodding, painfully sharp branches all around him, but he could almost feel the air being drawn away from him, carrying traitorous messages to the canine-nin. The footsteps had completely stopped. Neither Kiba nor Ino said anything. The silence was almost oppressive, dotted once or twice with uncertainties- did they run off to tell? Did they know he was here? Were they gone, yet?
"Hi, Naruto." Kiba's voice came from maybe six inches over Naruto's head. The blonde made a sound less macho than a squeak and fell backwards, staring upwards, to where Kiba stuck with Chakra to the wall of the Hokage's home, hands and feet glued to the brick, feet above his head. "Down here for a little desecration of private property?"
Akamaru stood beside the bushes, sitting on his haunches. Ino stood behind him, hands on her hips, regarding the Genin on his back in front of her with a singular distaste. Ino hated him probably more than anyone else in Konoha, mostly because he was on Sasuke's team and was awarded the privilege of being the black-haired genius' rival. Naruto scowled at her. Well, he hated Ino back!
"And what are you doing here, Kiba?" the blonde growled back. "Here to spy on your rivals? Or just want some snog-time with Ino?"
"Ugh," Ino replied, glaring down at him. Of course, Naruto knew damned well that Ino wouldn't lower her standards to Kiba from Sasuke the Great Prick, but he liked petting them backwards. He grinned- brilliantly- and untangled himself meticulously from the bush.
"Or maybe we're here to make sure the Hokage's home is ready for her. Tsunade should be home in an hour or so... Jesus, Naruto, when she sees your name dug up in his yard, do you think she'll suspect it was you?"
Naruto frowned at the canine-nin. "I'm not scared of her."
Kiba rolled his eyes and Ino snorted disgustedly. "You will be," she growled, "When you finally push her off the edge and she disbands your fucking team."
Naruto scowled. "She can't do that."
"Yeah, she can. What do you think happened to Teams 1-6?"
Naruto thought back and blanched. "You lying bitch."
Kiba raised an eyebrow. "Jeeze, Naruto. We were going to offer to wipe out your name and cover for you, but if you're going to be profane about it."
"You bastard. You wouldn't actually do that."
"I guess we won't." The two shrugged almost simultaneously and turned away from the blonde. Naruto worried his lip, then finally conceded. His pride wasn't worth his dream.
"Fine. Fuck it." He grimaced and contrived to sound exaggeratedly, ironically meek. "Help, Kiba?"
Kiba paused, reflecting; should he make Naruto beg or just let it go? He wasn't really a letting-go kind of person but he really wanted Naruto out of the picture so he could continue with his plan. "Of course, little Naru-kun. Run home, blondie, we'll finish things here."
The kyuubi vessel was obviously holding in his profanity by the skin of his nails and he turned on his heel and marched away with a general air of frustration around him. Ino chuckled to herself as soon as he was out of earshot.
"You know, Ino," Kiba said slowly, pulling the rope from inside his jacket, "Teams 1-6 just don't work as closely to us as the other teams-"
"I know, Kiba." She flashed her devil-may-care smile as she started to help him. "You know, he really is gullible, hmm?"
Kiba knew that certain glint in Ino's eye, even though he wasn't really close to her, being on different teams; you had to maintain a constant distance of six miles from Ino to keep from knowing that glint. It shone even in the relative darkness, like another star. "What the fuck are you planning?"
She only grinned at him and continued playing out the rope; he dropped his half to get her attention and she finally turned to him with the half of her face not facing Konoha in shadow. "Simple, Kiba-kun. It's only the one joke that would finally get you one-up on him."
The canine-nin rolled his eyes. "I don't care whether he has a stronger reputation than I do." He smiled a savage grin and picked up the rope again. "I have more charm, anyway."
"That's part of the plan, too."
Expecting, at the very least, the girl's half of the rope to be thrown at his shoulder, Kiba looked back over to her. Her smile was stretched, now, like she couldn't really contain her glee. He sighed and took the bait. "Alright. What is it?"
She snickered, knowing full well that the buoy was underwater and the line was already starting to stretch. "It's really quite simple."
"When someone repeats that it's 'simple' enough times, I start to get worried that, inversely, it'll be really, really complicated."
"Shut up, Kiba." She held up her hand to forestall his further comments and continued. "What we're going to do-"
"What I MIGHT do."
"...is lead Naruto on."
There was a pause. Fuck. It does sound really simple. "Lead Naruto on? Meaning...?"
Her laugh could have been windchimes. Or glass breaking. "You'll pretend to like him. You'll get him to love you. Then we'll all laugh. The end!"
For a second, she couldn't determine if Kiba was laughing or had suddenly had a coughing fit. After a while, though, she realized he was coughing. When he had regained control he wheezed, with obvious disbelief, "Pretend to like him? Like... like making out with him?" His continued coughing cut her off. "You're fucking with me, right? Where's the fucking camera? You can't be serious."
She shook her head. Honestly, Kiba could be so blind. "Of course I'm serious. You dolt." He stared at her and she sighed. "Alright, you don't have to actually make out with him. Just pretend you want to." Her teeth flashed, white in the shadows of her face. Kiba frowned. "Then, when it's obvious he wants to, you can cut it short. It'll still be funny."
Kiba frowned a little deeper. Akamaru whined at his feet. "I don't know," he said, slowly, not wanting to sound too concerned- after all, hadn't he been part of the knot of people who'd picked on Naruto since they were all young?- but not knowing whether this wasn't going a little too far. "Don't you think... I dunno, it's a little..."
"Mean?" She shrugged. "Not really. I mean, Naruto has a good sense of humor. It'll take him a while," she grinned again, "but he'll come around, probably laugh at it eventually."
Kiba rolled his eyes. "Alright," he said, determined to find some flaw in Ino's logic, "how exactly would I start this, anyway? Just come up to him in the middle of the street and start reciting Shakespeare's Sonnet 64?"
"I'll handle that." Ino dropped her part of the rope and walked closer, smiling up at the canine-nin conspiringly.
"And if you don't?"
She shrugged. "I won't expect anything out of you. After all, if I can't do it, who can?"
¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
Naruto ran some water in a pot that was more-or-less clean, pulled some ramen out of his stash in the cabinet, and threw it on the counter, staring down at the water, waiting for it to boil. He was starving. No matter that it was almost midnight; really, when did it become a bad time for ramen? He grinned and threw the square of noodles into the water, waiting for a second before adding the powdered seasoning. Shrimp. Not his favorite, but a good flavor. Maybe he had something good to put in it. He thought back, couldn't remember the last time he'd cleaned the older food out of the back of the fridge, and thought better of opening the door to look for something. Out of sight, out of mind.
There was a note pinned to his window; he opened it and pulled in the slip of paper, leaving the window open for the bit of breeze he'd felt. It was Sakura's handwriting, hastily written- an appointment to meet Kakashi. Eight o'clock. Naruto groaned out loud and crumpled the paper, dropping it carelessly into the pile of flotsam on his table. He hated it when they had to meet early- especially when he didn't get to sleep until two or three in the morning, anyway.
He ate his noodles hurriedly, then dropped the pot into the sink- this time he would wash it, eventually- and ran upstairs, counting off the seconds. Three seconds, to the top of the stairs, four to his bedroom. He smiled to himself. That was better than yesterday's run- though he was too tired to figure out by how much right now. He was tired. Pulling off his jacket and pants, he crawled into bed in his underwear and collapsed against the pillows, leaving the hall light on outside his door, turning to face the wall so that the strip of light wouldn't bother him.
So early. Stupid Kakashi. He wished a silent goodnight to his house- there was no one else around, after all- and, curled around himself, fell asleep.