It's A Secret

Yugao

Summary: It was a secret, the budding feeling inside her.

Author's Note: My college schedule suuucks. Big time. On Tuesdays and Thursdays I have huge gaping three-hour breaks in between my classes. Do you know how immensely bored a person can get during three hours? Luckily though, I had a pencil and notepad with me, so I came up with this little KibaIno sucker. Thanks goes to Ysabel who was my Hinata in this story. Hahaha. Anyway, read and review if you can or must. Reading tip: mind the italics.

Disclaimer: I own no one.

Just so you know, you'll never know

Some secrets weren't meant to be told

But I found the cure to growing older.

Hinata-chan. Hinata-chan. Hinata-chan. Hinata-chan…

Ino held her friend's name in her mind for as long as she possibly could, as if a repetitive string of "Hinata-chan"s would remind her why she was here, a long ways from her house and her team's training ground. It was a particularly warm afternoon, as the sun had brazenly refused to muffle its radiance as noon came and passed.

Of course, Ino had absolutely no idea that he would be here was well. After all, they weren't twelve anymore, and they weren't always obligated to train with their teammates. As far as she was concerned (and she certainly wasn't concerned – no, not at all), he was just a ghost of their genin years.

But if she was so sure of this, whatever possessed her to keep going on with her mental repetition of Hyuuga Hinata's name?

Maybe – and this is a wild guess – it was because of last night.

The pouring rain and the darkest night of the year were never really the best combination. She had just come home from an excruciatingly long and painful solo mission (the type that needed persuasion more than violence, and Tsunade believing it needed a woman's touch, sent Ino to do the job) when it had rained, long and hard. Shivers went up and down her spine as she hurried to find shelter. Her long, slender hands were clasping her pale arms, running up and down them as if the extra movement would keep them from getting cold and wet.

Trees. In the distance she could see trees. The training grounds were the nearest, though probably not the most practical, places to find shelter. Beggars couldn't be choosers, though, so she took off towards the closest of the fields to find a huge tree to take cover under and wait out the rain.

Unconsciously, she watched him run, halfway across the grassy training area, still wet with morning dew and the remnants of last night's rain. He had changed a lot from when she first knew him, that much was certain. His hair had grown out slightly, though it was still dark brown and short and utterly unkempt. He had, of course, grown – taller, more muscular, more chiseled and well-defined.

His eyes, though, had not changed at all. They still contained that same chained, suppressed sparkle to them.

Whether she liked these changes or not, Ino could not quite tell.

"Ino?"

For some reason, his voice – gruff but gentle at the same time, as if he were a wolf forcing back his own feral nature in exchange for a moment or two of softness – drowned out the rhythmic, almost musical thrumming of rain on earth.

She hadn't expected to see anyone out here. It was late, it was cold, it was wet – none of those made for a very appealing night to be out of the house. However, he was there, and she was there, and the sheer closeness they shared was enough to make her shiver – though that could have been attributed to the coldness of the chill night wind.

She doubted it.

He had apparently noticed that she was staring. Who wouldn't have? Her tourmaline eyes had watched him quite openly, and she had made no effort to hide that. She might have, had she realized she was looking at him, but by the time she did it was too late. He paused for a moment, Akamaru stopping at his master's heels beside him.

The gesture made her heart skip a beat, though she couldn't imagine why. Something was changing about how she was feeling, how she was watching him, how her heart was beating. Inside her, something was changing. She would not dare admit it to anyone else, nor would she claim ignorance as to what it was. She knew exactly what she was feeling. She had felt it often enough before.

But it was a secret.

As if she were playing some maudlin role in a sappy, overdone romantic series, the kind of life you only read, talked, and dreamed about, he pulled off his jacket. For a moment she stared guilelessly into his face, as if seeing him for the first time. Questions like "What is he planning to do?" or "Does he even realize who I am?" ran through her mind certainly more than once. She had no idea what she had done to merit his kindness.

They had been practically strangers.

He held the jacket above their heads, his arm encircling her right shoulder protectively. Her skin prickled at his touch, as if he were full of light that singed her upon contact. She could hear the rain fall, but it seemed distant now, as if the rest of the world was falling away, further and further, until they receded into a place where only they existed.

He caught her gaze, now, a smirk not only on his slightly up-turned lips but also in those dark, mischievous eyes that time had not taken from his preteen years. He knew she had been watching, and she, the girl who feared nothing, withered under his stare.

Perhaps it was because this girl – this dauntless girl – had but one fear.

The fear of a secret's discovery.

They ran together, past the Ichiraku and further still past the heart of the town. They had to be perfectly timed, footfall for footfall, step for step, heartbeat for heartbeat – and they were, surprisingly enough. At that moment, they moved, ran, even breathed as one being. At that moment, there was no Kiba, and there was no Ino, there were just the two of them running from the rain that she prayed would never, ever end.

She was drenched from head to toe; she could feel the mud sloshing beneath her feet. By all rights she, the most high-maintenance young woman in all of Konohagakure no Sato, should have felt completely miserable. But for some reason she could not comprehend, they were laughing. They were laughing, his arm was around her, and his jacket was over her head.

That was all it took for all to be right with the world.

She noticed him approaching, though only vaguely. She had been too preoccupied with reminiscing how warm it was the night before, despite the cold that had surrounded them all around. Unconsciously her gaze went to his right arm, the one that had drawn her close to him as they ran all the way from the training grounds to her home.

"Ino," his voice came, and this time it was no longer a memory. He stood there in front of her, their special, secret, tight-lipped half-smile between them. Or she wanted to believe it was theirs, because that would mean, somehow, that she wasn't the only one feeling what she was.

It could be their secret. Theirs.

Not just hers, as it was now.

They stood at her doorstep. They hadn't actually seen the sign that would have hung above the awning, the one that announced it to be the Yamanaka Flower Shop, but the faraway scent of rosebuds and rain hung in the frosty night air like mist. "Thank you," she told him, her smile the most genuine one she'd worn in weeks. Though it was dark it was obvious her cheeks were tinged with an embarrassed blush at her own helplessness.

With a small smile, he drew her close to him again, hugging her as he whispered, "It's okay. It can be our secret – ours."

"Kiba," she greeted with a rather nonchalant nod, though if her eyes were any indication, nonchalance was the least of her emotions at the moment. They were all having a tumult inside her – fear, happiness, amusement, irony, sweetness, and something else all vying for utmost dominance within her. She knew, though, that it was the something else that would win out in the end.

He smiled and slipped past her as though his sudden indifference were a sign of his assent to how she was starting to feel. That was merely wishful thinking, she knew, but who could tell?

"See you tomorrow," he said, not turning back to look at her. His voice, though, suggested it had been said with a smile, and that was all.

Hinata, appearing beside Ino, had seen the whole thing. Her pallid eyes staring at her fair-haired friend, she asked curiously, "Is there something going on between you and Kiba?"

And, grinning, Ino could only reply, "If there is, it's a secret."

Author's Note: Haha. It's different from my other pieces in the sense that it doesn't actually tackle the duringpart of a relationship, but the before. That's where things are always the cutest, in my opinion. Tell me what you think?