Six months ago, if someone had told you that Kiba Inuzuka would become the steadiest thing in your life, you'd have laughed in their face.
The loudmouthed, cocky shinobi with the giant white dog and the even bigger attitude? The guy who announced his arrival at the training grounds like a one-man festival and never missed a chance to gloat to Shino about anything? Everyone knew him. Nobody expected him to be gentle.
Story
Six months of him walking you home after late shifts. Of dragging you by the wrist through street markets to taste every vendor's yakitori until you found the best one. Of Akamaru shoving his enormous head into your lap every time you sat down, and Kiba grinning like he'd personally invented affection. Six months of him bragging to Hinata about how smart you were and how good you smelled.
Ino Yamanaka
He's literally never shut up about you. It's honestly kind of gross, Y/n.
Tenten
Gross in a cute way, though.
Story
You hadn't said it out loud. Not to him. But you'd said it to them.
Ino Yamanaka
You've got that look again. The one where you're imagining a ring.
Tenten
The engraved kind, or the plain kind?
Don't answer that.
Story
Tonight, they'd dragged you out to the entertainment district. Sake on an empty stomach, one more drink than you'd meant, music that was too loud—
Ino Yamanaka
Okay, okay, I'm cutting you off. Y/n. Y/n, look at me—there's the shot girl, I'll drink it for you—Ino downs the shot, grimacing —I already regret that. We're leaving.
Story
You'd laughed. You'd turned. And there he was.
Daiko. Something about him now made the floor feel like it might tilt. Tall, jagged—the kind of handsome you don't notice until he puts it in your face. The village Jonin who'd been your ex barely a year back. The boyfriend who'd wanted to know where you went and who you saw while you were at the market getting groceries. The boyfriend who'd sulked for three days over a training spar you'd taken with someone else, just because it had been someone else.
He was right there on the dance floor, closer than anyone should be.
Daiko
Y/n.
Story
His voice was oily in your ear. He leaned in at your back, and his cologne wrapped around your throat.
Daiko
I've been looking for you all night. You smell so good like this.
Story
He took your hip in his hand like nothing had changed. You hadn't danced with him. You hadn't spoken to him. That had never been his kind of slow.
Daiko
You came with those two? Dump 'em. I'll take you home to a proper send-off.
Tenten
sliding between you and pulling your wrist out of his grip —She's going home with us. Move.
Ino Yamanaka
hand at your back, steering —Walk. Walk walk walk, do not look back.
Story
You'd slipped away into the crowd, heart slamming, tipsy feet catching on the curb outside. They walked you to the corner two blocks over and hovered until the shinobi patrol passed.
Tenten
He's been getting bolder since you left him. That's what's happening. This is the bold version.
Ino Yamanaka
Not tonight. Home. Sleep. Tomorrow you can call the front desk, tell them he tried to paw you and see where it goes. It's fine—Y/n, it's fine. It's not like Kiba's gonna sniff you and go crazy. she looks over at you
Tenten
It's what he does, though.
Ino Yamanaka
That's a joke. Tenten.
Story
They'd meant to walk you to your door, but a call pulled them both off toward the hospital—something about a shift change and a patient—and you were left to the last block alone. The building's front step. The dim porch light buzzing. The night breeze rattling the stunted trees along the walk.
Kiba was there before you saw him.
Sitting on the top step of your building, elbows on his knees, jacket thrown over his shoulders, Akamaru's big white shape curled beside him like a small mountain. The instant your foot hit the first step, his head came up. And he smiled.
Kiba Inuzuka
'Bout time. Me and Akamaru were about to start a search party. Do you know how many people I had to lie to about what my girlfriend smells like when she comes home— he stands, dusting off his pants
Story
His nose twitched.
Then the wind shifted—the dry leaf smell of the street, the garbage bin three doors down, and right underneath it all, the sour, dense cloud of some other man's cologne. Kiba's grin was gone in half a heartbeat. His amber eyes dilated. He went dead still, and the air around him changed, the way it does right before a dog barks at nothing at all.
Kiba Inuzuka
Who were you with?
Story
His voice had dropped an octave. Akamaru sat up beside him, whining low in his throat.
Kiba Inuzuka
crowds forward I'm not asking twice, Y/n. Who the hell were you with.