Ahh, I'm sure you guys are
sick of me flooding your inboxes with stuff. XD
I wrote this for a buddy
who has been craving ShinoHina (I've been craving it too, actually), using the
keyword "nectar." Hope y'all enjoy.
Nectarine
Hinata wore
nectarine-flavored lip-gloss.
It was a little-known fact,
of course, because she rarely talked about her beauty regimen to anyone, let
alone her teammates—the topic seemed to be a source of embarrassment to her,
and she always blushed whenever Kiba asked her what scent she happened to be
wearing or if she’d done something different to her eyes.
Considering he grew up in a
family full of females, Shino figured that Kiba would be slightly knowledgeable
on the matter, or at the very least show some tact, though in
retrospect, he had no idea why this behavior surprised him.
Kiba wouldn’t recognize
tact if it smacked him in the face.
As for Shino…
Since his mother died when
he was very young, he’d been left with only his father and his brother as
references, so the entire concept of primping baffled him as much as it roused
his curiosity.
Of course, prior to his
involvement with Team 8, he didn’t appreciate the reason why girls wore
makeup—the whole thing struck him as quite silly—and, consequentially, he
didn’t care to study the effect it had on their appearances—other than making
them look like circus clowns, that is.
His perspective changed
drastically thanks to Hinata. And a sudden surge of hormones. In that order.
He noticed her smile first.
“Here, Shino-kun. I…brought
this for you.” She offered him a tiny parcel wrapped in
blue-and-white-checkered cloth. “Special tea leaves. To help get rid of your
cold.”
They had agreed to assemble
near Konoha’s main gate at daybreak, because that particular mission required
them to travel to a neighboring village that would take three or four hours to
reach on foot.
Shino, ever the punctual
one, had arrived first, pockets bulging with tissues, nose red and swollen. He
was glad the collar of his jacket concealed the worst of it, and was trying to
think of a way to use the tissues discreetly in the presence of his
comrades—he’d rather not be fussed over, and he wanted to avoid any taunts
about becoming a liability from Kiba—when Hinata showed up, carrying her tiny
parcel and looking at him in a way that suggested she saw through his secret.
Which, it turned out, she
did.
“We can prepare it later,
at the village,” she said lightly, shifting her eyes from his sunglasses to the
ground. She didn’t draw attention to his nose, or the fact that he shouldn’t be
traveling at all, probably to spare his pride.
His mind was reeling.
Tea leaves.
No, not just tea leaves. Special
tea leaves. For colds.
She realized he was coming
down with something before anyone else did, and she brought him tea leaves.
And then he remembered that
he hadn’t accepted them yet.
“Thank you,” he said in a
low, hoarse voice—his cold was a bit worse than he gave it credit for—and took
the parcel, the fabric soft beneath the pads of his fingers.
Hinata peered through her
eyelashes at him. “You’re welcome, Shino-kun.” And she smiled, the corners of
her mouth curling up just enough to make her cheeks dimple.
Previously, Shino’s
indifference toward the opposite sex had included Hinata. Her status as his
teammate didn’t help, either—it made him even more inclined to ignore
her overall aesthetic appeal, because, in their chosen field, there was no
place for fraternization, especially not among teammates.
He wasn’t sure what it
was—maybe his cold clouded his judgment—but there was something about that day,
and that smile, and those tea leaves, that forced him to take a closer look at
her.
“Oy, Hinata!”
“Kiba-kun! There you are.” Hinata
turned her face away, but Shino could still see the curve of her lips, their
gentle sheen in the newly risen sun, and he began to wonder what she put on
them, and how soft they’d be if he were to—
“Hey, bug breath.” Kiba
clapped Shino on the shoulder, smirking. “Let’s get a move on.” He happened to
glance at the parcel, and his expression became mischievous. “Is that a bento
box? You have a girlfriend now or something?” He tried to grab for it, but
Shino switched it to his other hand, mentally kicking himself.
The girlfriend comment
unsettled him, since he’d just been thinking weird thoughts about Hinata and
her lips and kissing them, and he was paranoid that Kiba somehow figured
him out.
“It’s none of your
business,” he said coolly, and started walking through the gate, his gaze fixed
resolutely ahead. He couldn’t afford another slip-up. And those thoughts needed
to stop, immediately. No distractions.
Absently, his fingers
tightened around the parcel of tea leaves.
Behind him, Kiba whispered
loudly to Hinata. “What’s his problem? Jerk. He’s grouchy today. All I did was
ask a simple question. I wasn’t being rude or anything...”
Except he was. But Kiba’s
idea of rude existed on an entirely different plane of reality from the norm
because he said whatever popped into his head at any given moment, regardless
of the people he ran the risk of offending.
However, Shino was too
preoccupied to take offense.
And if he entertained the
hope that this preoccupation would disappear on its own, he’d be grievously
disappointed.
The next
incident involved an orange.
In normal circumstances,
oranges were fairly innocent fruits, and while eating them could be messy,
Shino quite enjoyed the sensation of biting into a ripe orange on a hot day and
feeling the juice slide down his throat.
But this circumstance
wasn’t normal. Not normal at all.
They were sitting under a
willow tree by a peaceful stream about ten minutes from the Hyuuga compound,
just the two of them. Kiba would’ve come, but he begged off earlier—his mother
was training a fresh pack of hunting dogs, and she told Kiba to stick around
and lend a hand.
The warning bells screeched
in Shino’s head when he discovered he wasn’t remotely saddened by the news.
Not that he and Kiba were
the best of friends. They tolerated each other, yes, and their conversation
took on a semi-civil air occasionally, though they weren’t in any danger of
becoming inseparable.
Still, his exultation at
knowing Kiba wouldn’t randomly pop up to ruin his alone time with Hinata seemed
highly uncharacteristic…
Probably because it was highly
uncharacteristic.
Shino blamed a lot of it on
puberty, a very convenient scapegoat at fifteen, especially for a male. Boys
matured slower than girls, and so did their raging libidos—though Shino’s
didn’t rage. It simmered.
And the simmering had reached
a peak today.
“Would you like a piece,
Shino-kun?”
Because of the heat, Hinata
had exchanged her customary jacket for a black, sleeveless cotton shirt that
clung to her curves in this blasted humidity, and made Shino all the more aware
of her budding womanhood.
He tried to avoid looking
anywhere but her face. His success was limited, though the sunglasses helped
make his transgressions less obvious.
“Shino-kun?”
Apparently, he’d been
trying too hard.
Hinata held out a slice of
orange, her expression unassuming. A strand of her shoulder-length hair fell
from her loose ponytail and into her eyes, but she didn’t move to brush it
aside.
Shino swallowed.
From a young age, Hinata
kept her hair cropped short despite the Hyuuga custom to wear long hair, and it
had projected a somewhat childish image that her severe shyness only served to
perpetuate.
That Hinata had been
replaced with the girl sitting next to him, the girl who was preparing to honor
her inheritance and grew her hair to suit the tradition of her family, the girl
in tight black cotton, holding out an orange slice.
Their fingers brushed when
she gave him the orange, and she smiled, taking a dainty bite of her own slice.
She tucked the wayward strand of hair behind her ear as she chewed.
Another bite. And another.
He watched her mouth,
transfixed. Her lips were shiny with juice, and her tongue would poke out
frequently to lick it off while she fanned her face with her hand. After she
finished, she lifted her ponytail away from her neck and leaned her head back
against the willow, eyes closed.
Shino’s unsavory thoughts
had returned.
Now would be the perfect
opportunity to lean in and kiss her. He had also left his jacket at home in
favor of a zip-up collared shirt, though, unlike the collar on his jacket, this
one didn’t cover the lower half of his face, so he wouldn’t have to worry about
it getting in the way.
He could find out if her
lips really were as soft as he imagined, what they tasted like…
“I’m glad you could come,
Shino-kun,” Hinata said, eyes still closed. “It’s nice to just be with a friend
once in a while.”
Shino froze, closer to her
than he had been a second ago. His hand, lingering over her cheek, dropped.
Shaken—where had his
willpower gone?—he composed himself and asked, “Is something bothering you?” His
heart pounded.
“No.” Her brows drew
together. “Well…maybe. But it’s silly.”
“Tell me.”
“I…” She hesitated. “I’m
improving every day. I know that I am. My father doesn’t turn away in shame
anymore, and yet…I have such a long way to go…what if I’m not doing enough?”
Frowning, Shino toyed with
his uneaten orange slice. A long way…she’d already come a long way. Why didn’t
she see that? Why didn’t she see that he noticed her now when he hadn’t before,
all because of what she’d done herself?
“When the time comes,
you’ll be ready,” he said firmly. “You’ve taken the initiative, and
that’s what matters.”
Hinata opened her eyes. They were clear.
“Thank you, Shino-kun,” she whispered, her expression deeply gratified as
she met his gaze.
He cleared his throat, cheeks burning.
“Hn.”
She laughed.
“Eat your orange.”
A month later, Shino discovered that Hinata’s lips shimmered
because she wore lip-gloss.
“Shino-kun…can you hear me?”
He was swimming in and out of consciousness, the result of a blow to the
temple that his destruction bugs couldn’t shield him from. Part of that was his
fault—he’d grown complacent during the fight, convinced that he had the
advantage, but his opponent had speed on his side and attacked before Shino
could plant any bugs on him.
But he heard her.
“I’m here. I’m right here, Shino-kun.”
He wanted to give her an indication that he understood, but his mouth
refused to move. His entire body was immobile, embarrassingly enough. Kiba
would have a lot to say about that when he found out.
“The others have gone to
get help, so hang in there.”
His vision was blurry. Her
distorted face hovered above his, and looked so strange he felt the urge to
laugh, though laughing was as impossible as moving.
“You were very brave,” she
murmured. “But very stupid. Be careful next time, Shino-kun.”
And then there was a light
pressure on his parted lips as she touched her mouth to his, and he tasted
something sweet.
The world faded.
“Nectarine.”
Hinata raised her eyebrows.
“Pardon?”
They were taking Kiba’s
dogs out for exercise as a team. Kurenai-sensei had explained that it would
strengthen their bond, but Shino suspected she had other motives for shooing
them off, namely a certain chain-smoking Jounin she spent a good deal of her
free time visiting with.
Shino glanced at Hinata
sidelong.
“It’s nectarine,” he said.
After a moment, her face
registered his meaning. Chewing her lip, she blushed and gave an imperceptible
little nod.
“Hey…hey! What’s going on? Why
is Hinata blushing? Hey!”
Kiba continued yapping, but
Shino, grinning behind his collar, paid him no heed.
He wanted to taste her
lip-gloss again.