So Whose Fault Was It?

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A/N: New chapter! This one gets more citrusy, so be warned. Please tell me how I should improve the story, and what parts you think worked for you, and what did not. For some reason, it feels like the story is just writing itself, and at this point I must admit that I still don't know how it will end. I hope you all like it, though, so reviews will be appreciated.

I do not own Naruto.

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HINATA

And so Kiba went to meet his lady friend in the forest – Hinata no longer found it weird that even in the middle of the forest, Kiba had a “friend”. She was a gypsy of sorts, according to Kiba. Hinata and Shino had heard of her before, and sometimes Kiba even brought with him a few dried herbs that he threw into the fire, that made the air smell sweet, that made her have a peaceful and dreamless sleep that night, that made her wake up so well-rested the next morning, that put her in such high spirits the entire day. She wished he’d bring some again this time, and he said he’d try.

She shared a quiet meal with Shino, and after talking a little with him, they decided to turn in for the night. It was then that Kiba ran back to camp and dropped onto the log beside Shino.

“So, how’s you’re friend?” asked Hinata.

“Oh, Taka? She’s great. She says ‘hi’, too. Oh, she says I should give this to you, Hinata,” he gave Hinata a small package wrapped in plain brown paper. “Just as you requested.”

“That’s really nice of her! Tell her I – we said thank you.” She smiled as she peeked at the contents of the package. “How should I pay her?”

Kiba laughed at this, and said, “It’s a present, Hinata. She knows how much you like it. Don’t worry, she has more where that came from.” The last words were added as he observed his female teammate’s concerned look, which was easily replaced by one of flushed gratitude. Hinata was so adorable in how she always wore her expressions so openly.

“And this is for you, Shino.” He took the soft dry leaf from his pocket carefully and handed it to the bug-nin.

“What’s this? More of your friend’s magic herbs?” Shino asked as he took the offered gift. Hinata looked on curiously.

“We-eell, not exactly. It’s a smoke. Look, you roll it like this – “ he demonstrated how “ – and you light it, just like a cigarette.”

“You know I don’t smoke, Kiba.”

“Don’t be a spoilsport, man, just give it a try. Here, I’ll light it for you –“ he touched one end of the rolled-up leaf to the campfire and gave it once again to Shino.

Shino narrowed his eyes behind his glasses. “Alright, I guess.” He sucked in a mouthful of the smoke and coughed. Kiba pounded his back. “How is it?” he asked, grinning.

“It – tastes – horrible!” The reply was interspersed with coughs and wheezes.

“Kiba-kun, where’s Akamaru?” Hinata asked, noticing for the first time that the giant dog was nowhere in sight.

“Try another puff, bugboy, I swear the first one’s always the worst. Oh, Akamaru’s still with Taka. He likes her. Speaking of which, I should get back.”

“You mean you’re going back there tonight?”

“Ye-ah. She misses me, hahah. Nighty-night, you two. Sweet dreams.” With a last pat on Shino’s back, he got up and sprinted away again.

Hinata thought there was something weird in the way Kiba grinned at them as he left. He was probably having a really good time with that girl, as it seemed he couldn’t wait to get back. “Shino-kun, are you alright?”

“I really don’t – cough – understand how people could – cough – enjoy this – “

“It was nice of Taka, though, don’t you think?” Hinata took Kiba’s place patting Shino’s back. She wondered why Kiba would think that Shino would enjoy something like this, knowing that the silent shinobi, as he had said himself, didn’t smoke, but maybe it was just for the novelty of the experience. And if it came from the gypsy-girl in the woods, there must be something special about the dry leaf, judging from the girl’s other “presents” they’d received in the past.

“Here, let me try it,” Hinata said, curious about the smoke, as she herself had never tried one before.

“No – I don’t think – “ protested Shino, but Hinata had already taken the smoke from his hand, and puffed on it. Predictably, coughs exploded from her.

“I told you,” said Shino. “It’s horrible, eh.”

Hinata was now coughing and laughing at the same time. “Yeah – cough – really – “ But after the second puff she managed to keep from coughing. “Kiba’s right, the first puff’s really the worst. Here, thanks.”

“No, just finish it if you want.”

Hinata’s hand was still on Shino’s shoulder, and Shino was once more mesmerized by how the firelight danced in her eyes, and how her lips curled in a smile around the smoke. He tried not to think too much of the warmth that was spreading from the innocent contact of her hand against his shoulder, and was grateful that the girl was too engrossed with the smoke to notice him redenning under his collar. She playfully blew the smoke right into Shino’s face and giggled.

“Do you have to do that?” grumbled Shino, but there was a hint of a smile on his own lips.

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It wasn’t a particularly warm night, but for some reason, Hinata couldn’t sleep, and it felt like she was burning from the inside. She tried to keep still, so as not to wake Shino who was already asleep a few feet from her.

She felt so hot.

A few minutes later she sprang from her sleeping bag and, taking a washcloth with her, as quietly as she could slipped out of the tent. There was a spring a few minutes away from the camp, and she wanted to wash her face. She lifted her hair from her nape and touched her hand to the damp skin there.

The air was cool against her skin, and she breathed huge lungfuls of it as she walked toward the stream. It was a good thing the moon was full; she could easily see ahead of her even without the aid of her Byakugan. She took her time walking, savoring the cooling relief the night air brought to her skin. Was she coming down with something? But then, she didn’t feel weak, just… terribly restless.

Was it something in that leaf Kiba made them smoke? But then… Kiba wouldn’t do something that would harm them… right? Whatever the reason, Hinata needed relief.

She came to the spring and went down on her knees at its bank, thinking of how beautiful the moon’s reflection was in the quiet water. She dipped her hand in the water and found it refreshing. After wetting her washcloth, she placed it against her forehead, and then her nape, breathing in a sigh of relief –

-- which was cut short by the unmistakeable sound of someone screaming in the distance. She suddenly stood up from her kneeling position as she heard the sound again, though this second one was weaker, like it was muffled. She dropped her washcloth and quickly formed a seal, muttering “Byakugan” and then scanned the immediate area. There was nothing out of the ordinary she could see, and so she ran a little upstream, and then --

There they were, about a hundred meters from her. Two figures whose outlines she saw clearly with her white eyes. They were writhing on the ground, and for a moment she thought they were fighting, but then… one of the figures moaned loudly, the one she thought was pinned on the ground, and… is that Kiba?! She brought her hand against her mouth to stifle her gasp of surprise. No, they definitely weren’t fighting. They were… they were… doing it, and Hinata knew she should look away. But never, in all her life, had she witnessed such a thing…

Suddenly the night wasn’t so cool anymore, and she was burning hot once again.

Being the owner of her particular bloodline, she was aware of all the temptations that went with it, but born in a household where everyone else could see as – or even more – clearly as she could, she understood the unspoken code of honor about the uses of their blood limit. The private rooms in the Hyuuga compound were sealed and protected from unwanted visual intrusion, but everywhere else in the village and out of it, the opportunity to take advantage of her abilities were very much open. It was simply a matter of choice for her to not look where she was not invited, unless if the situation demanded it, as in missions; she always knew that if she was the one being spied on without her knowledge, she would feel very much violated, and sensitive soul that she was, she tried very hard to uphold the silent rule.

But now she could not look away.

It felt as if she were frozen on the spot, and the thought of deactivating her Byakugan didn’t even cross her shocked mind. She could do nothing but watch with her innocent and unspoiled eyes, and horrified as she was… she was aware that she was beginning to enjoy what she was seeing.

It seemed that Kiba was licking the girl’s – Taka’s – neck, and she was undoubtedly enjoying it, judging from how she moaned and writhed against him. Her fingers were clawing at his back, and it appeared that her mouth was seeking Kiba’s, and Kiba himself was moaning, but deliberately turning his face away from the girl’s, teasing her with gentle nips on her graceful neck instead. Hinata saw, to her shock, that one of her teammate’s hands was clutching at the girl’s breast, pinching and playing with it, it seemed, while the other was – Kami-sama­, it’s between her legs!

Hinata couldn’t move from where she was, and helplessly stared at the couple. So this is how people did it, she thought, her gaze riveted to Kiba’s hand, which now – her Byakugan unconsciously focused harder -- seemed to pump three whole fingers inside and out of the girl’s… well, there, and the girl was moving her hips in time to Kiba’s pumping. She didn’t realize that her own breath was coming in pants, and that her fingers were clutching the material of her own black capris.

And then the girl pushed against Kiba’s shoulders almost violently, a look of surprise crossing the boy’s face as his fingers slipped out of her and tendrils of her wetness on his fingers glistened in the faint light, and she laid him on his back, straddling him. Hinata stood unblinking as the girl grasped Kiba’s… Kiba’s… which twitched in the moonlight, and without warning plunged it inside herself. Kiba let out a loud gasp, while the girl screamed. So that was what Hinata heard earlier.

The sound of that scream tore Hinata from her stupor and made her come to her senses.

As quietly as she could, she went back to normal vision – though the images she just saw were burned into her sight, and try as she might, she couldn’t rid her mind of the image of Kiba’s pumping fingers and that girl’s hand as it wrapped around Kiba. She ran back to camp and reentered the tent as quietly as she left it. She only realized she was shaking when she got back under the covers.

Even in the darkness, the images mocked her… Kiba and Taka, writhing on the ground… she didn’t know the woman was so beautiful, with that waterfall of golden hair flowing around her…

And Kiba… she never saw him more beautiful than he was tonight as he made love to that girl. No wonder… if the girls thought of him that way, no wonder they couldn’t help but jump into bed with him. All that skin browned by the sun glistening with sweat in the moonlight… those muscles rippling as he moved against her… Hinata let out a groan of frustration.

And then –

“Hinata, are you alright?”

She must have woken him with her thrashing and groaning. “Sorry, Shino, I’m fine… just… go back to sleep.” She turned her back to him and bit her lip to keep from moaning again, clutching her knees close to her chest. He seemed to settle back to sleep, but then –

“Are you sure you’re okay, Hinata?” She suddenly felt a hand against her back, and the warm contact through her thin grey shirt made her gasp and shiver. She couldn’t speak, she couldn’t move, and she was suddenly hot everywhere. “P-please, Shino-kun, your… y-your hand…”

And then his hand left her back, and he stammered, “Oh, I’m sorry Hinata, I didn’t mean to – really, so sorry – “

Shino never stammered.

“No, no, Shino-kun, please… it isn’t like that!” She was mortified, thinking she made him think she was disgusted by him, when it was exactly the other way around. She turned to face Shino in the darkness, and blindly groped for his hand. When she got a hold of it, she laid it against her face, and whispered against it, “It isn’t like that at all, Shino…”

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SHINO

Her lips were warm against his hand, and when she said his name like that in the darkness something inside him melted. She had fallen silent and motionless, save for her lips against his palm, which were now – was he dreaming? – kissing his skin softly.

There was something in the air that night that made him feel restless, and he couldn’t sleep, but he could lie still better than anyone he knew, and so he pretended to be asleep earlier that night. No point in worrying Hinata, who, for some reason, couldn’t fall asleep herself. He almost followed her when she went outside a few minutes ago, but then she wouldn’t like it if she thought he thought she couldn’t take care of himself.

As for the reason for the strangeness in the air, he could only attribute it to Kiba and his smoke. Shino thought if nothing came from it but a sleepless night of tossing and turning, he wouldn’t take up the issue with Kiba in the morning, but now…

He prided himself for his self-control, but now it was cracking fast and hard against Hinata’s ministrations. He didn’t know if he should just ignore her – he did hear something about the wrath of a woman scorned from before, but never thought it would apply to him, but then now wasn’t the time to find out. And so he trembled in the dark, and let Hinata kiss his hand. But then –

“Please, Shino, you feel so good…”

Goodbye, self-control.

He caressed Hinata’s cheek with his fingers, and she moved her face against him, obviously pleased with his touch. He felt her own fingers brush against his face, and could only savor the feeling of Hinata touching him for so long, for in the next moment, he felt her breath close to his face, coming in ragged pants. Her foot touched his, and everything from her fingers on his face to her toes against his felt electrified.

He wanted more. He wanted every inch of her, and it felt like every inch of him strained to come closer to her heat.

There was no time to analyze, no space in his mind and no point in doing so. Her hand slid to his neck –- such warmth, it was almost unbearable -- and he could feel her face coming closer, closer… but a breath away she stopped. “P-please, Shino, can I… can I… kiss you?”

Not even an inch of space between their faces, and Hinata still had to ask.

“Hinata… I’ve never kissed a girl.”

A heartbeat of silence, and then, “You’ll be my first, too, Shino.”

It was he who travelled the last distance, and touched his lips to hers, which were unbelievable in their softness. Their first kiss was mind-blowingly sweet, and he couldn’t believe he was lucky enough to be the first to feast on this bounty. He wrapped his arm around her as they lay on their sides, savoring the taste of her in the feather-light contact. She moaned against his mouth, and the vibrations sent tingles running through his spine. For long moments they stayed like that, their lips just barely touching, but then the heat grew too much, and he knew he wanted more. He nipped at her lips, which opened against his damply, and he unconsciously stuck out the tip of his tongue to taste more of her.

Hinata opened her mouth, and sucked his tongue in.

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HINATA

The feel of Shino’s tongue touching her open lips almost undid Hinata. She’d heard of nerves connecting places in her body that were far from each other, but never until this moment did she know of it firsthand. The moment Shino’s tongue touched hers, it felt as if a string had been tugged from her mouth to the center of her body, where she was warmest. It wasn’t a deliberate act on her part, but her lips decided on their own to wrap themselves around Shino’s tongue and apply soft suction. As she did so her pelvis tilted towards Shino, straining, as her mouth did, to feel more of him. She let her knees fall open against his, trying to get relief from the maddening heat between them.

With her eyes closed she couldn’t see him, but she could imagine a fire glowing in his glassless black, black eyes, eyes that were darker than the night, with a soft twinkle of starlight in them, his beautiful eyes which very few people were lucky enough to have seen. With her eyes closed, she could still hear his breath hitching, she could feel his flesh trembling a little against her, his bugs making his skin ripple under his clothes, she could smell the earth on his skin, as well as hints of the smoke they had earlier. She had never felt such sensory overload before, and she could do nothing but ride the warm waves.

Never before had she experienced the full force of sexual attraction, and tonight there weren’t even any lingering thoughts of a certain blond ninja in her drugged mind; she was drowning in the heat of her teammate. That realization made her burn hotter, for here was a man she had strong affections for, and who cared for her at least as much. She let out a small whimper as Shino’s tongue wrapped around her own, and she angled her head to take more of him in, at the same time her leg crept up against his thigh, her toes curling against the material of his dark pants.

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SHINO

The moment Hinata’s leg wrapped around him, Shino thought he felt his brain blow a fuse. The bugs inside him were going haywire with all the unfamiliar sensation, and in desperate trickles they exited his body through points behind his ears, his wrists, and the backs of his knees under his roomy dark clothes. Their departure was almost painful to Shino, but for some reason this only served to add to his pleasure. He had never gotten so hard in such a short amount of time, and he felt he would soon burst if he didn’t slow down. With an effort he wrenched his mouth from Hinata’s, and the loss of her lips against his was almost a physical ache.

“Hinata,” he said raggedly, “what are we doing?”

His teammate could only breathe hard for a few moments. “I-is this wrong, Shino-kun?” As she said this her fingers fluttered on his nape. “I-I’m sorry, Shino-kun, I d-didn’t mean to…”

She started to withdraw from him, but as her leg slid down against his, his hand shot out and grasped the back of her knee, and a “No!” exploded from him, and then he was rolling her to her back. The action brought his arousal flush against her center, and as he looked down at her in the darkness with his hand still anchoring her knee around him, he heard her cry out softly. For a moment they lay still, and then Hinata slowly brought her other knee up, fully cradling him between her open legs. The friction caused by this made Shino shudder, and almost unconsciously he ground against her.

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HINATA

Hinata cried out in shock and sensation as Shino’s hardness made contact with her own heated core through their clothes, and when he ground against her, there was a sudden rush of wetness down there, and her pelvis tilted upwards to maximize the sensation. Shino swallowed her whimpers with his suddenly mobile mouth, and his tongue pierced through her lips in an imitation of the more heated act which all this was building up to. Their tongues battled to find their way into each other’s mouths, at the same time Shino’s hands crept downward to grab onto Hinata’s hips, guiding them as he repeatedly rubbed his throbbing length against her.

The air was thick with body heat and the scent of arousal, and Hinata felt too warm under her clothes. Shino’s hands were moving up and down under her arched back, and his chest rubbed with her own as he ground against her. The motion was making her breasts ache, and she had never felt them so full and tender, and she was suddenly aware that her nipples had puckered at the heated friction. The knowledge of this caused another warm burst of wetness where she was warmest, and as Shino rubbed himself against her she suddenly had the vision of her wetness slowly saturating both her own and Shino’s pants. That made her bring her knees up higher and squeeze Shino as he moved between them.

“Sh-Shino – uhh – ahhh!” Her mouth was wrenched away from his in her mounting passion, and her cries of pleasure filled the small space inside the dark tent.

At the loss of her lips, Shino buried his face against her neck, all the while low moans rose from his throat, and his seeking lips made Hinata tilt her head to the side to give him more room. She felt his restlessness, and her wonder at the thought of a restless Shino was almost lost in the moment, as his face began wandering from her neck, down to her collarbone. Her clothes were becoming too restrictive, and she felt his hands grasping her shirt desperately as he moved his face even further downwards.

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SHINO

His mind felt like it had completely shut down, and he was drowning in the feel of Hinata… his Hinata. Her smell filled his head as the heat rose from her skin, and now he was operating on blind, seeking instinct. He couldn’t even verbalize his desires, and he was pitifully reduced to grunts and moans, which was in perfect rhythm against her own soft whimpers. Years and years of wanting her, of keeping it all tamped down inside him without even a physical solitary outlet… he felt as if he was going a bit mad with this sudden and complete arousal, and he could no longer stop himself.

The faint salty taste of her sweat… the feeling of her small body trembling uncontrollably under him with need… her hands clutching his back almost painfully… not a single sensation went unnoticed by Shino, not after all those years of deprivation, and even as he touched her he felt tears seep into his eyes.

He loved her so much.

The sudden shock of that knowledge made him stop, his fingers still digging into her back, and he just poised over her, breathing hard through his open mouth.

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HINATA

She felt his sudden cessation of motion, and it was like being drenched with a bucketful of cold water.

There was something about the way he held himself still, and for a moment Hinata could only strain her eyes in the darkness, trying to see his own dark eyes. They were still intimately connected through their clothes, but Hinata perceived a sense of distance from her teammate.

And then she felt it. One, two, three drops of something warm fell on her cheek, and as they rolled down to her open lips, she knew she was tasting the salt of Shino’s tears.

Her hand crept up from his back and touched his face, and sure enough, it was damp.

“Sh-Shino-kun… what’s… what’s wrong?”

He did not answer her question, but she felt his face come closer to hers, nuzzling her hand against his cheek in the process, and then his lips were touching hers in almost painful gentleness.

And that was when she knew.

He loved her.

The sudden shock of that knowledge made something warm burst in her chest, and she recognized it as an unbelievable joy that filled her entire being.

How long has he loved her? How could she have missed this?

The mad heat of the past minutes were gone now, replaced by a more mellow but enduring warmth as he kissed her tenderly. Just as softly she kissed him back, almost terrified in the awareness of this newfound power over him.

She didn’t want to hurt him. Not Shino, her Shino who had been nothing but supportive of her all these years, her Shino who had done nothing but encourage her even in her darkest times. But she knew it would take some time to open her heart out to him the same way he had to her, and for that… she was scared.

For now…

For now her hand could do nothing but slide against the back of his neck. She opened her mouth under his, and slowly, the kiss blossomed, and she felt his tongue worship her own.

“Shino… make love to me…”

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