From the Abstract to the Practical

Chapter = Kiba in Control and the Beginning of Perv Naruto

The red mark had almost faded by the time they reached the edge of the festival grounds, just outside the village. Naruto hadn’t rubbed the left side of his face in some time. Shika stole a glance at his obsession; it had taken a lot of restraint to keep him from smacking Ten Ten on the back of the head, several times during the walk here.

She’d really gone a little overboard. Naruto looked miserable. He hadn’t meant to upset anyone. Naruto just had a little problem with sudden changes, and keeping his thoughts to himself, and….Oh stop it, your obsessing again! Shika jerked himself back to the moment.

There were plenty of things to do inside the village itself, but they had decided to start their day at the festival grounds. He took one look at all the booths, the long list of activities and performances and wished he’d stayed home. This is going to be exhausting.

On cue, Ino started pulling him by his right arm in one direction and Sakura started tugging on the other one, insisting that they should go that way. Oh great, I get to be referee all day! No matter what I decide, someone gets to be pissed. Just the way they both like it!

Kiba rescued him in his usual, tactful way. “Get the hell off him!” he bellowed. “Jeez, you too are worse than puppies fighting over scraps.” Kiba pushed Sakura aside and wrapped his arm around Shikamaru’s shoulder, shooing Ino away with his free hand. Shino was standing off to the side, holding Akamaru’s leash a little nervously. The mammoth dog was still pretty sulky about the leash thing.

“Now, if your done behaving like bitches,” stunned silence followed “Maybe we could let the birthday boy decide what he wants to do. And if you don’t wanna do it, you can fuck off.” The smile he flashed them contained way too many sharp teeth.

“Oh, and for the record, Akamaru is a little pissy today, so I wouldn’t be going too ape shit around him, ’less you wanna lose a limb or something. It took a lot to keep him from going at Ten Ten earlier and well, I just don’t feel like fucking with it again, ‘K?” With that, he patted Shika on the back and stepped over to rescue Shino from leash duty. Neji, Shikamaru noticed, had moved a little closer to Ten Ten.

Sometimes you just had to love Kiba. Who else could string that many insults and cuss words together at once and do it with a smile. At least that’s what Naruto thought it was supposed to have been.

After the way Ten Ten had unloaded on him earlier and the comments from Sakura and Ino the rest of the way, he got a great deal of satisfaction from the stunned expressions on all three girls’ faces. He would have felt a little bad that Hinata had had to witness it, but he was sure he had caught a hint of a smile, just now, before she had ducked her head and hid her mouth behind her hand.

They started with the activities first. Shika had thought that this might help settle Akamaru and the girls a bit. Let them get some of their aggression out. Then they moved on to the performances. They saw fire jugglers, dancers, feats of strength and skill, and all manner of other performers.

Kiba had particularly enjoyed the dancers. They’d watched two different troupes perform. The other boy had leered and all but drooled through both. Shika kinda’ felt like he owed him that.

It was a relief when they all decided to wander the booths at the festival and then make their way into the village to see what else there was. Shika wasn’t the center of attention anymore. In the competitions, at the performances, even while they’d eaten lunch; everyone had been watching him closely trying to gauge if he was enjoying his birthday.

Just that fact had worn him out. As they looked at the different items on display and for sale, meandering through the booths; their attention was focused elsewhere. He could finally relax, a little.

He glanced at a few things, not really interested. His eyes kept traveling to the one thing he wanted, but couldn’t have. Why did Naruto have to look so good today? Shikamaru had prepared himself for the usual Naruto. He’d even imagined that Naruto would look a little better in something other than his chuunin uniform or the orange training suit. This Naruto had been totally unexpected.

Who could have imagined it? He surely hadn’t, even with all the fantasies that had been running riot in his head lately. No, no. he thought, can’t start thinking ‘bout that! Shika stopped himself; before he could begin thinking about the real reason he had started ‘helping’ his mom with the laundry by putting a load in the washer as soon as he got up, each morning.

Shikamaru shivered a little and was grateful that the air had grown chill enough to require most of them to move their jackets from where they had been tied around their waists all day. Neither Kiba nor Naruto seemed affected. Naruto had the sleeves of that heavenly shirt pushed up to his elbows, showing of his well muscled forearms. Shika ducked back into that hood of his and tried to keep his mind clear of….disturbing thoughts.

It had been a real shock for Naruto, when Shika had finally taken the hood off to compete in one of the races, that morning. Naruto had run in the previous heat, so he had had a front row view of the starting line.

Oh, my gods! he’d thought to himself. Who knew Shikamaru was that pretty?! Well, maybe pretty isn’t the right word, but handsome doesn’t cut it either. Having his hair down, just sort of pointed out all of the good features of Shika’s face. His deep soulful eyes and….. Did I just think the word, soulful? Weird.

Naruto had never seen Shika with his hair down. He really didn’t think anyone had. Naruto wanted nothing more in that moment than to run his fingers through the silky charcoal that flowed around Shika’s face. It’s so long!

He’d never really thought about how long Shika’s hair would have to be, to be pulled up like it always was. He’d never really thought about Shika’s hair at all. Now, he couldn’t help it, he’d released a little remorseful sigh, when Shika had put his jacket on again in the early evening and promptly covered his whole head with the hood.

Of course without that distraction, Naruto’s eyes began traveling in other areas, instead of being focused above the neck. He’d been fighting with himself for more than a week, now. He knew he shouldn’t be looking at or thinking about his friend in the way he was, but he was tired of this internal struggle and indulged himself.

As long as I only look, what’s the harm, right? If Naruto could have seen his own face at that moment, he would have sworn he was looking at one of Pervy Sage’s pervy smiles; but he couldn’t and thank goodness, no one else seemed to notice either.

Shika hesitated at one of the booths. Naruto watched him out of the corner of his eye. Shika hadn’t really paid attention to any of the things they’d seen. The girls already had tons of bags hanging from each arm. Poor Chouji had somehow been wrangled into helping Hinata and Ten Ten carry theirs. Ino and Sakura had headed for Shika with similar intent, but Kiba’s warning chuckle stopped them. The guy could even make a chuckle sound threatening.

They’d turned toward Naruto, but must have remembered how they’d treated him on the way to the village and realized that there was just no way. That left Kiba, Ha! Shino, Too funny... or Neji. Naruto watched the wheels in their heads turn and knew the exact moment that they gave up all hope of help with their packages. He couldn’t hold in the snicker. Serves ya right!

Naruto had mentally marked the spot on the table that Shika had been looking at and after a few moments moved to the table. Shika was still two booths ahead of him. The distance Naruto had been maintaining this whole time, watching him just for the sake of watching him. Not stalking him or anything, oh no, not that.

On the table, Naruto saw two pairs of silver hoop earrings, very similar in design. One pair had leafs etched in a winding pattern around each little hoop. The other was slightly darker in color with an antique look and had embossed leafs winding around each slightly larger hoop.

Maybe Shika’s only real vanity was his earrings. He didn’t care about clothes or his hair, but he never went anywhere without his earrings. Naruto had never noticed; did he have more than just the three he always wore? Were they different somehow?

Naruto had already bought Shika a birthday present weeks ago, before everything had changed. He had thought about getting him something else, but had talked himself out of it. He had been afraid that it would just change things more.

But now, for whatever reason, he felt that what he had didn’t seem appropriate anymore. He waited until the others had moved off a little further and made his purchases. The woman offered to gift wrap them, so he waited.

When he caught up to the others he found out that they had decided to split up. Sakura informed him that Ten Ten, Hinata, Chouji, and Shikamaru had gone in a different direction. “We had to wait for you. Don’t wander off like that again.” As she turned away from him, he wondered if her nose could possibly get any higher in the air.

He was a little down about being separated from Shika, but whenever one of his hands touched one of the small packages in either pants pocket he felt infinitely better. He couldn’t wait to find a way to give them to him.

He wanted to watch as Shikamaru put them on. A warm glow spread through him and his mind wandered as he followed his bossy friend’s head through the crowd. I wonder what it would be like, if they were all he was wearing……..Oh man, that’s so bad! I’m a perv. Who knew?!