some kibaino for the soul, written at two am with taylor swift's "style" on repeat. i wasn't sure of it when i posted this on tumblr last night, but i ended up actually liking it once i woke up so it's coming here, too!
if i owned naruto kibaino would've been canon ages ago, so i guess that tells ya: i don't own it!
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The grandfather clock in the living room is just chiming midnight when Ino shimmies her way out of her third floor bedroom window, clutching the tree with one hand, just hanging onto her heels with the other, rough bark of the tree scratching at her bare feet. When she's five feet up she lets go and drops down down down, landing with a thump. She lifts up one slender leg, pale pale skin shining in the moonlight dripping down, pulls on one heel and then the other and then grabs the bag sitting at the base of the trunk, sliding her phone into her pocket, the screen still shining with a new text.
im outside
When she rounds the corner of the house, there's a '67 Camaro sitting along the curb, motor purring and lights turned off, music low. The passenger door swings open when she nears and Ino slides in, tight skirt climbing higher on her thighs, heels clicking together as they land on the floorboard. She turns to the boy—man—in the driver's seat as he drapes his leather jacket over her shoulders, tongue licking over her red red lips.
"You're gonna freeze in that, y'know," Kiba tells her, teeth sharp and gleaming white as he grins at her.
"But I look good, and that's what matters," Ino replies, pulling it closer around her. "Anyways, I don't see you complaining."
"Got that right," he murmurs as he leans over to her, lips and teeth and tongue meeting hers. She can smell his cologne and his dog and that earthy scent that's always clung to him as long as she's known him.
He pulls away, smirk on his lips as one rises to hers. As she reaches over to turn the radio on and up, his foot slams on the gas, and they're off off off, into the night.
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This time around they lasts for two months and three weeks and one day, almost their longest yet, and they would have gone for longer—probably beaten their record—if it weren't for a maybe-happened incident on Kiba's part, something about him and a girl Ino knows but also doesn't and the two of them out at night. She doesn't know if it's true—sometimes it is and sometimes it isn't and sometimes it's halfway truth and halfway lies, and even after this long she still can't easily tell the difference—but when he texts her that night, lowercase letters and no punctuation, she doesn't reply, doesn't get out of bed and into clothes, doesn't climb out of her window and into his car and drive off with him.
They see each other, at school and out at night and on the streets, and she pretends like she doesn't know him as she strides past, long legs made longer by heels and only just barely covered up with a skirt. She pretends like she doesn't feel the heat of his eyes on her, grazing up and down and burning a hole except not, because she doesn't feel it, because he doesn't exist to her.
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It takes three months and one week and five days before she picks up her phone and slides to his number, hitting call and lifting it to her ear.
"'Lo?" he answers, sleep embedded into his deep voice.
"Thirty minutes," she tells him, voice crisp and sweet at the same time. "That's how long you've got to get you and your pretty car over here and pick me up, before I change my mind."
She can hear the grin in his voice as he tells her that he'll be there in ten.
Her finger is over the end call button when she hears him talking again.
"What was that?"
"I said, wear that skirt. You know the one."
"Hmph." She hangs up on him and starts her watch, crossing her legs in the tight tight skirt she's already wearing.
It's been eleven minutes when she slides in, and she holds up her wrist and taps the glass face of her watch.
"Thought you said you'd be here in ten."
"Got held up," he says as he pushes down on the gas. "Started thinking about you in that skirt, and just couldn't keep my eyes on the road. Almost crashed on the way."
One hand slips from the wheel onto her bare thigh, and then his eyes follow, wild and dark, sweeping down her legs.
"Eyes on the road," she tells him, pushing his face back to the road and his hand off her leg. "If you crash us, I'll kill you."
"Didn't know you cared that much."
"It's such a beautiful car; how could I not? Plus there's myself to worry about, of course."
He laughs, long and low and rough, and it seeps into her, warming her from the inside out and pulling her deeper down into this spiral of madness she's just swan dived back into.
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She doesn't know why she keeps coming back to him, and he can't tell her why he can't stay away, when she brings it up to him one night as they lay on the hood of the Camaro, blanket spread underneath Kiba and Kiba spread under her.
"I dunno, sweetheart," he says, and she feels the rumble of his answer underneath her cheek from where she lays. "We just keep goin' round and round, I know that much, but I couldn't tell ya why to save my life."
She ponders on this as his hand traces down her back and hers draws patterns on his chest; thinks back over their start and breakups and makeups and to here, where they are now, somewhere almost sort of stable (compared to their past, at least).
"I've got it," she announces after seven minutes of silence, only their hands tracing across each other.
"Well?" he asks, his hand giving up its adventure down her back and instead setting up camp in her hair, curled for the night.
"We crash down, and then we come back every time; and it's 'cause we never go out of style."