#kibacho

Akamaru whined at him as he returned from his last trip, butdidn’t move from the tiny pool of shade he was failing to curl his massive bodyinto. “Sorry buddy, but I’ve gotta take that box now, you’ll have to find somemore shade,” Kiba said with an apologetic wince as he pulled it under his arm.

Running one of his sweaty hands over his pet’s warm furwould just make them both uncomfortable; he did it anyway, absently wiping hispalm against his shorts to rid it of the short, bristly hairs sticking to it.

How many more trips would it take? He was already on six andcounting and, while he trusted Akamaru to guard his belongings as he went todump everything in his new apartment, he wasn’t sure the poor creature would beable to stay awake in this heat much longer. Eyeing the remaining boxes, hedecided that it wouldn’t be impossible to take them all at once, it was onlythe light stuff left anyway.

Carefully, he lifted the tower of boxes and take a slow,measured step away from his truck.

Ok, this was fine, sure he couldn’t see where he was going,but he’d made this trip enough times in the last hour that he knew roughlywhere he was going, he wasn’t looking forwards to the stairs, or doors, but hewould just have to deal with those issues as they came, he was already nearingthe entrance, wait, shit, his keys were still in his pocket, shi-

By the time he’d made sense of his suddenly spinning world,Akamaru’s face had obscured all of his vision and he couldn’t hear anythingover the ringing in his ears.

Apparently satisfied that his owner wasn’t dead, Akamarustopped licking at his cheek and instead let out a few sharp, loud barks,helpfully clearing the fog in Kiba’s head.

The aching of his… everywhere quickly made him wish for itback.

He groaned and blindly waved a hand in his dog’s directionto calm him down, pushing himself off the hard concrete stiffly, but instead ofbrushing fur, he ended up slapping his hand against something soft and fleshy.Finally, his swimming vision focused on the arm he had grabbed hold of and hefollowed it up to the panicked face blocking out the harsh sun – light framingit in a thick, orange-gold halo.

“I’m so sorry, areyou ok? I wasn’t looking where I was going, it’s my fault, here let me help youup-” he was pulled effortlessly to his feet, though he was sure that if he let goof the stranger he would immediately fall down again, but it might even beworth it just to see how the muscles in that bare arm shifted again “-you lookkinda out of it, do you think you have a concussion? Uhh, maybe we should sityou down somewhere…”

Coughing, he gingerly – reluctantly – released the man’sarm, brushing his hand against Akamaru’s head to try and cover the ghost warmthhe could still feel on it. “Nah, ’m fine, just surprised.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to sit down anyway?” He didn’treally get a choice, as he was already being lead to a short wall and gentlypushed down, a water-bottle immediately shoved in his face. “Here, you shoulddrink something, I’ll go pick up your boxes.”

Maybe he was just moving slower than usual because of thefall, or maybe the kindly stranger was just really fast, but by the time he’dopened his mouth to protest, all his things were neatly stacked in his arms andhe was flashing him a warm grin from over the top of them. Kiba mentally cursedhis shortness.

He also mentally catalogued the image of those arms.

“So are you moving in?” the man asked, carefully placing theboxes on the wall next to Kiba, before settling down on his other side.

He took a quick sip of water and nodded, not sure any wordswould actually come out if he tried.

“That’s awesome! I actually live here too, name’s Chouji, I’min four-c.”

In the face of that small, genuine grin on a soft, invitingface and long, brown hair that looked like it would be heaven to stroke andthose goddamned arms, Kiba foolishlylet his mouth move without first consulting his brain. “I’m fucking starving.”

Just as he was about to throw himself into the bush behindhim and dig until he reached the Earth’s core, Chouji laughed, long and loudand utterly joyful and he decided that maybe he could stick around, at leastuntil it stopped.

“Yeah, moving in is hungry work,” he eventually said, voicestill light and happy, “hey, since you’ve probably not got anything in yourfridge yet, how about we go get lunch? I know this great place nearby and I canshow you around the area too if you’re interested. I can give you a hand gettingthe rest of your stuff inside.”

He had to bite his lip to stop from screaming out loud. “Soundsgreat, neighbour.”

Kiba just knew he was gonna like living here.