First of all,
I wanna thank everyone for the 1.23k reads on this book!

Im so glad you all like it. It makes me happy. So happy.

Im glad you guys are on this jouney with me, there will be reveals now and everything will start coming together. Promise. Im just glad even the bullshit got you guys so interested. Really thank you. All of you.

Anyway, enjoy the chapter. 🤙🏾

——-

It's been two weeks into school. Tenten's parents decided to rekindle their love love over the winter break which left Tenten to move to Arizona. It crushed the girls knowing they lost one of their friends, but Tenten seemed so happy that her parents were getting back together that they wished her the best.

As for Kauri, over the break she found out she was pregnant with Choji's kid. It shocked everyone considering that Kauri hated kids. But the look on her face When she found out she was indeed happy, because she knew that the baby was created from love, and not just because she wanted to get one off.

Naruto and Hinata found themselves sneaking off from Ezra and Kiba, who acted more of a couple than best friends.

Today was a Thursday, Since yesterday was Benchmarks which is basically midterms for highschool charter schools, the next day was a day off for the students while the teachers compared scores to schools within their district. Sakura Ino, Hinata, Ezra, Kiba, and Naruto were hanging around the park.

Naruto looked around himself and felt a sense of calm. All the years he's had hell in his life and now, in this very moment, everything was so perfect and content. He watched as the girls swooned over Kiba's matching necklace with Ezra's bracelet. His eyes mainly focused on Hinata. Her beautiful smile as she and her friends teased the soon to be couple.

She's even more beautiful than Corey. He thought.

Corey; Naruto's crush in elementary and middle school. Corey was a cute girl. Her vanilla wafer skin and violet eyes. Her lips her naturally pouty and her smile was perfect. Even with her chipped tooth.

Naruto had the biggest crush on Corey Sager. Since the first time she gave him her juicebox he was hooked. She moved away though close to the end of eighth grade. He follows her on instagram and he's seen how much she's grown, but still she doesn't compare to Hinata. Hinata had a certain innocence to her that made him become so drawn to her in every way imaginable. Whenever she smiled he was stuck. The angels were jealous of house beautiful and pure Hinata was and Naruto knew it.

"There you go gawking again." Kiba whispers to his friend. He saw the blonde looking completely love struck and he had to bring him back to reality before the girls seen and decided to bother him about it. Kiba smirked knowing that he was such a good friend to Naruto.

"I-I-" Naruto stuttered trying to quickly come up with a lie.

"You were definitely gawking dude." Kiba then chuckles and pats his friend's back. "It's alright though, no one else noticed."

"Gee thanks for that." The blonde replies. He sighed heavily.

"So I was thinking we go on our first date soon." Kiba tugs on Naruto's arm ushering him away from the girls to talk in a more secure area. One that they knew the girl's couldn't hear him and talk about them. "Her birthday's coming up and I wanna do something really nice."

"Kiba.." Naruto paused and watched as his friend blushed. Kiba furrowed his eyebrows trying to keep himself together.

"Shut up I know already." Kiba facepalms himself and sighs heavily. "I can admit that I like her and maybe even be infatuated with the girl. I can swallow my pride and admit that to you because you're my friend. And I hope you'd do the same in return."

"Of course." Naruto says with a nod. "So what do you wanna do?"

"I don't know something nice." Kiba chewed on his lip and looked over Naruto's shoulder back at the girls. He watched as Ezra and the girls took pictures. Ino holding up the peace sign, Hinata has a bright smile, Sakura is holding the phone in front of them with her tongue out and in the middle of it all was Ezra. She doesn't smile; and Kiba knows she doesn't. But she does smirk. The was her favorite thing to do. She always had a smirk on her face. If you could make her smile then you were very lucky. She winked her eye and tilted her head with the smirk on her face and Sakura obviously took the picture because as soon as she lowered her hand, they were examining the picture and praising eachother for how cute they looked. "I-I just want to see her smile, that's all."

"You make her do that all the time though." Naruto says matter of factly.

"It's not real." Kiba says as his eyes travel back to Naruto. "I know it's not because she doesn't show her teeth. I want that."

"I see." his blonde friend nods slowly. "Throw her a party."

"She hates surprises." Kiba says flatly.

"Exactly." Naruto nodded. "Doing something she hates would make her smile because she know you did it. Believe it or not, but just by talking to Hinata or hanging out with her you'd know that she's a simple girl. Besides, girls are weird. Some of them say they hate something but in actuality, they really like it and only say they don't because they've never experienced it before."

"Where the hell did you get that logic from?"

"Heh," Naruto's eyes glaze over. "Corey honestly."

"Who's Corey?" The brunette cocked a curious eyebrow.

"A girl I used to like in middle school." He answers. "We were really close and all and then she moved away and we lost contact. Every now and then I see her being posted on Facebook from mutual friends, but I just never bothered to friend request her myself. I mean I have her on instagram ya know? I-I mean yeah, She's gorgeous, but she's not Hinata."

"One day you're gonna confess to Hinata and the world will be a better place."

Naruto snorted. "Shut up dude."

"Hey what are you guys doing here." A nonchalant voice cut through their conversation. Looking over they seen that it was Shikamaru taking his dog for a walk, eventhough his dog didn't even want to go on the walk in the first place.

"Hey Shikamaru." Naruto smiles. "We're just chilling with the girls today."

Shikamaru's eyes go behind the two teen boys and to a group of girls talking amongst themselves at a picnic table. his eyes landed on the blonde from months ago, who only wanted him to come study so she could look at him. He smirked.

"I see." He says.

"Join us." Kiba says already catching on to where Shikamaru was staring.

Shikamaru chuckled. "I cant, Kauri told me to stay away."

"Kauri tells everyone to stay away from her friends." Kiba chuckled. "Come on, she wont mind."

Sighing, Shikamaru took a step forwards as the boys turned to walk back to the girls.

"Look who we found!" Naruto's cheery voice cut through the girl's conversation. They looked over and Ino's eyes instantly sparkled.

"Well well, if it isn't manbun himself." Ino smirks causing the boy to scoff.

"I have a name you know." He says.

"No, I didn't know that." She replies with a cross of her arms. "You never told me."

"Shikamaru." The boy says.

"Ino." She says as well.

As they talked amongst themselves, Naruto found himself looking st Hinata. She finally decided to detach herself from them and read a book. Her eyes slowly scanning over the words as she would either giggle or make a sly comment when she felt it was needed but she never tore her gaze from the book.

Naruto felt his stomach flutter and he tried to swallow it down while trying to look away from her, but he found it hard. He couldn't tear his eyes off Hinata if he wanted to. The day he bumped into her really changed things. He actually wanted to be his old self again. He actually wanted her to like him. He wanted to be around her. It was like her presence alone gave him peace of mind. He was content with anything that was happening around them; as long as Hinata was by his side.

Kiba pressed his nose against Ezra's cheek before whispering to her. "Can I talk to you?" He asks.

Ezra cocks her head back to get a look at Kiba's face. It was a blank expression but Ezra saw in his eyes that he really wanted to say something to her.

"O-okay." She replies awkardly. The two snuck away from their group to a more quiet place. It was by a tree. A tree that Ezra always found herself under when she came to the park. She remember climbing this tree, having her first kiss under this tree. She even cried after her first heartbreak under this tree.

"What's up?" She says.

Kiba pressed his body against her causing her breath to hitch. She was too afraid to look up at him so she stared widely at his adams apple. Her lips pursed together and her hands firmly at her side. She felt Kiba gently take her chin in his hands and slowly lift her head up. She caught a glimps of his lips causing her to blush heavily. She couldn't take it any longer. As much as Ezra wanted to kiss Kiba, she kept herself together. She knew that if she and Kiba were to kiss, it would definately complicate things between them. She liked how they were now. Whatever this "best friend" thing was.

"You know, everysince Big Bear, I've been havinng this strong urge to kiss you." Kiba admits as he stares at the ebony girl's full lips. He then drug his tongue across his own pair of lips. "Everytime I see you I just-" he paused, biting down on his lip which made Ezra do the same. "But one day I will.

Kiba leaned in and Ezra completely froze. Anticipating the feel of his lips on hers. Kiba gazed his lips against hers and let out a sigh before pulling back. The action frustrated the young girl but she refused to show it.

"I'll get it one day." He smiles at her and Ezra wished they could stay like that forever. She loved when Kiba smiled. It literally brightened up her world when he did. She didn't understand how she'd become so attracted to him in such a short matter of time. Sure the first time was just a crush and all he did was smile at her. But Ezra felt like she's known Kiba her whole life. He makes her comfortable with who she is and how she looks. Kiba was just everything she needed and she knew that. But beinng his girlfriend right now would just be a distraction. She was fine with being his friend.

"What's going on in that head of yours huh?" Kiba asked slowly snaking his arms around her waist. He slipped his hands into the back pockets of her denim jeans, feeling the cuff of her butt without even trying to. Kiba loved Ezra's body. Her wide hips and thick thighs, she was fit for her height. You could tell she played some kind of sports. Kiba loved admiring Ezra. Especially when she wasn't aware he was doing it. It's been like that for years. He's mastered the technique if going unnoticed; minus the few times Naruto caught him in the act.

Kiba looked down at her and licked his lips again. He watched as her honey eyes met his and again he smiled.

"Nothing." She says calmly.

"Do you really wanna go the route right now?" Kiba cocked an eyebrow and pulled her closer to his body, removing his hands from her pockets and sliding then to her lower back. His fingertips grazed the bare skin of her back making the girl shiver from the sensation.

"I wasn't thinking about anything." Her voice was low and Kiba liked it. Her voice was softer that way.

"Suit yourself." He says before tickling her. Ezra cried out in a fit of giggles trying to get away from him. She broke free and made it almost to the group before he caught her and continued his torture. Their group looked at them, seeing how well they fit with eachother.

Hinata Ino and Sakura knew that Ezra hated PDA—or public display of affection— but with Kiba it was like she didn't care, or Kiba didn't make it as obvious to her as he did to them. Sure he'd slip his hand in her while their walking, but Ezra never thought nothing of it, because Hinata would be holding her other hand. Of course Kiba would wrap his arms around her during lunch as they sit at the table, but it goes unnoticed by the others let Ezra tell it. She knew once the PDA became noticeable then their relationship, whatever it was, would be serious at that point.

"It's nice seeing her happy." Sakura says. "She's always trying to fix us up with someone so it's pretty fun to fix her up with Kiba."

"Woah you guys did that?" Shikamaru asked. "And all this time I thought Kiba swallowed his pride."

"Technically he did." Hinata says defending Kiba. "Kauri just got the ball rolling for them."

"She's a nice fit for Kiba oddly enough." Shikamaru says watching as Kiba hugged Ezra tightly from behind and expressed how sorry he was with huge smiles on both of their faces. "She mellows him out."

"He mellows her out." Ino says crossing her arms. "Ezra is our agressor. If anyone isn't down to fight Izzy is. She's the smallest of all of us and the biggest firecracker in the pack. Kiba calms her down."

"Kiba's always pulling pranks and getting us more exercise in practice because of that but to see him so chill at times is surprisingly good. Im so used to him being a fucking clown all the time I don't even know if he can mellow out."

"That's because you're too mellow yourself." Hinata says.

"Eh, I guess so." Shikamaru lays back on the grass he was sitting in and closed his eyes. "All I'm saying is, they'd make a really great couple."

"Well since he's got her distracted." Naruto cleared his throat. "Kiba wants to throw a surprise party for Izzy."

"Count us all in." Sakura says leaning forward. "Leave me and Ino to distractions while you guys set us everything."

Naruto smiled. "Okay, so my idea is this—"