Saturday Night
“Please tell me you have some good news.”
It was the first thing Hinata had said to anyone the next morning, her eyes rimmed red and hazy. What they had so far could be counted on one hand – the location of the crime scene, how the murder was committed, and what time it took place. She’d tried to tell herself that this was enough of a basis for more evidence, that they still had a small pool of possible suspects, but at that moment, things weren’t looking good.
“Well, we got a couple of things that might interest you,” Kiba said, grinning for once. He handed her a thermos of a hot drink, and she smiled around the rim of it as she drank – a chai latte, possibly made from scratch. It coated her tongue and sank down into her empty stomach, warming her inside and out.
“Did you…make this yourself?” she asked, surprised.
“Well…I wake up early, and I thought maybe you could use something nice, after yesterday,” he mumbled. She smiled, choosing not to comment on how his face reddened.
“…Okay, that’s…I’m marginally less miserable now. Keep talking,” she added, sipping her drink delicately.
He sat opposite her at her desk, his nerves eased somewhat. “Well, turns out that the location itself is a pretty big clue to who did it – think you’ll find it pretty interesting.”
Hinata raised an eyebrow, gesturing him to spill the beans. He chuckled at that, before presenting his trump card in the form of an old case file. “Turns out that that warehouse in particular is a well-known meet-up spot for gang members, and it’s been the spot for at least one attempted murder case in the past. Take a look,” he said, handing the file to her.
She flicked through it, her eyebrows furrowing, a hand moving to cover her mouth. “…This is…this is when Lee…”
“Yeah…it’s the same place Rock Lee was found in after he’d been tortured by Gaara of the Sand. Neji was able to swoop in and save the day back then…” Kiba said, taking the file back and tucking it under his arm.
“…But when the tables were turned, no one was there to save Neji…” Hinata muttered to herself, eyes cast down. “I never found out much about whatever cases Neji was running, but I do know that he was like a dog with a bone over this one.”
Kiba glared at her for a moment, and she smiled sweetly. “Aww, you understand what I mean.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he grumbled. “He never stopped investigating Lee’s case, is what you’re saying.”
“Yes. He would leave it for a while, but every now and then, he’d tell me that he was on the trail again, and that he’d find the evidence he needed to put Gaara away for it. He was so indignant over the whole thing, and he just…he never let it go.”
Kiba nodded, contemplative. “Can’t really blame him for that. His partner gets put through the ringer by a gang leader, becoming both a rescuer and a witness – and there wasn’t enough evidence to get a trial, or even find where he was hiding out? Bullshit, man,” he said, thinking it over. “You think Gaara could be our guy? I mean, it sounds nice an’ all, but we need more proof than this.”
Hinata’s hand stroked her chin, eyes narrowed. “Well, it makes sense, doesn’t it? Neji goes out, does some looking around for evidence, Gaara finds out and they have a confrontation. The rumour is that Gaara’s magical defences are impenetrable – if that’s the case, then it’s entirely possible for Neji to have lost against him…and he would certainly have the resources to contact someone and have them dispose of the body. On top of that, he has magic relating to the manipulation of sand, so it’s possible that he could have impaled Neji with it, which is why we couldn’t find the murder weapon on the scene – he carries it with him.”
“That’s a lot more likely a story than you might think,” Shino chimed in, striding in, papers in hand. “I spent a lot of last night looking through as many CCTV cameras as I could, near both the initial crime scene and the site where Neji’s body was, and while it’s difficult to see a driver, we matched the description of the van to other crimes connected to the sand family. It’s likely that he brought a goon with him and got them to dispose of the body.”
Hinata smiled, but only for a moment, her face falling again right away. “That’s great…but we can’t just wander in blindly here. We need to find a way to interrogate Gaara personally, but his reputation makes me think that he'd rather kill us than talk, and he's notoriously hard to locate...we need to organise it without raising the alarm and putting ourselves in danger. But how?”
Kiba shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “Well, I think I know a way,” he started. Shino huffed, shook his head, and left the room, grumbling to himself as he went. Hinata watched him go, her brow furrowed, and she looked back over at Kiba, her mouth hanging open slightly.
He sighed, resting his forehead on his palm. “I kind of…sort of used to date Gaara’s brother, alright?” he confessed, his eyes peeking at her from between his fingers – her face had morphed into a frozen mask of shock and distaste. “It’s okay, it was a while ago, what we had is long gone and…”
“Kiba…” she said, bringing up her hands and getting them to work massaging her temples.
“…Alright, so maybe I kind of still go for drinks with him every once in a while so we can shoot the shit. As friends, mind,” he hastily added.
“Kiba, what part of ‘catching up with gangster ex-boyfriends’ sounds okay to you?” she ground out.
“Hey, he isn’t a gangster! I think you’ll find that he’s invested a lot of time and effort into not getting involved in his siblings bullshit!”
“Please for the love of God, get to the point.”
“Alright, alright,” he said, hands held up in mock surrender. “All I’m saying is that I’m pretty sure he could organise a meeting with his brother, or at least pass on a message, if I were to go to him and ask him nicely.”
“Well, that sounds…surprisingly easy. You know where to find him?”
“Sure. It’s a Saturday – only one place he can be,” Kiba said, grinning suavely. “You doing anything tonight, beautiful?”
“You didn’t have to hit me so hard earlier, you know,” Kiba grumbled as Hinata opened her front door, and she didn’t miss the way he froze, his eyes travelling up and down her figure.
“Well…I mean, honestly, Kiba,” she sputtered, hands flapping, trying to figure out which parts of herself she needed to cover up. He’d told her to go classy, ‘but not too classy, ya feel?’, so she’d gone for the red silk dress that she’d been given as a present – beautifully made, with a gorgeous pattern, in a colour that she rarely had the guts to wear and with much less material than she was used to. She’d been told that it would be good for any hen night parties that she would find herself invited to. “…How do I look?” she asked, meekly.
He smiled, more gentle than before. “Amazing. Where we’re going, it’s just the sort of thing that’d be appreciated. You’d fit in just fine,” he said, taking hold of the door and opening it wide enough to let her through. She wobbled over to the car, not used to the heels, and she thanked herself for taking Sakura’s advice and packing a spare pair of shoes.
The car journey there – not in a patrol or work car, but in Kiba’s own pathetic, beaten up old Cadillac – was spent largely in an uncomfortable silence. She watched Kiba out of the corner of her eye, taking in how his military-style jacket pressed flat against him, visibly growing tighter with his breathing, and her face felt hot. She felt herself flush even brighter when she caught him glancing over at her, something curious and almost hungry in his eyes. She thought about what Shino had said to her the morning before, and for a moment, she didn’t think it would be all that bad a thing to consider. She opened her mouth to speak just as the car pulled to a stop.
They were just outside the club, Kiba rushing to get out and open Hinata’s door for her, and she shook her head at him, smiling. It didn’t seem much like the kind of place that required that kind of good treatment, if she were honest in her assessment.
The Red Sand was only noticeable as a club that was in use because of the music filtering from under the front door. The sign was subtle, hidden beneath the glare of the neon-lit shops flanking it, the entrance obscured in shadows, and Hinata would never have noticed it if it weren’t for Kiba dramatically sweeping his arm. Kiba’s nose crinkled in distaste as she nudged the door open, not necessarily from the smell itself and more from the intensity of it. Wood varnish, cigar smoke and spilled drinks – he noticed her look of concern, smiled shakily. “Smells like a fun time, is all,” he said, scanning the room for a seat with a view of the stage and striding towards it with confidence. She trotted in behind him, feeling people’s stares. Should have brought a coat, she thought, shivering under the heat of stranger’s gazes (and the lack of heating, she noted, hands rubbing at her arms).
Sitting down, squirming at the feel of cold wood on the backs of her thighs, Hinata looked around – there were more people there than she would have guessed from the outside, a low whisper of sound barely audible above the music. Nothing exceptional.
“So where’s our host?” she asked, raising her voice just loud enough for him to hear her. He shifted his chair around to be seated directly next to her, leaning in close enough for her breath to tickle his ear, and she felt the sudden warmth radiate from his skin. He grinned at her and pointed to the stage.
It was readily apparent which of the men on stage was Kankuro of the desert, if only because Hinata wasn’t sure that any of the other band members were human at all – his face, painted at it was and obscured somewhat by the black fedora, was alive and emotive, a direct contrast to the other men, whose only movements were in playing the instruments. Glancing at Kiba questioningly, she thought it best to check, the all-seeing eye flickering into place – all she saw was him and his life force, spread equally around the stage. That he could control all of the marionettes at once really was incredible, she thought, and Kiba’s eyes shone with something – pride? Nostalgia? She switched off her magic, the subtle changes in Kiba’s face striking her as indecent to see.
Kankuro was singing about Saturday nights, moving between a velvet baritone and a smooth tenor without a hitch, only his eyes registering that he’d spotted them near the front. Kiba waved cheerfully, something Kankuro acknowledged with merely a grin. A good five minutes after the song ended and he took his bows, he pulled a spare chair towards their table and sat down, still radiant from performing.
“Well, well, look who it is,” he said, eyes sharp and fixed on Kiba. “I was beginning to think that that husband of yours had followed through on his word and banned you from coming here. Which is a shame – we finally made Temari’s usual order into a named cocktail,” he joked. “Absinthe and vodka, knocks most people out like a light – you want to try it?”
Kiba laughed, leaning forward across the table. “I’d prefer to remember this conversation later, thanks for the offer. And it ain’t my husband that’s stopping me from coming here – it’s my job. That, and the ‘No Dogs Allowed’ sign up front, I’d love to bring Akamaru in here some time. No one else has a say in where I can and can’t go,” he said, grinning.
“Well, ain’t that the truth,” Kankuro said, ruefully. He finally glanced over to Hinata, watching her as if assessing a painting. His face split into a grin, slick with a greasy sort of charm. “And you must be Hinata Hyuuga. Last couple of times he’s been here, Kiba was pretty liberal with his praise.”
Such a carefully worded compliment, she thought, a shiver running up her spine. “…I would like to think that I’m deserving of them, thank you,” she replied, seeing his smile deepen. There was a game being played here, that much was obvious.
“Well, your name carries a degree of renown around these parts…but that’s none of my business…” he airily noted, and he was grinning from ear to ear, seeing her take a deep breath. A test, she figured, although she wasn’t sure if it were of her nerves or her wit, or perhaps both.
She went with both, setting her chin and looking down at him. “I hope you don’t mind if I make it your business,” she firmly said, reaching a hand into her bag and holding the sides of the papers between her fingers. “Because there’s a certain kind of gossip that needs to be heard by certain ears, if you understand my meaning.”
“Oh, is that right?” Kankuro asked, raising his eyebrow and twisting his mouth into mock surprise. His eyes flickered between her and Kiba, almost questioning. “…Well, I must say, I’m hurt that you, Kiba, would put her up to something like this.”
“I didn’t – come on, Kankuro, I know it’s a dick move…” Kiba spluttered, and the look Kankuro fixed him bordered on ugly.
“You got that right – friend or not, don’t think for a moment that I appreciate what you’re trying to do.” The two men fixed each other with a glare, and Hinata couldn’t help but notice something almost sad pass between them. The moment passed, and Kankuro’s smile slotted straight back into place, mocking. “I’m not a messenger boy, kids, and I have nothing to do with whatever misdeeds you think my brother’s been involved in.” He pushed himself away from the table, steadying himself to stand.
Gotcha, she thought, smiling pleasantly. “It’s funny you should say that,” she said, bluffing, “because I’m fairly certain that it’s one of your vans that was used to move my cousin’s body.” He froze, fixing her with a glare that could peel paint, sitting back down. Kiba had turned to her, wide eyed and wavering between impressed and hurt. This was news to him, as it should have been, and she could almost feel the sense of betrayal between them now.
“…Colour me interested,” Kankuro said, brow furrowed, his grin missing and leaving something close to anger in its place.
“A black van with ‘The Scorpion’ proudly stencilled on the side,” she continued, removing the first picture and placing it on the table between them. “I mean, it’s clever, using a company van to carry out illegal activity – and better still, the club’s gone through a name change since then, hasn’t it? Harder to place a restaurant that technically doesn’t exist anymore. Even if you personally aren’t involved, I’m sure you’re the sort that would do your brother a favour every now and then, lend him a van or two in a pinch. Am I right?”
He examined the photo carefully before staring at her, the paint widening his frown, not even covering up the fact that he was judging her. He eventually smiled, smug this time. “Well, that’s an interesting way of seeing things. I’m curious, though, why this is something my brother should even care about,” he said, his low enough to not be overheard. “So, spill it – what kind of trouble are you accusing Gaara of getting into?”
She pulled out the second photograph, covering the first with it on the table. He stared at it for several long seconds, before glancing between her face, set in a determined glare, and the photo of Neji’s bloodied corpse. Slowly, as if it were just sinking in, he grinned, and then laughed, the sound a curious mix of good nature and malice. The patrons of other tables glanced over, before shrugging and going back to their own business.
“And Kiba told me you were shy!” he gasped in between giggles. “You – you’re gutsier than you look. I like that.”
“I think you’ll find that I’m only shy around people whose opinion I actually give a shit about,” she deadpanned, keeping herself in check. “Not to be rude, but you’re completely gutless, and I don’t like that.”
Kankuro collected himself, still grinning. “You know, it’s funny…that’s not the first time I’ve heard something like that. I wonder where I’ve heard that before…?”
She bristled at that, knuckles white. “I don’t care for either your nostalgia or your tone,” she ground out, pushing the photo further across the table. “Now, you had better commit this photograph to memory here, and you had better hope that your brother had nothing to do with this. Well?”
Kankuro said nothing, looking back at the photo of Neji, carefully studying it. “...Don’t know if you’d know about this, but he was here about a week ago,” he said, distantly. “Just like you are now, shoving photos at me and asking questions. No murders, but…he was asking about a regular patron here. I couldn’t help him out much, though.”
“He was asking about…? Who was it?” Kiba chipped in, leaning forward with interest.
“Hell if I know, some guy.” Kankuro said, hand on his chin. “Tall, dark hair and eyes, freakishly pale and handsome. I never had any trouble with the guy – only remarkable thing about him was how cute he was, and that while he usually had people approach him to talk, he’d always arrive and leave by himself.” He shrugged, sharing a confused look with the detectives. “This guy in the photo – it’s Neji Hyuuga, right? I just figured he was working on a case or something.”
“That’s…that can be really helpful to us, thanks,” Kiba said, smiling. Kankuro lowered his hat further over his eyes, avoiding eye contact.
“Well, I think that’s the extent of my usefulness,” he mumbled, almost inaudible above the general chatter of the bar. He paused, as if to collect himself, before smiling again, as pleasantly as he did when he first approached them. “Now, I can sit here for the next several hours outlining why Gaara’s innocent and why myself and my company don’t have anything to do with your cousin’s death…but hell, why not let Gaara do it himself? I’ll talk to him, see what I can do.”
Kankuro stood, Kiba following shortly behind – he shuffled awkwardly for a moment, before holding his hand out.
“Thank you – this case means a lot to so many people, and it’s…well, I’m glad you could help out,” he said, seeming almost shy. Like he’d turned back into a teenager, Hinata thought wryly – all he had to do to complete the picture was twirl his fingers.
“Sure thing, kid – just call in advance next time you try shit like this, ‘kay?” Kankuro replied, shaking Kiba’s hand briefly. His hand returned to his pockets this time, and he turned to Hinata, shit-eating grin in place. “Sadly, I must depart – do your best to look after the mutt, alright?” His hand went up and tipped his hat. “Until we meet again…”
If he could have bowed without looking foolish, she thought, he would have. Instead, he gave them a mock salute, turned from then and strode behind the stage curtains, disappearing from sight. Kiba sighed, and he in turn walked to the door.
Nostalgia’s a bitch, Hinata concluded, trailing out after him.
The drive back to her apartment was set to be just as silent as the way there, except the previous mood was gone entirely, replaced with a solemnity Hinata wasn’t used to seeing in her partner. Eventually, Kiba cleared his throat, and glanced at her again, strangely awkward. “Hinata, I…well, I knew he was going to try and test you somehow, so I’m sorry if…you know, if you were uncomfortable or anything.”
“Oh…well, it’s okay. I mean, he was…aggravating…but we got what we wanted, so I’m happy,” she replied, watching street lights pass her window, amber streaks in the blackness. She saw him nod from the corner of her eye, watching her for a moment.
“Well, that depends. He’s on good terms with his brother now, but we’re still asking a lot of him.”
“…This Kankuro person…he still means something to you?” she asked. As if she needed to – she’d seen how he’d been acting all evening, nervous and close to wanting. If he hadn’t asked her about being their third, she would have pinned it down purely to past feelings resurfacing and not thought anything more of it – as much as she hated the thought, she was worried down to her core that there was something he wasn’t discussing.
Kiba snorted from amusement. “Well, yeah, course he does. You don’t go through the things we did without wanting to keep some kind of contact, you know?”
“…I suppose I do…so what happened? I mean, if you’re…if you want to tell me.”
He was quiet for a long while, then, chewing on his lip and staring out at the road. “What’s to tell?” he said, finally. “We were both brats who were headed for a lifetime of trouble if someone didn’t put us in the right direction. We both had parents and siblings who were varying degrees of absent or awful, he was a punk who got no respect, and me…I was a wreck.”
He admitted it in a small voice, and she followed his gaze, not to the road like she had thought, but to the scar on his hand. It was silver and curved like a crescent moon, a matching reflection on his palm as well, conveniently the same size as the row of fangs that he sprouted whenever he accessed the more animal side of his psyche. She'd seen him with short sleeves before - she knew there were others like it scattered across his body. “I was a self-destructive little shit back then. Compared to me, he was…he was my rock, for a time. Said himself that he’d rot with me, if need be. And I guess I thought that if I was going down, then at least there was someone willing to go down with me.” He chuckled darkly, shaking his head. “But that really was a long time ago.”
“…If you’re so eager to find a third…why not go for him? He sounds like he’d be a better choice for that,” she mumbled. He snapped out of his sadness and shot her a wide-eyed look.
“What? Aw man, you got it all wrong!” he exclaimed, his face a fun mix of shock and distaste. “It’s not like we’re desperate for a third person – we asked you because…well, we thought it could work out, and we wanted to give it a chance.” He confessed it, his face turning red, and she could see him try in vain to will the blush away, his hand gripping the steering wheel like he wanted to rip it out.
“You…you really think it could?” she said, her hand coming up to rest on his, gentle and encouraging.
“…Well, we both really like you, not that we show it so much. We do. You’d stop us from killing each other, at least,” he joked, coaxing a grin out of the both of them. Her thumb stroked along the backs of his knuckles, and he went quiet for a moment, smiling contentedly.
“…And besides,” he continued, “if we were just choosing a third person for the hell of it, it couldn’t be Kankuro. Shino hates his guts. That, and…again, what I had with Kankuro was a long time ago, and going back to that…I can’t think of a bigger mistake.”
She giggled, and he let a laugh seethe through his teeth. “That bad, huh?”
“Oh yeah. He can be great sometimes, but he’s kind of a dick too. Not that Shino isn’t kind of a dick either…” he noted, pulling up outside her apartment. She got out and hobbled to the drivers side door, leaning down to hear him as he wound the window down.
“See you at work tomorrow? I’m willing to pick you up, if you want,” Kiba offered, and she shook her head.
“I can get there myself, thank you,” she said, feeling in the air something different and warm. Before she could think better of it, she said quickly, “And you know, I am thinking about it, about you and Shino, I am, just that I have a lot of other things on my mind right now and…”
“Say no more. Just…” Just that you’re the least dickish person I’ve ever loved, he wanted to say, but didn’t. “Just take care of yourself, okay? We can talk about it when you’re ready. Sleep well, Hinata.”
He waited for her to make her way to the front door of her apartment before he drove off, kicking himself as he went: she watched him go, the summer night chilling her as she stood there, only going through the door and to the lift when she couldn’t see his car anymore.
Her bed felt just a little warmer that night, just a little less lonely, a little closer to normal than it had been the night before. She thought about squeezing into bed between two solid, sleeping figures, and getting some grumbled complaints and maybe even a kick to the shins as a reward, and she figured that maybe it really wasn’t such a bad thing to consider after all.
Not now, she thought to herself, never now. But some day…maybe.