23: Dream

Monday morning.

Kiba showed up at Shin’s door the same way he did every week—Akamaru tucked under one arm, voice already going before he’d made it up the path.

“Shin!”

Shin was always up by the time Kiba arrived. That was just how it was. Kiba had figured this out after showing up early one morning and finding Shin already sitting on the wooden veranda, perfectly still, staring at nothing—or at something only he could see. After that, Kiba stopped assuming he slept in.

“We’re gonna be late! Shin!”

No answer.

He waited, scratching Akamaru’s ear. The door didn’t move.

“…Shin?”

He stepped up and knocked. A real knock—knuckles against wood.

Nothing.

He knocked harder.

“Shin. Hey. Shin!”

He kept going until it stopped being knocking and started being something else.

“I’m kicking it open!”

A beat.

“I mean it!”

He did mean it. He swung his leg—

“OW—”

Kiba hopped back, grabbing his foot, teeth clenched against a wave of pain that shot straight up his shin. Akamaru woke up properly at that, crawled onto his head, and settled there with what felt like judgment.

“Rrwf.”

“Shut up,” Kiba hissed.

He stood there for a moment, just breathing, staring at the door. The pain faded. The door stayed closed.

Shin would’ve heard all of that. Shin had ears like an owl. And he still hadn’t answered once.

He wouldn’t have left without me.

Something uncomfortable moved through Kiba’s chest.

He never leaves without me.

“…Whatever,” he muttered. He turned away. His foot came down hard on the path. “Not waiting for you!”

He raised his voice one last time at the shut door.

“I’m going!”

Silence.

He went.

Shino was at the corner, as usual—standing perfectly still in his long coat and goggles, looking like he’d been there since before dawn.

“Morning,” Kiba said.

“Good morning, Kiba.” Shino glanced past him. “Where’s Shin?”

“Dunno.” Kiba crossed his arms. His voice came out sharper than he meant it to.

“What does that mean?”

“He didn’t come to the door.” A pause. “Probably left early.”

Shino was quiet for a moment. “He’s never done that before.”

“Yeah, well.” Kiba started walking. “People change.”

It didn’t even convince him.

Shino fell into step beside him. “Are you sure he left?”

Kiba thought about the silence behind that door. The complete, unbroken kind—not the ordinary quiet of Shin’s mornings, but something different. The kind of silence where nothing moved at all.

“We’ll be late,” he said. “Let’s go.”

“…Alright.”

Shin’s seat was empty.

Kiba stared at it for a full thirty seconds before the classroom noise washed back in—people calling out greetings, scraping chairs, someone laughing too loudly in the back row.

“Hey, Kiba, you barely made it—”

“Did Shin come in early?”

“What happened to him?”

Shino came to stand beside him. “Shin didn’t come,” he said, quietly, more to Kiba than to anyone else.

Shin. Didn’t. Come.

The bad feeling Kiba had been carrying since the door got about three sizes heavier.

“Kiba.”

He blinked. Naruto was standing directly in front of him, looking unusually serious for someone who’d been thrown out of class the day before.

Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

“Kiba. Where’s Shin? Why isn’t he here?”

Shin—

The door.

The silence.

“I—” Kiba opened his mouth. Nothing useful came out.

The bell rang.

Everyone drifted back to their seats. Iruka came through the door, glanced around the room, did the quiet counting thing that teachers did when the numbers came up wrong.

His gaze settled on the two of them still standing in the aisle. Then it moved to the empty desk.

“Where’s Shin?” he asked.

Kiba was already moving.

He didn’t run—he bolted, straight past Iruka, out the door, and gone.

“Hey! Inuzuka! Get back here—you do not walk out of my class—!”

Behind him, Shino’s unhurried voice:

“My apologies, Iruka-sensei. Shin may be unwell. We want to check on him. Please excuse us.”

Then Shino’s footsteps, calm and steady, following after.

“Shino—!”

Kiba was already on the rooftops.

He covered the distance in minutes, chakra burning light and fast, Akamaru flat against his collar and fully awake now. He dropped into Shin’s yard without touching the gate and hit the front door at speed.

“Shin!”

The house was quiet.

He found him in the bedroom.

Shin lay on his back in the futon, eyes closed, entirely still. His face was white—not his usual pale, but something else, something that had no blood in it at all. His hair was plastered to his forehead. His pillow was soaked through. His collar was soaked through.

Kiba stood in the doorway.

He’d seen sick people before. He’d been badly sick himself once, when he was six, and Hana had barely slept for three days.

This didn’t look like sick. This looked like something else.

“Hey.” His voice came out quieter than he meant it to. “Shin.”

No response.

“Shin.”

Nothing. Not even a twitch.

“Shin.“