Disclaimer: I don't own Shino and his angst.
The Pain of Second Flight
---
A day before emerging, a chrysalis is perfectly transparent.
---
It is an unspoken rule that one of the most basic obligations of a heir is to have a heir.
Needless to say, it made Aburame Shino extremely uncomfortable to have to greet delegation after delegation of the most august shinobi clans - tall, imposing clan leaders, their shy daughters and their mothers-in-law - during that fateful week in Autumn a month before Succession.
His father was looking for three things: wealth, a healthy figure and the compatibility of jutsus; Shino only one: clear reluctance (not difficult, considering the Aburame's reputation). That way, he could nobly refuse.
Towards the end of the week, after the Obasus, Jyuuchis, Kandamas, Inushas, Adates, Taguyas, Moyukis and, god forbid, the Lees, had come and gone, it was clear Aburame Shibi was reaching the end of his teeter.
"There are only two families left. If you do not pick one of the girls, I will forcibly select one for you," he threatened, a menacing figure in the doorway of his son's study. Shino did not turn around, fixing his attention, instead, on a single bug nibbling the tip of a fingernail.
Quietly, he asked, "Which families are they?"
"There's one from Suna. They specialise in scarabs... the Nyumas, I think. The other is from Konoha, a genjutsu family."
"What if I don't like either girl?"
"Too bad," Shibi said, viciously, "Succession is next month and you are to be married by then."
"I hate you." Shino felt the bug slip beneath his fingernail, burrowing back into his skin.
"Like I said, too bad." The man replied, completely unfazed.
---
Shino considered his options and hated both of them. The idea of marriage as only being a preclude - a necessary criteria - to having children seemed to him a violation of the purity of the act itself. Of course, only a legitimate child may inherit the kukai. That was what the elders stressed, again and again. But then, Shino hadn't been a legitimate child himself.
He found out the morning his mother left. She had wanted to slip out silently, under the cover of the dark, wet forest. She had not anticipated her son - well, the boy she'd spent twelve years trying to love as a son - meditating in the clearing outside, a blue butterfly asleep on his cheek.
She tiptoed around him, suspending her breath, but he had called out to her all the same.
"Where are you going, Ma?" He didn't open his eyes so the mother felt she could gaze as cruelly as she wanted. That pale, porcelain skin; that high forehead; those curved, lobed ears - all relicts of a female she did not even know.
This boy was an abomination, she thought, a cut-and-paste of the man she once loved and a woman she would always hate.
"Far away." She said, not even bothering to disguise her spite.
"Will you come back?" He opened his eyes. The butterfly fluttered away to rest on his shoulder. The mother looked deep into them. No trace of her, not worth consoling. She turned away.
"No."
"But you are my mother." Shino had felt more angry than sad. He wanted to snap, don't you dare turn your back on me! He felt frightened, suddenly aware of the great power this woman had. The power she would discard in an instant.
There was a pause before the mother laughed a mirthless laugh, "You think so?"
"I may not be your son, but you are my mother." Calm as ever, composed and rational. Was that a trait of that wretched woman too? No, the mother realised, This is Shibi. She wavered in her step but refused to look back.
"That's not how it works, Shino." She said, quietly, "You can't love what was not yours to begin with." And, with that, she strode into the forest and out of his life.
---
"There's no point in marriage? Are you nuts? No, no, wait - are you gay?" Kiba tore a chunk of meat off a rather sad looking drumstick and waved it at his once-teammate. They were sitting on a bench off Shoku street, on a hot, noisy afternoon.
"NO," Shino said firmly, his brows knitted in annoyance. "And point that things away from me, please." He took measured bites of a rice ball and wondered why the hell he'd decided to talk to Kiba anyway. I mean, besides the fact that Kiba was married.
"Married life is swell, believe me, especially if you snag a quiet, docile-type, efficient, sweet kinda girl."
"Ino is...docile?"
"I said if, damnit." Kiba sighed, tossing the bare bone onto the grass behind, "You can't have everything." Wiping his hands on the lapel of his leather jacket, he put an arm around his friend and pulled him closer. "What is your problem, anyway?"
Shino shrugged him off, "I don't want to get married."
"Why?"
"Like I said, there's no point. I can't love something that wasn't mine to begin with."
"Whoa, don't get all philo on me... though the way I see it, the whole point of marriage is to make the girl yours so that you can love her. Legitimitely." And when were clan marriages about love anyway? He didn't ask it out loud.
"Really? You think Ino will ever be truly yours." Shino had finished his lunch, too, and was sipping green tea out of a thin paper cup. "How well do you know her, anyway?"
Kiba shifted uneasily in his chair, "Never really thought about that, to be honest. I mean, I just try to give her what she needs - security, affection, a good night's...sleep, a home; and she helps me out too - feminine support, lunches, that kind of thing. It isn't always smooth and all but... I can't imagine not living with her. Does that make sense?"
Yes, and no. "But do you love her? Would you love her even if she did something terrible? Would you love her if she had a kid that wasn't yours? Would you love that kid?" It came out in a long, confessional tirade. Shino was surprised by his sudden lack of inhibition.
"Whoa whoa, too many questions! What was the first one?"
"Never mind." Shino continued sipping his tea.
---
"Well, Shino-kun, I think you should listen to your father."
It was a typical Hinata answer. Shino sighed inwardly and wondered if he should make an excuse to leave right away. He cleared his throat but found that she wasn't looking at him, but at a young boy that had dashed right past him and onto the street.
"Yuuji! Don't go too far!"
"Don't worry, Mama!"
A smile came to Hinata's lips and she looked at Shino again, as if suddenly remembering he was there, "Do come in for some tea, Shino-kun." She gave her son one fleeting glance before stepping aside for the tall shinobi to pass through.
Hinata had changed remarkably little over the years. Her eyes were still round and moist; her hair the same shade of lilac (though now tied in an elegant, strict bun); her hands soft and feminine. She had also acquired a regal air. A certain grace that Shino felt came more from the quiet confidence she had developed herself than from the simple inheritance of a clan. Not that inheritance was simple.
Hinata also looked like a mother and the thought amused him. What did a mother look like, anyway?
"Yuuji's old now," Shino remarked, in his characteristic understated way.
Hinata nodded, "Five years. Can you believe it?"
Shino nodded. He had been at the Hyuuga Succession, when Hiashi handed the robes, somewhat reluctantly, to his eldest daughter. There had been rumours, then, that Hanabi might be favoured over Hinata but Hinata's marriage, a month before Succession, put an end to all that talk.
"How is Neji?"
"Fine." Hinata replied, and Shino detected both fondness and anxiety in her voice, "He's on an S class now... with Gai. He should be back in a week. Should be."
Shino nodded again, pressing the small teacup to his lips.
"You haven't come to ask about my family, have you?" That was another thing, Hinata no longer stuttered. "What are you disagreeing with your father over anyway?"
"Hinata, would you say your marriage was difficult?"
There was a pregnant silence in which Shino continued sipping and Hinata smoothed her hair, tucking a loose strand behind her ear. From the distance came the ring of wind chimes and whistle of a pot on a stove. Hinata took a sip of her tea.
"I did as my father said. I always have. And Neji loved me." She looked at him with round, moist eyes, "No, it was not difficult."
"Yuuji will inherit the clan then. I imagine his Byakugan must be incredible." Hinata blushed; Shino rarely passed compliments.
"Yes, he activated it at age two and is quite good already."
"But your next child... will be in the Branch family then?"
There was another silence. "Yes, I'm afraid so. With Neji now in the Head family, there's no heir left for the Branch. The next child... will have to go." She said this sadly, as if secretly hoping to have no more children.
"I see."
"So what have you come to see me about?"
For the first time since she'd known him, Shino smiled, "I did come to ask about your family."
---
"I've decided," Shino announced abruptly over dinner, "I wish to marry the Nyuma girl." All the elders turned to Shibi; Shibi frowned intensely at his son, half-exasperated, half-relieved.
"You haven't even seen her yet!"
"It doesn't matter, I wish to marry her." Shino stood up and the few kukai bugs that had been nibbling at crumbs on the table quickly leapt onto his sleeve, "It is my decision and I hope you will respect it."
The elders had begun to whisper amongst themselves: "Well, he's finally decided!" "The Nyuma girl is a good, plump one!" "Their jutsu is admirable, inferior to ours, but good enough!" "Suna is such a pleasant country!" Shibi smiled, pleased, and resumed his meal. He would grant the boy his privacy.
Shino left for his room. He kicked his tatami open with one foot and sat down. Holding the mouth of a knapsack open with one hand, he placed an assortment of items inside: small tanks, a kerosene lamp, magnifying lenses, rice balls.
"Come," he said, to no one in particular, "Its time to go." He leapt out the window and landed softly in the grass below. He looked back at his house, knowing he wouldn't miss it. You can't love what was never yours to begin with. Surveying the clearing, his bugs sensed what he could not - a narrow, winding dirt path leading deep into the forest. Without hesitation, he took a step towards it.
From his open window, a single blue butterfly took flight.