As a quick yet wordy introduction, this is just what the title says it is—a collection of crack couples from Naruverse that I've been requested to write over time (this list can be found on my profile). Not all of them will be crack, of course, but to keep my profile less cluttered, I'm sequestering everything here.

These will range from drabbles to very long one shots depending on my imagination and the amount of blank page I want to cover but nevertheless these duos (or trios…or x-number-os) will be done. Most will be comedic…and although a lot of them are rather strange combinations—think of melted cheddar cheese drizzled on a warm spicy apple pie—they might actually turn out brilliant—I mean, fuck, someone had to pioneer putting coffee into chocolate...in other words, give this crack a chance!

And yes, do feel free to request pairings. Challenge me; dare the impossible; make me never want to write ever again! (Ah…as for the ratings of these stories…we'll discuss under the table.)

Anyway, enough of me, I bring you the circus:

This one is for Kilalahinanaruto555…and her sister, I suppose.

My message to them: I'm happy to announce that you're cutting the red ribbon to this new story :). Thanks for the challenge; it was actually an odd pleasure to write and came out a lot longer than I expected! As for your other request, allow some time for that to marinate in my mind. :) Hopefully the request won't end up preserved, lol. No pun intended.

Enjoy!

By Definition

(Shino/Lee)

The Aburame family each had some sort of a favorite insect.

And the fetish ran down the generations, despite their upbringing around their specialty kikaichu parasites. None of them really had a choice—their clan's chakra-sucking bugs truly were the best of the best—and every Aburame was bred together with the six-legged creatures from the time they were walking on all fours in order to create an everlasting bond between the species.

But they did have a choice in what insects they chose to favor and observe.

For example, Muta's hidden obsession was the formidable ant, and underneath all his stoic countenance, Shino's father was quite overly knowledgeable about dragonflies.

Except whenever the entire family was over (and they came in swarms for the holidays—no pun intended) Shino would be confronted each year about his favorite insect—god forbid his aunts gave him a bad gift!—as much as the typical child of another clan would be asked their favorite band or most worn color.

And each time, their maturing prodigy would give a rare turn of lips and frown, explaining that no, he didn't have a favorite insect.

This, Shino figured, must have been the reason why he constantly received clothing from his relatives as opposed to anything that couldn't be eaten by moths.

Perhaps slightly frustrated or something, 12-year-old boy thus set out on a mission that day to find an insect that he had at least some passion for—so that he could at least blurt it out and have it rehearsed in the middle of a reunion.

And he looked up towards the trees and looked down towards the grass, and scoured left through the sand and scoured right through the river, and poked over trash and poked under rocks, but he could find nothing that drove his interest level above a 'meh.'

"Shino, with all good interest, what are you doing?"

A voice like sharp cheese with a respectful-as-classy-wine tone?

Had to be the orange-and-green-jumpsuited fool.

The insect-user simply looked up at Rock Lee and replied matter-of-factly, "Observing."

The other genin didn't seem to be satisfied with his answer, but turned his eyes toward what he thought Shino was watching—shades are always inconvenient, except to the guy that checks out feminine curves—and squinted in the given direction.

Of course, Lee wasn't looking the right way, and Shino's irises were actually perplexed at the rather wide and disc-shaped eyes that were fixed on the bowl-cut boy.

Shino never noticed it before, but Lee's eyes looked like—and the Aburame narrowed his eyes upon thinking this—bugs.

They had three legs of eyelashes each, but nonetheless looked like some sort of exotic beetle.

Maybe it was the angle of light that let him see past the polarized lenses, but when the taijutsu-trained boy swiveled back to question what his friend had been watching, he suddenly realized that the insect-lover was staring straight at him.

"Er, Shino, is there wrong with my face?" he asked, his bushy eyebrows wiggling out of curiosity.

The white-jacketed genin stood up slowly, hands still in his pocket. He replied only a moment later, taking a step closer toward Lee, in the same stoic and collected yet eerily creepy manner that Kishimoto had prescribed him.

"Your eyes look like bugs," stated the high-collared boy.

Lee wasn't sure whether this was an insult or a compliment, and since most people in the fandom ranted about his odd looks, he figured it was more plausible that Shino's comment was the former and reacted as such.

"Oh," he responded dejectedly, and his bushy eyebrows encored with a nervous downward shiver.

And then, Shino realized that his bug-eyed friend also owned an intriguing pair of caterpillars for eyebrows, and he was strangely—even for someone like him—mesmerized by the precise muscular control that Lee had over his upper facial features, allowing his caterpillar-eyebrows to crawl and critter in the infinite amount of emotions that Lee expressed.

"And your eyebrows look like caterpillars," Shino thus added.

Lee's face sagged and depressed a bit more, his eyebrows deflating in a peculiar wave.

Not intending to explain what he had actually meant or to even talk about his thought process, Shino simply took another glance at Lee's insects before turning on his heel and walking off to catch his team for training.

Under his large white collar, Shino's hidden lips twisted in thought.

Perhaps he did favor something after all—

Though he was debating if the caterpillars atop of Lee's forehead were technically classified as insects.

Shino kept his head down the remainder of the walk down town; behind his shades, his eyes were actually in deep concentration and thought about what the definition of an insect was.

As strange as it may seem to the normal person, in Shino's family, what each member thought a real insect meant was just as identifying to a character as what honor, valor, or respect means to the rest of us. ("He thinks that insects include anything that doesn't belong in the house? Oh that poor child…he will never become a shinobi. But don't tell his mother I said that!" or "What was that you said—oh!—that insects are messengers of life, distributing pollen throughout the earth? Oh, you have such a brilliant child, Shinji-san, and she is barely 8!")

So the young Aburame debated this all throughout the rest of the day, even during training, and in the middle of nowhere with unjustified timing—something to match his 'mysterious' and 'shady' personality—Shino turned to the rest of Team Kurenai with his ever calm façade.

"Even though caterpillars have more than six legs, are they still insects since they eventually turn into butterflies?"

He asked this in a serious manner, and if we were to translate, he'd be asking something along the lines of, "What is the meaning of life?"

His teammates—undoubtedly—looked quizzedly back at the pensive insect-user before answering with a unified, "Uh, yes?"

So thus, the two caterpillars across the brow of a bowl-cut, green-fitted, bug-eyed ninja were his favorite insects.

What would his family think of their grown up son? ("Caterpillars are barely the proper form of their mature six-legged winged beauties!")

But for a growing crush, Shino would think outside of the box.

Caterpillars are insects?

He could deal with that.

Reflections? Retrospections? Rants? Raves? Requests? And dare I ask it: Reviews?