Aburame Shino is five days old by the time Shibi gets to see him properly. He is aware he has been putting off going to see his newborn son because he fears he will hate the small child. Hate him for being the cause of his wife's death, hate him for being here when she is not....
But when he holds the baby in his arms, marvelling at how heavy he is and how quiet, he feels nothing but a fierce easy love that suprises him. The boy looks like very much like his mother at this point in time, Shibi decides, wondering if he is just seeing what he wants to see in the pudgy baby face. If perhaps his own brain is tricking him into it, so he does not reject the child....
"Aburame-sama."
The tall thin woman, a minor clan member, who had been looking after his son makes her presence known. Shibi turns his head to show he is listening but is summararily distracted when the baby reaches up a determind hand to grasp at the finger Shibi has been stroking his cheek with. It is almost alarming how much that small action delights him.
"We need to discuss what is to be done with the child."
Shibi tears his gaze from his baby sons face to look up at the clan member....Tonbomi wasn't it?
"To be done with him?"
"Yes. I have drawn up several families within the clan who would be honoured to raise our next leader and already have experience with child rearing. Or if you are willing to take a small risk, there are several childless couples who would be glad of him."
Ah.
He had momentarily forgotten the fact his clan frowned upon children being raised by only one parent.
Of course they will want to place Shino with a family where he can get the experience of being loved and raised by two parents.... where he can have siblings and playmates. It would probably be selfish of him to keep the child for his own.
But....
If he let's his son go now, he knows from observation he will barely see the boy again until he is grown. Aburame children were generally expected to keep away from their elders and as Shibi is the clan leader most of them avoid him even more.
The small baby in his arms rolls his head around, stretching his impossibly small mouth in a yawn and Shibi's heart jumps a little, the feeling swelling up within him. The tiny fingers are still flexing and curling against his larger one and he carefully pulls his finger away, resisting the urge to smile at the slightly grumpy sound of protest the baby makes.
"I will raise him."
He can feel the disapproval coming off of the women in waves and perhaps she is in the right, perhaps he is being unaccountably selfish in denying Shino a normal life....
But he loves his son and he will not let him go.