How and Why?

Chapter 3: Apartments and Shibi

Disclaimer: Nothing in this is mine. =) Kay. Let me say that 4 billion more times before this ends. Maybe you'll get it by then.

A/N: I don't have a lot of comments for this chapter. Other than I love it! I just hate having to type it out from my notebook, but it's a great proofing opportunity... Anyway. I hope you'll review this(cuz I didn't get a lot of reviews last time) and I hope you enjoy, as always!

"Father, I'm back. My guests are also here." I wonder how this is going to pan out.

"Right." He walked into the room. "Hello. Aburame Shibi. It's a pleasure." Sayuri and Sakura giggled simultaneously, no doubt about their Shibi/Chibi joke, but were otherwise completely polite. Well, Sakura was anyway.

"Hello, Aburame-sama. It is very nice to finally meet you. My name is Haruno Sakura and this is my mother, Sayuri." Finally meet you. Nice touch. Makes this relationship seem longer than a few hours.

"Sakura. I can speak for myself." Sayuri scolded lightly, "Hello Shibi. I hate honorifics and I'd prefer not to use them. Sorry to say that if it offends you, you're just going to have to deal with it." She smiled. "I find them annoying. No offense intended, though."

Sakura looked at her mother in exasperation, "Really, mom? Aburame-sama is probably a little... Put off from your lack of formality."

"You know I really don't care." Sakura glared.

"Oh. Well isn't that rude and pigheaded. Here I thought I was supposed to have manners."

"What? Sakura--"

Shibi jumped in to the argument looking a little worried, a frown etched across his face. "Well, I don't really mind that much. Why don't we just go relax and eat." He looked at them both and gestured into the next room. "Sayuri? Sakura?"

Sayuri smiled widely. "That sounds great." So Shibi led Sayuri into the next room with Sakura and Shino lagging back together.

"Do you have any idea what you and your mother have just done here?" He asked in an accusing whisper."

"What?"

"You've just scared my dad out of formality. I don't think that has ever happened." He stated.

"Me and my mom are good at things like that... We do it all the time. We're pretty scary."

"So I've gathered." When they walked into the room Sayuri and Shibi were already mid-conversation. Of course, Shibi was just being annoyingly persistent in his disagreeing. As usual.

Sayuri was just being mad about the situation as she discovered things. "So, Shibi, you say that you've never met Sakura just like I've never met Shino. I can't say I like that very much."

"I find it very strange also that we've no prior reason to believe they were seeing each other when you're obviously very insightful and involved in you daughter's life." What a suck up! Come on DAD. They aren't that scary. There is definitely some kind of ulterior motive for his social-ness.

Sakura took this five second pause as a fitting intermission to dive into the conversation and fix what was clearly falling apart at the seams. Their cover-up. "Well, you see, I-- We," She amended quickly, "were still very unsure of our feelings because we didn't take a lot of time to speak thoroughly about it. Then at the beginning of the New Year, we actually did have a very long conversation on... our status, and were planning on telling you both very soon. This came a bit faster than we originally planned, but we had planned on being married eventually and we are certainly very happy now! Right, Shino?"

"Yes, that's it." That was an amazing lie! She even incorporated that New Years... issue... to make it that much easier to remember. Perfect.

Shibi examined his son's posture with a critical eye. " So you've been dating for awhile?"

"Yes, Dad."

"Good." Shibi smiled wide. "You see, Sayuri and I were just discussing something of importance when you walked in." Shibi nodded to Sayuri to pick up where he left off.

"I was thinking that if you guys already had stuff like this planned ahead then you must be serious. So if you're going to be together long term, I want to help. We, Shibi and I, are going to buy you an apartment for an engagement present!" Shino nearly cringed visibly.

Sakura, however, found herself protesting. "Mom, you don't have to do this! I know this is your idea."

"Well you know I don't mind and I like my ideas, thank you very much! It's final. I already have a place in mind and I'm going to go put a call to the owner tonight. It's settled. Oh, but it's 7:50. If I want to catch her I'm going to have to go now and hurry and call. Hey, I'll tell you about the cost tomorrow, Shibi. Bye, Shino! See you at home, Sakura!"

She bustled out the door oblivious to the shell shocked room. Sakura shifted in her seat awkwardly.

"Dad?" Shino questioned quietly.

"Not me. I didn't have a thing to do with this test, though it is a good one. I almost wish I had thought of this one. It should be fairly difficult. And funny."

Sakura looked at Shino then Shibi. "Test?"

Shino sighed. "Not only does he believe we're lying about the engagement, he doesn't really believe you're qualified to be with me. Civilian born child and all that non-sense. I don't buy into it."

"But I haven't been civilian for almost, what is it, ten years? I'm a certified medic and a jounin. Even if I just became a jounin for my medical skills a half a year ago. I'm well trained."

Shibi nodded. "Yes, that is one of the reasons I'm allowing this. I don't intend to take my disagreement out on you, but if you are truly together then I won't rob you the opportunity to get some foresight into your future living together. In such proximity, it's very hard to see past the flaws dating hides from you. This should be an eye opener."

Sakura nodded. "Oh, I have no doubt it'll be an eye opener for you. I can make your disbelief impossible. I intend to."

"We'll see about that, won't we."

"Sure you will. So, what you're saying is, for the moment you approve of me? I'm okay for now?"

"I guess so. Can you at least understand that I really don't have a personal problem with you? What my motives for this are, Sakura-san?" Shino raised his eyebrows, clearly not understanding what was happening.

"I think so. Yes, I do. But you're wrong. I'll prove that to you. Until then, you know that I was smart enough to get this, right? Watch out. Just Sakura, please. Mom will kill you. It doesn't matter to her you know you are."

"I know. It's just a little creepy. Sakura. I might get used to that. Eventually."

"Well, thank you for you temporary approval. I really do appreciate it."

"Dad." Shino inserted.

"Huh?" Sakura looked at Shino curiously.

Shibi answered happily, "Shino's got a point. Sakura I don't hate you and view this as an acceptable arrangement. Okay? Just wanted to state that clearly."

Sakura glowed happily. "I'm glad! It helps with the stress of knowing when I get home, mom's going to bury me in questions. Plus I do have to work tomorrow. I'm really exhausted. Can we do this kind of thing on my days off from now on? That would be great. So if you'll excuse me." She hugged Shino, smiling brightly, then looked at Shibi indecisivly for a split second.

Then she decided boldly. She walked over quickly (in a fashion not unlike Sayuri's) and hugged Shibi, then hustled out the door.

"Bye Shibi! Bye Shino! See you later." Shino said a quick goodbye to the slamming door then looked back at where Shibi stood, arms glued to his sides in shock, smugly. Surprises obviously weren't his area of expertise.

"Damn, dad, you didn't see that one coming did you? Did it scare you?"

"Are you being funny? As a matter of fact, no I didn't see it coming and the next time a Haruno comes I want some advance warning. I swear if that girl gives you a sense of humor..."

"She would never dream of doing that." He smirked.

Shibi groaned. "Stop it! You really don't usually find that stuff funny. Please be indifferent! Normal is good!"

"I like a sense of humor." He said quietly. "This is fun."

He laughed quietly as Shibi stormed into another room. "This is NOT funny! This is terrible!! Stop laughing!!!"

January 12th. (aka- one week later.) At a newly furnished apartment. 7:00 p.m.

"Mom, I don't think–" Sakura stuttered blankly.

Leaving Shino to pick up for her. "– you needed to seriously do this for us." He was clinging on to Sakura's hand, as he often found himself doing now in either Sayuri's or Shibi's presence. At least when it came to Shibi, Sakura needed the reassurance as much as he did. As for being near Sayuri... Well neither party really minded anymore.

Sayuri smiled brightly, "But I wanted to. I want my Sakura to have advance warning on living with such an introvert. It might be a challenge you can't handle. I mean, how could you know since you're walking so blindly into this. And I don't know hims so well, so I can just visit my daughter a lot to remedy that. Right? You might not know him as well as you think you do anyway. It's completely harmless."

Sakura glared at her mom and her grip tightened slightly. "Oh, now I see what's going on here."

"What exactly do you mean?" Shino inquired, since he wasn't getting it.

"Why we're actually going to live together. This is her way of embarrassing us because she didn't know about this until we decided to get married. I can't believe you're trying to get back at me like this. Seriously?"

Shino cocked his eyebrows quizzically and looked at Sayuri. "Is it?"

She grinned. "Isn't Sakura smart? You really are lucky to have her. Well everything is paid for in full, so I'll just be going now. I'll leave you to look around. It's a bit cramped, but I really liked the arrangement. Bye." She left in her usual manner hugging them both.

Sakura groaned. "Well, I'm going to go find out what 'a bit cramped' means. Do you want to come with?"

"I suppose I will." She smiled and squeezed his hand.

Okay.

Four Rooms.

Living Room with one couch, a coffee table, and a T.V.

A full kitchen.

One bathroom with a shower, sink, and medicine cabinet.

One bedroom. 2 dressers and 2 nightstands on either side of one queen sized bed.

How awkward.

Shino and Sakura sat down on the couch in the living room after their examination of the house.

Sakura glanced around the house. "It's..."

"Small." Shino stated.

"Yep. One bedroom."

Shino nodded and added, " One bathroom."

"I noticed. It's a little more compact than I prefer. Isn't my mom a dragon."

Shino shrugged. "Hm. I think dragons are nicer. But whatever you say."

Sakura laughed. "It's 7:45. My shift starts at six and, to be honest, I get pretty tired around 8. Especially after the stress of going home and finding all my crap moved. The coming here and finding all my crap sitting in boxes. Would you mind me taking a shower?"

"Not at all. Have you eaten today?"

"Nope. Haven't had time since lunch."

"Okay. I'll go look at the kitchen some more while you... do whatever it is you do at night."

Sakura smiled. "Heh, alright. I'll be in the shower if you need me." She walked down the hall and turned into the door on the right just before the bedroom at the end of the hall.

Shino nearly laughed. I'd rather burn the house down with a toaster than come ask you for help while your in the shower, but sure. He heard the water to the shower come on and nearly simultaneously he also heard a knock at the door.

How is someone here when we just moved in an hour ago? What nosy people. Then he pulled the door open. Oh great. Instead of an annoying neighbor (or Naruto) he found his father at the door. He sucked in a breath "Hello, Father. You're here late. Come in?"

Shibi held out an ornate envelope and shook his head. "No thank you. Just came over to drop this off as some advance warning. Tell Sakura-san I said hello. Bye." Once Shino took the envelope, Shibi walked away quickly. He ran away, really.

Shino looked at the envelope in his hands curiously.

FOR:

~Shino Aburame & Sakura Haruno~

Well it has my name on it. This can't be good. He opened it warily.

You are cordially invited to join us

in celebrating of the engagement of

Shino Aburame

and

Sakura Haruno

On: January23 at 4:30 pm.- 11:00 pm

At: The Aburame Clan's Main House

THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENDANCE.

Then, tucked into the invite, Shino also found a little note.

I printed and distributed these today. Hope you like it. It really doesn't matter if you don't. Also hope you like the house. See you both later. – Shibi

"They can't be serious!" Shino re-read the invitation a second time. He was halfway through the third time when Sakura walked up behind him.

"Are you okay? What's that?" She took the invite from him and read it then read the little note as Shino went and reclined on the couch. Sakura counted back mentally. "Wow. That's sudden. It's only a week and a half away. Why so soon?"

"It's the 23rd. My birthday. I'll be 20 on the 23rd."

"I see. Your dad wanted you to be engaged by your birthday right?"

"Yes. That's it."

"Is this a big deal?"

"A lot of people will be there. It'll be at the main house, where very few people are invited. So it will be a huge deal. I imagine all of Konoha and more will be there to see the reclusive Aburame clan house. This is terrible."

"Why is it so awful?"

"Sakura. Do you realize..." he sighed heavily. "By tomorrow everyone and their brother will have one of those invites. More than just the people of Konoha. All Aburame and Konoha personal alliances in any country because I'm the next clan leader. We'll be hassled and bothered to no end. Dad did this to see if we could handle the publicpressure after only a week of being together. Basically, he's already guessed this a lie and thought up a few tests to see if we can keep it together while trying to find a way out of it. It's all a test. He's certain we will fail eventually." He took off his glasses to rub at his eyes.

"Oh." Sakura stated in a surprised voice. Then she smiled at Shino "And here I thought my mother was the mean one. Well, this is okay. As long as we can keep it up."

"You do realize that by tomorrow everyone you and some people you probably don't will think that you're marrying me this summer? That you're officially engaged to me? And that we are living together?"

"Well, they were going to find out sooner or later. And really it's an easier option than telling all the people I know myself."

"What if your friends who don't know are mad at you or think you're stupid? I can't really ask you to continue this at the cost of losing some of your friends if you don't want to. You can walk away right now. Just go home." Shino muttered as he replaced his glasses.

"I told you I'd help you and I'm not going to walk out on you now. So what if my friends are mad at me for a little while. I guess you really can't know since you don't talk to people a whole lot, no offense, but friends fight and good friends get over it because they like you."

He nodded. "Right."

She continued her rant. "Hey, if we are going to be living together for a while then let's get one thing straight. I'm your friend and if I do something you don't like call me on it." He looked at her in an utter state of disbelief. "Don't look at me like that. I mean it. You can say whatever the hell you want to me. You live here. I'd appreciate it if you'd be nice in the way you say what you want, because if you're not then I'll call you on that, but you can talk freely in your home."

He nodded, "Good. I see you didn't have time to go raid the kitchen." She stood up and Shino finally took in what she was wearing. A little black tank-top and a pair of gray shorts cut to her thigh with her hair tied back in a wet ponytail.

Shino grabbed her arm as she was getting ready to walk past him to the kitchen on the left. "In the interest of free speech, what are you wearing?"

"Uh, pajamas." She looked down and smacked herself on the forehead. "OH! Stupid. Sorry, it was for my own comfort level. Didn't stop to think of yours. I'll go change into something else." She started to walk down the hall.

"No it's fine." She stopped mid-stride. "You live here as you so kindly reminded me, so you should also be comfortable."

She sat on the couch again. "You're sure?"

"Yeah, just... never be more comfortable than that. I'm pretty sure that would freak me out."

"Wouldn't want to do that, now would I? Sure, but the bathroom is unclaimed territory so you better knock." She teased.

"You will never catch me near that bathroom." Shino said. Sadly, he was completely serious. Sakura was betting that he'd have to pee sometime or other.

"Well now that we're past that, I'm going to go get something to eat." Sakura stood up, followed by Shino. Hm... living with her isn't too bad until she decides to stand in those shorts! God help me.

"Oh and if you want you can stay home tomorrow and I'll deal with the throngs of people who will riot because of the invitation." Sakura opened a cabinet. "Oh, I hope you like pop-tarts because I don't."

"I might leave here once or twice tomorrow. Other than that I'll just clean and unpack everything. I don't like pop-tarts either. Let Naruto have them when he visits. He'll eat anything. If you want I can unpack your stuff too. Just to get the boxes out of the way."

"Sure. Sounds great. Thanks." Sakura opened the fridge. "Yum! Bagels and milk. Okay I'll live. Hey, if you happen to go to the store tomorrow could you get me some toaster strudels. They're so much better than pop-tarts." She put a bagel into the toaster. "Want one?"

"Sure, and yes, I'll go to store tomorrow."

"Do I need a dress for that party, by the way?"

"Nope. You're fine. Dad's buying since it's his stupid party." The toaster popped. "You're going to burn your mouth on that."

"That's good. HOT!" Sakura downed half her milk.

"Warned you. I'm going to get ready for bed, then I'll probably go pass out. You?"

"I think I want to head that way to. I'm really tired. Look, it's 8:35 now. I should not be this tired this early." Shino grabbed a bag off the floor of the bedroom and went to the bathroom to change, while Sakura snuggled into her new bed.

When he came out of the bathroom in a black sleeveless shirt and sweats, Sakura was already curled around a pillow. "Um, Sakura?"

She sat up. "What? Is something wrong?"

He rubbed his bare arms awkwardly and shook his head. "No, never mind." He walked to one side of the bed and snagged a pillow then turned to leave the room.

"Oh. I get it. You can stay here. It's still fine, and I don't bite. You get one side of the bed, I get the other. Besides, that couch is too hard to sleep on."

Shino glanced around the room, not entirely comfortable with the situation at hand. He didn't like that couch much either. So he walked over and sat on one side of the bed and took off his glasses. Sakura gaped at his eyes. She'd never seen such a thing.

His eyes were coal black. Both the pupil and the iris as far as Sakura could tell. She couldn't see where one began and the other ended. She hadn't realized she was staring though.

Shino glanced down at the intense scrutiny. "This is why I wear glasses, in case you were wondering."

"I'm sorry, Shino. It's just so... interesting. I can't tell where your pupil ends."

"It really doesn't."

"Are you some level of blindness? This is amazing."

"No. The iris is the muscle that makes your pupils get bigger or smaller to allow light, so without it you could potentially go blind in sunlight. But I can use chakra to make my pupils expand and contract. I obviously have to focus it to my eye for this to work. So if someone turns on a light or opens a window while I'm not wearing my glasses and I haven't adjusted my eyes due to warning beforehand, it could, in turn, make me blind after continuous change and too much light exposure. The glasses just reduce the light and make it easier to adjust my eyes accordingly. I've always had good chakra control so luckily I still have very good vision. It's an Aburame trait and a clan secret, so keep it safe. Not many people know."

Sakura beamed as she learned this new information. "That is so cool. And really your eyes are interesting and almost a different kind of pretty."

Shino had to stop himself from smacking himself in the face. She's a doctor. She would think potential blindness is cool. "I guess."

Sakura kept smiling. "I really wish you Aburames would come to the hospital every now and then. Your physical anomalies are so amazing!" She laid down and rolled to face him.

"You see, that's why. I'm creepy but to the medical team who wants to study me, I'm very useful." He laid down beside her. "That's all I got out of that. I can adjust my pupils to be bigger than the average human's too. I can actually see in the dark, unlike the Hyuga Byakugan."

"See, that's totally cool to a normal person. And I didn't mean it like that." Sakura's face went blank. "I'd be a weird looking Aburame, wouldn't I?" Shino looked at her – a kunoichi with vibrant green eyes and light pink hair.

"I don't think you're going to have that problem..."

"Since I won't be an Aburame, probably not." She yawned. "Your eyes really are pretty. Goodnight, Shino."

"Thanks. Goodnight, Sakura." It had been a long day. So they fell asleep quickly, facing each other, waiting to see a surprise in the morning when they woke up.

A/N: I like what I thought up for Shino's eye color, but this explanation is just a writer taking liberties and making more details up to help my story. I don't know if it's true, though I've heard a rumor like it. This is what I'm going with, so just go with me.

Chapter 3: End.