Who's idea had it been to send him and Kiba out to pick a wedding gift anyway?

When it came to gifts, Hinata had always been better at this kind of stuff.

"You're wrong," Shino broke the tense silence between them, as he and Hinata sat together by a gentle creek after training. "I do know what that's like. Because I understand why you risked your life to come between Naruto and Pain...even if I can't agree with you doing it."

"Shino, I'm so sorry," HInata whispered softly, blushing. "I didn't mean for it to sound that way at all. What I meant is..."

"There is someone," Shino confessed. "that I would've faced Pain for too. If that is what you mean by love, then yes. I understand what you felt completely."

"You're in love?" Hinata asked him, surprised. "I'm so happy for you, Shino. But who is she?"

"It doesn't matter," Shino answered quietly. "Why? Because she loves someone else."

"I'm sorry, Shino," Hinata said. "But still, does she know you feel this way about her?"

"It's better if she doesn't know. It would only complicate things," Shino replied. "Besides, we've got training to do. I'm going to help you get stronger. So, when you challenge an opponent like Pain again, I won't have to worry about you the next time I'm gone on a mission."

Hinata blushed. "That reminds me...while you were gone on your mission, I realized I forgot your birthday. I feel so ashamed. It's just, when Naruto and me-"

"It's fine. Don't be sorry. Because I forgot my birthday too," Shino lied to soothe her guilt, no matter how much her forgetting it made him hurt.

"But still, I wanted to give you this," Hinata said, her hands gently reaching over Shino's bushy black hair to slip a fine chain around his neck. "Do you like it?"

"It's a garnet," Shino examined the fiery dark red gem from the chain around his neck. And being an expert on all things to do with bugs and their habitats, Shino knew that the rock symbolized love and friendship. "You really picked this out just for me?"

"For good luck. So I won't have to worry about you when I'm gone either," Hinata smiled at him. "They say it attracts fireflies. Wouldn't catching one be a beautiful bug for your collection?"

But knowing how much fireflies loved water, Shino didn't have the heart to tell her (again) that the Land of Fire didn't have enough rain for fireflies, and that a garnet would likely not bring him this rare "dream insect" of his.

"Thanks. I'll never take this off then," Shino told her instead, slipping the chain hidden and safe underneath his flak jacket. The stone warmed itself against his heart, which seemed to always flutter like kikaichū wings when Hinata was around.

Hinata blushed more than ever, and it was like a kunai to Shino's heart to be damned to eternal silence of unspoken feelings and unrealized fantasies.

Showing himself some mercy, Shino finally dropped his eyes from hers.

"I'm grateful to have you as my friend," he said.

He sat in the stillness of nature, enjoying the silence with her by the creek, knowing this was the last time they would sit together as a team before she married Naruto.

"Hinata," Shino finally spoke again, his eyes still on the creek in front of them. "The way you love Naruto... do you think it could ever be that way for me too?"

"Of course. And in a way, I kind of envy the girl you're in love with," Hinata said. "I've always had the Shino no one else sees all to myself, and maybe that was selfish of me. But every day, you showed me a beautiful world through your bugs, and I have improved so much as a shinobi because you were always there giving me your best. So I know you would do your best to make her happy too. And one day you'll find the courage to tell her how she makes you feel, and then maybe she'll finally realize she loved you all along...You just have to have confidence, Shino. If you just show her the side of you that you've always shown me, I know she would face anything to love you too."

Shino doubted it.

Because what was the point in loving someone, when he just kept losing people in the end?

First, his brother, Torune.

And now Hinata.

"It'll never be the same for me...because I can't go through this again," Shino thought to himself. "That's why I've decided to never marry. Love is like a Bikochu beetle. Extremely rare and too complicated to master. In the end, I'm more likely to catch a firefly."