So what I'm trying to say is...I mean, what I mean is... well basically, what this all comes down to is...maybe-perhaps-possibly-by-chance-probably but completely improbably we might be engaged!
And as usual, Shino's face would be unreadable behind his dark shades and popped up collar, even after she dropped a bombshell like that on him.
And if he were to say anything back to her, he'd probably completely ignore the onslaught of the verb "engaged", as he struggled with the confusing contradiction of her word choice.
"How can something be probably and improbably happening at the same time?" he'd ask her instead.
That's not the point!
And like a vengeful warrior, Hotaru slammed her kunai down furiously, stabbing her freshly baked honey loaf cake in neat clean halves as it steamed enticingly next to her cooking fire.
Even in hypothetical conversations with him in her head, Shino was such a pesky house fly!
I said I'm your wife, you thick-headed June bug! Don't you know what that means? It means you're my soulmate, and that's why you have to die!
Slamming down an empty honeycomb she'd cut out into a teacup with her kunai, Hotaru poured a fresh brew of Bee's Flower Tea into it and mixed in honey as a sweetener.
But don't let that go to your head! Nobody in my clan actually believes in the matchmaking ritual. It's just a...formality, you could say. But don't worry. It won't change my mind about killing you. I mean, as a fellow bug user, you should understand, right?
She went on threatening an imaginary Shino in her head.
The female praying mantis bites off her mate's head. The black widow eats her husband. The queen bee tears her mate to pieces when she's done with him. It's only bug nature. Which means, as my soulmate, you shouldn't take me killing you so personally.
Placing the honey loaf and Bee's Flower tea on a tray of tree bark, Hotaru wandered off into the bamboo forest again to find Shino.
I don't care if he starves or not...I just can't stand the idea of owing that bug smoocher for fixing my tent the other night. This honey loaf should make us even. And then I'll kill him!
A honey bee buzzed frantically around her ear, but Hotaru was too lost in thought to pay attention.
Obsessed with all matters of psychological and physical torture that might S&M a confession out of Shino for Kenji's murder.
"Not now, little honeybee," Hotaru dismissed the bee's urgent message again. "I'm actually not in that big of a hurry to find out where bug boy is. For once, I actually get some peace and quiet around here without hearing Mr. Know-It-All and his nonstop 'Why, you ask? The reason is because blah blah blah yada-yada-yada'-No, Shino, as a matter of fact, I didn't ask! I never asked for any of this!"
But the honeybee wouldn't quit.
Stubborn as a Kamizuru to deliver the message to her bug mistress.
She flew in circles around Hotaru's head, wailing a long dragged out buzz to make Hotaru stop and listen to her.
"Bees nest! Aren't we a little melodramatic today? So what's the big deal?" Hotaru finally gave in.
The honeybee buzzed back a few comebacks, hoovering so close to Hotaru's face now that it was impossible to avoid her.
Hotaru narrowed her eyes.
The honeybee narrowed hers too.
And after a tense stand-off of mad-mugging each other, Hotaru couldn't hold back her affectionate smile for the bee anymore.
"Did you just call me a stink bug?" Hotaru laughed. "Ok, little bee. You win this round."
The honeybee landed on Hotaru's shoulder, taking a break from her busy bee life to take an afternoon walk with her mistress.
"So what if Shino found a river," Hotaru shrugged, responding to the bee's urgent message.
"If we're lucky," she winked at her bee companion. "He can't swim."
And then it finally got through to her thick, stubborn head.
"Wait! Aburame found a river? How? Where? Show me!"
And following a dancing flight of bees through a hidden path in the forest, it wasn't long before Hotaru stumbled upon damning evidence of Shino and his triumph of being the first to find water.
First, she found his coat hanging from a bamboo branch nearby...along with the rest of his clothes.
Then his gray Leaf headband not far after that.
And his black ninja sandals lined up neat and orderly by the river shore.
But before Hotaru could do the math...
-Meaning 1 light gray button-up hoody jacket minus 1 flak jacket minus 1 dark gray shirt minus 2 ninja leg wraps minus 1 pair of dark gray pants = 1 naked Aburame man-
...Hotaru found the river.
And then she found Shino.
Hotaru's jaw dropped, her cheeks blushing red as an Uchiha blood-moon night.
Shino broke through the surface of the water, breathing in deeply and refreshed after holding his breath underwater for so long.
Throwing his soaked dark hair back out of his sunglasses, Shino turned his back on her.
Blue Emperor dragonflies and white-tailed bumble bees whirling around him. Worshipping him like some kind of bug god in the lotus flowers.
He went on splashing himself, seemingly unaware that she was even there.
But Hotaru couldn't look away now.
She was in too deep.
Heart throbbing in more places than just one.
Her body buzzing with that provocative memory of the moment he took her with his chakra, becoming her forbidden drug.
Spellbound by the way Shino ran his hands through his cedar dark hair, which fell in waves on the back of his neck when wet.
A surprise that Hotaru would've never guessed behind his habitually upturned collar.
But that wasn't the only surprise Shino was hiding.
Why the Aburame clan wore so many layers? She didn't know.
But who would've guessed that underneath all those layers of clothing was a bangin' Adonis fantasy of shinobi-bred masculinity.
Shino shook the water out of his hair with his hands, the muscles in his shoulders and back flexing with quiet, disciplined power.
A rare hidden gem polished by years of training for missions that he likely never bragged about.
How could no one know what a babe Shino was all this time?
Why did he insist on being a god alone in his own buggy kingdom, when he could easily take the world in a heart-throb, if he wanted to?
Why did he carry himself like a moth, when underneath it all, this boy was a monarch butterfly?
Hotaru felt betrayed.
But more than that, seduced.
Frustrated, in all the right ways.
Sick and depraved by the idea of ever getting this worked up over an Aburame, and the captivating subtlety of his quiet erotic allure.
Taunted by everything she wanted in a mate but wasn't allowed to have because of his clan.
But maybe that was the part that drew her in more.
When anyone told her what she couldn't have.
Hotaru followed Shino's hands as his fingers slowly combed upward through his hair, and tied it into a topknot.
Solid and thick all the way down his chiseled physique, the river tantalizingly playing peek-a-boo around his waist and cute hard ass.
Veiling the mystery that hid the rest of Shino's undeclared secrets.
Leaving just enough for Hotaru to wonder if chakra and bugs were the only things Shino Aburame was good at.
"Instead of just standing here thinking about it, why don't you jump in there with him and find out?" Her honeybee buzzed a remark.
Hotaru almost died.
"Are you out of your hive!"
"Well, I only meant that the water might be cold," the honeybee explained herself innocently. "That's what you're standing here worried about, isn't it?"
Shino dunked his head underwater again, bringing Hotaru back to her senses.
"No, I'd be damned to let that damselfly get to me. We should go," Hotaru said, setting Shino's honey loaf and tea next to his clothes wickedly tossed aside. "And forget we ever saw him like this."
Because how was she supposed to face Shino now?
She'd never see him the same again.