What's happenin'…man? You've might have or might not have noticed the lack of chapter one. You also might have noticed that we haven't updated for a couple of days. This is because chapter one, the Rules of the Naruto Primer, violated the fanfiction.net TERMS OF SERVICE. It was a "list". And lists are bad. So not only was that chapter deleted but our account was suspended for a few days making us unable to upload new chapters for a while. But that's all in the past now and we have learned our lesson. We shall never ever EVER upload another list again.
Naruto Primer: Lil' Shino
Isolation
Shino hasn't ALWAYS…why bother with an introduction? Let's just cut right to the chase. In this chapter, we'll be using the Magic Crystal Ball of the Past again to check up on Shino.
It was one of the first days of the academy for all the little ninjas who were ready to learn. Shino was only five years old and their new teacher, Iruka, was going around the classroom asking each child to introduce his or herself to the rest of the class. You know, tell them what clan they're apart of, if they have any special abilities and a little on their family…so on.
The boy sitting next to him, Chouji, had just finished up. Now it was Shino's turn.
"My name is Aburame Shino." Said Shino.
"Oh, you're part of the Aburame clan?" said Iruka.
"Um…yes." Shino answered, figuring that was obvious.
"I think that it's time for us to move on." Said Iruka pleasantly. "Let's start our lesson for the day."
Iruka began his lesson as Shino only sat there looking confused. Had he just deliberately cut him off before he could properly introduce himself? Everyone else had a chance to talk about themselves. He knew that Hinata was a Hyuuga, he knew that Sasuke had an awesome chuunin brother, he knew that Ino, Shikamaru and Chouji's fathers had been best friends back when they were at the academy, he knew that Kiba could talk to dogs and he knew that Sakura was shy. But no one knew about Shino. All they knew was his name.
About an hour passed, Shino feeling very isolated because he couldn't introduce himself. That's when recess began and all the students ran outside. Shino stayed after class until the room was empty except for himself and Iruka.
"Is something the matter?" Iruka asked.
"You didn't let me say who I was." Shino said. "Now everyone knows each other but they don't know me. Why did you do that?"
Iruka sighed and walked over to where Shino was sitting. "Shino…I have had some Aburames in the past." He began. "And most children are just… well, I don't know the word…"
He thought for a moment.
"A lot of people are UNCOMFORTABLE with the things that…er… go on in the Aburame clan." He said finally.
"Uncomfortable?" Shino asked.
"Yes." Said Iruka. "I'm not saying that I don't want you to tell everyone about yourself, you should just form some friendships first. Then, after your bonds are strong, you can tell them that you have a million bugs living in your body."
"Oh. Why?" Shino asked.
"Well…frankly…" Iruka said. "Sometimes it would make students so uncomfortable that they would end up ostracizing you from the group."
"Ostracizing?" Shino said.
"Um…isolating you." Said Iruka. "Meaning, not letting you play with them."
"That's not fair." Said Shino.
"That's why I tried to avoid it." Iruka said.
"So you're saying that people won't like me just because I'm part of a certain clan?" Shino said.
"No." said Iruka. "It'll just be awkward."
That's when recess ended. All the little tykes came running back in excitedly talking about their fun recess experiences.
"So is your brother REALLY a chuunin?!" said Ino excitedly as she and Sasuke passed Shino on the way to their seats.
"Yeah!!" said Sasuke. "I want to be a chuunin someday too!"
"I do too!" agreed Ino.
"So you can smell Iruka from here?" said Chouji to Kiba.
"Unfortunately!" said Kiba. Chouji and Kiba both laughed out loud. Shino attempted to laugh a little with them, but he felt really awkward doing so. What if they were to randomly turn to him and ask him what he was laughing at? Or even worse, what his clan was all about?
So he moved his seat over a little bit as Chouji sat down. Chouji leaned over Sakura to talk across the room to the other boys. He wasn't turning around to talk to Shino.
Shino had no one on the other side of him. He was all alone.
But maybe that was a good thing. That way, no one would know about the horrible secrets of his clan. He didn't want them to be uncomfortable. He didn't want to be ostracized by the other students so the best way to avoid that was to ostracize himself and not get to know any of them. Of course, Shino wasn't exactly thinking of it that way, but that's the best way to make sense of what was whizzing around in his head at the time.