The past year living with Tsuma has been an interesting one.
Actually, it wasn't much different than the years I lived with my father, instead now it was a wife.
Instead of a father.
She also quit being a ninja. I don't know why, but she mumbled something about hating the Hokage, hating the other ninjas of the village, hating her mother, hating people in general and pretty much just hating everyone EXCEPT for me whom she loved.
So I left her with those thoughts.
I was the ninja of the family. The family of two.
I brought up joining ANBU once or twice, but both times Tsuma kind of just glared at me.
"I'm thinking of asking to be nominated for the ANBU exam." I said.
"I hate ANBU." She responded.
"It pays better." I tried to reason with her.
"I hate ANBU." She repeated.
Well, I guess that was all the reasoning she needed.
"Don't you remember what happened to your mother?" she continued. "You don't need to be in ANBU. We're fine the way we are. We don't need more money just so you can risk your life and die like your mother did."
I hated it when she brought up my mother.
"I hate it when you bring up my mother." I said.
"I hate your mother."
And such was life with Tsuma.
"Where are you going?"
I was at the door. Tsuma always tended to do this to me… she made me think that I was all set to go without having to report to her, but then she'd suddenly bombard me with questions as if she really needed to know where I was going to be every moment of every day.
"Just out." I said.
"Where out?" she said.
I hadn't really planned that part.
"Just out." I repeated.
"Oh sure." She said, sounding annoyed as she threw her arms up in the air and turned her back to me as I began to open the door. "And me four months pregnant!"
I stopped.
Slowly, I turned and looked at her.
"Shino." She said. "I was just kidding."
I glared at her, but it's not like she knew.
"I'll be back in fifteen minutes." I said.
"You better be." She said.
The last thing I needed or wanted at this point was a son. I was busy trying to qualify for the ANBU exam because, despite Tsuma's strict wishes, I planned on becoming part of the team.
But, for now, I was just going to go for a walk.
I closed the door behind me and began my trip. Where I was going was beyond even me, but there's no harm in getting outside every once and a while.
While ANBU was fresh in my mind, a thought crossed through my head. That time when my father told me about my mother being missing.
I was eighteen.
"Shino, your mother is missing in action." My father told me as we sat at the dinner table. It was out of the ordinary for him to say anything at the table while we ate, but I guess this was important.
"What?" I said, wanting further explanation.
"No one can find her." He said. "She went on a mission with the rest of our ANBU Squad and when they returned, she suddenly wasn't there."
"That's odd." I said. "I'm sure she'll turn up."
I wasn't too worried. After all, if my mother was such a good ninja that I only got to see her in intervals of less than a day between her missions then she wasn't going to just up and disappear.
Unfortunately, no one else on the ANBU Squad had the same thoughts as I did. Not even my own father believed that she was alive almost immediately after she disappeared. Though, no one really seemed all that affected by her apparent death, not pausing for a moment from their ongoing missions to even have a memorial service for her.
What could be expected, though?
She was only an Aburame.
As some of you have noticed, the previous chapter was taken from a chapter that never made it of "As I See It". Out of all honesty, we were sad that those chapters weren't submitted on this site so we've cropped, cut and pasted and done all SORTS of illegal things to make those chapters into what resembled a story. So that's why some parts mayseem familiar! That's it.