It wasn't long after that that I started to realize that maybe Shino was pretty smart. He was still pretty annoying and he still talked funny but, really, he was smart. After a while I even started to listen to him, to take orders… because he was always right. I didn't really mind, either, cause listening to Shino made us all look good in the end.
Still, this newfound respect didn't stop me one bit from picking on him. Smart or no, he needed to lighten up. That was why I started my brilliant schemes to steal Aburame Shino's glasses.
It started off with a series of innocent questions here and there when we trained. "Why do you wear those glasses?" "Why don't you ever take them off?" "Do you even have eyeballs under there?" He never answered, just glared, though the only way I could tell was because his eyebrows would crease at such a sharp angle.
It was kinda cute.
So that was why one day when we were settling down for a quick lunch during training, I saw my chance to find out the answer to all those burning questions. I was sitting just beside him gnawing on a stick of beef jerky and watching him out of the corner of my eye. He didn't seem to be clued in to my intentions, otherwise he likely would have been watching for me. Instead, he was focusing more on his own lunch, looking as ready as ever to ignore the rest of us and eat in silence.
I hated eating lunch with my team. Nobody talked!
But, at least, there would be some noise that day! I reached over as if I were going for my bottle of water which I had conveniently placed between us, but rather than snagging that, I managed to snatch a pair of glasses instead.
Triumphant, I turned fully towards him to see exactly what he was hiding under there.
Apparently, he was hiding a very furious glare cast at me through a pair of sharp eyes. They weren't the kind of eyes you'd ever think to call pretty, or even nice, but they suited him well. It added a bit of definition to his face. Made him seem less creepy and more intelligent. I couldn't put my finger on it exactly, but I liked his eyes a lot.
It was the rest of him I couldn't stand.
"Idiot." I guess I hadn't really been paying much attention to anything else until he spat that word at me and made a grab for his glasses. Shocked as I was, I didn't protest until it was too late and he was already gathering his food so he could move away from me. I'd fucked up again.
"Intruding on someone's personal space is not something that friends do. That is called rudeness."
There he went with the funny talk again. At least it did its part to snap me out of whatever fog my brain was still in. "Oi, Shino… I just wanted to see."
"Then you are satisfied and it will not happen again."
Well, Shino wasn't always right about everything.