A/N: I intended to end this story with the last chapter, but something about it just didn't feel complete. As a result, I've written this chapter to set Shino and Hana on the pairing path. I'm still new at writing pairings, so be sure to let me know how I did with a review!
Chapter Three – Flower
Each step Shino took felt like someone had filled his feet with lead. Not only was the walk back to Konoha uncomfortably silent, but he had taken back his gourd despite his weakened state. The destruction bugs inside only tolerated being carried by someone else for so long before they let their displeasure known in an audible hum, amplified by the hollow gourd. The eerie sound eventually made Kiba too uncomfortable to carry it any further.
Hana was oddly silent as they traded the gourd, since she had been the one to insist Kiba carry it in the first place. Even her playfulness with her brother had disappeared with silence as she kept several feet ahead of them with her dogs following loyally behind her.
There was one advantage to walking behind Hana, as it gave Shino an alluring view of Hana's tight black shorts and her—
thump
Kiba's fist gave him a well-deserved punch. He growled in a low voice that only Shino could hear, "You better be looking at the dogs' tails!"
"Forgive me," he said in his typical stoic fashion despite his uncharacteristic behavior. Of course, he reminded himself that perhaps his roaming eyes wouldn't have even been caught if it weren't for his sunglasses being smashed to pieces during the fight with Kizuna.
"What is with you!" growled Kiba in a low voice. "First you kiss my sister, doing who knows what, and now your looking at her—"
"It wasn't like that," defended Shino. "The kiss I mean."
"Yeah…like her pink lipstick landed got on your lips any other way!"
Shino couldn't argue with that logic, even if he had no real memory of the kiss itself. He remembered a dream in his half-asleep state, which he guessed wasn't really a dream, but it didn't make sense to him. Likely, she kissed him in return for his heroic rescue, but if she saw him as her brother's teammate and best friend then he expected an innocent kiss on the forehead or on his cheek. Instead, her kiss was on the lips and long enough to set his mind in dizzying confusion, making him question for the first time how Hana saw him.
However, since Kiba was his teammate and best friend, he felt he should have said anything to satisfy him. Yet receiving any kiss from his childhood crush wasn't anything he wanted to take back or deny, but he couldn't exactly tell Kiba that either.
Kiba growled at him again as if sensing his thoughts, "I'm tired of talking to you anyway. Without your sunglasses you look like a stranger!"
Hana turned toward them for a moment, "I think Shino looks cute without them." However, she quickly looked forward again, missing Kiba's frustrated snarl.
"AH!"
The silence continued again until they reached the edge of the village.
Hana stopped and waited for them to catch up. "Kiba, go find mother and tell her what happened." She saw Kiba open his mouth, so she quickly handed him the puppy Koumaru before he could tell her his version would differ from hers. "Tell her Inukai Kizuna attacked me and Shino stopped him. Kizuna may have some bad injuries, so ask her to pull some strings with the Military Police to make sure Shino doesn't get in trouble. Okay?"
"Yeah, right," he grumbled. Even Shino could tell the bratty little brother in Kiba couldn't resist telling on his older sister. "Where will you be going?"
Hana crossed her arms across her chest and looked at Kiba with a serious expression to counter against whatever thoughts Kiba had in his head. "I'm going to go with Shino back to his home. In case you haven't noticed he can barely walk."
Kiba knew that it made more sense for Shino's teammate and friend to take him back, but he wisely kept his mouth shut about it. "See you later, Shino."
Shino watched his friend walk away. One kiss with undecipherable meaning had already changed their relationship. His old crush hadn't even been revealed and Hana hadn't done anything to hint that it was more than a chaste kiss, but the damage was done.
"Shino, don't worry about Kiba," said Hana. "He'll get over it before you know it."
They continued to walk, this time side by side, but the silence seemed to remain.
"I didn't get a chance to thank you," she told him softly. "For helping me. Kizuna is so desperate to have me, that I'm not sure what he would have done."
"No, I must apologize for following you," he told her. "I shouldn't have."
"I'm glad you did."
That was ambiguous enough to make him wonder. Was she only glad that someone saved her from Kizuna doing more than just molesting her while he had her on his chakra leash or was she glad that he in particular had showed concern for her?
Yet, he still couldn't bring himself to ask that question or what the kiss meant.
Hana's arms suddenly wrapped around his, but it wasn't an intimate gesture. Instead, it was to keep him from falling as his knees seemed to weaken beneath him for a moment.
"You're still weak, but we're almost there. Do you think you can make it?"
"Y-Yes," he managed past ragged breathing. Hana moved his arm around her shoulder while she placed one of he own around his back and the other to his side to help support him with her Inuzuka ruggedness as they continued to walk.
"You're weaker than you should be. You're a Jounin and yet a few techniques against Kizuna have you at the point of chakra exhaustion. Even Kizuna's chakra leash couldn't do this. Therefore, I assume it has to do with your bugs. I'm not an expert on bugs, but I am a veterinarian, so if you want to tell me, you can," she told him.
Shino considered not telling her. He hadn't even told Kiba, but at the moment with her so close and soft against him, he couldn't resist telling her what she wanted to hear.
"Like the Inuzuka, the Aburame's techniques are dependent on the capabilities of our animal familiars. Since you have the Haimaru Triplets, you should understand the more high level techniques require more familiars."
"Or bigger, in the case of Akamaru, but I understand."
With her help, Shino was finding his strength returning as he had help carrying such a heavy weight. Perhaps in more ways than one as he told her the secret he was hiding.
"For the Aburame, this requires allowing our nest of destruction bugs to grow larger to the point that the nest can no longer fit inside our bodies. This requires us to store them inside gourds, but all destruction bugs feed on chakra—"
Hana completed his sentence, "So the more bugs you have then the more chakra you must give them, but you only have so much chakra Shino. There has to be a limit."
"There is, but the Aburame tradition is to fill the gourd past our natural limits and then train to increase our physical and mental energies enough to support the new nest."
"So, it is like training with weights? Your practice with a heavy weight even though at first it is almost too heavy for your muscles, but eventually as your muscles increase in strength, the weight becomes lighter."
"Correct. Usually this is done in a period when we can expend all our chakra expenditure to the growth of the nest. I didn't expect to actually fight during this time."
"Sorry," she told him with a warm smile as she tightened her embrace around him. "You know Shino, I like that you love your bugs deeply. I feel the same way about my dogs and everyone I work with in the hospital. Although the temperament of our clans is different, I feel there is lot we can understand about each other."
"I feel…the same way."
They continued to walk in silence, while Shino thought about another ambiguous conversation that him wondering what she really meant. Yet, at the moment he decided to enjoy the closeness he had with her.
It didn't take them long to finally reach the Aburame district and more specifically his home. She pulled away, letting his arm slide off her shoulder, and he expected her to leave, but instead she seemed to order her dogs to wait outside while she stayed by his side. She no longer needed to support him, but she walked close to him as they entered.
"Shino, it's about time you got home. We've been waiting."
Aburame Shibi, his father, sat in the main room of the Aburame home, apparently in the role of host for three people who where definitely not Aburame.
It didn't take Shino suddenly stiffening beside her, for Hana to realize the situation wasn't good. In fact, there was one possibility that horrified them both.
"Father?" asked Shino.
Shibi gestured to the two of the three strangers in the house; "These are the Hachibana family." The Hachibana consisted of a man and a woman.
The woman was rather ordinary and wearing a plain dull yellow kimono, but the man was unusual. His eyes bulged in what would have been appropriate to call "bug-eyed" if it wasn't for the company of people who would have taken offense to that expression. He also had a hunchback that apparently wasn't crippling as he was dressed in a blue Konoha uniform, hinting that he was more than he seemed.
"And this is their daughter."
The young woman about Shino's age and she wore a dull yellow kimono with hexagon patters on the shoulder. Her features were a blend of her parents, the ordinary looks of her mother, but the bulging eyes and fuzzy blonde hair of her father.
"I am Hachibana Mitsu. I am here to be wed to you." Any other person would have shouted in surprise, but Shino only frowned. His disapproving expression was unhidden without his sunglasses, but Mitsu was not discouraged as she stood up, walked over to Shino, and took his hand with hers. "I'm here to be your wife!"
"What!"
It was Hana who yelled and she blushed furiously underneath the red tattoos on her cheeks, as everyone turned their attention to her.
Mitsu spoke with disapproval. "And who is this?"
Hana in turn only wrinkled her nose and snarled at the girl's frown.
Shino spoke for her; "This is Inuzuka Hana of the Inuzuka clan."
It occurred to him he should say more, such as she was his teammate's sister, but it explained little why she was here. However, he didn't know what else to call her or to explain their new closeness…which was likely shattered by this latest news.
His father tried to explain for him, "Hana is the sister of Shino's teammate".
"Hana as in a flower?" asked Mitsu.
Hana answered uncomfortably, "No, more like Hana as in a dog's nose."
"How unfortunate for you."
Hana bristled at the comment. The confusion of her name due to the naming convention of her family had earned her more than one comment in the past, but the way Mitsu treated it, irritated her. She already felt awkward for being named after a dog's nose rather than something more dramatic like claws and teeth, but the way the girl treated it, sounded like she hadn't even believed that Hana could have named after a delicate flower.
Suddenly, Mitsu quickly looked back and forth at Shino and Hana. He didn't know what she was looking at, but he realized it hadn't been his eyes. Suddenly, Mitsu let go of his hand and ran out of the room as quick as possible with tears falling from her homely eyes.
"Apparently she is more than that," said Mitsu's father in an unfriendly tone as her mother placed a hand over her shocked mouth.
Hana gasped in horror and whispered into Shino's ear, "My lipstick is on your lips!"
Shibi spoke in a calm voice, surprisingly unchanged despite any shock he might have felt, "Shino, why don't you go to your room and get cleaned up."
"Yes father."
He turned to go to his room, but Hana stopped him for a second by holding his hand. It was only a moment, but her slender fingers caressed his. "I'm sorry."
With that she turned and left.
Shino entered his room and was finally relieved to be able to place the gourd in its designated place. He removed his coat and pulled on a clean coat that looked practically identical to the other one, minus five holes from Kizuna's kunai. Lastly, he picked up a spare pair of glasses and wondered for a second if he truly looked cuter without them as Hana said before slipping them on.
His thoughts centered on Hana's words as he wondered what "I'm sorry" meant. Was it an apology for having to leave or perhaps she felt sorry for him being forced into an arranged marriage? Perhaps it was even a reluctant apology that whatever was forming between them, couldn't go any further.
At this point, he figured he would drive himself crazy if he kept searching for hidden meanings behind every word she said.
"Shino."
Shibi entered the room and handed a wet washcloth to Shino. He was silent as Shino wiped off Hana's lipstick from his lips. "I can see you had an…interesting morning."
"Very unexpected, as is meeting the Hachibana. Why wasn't I told about this?"
"The clan elders have been in talks with the Hachibana for quite a while. I only knew that they would arrange for a marriage between one of the Hachibana and one of the young men of the Aburame clan. Yet, apparently with your history of failed relationships and the fact you are one of the most skilled of your generation, they decided to choose you for this marriage this morning. I didn't know that there was something between you and Tsume's daughter."
"There isn't…and now there never will be."
"I'm sorry Shino."
"Who are the Hachibana to receive such a special arrange marriage offer?"
"Bug users," he said as if the words explained everything and to Shino, they did. "They are Konoha ninja, but they have managed to keep themselves small and hidden like bugs…an admirable trait, but in one more generation they will be large enough to be considered a true clan. They are also very aware that the Aburame may not tolerate another bug using clan in Konoha and are familiar with the damage we did to the Kamizuru clan and their hornets. The Hachibana are small and their secret techniques are still developing, so the Aburame could very easily wipe them out if we choose. For those reason, they've arranged for this marriage for political reasons."
"But our elders offered up one of their best for this union for a reason."
"Yes."
Shino frowned at the simple answer, realizing how difficult it was to get an answer from someone with a calm and collected personality, which ironically was the person he had inherited his personality from.
"Why?"
"Because the Aburame wants something from the Hachibana as well. Given your history of relationships I think you can realize how beneficial to make arranged marriages with partners who don't fear our destruction bugs."
"And the elders are willing to do this even if it means losing others that don't fear our destruction bugs, but also love us as well?"
"You should know we rarely get both."His father placed a hand on his shoulder, "The Hachibana are waiting to get to know you further. I'll give you some time to freshen up."
With that, his father left him to his empty room, silent except for a soft hum coming from inside the gourd, perhaps the only real company he would ever have.
Shino stepped outside of the house for a breath of fresh air before committing himself to a room with his future wife and her family. He even left the gourd behind, avoiding the weight and the soft hum, although the bugs still inside him made their own sound that he could hear even though he wished he couldn't.
"Shino?"
He didn't even have to turn around to recognize the almost unfamiliar voice, but he did turn to see Hachibana Mitsu standing behind him with her eyes lowered apologetically.
"Forgive me for running away."
"No, its not necessary," he told her, feeling partially responsible for her reaction to begin with. He knew despite the circumstances, it was highly inappropriate to meet his future wife for the first time and in front of her parents with the lipstick of another woman on his lips, especially if that woman was still by his side. "I understand completely why you were upset."
"You may have just found out about this wedding, but I've known about it for years. My family has always intended to a political union with the Aburame to insure our survival. I've known all that time that I would web one of the Aburame and I couldn't be more happy!"
"Happy?" he asked in confusion. "What is there to be so happy about being forced into a marriage with someone you don't even know or someone you don't even love? What is there to be so happy about when an arranged marriage might never bring either one us love?"
"You are being so pessimistic, beloved, but I can understand since you just found out about the marriage," she told him. Mitsu walked toward him with a small smile on her thin lips, "Even though I didn't know whom among the Aburame I would wed, I had already fallen in love knowing my husband would be able to understand me the most!"
Shino stayed stoic, even though he frowned at this girl's overwhelming love for a stranger.
As if to answer is unspoken questions, she raised her hand, but he looked puzzled at her gesture until he heard the soft buzz of bugs and eventually saw several black and white bees fly out from under her wide kimono sleeve and cover her outstretched hand.
He pushed his sunglasses up his nose in a thoughtful move while watching the bees carefully, "So, the Hachibana have insects living inside them as well?"
"Not like the Aburame," she answered while her face twisted into self-loathing. "It is not as perfected as your destruction bug nest, but when a Hachibana child is young, a beehive is implanted onto the child's back and as the hive grows it intertwines with the flesh."
"Then I take it your father's hunchback—"
"When the beehive grows larger it makes our backs crooked. Some of the largest beehives even look so round and bulbous it appears like an abdomen of a bee on our backs."
Shino watched her carefully, seeing some of the same dark thoughts that he thought about himself. The girl was disgusted with her clan, she must have felt the same about her body as he felt about his, and she saw him as a savior from her loneliness.
In a way, he could understand that.
The bees retreated into her sleeve and back into the hive that he now knew was on her back. With that same hand, Mitsu reached toward him and caressed his cheek, a soft intimate touch that he had never felt before, but it felt like a poor substitute for Hana's kiss.
His face remained stoic. Her touch was too cold to warm even his emotions when while she looked at him with adoration and love for him.
Yet, it wasn't really him…Shino could have replaced himself with any one of his cousins and it would have suited Mitsu fine. The peculiarity of the family resemblance he had with all his cousins, exaggerated by their same choice of coats and sunglasses, made them look like clones of each other or as indistinguishable as one bug from another within a swarm. Yet, while any one of them could have fit her ideal image of a husband from the Aburame, Shino and every one of his cousins knew they were individuals and not interchangeable.
Mitsu's love was as hollow to him as his gourd.
She moved away finally, "I'll go back inside."
Shino watched her turn and leave, his eyes couldn't help but look for the sign of the beehive that was on her back, as he stood alone again in the backyard of his home.
He spent his time inspecting a nearly ancient stone lantern behind his home and near his father's private garden, which was surrounded by vibrant trees and bushes that served as homes for a variety of bugs. Yet, thankfully there wasn't a single bee.
"You can come out now."
A silent watcher, which he had noticed not long after Mitsu came to talk to him, hesitated to come out, but slowly Inuzuka Hana pulled herself from under the bushes along with all three of her dogs, which all three rapidly shook their heads back and forth to loosen the leaves stuck to their fur.
"I thought I was hiding pretty good."
"You were, perhaps if I were another ninja, but the bushes were filled with insects that were disturbed by your presence," he explained yet his dark mood couldn't hide an uncharacteristic smile at seeing her again. "I thought you left."
"I had," she told him as she approached him carefully. "But I…started feeling bad about what happened. I should have thought about the lipstick before."
"No, it is alright. I don't believe anything could prevent this marriage."
Hana looked at him thoughtfully as he continued to study the texture of the old stones. "Because it's a political marriage? I heard that part and from my own experience with Kizuna, I think I can piece together what's going on. The Aburame probably wouldn't like another bug clan around any more than the Inuzuka want another dog clan. So, I can understand this alliance, but that girl…"
She didn't finish, but Shino looked at her curiously, "What did you think of her?"
"She's cold…emotionally."
"But she seemed very happy for this marriage."
"No, Shino you don't understand. She's cold," she tried again. Hana reached up with both hands and pulled away Shino's sunglasses with her fingers gently touching his skin. He blinked as his green-tinted world suddenly changed to full colors again, but found Hana looking at him right in the eyes. "Your eyes are warm. Despite everything ever said about the Aburame, I can see your pain, your sadness, and…the way you look at me." Shino's eyes went wide with shock that she could see a part of the secret that he held, but she continued. "I don't see that with the Hachibana. It's more than their bug-eyes, which look alien as it is. Mitsu stood here telling you how much she loved you, but I didn't see it in her eyes."
When he thought about it, the Hachibana had achieved what the Aburame could only mimic with the dark lenses of their sunglasses: the imitation of insect-like emotion.
However, he never realized how much of his human emotions were exposed when his glasses were off or how much Hana must have noticed it. He tried to explain, "Hana…I—"
She placed a finger over his lips to stop him. A long fingernail, in perfect shape to transform into a sharp claw by a beast technique, grazed his skin as her finger moved away.
"Don't go through with this arranged marriage because you deserve better than Mitsu. It's a political marriage with two sides trying to get what they want, right? And you are not going to get anything at all, but feeling more miserable."
"The Aburame will get a number of possible partners for future arranged marriages. Finding those who can want to marry into the clan can be difficult, whether it is for love or for merely trying to continue the lineage of the clan. In return, the Hachibana get to survive."
She gave him a tender smile as she slid his glasses back on his face, "Did anyone tell you that some wasps lay their eggs in beetles while their alive? Destruction bugs are more like the beetles than the wasps and the Hachibana will get more out of his than you will."
Shino used a finger to side the sunglasses up and spoke in mock seriousness, "I thought I was the one who was suppose to use metaphors with bugs."
She laughed softly before finishing, "I understand what its like to want to be with someone you think can understand you. I was with Kizuna because I thought he loved dogs as I did, but he really just wanted to be extraordinary and respected like my clan. He only cared about my appearance and what I could give him, but he didn't really understand me. We were really too different and maybe I could have lived with that until he started treating me in ways that still make me ashamed of myself. Not even my mother or Kiba know that."
"Yet, you don't understand what it is like to have bugs crawling under your skin or borrowing tunnels through your flesh. You don't know what it is like to feel the bugs breeding inside of you when you can't even get the people you like to touch you without disgust. If I deserve better than Mitsu then who exactly is there left that wants to be with who I really am?"
While he said it in his typical impassive tone, he was sure it would leave a sting that would send Hana away. Yet, Hana didn't move away.
"Shino, open the holes on your face for me."
He blinked in surprise at the unexpected request. The holes the destruction bugs bored through his skin were always there and permanent, but an Aburame trick allowed him to close and conceal them from others. Since the bugs were always crawling along his skin underneath the darkness of his coat, more often than even his friends realized, the only place the trick was useful was the only exposed piece of skin he had…his face.
Since it would only prove his point, he did as she asked. It only took an act as simple as breathing to open a trio of holes on his cheek and one behind an ear.
However, Hana moved a hand up to his face and touched the holes softly with her fingertips, even as a group of destruction bugs left the holes with newfound freedom. To his surprise, she didn't even flinch as they crawled along her fingers and back onto his cheek. Instead, she brought her other hand to the other side of his face and pulled him closer to her until their lips met for the second time that day.
After a moment of breathless exploration, she pulled him away, but kept him close, nose to nose.
"I can't give you any promises where this may go. I can't make any guarantees if you choose me over Mitsu then I'll fall in love with you because yesterday I might have never done this, but today…has been a very busy day," she smiled as she explained how sudden her feelings were. "Yesterday, to me you were my brother's best friend. Someone whose been to my house so often that I knew I could depend on you and I even cared for you as someone close to my family, but today I feel a spark that you could become something more to me. I've seen a part of you that I want to get to know further and I want to help carry the burden you hide. More than that, you're special Shino. Even if there is nothing between us, don't give up and settle for someone like Mitsu!"
Shino's thoughts were in turmoil as he weighed the dream-like uncertainty of finally being with the woman that he had secretly cared for all this time or be with the possibly unescapable marriage with the girl with the untrue love, but unique insight into his internal torment.
There was really no choice. He circled his arms around Hana's waist and pulled her close to kiss her again, leaving no room for anything to come between them.
"The bee has no choice but to be drawn to the flower."
The EndAuthor's Note: I tried not to make Hana do a 90-degree flip and say "I love you, Shino". Although this is a pairing story, realistically she is five years older than him and his best friend's sister. She should already be familiar with him since he is close to her family, which helps and so did the heroic rescue from her ex-boyfriend in this story. I tried for that spark that a person feels on a first date that tells them their date might be the one.
Hachibana Mitsuru is a character created by me. Like Inukai Kizuna from the previous chapters, she is used as a catalyst for the relationship between Shino and Hana.
And if anyone is slightly confused by the last line, hint: Hana is the flower!
Version 1.0
1.0: Original