Chapter 15
Though Shino himself had been avoiding Torune, when he ran into Torune in the hall late one evening, Torune with a bag slung over his shoulder, ready to head off on yet another mission, Shino took it rather badly. Torune told him the basics: he was going with Fuu, couldn't say any more; only that it would be long, at least a month. Nothing all that out of the ordinary, all things Shino had heard before, he was mortified that his eyes grew hot, started to tear, thankfully hidden underneath his goggles.
He tried to act as though they weren't though, to speak and wish Torune well, yet when he tried nothing came out, he took a breath to try again, and it still didn't work, his silence only becoming more and more conspicuous. He even attempted to duck his head, collect himself.
"Oh Shino, I'm sorry." Torune spoke first, and to Shino's shock, his voice was rough with emotion, as he pulled Shino into the nearest room, the empty room they had first greeted each other in, after so many years. Shino didn't understand what Torune could possibly be apologizing about. This wasn't his fault, that Shino was having this terrible reaction, right before he was going to leave, Torune didn't need that, the stress of it, stress leads to mistakes, and then, to make matters worse, he felt Lady Natsuki effect her will, making him speak, the same thing she had made him to speak to Hinata about.
"Are you angry with me? Is that why you haven't been home?"
It was strange, to feel like a puppet in one's own life, someone else pulling the strings. So skillfully that no one ever suspected otherwise. Almost like Shino didn't even need to be here. The show could go on without him.
Torune shook his head, flustered, obviously upset. "No, I…"
"Do you regret, taking my place in Anbu?"
"What? No! You… you've been thinking that this whole time?" Torune asked incredulously.
Shino nodded. He felt terrible, just as he had with Hinata, being made to say this, didn't want to burden Torune anymore than he already had, yet Lady Natsuki was not making him say anything that wasn't true.
"No, Shino, I… I've just been trying to sort some things out, that's all, I… I'm sorry, we'll spend more time together when I get back, I promise, but… why? Why did you think I was angry with you?"
"I was worried after seeing what life was like outside of Root, that you… thought I had wasted my freedom. I… I think I would have been a better fit than you."
Torune sighed, rolled his shoulders back, and when he spoke, it looked like it physically pained him.
"No. You weren't. If you had gone, you would have lost yourself. I saw it then, and I see it now. Shino, please don't take this the wrong way, but you're not a fighter. It's not that you aren't skilled, or that you don't train hard enough, but… look at Kiba, you see how passionate he is about it? When he and I spar? You… I mean, your favorite thing to do was go out in the woods and look for insects, you… you're a scholar, I know what you did for Kiba, helped him to hone his techniques, made them better, he told me about it, what you did for Hinata, when her family wouldn't teach her. It's just… I don't think anybody, maybe even you didn't notice because you were, still are naturally gifted. Battle comes easy enough to you, but it doesn't suit you."
"Does it suit you any better? All I recall you saying before you left was 'How hard could it be?'"
"Well, I was right, wasn't I?" Torune said jokingly, "I did get to the top."
"I… often wondered what you were going through. I often thought… it would just be easier, to be in your place."
"Yes, the training was difficult, excruciating at times, but to me, that was better than feeling useless, hanging around our family land, seeing everyone else changing, growing. I wanted a chance to live my own life, not to be hidden away. I… if I was going to be feared, I wanted to give everyone a reason to really fear me. Maybe that sounds petty, cruel even, I can't really say, but I do enjoy the battle, the fight, the power of it. I don't regret my choice, in fact, I'm happy about it. I think it was a good choice for me.
"And on top of all that, that I got to do something for your dad? Who took me in when no one else wanted me? That I could make a choice that would keep his son, keep you with him? After he lost your mom? When everyone wanted him to let you go, remarry? Priceless.
"And… just so you don't get the idea that I'm suddenly this selfless guy, because I'm not, you remember what I said? About wanting a choice? Wanting to make a decision for myself? Because I felt like I never got to do that? Maybe it's selfish, because it was about your life, but Shino, that's what I wanted for you. I didn't want you to go into Anbu Root. I had a chance to get what I wanted. I took it.
"Really, the whole thing was like hitting the jackpot. Wins across the board, but you know what? You can decide for yourself. Look at me and tell me you if think I'm lying."
Torune then, in possibly the most shocking moment of this whole conversation, reached up to his eyes, gripped the lenses of his goggles and pulled them up, revealing sharp blue eyes1.
Their clan almost always wore their eye protection, their insects were of course affected by their hosts, wearing dark lenses helped keep them calm, the same as their heavy clothing. Even though the reason started practically, it became extremely intimate, personal, to see anyone without their glasses, and Shino had never seen Torune without his, but Shino could only think if the village found him handsome before, he wasn't sure what they would do now.
"You believe me?"
Shino wanted to nod, say that he did believe Torune, that Hinata was right, that Torune, just like her uncle Hizashi, had chosen, and in that way, obtained his freedom, yet Shino couldn't. Nothing in him believed that.
"You don't." Torune said, didn't even bother phrasing it as a question. There was a moment, a silence, a chasm, before Shino saw Torune move forward, then reach forward, Shino saw this in slow motion, his mind realized what Torune was doing, yet his heart could not, would not believe this either, as Torune reached under his hood, placing his hands on Shino's temples, on the bands of his goggles, held them there.
Why Shino didn't stop him, he didn't know. Why, instead of removing Torune's hands, Shino reached up and covered them, held them there.
"You too." Torune said, with no waver in his voice, completely sure of himself, as though none of their clan's customs applied to him, that this was not the earth shattering, the breaking of ground that it truly was.
"Something to remember you by, while I'm gone." Torune continued, and Shino wasn't sure why he did it, just pressed down on Torune's hands, in a way that Torune must have interpreted as go ahead, because he moved his hands forward, gripped the lens of Shino's goggles, and pulled them up, smoothly, slowly, onto Shino's forehead, then let go, pulled away.
Shino felt terribly self-conscious, frozen with the knowledge Torune could see him, brown-grey eyes2 meeting blue, the first time, and Shino wondered if it would be the last, the only.
Shino watched as the corner of Torune's mouth quirked up, saw him give a small smile, shake his head. "Heh, that's what I figured. You know, if people knew what you looked like under all this, you'd be giving me a run for my money."
Shino wasn't sure if he was joking or not. Torune seemed to realize this, and continued.
"Not that it's that big of a surprise. I mean, look at your parents. There was a reason everyone was trying to get your dad to remarry. And you must know, but since it's you I better tell you, just to make sure, everyone thought your mother was a beauty. But my dad said they only had eyes for each other."
Torune reached back, again, Shino made no move to stop him, yet this time he returned Shino's goggles to his eyes, before then returning his own and continuing:
"Now that I'm thinking about it, maybe the whole thing was selfish on my part, because I felt the same. If it was between you and me, I wanted it to be me. I didn't want to be at home, not knowing what was happening to you, watching your dad worrying, grieving. I… too thought that would be worse. So… I'm sorry, Shino."
At that, Shino actually stepped back – it was such a ridiculous thing to say, he felt sickened just hearing it, how shameful, after all Torune had sacrificed, for him to degrade himself like this, all for Shino's sake, always for his sake, but Torune – the surprises kept on coming tonight – stepped forward and roughly pulled him into an embrace.
"I mean it." Torune continued, voice turning quiet yet harsh at the same time, a grating whisper. "Tell me you believe me. Don't walk around with this anymore."
Shino felt his heart start to hammer, out of fear, of embarrassment, he didn't know, he'd heard that from himself so many times recently, "I don't know,' and he hated it, hated that he didn't know why he was having this reaction, hated that Lady Natsuki was present, that he couldn't tell where the line between her and he started or began or ended, because this embrace immediately reminded him of her, how he couldn't get away, yet, just as when Torune pinned him, it wasn't the terror he felt with her, which was good, because just like with her, he felt he couldn't fight Torune anymore, not tonight, and he moved his arms once more, not to pull away, as Torune somehow intuited, since he let him do it, but to return the embrace, so foreign to him, brought his arms up around Torune's shoulders, held on to him, like he had wanted to the night after Torune left, after it had dawned upon Shino he may never see Torune again, that somehow lightning had struck his home and it was forever changed, as sudden as his mother's death had been, and the cause equally mysterious, and though the reason Torune had left, at least the details, the practicalities were known to Shino now, his mother's death remained to this day a mystery, her heart had stopped beating, her lungs had stopped breathing, and no one could figure out a reason why, only that they had, only that her blood stopped flowing, that she breathed no more, it was what drove him to look for answers, wherever he could, only to find that all the answers he sought could not be found in books, could not be found in observations, apparently could not be found anywhere, each question, each answer only led to another.
"Shh. Breathe." he heard Torune say, from faraway, from within a fog, but it brought his attention to his breaths, they were short, ragged, could feel Torune put his hand on his back.
"Breathe." he repeated, rubbing a circle, and Shino did, his breaths slowed, evened out, to Torune's apparent satisfaction, since he pulled away, let him go.
In the void that was left, Shino zeroed in on the calls of cicadas in the night, usually soothing, now thunderous, the males' mating calls, constant in pitch, tymbals, structures in their abdomens, buckling and unbuckling, their only purpose to make sound, a sound so loud male cicadas turned off their own way of hearing when they did it, for otherwise they would be deafened by it, deafened by themselves, the clicking sound they produced so fast that to the human ear it sounded continuous...
"Wish me well?" Torune said, asked, bring Shino out of his thoughts, back to the present. Shino was startled, rattled, by all this, though that did not change the fact that Torune was leaving, and at the very least Shino could fulfill this request.
"Go and return safely. May the ancestors watch over you."
Torune paused. "Haven't heard that one in awhile. It was a call and response thing, right? What's the part I'm supposed to say?"
It was true, it was an older saying, not spoken much anymore, Shino hadn't heard it or said it himself in many years, wasn't sure why he had said it now, there it was again, 'Not sure,' however that could be dealt with later. For at least he knew the answer to Torune's question.
"'And may the ancestors watch over you until I return.'"
Torune smiled sadly in recognition.
"That's it. And may the ancestors watch over you until I return."
Lady Natsuki called on him again, and he once again found himself in her bedroom, the silk bed clothes, the velvet drapes, the heavy scents of perfume and cosmetics, and whatever calm he'd managed to sustain throughout all this escaped him tonight. When she approached him, he fought, maybe harder than he had ever fought her.
"We have been over this. You are only drawing out the inevitable."
He knew that, he knew, yet – he imagined this is how Kiba operated most of the time – he just didn't care. Nothing seemed to matter, not Noshiko's warnings to avoid trying Lady Natsuki's patience, not the hopelessness of this situation, he needed to make some attempt to get out of here.
She did stop her approach, only watched him, for this was a largely internal battle, none of his struggling was amounting to any physical movements, only generating huge amounts of stress, working himself up, the same thing he'd been warned about his whole life, that he continually warned his teammates about whenever they got upset.
She came forward, her arms forming a cage around him, and he flashed to when Torune embraced him, how different than that had felt, and he knew he would eventually tire, he would give in, as he always did, but that memory sparked one more effort, one more try.
"This will not do. I have not had to do this with you, yet I think it is necessary tonight."
She reached up to his goggles, had her fingers around the lens, lifted them up, Shino reflexively closed his eyes, again remembered when Torune had done this, at least she wasn't controlling his eyes, however she paused, and he eventually heard her chuckle.
"This is unexpected. I would not have guessed you to have such thoughts about purity. I am willing to negotiate with you on this. I will replace your goggles, and in return you will look me in the eye. Do we have an agreement?"
"What are you talking about?"
"… You have not realized, yet I do not have the patience to explain. Do we have a deal?"
"… Yes."
She returned them, he looked her in the eye, and she did… something, he wasn't sure what, and he didn't want to call it a kindness, because none of this could be described as kind, but whatever she did calmed him, took his consciousness somewhere far away, far enough away that he did not feel her hands on him, nor her teeth pierce his neck.
He woke on the bed, he saw Lady Natsuki standing by the window, the moonlight on her skin. It was still dark, he had the sense she had not taken as much from him as she usually did.
"It is rather sweet, actually."
"What is?"
"Yourself and Torune. I know why you resisted me, how you were remembering his touch. I really was not anticipating this to be a problem with you."
"What are you talking about? What problem? Leave Torune out of this."
Why Shino thought she would honor this, he did not know. Just that same feeling within, urging him to try. She paused to look at him, really look at him, with an expression he would normally associate with pity, though of course he knew better.
"...You still do not know?"
When he realized with wasn't a rhetorical question, he shook his head no.
"You want to lay with him."
So much of this experience, of these past months felt like a dream, even before meeting Lady Natsuki, that Torune had returned at all, yet somehow, this was the most surreal of all. So surreal, that he could not speak for a moment, then felt an anger within himself he had not felt in a long time, that she would try to manipulate him like this, so powerful that it overwhelmed a small voice of recognition within.
"Nonsense."
"Nothing I have ever made you say has been false, and neither is this. You simply could not recognize it. Your jealousy, your reaction during the sparring matches? Why you allowed him to remove your goggles?"
"That was…"
"It is nothing to be ashamed of. He has a powerful presence, electric even."
Shino involuntarily remembered the jolts to his system, his heart pounding during those matches, and he conceded she had not caused that. She did not prevent him stopping Torune, if he had chosen, from removing his goggles. Neither had she caused him to be so transfixed when Torune first removed his.
"How long have you suspected this?"
"You still do not agree? I suppose this is typical for you, needing to analyze, but I should warn you, love is not easily analyzed, for I do believe it is more than just the physical."
Shino recognized there was truth in that, yet continued nonetheless.
"Is that why you had me spar with him in the first place?"
"No, I did not know then. I only wanted you to see him."
"Did you know about Hinata and the Hyuuga Affair?"
"I may have recalled such a thing, yes."
"How long had you suspected about Hinata and Neji?"
"His feelings for her were so obvious even the blind could see. As for her… she was ready."
"You believed Torune truly felt that way? That he chose? You thought he would say something like what he did?"
"Absolutely. The only one with regrets now is you. Do be careful. You do not want time to leave you behind. Though that was indeed a pleasant surprise when he removed his goggles. Truly, he is quite fetching."
"Is that incident why you suspect this?"
"Like I said, you cannot analyze love. I would say the seeds of this were planted long ago, when you were children."
"But there must have been something recently."
"Since you so insist, it was indeed your reaction, when he pinned you. That was involuntary on your part. You who are so in your mind will have trouble with this, but sexuality is an instinct, your body knows what to do, even when your mind does not. You responded to him, and you did not respond to nothing."
"You can't be implying..."
"He feels the same."
Shino would need to give further thought to his own feelings, but of this his was absolutely sure.
"No, he doesn't. You have my experiences, you know about him."
"I have been right so far, have I not? Alas, I have failed to convince you, just as Hinata and Torune failed to convince you. Very well, we will just have to see, won't we?"
Shino made his way through the woods, on his way home. He sat down against the trunk of a large oak tree he was particularly fond of, that he had taken to stopping at during these frequent trips of his. It... gave him some measure of peace.
Lady Natsuki's words rang in his head. He had hoped maybe he merely been caught up in the moment, in her own confidence in her own deductions, that it would ease when he left, but it did not. If anything, and this was terribly difficult to admit, that his feelings about Torune were not what he had thought, that they had taken on a different dimension, as though a ray of light had hit crystal, and the refracted beams now shown everywhere.
He… had never expected to feel this way about anyone. He was so used to being on his own, that he assumed he always would be. Though, he chuckled darkly to himself, if the only person he felt this way for was Torune, he would indeed be on his own, just as he thought, since there was no way Torune felt the same. Of that he was as certain as when he and Lady Natsuki spoke.
She had lit a spark, bringing this to his attention, yet it fell on ashes. There was nothing available to burn. He knew this. Knew it deeply, irrevocably, honestly. And yet… somehow, a glimmer of hope had emerged, and he had to admit, he enjoyed it. Enjoyed its light, in this darkness. Wanted to keep that light, at least for a little while, even only to himself.
