No different, really,

a summer's moth visible burning

and this body transformed by love.

-Izumi Shikibu

The Kamizuru and the Aburame walked in silence through the bamboo forest, as silence was the only language by which they could speak to each other.

But she didn't mind that with Shino at all.

Words were never enough anyway.

And she liked that Aburame knew how to use so few of them, to say so much.

Besides learning how to kill one in battle, she'd never really given much thought to who the Aburame were.

What had been Shino's true story after all?

Could it be that we've always had this much to learn from each other?

She went on pondering the mystery as she captured Shino in her soft gaze, walking beside her.

How different I wish things had been between the Aburame and the Kamizuru clans...Maybe then, it wouldn't be so hard to stop wanting things I can't have.

Shino stopped walking.

"This is it," he said, a hint of excitement brightening his habitually sober voice.

The Kamizuru dragged her eyes away from Shino.

Instantly captivated by a mirror of lights dancing like golden galaxies over the river.

Fireflies.

Hundreds of them.

Her honey eyes lit up as her gaze followed their flight.

Her expression exactly identical to Shino's fascination, the moment he first discovered the firefly mating grounds in the forest.

"It's taken me years to find so many," Shino said. "So, as a fellow bug user, maybe you could understand why it means so much to me."

'I do understand, Shino' she thought, helplessly ticklish from the warmth of tiny little fires against the numbing cold of her face. 'I know exactly how this feels.'

She squeezed his arm reassuringly, letting him know without words that she understood.

Unaware of what her closeness was doing to him, behind the protection of his collar.

But rather than stiffen his arm awkwardly away from her, Shino pulled her into him.

And studying the glow of fireflies on her face, he thought to himself, 'If there's any beauty in this jutsu, it's her...

But that's the thing that scared him the most.

Why, you ask?

Because if her being here with him was only some illusion created by this jutsu out of his memory of her, what would happen to them when he broke it? Would she disappear with the jutsu too?

Would he lose her like he'd lost her before?

It's impossible to go back now...Because...for once in my life, I'm not alone...And I like how it feels...I like...her...

But knowing he was just an Aburame, who only knew how to use so few words, Shino spoke of these feelings to her in the only way he understood how.

"Did you know fireflies attract their mates by the way their lights dim and flicker?" Shino told her softly. "The male flies to her with his light-song. If the female is drawn to it, she'll answer him with her own light-song. Why, you ask? The reason is because they are soulmates, and his light-song is only for her."

She smiled at that beautiful thought.

Mesmerized by the light show of soulmates around them.

If it took him years to find a firefly...

She wondered to herself.

Wouldn't he want to at least catch one now and study it?

But Shino didn't seem interested in collecting the fireflies for his bug jars.

He didn't want to move, if it meant her letting go of his arm in the end.

'The reason catching one doesn't matter is because...' Shino thought. 'Because you will always be my firefly...even if I never tell you that you are.'

And true to that idea, Shino never spoke it aloud to her.

Saying instead, "Thank you for coming here with me...Even if we forget everything after breaking this jutsu, I hope I never forget this. So that one day, when I know your true name, I will find you again, and whisper it all back to you in a light-song of fireflies."

Because even if she never told him her story, hearing her name spoken by her own voice would be enough for him.

But what happens when we do break the jutsu? she wondered.

Would Aburame still share his world with her like this, if he knew who she really was?

Could they ever go back to just being like this again?

It was only a matter of time before he found out her true name.

And by then, they would likely be in battle with each other.

She didn't want Shino to find out that way.

If he would know her name eventually, she would rather it be as they stood there together watching fireflies.

She'd rather he knew the truth about her now, than on the day they ended up killing each other in battle.

And handling him as gently as he had handled her, the bee user pulled her arm away from Shino's elbow and faced him again.

"Are you tired now?" Shino tried to guess the worried look in her eyes. "I'd be happy to walk you back to your hut."

Why...why did he have to make it so hard for her?

She took a deep breath, finding her courage.

Yet rendered perpetually silent by the curse mark that stole her voice, the bee user took Shino's hand and turned over his palm. Knowing that as another bug user, he'd be able to understand her through the light taps of her fingertips across his palm. The same way that insects communicated with each other by the tremoring vibrations in their legs and wings.

"My name..." Shino instantly picked up her words by reading the silent insect code. "is H-"

She had barely tapped out the first letter of her name, before her hands froze.

Her eyes catching a dark ominous figure in a beekeeper's suit emerging from the foggy forest from behind Shino.

The beekeeper?

She blinked, swearing he had to be a trick of the fog.

Endless days stuck in this bamboo grove, and she hadn't seen any other person besides Shino and herself.

Had Aburame been right all along?

Had the beekeeper been hidden in this forest the whole time, waiting for his next move?

Was it he who attacked her before with the 1000 Bee Stings Technique?

He who summoned the Queen Bee that almost killed them both?

But why would a Kamizuru attack another Kamizuru?

Unless...

"You," she remembered from a distant memory the beekeeper declaring to Shino. "You're from the Aburame clan of the Hidden Leaf. I warned you that showing your face to me again would mean only one of us walks away this time."

Her heart dropped.

It was their bitter enemy he wanted dead all along.

And after failing so many times before, the Beekeeper was now there to finish Shino himself this time.

"Honeycomb Prism Jutsu!" the beekeeper declared, dropping into his hand seal as he advanced toward them.

The bee mistress grabbed Shino's arms, yanking him out of the path of the beekeeper's jutsu to protect him from the attack.

Inevitably getting herself in the crossfire of the assault, taking the brunt of its power against her own body.

"Wait, no!" Shino tried to stop her, but he was too late to pull her back.

Instead, he attempted to capture the beekeeper in a whirlpool of his insects, but his counterattack came only a second too late.

A wall of yellow jacket bees ripped between him and Firefly, tearing their hands out of each other's reach.

Obeying his offensive command, Shino's bugs clashed into the beekeeper's defensive wall.

But by the time his insects devoured the yellow jackets and their chakra, the beekeeper was gone.

And Firefly had disappeared with him.