あなたは恋人です
You Are My Love

Two: Shibi and Michi
Genre: Romance (er, sort of)
Word count: 793
Warning(s): Crack, OC, OOC-ness
Disclaimer: Naruto and affiliated characters belong to Kishimoto Masashi, who has given me permission to use them. Okay, that last part was a lie.

Insects were in the family. In the blood. Because of this, Shibi had long ago accepted that if he didn't marry within the Aburame clan (a distant cousin, perhaps), he probably wouldn't marry at all. After all, women weren't exactly clamoring to marry Aburame men.

The whole thing wouldn't have mattered to him, if not for the demand that he produce an heir. Every day, from the time he turned nineteen, there was someone asking him when he planned to settle down. And in the end, there was nothing he wouldn't do for his clan, so he began to look at the females around him.

He studied his family tree religiously. Not many people knew this, but he was extremely (read: irrationally) afraid of having a child that was in any way abnormal. Well, more abnormal than having insects living inside of them, anyway. And everywhere he looked, he found a genetic risk in every eligible female who would ever be willing to marry him.

Michi was a chuunin. A teacher at the academy. Shibi had known her for quite some time, as they had been classmates many years ago, and she had been one of the only people who hadn't been at all bothered by the insects inside his body. She had always been outdoorsy, but not in the usual, tomboyish way that most kunoichi were. Curious by nature, Michi was a researcher - an ecologist, to be most precise.

As Shibi pondered his bachelor status one day, Michi found him, sitting next to him with a quietness that went above and beyond shinobi skill. There were rumors that Michi's parents had tied a bell on her when she was a child, just to know when she was around. Regardless, her stealth made her an excellent wildlife observer.

Shibi, long since accustomed to her ability to suddenly appear, merely greeted her with a calm tilt of his head.

"What are you doing out here?" she asked. "There aren't many insects in this area," she told him. "Too many natural predators."

"Just thinking," he answered shortly. "What are you doing here?"

She pinned her frizzy, brown hair back and shrugged. "I've been documenting bird mating rituals," she said. Pulling out a tablet and a pen, she began to flip through the pages. They were both quiet for some time as she made new notes and reread old ones.

"Did you know that female worker wasps develop from fertilized eggs, while male drones develop from unfertilized eggs?"

"No, I did not," Michi answered.

He watched her flip to a page titled, 'Insects,' and write down this new information (adding a note on the side: "Must investigate further. Bees as well? Ants?").

"Did you know that the smallest fish in the world only grows to be roughly one centimeter long?" she asked him in return.

Grinning behind his coat, he conceded that he did not know that, and proceeded to provide Michi with trivia about insects, which she jotted down in her notebook before returning facts about mammals, fish, and birds to him. It was a game they played often.

"Did you know that a human infant is able to identify its mother by scent after only two days of contact?"

A little surprised, Shibi answered, "Yes. I did, actually."

"Ah. I suppose you win, then." After a pause, she looked at him again, "Would you be willing to let me study your insects?"

Shibi froze. Of course, Michi didn't know how personal that sort of thing was, but he still found it a bit embarrassing. Flustered, he blurted, "Would you be willing to let me use your womb?"

Michi's green eyes widened at that, and a hand drifted over her midsection subconsciously. "Are you asking me to give birth to your heir, Shibi-san?"

He was about assert that it was just a joke, but something in her tone caught his interest. Why hadn't he considered Michi before? They had known each other for a long time and had even kissed once (granted, it was during a party game when they were genin, and he had also kissed Hyuuga Aya that same night). She'd never been put off by his odd personality quirks, or the fact that he had insects living inside of him, which had both been deal breakers for other women in the past.

"What if I was?" he ventured.

She tapped her pen against her knee in thought. "Honestly," she told him, not looking him in the eye, "If you were asking, I'd probably say yes."

"Well, if I did ask, and you did say yes, would you be willing to live with me - for the sake of convenience?"

"If you did ask me, and I did say yes, I would expect you to have a place for me in your home. I might even go so far as to expect that you make me your wife."

"Then yes, you may study my insects," he said finally.

With a tilt of her head and a small smile, she answered, "Then yes, you may use my womb."

A/N: Don't ask me what I was thinking when I wrote this. I honestly do not know. And I hope to never use the word 'womb' again. -shudders-