The evanescence of
This floating world
I feel over and over:
It is the hardest
To be the one left behind.
-Rengetsu
"Why does dad never talk about mother?" Shino asked Torune. "Did he really eat her in a bowl of Miso?"
"What kind of question is that?" Torune was caught off-guard by the sudden and bizarre inquiry of his younger brother. "Do you really believe he would?"
"I was just a year old when you came to live with us, nii-san," Shino said. "I remember everything about the day you became my brother...But I don't have any memories about me and my mother...Isn't that a little strange to you?"
Torune took his time to answer the younger Aburame, playfully blocking the path of a wandering ladybug with one of his sandals.
"I didn't know my mother either," Torune said. "I thought about her all the time, at first. I imagined that she loved me more than anything. That she was just on a top-secret Anbu mission she couldn't tell me about, but she would come find me again soon...It wasn't until my father died that he finally told me her name...Misato...And I thought, wow, she must really be beautiful...But then, I learned the truth about her, and I wished I could go back to believing she actually loved me...Maybe your dad is showing you more compassion than my dad ever had. Perhaps he has a reason for not telling you about your mother, and you must trust that he is doing the right thing...Maybe she's something you must learn to make peace with, if only so nothing will stand in your way."
"But...do you think she still..."
Shino hesitated to ask again, as Torune's words slowly poisoned his waning hopes with a crushing reality.
Unlike Torune, Shino had long ago accepted that wherever his mother was, she was never coming back for him. And he knew he could learn to live with the missing pieces of never meeting her...but only if he convinced himself that wherever she was, she thought of him as much as he thought about her. That even though she wished she could be home with him, he'd never hold it against her for leaving him...if he only knew she did it for love.
"Do you think it is also true for me then?" Shino softly tried again. "That the reason my mother abandoned me...is because she couldn't love me?...Did she also think I was a creep, like the rest of my academy class does?"
But Torune wasn't sure he knew how to answer that. He too had many questions that would never bring him answers.
And the sooner Shino became comfortable with the unforgiving torment of the unknown, the better off he would be in an unforgivingly answerless world.
"That reminds me," Torune deliberately changed the subject. "Have you gotten used to academy yet?"
Shino finally glanced away from the ladybug he was studying on a nice green Angelica leaf.
But one look at nii-san's hopeful smile, and Shino's eyes darted back to the ladybug for a convincing enough cover from that dreaded question.
"If ladybugs had harder shells," Shino dodged the question. "Do you think they'd be invincible against the formic acid of ants?"
"Why do you ask?" Torune wondered.
Shino's dark brow tensed downward in deep concentration, as he calculated the ratio of weight distribution and balance between the ladybug's armor and her dancing legs.
"It's nothing," Shino answered. "Just an experiment of mine."
"Don't you mean evasion?" Torune pointed out lightheartedly. "Every time I ask you about academy, you ask me about ladybugs."
"Academy is what you'd expect," Shino answered vaguely. "But do you think a ladybug would take a stag beetle as her mate?"
"Come on, Shino. I'm sure you have more to say about it than that," Torune insisted lightly. "Have you made any friends in Academy yet?"
"Not yet. That's because my class is so rowdy," Shino replied, offering his finger to the ladybug so that her tiny black legs could rest against his fingertip. "I prefer playing with insects like this."
"That won't do, Shino," Torune sighed. "In time, you will go on missions. When you do, having friends and not having friends will make a huge difference."
Shino listened attentively to nii-san, but kept his silence.
His eyes focused on his new ladybug playmate, who winked her antennae at him in a friendly hello.
He liked how much he and the ladybug could say to each other without ever using words.
How easily things like trust and friendship grew between them, without Shino ever needing to "get it right" to impress anyone, or be called a "mother-eater" for things he couldn't control.
The silent buzzing connection between he and the ladybug was a deeper, more satisfying bond that his other classmates couldn't begin to understand in Academy.
Because no one understood a bond more intimately than an insect user and his insects.
"It's not that I'm a loner or that I don't understand friendship," Shino told Torune. "Maybe it's just that I understand friendship too deeply. The reason is because once I make a friend, I will honor our bond until my death. It is unlikely that my academy classmates would do the same for me. Therefore, I'm sure a bond is not something I will ever share with anyone. Except my insects."
And then gently gliding his finger against the angelica leaves, Shino let the ladybug return to her home.
"Did you ever go to Academy, Torune?" Shino wondered the same about nii-san.
Because there was no way Torune could understand, if he hadn't.
If his brother knew what Academy was really like, would he insist on these artificial and meaningless attempts at comradeship?
But once the topic of Academy was turned around on him, it was Torune who seemed to want to avoid the question next.
"Why are you so interested in ladybugs anyway?" he countered back to Shino. "Tell me more about this new-ahem- 'experiment' of yours."
Shino could very well tell Torune the truth.
He could easily confess that what he loved most about the Leaf was summers.
Why, you ask?
Because it was when the bugs were their happiest.
And that's how things always should be.
But not this summer.
This summer was different than all the other summers Shino Aburame had quietly studied the insects of the Hidden Leaf.
Because this summer, Shino was at war.
"Even a tiny insect has half a soul," Shino wouldn't back down, standing between a village farmer and his pesticide. "What you're doing is reckless. The reason is because it will sacrifice more insects on your farm than necessary."
"Not you again!" Farmer Fukushima raged on, succumbing to madness. "Every single summer, WHY IS IT ALWAYS YOU?"
It wasn't like Shino to get into hot and heavy debates with other villagers...except, of course, when it came to the bugs.
That's when things got personal.
And the farmers of the Leaf had long learned to avoid Shino Aburame at all costs.
"Every single harvest putting up with this brat!" Fukushima growled, wringing his pitchfork like a young Aburame's neck. "When will you give it a rest, kid?"
"Why poison these insects when Ladybugs are their natural predators?" Shino persisted. "They hunt without disrupting the ecosystem of other insects on the farm."
"More bugs?! That's your solution? Throw more bugs at the problem? Sure, why didn't I think of that before? That's great, just great! Except...HOW EXACTLY IS THAT SUPPOSED TO WORK? I'M TRYING TO GET RID OF THESE CREEPY CRAWLEY BASTARDS AND YOU WANT TO INVITE MORE IN?"
But Shino stood his ground, hands tucked neatly in his jacket pockets.
Calm but unshaken behind his upturned collar and downward brow, as he stared back at Farmer Fukushima through the bone-chilling riddle of his sunglasses.
"I hate explaining the same thing twice," Shino mumbled.
Then he crouched down, touching his fingers to the ground next to Fukushima's Shiso fields.
"Insect Summoning Jutsu," he commanded quietly.
And like a nightmare come to life, Farmer Fukushima watched in horror as every matter of insect pest came flying every which-way out of his fields.
Obeying the bug master's call and finding a comfortable landing spot on the sanctuary that was his body.
"Ehhhhwwwkkk! Stop doing that!" Fukushima recoiled, his skin crawling with disgust at a leggy centipede snaking through Shino's bushy hair. "Get off my farm at once! Leave me in peace already and don't come back! Out! OUT!"
To Farmer Fukushima, the battle was over.
But to Shino, the war had just begun.
For months, Shino had been secretly cross-breeding a unique mutated ladybug colony, determined to find a humane solution to the uptick of Shiso aphids on the farm.
A heroic act of rebellion in all the history of bug activism that consequently landed the Aburame Clan on the banned list of every farmer in the Leaf, thanks to Shino.
And that was exactly why he couldn't tell his father about "Mission Centepede" (as calling it "Mission Ladybug" would've been as inconspicuous as a cicada).
Because if anyone found out what the youngest, "most well-behaved son" of the Aburame Head was really up to, Shibi Aburame would be dodging angry mobs of bug sprays and bug-swatters for weeks, with every farmer in the Leaf marching in solidarity upon the compound, vowing to "teach those Aburame misfits a lesson!".
Shino couldn't risk putting his dad through such nail-biting, bug-squashing torture, as the mere thought of a bug-swatter made Shino cringe.
And so, he couldn't even risk telling Torune about his secret mission.
He would fight this battle alone.
"The reason is because ladybugs have a lifespan of one year, which makes them a perfect insect for colony building," Shino lied to his brother. "I am only studying their mating behaviors for fun."
"I see...it appears you're on the brink of a new discovery then. I should not disturb you," Torune nodded, grinning knowingly as he turned away.
But having a second thought, he turned back to Shino, adding, "Oh, by the way, it probably has nothing to do with your 'experiment', but I thought you should know. Dad's having dinner with Chōza and Shikaku tonight. He'll be home late."
And leaving Shino to make use of that intel as he liked, Torune turned to walk back to the compound.