Rather than recall in these flowers the fragrance of the past,

I would like to hear this nightingale's voice

To know if his song is as sweet.

-From The Ink Dark Moon

It wasn't like Shino Aburame to start trouble.

But if he didn't stand up for the bugs, who would?

Shino's experiment was finished.

His bug jars clink-clanking in his ninja pack, as he walked the lonely path to the outskirts of his village. A bug cage of restless ladybugs strapped against his back, ready to finish his self-proclaimed battle against Farmer Fukushima of the Leaf.

'They might think I'm strange for not letting something like this go,' Shino mused to himself. 'But I think they're the ones who are strange for living in this world, without ever honoring all the tiniest-'

"Bee-stinging details!"

The word was stolen right out of Shino's thoughts.

But that wasn't much of a surprise, because he was used to being interrupted anyway.

What did surprise him was that he wasn't alone anymore.

No one ever ventured this far out into the Aburame side of the forest.

Especially girls.

He had carefully and painstakingly chosen this quiet and exclusively-exclusive spot for his private entomological studies.

Girls were enough to deal with at Academy, and now he had to worry about how awkward they made him feel here too?

"What am I doing wrong now? Why am I always missing all the important details?" the girl groaned in frustration. "Until Naobachi proves that he can do this jutsu without cheating first, he can eat this lesson! It's one thing to carry his own hive in a bug jar. But It's totally different trying to tame a wild bee with only chakra and no extra help."

Blowing out a puff of air so fierce that her feathery white bangs fluttered out of her face, she fell back against a tree in the Sakura grove, sinking down to the ground with her arms hugging her knees.

Watching the only bee she'd managed to summon since breakfast, as it buzzed its merry little bee-way from clover to clover without so much as a by her leave.

"Hey, get back here!" she ordered her summon. "I didn't say you could go! We haven't finished training yet!"

But the taunting bee's buzz was a little too sassy for her tastes, shaking his stinger defiantly at her as he buzzed off to greener pastures.

"Make you?" the bee mistress challenged his dare, shooting up to chase after him again. But the stiff pain in her aching muscles flattened her back against the tree trunk. Wincing, she lamented, "You better believe I would...if it didn't hurt so much."

And sighing, she massaged her throbbing swollen bee-stung hands. Flinching as she pinched one last stinger out of her tender palm, and rubbed on a soothing witch hazel balm from her ninja pack.

'I have to keep trying,' she pushed herself, absently rubbing in the witch hazel as her eyes focused intensely on the lazy bees around her. 'I can't keep letting everyone down. Nao showed me this jutsu a hundred times. Why can't I even master a simple gathering technique?'

And for the first time, Shino found the idea of talking to an insect strange.

Beespeak was a complex and sophisticated insect language, even for an Aburame.

In fact, there was only one clan he'd heard of who specialized in communicating with bees. But they had been wiped out so long ago that no one spoke their name anymore.

The only other person Shino knew of who could speak to bees was Shibi, but even he hadn't mastered it fully yet. Just a few bee-party-tricks here and there that Shibi had picked up during his past missions in Rōran, but nothing close to a beekeeper.

And there weren't any girls in Shino's Academy class with snowy white hair like hers either.

No one like her with a bumble bee hair pin, wrapping her swirling locks into a beautifully messy bun. Silver and soft, like silkworms had artfully spun her hair.

She looked old enough to be in Academy with him, but Shino was sure he'd never seen her in the village before.

If she were an insect user from the Aburame Clan, he would've remembered someone like her.

Shino watched as she formed an insect gathering hand sign. Focusing all of her chakra around a swarm of bees buzzing in rebellious chaos in front of her.

"I'm not Nao's little honeybee anymore," she said determinedly. "Because I too am a wasp. And I won't stop until he admits it."

Because if she had to stay in this forest all night to do it, she was going to prove to Naobachi that she deserved to be included seriously in their missions.

But the battle of wills between bee and girl ended in a stalemate with only enough chakra to shape her bees into a sad, crippled butterfly with broken twitching wings.

And unable to resist getting a closer look at such a rare insect art, Shino forgot to stay hidden.

"Even a domesticated bee is stubborn by nature," he told her, as he emerged into the Sakura grove. "So, why try to tame a feral one?"

"Because if I can't tame one," she said, still focused on her chakra flow without looking up at him. "How can I expect to summon a hive someday?"

"At this rate, you never will."

And smoldering in the fire of that remark, her cheeks burned hot pink behind her snowy white hair.

"And just who are you to say that to me anyway?" she demanded. "You probably don't even know the first thing about insects, so how could you ever understand?"

Shino sat down his bug cage of ladybugs next to them, crouching down across from her.

"If you'll let me," he asked her permission quietly. "I can show you."

And then the mysterious boy with the dark bushy hair and sunglasses gently cupped her tired and aching hands in the calm steadiness of his palms.

"Trust your own strength," Shino advised her. "The reason is because when you question yourself, your hands tremble and your insect gathering sign slips this way."

With his fingers caging hers, he tipped her hand sign eastward to mimic the mistake she kept making in basic form.

"That's why your bees are so confused," he told her. "Because for this technique, your gathering sign must stand firmly in the north."

And then Shino gradually turned her hand, steadying her fingers with his, until her hand sign stood strong and confident toward the treetops.

Drawing her headstrong, unruly bees slowly back under her command, as she formed the butterfly she had always imagined.

And as gently as Shino had held her, he slowly let her go.

So quietly humble that she barely noticed when his hands left hers, allowing her own chakra to hold the bees' formation in place.

"Honeysuckle," she whispered excitedly, her face illuminated by the blonde buzzing of bees' wings. "Look, it's working! I actually did it."

Watching breathlessly as her chakra butterfly floated along with the breeze, its golden wings dancing to the trees above her.

Golden like the honey in her eyes, Shino realized.

Eyes that eventually found their way back into his, making his heart hop away like a grasshopper.

'Like fireflies,' Shino admired them quietly. 'Her eyes are just like fireflies.'

And as if she could hear his thoughts behind the accidental fascination on his face, the girl with the honey-colored eyes shyly dropped her gaze from his.

And then Shino quickly dropped his too, realizing how rude he was by staring at her like she was an insect.

But he couldn't help it.

Because out of all the insects he'd collected, she was easily the most beautiful firefly he'd ever seen.

But just as Shino worked up the courage to ask her what her real name was, the last bit of the girl's chakra faded away.

As she lost control of it in her utter exhaustion, the chakra butterfly never made it completely to the treetops, losing its momentum as it seesawed back down to the ground.

Springing forward to rescue it, the quick-witted Shino immediately commanded his kikaichū to take the form of a lotus flower.

Catching the fallen butterfly before it hit the ground, and merging his chakra with hers in the combined power of their shared jutsu.

Until at last, Shino's lotus flower gently rocked to their feet, with all her bees safely snuggled inside of it.

And when their entwined chakras gradually separated from each other, finally releasing the married jutsu, Shino was stung with a strange feeling.

A feeling that fed on him like a tiger mosquito, as her bees returned to the forest, leaving his kikaichū behind.

Shino couldn't find a name for that feeling, but he guessed it was something like how the Asagao flower must feel when it finally opens up to the sun, only to lose by night the sunlight that was so precious to him.

Was this what Torune meant?

Was friendship a lot like the sun?

Besides the Aburame Clan, Shino hadn't met any other insect users like him in the village, and now that he'd found one, he had so many questions he wanted to ask her.

What was her favorite insect?

Did she like collecting bugs too ?

Would she like to see his?

How did her hair smell so much like honey?

...and why was she staring at him like that?

"You mean to tell me," she realized, as she watched Shino's insects crawl back into hiding inside of his coat. "that you're an insect user too?"

"That's right," Shino answered. "That's because I belong to the Abu-"

"Wait, shut the worm can!" she cried in disbelief. "Did all of those bugs really just come out of your body?"

Shino thought twice about giving her an answer.

Would she think he was a freak show too?

Would she be too disgusted by his bugs to be his friend?

'Being myself is truly who I am,' Shino thought. 'A true friend would not ask me to abandon that.'

So, he took the risk and trusted her not to.

"Yes," Shino finally answered her. "That's because they're a rare species of parasitic beetle. They use my body as their nest. In return, they do my bidding. It's why I can perform ninjutsu without using so much chakra and hand seals. A specialized technique of my clan's-"

"How is that even fair," she whispered, softly interrupting Shino again. "I've worked so hard just to summon one bee, while shinobi like you are born with insects already inside of them, making everything easier for you. Becoming stronger, then, was never really equal for everyone...no matter how hard you work. Unless you're lucky enough to be born into a noble clan."

And Shino never underestimated a thing, except how ungraceful he was at knowing what to do about girls, as he watched her wipe away a tear with her kimono shirt sleeve.

"I'm sorry. You must think I'm a freak show," she apologized to him, trying to sound cheerful as she forced a doleful smile back onto her face. "Someone like you wouldn't understand what that's like anyway. Just forget I brought it up, ok?"

"But I think I do understand," Shino answered her. "It's easy for me, because my insects are already a part of me. I have grown to trust them completely. But with your abilities, you have to build that trust with every new bee you summon. Therefore, it makes sense to me why it would take much longer to master your jutsu."

"Could that really be it?" she wondered hopefully. "It's not just that I'll never be strong enough?"

"If you summoned this many bees already, I think you are truly strong," Shino told her. "Beekeeping ninjutsu is very complex. It will take time to master, but I believe you will become the shinobi you dream of being some day."

"Thank you," she whispered gratefully, blushing. "I never thought about it like this before. No one else seems to get it."

"That's because I see how much we are alike," Shino said to her. "Because I too hope to become a great insect ninja someday."

"Well, then don't hold back, beetle boy," she dared him with a playful smile. "Because it is now my mission to become stronger than even you one day, when we meet again as powerful shinobi."

"I will be ready," Shino gave her a confident nod. "But how will I accept that challenge someday, when I still don't know your na-"

"Anyway, gotta go! I didn't realize how late it was getting. Time flies like a honeybee when you're having fun," she smiled, winking at him.

And bowing her gratitude to him in a respectful parting, she said, "Thank you for helping me train today. I promise I will return the favor someday, if I'm ever in the Leaf again. See you later, beetle boy!"

Shino raised a brow, as he watched her wave goodbye and dart into the Sakura trees.

And they think I'm the strange one...

But if she wasn't from the Leaf Village, what had she been doing out here in the middle of the forest anyway?

Shino wouldn't have time to find out.

The evening cricket songs around him warned that Shibi would be coming home soon from his dinner outing, and it wouldn't be long before Shino's dad came looking for him to help with his Academy homework.

Which meant he was running out of time to get to Farmer Fukashima's farm before dark and release his...

Shino glanced down at his sandals.

My ladybugs!

The bug cage he'd set down earlier was gone.

Hours and hours of intense entomological study now vanished along with his ladybug colony.

Did she...

But how?

She'd been standing right in front of him the whole time.

Of course, she did it.

Because Shino knew it wasn't any ordinary kunoichi he was dealing with.

She was a bug mistress, after all.

Indeed, the most mysterious of all women.