"I don't want to meet him," Ino repeated. She placed her hands squarely on her hips, meeting Inoichi's eyes with all the venom and defiance a four-year-old girl could manage. "I hate him."
"Ino-chan, you've already met him," Inoichi explained, exhausted of this back-and-forth. If Shikaku and Choza knew he'd sunk so low as to be mercilessly bullied by his daughter, who was barely out of her toddler years, they would never let him hear the end of it. As it was, this was the fifth time Inoichi had reminded little Ino that she already knew Shino. "We used to drop you off with Shibi-san every week when you were younger."
"I don't remember," Ino dismissed him, turning and heading back for her room. Inoichi caught her by the back of the shirt, holding her in place with one hand as the other came up to pinch the bridge of his nose. "DADDY! Let me go, I need to finish my drawing!"
Sensing an opportunity to (at least somewhat) placate Ino, Inoichi offered, "You can bring your sketchbook."
Ino went limp, considering. "And my watercolors?"
"Ino, sweetie, they're so messy—"
Ino shrieked, a wild, keening noise that just about took out Inoichi's eardrums. "Okay, okay, you can bring your watercolors too." He let Ino go, and watched her scamper down the hallway. "I'll meet you at the front door, okay?"
"Okay! I love you, daddy!" Ino shouts joyfully.
Inoichi dragged a hand over his haggard face, turning and heading down the stairs. Everyone at the inter-clan meeting was going to be calling him Doormat Inoichi by the end of today, he knew it—as soon as they saw Ino inevitably pummelling him into spoiling her, they would be on him like a pack of wild dogs.
Or a swarm of particularly vicious insects.
It wasn't long before Ino descended the stairs, sketchbook tucked under one arm and the straps of her watercolor bag hanging in the crook of her elbow. The bag was full. Suspiciously so. But Inoichi said nothing, setting a bad standard for himself but at the same time wary of setting his daughter off again.
It was the way things often went around this household.
Despite Ino's misgivings about the gathering, she took to it like a fish in water. She greeted Shibi with impeccable manners, managing to maintain her poise even as the clan head smiled and patted her on the head. She greeted the Aburame elders, charmed them as she always did, and then went along the line meticulously giving every adult (and some of the older teenagers) her well-wishes.
Following those obligations, Ino promptly flounced off to a grassy corner tucked away under the low-hanging branches of a tall old tree. It was nearly outside of the reaches of the guest courtyard, though not far enough away for Inoichi to ask her to move closer. Inoichi watched in amusement while she pulled a tightly-folded blanket out of her bag, spread it out, and meticulously set up her workspace.
For a four-year-old whose motor skills and imagination were limited to nebulous, abstract drawings and scribbles of whatever happened to cross her mind at the moment, Ino took her hobby very, very seriously.
Inoichi spotted Shino hanging back near his cousins, sending occasional anxious glances toward Ino but never actually making any move to go and speak to her. He might have felt snubbed. Ino, just as likely to have done it on purpose than by accident, had breezed right past him on her way to find the perfect place to settle down. It was an unfortunate display of impropriety, contrasted to the respectful way she had treated some of his other clansmen.
Inoichi resolved to keep an eye on the situation, absentmindedly exchanging pleasantries with the appropriate parties. He meandered over to a table stocked with refreshments and snacks, loaded his plate full enough to satisfy him without seeming greedy, and was promptly besieged by a gaggle of hungry Aburame children on their way to the table.
"Woah, woah, ease up a little!" he said, not without cheer, as they jostled him.
Despite the reputation the Aburame clan as a whole had garnered for being mysterious and standoffish, Inoichi found that they were often just as expressive as anyone else if given the chance to be. It was like waiting for a flower to bud and blossom. Inoichi knew that process well.
The group issued a discordant flurry of apologies to him, each child bowing as quickly as they could and immediately rushing to grab a plate. Inoichi couldn't blame them; the Aburame really went all-out for guests.
"I apologize for the actions of my relatives, Yamanaka-sama," Shino apologized. He had been one of the last to approach, and had carefully avoided knocking into Inoichi or anyone else. "I offer no excuse, only the explanation that they were very… excited."
Inoichi shook his head. "Shino-kun, it's all right. Let them be boisterous if they want to. They're doing no harm. And lighten up a little, okay? We're here to celebrate the strong ties between our clans. A little pushing and shoving won't sour the mood."
Shino nodded slowly, perhaps a little uncomfortable with Inoichi's casual way of speech. "I will endeavor to keep that in mind."
"And go say something to Ino, okay?" Inoichi instructed, nodding at Ino's corner. She had one paintbrush clamped between her teeth and two in her hands, furiously slathering watercolor onto her sketchbook with the brush in her left hand. "I think she needs the company."
Shino balked a little, but a prod from Inoichi had him wandering slowly, very slowly, in Ino's direction.
Inoichi sighed fondly. Shino seemed like a shy type of kid. It might do him good to hang out around someone as outgoing and confident as Ino. His daughter had a habit of pulling people into her world whether they liked it or not.
Ino was just putting the finishing touches on a particularly beautiful painting of the firefly lanterns hanging above the courtyard—a little splash of yellow there, some red, oops didn't mean to knock that over, oh well she'd clean it up later—when it registered to her that someone was approaching her.
And, due to his identity (yes, Ino had been lying about not knowing Shino; she'd hoped it would get her out of attending), he was someone with whom she had to play nice, at least until this night was over.
Or so she thought, right up until the second he accidentally kicked a clod of dirt onto her sketchbook. The page was wet with color, and Ino watched, dismayed, as the dirt turned into muddy flecks that sunk deeper into the drawing with every passing second.
Rage shot through her body, white-hot, the kind of righteous fury that only a small child could channel.
She stood nearly a head taller than Shino at her full height, and she drew herself up quickly, noticing and ignoring the boy's panicked glance at her (muddy, ruined, ugly) sketchbook.
"What do you think you're doing, midget?" Ino hissed, advancing a step on him. "You got a lot of nerve."
(This was a favorite tactic of hers; it worked very well even on her older Yamanaka relatives, and though Inoichi chided her every time she threw her weight around to get her way, Ino thought he was secretly proud of her. After all, he'd never really tried to stop her, and so he must actually like her mean, scary side.)
(And she was right on the money. Inoichi thought it endearing, the way Ino had the ability to terrify nearly anyone if she set her mind to it.)
Instead of cowering back or flinching like she'd expected, like the shy kid she thought he was, Shino seemed to straighten, scowling angrily.
"I was coming over to say hello because Yamanaka-sama wanted me to greet you," Shino said, calm tone of voice belying the words he was about to say, "but I will refrain from doing so. Why? Because when I saw how ugly your drawing was, I felt like I had to ruin it."
It was a lie. Ino was good at sussing out deception.
("Only four years old and already able to read just about anyone like a book," Inoichi bragged from across the courtyard, surrounded by other parents eager for their turn to boast about their children, blissfully unaware of the storm brewing between two very angry, very volatile children. "My daughter's a real menace, that little Ino-chan. But that'll only make her into a damn good kunoichi.")
But nevertheless, it made her see red.
"I'm gonna skin you alive, bug boy," Ino growled, leaping towards Shino with her teeth bared.
A shriek from the other end of the wide, spacious yard shocked Inoichi into dropping his cup of sake, and shocked Shibi into putting his down gently.
The Aburame clan head had seen a lot, in all his days. It went with the territory. He was hardly ever surprised anymore, and if he was, he tried not to show it—but as he quickly focused on the source of the scream, he found his eyes widening behind his dark glasses.
Yesterday, if someone had informed him that his son—quiet, reserved Shino, who even as a baby was exceptionally even-tempered—would be brawling with the Yamanaka heir, flinging insults left and right and scrabbling at her throat while she did the same to him, Shibi would have politely requested that they leave his presence.
To put it gently, he was more than a little horrified.
Inoichi was up in a flash, looking haggard and weary in a way that spoke volumes about his familiarity with these situations.
Shibi followed at a slower, but still quite brisk, pace.
Inoichi had grabbed Ino by the waist and pulled her close to him, absorbing the brunt of her thrashing and struggling to be let free with a stoic, resigned grimace. His daughter seemed to be missing a tooth.
Shino, now with no one to fight, looked wildly around himself. His hair was messier than it usually was, and his glasses were nowhere to be found. An impressive score of scratches raked down the side of his neck and dipped down to just beneath his tall shirt collar. Little beads of blood dotted his skin along the raised nail marks.
Shino was red in the face with anger, and seemed to be contemplating abandoning his very last pretense of dignity and launching himself at Ino, Inoichi's presence and status be damned.
Shibi resolved to be proactive about this, and promptly set his hand on Shino's shoulder. His son was tense, taut with anger and indignation. It was the most display of emotion Shibi had seen from him in a very long time, and he didn't know whether to be happy or concerned.
"You hit like a girl!" Ino cried, struggling against her father's firm grip.
"You hit like a boy!" Shino fired back, trying without avail to grab at Ino's kicking feet.
Ino's face screwed up, but she said nothing for a long enough time for it to become a little awkward. No one really knew what to do, Shibi himself included. He supposed he should apologize for his son's behavior.
Before he could, to the incredulity of everyone present, Ino laughed. Her missing tooth was even more noticeable with the wide smile she was currently sporting. "Hey, I like you, bug boy! Let's be friends!"
Shino seemed to be at a loss for words. Shibi certainly was. Inoichi still wore that resigned, desperately weary expression on his face.
It was Shino's turn to surprise Shibi this time, by nodding contemplatively. "I would not object to a friendship with you. I find your personality most agreeable."
Ino beamed, the source of their argument, whatever it had been, completely forgotten. "Great! We're besties then! Daddy, let me down, I need to go play with my new friend."
Shibi could do nothing, save for let Shino go at the exact moment that Inoichi released Ino back onto the ground. The two scampered off, looking for all intents and purposes to be thick as thieves already.
Inoichi gave him a commiserating glance, and Shibi, usually very careful to keep his emotions hidden, returned it. He had a foreboding feeling that this wouldn't be the last time he would feel this particular emotion about Shino.