There's something she's not telling me...But then again, she's always been a dark horsefly, even for me...almost as if she could be...a ninja?
Shibi strolled quietly on that moonless summer night of melancholy crickets, his hands tucked in the pockets of his charcoal gray jacket.
When he wasn't busy on missions or researching insect poisons to share with the medical-nins, Shibi spent his nights-off walking the village alone.
Hoping that her wandering path through the Leaf village would once again lead into his.
Since the day Etsuko left him, his mind was free to get lost in his insect studies, but his thoughts always wandered back to her.
He was never not thinking of her.
She promised me she wouldn't be long, but it's been weeks, and she hasn't come to meet me at the koi bridge...But who am I to hold it against her? There are few people who would willingly choose my company in this village...and she was one of them...So, I wait for her...even if by now, she's forgotten me...
And if she had forgotten him, Shibi would graciously accept her decision, as he'd always promised.
It was never meant to get this far between them anyway.
...But still...his heart restlessly wondered for Etsuko.
Could she be in some kind of trouble?...If so, I hope she will find a way to let me know soon. The reason is because, if she is hurt, I will have no choice but to break our promise and find her.
Shibi gazed at the koi bridge on the path ahead of him. The koi pond unremembered and unimportant to anyone else in the world, except two dragonflies playfully flirting with each other in the still lotus water below.
But unlike the other nights he waited for Etsuko, Shibi wasn't stopping at the koi bridge tonight.
Instead, he passed it by as he walked Kushina home after her visit to the Hokage's office.
His silent glance of heartsick longing at the lonely koi bridge going unnoticed by the neurotic mother-to-be, as she clung to the quiet shinobi's arm.
"Not that I'm not proud of him, you know," Kushina rambled on about her husband. "I think Minato will make a great Hokage. But at the same time, I can't help but have this weird feeling about it. Like something bad is about to happen, you know? That's why I can't help checking in on him lately...I'm worried about him."
And then she touched her growing belly affectionately, which had become more rounded as summer went on.
"Anyway, I'm sorry to make you listen to this again," Kushina said. "It's probably just hormones, you know? I'm still getting used to the idea of being a mom. But you're always such a good listener, Shibi. How is it this easy to talk to you about anything?"
"I don't mind the company," Shibi told her, his observant eyes on the path in front of them, looking for any stray rocks or dips in the trail so Kushina wouldn't lose her balance stumbling across them in the dark. In her condition, he had become evermore protective over her. Because knowing what a klutz she was, he offered to walk her home after dark whenever she stayed late at Minato's office. "However, I hope you are getting enough rest, Kushina. Stress will make the baby restless."
"Ah, I know," Kushina sighed. "I don't know why I'm so worried about Minato lately."
"Being hokage is a great responsibility," Shibi quietly validated her fears. "But if anyone's got what it takes to be Hokage, it's Minato."
"You're right. I shouldn't worry. He's got this, you know?" she said, and then smiled down at her belly again. "Just like I've got this."
And then Kushina's dreamy grey eyes dragged back up to Shibi's dark sunglasses, with that tassel of beautiful blood-honey stones he never talked about, but always kept with him.
Hmm...Shibi is a handsome guy, you know?
Even if no one had ever fully seen his face to know for sure if he was, Kushina bet that Shibi Aburame was a gold mine...for cake.
Granted, Aburame men were shy...but there was something alluring about the quiet ones, Kushina decided. Because who was to say that cloaked mystique wasn't just bashful modesty, knowing how jealous the other men would be if the village women found out the man of their dreams was an Aburame all along. And what woman could resist a man of mystery with his stubbornly unreadable lips, or his spiky black hair that stuck out like raven's feathers from his ninjaheadband? That strong pronounced brow! That lean hard jawline! That creamy chocolatey physique!
Ahhhh, yes...just like a big heavenly slice of cake, you know?
If Shibi Aburame wasn't the heartthrob of the season as the last remaining bachelor of the Leaf, Kushina would be chewing ice cubes until the baby was due, just like the doctor said.
But not on her life, if she had anything to do with it!
The only ice she'd be eating was the icing on a 3-tier wedding cake! Stuffed with lots and lots of chocolate, dipped in sliced pickles with a hint of mint toothpaste, served in a hot steaming bowl of spicy ramen-though hold the pickled ginger.
Because wasn't carrying the Hokage's son just as much hard work as being the Hokage himself?
So, if cake was what she wanted, then she deserved to damn well have her cake, AND eat it too.
And Shibi was just the man to give her exactly what she wanted.
Kushina's lips curved up into a little smirk.
"By the way, Shibi-"
"The answer is no."
"But I haven't even said anything yet!"
"You were thinking about cake."
"What! How did you know that? It's not like those bugs of yours can read minds too!"
"You know what the doctor said," Shibi said obstinately. "The baby is more important."
"But Shibiiii-"
"Absolutely not."
"But you'd make a good father too, you know! Why won't you even consider getting married-"
"Have you picked out a name for the baby yet?" Shibi changed the subject.
"Hm, I don't know. It'd have to be something special, you know? Me and Minato were thinking maybe...Naruto."
"You mean...Icha, Icha Paradise?" Shibi wondered.
"Right! The main hero from Master Jiraiya's books. He'll be thrilled when he finds out we...Hey, wait a minute? How do you know so much about Icha, Icha?"
She glanced up at him suspiciously, but Shibi's face was still as a fried moth in a bug-zapper when he muttered, "Research."
"Exactly what kind of resear-"
"Naruto, huh?" Shibi changed the subject again. "As your son, we can expect great things from him."
"Well, funny you should mention it, because I hope to say the same thing to you some day," Kushina passed him a smirking side glance, using his distraction to cleverly tango him back around to her original debate. "I mean, if only you had a son of your own now, then both our sons would grow up going to Academy together. Wouldn't that be adorable?"
"That's never going to happen," Shibi said certainly. "I will never have a son of my own. The reason is because being a shinobi and serving the village is more important to me."
"Ah, come on, Shibi! You can't know that for sure. Haven't you ever wondered what being a father is like?"
"No."
"But I see the way you are with other children in the village. You're so good with kids. There's always laughter in the air whenever you're around. Their little faces just light up when they see you do your bug tricks...And you are always looking out for me and the baby, when Minato is busy working. You can't tell me you haven't thought about starting your own family, at least once. You have so much to pass on to a son, Shibi," Kushina said fondly, before her brow bent down in ultimatum. "So, quit fooling around already and get on with it...or else! When are you going to find a wife, you know?"
"Maybe when you stop trying to find me one."
"But you're the Aburame Clan Head! A real hunk! What girl wouldn't dream of marrying into one of the noble clans of the village. I don't understand why you're so against marriage," Kushina fussed. "Come to think of it, why is it that every time I set you up with a blind date, you're suddenly summoned for a 'very important mission' by the hokage? Does Minato have something to do with this?"
"Er, well, those missions are confidential-"
"Then are you trying to tell me you already have a girlfriend?"
"Not exactly-"
"Then what!"
But before Shibi could tell her again that he had only recently been appointed leader of the Aburame Clan, and that he had more important things to manage right now than thinking about weddings, the notorious Red-Hot-Blooded-Habanero fiercely snatched the unsuspecting Aburame by the collar, waving her fist threateningly at him.
"Do you not understand how pregnancy cravings make a woman crazy?" she demanded, unhinged and cross-eyed. "The only excuse I have now to get my hands on a slice of wedding cake is to have another wedding, you know? So stop being so stubborn and just pick somebody already!"
"Strangling me...won't make that...any easier..." Shibi managed to get out.
"Oh, right," Kushina blushed, chuckling awkwardly as she released him immediately. "I'm sorry, Shibi. I don't know my own strength sometimes. I guess what I'm trying to say is, you've been so attentive to me, walking me home when Minato works late and making sure me and the baby have what we need. I don't understand why it makes you so nervous to have a son of your own, you know. Because I think you'd make an amazing father someday. I'm sure there's a girl out there for you. I mean, before Minato and me, I thought I'd be alone forever too. I never knew how happy belonging to a family would make me one day. I just want that feeling for you too, Shibi. You deserve to be happy like the rest of us...even with all your bugs. That's why I'm gonna find you the perfect wife. Starting tomorrow!"
"What?" The slight intonation from the stone-faced Shibi's protest sounded nearly gobsmacked.
"I know the perfect Hyūga girl and she's great with bugs" Kushina rambled on. "I'll set you two up for a date at Yakiniku Q tomorrow night. Oh, I can just taste the wedding cake now, you know?"
But as she rambled on about how delicious chocolate and pickles sounded baked into a cake, Shibi's gaze was distracted by a lone luna moth buzzing pass Kushina's red-hot hair.
Only he seemed to notice the insect, as his sunglasses followed the jade glow of its wings, fluttering into the amber light of the streetlamps above him.
'Strange...This moth is native only to the mountains of the Hidden Stone,' the Aburame thought to himself. 'How did he get so lost out here?'
And then Shibi remembered.
Three months ago, it was this very moth that had been resting its wings on the railing of the koi bridge, that last night he saw Etsuko in the village.
.
"I could get used to waking up to you."
Shibi's whisper was like the playful flutter of butterfly wings against her ear.
Etsuko smiled, unusually bashful to open her eyes to her mate now, remembering all the lewd things she'd let him do to her the night before.
She nibbled her bottom lip to bite back a moan and keep from giving into him so easily. Recognizing the flexing of Shibi's buff thigh between hers, as he leaned into her with a good morning forehead kiss.
The air still intoxicating and sweet with last night's repeated lovemaking.
A violently erotic and treacherous affair, as if they both expected to die in battle when the sun came up.
And she couldn't tell if that prickling crawling up her inner thigh was still Shibi's nails dragging against her skin, or the love-bites of his insects delighting in how much like honey she tasted. She didn't care which of the two it was anymore. She was his, for whatever way the bug master wanted to have her.
Very rarely had she seen Shibi Aburame naked before last night. Layers of jacket tossed underneath her long forgotten kimono, which Shibi had so kindly saved her the trouble of ripping off after just one look at each other. One look they exchanged on the koi bridge, after four frustrating months of swearing they'd tear each other apart for being forced to endure their oppression for so long.
And no matter how many times they'd waken up to each other, she would never get over that lusty hoarseness in Shibi's voice when sleep still hung over it. Or the possessive way he squeezed her against his heart, though never too much to suffocate her. Just enough to remind her that she was the most precious thing to him in this world, and she wasn't leaving this spider's web until he was done with her.
Shibi had vowed on never having made love to anyone before her, and Etsuko wasn't the one to be turned into the jealous type...but her lurking suspicion about him last night had made her a clingy, jealous lovebug indeed.
If he'd never made love, why was he so good at it?
'Missions, huh?' she thought to herself, trying to keep her wits about her as Shibi's sweet wakeup kisses dragged one by one down to her neck. Doing the mental math on how much time had passed since she last saw Shibi, and how unlikely it was that she'd be the only one he'd shared his bed with. 'Now that I think about it...he asked me out in an insect cocoon too on one of his missions.'
"Am I making you blush, Etsuko-chan?" he teased her.
"Hm?" she answered, feeling catty. "Not at all. In fact, I almost forgot you were there."
Shibi grinned against the elegant curve of her porcelain neck. "Is that so?"
'What's he smiling about?' she thought to herself, her eyes sliding into a glare at him as Shibi went on spoiling her with kisses. 'He can't stand it when people forget him. That was supposed to work!'
"My insects sensed your blood going hot just now," Shibi told her. "Which means you either want me or you're pissed at me."
And unable to stand the idea of him kissing anyone else like this, Etsuko roughly caught his chin to make him stop, squeezing it between her fingers as she forced him to face her.
"Well you can tell your insects to mind their own beeswax."
"I love when you get feisty and talk buggy to me," he mumbled.
"Don't get any..."
But Etsuko lost her breath when Shibi's suckling mouth stroked dangerously close to her hardening honey-beige nipple.
"...ideas." She finished breathily. "You know I can't stay."
"But you'll want to."
Etsuko shivered when his tongue lapped against the cute little bead he had evoked. Then Shibi tantalizingly dragged the tip of his tongue across the other, and pushed them both together between his hands.
So that neither of them would become as jealous as Etsuko's irrational thoughts about him were already making her.
She was the only one he'd give himself to like this, and she would know how obsessed he was with her.
But as the Aburame's watering mouth gradually trailed from her breasts and down her belly, dragging deeper under their covers, Etsuko's fingers gripped Shibi's hair again, hoping to stop him before she was too late. Before he could pull her any further into this dizzying descent of lechery.
"Ok, I take back everything I said," she whispered breathlessly in desperate surrender. "You win-You win-You win!-Oh my Gah..."
"That's not enough, my sweet. I know you can do better than that."
"I'm so sorry that I said I forgot you," she moaned light-headedly, her hips squirming against his face. "Shibi...I have to go to work..."
"You know I don't need to touch you to make you tremble like this," he taunted her. "If you prefer, I can use my insects instead."
"You always do this to me right before I have to leave," she sighed. "It's so unfair to tease me when you know I can't have you."
"Then this will make us even," Shibi murmured to her, relenting at last. "The reason is because when you're not with me, all I can think about is finding more ways to make you scream."
And that, she couldn't call him a liar for.
He was, after all, a ninja, and a mastermind of strategy.
Why should finding new ways to make his lover surrender be above the mastery of Shibi Aburame?
"Why waste my time then with this cocky pillow talk?" she dared him in a whisper, making Shibi's morning wood twitch against her inner thigh. "Isn't there another reason you think so much about me?"
"Did my first answer not satisfy you enough?" Shibi dared her back. "Perhaps you hoped to hear something else?"
"I think you might be in love with me," she taunted the self-professed novice boldly. "Isn't that just sweet?"
"Hm, and what else does your sweet little head say about me?" Shibi muttered in the same tone, just like the arrogant ass she knew he was, as he tenderly combed his fingers through her raven black hair.
"Oh?" Her brow peaked. "So, I'm the crazy one? We've played this game with each other so many times, but last night..."
Etsuko blushed, knowing she was breaking her own rules in their secret "it's-just-sex agreement" by even bringing this up, but it had to be said. Because if it was another 3 months before she could see Shibi again, it would drive her crazy without knowing his answer.
She had to know...and for more implicit reasons than just this spider-and-fly dance around her feelings for a bug master she was never meant to entangle with.
"You've never made love to me like this before," she mumbled softly.
Shibi, however, remained frustratingly stone-faced after she said it, guarding his most intimate emotions and their importance to him.
Invisible even to the one he burned for most.
Why, you ask?
Because how could she be so frustratingly clueless?
It was Etsuko who banned him from saying "that word".
It was she who denied him the risk of falling in love with her.
Of telling her just how much he thought about the life of his shinobi friends, and how happy he might've been too, if their secret courtship wasn't so secret anymore.
How often Shibi Aburame actually thought about weddings, and a serenely buggish home for them in the forest somewhere.
How lonely he felt when he thought about Minato and Kushina, Shikaku and Yoshino, Fugaku and Mikoto, and how they never had to worry about who saw them together in the village.
Shibi was already a side character in everyone else's story.
But he couldn't bear to be the afterthought in hers.
And this cruel oppression couldn't go on forever between them.
This endless torment of having the girl of his dreams so close to him now, but never being allowed to tell her she was. His silly little June bug, who he both loved and hated for every suppressed and insufferable thought of her that made him happy, had no clue just how madly in love with her he actually was.
It was unforgivable.
"The way I make love to you has never changed," Shibi said finally "If you still don't understand what it means to me, then I will show you again until you do."
"The truth is...I don't know how to love anyone exactly the way I love you," she confessed to Shibi. "But I am learning."
"Then we will learn together."
Etsuko breathed in deeply, her fingers biting into Shibi's shoulders when he suddenly pushed himself hard into her.
Her body rushing like scattering insects, dizzy for the novel and unexpected surprise of how thick he was. Putting all the right pressure in all the right places inside of her, as he promised to take what was and always would be his.
"Damn...you feel better with every stroke," Shibi breathed, his tightening fingers caging hers arrested against his quilts. "Look at me, Etsuko-chan. Look at what you do to me. Is that not enough proof that we are a match?"
Shibi took his time, letting her adjust to his caliber, before his thighs rocked slowly into her. Pushed to the edge of self-restraint against her swollen lips squeezing around his cock. Taking an achingly measured pace that only excited the throbbing of her pussy while he was inside of her. But Shibi was deliberate. She wouldn't have him the same way he made love to her last night, when they were so eager to get each other's clothes off after missing each other for so long.
No...This time, Shibi would indulge in every moment of her, knowing that the time between them was always so short and precious. There was never enough of it. And if she wouldn't let him candidly confess what he really felt for her, then she wouldn't be allowed to rush this ballad of love he was making to her. Dragging his cock across all the weak spots he'd discovered about her last night, until carnal passion was so dazing, it appeared like anguish on both their faces.
"You've underestimated me, Etsuko. I won't let you make that mistake again," Shibi soothed her sweet needy moans, burying himself deeper into her with each maddening stroke. The veiny ridges of his heavy cock leaving hungry wet kiss-after-kiss against her clit. "Have I shown you my feelings unmistakably now?"
"Shibi...You're gonna..." Etsuko stammered headily. "You're making me..."
"You can't help it," Shibi's provoking murmurs tickled the lobe of her ear. "The reason is because I won't stop until you come for me."
Even if she wanted this to last forever, Etsuko was too late to stop it.
As if she ever really could outmatch Shibi Aburame, once he made up his mind to possess her.
Pounding her body into surrender with his quiet dominance as the mingled smell of honey, sweet moss and their sweat smothered her resistance.
"Shibi...Shibi...Shi..."
Her heartbeat quickening against Shibi's chest as her head arched back into his pillow. She had no choice but to let go. All the fear, all the inhibition, all of her carefully guarded walls against him.
Wild with the way he made her feel. Her body exploding in a climax that rippled every time Shibi grinded his powerful hips into hers.
"This is the way I love you," Shibi whispered to his mate, his lips crushing into hers to seal his victory, as he let her finish coming on his solid dick. "When you have the courage to choose me, all of this is yours, Etsuko-chan."
And finally satisfied by his conquest, Shibi placed one last soft kiss on the side of Etsuko's mouth, which still hung slightly parted. Hungover by the wistful pleasure he'd given her, which she helplessly dissolved into.
"I've been summoned by the Hokage," Shibi informed her, as if it were business as usual between them now. "So, it's me who must leave you first this time. And I expect you won't forget me again, anata."
"Wait," she panted, her hands drunk and dizzy as he climbed off of her and out of his sleeping pad. "That's it?"
She watched as he balanced himself on his knees as he dropped his tan jacket over his shoulders, his dick still tantalizingly thick and partly erect.
"Please don't stop now."
"Are you asking me to stay?" Shibi raised a brow cheekily, even though he knew fully well that he was making her crazy enough to never allow him to leave this bed again.
"I know what we agreed on," she said. "But it shouldn't be this hard to let you go."
A smug smile played on Shibi's lips, as he paused just before buttoning his jacket over his muscular bronzey core.
"If you want more of this," Shibi provoked her softly. "Then ask me to stay."
But Etsuko said nothing as she yearningly watched him dress.
Knowing fully well that she couldn't.
Not if she wanted to put Shibi's life in danger for being the love of her miserable life.
If he only knew the real reason she stayed away so long was so that one day, she wouldn't have to leave him again.
"It must be important...the work that keeps you away so long. But why must you be the only one to sacrifice so much?" Shibi said, as if he could read her very thoughts. " What is this 'work' that causes you so much suffering and keeps you so long away from me?"
"Shibi," Etsuko dropped her eyes from the Aburame's gaze, fighting an ever losing battle against him for the command of her senses. "I wish I could make you understand it..."
And crawling back onto his sleeping pad with her, Shibi opened the flaps of his jacket, wrapping her tightly inside of it with him.
"I don't want to understand it. I want you," Shibi gently lifted her chin, until they were nose-to-nose, and her honey eyes couldn't back down from his sunglasses again. "And if it makes it this hard for you to stay with me, then the only thing I want to understand is how to defeat it."
Etsuko lovingly took Shibi's face in her hands, and whispered solemnly to him, as passionately as if she could say 'I love you' without saying it, "I'd die for you, you know that?"
Shibi leaned into her, pressing his lips against hers long and hard. As if he could say 'I love you too', with just a kiss.
Until at last, he let her breathe.
There lips smacking lightly as they parted.
"But not live for me?" Shibi quietly left her with one last lingering question.
And then he scooted out of bed again.
Leaving Etsuko to stare morosely after her Aburame as he went.
Never sure when they would meet again at the lonely koi bridge.
At last, Shibi released the luna moth from his hands, watching it flutter off into the night sky toward the direction of the Hidden Stone village.
Knowing deep down that somewhere, in that exact same moment, Etsuko was gazing at the same sky in her village, remembering that he loved her.
And that he was still waiting for her, until the day they'd never have to say goodbye again.
"Are you even listening to me? " Kushina asked Shibi, dragging him out of his daydreams. "I said there's no need to thank me, you know."
"What do you mean?" Shibi asked, as he stopped just outside Minato and Kushina's home.
"I said I'm gonna arrange another blind date for you!" Kushina said cheerfully. "I'll find the perfect wife for you in no time!"
Shibi stopped walking, his shoulders tensing abruptly in high alert, as his sunglasses scanned the shadowy alleyways and rooftops around them.
"Hm?" Kushina asked him, following his gaze but finding nothing out of the ordinary in sight. "Is something wrong?"
"Did you...see that unicorn beetle that just flew by here?" Shibi asked.
"A unicorn beetle?" Kushina raised a brow, confused as she glanced around. "What unicorn beetle?"
"Over there," Shibi said, vaguely waving his finger around without pinpointing any specific location, as Kushina went cross-eyed trying to chase his finger to a definite spot. "Unicorn beetles are known for making unborn babies restless."
"Do they?"
"But don't be afraid. I will protect you from it. Just wait here."
"What? Hey, wait!" Kushina cried. "There isn't even such a thing as a unicorn beetle, you know!"
But Shibi had already zapped away into the shadows, escaping her reach and all her crazed matchmaking schemes to set him up with a date.
And watching her only opportunity to have a slice of cake leap out of her fingers, the Red-Hot-Blooded-Habanero wailed dramatically after him.
"Shibi! Get back here! I haven't even finished planning your wedding yet, you knoooow!"