Watching the moon
at midnight
solitary, mid-sky,
I knew myself completely,
no part left out.

-Izumi Shikibu

Shino's Academy Days

"It's a hypothetical."

Iruka Sensei explained their assignment.

"Just suppose the moon began to fall."

"And it's the end of the whole world?" Choji piped up excitedly. "I'd rather have a big piece of meat fall on us than the moon!"

"What a good one!" -laughed the academy class.

"What a loser."- Sauske Uchiha rolled his eyes.

"What a drag." -sighed Shikamaru Nara.

And keeping his silence as usual was Shino Aburame.

"Alright, alright, everyone, write down who you'd want to spend the last day on Earth with," Iruka drew their attention back to the assignment.

Always the quietest but hardest worker, Shino was the first to rewrite Iruka Sensei's question on his paper.

"Suppose the moon began to fall. Who would you spend your last...

"Hey, cut it out!"

Shino's pencil stopped.

It was the dog-boy again.

Gawking in disgusted terror at another one of Shino's kikaichū roaming freely across his desk.

Shino smirked behind his collar, but did nothing to stop his insects as he kept writing.

Allowing his beetles to menacingly nip at Kiba's paper, fired up by Shino's quiet passive aggression.

"You know, your fleas are really starting to bug me," Kiba growled at the feisty little insects, who only mad-dogged him back, daring him to take them on.

"If you keep calling them fleas, nothing will save you," Shino mumbled, doing exactly nothing to retrieve his insects from Kiba's desk, as he continued working. "The reason is because it's insulting to be called by a different name, when you've already given your real one."

But without any surprise to Shino, that subtle remark was too high of a fence for this dog to jump over.

"Whatever. Will you just call them off?" Kiba fussed, squeezing Akamaru in his arms protectively as one of Shino's bugs snapped his pinchers at him in a challenge.

"Don't worry, I'll smash them good and dead, heh-heh!" another boy at their table snickered, rolling up his paper and looming sinisterly over Shino's bugs.

"Hurt them," Shino warned them. "And you will never recover."

"What's with this guy and fleas?" the boy asked Kiba, confused.

"Obviously, he's an insect user," Kiba said. "Which means he's stuffed full of them."

"Wow, so he really does have fleas? Gross!"

"They're not fleas," repeated Shino again.

"I don't care what you call them," Kiba waved dismissively. "Just keep them off my desk, will you? If they get anywhere near Akamaru's fur-"

"Hey, there's bugs on your desk!" Naruto Uzumaki cried obnoxiously, suddenly appearing in the aisle next to Shino. "Quick, somebody kill them!"

"Just leave them alone," Shino shielded his hand protectively over his insects. "They're mine."

"Oh, so you collect bugs?" Naruto asked curiously, pushing his face up on Shino's desk to get a better look.

Shino's dark brow tensed.

"I'd greatly appreciate some personal space, please," he mumbled.

"You asked him the same question last week," Kiba interrupted.

"Huh?" Naruto looked up stunned. "I did?...I'm sure I've never even met this guy before...uhhhh, what did you say your name was?"

"Ah, come on! Isn't it obvious? His name is-"

But Kiba stopped just short of calling Naruto an idiot, when he realized that he too wasn't exactly sure who this flea guy was. "Actually...I don't remember."

Shino burned.

Out of all the lifetimes I could've had, what did I do to deserve...

"Say, let's throw these bugs at the girls in class," Naruto suggested eagerly. "Wouldn't it be fun watching them scream their heads off, like 'Eeeeekkkkk!'"

Naruto slapped his hands against his cheeks and let out a high-pitch, girly squeal.

"That's not what my insects are for," Shino said.

"Aw, come on, strange and spooky bug kid! Let's do it!" Naruto begged. "Let's make 'em scream, like 'Eeeekkkk!"

"Make who scream?" a smiling Iruka suddenly appeared out of nowhere next to Naruto.

"Eeeeeekkkkkkk!" Naruto screeched, caught off task once again by their sneaky Sensei.

"Alright, Naruto, back to your seat," Iruka led him away. "Try to stay focused this time, ok?"

Once the spotlight was finally off of Shino, he sighed in relief, turning back to his work.

Why?...Why did I get stuck with so many rowdy classmates?

Pushing his glasses up against his nose, Shino refocused and read Sensei's question again.

Supposed the moon began to fall. Who would you spend your last day with?

It was hopeless.

Shino looked around the room at his classmates eagerly writing down names that meant something special to them.

Maybe this question mattered more to other people, and that's why Iruka Sensei assigned it.

But for others, like Shino, what answer could he give if even when the moon falls, no one would remember his name long enough to come looking for him?

Shino sighed, flipping his assignment over to start with a new question he actually could answer.

After all, there were other, more pressing complexities lately that occupied his mind.

The only question that remains...

Shino wrote across the blank side of his paper.

Could a ladybug fly in the windier conditions of Farmer Fukushima's shiso fields with a heavier protective shell?

An enigma that played over and over again in Shino's mind the rest of the afternoon, calculating a solution to every possible outcome he could predict, as his classmates each took their turn in front of the class for "teamwork bonding" exercises.

"Hi, I'm Ino!" the Yamanaka girl cheerfully introduced herself.

"We know," came the dry reply of Sakura Haruno.

"My favorite foods are cherry tomatoes and pudding. My favorite color is purple. But not purple like a grape. Purple like a Tsubaki flower. Just like the ones in the Yamanaka shop. My hobbies are shopping, finding new meanings for flowers, and planning my wedding for the day I marry a certain someone, who's name I can't say, but ends with an E and starts with an S, and rhymes with May, who has black hair, eyes like a moonless night, and the face of a..."

"Even if I could tell dad about my ladybugs," Shino went on thinking. "He would never approve of this experiment. It is more likely that he'd never let me leave the compound again without planting a bug on me. The reason is because-"

"Ok, I think everyone's had a turn now...Oh, wait...how did I forget you again? Shino?" Iruka Sensei broke his train of thought. "You're the last one left. Please share with your classmates three interesting things about you."

Shino blushed.

He didn't know why.

It's not like anyone noticed he was still there anyway.

No one bothered to look up as he slowly stood from his seat and made his solitary way down to the front of the classroom.

"The last one again?" Shino thought to himself. "It's always me Sensei picks last."

And at last, Shino faced his classmates.

Offended, but not surprised that none of them were paying attention to him.

"I'm Aburame, Shino."

He mumbled it so quietly behind his collar that everybody, except Hinata Hyuga missed it.

"My favorite food is Winter Melon. Green is a nice color. And I prefer to spend time with my insects."

"Wait, did someone say bugs?" a girl cried out in disgust, looking around for the weirdo who said the word insect.

"Yes, I did," Shino affirmed, matter-of-factually. "And my dream is to find a giant species of bugs and tame them as my own. So far, I have discovered 3,010 species in the Hidden Leaf. That's enough to outmatch every student in this room by 150 percent."

The class erupted into laughter.

"What a creep!"

"Why is that flea kid so weird?"

"Bug users are so full of themselves. Does he really think anyone's scared of a little bug?"

"Yeah, bugs are gross! Why would anyone want to hang out with a bunch of bugs?"

"That's just because you don't understand them," Shino ignored his racing heart, as he bravely went on to defend his 6-legged friends. "If it weren't for insects, you wouldn't have silk or honey to enjoy. You would also starve. The reason is because insects are important pollinators. They also keep our village clean. In fact, they work harder than some humans I know."

"Sheesh, you don't gotta get so touchy about it."

"Yeah, what you trying to say about us, huh, Aburame?" a Nara boy spoke up. "You saying the rest of us are worthless compared to a bunch of bugs? That's not how you go making friends."

"Relax, Shikamaru," the fat-but-don't-say-fat Akimichi boy joined in. "When he says some humans he knows, he means he doesn't actually know any. This guy's a loner. So he can't be talking about us."

Shino stood silently shamed.

Even the Akimichi kid has something to laugh at because of me?

And on they went laughing.

Except Hinata, who turned red, pushing her fingers together as she frowned at the rest of the class.

"Leave him alone," her soft voice pleaded with them. "It's ok if he likes bugs, alright?"

But no one was listening to her.

"Maybe because he eats anyone who gets close to him," a girl from a clan Shino didn't recognize piped in. "I heard Aburame boys bite the heads off their mates, just like praying mantis do."

"What freaks," another boy scowled at Shino. "But I guess it explains why you don't actually have a mother, Aburame? Did daddy stuff her in a rice omelet or chop her into a bowl of miso soup?"

Shino tightened his fists against the hem of his coat sleeves.

But they kept laughing.

He wanted to disappear, but the laughing wouldn't stop.

"Mother eater, mother eater!"

"You don't know anything about my mother," Shino shot back.

But the moment he said it, the hollowness in his chest only felt emptier, when he realized...

...Neither did he.