As I dig for wild orchids in the autumn fields,
it is the deeply-bedded root that I desire,
not the flower.
-Izumi Shikibu
'Are these actual food pills?'
The bee shinobi narrowed her eyes suspiciously.
'...Or poison?'
She wouldn't put it pass the Aburame.
And she wasn't taking any chances.
Even if her stomach growled like a wild Nine Tails, she couldn't trust him.
Because what was the meaning of this kindness she'd never earned or asked him for?
The Kamizuru never even gave Shino a reason to take pity on her, and knew she'd be damned to even let herself try.
Was this all just a trap to make her naively let her guard down?
What other reason could Aburame have for being so unforgivably unforgivable, doing everything a "mortal enemy" shouldn't do?
Didn't he understand what an "archnemesis" was?
Because that was starting to become a problem for her.
She wanted to hate Shino.
She wanted to hate him so hard, it made her sick.
But as they say, it takes two to toxic.
And if Aburame refused to be the villain, did that make her the nefarious rogue?
What part was she supposed to play if Shino wouldn't cooperate with being 'irreparably evil beyond all hope of redemption'?
Once upon a time, there lived an Aburame and a Kamizuru, and they ruthlessly dueled each other to the death.
That was supposed to be the final chapter of their epic narrative together.
The story of a destiny written for her and Shino since birth, by generations of Kamizuru and Aburame who'd performed upon the very same stage of this dark opera, in which they'd found themselves entwined by its deadly script.
And unlike Shino, the Kamizuru couldn't just shrug it all off as an antiquated, pointless feud and go home.
Shino had to be her enemy, if she ever wanted to be a Kamizuru again.
There was no other alternative story for her outside her village, and to imagine that there could be another existence for her apart from war was...well, scary, to say the least.
How could any identity as a ninja ever be just as meaningful as defending her clan against its enemies?
Where else was she to go, if not home?
Who else was she to be, if not the avenger?
Why else should she believe she was capable of bringing peace to her clan, if Shino Aburame wouldn't stop saving her in the end?
He couldn't keep rescuing her like this.
Not from being poisoned...Not from wild queen bees...Not from the rain...Not even from hunger.
He couldn't keep showing up whenever she needed somebody the most.
He couldn't just disregard the long history of violence between their clans, all to sit outside her tent in a rainstorm and make sure she fell asleep ok.
And for bee's sake, he couldn't keep looking at her the way he did!
As if she were-
As if she ever could be-
As if there was still a chance she could become the one he'd once knew as Firefly.
The Kamizuru sighed deeply.
Slowly coming back down to her senses.
Even so...I still haven't found a way out of this bamboo grove...So, as much as I'd hate to admit it, I still need him.
Because if they were going to survive this, it was clear that they were stronger together than apart.
They needed to find a way to work as a team.
At least for the time being.
And as much as it felt like a bee stinger under her skin, she needed a way to make nice with the beetle user.
A truce, of some sort.
She glanced down again at the food pills Shino had left behind for her.
'Just like an Aburame...To think I'd eat something so bland as these food pills when there is so much honeycomb around here to harvest,' she thought. 'I guess breakfast is on me today.'
And then, she decided, she and Aburame would once again be even.
.
"I guess what I'm trying to say is...I mean, what I mean is... well basically, what this all comes down to is...maybe-perhaps-possibly-by-chance-probably what I'm trying to say is...thank you?"
But even after practicing this speech over and over in her head, the bee shinobi guessed that Shino's face would be cemented into his usual unreadable and unmoved expression behind his dark shades, even after hearing her force her damning confession through her clenched teeth.
And even after she'd gone through all that just to coerce any utterance of gratitude from her lips, if Shino were to say anything back to her at all, she guessed he'd probably just completely ignore the onslaught of the phrase "thank you", as he struggled with the clashing trainwreck of her stumbling word choice instead.
"How can something be probably and improbably happening at the same time?"
"That's not the point!"
The frustrated war-hungry bee user slammed her kunai down furiously, stabbing her freshly baked honey loaf cake in neat clean halves as it steamed enticingly next to her cooking fire.
Even in hypothetical practice conversations with him in her head, Shino was such a pesky house fly!
"I said 'thank you', you thick-headed June bug! Eat my kindness and be grateful, or die!"
Slamming down an empty honeycomb she'd cut out into a teacup with her kunai, she poured a fresh brew of Bee's Flower Tea into it and mixed in honey as a sweetener.
Buzz-buzz, buzz, buzz-buzz buz, buzz.
A passing honeybee hoovering over her shoulder threw in her opinion in beespeak as the mistress of bees went on savagely slicing Shino's freshly baked honey loaf cake.
"I am not overthinking it!" she argued back to the bee. "He's insufferable!"
Then wrapping up the honey loaf cake and Bee's Flower tea in a large bamboo leaf, the Kamizuru wandered off into the bamboo forest to track her rival down and shove her "kindness" down his throat herself.
Buzz buzz buzz-buzz-buzz-
"It's not like I actually care if he starves or not," she defended her reasons for making the Aburame a honey loaf cake. "I just can't stand the idea of owing that bug smoocher for fixing my hut the other night. This honey loaf should make us even. And then, I'll kill him!"
Buzz-buzz-buzz-buzz...buuuuuzzzz-buzz-buzz-
"Not now, honeybee," she dismissed the nosy, rather opinionated insect. "Because now that I think about it, I'm actually not in that big of a hurry to find out where bug boy is. For once, I'm finally getting some peace and quiet around here without hearing Mr. Know-It-All and his nonstop 'Why, you ask? The reason is because blah blah blah yada-yada-yada'-No, Shino, as a matter of fact, I didn't ask! I never asked for any of this!"
But the honeybee fluttering around the rambling bee-kunoichi wouldn't let up.
Stubborn as a Kamizuru to get her point across to her bug mistress.
Buuuuuuuuuzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!
She flew in circles around the bee user's head, wailing a long dragged out buzz, which left the Kamizuru no other choice but to stop and listen to her.
"Bees' nest! Aren't we a little melodramatic today? What's the big deal?"
BUZZ BUZZ BUZZ BUZZ BUZZ BUZZ-BUZZ!
The honeybee's buzzing comebacks darted back at her, fluttering so close to her face now that it was impossible to avoid her.
The bee girl narrowed her eyes.
The honeybee narrowed hers too.
And after a tense stand-off of mad-mugging each other, the Kamizuru snorted into an irresistible giggle, unable to hold back her affectionate smile for her bee charge anymore.
"Did you just call me a stink bug?" she laughed. "Ok, little bee. I got nothing on that. You win this round."
And thus making up after their argument, the honeybee landed on the bee user's shoulder, taking a break from her busy bee life to take an afternoon walk with her mistress.
"Besides," the Kamizuru continued, shrugging at the bee's last remark. "Who cares if Aburame found a river?"
She winked at her bee companion.
"If we're lucky, maybe he can't swim."
And at long last, the bee kunoichi stopped walking suddenly.
The realization finally getting through to her thick, stubborn head.
"Wait! Aburame found a river?"she eagerly asked the bee."When? How? Where? Can you show me?"
And following a dancing flight of bees through a hidden path in the forest, it wasn't long before the Kamizuru stumbled upon damning evidence of Shino and his triumph of being the first to find water.
First, she found his coat hanging from a bamboo branch nearby...along with the rest of his clothes.
Then his gray Leaf headband not far after that.
And his black ninja sandals lined up neat and orderly by the river shore.
But before she could do the math...
(Meaning 1 light gray button-up hoody jacket minus 1 flak jacket minus 1 dark gray shirt minus 2 ninja leg wraps minus 1 pair of dark gray pants = 1 solid, naked Aburame man)
...The Kamizuru girl found the river.
And then she found Shino.
Her jaw falling open, as her porcelain white cheeks blushed red as an Uchiha blood-moon night.
Shino's body arched out of the surface of the water. His firm, water-glistened chest deeply taking in the crisp and refreshed bamboo air into his lungs, after holding his breath underwater for so long.
Throwing his dripping dark hair back out of his sunglasses, his bushy hair now heavy with river water, the Aburame turned his back toward the riverbank.
Blue Emperor dragonflies and white-tailed bumble bees whirling around him. Worshipping him like some kind of bug god manifesting in the sweetly fragrant lotus flowers floating in the ripples around his creamy core.
The Aburame went on splashing water over his buffened shoulders and back, seemingly unaware that she was even there.
Even if the Kamizuru wanted to look away, she couldn't.
She was in too deep...and he was...beautiful.
Her eyes captivated by each virile and well-defined sinew of the bug lord's body that made hers buzz with that tantalizing memory of the night his insects took her with his chakra.
Spellbound by the way Shino ran his hands through his cedar dark hair, which fell in waves on the back of his neck when wet.
A surprise that she would've never guessed behind his habitually upturned collar.
But that wasn't the only surprise Shino was hiding.
Why Aburame men hid themselves under so many layers of clothing, she didn't know.
But who would've guessed that underneath all those layers of jacket was an Adonis fantasy of shinobi-bred masculinity incarnated in every powerful angle of Shino's build.
Shino shook the water out of his hair with his hands, the muscles in his shoulders and back flexing with quiet, disciplined power.
A rare hidden gem among the many Leaf warriors of his village, polished by years of training for missions he never bragged about, and whose quietly heroic work was only modestly acknowledged.
How could no one know all this time what a spicy steaming bowl of ramen Shino Aburame was?
Why did he insist on being a god alone in his own buggy kingdom, when he could easily take the world in a heart-throb, if he wanted to?
Why did this blue dragonfly siren carry himself like a moth, when underneath it all, Shino Aburame was a monarch butterfly?
The bee mistress never felt so betrayed...but more than that...bewitched.
Evermore frustrated, in all the right ways.
Sick with the mad idea of ever getting this worked up over an Aburame, and the captivating subtlety of his quiet erotic allure.
Taunted by everything she ever fantasized about in a mate but was forbidden to have, by the mere condemnation that he was Aburame.
Her eyes followed Shino's hands as his fingers slowly combed upward through his hair, and tied half of his wet and unruly black tresses into a topknot. Leaving only the chain of his necklace exposed on his jasmine-white neck. The one with the golden fiery gem he never took off.
Solid and thick all the way down his chiseled physique, the river tantalizingly playing peek-a-boo around his waist and cute hard ass.
Veiling the mystery that hid the rest of Shino's undeclared secrets.
Leaving just enough to her imagination and her wondering of whether chakra and bugs weren't the only things Shino Aburame was good at.
Instead of just standing here thinking about it, why don't you jump in there with him and find out?
Her honeybee companion buzzed a remark that intruded into the bee user's private thoughts.
And the Kamizuru almost died on the spot.
"Are you out of your hive?" the bee mistress whispered, still unable to take her eyes off of Shino.
Until the Aburame ducked his head underwater again for another swim, mercifully bringing the Kamizuru back to her senses.
"We should go," she told her bee companion. "And try to forget we ever saw him like this."
And quickly setting down Shino's honey loaf cake and tea next to his clothes that were so wickedly and unceremoniously tossed aside for her to find, the Kamizuru hurried away from the river before the Aburame came up from the water again and found her standing there thirsting over him.
Because how could she ever stand to face Shino now, knowing she had seen the Aburame's naked hardened body, and that it had left her so effortlessly breathless in a wilderness of her imagination?
Nothing about these simmering feelings Shino had excited in her could ever be easy for either of them.