Disclaimer: Sweetie, I don't need to own Naruto to write fanfiction.
Penname: LiveLoveLaugh
FanFiction Story: Dirty Gamble
Summary: (Prequel of Dirty Talk) They were the emulsion of oil and water, their love was not immediate. Their friendship was rocky, but at the end of the game, they win more than just a prize. (ShinoXSaku)
I wanted to write a little about Shino's background.
Mother He Wrote
Twelve years ago, his father had vanished behind the oak door of the master bedroom on the third floor of the stucco manor that many generations of the Aburame family had grown up in. The door was shut and locked, even now, it was closed and only when his father would open it would anyone catch at least a glimpse of the blinding glare reflecting from the window light and scrubbed white walls. He remembered standing outside the door with wide-set eyes, staring at the whole picture of it, complete with the two framed butterfly collections on each side of the polished doorframe. Back then, so young was he, the little boy felt strong masses of anger, sadness, contempt, loneliness, and many other passionate feelings he knew no little boy should feel at such an age.
Years later, the same scene in his mind had played over and over again as if it were a broken record. And so clearly, he could see the picture, the forms, the colors, all which were transformed from an emulsion of blurs into something so deep and heart aching, he found it hard to breathe sometimes. He remembered his father kneeling down towards him, to come down his level, so both their eyes, although hidden away by dark spectacles, would meet and they would both sense his eyes were full of the complete and utter mixture of compassion…and loss.
They had all wished she hadn't left. But she did.
Fell out of love, people had said with disapproval written over their faces and voices, and fell in love—irreversibly and recklessly—with someone she had just met. And ran off, leaving her husband behind with their only son.
He remembered the awful bile rising in his throat, the lump that bobbed whenever he tried to swallow when his father was on his knees, as if begging for forgiveness, and the soft, firm pressure of his father's hand on his small shoulder that felt as though it was being crushed by the weight of guilt and hopelessness swimming in his father's speechless aura. And he remembered the weak helpless smile his father had tried to form on his thin lips—the kind of mouth that the little boy had also inherited along with the bushy hair and the freakishly tall height—a kind of mouth not used for smiling or showing off teeth. It was merely two flaps made for breathing and necessary words.
Maybe that's why she left; she needed more than the number of breaths this man had taken.
The little boy was panicking. His heart nearly jumped out of his thin ribs, the beating had nearly caused internal bruises against the skin of his chest. His knobby knees shook, however slightly, and the fidgety movements he had not trained himself to control had pulsed behind his thick buttoned-down coat. The little boy was quite tall for his age that he certainly felt as though he was tilting and could have tripped on his own two feet. He suddenly felt unbalanced and unconnected to the carpet ground, trying to keep steady with the soft watery gaze of his father, the tears slowly running down beneath the shades and trickled over the soft straight hairs above his upper lip.
"I'm sorry," his father whispered sincerely, but they both knew he meant to say, I'm sorry I failed her.
Shino turn to his side and closed his eyes satisfyingly when he heard the echoing surprised screams of Kiba bounce off the walls in the next room. Although his destruction bugs rather dislike the taste of his chakra, the bug shinobi slept—with a small grin on his face and wondered why he never thought of it before—in the spare bed with the blankets pulled up to his shoulders and his sunglasses folded on the nightstand. The room was dark and peaceful into the hours of the night.
All of the last dreams he last had were of him silently watching caterpillars and beetles crawl up on stalks of forest plants and trees, practicing the language of bugs he shared mutual bonds with. But tonight, after the early events of the day, he began to envision himself in a different sort of dream.
That night he dreamt a small memory he buried deep into his mind long ago, it suddenly resurfaced, plunging his thoughts to his younger self twelve years ago. He dreamt that he was sitting in the living room, leaning over the coffee table with a crayon and paper. He remembered this living room very well, since it was one of the many places in the manor children were not allowed to play in. All the furniture was furnished teakwood with plastic covers over silk cushions with embroidered patterns of bird of paradises, spotless white carpeting, orchids and tulips in every ceramic vase, framed family pictures on the cabinets and the mantle of the fireplace, the large window behind him was framed with heavy velvet off-white drapes tied with curtain strings, giving the room an expensive rococo look.
God forbid he had a glass of grape juice with him. His mother would kill him.
She had always caught him at it with his drawing, coloring in the black spots of ladybugs or tracing the music-making brown legs of a cricket. He drew and he drew, sometimes adding a caption or two in a speaking bubble between a conversation with a fuzzy yellow and black bee and a dung beetle. He had always found a rather nice privacy in the forbidden living room, spreading rolls of fax papers he took from his uncle's office over the coffee table, opening his giant pack of sharpened wax crayons, and draw endlessly for hours.
But usually his mother would walk into the living room, abruptly scorn him from the living room, and scold him, telling him that this was no place for a boy to be in. She was rather fond with the room with all the western furniture she had selected and decorated herself, over the years in his short life span, he had watched all the effort his mother had put into furnishing the entire manor which ignited a world of silent gossip between the Aburame women. They, including some of the men, had always wondered about the strange behavior the woman had recently been showing. They expected it was something she was hiding, but the little uncertainties were immediately forgotten when the manor had soon improved by the cleaning and nice furniture.
Though she was not an Aburame, but had instead married into the family, she was well accepted by her husband's relatives, who unlike other in-laws, did not bother with little things like jealousy and critiques of this new woman. As long as she made Shibi happy, they believed, they did not mind the invasion. They did not challenge the love between the two, all the Aburame were rather apathetic towards romance and feelings which they believed were little things, which eventually led to the downfall of the clan leader's marriage.
That one day, when the little boy was leaving crayon shavings over the white carpet, he attempted to frantically clean up the mess before his mother would catch him. His sunglasses jumbled on his small nose when he flung himself on the ground, even using his Kikai to help him along. When he sat back up on his knees, he caught his mother staring at him at the front of the living room.
He expected to be punished right then and there. He expected his behind to be cut off and framed on the fireplace, like she had once threatened to do. Of course, she burst into laughter when they both imagined his pale pink cheeks next to his portrait on the brick mantle. But he predicted she would do it now by the look in her eyes.
"Shino…" she whispered, calling him over. He stood up instantly and bowed to her.
"Mother! I'm sorry! I-I didn't mean to…I know I wasn't supposed to, I just—I've shamed you," he spluttered out his ready long apology, but stopped when he felt both of his mother's hands on his thin shoulders. When he looked up, he saw something in his mother's face he had never seen before. Something silly and childish had made her narrow face rounder and fuller, the look in her eyes that he had misinterpreted was not of anger or disappointment, but rather of amusement.
"Oh boy, I can see that," she smiled, unconcerned by the crayon streaks on the coffee table, "We can clean that off later. But I think we both can use some early dessert, how about that? Shino, would you like some?"
He was speechless, but followed his mother's heed. The neat-freak he had once known no longer presented herself in the manor, and was replaced by this kinder, gentler, carefree woman Shino did not trust so willingly. It took him a while for the little boy to see that this was the same lady, who was his mother. He sat in the kitchen, waiting as his mother dashed from the refrigerator to the cupboards. He stared at her suspiciously but he suddenly forgotten the flaws, like all of her other flaws, when she presented something good and so innocent to take away the uncertainty like two bowls of mango fruit pudding with coconut milk.
His mother's bowl was untouched; she was busy watching her son gobbled up the sweet delicacy leaving orange stains on his chin and lips. She rested her chin on one of her hands, her elbow gracing the marble counter. She had a faraway look in her eyes, when Shino had glanced over, her fingers twirling a spoon. Suddenly she caught him staring, and giggled.
"I'm sorry, I'm not hungry," she murmured, pushing her pudding towards Shino which he had taken and ate, this time, at a slower pace.
"You must like good things," his mother smiled. Shino grinned and nodded, before devouring another spoonful.
"Everyone likes good, nice things every now and then," she said, her voice was so fresh and crisp, "Something to make them happy and feel good inside. Something to make them smile and laugh, make their entire body fill with good feelings. Something to occupy their lives with," her eyes were hooded and turned darker, "But every now and then is usually not enough for some…do you know what I mean, Shino?"
He stopped eating and stared at his mother with a questioning look, "I think so…"
"Shino, I like good things, too," she whispered, her voice was quieter and deeper. "I like them better if they make me very happy. Do you understand what I'm saying?"
Even though she was looking at him, he doubted if she even knew who she was staring at. She was staring deeply at his face, seeing as though her son's face remembered her of someone else.
"I think so…" he said. He lied, and they both knew it.
She wasn't even looking at him anymore, but looked to be pulled into her own world, still wearing that soft smile, "I'm in love, Shino. Do you know what that means?"
"I think so…" he said again, lying straight from his mouth, absolutely ignoring the good things of his dessert. He dove straight into something, like a trap, he felt as though he was deceived by good things, and suddenly the pudding in his stomach churned in his gut. He didn't want to hear anymore, because he was afraid he was going to be right.
"He was so kind…so nice…I didn't mean to—I didn't know I could," she smiled, her eyes were moistened and she looked about to cry, "I'm in love," she said determinedly.
"Mother…" he whispered through his teeth, which were gritted so tightly, "What about Father?"
"Your father Shibi…" she closed her eyes, sighing deeply, "I can't do this anymore…not for him, and not even for the family…I'd been stuck in this hellhole for so long…I forgot it was like before I met Shibi, I can't say anymore or else, I would've said too much…I'm sorry it's come to this…"
"What about me?" the little boy blinked behind his sunglasses, appalled by her behavior, "What about me? Aren't I a good thing?"
She looked at him, smiling that awful smile he come to hate, "Shino, you are..." When she reached for him, the little boy jumped off the stool and yelled at her.
"You're lying!" Shino cried, panicking, "You're lying about all that!"
"I'm leaving the manor tonight, Shino," his mother said with absoluteness, picking up the bowls and spoons and walked over to the kitchen sink, "He's waiting for me at the East Gate, and I'm leaving." With the twist of the knob, a rush of water splattered against the glass and silverware.
"You can't leave!" Shino wailed, pulling at her khaki pants urging her to turn around, "Mommy!"
She quietly squeezed lemon-scented dishwashing soap into a sponge and scrubbed the stains from the dirty dishes. Shino was whimpering and sobbing on his knees, next to her feet, his little hands grabbing onto the ends of her pants. He wringed it back side to side, tears and pudding smears created stickiness on his face that he tried to rub off.
"Mommy! Please don't leave me!" Shino yelled out, cradling himself against the sink cupboards, even after his mother finished the dishes and left him there. The sounds of her sandals had disappeared and that was the last he seen her, and he was sobbing so loudly that one of his aunts had passed by and yelped when she saw him there. She picked him up and rocked him gently, but he would not subdue to anything. When he was still crying, the rush of family members ran all over the place and tried to confront the housewife of the clan leader but she was nowhere to be found.
The last few words he had repressed of his mother, when she had knelt down and kissed him on the forehead before her son had thrown his small arms around her trying not to let her go, the words were soft and she did not have that awful smile on her face, she made him look at her and sternly whispered to him, "Shino, I'm sorry, but I must go."
She released him and left.
Twelve years later, the same eighteen-year-old shinobi had awoken silently from his dreams, with cold sweat everywhere.
In the late morning, Shino had left Kiba's bachelor's pad (smelling of mutt) and walked to the manor on the other side of the village. After that night, he knew he had to confront into someone who also well affected by the absence of his mother. He had surprised several of his older relatives, mostly female, who made him sit on one of the chairs in the porch near the training grounds. Although he refused politely, one of his aunts pushed a flowery plate of sweet dumplings and a cup of scalding hot tea into his hands.
"Just wait a while for your father, Shino-san," she murmured, motioning him to be seated, "He will be here shortly." He sensed her eyes glowing with happiness behind her sunglasses, she was glad to see him again. When she left to find Shibi, her two children—his younger cousins, one of which was already married—were left to entertain him.
"How's your baby Yutsuko-san?" he whispered, not sure what to say.
She cooed delightfully at the fullness of her round stomach, adjusting her shades, "Well, the Hokage-sama says the baby is doing fine, it really makes Raito-kun very happy to hear that." She bent over as much as she could, excitedly, "We're having a baby boy!"
Shino nodded, "Good for you."
"It's been a long time since you'd been back here, Shino-sempai," said his fourteen-year-old male cousin, Shingen, who was a bit flustered by his morning training and the heir's surprise drop-in, "I'd been training hard."
"Yes, I've heard," Shino nodded again, "Your techniques with the Kikai is showing improvements."
"It is," Shingen agreed, sipping tea.
Yutsuko, who was quite known for her chirpiness despite the strict mannerisms of the Aburame clan, had begun to talk about all the kunoichi she had met in her field of work. She glanced sometimes at Shino, to see if he was interested in any of them, "I know this one female shinobi, her name is Jimyoin Ikue and she worked wonderfully with her—"
"Isn't she twenty-four?" Shingen snorted quietly, "She's a bit old for him, isn't she?"
The two siblings had always held secret loathing for each other, usually showing it with cutting comments, fighting mostly for their mother's favor. Shingen was sometimes embarrassed with his sister's oddball-like behavior around anyone, especially guests, seeing how that can be reflected upon him. Yutsuko looked slightly irritated by her younger brother, who was too strict with family traditions and stuffy about everything, she didn't want him to go around and ruin her plan to hook up her older cousin with some nice bachelorettes, "Well, excuse me, if I wanted to see at least some romance in this manor now and then. I don't mean it as an insult, Shino-san," she said apologetically to him.
Shingen rolled his eyes behind his polished sunglasses. Shino just shook his head.
"No harm done," he said, plainly. She nodded and smiled at him.
"I can't help it, sometimes I can get wild about romance," she sighed, "Though I wonder if you have met some nice girls by yourself, sometimes relationships make a difference in our lives."
"No, I haven't," Shino said, not knowing where this conversation was taking him, "You're not the only one who has done this for me."
"Who really?" Yutsuko ran a hand over her round tummy beneath her dress, "Has your friend Inuzuka Kiba been setting you up?"
"You can say that…" he looked exasperated by such a thought.
"He is such a flirt," she laughed softly and deeply, "All my friends talk about him. He's dated at least one from every clan, is that right? Well, not exactly an Aburame yet, I would have heard about it."
"He claims there are no good-looking Aburame girls," Shino muttered.
"He's right," Shingen agreed, taking another sip of his tea. Yutsuko looked about to hit him.
When both of his cousins set out to destroy each other with their biting comments and critiques, Shino sat back only a little bit to watch the training grounds. A few of his uncles were practicing techniques over and over again, sweat forming on their foreheads and were swathed by the heat of their bulging clothing, swinging around to let Kikai fly around and control them to the fullest extent. His few cousins, all older than him, were seated in the shades of trees and meditated. A cloud of flies hung around their bushy mops of hair, buzzing in rhythm of their messages.
Although they were a small clan, having not many men and women and children, they were kept into harmony with one another and their fellow bugs. Sometimes there were intermarriages, like one with Yutsuko and her husband Raito, now in the present, the younger generation of Aburame shinobi had sought women outside their clan though it was foolish, since not every woman would want to be with someone with destruction bugs crawling behind their skin. Unless they didn't know.
There was less to no child-rearing, as Yutsuko was the first female in the family in years to be impregnated. There were only a few unmarried girls in the Aburame clan, all who had a hard time being respected for their skill and liked for their hidden femininity. The number of unmarried Aburame men was large as usual; several of Shino's uncles were rumored to have never touched a woman. Not that it mattered, but now the entire clan was in a constant fear that without new marriages and children, their clan would be extinct.
Perhaps it was a sudden shock to the entire clan in his father's generation, when Shibi married someone outside of the clan. It was something not well-practiced in the family then, some had wondered about the purity of Aburame blood flowing in their yet-to-be-born child's veins, whether the Kikai could accept him as a vessel or reject the baby heir. But no such thing happened, the Kikai fed upon Shino's chakra when he had made a blood contract with the destruction bugs. He wondered, though, what his mother must have thought of it.
He snapped out of his deep thoughts when he noticed the presence of Shingen and Yutsuko was suddenly replaced by someone bigger and more powerful in authority than both of his younger cousins added together. He stared across the small table at Shibi, his father and leader of the Aburame clan.
"Father," Shino stood and bowed in politeness.
Back then, when his mother had left the manor, Shino was barely old enough to attend the renowned academy for young potential ninjas, but back then, he knew the reason why his father went through the grueling seven weeks of escapism and depression. Although he wasn't able to grieve properly, he fueled his naïve desperation solely on a memory that had even embarrassed him later on when he turned eighteen—the moments where he would watch his father shave.
His father was a handsome shinobi for his age, if one were to see beyond the intimidating disguises of rolls of clothing he wore and the sunglasses that hidden away his perfectly nice eyes. His dusky dark beard was coming in quite nicely and had trimmed it regularly to keep up with the dashing mustache. Often, his son sat on top of the marble sink top and watched his father smear a generous handful of foamy shaving cream over his chin, sideburns, and the corners of his mouth, the gleaming razor slicing through the sparse unwanted hairs and thick white gunk. The blade was often switched to glide upwards, sideways, right to left, up, down, swiftly, quickly picking up blots of cream and dusky black hairs from his skin. Never had he ever witnessed his father's chin blotted with accidental cuts or toilet paper pieces like many of his other uncles had had, because his old man knew how to take care of his beard.
Many anxious nights and days, the little boy wished for one noticeable dark hair to appear on his chin, hoping for a masculine goatee like his father's so he too can learn the mastery of using a razor. Every morning, he watched his father show off his glory by swiftly stripping his face of unworthy hairs. The graceful firm movements were what enticed the little boy more than anything in the small white bathroom.
He leaned just close enough to catch the strong waft of the shaving cream scent from his father's face, but was far enough to avoid disrupting his father from his morning ritual. One time Shino had cut his chin from trying to shave his bare skin, earning disapproval from his mother who wiped away the cut with rubbing alcohol and bandaged it.
"You're not old enough, Shino," she said calmly, standing up and twisting the cap closed on the alcohol bottle. But his father only smiled and let his son continue watching him shave in the mornings despite his wife's complaints.
"Shino, it's been a while," Shibi smiled slightly. Although there was little to no smiling among Aburame males, Shibi was the only one willing give away his emotions through the coulters of his face. Sometimes the smallest smile he gives, it had embarrassed his relatives. Through the lightness the clan leader held in his movements and gracefulness, he was nearly challenging the generations of tradition of shinobi, it was something his son could not inherit.
"It's very long since I'd seen you, least of all, to have tea with you," his father lifted up a plate of sweets and gently ate one, handing him the plate, "Want one? They're good."
He shook his head and looked as his father reached for another one. Shino noticed Shibi had a sweet tooth, craving for little childish things like candy and sweet dango. Shino had lost his taste for sweets ever since the mango fruit pudding his mother had deceived him with. From that day, he felt so much older, only eating bland foods, mostly bitter dishes and tofu. Another thing his father and him did not have in common.
While he listened to his father talk in the distinct monotone, however light and calm it was, he could silently criticize the every flaw of his father who did not match the Aburame ideal. His beard was lustrous and handsome, which made little kids laugh with delight when they touched it. He wore a funny chain on the frame of his sunglasses, giving a humorous look to his intimidating stance. He smiled too much, talked too much, ate too many sweets, was not as serious as the rest of the family, and had married the wrong kind of woman.
And he forgave her. Something Shino couldn't do.
"Where are you going?" Shibi asked, his eyebrows lifted when his son got up to leave, "We've just got started…"
"I apologize, Father," Shino whispered, deeply, "Maybe I came at the wrong time."
Shibi looked about to say something, but he stopped himself. He shook his head a little, and motioned him good-bye, "Yes, of course. Come back when you can."
"Yes, Father," the bug shinobi bowed, even when he didn't need to, and left the porch with the secret of the runaway mother between them, folded and waiting to spring between the unbearable silence.
To Be Continued