Beware of (half) Greeks bearing gifts--er, fanfiction.

[moonsheen]

Shino’s cousin had a bad breakout the other day.

Shino knows because he was there. He wouldn’t have learned of it any other way. These matters are not the sort to be widely broadcast amongst the clan; it’s a common courtesy and a common sympathy. There are not many among the Aburame who haven’t shared the experience, and none who wouldn’t agree that it is a difficult stage in childhood best not aggravated further.

An Aburame observes and is quiet. Shino knows this because his father taught him, and that is why he’s said nothing beyond what was necessary, and that is why he’s not seen his cousin since. He misses the company a little, though. Even if the extent of their interaction was simply passing each other in the halls, they passed each other with a shared knowledge that comes with their age—though Shino is only five, and his cousin two years his senior.

It’s a shared knowledge of pain, something Shino understands not so much from observation but experience. It’s the shared sensation of pressure within, tiny prickles across the wrong side of the flesh. It’s the pressure that grow with excitement, with a breath taken too sharply. It ebbs with an exhalation, but surges dangerously with exaltation. With unease it rises, and with fear it is at its height—no longer pressure but a definite force. Shino has placed his fingers against the weak skin of his wrist and felt it, or them to be more precise, crawling beneath. Their carapaces sometimes look like living welts squirming up his arm, submerging only when his breath steadies and his heart slows. This is how Shino learned the value of meditation, something crucial in these early stages. One day they will protect him, but right now he is vastly outnumbered. They feel and react to his every emotion, and he appreciates that, but they don’t feel his pain when they decide to test the boundaries of their still flimsy residence.

His cousin spoke a little too loudly. Standing up after particularly tough training session, frustrated and arguing with an elder, his voice had barely risen to a shout before his head snapped back in one burst of red and black that scattered across the room. He was carried away quickly, but Shino saw the familiar pattern on the underside of the other boy’s jaw. A dozen small tears, messily done by a dozen small panicked bodies that were still humming in the air. Shino was told to leave, he did what he was told, and not another word has been spoken to him of it, but he understands that the wounds will be a scar in a few more days. A fairly visible one, too. It’s a pity, but it’s not uncommon. Shino’s mother bears a strip of shiny, twisted skin from her cheek to her collar bone, mostly covered up by the long scarves she wears. It is in fact, the least of her old injuries. She is clan head. She was a year younger than most.

Her son is two years younger than most.

Shino is called special for this. Shino is expected to become powerful. He sits by a window with his legs crossed and his eyes closed, and breathes in deep and steady. He’s not allowed outside, for the safety of others and himself, and so his skin is white from the endless days within the shelter of his clan. He expects his cousin to be up in a few days, and he expects he’ll be allowed to join Academy in a few years. He doesn’t expect the tightening of his chest that comes with the thought. The sun is low outside, and he imagines the air must be fresh. They will like that, he thinks, as he feels them stir in his wrists and ankles, and neck. They feel things with him, after all. Shino curves his fingers against the rough scarred skin of his shoulder, and lets himself smile. Just a little.




Hark, a finished fic. Er, if a bit short. I've been wanting to write something with Shino for awhile, but I've had no idea where to put him. It took some wrestling with the Kiba fic to finally get it going. Make of that what you will.

Comments

[spacetart.livejournal.com]

Ooooohh...creepy and sense-making.