Bamboo Hearts Firefly

Friendship

The evanescence of

This floating world

I feel over and over:

It is the hardest

To be the one left behind.

--Rengetsu

_______________

"Why does dad never talk about mother?" Shino asked Torune. "Did he really eat her in a bowl of Miso?"

"What kind of question is that?" Torune was caught off-guard by the sudden and bizarre inquiry of his younger brother. "Do you really believe he would?"

"I was just a year old when you came to live with us, nii-san," Shino said. "I remember everything about the day you became my brother...But I don't have any memories about me and my mother...Isn't that a little strange to you?"

Torune took his time to answer the younger Aburame, playfully blocking the path of a wandering ladybug with one of his sandals.  

"I didn't know my mother either," Torune said. "I thought about her all the time, at first. I imagined that she loved me more than anything. That she was just on a top-secret Anbu mission she couldn't tell me about, but she would come find me again soon...It wasn't until my father died that he finally told me her name...Misato....And I thought, wow, she must really be beautiful....But then, I learned the truth about her, and I wished I could go back to believing she actually loved me...Maybe your dad is showing you more compassion than my dad ever had. Perhaps he has a reason for not telling you about your mother, and you must trust that he is doing the right thing...Maybe she's something you must learn to make peace with, if only so nothing will stand in your way." 

"But...do you think she still..."

Shino hesitated to ask again, as Torune's words slowly poisoned his waning hopes with a crushing reality. 

Unlike Torune, Shino had long ago accepted that wherever his mother was, she was never coming back for him. And he knew he could learn to live with the missing pieces of never meeting her...but only if he convinced himself that wherever she was, she thought of him as much as he thought about her. That even though she wished she could be home with him, he'd never hold it against her for leaving him...if he only knew she did it for love. 

"Do you think it is also true for me then?" Shino softly tried again. "That the reason my mother abandoned me...is because she couldn't love me?...Did she also think I was a creep, like the rest of my academy class does?"

But Torune wasn't sure he knew how to answer that. He too had many questions that would never bring him answers. 

And the sooner Shino became comfortable with the unforgiving torment of the unknown, the better off he would be in an unforgivingly answerless world. 

"That reminds me," Torune deliberately changed the subject. "Have you gotten used to academy yet?"

Shino finally glanced away from the ladybug he was studying on a nice green Angelica leaf.

But one look at nii-san's hopeful smile, and Shino's eyes darted back to the ladybug for a convincing enough cover from that dreaded question.

"If ladybugs had harder shells," Shino changed the subject. "Do you think they'd be invincible against the formic acid of ants?"

"Why do you ask?" Torune wondered.

Shino's dark brow tensed downward in deep concentration, as he calculated the ratio of weight distribution and balance between the ladybug's armor and her dancing legs.