Bamboo Hearts Firefly

Bug Trap

Beekeeper kept his end of the bargain.

Injecting his healing antidote into the veins of Shino's captive with one bee sting, just as he'd promised. 

And after closely watching the blushing color slowly return to her face, Shino was finally satisfied with the Bee Sage's work. 

At last, following Beekeeper to the infinite orchards of beehives surrounding his honey farm. 

"So, you and my dad go back a long time then, huh?" Shino tried to steer the Beekeeper into small talk, rounding back around to the question of why he'd wanted to kill Shino in the first place. 

"Ah, yes...long before Shibi became a father, we had been good enemies to each other," Beekeeper nodded reverently, as casually as if he were describing an old comradeship like the one between Might Guy and Kakashi Hatake. "I was a fierce rival to your father. Our long battles ended in stalemate every time we fought. Surely, the very mention of my name makes him shudder? My reputation, after all, proceeds me."

"Actually, he doesn't talk about you much." 

"What?"

The reply was dry and indignant, lacking all his heroic glory and long-winded speeches from before, as the beekeeper's shoulders tensed. Standing on edge as if his brain were bleeding profusely from the maddening sound of nails on a chalkboard. 

"Never?...Not even a word?" 

He turned around on the path to look back at Shino.

And even his Beekeeping mask appeared to darken as his fist constricted a little tighter. 

"That petty bastard," he mumbled under his breath. 

"How did you become enemies with my dad?" Shino asked. 

"Hm?" Beekeeper seemed dazedly far-away, as if Shino had suddenly cut him off from his deep brooding contemplation. "Oh that...Let's see...why was that again?"

"You...don't remember?" Shino's brow arced down questionably.

"Well, after wandering almost 20 years in this fog, how much would you remember, I wonder? It's all just detail anyway," Beekeeper waved the young Aburame off dismissively, as he poured a generous portion of honey wine into a jar and corked it for his guest. "Some other time, hm? Until then, here's the best of my honey wine for your friend. A peace offering, for our misunderstanding today."

"Thanks so much," Shino told the beekeeper, taking the honey wine jar and reaching for his ryō pouch. "How much do I owe you?"

The question appeared to stump the Beekeeper, as he stood dumbfound over his beehives, filled with fermenting honey and rainwater collecting in bamboo nets.

"Money?" he chuckled. "I almost forgot how important money and material things are in the world out there. That's not something we care about here. Wealth means nothing to us in this village. Just take all the honey wine you want. I want nothing for it."

"Us?" Shino scanned the dark fog around him, lost for who else could be running this silent, isolated misty village. "There are others?"

"Other exiles like me who decided long ago that the world outside is no longer home to us," Beekeeper said. "We find this Shangri-La for many reasons. Exile. Rejection. Shame. A second chance. Missing-nin seeking refuge from being hunted by their villages, after abandoning their shinobi life. All committed to an existence of peace, safe from the never-ending cycle of hatred and violence in the ninja world."

Shino studied the eerie quiet of the fog. An endless gray void stretching in all directions without any sign of the path he'd walked in by. 

And not for the last time, he wondered if staying the night at the honey farm was ever a good idea.