Bamboo Hearts Firefly

No Longer Alone

No different, really,

a summer's moth visible burning

and this body transformed by love.

-Izumi Shikibu

________________________

The Kamizuru and the Aburame walked in silence through the bamboo forest, as silence proved to be the one language by which they spoke most naturally with each other. Unburdened by the violence of the past and long-held misunderstandings of their family names. A silence made only more precious by this rare chance of just being present with each other, in sharing the quiet world they had made together in this bamboo grove. 

And so, the Kamizuru didn't mind the silence with Shino at all.

Words had done enough damage between their clans already. 

And she liked that Aburame knew how to use so few of them to say so much to her.

Besides learning how to kill one of them in battle, she'd never given more thought to the Aburame, or the gentler stories untold of the insect warriors off the battlefield that deepened the alluring mystery of Shino beside her. 

'Could it be that we've always had this much to learn from each other?' she lost herself in thought about her silent beetle companion, the softness of her gaze catching him in quiet ambush over and over again as they walked deeper into the forest.

'How different I wish things had been between the Aburame and Kamizuru...Maybe then...It wouldn't be so hard to stop myself from wanting something I can't have.'

And as the Kamizuru dared to ask herself what exactly it was she really meant by that, Shino stopped walking.

"This is it," he said, a hint of excitement brightening his habitually sober voice.

And dragging her honey gaze away from Shino's, the Kamizuru realized all at once that he'd brought her back to the river. Set to burning embers by tiny lights dancing like golden galaxies in the mist over the quietly incandescent mirroring waters.

"Fireflies?"

Hundreds of them!

Like the stars she'd been missing that night, their trailing lanterns made her eyes into a gold-fire twilight as she followed their sleepy flight. 

Her own excitement entwining with the twin-flame of Shino's fascination, the moment he'd first discovered the firefly mating grounds in the bamboo forest.

"It's taken me years to find so many of them," Shino told her. "As a fellow bug user...I hope you can understand." 

'I do understand, Shino," she whispered back to him. 'I know exactly what this means to you. It truly is a rare find." 

And passing him a knowing smile, she unwittingly squeezed the Aburame's arm tighter, drawing him in closer to her by their linked elbows. 

Unaware of the effect her sudden closeness had done to Shino, with him being so perfectly hidden from her behind the protection of his gray hoodie.

And studying the glow of fireflies on her face, the Aburame unwittingly found himself thinking, 'If there's any beauty in this jutsu, it's her.'

Yet as the Aburame dared to ask himself what exactly it was he really meant by that, an unexplained sadness lingering in his secret heart came between him and his bee companion like a fog.