Chapter Text
Tenten couldn’t help but laugh at seeing Choji stumbling around, a giant almost tankard style container in his hand, more red wine sloshed too and fro with every unsteady dance step he took, sometimes nearly soaking the other happily celebrating people around him as the more thumping his steps became along with his roaring laugh.
Part of her knew that for the Konohagakure shinobi’s sake, she should go and tell him to call it a night. To gently shove him somewhere dark to pass out, out of the way before he could do any property damage, especially with how he seemed to have lost the ability to control his expansion jutsu, the more wine he consumed. Still, the Crimson Splash Vineyard civilians didn’t seem to mind; they were glad of the entertainment and having someone new to celebrate with.
Every member of the vineyard's staff, civilians, and children energetically ran, danced, ate, or drank in an unshiftable happy cloud around the wide multiuse barn they were currently in. The troubles of a few hours before seemed forgotten entirely.
Half the mountainside was on fire before her team had reached their target. Crippling heat and engulfing flames were turning every tree, piece of plant life, and poor animal unable to outrun the ever-crawling blaze into nothing but choking ash. Everything it touched became black and charred, making the air thick and heavy with smoke, caking her lungs with oozing powder and dry, stale ash that her team could see and feel the raw heat of, long before they were close enough to spring into action.
Her summoning her stored ocean did half the job to stop the blaze in its tracks while the rest of her team without hesitation began the heavy lifting of removing the nearest row of trees closest to the fire to stop fueling it, to cut off it’s supply of fresh trunks and branches with expanded hands and a wave of insects as black as the soot filled air topped of by nails ripping through the now free dirt to throw on the now stalled blaze.
The wildfire successfully halted in its path before the vineyard, its workers, families, homes and the surrounding area who lived in the adjoining hamlet, joined the already ruined countryside, only seeing the edges of the destruction over the near hills but never directly feeling its effects.
As she found out, when her team checked in to confirm that their vineyard and grape-growing lands were safe, the smell of burnt wood in the air and the dissipating tendrils of smoke were the most she felt.
Tenten gave another held-back giggle at Choji, who had lost his balance entirely and taken the man and woman on each arm down onto the floor with him, resulting in an ear-shaking round of laughter even as drinks and limbs fell everywhere.
The fields were worth saving because, just as they claimed, they did make delectable wine! She had no idea why Kakashi had been so adamant that they didn’t drink while there, but it would have been a waste and an insult to the workers around her who made such a delicious beverage if they didn’t.
Shino, as silent as ever, came to stand beside her. It was almost comical how quiet and unmoving he was in comparison to the wild rambucious party going on around them, even her sitting down drinking her single glass and laughing to herself was nothing compared to Choji falling over or Kiba’s head zooming every which way to try and talk to the every shifting swarm of people trying to catch his attention made her slide into the background.
“Never knew Choji was going to be the life of the party!”
“Unfortunately; we could never say the same for Kiba.”
The loud thump that drew the pair's attention, loud enough to be heard over the laughter and music being played in the large barn, turned out to be the sound of Kiba losing consciousness completely, falling flat on the floor, spilling wine everywhere from his cup bouncing across the wooden boarded floor. Both the men and women around him looked extremely put out when they tried to rouse him, pulling on his dead weight arms in pitiful attempts to wake him and found he was lifeless to the world, continuing to snore with enough force to start a hurricane.
Tenten, her arm wrapped around her waist as she laughed so hard her stomach started knitting, watched Kiba’s previous admirers recover slowly. Then, they organised themselves so that a few grabbed him under his arms and dragged him into a sitting position beside the wall, while others were kind enough to run off and grab a few blankets.
Looking as comfortable as possible, Kiba passed out against the wall, covered from foot to chin in multiple comfy-looking blankets. The group around him, deeming their work complete, wandered off to find something else to entertain themselves, still appearing to console one another over losing their fellow partier.
“He sure was popular, wasn’t he?”
Tenten took a second to observe to ensure Kiba was only passed out and nothing else was wrong. When he rolled to the side and curled further in on himself like a happily napping toddler, she, with a grin, waved her hand out in his direction, dismissing any concerns she had.
“Why are you just standing there? Shino, come on, sit down.” He was so stiff when she took a fistful of his coat and yanked him into the seat beside her, which meant his high chair gave a creaking sound even if Shino himself never wobbled; he just sat straight down like a lead balloon.“Would you relax for a moment?”
The town, grapes, wine and civilians had been saved, so their mission was a roaring success. Yes, their teammates acted like drunken idiots, but they hadn’t hurt or insulted anyone. The slowly crawling dark clouds that had begun to rumble out, only noticeable through the giant open barn doors, that indicated rain sometime shortly, were welcomed as the final stamp down against the minuscule possibility of the previous wild blaze flaring up again.
“If anything happens, we’ll deal with it, but for now just-”
She held up her recently topped-up glass in a half-raised toast before letting out another laugh and taking a hefty gulp.
When he still didn’t appear to relax, the amused frown she gave was combined with a twitch upwards of the corner of her mouth and a gesture to the relaxed civilians around them. Shino starting into a monologue about the potential of the rain clouds changing course, or the winds creating a spark through friction of the drying twigs and soil and the all purpose dry delivery of how they were shinobi and should always be on their guard no matter what the mission or what appeared to be its status made her give a strained smile, unable to decide whether to grin or grimace at his speech before giving him a solid but weak punch to his arm.
“Like I just said, if something happens, we’ll handle it just like always.”
Without the high black collar of his previous undercoat, which Tenten thought was completely unnecessary when he did wear it, she could see Shino tilt his head to the side, in what she could only assume was contemplation.
He must have deemed her right because he pulled a glass from where she didn’t know, possibly even out of his bottomless pit type pockets, but her grin returned when he held it up in obvious invitation for her to clink hers against. The glass's slight noise rang softly against the wild music and laughter around them.
Even with Shino accepting her wait-and-see approach to the rest of their mission, the conversation fell heavily on her. With him merely agreeing or saying a sentence so vague or poetic, Tenten couldn’t be sure she even knew what he meant. It was nice not to be spoken over or interrupted mid-sentence, like what happened more often than not with her teammates, but she still wanted to hear his opinions and thoughts. She didn’t want to talk to herself all night, but once she mentioned that she hoped all the animals from the former forest had escaped, his conversational shell cracked more. Unable and unwilling to suppress the easy smile that spread across her face now that the roles had been reversed, she listened, and Shino took the chit-chat lead.
When the feeling that had been knawing at the back of her neck became too much to ignore, she asked, “Shino, ever since you sat down here, do you feel we’re being stared at?”
Confirming the feeling of being observed, Tenten began glancing as discreetly as she could to her right. She saw a gathering of people, no children, some older teenagers, but the majority adults, looking their way, pointing, and discussing something in quick whispers.
That wasn’t entirely true. She had sensed a difference in how she and Shino were treated compared to their friends, even before the celebration party fell into full swing. While admirers had swarmed Kiba and Choji, she and Shino had been left, not alone, but with far fewer people trying to talk to them or offer them what seemed to be unlimited food and beverages the other two consumed.
Setting his glass on the nearest space, an empty worn barrel they seemed to have set about the entire hall as make-shift tables and storing places, Shino’s hand returned to his green coat's pocket just as his other was.
“Would you want another drink?”
She didn’t want him to leave. Worried he would go back to not talking if he had a chance to slip back into silence, and maybe it was the wine talking, or maybe that was just making her more comfortable to daydream about the moments that had happened earlier that she hadn’t had time to dwell on.
The fact her heart started to beat a little faster when Tenten thought about him catching her earlier in a bridal carry when she was a little too fast to rejoice her tsunami taking out the flames and she wasn’t quick enough to see that the branch under her feet was about to break until it was too late. Or how soft she discovered Shino’s skin was when he held on to her bare arms, his grasp noticeably tightened before he released her without a word. Or when Tenten instantly couldn’t look away when Shino’s whole face was revealed for the first time she ever remembered, after the panic, when he was forced to rip off his sunglasses, when a handful of still lit embers managed to flick out and burn the frames.
Or when Tenten had revealed she had held on to a spare pair he had dropped in a mission they had shared before. Not the same type he chipped, but a pair from their Genin days from a mission gone sideways. She never remembered seeing him so stunned, as if his brown eyes, not the same shade as hers, lighter, more transparent, now free of their confines, wanted to show his expressions tenfold. A heavy feeling swarmed her when he quickly slipped them on, ducking his head down and to the side to do so, blocking her view completely with his raised arm, like a curtain shutting on a grand performance as he thanked her, Shino’s voice tight but carrying its usual well-spoken politeness.
Looking over from where she sat, Tenten could see that Shino had grown since he was thirteen, which was obvious, but in ways she had contemplated. His cheeks were hollower, his hairline thinner around the back of his ears, and his nose was narrower. Making the sunglasses that once hid his eyes completely, except for a completely side-on view, now gave glimpses of his irises with only the slightest movements, like when he turned only a breath to look around the space, as Shino did right then.
Leaning back in her seat, Tenten held her glass to her lips in what she hoped was a completely casual action. She could see the edges of his chestnut eyes once again. The shade was just as enchanting as when she had seen it earlier.
“We have everything set up for you!”
Tenten had been so deep in thought, so distracted at trying to catch a glimpse of his up until that day hidden eye colour, that she nearly jumped out of her seat, making the wooden stool tip to the side. In a movement that made her heart stop before beating rapidly again, Shino reached behind her, not to grab the far edge of her seat himself but to release a portion of his hive to swoop around and press down on the far side like a lever to regain its balance. The buzzing filling the air only a beat before disappearing back up his sleeve like a magic trick.
The stall Tenten’s breath took at the momentary shift in balance caught in her throat, but his being just that much more around her, his straight arm at her back never touching but his presence undeniable, made her mind hazy.
“The room is ready for you both!” Shino didn’t jump like her but did give a little pull back when several of the crowd tried to invade his personal space, like they were doing to her as well. Her awkward grin, laugh, and raising hands to make an invisible barrier did not deter their excitement.
There was a particular sense of restrained glee that tried to nibble on his insides that Shino opposed others being close to him, but would happily lean in beside her the moment before.
“Would you like to go there now?”
The unnamed woman in front of her wasn’t right in Tenten’s face, but she still needed to slide back another inch in her chair, wishing the enquiring woman would at least blink.
“Oh, umm, sure okay?”
Had Kiba and Choji embarrassed their team enough for all four of them? That they were now being sent off and out of sight before everyone else, like naughty children sent to bed without supper? The small crowd around them looked too happy to be dishing out a punishment, but their insistence that she and Shino could head there now still made Tenten feel like something was nipping at their heels.
Shino agreed, stood, waiting for her to rise on solid but ready-to-bolt feet, and had some people around them throw a bubbly, erratic round of clapping.
They were half-guided, half-herded towards the far end of the barn into a quieter part of the hall. As soon as the shadows from the half walkway above started to envelope them, it was as if a silent, see-through door had been slid into place behind them and their persistent, ever-shuffling sea of chaperones.
Looking around to see if blankets were laid out or anything else to suggest a quickly thrown-together sleeping quarters, like they had formed around a drunken Kiba earlier, nothing caught her attention.
When they didn’t stop even when the back wall was only a few metres ahead of them Tenten barely had time to turn her head and gesture to the quickly approaching door, a fluttering up and down of her hand to ask if they should go through, before all either of them could do was promptly shove the door open, as Shino did right then, lest they be slammed into it by the never haulting crowd behind them.
Tenten threw herself out the door with panicked force, half-stumbling into the night air to avoid getting smooshed into it.
The light, open evening air was far cooler than where they had just come from. The pleasant chill trickling over her form making her stretch out her shoulders and roll her neck, Tenten’s pleased sigh at the temperature change and breath of fresh air that came with it cut off when she was violently reminded at the crowd coming through the door after her without pause like a tidal wave pressing her forward without actually touching her or Shino who, now that they were able to spread out, slotted into the space at her right seamlessly. The stones under her heeled sandals crunch lightly with their swift but light footfalls.
With the high moon shining bright through the break in the rain clouds, which threatened a downpour even more than in the previous few hours, it was easier to take in the details around them.
The vineyards, as far as the eye could see in every direction, with the homes and other communal areas directly behind them, there was nothing else to see except the one structure right in front of them, which gave her a very different type of chill.
It was another wooden building that from the outside looked more like a well-kept shed, nothing standing out, no outdoor decorations or eye-catching things around it marked it as special. Not even signifigant enought to say it was a guest's sleeping quarters or even an unused home for them to temporarily claim as their own for the night expect for the wide heavy looking darkly painted doors, no window panels and curved at the top to a smooth point with a set of just as plain as it’s walls steps up to it’s entrance. The grander than life doors made Tenten feel like they had been taken from something else. That they were meant to lead somewhere otherworldly and vital.
As steady as the civilians leading them to their bed for the night, they stopped, as if one mind, as if one body, they stopped following, creating a semi-circle around the area, leaving Shino and herself a few feet of space. The gravel under their feet created a curved band of grey between them, as if a barrier they couldn’t cross or whatever had made them so happy would disappear.
It should have made her feel as if she could breathe easier, with the physical gap between them not crowding in around them, but it somehow made Tenten feel more restrained.
The entire crowd looked too ecstatic, far too excited, as they watched the pair walk up the solid stone steps towards the giant intricately carved black wood. It made her fingers flex in search of a sword to defend herself from nothing but the overwhelming feeling of being weirded out.
Her entire spine erupted in chills, not allowing her to look away from the onlookers as she grasped the handle, half missing it the first time Tenten reached out, pushing her fingers back at an unnatural angle, before reaching out and gripping harder the second time.
A one-armed pull moved the door barely an inch, breaking the spell of the unwavering attention the civilians put upon them and bringing her gaze in front of her instead.
Slapping her other hand over the handle, Tenten was about to push a burst of chakra to her muscles to open it when Shino grabbed the long cylinder handle with her and heaved. It weighed a ton. Planting her feet the pair gave the door a solid pull before it started to shift. They only opened it enough, not even halfway, so they could shuffle sideways through. The incessant, wide-eyed stares from behind made Tenten shuffle inside as fast as she could.
As soon as the oversized door slid back into place, a perfect seal surrounded them from the outside world. The sound of her own breathing filled her ears, forcing her to purse her lips and flex out her frame, which had been strung too tight since the moment they had been asked if they wanted to turn in for the night.
“Well, this, uhh,” the audible echo caught her off guard even more than the scarce contents of the single room they were now in, ringing out again when she detached her scrolls and set them down on the floor. “Wasn’t what I was expecting.”
It appeared far taller from the inside than from the outside. Tenten let her head fall back, her braids swinging with her as she spun, taking in the grey-painted thick walls of a room modelled after a giant chimney.
As for its contents, all that she could see was a single large circular raised area in the centre made of sturdy-looking old dark wood, just under her knee in height. A rich cloth of thick crimson velvet covered it with a white linen trim that met the wooden board floor. Toward the back of it, there was a tall, simple but highly polished lectern like the ones she had seen in civilian religious places.
Another glance around made her lip curl and her eyebrows furrow.
It certainly looked and gave the aura of a place of worship, but it was so small that there was no way everyone they had met could fit in the tiny box room simultaneously. It barely held her, Shino, and the stage-like wooden structure in the middle, but it did make Tenten consider again that this was a temporary replacement for a more important place that had been lost to them.
Rows of bookcases filled with old tomes that looked older than the title of Hokage and thick enough to hold everything she ever knew, with occasional pieces of spare parchment that had become darkened and curled with age, lined the outside of the room. Giving Tenten a closed-in feeling, surrounded by high furniture with even higher walls and a single door that took more than a casual, effortless amount of force to crack open.
It wasn’t the most inviting place she’d ever entered, but at least there weren’t tens of extremely giddy eyes watching their every move.
“When they said a room for us out back, I thought they meant another smaller barn or something.”
Tenten took the half step needed to run her hand over the edge of the raised stage in the centre. The thick red velvet was clean, but the texture itself made her pull back. Her tongue stuck out like a child that had been force-fed vegetables before she muttered, “Looks like some sort of prayer room.”
The echo repeated her words to her, sounding as if they were floating up the unending tower above, and the fact that Shino hadn’t spoken made nerves flare to life again. His hands never shifted from deep in his pockets, where she reached out and tapped and felt her way through the room.
“Think we’ve been banished because Kiba and Choji were making idiots of themselves?”
“Perhaps,” the natural lowness of Shino’s tone felt lower than usual, the echo amplifying it, burrowing its way into her ribcage in way she’d never experienced in a way that wasn’t off putting or scary, in a way that made her head spin and her toes curl in her boots, “But I did not get that impression. This may be the only place they have to offer.”
She hadn’t either. This must be the only quiet place they had that wasn’t someone's home or filled with harvesting equipment, and if missions had told her anything, it was that where the host told you to sleep, no matter what it looked or smelled like, you didn’t complain. It was bad for shinobi-client relations, and from what she had experienced, it was almost always better than sleeping outside on the hard, frosty ground. It smelled like it had been cleaned recently, and there weren’t any animals in it like some farmers' barns she had been forced to rest in in her early Genin days, so Tenten shrugged her shoulders.
At least they left wine.
“Only one glass? It’s not like they were running out.”
On the first intake of the room, all Tenten had seen was the solid opaque front, but on her stroll around the centre stage, she found the back of the lectern opened up to reveal a small shelf, completely bare apart from a single goblet. It was old and ceremonial in appearance, the silver it was made of shone with indented designs and small symbols so small she couldn’t make them out, but even the large ones meant nothing to her, along the top and bottom rims.
Even before she grasped the goblet from its designated place, she could smell the delicious scent floating up and around her head like warm berries melted in honey. Taking a deep breath, the verging on sickly sweet smell danced up her nose, tingling her senses and drawing her in like a bee to a brightly coloured flower.
It would be the best thing to touch her lips if it tasted a fraction of how good it smelled.
Her hopes were swiftly dashed as soon as she took her first eager mouthful, expecting it to go down easily, she nearly gagged on the so-called liquid as it coated her throat in its thick, verging on slimy, contents.
“This tastes-” It took more energy than it should have, her jaw feeling as if it was being held shut, as if she had just swallowed a thick layer of sludge, “sticky.”
Shino turned his attention away from one of the old-looking bookshelves that lined the room to give it to her.
“How so?”
“It’s kind of like jam,” she said, running her tongue along her lips. The nearly solid consistency rather than liquid droplets confirmed her thought, “Jam mixed with glue, that is.”
Tenten had to chew through the drink; it was so viscous. She had to gulp several times to make it go down, and she could feel the dense coating the entire length of her throat, making her wish she had something else to wash it down, even more of the wine she had been drinking earlier.
When Shino took the few steps needed to be at her side, she offered him the heavy goblet, offering him a taste, but he raised his palm towards her.
“I do not drink.”
Her hand lowered as her lips twitched up.
“Never?” He definitely had a glass in his hand. When he sat beside her, the one he had pulled out of thin air. They had even clinked glasses. “Then what were you drinking earlier?”
“Berry juice. The children had it.”
Just as Shino said, he didn’t drink the alcohol. But, in an imitation of herself, he did lower his head and take a visible, slow inhale of the drink's enticing scent, staying a moment longer than would have been strictly necessary before standing at his full height again. Seeing his chestnut coloured eyes slide closed behind his sunglasses, his long lashes graze the tops of his cheekbones as he savoured the scent was just as thrilling as the first two times. She wondered if it would ever get old.
“The sweet smell in itself is rather; distinct.”
She didn’t take him as someone who liked sweet things, but maybe, like most things, there was an exception to the rule.
Tenten took another small sip, but still had to gulp it down with as much effort as her first taste. The second helping was just as chewy and dense as the last. Taking another inhale of the smell, however, was more delicious and refreshing than drinking it. She gave the cup a swirl with a relaxed wrist roll to get more of the intoxicating scent.
The sound of the downpour they had been expecting began to sound out, individual droplets swiftly morphing into thumping and echoing around them making her feel once again as if they were in some hollow container or chimney the way the sounds bounced over and around them tricking her ears into thinking they were right at the centre of a vicious storm where who knows what could happen.
With nothing else to do and nowhere to go unless she wanted to become drenched to the bone, Tenten sat on the circular stage, the one place to sit, and that would be their wooden, unforgiving bed on their backs for the evening doing her best to ignored the velvet texture scratched along the backs of her knees.
Thinking about what she had in her overnight supplies scroll, how she could add an extra layer of comfort for both of them by unrolling her backup blanket beneath them when her thoughts came to a rolling stop to be replaced with the feeling of sweat forming on her brow and the heat of a just started fire in her chest.
It was suddenly so warm. A different warmth than being around people, or one that came from a good, hard-earned training session. One that felt it originated from inside her, like a fever she couldn’t sweat out, one that threatened to turn every exhale into ash unless she forced her lungs out to their max, pushing her chest out as far as her ribs would allow and then some, one that threatened to burn her alive if she didn’t release it’s energy somehow.
Swiping the back of her hand across her forehead, she could feel the damp tips of her fringe brush against it. Was it always so warm?
Checking around to find a window to crack open, she found none at her eyeline, the only windows she could see she had to crane her neck to take in because they were smaller than usual casement ones that created an almost decorative border as close to the ceiling as it could. Enough to let in air but not use gaze out of, if civilians could reach that high.
She could push chakra to her feet and climb up, shove her face into the tiny crack of a window and breathe in the much need clean air, or even the easier option of using that same chakra but in her hands to open the door again and sit in the doorway maybe letting a few drop of rain drip onto her heated skin to cool her down that way but the thought of getting up made Tenten feel unsteady, even a little queasy, feeling as if her mind was swimming with the temperature rising.
Her hands moved to do the only thing she could do that didn’t involve moving. Tenten, removing her sash, gave her skin a glorious blast of air up the sides of her dress and around her waist, the air still warm but cooler than her fever-wrecked body. Her lips parting in a hushed sigh, the relief it gave was tangible, but when her dress fell back into place to stick to her just as her fringe did, the white material darkening with the mist, it showed how badly her whole body was sweating, heated, on fire.
Letting the bulky material of her belt fall onto the floor caused a dull thump to ring out and up, pulsing around them like their voices had.
Wondering why Shino didn’t say anything about her stripping made her eyebrows furrow. The thought of him made her glance his way.
He had his full weight on his open palm, straight arm, and head lowered as if his skull felt heavy, but still so silent. She hadn’t even noticed he had joined her on the stage, only an arm's length away, so close but so far. Staring right at her, the open book he had taken from one of the many shelves Shino had previously been investigating, abandoned seemingly without a care, to focus entirely on drinking her in. As if letting his eyes travel over her could tell him more than any ancient tomb.
Her hand half raised the wine to her lips before letting it fall again, unable to decide if she had had enough or needed more. A waft of that tantalising smell was all she received instead.
“Do,” Maybe it was the heat that had suddenly enveloped her, but Shino, even from that one word, didn’t sound as put together as usual either, “Do you have something to drink?”
Why was it so hard to breathe? Why did Shino's talking make her insides heat up even more? He made her want to crawl over to him and wrap around him, but his sudden, fixed gaze kept her rooted where she was, vibrating under her skin instead. Her fingers flexing in their hold of the goblet or gripping tight to the red material below that now felt smooth and welcoming against her fingers were before she could barely stand it.
His lowered head, unlike last time, where it obscured her gaze, made it visible. Looking at her with eyes of such a dark brown, they appeared pitch black. As if suddenly his sunglasses, which he had been perfectly fine hiding his microexpressions behind, were now an unwanted hindrance. As if Shino wanted her to be able to feel the full force of his stare on every bare inch of her she gave, like he could, would, demand more just with his eye running over her.
The thought that she would willingly give him more to look at made her need to swallow, forcing more of the thick drink to detach from her throat and enter her stomach.
“Only more of this jam drink.”
Shino did what she craved to do. Quicker than she could have guessed, but every part of her being as on fire as it was made it feel much slower, drawing a level of anticipation from under her skin that made her bite into her lower lip to a painful degree, trying not to release a sound that would humiliate her.
Not as rooted to where he sat as she was, Shino dug his hands into the velvet below them beside her knee and hip and dragged himself to hover over her.
His mere presence was hushed and engulfing. Their height difference was slight on paper but gigantic in practice as it forced her head back, slowing her already haggard breathing further. He was suddenly able to turn off the sounds of the rain outside, but the pounding of her erratic heartbeat in her ears and ribcage increased.
Shino didn’t take the cup from her, only wrapped his hand around hers, entwining their fingers as he did so and brought it to him, his cooler skin moulding on top of hers making her squirm in her seat, with such a firm hold and show of strength that Shino pulled her with him. Practically half draping her form across him. His other arm stretched and wrapped around her trim waist to pull her the last way so she could sit, and was half dumped into his lap.
She went freely, not giving any resistance, her one free arm hanging down his back, pressing her burning forehead into his temple. Finding the skin there far chillier than hers, the same present tingle trickled over Tenten’s scalp as it had when his hand swallowed hers. Another tingling feeling traversed her flesh in delightful pricks when she felt she could feel and hear Shino take a sharp inhale, just like he had done to her, without him even knowing what he was doing.
The already burning feeling in her navel swirled and twisted, grew stronger and diminished like waves. Tenten had never seen Shino so forceful, so unaware of his surroundings, and unrestrained in how he used his strength, so taking what he wanted without worrying about the aftermath.
She couldn’t deny it. Thinking the calm, composed Shino Aburame would throw it all away from her was silently thrilling. To have her skin against his, to have her pressed against him.
Tilting his head back with the cup to his lips, Shino hid his eyes from her view again, but he gave her the exhilarating view of watching the tendons under the pale, untouched skin of his long neck tense and relax as he gulped and chewed down the only drink they had.
The sight made Tenten want to bite down on the offered flesh, stain it red with a bruise from her teeth and lips, hear the pained yet erotic noise that would come from him from it, she wondered what his sweat tasted like.
Even the shake of her head, her vision not snapping back into focus as quickly as it should have, couldn’t stop her from being able to so clearly visualise how beautiful he would look with a hickey made of her design decorating his skin. The thought side morphed into one about biting into his lip until it turned a delicious dark purple, when Shino snapped the goblet away from his lips to let a droplet of the blood red wine begin to fall down the corner of his mouth.
The crimson on his cream coloured skin was so enthralling that Tenten only blinked when her eyes stung from the strain of not doing so for so long.
It was hot. He was hot. Everything was so overwhelmingly hot she couldn’t think, could barely breathe. She didn’t remember feeling so on fire before.
Tenten closed the distance and pressed her tongue flat against his jaw right over that protruding tendon that had teased her just before. Flicking up and along the furthest streak of the drink to gather it all, leaving no drop undrunk. The sticky texture of the wine, combined with Shino’s sweat, sat marvelously on her tongue, making a satisfied hum ring out from Tenten’s throat as her eyes slid shut with no effort to block out her vision in the hopes of enhancing the collected flavours even more.
When her foggy mind paused her lips against the underside of his chin, trying to process why she had even done that, why she wanted to do it again, why she couldn’t stop herself from taking a deep inhale of his warm earthy scent that was now tinged with the honey sweetness of the drink they shared.
For a second, Tenten thought she had injured him, the way his entire body tensed. The muffled through his teeth hiss Shino gave, but before the worry could pierce through the fog, he threw aside the goblet, the crash it made distant and inaudible, grabbed her wrist that was so small in his palm and raised it to his lips to place a closed mouth kiss on the most sensitive skin she had. A move so romantic and caring and at the same time sexy, Tenten let out a gasping whimper.
Shino’s other hand slid up her neck and embedded his long, delicate fingers in the hair at the back of her head, his nails picked strands out from her hair braids as he did so, making goosebumps ripple over Tenten’s body. How could he be so assertive and hold her like she might shatter? Make her think if he removed his fingers from her skin, she would do just that?
His lips parted, a deep shade of red, and his brown eyes were somehow even darker than before. The iris completely indistinguishable from the pupil. His narrow nose and sharp cheekbones, and every expression on his face, were open, but the rest of him—his headband pulled over his hair, his chunnin jacket strapped around him—was covered in his thick, bulky green coat.
She was so uncomfortable and only in her dress, tights and boots; surely, he was even more so, sweltering, boiling from the inside. Tenten wanted to relieve him, let the air graze his untouched pale skin, hear him sigh in relief, hear him thank her for it, see his relief, live it, devour it, for herself. Her tongue swiped across her lips as if she already could.
“Take it off.”
Plugging her fingernails into the coat’s collar, she gave it a pull filled with so much power that Shino’s body gave a jolt in the same direction. The material in her closed fists was strong and sturdy. Tenten saw those same muscles in his neck flex with the pull she had admired when he drank the wine.
Another wanted grip seized her, making her left hand rise, embed itself under the blue material of his headband, and push it down and away, letting his hair free.
Shaking out his previously contained hair made its natural spikiness return, some of the longer strands gliding across her cheek and gliding down to frame his features, making him look more exotic, attractive, and hungrier for her affections than before. The few strands at his forehead that clung to the beads of sweat there, Tenten swiped away. Only she was allowed to touch him, letting her fingers trail back over his hair that felt like silk against her rough hands, along his hairline, down along his cheekbones to swipe wide-handed down his throat, watching his muscles pull and contract as she did so.
Her pathetic attempt to yank the green coat off him had resulted in only the top part to come away, not even enough to have it pool in the notch his elbows would make but enough to bore more of his neck for her to sink her teeth into, made his jaw look sharper as if she might injure herself just running her fingers along it, to see the perspiration that had been plaguing him sit on his flesh just waiting for her to lick it up and receive more of his pained aroused noises in response.
When Tenten’s fingers trailed up to sit just below his thin bottom lip, he turned to press a kiss to her fingertip, and a rush of warmth flooded the most private parts of her.
And it felt good, potent, right like she had wasted every moment of her adult life that wasn’t spent being in Shino’s lap, ripping his clothes off, receiving his kisses, running her hands through his hair, having him stare at her like she was something ethereal.
“Take it off.”
Tenten whispered her words. The opposite of her last forced demand of an order she had barked just before. She needed her hands on all of him. Parts of her that had been so blind to knowing what she needed and craved were clamouring at her now to take it. To give them both what they wanted right then.
The passing, fleeting thought nagged from somewhere deep in the back of Tenten’s brain, screaming for attention she didn’t want to give it. That she should be questioning how easy it was being where she was, draped over Shino, imagining him undressing for her, feeling her hands itching to do it herself, how adoring he looked up at her then, how comfortable she was being pressed right up against him, how he fit so well between her thighs, how it made the burning in her nerves and flesh flutter like a fan, how it gave a violent pulse when Shino strained his neck back to meet her eyes over his still intact sunglasses like he did just then.
Still, Shino shrugging out of his coat and pulling his chunnin vest over his head the next second, arms rising to be around her again, made the biceps under his black t-shirt bulge through all Tenten’s cares out of the tiny high windows above them.
Why did it matter that it was happening then and there? Didn’t it just matter that it was happening and felt so good?
His hands pushing up her white qipao dress to place themselves on her bare waist pulled a deep groan from her, then transitioned into a mew of delight when his fingers flexed, pushing up an inch higher to make themselves at home, to feel more of her. Her muscles were clenching and curling under his attention, as if Shino could connect strings to them and pluck them at his will.
A jut and move of his chin brought her lips to his, just a graze, nothing more, a slide of hers against his softer than flower petals ones, but for the shock to her system, it felt he may as well have struck her with lightning itself.
Shino didn’t kiss her immediately. Swishing his head side to side, having his fingers glide up and down her neck or have his thumb move to and fro along her jaw, as if experimenting with every miniscule change Shino could to find the optimal way to consume her for the first time, trying to find the perfect way to slot their lips together. The waiting, yearning, made Tenten whimper as her thighs and core itself clenched tight, trying to find some friction, but when he did finally, finally, firmly meet her lips with his own, nothing could stop the moan that pushed out of her mouth.
He tasted sensational. The first press and slide of his tongue over hers had every nerve she had flare to life. Her toes curled in her boots, goosebumps racing up and down her entire form. The burning that had crept over every inch of her and retreated at Shino’s affections gave a burst that fireworks would envy. Flashing and bright and raw, it made her grab his sharp jaw and pull him so close that their teeth clashed together.
She was so happy kissing him, Tenten was afraid she might let out a sob of gratitude.
This was crazy. Tenten had never done anything like this, let alone in the middle of a mission where anyone could walk in. Shino was her friend. She trusted him and knew how strong-willed he was, how loyal, how caring, and how powerful a shinobi he was. And yes, there had been a handful of times on a handful of missions where Tenten had wondered what it would be like to see him act a little freer, and even a handful of dreams where she had imagined them exchanging kisses or something more, as if they were far more than friends. Still, she never thought any of them would happen. It was not like they were right now, and certainly not as fast as they were moving, but now she couldn’t seem to stop herself, and she didn’t have the want to.
Grabbing Shino’s surprisingly tight black t-shirt by the hem and yanking it over his head, hearing a distant sounding noise over the blood thumping in her ears, that let her know she had ripped it.
Good, it should rip, as punishment for getting in her way of revealing his lightly toned upper body to her. Stopping her from having her hands on it, sliding down his soft skin with light fingertips, making him sigh or harsh fingernails, making him grunt, both sounds eliciting images of very explicit things she wanted to do to him very shortly to hear more of them.
As soon as Shino was free of it, he brought her crashing back to him, being so close her hands had nowhere to fall but those beautiful biceps she had admired, sighing as she curled her hands and let her nails make that first possessive mark on him.
This, Tenten could help but think as she sighed openly and longingly when Shino’s lips began a blazing trail up her throat, putting a balm on the fire that burned under her skin and adding too it both at once, her hands plunging into his softer than silk hair to keep him attached to her skin, that this was right.
Chapter 2
Notes:
Event & Prompt: Year of the OTP 2025 - May Prompt: “We’re dating? Since when?”
Chapter Text
She couldn’t remember falling asleep, or passing out from exhaustion, or anything else that would explain how she had lost consciousness and found herself jolting awake when the the late next morning sun beamed directly down uppon them from the high windows like a spotlight. Covered in nothing but Shino’s equally naked body, only rising to the day himself. The loud, embarrassed squeak that came out of her as she shot up and slapped her arms, over her chest as much as she could only making her feel more exposed than before because now Shino was looking right at her with a more controlled but the same amount of bewildered look.
Tenten might have laughed at his hair sticking out at wild positions and his sunglasses half sitting off his face helping to give his expression of a disturbed kitten if they hadn’t woken up the way they had.
All her memories coming back to her as a fuzzy but definately explicit blur. Not one at a time but sliding over the top of each other, moulding and melding one into the other, overlapping at times, to put all her body’s pains and questions into a heart fluttering, cheek-heating, mind-racing context.
After staring unblinkingly at each other for the longest held moment of her life, letting her eyes take in every microexpression he gave from his bruised lips to the messy way strands of his hair stuck to him, breathing as if she had run a marathon, her heartbeat thumping, her nerves and pulse pounding as if begging her to do something. She blinked. Breaking that pressing moment and something slid offer her making Tenten feel as if something had escaped her from the way Shino pushed himself into a half sitting position, removing the bulk of his mass from lying on top of her, making her shiver from the chilll it caused.
Not saying a word, they both slowly, not even meeting each other’s eyeline anymore, slower than what Tenten’s jittering hands or panicking mind needed, retracted entirely from the other. Limb by limb, moving at glacier speed, not daring to look at Shino’s face, afraid to see what he might be feeling, but unable to stop herself looking everywhere else. His bare, even then, unable to think, scrumptious form offered, knowing he could feel her eyes roam over him because she could feel him doing the same. Even when she started pulling her clothes towards her and turned her back to him as he attempted to do the same, Tenten couldn’t deny herself casting glances as she pulled her dress over her head to start getting ready to face the rest of the world.
She was almost able to see where her hands had previously been draped over his strong shoulders, or where her fingernails had embedded themselves in his flesh to hold on, or where her lips had previously been able to kiss. Like watching it all through a movie played at half speed and with the sound turned off, that allowed her mind and soul to reach out and fill in the blanks in a way that made her chest ache.
Multiple angry red marks down and over Shino’s shoulder blades from where she vividly remembered dragging her nails down his back, basking in the pained groan he let out, and the crescent moon marks dotted his narrow hips from where she had grabbed tight after his retaliation. All concealed when Shino pulled on his top, which hung baggy on his left arm because parts of the seams weren’t held together from when she had ripped it in a hurry to remove it.
Her muscles ached in ways Tenten couldn’t remember they had before, from being pushed and pulled and held and tangled into positions she’d never done, and especially not with another person's weight so intimately on top of hers as she did it.
Certain parts of her, her thighs, her hands, stung with deep cramps, from how hard her muscles had clamped down around him. Her throat pricked, and her mouth was dry as the desert from the too many to count loud as thunder moans or from harsh, unyielding pants of air she gave when he had laid his hands, his lips, his tongue on her or spoke to her in ways not even her dirtiest dreams could have guessed Shino had in him.
All brought together with the numerous finger-shaped bruises and teeth-shaped bite marks that littered the majority of her form, twisting in her seat to look over her shoulders and around her waist to confirm even more.
But of all her injuries, her core stung the most; every shift to secure her belt or stretch to grab something made the pain pulse. The pain she could handle; it was the renewed flush rising to the surface about all the memories and feelings that came with it that made her want to combust. Images were playing across her eyes, and she could feel them as she saw them.
Shino fluctuating between harsh pumps, unrelenting in his speed and brutality as he pounded her core to the polar opposite. Slowly watching her glide up and down on his cock leisurely drinking in her sounds and the display she provided doing it like he needed them to breathe.
Tenten’s mouth opened several times to try to say something - anything - if it were something helpful, that would only be a plus. Hoping that as soon as the first handful of words came out her mind would scramble to catch up and assist her, more of her praying that as soon as she made a sound, Shino would speak, his intelligence that she knew was far higher than hers would be able to calmly and gently bring them both to wade through the now muddy terrain than was now their friendship but nothing came to her. Her tongue being stuck to the roof of her mouth and unable to shift it.
Despite all her mental praying, Shino didn’t say anything either. Maybe it was her hopeful wishful mind playing tricks on her when she thought she saw his lips part before closing and repeating the same steps a minute or so later, just like she’d done.
Unable to stand the stifling silence a moment longer after she pulled on her second boot, making it the minimum to make her presentable, she suggested they leave with a vague wave towards the door. Her arm almost gave out halfway through, and she retracted to pull on her still-let-down hair instead. Even when Tenten tried to smile, the muscles around her mouth felt awkward and unnaturally pulled as she did it.
Her jaw ached. She remembered the countless kisses that had caused it, and her head dipped even further until her chin nearly met her chest.
Hidden behind her wall of let-down chocolate locks, Tenten shut her eyes tight.
She had never been this much of a coward; all she had to say was they should talk about whatever happened. Why did it still feel like her throat was glued shut?
Shino’s nod was nearly invisible, before he seemed to wrap his green coat as tightly around him as he could, like a shield, before opening the door that had been so immovable the evening before by himself.
Braiding her hair as she walked, Tenten’s practised fingers forced her clunky, uncooperative legs to slow their steps. Stalling her in the morning air, the sun warmed her from behind. Her moment of calm was quickly tossed aside by the fact that Shino didn’t even wait for her before making his way back towards the main barn, which was another way of showing just how much could change after one-
Huge mistake? Unexpected experience? Passionate night? Romantic beginnings? Even in her mind, she didn’t know what words to choose.
Placing the hair tie at the end of her braid, Tenten let out an unsteady exhale, her shoulders dropping as low as they could.
What if they never spoke again? What if he just avoided her forever? What if he was just as confused as she was and didn’t know where to start? What if his opinion of her had changed in ways she couldn’t begin to guess? What if-? What if-? What if-? It had all felt so wonderful and right that night before, and now-
Tenten summoned a kunai to twirl around her finger once, twice, three times to stop her spiralling before sealing it as quickly as it appeared.
She wanted to find a dark corner and sit in it until her mind cleared and she figured out how to react, but she was still on a mission; she needed to force herself not to fall apart until she got home, and with that flaky thought, Tenten followed.
Tenten wasn’t the most morning person that ever existed; that title, she had always thought, was squarely held by Gai and Lee, but from what she discovered entering back through the main barn door, they had been herded out of her teammates might have contestants to the title.
How did they manage to be so cheery so early in the morning after drinking so much and staying up so late? From the amount of the previous night's party that was cleared away for a long communal breakfast table, complete with every food she could think to have for such an early meal, and then some. Warm, cold, and drinks lined the table while the occupants who spanned most of the hall happily chatted, filling their plates and helping others fill theirs.
They must have been up for hours already, judging by how much the table had been used, as well as how empty some of the plates were, with only crumbs to suggest what they had previously held. The entire scene screamed that they were a very tight-knit, happy community. Tenten knew she wouldn't have thought twice about staying for the morning if her embarrassment from the night before wasn’t making her skin try to vibrate off her bones in humiliation.
She was only slightly better than their teammates. Kiba's loud wailing as he dramatically held his head in his hands with scrunched up eyes as if the lights and sounds around were too much to bear, and Choji looked somewhat green around the edges, with his hand periodically clapping over his mouth in a last-ditch attempt to stop him from throwing up. Still, they were awake and up and around, and that’s all they needed to depart.
Once again, it seemed it was up to them to thank their hosts for upholding Konohagakure’s good name before leaving.
The vineyard owner, Renelda Revognah, a forty-something-year-old woman with kind eyes and a brilliant smile, even amongst her workers, practically bounced out of her seat to approach them before Tenten had even gained her bearings, inviting them to join for breakfast.
Tenten felt the highest form of rudeness when she had to raise her voice and tell them that they had to head back to their village now that the mission was officially completed over the wave of noise that was everyone heartedly agreeing with Renelda. People moving on the benches, splitting grins on their faces, to give them places to sit.
From the corner of her eyes, with their hosts’ attention entirely on her, Tenten saw Shino taking that beat to order Choji and Kiba outside. Possibly because he was worried they were both going to either pass out or hurl right beside the population of Crimson Splash Vineyard, having their breakfast, or, possibly, the still humming with humiliation part of her thought, that he wanted to leave as soon as possible to get away from her and what undeniably happened.
The thought stung, more than she might have guessed, right behind her eyeballs, threatening to start her tears, and Tenten took a long blink of her chocolate eyes to force it down so she could deal with it later. The sooner they got home, the sooner she could hide her burning cheeks and full-feeling throat from the world, and more specifically, from Shino, and figure out how she felt about the whole thing.
“It’s such a shame you have to be going! We would have loved you to stay longer! Thank you for all your help, Mrs Aburame!”
Shino’s gaze on the back of her neck made her spine straighten until her entire back pinched. Tenten pushed out the awkward laugh that had caught in her already raw throat, preventing her from breathing, and a tiny hiccup followed. Of all the things Renelda could have said to make her and Shino’s morning even more uncomfortable, that was at the top of the list.
A quick look down and around told her she could at least be thankful Kiba and Choji weren’t within earshot to use it for a cheap laugh later.
“Oh no, I'm-we-we're not,” Tenten’s forefinger flicked back and forth between her and Shino slowly, “We're not married.”
Renelda didn’t even blink. “But you are.”
“What?” A flare of annoyance sparked to life, making her teeth grit together, but it was only created from a gnawing panic; it felt as if she was missing something, something important, something everyone else in that room knew, apart from her and Shino, from the way the locals were quickly making chopsticks pause mid-air and conversations to be abandoned mid-sentence in exchange to look their way. “No, we aren't.”
Not only the woman in front of her, but several others looked at each other confused, a few even taking it a step further and looking insulted by what she said.
“But-but you drank from the cup of new fire! You made love on the Altar of Heat!”
Tenten froze, but not before making a desperate glance back with her inflamed cheeks. From the bunched-up shoulders of Shino, who was now in her peripheral vision, she could imagine he would make the same unattractive off-guard noise if he weren’t back to his put-together self.
“How did you even know about that?!” Coming out somewhere between a screeched whisper and a low wail, Tenten's mortified question only made Renelda beam, taking Tenten’s undignified squawk as the confirmation she needed.
“So we were right! You completed the marriage ritual!”
Tenten thought she might pass out again, her entire stomach feeling as if it had fallen out of a hole in her side. “Ritual?”
Sliding around to look at Shino that time, she did so more slowly, her body reacting to the fear racing through her mind about what he would think of the whole thing. To her surprise, he appeared just as amazed by the reveal, but one step further in processing it. His jaw was not entirely on the floor, like hers was, but his lips were pressed tight, and the side of his eye that his old Genin sunglasses still didn’t quite cover was broad.
Seeing the apparent signs of amazement on Shino’s face made her feel ten times more shocked still.
The whispering and pointing their way before being offered a room the night before, the weird-tasting drink, the fancy, stage-like altar, the privacy, the heat, the heat.
“Oh.”
As quickly as she had started going over the previous evening's circumstances with a fine-tooth comb, she was brought back by the woman in front of her grabbing her hands, shaking them excitedly up and down. Tenten’s arms felt numb as they were swung about with Renelda’s overflowing happiness.
“Goddess Grapuress blesses your new union!” Just the mention of their deity had the workers of the Crimson Splash Vineyard abuzz with eager whispers, staggard hollers, and hugging each other, giving praises. Even the children were jumping up and down, laughing and giggling like they had been told they got to goof off all day instead of having to do their chores. “She is the goddess of plentiful wine harvests, warm summers, joyous festivities, and lasting marriages!”
Even as Tenten repeated the word several times in different tones, with morphing levels of squeaky-sounding panic, it still didn’t seem to register in her ears. The shapes her mouth was making and the sounds that came from her lips weren't forming the right word.
She was married? To Shino. Shino was also married to her. They were now married to each other.
Tenten was thankful that Shino could once again show that he was far more composed in nearly all situations, because when her knees gave out, her mind swirling too severely to attempt to catch herself, leaving her nothing but dead weight. Only his arms around her waist stopped her from hitting the wooden floor.
Chapter 3
Notes:
Event & Prompt: Year of the OTP 2025 - June Prompt: Relationship Reveal
NarutoRarePairEventHUB - Naruto Rarepair June
AburameWeek2025 - Day 3 Prompt: Mission
Chapter Text
Tenten thought she was going to vibrate through the floor with how badly she was twitching. The non-existent contents of her stomach because she hadn’t been able to eat anything the whole way home, knowing what had happened, what they had to report transpired, wanted to reappear, making an uncomfortable amount of bile swish around her insides.
Waiting until Kiba and Choji had left first, she closed the door behind them as quietly as possible, leaving her and Shino still in the room with an openly confused Shizune and a curious Kakashi.
She and Shino, as the team lead, stated there was something else to discuss, making both the Hokage and his assistant quickly switch back into their professional modes with neutral expressions, attentive ears and straightened spines, presuming it was to do with the mission they had just returned from and needed their diplomatic skills. Possibly to smooth over Kiba’s loud mouth or Shino’s blunt way of speaking, which had caused an unintended insult, as she knew Kakashi and Tsunade had had to do it on several occasions.
Tenten wished that were the case; it would be easier to explain, quicker, and far less awkward.
Shino told the Hokage about the ritual and its possible legal aftermath in the least descriptive, most cryptic way possible. So much so that Tenten couldn’t help but think that if she hadn’t been there, if she hadn’t lived through it, she might not even know what he was talking about. From the bewildered looks on the others’ faces, they also didn’t understand where Shino was going.
In a moment of courage, one she had to scrunch up her eyes and ball up her fists for, Tenten was forced to blurt out the rough and uncut version of what happened—having to slap her palms over her face when she started tripping over her words towards the end of her chopped together tale when she could feel both older pairs of eyes boring into her as she finished worse than ever—verbally sprinting to the end of her sentence so her mouth could snap shut with an audible click that rattled her jaw.
If someone attacked Konohagakure right then, she would be nothing short of grateful.
From how red Shizune went, when Tenten spread the fingers of her raised hands to see, never removing them from her face, Tenten could only imagine what would have happened if someone like Hinata or even Lee were in the room with them. Her friends wouldn’t have blushed and passed out; they might have exploded entirely.
Kakashi, however, hadn’t said a single thing after several wide-eyed blinks, a throat-clearing cough and an understanding noise that proved he had indeed heard her half-hysterical screech. He just sat back in his chair and closed his dark eyes, his arms folding over his chunnin vest in a controlled manner as if contemplating a business deal rather than what Tenten had just shouted all over the office.
When, after far too long for Tenten’s shredded nerves to handle, Kakashi set his elbow on the table, let his eyes slide shut, and gripped the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger in the universal sign of frustration, one big enough to encourage a migraine and Tenten prepared herself for the yelling she had thought would have come at the very beginning. The only silver lining she could scrape for was that she wouldn’t be screamed at alone.
Instead of shouting, Kakashi, in a defeated motion, dropped his hand as dead weight, not reacting to the muffled thump of his arm flopping onto the wood, looked straight at them and said in the most disappointed tone Tenten had ever heard, “You idiots.”
“We're so sorry, Sensei. We didn’t-”
“Do you know how hard this is going to be to reverse? Do you know how much paperwork I will need to do?”
“Wait,” She couldn’t help but slam her hands out, only making Kakashi look more peeved, “So it's real?”
On the journey home, Tenten had half convinced herself that maybe it was a prank or some strange joke that the villagers in the vineyard pulled on unsuspecting outsiders because entertainment was scarce.
Still, they weren’t even asked if they wanted to get married! They hadn’t signed anything, and there wasn’t anyone there to witness anything. Or maybe they had, and that’s how Renelda knew from the very beginning that they had, in her words, made love on the Altar of Heat. Tenten couldn’t help but squirm at the thought of being watched.
“It is a registered marriage ceremony in the Land of Fire,” Kakashi let the frustration he was feeling show for the first time by letting out the longest, most profound sigh, deflating him further into his seat. Both his hands came on top of the table, then tapping his fists against it, where Tsuande would have already slammed her fist straight through the desk, slitting it into more pieces than Tenten could count, “I told you not to drink when you were there, to keep your guard up-”
“We thought you meant when taking out the fire!”
Shizune and Kakashi gave her looks to silently ask if she was serious, making her teeth grit together to stop an even more embarrassing sound coming out of her than the one she just gave. As if it to rub salt in their wounds, even Tonton made a noise that sounded like the pig was making a disbelieving snort. Her hands came together behind her back this time to try and hide her pulling at her fingers, wishing she could summon a kunai to play with instead.
“But we weren’t-we didn’t-” she had nothing to defend herself with, nothing at all, “That drink made us kind of out of it.”
Her cheeks flushed, hiding in her hands once again at all the things she had done, she said, after taking it.
“That's no excuse.”
Kakashi’s exasperated tone was gone, replaced by the stern voice of the Hokage of the Land of Fire, the in-control, no-nonsense voice of the one person who held their entire career in their palm. She felt lower than one of Shino’s insects, and her frown must have been clear to see. The shaky but encouraging smile Shizune tried to shoot her only made her feel worse.
Done with her for the moment, the slight turn of his head focused his gaze directly on Shino. His eyes narrowed just enough to be seen, making Tenten want to shiver, unused to Kakashi’s icy cold gaze ever being focused on one of their own.
“You are the Aburame heir. How could you be so careless?”
Just like she knew, Shino apologised again, speaking for the first time since she took over explaining, bowing low at the waist, unlike her, not trying to give any excuse.
It wasn’t right that Shino got more blame than she did. She was there, she did the same thing he did. She was just as guilty and contributed just as much to getting them to where they were. Tenten felt the need to defend him.
“It’s not like we said we were engaged or anything-”
“There is no such thing as engaged in the Egatniv region.” She was certain she had seen Iruka give the exact same about-to-give-up expression in the classroom when he had explained the same concept multiple times to his not-listening academy students, as Kakashi gave right then, “You are single, you take part in the marriage ritual, and then you are married. One day. That’s all it takes. That’s why I told you to stay alert.”
Kakahsi’s voice rose higher as his explanation went on, and he only seemed to remember to breathe when Shizune reminded him to. Regaining his composure, he adjusted his seating position, sitting a bit straighter and forcing his hands to take on a more relaxed position as he knitted his fingers together slightly too close to be comfortable.
His next question still gave an aura of frustration, but it was more controlled.
“What about Kiba or Choji? Did they do the same? How many of these marriages am I going to have to undo?”
At least he gave her something she could answer, enjoying the breathing room it gave her.
“It was just us.”
Kakashi and Shizune seemed even more amazed by the others' not being married than they were by her and Shino's being married.
“How did they get out of it? Because if you two didn’t follow my command to avoid the wine, I doubt Kiba did.”
“They well,” Tenten was forced to pause again, chocolate eyes rolling to the at-that- precise-moment fascinating ceiling, feeling what would be her teammates shame if they were there as her own, “they drank a lot and,” her hands fell out in front of her just like the arms of those that had placed the blankets on the sleeping Kiba the night before, “passed out early on,” pouting in brief confusion she added, “At least we saw Kiba pass out and Choji wasn’t-”
“In this case, doing the monumentally stupid thing made them exceedingly lucky.”
The fresh memory of how insistent the inhabitants of the Crimson Splash Vineyard had been to try and get them to stay longer, how firm Tenten had had to be to get them to understand that they physically couldn’t stay, made an idea spark to life. Before she could, Shino asked what she was about to.
“Is that why they wished us to stay longer? So that they could-”
“Marry the other two to members of their group, most likely yes.”
Shizune addressed the room for the first time since Tenten closed the door behind their teammates, still looking and sounding dazzled by the entire reveal.
“Isn’t there, umm-” Her arms tightening around Tonton so much the pig let out an in pain low oink. “-criteria that must be met for the Egatniv region marriage ritual? I can’t remember the specifics, but-”
“Find it,” Kakashi instructed, even if Shizune had already turned to begin pulling out and searching drawers from the multitude of filing cabinets that lined the far side of the room. When he rose as well, he pointed at Tenten and Shino, and she jumped as if he were armed. The annoyed bite of his eyes was sharper than any knife she had held. “Don’t move.”
Tenten doubted she could. Her feet and stomach felt as if they were made of stone. She thought if she tried, she would merely fall face first into the carpet, only mortifying herself further.
It didn’t take them long for Shizune to raise an ordinary-looking beige folder high in the air with a triumphant remark. Kakashi, sitting back in his chair, opened it with haste and tossed a thank you to his assistant as he did.
“Okay, here we go. Did you willingly enter the room of heat without outside force being put on you?”
The people who gathered behind them had been persistent, but they had never touched either of them. They asked if they wanted to go and then merely followed. If Shino or she genuinely wanted to, they could have shoved them aside and gone the other way.
Shino had the grace to reply for both of them, her answer muffled by rubbing her hand down the side of her face, half trying to hide.
“Did you willingly share and drink the Cup of New Fire’s contents together?”
Tenten raised her hand, biting down on her finger and groaned in annoyance. That’s why there was only one cup; it was supposed to be shared. It seemed obvious now that its true purpose was laid out for them.
For the first time since they told him what had happened, Kakashi looked straight at Shino, appearing more perplexed than angry.
“Both of you? I thought Aburame couldn’t drink alcohol.”
When he revealed that he had been drinking berry juice instead of wine, the designated kids' drink, she remembered thinking that one glass wouldn’t hurt and wondering what the harm could be; she didn’t know she had ever been so wrong about anything.
“The one time you drink is the one time-”
She couldn’t even finish her joke. She doubted anyone would laugh or find it funny, even if she could.
“Did you willingly—” Shizune’s free hand came up to hide half her face against the questioning. Tenten braced herself because if Shizune could barely handle reading it over Kakashi's shoulder. Whatever he was about to say would most likely pack a punch: "Consummate the marriage in the Altar of Heat?”
They hadn’t even finished undressing before they had gotten to it, before she had held his base and sank herself on his cock, only shoving and pushing aside the bare needed clothing to have him in her. They had only removed the rest of their clothing after being together twice. The feeling of being so full made her breathing stall in her chest. Humiliated that even with everything happening, she could feel that punch of arousal attempt to start again in her abdomen at the mere memory of having Shino so intimately in her.
Tenten’s beet-red face was answer enough because the sounds that Kakashi and Shizune let out were somehow both understanding and second-hand humiliated to her ears.
At that point, Tenten was sure it was over; what else was there to ask? But Kakashi rushed on.
“The last requirement,” she saw Shizune raise Tonton in her arms to hide behind her pet, and, without meaning to, it made Tenten’s hands clasp together in front of her to try and stop them shaking at her sides. “Did you stay overnight in the Chamber of Heat?”
For that split second before Tenten opened her eyes and her brain started as she woke up, still tangled in Shino’s arms, throat dry, muscles pained, covered in bruises and teethmarks she didn’t even know were there, she remembered feeling entirely content.
When their non-answers greeted him this time, Kakashi dropped the folder, several of its pages falling out of the container to fan out over her desk, which was previously so clean and empty, devoid of mess, creating havoc like they had by dropping their bombshell.
With their final thread of hope thoroughly dashed, Kakashi’s head fell into his hands, his fists pulling at his silver hair with what looked like enough force to yank the strands right out of his skull if he truly wished.
“You idiots.”
That was it then. It was official in every way they looked at it. They were legally married.
It took several deep but quick inhales followed by the same type of exhales until Tenten found the bravery to turn the quarter anti-clockwise to look straight at her now official husband. Shino doing the same to her, turning from standing at her side to being front-facing, was a good sign, but it was the only one she could make out.
He was still wearing the replacement sunglasses she had gifted him at the vineyard, but now that he was looking straight at her, Shino’s chestnut coloured eyes were just as closed off to her as they usually were. With his straight back and neutral features, combined with his guarded position and high collar, she couldn’t begin to guess what was going through his mind. Tenten would have given her left arm to know what he was thinking.
She silently pressed her thumbnail into the side of her forefinger in self-punishment for not having the foresight to sneak a peek at his freely readable eyes when she could have.
“How are we going to explain-?”
“You will say nothing to no one.”
Snapping back around, Kakashi’s eyes were filled with a heightened mixture of exclamation and irritation. His arm straightened and elongated towards them as if to physically stop them from running out the door and shouting it from the rooftops. When no one moved for the next beat, his arm relaxed, bringing his upper half to slump over the wood.
Shizune gave a sympathetic, wide-gritted-teeth smile, even if he couldn’t see it, before patting his fluffy grey hair in a “there, there” fashion.
Proping his chin up on the wood, as if that was all the strength he had left in him, looking as annoyed as he could in the defeated position he currently lay in, the Hokage added, “I will do all the paperwork myself to undo this, and I won't involve anyone else. Let’s keep this little incident between us.”
He was furious at them, as he had every right to be, but was still going out of his way to help them, which made the guilt in her stomach twist even more.
Tenten, feeling smaller than she ever had, scrunched up her shoulders. Attempting to make herself small, she mumbled an almost inaudible “Yes, Hokage.” Her head came down between them when she heard Shino mutter the same.
Chapter 4
Notes:
Author's Notes: This is more of a "forced vacation from work together" prompt, but I'm sure I can get away with it 🤭
Event & Prompt: Year of the OTP 2025 - July Prompt: Vacation Together
Chapter Text
Sworn to secrecy and taken off missions until Kakashi was able to undo the legal side of their marriage, it was the best outcome they could have hoped for.
Their business in the Hokage Tower concluded Tenten thought it was best to leave before Kakashi had a chance to change his mind and hand out a firmer punishment so she as quickly as Tenten politely could she showered her thanks and began pulling Shino along with her towards the door half shoving him through it as she gave Shizune a more salute type movement than a goodbye wave by how stiff her joints felt letting the door slam closed behind her.
She was once again exceedingly thankful that Kiba and Choji hadn’t stuck around to ask why they had stayed behind, because the air was instantly smothering as soon as she and Shino were alone; it would be unbearably worse with Choji. Still, she imagined it would be mostly Kiba, with a smug smile and an even smugger laugh, unleashing his unfiltered questions and demands to know just what had happened to them.
After a stifled walk, the fresh outside air was heavenly on her face and in her lungs; it felt as if she hadn’t taken a true breath since they left the Hokage’s office or possibly even the vineyard.
Usually this would be where they politely say goodbye, say they would meet up later with the group, before heading off on their own but the thought of doing that like it was any other mission made her feel slimy, uncomfortable, made her hands call out for a weapon to grip tight in her grip.
Because it wasn’t an ordinary mission, she hadn’t come back from any other mission with a husband.
She had been a coward earlier; Tenten knew that, not saying a thing when they woke up. But this felt like an actual on-the-edge moment, a truly decisive second that would set in place what needed to be done to keep their future friendship from becoming uneasy and stagnant, a thing she would have to speak about in the past tense. Tenten hadn’t time to think about what the whole thing meant to her, but leaving it the way it was then, so formal, so official, so impersonal, so many things left untalked about, would their relationship survive?
When Shino started to say, what sounded to her fuzzy hearing as a rather wordy goodbye, her heart began to hammer in panic.
“Would,” the speed at which he was at her side made her heart prick with hope that he had been thinking the same. Just waiting for her to say something first, maybe he thought he was a coward too, “Would you want to get something to eat? Or, maybe, something? It feels weird just—” her wrist rolled out. Still, unfortunately, it didn’t help her thoughts move along with it. With a bite of her lip, she forced out, “-leaving.”
This wasn’t a stranger, some nobody she would willingly hide from. That once she received confirmation from Kakashi that he had dissolved their marriage, never to speak to or even think about again, it was Shino.
And even before they had gone up those stairs into that circular-shaped room with the red velvet-covered altar and the intoxicating drink, they had been talking and sharing, sitting in his personal space, happily listening to what the other had to say, as well as trusting the other with their very lives during the active part of their mission. All on top of the years they had been close friends before that.
In addition to all of those things, the most curious and deeply held part of her wanted to know what Shino thought of everything that had happened. Could he still feel her hands like she could feel his? Did that same pleasant warm lick along his skin like it did hers when he thought about the night before? Had he even allowed himself to think about it in anything more than the far too obscure version of events he had given Kakashi and Shizune in his office?
Was he as ashamed as Tenten was that he hadn’t said anything before now?
From when they quickly threw on their clothes and rushed out of that made-up wooden place to the main hall first thing, to when they didn’t speak or even look at each other the entire way home. Ending with the moment just past when she had untied her tongue first.
“I agree,” Tenten’s chest burned when she let out the air she’d been unknowingly keeping, her next inhale felt easier, the light, almost missed, reassured manner Shino had spoken in gave the anxious filled butterflies in her stomach another burst of their wings, “Please; let me pay as well.”
As if in understanding, her stomach rumbled to life, aggressively reminding her that they hadn’t had breakfast, lunch, or even a snack on their journey home; her stomach was tangled in far too many knots to begin thinking about eating.
“I’m not going to say no to a treat!”
They didn’t travel down the crowded streets for long as they looked for somewhere to eat; more merely settled on the first place they stumbled across that appeared to be serving food, rather than looking for anywhere in particular. Now that Tenten was starting to feel more in control, like the friendship between that, hadn’t been at the forefront of her life, but had definitely been a stable presence for most of her shinobi career and life as a whole, wasn’t immediately flushed away, that the worst of it that she could see over, her insides were now truly start to eat itself in retaliation for being neglected for so long.
Entering the large restaurant, one of the biggest on the main street, still mostly full from late taking-their-time lunchers, they were seen too and seated reasonably promptly and not a moment too soon in Tenten’s mind. The smells of food she didn’t even like, as they passed tables with half-eaten dishes, made the twists in her stomach turn violent in their angry demands for food, giving another sore rumble and starting to knot together in punishment.
Thankfully, the waitress that seated them took their order instantly, Tenten shamelessly ordering two sides as well as her main while also unable to stop herself from commenting how Shino was only getting a salad, only letting the waitress leave when he settled in an confused pause to take some of her sides to make it up.
Running her hand over her face, the thin layer of grime that made Tenten’s fingertips feel oily made her internally groan before she took in her appearance.
Her dress crumbled, ends of her hair sticking out of her braids at odd parts, she was even able to still smell the clinging odour of wine and smoke to her as well as the usual small amount of sweat and dirt that came from sprinting through trees and jumping head first into fist fights or, in their missions case, raging forest fires. Tenten had little doubt that the waiting staff at every food-serving place in their village had seen their shinobi clients in a worse state, ha;f pleading to be fed and watered, but it still made her slide down a little in her seat and quickly remake her braids.
They even brought a pitcher of water to the table without either of them needing to ask. Shino and she must have looked as if they were an inch from dropping; more her than him, Tenten knew without having to check.
Her hunger was making her go slightly cross-eyed, or maybe it was all the getting nowhere thinking she was doing. Usually, when she had a problem, she could throw a kunai at it, and the problem would go away. If only it were that easy.
Drinking half the water in the jug didn’t fill her at all, didn’t accomplish anything except a reason, if called upon, to give on why she hadn’t said anything. So when their food appeared, Tenten’s chopsticks were armed and ready.
The first plate had barely met the tabletop before she scooped the first wad of rice, vegetables, and meat into her willing mouth. Only slowing down in her wolfing when she realised Shino was sitting upright, like a proper restaurant patron, and eating at a restrained pace and not making a mess like she had when she had spilt sauce everywhere and not bothered to look twice at it.
In an attempt to try to both look and act more human and less like a disorganised puppy being unleashed on an all you could eat buffet Tenten as discreetly as she could rubbed her hands clean on the nearest napkin, pulled her plate down diagonally to sit on top of the previous spillage and forced herself to chew each mouthful a countable number of times from then on.
Stacking their dishes as best as they could and pushing them off to the side drew a solid line over eating time. Now that the issue of food was taken care of, there was nothing else to distract them from why they went there in the first place.
Tenten found herself rolling her chocolate eyes upwards, wishing for another burst of the strength she had earlier. The flip-flopping between being able to hold her breath and jump into saying what needed to be said was only succeeding in making her feel more agitated; her sandaled feet started to tap against the floor, creating the faintest of clicks, just like her nails did on the tabletop.
Maybe she was wrong. That this was what their future friendship would be all about. Where both of them were absorbed into nerve-burning silence. A million thoughts zooming around in their heads, but never actually saying any of it, her chest and mind feeling as if they would burst, and the slightest nudge to push her over the edge, like the last drop of water to break the dam.
Saying nothing at all felt far worse than saying the wrong thing.
Wrapping that thought around her like a hardened rope, being able to feel the rough material against her palms, Tenten mentally tugged on it. She had been brave earlier, taking the first step; she could do it just one more time.
“Should we, you know,” her hands left her glass to duck under the table and grab at her dress’s hem, clenching it in her fists, “talk about-?”
The corners of her lips pulled upwards, her facial muscles trying to push down on the want to curl her mouth in helplessness at how out of her depth she felt.
How did people like Naruto and Lee always manage to know just what to say? How did they manage to deliver grand speeches filled with heartfelt declarations and precise yet poignant words that conveyed exactly what everyone else felt or what they wanted to happen, while she always tripped and stumbled over her words, saying a lot but nothing helpful at the same time?
Her vision homed in on Shino’s fingers flexing from where his hands sat, not clasping onto his drink for dear life like she was, but with his fingertips just grazing the glass, creating a graceful-looking wave. Everything he did was so graceful.
“Yes.”
Her ears perked up at his answer, bringing her head with it. “Yeah?”
Shino agreed. He agreed they should talk; that was half the battle. That was why he had decided to eat with her in the first place. But what did she even want to say? For the third time in not even as many days, she felt like she had so many things to say, so much that it was about to flow out of her ears, so much that sat on the tip of her tongue but still wouldn’t form.
“Are you worried about it?” That was a simple place to start. Tenten's hands shifted to hold onto the sides of her seat instead, the pressure against her fingertips making her feel grounded with its solid push back that the flimsy silk material that made up her dress didn’t provide, “Or do you think it’ll-?”
“I have no doubt the Hokage will complete what he stated he would do.”
Tenten felt herself recoil, although not sure why, trying to sit back further in her seat, pressing her back so far against the backrest that her shoulder blades gave a twinge in retaliation. Shino was telling the truth.
“Are you concerned?”
His voice took on a lower, softer fashion, like a cooling, healing balm to her frayed, aching anxiety; it reminded her to breathe, that they were talking. They were supposed to be talking.
“Me? Oh, I-I just-” Tenten’s mind formed her sentence before her mouth did, making her shoulders sag, a sting at the corners of her eye, the words managing to tumble past the lump in her throat even when thinking what the opposite would bring brought to her, “I still want us to be friends.”
Her truthful admission somehow echoed around them even when the rest of the restaurant carried on like she hadn’t effortlessly thrown her heart on the table for Shino to destroy or console as he wished. Shaking the earth below her very feet, but unable to ripple any further than the edges of their table.
“I never had the same worry,” it didn’t make her nerves relax, but it did make her grip her cup tighter, her mind racing at just what he meant by that, good? Bad? Indifferent? “There was no chance of anything else; why? Because neither of us did anything wrong and our bond is far deeper than one evening we can scarcely explain,” Shino took a second to take refill his cup, pouring the clear liquid with poise that had her eyes follow, her head feeling far too light to not cling to something to keep her grounded, “You have my word; you have nothing to fear on that front.”
He said it so firmly, as if the verbal equivalent of putting his foot down, it felt like that was Shino’s overwordy way of saying they were still friends despite it all. As a relieved smile spread across Tenten’s lips, one that softened her eyes, a lick of warmth just below her right lowest rib made her sit up and swallow down her molten lava-hot breath. Just when she thought those sparks had gone, she was hit with another.
“Do you still feel the, umm, kind of heat under your skin?”
It was another question that she was practically begging for an answer to. Friends, they certainly were, no ifs or buts about it now, but she had never done what they had with any of her other friends.
She could feel her cheeks flush in a completely different form of fire than the one she was talking about.
It was far less potent now, even less than the untimeable energy that wanted to light up in the Hokage’s office and far less than when she had woken up. Just a simmer, boiling down to the occasional sting along her back or dipping along her collarbone that made her pant at the memory of Shino’s tongue in her mouth or bite her lip to stop a groan at the skin prickling at a silent call out to be held by him again tight enough to leave a telling mark to match the ones she already had.
“Heat,” Shino seemed almost to taste the term, letting it swirl in the air as the word of choice before, “Yes; that is a good word for it. Thankfully; the hum has stopped alongside it.”
That made her frown; she didn’t feel any hum. “Hum? What hum?”
His arm rose, the long hanging sleeve of his coat gliding across the table’s surface like a grand sweeping curtain as he did. The back of his palm came to rest across the grain, his fingers curling gently too and fro as if caught in a breeze.
“My hive.”
“Your hive is-? Do they not normally do that?” Her question switched so fast, her teeth clicking against each other when it reminded her of something else Kakashi had mentioned, “Wait, is that why you don’t drink?”
“Alcohol harms them; yes. I am rather surprised the wine’s creation worked on me,” it was the first thing he said that sounded as if he had needed to think about it, about what it meant. It made Tenten feel slightly guilty she was wondering what it meant for their future, in no danger for her present, when Shino was forced to wonder if the very insects that lived inside him, that he worked and lived along side, were affected by the wine just like they had been, “My hive protects me from poisons; they sense their existence and if need be break them down before they can take effect,” his fingers flexed long and pale before stretching wide as if his skin didn’t fit right, “but not this time it appears.”
When Tenten blurted out the panicked question of if that meant they were injured, if that small amount of wine, or even the scent of whatever was in that goblet, had messed his insects up so badly they couldn’t act normally, protect Shino like they had always done, that her pushing the cup at him had rendered him injured in ways she couldn’t possiblity begin to think the temporary slack in his jaw told her that Shino was taken off guard by it. She was even more shocked when he thanked her for asking before telling her that he believed they were unharmed.
That dull but still very much present warmth crawled up her chest and over her neck when she realised they’d been wordlessly staring at one another for too long to be a passing glance.
Tugging on her braid, Tenten’s forefinger curling around the wisps at the end, she asked, “So why didn’t they stop you?”
His hand raised off the table just enough to turn his palm over again, not to rest flat against the wood grain but with his fingertips raised.
“Perhaps; they knew something we did not.”
“Maybe they knew it wouldn’t hurt you? Only-”
Tenten stopped flat. The idea sounded so stupid once she said it; it made her pull her lips over her teeth, cringing at it. But Shino surprised her once again by creating a low, approving sound.
“I agree; why? Because that was my assumption as well.”
This felt good.
Taking some of the stiffness out of her shoulders, unstraining her back, letting her toes curl in her boots for a slight, relaxing stretch, allowed her body some of the freedom her mind was willing to share.
Even just knowing that when they parted, they could still talk, even if it was a little strained, with a touch of warmth still flooding her, made it easier to smile.
Her breath hitched in her chest, for a good reason this time, when it looked like, maybe it was Tenten’s imagination, staring far too intently as Shino’s nimble fingers hovered around his glass with the gentlest looking touch, while remembering when he wasn’t so delicate with his hands but when she nudged her fingers across the table, he matched the movement, the gap between their hands narrowing another inch. The side of her thumb could feel his hand so close to hers, even when they weren’t touching.
Tenten’s heart thumped up hard into her throat when she, knowingly that time, extended her thumb out towards his, and after a long, trembling beat, he did the same towards her. Maybe the wine’s grasp on her was still firmer than she thought.
A swish of long blonde hair and a loud, demanding voice accompanying it at the restaurant's entrance made Tenten’s head snap up and lean around Shino to confirm it was who it sounded like, before she froze, her harsh exhale of a curse leaving her.
It was too late to duck and cover and wait for the pair to leave and find somewhere else because Ino had already spotted them and started making a beeline for them, ignoring the same waitress who had seated them initially, who appeared to be halfway through a reply to the pair. Sakura was tagging along behind her, looking slightly more embarrassed about just stomping their way through the crowded tables, trying to hide behind her hand as she did so.
Before Tenten could think to warn Shino of what was about to happen, the pair had reached their table. Hands on her hips, Ino looked pleased with herself.
“We didn’t know you were back yet!”
“We just got-” when Ino pulled an empty chair from the table beside them, scraping it across the floor to give such a high-pitched screech they attracted annoyed looks and unimpressed scoffs. Tenten barked, “What are you doing?”
“You two don’t mind, right?” She asked without giving them time to say anything before plopping down in the seat she had just placed beside Shino, Sakura doing the same on Tenten’s side but slower with a her lips pressed tightly together and cheeks slightly puffed out that spoke volumes of how she wished she was somewhere else, “The place is crowded and we just got off a shift I’m not waiting half an hour for a table I’m starving!”
Tenten couldn't believe their rotten luck; they were starting to get somewhere!
“That doesn’t mean you can just help yourselves to our table!”
Sakura had at least the awareness to give them an apologetic grin even if she gestured to ask if she could take her discarded menu, showing that she was more than okay to commandeer both their table and, at the same time, the area around their no longer private discussion.
As peeved as Tenten was, all she could do was let out a furious huff through her nose like a bull and flippantly tell her to go ahead.
A different waiter took their food order, but just as quickly as before, although with a confused air as he glanced at Tenten and Shino’s empty dishes, and again, all Tenten could do was give a clenched reply to his unasked question that it was fine.
“It’s a good thing we ran into you,” Ino added even cheerier than before that she knew food was coming, “I meant to ask you about-hey, can I have that?”
Not only was their privacy or their table not safe, but Shino’s water glass was now up for grabs as well. Whether his permission was granted or not, because Ino didn’t wait for an answer, after her impressive three consecutive chugs that nearly emptied the glass, she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and set the glass back in front of him. He wordlessly pushed it back towards her with the pad of his forefinger.
Tenten had to close her eyes and forcefully open her hand to stop herself from summoning a weapon and slamming it into Ino’s head before she spat back a reply, “About what?”
“We need to brainstorm outfits for the wedding, of course! Remember, Tenten, you promised you would wear a dress!” While Sakura gave her an approving giggle, Tenten racked her brain to remember when she had done that, but couldn’t come up with an answer. “Who knows! There’s gonna be so many high-ranking officials and lords at this thing, Naruto’s just so popular everywhere after the war, maybe you’ll hit it off with someone super handsome or stinking rich!”
Ino’s humble brag about not needing to be on the prowl for a potential partner as her and Sai were officially together, that Sakura started laughing and teasing her about, even as a strange shadow crossed her face, was nothing but a high buzz in Tenten’s ears when straight across the table from her Shino, without a word, retracted his hands from the wood, slide them into his coats pockets and curled his back, lowering his head an inch towards his chest. The shadow from his hood cast a wider shadow over his face, hiding any microexpression Shino might be making and creating him a less imposing presence than before.
Shino was trying to recoil as much as his solid appearance would allow. Or maybe she was looking so closely to push through the second-hand dismay that enveloped her at Ino’s suggestion.
Suggesting she could find a date at their friend's upcoming wedding in front of her husband.
Tenten couldn’t think of anything to say, nothing that would both satisfy Ino and subtly remind Shino that it was nothing against him, that he didn’t do anything wrong, that they didn’t know, that even knowing all that herself, she still wanted to shut her mouth closed with a sealing tag.
“Money’s not that important.”
Sakura openly nodded along with her, and whatever Ino was about to retaliate with got cut off by their food arriving.
Tenten covered all of the conflicting emotions her body was trying to make her feel at the same time by stealing back Shino’s glass from Ino just as she reached for it and downing the rest in one giant gulp.
“Who does that?!” The words flew out of Tenten’s mouth even before the main entrance to the restaurant they had abandoned Ino and Sakura at had closed.
Summoning a collection of throwing stars for the sole purpose of being able to grit her teeth while hurling them as hard as she could, embedding them in a nearby tree, startling a napping kitten, but she was too wound up to care, “Who just invites themselves to sit at someone else's table?”
They had only started making headway, sliding into more than just the surface level of what transpired on that velvet rug before they had been so wonderfully interrupted. Leaving after the meeting with the Hokage, when she was merely worried because she didn’t know what Shino was thinking, felt wrong. Leaving when the last thing she had done was lose her cool, startle a poor defenceless cat, and curse out her friends, when they just started discussing the heat and his insects and everything else, made her feel downright terrified.
Throwing her arms behind her back, as if trying to show she wasn’t armed and wasn’t about to attack him the same way she had the now damaged tree, Tenten raced for something to say when Shino beat her to it.
“How would you feel about tea?”
Whether he meant to calm her down or was using any adaptable excuse he could to stay around her and give them a reason to talk, like she had earlier with her suggestion of lunch, she didn’t know. But whichever it was, Tenten jumped at it.
“Tea, yeah, tea’s good.” Being able to hear the desperation of her own words made her throw her hand out, pointing straight down the way they were already going, unable to even look in his direction, “I know somewhere near here!”
Thankfully, her sweet tooth had carried her all over the village, and Tenten knew just the place. One far away from where their late lunch had been interrupted, in case Ino felt like a pot of tea after her food.
This time, they sat, not at a dining table with straight-backed chairs, because of the more casual aura of the café, and the fact that it was nearly empty with lots of options. Tenten sank low into the sofa’s cushions. Letting them half wrap around her in a cotton-covered hug that made her want to sink further. When Shino sat on the couch opposite, on the other side of the low table between them, with his hands still in his pockets not relaxing into the cushions embrace like she did but stiff backed and unmoving as if he was being enveloped in quicksand and had accepted his fate the image meant Tenten couldn’t stop letting out a small giggle.
The offering of a slice of matcha cake called out to her and, combined beautifully with the green tea she ordered, brought a delighted glee to her fatigued form.
While everything Tenten ordered was green, Shino’s tea was black. She’d tried it before, as her curiosity usually got the best of her, and quickly found it was a little too sour tasting for her liking, needing to add milk and a dangerous amount of sugar to get through her cup. But as soon as he poured her a cup from her pot, he poured his own, taking a sip without making the scrunched up tongue out childish face she had made when she tasted it.
The mere thought of having to drink something that bitter and keep a straight face made her nose pucker again.
So now they were seated, tea was poured, and a layer of cream still clung to her fork from her first few bites of dessert; most importantly, they were once again undisturbed to talk freely. Where did they leave off? Tenten took hold of the first thing that she could.
“Kakashi Sensei said that you should have been more careful since you’re the heir to your clan.” She intentionally paused, rolling her cup in her fingers, the uneven surface tingling her palms, before adding in a smaller voice, “Are you going to get in trouble?”
“I believe the Hokage when he says he will handle our predicament with the utmost secrecy.”
“What if it did get out? Not that I would say anything!” Tenten rushed to add. Hands raised from the table in mock surrender, with teeth gritted so hard her jaw gave a click.
She wasn’t going to, but any good ninja knew that every wall could harbour unfriendly eyes and ears.
Unlike her, who had directly jumped to the thought of needing to defend herself, Shino didn’t move, not even a slight squirm of discomfort at her question. He just held his tea in carefully poised hands. He told her with all the certainty of the world and a soft voice that he knew that, that he never doubted her.
Taking a moment to force herself to calm down, trying to chew her latest bite while attempting to regulate her breathing through her nose as she did so, he started speaking again, sounding as unbothered as he indirectly told her he was.
“Clans can be; complicated,” Shino held his raised cup to his lip, taking a small, soundless sip, those few seconds all she needed to start tapping her dessert fork against the sponge of her cake, he added, “You would not know just how so.”
Tenten slumped further in her seat, the sofa’s cushions allowing the soft but well-worn material to almost engulf her, sliding so far that her knees hit against the wood of the low table.
It wasn’t an insult, not really, she wasn’t in a clan, she didn’t know all the twists and turns or rules they needed to follow. The way he said it was slighting or spat at her as if he thought she was beneath him, like she had been on the end of a handful of times in her shinobi career. The first being on her very first day of the Academy. A pompous Kurama clan member that had to be told off by the teacher and again when she was placed in a team with Neji when several members of the Hyuga branch family thought they were being indirectly insulted, having their most shining star put in a team with a nobody kunoichi and a boy who barely passed the exam because he couldn’t use ninjutsu or genjustu.
The way Shino said it was simply the truth, neither good nor bad.
Tenten took a slow bite of her cake, letting the soft cream and springy sponge sit on her tongue; the delightful sweetness soothed her indirectly wounded spirit as she thought back to her history classes.
From what she remembered, there were strict rules about who clan heads and heirs could and were expected to marry, particularly among ancient and noble clans like Shino’s.
High-ranking shinobi, wealthy lords or ladies or a small number of others who found themselves in critical parliamentary positions, but they were few and far between. Marriages were often influenced by the physical power, wealth, or political standing of one or both families, or a combination of these factors, and sometimes even all three.
Was that still the case? Maybe it was different now. Shino was right; she honestly had no idea.
When Shino leaned over, still retaining his cup in both hands, elbows now resting on his knees, he still managed to be far more composed, appearing than she thought she had ever looked. Tenten unconsciously tried to straighten her spine to mimic his stance before the forceful sting in her neck made her retract to her half-slumped position.
“Unlike some other clans that are still very much bound by the old ways; we are more lax about who our members choose as their life partners. I believe we always have been in that regard. We trust them to find who makes them happy; who would enrich their lives for the better; no other reason truly matters.”
That made her Tenten’s lips twitch up in a half smile, her eyes beginning to sting at the corners for a reason she couldn't quite put her finger on.
“In regards to; our; union,” their union, Tenten’s hands wrapped around her cup firmer when her fingers threatened to tremble raising them to take a drink, enough to burn her lips because she held the hot liquid to it for just a touch too long, “It would merely be the secrecy in which it happened. Rather than it being us,” Shino’s head lifted then paused for so long Tenten was forced to lift her tucked in chin to meet his gaze, as a partner would to make sure their other half was listening when they said something so from the heart they might not be able to get the words out a second time, “Rather than it being you.”
A warmth spread over her cheeks that had nothing to do with the tea she was drinking, or the remains of the vineyards wine effect washing up and over her again like a wave swirling around her naval and scorching the very air she took in and made her mind want to drift into both loved up and sweat inducing scenarios. A non existant bead of sweat slicked down her neck making her mind clamp down on when she had licked up Shino’s sweat with the flat of her tongue, even another shaky sip of her tea didn’t stop her from being able to taste it again, sharp and tangy and spread over the entire surface of it like melted candy she loved so much.
“It wasn’t a well-kept secret at the vineyard, was it?”
Her joke fell flat; Tenten’s smile vanished from her face as soon as it appeared. Suddenly, Shino wasn’t so calm. He leaned back when he had been leaning in towards her. Setting his tea down and placing his hands back in their pockets, putting space between them, when, just then, if they pushed forward another few inches, their foreheads might have touched.
Has she insulted him? Did you say the wrong thing? Her panic levels went from zero to a hundred in microseconds, her heart smashing so far up into her throat she struggled to take an inhale.
“Shino, what’s-?”
“Shino.”
A deep voice behind her rumbled through the atmosphere, not piercing but slicing down the thick air that had surrounded them from the outside world. One that, although not furious or ominous sounding, made goosebumps appear, and her spine wanted to straighten.
“Father.”
Nails embedded in the sofa’s soft cushions at Shino’s single word, the tiny scratching noise it let out in return, she could barely hear. This couldn’t be happening. Of all the people in all of Konohagakure to stumble upon them, why him? Even Gai Sensei would have been better. How much had he overheard?
Gathering all her remaining courage, Tenten set her teacup down with the smallest, most sturdiest movements she could muster, as athletic as she was, her arm muscles picked that moment not to want to cooperate, gritting her teeth, the cup made the loudest possible racket against the wood when she set it down. Quickly taking an inhale before half turning in her seat to take in Shino’s father with her own eyes.
He was tall, even taller from her seated position, creating a looming shadow that crossed over her legs and their table from the ceiling light he had placed himself in front of as if he meant to do it. It was easy to see where Shino got his natural height advantage from, as well as most of his features. Broad shoulders, spiky brown hair, an imposing but eerily silent presence, and he wore the same high, lower half of face hiding collar, attached to a fully covering beige coat, that Shino used to wear, which made reading his expression impossible. The only notable differences in their appearance, apart from his fathers darker skin tone, was that he didn’t wear the goggles that Shino had previously worn when he first became Chunnin but a modified version of the larger sunglasses that he wore now when forest fires didn’t force him to revert to his genin days replacement pair that still adorned his face.
If Shino’s dad was about to start asking questions, Tenten hoped the change in sunglasses was one. It was one of the few things they could discuss freely.
“Did you need me for-?”
“Your hive is betraying your unease at my arrival.”
That made Tenten's head snap back around to Shino, the cushions moving, causing her to throw out an arm to push herself back up. She expected his face to be drenched in nervous sweat or for his leg to be bouncing so severely that it would be visible. But, no, from the outside, he appeared as put together and unshakable as he always did.
“They can do that?” She whispered, but because no one else in their bubble, and all the conversations at the other occupied tables were also so quiet, it rang out like a church bell, indirectly confirming what his father was asking: that yes, something was making his son uneasy. Tenten only narrowly held back from smacking her fist into her skull.
“What are you attempting to hide?”
Her teeth nearly bit clean through her lip from how hard she had to bite down to stop letting out a noise that would give them away further. Shino was too honest for this; they had been sworn to secrecy about their marriage, but Tenten couldn’t imagine him outright lying to his father either. If he were anything like Shino, he could keep a secret, but that still wasn’t an option, to disobey the Hokage like that. She had to act fast. She had to do something. But what? What?
“We’re on a date!”
It was high-pitched and squeaky and shot out of her like a mouse sprinting to escape a cat’s claws, but she got the words out, her chocolate eyes widening with it. Why were those the only words her mouth could think to form?
“We’re on a date and you-you interrupted, so can we maybe be umm-!” Not being able to meet Shino’s father’s eye when he looked down at her. Not being able to meet her date’s father’s eyes fit with her made-up story, but even if she hadn’t, Tenten would have still tried to hide in her hands, as she did then, her face bursting into a self-conscious, trapped flush. At least Shino knew not to correct her, as that would have immediately undermined her credibility. “Can-can you go?”
Neither of the Aburame men said anything, and Tenten was convinced that either another world-changing lie was about to erupt from her lips or her heart would explode through her chest from how hard it was beating; she just wasn’t sure which one it would be.
“I apologise; I was unaware.” Neither was Shino until that particular cannonball exploded out of her. Tenten let out a low exhale through her nose at his words, that he seemed to have accepted her story. “In that case; I will see you at home; Shino.”
Shino told his father he would, but with what expression she had no idea, because suddenly the knots in the wood along their table had become the most amazing thing she’d ever seen, anything to take away the need to raise her head.
She remained rigid, waiting until Shino indicated the coast was clear, Tenten’s panicked hearing trying to follow Shino’s father’s practically silent footsteps across the café, before she could dare allow herself to do anything but remain a frozen, silently hyperventilating statue.
When Shino told her in a tight-sounding voice that they were alone again, Tenten dropped herself over the table to groan in defeat.
She just wanted to be uninterrupted with Shino for a few hours to talk about what happened and figure out where they stood. Was that so much to ask for?
Chapter 5
Notes:
Event & Prompt: Naruto Labour Day Minibang - Day 1 Prompt: Up To Chance
Year of the OTP 2025 - August Prompt: “You’re thinking too much”
Chapter Text
What was previously a somewhat hopeful late afternoon into early evening that allowed a long not at all rushed in depth discussion about this life changing event that had happened was now the most awkward and emotionally draining day of Tenten’s life, she was sure of it, there was no contest, even the time Lee and Gai had replaced all her tops and trousers with a version of their jumpsuits to try and convince her to try it out and it took the better part of the day filled with an endless supply of smoke coming out her ears, a bomboardment of metal weapons flying out of her hands and high speed chases around the village to get them back didn’t hold a candle to how she felt then.
Her and Shino’s conversation had just begun, left hanging between them, shoved aside not once but twice in what felt like only a few minutes, when in reality, from the lowering sun through the cafe’s large windows, it was more than a handful of hours. Even her matcha cake now tasted hard and out of date, when it had been nothing but scrumptious moments before.
With the smallest amount of communication, they paid and left, mainly in the form of her limp wrist sluggishly gesturing to them, and the money on the table.
Last time when the door closed behind them, Tenten had been filled with sharp-to-the-point rage, but now her anger, still hot, was shooting off in ways that made her feel limp and drifting into hopelessness.
“Well, that was fun.”
The sarcasm attached to her sentence was thicker than the cream that was on her previous slice of cake.
“That was not really how I-”
“Well, it was either tell him that or-you know-” her sluggish arm movements were now replaced with sharp, weapon-like chops as if she could manifest one being to put all their blame and irritation on and then able to hit them right between the eyes. But all Tenten was doing was indirectly snapping at Shino by the way she cut him off and the angry growling noise that was escaping her teeth.
She was taking out her frustrations on the wrong person; he must have been just as annoyed as she. Shino was just better at controlling it, maybe even more so, since it was his father that she had just blurted out was supposedly dating, too.
Tenten couldn’t imagine Shino lying to his dad, so she had to; the nagging question of why that was the first thing to come to her, too embarrassing to linger on.
“The other thing that we aren’t allowed to tell anyone about. I-”
“That was not an insult; why? It was a creative cover.”
Someone as intelligent as Shino complimenting her shouldn’t have made her internally beam like it did, but she felt it dulled by every other negative sensation that was still pounding around in her skull.
The whole reason Tenten had suggested getting something to eat together was to see where they both stood. With the interruptions and rushed departures, she felt more entangled in the trail of frustration the people they knew had left than she had when she had questioned their future to herself before they set foot outside the Hokage Tower.
A heavy sigh slipped out of her, one which morphed into a swallowed groan when Shino offered to walk her home.
The realisation that when she got home, Tenten could crumble to pieces or start throwing things in frustration, or just let all the emotional ups and downs of the day, as well as the slowly dulling physical aches of her and Shino’s pairing, and stomp over to her bed and pass out on it. Allowing her to forget about the outside world and everything that had happened for a few sleep-filled hours. When Shino got home, however, his father would no doubt be there, and perhaps not drill him for information like she imagined some parents would do. Still, he would ask something, and he would either need to avoid his father's questions like a fly avoiding a swatter or carry on with her blurted-out lie and wasn’t that the whole reason she told herself that she needed to come up with an excuse? To stop him needing to do that?
The thought made Tenten’s eyes and nose scrunch up in shame. Why couldn’t she come up with anything else to say? She could have said anything or nothing at all. Ever since she woke up naked in Shino’s arms, it was as if all manner of tangible speech had left her.
Her heavy-feeling feet clunked down the street as she wordlessly fell into step beside him.
They had barely reached her front door before Shino was telling her good night, already turning to leave. The way his coat flew out behind him made it almost dramatic looking, made her gut twist more, if he were on the stage like one of those over the top plays the orphanage she grew up in always made her attend with the rest of its occupants they would say it would be symbolic in some way that younger her didn’t care about.
Shino had scarcely looked at her since his father had left, combined with the fact that he hadn’t even attempted to linger like he had before, with small movements that would hardly count as footsteps, more rocking side to side as if in debate with himself that gave Tenten the time to pluck up the courage and ask him to stay. This was the exact opposite. It gave her ever-sinking stomach the awful sensation of being ditched after a bad date, as if in one of those horrible romance movies Ino always made the girls watch when she had control of the movie option for the evening, which always left Tenten rolling her eyes and the other girls in various sound levels of crying.
Was he fleeing from her? Or what happened? Was he so uneasy about leaving his father with a lie that he couldn’t stand another moment and had to clear it up? Leaving before someone else appeared and added more confusion to an already chaotic scenario that had it piled on? What if-? Maybe-?
“Is being married to me that bad?”
That wasn’t what she meant to say; that wasn’t at all what she wanted to say. What did that even mean? Tenten could taste the follow-on question of “is it?” forming in her throat, her vocal cords beginning to contract, hearing them ring out in her head before they existed in the world, and she stomped it out so hard she flinched at the pain in her tongue after her teeth had dug into it.
Now she just looked stupid. Emotional and stupid. She was lucky the street her front door was on was relatively empty or her stupidity would be pelted in even more peoples faces, more heads to turn and look in her direction as if she was loosing it just like Shino’s did only, unlike him, the imaginary strangers that occupied the avenue then were filled with mocking laughing looks and sympathetic gazes as if they knew any details of their crazily threaded scenario.
As quickly as Shino left with only a spare second to snap his head round and his eyebrows to raise into his hairline, he returned to her side, his long strides even firmer than before, as if her blurted-out nonsense question overrode anything else, as if it were even worth the time to reply to.
Tenten’s head dipped, her braid falling over her shoulder to swing like a pendulum, mocking her by showing how long she had suffocated them in that moment for. Her fingernails tapped against the door handle, her fist held in a white-knuckled grip, as a see-through excuse not to look Shino in the face when he placed himself right in front of her. The smell of the earth and the blocking of a street lamp just beyond her head came with him. She’d never notice just how slight the width of her front door was. All pretence of polite personal space was ignored to make a loud and clear statement. They were in whatever this turned out to be together.
“No; that is not. That is not what I meant. I-”
“That’s not what I meant,” Tenten spoke over him before he could get his next word out. She could hear the apology in his tone, “I know you’re not. I’m-,” she swore under her breath, “I’m so sorry, Shino.”
She was. It felt as if all the emotions she had were dialled up to eleven. Was it a lingering effect of the concoction they drank? Or maybe she was just overwhelmed with all the firsts.
Her first kiss lingered on her lips even after everything she had eaten and drunk. First sensual night with anyone, but importantly, someone Tenten respected and cared for. The first real secret she couldn’t share that sat low in her naval and high in her throat, wanting to escape. First marriage that no amount of tarot card readings could have forewarned her about.
“Just so weird to think after-you know-”
Tenten couldn’t even say it - what had happened after drinking that elixir. They hadn’t got that far into the conversation; the universe seemed hell-bent on making them drag this out.
Unable to stop herself, Tenten peered a quick look up and down the nearly deserted street for anyone they knew to appear again, just as the topic was getting good, and it was. The best, maybe even only way, if people they knew kept showing up and ruining the temperate flow into it she wanted, and her on-edge nerves wanted, was to throw themselves headlong into it; that was how Lee or Naruto got their words out. Completely different topics, but the result could be the same.
“Yes; I do know.”
Just as her voice had become higher, more of a flustered squeak sound than her normal speaking voice, his voice declined to a rumble. Maybe that’s what happened to him when the conversation turned discomfiting or perhaps it was something else entirely, maybe that’s what happened to Shino’s speech when he felt a lot of anything, he’d lowered his tone in the coffee shop too when he attempted to soothing her wounded ego when he wanted her to know being married to her because of who she was wasn’t the issue.
The recent feeling of Shino trying to look after her, reassure her, all the while pushing his concerns to the side, to be shelved for a later time to focus on her, made Tenten’s mind and body buzz, as if she were the hive, not him. Vibrating with warmth and good energy from the inside out. Her hands came together, not to pull at her fingers like before but to slide them over each other as her thoughts formed.
“Suddenly, you’re my husband.”
Her tongue flicked out against her suddenly dry lips, when she could see from how close they were now, no crowd or table to block her view of his features, that Shino took the deepest, most rushed inhale she’d ever seen. As if trying to taste her words, commit the flavour of them to memory.
“Husband.”
It sounded strange when she said it, but when Shino said the word, it sounded several levels of absurd. Still, on the other side of the same coin, he managed to wrap the word in layers of pride, amazement, even a hint of affection that made her heart give a leap around her chest like an excitable rabbit.
“It’s so weird to say,” the muttered honest confession made Shino’s features retract in an almost missable, pained manner. She rushed on, “Not in a bad way! Just in my mouth isn’t used to making the word or something.”
She was making it worse; there was no doubt about it. Tenten didn’t think she had ever seen Shino so expressive. On most people, it would look like nothing at all, but the tiny eyebrow raise or puckering of his eyes around the too-small lenses of his glasses or hardening of his jaw for barely a split second shouted volumes.
A rushed but whispered question of whether it was weird to hear came out of her.
“Yes; but it,” just like her, he paused to collect himself, his neck giving a pull to the side that gravitated her eyes to it, “It is not; unpleasant.”
Not unpleasant, that was probably anybody else's way of saying ‘nice’. She could live with that, and the way Shino said it, that strained pattern that made his tendons tense, gave the story that he wanted to say something else, but wanting to be a respectful gentleman, won out. It only made it fit even more snugly around her, like a draped shawl.
“Husband.”
“Your husband.”
“Yeah.”
She didn’t mean to give a breathy sigh of a word as her agreement, but she did, feeling a tad lightheaded as Tenten did so, as some giddiness swirled and floated up her insides, making her feel an intoxicated version of light and swirly.
Maybe it was the thought, the confirmation, that he was hers. Her husband, her partner. All those positive qualities that Shino shone with, including loyalty, inner strength, and a noble upbringing, as well as that incredible, calm intelligence that many admired and relied on, especially during missions, including her. As well as all the qualities that everyone seemed to have overlooked entirely.
His piercing stare from those chestnut brown hidden eyes, that spiky hair of the same colour that in recent years he kept contained within his extended headband, but that she had previously felt its silkiness between her damaged fingers. How forceful he could be when he was usually so reserved and polite, and how earth-shattering it could feel to have all of that energy directed solely on making her feel good. How dark and sultry Shino’s voice could become, given the right surroundings and driving force, or how overwhelming it would be for him to give everything he had to wanting to hold, fondle, kiss her until they both dropped.
And for a time, they all belonged to her.
Tenten was forced to close her eyes as a swirling, harsh hunger threatened to overtake her, getting a little too lost in her fantasy of someone like Shino being hers to keep.
Leaning her side against her doorframe to keep her upright, the ridges in the light-shaded wood pressing against her arm and hip were just uncomfortable enough to take her out of it.
This was all going to go away soon; she could let herself indulge for a little while, couldn’t she? As long as Shino was okay with what that devious sensation that curled at the base of her neck and behind her navel wanted. Tenten wet her lips. There was only one way to find out.
“Can you-can you call me your wife?” Her boldness nearly failed her, but through heated cheeks and a timid, teeth-filled smile, she pushed through, “I wanna know what it sounds like. Just once.”
There was no laugh, no snort, not even an indignant inhale at her expense and her desperation to not make a fool out of herself rushed to take that as a good sign. His thin lips parted, closed for another countable second, before finally making a sound.
“Tenten,” a delighted shiver spread out from her back, straightening her spine and curling her toes at her name sounding like that gravelly delirious prayer he made it sound like just then. His voice was truly the most hypnotising song she had ever heard when it sank like it had too many times to count since that first inhale of the wine’s fumes, “My wife.”
Shino’s words carried an air of tremor in them that strummed along her nerves as if he were pulling a well-strummed bow over her form. That poured down her like heated water being dripped over her after stepping in from the cold.
A happy-sounding puff of air came out of Tenten’s nose with her lip-bitten grin.
“Sounds kind of nice.”
A pleasant pause sat between them, one she could have sat in for a few moments more, just basking in its solace, before Shino asked, moulding back into his normal speaking tone, “Have you ever humoured the idea of getting married?”
The very real open question made her delight simmer comfortably as Tenten thought, adjusting her side against the doorframe, swivelling on the ball of her left foot that pressed her hair bun against the wall beside her before returning her to where she started. The coolness radiating from the wall and the light blast of air her body swish created flowed over her face, invigorating her and her thoughts.
He was probably drawing from Sasuke’s rather loud, unavoidable fan club back in the Academy. Loudly declaring to each other that they were the one Sasuke was going to marry. She wasn’t even in their year, but they were still noisy enough that everyone in the Academy building had heard the yelling fights between the girls about it.
“I didn’t ever really think about it. I guess it was one of those things that if it didn’t happen, I would be okay, but if it did that would be okay too,” peeking up at him through her sweeping chocolate fringe, an easy, relaxed feeling made her eyebrows raise and a teasing grin added, “If the right person came along I mean.”
Her smile widened when she could spot a small one of his own appear.
“Yes; that is very important.”
She couldn’t help but ask the same question back; they were on the topic after all, and his last sentence felt like it held some weight to it that her tongue couldn’t mimic. “What about you? Being a clan heir and all, it must have crossed your mind.”
“It has,” Tenten forcefully didn’t openly react to the one off thump her heart gave, a dream filled moment before something ugly twisted itself around it in the air, something in Shino’s demeanour and tone, something that seemed to want to drag him down, kicking in her ready-to-fight response, “But I truly believed my marriage would be an arranged one.”
Her eyebrows scrunched up at that. Her shoulder lowered as if poising herself to attack when there was no target.
“But you said your clan didn’t do that.”
What made Shino think like that? That he was so unworthy or undesirable. That was the only way he could get married, to be sold off like one of the high ladies or clan heads of old.
“Not forcefully; no; however,” Shino’s voice grew even darker, the tonal equivalent of dark clouds rolling over a previously clear sky. Tenten could almost feel the chilling rain beginning to drop down, attempting to freeze her from the outside in. Just like at their table when Ino mentioned that Tenten could find a potential partner at Naruto and Hinata’s wedding, he visibly deflated, “There are few people who enter into a marriage with a living hive willingly.”
“Is that really what you-?”
The understanding gloom that shifted onto his expression told her yes. He did. That’s precisely what he thought.
“I married you.”
Her voice was smaller and less firm than she meant it to sound. More of a childish whine than the comforting truth she was aiming for. The corner of his mouth twitching wasn’t in humour.
“That is true; however; that was not voluntary.”
Her eyes drifted down heavily in unwilling defeat. She couldn’t argue that.
Gaze down, Tenten habitually scanned what was previously below her field of vision. The length of his sleeves, combined with him almost always having his hands in his deep pockets, covered all of his snow-pale skin.
How did he do anything with his hands mostly covered all day? The idea of restricting himself like that was ridiculously unnecessary to her. The idea of her aim, whether with a punch or a kunai, being hindered by her clothing was one of the reasons Tenten had always opted for sleeves no longer than her elbow. It was a visual show of the differences in their combat style. Where she jumped and threw out her arms, getting right up close to the action, he calmly stood back and out of the way, completely trusting that his released hive would both defeat the enemy in front of him and guard his back.
Reaching out, slowly, with only her first fingers stretched out, her other two curled into her palm tight, breath caught in her throat for just long enough to outstretch her arm, just another few inches to be able to embed them in that same sleeve she had been visually taking in. The material was even thicker and stiffer than she first thought it would be.
Shino’s head dipped to watch her, the shadows cast from the hood of his coat shifting where they fell with it, not leaning in or away, only curiously following what she did.
When he, even slower than she had moved, removed his hand from his pocket, the bulky fabric sliding through Tenten’s fingers when she loosened her grip to allow him to move, Shino releasing it from his comfindeds, the fabric bunching in the crook of his elbow as he held it aloft as if awaiting further instructions.
With a silent swallow, her hand came down to slide over the offered palm of his hand, his fingers uncurling like a flower opens its petals to the sun as her graze passed them one by one. Allowing her to coil those extended fingers around his counterparts, mimicking the pose they were instilled with to take after those first sessions of taijutsu practice. Now that they were older, it carried a completely different meaning than it had when they were younger.
They had finally gathered the bravery to hold hands after throwing themselves at each other the night before, and she couldn’t stop a tight-lipped smile at her thought.
“Your fingers are so soft but a little colder than befo-,” her last word cut off by both her slipped tone and biting into her already abused lip.
The memory of Shino’s hands on her, grabbing her waist, gliding down the side of her neck, his thumb pressing upwards into the bottom of her jaw to force her head up and kiss him deeply when she dared stop to breathe. When he had laid his hands on her before, it felt like the sun burning and melting and brilliantly moulding her back into form all at once. The recollection alone danced over her skin, making Tenten’s fingers grip on his tightened a fraction, but he did not indicate that he minded.
“You are still hot.” The smooth skin on the pad of his thumb moved along the side of her finger, leaving a path of delightful chill behind him. Would it always be like this when he caressed her? His naturally cooler temperature setting her alive with delightful goosebumps, “Like a Grayling mid-dorsal basking.”
The haziness of the memories she was letting herself swim in fizzled as her chocolate eyes blinked them away. A what? What did he compare her to?
“Like a what?”
“A Grayling. It is a species of butterfly,” Shino answered, his thumb rubbing across her skin again, making her self-conscious.
Her burn, scarred and callus-covered fingers from years of playing and practising with every weapon in her arsenal that had cutting, sharp edges or was designed to set fire to its target weren’t pretty or dainty in any stretch of the word. Still, Tenten forced herself not to retreat from his delicate embrace. That wasn’t what she wanted, and it certainly wasn’t what she wanted Shino to think.
“To heat itself it exposes as much of itself as it can to the sun; taking its rays and absorbing the heat for itself.”
His words were stating facts, directed at her. Still, his gaze seemed fixated on their interwoven hands as he slid further down to flex around all her fingers now. Not just her pointed and middle ones. Shino’s hold was soft and smile-inducing, like the peaceful touch of one of the butterflies he was describing. Even as his much larger hand engulfed hers, it brought with it a feeling of quiet security, not one of foreboding or fear. Tenten was dazed still, both mind and body refusing to move, as if it would shake her awake, break whatever spell Shino had cast on himself and force him to release her.
“But as much as you share that trait; I cannot imagine you as a Grayling. Graylings are by their very name dark coloured.”
If Tenten were sitting, she would be on the edge of her seat. Her heart was expanding so completely in her chest that it was cutting off airflow; Shino’s sentence hanging on a hook that had yanked and held her in. Why was he stalling? She had never needed to know something as badly as what Shino’s following sentence was going to be.
Lifting his head in such a way that a glimpse of those chestnut eyes was exposed to her, looking dark from the hood's shadows or his own words or the way that he seemed to be able to sense that Tenten was staring so intently at him or maybe all three.
“You would be bright; eye-catching; one of a kind. An entomologist's dream find.”
Tenten forced herself to swallow, unable to do anything else. It was the single most romantic, almost erotic, compliment she had ever heard, that had ever been lathered on her more intensely than if he had raised his free hand and caressed it down her quivering throat.
With the tingles of Shino’s entrancing speech still reaching around and up her neck, she spoke, low and tender-sounding.
“Do you want to come i-?”
“Hey, Shino! Tenten! What’s up?”
Kiba, with a great big smile, and Akamaru at his heels, materialised at their side out of nowhere. A lot more put together, less groggy, and less working off a hangover, as he had appeared departed the Hokage Tower looking that way that morning.
Their hands’ embrace didn’t snap apart, but glided down like a feather without a breeze, and just far enough away that the reflexive stretch of her fingers couldn’t feel his anymore. As if the electricity in the very air had been charged to keep them together, and now that the energy had departed, it took the strength in her fingers with it. Leaving her empty and unhappily confused.
Why couldn’t her fingers retake his? It was still there, hand open, as if waiting for her to come back to him, unable to process what had happened. Still, when Tenten tried, it was as if her hand was unwilling to respond. A treacherous reminder from somewhere far away that she and Shino were supposed to be hiding. Her confusion slid quickly into vexation at being interrupted yet again at a flash.
“Kiba!” His name came out like a hiss through her clenched teeth, her heart hammering so hard it threatened to break her ribs from almost getting caught for the third, third time that day. How long had he even been standing there for? “Why are you here?!”
The confused look he gave in reply to her might have been comical if she hadn’t been so caught off guard.
“You mean on the street?” Tenten had to physically stop her neck from turning to confirm they were still standing on the public road. It felt as if the world had shrunk to just outside her front door only a few moments ago, but from the blast of chilly air that suddenly wanted to turn her into an icicle, Tenten had no idea how long they had been standing there. Even a glance upwards showed the sky had started to turn a far darker shade of blue than she remembered walking home under.
It didn’t take Kiba long to bounce back, a light grin showing off his extended canines.
“Taking Akamaru for a walk! Can’t sleep without his nightly walk, can you, boy?”
“Arf!”
Akamaru seemed to quickly decide that standing still wasn’t what he wanted to do anymore. The dog, with a loud bark and a bounce on the spot, ran off down the street. Tail wagging and giant leaps, shaking the earth beneath them.
“Well, goodnight, Tenten! I'd better head on or mum’ll give me hell. Hey, come on, Shino, I’ll walk ya! You’re going our way, right?”
“No; why? Because-”
“Hurry up or we’ll lose-hey Akamaru! Don’t run off!”
As Kiba dug his claw into Shino’s hanging coat sleeve, yanking him away and down the street with impressive force, several large clouds of dust kicked up from where Shino pressed his sandals into the earth to try and stay where he was.
Kiba, almost impressively so, ignored the signs Shino wanted to remain with her on Tenten’s doorstep, and that Tenten herself had grabbed Shino’s hand once more to keep him with her, her panic kicking aside that caution rule-abiding voice. All Kiba’s focus was purely on the happily bouncing away dog as he sprinted after his partner, yelling for him to slow down. Shino was flying behind him like an unwilling living flag, out of sight in a snap. Only the ever-present smell of the earthy forest and the fading warmth that he had enveloped her hand in drifted slowly into the air, lingering from where Shino had previously hovered.
It would only create more questions if she ran off after them. That same tiny unwanted voice from before reminded her once again, not chased off completely, as Tenten recovered her footing from nearly being hauled off as well.
Tenten slipped against her door with an unrestrained, angry pout, sitting on her front step, not having the energy to care about who might see her now—the day had knocked her back one too many times to keep her standing.
It was hard not to think the entire world was truly out to separate them.
Chapter 6
Notes:
Event & Prompt: Naruto Labour Day Minibang - Day 5 Prompt: Any AU
Year of the OTP 2025 - September Prompt: “Come here”
Chapter Text
With everything that had happened, Tenten had almost forgotten about Naruto and Hinata’s wedding. The most significant event since the war being just around the corner. Being violently reminded off it when an ANBU member in a rabbit mask appeared at her window to tell her all shinobi were to report to the Hokage Tower to hear an important update about the wedding day interrupted by Gai and Lee leaping up to them.
Her Sensei was still in his wheelchair, the shadow of them all blocking out the late morning sun, before seizing an arm each and shouting over each other. A hacked version of what was already calmly explained to her, and dragging her over the window's balcony railing. It was only due to the elite skills one would expect from the ANBU that they avoided getting Tenten’s sandaled foot slammed into their gut at her knee-jerk reaction to try and break free when her teammates grabbed her, already yelling for them to put her down.
How Kakashi managed to spread the word without Hinata or Naruto finding out must have taken the stealthiest ANBU agents he had at his disposal, especially impressive given how loud some of the summoned shinobi were walking down the streets or running over rooftops towards their destination.
When they arrived, practically squeezing through the jammed wide double doors, the crowd in the ground floor general purpose hall was already bursting with people, some Tenten recognised, some she didn’t, all looking as interested in what Kakashi had to say as she was.
Her neck bent every which way, standing on her tiptoes and crouching low for that familiar green hooded coat, if her team and everyone else had been summoned, surely Shino would be there as well?
She quickly found that he was indeed there, but that he had been forced to veer left, where they had gone right after being able to enter. Just like her team, which had come to collect her, a happily talking Kiba was leading Shino, with an equally merry Akamaru at his side; the dog barking at his owner's side.
The next second, Shino was looking directly at Tenten. He seemed to want to speak to her too, from the way she could see him take a few steps in her direction before having to pull back at a particularly large group of Jonin pushing their way into the hall right in his path, unable to stop a smile spreading across her face when he met her eyeline once more. Tenten could see now that his lips were pressed together in a thin line of annoyance.
Knowing that Shino was openly irritated at not being able to get to her made happy tingling caress their way back. Another, even stronger one, that felt like a direct electric zap right in her chest, was when, with a tilt of his head, forcing his upright hood to slide back an inch or two, he showed that he hadn’t replaced the sunglasses she had given him the previous day with his regular pair.
Tenten pointed back towards the door, where an uncountable number of people were still pouring in from, and mouthing the word “after”, trying to indicate from halfway across the hall that once Kakashi was done with his notification, they would somehow get away from everyone they knew.
He gave a deeper nod than usual, one that would allow her to see his confirmation from so far away just before Kiba threw his arm around him, seeming not to have noticed Shino had stopped listening to him a short while before and yanking him down a head's worth of height while pumping his other fist in the air. Akamaru gave another booming woof at his owner's determination to conquer whatever was coming their way. Whatever Kiba thought Kakashi was going to say had him pumped in anticipation.
She would make sure to ask Shino what he said later.
Her relief was short-lived; any hopes of being able to wrap this up easily and swiftly, leaving them free to catch a private word, were dashed when Kakashi made his announcement. She wasn’t prepared for what he revealed, and from the sounds of the questions and even mild resentment, neither had anyone else.
Tenten hadn’t had a spare second to consider what Kakashi could be wanting to declare, but judging wedding presents? Like a contest or some kind of tournament?
Lee and Gai jumped at the chance, at any opportunity to prove themselves, even if it was one as pulled out of thin air as the one they were just thrown into and made no sense to anyone. There were a few other excited yells or noisy declarations of excitement, but most others were either silent or mumbling within their own circles.
The crowd was so caught up in their discussions of what the point of adding this strange new twist to two of their favourite people's wedding could be about or achieve that Kakashi needed to dismiss the crowd twice and leave the area himself before people, still grumbling and gawking, started to file out the way they came.
Not as one mind but with the smallest amount of reaching through the sea of bodies and clutching one another or in Lee and Kiba’s cases shouting across the crowd, and from the way the people around him flinched and rubbed their ears potentially harming others hearing in the process, their entire friend group, minus the soon to be bride and groom, managed to make their way into a small mostly unused side street not far from the Hokage Tower. One that gave a sensation of being secure from prying eyes from the tall wall of businesses that encircled it, and the lack of foot traffic it had.
“I can’t believe it,” Shikamaru asked before muttering his catchphrase under his breath, his posture slumping, his hands lazily finding his pockets, making him appear even more bothered than before, “What is Kakashi Sensei turning wedding gift shopping into a mission for?” Several of the others nodded or gave noncommittal murmurs to agree with his query, directed at no one in particular. “What does he even mean he’s going to judge them? What does he know about wedding gifts?”
Tenten found herself giving a sly grin. It was in the genius’s nature to make inquiries, and she could almost hear the gears in his brain beginning to turn to figure out the why.
“So a mission to find a wedding present, huh?” Kiba concluded, still sounding determined.
“That’s right, we’ve never had a wedding celebration like this before.”
Choji’s casual sentence made Tenten’s smile waver, something slimy appearing behind her ribs from it.
“Naruto and Hinata are the first ones among our group of friends to get married after all!”
Sakura’s jovial addition wiped any remaining cheer off her face, a sharp ripping sensation slamming into her; the slithering snake from just before had now been stabbed with a knife through her side to get to it.
Tenten found herself weighed down where she stood, a chill in her blood making her shiver even as she stood in the full sun. Eyes drawn to Shino to find him already looking right at her. His eyebrows slightly raised and mouth only slightly ajar would have been the equivalent of Lee screaming the village down.
Ino said something back to Sakura, both of them smiling at the picture of getting their friends the perfect present, but the words didn’t reach Tenten’s ears; sounding like static from an old television set instead, not even the deafening exclaimations from Lee were able to penetrate the temporary panic-created fog that had muffled her hearing.
Choji was sadly right; there had been no celebration for them, but Sakura was wrong. So completely wrong. Their marriage was first. They were the first in their group to get married, even if not even a handful of Konohagakure residents knew about it.
Her stomach turned because of the thought. Tenten didn’t know if she was over the moon ecstatic about marrying Shino the way they had, but she wasn’t sad about it either. Maybe the idea of all her friends getting as happy about her and Shino as they were for Naruto and Hinata was nice, perhaps they would even pull together to organise some small ceremony to make it official. She could even meet Shino’s father and the rest of his family in a more controlled, comfortable way than before.
A verging-on-angry scoff fell from Tenten’s lips.
But that was a pointless daydream. In a few days, it would all be over.
It was right then that the realisation of it coming to an end made her feel like she wanted to fall down and never get up again, a bitter emptiness that plunged down her spine and enveloped her insides with a single harsh bite.
That was what Tenten was supposed to want, right? For it to be filed away like any other kind of paperwork and pretend it hadn’t existed, but could she?
To be secure in the fact that she would never have Shino’s jaw in her hands as he kissed the air out of her lungs again. Never to feel his ethereally soft skin against hers as he held her, as he had when they lingered at her front door. To sit just the two of them, sharing whatever came to mind, and feeling both safer and freer simultaneously. Or to never again hear him call her his wife or see the way his breath stalled when Tenten said he was her husband.
To have their marriage disappear as secretly as it appeared in the first place. Brushed aside like a disgraced casualty, stroked through with a few of Kakashi’s pen strokes like a poorly worded trade deal. To have it be a memory between them that was never spoken about, to keep it from everyone they knew and cared about as if it were something vile that didn’t deserve to see the light of day.
Would they ever talk about it again? Would it only become something they could see the other thinking about, but not discuss, and all those emotions that came with it, like Tenten had feared before? Or would they casually bring it up on a day when they were all gathered for dinner or a training session, to which all their friends' jaws would drop and their eyes would go wide before spluttering and demanding the details. Laughing it off like a passing joke, the wind caught and carried off, light and insignificant, and not at all impacting their lives. Or perhaps between each other as a private tale.
Their intimate night in that vineyard in that made up a towering building; was she supposed to forget about that, too?
Supposed to act as if her first time being physically bathed in someones else so entirely, being thrown into a state of Shino’s attentions being so much Tenten couldn’t breathe but needing more, to hear someone as restrained as Shino loosing all that to lather her in every affection his gorgeous body could give her and feel the wonder and thrill and that light jab of power that came with it.
Fake her feelings as if it wasn’t a good memory, no matter how it came about? Because it was.
Every recollection and sensation from that night still made Tenten’s heart rate pick up and her cheeks burn, and not from shame. She’d also thought about it too many times to count, and was even a little sad that the bruises and bites he’d left on her had now all but gone after only a few days. The last physical remnants that it had happened at all, and proved her mind wasn’t playing tricks on her.
With every thought that swam in and out of focus, her gaze remained fixed on Shino’s handsome face.
The twitch at the corners of his thin lips, the muscles of his face pushed and pulled in a way that was so small, anyone not watching him as closely as she was would deny they were ever there. The way his forest green coat shifted when his shoulders squared high and broad as if against an invisible enemy.
How many little things had she glimpsed about Shino in such a short amount of time? Being able to make out all those micromovements, to feel like she knew what they meant, made Tenten want always to see them, to find more of them, to hear them from him and discover them herself. Would these new insights that were now so clear vanish at the same time she lost Shino’s last name?
She didn’t know what she felt. She felt everything all at once, unable to pick apart one thing from another. She wanted to talk about it. She wanted to discuss it with him. And most importantly, she wanted everyone and the whole world to go away while she did it.
Not wanting to draw awareness to them, Tenten mouthed the words to tell him to come to her. With everyone talking, or more accurately shouting, over themselves now about what kind of gift to get Naruto and Hinata, about what the mission side of it could mean, maybe she and Shino could make their excuses and leave just the two of them, like they tried to plan earlier.
In a perfect impression of what Tenten imagined a mind-reading Yamamnaka would do, hearing her thoughts to take Shino and escape and wanting to stop her in her tracks, Kiba jumped on Shino as soon as he took his first step. Where others would throw their arms and legs out and flail to keep their balance, Shino seemed to curl further into his coat in an impression of a giant green beetle.
“Come on, Shino, hurry up! We’ve got a gift to find!” Kiba gave a particularly hard pull when Shino tried to get out of his grasp. It looked like Kiba was about to rip straight through Shino’s coat with his nails if he didn’t give in that second. “Let’s go visit Kurenai, she might have an idea!”
As Tenten had the thought of just capturing Shino herself and running, Akamaru stepped in to help his owner. With the gigantic dog's help, Kiba was able to manhandle Shino out of the group's meetup zone and out of sight completely, just as a few others in their group began to disperse as well. Apparently, all their friends had come to some sort of understanding while she and Shino had been caught up in their own thoughts.
Light taps against her skin made her look down. A tiny black beetle had landed on the back of her outstretched hand, not staying still but calmly making its way up and over her skin, moving as far as to encircle her wrist before she watched it fly off in the same direction she had just been watching.
Maybe it was one from Shino’s hive. As if instructed to try and leave an invisible impression on her flesh, only Shino would be able to detect, and find a way back to her later.
An annoyed childish whine made its way up Tenten’s throat even as Lee enthusiastically zoomed right in front of her, fire in his eyes and both hands fisted and ready for action, before catching her wrist and, copying Kiba’s moves, started lugging her in the opposite direction.
Glancing back the way Kiba had dragged Shino off, Tenten let out a scoff, the sound covered by her and Lee’s pounding footsteps and her best friend talking so fast he was in trouble of breaking the sound barrier if he continued.
Part of her couldn’t help but think Kiba’s head must have been the thickest material in the village. That was the second time he had split them apart in as many days. If she threw a kunai at his dense head, would he even feel it?
yoritsune on Chapter 1 Fri 30 May 2025 02:58PM UTC
Comment Actions
SpellCasterLight on Chapter 1 Mon 02 Jun 2025 12:30PM UTC
Comment Actions
NekonoHi on Chapter 1 Wed 09 Jul 2025 12:04AM UTC
Comment Actions
SpellCasterLight on Chapter 1 Wed 09 Jul 2025 12:26PM UTC
Comment Actions
BishPlzz on Chapter 2 Mon 02 Jun 2025 06:12AM UTC
Comment Actions
SpellCasterLight on Chapter 2 Mon 02 Jun 2025 12:31PM UTC
Comment Actions
Sharydann on Chapter 3 Mon 07 Jul 2025 03:32PM UTC
Comment Actions
SpellCasterLight on Chapter 3 Tue 08 Jul 2025 10:53AM UTC
Comment Actions
Sharydann on Chapter 5 Thu 28 Aug 2025 06:39PM UTC
Comment Actions
SpellCasterLight on Chapter 5 Mon 01 Sep 2025 03:37PM UTC
Comment Actions
Sharydann on Chapter 5 Mon 01 Sep 2025 05:00PM UTC
Comment Actions
SpellCasterLight on Chapter 5 Wed 03 Sep 2025 09:30AM UTC
Comment Actions