Eight

Earthenware

Sometimes there was a comfort in knowing that nothing changed.

Because when nothing changed, there was no need for adjustment or learning or trying to figure out what to do, and there was that awareness that there wasn't anything to do. That there wasn't anything to expect.

So a couple weeks after his return when Shino still tended to the colonies in the rafters and tended to keep to himself and studied up on medical texts in his free time, Shibi was relieved to see that at least that much had stayed the same. But once when he'd come home after a clan head meeting and spotted his son dissecting a few insects on the kitchen counter by the sink, the boy's sleeves had been pushed up to his elbows and his glasses were set somewhere off to the side.

"I'll only be another hour or so," Shino started, not turning away from whatever project he was working on this time. The tweezers in his left hand were polished and silver and the scalpel blade was flecked with exoskeleton. "A handful of kikai had reached the end of their lifespans and there's something I need to confirm about their anatomy."

When Shibi didn't reply, Shino glanced up at his father.

It took him a few moments to realize what he was staring at.

"... Ah." Shino set down his tools and tugged his sleeves back over his arms, covering up dark bands and the criss-cross of white scars that left no centimeter of his forearms untouched. "They're nothing."

"What are they from? The... scars?" Shibi's brow crinkled. He didn't have to ask about the tattoos, not when they were so glaringly made to be a symbol of captivity. "How—Who gave them to you?"

There was no way to tell him that the scars were products of his own two hands. That sitting in a cement block with nothing to do got to you, eventually, and it was a dangerous partner to the constant thrumming in the back of your head to get betterbetterbetter before you end up dead, so when he forced his fingers to burn with cutting chakra and sliced all the skin he could so that he could better learn to heal them, all he could think of was how one day he'd make himself into a medic that could rival the Senju Tsunade.

He couldn't tell Shibi that he saw nothing wrong with the way he practiced.

He couldn't tell his father that scars taught him more than Konoha could.

"It was my own fault," Shino settled with as he turned back to his dissection. "I'd gotten careless."

Shibi turned and opened one of the junk drawers nearby, hiding the small frown on his face. He knew that was the best answer he'd ever get and even the most subtle of prodding would only get him a muted reception in turn, so he stared down at the notepads and dulled pencils and cap pens, and thinks.

There were also a few other things that hadn't changed about Shino ever since his return. He still stayed in the company of his team whenever he was out in the village, still trained to exhaustion whenever he spent a day on the fields. He still walked in shadows and sat in corners, always said nothing was wrong when obviously something was.

He still never comes home.

Shibi closed the drawer and pressed a few fingers against his forehead.

He should have expected that, at the very least. Shino had only stayed two nights at the clan complex before he'd taken a pack and a duffel to what he'd assumed was Sakura's apartment and had been staying over since. Every now and again he'd come by to pick up a book and tend to the colonies or stay for the odd dinner, but at the end of the day it was only a visit and his son would always be gone by the time the lamp lights flickered over the streets.