( My entry for the Shino/TenTen Fanclub's Winter Fanfiction Contest on Naruto Forums. )

「 Smitten 」

It was raining, and mommy and daddy were fighting again.

Fuyu gazed with small, dark eyes through the cracked kitchen door, watching her parents in the living room. Well, mostly her mother. Her father she couldn't see, but Fuyu knew he was sitting in the cushiony grey arm chair he loved to read the newspaper in. Her mother was walking back and forth in front of it, hands flying to her brown hair, then spreading wide, then slashing the air in front of her, then repeating the process. Her mouth framed by pink lips moved endlessly up and down. Her voice, usually sunny and honey-sweet, was tilted breathily in an angry upward inflection.

What it was they were arguing about, Fuyu did not know. Something about muddy boots, and how it was impossible not to get them muddy, and cleaning the floors all around the house, and who made the money to get the house anyways.

Closing the door, Fuyu turned slowly around to face her older brother. Misha sat at the delicate wooden kitchen table. He resembled his mother, but like his father, said only the necessary and convenient. "They're fighting again," Fuyu stated unnecessarily to him.

Their mother's angry voice could be heard through the thin wood of the door: "Alright, I understand. I'm not allowed to enjoy myself now and then."

"A mint mojito is not enjoyment. It's hiding your troubles within expensive, deliciously assembled alcoholic beverages which only succeed in—"

"—Oh, here we go!"

Misha sighed and folded his hands in his lap, turning his tiny body to the side. "Obviously." He brushed some brown bangs from his large chocolate eyes. "It's because dad has the guts to criticize mom after she's been washing the dishes he's eaten on all day."

"But-But daddy says—!"

"—Articulate," Misha ordered her quickly. He was trying to get her out of the habit of stuttering and lisping.

Fuyu paused and licked her lips, then tried again. "But daddy says that he's the one making the…the money around the house, so mommy should get a job before she gets…gets mad at him, right? Right?"

Misha scratched his head. "I assume—"

"—What's 'a…assume' mean?"

"Don't interrupt." Misha stared at her evenly between his bangs, and she gazed right back at him in silence, almost awed at the fact that she'd even dared to make such a mistake, before he continued. "I think mom does enough of a job already. Cleaning the house is probably not as easy as you think it is."

"I think it's fun!" Fuyu rebutted. "I helped mommy vacuum yesterday, and I liked it!"

Misha was unconvinced, and seemed to decide that their controversy ended there, a resolution he proclaimed by turning his chair around and letting himself go back to examining the beetle crawling it's way along the side of the table.

Fuyu was not content with ending their debate there, but concluded that she would pick it up later. For now, she turned back to the door and promptly stuffed her head against it, straining her ears and pulling long dark hair away from her pale china-doll face.

"Listen, it's terribly simple. I've already gone over this with you so we didn't have to worry about this, but we've already come to a compromise. I'll let the kids get a taste of both sides; we'll celebrate Hanukah, as is your Jewish tradition, and I'll celebrate my Lutheran tradition, Christmas. What's so terrible about that?"

"You want me to celebrate Christmas as 'Santa Clause' again tomorrow, TenTen, and I'm simply not up to that."

"My god! Do you really think I'm 'up' to making those potato pancakes and jelly doughnuts all day? It's not easy making a homemade jelly doughnut, Shino!"

"Do you remember what happened last year? It's also not easy to make sure our idiosyncratic kids act like 'good boys and girls' so a fat old guy with a beard can bring them toys, when we're already getting them enough presents."

"For your holiday!"

"I think you need to calm down, sweetheart."

"Calm down, oh, you'd like that, wouldn't you?"

"…Yes. I would."

Fuyu stepped away from the door, and turned to Misha again with a dawdling sigh. She couldn't completely understand what they were talking about, but she did know that this wasn't going to end soon.

おいしい

"Daddy, look! Look what-what I made!"

Shino looked up from his newspaper and watched as his daughter came scurrying clumsily into the living room the next day. "What's that?"

"I made Santa some cookies!" Fuyu held up a tray with six lopsided mounds of cookie dough slapped onto it, half of them stuck to the plate, half of them burned badly. They resembled multiple enlarged maggots with chocolate-chip-like spots. Shino winced visibly. TenTen on the other hand raised her head from the Christmas tree sitting in front of the China windows, and smiled fondly whilst fingering an ornament. "Those look delicious, hunny. Right?" Her voice changed to a very implemental tone as she switched her gaze snappishly up to Shino. He met this gaze without a shudder, then turned back to his daughter and smiled. "They look great. I can't wait." TenTen sent him a fundamentally finicky look, and he added quickly, "…for Santa to eat them. I'm sure he'll find them enjoyable."

Fuyu beamed ecstatically. "What do you think Santa would like to wash them down?"

Shino leaned back in his seat thoughtfully, knowing the entire time that TenTen's furrowed frown never left him. "Probably a nice wine."

"Shino!" TenTen straightened up angrily. Fuyu however seemed impressed. "Really? I should go make one now!"

"No, no…" TenTen rushed across the living room to stop Fuyu from re-entering the kitchen. Staring straight into Shino's eyes with a glare like no other, she said thinly, "Santa likes milk."

"I'm lactose intolerant."

"Shino!"

"…And so I know how Santa feels. I believe that he is too."

TenTen's hands gripped Fuyu's shoulders like the claws of a hawk."No, I don't think Santa is lactose intolerant," she said sweetly while her fingers shook.

"I think he is."

TenTen's voice quivered with frustration as she laughed brightly, "He isn't, I'm sure."

"No, I really think he is."

TenTen opened her mouth, but paused. Seeing she wasn't getting anywhere, she said calmly, "Well, if Santa doesn't drink his milk, I'll drink it for him."

"Ah," Shino placed his hands together, suddenly businesslike, and his lips curved into a rare smile. "I guess that solves things. In this case, Santa should probably get another one of those mint mojitos, if you're going to drink it for him anyway."

TenTen stared at Shino. Shino stared at TenTen. Fuyu looked back and forth between them, her eyes huge and glassy, confused and frantic. Finally, TenTen smiled and bent down to her daughter. "Sweetie, why don't you go make a glass of milk for Santa. Hm? Mommy and Daddy need to talk."

"O-Okay…" Fuyu slipped through the kitchen door. She closed it behind her, but there was time for TenTen's enraged "Shino, what is your pro—?" to slip through the crack before she was cut off by the click of the door closing.

Fuyu stared at the wood, one tiny hand holding the tray of mushy cookie dough, the other curled to her lips nervously.

"I told you so."

Fuyu jumped at the low voice speaking in her ear, and succeeded in dropping two of her cookies. She stared at them flopping over on themselves on the floor, and whined, "Misha!" loudly. She turned to the boy, who stood too close for comfort next to her, eyes hooded.

"I told you so," he said again. Fuyu stared at him wordlessly, and he sighed. "That mom and dad would do this."

Fuyu huffed, set the tray of cookies on the counter nearby, and got to her knees angrily, prying the sticky cookies off the kitchen floor. "Do what?" she mumbled.

"Fight like this." Misha's eyes watched her almost curiously as she stumbled to her feet and tottered over to the trash can, dumping the cookies inside. "It's ending, you know."

Fuyu whimpered in frustration and confusion and turned around. "What's ending?"

"Their marriage."

Fuyu's eyes widened. "What?" she blubbered.

"Their marriage," Misha repeated patiently. "They're going to get a divorce."

"What's a…a divorce?"

Misha easily translated, "It means we're not gonna be able to live together anymore."

"What? Why?" Now Fuyu was really scared. She hopped up and down on her little legs, hands clutched together at her heart. "Why, why, why?"

"Stop doing that," Misha grabbed her shoulder and forced her to stand still. "It's because one of us will go with mom, and the other will go with dad. That's what happens when moms and dads fight a lot."

"B-But how do you know?"

Misha shrugged. "It happened to a boy at school. His mom and dad started fighting a lot, and soon enough his mom kicked his dad out of the house."

"Kicked him out?" Fuyu gasped. "You mean she really kicked him?"

Misha nodded wisely. "Yup. She kicked him hard, in the butt. Right out the window."

"Wow."

"It was scary," Misha agreed. "Which is why I'm warning you now."

Fuyu put all the information together in her mind. "So…so Mommy…" Her eyes filled with tears when she realized the seriousness of the situation. "Mommy…Mommy is going to…t-t-to…to kick Daddy out…out th-through the w-window…on his b-b-b-butt!"

Fuyu promptly began to wail. Misha clamped his hands over his ears automatically as she fell to the kitchen floor on her butt and cried and cried and cried. He groaned and pulled her up by the arm to her feet, trying to make her calm down. "Yes, yes, and that's why we have to do something about it!" he said loudly over her uncontrollable sobs.

She only sobbed louder. "N-N-No! Th-There's nothing we-we can do about i-it, Mommy can k-k-kick really w-w-well! Daddy's g-gonna go f-flying! Like…Like…Like…" She moaned in agony. "Like a soccer ball!" She wept loudly some more, and Misha cringed in frustration.

"No he's not, not if we help them out!" he shouted over her.

She stopped crying and hiccupped sloppily. "Wh-What do you mean?" she sniffed.

"If we can make a plan to get them to fight less, then we don't have to worry about them getting a divorce," he explained, sensing her calming nerves.

"L-Like spies?" she queried hopefully.

"Like spies," Misha said gravely.

"O-Okay."

Suddenly the kitchen door opened and nearly hit Misha. Their father appeared, and looked down at them. "We heard some shouting. Is everything okay?"

Fuyu immediately snapped into some sort of half-cheerful-half-cattish preoccupation. "Yes!"

Shino stared at his daughter. "…I'm glad."

Misha smacked his forehead. He had a lot of work ahead of him.

おいしい

This was it. Christmas Eve. TenTen was ready.

Shino? The opposite.

"Shino," TenTen hissed. She pulled her bathrobe closer to her, goose bumps dancing along her arms. Why did Shino insist on keeping the house at such a low temperature? She watched her husband as he slept, chest rising and falling slowly, and felt her eyes narrow in a glare. "Shino!" she tried again a little louder, but reminded herself not to be too loud, so as not to attract the attention of her sleeping children in their individual rooms down the hall.

Shino did not respond, just kept sleeping away. TenTen glowered and crossed her arms huffily, leaning over from her standing position at the edge of the bed to turn on the bedside lamp. She had gone over this with him how many times?

Still no movement came from her husband, no response to the sudden light. She groaned under her breath and finally bent over and smacked him sharply on the side of the head.

His eyes slowly flickered open and met hers. She took a brief moment to allow the awe that came over her whenever this happened. She rarely got to see that pair of dark eyes from behind those awful glasses. They were smooth, and didn't sparkle. Rather, they were curious and childish. TenTen liked them. It was like looking into the eyes of a baby calf.

Shino's lips turned upwards in a smile TenTen saw only once a day. "I like to wake up to your face."

She blushed and straightened up, flustered. "G-Get up."

"I am up." He sat, allowing the sheet to fall from him. TenTen now had to turn her head so she wouldn't have to stare at his pale bare chest, muscular and smooth and seeming to glow white in the moonlight that slipped in from the window on the other side of the room.

To get her mind off of the subject, she simply replied by snatching his tinted glasses from the bedside table and throwing them at him. His hands clumsily caught them, and he slipped them onto his face. "Where did you hide the presents?"

"I already told you," she said, pulling her long hair into a low ponytail so as to get it out of her eyes as she crossed the room. "Under the desk."

"Don't you hide them there every year?"

"Oh, it's tradition, Shino," she said snappily, rolling the swivel chair out of the way and crouching in front of the desk to carefully pull out a large box wrapped in paper decorated with pictures of Santa hats.

The bed creaked as Shino got off of it, standing and pulling his drawstring pants closer. TenTen again averted her eyes, trying to keep her focus; it was often hard to do that when he was like this…

"How many did you get?"

"I told you." She stood up impatiently with the gift. "Four for each of them. I even told them to make a list, remember?"

"Obviously I don't." TenTen glared at him, and he added quickly, "You look lovely in the moonlight."

"Sh…Shut up, stop t-trying to make…to make…" She couldn't finish her sentence. He was getting closer, and she couldn't look away from his chest. How did he get such a firm, handsome body? For as long as she could remember he'd always looked so…

…so…

Her mind went fuzzy as he stood directly in front of her. Then, when it seemed he couldn't get any nearer, he suddenly moved sharply to the left, and passed her by.

TenTen blinked, realizing he'd done that on purpose, and made a frustrated little noise as Shino chuckled softly and emerged from behind her with two presents in his arms. "I know how you get when I do that."

"Would you stop it?" TenTen complained bashfully. Still feeling slightly numb, she allowed him to press a hand to the small of her back lovingly and guide her out of the bedroom and into the living room, where they were to put the presents under the tree for their children, who, though they didn't know it, were standing with their ears pressed to their bedroom doors, shivering in their pajamas and eagerly straining their ears for signs of Santa.

Yes, Misha too.

おいしい

Where were the buoyant piles of snow, the maladroit, cumbersome wind that shifted here and there with flakes of white, accumulating on everyone's heads in a brusque cold?

TenTen tried to be happy. Tried to match the smiles given to her by her by her children as they ripped the wrapping off the presents with flair, tried to laugh with her husband next to her on the sofa as the kids ran about test driving their gifts and yelling to each other about whose was better.

But it was terribly hard, because the sofa was positioned so that she had a dreary view of the wide China window, which gazed out upon an endless rain, pounding against the glass.

Where was her white Christmas?

"So I guess you like your presents," Shino said with a smile as Fuyu danced around with her new porcelain doll and matching dresses.

"I love them!" Fuyu cried.

"What do you say to Santa?"

"Thank you," Fuyu and Misha both chanted unenthusiastically, still interested in their new toys. Misha was playing around with a small book he'd asked for, and a set of voodoo dolls.

Shino turned contentedly to TenTen. "Well, they look happy," he observed under his breath, rubbing her shoulder. She gave him a locked smile, and he raised an eyebrow. "What's wrong? I thought you'd be ecstatic that the whole plan worked out for once."

TenTen shook her head and sighed. "It's raining," she reminded him in a whisper. Everything else was perfect. The sweet fragrance of chestnut and cinnamon balm, the delightful gleam of the frameworks of all the tables and cushions and the clean wooden floors. The smiles and laughter of her family.

But the rain…Oh, she just knew it would be raining today. She just didn't count on it being as gloomy as it was…

"We live in a warm climate," Shino said circumspectly, watching Fuyu gnaw on a glossy chocolate reindeer. "The weather report predicted this."

"I know," TenTen goaded insistently. "But this is Christmas, Shino! What are we supposed to tell the kids when they ask where the snow is?"

Shino watched her from behind his glasses for a while. She blinked in confusion, seeing his "thoughtful face", and waited expectantly, knowing that when he thought hard about something like this, a very substantial answer always followed.

But this morning, he was unable to utter it, because all of a sudden Fuyu said something rarely significant:

"Mommy? Daddy? Where's Misha?"

The couple froze and whipped around, staring at the empty space near the Christmas tree in the corner where Misha had previously been.

Their eyes simultaneously traveled slowly to the rain-glazed window, which opened up and gazed upon the scene of Misha running around in circles waving his arms in the air, a voodoo doll in his right hand.

"Merry Christmas, sweetheart."

"One more word and I'm throwing you in the garbage disposal, Shino."

おいしい

It took a total of six and a half minutes to convince Misha to come back inside. And by then, everyone was out on the front porch, rain-swept and shivering, their socks and slippers covered in mud. TenTen couldn't understand at first, as she waited for Shino to open the front door again, holding her two cold children tightly next to her, why Fuyu had come along.

But soon enough, she got a good enough estimate.

Shino frowned and turned over his shoulder. "Fuyu…" he said slowly, watching her reaction. She was biting her lip nervously glancing from her father to Misha, then down to her feet. "Did you lock the door before you came out here?"

Fuyu wrung her hands together. "You told me to always…always lock the door when…ever I leave the house…" she mumbled.

Shino stared at her, then looked up to TenTen. Her eyes were huge in disbelief. "They keys…" he said slowly.

"They're on the kitchen table," TenTen recalled. Misha and Fuyu were both twitching nervously by now.

Shino heaved a sigh. "Fantastic…"

TenTen groaned, aghast. "Fuyu, sweetie, you don't have to lock the door when we're on the front lawn!"

"I'm so-rr-y!" Fuyu wailed aloud, immediately starting to cry.

TenTen flung a hand up to her forehead in exasperation as Fuyu latched herself to her mother's legs and proceeded to sob. "Shino, what are we going to do? Are any windows open?"

"No, I locked everything last night," he said, cupping his chin thoughtfully and glancing around. "I wonder if I could break one open…"

"This was your mother's house, you can't just break a window! No, there's got to be another way."

"What other way, TenTen? There's no option to get into a house from the outside without the key or without breaking it open."

"There's got to be another way! It's Christmas, and we're all going to get sick standing out here in the rain!"

As they argued, Fuyu cried and cried into her mother's leg, and Misha was staring between them, bewildered. His plan, so far, was not working.

"Fuyu, listen, just stand up, okay?" TenTen said finally, breaking away from her debate to pull her daughter up gently. "Sweetie, you made a mistake, and we can get through it, alright?"

"But it wasn't a mistake!" Fuyu shrieked.

TenTen winced at the loud tone, but frowned at her curiously. "What do you mean?"

"I did it on purpose!" Fuyu moaned. "Misha told me that you were gonna kick daddy out the window like a soccer ball if you kept fighting, so we had to do something!"

Misha gaped at her betrayal. "Y-You were the one who came up with the idea to lock them out of the house!"

"No I wasn't! You were! It's always you!"

"It is not!"

"Yes it is!"

"No it's not!"

"It is!"

"It isn't!"

"Misha, Fuyu…!" TenTen interrupted them, mouth dropping open as she stared back and forth between them with disbelief. "You…?"

Shino, however, seemed a little amused. "You're saying that you two were so upset with us fighting that you decided to lock us out of the house? How does that solve anything?"

Misha was crying now, and he mumbled angrily, "We thought it would teach you a lesson. You always lock us in our rooms whenever you want to teach us a lesson!"

"So locking us outside in the rain would be easier to you?"

"…"

"And why would you lock yourselves out here with us?"

"Shino, you are not helping…"

おいしい

Shino sat down next to TenTen under the shallow roof of the porch. The rain still fell, less hard than it had been earlier, but it fell nonetheless, and that was a good enough reason for TenTen to sit on the porch glumly with her knees drawn up to her and her head in her hand.

"I called the locksmith on my cell phone," Shino said, putting an arm around her and patting her rain-soaked back. "He said he'll be here in an hour or so."

TenTen said nothing, just watched her children run about in the mud making little gorges out of their footprints wherever they went.

Shino watched them as well, and laughed a bit under his breath. "We're lucky someone was so willing to come down on Christmas," he admitted cheerfully.

TenTen still did not say a word, and Shino glanced down at her. "What's wrong?" he said for the second time that morning, and TenTen found it hard not to groan.

"What's wrong?" she cried, exploding at him. "It's Christmas! But a Jewish Santa wants wine with his cookies, it's been raining for days, we're locked out of the house, and now you're asking me to find a tiny glitch in the program?"

Shino barely flinched, staring at her calmly as she flung her head into her hands. "I don't know what to do," she grumbled, voice muffled by her palms. "I grew up with just this kind of untraditional…thing of a holiday, while everyone else got just what they expected. They got cookies and milk, they got piles and piles of snow, they got at least seven presents each, and their parents were surrounding them in their living rooms with chocolate and toys and mistletoe…"

She stared at her children from between her fingers. "And I was stuck in a cheap orphanage no one dared to visit with a couple Christmas lights, some candy corn, and a skinny pathetic chicken." She sighed. "Every year, my Christmas failed. Even when I moved out on my own. Even now! I can't even give my children what I never got!"

"Tradition?" Shino asked cautiously. "Is that what you want?"

TenTen shook her head sadly, folding her hands on her lap stiffly. "No, just…One of the better things in life," she mumbled dejectedly. "Maybe just one day, I could give them the feeling that they're so loved, and so cared about, that they feel smitten. Just one day…"

"And why on earth wouldn't you think they feel that right now?" Shino asked, smiling rarely and rubbing her back once more. Without warning, his hand darted out and tilted her chin gently so she was looking up at him.

TenTen stared at the peaceful expression he wore. It was a bon vivant to her well adjusted eyes, a gourmet. Dark hair spilling over that pale, curved face, his soft lips still lifted in that smile. "You know, there was a time when I never would have thought of myself as this happy," he murmured. "I never could have pictured myself with a beautiful wife and two smart kids."

TenTen blushed and smiled a bit, and he nodded. "But now, I suppose the only word for how I feel is, well…" He brushed his thumb along her cheek and said, amused, "Smitten."

TenTen laughed a little under her breath, and leaned forward to kiss him gently, unable to resist any longer the tempting way his lips moved when he spoke, his warm breath against her face. She pulled back and rested her head on his shoulder, submitting to his warmth.

"Do you really think they like it?" she asked softly, watching their children play around. Mud stains covered their cloths and cheeks, but they were laughing, so Shino said, "Yes."

A rainbow was to come. Not yet, but soon. Slipping through the clouds to get a peep of the sunlight, like the steam coming up from a hot chocolate. It smelled like mud and pine trees outside. Like peppermint in the winter.

「 The End 」