IchiRuki 100 themes, 21: black paper cranes
Title: I Can See with My Eyes Shut
Author: Ninx
Word Count: 5, 291 or some such.
Warnings/Rating: Manga, post-201. Me-verse, post first three 'fics. PG, PG-13.
Dedication: *burns incense to Merry and Ray* And also to my cat, who barely looks at me funny anymore when I walk around the house grumbling about Ichigo and Rukia.
A/N: So, this is 'fic four of seven. Yes, SEVEN. NO MORE AFTER SEVEN. *a-hem* I actually wrote this out right after finishing the last one, thus proving that a) I'm crazy and b) I'm a sap. Features Karin, Kon, Renji, Orihime, Chad, and the hamster ball of LUV. Theme music for this 'fic provided by Archive and Frou Frou, particularly "Hate" and "Psychobabble." Please enjoy!
21. Black paper cranes
The only thing worse than Rukia avoiding Ichigo is the two of them avoiding each other.
So it seems to Karin.
Rukia had told her that they were partners. Watching them now, she can tell. They still work together with perfect timing. Rukia leaves for school just as Ichigo comes down to breakfast. Ichigo comes home and is in his room when Rukia walks in the door. Normally they’d have to face each other over dinner, but after that first night--when they’d ignored each other with precision--one would always make an excuse to be away. They even alternated nights. If they did have to talk to each other, it was always “Kurosaki” this, “Kuchiki” that.
They both were far too good at hiding their emotions.
That doesn’t stop Karin from seeing that they’re miserable.
She’d know even if Rukia hadn’t all but admitted it. She’d know even if Ichigo didn’t seem so very tense. She’d know, because they both feel different now.
She also knows that none of this crap is going to help Rukia get better.
It’s been a week and a half now, and she’s starting to get anxious. She thinks about doing something stupid right out of a manga, like calling all their friends together and making some sort of dumbass, complicated plan to get them to talk to each other. Surely they’ve noticed it at school? And Kon knows all of them.
Kon. She’d discovered him trying to sneak into their room one night. He’d claimed he wanted to comfort his “Nee-san” and was willing to risk the “evils of Yuzu” to do so. “Besides,” he’d groused, “all Ichigo does is mope these days.”
“Rukia’s not much better,” she’d told him.
“How did this HAPPEN?” he’d wailed.
“He hasn’t said?”
“It’s ICHIGO.”
“Right.” So, she’d told him. She hadn’t really expected it to make her feel better, but she’d heard...she’d hoped...that it might make her feel less bad about it.
She had never seen her parents argue. Her Mom had died when she was five, but she remembered enough of her to know that. Ichigo had confirmed it, too.
Watching Ichigo and Rukia fight, she’d thought, “This is how it feels, to see your parents fight.”
She’d been a little taken aback by the thought, and how true it’d rung. They fought like people who’d been through too much, knew too much, cared too much. They’d fought like an older couple.
Ichigo...she thinks. Has it really only been a few months since you met her?
But that was true, too.
So she rejects the idea of going to their friends, of making some stupid plan to get them back together, because of that. She tells Kon to lay off them for the same reason.
The only way those two are going to patch things up is if they do it themselves.
Not everyone thinks like Karin, though.
Ichigo is walking home from school, taking the long way because it crosses Rukia’s path less. Because the less he has to look upon that stupid, short, nosy, loud-mouthed bitch, the better. Why does she have to go to school with him anyways? The other shinigami don’t, and it’s not like before, when he couldn’t do things without her present. He’s got a BADGE. She can GO TO HELL.
He really wishes he would stop thinking about her so much.
But! Life is getting better. She stays out of his hair at school now, and they don’t cross paths so much at home. He hasn’t seen her at their other job since...well, since that day. Just as well, since obviously she’d only get in his way.
Just as well, because every time he sees that scarf, he can’t help but see what’s underneath it.
He grimaces, and the thought slides away. She inspires such stupid thoughts in his head, too. They come in, flit around his brain, then go, and he can’t do a damn thing about it. He really wishes...
He feels a presence to his left, and stops. He studies it a moment.
He groans inwardly.
“Renji,” he says. “You can’t hide for SHIT.”
He turns, and Renji steps out of an alley. He’s finally out of that school uniform, but it doesn’t help, because he still manages to look like a gangster in whatever he wears. The gold chain adds just the right touch, too. One of Urahara’s many jokes, he supposes. Ha. How funny.
“Ichigo,” Renji says.
Ichigo gives a sarcastically cheery hand raise, then asks, “What do you want?”
Renji moves closer, and cracks his knuckles. Ichigo’s face turns wary, and he prepares himself to move in case he throws a punch. But Renji doesn’t, he just gets closer, well into Ichigo’s personal space. “I want to know,” he says, “what the FUCK you did to Rukia.”
Ichigo’s eyes flick up and down, to try and gauge where Renji’s fist is; satisfied that he’s not going to get punched right then, he glares back and says, “Nothing.” Then he turns away, starts to walk off.
“Don’t walk away from me!”
“There ain’t anything else to say. I didn’t do a damn thing to her.” Not exactly the truth, but it’s close enough. It wasn’t really him, just the force inside him that wants to possess his life and eat his friends and ex-partner. Which, really, has nothing to do with him at all.
“Then why has she been acting so weird lately?” Renji demands.
Ichigo turns and glares back. “How the hell should I know? Ask her yourself.”
“I did. She wouldn’t tell me, which means it has something to do with you.”
Ichigo tries to maintain his glare, but he’s a little too confused to hold it. “Twisted logic there, Renji.”
Renji’s face doesn’t change. “No. It isn’t.”
Ichigo thinks about it a moment, then shakes his head. “Sure. Right.”
Renji obviously doesn’t get sarcasm, because he takes another step forward and says, “So it was you.”
“HELL NO,” Ichigo says, turning around to face him. “Look. She said she wanted to be left alone. I left her alone. I’m leaving her alone!” His voice rises until the last words come out in a yell, and he abruptly stops, looks to the side. When Renji doesn’t say anything, he adds, “She should be dancing for joy.” He looks back at him. “So BACK OFF.”
Renji still doesn’t say anything, just looks at him for awhile. Ichigo can’t imagine what’s going through his mind, and really, he’s not sure he wants to know. Then, finally, Renji shakes his head.
“A piece of advice, Ichigo,” he says, in an odd, heavy voice.
“From you?”
The glare is back for a moment. “I grew up with Rukia. I’ve spent a lot more time around her than you have, and I’ve seen her naked. So HELL YES, from me.”
Ichigo’s not sure if the proper reply is to punch him, or to walk away. He settles for standing there and listening.
“Rukia...I gave her space before. Because it was best. Because she supposedly wanted it.” Something flickers in Renji’s eyes, something Ichigo’s seen before. It was there when they fought on the steps to the Inner Court. It was there when they talked, the night before he achieved Bankai. It always seems to show up whenever he thinks about Rukia.
Renji must realize it, too, because he looks away.
“I lost her, then.” The words come out heavy, final, bitter.
He looks back at Ichigo, face dark. “Don’t be that stupid.”
Then he turns, and walks away.
Ichigo stares after him for awhile, then shakes his head. “Whatever,” he says, to no one in particular, then turns and continues home.
Orihime pounces on Rukia one day after school.
Rukia makes her way home differently these days. She likes to idle by shops, and stare at people, and occasionally buy something frivolous and full of sugar. Recently, she’s started wandering by the twins’ school as well, to walk home with them, because it lets her see even more of the city.
She does all the things she could never do, walking home with Ichigo.
Annoying brat. To think she’d spent so much of her time and energy worried about a sixteen year old child. Ha! No point in that now. She could give a cold shoulder with the best of them. She was Kuchiki, damnit! It was practically in their House motto.
She really doesn’t miss the quiet, comfortable silences between them. Nor the way he occasionally looked at her, after she’d pointed out some bizarre human thing, like the entire human world held nothing quite like her. Which may have been his way of chastising her, come to think of it, but it doesn’t matter. She doesn’t miss it, or anything else. Definitely not.
She gets lost in her thoughts on these walks, so when Orihime jumps out, she jumps and lets out a little yelp. “Inoue-san!” she gasps. “What are you doing?”
“Good afternoon, Kuchiki-san!” the girl says, smiling, nearly curtseying. “I was on my way home, and saw you, and thought, wouldn’t it be nice to have Kuchiki-san over for tea?” She cocks her head and adds, “What do you think?”
“Come for...tea?” Rukia says, voice hesitant.
“Yup!”
Rukia stares at her for a second, then sighs. “I must respectfully decline, Inoue-san,” she says, hand tightening on her bag. “I don’t drink...tea.”
She starts to move on, but Inoue slides in front of her again. “We could have something else then,” she says, voice hesitant beneath its sweet tone. “I could make you something...”
Ah yes, Rukia thinks, but I’ve already died once. She doesn’t say anything, though, just searches Orihime’s face. She is smiling and wide-eyed and oh so cheerful, and that, Rukia thinks, does not bode well for her.
“Orihime,” she says, “did Ichigo put you up to this?”
“Absolutely not!” Orihime crows, then gives a little nervous laugh. “In fact, he hasn’t really talked to me at all. Or anyone. In over a week. It’s sorta like him, but not really, and...”
Rukia’s suddenly not in the mood for this. “What do you want, Orihime?”
She stops, and blinks. Her grin fades away slowly, to leave her looking a little more serious. “To help,” she says.
“You can’t,” Rukia replies, and starts to walk by her again.
Orihime catches her arm. “Kuchiki-san, please.”
“Rukia.”
“What?”
“It should be Rukia now, shouldn’t it?” She looks back at Orihime. “You came to help me, to save me, didn’t you?”
“Ah, yes! But...”
Rukia puts a hand on her shoulder, and leans in. “That’s right. You didn’t come for me...you went for him,” she says, voice soft. She leans back a little, meets Orihime’s eyes. “So why would you do this?”
“Because...” Orihime swallows. “Because...Rukia-san is important...to him. And...it hurts, to watch him like this.” She swallows again, nervously, eyes blinking rapidly. “Doesn’t it hurt you?”
“More than you realize,” Rukia says, before she can stop the words.
They stare at each other for a moment, then Rukia pulls away, teeth clenching. Stupid! she thinks. Stupid, stupid, stupid...
“Remember that bruise, Orihime?” she asks.
“Yes?”
Rukia reaches up, grabs the bandage on her neck, and peels it down a little. Orihime’s eyes go wide, and Rukia realizes that it must look bad. She’s sorta gotten used to it, by now.
She lets her get a good look, then smoothes it back up. “Ichigo did that,” she says.
Orihime’s eyes go wide, comically wide, and she squeaks out, “Kurosaki-kun?”
“Part of him,” Rukia says, trying to mollify her a little. “It’s not for me to explain, but...Ichigo’s got something strong, and terrible, within him. It caused this. And it makes him moody. Very...moody.”
She looks at Orihime, and can practically see the question marks flying around her head.
“It’s a RECENT THING, Orihime,” she says.
“Oh.”
Rukia makes an exasperated sound. “No...moody isn’t the right word. It...well...he doesn’t like it, all right? So I tried to keep this from him.” She looks away. “That backfired. Badly.”
“Is that why you’re mad?” Orihime asks.
“He’s the one that’s mad,” Rukia sighs. “Not me. I’m not angry. I just...can’t look at him anymore. And I don’t...want him to look at me. Do you understand that? I need time. I need to think.” She looks at Orihime, and sighs again. “And why am I even telling you this?”
Orihime looks at her for a moment, then offers a shy smile. “Because...I do understand,” she says.
“Right,” Rukia says, a derisive note to her voice. “Sure.” She looks down, shakes her head, then pauses. She looks up at Orihime, really looks at her for a moment, then says, “Good.”
She turns, and starts to walk away again.
“Rukia?”
Rukia pulls up short, though she doesn’t turn around.
“You haven’t lost faith in him, have you.” It’s not a question, the way she says it.
Rukia smiles sadly to herself. “No,” she says. “Never that.”
She walks on.
It’s Chad, ultimately, who provides the solution.
Ichigo’s sitting on the roof, eating lunch. He’s managed to get the others off his back for once, so he’s enjoying the relative silence, his food, and the last of the summer sun on the concrete. By himself, as was meant to be.
A shadow looms over him. Ichigo looks up, and says, “Hey, Chad.”
“Ichigo.”
He motions to him to sit, and Chad does. He would’ve anyways.
Ichigo automatically starts to share his lunch, as Chad doesn’t survive on much. Chad automatically accepts the food, given that he’d long ago learned not to refuse. Ichigo could be evil when he wanted to.
They sit eating, not talking. It’s possibly the most comfortable Ichigo’s been in weeks.
Until...”Ichigo.”
“Yeah?”
“You and Kuchiki...”
Ichigo stares, then groans. “Not you, too!” he says. “Bad enough Mizuiro and Keigo give me shit. Bad enough that Renji got involved. Now you? Chad?” He lets out a sound, somewhere between a sigh and a groan.
Chad waits for him to finish, then says, “You and Kuchiki...”
Ichigo stares at him, then says, “Fine. Go ahead. Might as well.”
Chad waits again, then says, “You and Kuchiki...aren’t talking.”
“No, we’re not.”
“Why?”
Ichigo gives him an odd look, then looks away. “Because I pissed her off.”
“How?”
“I don’t know!” Ichigo says, and it comes out much sharper than he means it to.
Chad just looks at him, in a way that suggests that of course Ichigo knows.
At which point, Ichigo tells him everything. How he got sick, then Rukia started acting weird, and how he’d found out why she was acting that way. As he does so, he looks for signs of...something, on Chad’s face. But he just sits there, and listens.
When he finishes, lunch is over. Neither of them seems to care.
Finally, Chad says, “Aa.”
“AA?!”
“That does explain things.”
“It does?”
“Yes.” Chad rises. Ichigo stares up at him.
“So...” Ichigo prompts.
Chad says nothing for a moment, then digs into his pocket, pulls something out, and shows it to him.
Ichigo looks at it, then up at him. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” he says.
Chad puts the object away again. “My Abuelo once told me,” he says, “that the best way to make peace is to offer peace.”
Then, he gives a little wave, and walks off.
Ichigo stares at his back for a moment, then shouts, “THAT’S CRAZY!” He pushes back into the sun, leaning against the fencing and closing his eyes. “Crazy,” he mutters. “Also, STUPID.”
Three days later, Karin’s reading in her room when Kon comes in. He toddles up to the bed, jumps onto it, and squeezes in beside her. “Rukia-nee?” he asks.
“On the roof,” she replies. “She seems to like it up there.” A pause. “Ichi-nii?”
“He kicked me out again. That’s the third night in a row!” Kon says. “He’s up to something, but I don’t know what.”
Ichigo swears in the other room.
“Sounds like he’s up to something,” Karin says neutrally.
Kon fidgets next to her, then says, “What are we gonna DO? They don’t seem to be getting any better! I want my Rukia-nee back.”
“We wait.”
“I hate waiting,” he moans.
Karin reaches over and squashes his head into the mattress. “So go for a walk and stop bugging me,” she says.
“That’s no fun anymore,” Kon says, shuddering. He always has that reaction when she suggests that. Oddly enough, he also gets it when she talks about Daddy.
Ichigo swears again. It sounds vaguely like Rukia’s name is in there, somewhere.
“See? Progress,” Karin says.
“That’s not progress!”
“He remembers she exists,” she says. “That’s progress to me.”
Kon doesn’t reply, which tells her what he thinks of that thought. Instead, he waits a moment, then snuggles up closer to her, so he can see the pages of the book. Karin rolls her eyes, then shifts over a little to let him.
Sometime later, they hear what sounds like Ichigo’s window sliding open. They look at each other.
“He’s not...” Kon starts.
“...going up to the roof?” She listens, frowns. “It sounds like...he is.”
“Rukia-nee’s up there!” Kon yells, wriggling away and jumping to his feet. “We gotta catch him before he throws her off or something!”
“He would not,” Karin snaps, then thinks for a moment. “Would he? It seems extreme, even for Ichigo when he’s trying to make a point.”
“We’d better go find out,” Kon says, but she grabs him, holds him back.
“No,” she says. “Not quite yet.”
Rukia lies on her back and looks up at the stars. She can’t see them very well with the lights from the city, but she can pick out a few, and that’s enough. She grew up looking at the stars, dreaming of how to reach them, and it comforts her to be able to see them here, even if they’re not entirely the same.
Sometimes, she’ll pick out new constellations. She’s found her brother--a long trail of stars, like a scarf--and Renji--a jagged set--and, oh, several others. Tonight, with the orange glow of the street lights, she picks out Ichigo. It’s oddly easy to do, and just because, she picks out a second set of stars above him. It looks vaguely like a bear, biting his head off.
There’s a clatter, and she sits up. A hand appears on the roof edge, then another, clutching at something. They strain, and up pops an orange haired head.
Well. Think of the devil.
She watches him haul himself up, and doesn’t move, even when he struggles a bit. When he finally pulls himself up, he glares at her and says, “Damnit, Rukia. Can’t you hide some place more convenient?”
She looks at him for a moment, then looks away. “What do you want, Kurosaki?” she says.
She can see him scowl out of the corner of her eye, but he doesn’t go away. Instead, he moves up the roof, sits a little below her. For awhile, neither of them says anything.
Then, “Rukia.”
“WHAT?”
“Catch.”
He tosses a package at her, and automatically, she catches it. She almost drops it then, just to spite him, but something in the look on his face stops her. Besides, she’s a little intrigued by the thing itself. It’s round, and hard, and badly wrapped in brown paper.
She turns it over in her hands, examining it, until he says, “Just open it, Rukia.”
She glares at him, then tears into the paper. Underneath is...surprise, surprise, a clear plastic ball. She looks at it, then at him, and he scowls. “You need to open it the rest of the way.”
She shreds the rest of the paper off, and holds it out before her. It’s still a clear, plastic ball...until she realizes there are things inside it. She brings it in closer.
They’re black paper cranes. A bunch of them.
“Black?” she asks.
“Couldn’t find any other paper.”
She starts to count them, then stops. “There’s not a thousand,” she says.
He rolls his eyes. “Hell no.”
She looks up at him, blinks. “You won’t get your wish, then.”
“We’re talking, aren’t we?” he says, and there’s a little less growl in his voice.
She stares at him, then looks down. “I guess we are.”
He says nothing, but a moment later, shifts up to sit beside her. She freezes, but he says nothing, just sits there quietly. After a moment, she relaxes. She had forgotten that she could relax around him. And from the slow slump of his shoulders, so had he.
“Rukia.”
“Mm?”
“Do you remember...” He pauses, then pushes on. “Do you remember what you told me, on the anniversary of Mom’s death?”
She does, but she pauses before saying, “Of course.”
He doesn’t seem to notice. “You said...you’d wait for me to be ready to talk to you. That until then, you couldn’t touch it...Mom’s death...because of what it meant. To me.”
He pauses, and she says, slowly, “I remember.”
He looks at her, and she meets his eyes. “This is one of those things for you, isn’t it?”
She looks down, away.
“So...I won’t ask. I’ll wait, until you can talk about it. And when you can...” His voice trails off, and they’re quiet.
“Of course,” he adds, a moment later, “it’d be nice to talk to you before then, too.” He pauses, then says, “About other things. You know, um...”
“Yeah,” she says, cutting him off. “It would.”
“Oh. Right.”
“Right.”
They’re quiet again.
“So...”
“Ichigo.”
He shuts up. She hasn’t called him that in awhile.
“You know...” She pauses, as if struggling with the words. “I never lost...faith. In you. You know that...right?”
He doesn’t say anything. She pushes on.
“It’s just...this isn’t the first time I’ve...experienced this. Someone I knew, once...” She shakes her head. “No, that’s not important.” She takes a long breath, sighs it out. “What is, is that before I left Soul Society, I made a promise to myself that I wouldn’t let what happened to him happen to you. Nor would I let what happened to you affect me. I thought, however it turned out, I would face it with you.”
“But I wasn’t ready to face it so soon.”
She pulls her knees up, wraps her arms around them, and pillows her head there. She looks at him, out of the corner of her eye; his face is forward, blank. “Zangetsu said it unbalanced you, to make you ill. It unbalanced me, too. He helped me escape from it, but it’s felt like...part of me was still there. Is still there. And I...didn’t want you to see that.”
She looks forward again. “I didn’t want you to think I’d lost faith in you, when all I’d lost faith in was me.”
She falls quiet, and neither of them speak for awhile. Then, she says, “I’m guessing that’s not what you wanted to talk about.”
“Rukia.”
Her turn to go quiet.
“You shouldn’t have had to face it. You shouldn’t have had to deal with it at all,” he says, not looking at her. Then, he turns a little, and there’s a look on his face almost like pain. “It’s MY Hollow. I should’ve been able to control it. I should’ve held it back.” He slumps a little. “But I didn’t.”
She looks over at him, and mentally, sighs. You’re an idiot, she thinks.
Then again...so am I.
“Ichigo...what’s going on inside you...it’s not something Soul Society knows a lot about,” she says. “The fact that you’ve contained it at all is astounding.”
“It’s not enough,” he says. “It’s NOT ENOUGH.” He looks at her, fully at her, and his face is serious. “If it can act without me knowing, and HURT people, then it’s not enough.” He looks away. “It’s not.”
“Ichigo...” She shakes her head. “You’re not the one that did this.”
“But...” He looks back at her.
Her look sharpens, and she pushes herself to her feet. “It WASN’T YOU. It was the Hollow. You’re not the same person, and you need to stop thinking like that!”
He looks confused for a moment, then looks away. She puts her hands on her hips, and is about to say something else, when Kon flies into her.
“NEE-SAN!” he cries out, latching onto her. “YOU’RE OKAY!”
“KON, YOU IDIOT!” she yells, stumbling, trying to catch her balance.
Ichigo looks up, and his face goes from blank to a scowl. He reaches up and plucks Kon off her, holds him out in front of him. “WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?” he yells.
“SAVING NEE-SAN FROM YOU!”
Rukia had nearly caught her balance up until Ichigo pulled Kon off her. Now, she falls, and thinks, I’m going to fall off this damn roof, and neither of them will notice because THEY’RE TOO BUSY YELLING AT EACH OTHER.
She falls backwards, hitting the tile a little farther down the roof. She starts to slide back, and grabs onto the tile with one hand, trying to stop herself. It slows her a little, but it also jerks her in a circle, her legs whipping past her so that she is now facing the edge of the roof. That’s coming up quickly, and she digs in with her hand, trying to stop herself completely before she goes over.
If I fall, she thinks, this gigai shouldn’t be too injured. A broken ankle, maybe. Kurosaki-san can set that. I’ve had worse...
Still, she can’t help the urge to close her eyes.
At which point, Ichigo’s hand grabs onto her wrist.
She jerks to a stop, letting out a little squeak of pain. She looks up to see Ichigo, jaw tight, arm straining.
“Drop it, Rukia!” he yells.
“What?!” she yells back.
“The BALL!” he yells.
OH, she realizes. I’m still holding onto that. She looks down at it, wrapped tightly in her hand, then back up. “NO!” she yells.
“WHAT? RUKIA, DON’T...”
She starts to twist in his grip.
“...WHAT ARE YOU DOING?”
“Just...hold on!” she calls back. She’s lying on her side, and she manages to turn enough to draw the opposite leg up. When she can rest her knee on the tile, she pulls the other one in as well. She rests for a moment, breathing, Ichigo’s grip still hard on her wrist.
“See?” she says, looking up at him with a triumphant grin.
“Yeah, yeah,” he grumbles.
She inches her way up a little, then stops so that he can let go and get himself back to a sitting position. Then, slowly, she stands.
“See?” she says, taking one step, then another. “Nothing to it.”
Then she steps on a loose tile and falls right on top of him.
He catches her easily, though it seems to knock the wind out of him for a moment. “Right,” he says around a mouthful of hair. “Nothing to it.”
“Shut up, Ichigo,” she says. She debates trying to push herself off him, but isn’t sure what’ll happen if she does. Instead she twists a little, and settles so that her back is to his chest. It’s a little close to him, but she does not want to fall three times in one night. He obviously has the same thought, since he doesn’t move either.
They sit there, together, and there’s a strange tension to their silence. Just to break that, she says, “What happened to Kon?”
“Uh...I don’t know,” he says, and there’s an odd note, almost strained, in his voice.
For some reason, she shivers, even though she’s warmer now than she was before. Are all boys this warm? she wonders, then says, “Er...did you throw him off the roof?”
He clears his throat. “Maybe.”
She almost gives him a dark look, but decides moving would be too much trouble. “Ichigo,” she says instead, though her voice doesn’t come out as sharp as it usually does.
She feels him shift behind her. “Did you miss the part where he threw you off the roof?” he asks, trying to be sharp, and not quite getting there.
“No.” That was you, she adds to herself, but doesn’t say it.
They’re both quiet for a moment, wrapped in that odd heat. Then, she says, “It’ll be...fine, I’m sure. He can get back in, and Karin could always...”
She stops, and swears at herself.
Ichigo shifts again a little, and says, “Karin.”
Damnit, she thinks.
“You became shinigami in front of her,” she says, voice defensive.
He says nothing.
“And Kanonji already told her about Hollows.”
Still nothing.
“Damnit, Ichigo, she’s YOUR sister. You know what that means, right?” She tries to look back at him, but he raises his head, doesn’t meet her eyes. “She’s got a LOT of power. And I know you wanted to protect her, but she’s already strong enough to attract Hollows.” Her voice drops. “She has before, remember?”
Now he looks at her, and while his face wears an angry look, there’s worry in his eyes. “Of course I remember,” he snaps. “I saved her then, too.”
“You can’t be everywhere,” she replies. “And did you ever think that she might want to protect herself? She’s capable of it! She just needs a little training...”
“So you decided to train her,” he says, leaning into her a little.
“NO, you idiot!” she snaps back. “I gave her the choice you wouldn’t! And she chose this!”
“Is that why you told her about the Hollow, too?” he yells.
“I didn’t TELL HER that, she figured it out!” she yells back. “Just like she figured everything else out, too! ICHIGO, don’t you understand? She’s eleven, not five!”
“YOU DIDN’T HAVE TO TELL HER IT WAS TRUE!”
“WHY? HOW ELSE COULD I EXPLAIN THIS?” She stabs at her neck, which gives a little pang, as if she’d actually touched it.
“YOU COULD’VE TOLD HER THE SAME LIE YOU TOLD INOUE!”
“I DON’T LIVE WITH INOUE! AND SHE SAW ME RIGHT...” Her voice drops. “Right after it happened.”
He stares at her, suddenly quiet. She stares back, and only then, realizes exactly how close they are to each other. If she leans forward...if he leans forward...
She turns away then, and his arms relax around her. She takes a moment to wonder where those came from--when they started shouting? Earlier? Or had they been there all along?
She supposes it doesn’t matter. She’s not going to leave them just yet.
“I didn’t want to tell her anything,” she says. “But she deserved to know. And Ichigo...Hollows always eat their family first.”
She pulls free of him then, scoots down the roof a little, then gingerly stands. She picks her way across the roof to where she can get down, then stops. She looks back.
Ichigo’s head is raised, staring at the stars. He doesn’t look at her.
She closes her eyes for a moment, then turns to climb down the roof.
Ichigo sits on the roof, staring at the sky. He doesn’t stir for a long time.
Then, he says, “Zangetsu.”
A moment. Then, he appears next to him, standing easily on the tile roof.
Ichigo looks up, eyes serious. “Ossan...we need to talk.”
Next time, on Days of Our Hollow: Ichigo stalls and breaks down. Rukia rolls her eyes and dances. For 10,000 words. *makes with the stabbing*
Author: Ninx
Word Count: 5, 291 or some such.
Warnings/Rating: Manga, post-201. Me-verse, post first three 'fics. PG, PG-13.
Dedication: *burns incense to Merry and Ray* And also to my cat, who barely looks at me funny anymore when I walk around the house grumbling about Ichigo and Rukia.
A/N: So, this is 'fic four of seven. Yes, SEVEN. NO MORE AFTER SEVEN. *a-hem* I actually wrote this out right after finishing the last one, thus proving that a) I'm crazy and b) I'm a sap. Features Karin, Kon, Renji, Orihime, Chad, and the hamster ball of LUV. Theme music for this 'fic provided by Archive and Frou Frou, particularly "Hate" and "Psychobabble." Please enjoy!
21. Black paper cranes
The only thing worse than Rukia avoiding Ichigo is the two of them avoiding each other.
So it seems to Karin.
Rukia had told her that they were partners. Watching them now, she can tell. They still work together with perfect timing. Rukia leaves for school just as Ichigo comes down to breakfast. Ichigo comes home and is in his room when Rukia walks in the door. Normally they’d have to face each other over dinner, but after that first night--when they’d ignored each other with precision--one would always make an excuse to be away. They even alternated nights. If they did have to talk to each other, it was always “Kurosaki” this, “Kuchiki” that.
They both were far too good at hiding their emotions.
That doesn’t stop Karin from seeing that they’re miserable.
She’d know even if Rukia hadn’t all but admitted it. She’d know even if Ichigo didn’t seem so very tense. She’d know, because they both feel different now.
She also knows that none of this crap is going to help Rukia get better.
It’s been a week and a half now, and she’s starting to get anxious. She thinks about doing something stupid right out of a manga, like calling all their friends together and making some sort of dumbass, complicated plan to get them to talk to each other. Surely they’ve noticed it at school? And Kon knows all of them.
Kon. She’d discovered him trying to sneak into their room one night. He’d claimed he wanted to comfort his “Nee-san” and was willing to risk the “evils of Yuzu” to do so. “Besides,” he’d groused, “all Ichigo does is mope these days.”
“Rukia’s not much better,” she’d told him.
“How did this HAPPEN?” he’d wailed.
“He hasn’t said?”
“It’s ICHIGO.”
“Right.” So, she’d told him. She hadn’t really expected it to make her feel better, but she’d heard...she’d hoped...that it might make her feel less bad about it.
She had never seen her parents argue. Her Mom had died when she was five, but she remembered enough of her to know that. Ichigo had confirmed it, too.
Watching Ichigo and Rukia fight, she’d thought, “This is how it feels, to see your parents fight.”
She’d been a little taken aback by the thought, and how true it’d rung. They fought like people who’d been through too much, knew too much, cared too much. They’d fought like an older couple.
Ichigo...she thinks. Has it really only been a few months since you met her?
But that was true, too.
So she rejects the idea of going to their friends, of making some stupid plan to get them back together, because of that. She tells Kon to lay off them for the same reason.
The only way those two are going to patch things up is if they do it themselves.
Not everyone thinks like Karin, though.
Ichigo is walking home from school, taking the long way because it crosses Rukia’s path less. Because the less he has to look upon that stupid, short, nosy, loud-mouthed bitch, the better. Why does she have to go to school with him anyways? The other shinigami don’t, and it’s not like before, when he couldn’t do things without her present. He’s got a BADGE. She can GO TO HELL.
He really wishes he would stop thinking about her so much.
But! Life is getting better. She stays out of his hair at school now, and they don’t cross paths so much at home. He hasn’t seen her at their other job since...well, since that day. Just as well, since obviously she’d only get in his way.
Just as well, because every time he sees that scarf, he can’t help but see what’s underneath it.
He grimaces, and the thought slides away. She inspires such stupid thoughts in his head, too. They come in, flit around his brain, then go, and he can’t do a damn thing about it. He really wishes...
He feels a presence to his left, and stops. He studies it a moment.
He groans inwardly.
“Renji,” he says. “You can’t hide for SHIT.”
He turns, and Renji steps out of an alley. He’s finally out of that school uniform, but it doesn’t help, because he still manages to look like a gangster in whatever he wears. The gold chain adds just the right touch, too. One of Urahara’s many jokes, he supposes. Ha. How funny.
“Ichigo,” Renji says.
Ichigo gives a sarcastically cheery hand raise, then asks, “What do you want?”
Renji moves closer, and cracks his knuckles. Ichigo’s face turns wary, and he prepares himself to move in case he throws a punch. But Renji doesn’t, he just gets closer, well into Ichigo’s personal space. “I want to know,” he says, “what the FUCK you did to Rukia.”
Ichigo’s eyes flick up and down, to try and gauge where Renji’s fist is; satisfied that he’s not going to get punched right then, he glares back and says, “Nothing.” Then he turns away, starts to walk off.
“Don’t walk away from me!”
“There ain’t anything else to say. I didn’t do a damn thing to her.” Not exactly the truth, but it’s close enough. It wasn’t really him, just the force inside him that wants to possess his life and eat his friends and ex-partner. Which, really, has nothing to do with him at all.
“Then why has she been acting so weird lately?” Renji demands.
Ichigo turns and glares back. “How the hell should I know? Ask her yourself.”
“I did. She wouldn’t tell me, which means it has something to do with you.”
Ichigo tries to maintain his glare, but he’s a little too confused to hold it. “Twisted logic there, Renji.”
Renji’s face doesn’t change. “No. It isn’t.”
Ichigo thinks about it a moment, then shakes his head. “Sure. Right.”
Renji obviously doesn’t get sarcasm, because he takes another step forward and says, “So it was you.”
“HELL NO,” Ichigo says, turning around to face him. “Look. She said she wanted to be left alone. I left her alone. I’m leaving her alone!” His voice rises until the last words come out in a yell, and he abruptly stops, looks to the side. When Renji doesn’t say anything, he adds, “She should be dancing for joy.” He looks back at him. “So BACK OFF.”
Renji still doesn’t say anything, just looks at him for awhile. Ichigo can’t imagine what’s going through his mind, and really, he’s not sure he wants to know. Then, finally, Renji shakes his head.
“A piece of advice, Ichigo,” he says, in an odd, heavy voice.
“From you?”
The glare is back for a moment. “I grew up with Rukia. I’ve spent a lot more time around her than you have, and I’ve seen her naked. So HELL YES, from me.”
Ichigo’s not sure if the proper reply is to punch him, or to walk away. He settles for standing there and listening.
“Rukia...I gave her space before. Because it was best. Because she supposedly wanted it.” Something flickers in Renji’s eyes, something Ichigo’s seen before. It was there when they fought on the steps to the Inner Court. It was there when they talked, the night before he achieved Bankai. It always seems to show up whenever he thinks about Rukia.
Renji must realize it, too, because he looks away.
“I lost her, then.” The words come out heavy, final, bitter.
He looks back at Ichigo, face dark. “Don’t be that stupid.”
Then he turns, and walks away.
Ichigo stares after him for awhile, then shakes his head. “Whatever,” he says, to no one in particular, then turns and continues home.
Orihime pounces on Rukia one day after school.
Rukia makes her way home differently these days. She likes to idle by shops, and stare at people, and occasionally buy something frivolous and full of sugar. Recently, she’s started wandering by the twins’ school as well, to walk home with them, because it lets her see even more of the city.
She does all the things she could never do, walking home with Ichigo.
Annoying brat. To think she’d spent so much of her time and energy worried about a sixteen year old child. Ha! No point in that now. She could give a cold shoulder with the best of them. She was Kuchiki, damnit! It was practically in their House motto.
She really doesn’t miss the quiet, comfortable silences between them. Nor the way he occasionally looked at her, after she’d pointed out some bizarre human thing, like the entire human world held nothing quite like her. Which may have been his way of chastising her, come to think of it, but it doesn’t matter. She doesn’t miss it, or anything else. Definitely not.
She gets lost in her thoughts on these walks, so when Orihime jumps out, she jumps and lets out a little yelp. “Inoue-san!” she gasps. “What are you doing?”
“Good afternoon, Kuchiki-san!” the girl says, smiling, nearly curtseying. “I was on my way home, and saw you, and thought, wouldn’t it be nice to have Kuchiki-san over for tea?” She cocks her head and adds, “What do you think?”
“Come for...tea?” Rukia says, voice hesitant.
“Yup!”
Rukia stares at her for a second, then sighs. “I must respectfully decline, Inoue-san,” she says, hand tightening on her bag. “I don’t drink...tea.”
She starts to move on, but Inoue slides in front of her again. “We could have something else then,” she says, voice hesitant beneath its sweet tone. “I could make you something...”
Ah yes, Rukia thinks, but I’ve already died once. She doesn’t say anything, though, just searches Orihime’s face. She is smiling and wide-eyed and oh so cheerful, and that, Rukia thinks, does not bode well for her.
“Orihime,” she says, “did Ichigo put you up to this?”
“Absolutely not!” Orihime crows, then gives a little nervous laugh. “In fact, he hasn’t really talked to me at all. Or anyone. In over a week. It’s sorta like him, but not really, and...”
Rukia’s suddenly not in the mood for this. “What do you want, Orihime?”
She stops, and blinks. Her grin fades away slowly, to leave her looking a little more serious. “To help,” she says.
“You can’t,” Rukia replies, and starts to walk by her again.
Orihime catches her arm. “Kuchiki-san, please.”
“Rukia.”
“What?”
“It should be Rukia now, shouldn’t it?” She looks back at Orihime. “You came to help me, to save me, didn’t you?”
“Ah, yes! But...”
Rukia puts a hand on her shoulder, and leans in. “That’s right. You didn’t come for me...you went for him,” she says, voice soft. She leans back a little, meets Orihime’s eyes. “So why would you do this?”
“Because...” Orihime swallows. “Because...Rukia-san is important...to him. And...it hurts, to watch him like this.” She swallows again, nervously, eyes blinking rapidly. “Doesn’t it hurt you?”
“More than you realize,” Rukia says, before she can stop the words.
They stare at each other for a moment, then Rukia pulls away, teeth clenching. Stupid! she thinks. Stupid, stupid, stupid...
“Remember that bruise, Orihime?” she asks.
“Yes?”
Rukia reaches up, grabs the bandage on her neck, and peels it down a little. Orihime’s eyes go wide, and Rukia realizes that it must look bad. She’s sorta gotten used to it, by now.
She lets her get a good look, then smoothes it back up. “Ichigo did that,” she says.
Orihime’s eyes go wide, comically wide, and she squeaks out, “Kurosaki-kun?”
“Part of him,” Rukia says, trying to mollify her a little. “It’s not for me to explain, but...Ichigo’s got something strong, and terrible, within him. It caused this. And it makes him moody. Very...moody.”
She looks at Orihime, and can practically see the question marks flying around her head.
“It’s a RECENT THING, Orihime,” she says.
“Oh.”
Rukia makes an exasperated sound. “No...moody isn’t the right word. It...well...he doesn’t like it, all right? So I tried to keep this from him.” She looks away. “That backfired. Badly.”
“Is that why you’re mad?” Orihime asks.
“He’s the one that’s mad,” Rukia sighs. “Not me. I’m not angry. I just...can’t look at him anymore. And I don’t...want him to look at me. Do you understand that? I need time. I need to think.” She looks at Orihime, and sighs again. “And why am I even telling you this?”
Orihime looks at her for a moment, then offers a shy smile. “Because...I do understand,” she says.
“Right,” Rukia says, a derisive note to her voice. “Sure.” She looks down, shakes her head, then pauses. She looks up at Orihime, really looks at her for a moment, then says, “Good.”
She turns, and starts to walk away again.
“Rukia?”
Rukia pulls up short, though she doesn’t turn around.
“You haven’t lost faith in him, have you.” It’s not a question, the way she says it.
Rukia smiles sadly to herself. “No,” she says. “Never that.”
She walks on.
It’s Chad, ultimately, who provides the solution.
Ichigo’s sitting on the roof, eating lunch. He’s managed to get the others off his back for once, so he’s enjoying the relative silence, his food, and the last of the summer sun on the concrete. By himself, as was meant to be.
A shadow looms over him. Ichigo looks up, and says, “Hey, Chad.”
“Ichigo.”
He motions to him to sit, and Chad does. He would’ve anyways.
Ichigo automatically starts to share his lunch, as Chad doesn’t survive on much. Chad automatically accepts the food, given that he’d long ago learned not to refuse. Ichigo could be evil when he wanted to.
They sit eating, not talking. It’s possibly the most comfortable Ichigo’s been in weeks.
Until...”Ichigo.”
“Yeah?”
“You and Kuchiki...”
Ichigo stares, then groans. “Not you, too!” he says. “Bad enough Mizuiro and Keigo give me shit. Bad enough that Renji got involved. Now you? Chad?” He lets out a sound, somewhere between a sigh and a groan.
Chad waits for him to finish, then says, “You and Kuchiki...”
Ichigo stares at him, then says, “Fine. Go ahead. Might as well.”
Chad waits again, then says, “You and Kuchiki...aren’t talking.”
“No, we’re not.”
“Why?”
Ichigo gives him an odd look, then looks away. “Because I pissed her off.”
“How?”
“I don’t know!” Ichigo says, and it comes out much sharper than he means it to.
Chad just looks at him, in a way that suggests that of course Ichigo knows.
At which point, Ichigo tells him everything. How he got sick, then Rukia started acting weird, and how he’d found out why she was acting that way. As he does so, he looks for signs of...something, on Chad’s face. But he just sits there, and listens.
When he finishes, lunch is over. Neither of them seems to care.
Finally, Chad says, “Aa.”
“AA?!”
“That does explain things.”
“It does?”
“Yes.” Chad rises. Ichigo stares up at him.
“So...” Ichigo prompts.
Chad says nothing for a moment, then digs into his pocket, pulls something out, and shows it to him.
Ichigo looks at it, then up at him. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” he says.
Chad puts the object away again. “My Abuelo once told me,” he says, “that the best way to make peace is to offer peace.”
Then, he gives a little wave, and walks off.
Ichigo stares at his back for a moment, then shouts, “THAT’S CRAZY!” He pushes back into the sun, leaning against the fencing and closing his eyes. “Crazy,” he mutters. “Also, STUPID.”
Three days later, Karin’s reading in her room when Kon comes in. He toddles up to the bed, jumps onto it, and squeezes in beside her. “Rukia-nee?” he asks.
“On the roof,” she replies. “She seems to like it up there.” A pause. “Ichi-nii?”
“He kicked me out again. That’s the third night in a row!” Kon says. “He’s up to something, but I don’t know what.”
Ichigo swears in the other room.
“Sounds like he’s up to something,” Karin says neutrally.
Kon fidgets next to her, then says, “What are we gonna DO? They don’t seem to be getting any better! I want my Rukia-nee back.”
“We wait.”
“I hate waiting,” he moans.
Karin reaches over and squashes his head into the mattress. “So go for a walk and stop bugging me,” she says.
“That’s no fun anymore,” Kon says, shuddering. He always has that reaction when she suggests that. Oddly enough, he also gets it when she talks about Daddy.
Ichigo swears again. It sounds vaguely like Rukia’s name is in there, somewhere.
“See? Progress,” Karin says.
“That’s not progress!”
“He remembers she exists,” she says. “That’s progress to me.”
Kon doesn’t reply, which tells her what he thinks of that thought. Instead, he waits a moment, then snuggles up closer to her, so he can see the pages of the book. Karin rolls her eyes, then shifts over a little to let him.
Sometime later, they hear what sounds like Ichigo’s window sliding open. They look at each other.
“He’s not...” Kon starts.
“...going up to the roof?” She listens, frowns. “It sounds like...he is.”
“Rukia-nee’s up there!” Kon yells, wriggling away and jumping to his feet. “We gotta catch him before he throws her off or something!”
“He would not,” Karin snaps, then thinks for a moment. “Would he? It seems extreme, even for Ichigo when he’s trying to make a point.”
“We’d better go find out,” Kon says, but she grabs him, holds him back.
“No,” she says. “Not quite yet.”
Rukia lies on her back and looks up at the stars. She can’t see them very well with the lights from the city, but she can pick out a few, and that’s enough. She grew up looking at the stars, dreaming of how to reach them, and it comforts her to be able to see them here, even if they’re not entirely the same.
Sometimes, she’ll pick out new constellations. She’s found her brother--a long trail of stars, like a scarf--and Renji--a jagged set--and, oh, several others. Tonight, with the orange glow of the street lights, she picks out Ichigo. It’s oddly easy to do, and just because, she picks out a second set of stars above him. It looks vaguely like a bear, biting his head off.
There’s a clatter, and she sits up. A hand appears on the roof edge, then another, clutching at something. They strain, and up pops an orange haired head.
Well. Think of the devil.
She watches him haul himself up, and doesn’t move, even when he struggles a bit. When he finally pulls himself up, he glares at her and says, “Damnit, Rukia. Can’t you hide some place more convenient?”
She looks at him for a moment, then looks away. “What do you want, Kurosaki?” she says.
She can see him scowl out of the corner of her eye, but he doesn’t go away. Instead, he moves up the roof, sits a little below her. For awhile, neither of them says anything.
Then, “Rukia.”
“WHAT?”
“Catch.”
He tosses a package at her, and automatically, she catches it. She almost drops it then, just to spite him, but something in the look on his face stops her. Besides, she’s a little intrigued by the thing itself. It’s round, and hard, and badly wrapped in brown paper.
She turns it over in her hands, examining it, until he says, “Just open it, Rukia.”
She glares at him, then tears into the paper. Underneath is...surprise, surprise, a clear plastic ball. She looks at it, then at him, and he scowls. “You need to open it the rest of the way.”
She shreds the rest of the paper off, and holds it out before her. It’s still a clear, plastic ball...until she realizes there are things inside it. She brings it in closer.
They’re black paper cranes. A bunch of them.
“Black?” she asks.
“Couldn’t find any other paper.”
She starts to count them, then stops. “There’s not a thousand,” she says.
He rolls his eyes. “Hell no.”
She looks up at him, blinks. “You won’t get your wish, then.”
“We’re talking, aren’t we?” he says, and there’s a little less growl in his voice.
She stares at him, then looks down. “I guess we are.”
He says nothing, but a moment later, shifts up to sit beside her. She freezes, but he says nothing, just sits there quietly. After a moment, she relaxes. She had forgotten that she could relax around him. And from the slow slump of his shoulders, so had he.
“Rukia.”
“Mm?”
“Do you remember...” He pauses, then pushes on. “Do you remember what you told me, on the anniversary of Mom’s death?”
She does, but she pauses before saying, “Of course.”
He doesn’t seem to notice. “You said...you’d wait for me to be ready to talk to you. That until then, you couldn’t touch it...Mom’s death...because of what it meant. To me.”
He pauses, and she says, slowly, “I remember.”
He looks at her, and she meets his eyes. “This is one of those things for you, isn’t it?”
She looks down, away.
“So...I won’t ask. I’ll wait, until you can talk about it. And when you can...” His voice trails off, and they’re quiet.
“Of course,” he adds, a moment later, “it’d be nice to talk to you before then, too.” He pauses, then says, “About other things. You know, um...”
“Yeah,” she says, cutting him off. “It would.”
“Oh. Right.”
“Right.”
They’re quiet again.
“So...”
“Ichigo.”
He shuts up. She hasn’t called him that in awhile.
“You know...” She pauses, as if struggling with the words. “I never lost...faith. In you. You know that...right?”
He doesn’t say anything. She pushes on.
“It’s just...this isn’t the first time I’ve...experienced this. Someone I knew, once...” She shakes her head. “No, that’s not important.” She takes a long breath, sighs it out. “What is, is that before I left Soul Society, I made a promise to myself that I wouldn’t let what happened to him happen to you. Nor would I let what happened to you affect me. I thought, however it turned out, I would face it with you.”
“But I wasn’t ready to face it so soon.”
She pulls her knees up, wraps her arms around them, and pillows her head there. She looks at him, out of the corner of her eye; his face is forward, blank. “Zangetsu said it unbalanced you, to make you ill. It unbalanced me, too. He helped me escape from it, but it’s felt like...part of me was still there. Is still there. And I...didn’t want you to see that.”
She looks forward again. “I didn’t want you to think I’d lost faith in you, when all I’d lost faith in was me.”
She falls quiet, and neither of them speak for awhile. Then, she says, “I’m guessing that’s not what you wanted to talk about.”
“Rukia.”
Her turn to go quiet.
“You shouldn’t have had to face it. You shouldn’t have had to deal with it at all,” he says, not looking at her. Then, he turns a little, and there’s a look on his face almost like pain. “It’s MY Hollow. I should’ve been able to control it. I should’ve held it back.” He slumps a little. “But I didn’t.”
She looks over at him, and mentally, sighs. You’re an idiot, she thinks.
Then again...so am I.
“Ichigo...what’s going on inside you...it’s not something Soul Society knows a lot about,” she says. “The fact that you’ve contained it at all is astounding.”
“It’s not enough,” he says. “It’s NOT ENOUGH.” He looks at her, fully at her, and his face is serious. “If it can act without me knowing, and HURT people, then it’s not enough.” He looks away. “It’s not.”
“Ichigo...” She shakes her head. “You’re not the one that did this.”
“But...” He looks back at her.
Her look sharpens, and she pushes herself to her feet. “It WASN’T YOU. It was the Hollow. You’re not the same person, and you need to stop thinking like that!”
He looks confused for a moment, then looks away. She puts her hands on her hips, and is about to say something else, when Kon flies into her.
“NEE-SAN!” he cries out, latching onto her. “YOU’RE OKAY!”
“KON, YOU IDIOT!” she yells, stumbling, trying to catch her balance.
Ichigo looks up, and his face goes from blank to a scowl. He reaches up and plucks Kon off her, holds him out in front of him. “WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?” he yells.
“SAVING NEE-SAN FROM YOU!”
Rukia had nearly caught her balance up until Ichigo pulled Kon off her. Now, she falls, and thinks, I’m going to fall off this damn roof, and neither of them will notice because THEY’RE TOO BUSY YELLING AT EACH OTHER.
She falls backwards, hitting the tile a little farther down the roof. She starts to slide back, and grabs onto the tile with one hand, trying to stop herself. It slows her a little, but it also jerks her in a circle, her legs whipping past her so that she is now facing the edge of the roof. That’s coming up quickly, and she digs in with her hand, trying to stop herself completely before she goes over.
If I fall, she thinks, this gigai shouldn’t be too injured. A broken ankle, maybe. Kurosaki-san can set that. I’ve had worse...
Still, she can’t help the urge to close her eyes.
At which point, Ichigo’s hand grabs onto her wrist.
She jerks to a stop, letting out a little squeak of pain. She looks up to see Ichigo, jaw tight, arm straining.
“Drop it, Rukia!” he yells.
“What?!” she yells back.
“The BALL!” he yells.
OH, she realizes. I’m still holding onto that. She looks down at it, wrapped tightly in her hand, then back up. “NO!” she yells.
“WHAT? RUKIA, DON’T...”
She starts to twist in his grip.
“...WHAT ARE YOU DOING?”
“Just...hold on!” she calls back. She’s lying on her side, and she manages to turn enough to draw the opposite leg up. When she can rest her knee on the tile, she pulls the other one in as well. She rests for a moment, breathing, Ichigo’s grip still hard on her wrist.
“See?” she says, looking up at him with a triumphant grin.
“Yeah, yeah,” he grumbles.
She inches her way up a little, then stops so that he can let go and get himself back to a sitting position. Then, slowly, she stands.
“See?” she says, taking one step, then another. “Nothing to it.”
Then she steps on a loose tile and falls right on top of him.
He catches her easily, though it seems to knock the wind out of him for a moment. “Right,” he says around a mouthful of hair. “Nothing to it.”
“Shut up, Ichigo,” she says. She debates trying to push herself off him, but isn’t sure what’ll happen if she does. Instead she twists a little, and settles so that her back is to his chest. It’s a little close to him, but she does not want to fall three times in one night. He obviously has the same thought, since he doesn’t move either.
They sit there, together, and there’s a strange tension to their silence. Just to break that, she says, “What happened to Kon?”
“Uh...I don’t know,” he says, and there’s an odd note, almost strained, in his voice.
For some reason, she shivers, even though she’s warmer now than she was before. Are all boys this warm? she wonders, then says, “Er...did you throw him off the roof?”
He clears his throat. “Maybe.”
She almost gives him a dark look, but decides moving would be too much trouble. “Ichigo,” she says instead, though her voice doesn’t come out as sharp as it usually does.
She feels him shift behind her. “Did you miss the part where he threw you off the roof?” he asks, trying to be sharp, and not quite getting there.
“No.” That was you, she adds to herself, but doesn’t say it.
They’re both quiet for a moment, wrapped in that odd heat. Then, she says, “It’ll be...fine, I’m sure. He can get back in, and Karin could always...”
She stops, and swears at herself.
Ichigo shifts again a little, and says, “Karin.”
Damnit, she thinks.
“You became shinigami in front of her,” she says, voice defensive.
He says nothing.
“And Kanonji already told her about Hollows.”
Still nothing.
“Damnit, Ichigo, she’s YOUR sister. You know what that means, right?” She tries to look back at him, but he raises his head, doesn’t meet her eyes. “She’s got a LOT of power. And I know you wanted to protect her, but she’s already strong enough to attract Hollows.” Her voice drops. “She has before, remember?”
Now he looks at her, and while his face wears an angry look, there’s worry in his eyes. “Of course I remember,” he snaps. “I saved her then, too.”
“You can’t be everywhere,” she replies. “And did you ever think that she might want to protect herself? She’s capable of it! She just needs a little training...”
“So you decided to train her,” he says, leaning into her a little.
“NO, you idiot!” she snaps back. “I gave her the choice you wouldn’t! And she chose this!”
“Is that why you told her about the Hollow, too?” he yells.
“I didn’t TELL HER that, she figured it out!” she yells back. “Just like she figured everything else out, too! ICHIGO, don’t you understand? She’s eleven, not five!”
“YOU DIDN’T HAVE TO TELL HER IT WAS TRUE!”
“WHY? HOW ELSE COULD I EXPLAIN THIS?” She stabs at her neck, which gives a little pang, as if she’d actually touched it.
“YOU COULD’VE TOLD HER THE SAME LIE YOU TOLD INOUE!”
“I DON’T LIVE WITH INOUE! AND SHE SAW ME RIGHT...” Her voice drops. “Right after it happened.”
He stares at her, suddenly quiet. She stares back, and only then, realizes exactly how close they are to each other. If she leans forward...if he leans forward...
She turns away then, and his arms relax around her. She takes a moment to wonder where those came from--when they started shouting? Earlier? Or had they been there all along?
She supposes it doesn’t matter. She’s not going to leave them just yet.
“I didn’t want to tell her anything,” she says. “But she deserved to know. And Ichigo...Hollows always eat their family first.”
She pulls free of him then, scoots down the roof a little, then gingerly stands. She picks her way across the roof to where she can get down, then stops. She looks back.
Ichigo’s head is raised, staring at the stars. He doesn’t look at her.
She closes her eyes for a moment, then turns to climb down the roof.
Ichigo sits on the roof, staring at the sky. He doesn’t stir for a long time.
Then, he says, “Zangetsu.”
A moment. Then, he appears next to him, standing easily on the tile roof.
Ichigo looks up, eyes serious. “Ossan...we need to talk.”
Next time, on Days of Our Hollow: Ichigo stalls and breaks down. Rukia rolls her eyes and dances. For 10,000 words. *makes with the stabbing*