Mari Het-flavoured drabbles; Bleach drabble
For ririkit Mari, bentou
Mari considered herself a reasonably good cook, but she'd never needed to pack a bentou box for anyone else before. Still, it couldn't be that hard--she was reasonably certain she knew how to make everything that was supposed to go in one. And after he'd suffered through couples rides in Tokyo Disney--his idea, not hers-- she could darn well suffer through something so trite as bringing him lunch every so often. Her idea, not his.
There was something odd about that, but she couldn't quite put her finger on what.
She was mildly offended when Kimura started chuckling, at the sight of her carrying a bentou box. It wasn't that unusual; she'd done girly things before, even though it was her first time bringing him lunch. She was more than a little offended when Shishido took one look at it and almost toppled out of his chair laughing.
It was only on the way home--long after he'd eaten the contents and pronounced them 'very good,' to her smug pleasure--that she realised just what they'd found so funny.
The bentou box she'd chosen had a black enamel finish--and a beautiful, decorative mother-of-pearl inlay.
Featuring mushrooms.
She sighed, and scratched the back of her head. Sometimes, being all girlfriendy wasn't all that it was cracked out to be.
~owari~
(No, of course they're not dating in the stories. Well, the hope in my heart springs eternal, anyway.)
For issadomae Hiyoshi, train platform
He'd heard it said that train platforms were a place for goodbyes and hellos. They created an artificial sense of distance, in an age of airports and airplanes--you could say goodbye, but not farewell; a casual 'hello' was more appropriate than a deeper, more meaningful greeting. A train couldn't take you very far, after all.
Hiyoshi had found that he much preferred train platforms when they were completely empty, and when they were taking him home.
There was something serene about the Kashiwa stop--it wasn't nature in bloom by any means, but an empty station breathed, a little, with the way the train shifted on the rails, and the wide emptiness of the grey concrete, studded with the recycle bins. It was rare to see any of that greeting or goodbye nonsense. It was rare to see anyone getting off the train with him.
It was a little like the walk on the road home--or, at least, the way the road home had been before.
Without anyone on it, the empty platform breathed, but it didn't chatter, and after a day in Hyoutei, Hiyoshi wasn't about to ask for anything more than a little peace and quiet and solitude. He'd only have a few moments more of it, and he'd enjoy it while he had it.
But after five minutes of sitting at the bench at the end of the platform, looking up and around and almost reaching for his cellphone, he remembered: she had something or other to do for Atobe.
He thought he'd be relieved at not having to walk with her, for once; he was a little surprised to find that while he liked the solitude of an empty train platform, he'd gotten used to the quiet breathing of another person walking beside him on the empty road home.
~owari~
For issadomae Mari, gekokujou
It was a rare occasion, not having the whole Hyoutei crowd around on the day after the third-years' Japanese History exam. Oshitari and Mukahi had promptly disappeared for a conference featuring some woman--Oshitari claimed that she was an efficiency expert; Mari thought that she rather looked like a dominatrix--and Ootori and Hiyoshi, of course, still had class. When asked, Atobe had stuck his nose into the sky and declared arcades damaging to his eardrums.
Sometimes, she didn't even know why Jirou bothered.
So when Shishido challenged her to a bet, she, with her pathological inability to resist a challenge, found herself thinking that it was too bad that the others wouldn't be around to see her beat him.
She should have realised that there was something suspicious about him graciously letting her go first. She'd been proud of her showing, but the moment he hopped up onto the machine, she'd definitely resigned herself to paying for dinner.
Oh, of course Shishido could move--she'd seen him on the courts, but that didn't mean anything. Horizontal dashes weren't fancy footwork: he wasn't the Echizen kid with his split step, after all. In fact, until Jirou half-opened his eyes and commented, "You're better at that song now than the last time you were at our place," she hadn't had the faintest idea that Shishido was really, really good at the game.
So no-one was more surprised than she was when in the last run of insanely fast steps... Shishido pushed off from the right key with just a touch too much enthusiasm--and toppled straight off the DDR machine, tripping over Jirou, sitting on the machine platform, on his way down.
Mari was rather relieved that her crow of "Gekokujou!" was mostly drowned out by the machine's despairing "OH, NOOOOO!"
Well, that was what happened when people got all cocky and overexcited about their impending--and, well, almost inevitable--victory.
"What are you talking about, Mari?" Shishido was scowling at the "GAME OVER" on the screen, rubbing his bruised knee, but he could sulk all he wanted--she was planning to make him take her to dinner at Ninnikuya. Just for being so sneaky. "I'm in your grade, and you're not even in the tennis club."
"Well, sure," she grinned at him. She was not going to do a victory dance. She was not going to do a victory dance. "But, you know. Isn't the kanji for 'koku' the same as the kanji for your first name?"
He stopped rubbing his knee, and stared--for about ten seconds before he started laughing. "What... the... Hell?"
"It's not that bad a joke," she protested. All right, it was pretty bad, but... well, she'd been proud of herself on that last exam. Her teacher had declared himself very tired of all her hiragana, after all.
"Mari..." he snorted through his nose, "it'd be pretty bad even if the kanji did match."
Mari felt her sheepish smile drain away. "They don't?"
"No wonder you're doing so badly in Japanese history," Jirou noted, drowsily.
This time, she hit him.
~owari~
(Er, yes. 亮=Shishido's first name, 克= 'koku' in 'gekokujou')
For sharona1x2: Bleach: Renji, Hitsugaya: spring
The problem with living in a world of souls, Renji always thought, was that they didn't have things like seasons. It was just... summer. Sometimes it rained, sometimes it clouded over, but the only snow that he ever really saw came from someone's blade--and when he saw cherry blossoms, he knew that he'd better start running.
Captain Hitsugaya looked at him oddly, about as far down the bridge of that stiff nose as someone who barely passed Renji's waist could really look, when Renji asked wistfully what the weather was like in the Real World, these days.
At first, he seemed suspicious, blue eyes narrowing when he said, "It's spring," and then, when Renji pressed the issue, he huffed through his nose, gave him a long stare that didn't belong on the face of a twelve-year-old, and said, "It's nice. It's spring, Abarai."
Renji nodded, and left, with a little bow. But he heard from Morimoto that her captain looked thoroughly disgusted, when he came upon Renji's application to join the next reconnaissance mission to the real world.
They walked out of the gateway, and into a snowstorm so fierce that being invisible wasn't an advantage--the few poor fools who were wandering around couldn't see them anyway.
Renji was willing to admit, he'd forgotten how much the weather in the real world sometimes really sucked, but this was ridiculous! What had happened to 'spring?' If spring meant growing, well maybe he could see a couple of weak, pathetic little patches of green trying their best to fight their way through the snow, but what had happened to 'nice?!'
He was about to turn around and complain--when he looked down at Captain Hitsugaya, face turned half-up to the sky and little pearl snow droplets caught on the white of his hair, and realised that he was actually smiling.
Renji groaned, and tucked his arms further into the sleeve of his uniform, huddling down into his almost nonexistent collar. Complaining never got anyone anywhere with Captain Hitsugaya... and he'd actually gotten himself into this one.
Of course the captain with the most powerful ice blade seen in centuries would consider this weather to be 'nice.'
Mari considered herself a reasonably good cook, but she'd never needed to pack a bentou box for anyone else before. Still, it couldn't be that hard--she was reasonably certain she knew how to make everything that was supposed to go in one. And after he'd suffered through couples rides in Tokyo Disney--his idea, not hers-- she could darn well suffer through something so trite as bringing him lunch every so often. Her idea, not his.
There was something odd about that, but she couldn't quite put her finger on what.
She was mildly offended when Kimura started chuckling, at the sight of her carrying a bentou box. It wasn't that unusual; she'd done girly things before, even though it was her first time bringing him lunch. She was more than a little offended when Shishido took one look at it and almost toppled out of his chair laughing.
It was only on the way home--long after he'd eaten the contents and pronounced them 'very good,' to her smug pleasure--that she realised just what they'd found so funny.
The bentou box she'd chosen had a black enamel finish--and a beautiful, decorative mother-of-pearl inlay.
Featuring mushrooms.
She sighed, and scratched the back of her head. Sometimes, being all girlfriendy wasn't all that it was cracked out to be.
~owari~
(No, of course they're not dating in the stories. Well, the hope in my heart springs eternal, anyway.)
For issadomae Hiyoshi, train platform
He'd heard it said that train platforms were a place for goodbyes and hellos. They created an artificial sense of distance, in an age of airports and airplanes--you could say goodbye, but not farewell; a casual 'hello' was more appropriate than a deeper, more meaningful greeting. A train couldn't take you very far, after all.
Hiyoshi had found that he much preferred train platforms when they were completely empty, and when they were taking him home.
There was something serene about the Kashiwa stop--it wasn't nature in bloom by any means, but an empty station breathed, a little, with the way the train shifted on the rails, and the wide emptiness of the grey concrete, studded with the recycle bins. It was rare to see any of that greeting or goodbye nonsense. It was rare to see anyone getting off the train with him.
It was a little like the walk on the road home--or, at least, the way the road home had been before.
Without anyone on it, the empty platform breathed, but it didn't chatter, and after a day in Hyoutei, Hiyoshi wasn't about to ask for anything more than a little peace and quiet and solitude. He'd only have a few moments more of it, and he'd enjoy it while he had it.
But after five minutes of sitting at the bench at the end of the platform, looking up and around and almost reaching for his cellphone, he remembered: she had something or other to do for Atobe.
He thought he'd be relieved at not having to walk with her, for once; he was a little surprised to find that while he liked the solitude of an empty train platform, he'd gotten used to the quiet breathing of another person walking beside him on the empty road home.
~owari~
For issadomae Mari, gekokujou
It was a rare occasion, not having the whole Hyoutei crowd around on the day after the third-years' Japanese History exam. Oshitari and Mukahi had promptly disappeared for a conference featuring some woman--Oshitari claimed that she was an efficiency expert; Mari thought that she rather looked like a dominatrix--and Ootori and Hiyoshi, of course, still had class. When asked, Atobe had stuck his nose into the sky and declared arcades damaging to his eardrums.
Sometimes, she didn't even know why Jirou bothered.
So when Shishido challenged her to a bet, she, with her pathological inability to resist a challenge, found herself thinking that it was too bad that the others wouldn't be around to see her beat him.
She should have realised that there was something suspicious about him graciously letting her go first. She'd been proud of her showing, but the moment he hopped up onto the machine, she'd definitely resigned herself to paying for dinner.
Oh, of course Shishido could move--she'd seen him on the courts, but that didn't mean anything. Horizontal dashes weren't fancy footwork: he wasn't the Echizen kid with his split step, after all. In fact, until Jirou half-opened his eyes and commented, "You're better at that song now than the last time you were at our place," she hadn't had the faintest idea that Shishido was really, really good at the game.
So no-one was more surprised than she was when in the last run of insanely fast steps... Shishido pushed off from the right key with just a touch too much enthusiasm--and toppled straight off the DDR machine, tripping over Jirou, sitting on the machine platform, on his way down.
Mari was rather relieved that her crow of "Gekokujou!" was mostly drowned out by the machine's despairing "OH, NOOOOO!"
Well, that was what happened when people got all cocky and overexcited about their impending--and, well, almost inevitable--victory.
"What are you talking about, Mari?" Shishido was scowling at the "GAME OVER" on the screen, rubbing his bruised knee, but he could sulk all he wanted--she was planning to make him take her to dinner at Ninnikuya. Just for being so sneaky. "I'm in your grade, and you're not even in the tennis club."
"Well, sure," she grinned at him. She was not going to do a victory dance. She was not going to do a victory dance. "But, you know. Isn't the kanji for 'koku' the same as the kanji for your first name?"
He stopped rubbing his knee, and stared--for about ten seconds before he started laughing. "What... the... Hell?"
"It's not that bad a joke," she protested. All right, it was pretty bad, but... well, she'd been proud of herself on that last exam. Her teacher had declared himself very tired of all her hiragana, after all.
"Mari..." he snorted through his nose, "it'd be pretty bad even if the kanji did match."
Mari felt her sheepish smile drain away. "They don't?"
"No wonder you're doing so badly in Japanese history," Jirou noted, drowsily.
This time, she hit him.
~owari~
(Er, yes. 亮=Shishido's first name, 克= 'koku' in 'gekokujou')
For sharona1x2: Bleach: Renji, Hitsugaya: spring
The problem with living in a world of souls, Renji always thought, was that they didn't have things like seasons. It was just... summer. Sometimes it rained, sometimes it clouded over, but the only snow that he ever really saw came from someone's blade--and when he saw cherry blossoms, he knew that he'd better start running.
Captain Hitsugaya looked at him oddly, about as far down the bridge of that stiff nose as someone who barely passed Renji's waist could really look, when Renji asked wistfully what the weather was like in the Real World, these days.
At first, he seemed suspicious, blue eyes narrowing when he said, "It's spring," and then, when Renji pressed the issue, he huffed through his nose, gave him a long stare that didn't belong on the face of a twelve-year-old, and said, "It's nice. It's spring, Abarai."
Renji nodded, and left, with a little bow. But he heard from Morimoto that her captain looked thoroughly disgusted, when he came upon Renji's application to join the next reconnaissance mission to the real world.
They walked out of the gateway, and into a snowstorm so fierce that being invisible wasn't an advantage--the few poor fools who were wandering around couldn't see them anyway.
Renji was willing to admit, he'd forgotten how much the weather in the real world sometimes really sucked, but this was ridiculous! What had happened to 'spring?' If spring meant growing, well maybe he could see a couple of weak, pathetic little patches of green trying their best to fight their way through the snow, but what had happened to 'nice?!'
He was about to turn around and complain--when he looked down at Captain Hitsugaya, face turned half-up to the sky and little pearl snow droplets caught on the white of his hair, and realised that he was actually smiling.
Renji groaned, and tucked his arms further into the sleeve of his uniform, huddling down into his almost nonexistent collar. Complaining never got anyone anywhere with Captain Hitsugaya... and he'd actually gotten himself into this one.
Of course the captain with the most powerful ice blade seen in centuries would consider this weather to be 'nice.'