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Kisuke idly considered the impressive specimens as he strolled beneath the boughs on his way to Ichigo’s flat, which was just off campus. It was almost spring—the cherry trees were beginning to bud.
That meant two things.
Well, three.
The most obvious being that the humans surrounding him as they bustled off to classes or to their jobs or off to dates of whatever sort were about to go spectacularly insane.
No, really. Happened every year.
It had taken almost a quarter of a century before he could face it without feeling like his gigai was the wrong size and both of his skins were about to creep right off his body.
Humans could be so strange.
The second thing was that the Cherry Blossom Festival would be occurring concurrent with the insanity. Because why wouldn’t the relatively sane profit off of the insane when most just considered it normal? Naturally, there should be food carts and wares displayed and performers to commemorate the yearly collective losing of minds.
Which led to the most important thing. Offer to accompany Ichigo around the parts of said festival he wanted to see—because there was usually something he’d worked himself up to looking forward to—thereby offering a subtle shield from the insanity? Or just remind Ichigo he had a room at the shop whenever he wanted to make use of it?
Decisions, decisions.
Ichigo opened the door before he could arrive. After the Blood War Ichigo had spent a few months filling out the basics he’d missed thanks to all the haste they’d been in previously, including reiatsu sensing—thus the door—and kido.
Kisuke still had to hide a smirk when he thought about Kuchiki-chan’s expression when she’d seen Ichigo using kido in a spar with Abarai. It had been slightly better than the one when Ichigo had managed to explain things to the other in such a way that he understood. Most had taken Abarai’s previous failure with kido and ignored, firstly, that his reiatsu was intensely wild, and secondly, that he’d been a member of the eleventh. They didn’t exactly encourage kido mastery there, even if Abarai’s very nature wasn’t already forcing him to fight for control for any ‘focused’ use at all. Once Kisuke had managed to adapt his explanations for Ichigo, Ichigo had—naturally—passed them on to the redhead who had gotten understandably frustrated with being thought stupid simply because he was different and being told to ‘focus’ was frustratingly vague.
Really, she should have expected that to happen. Kisuke certainly had. Abarai’s face when, during the spar he’d asked Kisuke for, Kisuke had turned the kido-ambush back onto him instead?
Ichigo had left the room and still had trouble looking at Abarai when they’d gotten to the table for tea over an hour later.
“Welcome. Tea?”
He closed the door quietly behind himself and stopped holding in his reiatsu as much as he always did outside of the shop, the warehouse, or this flat. “Thank you, please.”
“Kettle’s on.”
Kisuke smiled slightly as he slipped out of his shoes and into the slippers that were his on the small stand by the door. Four slots on the bottom for frequent visitors with random-guest slippers piled above. He nudged his shoes into the space left behind and padded silently into the kitchen, considering the surprising amount of… not really bustle. Yuzu-chan bustled. Ichigo was… multitasking with intense focus?
Hmm.
What did Ichigo want, then, that required bribing Kisuke with a much more elaborate than usual meal? “Black or green?”
“Black, please.”
Kisuke kept his focus on the pot after measuring out the leaves of an Assam he’d picked up for Ichigo on a trip to India. Technically a business trip, though candy had nothing to do with it. Four and a half minutes later he removed the strainer and set it on the saucer Ichigo had slid nearby, pouring out the pot’s contents into the mugs that had been waiting. Kisuke cradled his mug and considered the view as he waited for the contents to cool enough to taste on the way down, enjoying the fragrance and the way Ichigo’s hands wielded knives. Elegantly efficient.
As soon as Kisuke took a sip Ichigo picked up his mug. Kisuke hid a smile behind the rim of his mug, wondering if Ichigo consciously knew he did that.
“Are we expecting additional company?” he asked, deciding to prod a bit. Ichigo’s reaction, if nothing else, would probably give some idea of what was going on.
“Not for the meal, though one of my classmates is coming over any time to pick up my notes for a few classes she missed. They’re by the door.”
“Quite an… interesting choice of timing.” And direction.
The deadpanned look he received left him chuckling softly. “If you wouldn’t mind?” Ichigo added when a soft knock came.
“I’ll scare away the big bad school girl, Ichi-chan, don’t you worry,” Kisuke mocked lightly. Ichigo just snorted and didn’t look away from his cooking.
Kisuke opened Ichigo’s door and watched the girl’s face fall from eagerly expectant to mightily confused. She leaned back to check the number. Kisuke’s fingers itched for his fan. “You’re Ichigo’s classmate?” he asked. “Here for notes, right?” he added when the girl just blinked at him.
Humans.
They took forever to mature into reasonably functional people.
Alright, that might be unfair. He had spent the first twenty years of his life trying to survive. That warped his perceptions a bit. Probably.
Though the blank blinking wasn’t encouraging him to be nice.
“This is Kurosaki-san’s flat, right?”
“Kurosaki Ichigo, yes,” Kisuke agreed, tilting his head slightly to the right as he smiled a bland shop-keeper’s smile at her. Somehow the combination tended to make him look affable, which baffled him.
Yoruichi said it made him look like a brained bird.
Whatever.
Take the hint, girl, he grumbled in his head as she peered over his shoulder.
“Are you his flatmate?”
Does it matter? “No.” He’d noticed the notes but not thought much of them. Ichigo was generally neat, but the table by the door often held a random assortment of things; notes were a common one, there so he’d remember them on his way out the door. “These are them, aren’t they? Do check he didn’t throw in something else by accident, I’ll never hear the end if I send you off with some for a test he meant to study for with Ishida-kun.”
She flipped through the photocopies, which was evidence enough that they were meant for her and smiled thinly. “These are the right ones. Thank you,” she bowed quickly. “Thank him for me as well, would you?”
“Of course.”
“Kisuke!” Ichigo called loudly from the kitchen. “Balcony or main room?”
“Balcony,” Kisuke decided after a moment, scratching the back of his head. He looked back at the girl who was focused on the skin the movement had revealed on his arm, her eyes watering a bit.
Before he could ask she bowed jerkily and raced off.
He blinked after her and looked at his arm before snorting and rolling his eyes when he realized—there was a katana marking the skin there. It was a sealed standard zanpakuto—nearly every single Shinigami had the same somewhere on their bodies.
“I’m surprised she didn’t insist on thanking me,” Ichigo muttered when Kisuke entered the kitchen and picked up the first of the two small tables Ichigo had already setup for eating outside.
“She saw the zanpakuto on my wrist,” Kisuke explained, heading for the balcony.
Ichigo laughed. “I swear, I need to drag you around campus more often. Wearing short sleeves.”
“You could just tell them you’re not interested, you know.” He grabbed the second table.
“I have cherry blossoms on my arm. Do you know how fucking common that is?” Ichigo grumped, looking down at the offending branches, visible as they were thanks to a rarely worn sleeveless shirt. Kisuke always found the moon peeking between them more interesting—the branches themselves were, indeed, not uncommon, though just the blooms even more often seen. They were one of the flowers impressed upon a person physically when loss was a soul-deep and lasting impact.
Unfortunately for Ichigo, they were also ‘pretty’ and ‘popular’ and ‘for spring’ so a lot of vapid children had managed to imprint them upon themselves for an entirely different reason.
“They’ll fade from most in twenty years.”
Ichigo unconsciously touched the damaged branch amongst the five. “Not mine.”
“No.”
After a moment Ichigo resumed whatever he was doing. Cooking, obviously, but Kisuke had always been in the situation of having no resources with which to cook or surrounded by those who inexplicably presumed he couldn’t be trusted not to burn the world to ash if allowed to do so himself, so he had never actually learned to cook food. Tea, yes, as long as he didn’t get distracted, and poisons or healing poultices.
As far as what stage the food was in? The smell good and some being nudged off of the heat stage.
“Sake?”
Kisuke’s brows hiked. “What, precisely, are you going to ask that requires that level of lubricant?”
Ichigo’s face went complicated. He looked at the meal he’d apparently almost finished and his shoulders tensed. “If you don’t want any, that’s fine.”
“Why would I object?” Kisuke asked, molding his tone to one that managed to ease a bit of Ichigo’s tension, more releasing after the younger man glanced at him quickly. “You have gotten me awfully curious, of course.”
“Could you start carrying things out? Two trips should be enough, I’ll get the rest.”
Kisuke did as requested, entertaining himself with likely improbable scenarios for whatever Ichigo was going to ask him as he put their food on the permanently outside table and rearranged the cushions slightly before Ichigo joined him with the last of the plates and served.
“Thank you for the meal,” Kisuke said before digging in. Kisuke believed that just as there were people who were gifted with numbers or paint or reading faces there were those who were simply gifted with foods. Yuzu-chan was a good cook. She was—no one would deny that.
Ichigo had taught her and Karin-chan, and Kisuke had, over the years, had food cooked by both of them often enough to have tasted the same recipe cooked by each of them more than once. Yuzu-chan was a good cook.
Ichigo was gifted.
Talking could wait.
Besides, Ichigo had gone to such trouble to put him in a good mood; might as well let himself get into it. Not that it was really needed. Aizen had been dealt with, the Blood War was years past, now, and nothing really troubling had turned up since. A few minor annoyances only. Kisuke’s tinkering and research no longer focused on getting his people through wars, just curiosity for its own sake. Ichigo was studying English Literature because he liked it. Maybe he’d do something with it, maybe he’d take Kyoraku up on a position in the Gotei. Maybe he’d do something entirely different.
They had options and time and nothing was life and death.
Kisuke gave himself another decade before he began going quietly stir-crazy, but until then? He fully intended to enjoy it.
Besides, sparring with Ichigo was exciting enough to sate the bloodthirsty princess prowling his soul.
“Ask, then,” he suggested when the food was gone and the sake savored.
“Either out of form or inside,” Ichigo hedged.
Meaning something to do with soul society, souls, or something else likewise not to be shared with ignorant and quite possibly eavesdropping humans who might be on their own balconies nearby. “It’s a nice night,” he declared, carrying dishes in to the kitchen before propping his gigai up in a corner of the couch. “I look weird in modern clothes.”
“You look weirder in Edo period clothes in the modern world,” Ichigo countered, settling down on the couch himself before pressing the badge Kisuke had made him to his chest and stepping out of his body. Unlike the one Ukitake had given him there were neither limiters nor trackers. Exactly.
Kisuke could find Ichigo’s body, yes, but not his soul with this method. Ichigo had fully agreed and approved.
“You’d get used to it if you wore it more than a handful of times a month. I do appreciate not having to explain that no, you’re not homeless, you’re not mentally unhinged and you’re not a creeper.”
Kisuke huffed. “Your neighbors and classmates are very judgmental, Ichigo.”
“And how many names were you calling Masuda-san in your head?”
Kisuke found himself studying where the moon would be visible if not for the cloud cover.
“Be glad they never asked me about mentally unbalanced,” Ichigo drawled, lips twitching when Kisuke let his eyes peek at him from the very edges. He sobered after a slow savoring sip of his remaining sake and got to the point. “I know soul marks are viewed differently by souls than humans. I know the human viewpoint. I’ve never heard the soul’s.”
Ah. “And it is nearly spring.”
“Kisuke,” Ichigo groaned. “No.”
Kisuke laughed brightly. “In this, at least, you are completely soul, Ichigo. You may understand the human side, but you display as a soul.” Ichigo had folded the sleeves of his shihakusho up so his forearms were still visible. Unlike humans, who had marks from wrists to shoulders and—so the stories went—usually farther, Ichigo had a zanpakuto on his left wrist, a chain around his right forearm and a pair of linked rings on the back of his right hand. Hands were not often marked in souls or humans, but Kisuke was never surprised by them. Ichigo’s sisters had the same thing, save where he had a pair of silver rings they each had one silver and one that was black and red. That was a mark that would not change as long as the three existed—possibly longer. Their half-soul nature made speculating a bit tricky.
Humans no doubt saw his relatively bare skin and considered him to have problems. Attachment issues or near sociopathy—Kisuke had heard similar, if with less scientific terms, when he first arrived to the human world and his own arms were viewed with distrust. Long sleeves became an instant fashion must for most of the group, Shinji and Kensei aside.
“When they become pluses, they lose most of their marks.”
“Because at that point they are souls, yes.” Kisuke sighed and sat forward. He smiled at the uncomfortable expression Ichigo gave him. “I do not mind explaining, Ichigo. I simply never thought to do so. Souls—we have so long to learn our own nature, and some have literally thousands of years to add to that general knowledge so we forget it isn’t known to all.” In so many ways it was easy to forget Ichigo was still a part of the living world.
“When we went to soul society to save Rukia, I was the only one unchanged.”
“Which was no doubt eye-opening for them.”
Ichigo rolled his eyes. “Yoruichi had to tie them up and drag them out of the area.” He nodded at Kisuke’s shock. “They panicked, Kisuke. After all,” he smiled wryly, “they’d just lost their chance to meet their soul mates, hadn’t they?”
Kisuke groaned and scrubbed at his face. He managed not to call them idiots. “As if you could lose a mark so easily. True marks, soul marks, show up on your soul—obviously.”
“That my marks were the same helped, a bit, and a few of the nearby souls explained that everyone lost marks on arriving. Those who remembered at all, that was.”
“Most remember at least a bit, initially. As long as they were old enough to store memories and young enough to still find them,” Kisuke said absently.
“Locations?”
“Hm?”
“Do locations mean anything, and what locations are there?”
“Locations have a general meaning, yes, and anywhere is possible. You never bathed with Shinji, I take it? He’s fairly well covered. Ukitake had one on his temple, and faces tend to be the last to fill in. Yamamoto may have been ancient even by our standards but it isn’t age, it’s… impact. Shinji has traveled two worlds over and made some inroads into the third, and Ukitake was fighting a deadly illness all his life. Both leave more marks than having one job millennia in and millennia out, no matter how important that job is.”
Ichigo touched the rings with the opposing thumb. “Hands aren’t common.”
“No. Wrists and backs are considered more or less the same, while hands and hearts correlate. Obviously with the caveat that one is displayed and the other hidden. You carry your sisters on the heart you put forth in fights—you’re warning everyone you meet that you will rip apart anything that threatens their place with you. Not many people have that devotion at all, much less so deeply ingrained.”
Even Yoruichi had been a bit watery-eyed when she’d seen the rings. When Karin-chan had come to the shop Yoruichi had had to leave. Truly matching—or so obviously correlating—marks were truly rare.
“Then I’m right in thinking they have nothing to do with soul mates.”
Kisuke couldn’t help laughing at the disgusted tone. “My, my, Ichigo, one might think you dislike the idea of a predestined mate picked out for you and painted over your skin for everyone to see!”
The growl he was given wasn’t remotely human.
“I admit the human obsession with soul mates—” he barely managed to avoid the same tone, “still disturbs me. They’ve taken a natural display of bonds, of experience and maturity and twisted it into a self-delusion of romantic compatibility. They trick themselves so readily, so happily.” He shuddered slightly, unconsciously putting his hand over the flowers on his forearm he gained from Benihime. They were also, unfortunately, the flower ‘sign’ of a local family at the first place in the human world they’d tried to stop.
It had been their first real experience of the ‘soul mate’ phenomenon and the utter craze humans went through when they thought they’d found ‘the one’. They’d managed to escape in the night before Kisuke could be strong-armed into a wedding and Shinji had drawled that they’d look back on the experience in a few decades and laugh themselves sick.
He hadn’t believed it, though, and had been noticeably protective of Kisuke for the next few weeks until they all felt far enough to be safe from that family’s reach.
“Kisuke?”
“Hmm?” he asked, drawing himself out of memories to see Ichigo curiously considering the place Kisuke had covered. Kisuke didn’t bother to display it—Ichigo had seen it. Had seen most of his upper body at one point or another thanks to healing springs. Probably not his back, though. Kisuke had always been rather protective of it.
“Maybe it’s just my human half,” Ichigo said musingly, “but true soul marks—don’t they demonstrate some compatibility?”
“Is it so simple? Rings—interlinked and perfectly round rings—have always stood for family. Everything else is open to interpretation. How many people would notice one of your cherry branches is broken or would think anything of it if they did? And that the moon isn’t a separate mark overlaid by newer but part of that one?”
“No one. So far. Or I wouldn’t kick myself every time I fail to wear long enough sleeves to completely cover the lower branch. That’s not really what I meant. Look, take ours for ease—we both have a zanpakuto on a wrist. We have a mark of our spirits on our forearm. Sure, it means we’re Shinigami close to our spirits but that makes more sense than approaching someone who has the same flower.”
“Except that eighty percent of the Gotei has a zanpakuto, and at least one in ten has a mark from their spirits—it could be much higher, of course, if one submitted a questionnaire.”
Ichigo rolled his eyes with a bit of a huff. “Kisuke. That’s my point.”
“…Pardon?”
“If you had the choice between any one of those people down there with a flower like yours from Benihime or someone with the mark of their own zanpakuto spirit somewhere on them, which would you choose? Which would be more akin?”
“That’s not really fair.”
“Isn’t it? That’s what they do, every spring. Gather at festivals with marks exposed looking for someone else who values the same things. Difference is that souls don’t get to see the small things. You don’t paint your soul with a love for tea or chocolate. And you already know that ten people could have the same thing for ten very dissimilar reasons.”
“And that marks, even true soul marks, may change in time.”
Ichigo let out a bit of a disgruntled noise and dropped the subject.
He wasn’t wrong.
Kisuke was far more likely to ‘match’ with someone else who had a zanpakuto than one who would age and die without him really noticing the passing of years. Someone who learned that part of their soul rather than simply trying to command it, had thought outside of their structured lessons to realize you couldn’t order about your own spirit. Not without consequences.
Of course, Benihime had been quick to train him on that point. She would not be taken advantage of.
“I’m surprised your other arm doesn’t scare them off.”
Ichigo shoved up his right sleeve to see the hollow mask mark he bore there. It had been his own from the shattered shaft, initially, and how it had hurt to watch the teenager be unwilling to look down to see it. Then Ichigo had met the Visored, trained with them, fought Aizen—when Kisuke saw it next it was the same as the Visored. Mostly a ‘normal’ human skull save with far too many teeth and glowing irises. Each one of the group had differences from there. The eye color was their own, and there were small bits of personalization. Shinji’s had bone ‘hair’, Hachi’s had tusks, Rose’s a beak. Ichigo’s had horns and—uniquely—a cero forming between them. “Apparently skulls are in,” he muttered after a minute of silence, not quite hitting ‘dry’.
“Really?” Kisuke asked, honestly surprised. “As a mainstream thing? There’s always been some appreciation for the macabre, of course…” The Victorian period in England—the stories Shinji had told would have had Kisuke sure, from anyone else, that they were all fabrications.
“You own a candy shop. Have you not heard of sugar skulls? They’ve… kind of gotten crazy popular.”
“I have, yes, though…” Kisuke considered Ichigo for a long moment, finally deciding he was being teased a moment before Ichigo smirked. Kisuke huffed. “You know candy has never been my business.”
“The antique candy does suggest that, yes. Try getting in some merchandise that hasn’t expired, why don’t you?”
“And have customers?” Kisuke said, horrified. That had been a horrible few years until Kisuke had managed to find the right mix of not-quite-popular enough candies to never end up with regulars.
Ichigo was giving him that look again. The ‘Shinigami’ one. Kisuke did not appreciate it.
“Any other questions on the nature of soul marks as considered by a soul? If not, there’s no reason to keep you outside of your body.”
“Don’t think so. Experience and impact, you don’t think they have anything to do with compatibility, and I now understand why you never object to scaring off any cherry blossom fools for me.” Ichigo got to his feet. “Want to attend the festival with me? You could go without a top and convince them all for good, considering your back.”
Kisuke froze. He felt the man’s reiatsu pattern shift and stutter as Ichigo got back into his body but it didn’t really register.
Ichigo knew. Had seen, at some point Kisuke hadn’t noticed.
He swallowed, reviewing the evening with the new information and was on his feet and through the door into the empty main room without thinking about it.
There he paused. Closed his eyes, gathered his courage, and entered the kitchen where Ichigo was doing dishes. Whether that meant he needed the distraction or had expected Kisuke to leave it wasn’t a good sign.
“Ichigo.”
“Hmm?”
Unfair. He sighed. “The human insistence on soul marks equaling soul mates has always creeped me out. I hate that they twist it to get what they want, using their marks—true or shallow—as justification to insist. I don’t want—” he broke off. Ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t want to be wanted for my marks.”
“You…” Ichigo’s strangled voice made Kisuke look back with some concern to find Ichigo wearing an expression he normally only saw on Tessai. His best explanation for it was ‘I shall be sensible and calm instead of cursing and screaming because I am supposed to be sensible and calm because someone around here has to be’. “How?” Ichigo asked. “How can someone so brilliant be such an idiot?” he finished. “Are you hearing yourself right now? Kisuke, they’re soul marks.” He spread soapy hands and realized he was dripping and grabbed a towel, wiping them quickly. “They’re your soul marks. They’re you. You’re saying I can’t want you for you.”
Put it that way…
“I don’t want a katana. A grouping of flowers. Bubbles. A cherry tree beneath a blood moon. A broken mask. I want your sense of duty. Introspection and empathy. Loyalty.”
Kisuke shivered because he’d been teased about the bubbles, no one ever realizing they had tiny flaws in their surfaces, each one holding kanji that best represented those dearest to him, the coloring only a few shades different. Rings were family—they didn’t have to be blood, nor did the rings have to be obviously rings.
Ichigo’s hands were on his face.
When had that happened?
He was so intent and focused Kisuke wanted to look away but felt trapped, not wanting to miss a moment of this either, torn into immobility.
Wait. Not completely. His hands were curled into the material of Ichigo’s shirt. He couldn’t even blame a fault in his gigai as it was still on the couch.
“Your understanding of loss and how to use it to drive on through the pain and build on the experience. Your love. You utter idiot.”
Kisuke kissed him, unable to take more of this. Ichigo hadn’t misinterpreted a single one of the marks he knew about, though Kisuke was left reeling with when and how did I not notice because he’d tried to keep everyone from seeing that mask after it appeared. He’d thought, initially, it was a Visored mask which, sure, was odd as allies weren’t usually represented and Shinji had already been a bubble—one person represented twice was very rare. Outside romantic relationships, that was.
It hadn’t been a Visored mask. He’d never mistaken it, once it fully came in. It was Ichigo’s mask, ragged and broken, but undeniable.
He was an idiot, wasn’t he? He’d painted Ichigo on his soul. When had that come in? A year ago? Shortly after Ichigo had finally beaten into Kisuke’s head that he was expected to visit Ichigo’s flat somewhat regularly, and his sisters being there didn’t mean that Kisuke had been uninvited or forgotten, just that they would be joining them.
Shit.
He remembered now—that stupid hollow. Kisuke had been walking with the girls, having met up with them as they were all heading towards Ichigo’s flat for one of their rather regular dinners. He’d helped carry the groceries Yuzu-chan had brought and had ended up with something of a concussion when a hollow attacked. His priority had been making sure the girls were uninjured, not that he escaped unscathed. He’d felt Ichigo approaching too quickly for human methods of movement and hadn’t bothered to fight the darkness. The hollow was dealt with, Ichigo would be there before he’d finished hitting the ground; the girls would be fine.
He’d awakened on the couch in Ichigo’s clothes, his own having been both battered and frankly disgusting, given where he’d ended up rolling.
Obviously Ichigo would have been the one to clean and change him while he was unconscious. The concussion had kept him from thinking about what that meant until he’d started searching his memories for an explanation for Ichigo’s awareness.
“Your birthday.”
Ichigo shuddered. “I think my birthday has officially been cancelled hereafter. Seeing you collapse…”
Oops. “I’m sorry. I should have fought for consciousness longer.”
That got him an eyeroll. “No you shouldn’t have. Danger was past, I was there to take over if needed. Your health does not take second place to my thirty second freak out.”
“And then you saw your mask.”
“And the cherry tree. And the… scarf?” he said, hesitantly.
Kisuke didn’t tense. He’d spent too many years in the Onmitsukido to be so obvious, but he did still. “I’d rather not explain.”
“Okay. Just… you’re alright?”
Alright? How many interpretations could one give to a ‘scarf’ of red spilling from one’s abdomen? “It was a long time ago.”
“And you’re still marked by it.”
Honestly Kisuke didn’t think he’d ever forget waking in the midst of a murder with himself as the intended victim. Very sloppy, really. He’d never have let his own knives be so dull as to wake whomever he was eviscerating. “It’s a bit like the tree,” he decided as a good way to explain without actually talking about it.
Ichigo didn’t look appeased and his reiatsu took on a sharper edge than usual. Actually, that was usually—
Oh. Kisuke actually laughed when he understood why Ichigo was turning protective on him. “My virtue was never stolen, Ichigo,” he teased.
“You have virtue?” Ichigo deadpanned after a moment of very obvious relief. There was still concern, yes, but he’d obviously shifted to the right conclusion—battle trauma which was rather different and easier for soldiers of several wars to deal with.
It still marked Kisuke because he’d used that very near death experience to ensure, ever after, that he and everyone under his protection slept in as safe an environment as he could create. Even if it meant insulting his host by doubling the protection himself. “Aw, so mean,” he pouted, dropping the expression the moment Ichigo smiled. Fond and soft and Kisuke would never hear the end of this from Yoruichi and Shinji, would he?
They hadn’t been remotely subtle in reminding him that Ichigo had grown up well. That Inoue had faded out of the picture quietly. She still trained her healing and would respond to requests for aid, but now that he knew what had happened her crush on Ichigo must have been based on some mark she bore that had vanished once she was in soul society.
“Does this mean you’ll attend the festival with me?”
Kisuke tilted his head and considered. “Or we could skip the festival and you could just tell anyone who asks that you’re dating someone.”
“’Someone’. That’ll convince them. Maybe I need to wash my hair, too?”
“Why not? Not interested doesn’t actually need further excuse. They can take or leave the one you give. Feel free to throw any who don’t get the hint my way,” he added, smiling darkly. It didn’t happen often but Ichigo did attract a few persistent lunatics who focused so intently on those branches that they were blind to everything else.
…Perhaps they should attend the festival. Between the zanpakuto, the cherry branches and the masks, that should be plenty to warn anyone with two brain cells off.
Granted, that would have still left one of Ichigo’s past fans to Kisuke’s hardly tender mercies.
“Okay, we’ll walk from your flat to the shop through the festival. Whenever most likely to see those who have been most annoying you as long as we leave before that horrible band starts.”
Ichigo winced in remembered pain. “Agreed.” He grinned rather wickedly. “And I’ll take the compliment.”
“Compliment?” Of what, Kisuke’s possessiveness?
“You haven’t even noticed.”
“Noticed wha—”
As soon as he stopped staring at Ichigo’s face he noticed red on his chest. Kisuke’s grip had pulled Ichigo’s shirt rather badly by now, exposing a new mark on Ichigo’s shoulder. A fan the color of Benihime’s tassel.
Kisuke kissed the mark to hide his matching face.