Thank you for your patience Mr. Kurosaki. This call has been monitored for six minutes and forty-eight seconds.
Your world is now con-nec-ted.
Your world is now con-nec-ted.
The Thief of Tomorrow (Bleach/Psyren)
- Thread starter Bladestar123
- Start date
- Created
- Status
- Ongoing
- Watchers
- 31
- Recent readers
- 0
- Threadmarks
- 5
-
Statistics (5 threadmarks, 20k words)
User Total Bladestar123 5
August, 2001 - I
Bladestar123
Happy
- Location
- Man, wherever
Near midnight on a furiously torrential August night, Ichigo Kurosaki found shelter by the side of the road he'd been hurrying along. It was an old-fashioned store, the kind that was popular in the '70s, built into the ground floor of a renovated home. It had a covered and miraculously dry porch, and two dusty little windows, which he observed up close as he stepped into the tiny refuge.
His first impression was unexpectedly negative; the entrance creaked harshly underfoot, and the eaves were low enough that the canopy threatened to shear off the top of his head, should he have entered at speed. Relief and exhaustion followed; he slumped over, panting, and slowly took in the little porch a second time. It seemed cozier, this time. He decisively dropped the bag he'd been holding onto; he'd be staying.
A small cloud of dust rose where his bag hit the floor, and he looked at where the goods had spilled out. They'd fallen onto a small drawing. After packing his shopping away, he paced the small porch curiously, feeling up the wood and checking out the other small carvings left on the floor. Childlike sketches and misspellings were everywhere. He looked up and squinted. The roof was equally dirty, spattered with paint, but it was solid and it held, despite speckles of rust on the rivets. The rain drummed harshly against the aluminum roof, like pennies from heaven, and he could hardly believe he'd been pushing through it a minute ago.
Especially because he'd not intended to end up anywhere near here. He twisted back to observe the street with some small measure of awe. He'd believed himself familiar with all of Karakura Town's twists and turns, and yet, here it was, a street behind a street, a fresh row hidden by another, a twisting byway he'd stepped into and found not just a shortcut but an entire small community! The homes were old, perhaps some of the oldest he'd ever seen in Karakura; the majority seemed gracefully antiquated and expansive, occupying far more space than he would have expected for a suburb of Karakura, where land was quite expensive. There were only a few homes occupying the entire street, all of them eerily quiet and dark.
That this area hadn't been torn down and remodeled seemed almost miraculous.
But if there was something strange about the neighborhood to point at, it would be that the little shop he sat in seemed to be the heart of it. It was the squattest, dirtiest building on the street, but it held the centermost position, and Ichigo had the odd feeling that the other buildings had been made taller on purpose, like they were shielding something precious.
Certainly, the area was oddly dark, even for a storm. The watery lights of streetlamps were entirely absent, almost buffeted away by the stolid masses of the larger homes from where they lit up the streets not a block away, and with the sheeting rain dulling noise, Ichigo had the distinct impression of sitting inside an enormous bubble. But the moonlight was clear tonight, even if only in fits and starts as the storm continued to brew, and when he turned back, Ichigo could make out a doorway and the warmth that appeared to wait behind it. He shivered slightly, and made up his mind to go inside, no matter how dusty or run-down; so resolved, he turned to the ephemeral specter that had appeared, as silent as night, behind his shoulder and asked, "This your place?"
The shade blinked slowly, thick jawline working as he tried to find words. "You can hear me?" the ghost tried, only slight hesitation in his voice.
Something about the lack of surprise twigged Ichigo's instincts. "You've heard of me," he said flatly.
The specter shifted; with no feet, this was a rather impressive motion. "Yes," rumbled the ghost, "Sometimes we talk. The ghosts that can move, that is. That can leave. They carry news when they pass by. You're in it, sometimes."
Ichigo swore lightly under his breath, his brows coming together in a furious cloud. "You're running news now?" he said, disbelief clear, "I've been telling you guys to focus on getting to heaven—what the hell is this?"
The large specter shrugged. "Harder than it seems."
Ichigo cursed again, and sniffed. His nose was running. He shivered and held back a sneeze. His eyes darted between the ghost and the rain, then between the ghost and the entrance, before he sighed explosively and asked in a softer voice, "May I come in?"
A fleeting grin broke across the ghosts' face. "You sure you don't mind a ghost's company?"
One hand went up to roughen his orange hair. "Haven't much choice, do I?"
The ghost chuckled, lower than the thunder overhead, and waved him in.
Ichigo cast one more look outside and shuddered, before lightly grasping the doorknob and twisting.
Or trying to.
"When did you say you died?" asked Ichigo, straining. The ghost rubbed at his hairless chin as Ichigo puffed and rattled the doorknob. "It must've been some time," he said thoughtfully. Ichigo was yanking on the door now, one foot up in the frame and tugging hard enough to turn pink and make thin cords stand out on his neck.
The ghost snapped his fingers. "It's only been a few days," said the ghost, "Yes, I remember. News came by a little bit after I died, it had been a day or so, and it's been a few days since then."
"This is 'a few' days dead?" Ichigo asked, pausing in his increasingly violent motions.
"No, not really." The ghost began ticking off his fingers, "A) The humidity and rain started recently, so the door probably swelled up in the frame, which is why it's stuck." Ichigo was turning red from the strain now, but he could feel the door slowly slipping, sliding out of it's damp framing. "B)," recited the ghost, "The news-ghosts don't work weekends."
It was the precise moment that Ichigo stopped to huff out a tired laugh, that the door slid from it's frame, swung wide, and landed a blow squarely edge-on between Ichigo's legs.
The ghost leaned over Ichigo's screaming form, and lowered his last finger, as dust rained down and settled on the fallen boy. "C) I didn't die here. I just like the ambiance."
"You goddamn—"
"I lived next door." The ghost shrugged. "This store's been empty for ages. Even when I was alive."
Ichigo swore and cried a little, but he crawled inside and felt a little warmer for it. Especially once he'd found his legs after a few, agonizing minutes of speechless pain, and closed the door behind him.
It opened outward, he assured himself, and turned back to the room with no small ease of mind.
Inside, the sounds of the storm were muted. While the clouds overhead continued to rumble, it was now a faraway thing. Much more real was the sense of disquiet in the air. Not of a particularly malignant sort, as people are fond of attributing to old locations, but a peaceful one. A melancholy, as they say, had settled over the place.
Ichigo tread carefully, unconsciously holding his breath as thick dust swirled in his footsteps. The entrance itself was plain, only a disused bell faintly clattering at his entrance, and the flooring was a spongy tatami. Mildew ran in thick streaks across the walls, making the shadows deepen until the edges of the building seemed to pull away into the darkness. The thin slats near the ceiling allowed only the faintest stream of light through, leaving much of the room in an almost anticipatory gloom.
The room was a large one, organized like a library, nearly ceiling to floor. Ichigo walked along one length, leaving the door at his back, seeing the occasional flash of the counter at the back. Water ran down his form and pooled on the floor, where it seeped into the gaps between each tile, and occasionally splashed into his shoes. Scum rose up from the tatami and floated to the surface, and eventually his shoes felt grimy and slick against his feet.
The shelves were no better. Ichigo ran an eye down one of the racks; they'd been emptied, but the packaging and leftover boxes indicated that it had probably been a professional moving job, and not looting. Oily residue stained some of the surfaces. A bit of stained plastic and a crumb of furry mold hinted at an abandoned lunch or two.
But for all that, the place felt homely. There was no sense of invasion to any of the changes.
"I don't know what it is," said Ichigo slowly, "But I'm glad this place isn't haunted."
The ghost behind him grunted appreciatively. "I like sitting in this place," he said quietly. "All the ghosts do, really. Old homes, abandoned places that have a lot of memories, they feel good to be in."
"Residue of a life lived," Ichigo said quietly, falling into a squat and tracing crooked letters only a child could have left on the paneled wood. "Not so different from you." Ghosts were pretty nosey parkers if you never ran 'em off, but this one was polite enough. Ichigo didn't mind the company in this derelict, and he was more respectful than some of the ghouls Ichigo'd kicked around; he'd see about getting the guy a proper shrine. The ghost probably wasn't three days passed though; the dead tended to lose time pretty easily. Ichigo had once met a young woman convinced it was 1959, and that he was a gaijin here to survey the territory. The cars, the technology, the change of lights and people and property, none of it stayed, it ran off her mind like the rain outside on oil paper. Ichigo sometimes wondered at the improbability of a ghost from 1959 still being around. How sad must she have been?
"It was a nice place, long ago," the ghost said faintly. "Kinda glad I'm the only one that normally hangs around in here, honestly."
"That seems counterintuitive," Ichigo observed with some surprise. "Aren't you ghost types lonely?"
"Well sure," the ghost said shiftily, "but it's also kinda depressing, you know? 'Cuz they're dead."
"Makes sense." Ichigo was uncomfortable with the fond look the ghost was giving him. He knew that the ghosts were terribly starved for affection, and he did want to do his best for them, but he couldn't live his life for their sake, now could he? He already owed it to his sisters. And Goat-Chin, he supposed. He could toss the old man a bone or two.
No, the best thing was to try and send ghosts off to the afterlife sooner. So Ichigo fell silent, and moved deeper into the shop, and the ghost was content to follow along quietly, positively giggling with the novelty.
The counter was a high wooden stoop behind the rows, with a little cash register sitting upon it. The register was shut, and slightly dusty. However, in places, the metal had rusted through, and there were holes just large enough to peek through. Ichigo squinted and looked inside.
Cobwebs, a whole morass of spiderwebs, and one fat, quite pregnant spider sitting inside. Its bulging abdomen was massive, and appeared riddled with pustules that were just ripe to burst open with thousands more of the breed. She skittered about inside, as though she could feel the weight of his stare, moving to a corner he couldn't peek into.
Ichigo shuddered slightly, and backed away. "Nothing," he chuckled whimsically. He doubted he would've taken anything, even if he'd found some coins. It felt wrong, somehow, to take anything from this st—
Something blurred past, liquid black, and the ghost shrieked in surprise.
Ichigo shuddered violently and hopped back, head spinning. "Wha—"
It was only a cat. It licked at it's grey footpads and eyed him with brilliant amber eyes. The ghost coughed nervously behind Ichigo, and Ichigo relaxed, until he noticed where it's paw was placed.
The cat had curled up onto the counter, but shifted the register out of its worn housing, onto the wood of the counter. "Hey," said Ichigo, growing alarmed, as the cat's continuing self-ministrations slid the register closer to the edge. "Hey, get down from there." He rubbed his fingers together. "Pspspspspspsps," he tried.
The cat blinked at him dully, stretching out one foot and moving the register half-off the counter. It's golden eyes tracked Ichigo's focus on the metal contraption, and it began batting at it playfully.
"You goddamn..." Ichigo grumbled, "N—!" He lurched forwards as the cat began rocking the machine back and forth, blinking at him, "Good kitty..." he mumbled, slowly moving forwards. He was slightly scared of getting closer, but he didn't want the register to...well, he couldn't really explain it, could he? It was like passing wind in a church, or standing on a fountain. It didn't feel right. It was a part of the store. He wanted to protect it.
Ichigo stretched out some hands, mildly distressed. "Here?" he tried.
The cat, unimpressed, shoved the register off the counter. Ichigo half-dove for it, but recoiled as it smashed loudly, metal bits ringing loudly and going all over the place. His hands reflexively went for his eyes. He felt something hot tug at his lips, and felt a trickle slide down his bottom lip.
When he looked again, the cat was gone, and there was nothing but shining bits of metal and cobwebs all over the floor.
"Well," tsk-ed the ghost. "That was messy."
Ichigo walked over to the mess, unable to help the mild sense of guilt he felt. His hands itched for a dustpan of some sort. "Do kids play here?" Ichigo heard himself asking. Warm blood was staining his lips, and he licked it away; a slight pain told him where it was coming from.
"Sometimes."
That made his mind up. "I'll be here tomorrow. I'll clean this up." He frowned deeper. "Can't let some kid trip on this. Might mess up their feet or something." He rubbed his hands together, already thinking of what he needed. Bleach, papers, bags, some tongs...he was here, might as well make this place less of a hazard. There must be all kinds of mold growing here. He could pull Keigo, Mizuiro had a 50/50 of showing up, Chad...hard maybe. The massive boy would be a damn good help for sure. It would've been worth waiting for him, just for the sheer help he would be, if not for the smashed pieces of the register.
"How many people live in the neighborhood?"
"Not many." The ghost shrugged. "It's all yours." That he wouldn't mind the company went unsaid. That was fine. Ichigo found himself warming to the idea. Chad would appreciate the place as well, if they could fix it up. A nice place to practice his guitar or something. His neighbors had been getting on his case recently.
"You know," the ghost's voice intruded on his thoughts softly, his tone catching Ichigo's attention. "You don't need to do all this." He shuffled footlessly. "It's nice," he said hastily, "but really, it's fine."
Ichigo waved him off. "It's fine," he grunted. And honestly, it was. If Ichigo was being entirely honest, he just liked the place. It had a pleasing shape and ambiance. He could use somewhere to lurk where the student cops wouldn't try to bust him for random crap too. They'd found his spot below the bridge. "We can get you a shrine too. See if we can't get you moving to heaven."
The ghost's jaw worked a few times while Ichigo tried to kick the sharper bits of metal closer to the wall, before firming. "It's nearly stopped raining." He said abruptly.
Ichigo's ears twitched at that, and he quickly walked over and peeked out one of the grimy windows. Gonna need some cleaning fluid. Scrubber too. The rain was indeed petering off, the first bars of moonlight breaking through.
"Huh." He turned back to the ghost, whose face had taken on a slightly unreadable cant. "Thanks."
The ghost nodded.
Ichigo turned back to the store with a slight sense of wistfulness, and slowly moved to the back. "Might as well put the register back, at least," he muttered. He'd been hesitating because he didn't want to walk around with grimy hands, but he was leaving now anyway. Besides, he was slightly curious about the register. It had been oddly intact. How could no one have tried to peek inside?
He picked his way back across the broken bits of metal. Frayed threads of web were everywhere, and he felt a brief throb of guilt over the poor spider mother. He shook it off; he didn't even like spiders. But despite himself, he still tried to avoid stepping too carelessly. Just in case.
There wasn't much to see anyway. His first impression seemed to be right;
the owner had been wise enough to clear house. Perhaps other people had done as he did, and been satisfied with peeking inside the register through some hole or another. He whimsically kicked over bits of the drawer, but all that scattered was bits of wood and metal, and small clouds of light blue paint. "What am I even doing?" he muttered, terribly embarrassed. He obviously wasn't cleaning a damn thing. He shoved the larger pieces closer to the wall, where he'd kicked over the glass earlier, and hastily stepped away. He'd come back with proper bags—
"Wait," the ghost said, "you missed something."
Ichigo turned, and frowned. "I'm not really interested in taking anything—"
"It doesn't look like a part of the shop," the ghost interrupted. "It's new. And weird."
Ichigo, curious, followed the ghost back to the wreck of the register, and at his prompting, turned over a bit of the till with his foot gingerly. Beneath it, something gleamed, slick and red. A card, of some kind. The ghost had been correct, that looked distinctly strange.
"Weird, huh? I think it might've been in the register."
"That's pretty weird," Ichigo agreed absently. Stooping down, he swept it up, and held to the thin bar of moonlight pouring in through the ceiling slat. It shone, spotless. It was oddly heavy as well, and when he flipped it over it had nothing but a magnetic strip on the back, no description at all. "Weird..."
"Any idea what that is?"
Ichigo shrugged and pocketed it. "Not a clue. Maybe a cash card of some kind?"
"Maybe," said the ghost dubiously. "I feel like I've seen that type of card before. It must've been a long while ago..."
Ichigo snorted. "Whatever, old man. I'll hold on to it for now, lemme know if you remember what it is." He cracked his neck and moved back to the front door, shivering at the chilly greeting as he pushed it open, and bent down to sweep his bag back up.
"I'll be back tomorrow!" he called back, before slamming the door shut, leaving the lonely ghost to ponder in the moonlit storefront.
"…I think it was a telephone card?" he wondered aloud. "Weird place to keep one. I hope I remember to tell him..." The ghost frowned slightly. "What was his name again...?"
His first impression was unexpectedly negative; the entrance creaked harshly underfoot, and the eaves were low enough that the canopy threatened to shear off the top of his head, should he have entered at speed. Relief and exhaustion followed; he slumped over, panting, and slowly took in the little porch a second time. It seemed cozier, this time. He decisively dropped the bag he'd been holding onto; he'd be staying.
A small cloud of dust rose where his bag hit the floor, and he looked at where the goods had spilled out. They'd fallen onto a small drawing. After packing his shopping away, he paced the small porch curiously, feeling up the wood and checking out the other small carvings left on the floor. Childlike sketches and misspellings were everywhere. He looked up and squinted. The roof was equally dirty, spattered with paint, but it was solid and it held, despite speckles of rust on the rivets. The rain drummed harshly against the aluminum roof, like pennies from heaven, and he could hardly believe he'd been pushing through it a minute ago.
Especially because he'd not intended to end up anywhere near here. He twisted back to observe the street with some small measure of awe. He'd believed himself familiar with all of Karakura Town's twists and turns, and yet, here it was, a street behind a street, a fresh row hidden by another, a twisting byway he'd stepped into and found not just a shortcut but an entire small community! The homes were old, perhaps some of the oldest he'd ever seen in Karakura; the majority seemed gracefully antiquated and expansive, occupying far more space than he would have expected for a suburb of Karakura, where land was quite expensive. There were only a few homes occupying the entire street, all of them eerily quiet and dark.
That this area hadn't been torn down and remodeled seemed almost miraculous.
But if there was something strange about the neighborhood to point at, it would be that the little shop he sat in seemed to be the heart of it. It was the squattest, dirtiest building on the street, but it held the centermost position, and Ichigo had the odd feeling that the other buildings had been made taller on purpose, like they were shielding something precious.
Certainly, the area was oddly dark, even for a storm. The watery lights of streetlamps were entirely absent, almost buffeted away by the stolid masses of the larger homes from where they lit up the streets not a block away, and with the sheeting rain dulling noise, Ichigo had the distinct impression of sitting inside an enormous bubble. But the moonlight was clear tonight, even if only in fits and starts as the storm continued to brew, and when he turned back, Ichigo could make out a doorway and the warmth that appeared to wait behind it. He shivered slightly, and made up his mind to go inside, no matter how dusty or run-down; so resolved, he turned to the ephemeral specter that had appeared, as silent as night, behind his shoulder and asked, "This your place?"
The shade blinked slowly, thick jawline working as he tried to find words. "You can hear me?" the ghost tried, only slight hesitation in his voice.
Something about the lack of surprise twigged Ichigo's instincts. "You've heard of me," he said flatly.
The specter shifted; with no feet, this was a rather impressive motion. "Yes," rumbled the ghost, "Sometimes we talk. The ghosts that can move, that is. That can leave. They carry news when they pass by. You're in it, sometimes."
Ichigo swore lightly under his breath, his brows coming together in a furious cloud. "You're running news now?" he said, disbelief clear, "I've been telling you guys to focus on getting to heaven—what the hell is this?"
The large specter shrugged. "Harder than it seems."
Ichigo cursed again, and sniffed. His nose was running. He shivered and held back a sneeze. His eyes darted between the ghost and the rain, then between the ghost and the entrance, before he sighed explosively and asked in a softer voice, "May I come in?"
A fleeting grin broke across the ghosts' face. "You sure you don't mind a ghost's company?"
One hand went up to roughen his orange hair. "Haven't much choice, do I?"
The ghost chuckled, lower than the thunder overhead, and waved him in.
Ichigo cast one more look outside and shuddered, before lightly grasping the doorknob and twisting.
Or trying to.
"When did you say you died?" asked Ichigo, straining. The ghost rubbed at his hairless chin as Ichigo puffed and rattled the doorknob. "It must've been some time," he said thoughtfully. Ichigo was yanking on the door now, one foot up in the frame and tugging hard enough to turn pink and make thin cords stand out on his neck.
The ghost snapped his fingers. "It's only been a few days," said the ghost, "Yes, I remember. News came by a little bit after I died, it had been a day or so, and it's been a few days since then."
"This is 'a few' days dead?" Ichigo asked, pausing in his increasingly violent motions.
"No, not really." The ghost began ticking off his fingers, "A) The humidity and rain started recently, so the door probably swelled up in the frame, which is why it's stuck." Ichigo was turning red from the strain now, but he could feel the door slowly slipping, sliding out of it's damp framing. "B)," recited the ghost, "The news-ghosts don't work weekends."
It was the precise moment that Ichigo stopped to huff out a tired laugh, that the door slid from it's frame, swung wide, and landed a blow squarely edge-on between Ichigo's legs.
The ghost leaned over Ichigo's screaming form, and lowered his last finger, as dust rained down and settled on the fallen boy. "C) I didn't die here. I just like the ambiance."
"You goddamn—"
"I lived next door." The ghost shrugged. "This store's been empty for ages. Even when I was alive."
Ichigo swore and cried a little, but he crawled inside and felt a little warmer for it. Especially once he'd found his legs after a few, agonizing minutes of speechless pain, and closed the door behind him.
It opened outward, he assured himself, and turned back to the room with no small ease of mind.
Inside, the sounds of the storm were muted. While the clouds overhead continued to rumble, it was now a faraway thing. Much more real was the sense of disquiet in the air. Not of a particularly malignant sort, as people are fond of attributing to old locations, but a peaceful one. A melancholy, as they say, had settled over the place.
Ichigo tread carefully, unconsciously holding his breath as thick dust swirled in his footsteps. The entrance itself was plain, only a disused bell faintly clattering at his entrance, and the flooring was a spongy tatami. Mildew ran in thick streaks across the walls, making the shadows deepen until the edges of the building seemed to pull away into the darkness. The thin slats near the ceiling allowed only the faintest stream of light through, leaving much of the room in an almost anticipatory gloom.
The room was a large one, organized like a library, nearly ceiling to floor. Ichigo walked along one length, leaving the door at his back, seeing the occasional flash of the counter at the back. Water ran down his form and pooled on the floor, where it seeped into the gaps between each tile, and occasionally splashed into his shoes. Scum rose up from the tatami and floated to the surface, and eventually his shoes felt grimy and slick against his feet.
The shelves were no better. Ichigo ran an eye down one of the racks; they'd been emptied, but the packaging and leftover boxes indicated that it had probably been a professional moving job, and not looting. Oily residue stained some of the surfaces. A bit of stained plastic and a crumb of furry mold hinted at an abandoned lunch or two.
But for all that, the place felt homely. There was no sense of invasion to any of the changes.
"I don't know what it is," said Ichigo slowly, "But I'm glad this place isn't haunted."
The ghost behind him grunted appreciatively. "I like sitting in this place," he said quietly. "All the ghosts do, really. Old homes, abandoned places that have a lot of memories, they feel good to be in."
"Residue of a life lived," Ichigo said quietly, falling into a squat and tracing crooked letters only a child could have left on the paneled wood. "Not so different from you." Ghosts were pretty nosey parkers if you never ran 'em off, but this one was polite enough. Ichigo didn't mind the company in this derelict, and he was more respectful than some of the ghouls Ichigo'd kicked around; he'd see about getting the guy a proper shrine. The ghost probably wasn't three days passed though; the dead tended to lose time pretty easily. Ichigo had once met a young woman convinced it was 1959, and that he was a gaijin here to survey the territory. The cars, the technology, the change of lights and people and property, none of it stayed, it ran off her mind like the rain outside on oil paper. Ichigo sometimes wondered at the improbability of a ghost from 1959 still being around. How sad must she have been?
"It was a nice place, long ago," the ghost said faintly. "Kinda glad I'm the only one that normally hangs around in here, honestly."
"That seems counterintuitive," Ichigo observed with some surprise. "Aren't you ghost types lonely?"
"Well sure," the ghost said shiftily, "but it's also kinda depressing, you know? 'Cuz they're dead."
"Makes sense." Ichigo was uncomfortable with the fond look the ghost was giving him. He knew that the ghosts were terribly starved for affection, and he did want to do his best for them, but he couldn't live his life for their sake, now could he? He already owed it to his sisters. And Goat-Chin, he supposed. He could toss the old man a bone or two.
No, the best thing was to try and send ghosts off to the afterlife sooner. So Ichigo fell silent, and moved deeper into the shop, and the ghost was content to follow along quietly, positively giggling with the novelty.
The counter was a high wooden stoop behind the rows, with a little cash register sitting upon it. The register was shut, and slightly dusty. However, in places, the metal had rusted through, and there were holes just large enough to peek through. Ichigo squinted and looked inside.
Cobwebs, a whole morass of spiderwebs, and one fat, quite pregnant spider sitting inside. Its bulging abdomen was massive, and appeared riddled with pustules that were just ripe to burst open with thousands more of the breed. She skittered about inside, as though she could feel the weight of his stare, moving to a corner he couldn't peek into.
Ichigo shuddered slightly, and backed away. "Nothing," he chuckled whimsically. He doubted he would've taken anything, even if he'd found some coins. It felt wrong, somehow, to take anything from this st—
Something blurred past, liquid black, and the ghost shrieked in surprise.
Ichigo shuddered violently and hopped back, head spinning. "Wha—"
It was only a cat. It licked at it's grey footpads and eyed him with brilliant amber eyes. The ghost coughed nervously behind Ichigo, and Ichigo relaxed, until he noticed where it's paw was placed.
The cat had curled up onto the counter, but shifted the register out of its worn housing, onto the wood of the counter. "Hey," said Ichigo, growing alarmed, as the cat's continuing self-ministrations slid the register closer to the edge. "Hey, get down from there." He rubbed his fingers together. "Pspspspspspsps," he tried.
The cat blinked at him dully, stretching out one foot and moving the register half-off the counter. It's golden eyes tracked Ichigo's focus on the metal contraption, and it began batting at it playfully.
"You goddamn..." Ichigo grumbled, "N—!" He lurched forwards as the cat began rocking the machine back and forth, blinking at him, "Good kitty..." he mumbled, slowly moving forwards. He was slightly scared of getting closer, but he didn't want the register to...well, he couldn't really explain it, could he? It was like passing wind in a church, or standing on a fountain. It didn't feel right. It was a part of the store. He wanted to protect it.
Ichigo stretched out some hands, mildly distressed. "Here?" he tried.
The cat, unimpressed, shoved the register off the counter. Ichigo half-dove for it, but recoiled as it smashed loudly, metal bits ringing loudly and going all over the place. His hands reflexively went for his eyes. He felt something hot tug at his lips, and felt a trickle slide down his bottom lip.
When he looked again, the cat was gone, and there was nothing but shining bits of metal and cobwebs all over the floor.
"Well," tsk-ed the ghost. "That was messy."
Ichigo walked over to the mess, unable to help the mild sense of guilt he felt. His hands itched for a dustpan of some sort. "Do kids play here?" Ichigo heard himself asking. Warm blood was staining his lips, and he licked it away; a slight pain told him where it was coming from.
"Sometimes."
That made his mind up. "I'll be here tomorrow. I'll clean this up." He frowned deeper. "Can't let some kid trip on this. Might mess up their feet or something." He rubbed his hands together, already thinking of what he needed. Bleach, papers, bags, some tongs...he was here, might as well make this place less of a hazard. There must be all kinds of mold growing here. He could pull Keigo, Mizuiro had a 50/50 of showing up, Chad...hard maybe. The massive boy would be a damn good help for sure. It would've been worth waiting for him, just for the sheer help he would be, if not for the smashed pieces of the register.
"How many people live in the neighborhood?"
"Not many." The ghost shrugged. "It's all yours." That he wouldn't mind the company went unsaid. That was fine. Ichigo found himself warming to the idea. Chad would appreciate the place as well, if they could fix it up. A nice place to practice his guitar or something. His neighbors had been getting on his case recently.
"You know," the ghost's voice intruded on his thoughts softly, his tone catching Ichigo's attention. "You don't need to do all this." He shuffled footlessly. "It's nice," he said hastily, "but really, it's fine."
Ichigo waved him off. "It's fine," he grunted. And honestly, it was. If Ichigo was being entirely honest, he just liked the place. It had a pleasing shape and ambiance. He could use somewhere to lurk where the student cops wouldn't try to bust him for random crap too. They'd found his spot below the bridge. "We can get you a shrine too. See if we can't get you moving to heaven."
The ghost's jaw worked a few times while Ichigo tried to kick the sharper bits of metal closer to the wall, before firming. "It's nearly stopped raining." He said abruptly.
Ichigo's ears twitched at that, and he quickly walked over and peeked out one of the grimy windows. Gonna need some cleaning fluid. Scrubber too. The rain was indeed petering off, the first bars of moonlight breaking through.
"Huh." He turned back to the ghost, whose face had taken on a slightly unreadable cant. "Thanks."
The ghost nodded.
Ichigo turned back to the store with a slight sense of wistfulness, and slowly moved to the back. "Might as well put the register back, at least," he muttered. He'd been hesitating because he didn't want to walk around with grimy hands, but he was leaving now anyway. Besides, he was slightly curious about the register. It had been oddly intact. How could no one have tried to peek inside?
He picked his way back across the broken bits of metal. Frayed threads of web were everywhere, and he felt a brief throb of guilt over the poor spider mother. He shook it off; he didn't even like spiders. But despite himself, he still tried to avoid stepping too carelessly. Just in case.
There wasn't much to see anyway. His first impression seemed to be right;
the owner had been wise enough to clear house. Perhaps other people had done as he did, and been satisfied with peeking inside the register through some hole or another. He whimsically kicked over bits of the drawer, but all that scattered was bits of wood and metal, and small clouds of light blue paint. "What am I even doing?" he muttered, terribly embarrassed. He obviously wasn't cleaning a damn thing. He shoved the larger pieces closer to the wall, where he'd kicked over the glass earlier, and hastily stepped away. He'd come back with proper bags—
"Wait," the ghost said, "you missed something."
Ichigo turned, and frowned. "I'm not really interested in taking anything—"
"It doesn't look like a part of the shop," the ghost interrupted. "It's new. And weird."
Ichigo, curious, followed the ghost back to the wreck of the register, and at his prompting, turned over a bit of the till with his foot gingerly. Beneath it, something gleamed, slick and red. A card, of some kind. The ghost had been correct, that looked distinctly strange.
"Weird, huh? I think it might've been in the register."
"That's pretty weird," Ichigo agreed absently. Stooping down, he swept it up, and held to the thin bar of moonlight pouring in through the ceiling slat. It shone, spotless. It was oddly heavy as well, and when he flipped it over it had nothing but a magnetic strip on the back, no description at all. "Weird..."
"Any idea what that is?"
Ichigo shrugged and pocketed it. "Not a clue. Maybe a cash card of some kind?"
"Maybe," said the ghost dubiously. "I feel like I've seen that type of card before. It must've been a long while ago..."
Ichigo snorted. "Whatever, old man. I'll hold on to it for now, lemme know if you remember what it is." He cracked his neck and moved back to the front door, shivering at the chilly greeting as he pushed it open, and bent down to sweep his bag back up.
"I'll be back tomorrow!" he called back, before slamming the door shut, leaving the lonely ghost to ponder in the moonlit storefront.
"…I think it was a telephone card?" he wondered aloud. "Weird place to keep one. I hope I remember to tell him..." The ghost frowned slightly. "What was his name again...?"
QuietlyObserving
The Railgun That Walks Like a Bear
- Location
- Here.
Hmmm...wonder what's different here. This seems like a long-abandoned Urahara Shoten, and I'm 98% sure that was Yoruichi messing around. Wonder why she left a Psyren card behind...
August, 2001 - II
Bladestar123
Happy
- Location
- Man, wherever
Chad dropped by the next morning, while Ichigo was getting ready to head out.
The house was oddly quiet - Mr. Kurosaki was probably out at the time, since no screams accompanied the distant call of "come on up!"
He'd gone directly from the convenience store to Ichigo's place after he got his text, curiosity bubbling up as he walked. He'd never heard of the sort of neighborhood that Ichigo had briefly described, but he would admit that it sounded nice for him- he only managed to practice on his bass for an hour a day before his neighbors got home. A new place sounded good enough that even if he didn't owe Ichigo, he still might've skipped the day to help.
Chad could tell he'd arrived at an awkward time, however, because by the time he moved through the silent home and finally made it up the stairs, Ichigo was still deep in his closet, ankles poking out and kicking as he fought to unwedge something from behind his spare futon.
Chad paused at the doorway for a moment, taking it in, before rapidly striding forwards. Ichigo had probably noticed him immediately of course, Chad moved like a bull and weighed about as much, but he still yelped in surprise as Chad's massive fingers curled around his ankle and pulled.
Ichigo was ripped out of the closet, stumbling back across the room as he landed on his feet and windmilled his arms, before overbalancing and falling on his ass. "Hey Chad," he gasped. "Good timing."
Chad watched silently as Ichigo slowly shook himself off. The shirt he'd been tugging at was clutched tightly in one hand, almost unconsciously. His eyes were slightly unfocused. Chad rubbed the back of his head, abashed. "You seemed stuck."
Ichigo, however, just grinned and offered Chad a hand to pull him up, which the larger boy did effortlessly. Hopping to his feet, Ichigo brushed off his shirt with one hand and traded a fist bump with the other, exchanging greetings flutter-quick as they slowly maneuvered around the room, trying not to get in each other's way. Chad eventually sat on Ichigo's bed so he wouldn't need to bow his head to stand, while Ichigo went to clean his hands, sticky with glue and bits of fabric.
Chad took the free minute to observe what Ichigo had been making all night.
Sitting on Ichigo's table was a large plastic dome made from alternately layered plastic bags and scrap cloth, over a cardboard structure propped up with sticks. It reeked of cheap glue and mothballs, but it seemed sturdy enough. Something had been scrawled in pen all along the lip, but as far as Chad could tell, it was just nonsense. Chad was still looking at it when Ichigo walked back into the room. Noticing his interest, Ichigo picked it up, flipping it end over end in his hand and reflexively explained, "It's, like, to protect something. From a cat," he added hastily, "They hate scratching plastic, right? I looked it up."
Chad was slightly excited to hear that a cat might be around, but tamped it down as he thought about what Ichigo said, and replied, "Vinyl's better." Chad stood up and padded over to the dome, bending to prod it with a finger. "Cut a beach ball in half, prop the insides or just wrap up what you want protected, I suppose." He flipped it up into his hand, and observed the underside, where the glue had seeped through and formed large, sticky patches. "...this will go brittle once the glue dries."
Ichigo scratched the back of his head. "I didn't think of that 'til I was almost done," he said sheepishly. "It's just supposed to stop them from getting curious and looking under it."
"Would that work?"
"It passed the Beardo test." He moved past Chad to kick aside a bag lying half-out of his closet. It slid into the wall with a soft rattle, falling open to reveal bits of metal and plastic that resembled home cleaning tools, had they been laundered and smashed up first.
Sliding the closet door open, Ichigo started hurling more clothes onto his bed, occasionally tossing something that rattled, or squawked, or whistled as it passed into the open bag. Chad restrained his confusion, instead voicing his curiosity about the aforementioned 'Beardo' test.
"I hid Pop's dinner underneath it and it took him six hours to find it. Woke up and found him face-down in the soup." Ichigo finally emerged, a bundle of cloth in each hand, and lazily stretched out. "He got lucky and finished most of it, or he'd have probably drowned—hey, toss me that plastic bag, by your feet."
Chad looked down, where he was standing by the bed. The loop of a small store bag (Las Urracas!) was visible, poking out from under the bed. He lifted it up for Ichigo's approval, and swung it over at the answering nod.
Ichigo caught it, and rummaged through, "Thanks man, I picked up some pins to hold the dome down." He shoved the plastic cover deep inside the half-open bag along with a handful of other clothes and sundries he'd rustled up. Colorful cloth poked out of one corner as the contents shifted around, and he used the other hand to try to compress it down as he stuffed it deeper inside, while continuing to explain, "It should be just large enough to fit a cash register. I wanna get Mizuiro to take a look at it, but if he can't make it, I might just dome it and hope the cats don't care enough."
Chad shrugged. Fair enough. "It should last for a night." He rose and dusted off his palms. "Packed enough?"
Ichigo jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "Bags, sprays, paper, cloth, a dust mask, gloves. Windex. Bleach. Anything else?"
Chad forewent questioning the intelligence of compressing all that into a single bag. "A broom. A pan."
"Downstairs? Gimme a minute to change into my sweats."
Chad nodded and bent double to creep out. Behind him, Ichigo paused, savoring a brief ray of sunshine as it lit up his room. The light poured in all of a sudden, clouds briefly parting to reveal a sliver of blue sky, and a far distant horizon. A wistful thought curled about Chad's mind: Karakura looked pretty good from this height. If it was dark, Ichigo might catch fireworks from Kichijoji, or distant light pollution from Yomiuri Land, but in the day, Karakura General Hospital was the shiniest thing for miles. It dominated the southern districts, rising high above the low-slung apartments all around. He'd been told they would be going somewhere around there, below it. One of those backstreets that criss-crossed in the shadow the hospital left over the city.
Chad idled in the sunbeams. He could hear noise below swell as Ichigo's family moved around, but it took a minute to rouse himself, 'cause the sky was blue and the birds were loud.
He'd assumed Ichigo was appreciating the same, but by the time he turned to leave, Ichigo was leaning against his window and furiously scanning the neighborhood for what had looked like a very dark cat passing through.
"Chaaaaad!"
Below, Chad dropped down to a squat and high-fived Yuzu, who ran out of the backyard to greet him. "Chad!" she squealed, "I made Chamuco! They were really good!"
"Better than Buñuelos?"
Yuzu thought about it for a moment. "No…" she said hesitantly, "I liked the Buñuelos more, they were fluffier. I think Karin preferred the chamuco though!"
"Good work." Chad offered her another high-five that she took happily, smile restored. "My abuelo left me some recipes for coyota, you can try that next."
She puffed herself up proudly. "I'll be a great baker in no time!" she told him proudly. Chad smiled slightly as she continued to regale him with the results of her many experiments, an ongoing project she'd taken upon herself after overhearing his brief admission of regret that he'd likely never taste anything as good as his abuelo's cooking again. Chad was just mildly relieved she hadn't taken offense, and accepted the words as a challenge in good spirit instead.
The sound of something skidding drew their attention, as the black bag Ichigo had been filling slid to Chad's feet. Ichigo was close behind, walking down the stairs while he dried his damp hair, to catch Yuzu pointing at him. "Ichi-nii brought me tons of ingredients! I made so many!" she reported to Chad happily, "…But Karin took them all to football practice." She was pouting now. "I'll hide some for you to taste next time, Chad." Chad shuffled with some slight embarrassment. Ichigo, on the other hand, looked somewhat distressed.
"What about your brother?" Ichigo asked, dismayed. "I didn't hear any mention of cookies for me. I had to go to Tama to get the right kind of flour, y'know." He accidentally let the towel slide onto the floor, to Yuzu's audible distress.
"I made you so many!" she cried, walking over to the towel and picking it up. Ichigo avoided looking at her as she sadly folded it out. "You and Daddy knocked it over!"
"That's what I stepped in..." Ichigo absently mused. "I thought I was bleeding..."
Chad accidentally looked down and saw Yuzu's face darkened by a seething fury. He felt like he'd seen something he'd rather he hadn't, so he pretended he had something in his eye when Yuzu glanced at him.
Ichigo was apparently more used to it than him, because he made the quick decision to walk away. Unfortunately, Chad was blocking the exit, and Yuzu had begun admonishing him to take care of the house better, so he went into the kitchen, presumably to rustle up some breakfast. Yuzu trailed after Ichigo as he wandered about, her scolding growing louder as he swung open doors and repeatedly checked the fridge, rather than manning up and confronting her for food.
Chad began feigning deafness as well.
Unfortunately, the cupboards were empty, and breakfast finished, so Ichigo started whining too. But by Ichigo's pained grumbles, Yuzu was entirely unmoved. "You got up late!" Yuzu folded her arms. "You need to wake up earlier than Daddy at least, Ichi-nii!"
"Like hell!"
"Stop being stubborn!"
"I just want my beauty sleep!"
At this, Yuzu paused, and her eyes narrowed dangerously. Ichigo seemed to give up on salvaging the morning entirely by this point, and was nearly running to Chad. Fortunately, Chad had used his immense empathetic powers to read the room and realize there was no way Ichigo was going to escape cleanly, so he'd already grabbed a dustpan, broom, and mop, and wrapped them up with a plastic bag he stuffed into a bucket.
"Ready to go?" Ichigo asked, shooting looks backward as he tried to surreptitiously put Chad's bulk between him and Yuzu. "Tell me we're ready to go man, please."
Chad nodded gravely, but continued to stare intently at Ichigo. "...making midnight runs to Las Urracas is risky."
"It wasn't so far." Ichigo shrugged, cracking his knuckles nervously, "And it's how I found this place. It's cool." He turned half-back, where Yuzu was impatiently tapping her feet, and Ichigo pretended to cringe in fear. "I gotta run, boss!" he cried, "Duty calls!" She stamped her foot at him, and he laughed, turning back to Chad. "Alright, let's head out before she gets angrier."
Chad rolled his eyes slightly, but swung the door open and held it while Ichigo blew out the door ahead of the cry of "Ichi-nii!", swinging his black bag up off the floor as he ran past. Chad went to move out, but stopped. Hand resting on the door, he turned back, and caught Yuzu giggling silently to herself, almost doubled over with laughter. The hair on the back of his neck stiffened.
"...an act?" Chad asked, somewhat nervous of how quickly she'd changed stances. He'd been convinced she was genuinely angry.
"Daddy asked me to give him a hard time." Yuzu wiped a tear from her eye happily, "He doesn't want Ichi-nii missing breakfast."
Chad slowly backed out, raising a hand as she waved him away, and closed it softly behind him. Just in case.
"Man, how come you get along with my sisters better than I do?" Ichigo mused, crossing his arms behind his head as Chad twisted the knob with a gentle click. "Is it the baking? It's the baking, right?"
Chad snorted as he caught up to Ichigo, not making eye contact.
Ichigo quirked a brow, but Chad just shook his head, and Ichigo let him off with just a muttered complaint.
They meandered forwards like that, cloudy skies occasionally breaking into vivid sunshine, and Chad thought seriously about how scary families could be sometimes. Eventually, he said, "Sister, not sisters." and lowered his voice into an undertone. "I've never met…Karin? She's always at football practice when I'm over." Chad shifted uncomfortably, a truly monolithic gesture. "Is she…avoiding me?"
"If she's avoiding you, then she's avoiding this whole damn family, too," Ichigo muttered back. They made their way out of the neighborhood, closer to where the sounds of traffic echoed. The quiet neighborhood was a few streets off from the main thoroughfare, and it showed in the number of people hurrying out their doors around them. Ichigo and Chad were oddly sedate by comparison, walking easily down the bird-stained side roads and avoiding people where they could. "That's just how Karin is, man, don't worry about it." Ichigo scratched his head thoughtfully. "She's takin' care of herself is all."
They paused speaking to let a car roar by, squeezing against the stained walls to allow it passage. The street was narrow, Chad had to crouch slightly to fit under the metal stairs that led up to the small tenant apartments that seemed to line every inch of the street. People peered down at them, at Chad's enormous height and Ichigo's violent hair, and they felt themselves quiet in response. Weirdly enough, it seemed like Ichigo was more of a focus than he was, for once.
"Let's go," Ichigo muttered, vein on his neck pulsing. "Car's gone."
Chad went to reply, but then hesitated, and simply nodded, straightening as he crept out from the rusting stairs and sharply cut to the side, where Ichigo was trying to avoid looking at the apartment. Row after row they passed, each with the same four-by-two structure, and the exact same metal staircase leading upwards. Lamps dotted the street after every other building, and Chad saw that more than a few had accumulated boxes of trash and burnables.
Everywhere they went, eyes followed. Children, adults, the elderly, pedestrians. A young woman poked her head out of an open door, eyes wide, while her lover tried to pull her back in. It varied, but never fell to zero. And with every one, Ichigo's head buried itself deeper into his chest.
"Goddamn hate this street," Ichigo snarled, almost stomping. "Lived here for over a decade, I'm still a damn Yankee apparently." He paused to stare incandescently at a guy holding a spray can of orange paint who'd rounded the corner from an alleyway, and stumbled backwards as he caught the full force of Ichigo's look on his way out. He quailed at the evil look until Ichigo finally moved past the entrance, still grumbling, before straightening up and clutching at a flattened hat.
Chad stopped to nod politely to the guy on the way past. "Sorry."
They left him trembling on the corner of the street, as Ichigo kept complaining under his breath about injustice. Privately, Chad wondered if some of the rumors hadn't been at least somewhat deserved, but held his silence as they moved quickly to a less populated neighborhood, this one full of small stores. Here, the people were far too interested in the actual exhibits, chattering and passing around them, so loud they couldn't hear each other over the heads of the passers-by.
Here, Ichigo began leading him onwards, using gestures to point Chad in the right direction, and they turned into another of Karakura's innumerable side alleys. Chad never quite stopped, but he slowed to look at some of the art left on the walls. He didn't think there was any graffiti left in Karakura, but here it was, as graphic and vivid as back in Mexico. Ichigo stalked ahead, irritation swirling around him like a physical weight, lost in his own grievances. Both were so caught up in their thoughts, in fact, that they walked out of the alley, into bright sunshine, and right past Mizuiro.
"Oh wow," said Mizuiro, staring at them from where he'd been racking his bike across the street; or rather, at Ichigo, in frank horror. His lock fell from numbed fingers, unused. "What the heck are you wearing?" Ichigo whirled around, frowning mien replaced with a look of sleepy outrage.
"What?" Ichigo looked down at his shirt, and looked back up, taking a few challenging steps towards the boy.
Mizuiro shivered. "Powerful..." he muttered, "To walk around like that, and ask 'what?' like it's nothing. Amazing. Ichigo, you're amazing." His eyes finally drifted off a fuming Ichigo. "Oh, hey Chad."
Chad waved back.
"What?" Ichigo grit out, "does that mean."
"It's neon," said Mizuiro, still avoiding eye contact as he shivered and backed away. "It's hideous!"
Ichigo reared back, offended, and felt his cheek start twitching, a sure sign of anger. His shirt rippled like an oil stain in the sunlight as he advanced on the terrified lad, the technicolor print of Anpanman seeming to dance in the haze of sunlight. It cast little rainbow flecks all over Mizuiro's face. "It's not that bad. We're on our way to a clean up job, this'll all be filthy by the time we're done. And," Ichigo jerked a thumb at Chad, "Chad didn't notice anything wrong with it."
Chad shrugged, entirely ambivalent. He thought the colors had looked pretty good, to be honest. Anpanman was cute too. He'd been wondering where Ichigo got it.
"You look like a billboard!"
Now Chad felt bad.
Mizuiro swallowed at the expression on their faces, nodded twice, and turned to run away.
"Not so fast." Ichigo lunged and seized him by the back of his shirt, and Mizuiro squealed in fear, "I don't want to be seen like this in public!" he wailed, "What if my girlfriend sees me?!"
"You're coming to help," Ichigo growled. "You weren't even heading to class, the school's in the opposite direction." Ichigo hefted the boy up and started trying to drag him along. "Come on," Ichigo grunted, as Mizuiro dug in his heels and fought to stay in place.
Mizuiro continued to call Ichigo names as he yanked at the smaller boy, their voices growing louder and more caustic. Privately, Chad thought that they were both being kind of weird, but they seemed to be enjoying it. They were spending far too much time fussing to actually be angry, which was good, because the riverbank was only a block or two away, and he might have tossed them both in the drink to cool off. He was still kind of tempted, to be honest.
Mizuiro, as though sensing his thoughts, promptly went quiet and limp. Ichigo whuffed at the sudden dead weight, and Chad looked over, concerned, having picked up Mizuiro's bike one-handed.
"I'll be good," Mizuiro said cheerily.
Ichigo wheezed out a second curse and started dragging him down the street.
The store was as forbidding as the first time Ichigo'd seen it, and paradoxically, he felt just as comfortable as he walked onto the patio. The lack of rain didn't, as he'd faintly worried, take away from the ambiance at all. The austerity clung to the heavy beams, the dark wood that framed the door, the chill iron fittings about the cloudy windows, the heavy sheeted overhang that cast the whole porch in shadow. He felt like he was walking into a pool of cool, cool water as he stepped into it.
"HEY!" Ichigo called out, as the boys behind him slowly explored the new environs. "HEY GHOST, YOU THERE?"
Chad, as expected, gravitated to the faint sketches by a child's hand, dropping to his knees and tracing the crooked stick figures with something approaching a grin.
Mizuiro, however, unexpectedly continued to stare out at the neighborhood. "What a cool place," he said thoughtfully. "Did you notice how quiet it is? No birds." He squinted and leaned out of the porch, panning from side-to-side as he took in the homes that surrounded them. "No birds..." He said thoughtfully.
"I noticed," Ichigo grumbled, side-eyeing Mizuiro; he'd settled down as soon as they hit the backstreets, nearly skipping the rest of the way.
Mizuiro laughed with slight embarrassment at the look, but continued to stare out. "It really is a nice place," he repeated. His hands lingered on the scuffed wooden posts, occasionally tightening on them.
Ichigo's eyes lingered on him for a second, before he turned away impatiently, and strode back to the door. "HEY GHOST, YOU THERE?!"
"I'm here."
Ichigo whipped around, as the ghost casually rose up through the floor. Chad flinched at the movement, and then relaxed as he realized Ichigo was looking at nothing. Ichigo leaned down to clap him on the shoulder as he passed, walking up to the ghost to take him in. In the daylight, he seemed even more ephemeral, all thinning hair and bull neck. "I didn't think you'd be back," the ghost admitted. "I'm not used to it."
Ichigo frowned and scratched his head. "Do people come here a lot?" he asked eventually. "Looked pretty abandoned to me."
"Oh, it is," the ghost assured him, and went silent as Ichigo stared at him.
"Does that mean people don't show up, or...?" Ichigo asked, jaw twitching.
"I don't remember," the ghost said cheerfully. "But the place seems empty, so I'd say that's a fair bet." The vacant smile looked smug on his thick face.
Ichigo declined to comment, but in the back of his head, noted the faint confirmation that the ghost had, indeed, been wrong about his time of death. Had it really only been three days, he hardly would've been in the position to forget. Still, mentioning it seemed cruel.
"Uh, Ichigo?" Mizuiro asked behind him. Ichigo turned to look at the inquisitive boy, who'd finally moved away from the porch entrance to lean against the thin walls. He'd reached up to play with a small silver bell that Ichigo had missed, swirling it around his finger. "Were you speaking to a ghost?"
"Yeah."
"Huh," Mizuiro muttered quietly, lowering his hand and giving the store an arch look. "That seems faintly ominous. Nice place you found."
"He doesn't live here," Ichigo assured him, already moving to the door, before stopping. "Hey Chad, do me a favor, grab the door?"
"Sure," the man said simply. He stood, dusting his hands off, and cast a slightly regretful look at the drawings. "This was an active place, once," he said quietly.
Ichigo nodded. "Once," he agreed. Chad stood still for a moment, pondering that, before he shook it off and moved past Ichigo to stand by the door. "Is it dusty inside?" he asked curiously, taking in the windows.
"Kinda."
Mizuiro immediately backed away, leaning on the railing as far back as he could go. "Okay!" he said, "Go ahead, Chad!"
Chad shrugged, and twisting the doorknob, pulled and ripped the door right out of it's warped housing. A small cloud of dust poured out, swirling as it caught the breeze and clouded outwards. They started coughing slightly, as it settled on their faces and hands. None more so than Chad, however, who'd taken the brunt of it; he looked like he'd been sleeping in Ichigo's attic.
Both looked down at the door that Chad held, entirely intact, by the doorknob. "...oops." Chad shrugged. "Looks like a pretty old place. Should I leave this outside?"
"Put it by the porch step," Ichigo directed, keeping an eye on Mizuiro, who skipped past them and entered the building, still clean.
"Waaaaah!" The boy exclaimed. "It's kinda spooky in here! I can believe a ghost would haunt it!"
"I'm not haunting it..." the ghost muttered, but obliviously, Mizuiro passed right through him, stepping into a row of shelves and passing entirely out of Ichigo's vision.
"Waaaah!" The boy's voice echoed against the metallic shelves, "Wow, this place is broken!"
Chad grunted as he tossed the broken door down, distracting Ichigo as it made a loud whud. "...I can take this to the construction yard, probably," he said thoughtfully. "We have some disposal...and this door is western-style. Brass. The foreman might like it."
"Oh yeah..." Ichigo made a thoughtful noise. "You have work today. How much time have you got to help, anyway?"
Chad nodded mutely. "I'm getting time off school for a big job anyway, so I'll only need to report to the greenfield at three. But I'll need to leave early; the foreman's quite strict. Sorry."
Ichigo eyed the faded and whorling scars on Chad's knuckles with some sobriety. "Need help?"
"Maybe later. I'm here to help you." Chad bent nearly double move past him and through the doorframe into the store. Ichigo moved after, pointlessly wiping his shoes on the bottom of the frame.
Chad was already folding the sleeves of his oversized sweater back. "Now, let's get started."
"Whoa!" Cried Mizuiro, voice taking a metallic tambre in the distance. "What the heck happened to this poor register?!"
"Your friend is stupid." The ghost sulked, drifting back to Ichigo's side.
Ichigo chuckled at the sound of scraping metal as Mizuiro started shifting pieces of the register around. "He's not so bad."
The work progressed quickly after that. Ichigo and Chad split up the cleaning, Chad taking most of the shelves and the walls with a large set of rags and a spray bottle of bleach, and Ichigo took the lower shelves and the floor using the heavy mop and a bucket of water from an actual, authentic well in the backyard. The little turn-pulley even worked, the pieces being nearly all wood, and Mizuiro had nearly fallen in fishing up the bucket of mossy water. It took a few duds but they were eventually drawing out cool, clear water that even smelled faintly of the arctic peaks.
"That shouldn't be possible," Chad had mused, looking over the well, but even the ghost had looked excited. He'd actually dove in to confirm that nothing unpleasant had made a home deep below. He'd been positively enthused by the changes to the area, regaling Ichigo with fond memories he had of going about the store as a child, and despite himself, Ichigo listened with some interest. He'd been somewhat interested in pinning down the man's actual age, until he realized that the stories had absolutely no congruity or throughline, and gave it up as the ghost speaking, admittedly amusing, nonsense. He'd even recounted some of the more interesting tales to the other two, who treated the whole thing with a degree of polite, but wary interest. Chad had even apologized to the ghost for needing to leave, facing entirely the wrong direction as he did so.
Still, once the big man left, Mizuiro got quieter. He'd actually taken repairing the register seriously, but now he seemed to treat it with some interest.
"This register's over a hundred years old," Mizuiro confided once Ichigo assured him that the Ghost had wandered off. "It's been repaired and patched up, but the base actually has a stamp from Mitsukoshi Kisarin - dated 1906." He paused, and said apologetically, "the mechanical bits are antique as heck. We could sell it, but they won't go back in."
Ichigo was still thinking about it when Mizuiro left for the day - was still thinking about it long after the sun set, in fact. He put the leftover bits under his little makeshift tarp, and sat, as the store cooled around him, from that autumnal heat to the chill of winter approaching. Bags and bags of trash lay scattered about, but as the deep walnut-brown wood slowly grew clear under layer after layer of dust and grime, the place began to feel quite welcoming. He liked the store, the gentle gravity of the all-wood architecture, to the memories obvious on every surface. It was a place that seemed tailor-made for a boy's childish hideaway, and a secret part of Ichigo did indeed thrill at the austerity of it all.
"It's nice, right?" The ghost said languidly, lying flat on the porch where Ichigo sat, legs spread out over the stoop. "I can't help coming back here. It…soothes me. Eases a part of me that aches from death."
Ichigo could see that being the case.
"Well," he said aloud, "That tears it. I can't leave a place like that unfinished. I'm gonna need to get that register fixed."
The house was oddly quiet - Mr. Kurosaki was probably out at the time, since no screams accompanied the distant call of "come on up!"
He'd gone directly from the convenience store to Ichigo's place after he got his text, curiosity bubbling up as he walked. He'd never heard of the sort of neighborhood that Ichigo had briefly described, but he would admit that it sounded nice for him- he only managed to practice on his bass for an hour a day before his neighbors got home. A new place sounded good enough that even if he didn't owe Ichigo, he still might've skipped the day to help.
Chad could tell he'd arrived at an awkward time, however, because by the time he moved through the silent home and finally made it up the stairs, Ichigo was still deep in his closet, ankles poking out and kicking as he fought to unwedge something from behind his spare futon.
Chad paused at the doorway for a moment, taking it in, before rapidly striding forwards. Ichigo had probably noticed him immediately of course, Chad moved like a bull and weighed about as much, but he still yelped in surprise as Chad's massive fingers curled around his ankle and pulled.
Ichigo was ripped out of the closet, stumbling back across the room as he landed on his feet and windmilled his arms, before overbalancing and falling on his ass. "Hey Chad," he gasped. "Good timing."
Chad watched silently as Ichigo slowly shook himself off. The shirt he'd been tugging at was clutched tightly in one hand, almost unconsciously. His eyes were slightly unfocused. Chad rubbed the back of his head, abashed. "You seemed stuck."
Ichigo, however, just grinned and offered Chad a hand to pull him up, which the larger boy did effortlessly. Hopping to his feet, Ichigo brushed off his shirt with one hand and traded a fist bump with the other, exchanging greetings flutter-quick as they slowly maneuvered around the room, trying not to get in each other's way. Chad eventually sat on Ichigo's bed so he wouldn't need to bow his head to stand, while Ichigo went to clean his hands, sticky with glue and bits of fabric.
Chad took the free minute to observe what Ichigo had been making all night.
Sitting on Ichigo's table was a large plastic dome made from alternately layered plastic bags and scrap cloth, over a cardboard structure propped up with sticks. It reeked of cheap glue and mothballs, but it seemed sturdy enough. Something had been scrawled in pen all along the lip, but as far as Chad could tell, it was just nonsense. Chad was still looking at it when Ichigo walked back into the room. Noticing his interest, Ichigo picked it up, flipping it end over end in his hand and reflexively explained, "It's, like, to protect something. From a cat," he added hastily, "They hate scratching plastic, right? I looked it up."
Chad was slightly excited to hear that a cat might be around, but tamped it down as he thought about what Ichigo said, and replied, "Vinyl's better." Chad stood up and padded over to the dome, bending to prod it with a finger. "Cut a beach ball in half, prop the insides or just wrap up what you want protected, I suppose." He flipped it up into his hand, and observed the underside, where the glue had seeped through and formed large, sticky patches. "...this will go brittle once the glue dries."
Ichigo scratched the back of his head. "I didn't think of that 'til I was almost done," he said sheepishly. "It's just supposed to stop them from getting curious and looking under it."
"Would that work?"
"It passed the Beardo test." He moved past Chad to kick aside a bag lying half-out of his closet. It slid into the wall with a soft rattle, falling open to reveal bits of metal and plastic that resembled home cleaning tools, had they been laundered and smashed up first.
Sliding the closet door open, Ichigo started hurling more clothes onto his bed, occasionally tossing something that rattled, or squawked, or whistled as it passed into the open bag. Chad restrained his confusion, instead voicing his curiosity about the aforementioned 'Beardo' test.
"I hid Pop's dinner underneath it and it took him six hours to find it. Woke up and found him face-down in the soup." Ichigo finally emerged, a bundle of cloth in each hand, and lazily stretched out. "He got lucky and finished most of it, or he'd have probably drowned—hey, toss me that plastic bag, by your feet."
Chad looked down, where he was standing by the bed. The loop of a small store bag (Las Urracas!) was visible, poking out from under the bed. He lifted it up for Ichigo's approval, and swung it over at the answering nod.
Ichigo caught it, and rummaged through, "Thanks man, I picked up some pins to hold the dome down." He shoved the plastic cover deep inside the half-open bag along with a handful of other clothes and sundries he'd rustled up. Colorful cloth poked out of one corner as the contents shifted around, and he used the other hand to try to compress it down as he stuffed it deeper inside, while continuing to explain, "It should be just large enough to fit a cash register. I wanna get Mizuiro to take a look at it, but if he can't make it, I might just dome it and hope the cats don't care enough."
Chad shrugged. Fair enough. "It should last for a night." He rose and dusted off his palms. "Packed enough?"
Ichigo jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "Bags, sprays, paper, cloth, a dust mask, gloves. Windex. Bleach. Anything else?"
Chad forewent questioning the intelligence of compressing all that into a single bag. "A broom. A pan."
"Downstairs? Gimme a minute to change into my sweats."
Chad nodded and bent double to creep out. Behind him, Ichigo paused, savoring a brief ray of sunshine as it lit up his room. The light poured in all of a sudden, clouds briefly parting to reveal a sliver of blue sky, and a far distant horizon. A wistful thought curled about Chad's mind: Karakura looked pretty good from this height. If it was dark, Ichigo might catch fireworks from Kichijoji, or distant light pollution from Yomiuri Land, but in the day, Karakura General Hospital was the shiniest thing for miles. It dominated the southern districts, rising high above the low-slung apartments all around. He'd been told they would be going somewhere around there, below it. One of those backstreets that criss-crossed in the shadow the hospital left over the city.
Chad idled in the sunbeams. He could hear noise below swell as Ichigo's family moved around, but it took a minute to rouse himself, 'cause the sky was blue and the birds were loud.
He'd assumed Ichigo was appreciating the same, but by the time he turned to leave, Ichigo was leaning against his window and furiously scanning the neighborhood for what had looked like a very dark cat passing through.
"Chaaaaad!"
Below, Chad dropped down to a squat and high-fived Yuzu, who ran out of the backyard to greet him. "Chad!" she squealed, "I made Chamuco! They were really good!"
"Better than Buñuelos?"
Yuzu thought about it for a moment. "No…" she said hesitantly, "I liked the Buñuelos more, they were fluffier. I think Karin preferred the chamuco though!"
"Good work." Chad offered her another high-five that she took happily, smile restored. "My abuelo left me some recipes for coyota, you can try that next."
She puffed herself up proudly. "I'll be a great baker in no time!" she told him proudly. Chad smiled slightly as she continued to regale him with the results of her many experiments, an ongoing project she'd taken upon herself after overhearing his brief admission of regret that he'd likely never taste anything as good as his abuelo's cooking again. Chad was just mildly relieved she hadn't taken offense, and accepted the words as a challenge in good spirit instead.
The sound of something skidding drew their attention, as the black bag Ichigo had been filling slid to Chad's feet. Ichigo was close behind, walking down the stairs while he dried his damp hair, to catch Yuzu pointing at him. "Ichi-nii brought me tons of ingredients! I made so many!" she reported to Chad happily, "…But Karin took them all to football practice." She was pouting now. "I'll hide some for you to taste next time, Chad." Chad shuffled with some slight embarrassment. Ichigo, on the other hand, looked somewhat distressed.
"What about your brother?" Ichigo asked, dismayed. "I didn't hear any mention of cookies for me. I had to go to Tama to get the right kind of flour, y'know." He accidentally let the towel slide onto the floor, to Yuzu's audible distress.
"I made you so many!" she cried, walking over to the towel and picking it up. Ichigo avoided looking at her as she sadly folded it out. "You and Daddy knocked it over!"
"That's what I stepped in..." Ichigo absently mused. "I thought I was bleeding..."
Chad accidentally looked down and saw Yuzu's face darkened by a seething fury. He felt like he'd seen something he'd rather he hadn't, so he pretended he had something in his eye when Yuzu glanced at him.
Ichigo was apparently more used to it than him, because he made the quick decision to walk away. Unfortunately, Chad was blocking the exit, and Yuzu had begun admonishing him to take care of the house better, so he went into the kitchen, presumably to rustle up some breakfast. Yuzu trailed after Ichigo as he wandered about, her scolding growing louder as he swung open doors and repeatedly checked the fridge, rather than manning up and confronting her for food.
Chad began feigning deafness as well.
Unfortunately, the cupboards were empty, and breakfast finished, so Ichigo started whining too. But by Ichigo's pained grumbles, Yuzu was entirely unmoved. "You got up late!" Yuzu folded her arms. "You need to wake up earlier than Daddy at least, Ichi-nii!"
"Like hell!"
"Stop being stubborn!"
"I just want my beauty sleep!"
At this, Yuzu paused, and her eyes narrowed dangerously. Ichigo seemed to give up on salvaging the morning entirely by this point, and was nearly running to Chad. Fortunately, Chad had used his immense empathetic powers to read the room and realize there was no way Ichigo was going to escape cleanly, so he'd already grabbed a dustpan, broom, and mop, and wrapped them up with a plastic bag he stuffed into a bucket.
"Ready to go?" Ichigo asked, shooting looks backward as he tried to surreptitiously put Chad's bulk between him and Yuzu. "Tell me we're ready to go man, please."
Chad nodded gravely, but continued to stare intently at Ichigo. "...making midnight runs to Las Urracas is risky."
"It wasn't so far." Ichigo shrugged, cracking his knuckles nervously, "And it's how I found this place. It's cool." He turned half-back, where Yuzu was impatiently tapping her feet, and Ichigo pretended to cringe in fear. "I gotta run, boss!" he cried, "Duty calls!" She stamped her foot at him, and he laughed, turning back to Chad. "Alright, let's head out before she gets angrier."
Chad rolled his eyes slightly, but swung the door open and held it while Ichigo blew out the door ahead of the cry of "Ichi-nii!", swinging his black bag up off the floor as he ran past. Chad went to move out, but stopped. Hand resting on the door, he turned back, and caught Yuzu giggling silently to herself, almost doubled over with laughter. The hair on the back of his neck stiffened.
"...an act?" Chad asked, somewhat nervous of how quickly she'd changed stances. He'd been convinced she was genuinely angry.
"Daddy asked me to give him a hard time." Yuzu wiped a tear from her eye happily, "He doesn't want Ichi-nii missing breakfast."
Chad slowly backed out, raising a hand as she waved him away, and closed it softly behind him. Just in case.
"Man, how come you get along with my sisters better than I do?" Ichigo mused, crossing his arms behind his head as Chad twisted the knob with a gentle click. "Is it the baking? It's the baking, right?"
Chad snorted as he caught up to Ichigo, not making eye contact.
Ichigo quirked a brow, but Chad just shook his head, and Ichigo let him off with just a muttered complaint.
They meandered forwards like that, cloudy skies occasionally breaking into vivid sunshine, and Chad thought seriously about how scary families could be sometimes. Eventually, he said, "Sister, not sisters." and lowered his voice into an undertone. "I've never met…Karin? She's always at football practice when I'm over." Chad shifted uncomfortably, a truly monolithic gesture. "Is she…avoiding me?"
"If she's avoiding you, then she's avoiding this whole damn family, too," Ichigo muttered back. They made their way out of the neighborhood, closer to where the sounds of traffic echoed. The quiet neighborhood was a few streets off from the main thoroughfare, and it showed in the number of people hurrying out their doors around them. Ichigo and Chad were oddly sedate by comparison, walking easily down the bird-stained side roads and avoiding people where they could. "That's just how Karin is, man, don't worry about it." Ichigo scratched his head thoughtfully. "She's takin' care of herself is all."
They paused speaking to let a car roar by, squeezing against the stained walls to allow it passage. The street was narrow, Chad had to crouch slightly to fit under the metal stairs that led up to the small tenant apartments that seemed to line every inch of the street. People peered down at them, at Chad's enormous height and Ichigo's violent hair, and they felt themselves quiet in response. Weirdly enough, it seemed like Ichigo was more of a focus than he was, for once.
"Let's go," Ichigo muttered, vein on his neck pulsing. "Car's gone."
Chad went to reply, but then hesitated, and simply nodded, straightening as he crept out from the rusting stairs and sharply cut to the side, where Ichigo was trying to avoid looking at the apartment. Row after row they passed, each with the same four-by-two structure, and the exact same metal staircase leading upwards. Lamps dotted the street after every other building, and Chad saw that more than a few had accumulated boxes of trash and burnables.
Everywhere they went, eyes followed. Children, adults, the elderly, pedestrians. A young woman poked her head out of an open door, eyes wide, while her lover tried to pull her back in. It varied, but never fell to zero. And with every one, Ichigo's head buried itself deeper into his chest.
"Goddamn hate this street," Ichigo snarled, almost stomping. "Lived here for over a decade, I'm still a damn Yankee apparently." He paused to stare incandescently at a guy holding a spray can of orange paint who'd rounded the corner from an alleyway, and stumbled backwards as he caught the full force of Ichigo's look on his way out. He quailed at the evil look until Ichigo finally moved past the entrance, still grumbling, before straightening up and clutching at a flattened hat.
Chad stopped to nod politely to the guy on the way past. "Sorry."
They left him trembling on the corner of the street, as Ichigo kept complaining under his breath about injustice. Privately, Chad wondered if some of the rumors hadn't been at least somewhat deserved, but held his silence as they moved quickly to a less populated neighborhood, this one full of small stores. Here, the people were far too interested in the actual exhibits, chattering and passing around them, so loud they couldn't hear each other over the heads of the passers-by.
Here, Ichigo began leading him onwards, using gestures to point Chad in the right direction, and they turned into another of Karakura's innumerable side alleys. Chad never quite stopped, but he slowed to look at some of the art left on the walls. He didn't think there was any graffiti left in Karakura, but here it was, as graphic and vivid as back in Mexico. Ichigo stalked ahead, irritation swirling around him like a physical weight, lost in his own grievances. Both were so caught up in their thoughts, in fact, that they walked out of the alley, into bright sunshine, and right past Mizuiro.
"Oh wow," said Mizuiro, staring at them from where he'd been racking his bike across the street; or rather, at Ichigo, in frank horror. His lock fell from numbed fingers, unused. "What the heck are you wearing?" Ichigo whirled around, frowning mien replaced with a look of sleepy outrage.
"What?" Ichigo looked down at his shirt, and looked back up, taking a few challenging steps towards the boy.
Mizuiro shivered. "Powerful..." he muttered, "To walk around like that, and ask 'what?' like it's nothing. Amazing. Ichigo, you're amazing." His eyes finally drifted off a fuming Ichigo. "Oh, hey Chad."
Chad waved back.
"What?" Ichigo grit out, "does that mean."
"It's neon," said Mizuiro, still avoiding eye contact as he shivered and backed away. "It's hideous!"
Ichigo reared back, offended, and felt his cheek start twitching, a sure sign of anger. His shirt rippled like an oil stain in the sunlight as he advanced on the terrified lad, the technicolor print of Anpanman seeming to dance in the haze of sunlight. It cast little rainbow flecks all over Mizuiro's face. "It's not that bad. We're on our way to a clean up job, this'll all be filthy by the time we're done. And," Ichigo jerked a thumb at Chad, "Chad didn't notice anything wrong with it."
Chad shrugged, entirely ambivalent. He thought the colors had looked pretty good, to be honest. Anpanman was cute too. He'd been wondering where Ichigo got it.
"You look like a billboard!"
Now Chad felt bad.
Mizuiro swallowed at the expression on their faces, nodded twice, and turned to run away.
"Not so fast." Ichigo lunged and seized him by the back of his shirt, and Mizuiro squealed in fear, "I don't want to be seen like this in public!" he wailed, "What if my girlfriend sees me?!"
"You're coming to help," Ichigo growled. "You weren't even heading to class, the school's in the opposite direction." Ichigo hefted the boy up and started trying to drag him along. "Come on," Ichigo grunted, as Mizuiro dug in his heels and fought to stay in place.
Mizuiro continued to call Ichigo names as he yanked at the smaller boy, their voices growing louder and more caustic. Privately, Chad thought that they were both being kind of weird, but they seemed to be enjoying it. They were spending far too much time fussing to actually be angry, which was good, because the riverbank was only a block or two away, and he might have tossed them both in the drink to cool off. He was still kind of tempted, to be honest.
Mizuiro, as though sensing his thoughts, promptly went quiet and limp. Ichigo whuffed at the sudden dead weight, and Chad looked over, concerned, having picked up Mizuiro's bike one-handed.
"I'll be good," Mizuiro said cheerily.
Ichigo wheezed out a second curse and started dragging him down the street.
The store was as forbidding as the first time Ichigo'd seen it, and paradoxically, he felt just as comfortable as he walked onto the patio. The lack of rain didn't, as he'd faintly worried, take away from the ambiance at all. The austerity clung to the heavy beams, the dark wood that framed the door, the chill iron fittings about the cloudy windows, the heavy sheeted overhang that cast the whole porch in shadow. He felt like he was walking into a pool of cool, cool water as he stepped into it.
"HEY!" Ichigo called out, as the boys behind him slowly explored the new environs. "HEY GHOST, YOU THERE?"
Chad, as expected, gravitated to the faint sketches by a child's hand, dropping to his knees and tracing the crooked stick figures with something approaching a grin.
Mizuiro, however, unexpectedly continued to stare out at the neighborhood. "What a cool place," he said thoughtfully. "Did you notice how quiet it is? No birds." He squinted and leaned out of the porch, panning from side-to-side as he took in the homes that surrounded them. "No birds..." He said thoughtfully.
"I noticed," Ichigo grumbled, side-eyeing Mizuiro; he'd settled down as soon as they hit the backstreets, nearly skipping the rest of the way.
Mizuiro laughed with slight embarrassment at the look, but continued to stare out. "It really is a nice place," he repeated. His hands lingered on the scuffed wooden posts, occasionally tightening on them.
Ichigo's eyes lingered on him for a second, before he turned away impatiently, and strode back to the door. "HEY GHOST, YOU THERE?!"
"I'm here."
Ichigo whipped around, as the ghost casually rose up through the floor. Chad flinched at the movement, and then relaxed as he realized Ichigo was looking at nothing. Ichigo leaned down to clap him on the shoulder as he passed, walking up to the ghost to take him in. In the daylight, he seemed even more ephemeral, all thinning hair and bull neck. "I didn't think you'd be back," the ghost admitted. "I'm not used to it."
Ichigo frowned and scratched his head. "Do people come here a lot?" he asked eventually. "Looked pretty abandoned to me."
"Oh, it is," the ghost assured him, and went silent as Ichigo stared at him.
"Does that mean people don't show up, or...?" Ichigo asked, jaw twitching.
"I don't remember," the ghost said cheerfully. "But the place seems empty, so I'd say that's a fair bet." The vacant smile looked smug on his thick face.
Ichigo declined to comment, but in the back of his head, noted the faint confirmation that the ghost had, indeed, been wrong about his time of death. Had it really only been three days, he hardly would've been in the position to forget. Still, mentioning it seemed cruel.
"Uh, Ichigo?" Mizuiro asked behind him. Ichigo turned to look at the inquisitive boy, who'd finally moved away from the porch entrance to lean against the thin walls. He'd reached up to play with a small silver bell that Ichigo had missed, swirling it around his finger. "Were you speaking to a ghost?"
"Yeah."
"Huh," Mizuiro muttered quietly, lowering his hand and giving the store an arch look. "That seems faintly ominous. Nice place you found."
"He doesn't live here," Ichigo assured him, already moving to the door, before stopping. "Hey Chad, do me a favor, grab the door?"
"Sure," the man said simply. He stood, dusting his hands off, and cast a slightly regretful look at the drawings. "This was an active place, once," he said quietly.
Ichigo nodded. "Once," he agreed. Chad stood still for a moment, pondering that, before he shook it off and moved past Ichigo to stand by the door. "Is it dusty inside?" he asked curiously, taking in the windows.
"Kinda."
Mizuiro immediately backed away, leaning on the railing as far back as he could go. "Okay!" he said, "Go ahead, Chad!"
Chad shrugged, and twisting the doorknob, pulled and ripped the door right out of it's warped housing. A small cloud of dust poured out, swirling as it caught the breeze and clouded outwards. They started coughing slightly, as it settled on their faces and hands. None more so than Chad, however, who'd taken the brunt of it; he looked like he'd been sleeping in Ichigo's attic.
Both looked down at the door that Chad held, entirely intact, by the doorknob. "...oops." Chad shrugged. "Looks like a pretty old place. Should I leave this outside?"
"Put it by the porch step," Ichigo directed, keeping an eye on Mizuiro, who skipped past them and entered the building, still clean.
"Waaaaah!" The boy exclaimed. "It's kinda spooky in here! I can believe a ghost would haunt it!"
"I'm not haunting it..." the ghost muttered, but obliviously, Mizuiro passed right through him, stepping into a row of shelves and passing entirely out of Ichigo's vision.
"Waaaah!" The boy's voice echoed against the metallic shelves, "Wow, this place is broken!"
Chad grunted as he tossed the broken door down, distracting Ichigo as it made a loud whud. "...I can take this to the construction yard, probably," he said thoughtfully. "We have some disposal...and this door is western-style. Brass. The foreman might like it."
"Oh yeah..." Ichigo made a thoughtful noise. "You have work today. How much time have you got to help, anyway?"
Chad nodded mutely. "I'm getting time off school for a big job anyway, so I'll only need to report to the greenfield at three. But I'll need to leave early; the foreman's quite strict. Sorry."
Ichigo eyed the faded and whorling scars on Chad's knuckles with some sobriety. "Need help?"
"Maybe later. I'm here to help you." Chad bent nearly double move past him and through the doorframe into the store. Ichigo moved after, pointlessly wiping his shoes on the bottom of the frame.
Chad was already folding the sleeves of his oversized sweater back. "Now, let's get started."
"Whoa!" Cried Mizuiro, voice taking a metallic tambre in the distance. "What the heck happened to this poor register?!"
"Your friend is stupid." The ghost sulked, drifting back to Ichigo's side.
Ichigo chuckled at the sound of scraping metal as Mizuiro started shifting pieces of the register around. "He's not so bad."
The work progressed quickly after that. Ichigo and Chad split up the cleaning, Chad taking most of the shelves and the walls with a large set of rags and a spray bottle of bleach, and Ichigo took the lower shelves and the floor using the heavy mop and a bucket of water from an actual, authentic well in the backyard. The little turn-pulley even worked, the pieces being nearly all wood, and Mizuiro had nearly fallen in fishing up the bucket of mossy water. It took a few duds but they were eventually drawing out cool, clear water that even smelled faintly of the arctic peaks.
"That shouldn't be possible," Chad had mused, looking over the well, but even the ghost had looked excited. He'd actually dove in to confirm that nothing unpleasant had made a home deep below. He'd been positively enthused by the changes to the area, regaling Ichigo with fond memories he had of going about the store as a child, and despite himself, Ichigo listened with some interest. He'd been somewhat interested in pinning down the man's actual age, until he realized that the stories had absolutely no congruity or throughline, and gave it up as the ghost speaking, admittedly amusing, nonsense. He'd even recounted some of the more interesting tales to the other two, who treated the whole thing with a degree of polite, but wary interest. Chad had even apologized to the ghost for needing to leave, facing entirely the wrong direction as he did so.
Still, once the big man left, Mizuiro got quieter. He'd actually taken repairing the register seriously, but now he seemed to treat it with some interest.
"This register's over a hundred years old," Mizuiro confided once Ichigo assured him that the Ghost had wandered off. "It's been repaired and patched up, but the base actually has a stamp from Mitsukoshi Kisarin - dated 1906." He paused, and said apologetically, "the mechanical bits are antique as heck. We could sell it, but they won't go back in."
Ichigo was still thinking about it when Mizuiro left for the day - was still thinking about it long after the sun set, in fact. He put the leftover bits under his little makeshift tarp, and sat, as the store cooled around him, from that autumnal heat to the chill of winter approaching. Bags and bags of trash lay scattered about, but as the deep walnut-brown wood slowly grew clear under layer after layer of dust and grime, the place began to feel quite welcoming. He liked the store, the gentle gravity of the all-wood architecture, to the memories obvious on every surface. It was a place that seemed tailor-made for a boy's childish hideaway, and a secret part of Ichigo did indeed thrill at the austerity of it all.
"It's nice, right?" The ghost said languidly, lying flat on the porch where Ichigo sat, legs spread out over the stoop. "I can't help coming back here. It…soothes me. Eases a part of me that aches from death."
Ichigo could see that being the case.
"Well," he said aloud, "That tears it. I can't leave a place like that unfinished. I'm gonna need to get that register fixed."
August, 2001 - III
Bladestar123
Happy
- Location
- Man, wherever
Fwip fwip fwip went the little red card, dancing about Ichigo's fingers. "The register," Ichigo growled, a vein pulsing on the side of his neck. "Focus on the register, please." But the corpulent man he faced had eyes only for the flipping card, and Ichigo's words went unheard.
Okinawa's Pawnshop was the most recent step on a goose-trail of laymen and assorted journeymen and restorationists. It turned out there were no real professionals when it came to antique cash registers—there hadn't been any need for a long time—but there were a lot of otaku that were quite interested in getting their hands on it. The vintage alone made it valuable, even broken, and hobbyists would pay through the nose for even scraps. This pawnshop belonged to one of them, one of the better known collectors. Okinawa was a reputable source, he'd been assured. A slight issue, however, lay with the pawnshop—an extension therein, of Okinawa's desire to get ahold of old mechanisms people wanted to be rid of, nearly always ignorant of the true value of the baubles they pawned off.
Ichigo found the predatory nature of the business unpleasant, but he'd suck it up if the man really was as good as promised.
Unfortunately, when he'd gone to pay after exhaustively haggling with the stiff that ran the counter, the strange little chit he'd almost entirely forgotten about slid out of his wallet while he'd tried to tug out his credit card. Ichigo had had a bad feeling as he watched the shopkeeper's eyes follow the card all the way down, transaction forgotten. Okinawa had been described as a collector for all types of antiques, he'd recalled at the time, with no small morbidity.
The shopkeeper had wasted no time at all proving Ichigo right, and the owner, Okinawa himself, had made himself known shortly afterward. Pound for pound, the man was both twice as large, and twice as annoying, as Keigo had ever been.
"Look," pleaded the portly man, "please, let me examine the card. I will examine the register myself afterwards—it will only take a minute. I just want a closer look." Sweat gleamed in beads across his liver-spotted forehead, and he patted at it nervously with a checkered handkerchief. "Just a closer look," he repeated, "these things must be done precisely."
Ichigo felt a dull throbbing in his temples. "I have no idea what you're talking—whatever, it doesn't matter. Can we please focus on why I'm here." He stared expectantly at the man, who, as he'd feared, paid absolutely no attention to his words at all.
"I've never seen that type of telephone card before—" the man babbled on excitedly, "—limited run of some kind, maybe? Airtel had short supply in Japan—"
Ichigo swallowed and his eyes darted behind the counter, where the broken little cash register still sat, assorted loose bits in a little box beside it. It bore a dull gleam in the sunlight, presenting an almost oil-slick patterning on the sides, invisible in moonlight. A forlorn little spring protruded from the mechanical keys.
His eyes slid back to Okinawa, who looked back at him with something like expectation. He looked entirely too excited for Ichigo's comfort.
Ichigo wanted to bury his face in his hands.
He'd somehow run afoul of one of Japan's few telephone card collectors. The man had quickly begun to throw around USD in his offer for what he'd informed Ichigo was a telecom card predating release outside of Italy. Likely, it would be dated at roughly 1978, meaning that by Okinawa's stilted explanations, possession of the card itself put the previous owner of the little shop as someone of significantly greater means than the humble store would indicate. Wherever they had gone now, they likely hadn't done it poor.
All of which, Okinawa had stressed strongly—if it had been left behind, it was fair game, he argued. But Ichigo continued to insist that the card belonged to the store. He didn't own it, so sale was off the table. Now, if only Okinawa would understand that—
"—It doesn't matter!" Okinawa protested. "Your virtues are misplaced, dear boy! Buy the man a diamond necklace! Gold coins! Silver cutlery! He will thank you, should he ever return for it!" Okinawa hurriedly heaved out a thick book from under the table, knocking over several stacks of paper in his excitement. Ichigo felt his eyes nearly pop out as he spotted a gravure idol on the cover before Okinawa flipped it open, and immediately vocally protested. Okinawa looked up, dismayed as Ichigo hopped to his feet, face red and finger shaking as he thrust it accusingly outward.
"No!" Ichigo cried, "No more! This is too far, damn you!"
"Mr. Kurosaki," the man replied, flustered, suddenly aware of what he'd shown his customer, "it's not what you think! Look!" He flipped it back to the cover, and thankfully covered the models assets before scoring the title with his hands. Despite himself (and his burning cheeks) Ichigo leaned in to read it.
Telephone Card Catalog 98~99
Ichigo mouthed out the words with some confusion, flustered but fighting not to show it, looked up at the man. "The hell is this?"
A large wrinkle formed between the mans brows, but the shaking in his hands belied his excitement. "A valuation—an estimate, for the valuation of telephone cards."
Ichigo felt the pounding between his eyes redouble as he mouthed valuation of telephone cards to himself while Okinawa flipped rapidly through pages, muttering to himself.
"Most telephone cards only gained value once companies realized that, as disposable artifacts, they could hold value as both monetary devices and commemorative artifacts," the man explained absently, "but as all true fusilatelists know, there are certain runs—certain prints that defy value as merely memorabilia or collectibles." The man looked up sharply, so keen a look in his eye that Ichigo nearly stepped backwards. The man's whole face seemed to harden into dark lines, as he asked, "The card is unused, correct?"
"Right," Ichigo said automatically, and watched Okinawa immediately smoothen out into the round-faced slightly anxious man from before. Ichigo felt a surge of irritation as the man seemed to flounder about through the book once more, wondering to himself if it was alright to answer a question like that—about someone else's property, to boot!
"Get on with it," Ichigo growled, stung.
Okinawa looked up at him helplessly, answering, "I beg your forgiveness, but—this is important, you see? You cannot misunderstand that I am trying to cheat you, here!" He spun the book around, and speared a fading portrait of Bruce Willis with his hand, captured mid-motion on a plastic card between a black-and-white of Revolutionary Girl Utena and a Love Hina reprint collectible. 80,000¥ was printed beneath.
Ichigo sucked in a deep breath. "It's a misprint," Okinawa said reverently. "One missing letter, and the value explodes exponentially."
He slowly slid the book back across the table to himself, fixing Ichigo with an entirely serious look that was entirely at odds with the surreality of the conversation. "You're holding a card, one of at most 100 I've ever heard of. Every single one, all of them, printed entirely without label. A catastrophic mistake. They are printed with no makers mark, and no value, at a period where this kind of critical failure was all but impossible. I've never even seen one before, only heard of them. We don't know how much they are worth—but the value cannot possibly exceed 10,000¥, which was the highest a card could go at the time." Okinawa formally folded his arms. "Mr. Kurosaki, I will buy that card from you for 1,000,000¥. Immediately." He leaned forwards, and there was a sincere sort of plea in his eyes. "Please, I have no intent to use or damage the card in any way. Quite the opposite. I wish to see it preserved, a true, rare guidepost to an era almost past."
Ichigo swallowed.
Ichigo was still sweating as he exited the pawnshop. By the end, walking away had felt like wading through concrete—not because he intended to sell, but because he'd been genuinely moved by Okinawa's passion. The man had been totally sincere, and it surprised Ichigo how difficult to refuse him it had become.
Okinawa had eventually agreed to repair the register at the initially agreed-upon price, offering to waive the cost just as thanks for showing him something he'd been so deeply passionate about, but Ichigo had refused point-blank. He'd felt guilty enough refusing him. He didn't want to owe the man something as well. He reflected on that as he jogged across a busy intersection, the roar and rhythm of the city starting to replace the monotonous melancholy of the pawnbroker's office. For a pawnbroker, Okinawa hadn't been so bad. Of course, he likely might've had a different impression had he been trying to eke out some cash out of old valuables. Giving the man a hold on his soul, that was a place Ichigo never wanted to be. The thought made him queasy, and Ichigo reflexively picked up his pace to make some distance.
To his regret, as it so happened. Ichigo was forced to stop as a door opened ahead of him and a girl dressed like a maid in hi-tops walked out, wheeling a bicycle. He felt a shiver crawl up his spine, slightly averting his eyes as she passed. For a long second, he felt like she'd paused next to him. He'd just contemplated moving on, when he heard her giggle at his obvious discomfort, and move on. He felt his ears flame until the clicking of her bike receded into the traffic.
If only the store hadn't been in Akihabara, Ichigo cursed internally as he started moving quickly, he might've even considered coming back. Okinawa was a greasy pawnbroker, but he knew his stuff.
But Ichigo hated this goddamn place.
It was still early enough that most of the otaku were still holed up in their rooms, and the cosplay cafes were still writing out their specials on the little chalkboard stands they kept at tripping height beside their doors, but the people outside were all-too eager to assume Ichigo was an early bird out for some deals, and quickly took him in as one of their own. To his disgust, people that crossed his path seemed to go out of their way to cross in front of him, to trade secret smiles. No growl was too menacing, no glare too convincing; he embodied a character to the hilt in their eyes, and if they didn't recognize him, it only further established his hipster nerd cred.
Ichigo had rarely felt so ashamed in his life.
"Hey man, nice cosplay!" Someone yelled out across the street. Ichigo peeked at them from the corner of his eyes, and saw some guy wearing a massive red plastic coat and a cardboard perm. An old lady stumping past shot him a dismissive look. Ichigo gestured rudely back, and the loser actually clapped.
He hated it here so much.
Ichigo growled deep in his throat, and jerked his hood on. Now he only looked like an asshole. He'd be tempted to take the alleys if he didn't know that the homeless population was scrounging what they could right now, and he just didn't know if he could deal with the pressure of more sour looks right now.
So he hurried along, keeping his head down. And, to his surprise, the hassling he usually got really did drop away to almost nothing. Most of the people around him looked exactly as tired as he felt, and with his hood up, he looked like everybody else; eager to get out of here before the first wave of tourists. The cosplayers almost unconsciously avoided them, sticking to their own groups, and Ichigo found his passage more or less unbarred.
It was a bright day, today, and with his newfound freedom, he found himself slowing a little. He'd never really allowed himself to take the place in, typically finding reasons not to go whenever Keigo found some new anime to natter about, but it really was quite pretty. As expected of a tourist trap?
He squinted up at the buildings around him. They rose fairly high, and some of the novelty stores had even kept the old electronics lettering above the new signs. It wouldn't be visible at night, when neon blinded the customers to anything else, but in the daylight, the place had an eerily faded grandeur to it. Worn down. Some of the buildings had vines crawling up the walls like arteries, and it made them seem eerily conscious, looking down at the passing crowds with an ageless patience. The people scurried along below, more river than crowd, finding cracks and nooks to sieve into.
And there were many places to end up. Every store seemed about as wide as a closet, and if he spread his arms, he could almost block access to three of them at once. But people almost fought to get inside, each catering to some obscure niche media probably.
Presumably Okinawa had opened during the tech boom, and just never sold. Impressive, considering how much money he must've been offered. Ichigo couldn't imagine staying. Just being among the crowds had sapped Ichigo's energy; living here might've killed him by proxy. He was almost crawling by the time he hit the end of the street.
He felt involuntary tears prickle his eyes as he finally rounded a corner and saw the big white lettering for Akihabara station up ahead. He almost sighed with relief, until he saw someone running up a massive banner for some anime chick, and felt his blood pressure spike upwards.
Down the Yamanote line, a 20 minute wait, quick line change, 5 minutes, a quick jog down the main thoroughfare, three blocks down, two side alleys and an irritatingly long wait for a red light, Ichigo was still shaking his head as he strode into a Starbucks, almost desperate for a quick dose, and nearly slammed into Tatsuki.
"Whoa," she said, unimpressed, as a bit of her drink slopped over the side of her cup and onto her hands.
Ichigo immediately snapped out of his brood, opened his mouth to apologize, and held it, as he watched her hand redden, and then blister slightly.
"Isn't that...hot?" he asked instead, perturbed.
She looked up at him, an entirely flat look in her eyes. "Yeah." He could've nearly bought the emotionless act, but a small muscle was jumping in her neck, and beads of sweat had erupted across her forehead.
He might've called her out for trying to look cool, but she'd completely succeeded in intimidating him, so he backed off slowly instead.
The gorilla shaped like his old friend snorted in triumph, and sipped casually at her drink, leering at him over the rim, until a voice broke them both out of an impromptu staring contest.
"Tatsuki!" cried out a high-pitched voice, and Inoue Orihime flounced into frame, holding several bandages at the ready. Ichigo looked away in slight embarrassment as the beast was forced to play nice while her friend fussed over her hand.
"I'm just gonna..." he muttered, and edged slowly around them, pulling out his wallet as he did so, like some kind of emotional shield against the obvious concern being exhibited in front of him. Tatsuki growled, and he nearly flinched. He did hurry, though, slipping past and fast-walking towards the counter, which appeared to have developed some kind of holy aura in his swimming vision.
"Ah!" he heard behind him, as Inoue finally noticed his passage, eyebrows shooting to her scalp. "Kurosaki-kun! Hi! That's..." a burst of noise drowned her out as several people in a neighboring table burst into laughter, so he just half-smiled and waved in vague acceptance, before turning back to the counter, where the barista held out a sample cup like it was his personal Grail.
"...oh." Orihime drooped slightly as Ichigo vanished into the crowd.
"What an asshole," Tatsuki growled, eyes narrowed as she watched Ichigo scarper like a rat across the store. As if that would save him from her Rising Dragon Strike. "I'll hold him down next time, see if he can duck a conversation then."
Orihime yelped, cheeks flushing as Tatsuki's hand began to make vague and threatening movements aimed loosely below Ichigo's belt. "Tatsuki! No! Please!"
Tatsuki chuckled dirtily at her obvious shame. "Alright, alright." She rolled her head, feeling a few pops ratchet in her neck. "Christ, what was eating him, anyway?" She muttered, as Ichigo tripped over his own feet while reaching for a bill. Noticing movement in the corner of her eye, she saw Orihime biting her lip while staring at Ichigo—usually something fairly cute, but it was devoid of her usual dreamy air. "What's up with you?"
"N-no!" Orihime jumped a little, and turned back to Tatsuki, waving her arms. "It's nothing, I just..." She half-turned and pointed at Ichigo's wallet. "Did you recognize anything when Kurosaki-kun walked past us?"
Tatsuki took a moment to digest that—it was probably the weirdest question she'd heard all day, and this following an absolutely riveting conversation about beans and jam on cereal.
"No," she said confidently. "Except for the name on his cards, I guess."
Orihime tilted her head thoughtfully. "Must've been in my head, I guess."
Okinawa the Pawnbroker sighed once more in his office, swirling a tumbler of cheap whiskey and sighing wistfully over the lost opportunity.
His collection shone in the dim light. Hundreds of cards, organized by preservation, age, and distribution location. His pride and joy. So few understood him, and the honest pride he saw in the cards. They were touchstones of a passing era. They represented more than the domination of technology, but the dissemination, and cultural adoption as it passed through hands. Hispanic mascots vied for place beside anime cutouts. Laminate mausoleums occupied the crown of his sprawling assembly, each one as austere as the last.
In his youth, he'd seen them with his own eyes. How to explain how things had changed? How to explain the miracle of technology to someone for whom technology was life itself?
The card the boy had held, Okinawa thought wistfully, would have held pride of place. 1978, a mere two years after the first issuings, commissioned from within the country, from the government itself, a full decade before the Germans would roll out the Bundespost line, and 4 years before they would even touch the shores of Japan. Commissioned, it was said, in secret by a military attaché from Japan itself.
The history that had been at his fingertips, he could scarce believe. He'd been genuine when he'd offered the boy a free ride. Even if he hadn't sold, witnessing the card lit a warm heat in Okinawa's chest.
And like drinks, good news had to be shared. Humming a slight tune, Okinawa hefted an old refurbished rotary handset, clicked out a number, and let the sweet rhythm of the dial tone ease him back into his chair.
"Hello? Hello? Daisuke, listen—yes, I'm quite fine, and—yes, I heard. I don't care. No, listen—listen! Old man, you would not believe what crossed beneath my fingertips today…"
Okinawa's Pawnshop was the most recent step on a goose-trail of laymen and assorted journeymen and restorationists. It turned out there were no real professionals when it came to antique cash registers—there hadn't been any need for a long time—but there were a lot of otaku that were quite interested in getting their hands on it. The vintage alone made it valuable, even broken, and hobbyists would pay through the nose for even scraps. This pawnshop belonged to one of them, one of the better known collectors. Okinawa was a reputable source, he'd been assured. A slight issue, however, lay with the pawnshop—an extension therein, of Okinawa's desire to get ahold of old mechanisms people wanted to be rid of, nearly always ignorant of the true value of the baubles they pawned off.
Ichigo found the predatory nature of the business unpleasant, but he'd suck it up if the man really was as good as promised.
Unfortunately, when he'd gone to pay after exhaustively haggling with the stiff that ran the counter, the strange little chit he'd almost entirely forgotten about slid out of his wallet while he'd tried to tug out his credit card. Ichigo had had a bad feeling as he watched the shopkeeper's eyes follow the card all the way down, transaction forgotten. Okinawa had been described as a collector for all types of antiques, he'd recalled at the time, with no small morbidity.
The shopkeeper had wasted no time at all proving Ichigo right, and the owner, Okinawa himself, had made himself known shortly afterward. Pound for pound, the man was both twice as large, and twice as annoying, as Keigo had ever been.
"Look," pleaded the portly man, "please, let me examine the card. I will examine the register myself afterwards—it will only take a minute. I just want a closer look." Sweat gleamed in beads across his liver-spotted forehead, and he patted at it nervously with a checkered handkerchief. "Just a closer look," he repeated, "these things must be done precisely."
Ichigo felt a dull throbbing in his temples. "I have no idea what you're talking—whatever, it doesn't matter. Can we please focus on why I'm here." He stared expectantly at the man, who, as he'd feared, paid absolutely no attention to his words at all.
"I've never seen that type of telephone card before—" the man babbled on excitedly, "—limited run of some kind, maybe? Airtel had short supply in Japan—"
Ichigo swallowed and his eyes darted behind the counter, where the broken little cash register still sat, assorted loose bits in a little box beside it. It bore a dull gleam in the sunlight, presenting an almost oil-slick patterning on the sides, invisible in moonlight. A forlorn little spring protruded from the mechanical keys.
His eyes slid back to Okinawa, who looked back at him with something like expectation. He looked entirely too excited for Ichigo's comfort.
Ichigo wanted to bury his face in his hands.
He'd somehow run afoul of one of Japan's few telephone card collectors. The man had quickly begun to throw around USD in his offer for what he'd informed Ichigo was a telecom card predating release outside of Italy. Likely, it would be dated at roughly 1978, meaning that by Okinawa's stilted explanations, possession of the card itself put the previous owner of the little shop as someone of significantly greater means than the humble store would indicate. Wherever they had gone now, they likely hadn't done it poor.
All of which, Okinawa had stressed strongly—if it had been left behind, it was fair game, he argued. But Ichigo continued to insist that the card belonged to the store. He didn't own it, so sale was off the table. Now, if only Okinawa would understand that—
"—It doesn't matter!" Okinawa protested. "Your virtues are misplaced, dear boy! Buy the man a diamond necklace! Gold coins! Silver cutlery! He will thank you, should he ever return for it!" Okinawa hurriedly heaved out a thick book from under the table, knocking over several stacks of paper in his excitement. Ichigo felt his eyes nearly pop out as he spotted a gravure idol on the cover before Okinawa flipped it open, and immediately vocally protested. Okinawa looked up, dismayed as Ichigo hopped to his feet, face red and finger shaking as he thrust it accusingly outward.
"No!" Ichigo cried, "No more! This is too far, damn you!"
"Mr. Kurosaki," the man replied, flustered, suddenly aware of what he'd shown his customer, "it's not what you think! Look!" He flipped it back to the cover, and thankfully covered the models assets before scoring the title with his hands. Despite himself (and his burning cheeks) Ichigo leaned in to read it.
Telephone Card Catalog 98~99
Ichigo mouthed out the words with some confusion, flustered but fighting not to show it, looked up at the man. "The hell is this?"
A large wrinkle formed between the mans brows, but the shaking in his hands belied his excitement. "A valuation—an estimate, for the valuation of telephone cards."
Ichigo felt the pounding between his eyes redouble as he mouthed valuation of telephone cards to himself while Okinawa flipped rapidly through pages, muttering to himself.
"Most telephone cards only gained value once companies realized that, as disposable artifacts, they could hold value as both monetary devices and commemorative artifacts," the man explained absently, "but as all true fusilatelists know, there are certain runs—certain prints that defy value as merely memorabilia or collectibles." The man looked up sharply, so keen a look in his eye that Ichigo nearly stepped backwards. The man's whole face seemed to harden into dark lines, as he asked, "The card is unused, correct?"
"Right," Ichigo said automatically, and watched Okinawa immediately smoothen out into the round-faced slightly anxious man from before. Ichigo felt a surge of irritation as the man seemed to flounder about through the book once more, wondering to himself if it was alright to answer a question like that—about someone else's property, to boot!
"Get on with it," Ichigo growled, stung.
Okinawa looked up at him helplessly, answering, "I beg your forgiveness, but—this is important, you see? You cannot misunderstand that I am trying to cheat you, here!" He spun the book around, and speared a fading portrait of Bruce Willis with his hand, captured mid-motion on a plastic card between a black-and-white of Revolutionary Girl Utena and a Love Hina reprint collectible. 80,000¥ was printed beneath.
Ichigo sucked in a deep breath. "It's a misprint," Okinawa said reverently. "One missing letter, and the value explodes exponentially."
He slowly slid the book back across the table to himself, fixing Ichigo with an entirely serious look that was entirely at odds with the surreality of the conversation. "You're holding a card, one of at most 100 I've ever heard of. Every single one, all of them, printed entirely without label. A catastrophic mistake. They are printed with no makers mark, and no value, at a period where this kind of critical failure was all but impossible. I've never even seen one before, only heard of them. We don't know how much they are worth—but the value cannot possibly exceed 10,000¥, which was the highest a card could go at the time." Okinawa formally folded his arms. "Mr. Kurosaki, I will buy that card from you for 1,000,000¥. Immediately." He leaned forwards, and there was a sincere sort of plea in his eyes. "Please, I have no intent to use or damage the card in any way. Quite the opposite. I wish to see it preserved, a true, rare guidepost to an era almost past."
Ichigo swallowed.
Ichigo was still sweating as he exited the pawnshop. By the end, walking away had felt like wading through concrete—not because he intended to sell, but because he'd been genuinely moved by Okinawa's passion. The man had been totally sincere, and it surprised Ichigo how difficult to refuse him it had become.
Okinawa had eventually agreed to repair the register at the initially agreed-upon price, offering to waive the cost just as thanks for showing him something he'd been so deeply passionate about, but Ichigo had refused point-blank. He'd felt guilty enough refusing him. He didn't want to owe the man something as well. He reflected on that as he jogged across a busy intersection, the roar and rhythm of the city starting to replace the monotonous melancholy of the pawnbroker's office. For a pawnbroker, Okinawa hadn't been so bad. Of course, he likely might've had a different impression had he been trying to eke out some cash out of old valuables. Giving the man a hold on his soul, that was a place Ichigo never wanted to be. The thought made him queasy, and Ichigo reflexively picked up his pace to make some distance.
To his regret, as it so happened. Ichigo was forced to stop as a door opened ahead of him and a girl dressed like a maid in hi-tops walked out, wheeling a bicycle. He felt a shiver crawl up his spine, slightly averting his eyes as she passed. For a long second, he felt like she'd paused next to him. He'd just contemplated moving on, when he heard her giggle at his obvious discomfort, and move on. He felt his ears flame until the clicking of her bike receded into the traffic.
If only the store hadn't been in Akihabara, Ichigo cursed internally as he started moving quickly, he might've even considered coming back. Okinawa was a greasy pawnbroker, but he knew his stuff.
But Ichigo hated this goddamn place.
It was still early enough that most of the otaku were still holed up in their rooms, and the cosplay cafes were still writing out their specials on the little chalkboard stands they kept at tripping height beside their doors, but the people outside were all-too eager to assume Ichigo was an early bird out for some deals, and quickly took him in as one of their own. To his disgust, people that crossed his path seemed to go out of their way to cross in front of him, to trade secret smiles. No growl was too menacing, no glare too convincing; he embodied a character to the hilt in their eyes, and if they didn't recognize him, it only further established his hipster nerd cred.
Ichigo had rarely felt so ashamed in his life.
"Hey man, nice cosplay!" Someone yelled out across the street. Ichigo peeked at them from the corner of his eyes, and saw some guy wearing a massive red plastic coat and a cardboard perm. An old lady stumping past shot him a dismissive look. Ichigo gestured rudely back, and the loser actually clapped.
He hated it here so much.
Ichigo growled deep in his throat, and jerked his hood on. Now he only looked like an asshole. He'd be tempted to take the alleys if he didn't know that the homeless population was scrounging what they could right now, and he just didn't know if he could deal with the pressure of more sour looks right now.
So he hurried along, keeping his head down. And, to his surprise, the hassling he usually got really did drop away to almost nothing. Most of the people around him looked exactly as tired as he felt, and with his hood up, he looked like everybody else; eager to get out of here before the first wave of tourists. The cosplayers almost unconsciously avoided them, sticking to their own groups, and Ichigo found his passage more or less unbarred.
It was a bright day, today, and with his newfound freedom, he found himself slowing a little. He'd never really allowed himself to take the place in, typically finding reasons not to go whenever Keigo found some new anime to natter about, but it really was quite pretty. As expected of a tourist trap?
He squinted up at the buildings around him. They rose fairly high, and some of the novelty stores had even kept the old electronics lettering above the new signs. It wouldn't be visible at night, when neon blinded the customers to anything else, but in the daylight, the place had an eerily faded grandeur to it. Worn down. Some of the buildings had vines crawling up the walls like arteries, and it made them seem eerily conscious, looking down at the passing crowds with an ageless patience. The people scurried along below, more river than crowd, finding cracks and nooks to sieve into.
And there were many places to end up. Every store seemed about as wide as a closet, and if he spread his arms, he could almost block access to three of them at once. But people almost fought to get inside, each catering to some obscure niche media probably.
Presumably Okinawa had opened during the tech boom, and just never sold. Impressive, considering how much money he must've been offered. Ichigo couldn't imagine staying. Just being among the crowds had sapped Ichigo's energy; living here might've killed him by proxy. He was almost crawling by the time he hit the end of the street.
He felt involuntary tears prickle his eyes as he finally rounded a corner and saw the big white lettering for Akihabara station up ahead. He almost sighed with relief, until he saw someone running up a massive banner for some anime chick, and felt his blood pressure spike upwards.
Down the Yamanote line, a 20 minute wait, quick line change, 5 minutes, a quick jog down the main thoroughfare, three blocks down, two side alleys and an irritatingly long wait for a red light, Ichigo was still shaking his head as he strode into a Starbucks, almost desperate for a quick dose, and nearly slammed into Tatsuki.
"Whoa," she said, unimpressed, as a bit of her drink slopped over the side of her cup and onto her hands.
Ichigo immediately snapped out of his brood, opened his mouth to apologize, and held it, as he watched her hand redden, and then blister slightly.
"Isn't that...hot?" he asked instead, perturbed.
She looked up at him, an entirely flat look in her eyes. "Yeah." He could've nearly bought the emotionless act, but a small muscle was jumping in her neck, and beads of sweat had erupted across her forehead.
He might've called her out for trying to look cool, but she'd completely succeeded in intimidating him, so he backed off slowly instead.
The gorilla shaped like his old friend snorted in triumph, and sipped casually at her drink, leering at him over the rim, until a voice broke them both out of an impromptu staring contest.
"Tatsuki!" cried out a high-pitched voice, and Inoue Orihime flounced into frame, holding several bandages at the ready. Ichigo looked away in slight embarrassment as the beast was forced to play nice while her friend fussed over her hand.
"I'm just gonna..." he muttered, and edged slowly around them, pulling out his wallet as he did so, like some kind of emotional shield against the obvious concern being exhibited in front of him. Tatsuki growled, and he nearly flinched. He did hurry, though, slipping past and fast-walking towards the counter, which appeared to have developed some kind of holy aura in his swimming vision.
"Ah!" he heard behind him, as Inoue finally noticed his passage, eyebrows shooting to her scalp. "Kurosaki-kun! Hi! That's..." a burst of noise drowned her out as several people in a neighboring table burst into laughter, so he just half-smiled and waved in vague acceptance, before turning back to the counter, where the barista held out a sample cup like it was his personal Grail.
"...oh." Orihime drooped slightly as Ichigo vanished into the crowd.
"What an asshole," Tatsuki growled, eyes narrowed as she watched Ichigo scarper like a rat across the store. As if that would save him from her Rising Dragon Strike. "I'll hold him down next time, see if he can duck a conversation then."
Orihime yelped, cheeks flushing as Tatsuki's hand began to make vague and threatening movements aimed loosely below Ichigo's belt. "Tatsuki! No! Please!"
Tatsuki chuckled dirtily at her obvious shame. "Alright, alright." She rolled her head, feeling a few pops ratchet in her neck. "Christ, what was eating him, anyway?" She muttered, as Ichigo tripped over his own feet while reaching for a bill. Noticing movement in the corner of her eye, she saw Orihime biting her lip while staring at Ichigo—usually something fairly cute, but it was devoid of her usual dreamy air. "What's up with you?"
"N-no!" Orihime jumped a little, and turned back to Tatsuki, waving her arms. "It's nothing, I just..." She half-turned and pointed at Ichigo's wallet. "Did you recognize anything when Kurosaki-kun walked past us?"
Tatsuki took a moment to digest that—it was probably the weirdest question she'd heard all day, and this following an absolutely riveting conversation about beans and jam on cereal.
"No," she said confidently. "Except for the name on his cards, I guess."
Orihime tilted her head thoughtfully. "Must've been in my head, I guess."
Okinawa the Pawnbroker sighed once more in his office, swirling a tumbler of cheap whiskey and sighing wistfully over the lost opportunity.
His collection shone in the dim light. Hundreds of cards, organized by preservation, age, and distribution location. His pride and joy. So few understood him, and the honest pride he saw in the cards. They were touchstones of a passing era. They represented more than the domination of technology, but the dissemination, and cultural adoption as it passed through hands. Hispanic mascots vied for place beside anime cutouts. Laminate mausoleums occupied the crown of his sprawling assembly, each one as austere as the last.
In his youth, he'd seen them with his own eyes. How to explain how things had changed? How to explain the miracle of technology to someone for whom technology was life itself?
The card the boy had held, Okinawa thought wistfully, would have held pride of place. 1978, a mere two years after the first issuings, commissioned from within the country, from the government itself, a full decade before the Germans would roll out the Bundespost line, and 4 years before they would even touch the shores of Japan. Commissioned, it was said, in secret by a military attaché from Japan itself.
The history that had been at his fingertips, he could scarce believe. He'd been genuine when he'd offered the boy a free ride. Even if he hadn't sold, witnessing the card lit a warm heat in Okinawa's chest.
And like drinks, good news had to be shared. Humming a slight tune, Okinawa hefted an old refurbished rotary handset, clicked out a number, and let the sweet rhythm of the dial tone ease him back into his chair.
"Hello? Hello? Daisuke, listen—yes, I'm quite fine, and—yes, I heard. I don't care. No, listen—listen! Old man, you would not believe what crossed beneath my fingertips today…"
August, 2001 - IV
Bladestar123
Happy
- Location
- Man, wherever
"Ichigo?"
Ichigo looked up at the most beautiful woman in the world, and then at the slim hand she'd offered to him.
"Don't just sit there, silly boy!" she laughed, and seized his trembling fingers, hauling him up and dusting him off. He snuffled a little as she tousled his hair and slapped at his dusty hood. "You're all wet!" she cried over his head, but he'd buried his face in her stomach and held her so tightly he could barely hear her.
"What's gotten into you, all of a sudden?!"
He felt warm arms snake back around him and felt the point of her chin dig into his scalp as she roughly ground it into his head. He cried, muffled by her shirt, and slapped at her, and this pleased her so immensely she swung him up and onto her shoulders. "Alright!" she declared. "If you won't move, mama will just have to carry you!"
His fingers tightened in her burnt orange hair, so similar to his own, and breathed in the scent of home.
"Ichigo…?"
Her worried eyes had turned to him. "Are you alright?"
"'m fine." he mumbled. Her hand came up, and—
"Mrow."
The cat brought the little thoughts that kept him abed to an end.
Ichigo didn't wake, the first time. He rolled about, clinging to the shreds of a dream. He breathed slowly, in and out, and attempted to release his hold on wakefulness, and very nearly succeeded.
"Mrowwww."
This time, he blinked awake. It was a slow, and uncertain wakefulness. He sat up slightly, panting as though he'd sprinted to wakefulness, working himself up onto his elbows as he looked around. The source wasn't hard to find. In the moonlight, a pitch black cat sat on his desk, tail swishing, and licking its paw. Behind it, his window creaked in an unseen breeze, half open. A gibbous moon was visible through the parted blinds, and it made the cat's fur appear almost reddish in shade.
Ichigo sat up abruptly, awareness coming to him in a rush. "Cat!" he gasped.
The cat looked at him like he was an idiot. He flushed and tried to hurl his blankets aside, but his feet were all tangled up, and he ended up rolling off instead as he struggled with the sheets.
He landed on his side, breath exploding out of him, feet still half-on the bed and tangled up.
"Mrow." The tip of the satin tail flicked at him, and with a sharp flick, upended his pencil case, sending metal and wood shavings scattering over his workspace. Something metallic hit the floor and bounced, clattering noisily as it slid under his desk.
Gritting his teeth, he kicked his feet free and stood up. His eyes felt wide, wider than usual, and he realized he was baring his teeth.
"You've been following me," he accused the cat. The cat blinked at him, and turned, leaping to the windowsill beside him. He watched, unable to move, as the cat turned to him with a casual disdain—"Mrow"—and leapt out. The long tail was the last to go, and as soon as it vanished over the edge he felt himself able to move again. He let out a long breath and rushed to the window, where he watched the lithe form slink away down his eaves.
Ichigo suddenly felt a reckless rage take hold of him. Was it borne of the dream that was even now vanishing into motes of wistfulness and joy? The wild will to act seized him and before he knew it, he'd thrown the window wide open, and hopped onto it. His chest expanded like a bellows and it felt like the street below receded to a faraway crack in the horizon.
The cat turned, eyes wider than headlights as Ichigo made the leap down and landed right behind the damn animal.
He landed roughly on his hands and knees, and felt them painfully scrape against the tiles. Something cracked beneath him, but the roof held, and he slowly rose up onto his feet. It felt like someone had seized his rational mind and yanked it backwards, and held it tight to the back of his skull. He could feel it's pressure, but his mind was moving far ahead of it. "What now?" he asked the cat, fingers flexing at his side. "Where to now, eh?"
It turned, and bolted, and Ichigo (gingerly, gingerly) sprinted after it. The neighbors roof was a few feet higher than his, but the cat made the leap easily in three bounds, bouncing off an exposed pipe and up onto the railing. It turned back to him, flicking it's tail as though asking what now?
Ichigo sped up the second he was sure he wasn't over the twins' room, pumping his arm for the few steps of room he had and leaping.
He seized the edge by the tips of his fingers, and his body slammed into the wall. The rebound slid him back for a heart-stopping second, before he slipped his second hand onto the roof and pulled himself up. As soon as his head cleared the edge, he saw the cat right in front of him. It had eyes larger than a cat's should be, he realized. They were massive, and golden, and expanded all the way out.
"Nyeh!" he said to the cat, and it erupted back into motion. Ichigo swore and hurriedly pulled himself up to give chase. The next house was too far, and the rain tiles sloped precariously, so when the cat made the leap, Ichigo decided to play it smarter, and jumped down to the property wall, and then to the street. His knees nearly buckled as all his weight went on them, but then he was off like a shot, following the cat from below. Waiting for it to slip, or slow, or get stuck.
But it moved like liquid, with none of the hesitation he'd expected from a stray. House to house, off pipes and walls and chimneys, sliding down gutters; Ichigo nearly stopped from admiration as the liquid form blurred across the rooftops.
He slowed to a run, and then to a walk, a stitch in his side throbbing as he watched the cat continue moving full-tilt down the street, house to house to house, before vanishing into the blackness.
"Damn."
"Ichi-nii!" Yuzu cried from down the hall, "Can I borrow that beach ball you—" She cut off with a shriek, as she walked past his room just in time to see him ram the tip of his scissors into its pliant body, and roughly peel back its plastic flesh. Wordlessly, she clutched at the doorway, feeling faint.
It took Ichigo a minute to notice, before his back prickled and his eyes began trailing across the room, seeking the source, passing over Yuzu—before darting back.
"Hey."
Yuzu made a questioning noise with her mouth, eyes still fixed on the scissors.
"Cat-trap," Ichigo grunted, blank faced. "Gotta build a better cat-trap. I need more of them."
Yuzu squeaked as the scissors cut smoothly through the plastic, clutching tighter to the doorframe. "Cheap junk," Ichigo muttered, eyeing the wobbly hemispheres he'd been left with. He turned one over and measured the diameter while folding the curling edge he'd cut over some wooden chopsticks he'd taken from the Oden man down the road. They pierced the plastic deeply, "I'll need more glue…" Ichigo squinted at the fine print on the tape measure he stretched out over it. More spokes, more support, more layers. See how the cat liked clawing through vinyl. Cats hated that, he was pretty sure.
God, he was so tired.
"Ichi-nii…"
Ichigo blinked and flinched away as a cool hand placed itself on his forehead. Yuzu's worried face appeared at his side, worrying her bottom lip. "You dozed off," she said softly, "Are you feeling alright?"
"I'm fine," he said shortly, and winced at her stricken expression. "I'm just tired," he added. He saw her eyes dancing over his face, and quickly reached up to work some grit out of the corner of his eye.
"You're making a cat-trap out of a beach ball…"
The hand holding a slim bottle of wood glue twitched. "I'm fine," he repeated. "Just fine."
"Ichi-nii's becoming a serial killer…"
Ichigo sprayed his miso soup out over the table in great hacking coughs. To his left, Pops swallowed an entire chunk of tofu and started choking. Everyone ignored him.
Karin delicately put down her spoon, a big, dumb smirk opening up on her features. "Woooooow…" she said. "Guess this is what they call 'Chuunibyou', huh?"
Slamming his chest with a closed fist a couple of times cleared his air, and Ichigo immediately turned his red, watering eyes on Yuzu. "What?!"
She was pouting, and had the gall to be poking at her soup with a chopstick, like she was the victim. "Daddy said hurting animals was the first sign…"
Ichigo felt something in his mind dangerously wobble, as behind him, Isshin donkey-kicked his chair backwards into the wall, nearly shattering it. "THAT'S RIGHT MY DAUGHTER!" He boomed, voice slightly undercut by the rasp of his coughing. "ANY MONSTER THAT HURTS AN ANIMAL MIGHT AS WELL BE A HUMAN BUTCHER, CHOP-CHOP-CHOPPING UP CUTE LITTLE GIRLS WITH AN OVER SI—" his words sharply cut off as Karin vaulted over the table and landed a skipping high kick to his jaw, which neatly clicked his teeth shut over his wagging tongue.
"I'M EATING, YOU OLD BASTARD!"
Isshin's screams of pain went ignored as Ichigo turned stiffly to his darling little sister. "Yuzu…"
She turned away from him innocently, and no amount of coaxing would turn her back to face him.
He eventually gave up and left, but only after making sure that Karin knew to try to pry whatever it was out of Yuzu. If it was important, then she'd tell him. If she didn't…well, he was only preponing the next day's mockery anyway.
Ichigo waited for the sun to come out before he took a bus to the bottom of the large hill Karakura was situated upon. It wasn't so steep as to wall off Karakura, but it bore strange bends and contours. He hadn't heard of a single Shinto shrine in the area either; he'd heard rumors (from Mizuiro, admittedly) that the people who lived here decorated their homes with strange statues they pulled from the dirt. Supposedly, the hill was a burial mound dating back to the Kamakura period. Some of the locals liked to imply it had to do with the Mongol invasion, but nobody really knew. Ichigo only ever found himself thinking about it as he went down the hill, because both sides of the road were lined with Sakura blossoms, and they never grew better anywhere in Karakura than right here, where their roots could presumably reach down and wind about the dead bodies beneath his feet.
There were never any ghosts here.
He shook the thoughts out of his head as the bus slowed to a stop, some of the people around him giving him strange looks and edging away. He resisted the urge to voice his complaints as he pushed through the crowd on the bus to get to the exit; the neighborhood outside was dilapidated and he'd be the only one getting off the bus here. They'd think badly enough of him as it was.
Ichigo finally exited onto a block empty of pedestrians. Boarded up storefronts lined the opposite side of the road. And to his right, was a movie theater that had been up for destruction for probably three years now. He could recall visiting with the girls when he was younger, when people occupied those stores, and the theater had people queued up around the block. Pops had taken them to a lot of movies after mom died.
Seeing the place as it was now, taped up and gated, with dark shadows yawning over the upper floors, hurt no matter how many times he passed by. Ichigo cast his eyes down and moved past it, down the alley off to the side, nearly hidden by the massive bulk of the cinema.
The alley was dark, and smelled like mold and stale garbage, but it was blessedly short and after a few turns and crossings it opened up into a wider thoroughfare; here, at last, people could be seen. It was one of those neighborhoods that had never quite been replaced by the more polished urbane of downtown Tokyo. It was the kind of place people said couldn't exist a decade from now. It was full of old people, and refurbished apartment buildings. It was pretty ramshackle, for Tokyo, with multiple stores often sharing a tenement. Shelves jutted out of openings cut into load-bearing walls, overflowing with trinkets and goods. The 'superstructures' ran the length of the street, with stress fractures rippling all the way up the peeling paint and thin sheets of dust occasionally falling on the browsing customers, who tended to be either elderly or poor. The streets were packed with them.
Ichigo moved past the crowds, towards a small general store renovated from a 7-11. He took a second to peer through the entrance before proceeding to the side. If he'd entered, the rail-thin owner would greet him with a frown and a rude gesture. If he paid, the owner might allow him into the back, where he could buy cheap cigs by the individual. Plenty of people that looked a bit like his hair, but all over, would probably also be trawling the dark shelves, and probably pick a fight too.
But Ichigo wasn't interested in that. What he wanted was actually behind the store.
Around the back, following a narrow footpath between an open raingutter and the thin scrub outlining the store, you could walk all the way around and into a small clearing of land you could rent for a couple hundred yen by the hour. It had a little lean-to shelter, and broad flat stone flooring, probably granite, that was smooth underfoot. It was unpaved, which is to say that the stones were loose despite their immense weight, and wobbled, and between each tile, stinking mud lay visible underneath.
Here, a little granny sat in the lean-to, and she'd take any bit of clothing you had and stitch it, or patch it, or if you or she had the spare cloth, she could resize it. She did a good job for a pretty cheap price, and as Ichigo waved to her with an awkward tic people might call a smile from far enough, she broke into a little gap-toothed grin and proffered the curtains he'd left with her. She'd known his mom, back when she'd been new to the neighborhood (or so she told it), and had promised to keep an eye on him. Ichigo didn't believe a word of it, but she was sweet, and lonely, and if she ever brought up his mother, it was with a quiet sentiment she quickly buried, so he didn't mind so much.
But it still hurt, so he was glad she had other things on her mind.
"They were quite old," she told him as he counted out the bills, "Tough job. You don't see crosswork like this anymore—you're lucky I remember my days as a little girl!" And she laughed while working her jaw up and down—hawa hawa hawa—and gestured for him to take them.
Ichigo clumsily gathered up the massive sheets in his arms, and began working them into a cloth bag he'd brought just for this. She watched him fondly as he worked, with her hands folded silently over her lap.
"It's good to see someone take interest in that old store again," she said suddenly. Ichigo slowed, raising his head to look at her. She continued without looking at him, eyes misty with the years, "All of us kids—Taro from the second floor barbershop, Akio from across the river, little Kei, ah! So many of us, we used to run all the way up the hill, to get there. The roads were different back then, more sensible. Two rights, a left, and you were there."
"I hadn't realized the store was so close." Ichigo said slowly. "It didn't feel that way."
She flapped her hand at him, "Oh, it took plenty of time, but what did we care. We went and back, and then it was time for bed. But the owner always kept an eye out for us, always had candy or a new toy. German wind-ups, little spinning prussian men, russian nesting dolls, korean action figures; it was magical, boy." She sighed, forlornly. "It was magical." And she sounded so terribly lonely that Ichigo ducked his head back down and resumed his efforts. He managed to work in silence for a bit, letting the distant sound of laughter spiking from the store beside them fill the air.
"Why'd you say you were renovating the place, again?" she asked suddenly.
Ichigo spoke carefully, "I didn't," he said, "But a friend asked me to help out, so I agreed."
Her lips pursed. "This friend wouldn't be one of them ghosts you see, would it?"
Ichigo shuddered guiltily, and the old lady sighed. "You're too nice to them ghosts," she chided. "You're spoiling them, when you oughtn't be seeing them at all. Leave 'em be." But her whiskered mouth was smiling, so Ichigo gamely ignored her words.
"Your shadow's thin. That's the problem," she continued. "They say people with thin shadows ought to be careful where they step. You're not all there, you're only half in this world. It's a wonder you get anything done at all."
That sounded like elderly nonsense. "I'll try and avoid 'them ghosts'," Ichigo grunted, mildly sarcastic, still bent over his bag, but he could hear her laugh.
She cackled approvingly, a slight clacking from her dentures shifting underscoring her amusement. "You'd better boy! You'll be seeing mine soon enough!"
Ichigo grunted assent, slightly awkwardly. That was a thought he wasn't ready for.
He straightened up to reply, but the bundled curtains burst out of the bag. It tipped over from the force, and Ichigo cursed quietly, staring at the mess in dismay. Frustrated, he forced the curtains into a clump and began using his foot to cram it into the bag.
"I'm just tired," he panted. "Long nights. Stress. Classes. You know."
"I know," she agreed, a faint twinkle in her eye.
The bag ripped slightly, but eventually it held everything, and he hefted it up while he said his awkward goodbyes.
"Be careful now. A dirty old general store is no place for a young man. We buried all his toys with the old man, there's nothin' for anyone there anymore."
"On the contrary," Ichigo replied drily. "Where else could I listen to Teiichi Futamura in peace?"
She started laughing again, and the echo followed him all the way down the street.
Tatsuki raised her head from the pile of luggage she'd been sorting through, hair almost grey with dust as she shifted another wrapped package aside. She saw that Orihime had paused, mouth open slightly, as her hand froze on the wallet, and straightened.
"Hime…?"
"I found it," Orihime murmured, voice almost inaudible.
"Your brother's wallet?" Tatsuki stifled a sneeze as she got to her feet, slapping the dust off her shorts. "You found it?"
"Hm? Y—n—" she looked up at Tatsuki, redness clearing away some of the fog in her eyes, "I mean, yes! It's his!" Her thumb traced worn black leather. "But that's not what I meant. Here," she stepped carefully over an open suitcase, bumping her shin slightly on the plastic as she made her way to Tatsuki. "Look!" she flipped it over, letting one side bounce off her thumb. "Tah-dah!"
Tarsuki squinted. "Whoa, old-ass credit cards. Is that dated like 199–"
"No!" Orohime flipped it around, and looked at it before relaxing and stomping her feet at Tatsuki, who doubled over, cracking up. "Tatsuki! I mean the card!"
"Yeah, yeah," she flapped a hand at Orihime. "The red card, right? The one you said looked like Ichigo's?"
"It's identical," Orihime insisted, sliding the card out of the wallet. She turned it over to Tatsuki, who accepted it and ran a thumb over the smooth surface. It was completely blank.
"This has gotta break some kinda terms of service, right?" Tatsuki mused. "Looks like a scam."
"Put your thumb on the top right corner," Orihime said excitedly, "and hold it there."
Tatsuki did so, and upon lifting her thumb, revealed something new. It was simply the logo of a wide latin 'U', shaped more like a bowl, with spokes of various sizes coming out of it in six directions.
"Nice, old body-heat tech. Didn't know they made this stuff back then." Tatsuki muttered, "But no name? Is this, like, a trick card or something?" She began moving her thumb to other parts of the card, seeing if anything else would show up. "What the hell kinda—"
"It's a telephone card," Orihime supplied helpfully. "Ryō-chan collects them too! Some of them are super cute!"
"This one is not," Tatsuki muttered. "It's kinda creepy, isn't it? The hell is Ichigo doing with something like this?"
Orihime shrugged. She'd cheerfully punted the suitcases aside and flopped onto her couch. "My brother always used to play with it," she said dreamily, voice slightly muffled by the pillow she'd placed under her face. "Just flip it end-over-end in his hands. One time—I remember!—I stole it, and hid it in the freezer. He was soooooo mad, like super mad. He ran around the house, flipping the futon—" she giggled fondly, "it mattered a lot to him." She rolled onto her back and sat up. "Flip it over!"
Tatsuki did so. The back bore a credit swipe that glittered faintly purple in the light, and a word, in neat little print.
"Psyren," Tatsuki said aloud, and shivered. "Weird." She ran her thumb over the word, feeling the raised ridges; it had been carved in.
"Weird," Orihime agreed. "It's funny—I actually forgot about that card until I saw it—until I saw Kurosaki-kun had one. It's weird."
"Why's that?"
Orihime frowned, a thick ridge forming between her brows. "I think…I remember, Dr. Kurosaki, he said—" she cocked her head. "He said my brother died holding it. In his hands."
Tatsuki thought about it, swallowing her instinctive words of comfort to digest what she'd said.
"Yeah," she said finally, "that's pretty weird alright."
"I know!" Orihime threw the pillow into the air. "It's super weird."
"Pretty super weird."
"It is! It is!"
"Yeah."
They both continued nodding to each other.
"So," Tatsuki said finally, fighting the creeping grin on her face. "That's pretty spooky, huh."
"Preeeeeetty spooky."
They both continued staring at each other. Once again, Tatsuki cracked first.
"So are we gonna try it?"
Orihime gasped mockingly, writhing on her sofa as though taken aback. "Tatsuki! How could you?"
"Is that a no?"
"Nuh!" Orihime sat up and threw up her fists. "Let's do it!"
Ichigo looked up at the most beautiful woman in the world, and then at the slim hand she'd offered to him.
"Don't just sit there, silly boy!" she laughed, and seized his trembling fingers, hauling him up and dusting him off. He snuffled a little as she tousled his hair and slapped at his dusty hood. "You're all wet!" she cried over his head, but he'd buried his face in her stomach and held her so tightly he could barely hear her.
"What's gotten into you, all of a sudden?!"
He felt warm arms snake back around him and felt the point of her chin dig into his scalp as she roughly ground it into his head. He cried, muffled by her shirt, and slapped at her, and this pleased her so immensely she swung him up and onto her shoulders. "Alright!" she declared. "If you won't move, mama will just have to carry you!"
His fingers tightened in her burnt orange hair, so similar to his own, and breathed in the scent of home.
"Ichigo…?"
Her worried eyes had turned to him. "Are you alright?"
"'m fine." he mumbled. Her hand came up, and—
"Mrow."
The cat brought the little thoughts that kept him abed to an end.
Ichigo didn't wake, the first time. He rolled about, clinging to the shreds of a dream. He breathed slowly, in and out, and attempted to release his hold on wakefulness, and very nearly succeeded.
"Mrowwww."
This time, he blinked awake. It was a slow, and uncertain wakefulness. He sat up slightly, panting as though he'd sprinted to wakefulness, working himself up onto his elbows as he looked around. The source wasn't hard to find. In the moonlight, a pitch black cat sat on his desk, tail swishing, and licking its paw. Behind it, his window creaked in an unseen breeze, half open. A gibbous moon was visible through the parted blinds, and it made the cat's fur appear almost reddish in shade.
Ichigo sat up abruptly, awareness coming to him in a rush. "Cat!" he gasped.
The cat looked at him like he was an idiot. He flushed and tried to hurl his blankets aside, but his feet were all tangled up, and he ended up rolling off instead as he struggled with the sheets.
He landed on his side, breath exploding out of him, feet still half-on the bed and tangled up.
"Mrow." The tip of the satin tail flicked at him, and with a sharp flick, upended his pencil case, sending metal and wood shavings scattering over his workspace. Something metallic hit the floor and bounced, clattering noisily as it slid under his desk.
Gritting his teeth, he kicked his feet free and stood up. His eyes felt wide, wider than usual, and he realized he was baring his teeth.
"You've been following me," he accused the cat. The cat blinked at him, and turned, leaping to the windowsill beside him. He watched, unable to move, as the cat turned to him with a casual disdain—"Mrow"—and leapt out. The long tail was the last to go, and as soon as it vanished over the edge he felt himself able to move again. He let out a long breath and rushed to the window, where he watched the lithe form slink away down his eaves.
Ichigo suddenly felt a reckless rage take hold of him. Was it borne of the dream that was even now vanishing into motes of wistfulness and joy? The wild will to act seized him and before he knew it, he'd thrown the window wide open, and hopped onto it. His chest expanded like a bellows and it felt like the street below receded to a faraway crack in the horizon.
The cat turned, eyes wider than headlights as Ichigo made the leap down and landed right behind the damn animal.
He landed roughly on his hands and knees, and felt them painfully scrape against the tiles. Something cracked beneath him, but the roof held, and he slowly rose up onto his feet. It felt like someone had seized his rational mind and yanked it backwards, and held it tight to the back of his skull. He could feel it's pressure, but his mind was moving far ahead of it. "What now?" he asked the cat, fingers flexing at his side. "Where to now, eh?"
It turned, and bolted, and Ichigo (gingerly, gingerly) sprinted after it. The neighbors roof was a few feet higher than his, but the cat made the leap easily in three bounds, bouncing off an exposed pipe and up onto the railing. It turned back to him, flicking it's tail as though asking what now?
Ichigo sped up the second he was sure he wasn't over the twins' room, pumping his arm for the few steps of room he had and leaping.
He seized the edge by the tips of his fingers, and his body slammed into the wall. The rebound slid him back for a heart-stopping second, before he slipped his second hand onto the roof and pulled himself up. As soon as his head cleared the edge, he saw the cat right in front of him. It had eyes larger than a cat's should be, he realized. They were massive, and golden, and expanded all the way out.
"Nyeh!" he said to the cat, and it erupted back into motion. Ichigo swore and hurriedly pulled himself up to give chase. The next house was too far, and the rain tiles sloped precariously, so when the cat made the leap, Ichigo decided to play it smarter, and jumped down to the property wall, and then to the street. His knees nearly buckled as all his weight went on them, but then he was off like a shot, following the cat from below. Waiting for it to slip, or slow, or get stuck.
But it moved like liquid, with none of the hesitation he'd expected from a stray. House to house, off pipes and walls and chimneys, sliding down gutters; Ichigo nearly stopped from admiration as the liquid form blurred across the rooftops.
He slowed to a run, and then to a walk, a stitch in his side throbbing as he watched the cat continue moving full-tilt down the street, house to house to house, before vanishing into the blackness.
"Damn."
"Ichi-nii!" Yuzu cried from down the hall, "Can I borrow that beach ball you—" She cut off with a shriek, as she walked past his room just in time to see him ram the tip of his scissors into its pliant body, and roughly peel back its plastic flesh. Wordlessly, she clutched at the doorway, feeling faint.
It took Ichigo a minute to notice, before his back prickled and his eyes began trailing across the room, seeking the source, passing over Yuzu—before darting back.
"Hey."
Yuzu made a questioning noise with her mouth, eyes still fixed on the scissors.
"Cat-trap," Ichigo grunted, blank faced. "Gotta build a better cat-trap. I need more of them."
Yuzu squeaked as the scissors cut smoothly through the plastic, clutching tighter to the doorframe. "Cheap junk," Ichigo muttered, eyeing the wobbly hemispheres he'd been left with. He turned one over and measured the diameter while folding the curling edge he'd cut over some wooden chopsticks he'd taken from the Oden man down the road. They pierced the plastic deeply, "I'll need more glue…" Ichigo squinted at the fine print on the tape measure he stretched out over it. More spokes, more support, more layers. See how the cat liked clawing through vinyl. Cats hated that, he was pretty sure.
God, he was so tired.
"Ichi-nii…"
Ichigo blinked and flinched away as a cool hand placed itself on his forehead. Yuzu's worried face appeared at his side, worrying her bottom lip. "You dozed off," she said softly, "Are you feeling alright?"
"I'm fine," he said shortly, and winced at her stricken expression. "I'm just tired," he added. He saw her eyes dancing over his face, and quickly reached up to work some grit out of the corner of his eye.
"You're making a cat-trap out of a beach ball…"
The hand holding a slim bottle of wood glue twitched. "I'm fine," he repeated. "Just fine."
"Ichi-nii's becoming a serial killer…"
Ichigo sprayed his miso soup out over the table in great hacking coughs. To his left, Pops swallowed an entire chunk of tofu and started choking. Everyone ignored him.
Karin delicately put down her spoon, a big, dumb smirk opening up on her features. "Woooooow…" she said. "Guess this is what they call 'Chuunibyou', huh?"
Slamming his chest with a closed fist a couple of times cleared his air, and Ichigo immediately turned his red, watering eyes on Yuzu. "What?!"
She was pouting, and had the gall to be poking at her soup with a chopstick, like she was the victim. "Daddy said hurting animals was the first sign…"
Ichigo felt something in his mind dangerously wobble, as behind him, Isshin donkey-kicked his chair backwards into the wall, nearly shattering it. "THAT'S RIGHT MY DAUGHTER!" He boomed, voice slightly undercut by the rasp of his coughing. "ANY MONSTER THAT HURTS AN ANIMAL MIGHT AS WELL BE A HUMAN BUTCHER, CHOP-CHOP-CHOPPING UP CUTE LITTLE GIRLS WITH AN OVER SI—" his words sharply cut off as Karin vaulted over the table and landed a skipping high kick to his jaw, which neatly clicked his teeth shut over his wagging tongue.
"I'M EATING, YOU OLD BASTARD!"
Isshin's screams of pain went ignored as Ichigo turned stiffly to his darling little sister. "Yuzu…"
She turned away from him innocently, and no amount of coaxing would turn her back to face him.
He eventually gave up and left, but only after making sure that Karin knew to try to pry whatever it was out of Yuzu. If it was important, then she'd tell him. If she didn't…well, he was only preponing the next day's mockery anyway.
Ichigo waited for the sun to come out before he took a bus to the bottom of the large hill Karakura was situated upon. It wasn't so steep as to wall off Karakura, but it bore strange bends and contours. He hadn't heard of a single Shinto shrine in the area either; he'd heard rumors (from Mizuiro, admittedly) that the people who lived here decorated their homes with strange statues they pulled from the dirt. Supposedly, the hill was a burial mound dating back to the Kamakura period. Some of the locals liked to imply it had to do with the Mongol invasion, but nobody really knew. Ichigo only ever found himself thinking about it as he went down the hill, because both sides of the road were lined with Sakura blossoms, and they never grew better anywhere in Karakura than right here, where their roots could presumably reach down and wind about the dead bodies beneath his feet.
There were never any ghosts here.
He shook the thoughts out of his head as the bus slowed to a stop, some of the people around him giving him strange looks and edging away. He resisted the urge to voice his complaints as he pushed through the crowd on the bus to get to the exit; the neighborhood outside was dilapidated and he'd be the only one getting off the bus here. They'd think badly enough of him as it was.
Ichigo finally exited onto a block empty of pedestrians. Boarded up storefronts lined the opposite side of the road. And to his right, was a movie theater that had been up for destruction for probably three years now. He could recall visiting with the girls when he was younger, when people occupied those stores, and the theater had people queued up around the block. Pops had taken them to a lot of movies after mom died.
Seeing the place as it was now, taped up and gated, with dark shadows yawning over the upper floors, hurt no matter how many times he passed by. Ichigo cast his eyes down and moved past it, down the alley off to the side, nearly hidden by the massive bulk of the cinema.
The alley was dark, and smelled like mold and stale garbage, but it was blessedly short and after a few turns and crossings it opened up into a wider thoroughfare; here, at last, people could be seen. It was one of those neighborhoods that had never quite been replaced by the more polished urbane of downtown Tokyo. It was the kind of place people said couldn't exist a decade from now. It was full of old people, and refurbished apartment buildings. It was pretty ramshackle, for Tokyo, with multiple stores often sharing a tenement. Shelves jutted out of openings cut into load-bearing walls, overflowing with trinkets and goods. The 'superstructures' ran the length of the street, with stress fractures rippling all the way up the peeling paint and thin sheets of dust occasionally falling on the browsing customers, who tended to be either elderly or poor. The streets were packed with them.
Ichigo moved past the crowds, towards a small general store renovated from a 7-11. He took a second to peer through the entrance before proceeding to the side. If he'd entered, the rail-thin owner would greet him with a frown and a rude gesture. If he paid, the owner might allow him into the back, where he could buy cheap cigs by the individual. Plenty of people that looked a bit like his hair, but all over, would probably also be trawling the dark shelves, and probably pick a fight too.
But Ichigo wasn't interested in that. What he wanted was actually behind the store.
Around the back, following a narrow footpath between an open raingutter and the thin scrub outlining the store, you could walk all the way around and into a small clearing of land you could rent for a couple hundred yen by the hour. It had a little lean-to shelter, and broad flat stone flooring, probably granite, that was smooth underfoot. It was unpaved, which is to say that the stones were loose despite their immense weight, and wobbled, and between each tile, stinking mud lay visible underneath.
Here, a little granny sat in the lean-to, and she'd take any bit of clothing you had and stitch it, or patch it, or if you or she had the spare cloth, she could resize it. She did a good job for a pretty cheap price, and as Ichigo waved to her with an awkward tic people might call a smile from far enough, she broke into a little gap-toothed grin and proffered the curtains he'd left with her. She'd known his mom, back when she'd been new to the neighborhood (or so she told it), and had promised to keep an eye on him. Ichigo didn't believe a word of it, but she was sweet, and lonely, and if she ever brought up his mother, it was with a quiet sentiment she quickly buried, so he didn't mind so much.
But it still hurt, so he was glad she had other things on her mind.
"They were quite old," she told him as he counted out the bills, "Tough job. You don't see crosswork like this anymore—you're lucky I remember my days as a little girl!" And she laughed while working her jaw up and down—hawa hawa hawa—and gestured for him to take them.
Ichigo clumsily gathered up the massive sheets in his arms, and began working them into a cloth bag he'd brought just for this. She watched him fondly as he worked, with her hands folded silently over her lap.
"It's good to see someone take interest in that old store again," she said suddenly. Ichigo slowed, raising his head to look at her. She continued without looking at him, eyes misty with the years, "All of us kids—Taro from the second floor barbershop, Akio from across the river, little Kei, ah! So many of us, we used to run all the way up the hill, to get there. The roads were different back then, more sensible. Two rights, a left, and you were there."
"I hadn't realized the store was so close." Ichigo said slowly. "It didn't feel that way."
She flapped her hand at him, "Oh, it took plenty of time, but what did we care. We went and back, and then it was time for bed. But the owner always kept an eye out for us, always had candy or a new toy. German wind-ups, little spinning prussian men, russian nesting dolls, korean action figures; it was magical, boy." She sighed, forlornly. "It was magical." And she sounded so terribly lonely that Ichigo ducked his head back down and resumed his efforts. He managed to work in silence for a bit, letting the distant sound of laughter spiking from the store beside them fill the air.
"Why'd you say you were renovating the place, again?" she asked suddenly.
Ichigo spoke carefully, "I didn't," he said, "But a friend asked me to help out, so I agreed."
Her lips pursed. "This friend wouldn't be one of them ghosts you see, would it?"
Ichigo shuddered guiltily, and the old lady sighed. "You're too nice to them ghosts," she chided. "You're spoiling them, when you oughtn't be seeing them at all. Leave 'em be." But her whiskered mouth was smiling, so Ichigo gamely ignored her words.
"Your shadow's thin. That's the problem," she continued. "They say people with thin shadows ought to be careful where they step. You're not all there, you're only half in this world. It's a wonder you get anything done at all."
That sounded like elderly nonsense. "I'll try and avoid 'them ghosts'," Ichigo grunted, mildly sarcastic, still bent over his bag, but he could hear her laugh.
She cackled approvingly, a slight clacking from her dentures shifting underscoring her amusement. "You'd better boy! You'll be seeing mine soon enough!"
Ichigo grunted assent, slightly awkwardly. That was a thought he wasn't ready for.
He straightened up to reply, but the bundled curtains burst out of the bag. It tipped over from the force, and Ichigo cursed quietly, staring at the mess in dismay. Frustrated, he forced the curtains into a clump and began using his foot to cram it into the bag.
"I'm just tired," he panted. "Long nights. Stress. Classes. You know."
"I know," she agreed, a faint twinkle in her eye.
The bag ripped slightly, but eventually it held everything, and he hefted it up while he said his awkward goodbyes.
"Be careful now. A dirty old general store is no place for a young man. We buried all his toys with the old man, there's nothin' for anyone there anymore."
"On the contrary," Ichigo replied drily. "Where else could I listen to Teiichi Futamura in peace?"
She started laughing again, and the echo followed him all the way down the street.
Tatsuki raised her head from the pile of luggage she'd been sorting through, hair almost grey with dust as she shifted another wrapped package aside. She saw that Orihime had paused, mouth open slightly, as her hand froze on the wallet, and straightened.
"Hime…?"
"I found it," Orihime murmured, voice almost inaudible.
"Your brother's wallet?" Tatsuki stifled a sneeze as she got to her feet, slapping the dust off her shorts. "You found it?"
"Hm? Y—n—" she looked up at Tatsuki, redness clearing away some of the fog in her eyes, "I mean, yes! It's his!" Her thumb traced worn black leather. "But that's not what I meant. Here," she stepped carefully over an open suitcase, bumping her shin slightly on the plastic as she made her way to Tatsuki. "Look!" she flipped it over, letting one side bounce off her thumb. "Tah-dah!"
Tarsuki squinted. "Whoa, old-ass credit cards. Is that dated like 199–"
"No!" Orohime flipped it around, and looked at it before relaxing and stomping her feet at Tatsuki, who doubled over, cracking up. "Tatsuki! I mean the card!"
"Yeah, yeah," she flapped a hand at Orihime. "The red card, right? The one you said looked like Ichigo's?"
"It's identical," Orihime insisted, sliding the card out of the wallet. She turned it over to Tatsuki, who accepted it and ran a thumb over the smooth surface. It was completely blank.
"This has gotta break some kinda terms of service, right?" Tatsuki mused. "Looks like a scam."
"Put your thumb on the top right corner," Orihime said excitedly, "and hold it there."
Tatsuki did so, and upon lifting her thumb, revealed something new. It was simply the logo of a wide latin 'U', shaped more like a bowl, with spokes of various sizes coming out of it in six directions.
"Nice, old body-heat tech. Didn't know they made this stuff back then." Tatsuki muttered, "But no name? Is this, like, a trick card or something?" She began moving her thumb to other parts of the card, seeing if anything else would show up. "What the hell kinda—"
"It's a telephone card," Orihime supplied helpfully. "Ryō-chan collects them too! Some of them are super cute!"
"This one is not," Tatsuki muttered. "It's kinda creepy, isn't it? The hell is Ichigo doing with something like this?"
Orihime shrugged. She'd cheerfully punted the suitcases aside and flopped onto her couch. "My brother always used to play with it," she said dreamily, voice slightly muffled by the pillow she'd placed under her face. "Just flip it end-over-end in his hands. One time—I remember!—I stole it, and hid it in the freezer. He was soooooo mad, like super mad. He ran around the house, flipping the futon—" she giggled fondly, "it mattered a lot to him." She rolled onto her back and sat up. "Flip it over!"
Tatsuki did so. The back bore a credit swipe that glittered faintly purple in the light, and a word, in neat little print.
"Psyren," Tatsuki said aloud, and shivered. "Weird." She ran her thumb over the word, feeling the raised ridges; it had been carved in.
"Weird," Orihime agreed. "It's funny—I actually forgot about that card until I saw it—until I saw Kurosaki-kun had one. It's weird."
"Why's that?"
Orihime frowned, a thick ridge forming between her brows. "I think…I remember, Dr. Kurosaki, he said—" she cocked her head. "He said my brother died holding it. In his hands."
Tatsuki thought about it, swallowing her instinctive words of comfort to digest what she'd said.
"Yeah," she said finally, "that's pretty weird alright."
"I know!" Orihime threw the pillow into the air. "It's super weird."
"Pretty super weird."
"It is! It is!"
"Yeah."
They both continued nodding to each other.
"So," Tatsuki said finally, fighting the creeping grin on her face. "That's pretty spooky, huh."
"Preeeeeetty spooky."
They both continued staring at each other. Once again, Tatsuki cracked first.
"So are we gonna try it?"
Orihime gasped mockingly, writhing on her sofa as though taken aback. "Tatsuki! How could you?"
"Is that a no?"
"Nuh!" Orihime sat up and threw up her fists. "Let's do it!"
September, 2001
Bladestar123
Happy
- Location
- Man, wherever
September
A busy few weeks passed for Ichigo Kurosaki, and Chad spent most of it as a bystander.
Everybody got very busy all of a sudden, questions were being asked, the police became involved, and poor Chad had been kept quietly out of the loop.
Fair enough—his only connection to the case was Ichigo, and he knew better than to bother Ichigo when he was on the warpath. If he had questions, he kept them quietly to himself, to be pondered another day. The haggard look Ichigo bore as he wandered home that first day had told him enough.
The missing persons case named Tatsuki Arisawa went on for weeks with no answers. Ichigo lost his mind, nearly hurling his desk out the window one day before he pulled it together. Orihime Inoue quietly ceased coming to classes. Keigo discovered he had dog allergies. Mizuiro wore polka-dot in public and failed to cheer anyone up. Hana-sensei smoked on the rooftop more often, but switched exclusively to cheap menthols so Chad would stop borrowing them.
The police eventually stopped calling. School reopened.
Chad spent fewer of those weeks in school than he would've preferred—the foreman needed help when their work contract hit the busiest part of the year, and the band was gearing up for a performance in a small Rock cafe in Shinjuku. Their first live audience outside Karakura, where they'd be opening for a Stones-themed cover group. Chad needed the extra cash, so he came and went, making class when he could, and life passed him by.
It went quickly.
He'd been taking a lot in stride these days, he realized one day. He'd been standing in front of the mirror, and noticed his stubble growing in thicker. He looked like his dad, the one he'd only seen in pictures. He was getting old, 'looking manlier' his Abuelo used to say while patting down his shoulders. He could feel those gnarled hands slapping him proudly. Being a man was taking shit in stride, abuelo would say. Well, Chad lived by that now, and if it felt like he was the only one these days, then Chad could understand.
Eventually, Ichigo started waiting for him after classes again, instead of running home to check on the girls. Chad greeted him and it was like the intervening time had hardly passed. It was nice to see a slice of normality return. Chad felt for the boy, but as a bystander, he had so very little to offer.
He'd done what he could the night of, of course. Nearly all of Karakura had, for all they accomplished.
It didn't take long afterwards for Ichigo to crack and spill a bit of what was going on in his head—it wasn't all about Tatsuki, surprisingly, though Ichigo turned somehow grimmer when Chad absently voiced the thought one breezy afternoon.
"I don't know," Ichigo admitted shortly, a world of frustration behind every word, "and Inoue isn't talking. Tatsuki's mom's going spare—no one knows what's happened, but Inoue was with her last. She's completely unintelligible, Dad checked in and she's, like, in shock, babbling some nonsense—" Ichigo viciously booted a loose pebble away, a troubled look in his eyes. "I just don't know, man," he repeated, watching the little speck rattle off into the distance. "I just don't know what's going on."
They'd been standing by the river that day, not far from where Orihime Inoue had been found, crouching beside an empty phone booth and sobbing uncontrollably. The grassy banks were green and unspoilt by the waning heat.
Chad had stayed silent. He wasn't really sure what to say, honestly—he'd quietly offered to help, but no one quite seemed to take him seriously. It almost hurt his feelings, but he didn't let it get him down. Tragedy was just like that. He just made sure Ichigo knew he was ready to help, and he was content to wait until Ichigo wanted to talk. Whatever was going on, it wasn't subtle.
Cue the following week, as they watched the sun go down past that same riverbank: "I've been thinking about something else," said Ichigo, after a long moment mulling things over. Chad grunted, curious.
"I think the cat can talk."
Okay. Chad hadn't expected that, he could admit, but alright.
"Okay."
"I'm serious," Ichigo insisted. "I've been thinking over that night—" what night? "—turning it over, and I swear to god I heard it speak. Or laugh. At me." Ichigo was violently red in the face.
"Okay."
"I heard it!"
"Okay," Chad repeated. "I believe you."
Ichigo shut his mouth, briefly struck dumb because, as usual, Chad meant it.
What Ichigo didn't seem to realize was that Ichigo could see ghosts. Chad was past world-shattering revelations. Talking cats seemed like a logical enough extension.
"You seem okay with all this," Ichigo muttered.
Now, hold on—that was a different concern. Chad wasn't, actually, okay with all this. He could accept that it happened, but he really didn't like it. Talking cats weren't a great sign to begin with, and that plus ghosts (who had made their existence apparent even to the spiritually blind by occasionally helping Ichigo cheat at cards) meant that he was now possibly living in a horror movie. Chad now had a bad case of the heebie-jeebies, and could probably use a beer. But Ichigo seemed more concerned than worried, and that was as good as anything for Chad.
Chad shrugged at Ichigo. "…is what it is."
Ichigo snorted in disbelief.
Late September. Chad had never had a pumpkin spice menthol before, but he was tempted to ask. Hana-sensei was cheerily puffing away at one while clicking rapidly at two shifting forms on her computer. Distant yells from the non-smoking section identified her opponent.
It smelled pretty good.
"Sensei…"
"No."
"…"
He'd have to find them on his own.
Chad turned away and stared at his own screen. Flashing colors decorated the page. Mizuiro told him it was a popular game, and he'd been pulled here occasionally to mess around, but he didn't actually have a login.
There were too many colors, Chad decided. He could barely see what the options were.
After floundering for a bit trying to make an account, he decided he wasn't really in the mood anyway, and stood up and pretended to stretch.
"Where're you going Yasutora?" Hana-sensei asked suddenly. Startled, Chad lowered his arms, turning to look at her. "We just got here." Hana-sensei waved her cigarette in a loose circle, encompassing the internet cafe. "What's up?"
The internet cafe was crowded with teenagers. Chad had never heard of a scheduled field trip to an arcade, but it counted for his attendance quota. Hana-sensei seemed quite comfortable with a beer and a cig as well.
"…aren't you having a better time than us?" Chad realized. Unlike the rest of the students, who were packed like sardines in the standard booths and sweating profusely, Hana-sensei had been greeted by name and a plate of snacks. Chad had quickly joined her in the nearly-empty smoker's section, but she refused to share.
Hana-sensei shrugged and continued to beat Yamamura's ass at Fatal Fury. It looked to be a pretty humiliating match, because he could see Keigo wandering over to Yamamura's booth with a camera held overhead.
Chad briefly wondered if he ought to try to protect Keigo from the humiliating beating he'd almost certainly receive from Yamamura.
He slowly stepped out of his chair and into the aisle, only to see Hana-sensei had held out her hand backwards.
"Stay a bit," she said, still not turning around.
Chad obediently stood as her hands flashed back to her keyboard.
"What's going on with Kurosaki?"
Ah, this question. Tricky. Probe?
"He's fine," Chad said calmly. "He's been in class, hasn't he?"
"Topped the grade," Hana-sensei confirmed. She let a thin stream of smoke escape her lips. "Oh-sensei was so proud."
Oh-sensei taught Calculus. Decent sort. He accommodated Chad's schedule with more grace than expected from a man with a mullet and a tie done up with arithmetic.
"He always said you and Kurosaki had more to show. He's been insufferable all week."
Had he? That was nice of him. Chad doubted he had the time to prove his belief true, but he could bring the man cookies or something.
"These sound like good things, Sensei."
"Chad, do you think I'm an idiot?"
"…"
No. But it wasn't her business, any more than it was Chad's business. Ichigo had a robust support structure and a loving family. He was well cared for. He needed time. The school and Hana-sensei had probably planned this trip so the students could relax a bit following Tatsuki's incident, and that was already more than enough.
If Ichigo wanted to bury himself in books to escape, that was fine by Chad.
"Ichigo is fine, Sensei."
This time she said nothing. Her eyes had never even left the screen. Chad walked past her, bowing his head politely, before striding over to where Mizuiro was chatting up a hostess.
As he approached, the hostess squeaked, startled, and tottered off after waving at Mizuiro. A brief flash of bemusement crossed his face before it smoothed into resignation as he turned and saw Chad approaching.
"Chaaaaaaaad," he whined childishly. "She was nice! You coulda waited!"
That stung a little. It wasn't his fault.
"You look scary!"
That was uncalled for.
Chad reached down and deliberately ruffled Mizuiro's neat locks. The boy yelped in genuine distress; Chad knew Mizuiro kept his hair deliberately neat, because he claimed it made older ladies happy. Made him 'cute', but not 'childish'. He kept babbling about things like that whenever they went to the mall. It gave Chad a headache.
Puppies were cute. Mizuiro was a menace.
"Don't bother with him, Chad," a calm voice said. Chad looked to the left and spotted Ichigo tipping his chair back onto its rear legs, headset dangling half-off his head. His brown eyes drifted to Mizuiro. "You make me sick," he informed the younger boy, who'd pulled out a glittering makeup mirror very clearly not his own.
"Don't hate the players, Ichigo," he said in his irritatingly childish voice. "Hate the game. My game, specifically. Not yours. You don't have any."
"I don't want any."
"Liar," Mizuiro sang. "I saw you follow that nice hostess's—"
"Anyway," Ichigo hissed, "I'm heading out." He kicked his chair back, tossed the other boy a box of leftover pocky, which Mizuiro cheerily accepted. "Comin' Chad?"
Chad nodded.
"Bored?" Mizuiro asked, with a mouthful of cracker.
"Tired."
"Spent all night by the riverbank, did you?"
Ichigo froze. "How—"
"I was on the lower bank," Mizuiro grinned. "Don't ask why."
Chad knew why, having rescued a puppy from the river and left him with a homeless man under the bridge. They'd been playing happily together, when Chad had checked in yesterday. Chad had seen Ichigo on the top bank as well, in passing, but he didn't feel the urge to bring it up.
Mizuiro must've followed Ichigo and discovered the puppy. Chad wasn't sure why the puppy had eventually taken higher priority in Mizuiro's mind. The boy was strange like that.
Ichigo rubbed the back of his neck; he was quite red. "I was just—"
A scuffle interrupted them. Yamamura yelled and started throwing pretzels across the room while Hana-sensei yelled insults about his wrists across the room. Half the crowd gathered around his computer started wobbling as Yamamura accidentally shoved his chair back and knocked it into them, and the rapid clutch-grab-pull of people trying to regain their balance started a small war of violence. People started to stand and stare. A keyboard went flying.
"—whatever," Ichigo muttered.
Mizuiro laughed, and the three stood aside as the staff of the cafe came running to break it up. One-by-one, students were escorted out with stern warnings, until Hana-sensei slumped out after them, the mandatory chaperone.
In the sudden silence after the crowd cleared out, one of the staff started towards them, met Ichigo's eyes and Chad's pecs (he looked no higher, to Chad's quiet dismay), and turned away.
"Well shit," said the smallest boy. "Guess this section opened up. Chad, did you figure out how to make an account?"
"No."
"Man, I really—"
"Come on Ichigo," Mizuiro said softly. "One more game. With us. Like old times."
Ichigo looked tempted, but hesitant. Chad could understand. He clapped Ichigo roughly on the shoulder, and when Ichigo looked back at him, startled, Chad nodded. "One game." And shot him a thumbs up.
Ichigo rolled his eyes and relaxed.
"One game," he said, trudging to a computer. "But I'm just saying, it's been a while." He turned to look at Mizuiro, who stood encouragingly at his shoulder. "I'm probably not gonna be…"
Suddenly, Ichigo's screen started to flash with pings. Mizuiro snickered at Ichigo's expression, as Chad leaned in to read the incoming messages.
[Daddy_Asano]: Wash yourself!!! Big Daddy's here!!!
<@Daddy_Asano has challenged you to a match!>
[Daddy_Asano]: Wash yourself!!! Big Daddy's here!!!
<@Daddy_Asano has challenged you to a match!>
[Daddy_Asano]: Wash yourself!!! Big Daddy's here!!!
<@Daddy_Asano has challenged you to a match!>
[Daddy_Asano]: Wash yourself!!! Big Daddy's here!!!
<@Daddy_Asano has challenged you to a match!>
"Just like old times," said Chad.
"Mizuiro, where the fuck is Keigo. I'm gonna kill him."
It was nearly October, and the air had grown distinctly chilly. There was a unique draft to derelict buildings in this season, Chad felt. As though the darkness outside pressed closer to the windows here.
"You're a poet, Chad. A poet," Mizuiro sang, kicking his feet up on the store counter. "So how come your band only sings about parties and stuff?"
Chad paused while pulling up the plastic sheeting that covered the ground, allowing the dust and scrap to slide down to the crease. "…I don't write the lyrics," he said, not looking at Mizuiro. There was a good deal of detritus, and the occasional fine metal spur that warranted caution.
He left Mizuiro chuckling to himself by the backroom entrance as he made his way back to the front of the store, where Ichigo was standing on a few boxes, and hammering sheets of plastic over the yawning gaps in the walls.
Chad slowly took in the full measure of the patch job, as he came to a stop behind the shorter man. "It might hold," he finally allowed, "but that's only allowing for a normal volume of rainfall. Monsoon season will test the integrity."
Ichigo released the corner of a plastic sheet and sat back on his heels, dabbing at his forehead with a cuff. "I mean, most of this is just stuff to make sure dew doesn't drip in. The primary structure is actually nearly intact—this place is pretty damn sturdy."
He tossed a screwdriver at the bin beside him, letting it rattle against an assortment of similar, but slightly different screwdrivers. Chad winced at the noise, and paused to regather his thoughts, as Ichigo moodily prodded at his vinyl assembly. "Really, all I've done is patch the holes. It should prevent more rot from setting in." And that's as far as I'm willing to take it went unsaid. Chad nodded, and passed a critical eye over their repairs once more. It wasn't perfect, but it was honestly quite thorough for a charitable whim. Chad would simply have to live with the twinge to his conscience telling him they could've done better—with what money? he rebutted in his mind, and the thought went silent once more.
Ichigo looked moody again. It was obvious to Chad that he'd mostly been doing this to get his mind off of Tatsuki.
"I stopped by the pawnshop you mentioned." Chad said, carefully stepping around an overturned umbrella to crouch beside Ichigo. "Thanks for introducing me. He had some tips for maintaining metal."
"No problem. Estimate for the register?"
"Not sure," Chad replied. "Lots of specialty pieces."
Ichigo grunted. "Makes sense. It's old as hell."
Chad nodded slowly. "Are you sure about paying for it?"
"Not really," Ichigo said shortly.
Chad nodded. Even whims needed to be grounded. That was a small relief, actually; he was worried that Ichigo had gotten too invested in this.
Chad walked slowly, lost in his thoughts as he often was lately. The moon had vanished behind thick clouds and light from occupied homes spilled onto the street. It was trash day, and where piles of garbage had been discarded, the odd homeless man could be seen resting upon them, clutching tightly to a bag of garbage, warm and swollen with rotting refuse. There was no traffic on either side of the road, but in the far between of tall lampposts, other men had made a shantytown of tents and boxes in a long smear down the pavement. Some had draped their surfaces with additional cloth or tarpaulin to weather the drop in temperature Tokyo had seen over the past week. On a dusty car a small child sat beside an older girl, both playing with the wipers. The low murmur accompanied him for a little bit, but after a hundred feet, there was only silence. Chad found himself checking over his shoulder more than once, to see if he really had passed through so much life.
Chad suddenly felt the chill. The night breeze curled under his thin turtleneck, and he cursed his lack of forethought. The street was wide and people passed by in much the same post as him; hands under arms, neck hunched, and eyes focused downward. Of course, for Chad, downward often meant the top of peoples heads. In the daytime, it was fairly disgusting, but in the night he could only see by streetlight, flashes of moonlight, and the odd car passing by. The finer details were blessedly absent.
Even still, Orihime Inoue's head stood out in much the same way as Ichigo's, both vibrant and unmistakable. They appeared like a sudden riot of color under his sightline; startling, every time. She appeared close behind after a cyclo, while the wheels of the bike rattled up onto the curb and wobbled past him on the thin bit of cracked concrete he could squeeze himself out of the way for. He noticed immediately that she was running with some urgency, and she passed him without comment.
This was rare for Orihime Inoue. Chad knew her as an irrepressibly friendly girl, the type who he'd only ever frightened once and never again. It was another way she reminded him of Ichigo, and while she wore her kindness on her sleeve, he liked how she would always stop by his desk to say hello.
She didn't even see him this time, and that was very strange indeed. Nobody didn't see Chad. This was new for him. He briefly savored it, before he remembered that it was probably a bad sign.
His head turned to follow her as she continued running down the street. He'd missed her expression, unfortunately, and briefly considered following her.
——
A dark shadow followed the young lady down the alley. The shiver down her spine was only half-conscious, but the sound of a heavy tread behind her made her slow, heart pounding, before she whirled around, pupils dilated to pinpricks and a scream already tearing out of her throat—!
——
Chad held his head in misery. It was all in his imagination, of course, but he didn't think his heart could take it if Inoue actually screamed after seeing him. He'd already been arrested twice this month on suspicion of being too tall and muscular to not be trouble, and Detective Kadokawa could only bail him out so often. He might actually cry this time, and then his reputation would really be in the gutter.
He moped a bit before he pulled himself together and went after her, knowing that he'd never forgive himself for not helping even the friend of a friend of a friend, even if she screamed and made him feel bad. But Orihime Inoue was apparently much faster than she seemed, because he quickly realized she'd vanished.
The alley she'd gone down was damp, and filled with only the noise of ambient moisture. He checked the corners, just in case, but no berry-bush made itself visible, and he turned back after a few more minutes of fruitless waiting.
Chad had a bad feeling again. He quickly dialed Ichigo. It took a few minutes for him to pick up.
"Dude, it's four in the morning."
Ichigo sounded tired, so Chad kept his explanation brief.
"I'll be there," came the immediate response, and the hold tone rang out. The line hung for a second as Chad thought about what had just happened while staring at his phone.
Could he have done more?
Not without information he didn't possess, he concluded. Chad shifted his phone to his other shoulder, wedging it against his ear, and pulled out his pocketbook to mark another good deed for the day, before hunkering down and waiting for Ichigo.
Ichigo's steps echoed through the house as he ran down the stairs, briefly heedless to the noise. His mind had too many thoughts going through it; he couldn't focus on anything, so he let his feet carry him out the door and down the street in a way he hadn't since elementary school, when Tatsuki had been something close to a fixture in his life as an on-off rival and occasionally a best friend.
He'd been out the door before he could even consciously think about why, cellphone pressed to the side of his head as he'd kept up a running stream of chatter with Chad.
He didn't like that Orihime Inoue was wandering around in the dark. He didn't like the parallels. He didn't want to think back to last month, when he'd called Tatsuki's mom and first got a hint that things were wrong.
Mrs. Arisawa had sounded tired, more tired than he remembered, but she still greeted him the same way—Ichi-kun how are you—and asked about his day and whether he'd seen Tatsuki around. He hadn't. No one had, it seemed. No one at all. Tatsuki's mother had tried to sound like she wasn't worried by that. Ichigo had reassured her that things would be alright—and closed the line before mentally flagellating himself for doing what his father had beaten into his head since he'd been old enough to help in the clinic, to never do; make a promise of safety he couldn't keep.
His feet turned themselves westward as he shifted the phone to a more comfortable position.
He knew where Inoue was going. Or he thought he did, but tonight that felt like enough. It was a still night, like the sky was holding its breath. Still and unpleasantly muggy. It kept thoughts spinning in his head all night; he'd known where to look as soon as Chad called.
Chad always liked to walk by the homeless after gigs, and see about buying them drinks sometimes. But people avoided those streets for a reason, and it took someone as tough as Chad to walk by that many desperate people without fearing a thin blade to the kidneys, no matter how uncharitable the thought.
Well, his freaky night-owl trick had finally paid off, and Ichigo would have to apologize for all the times he'd told Chad it would eventually cause hair loss. Maybe it still would, but Ichigo wouldn't rag on about it. Not like Tatsuki would.
And she would.
Once upon a time, Tatsuki had run away from home. They'd been in middle school, and she'd left with Inoue one day after school and never shown up at her home. Her parents had gone spare, all but breaking down his door to check for traces.
Before they could do something drastic, the girls had shown back up, smelling like sewage and Inoue missing half an inch of hair. Ichigo had never heard the explanation given, but he'd asked Tatsuki later, and she told him with great solemnity that they'd camped under Onose Bridge, and if he ever told anyone she'd rip off his winky and feed it to Maron-chan, the class parakeet. Only three people knew that secret place, and he'd been wise enough all these years to pretend he didn't.
Chad said he'd seen Inoue alone while walking down 3rd. If Inoue had crossed Chad's meandering path that late at night, then something was definitely up. Given her heading, she would be moving in the right direction.
His gut was screaming that Inoue wouldn't be out there unless something happened, after spending a month withering away in a dark apartment.
Not unless she had news of Tatsuki.
The girls were inseparable, practically joined at the hip. The number of times Tatsuki came to class wearing Inoue's castoffs numbered higher than her own damn clothes. Inoue wouldn't ditch her. She'd know. She'd know where to look for Tatsuki if something happened.
Ichigo's feet knew too, and they carried him down a mazelike path deep into the city, hanging a left when right would've carried him to Tatsuki's doorstep. The streets eventually grew thin and dark, the weak sunlight clouded over and hidden behind tall buildings in the distance. Two heartstopping girls crossed his path, jabbering in rapid Korean and playing with ribbons. A man sat on a dumpster and tried to spit on him as he passed. A man screamed allez-vous! as he ran past, and faint gurgles echoed against the walls for a full two blocks after. His vision broadened to fisheye, and he felt as though he could see everywhere at once.
Orihime Inoue was under the bridge when he arrived, phone ready in hand. He could see her, in the distance, even from over a hundred meters away. The Bridge had been constructed for a railway, with a scrapyard in-between. On nights with even a light breeze, the scrap shifted and tumbled, clashing with a god-awful scraping that drove thought and sound away.
Thus, she didn't notice as he approached, the atmosphere dominated by the ringing din, as he came up towards where he could see the small figure sit. The night was warm, and what insects and people lived here had been long driven away. The road was flat and so was the dirt that Inoue sat in motionlessly, something pale clutched in her hand.
It looked like a hand. Something twisted in Ichigo's gut, and he'd begun sprinting again. His phone fell to the earth behind him, forgotten.
Tatsuki Arisawa lay in the dirt, covered in dust and ash and layers of stinking filth so dense he could barely make her features out, save the blood oozing from a puncture in her side in a thick sludge. Her eyes were glassy and her legs were twisted under her body. Orihime Inoue sat behind her, frozen, a terrible blankness in her eyes and lip split clean in two where her incisor had cleaved through it and even now continued to work its way down.
Tatsuki coughed a fine mist and blood sprayed onto Ichigo's sweats.
"Oh hell," said Ichigo, fingers dancing through his hair and mind so clear it hurt. Behind him, thumping footsteps echoed as Chad quickly caught up. "Oh what the hell."
Orihime Inoue started screaming.
A busy few weeks passed for Ichigo Kurosaki, and Chad spent most of it as a bystander.
Everybody got very busy all of a sudden, questions were being asked, the police became involved, and poor Chad had been kept quietly out of the loop.
Fair enough—his only connection to the case was Ichigo, and he knew better than to bother Ichigo when he was on the warpath. If he had questions, he kept them quietly to himself, to be pondered another day. The haggard look Ichigo bore as he wandered home that first day had told him enough.
The missing persons case named Tatsuki Arisawa went on for weeks with no answers. Ichigo lost his mind, nearly hurling his desk out the window one day before he pulled it together. Orihime Inoue quietly ceased coming to classes. Keigo discovered he had dog allergies. Mizuiro wore polka-dot in public and failed to cheer anyone up. Hana-sensei smoked on the rooftop more often, but switched exclusively to cheap menthols so Chad would stop borrowing them.
The police eventually stopped calling. School reopened.
Chad spent fewer of those weeks in school than he would've preferred—the foreman needed help when their work contract hit the busiest part of the year, and the band was gearing up for a performance in a small Rock cafe in Shinjuku. Their first live audience outside Karakura, where they'd be opening for a Stones-themed cover group. Chad needed the extra cash, so he came and went, making class when he could, and life passed him by.
It went quickly.
He'd been taking a lot in stride these days, he realized one day. He'd been standing in front of the mirror, and noticed his stubble growing in thicker. He looked like his dad, the one he'd only seen in pictures. He was getting old, 'looking manlier' his Abuelo used to say while patting down his shoulders. He could feel those gnarled hands slapping him proudly. Being a man was taking shit in stride, abuelo would say. Well, Chad lived by that now, and if it felt like he was the only one these days, then Chad could understand.
Eventually, Ichigo started waiting for him after classes again, instead of running home to check on the girls. Chad greeted him and it was like the intervening time had hardly passed. It was nice to see a slice of normality return. Chad felt for the boy, but as a bystander, he had so very little to offer.
He'd done what he could the night of, of course. Nearly all of Karakura had, for all they accomplished.
It didn't take long afterwards for Ichigo to crack and spill a bit of what was going on in his head—it wasn't all about Tatsuki, surprisingly, though Ichigo turned somehow grimmer when Chad absently voiced the thought one breezy afternoon.
"I don't know," Ichigo admitted shortly, a world of frustration behind every word, "and Inoue isn't talking. Tatsuki's mom's going spare—no one knows what's happened, but Inoue was with her last. She's completely unintelligible, Dad checked in and she's, like, in shock, babbling some nonsense—" Ichigo viciously booted a loose pebble away, a troubled look in his eyes. "I just don't know, man," he repeated, watching the little speck rattle off into the distance. "I just don't know what's going on."
They'd been standing by the river that day, not far from where Orihime Inoue had been found, crouching beside an empty phone booth and sobbing uncontrollably. The grassy banks were green and unspoilt by the waning heat.
Chad had stayed silent. He wasn't really sure what to say, honestly—he'd quietly offered to help, but no one quite seemed to take him seriously. It almost hurt his feelings, but he didn't let it get him down. Tragedy was just like that. He just made sure Ichigo knew he was ready to help, and he was content to wait until Ichigo wanted to talk. Whatever was going on, it wasn't subtle.
Cue the following week, as they watched the sun go down past that same riverbank: "I've been thinking about something else," said Ichigo, after a long moment mulling things over. Chad grunted, curious.
"I think the cat can talk."
Okay. Chad hadn't expected that, he could admit, but alright.
"Okay."
"I'm serious," Ichigo insisted. "I've been thinking over that night—" what night? "—turning it over, and I swear to god I heard it speak. Or laugh. At me." Ichigo was violently red in the face.
"Okay."
"I heard it!"
"Okay," Chad repeated. "I believe you."
Ichigo shut his mouth, briefly struck dumb because, as usual, Chad meant it.
What Ichigo didn't seem to realize was that Ichigo could see ghosts. Chad was past world-shattering revelations. Talking cats seemed like a logical enough extension.
"You seem okay with all this," Ichigo muttered.
Now, hold on—that was a different concern. Chad wasn't, actually, okay with all this. He could accept that it happened, but he really didn't like it. Talking cats weren't a great sign to begin with, and that plus ghosts (who had made their existence apparent even to the spiritually blind by occasionally helping Ichigo cheat at cards) meant that he was now possibly living in a horror movie. Chad now had a bad case of the heebie-jeebies, and could probably use a beer. But Ichigo seemed more concerned than worried, and that was as good as anything for Chad.
Chad shrugged at Ichigo. "…is what it is."
Ichigo snorted in disbelief.
Late September. Chad had never had a pumpkin spice menthol before, but he was tempted to ask. Hana-sensei was cheerily puffing away at one while clicking rapidly at two shifting forms on her computer. Distant yells from the non-smoking section identified her opponent.
It smelled pretty good.
"Sensei…"
"No."
"…"
He'd have to find them on his own.
Chad turned away and stared at his own screen. Flashing colors decorated the page. Mizuiro told him it was a popular game, and he'd been pulled here occasionally to mess around, but he didn't actually have a login.
There were too many colors, Chad decided. He could barely see what the options were.
After floundering for a bit trying to make an account, he decided he wasn't really in the mood anyway, and stood up and pretended to stretch.
"Where're you going Yasutora?" Hana-sensei asked suddenly. Startled, Chad lowered his arms, turning to look at her. "We just got here." Hana-sensei waved her cigarette in a loose circle, encompassing the internet cafe. "What's up?"
The internet cafe was crowded with teenagers. Chad had never heard of a scheduled field trip to an arcade, but it counted for his attendance quota. Hana-sensei seemed quite comfortable with a beer and a cig as well.
"…aren't you having a better time than us?" Chad realized. Unlike the rest of the students, who were packed like sardines in the standard booths and sweating profusely, Hana-sensei had been greeted by name and a plate of snacks. Chad had quickly joined her in the nearly-empty smoker's section, but she refused to share.
Hana-sensei shrugged and continued to beat Yamamura's ass at Fatal Fury. It looked to be a pretty humiliating match, because he could see Keigo wandering over to Yamamura's booth with a camera held overhead.
Chad briefly wondered if he ought to try to protect Keigo from the humiliating beating he'd almost certainly receive from Yamamura.
He slowly stepped out of his chair and into the aisle, only to see Hana-sensei had held out her hand backwards.
"Stay a bit," she said, still not turning around.
Chad obediently stood as her hands flashed back to her keyboard.
"What's going on with Kurosaki?"
Ah, this question. Tricky. Probe?
"He's fine," Chad said calmly. "He's been in class, hasn't he?"
"Topped the grade," Hana-sensei confirmed. She let a thin stream of smoke escape her lips. "Oh-sensei was so proud."
Oh-sensei taught Calculus. Decent sort. He accommodated Chad's schedule with more grace than expected from a man with a mullet and a tie done up with arithmetic.
"He always said you and Kurosaki had more to show. He's been insufferable all week."
Had he? That was nice of him. Chad doubted he had the time to prove his belief true, but he could bring the man cookies or something.
"These sound like good things, Sensei."
"Chad, do you think I'm an idiot?"
"…"
No. But it wasn't her business, any more than it was Chad's business. Ichigo had a robust support structure and a loving family. He was well cared for. He needed time. The school and Hana-sensei had probably planned this trip so the students could relax a bit following Tatsuki's incident, and that was already more than enough.
If Ichigo wanted to bury himself in books to escape, that was fine by Chad.
"Ichigo is fine, Sensei."
This time she said nothing. Her eyes had never even left the screen. Chad walked past her, bowing his head politely, before striding over to where Mizuiro was chatting up a hostess.
As he approached, the hostess squeaked, startled, and tottered off after waving at Mizuiro. A brief flash of bemusement crossed his face before it smoothed into resignation as he turned and saw Chad approaching.
"Chaaaaaaaad," he whined childishly. "She was nice! You coulda waited!"
That stung a little. It wasn't his fault.
"You look scary!"
That was uncalled for.
Chad reached down and deliberately ruffled Mizuiro's neat locks. The boy yelped in genuine distress; Chad knew Mizuiro kept his hair deliberately neat, because he claimed it made older ladies happy. Made him 'cute', but not 'childish'. He kept babbling about things like that whenever they went to the mall. It gave Chad a headache.
Puppies were cute. Mizuiro was a menace.
"Don't bother with him, Chad," a calm voice said. Chad looked to the left and spotted Ichigo tipping his chair back onto its rear legs, headset dangling half-off his head. His brown eyes drifted to Mizuiro. "You make me sick," he informed the younger boy, who'd pulled out a glittering makeup mirror very clearly not his own.
"Don't hate the players, Ichigo," he said in his irritatingly childish voice. "Hate the game. My game, specifically. Not yours. You don't have any."
"I don't want any."
"Liar," Mizuiro sang. "I saw you follow that nice hostess's—"
"Anyway," Ichigo hissed, "I'm heading out." He kicked his chair back, tossed the other boy a box of leftover pocky, which Mizuiro cheerily accepted. "Comin' Chad?"
Chad nodded.
"Bored?" Mizuiro asked, with a mouthful of cracker.
"Tired."
"Spent all night by the riverbank, did you?"
Ichigo froze. "How—"
"I was on the lower bank," Mizuiro grinned. "Don't ask why."
Chad knew why, having rescued a puppy from the river and left him with a homeless man under the bridge. They'd been playing happily together, when Chad had checked in yesterday. Chad had seen Ichigo on the top bank as well, in passing, but he didn't feel the urge to bring it up.
Mizuiro must've followed Ichigo and discovered the puppy. Chad wasn't sure why the puppy had eventually taken higher priority in Mizuiro's mind. The boy was strange like that.
Ichigo rubbed the back of his neck; he was quite red. "I was just—"
A scuffle interrupted them. Yamamura yelled and started throwing pretzels across the room while Hana-sensei yelled insults about his wrists across the room. Half the crowd gathered around his computer started wobbling as Yamamura accidentally shoved his chair back and knocked it into them, and the rapid clutch-grab-pull of people trying to regain their balance started a small war of violence. People started to stand and stare. A keyboard went flying.
"—whatever," Ichigo muttered.
Mizuiro laughed, and the three stood aside as the staff of the cafe came running to break it up. One-by-one, students were escorted out with stern warnings, until Hana-sensei slumped out after them, the mandatory chaperone.
In the sudden silence after the crowd cleared out, one of the staff started towards them, met Ichigo's eyes and Chad's pecs (he looked no higher, to Chad's quiet dismay), and turned away.
"Well shit," said the smallest boy. "Guess this section opened up. Chad, did you figure out how to make an account?"
"No."
"Man, I really—"
"Come on Ichigo," Mizuiro said softly. "One more game. With us. Like old times."
Ichigo looked tempted, but hesitant. Chad could understand. He clapped Ichigo roughly on the shoulder, and when Ichigo looked back at him, startled, Chad nodded. "One game." And shot him a thumbs up.
Ichigo rolled his eyes and relaxed.
"One game," he said, trudging to a computer. "But I'm just saying, it's been a while." He turned to look at Mizuiro, who stood encouragingly at his shoulder. "I'm probably not gonna be…"
Suddenly, Ichigo's screen started to flash with pings. Mizuiro snickered at Ichigo's expression, as Chad leaned in to read the incoming messages.
[Daddy_Asano]: Wash yourself!!! Big Daddy's here!!!
<@Daddy_Asano has challenged you to a match!>
[Daddy_Asano]: Wash yourself!!! Big Daddy's here!!!
<@Daddy_Asano has challenged you to a match!>
[Daddy_Asano]: Wash yourself!!! Big Daddy's here!!!
<@Daddy_Asano has challenged you to a match!>
[Daddy_Asano]: Wash yourself!!! Big Daddy's here!!!
<@Daddy_Asano has challenged you to a match!>
"Just like old times," said Chad.
"Mizuiro, where the fuck is Keigo. I'm gonna kill him."
It was nearly October, and the air had grown distinctly chilly. There was a unique draft to derelict buildings in this season, Chad felt. As though the darkness outside pressed closer to the windows here.
"You're a poet, Chad. A poet," Mizuiro sang, kicking his feet up on the store counter. "So how come your band only sings about parties and stuff?"
Chad paused while pulling up the plastic sheeting that covered the ground, allowing the dust and scrap to slide down to the crease. "…I don't write the lyrics," he said, not looking at Mizuiro. There was a good deal of detritus, and the occasional fine metal spur that warranted caution.
He left Mizuiro chuckling to himself by the backroom entrance as he made his way back to the front of the store, where Ichigo was standing on a few boxes, and hammering sheets of plastic over the yawning gaps in the walls.
Chad slowly took in the full measure of the patch job, as he came to a stop behind the shorter man. "It might hold," he finally allowed, "but that's only allowing for a normal volume of rainfall. Monsoon season will test the integrity."
Ichigo released the corner of a plastic sheet and sat back on his heels, dabbing at his forehead with a cuff. "I mean, most of this is just stuff to make sure dew doesn't drip in. The primary structure is actually nearly intact—this place is pretty damn sturdy."
He tossed a screwdriver at the bin beside him, letting it rattle against an assortment of similar, but slightly different screwdrivers. Chad winced at the noise, and paused to regather his thoughts, as Ichigo moodily prodded at his vinyl assembly. "Really, all I've done is patch the holes. It should prevent more rot from setting in." And that's as far as I'm willing to take it went unsaid. Chad nodded, and passed a critical eye over their repairs once more. It wasn't perfect, but it was honestly quite thorough for a charitable whim. Chad would simply have to live with the twinge to his conscience telling him they could've done better—with what money? he rebutted in his mind, and the thought went silent once more.
Ichigo looked moody again. It was obvious to Chad that he'd mostly been doing this to get his mind off of Tatsuki.
"I stopped by the pawnshop you mentioned." Chad said, carefully stepping around an overturned umbrella to crouch beside Ichigo. "Thanks for introducing me. He had some tips for maintaining metal."
"No problem. Estimate for the register?"
"Not sure," Chad replied. "Lots of specialty pieces."
Ichigo grunted. "Makes sense. It's old as hell."
Chad nodded slowly. "Are you sure about paying for it?"
"Not really," Ichigo said shortly.
Chad nodded. Even whims needed to be grounded. That was a small relief, actually; he was worried that Ichigo had gotten too invested in this.
Chad walked slowly, lost in his thoughts as he often was lately. The moon had vanished behind thick clouds and light from occupied homes spilled onto the street. It was trash day, and where piles of garbage had been discarded, the odd homeless man could be seen resting upon them, clutching tightly to a bag of garbage, warm and swollen with rotting refuse. There was no traffic on either side of the road, but in the far between of tall lampposts, other men had made a shantytown of tents and boxes in a long smear down the pavement. Some had draped their surfaces with additional cloth or tarpaulin to weather the drop in temperature Tokyo had seen over the past week. On a dusty car a small child sat beside an older girl, both playing with the wipers. The low murmur accompanied him for a little bit, but after a hundred feet, there was only silence. Chad found himself checking over his shoulder more than once, to see if he really had passed through so much life.
Chad suddenly felt the chill. The night breeze curled under his thin turtleneck, and he cursed his lack of forethought. The street was wide and people passed by in much the same post as him; hands under arms, neck hunched, and eyes focused downward. Of course, for Chad, downward often meant the top of peoples heads. In the daytime, it was fairly disgusting, but in the night he could only see by streetlight, flashes of moonlight, and the odd car passing by. The finer details were blessedly absent.
Even still, Orihime Inoue's head stood out in much the same way as Ichigo's, both vibrant and unmistakable. They appeared like a sudden riot of color under his sightline; startling, every time. She appeared close behind after a cyclo, while the wheels of the bike rattled up onto the curb and wobbled past him on the thin bit of cracked concrete he could squeeze himself out of the way for. He noticed immediately that she was running with some urgency, and she passed him without comment.
This was rare for Orihime Inoue. Chad knew her as an irrepressibly friendly girl, the type who he'd only ever frightened once and never again. It was another way she reminded him of Ichigo, and while she wore her kindness on her sleeve, he liked how she would always stop by his desk to say hello.
She didn't even see him this time, and that was very strange indeed. Nobody didn't see Chad. This was new for him. He briefly savored it, before he remembered that it was probably a bad sign.
His head turned to follow her as she continued running down the street. He'd missed her expression, unfortunately, and briefly considered following her.
——
A dark shadow followed the young lady down the alley. The shiver down her spine was only half-conscious, but the sound of a heavy tread behind her made her slow, heart pounding, before she whirled around, pupils dilated to pinpricks and a scream already tearing out of her throat—!
——
Chad held his head in misery. It was all in his imagination, of course, but he didn't think his heart could take it if Inoue actually screamed after seeing him. He'd already been arrested twice this month on suspicion of being too tall and muscular to not be trouble, and Detective Kadokawa could only bail him out so often. He might actually cry this time, and then his reputation would really be in the gutter.
He moped a bit before he pulled himself together and went after her, knowing that he'd never forgive himself for not helping even the friend of a friend of a friend, even if she screamed and made him feel bad. But Orihime Inoue was apparently much faster than she seemed, because he quickly realized she'd vanished.
The alley she'd gone down was damp, and filled with only the noise of ambient moisture. He checked the corners, just in case, but no berry-bush made itself visible, and he turned back after a few more minutes of fruitless waiting.
Chad had a bad feeling again. He quickly dialed Ichigo. It took a few minutes for him to pick up.
"Dude, it's four in the morning."
Ichigo sounded tired, so Chad kept his explanation brief.
"I'll be there," came the immediate response, and the hold tone rang out. The line hung for a second as Chad thought about what had just happened while staring at his phone.
Could he have done more?
Not without information he didn't possess, he concluded. Chad shifted his phone to his other shoulder, wedging it against his ear, and pulled out his pocketbook to mark another good deed for the day, before hunkering down and waiting for Ichigo.
Ichigo's steps echoed through the house as he ran down the stairs, briefly heedless to the noise. His mind had too many thoughts going through it; he couldn't focus on anything, so he let his feet carry him out the door and down the street in a way he hadn't since elementary school, when Tatsuki had been something close to a fixture in his life as an on-off rival and occasionally a best friend.
He'd been out the door before he could even consciously think about why, cellphone pressed to the side of his head as he'd kept up a running stream of chatter with Chad.
He didn't like that Orihime Inoue was wandering around in the dark. He didn't like the parallels. He didn't want to think back to last month, when he'd called Tatsuki's mom and first got a hint that things were wrong.
Mrs. Arisawa had sounded tired, more tired than he remembered, but she still greeted him the same way—Ichi-kun how are you—and asked about his day and whether he'd seen Tatsuki around. He hadn't. No one had, it seemed. No one at all. Tatsuki's mother had tried to sound like she wasn't worried by that. Ichigo had reassured her that things would be alright—and closed the line before mentally flagellating himself for doing what his father had beaten into his head since he'd been old enough to help in the clinic, to never do; make a promise of safety he couldn't keep.
His feet turned themselves westward as he shifted the phone to a more comfortable position.
He knew where Inoue was going. Or he thought he did, but tonight that felt like enough. It was a still night, like the sky was holding its breath. Still and unpleasantly muggy. It kept thoughts spinning in his head all night; he'd known where to look as soon as Chad called.
Chad always liked to walk by the homeless after gigs, and see about buying them drinks sometimes. But people avoided those streets for a reason, and it took someone as tough as Chad to walk by that many desperate people without fearing a thin blade to the kidneys, no matter how uncharitable the thought.
Well, his freaky night-owl trick had finally paid off, and Ichigo would have to apologize for all the times he'd told Chad it would eventually cause hair loss. Maybe it still would, but Ichigo wouldn't rag on about it. Not like Tatsuki would.
And she would.
Once upon a time, Tatsuki had run away from home. They'd been in middle school, and she'd left with Inoue one day after school and never shown up at her home. Her parents had gone spare, all but breaking down his door to check for traces.
Before they could do something drastic, the girls had shown back up, smelling like sewage and Inoue missing half an inch of hair. Ichigo had never heard the explanation given, but he'd asked Tatsuki later, and she told him with great solemnity that they'd camped under Onose Bridge, and if he ever told anyone she'd rip off his winky and feed it to Maron-chan, the class parakeet. Only three people knew that secret place, and he'd been wise enough all these years to pretend he didn't.
Chad said he'd seen Inoue alone while walking down 3rd. If Inoue had crossed Chad's meandering path that late at night, then something was definitely up. Given her heading, she would be moving in the right direction.
His gut was screaming that Inoue wouldn't be out there unless something happened, after spending a month withering away in a dark apartment.
Not unless she had news of Tatsuki.
The girls were inseparable, practically joined at the hip. The number of times Tatsuki came to class wearing Inoue's castoffs numbered higher than her own damn clothes. Inoue wouldn't ditch her. She'd know. She'd know where to look for Tatsuki if something happened.
Ichigo's feet knew too, and they carried him down a mazelike path deep into the city, hanging a left when right would've carried him to Tatsuki's doorstep. The streets eventually grew thin and dark, the weak sunlight clouded over and hidden behind tall buildings in the distance. Two heartstopping girls crossed his path, jabbering in rapid Korean and playing with ribbons. A man sat on a dumpster and tried to spit on him as he passed. A man screamed allez-vous! as he ran past, and faint gurgles echoed against the walls for a full two blocks after. His vision broadened to fisheye, and he felt as though he could see everywhere at once.
Orihime Inoue was under the bridge when he arrived, phone ready in hand. He could see her, in the distance, even from over a hundred meters away. The Bridge had been constructed for a railway, with a scrapyard in-between. On nights with even a light breeze, the scrap shifted and tumbled, clashing with a god-awful scraping that drove thought and sound away.
Thus, she didn't notice as he approached, the atmosphere dominated by the ringing din, as he came up towards where he could see the small figure sit. The night was warm, and what insects and people lived here had been long driven away. The road was flat and so was the dirt that Inoue sat in motionlessly, something pale clutched in her hand.
It looked like a hand. Something twisted in Ichigo's gut, and he'd begun sprinting again. His phone fell to the earth behind him, forgotten.
Tatsuki Arisawa lay in the dirt, covered in dust and ash and layers of stinking filth so dense he could barely make her features out, save the blood oozing from a puncture in her side in a thick sludge. Her eyes were glassy and her legs were twisted under her body. Orihime Inoue sat behind her, frozen, a terrible blankness in her eyes and lip split clean in two where her incisor had cleaved through it and even now continued to work its way down.
Tatsuki coughed a fine mist and blood sprayed onto Ichigo's sweats.
"Oh hell," said Ichigo, fingers dancing through his hair and mind so clear it hurt. Behind him, thumping footsteps echoed as Chad quickly caught up. "Oh what the hell."
Orihime Inoue started screaming.