Prompt: colour me blood red passionately
A/N: I post most of my hitsukarin stuff on tumblr and ao3, but a reviewer recommended I try FFnet too, so here I am. Hope you guys like it! Constructive criticism is always appreciated.
She likes the colour red. It's unusual, he thinks, that such a tomboyish creature appreciates the colour usually associated with hearts and romance and all that nonsense. At the same time, it makes perfect sense that Kurosaki's sister would invest in a colour so intense and passionate.
It's scattered throughout the clothes she wears when she's eleven, boyish tees and soccer shoes. It's loud and unsubtle, demanding your attention. Much like her, he thinks.
The red all but disappears when she enters middle school, the dress code limiting her to blues and whites. He finds it jarring and foreign, as if a part of her has been locked away from both herself and from him. He leaves a red ribbon on her desk when under the guise of checking up on a powerless Ichigo, and the next time he sees her, the ribbon holds her ebony hair high in place.
Her lips are pink. Hitsugaya finds that if he kisses them enough, they turn red and swollen, and Karin soft and yielding.
He develops a minor obsession with marking her skin, leaving bright red marks on once unblemished cream. Karin mewls and whimpers whenever he finds new skin to explore and the way she says his name is merely an added bonus.
It's harder to make her blush, though. He's seen her face turn red after a long game of soccer, and she flushes when he licks her into orgasm, but he's never seen a delicate blush bloom on her cheeks like it does for Momo and Yuzu. Of course, this is Karin. She doesn't do delicate.
So Hitsugaya makes it his personal mission to get Karin to blush. Karin is as prone to embarrassment as her brother and father, which is to say, not at all. Compliments on her fighting prowess earn him a blinding grin and an offer to spar. Compliments on her beauty get a scoff and a sarcastic rebuff. Feeling desperate, he recalls something Karin once said, that she likes it when he 'talks dirty' to her.
His first attempt has her turning red all right. Turns out laughing too much can do that to a person. The hiccups she got right after failed to endear her to his bruised ego.
After that, his enthusiasm for his mission wanes. He still hopes to catch her off guard and make her blush someday, but there are other events happening in their lives he allows himself to be happily distracted by.
Such as their marriage. And the birth of their son. And their daughter, many years later.
Finally, one day, when fine lines have taken over her face and she no longer moves with the litheness she was once famed for, and his hair colour now entirely suits his age, he catches her watching their youngest grandson play with the most gentle, soft-eyed expression he's ever seen on her face. When he walks up to her and slips his fingers through hers, she looks up, startled, and he smiles unhesitatingly at the love of his life.
"You're beautiful, you know that? I love you."
And he is rewarded with her cheeks turning cherry blossom red as all the blood in her body rushes to them, and a blinding smile that still takes his breath away after all these years, a smile that is purely Karin.