Nota Bene: First of a series of prompt drabbles (or, if they grow right, ficlets).
Disclaimer: Nothing you recognize is mine; they all belong to Tite Kubo. I'm just poor.
Prompt: Mirror
Characters: Ichigo, Karin
~*~
"There's something different about you," Karin tells him one morning, and Ichigo freezes slightly. This is completely unexpected; there are a few minutes left before he has to leave for school, and it's extremely rare for him to run into Karin this early in the morning. Yuzu makes it a point to be up early and make sure everyone is ready for the day, but Karin usually prefers to stay in bed as long as possible, until there's no more time to put off the inevitable.
Shrugging off her observation, however, he mumbles something resembling a 'see you later' and takes off for school. There's nothing different about him… at least, not that others should be seeing. After all, everything that had occurred over the summer had happened to his soul, not his body, he tells himself. There's no way that his body could have changed physically all that much, besides just the fact that maybe he's grown or worked out recently.
That doesn't stop him from staring at himself in the mirror later, however, the rest of the bathroom blurred away by condensation on the glass. Steam still clouds the air from his shower, but he pays the water dripping down his neck no mind as he stares at his face, trying to figure out what has changed. He still looks the same, but he thinks that yeah, he looks a little broader across the shoulders, and maybe his eyes are a little harder…
"Hurry up, Ichi-nii!" Karin yells, her fist pounding on the door and startling him out of his concentration. "Some of us have homework to do!"
"Yeah, yeah," he mutters, grabbing his clothes and opening the door. Karin scowls as she enters, rolling her eyes at him.
"When I said there's something different about you, I didn't think you were changing into a girl, you know," she tells him pointedly, and Ichigo scowls at her, loosening up enough to swat at her playfully. She avoids him, shutting the door, and he grins before heading back to his room.
Karin isn't the only one that seemed to think he had changed; he remembers Keigo being his usual dumbass, annoying self and asking why he hadn't taken him to work out with, assuming that Ichigo had only worked out to pick up girls. Only Keigo had been straight forward, but lately, now that he thinks about it, Ichigo thinks that there have been more glances than usual cast his way, as if everyone can tell that he's not the same anything, and that is almost enough to scare him.
Even after everything he and the others had gone through over the summer, he had thought that they could return with no problems. The thought that people can somehow tell that he's different inexplicably bugs him, because it means that he's not going to be able to hide this forever, especially if Karin can tell already. After all, that only makes it that much more likely that she's going to catch him in his shinigami form sometime… He's all for fighting this war and making sure that people are safe, but he has no clue what he's going to do if people find out about him.
He just wants to keep this peace and quiet a little bit longer, because even he can tell that the storm is only just rolling in.
~*~
As always, please tell me what you think, or if I missed a typo or something... Also, if there is a drabble or ficlet you would like to see, feel free to drop it here, or on an entry at my journal (listed in profile). Hope you enjoyed!