#46 In Praise of Surfaces (52 Flavors) Tite Kubo
Yachiru
Yachiru likes the feel of wood.
The floor of Zaraki's office was worn smooth to the touch. In the days of his predecessor, officers and the unseated alike would walk freely through its doors. Coming on business or to exchange a few words or just to sit quietly to one side watching as people came and went, content to take in their taichou's aura. Their woven shoes had worn away the rough edges and polished its many boards until, on a sunny day, they nearly glowed with warm, soft light.
The office saw far fewer visitors these days. Not because discipline was any stricter, interactions in 11th were far from formal, but because few were brave enough to disturb Zaraki-taichou while he was concentrating on the paperwork. As a result Yachiru could spread her paper and crayons in a wide circle around her small body, able to survey her drawings critically wearing an expression similar to her adoptive father's as he contemplated the stacks of paper on his desk. It was her "I'm doing important things like Ken-chan" face. Unbeknownst to Yachiru she was actually mimicking Zaraki's, "Why can't I just burn this shit?" face.
Yachiru likes the feel of cloth.
Despite her youth and small stature the pink-haired lieutenant of 11th division was more than capable of keeping pace with Zaraki on foot. Very few people were aware of the girl's swiftness though, since she went nearly everywhere latched onto her captain's shoulder. Things just didn't look right to Yachiru if she wasn't seven feet in the air with the breeze in her face and cloth under her hands. The sensation of travel in her mind was never the feel of cobbles or dirt under her feet, but the feel of cloth in her hands.
The texture had changed over the years. In the beginning - the beginning because nothing before Ken-chan really mattered - it had been coarse and inconsistent. As they traveled, a ragged path of red blood and screaming cut through Rukongai, the cloth would grow thin and be replaced. Then it would be thicker and fuzzy, or old and itchy, and sometimes finer, so fine it was hard to hold to. But for a long time now it had been the smooth, cool cloth of a captain's haori. But these differences didn't mean much to Yachiru because really nothing had changed. As long as she had her place, clinging tightly to a massive shoulder high above the ground with the feel of cloth, nothing ever would.
Yachiru likes shiny objects.
Ikkaku's head reminds her of boiled sweets. Maybe it's because of the shape, maybe because of the way it shines in the sunlight. Maybe she's just so fond of candy that anything remotely similar makes her mouth water. Sometimes when Yachiru is bored she looks at the shine on his head and thinks of all the tasty candy that shines like that. And sooner or later Ikkaku catches on and looks at her with narrowed eyes and asks why the hell she's looking at him like that damn it! all irritated and indignant. And she wonders why he doesn't yell at Funny-brows like that because she knows he stares too. But she doesn't point this out because Pachinko's starting to get annoying and now there's really nothing else to do but bite until he gets the point.