Hi there! Ninjarific here with another story idea. I admit that it will be tough keeping up with this story and my OCxHitsugaya story, but this idea kept plaguing me. I couldn't resist . It was like trying to refuse a penguin cupake...which is impossible if you didn't already know! I will try to update as much as possible, I promise.

Anyway, I hope you like this story! It's a KarinxToushiro, heehee, my favorite pairing! Read and review because my ears are thirsty for critic!

Disclaimer: Fine, fine, I admit it, I am not really the genius that is Tite Kubo. Thus, I do not own his characters! I shall avenge this fact by declaring the story is mine.

Enjoy! Disfruta!

~Love, Ninjarific

Introducing "He's a Tramp"

Prologue: The Unraveling

Hitsugaya Toushiro glanced around the bustling bistro. He was already tired of the gaudy surroundings as he stoically watched the busy floor being blurred by active waiters and hostesses eager to please the elite of the city. Hopeless couples lined up outside the entrance praying to eat at such a greatly talked-about place, but Toushiro thought they were not missing much. Indoors, odors of mouth-watering appetizers dripping in delicate sauces perforated the air, and the susurrus of small talk reverberated back and forth between the gold-leafed ceiling and the floor length windowpanes. Light glimmered from the outside cityscape creating a pearlescent reflection more beautiful than any ordinary painting. Along every wall and architectural terrace, couples toasted to the pride of their success. With a clang of the glasses, their careless laughter rang with a clarity only achieved by the high and wealthy.

The claret carpet, the alabaster chandeliers, the staid butlers...All were prime examples of elegance, and oh, how Toushiro hated it. For the fourth time this week, he was in the same seat of the same table of the same restaurant with the same girl, as always. Well, maybe not the same girl, but all those girls looked the same. Their faces blurred together after a time, and honestly, Toushiro did not care to distinguish the identical facades. Matsumoto really needed to vary her choices for his blind dates. She was always to blame for choosing those glaze-eyed, gold-seeking does. Worst of all was how she managed to convince him to go! She would beckon with her big, grey eyes claiming that they were probable clients, and whether they were or not, Toushiro could not afford to miss out on potential deals. This time, Mastumoto had caught a lively prey, and judging by his watch, for the last twenty-seven minutes now, he had had the pleasure of listening to his current date chatter incessantly.

Toushiro growled. Next time Matsumoto decides to show her face in my presence, I'm going to kill her. She better hope she's sober enough to realize her impending death.

Looking up from his tepid food, Toushiro saw the girl's lips move, but he could not absorb what she was even saying. He had to admit that she was pretty one, at least, not as bad as some of the previous girls. Matsumoto somehow got the most peculiar notion that he was interested in "more cushion for the pushin'," or some nonsense along those lines. Looking back on those last couple of dates, Toushiro could not help but cringe.

"Honey, what's wrong? Don't you like your penne alla gigi? I heard from Rangiku-san that it is your favorite," cried the girl. What was her name again? Toushiro quietly wracked his brain but to no avail. Matsumoto would pummel him if she found out he didn't at least try to make this date work. Zuki? Nina? Something with an i, he was sure it.

"Yeah, yeah, I just got lost in thought, I supp-" He was cut off when their waiter creepily appeared beside the private booth.

"Akane-san, would you favor another glass of champagne?" the man questioned with a sophisticated drawl. His stoic face stayed rigid as Akane gave a forced grin in return. Toushiro scoffed. He was so sick of the vacuity of this place. No, not just of this place, he was exhausted of this class, of this status in life. Toushiro pushed back his chair and threw down the silk-embroidered napkin. He had had enough.

"Is there anything I can assist you with, Hitsugaya-sama?" Akane shuffled up to follow Toushiro as he stepped down and trudged away. "My father owns a spectacular villa just a few miles down the beach! You, you can relax there if you are tired! Please, where are you going?"

Heads turned as the girl called more attention to herself, and all other conversations were silenced. Akane grabbed Toushiro's sleeve, tugging to force him to turn around, but Toushiro yanked back with disgust etched deeply in the creases of his face.

"I'm going to the bathroom," he growled, and with that, he left directly through the front entrance with the girl trembling behind him.

Not that it was any great concern of his.

Darkness descended on the streets of Karakura, but Toushiro had no need of his eyes to find his way along the labyrinth of concrete sidewalks. What he once recognized as a suburban community years ago was now illuminated as a metropolitan in full bloom. The rootless taxis maintained a gentle drone in Toushiro's ears, but he had grown accustomed to the hum. He welcomed it. He would much rather listen to the constant, comforting noise than the thoughts of his own unraveling mind. Each rhythm of the city added to the augmenting cacophony rapping the inner limits of his cranium, wrestling to cease those thoughts that he denied even existed. He didn't need to listen. What was the point when they would betray him; bring him unhappiness when he was aware he should be grateful for the life he had earned.

Yet, this status of life, he knew was more like a garnish. It was just something to strut to the crowds of admirers like the sumptuous vanes on the peacock's veil. In his chest, Toushiro knew he could not continue in this pathetic state of self-wallowing. Tomorrow, he would have to return as Hitsugaya Toushiro, director of Finance and Document Control, Tenth Sector of SRT (Seireitei) Corp. and Co.

Damn it, he thought, Twenty-six, and I'm already in a mid-life crisis. Busting my ass just to get this far, and for what? What am I really supposed to be enjoying? he continued, almost reprimanding himself. Why do people even bother climbing that 'financial ladder'? So that they can make it to the top just to screw more people for more money? He sighed heavily.

Toushiro could not accept that the only path left for him was to follow the paw prints of the insatiable jaguars in the business world. Those men were always slinking in the shadows prepared to pounce on any vulnerable creature. Already, he had the penthouse, he had the cars, he had the prestige, but something was still void. There was a vacuum conveniently placed within that sucked the joy from everything he had earned and left it all worthless. But what was it that left him so hollow?

Passing him by, shades of people trekked along, and to Toushiro, they were reflections of the people that have simply passed in and out of his own lifetime.

Matsumoto swears on her shoe collection that it must be love. Even in his own personal monologue, Toushiro gave a civilized snort.

Pfft, what a juvenile conclusion. Everything with her is solved by love. Well, news flash: love is just the excretion of monoamines that excite the feral desires of man into lustful drive. Anyway, look where it got her!

Toushiro immediately regretted bringing that up. With another deep sigh, he took a moment's pause. Matsumoto Rangiku, his personal assistant, his self-proclaimed nanny, his only sincere companion...He would never admit it to her face, but Rangiku was truly a blessing. A real angel.

Toushiro turned the corner a few blocks down, not sparing even a glimpse at the road signs. He was all too familiar with this area. He spent his college years here roaming this streets, sketching an internal map. Here was where he learned how to finally stretch his wings only to be taught how to forever tie them to his sides.

His sister, Momo, teaches poetry and foreign studies in that same university now. She seemed content enough during her last visit, but he never bothered to ask how the school life was going. It slipped his mind, he supposed. After Granny's death, Toushiro spent the least amount of time possible with the relics of his past. They were too archaic and too fragile to keep alive, so, he let the dust collect.

He doubted it was family he yearned anyway. Sure, the occasional reunion with his sister was decent...provided that it didn't grow too nostalgic, and really, Matsumoto had been more like a mother (a pestering, nagging, lazy one) than an assistant to him in the past couple of years.

At last, the warm light of his final destination came into view. There, down and across the street, was his old café lounge, the one place that could make his coffee the way he liked it and provided the best environment to consume it in. It was really only a quaint shack crammed between a Chinese herb pharmacy and a run-down occult bookshop, but it was close enough to the campus green without being perturbed by the nightclub avenue only a few blocks down. Toushiro looked down the road to his left where he could see the highlights of the neon signs smeared across the cinder block and brick of the building sides. As usual at this time of night, some drunken couples swayed ungracefully from club to club while another gang of intoxicated men, convinced that they were sober, attempted to find their car. They were about as subtle as a rampaging herd of boar.

"Idiots," Toushiro cursed under his breath. He always avoided the racket of the night scene, so like it had been years ago, this was about as close as he ever got. Distracted, he stayed gazing at the flashing lights. A foreboding sense of consternation pooled in his stomach as if warning him of what he already knew. He wasn't stupid enough to get mixed into that sort of crowd.

Suddenly, Toushiro felt a shove against his shoulder, and he found himself disoriented and on the ground. "Yo, punk! Watch where you're goin,'" the stranger slurred back to him and kept walking. Toushiro scoffed at his absentmindedness, and he moved to get back up, but before he could quite push up from the concrete, a flash of white and brown rushed forward and licked him.

Wait...licked? Was he just licked?

Toushiro scuttled backwards until his back pressed against the wall of brick, breaking into a sweat as he tried to get as far away from whatever that thing was. He realized that in his moment of weakness, he had shut his eyes and turned his head away from the slobbering.

What am I? Eleven? Come on, Hitsugaya, just get up!

His eyes blinked open to reveal glossy black orbs gazing back at him, followed by a high-pitched yip. Toushiro blinked once, twice, three times more. He stared, dumbfounded.

"I was frightened by a...a dog?" he managed to stutter out.

"How like Taicho to not call after a date," Matsumoto noted. She was almost done painting her toe nails with the last coat of "Pump up the Jam" purple polish. Without grazing her skin with color, she skillfully groped her bed for her Blackberry, which ironically matched her nail polish perfectly. Considering the time, she guessed that the date was already over and that her Taicho was off wallowing somewhere. She chugged down the last of her sake, and gingerly tiptoed her way to the closet.

She started sifting through the closet for something good to where. "If I don't go and find Taicho, nobody will!" Despite not being quite pleased with what she had to pick from, she made a quick note to go shopping soon (preferably on Taicho's account) and got dressed.

"Well, on second thought, maybe I should give him some time alone," she said to her reflection gazing back in the mirror, "I mean, what if I go out now, only to find him and have him tell me to go away? I would just waste my time and ruin my nails!"

She mulled it over for a second, and as she did, the extra sake bottle on her nightstand caught her eye. With that, Matsumoto decided, and she flopped back down on her covers. "He won't be going anywhere in thirty minutes anyway," she slurred, and once her head hit the blankets, she was knocked out.

The street was almost empty now except for those drunken men bumbling around for their car. In spite of the fact that he was alone, Toushiro felt self-conscious under the scrutiny of the creature in front of him. He sneered down at the furry, calico mutt who casually dared to stare back up at him. The mutt's piercingly beady eyes almost screamed, "Listen, bub, I can see right through you and you ain't much to look at." It sat on its haunches panting away the intoxicating heat of the night, and as Toushiro stood victim to the dog's undivided attention, he could not help but get a sense of being mocked. This little dog, this little mutt, abandoned on the street, had no home and no cares, and yet he could not have looked happier.

Toushiro crouched down eye-to-eye to face the fluffy, 'innocent' canine. He gave it a single glower and snarled, "Listen to me, dog, and listen well. You do not know me, so you cannot go comparing me to what you know! I am happy with my life, and I don't need you or anyone to tell me otherwise."

The dog yipped up and gave Toushiro a wet, loving kiss. Its snout stretched out in what resembled a very doggy-like grin, and it cocked its head to the side attempting to decipher what this crazy man kept barking about.

After cringing from the disturbing slober, Toushiro straightened up and marched away defiant of any other belief, but before he could escape he heard a pitter patter.

"Quit following me!" Toushiro yelled back at dog, trying to scare it away. "Shoo, get!" He broke into a run, but the dog only increased its gait and followed ever closer.

He gracefully turned on his heel to watch the dog trot along behind him. As he continued to jog backwards, he gradually lost his poise. He watched the dog chase someone that it could never catch up with no matter how it pumped its stout legs to reach. Toushiro knew that no matter how long that little dog followed his trail, it would always be the lone little wolf on this lone little street in his lone little world...

Lone.

Wolf..

Never...

The paranoia set.

"I don't need you! I don't need anybody!" he screamed.

God, why couldn't he escape? Why couldn't he just leave anything behind? Toushiro jumped onto the road without thinking and almost finished crossing the asphalt. He kept his eyes set on the amber window of his beloved café. He could see customers so close, yet so distant. Warm smiles stained their faces, but it was so different than the restaurant before. In that foggy pane, he saw the ghosts of his past mingling in the crowds, but he yearned to join them. He even saw the seductress of his nightmares, a figure veiled in cascading obsidian tresses. He called for her to turn, his conscience screamed for her to simply turn so he could drown in those grey orbs...those windows...

He reached out his arm almost feeling the unyielding firmness of the glass; in his mind, the chill of the clear barrier roped up his fingertips and crept like a lazy, constricting vine so slowly, yet the moment was gone in a second.

"Karin!" he cried, but he knew she would not hear him. She was not even there, only in his mind.

Suddenly, a bright light caught his attention. He turned, paralyzed, the blare of a never-ending honk ringing in his ears, but a final yelp pierced the air before everything went dark.

Oh my Bruce Lee! (- my god) What do you think, Ninjarific? Oh I already know cuz I'm the author. Teehee : ] If you liked it, and you would like to find out more, please let me know by reviewing! Criticism is very much welcomed because I want to learn and make my stories the best that they can be. I know that this was very Hitsugaya-heavy (not that I'm complaining, are any of you?), but we will meet more of the important characters in chapter 1.

By the way, my beta reader is amazing, but she's not into Bleach so it's sorta difficult for her to read through and correct to her full potential. Would anyone be willing to be my beta? Please send me a private message if you're interested. Thanks!

Remember, review! : D