Stray Hearts ❧【Kurosaki Ichigo】

The brother and sister watched from the window as a white limousine crunched to a stop in the middle of the gravel driveway. In silence, they watched a uniformed driver step out and open the rear passenger door. Their jaws dropped when they saw a slender, long-legged woman dressed in brown-leather boots, well-cut jeans, and white shirt emerged and look around. A sun-darkened hand reached up to adjust tinted glasses before she tipped the brim of her pearly white Stetson to reveal a mane of thick curly hair.

"Who the hell is that?" Lee Akari demanded of her older brother.

"How the hell should I know?" Hoang said. "Whoever she is, she's coming up to the porch. I think you should open the door."

When his younger sister made no move to greet their guest, Hoang started towards the door, but it opened before he could reach it. The strange woman blew in like a gust of wind. Without a glance in the siblings' direction, she headed straight for the stairway leading to the second floor.

"Hey! Just wait a damn minute!" Akari shouted. "Who the hell are you to walk in here like you own the place?"

She turned to face them and smiled as she lowered her glasses. " I do own it, Akari, at least a third of it. Don't you recognize me, little sister?"

Akari's eyes widen with shock.

Hoang walked toward her. "Chiya! Is that really you?"

"In the flesh," she said, thinking it funny that neither one of them had recognized her. She'd known them the moment she'd seen them, not by the family resemblance but by the slump of their shoulders.. Her smile vanished as she glanced back at the stairs. "Where is he?"

Hoang's head jerked upwards.

Chiya nodded. "You two stay here," she ordered. "This is between him and me. I have something I want to say to him, and I don't want either of you interfering. Do you understand? This is my business, not yours."

When there was no response, she repeated her question. They nodded reluctantly. Chiya started at them. They were strangers to her, she felt absolutely no emotion for them—not love, not hate, not even curiosity. They were just brother and sister standing side by side in the hallway.

It had been almost fifteen years since she'd seen her siblings and her father. Almost fifteen years since she'd left this house with Amaya in her arms. Almost fifteen years since she set foot on Lee land. And now, after all this time, here she was, back in Karakura town.

Home.

The word made her shudder. She turned her back on her siblings and gazed at the staircase that led to the second floor. As a child, she'd climb those stairs a hundred times, maybe a thousand. Usually to run and hide so she could whimper in safety.

Shoulders stiff, back straight, she mounted each step with the same mix of confidence and caution she sued when mounting her horses. At the top, she stopped and looked down at her siblings, who appeared to be debating whether or not to follow her. "Go about your business while I take care of mine."

She hurled the words towards them in a cold, tight voice to ward them off. Chiya remembered another day, long ago, when they stood in the same spot watching her, She glared at them now as she had then and waited until they walked away before making her way down the hallway.

Chiya hesitated only a moment outside her father's bedroom then opened tge door and walked in. The room was just as she remembered it, gray and dim with ineffective lighting, a few pieces of battered pine furniture, and worn-out, roll-down shades covering two windows.

Her nose wrinkled in at the smell of dust, mold, and medication. Hearing a groan, she turned her gaze toward the bed and saw a mound of quilts…her father, the man who had banished her from this very house fifteen years ago. How old was he? She tried to compute her father's age but gave up because she simply didn't care.

As she walked towards the bed, she sensed rather than heard someone follow her inside the room. No doubt, one of her siblings. Damn, didn't they know an order when they heard one? Of course, they knew, she reminded herself. If there was one thing Old man was good at giving orders.

A frail voice demanded to know who was there. Chiya stepped closer to the bed and heard a slipper behind her. Akari? She wondered. More than likely, since in her youth, Akari had been the one to show concern about things and people. Hoang, on the other hand, had taken after their father, not giving a tinker's damn about anyone or anything.

"It's Chiya, Old man."

The voice was stronger when he spoke a second time. "There isn't anything here for you, girl. Go back where you came from. You don't belong here."

"I don't want anything." She replied, looking down at the load of quilts on the bed. They looked dirty, or maybe it was just the lighting. Clean, dirty…what did she care? She pushed the Stetson further back on her head so she could get a better look at the dying man without any shadows over her eyes.

"Then what are you here for?"

Chiya felt a hand on her shoulder and glanced back to see Akari. The hand was to tell her to take it hell she would. Her father had never taken it easy on her. Not even when she was so sick she couldn't stand on her own two feet. She removed Akari's hand with her own hand and gave warning look. Fifteen years she waited for this moment, and neither Hoang nor Akari were going to take it away from her.

"I came here to watch you die, old man," she said, looking her father straight in the eyes. "And I'm not leaving until I hear your last breath. I want to see them dump you in the ground and cover you up. I want to make sure you're gone forever. Only after I've danced on your grave will I leave. Do you hear me, old man?" She glared at him, her eyes burning with hate.

The old man's face became a glowering mask of rage. "Get the hell out of my house!"

"Still ordering people around, are you? Well guess what? I don't have to take your orders anymore. I repeat, I came her to see you die, and I'm not leaving until you go to hell. That's where you're going. Hell!" There, she'd said what she'd come to say, but why didn't she feel a bigger sense of satisfaction? Why did she feel this strange emptiness?

"Akari!" Take this devil child away from me. Do you hear me?" the old man gasped as he struggled to raise himself up on his elbow.

"I'd like to see her try," Chiya said bitterly. Then she felt her sister's hand on her shoulder again. "I'd like to see anyone even try to make me do something I don't want to do. Those days are gone forever."

The old man gurgled and gasped as he thrashed about in in the big bed. Chiya watched him with clinical interest. Her eyes narrowed when she saw drool leak from his mouth. God did work in mysterious ways, she thought as she remembered the day her father told her to take her drooling dim-witted child and never darken his door again. Spawn of the devil was it he called Amaya. She stood dtaring at him until he calmed down, then stretched out leg and with a booted foot, pulled over a straight-backed chair and sat down facing the bed. For long minutes she stared at him with unblinking intensity until, finally he closed his eyes in resignation.

"Okay, he's asleep now," Akari said. "What the hell are you doing here, Chiya? We haven't heard a word from you in fifteen years, and all of a sudden you show up just as Pa is getting ready to die. How did you know? Can't you let him die in peace?"

Chiya removed her Stetson and rubbed her forehead. She didn't really care for hats, but she'd always longed to wear a pearly white Stetson, just like the Texans wore. These days she was into indulging herself and doing all the things she'd longed to do but for some reason or another had never done.

"No, I can't let him die in peace," she said, her voice even now, calm. "He has to pay for what he did to me and Amaya."

Her eyes narrowed as she watched her siblings closely, wondering what they were thinking before she realized she didn't care. She really didn't give two hoots what they or anyone else thought. "And to how I knew he was dying, I made it my business to know everything that has gone on here for the last fifteen years. A day doesn't go by that I didn't think about that old man or this place. And you know why I'm here, Hoang. I want my share of this place for Amaya."

Hoang chuckled softly. "Your share? You just said you made it your business to know everything that's gone on around here. So how come you don't know that the old man refused to make a will? There hasn't been any estate planning, Chiya. And neither Akari nor I have power of attorney. The government is going to take it all. Whatever's left will be a piss in the bucket."

Chiya bridled with anger. Leave it to her gutless siblings to let their father go to his deathbed without so much as a power of attorney. "We'll just see about that," she said. "Call the lawyers right now and get the here on the double. Offer to pay the whatever they want. Just get them here. If we work fats, we can still get it all into place. As long as the old man's still breathing, there's a chance. Now, get on it and don't screw up, or you'll be out on the streets along with your sister."

Hoang stammered in bewilderment. "But…I can't. Pa wouldn't…"

Chiya stood up, took her brother by the shoulders, and shook him. "Don't tell me what the old man would or wouldn't do. It doesn't matter anymore. He's dying. There's nothing he can do to you, to any of us. Don't you understand that?"

Lee Hoang stared up at his fit and expensive-looking older sister. After all these years she was still pretty, with her dark hair and big brown eyes. Once when they were little he'd told her she looked like an angel. She'd laughed and laughed. Back then they had been close out of necessity. It was all so long ago and now here she was, fifteen years later, just as defiant as ever and issuing orders like a general.

Chiya suffered through her brother's scrutiny, wondering what he was thinking. She was about to ask when Akari stuck her head in the door and hissed, "You better come down stairs, Hoang, there's a whole gaggle of people outside. They said they were relatives, family. I didn't know we had family. Do you know anything about this?"

Hoang didn't seem the least bit surprised. "I know a lot about it," he said, smiling. "Pa told me about them about a month ago, right before he had a stroke, but he didn't say anything about them coming here. I wonder what they want." He took Chiya's elbow and steered her toward the door. "I'll make a deal with you. You make them feel welcome while I make that phone call to the lawyers."

Chiya jerked her arm free, walked back to her father's beside, and leaned close to him. Only after she was satisfied that he was still breathing did she follow her siblings downstairs.

In the foyer, Chiya set her hat down on the telephone table and checked her hair and makeup. With all the skill a seasoned actress, she worked a smile onto her face as she headed toward the door. Akari wasn't kidding when she said there was a gaggle of people outside. But family? Whose family?

"Hello," she said. "I'm Lee Chiya. And you are?"

A well-dressed elderly woman stepped forward and introduced herself. "I'm Chong Chiyo. I represent Masumi, your father's sister' side of the family. We're based on the north side of Karakura town. And this is Kurebayoshi Aiko. She represents Akihiro, your father's brother's family. Their roots are in the United States. I talked to your father on the phone about a month ago and told him we were coming, but it looks like you weren't expecting us. Is something wrong?"