『私の姫を呼び出し人』

序章

Prologue

The two of them raced each other up the small hill to the maple tree. The boy, striking red hair up in a ponytail, arrived at their finish line first, slamming his palm into the trunk of the tree and letting out a triumphant "Ha!"

"That's my thirty-seventh win, Kō-chan~" He sang teasingly at the girl who appeared seconds after him, breathless.

"It's not fair!" The girl cried out in dismay, shaking her chestnut hair out of her eyes. "You started earlier this time round!"

"Excuses, excuses," her male companion mocked, shaking a finger condescendingly down at her. "Even if you were the one who started earlier, I would still have won."

"As if," the girl scoffed, glaring at the boy. "Haven't you heard of letting the lady win every now and then?"

"Ah," the boy replied, the infuriating smirk still on his face. "But that will truly be unfair, wouldn't it, Kō-chan?"

"Besides," he continued to snicker, as the girl fumed in silence. "You're not much of a lady in the first place, so that won't apply to you."

The girl's jaw dropped in astonishment at his words. "Th-That's mean!" she finally spluttered out, her face slowly turning crimson. "I will become a fine lady one day, just wait and see!"

"Key word is 'one day'-", but something caught the boy's eyes, making him stop mid-sentence. He shoved his face closer to the girl's, out of curiosity, plus a tinge of guilt. "Oi, Kō-chan, you aren't crying again, are you?"

"I'm not crying," the girl protested, shrinking back from his sudden closeness. The boy, satisfied that she wasn't really shedding tears, withdrew, and proceeded on to tease her.

"Are you sure you're not? Ko-u-cha-n no na-ki-mu-shi*."

The girl shrieked in fury and lashed out at the boy, who only jumped back, easily avoiding the blow. "Yare yare, that's not very lady-like of you."

"I told you to stop calling me that!" She yelled after him. "I will never talk to you again, Renji no baka!"

"No, you won't," the boy dubbed Renji snorted in reply, settling himself down comfortably on the grassy slope, resting his head on his crossed arms. "I'm the only friend you have around here. You can't not talk to me." The girl huffed in defiance and sat down at the foot of the maple tree, taking note to turn her back towards him. She would shun him, she thought angrily to herself. She would ignore him forever, if that was what it takes.

Unsurprisingly, her forever lasted for three minutes.

When she finally plopped herself down next to the red-head boy, bored half out of her mind with the lack of company, the boy didn't reopen his eyes, though a smug grin was plastered on his face. But to his credit, he didn't make a smart comment about it, instead wordlessly accepting his friend's presence.

"Today Akashi-sensei was asking me to write an essay about my dreams for the future," the girl broke the silence between them.

"Hm?" the boy cracked open an eye lazily. "And what did you write?"

"I wrote..." Ash-grey eyes fluttered close, as the girl tilted her face upwards slightly to enjoy the gentle spring breeze. "I wrote that when I grow up, I hoped to become a herbalist, to meet a handsome, kind man, marry him-"

"It wouldn't matter if he's rich or not?" the boy, whose ends of the lips had twitched when she talked, started, before composing himself. "Then again I guess money would be the least of your worries."

"As long as he loves me back, it'll be enough," the girl said firmly, gazing dreamily into the distance.

The boy snorted. "That's what everyone says."

"We'd marry, and have, probably, two kids – a girl and a boy. But the girl will only come after the boy because then the boy could always have a younger sister to look after. I even thought of their names already! Junpei and Hota-"

"Whoa, Kō-chan!" the boy raised both hands to stop the girl from progressing any further. "I'm quite sure I didn't need to know all these."

"Well, you asked," the girl pouted, as she waved his hands away irritably. A moment passed which she spent in sulky silence, before she asked again.

"Ne, so what do you envision your future to be like, Renji?"

"That's easy," the red-haired boy scoffed, before sitting up and declaring. "My fate is tied to you, Kō-chan. I am your guardian – wherever you go, I will follow; whatever you do, I will be there to protect you. That's my past, present and future."

"Sō ka," The girl seated beside him giggled softly, her chocolate brown tresses swaying lightly in the wind. "So I'd be stuck with you forever, whether I like it or not?" The boy turned to her and returned her grin.

"Forever," he promised.


*Nakimushi (泣き虫) means crybaby. So 'Kō-chan no nakimushi' means 'crybaby Kō-chan'. Similarly for 'Renji no baka'.

This is the "first chapter" that I promised in my previous story, heh. The actual first chapter might or might not come by the end of this week, sorry.

Believe it or not, I first received inspiration for this story when watching my parents watching a drama series (and I wasn't even the one watching it, lol). It has quite a classic plot-line but makes for quite a lovely story, I feel. Also, I wanted to try setting this in an alternate universe (which would make itself clearer to y'all in the following chapters) as I noticed that most Bleach fanfictions didn't depict such settings and I thought it would be interesting to try :]

Feedback and reviews are greatly appreciated!

PS. This didn't appear yet but 'Hime' is pronounced as hee-mei. (Not hai-m, hai-me, or whatnot.) It's taken to mean "Princess" in Japanese.