Karin sat on the bench and watched as the world slowly passed on by. She looked around her. There wasn't very much to do that day. It was actually quite boring at this particular moment in time.
She was suppose to do her homework but she felt that she would take the time to do it much later. Yuzu would remind her to do it later anyway. Karin smiled to herself. Yuzu was very much like a new mother. She would worry and cry whenever Ichigo never came home on time. Her smile instantly turned into a frown.
"Where was Ichi-nii?" she muttered to herself.
She was mad at him, almost insanely so. First off, he went off without telling her or her twin sister. Next, now she was stuck alone making her father stop his crazy ways and punishing him as such. She could think of hundreds of more things that made her mad at him at this moment. The number one thing that she was thinking was how could he make her worry about his safety?
As the big brother, it was his job in order to keep her from worrying. This was all reverse. He was suppose to worried about her! Karin was mad that this is how it had to happen.
She looked at the soccer ball in her net. She was so bored. Maybe playing some soccer wouldn't be too bad of a thing to do. She looked at the sky. Why could she never remember to bring a stupid watch?
It was light outside but she could barely tell if it was the afternoon or the morning or the sun was about to set. She shook her head in annoyance. How many times has she asked her dad to get off his lazy butt and spring for a cell phone.
Not that Karin would ever remember to bring it with her wherever she went, but she couldn't help but want it so that if she ever did remember, it would be there, handy, fully-charged, and ready to go and be helpful.
She looked at where she was. She didn't seem to be too far from the soccer field that she, with the help of Toushiro of course. She couldn't get him out of her head ever since then. She wanted to know his secret of course.
How did he get to be such a great soccer player? How...how old was he really? The biggest question of all that really bugged Karin the most, did he have anything to do with Ichigo's disappearance? (For anyone who is wondering....i think that this part of the story takes place while Ichigo is occupodo with the whole Arrancar situation...)
Karin looked at the soccer field. She had finally arrived. She looked at the sky. It was still the pretty bright with a nice light breeze and the sun was still blinding her. She sighed. It was pretty dull. Wait, she had already thought that. She looked at the net/bag that was holding her soccer ball. She loosened the top and grabbed the ball out. She dropped it but caught it with her foot.
She glanced at her knee. It was still slightly bruised from the match she had. She has scratches and it had scarcely healed. She thought that maybe she shouldn't be playing with her soccer ball if her knee's wound might open up yet again. Yuzu had already scolded her about re-opening her wound. Karin could just hear the words now.
(flashback)
"Karin!" Yuzu scolded. "If you keep on playing with that soccer ball of yours, you'll end up with your knee never healing! Just think of the scars!"
Karin lays back in her chair while Yuzu does the dishes. She eyes her scratch. "It's not that bad," she told her sister. "No need to worry about me."
Karin suddenly hears sniffles from the direction of Yuzu. She lets the chair drop back in its normal position. She turns around in her chair to see Yuzu crying.
"Yuzu!" she said, her turn to be scolding now. "What did I tell you about crying? There's is no need to cry when you have absolutely no reason to!"
Yuzu tried her hardest to stop crying but she couldn't keep the tears from streaming down her girl-ish face. "I-i c-c-can't help-p i-IT!!" she said bawling. "I-i-ichi-n-ni i-is g-g-g-gone!" She slumped to the floor and cried.
Karin sighed and got up from her chair. She sat on the floor next to her sister and hugged her. "It's okay," she murmured and comfortingly held Yuzu's head in her arms.
(end flashback :D)
Karin kicked her soccer ball hard. She watched as it sailed over the fence and sailed over to the water. She then saw it slowly moving towards the river. Karin cursed.
She stopped watching it and ran after it. She picked up as much speed as she could. That soccer ball was the one that Ichigo had given her. She wasn't about to lose the one thing that he had ever given her. She raced to the river.
She stared in horror as the ball was about to dip into the river then it disappears. She stopped in mid-sprint, which was in the middle of the street, might I add, and just looked at the spot where the ball once was.
"Looking for this?" a quiet and somewhat lethal sounding voice sounded behind her.
She turned around slowly.
"You!" she exclaimed.
Karin sat at the edge of the river which her soccer ball almost fell in. She looked at the person that was happening to sit next to her.
"Why are you here?" she asked quietly. She was slightly intimidated by this person.
"Nothing better to do," he muttered. "What are you even doing here, Kurosaki?"
Karin's vein popped out. How could he just call her 'Kurosaki' it almost sounded like he was talking to a boy instead of a girl. Sure, she acted like a boy and she sure didn't care for the clothes and all the dolls that Yuzu has accumulated over the years, but that as hell didn't allow him to call her something like that.
"Refer to me as Karin-chan," she said, rather annoyed. "Or else I will hurt you."
The boy gave her a rather grim smile. "Like you could do any damage to me," she said like he was listening to a rather amusing joke.
Karin smiled at him. "What was your name again, elementary student?" she asked, him, remembering how much it bugged him the last time she had called him that.
Sure, she remembered his name as Toushiro Hitsugaya but she didn't want to do anything else but bug him to death.
The boy's vein popped out this time. "It's Hitsugaya," he muttered, turning his cold gaze of ice on Karin.
She couldn't help getting a feeling of ice lay over her. The sun was still shining though. It must be this boy that is making her colder.
"I didn't think that you would forget my name so easily." He seemed rather sad at the fact that even though he had saved her life, she hadn't "remembered" his name. He considered it quite rude. He was her 'hero' after all.
"Thanks," Karin muttered, turning her face away. "for saving my soccer ball from the clutches of my own kick."
Hitsugaya smiled. "Sure," he said.
"Where has that big boobed woman gone off to?" Karin asked, she looked around for her. She tended to see her wherever Toushiro was.
"Don't remind me of that lazy woman," Hitsugaya said annoyed. "She's probably off shopping or something."
Indeed she was. In fact, I remember seeing her purchase a nice pair of high heels. I wonder how she's going to wear those while fighting hollows...
Karin looked at Hitsugaya. He was frowning again. She got up and nudged her soccer ball towards him with the tip of her foot.
"Wanna play?" she asked him. She was bored and they were close to the soccer field so it would be a good time to go and practice, regardless of what Yuzu would approve of.
He shrugged and looked like he was going to decline when Karin grabbed his arm and raced to the soccer field, kicking her soccer ball along the way. He was dragged behind her, with a seriously annoyed but strangely amused face. He looked like he was rather enjoying being dragged to play soccer by a tomboy yet beautiful girl.
When they finally raced onto the field, Karin let go of Hitsugaya and kicked the ball while running to the other side of the field from where he was. She wanted to see if she could finally beat him. She started running towards the goal on his side.
She looked at him the whole time. She was worried that if she took her eyes off of him he would either disappear and never to be seen from again until random moments, or he would steal the ball from her. When she neared the goal, she gave her most powerful kick, taking her eyes of Hitsugaya.
That was her first mistake.
Karin stood still, astonished, because right in front of the goal with the ball trapped under his foot, was Hitsugaya. Karin glanced at the spot he was a millisecond before the spot he turned up to be. It was at least 4 yards. She huffed.
"That's not fair!" she said. "How are you so fast?"
The corners of Hitsugaya's mouth slowly drew upwards into a smirk-like smile. He thought Karin was hilarious. She was so young and free of the weight of the world.
"This is what you are when you're a Shinigami," he said.
Karin looked at him. He was like her brother. She had forgotten. After all, he was in his fake body. At least that is what Karin thinks it is. After all, she had seen it sprawled out on the dirt of the soccer field when he had saved her from the hollow. It was there but he stood over her, his arm raised with a katana in his hand, protecting her from an early death.
She was grateful, to a certain degree.
She charged forward as he started to run to her goal. She could barely see where he was disappearing to. He seemed to be going in a left to right pattern. She watched carefully until he was dangerously close to her goal.
She decided that if she stepped right in front of him, he would go around her, giving her the perfect chance to steal the ball. That didn't go according to plan.
When she ran, she somehow had gotten really fast, cutting exactly into the path of Hitsugaya, something he was completely unprepared for. They crashed into each other, falling over. That's when...........
.....their lips met.
Karin pushed Hitsugaya off of her. She got up and brushed herself off. She looked around to see if anyone saw that little moment. When she was satisfied that no one had seen her, she turned back to Hitsugaya.
She turned to see him lying on the floor, now on his back, by the force that Karin used to push him off of her. His face was in shock and something about the way his mouth twitched made her laugh.
She leaned over him and brought her face near to his. She might as well mess with him in his shocked state. "You okay?" she asked him, she made sure that he could smell her breath on his face.
She gave thanks to her sister for asking her to chew some cherry flavored gum after breakfast. She was even more thankful that she was too lazy to have eaten lunch. She normally got a sandwich or maybe some sushi.
She didn't want the boy to kiss her first, Hitsugaya wasn't on the list of the first boy. Actually no one at that point in her life was on the list. She was far to busy to worry about trying to gain the attention of some boy. She had more important things to spend her time on.
Hitsugaya's eyes opened in shock and he scooted as far away from her as he could.
"Sorry," he muttered. "I was unprepared for you to actually cross my path."
Karin stood up from where was was leaning over a second ago. She smiled. "It's okay," she said. "It was rather nice."
Hitsugaya smiled grimly. "It was.." he started to say, smiling briefly. He suddenly got a very serious look. "okay. That's all it was, okay." He seemed more like he was trying to convince himself rather than Karin.
Karin walked over to him. When she smiled at him widely, a light blush started to spread over his cheeks. He looked like he was turning into a pink bear, he was getting so red.
Karin stopped in front of him. When he had scooted away, he had taken the soccer ball along with him. She bent down and grabbed the ball from where it sat next to his legs.
She smiled briefly and then walked to where she had left her net/bag earlier. She made the trek back home, leaving the confused boy sitting on the ground of the soccer field. She looked back and smiled while he just gave her a funny blank look.
