Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach or any of its characters.
"Hime"
I... wonder what it is
In the Karakura air that enables me
To sit up till all hours
Of the night in an atmosphere of
Serenity and life
Which in Roppongi,
It would make a horse dizzy,
But here merely clears the brain,
And peaceful at it is.
Chapter II: Another New Place
Daddy had been planning our new move for a little while because he had already found us a place to live. Daddy often did things quietly and then announced them to us.
Because the rents in the city were so much higher, we could afford only a one-bedroom apartment, so Ulquiorra and I still had to share a room. And the sofa bed! It was barely big enough for the two of us. I knew sometimes he awoke before me but didn't move because my arm was on him and he didn't want to wake me and embarrass me about it. And there were those time he touched me accidentally where he wasn't supposed to. The blood would rush to his face, and he would leap off the bed as if it had started to burn. He wouldn't say anything to acknowledge he had touched me, and I wouldn't mention it.
It was usually like that. Ulquiorra and I simply ignored things that would embarrass other teenage boys and girls forced to live in such close quarters, but I couldn't help sitting by and dreaming longingly for the same wonderful privacy most of my girlfriends enjoyed, especially when they described how they could close their doors and gossip on their own phones or write love notes without anyone in their families knowing a thing about it. I was even afraid to keep a diary because everyone would be looking over my shoulder.
This apartment differed little from most of our previous homes – the same small rooms, peeling wall paper, and chipped paint. The same windows that didn't close well. Ulquiorra hated our apartment so much that he would rather sleep in the street.
But just when we thought things were as bad as they could be, they got worse.
Late one afternoon month after we had moved to Karakura Town, Momma came home from work much earlier than usual. I had been hoping she would bring something else for us to have for dinner. We were at the tail and of the week, Daddy's payday, and most of our money from the previous week was gone. We had been able to have one or two good meals during the week, but now we were eating leftovers. My stomach was rumbling just as much as Ulquiorra's was, before either of us could complain, the door opened and we both turned, surprised to see Momma come in. She stopped, shook her head, and started to cry. Then she hurried across the room to her bedroom.
"Momma! What's wrong?" I called after her, but her only answer was to slam the door. Ulquiorra looked at me and I at him, both of us frightened. I went to her door and knocked softly. "Momma?" Ulquiorra came up beside me and waited. "Momma, can we come in?" I opened the door and looked inside.
She was facedown on the bed, her shoulders shaking. We entered slowly, Ulquiorra right beside me. I sat down on the bed and put my hand on her shoulder.
"Momma?"
Finally she stopped sobbing and turned to look up at us.
"Did you lose your job, Mother?" Ulquiorra asked quickly.
"No, it's not that, Ulqui." She sat up, grinding her small fists against her eyes to wipe the tears away. "Although I won't be having the job all that much longer."
"Then what it is, Momma? Tell us," I begged.
She sniffed and pushed back her hair and took each of our hands into hers.
"You're going to have a new brother or sister," she decleared.
My pounding heart paused. Ulquiorra's eyes widened and his mouth dropped open.
"It's my fault. I just ignored and ignored the signs. I never thought I was pregnant, because I didn't have any more children after Orihime. I finally went to a doctor today and found out I was a little more on four months pregnant. Suddenly I'm going to have a child, and now I won't be able to work, too," she said and began to cry again.
"Oh, Momma, don't cry." The thought of another mouth to feed dropped a black shadow over my heart. How could we manage it? We didn't have enough as it was.
I looked to Ulquiorra to urge him to say something comforting, but he looked stunned and angry. He just stood there, staring.
"Did you already inform this to Father?" he asked.
"No," she said. She took a deep breath. "I'm too old and tired to have another baby," she whispered and shook her head.
"You are mad at me, don't you Ulquiorra?" Momma asked him. He was sullen, I wanted to kick him. Finally he shook his head.
"Now, Mother, I'm not mad at you. It is not your fault." He swung his eyes at me, and I knew he was blaming Daddy.
"Then give me a hug. I need one right now."
Ulquiorra looked away and then leaned toward Momma. He gave her a quick hug, mumbled something about having to get something outside, and then hurried out.
"You just lay back and rest Momma," I said. "I almost have the dinner all made anyway."
"Dinner, What do we have to eat? I was going to try to pick up something tonight, see if we could charge any more on our grocery bill, but with this pregnancy and all, I forgot about eating."
"We'll make do, Momma," I said. "Daddy gets paid today, so tomorrow we'll eat better."
"I'm sorry, Orihime-chan," she said, her face wrinkling up in preparation for her sobs again. She shook her head. "Ulquiorra's so mad. I can see it in his eyes. He's got Aizen's temper."
"He's just surprised, Momma. I'll see about dinner," I repeated and went out and closed the door softly behind me, my fingers trembling on the knob.
A baby, a little brother or sister! Where would a baby sleep? How could Momma take care of a baby? If she couldn't work, we would have even less money. Didn't grown-up plan these things? How could they let it happen?
I went outside to look for Ulquiorra and found him throwing a rubber ball against the wall in the alle. It was mid-April, so the chill was out of the air, even in the early evening. I could just make out some stars starting their entrance onto the sky. The neon lights about the doorway of Fugita's Bar and Grill at the corner had been turned on. Sometimes, on his way home on a hot day, Daddy would stop in there for a cold beer. When the door was opened and closed, the laughter and the music from the jukebox spilled out and then died quickly on the sidewalk, a sidewalk always dirtied with papers and candy wrappers and garbage cans. I could hear two cats in heat threaten each other in an alleyway. A man was shouting curses up at another man, who leaned out a two story window just laughed down at him.
I turned to Ulquiorra. He was as tight as a fist again, and he was heaving all his anger with each and every throw of the ball.
"Ulqui-nee?"
He didn't answer me.
"Ulqui-nee, you don't want to make Momma fell any worse than she already does, do you?" I asked him softly. He seized the ball in the air and turned on me.
"What is the use of pretending? One thing we definitely do not need right now is another child in the house. Look at what we are eating for dinner to night, do you call it edible when you know it is not?"
I swallowed hard. His words were like cold rain falling on a warm campfire.
"We do not even have enough money to buy baby's cloth and diaper, especially a crib." He continued. "And babies need lotion and creams for his or her daily expenses. Do you not think they need those things?"
"They do, but –"
"Well, why did not Father think of that? He is off with those friends who hang around the garage, just as if he's on top of the world, and now here is this," he said, gesturing toward our building.
Why hadn't Daddy thought of that? I wondered. I had heard of girls going all the way and becoming pregnant, but that was because they were just girls and didn't know better.
"It just happened, I guess," I said, fishing for Ulquiorra to give his opinion.
"It does not just happen. A woman does not wake up one morning and find out she is pregnant."
"Don't the parents plan to have it?"
He looked at me and shook his head.
"Father probably came home drunk one night and . . ."
"And what?"
". . . They made the baby, that is all."
"And didn't know they had?"
"Well, they do not always make a baby each time they . . ." He shook his head. "You will have to ask Mother about the detail. I do not know the rest of it," he said quickly, but I knew he did.
"It's going to be hell to pay when Father gets home," he said, shaking his head as we walked back inside. He spoke in a voice just above a whisper and gave me a fearful chill. My heart pounded in anticipation.
Most of the time when trouble came raining down over us, Daddy would decide we had to pack up and run, but we couldn't run from this. Because I always cooked dinner, I knew better than anyone that we didn't have anything to spare for a baby. Not a cent, not a crumb.
When Daddy arrived home from work that night, he looked a lot more tired than usual and his hands and arms were all greasy.
"I had pull out a car transmission and rebuild it in one day," he explained, thinking the way he looked was why Ulquiorra and I were staring at him so strangely.
"Something wrong?"
"Aizen dear," Momma Called. Daddy hurried into the bedroom. I busied myself with the dinner, but my heart started to pound so hard I could barely breathe. Ulquiorra went to the window that looked out on the north side of the street and stood staring as still as a statue. We heard Momma crying again. After a while it grew quiet and then Daddy emerged. Ulquiorra pivoted expectantly.
"Well, now, you two already know, I reckon." He shook his head and looked back at the closed door behind him.
"How do we manage this?" Ulquiorra asked quickly.
"I don't know," Daddy said, his eyes darkening. His face began to take on that mad look, his lips curling in at the corners, some whiteness of his teeth flashing through. He ran his fingers through his brown hair and sucked in some breath.
Ulquiorra flopped down in a kitchen chair. "Other people plan this to happen," he muttered.
Daddy's face flared. I couldn't believe he had said it. He knew Daddy's temper, but I recalled what Momma said: Ulquiorra had the same temper. Some times they were like two bulls with a red flag between them.
"Don't get smart," Daddy said and headed for the door.
"Where're you going, Daddy?" I called.
"I need to think," he said. "Eat without me."
Ulquiorra and I listened to Daddy's feet pound the hallway floor, his steps announcing the anger and turmoil in his body.
"Eat without him, he says," Ulquiorra whisper.
"He's going to Fugita's Bar," I predicted. Ulquiorra nodded in agreement and sat back, staring glumly at his plate.
"Where is Aizen?" Momma asked, stepping out of her bedroom.
"He went off to think, as well as to eat his meals." Ulquiorra said. "He's probably trying to come up with a plan and needs to be alone for a while," he added, hoping to ease her burden.
"I don't like him going off like that," Momma complained. "It never comes to no good. You should go look for him Ulqui."
"Go look for him? It would not be appropriate for me to go Mother. As far as I know, Father does not like me to do that. Let us eat and wait for him to come back." Momma wasn't happy about it, but she sat down and I served the grits and black eye peas. I had added some salt and a little bit of bacon grease I had saved.
"I'm sorry I didn't try to get us something else," Momma said, apologizing again. "But Orihime, honey, you did real fine with this. It tastes good. Don't it, Ulqui?"
He looked up from his bowl. I saw he hadn't been listening. Ulquiorra could get lost in his own thoughts for hours and hours if no one pestered him, especially when he was unhappy.
"Hm.. Yes, this is quite good."
After supper Momma sat up for a while listening to the radio and reading one of the used magazines she had brought back from the motel she worked in. The hours ticked by. Every time we heard a door slam or the sound of a footstep, we anticipated Daddy coming through the door, but it grew later and later and he didn't reappear.
Whenever I gazed at Momma, I saw sadness draped her face like a wet flag, heavy and hard to shake off. Finally she stood up and announced she had to go to bed. She took a deep breath, holding her hands against her chest and headed for her bedroom.
"I'm tired as well," Ulquiorra said. He got up and went to the bathroom to get ready for bed. I started to pull out the sofa bed, but then stopped, thinking about Momma lying in her bed, worried and frightened. In a moment I made up my mind – I opened the door quietly and left to look for Daddy.
I hesitated outside the door of Fugita's Bar and Grill. I had never been in a bar. My hand trembled as I reached out for the doorknob, but before I could pull it, the door swung open and a tan-skinned woman with too much lipstick and rouge on her face stepped out. She had a cigarette dangling from the corner of her mouth. She paused when she saw me and smiled. I saw she had teeth missing toward the back of her mouth.
"Why, what you doing coming here, honey? This ain't no place for someone as young as you."
"I'm looking for Aizen Sosuke Schiffer," I said. "I thought he might be in here." A glance down the bar didn't produce him.
"He joined the army," someone quipped.
"Shut up," the bartender snapped. Then he turned back to me. "He's over there," he said and gestured with his head toward the tables on the left. I looked and saw Daddy slumped over a table, but I was afraid to walk farther into the bar and grill. "You can wake him up and take him home," the bartender advised.
Some of the men at the bar spun around to watch me as if it were the evening's entertainment.
"Let her be, "the bartender commanded.
I walked between the tables until I reached Daddy. He had his head on his arms. There were five empty bottles of beer on the table and another nearly emptied. A glass with just a little beer in it was in front of the bottle.
"Daddy," I said softly. He didn't budge. I looked back at the bar and saw that even the men who had continued to watch me had lost interest. "Daddy," I repeated a little louder. He stirred, but didn't lift his head. I poked him gently on the arm. "Daddy." He grunted and then slowly lifted his head.
"What?"
"Daddy, please come home now," I said. He wiped his eyes and gazed at me.
"What . . . What are you doing here, Orihime?" he asked quickly.
"Momma went to bed a while ago, but I know she's just lying there awake waiting for you, Daddy."
"You shouldn't come in a place like this," he said nothing sharply, making me jump.
"I didn't want to come, Daddy, but –"
"All right, all right," he side. "I guess I can't do nothing right these days," he added, shaking his head.
"Just come home, Daddy. Everything will be all right."
"Yes. . ." He said. He gazed at his beer a moment and then pushed back from the table. "Let's get you out here. You shouldn't be here," he repeated. He started to stand and then sat down hard. He looked down at the bottles of beer again and then put his hand in his pocked and took out his billfold. He counted it quickly and shook his head.
"Lost track of what I spent," he said, more to himself than to me, but when he said it, it sent a cold chill down my back.
"How much did you spend, Daddy?
"Too much," he moaned. "Afraid we won't be eating all that well this week, either," he concluded. He pushed himself away from the table again and stood up. "Com on," he said. Daddy didn't walk straight until we reached the door.
"Sleep tight!" one of the men at the bar called. Daddy didn't acknowledge him. He opened the door and we stepped out. I was never so happy to confront fresh air again. The musty smell of the bar had turns my stomach. Why would Daddy even want to walk in there, much less spend time there? I wondered. Daddy appreciated the fresh air, too, and took some deep breaths.
"I don't like you going in a place like that," he said, walking. He stopped suddenly and looked at me, shaking his head. "You're smarter and better than the rest of us Orihime. You deserve better."
"I'm not better than anybody else Daddy," I protested, but he had said all he was going to, and we continued to our apartment. When we opened the door, we found Ulquiorra already in the pull out bed, the covers drawn so high, they nearly covered his face. He didn't turn our way. Daddy went right to his bedroom, and I crawled under the cover with Ulquiorra, who stirred.
"You went to Fugita's bar and get him there?" he asked a whisper.
"Yes."
"If I had been the one who fetch him, I can guess that he will be furious," he said.
"No, he wouldn't Ulqui-nee, he'd. . ."
I stopped because we heard Momma moan. Then we heard what sounded like Daddy laughing. A moment later there was a distinct sound of the bed springs. Ulquiorra and I knew what that meant. In our close quarters we had grown used to the sounds people often make whenever they make love. Of course, when we were young, we didn't know what it meant, but when we learned, we pretended that we didn't hear it.
Ulquiorra drew the blanket up toward his ears again, but I was confused and a bit fascinated.
"Ulqui-nee," I whispered.
"Go to sleep, Orihime," he pleaded.
"But Ulqui-nee, how can they –"
"Just go to sleep, will you?"
"I mean Momma's pregnant. Can they still . . .?" Ulquiorra didn't respond. "Isn't it dangerous?"
"Will you be so kind to stop asking that kind of question?"
"But I thought you might know. Boys usually know more than girls," I said.
"I do not know the answer to that," he replied. "So, please keep your mouth shut." He turned his back to me again.
It quieted down in Momma and Daddy's room, but I couldn't stop wondering. I wished I had an older sister who wouldn't be embarrassed with my questions. I was too embarrassed to ask Momma about these things because I didn't want her to think Ulquiorra and I were eavesdropping.
My leg grazed Ulquiorra's, and he pulled away as if I had burned him. Then he slid over to his end of the bed until he was nearly off. I shifted as far over to mines as I could, too. Then I closed my eyes and tried to think of other things.
As I was falling asleep, I thought of that woman who had come to the bar door just as I was about to open it to enter. She was smiling down at me, her lips twisted and rubbery, her teeth yellow and the cigarette smoke twirling up and over her bloodshot eyes.
I was so glad I had managed to get Daddy home.
To Be Continue…
A-10-tion: So there you have it! My second chap, though it's a bit long still it worth reading right? Anyway, for the character… Well, OOC present. Do you find it odd? I made Orihime the best cooker here; she knows how to cook, delicious to that. Ulquiorra is a bit expressive no? Though his giving who he is there, since it was his family, if other people he doesn't know approach him then that would be different and Ulquiorra stoic emerge, he'll be the Ulquiorra we know in Bleach! As for Orihime's Parents, Momma (Retsu Unohana) and Daddy (Sōsuke Aizen) what do you think about them, being a couple here? And oh... What Momma's baby gender would be? Lets the guessing begins! Let me know what you think people (about the story) and press on the review button!
