Undisclosed Desires

Chapter 2: Harumi Amaterasu

Previously: He inhaled and pulled open his door. Quickly pondering over how he seemed to be exhaling more than inhaling recently, he saw the first applicant. Then his heart stopped, his lungs sank and his stomach twisted.

Whatever and whoever was standing at the door, their grey eyes and auburn hair looked a lot like a girl he used to know.

Now that all of the pain he had buried deep inside him had jumped right back up and gotten stuck in his throat, he didn't know what to do. His mind raced around in circles as he looked at her. What was going on? Was this some kind of trick?

His glances shifted just slightly and he surveyed the street behind her. No sign of movement. Then he looked back at her. She had that same shade of auburn radiated from her locks of soft hair. He couldn't even count how many times his fingers had gotten tangled up in an identical waterfall of orange.

The stranger had the same pale skin. It was light in a very elegant way, although it made her look quite fragile. Like a porcelain doll. But she certainly wasn't fragile, in fact; if she had been, it would have been very dangerous paired with her clumsy personality. He remembered her smooth skin so well, how it would shiver beneath his touch, although it was always very warm. He always had to be very gentle with that pale skin.

Her eyes were the same ones that he saw on his son, despite the field of long, dark lashes that were much more intense on her face. But the cloudy blue-grey iris was exactly the same. If you went right up close you could see your own reflection as if looking into rippled water.

And her lips... he wanted to know how it would be to kiss them again. But then he fell back into reality.

"O-ohayo gozaimasu!" she stuttered nervously and quickly, "Hajimemashite, Kurosaki-san!" The girl bowed her head to him. He could see the bright shade of red on her face through her hair. Then he realized that he must have looked like a creep, staring at her for several seconds .

"Kon'nichiwa..." he replied just as fast, but with a little less enthusiasm. Or a lot less. "P-Please come in..."

Ichigo stepped aside and closed the door after the girl took a shaky few steps inside. He picked up the folder and scanned through the application sheets, remembering that he had forgotten to organise the pile, so that the final four applicants were at the top.

When she noticed his struggling, she nervously whispered, "My n-name is Harumi Amaterasu," in an briefly formal tone. He nodded to himself and pulled out the sheets containing her information. Ichigo stationed himself on one of the chairs and politely gestured for her to sit down. She obediently sat herself down across from him.

"So... you just recently moved to Karakura?" he asked her, looking down at the text.

Amaterasu nodded her head, "Hai, I lived here once before, but I moved away after I... lost my family." Her confirming response threw his thoughts into chaos, but he pushed his theories aside and swallowed the questions lingering in the back of his throat, the ones mainly regarding her familiar appearance.

"Oh... I'm sorry," he coughed, "So you applied for this job before you moved here again?"

She nodded once again, "That's right, I decided I wanted to come back and thought I should try to make arrangements, for when I arrived."

They had both switched to business mode and were beginning to get through full sentences without pausing, and their voices became serious. But then, this was about someone's job as well as the care of someone's child.

Ichigo went through some more of the information written on the paper before his eyes, and Amaterasu confirmed everything and fully explained herself and her motives. Right on queue, Hiroshi began to softly cry in his room.

"Oh, that's Hiroshi..." Ichigo said, getting up from his chair.

Amaterasu quickly stood up, "Please, allow me." She smiled kindly towards her possible employer, who studied her expression. Ichigo nodded and pointed her in the direction of Hiroshi's room. They walked over to the door frame.

She stepped inside and crept slowly up to the crib. Ichigo briefly saw her eyes glisten as she watched the baby. Even Hiroshi had swapped his usual neutral face for a look of curiosity. They looked at each other for a moment before Amaterasu reached the very edge of the crib's railings.

Hiroshi pouted and reached one of his short arms out and spoke to her with a few murmured baby words. Ichigo saw the smile curve at the corners of her mouth as she lifted the baby into her arms. Hiroshi explored her face with his hands, earning a giggle from his potential new babysitter. She cuddled him in and turned to Ichigo. "He's adorable," she smiled.

"Sure is," he reached out and ruffled the strands on hair that he had. Amaterasu laughed as Hiroshi held onto her hand. The three of them moved into the living space and sat down on the couch. "So do you have any other questions?" she asked, bouncing Hiroshi up and down on her knees.

"Uh, I guess not. I'm sorry, I didn't really have much to ask in the beginning, but I thought... you know, I should see how you are with him before I make any decisions," he said, scratching the back on his head, "But I gotta say, you're a natural with kids."

"Thank you," she turned her gaze from the toddler up to Ichigo, "people have always told me that, for some reason."

"Didn't you say you worked in a Nursery last year?"

She nodded her head, "That's right, for almost a whole year. ...Don't worry! I wasn't fired or anything like that, I just decided that I wanted to leave Morikazukae."

"Ah, okay. Morikazukae... that's south from here, right?"

"Yup, almost fifty miles away! I can hardly remember what originally possessed me to move there, anyway!" she giggled to herself.

They seemed to have completed half an hours worth of small talk by the time Amaterasu got ready to leave. Ichigo couldn't help but feel at ease when speaking to her, although it had almost caused him to forget that he had other candidates to interview, but she had a certain effect that he decided not to look too deeply into.

"Thank you very much for your time, Kurosaki-san," she politely tipped her head to him as she stepped back towards the door.

"Thank you," he smiled, "for making this a lot easier, I have no idea what I'm doing with this interviewing business. Your number was on the application, right? I'll let you know what I've decided sometime in the next few hours."

"That's great, I look forward to speaking with you again later."

Within a few minutes, she was long out of his view, at the window. Ichigo slammed his palm into his face and rubbed his eyes. He was sure he had just been deceived. Who and what was that?

One year, one day and probably a couple of hours after his girlfriend was taken away from him, a girl who was exactly identical to her showed up to apply for a job? His reaction to his own thoughts almost matched his heart rate and breathing pattern from when he saw her at his door.

Pulling out his phone quickly, he pulled at the collar of his shirt. As soon as his screen lit up, he typed in the first number at the top of his head and pressed it to his ear. Ichigo tapped his foot violently as it rung. By the time it was answered, there was a dent, or rather almost-hole in the cheap floorboards.

"Hello, Ichi?" Yuzu's voice asked.

"Hey, Yuzu" he spoke and froze.

"...Is something wrong?"

He tried to remind himself of why he was calling, but nothing came to mind. At least not for several moments. "Ichigo...?"

Harumi Amaterasu. Of course.

"Uh... sorry, I just wanted to ask you... what was in the pie?"

"The pie?"

"Yeah."

"What pie?"

"You know, the one from last night..."

"Ichi, I made soup last night."

He mentally facepalmed and coughed, "Uh, okay, sorry."

Then he hung up before she could say anything.

His thoughts had been running wild all afternoon. In fact, he could hardly focus when he was interviewing the other possible babysitters. The day had practically gone to waste. He couldn't make a decision right after what he had seen. Amaterasu.

It was, first of all, unlikely that there would be anyone else in nearby towns that had similar features to Orihime Inoue. It was then very unlikely that anyone else was identical to her. Besides, she claimed that she was from Karakura, so why had he never seen her before? Sure, it was a big place, but if he had ever seen her face, then he would have remembered seeing someone who looked exactly like his girlfriend.

Everything was a mystery, and he didn't know if he could get to the bottom of it. Did he want to? Of course, if Orihime was involved, at least in his head, then it seemed important. But how? Was it fair to Amaterasu? Probably not.

It would have been very simple to just play around with the few pieces of information he listened to and pick one of the other babysitters. But how could he ignore her face when it was so comforting and familiar?

But then, he couldn't ignore the fact that he could end up sub-consciously thinking that she was like Orihime. Like she had been reincarnated, or something like that. But then... she was a lot like Orihime. They had the same voice, looks and as far as he could tell, personality. That was surely enough to say they were the same.

He wanted to know more, slowly creep up on her with questions. Not in a creepy way, he was just overly curious of what was going on, because it made no sense.

Whatever his thoughts told him, he had already made his decision.

Fishing the number out of his folder of applicants, he dialled it and waited. Several rings buzzed by his ear. Then her voice answered, "Moshi moshi!"

He smiled to himself at the hint of excitement in her voice.

"Hello, Harumi Amaterasu? This is Kurosaki Ichigo."

"Oh, yes! Hello!"

"I just though I should probably let you know in a call rather than a text, I decided to pick you. I thought you were good with Hiroshi, and that's all I was really looking for," he said, trying to stop himself from laughing as he heard a high-pitched, inaudible squeak.

"R-really?" she cried, "Thank you so much!"

"I hope tomorrow isn't too early to start?"

"Not at all, I-I'll see you then!"

Almost everyday seemed to be the same. Ichigo knew that quite well, and he was used to it. But things were finally supposed to change. Life would become a little easier, and he wouldn't have to worry too much. Or perhaps, he would only have to worry more.

Right on time, there was a knock on his door. He checked his watch, and found that he was due to leave very soon. He opened the door to a bright greeting.

"Ohayo gozaimasu, Kurosaki-san!"she repeated her words from the previous day with a noticeable rise in confidence.

Ichigo nodded to her, "Please come inside." She followed him in and watched him pull on his work jacket, and gather his equipment.

"I already fed Hiro this morning, so don't worry about that. Please, just get to know him and find your way around, and take good care of him," he said, trying to fasten his tie, "I'm sorry, I'm gonna be late if I don't hurry, but thank you for working for me, this is very important to me."

Amaterasu's cheeks glowed with a gentle red hue as she bowed her head, "Of course, I will take the best care of your son, and thank you so much for giving me this job!"

Ichigo shot her a final glance before he left, loudly slamming the door behind him. The girl waited. What was next? She peered around the room and tried to remind herself of the location of Hiroshi's bedroom. It came back to her as soon as she heard him muttering something.

She almost skipped to the child's room, her long skirt flowing behind her. Hiro giggled as she bounded over to the crib. "Good morning, little Hiroshi," she whispered, reaching down to pick him up. The baby explored her face with his hands, just to check that she was the same woman he'd seen before. He was oddly good at remembering people he had met before.

Amaterasu rocked him gently in her arms, which he fit perfectly into, as she wandered back into the living space. She sat down on the couch and sat the baby down beside her, with his back to the side. Hiroshi reached his fingers out to her, and she let him hold her hands.

"So, little boy... what would you like to do today?"

The toddler produced some more gibberish.

"Hiroshi," she spun his grip around, her voice like a beautiful song, "where should we go, little boy? What do you like to do?"

Again, he gave her a few confused 'words' and curled up into a ball.

"...You can't talk yet?" she pouted, stroking his hands with her thumbs, "You're eighteen months old, little boy..."

His chubby cheeks dropped and his face scrunched up a little.

"Tell me what you want, Hiro," she sung, "do you want to learn to talk?" Her long fingers swooped in to tickle him. He started to kick and throw his arms about.

"No!" he giggled.

She froze and looked carefully at him. "Did you... just say 'no'?" she grinned.

"No!" Hiro screeched in laughter.

Amaterasu squealed along with him and lifted him into her arms. "Was that your first word, huh? Little boy?" she asked, tickling him all over again.

"No," he replied once more.

Ichigo sighed to himself as he walked out of the corner store with a shopping bag in one hand and his briefcase in the other. He'd tried to finish all of his work early, and had almost succeeded. In the end, he'd just managed to complete to more difficult load of work an hour before he was supposed to leave.

His boss knew he'd been going crazy all day, thinking of Hiro and the new babysitter. He offered to let him go early, as long as the fairly short stack of paper work was on his desk, in order, by twelve o'clock the next morning. The offer was too kind to resist and he'd stuffed the paper quickly in to his bag and left as quickly as he could.

It was a little early for it, but he decided to stop by the corner store as he went past. He only purchased some more baby food and boxed sushi for dinner. When picking his box out, another accidentally fell into his basket and the idea sparked from there.

He knew it was stupid and dangerous, but he just couldn't ignore his own thoughts. Ichigo came up to his steps and quietly opened the door. Although he knew it was a likely scenario, he walked in to find Amaterasu and Hiro curled up on the couch. 'The Ten Puppies' was on her lap, next to the toddler. They both looked up at him.

"Oh, hello Kurosaki-san!" she said, snapping into attention. Her back straightened sharply, although careful not to shake Hiro.

"Hi," he said, dumping his briefcase down by where his shoes were lay. Then he smiled at his son, he was vibrating with anticipation. "Have you had a good day?" he asked, taking his son from Amaterasu, who had lifted him up.

He looked at her once he realized that he had left her arms, and she shook her head at him with a smirk. "No, Daddy," he said.

Ichigo's eyebrows furrowed as he stared at his son, over to Amaterasu, and back to Hiroshi. "Did you just...?" he whispered.

"No, Daddy," he said again and shortly afterwards erupted into a fit of laughter.

"Harumi-san?" Ichigo laughed along with the toddler and stroked his head.

"We worked on that all afternoon!" she giggled, "I had to repeat that to him and shake my head a lot so that it would work."

"How did you get him to talk?" he grinned, "People keep telling me he should know about ten words at his age, but he just never picked them up."

"Some children just take a little longer! You just have to encourage them every so often, but not so much that they get bored," Amaterasu smiled.

"It's amazing that you got two words out of him in just a day, though. I'm jealous, actually," he said jokingly, swaying the baby slightly.

"Well, don't you worry about his development! I'll be here to take care of him and teach him whatever I can," she said reassuringly, and she climbed to her feet.

"I really appreciate that," he said, setting Hiro down on the floor, next to his pile of toys. He dug in and started fiddling and biting whatever he could lift with his tiny hands.

Amaterasu looked up at the clock, "A-ano... Were you early home today? I'm sorry, it's just I thought you said you finished work later than this... perhaps it's my mistake..."

"No," he said, "you're right. I just worked really quickly today because I was kinda worried about Hiroshi... so I came home a littler earlier. I got extra dinner, actually, do you have any plans? There were some... questions... that I wanted to ask you."

That was a bad ending, okay... Hopefully, things will get a little more interesting in the next chapter! Those silly introductions were so slow and boring that it took me 5 months to write them, that's my excuse xD

I hope I didn't disappoint too much, my plans were supposed to bring out the good stuff several chapters into the story, so here everything is a bit dull... I'll keep going if I can. Such paaain.

I would just love-love-love a review to push me into another update. Scientists proved that 9/10 ten times, a review from one of you lovely people makes me really want to write the next chapter! Arigatou reader-san!

~HellYus