A/N: Well, here you have the third chapter… Yay… J Ain't I awesome… :-P
After the interrogation, Toshiro decided that he had enough for one night.
Besides… the hot atmosphere was kind of starting to make him feel uncomfortable. Yeah, having the most powerful ice zanpakuto in all of shinigami history would do that to you…
Isshin decided to sit a little more there and relax, while Ichigo followed Toshiro outside.
After changing into the appropriate white robes, they both made their way outside. Just in time too…
Orihime and Yuzu stopped their talking when they spotted them, and stood to wait for them to come closer before they spoke.
As they went up to them, Toshiro noticed that one girl was missing but, as he was about to voice his thoughts, said girl came out of the changing room wearing similar clothes.
'She looks kind of cute.'
He found himself blushing when Karin smirked at him as she noticed he was looking, and he turned away… stony expression in place.
It was Yuzu who broke the silence first.
"Oh I'm so glad that you came out now… We were just talking about going and doing something fun, the three of us, but you now you have to join us."
Ichigo looked at his sister and girlfriend with their excited faces on. He didn't like that… Thankfully, when he turned around to see the expression on his second sister, the black haired girl was grinning.
Ok… Now he didn't like that at all…
He had to ask though…
"And what exactly did you three have in mind…?"
"Oh… We were thinking about throwing a slumber party, you know… painting our nails, giving each other makeovers… the usual… Now that you're here though you can come in too and we will give you ones yourselves… Oh, this will be so much fun…"
Ok, now he knew why his tom-boy-ish sister was grinning so evilly before. Oh man…
This is going to be a long, long night…
Ichigo was right…
That night, the two young males had the worst experience possible.
Considering that they practically fought with out-worldly soul-eating creatures almost everyday was saying something.
Yuzu and Orihime wouldn't shut up about what to do and braiding all of the hairs in the room. Heck, even Karin had fun… seeing her friend and brother look like that was worth any slumber party and any girly stuff she had to endure.
During the torturous night, Isshin had come in and joined the party for a little while, acting like the two over-excited girls. That was another experience the two guys didn't want to have, and prayed to forget.
Finally, a few hours after midnight, at about three o'clock or something, they decided to call it a night and hit the sack.
Nothing could make Ichigo or Toshiro happier that day…
Karin was laughing her head off at the night's events till the two 'teen agers' reached their appointed room.
Toshiro was taking clips and hair bands out of his hair as he was walking. Man, those three together are a bad combination… a really bad combination…
When they closed the door to their room, Karin chuckled yet again at the face Toshiro had made at one particular stubborn hairclip.
She went up to him and helped him take it off… Finally too…
He scowled at her neck as this is where his eyes went when she pulled herself on her tiptoes to reach to his head and see too.
He found his eyes starting to drift a little lower when he caught himself, just in time may I add, and looked back up… now at her smiling eyes.
"I believe you need help with that…"
He scowled more to her and while crossing his hands in front of his chest he turned away from her. Let me tell you one thing though, his face starting to take a redder color was not only out of annoyance…
She looked at him weirdly… What was the matter now…? She only voiced the truth.
"'Sigh…' Look, you will never get them out if you can't see them, and I can help… So, get over it and come sit here…"
She took his hand and dragged him to her bed sitting him down in the process. She also grabbed a chair, placed it in front of him and continued her job of taking the rest of the hair products out of Toshiro's head.
He sat there scowling before she turned his head to look at her when he made a move to turn away again.
As he was forced to sit there, unmoving, the conversation he had with Isshin and Ichigo at the bath came back to him.
They really were just friends, and he respected her. He truly believed that her education came above a relationship and he wasn't gonna be the guy that she had to neglect her studies for just to be with him… Make that he wouldn't let any guy be the one.
Besides, he had said earlier that he was a shinigami and she a human girl… even if they didn't have her studies to worry about; their situation was strange in its own. It just wouldn't work out… It was impossible…
"Now master… I have faith that you would have found a solution to that problem… Besides, she is almost a shinigami herself…"
'Hyorinmaru… No, we wouldn't… It's impossible…'
"I believe the girl would disagree with you… You are wrong and you know it… You are just afraid…"
"I'm not AFRAID…"
Karin stopped what she was doing and instead turned to look at his face weirdly again.
"…Um… What…? What are you not afraid of…?"
Toshiro's expression was that of a deer caught in the headlights, with eyes round like saucers and all, before he returned to his senses.
He could perfectly clear hear a chuckle coming from deep within him by an amused ice dragon but he gave it no mind except of telling him to shut the hell up… in a gentler version of course… ahem…
No, he could only look at her blankly before she repeated her question in case he didn't hear her the first time.
"I don't know what you're talking about…"
The weird look was back…
"Toshiro… You just up and yelled in the air that you are not afraid… So, I'm gonna ask you again… what are you talking about?"
He looked at her blankly again before he sighed and looked down on the floor that separated them…
"I was just having a conversation with Hyorinmaru and he kind of pissed me off… I wasn't meaning to say that out loud."
"You don't say…? I didn't ask you why you yelled though. I asked the deeper reason behind it all… Now, are you gonna tell me…?"
She was as sarcastic as they can get, but he wouldn't get mad now… he had other things to worry about.
There was no way in hell that he was gonna tell her. But, Karin was Karin, however grown up and different she looked, so he doubted that she was just gonna drop it so he told her a small white lie… which wasn't a lie anyway but still not what she had asked.
"I was thinking about Momo and my Granny back in Rukongai… nothing serious… He said that I was afraid to lose them and I, as you heard, denied it…"
She didn't say anything after that, but just resumed her previous work after a moment of silence. Good, it seems she bought it…
When she pulled the last of the tortures out of his head he sighed in relief and brought a hand to touch them and smooth them back in their defying-gravity style. Basically, he just made them even messier, but he liked it that way…
It seemed that Karin liked it as well as when he did that, she just chuckled and after ruffling his hair a little with her own hand, she took the things that were previously holding his hair in different styles and brought them on the table that was there.
Previous tension and seriousness already forgotten, they laughed a little together at the silliness of the situation. They soon said their goodnights though as it was pretty late and they needed the rest.
Even a few hours through that torture had drained them empty with no more energy… Toshiro wondered how Karin (or even Ichigo) could handle the trio sometimes. He sure as well wouldn't have the patience to do so… Having Matsumoto as a fuku-taicho for so many decades, he had it tested billions of times, if not even more.
I guess love had something to do with it. He may have found a little patience himself if they were his family too… or soon to be family in the case of Orihime…
