A/N: And then the story suddenly told me it wanted flashbacks and I had to obey. So basically I'll stop saying when this story will be over due to the scenes that I keep adding, but not much more is left. Big thanks to Anya for introducing me to the wonderful piece of music below. Special thanks to the anonymous person who left me a long review for the previous chapter and made my day. Flashbacks aren't in Italics this time.
Iridescent
Chapter 4
Music: "One to One" Giles Lamb
When the sound of the half-muffled steps of someone walking hurriedly towards them reached Renji's ears, he couldn't help it but grin slyly, already knowing in advance who the designer sneakers probably belonged to. He didn't have to look at his watch to check if Hitsugaya was exactly on time – this happened to be one of the few occasions in which the (soon-to-be-)mayor's son seemed to be a little too impatient to get started – and the fact somehow added up to the red-head's excellent mood as he stretched thoroughly, preparing for what the night was going to offer them. It was already way past midnight, quite the unusual time for three seventeen-year-olds to be wandering the streets of Karakura, but while most students their age preferred to be sleeping right now, Abrai's trio of vagabonds was just getting started on a good list of pranks. There was nothing better than wreaking havoc in a town as small and as boring and as gossip-ruled as this one, and having a wealthy boy genius with daddy issues on your side just seemed to make things better. Plus, despite his numerous and very distinguishable flaws, Toushiro was an interesting guy to be around; he was like one of those spicy, piquant Mexican dishes that people always hesitated whether to order or not – he was too strong for some to swallow, and too fascinating for others to give up had they already dared to have the first bite – and while 90% of the time Renji wished that he could make the Ice Prince hold his tongue instead of blurting all those weird stuff that he had the habit of saying, in the other 10% he found it incredibly amusing how the white-haired genius never seemed to care what was leaving his mouth. Sure, Rukia always happened to be there to spoil the red-head's mood by pointing out that there was nothing entertaining in the way Hitsugaya appeared to be stepping over increasingly outrageous boundaries, but Abarai blamed all of this on that girly empathy shit. If Toushiro thought that there was something wrong with the way he behaved, he would've done something about it years ago, considering his father (who was probably the scariest dude in Karakura) had shown plenty of displeasure with his son in all shapes and forms, some of which Renji had personally seen on the short teen's face…
Standing up from where he had been sitting on his jacket for the past ten minutes or so, Renji turned around to offer Rukia a hand, his mind already working to throw out the last few thoughts. He didn't need to get his mood spoiled over petty worries right now, they were about to have some real fun after what felt like a decade of drab school life. It wasn't fair to feel guilty over this, Abarai mused as the temporarily lost grin finally resurfaced, a man's free will was his damn right no matter how much this could go against generally believed bullshit or not.
"Seems like Mr. Richie Rich is here." The red-headed male muttered with a half-snicker as he pulled the girl to her feet and reached to retrieve his jacket from the ground. "I can smell the Prada perfume from two blocks away."
"I'm not wearing Prada, you moron." Came the familiar biting voice and they both turned around just in time to see Toushiro emerging from around the corner of some old, abandoned building that was due to be pulled down some times soon. The look on the white-haired boy's face was according to the expectations: permanently bitchy, obstinate and hard like delicately etched marble. His eyes, while smooth and easy to misjudge from the wrong corner, carried the deep, dark gleam of someone that was ready to cause trouble and that very specific deviant complexity of the misunderstood child-genius which had always, always partially intimidated Renji. The boy was wearing a simple grey hoodie, unzipped at the front to somewhere around his middle, and a rather loose shirt in matching colour underneath - one that seemed a bit too slack around the collar and a bit too casual (with all the light-blue letters scattered around it) for the taste of some supposedly self-sufficient snob. Apart from the immaculately picked brand names, Hitsugaya seemed in no way dressed to vaunt, his sinfully long legs clad in a pair of quite baggy, yet plain black pants that hung (reasonably) low on the teen's hips and created the impression that he was somewhat less skinny than what reality claimed him to be. Hand running through his tousled snowy locks and left shoulder supporting what looked like a half-empty blue backpack, Toushiro was something between a golden coin and a copper dime: precious, but sort of wrong all over.
"Brought the paint?"
"Yeah." Toushiro replied dryly, reaching inside his trousers' pocket to pull out a packet of cigarettes and a steel lighter. "Someone's gotta do something, right?"
"Smoking again?" Rukia spoke up, the disapproving tone in her voice only making Hitsugaya's mouth curl oddly at the side as he pushed a poisonous stick between his lips and conveniently refused to spare the girl a glance.
"I never really stopped, you know."
"But you used to smoke less."
"Leave him, Rukia." Renji interfered pacifyingly, adopting a self-important expression even as his mouth twitched to turn into a wide smirk. "Don't you see that our queer prodigy is trying to appear manlier in this way?"
"Fuck you, Abarai." Hitsugaya shot back calmly, withdrawing the flame of the lighter from the tip of his cigarette and inhaling deeply the toxic fumes before giving the other male an empty look. "You should really stop bringing that shit up or I might think you're gay, too."
And that would be quite a ridiculous assumption, as they both knew, seeing as Renji had been crushing on the dark-haired girl beside him for as long as he could remember.
Hitsugaya actually did chuckle when Rukia suggested that it was the stress that was getting to him – the laughter was a little hollow and very much stripped off every sign of amusement, but it was the best he could do at the moment. Plus, it was funny how correct such barefaced suppositions always turned out to be in the end – it kindda made the whole idea of life and the presumably unique nature of each person fade into a whirlpool of grey and muddy hues rather than the iridescent colours that every poem, short story, play or novel insisted on stuffing in the hopeful and eager heads of the society. At the end of the day, it was the glutinous matter of uniformity that held the universe together, and it would be the same arid lack of discrepancy between the separate individuals that would someday bring the world down.
Releasing a long, bluish trickle of smoke, Toushiro turned around to rivet hooded, bored eyes on the tall chain-link fence that was surrounding the chubby warehouse that they were now going to target. The edifice was old and quite unpleasant-looking: an astounding combination of chipped walls, black, mould-dabbed corners and crumbling roof edges… If anything, their trio was going to make the place more appealing rather than the other way around, no matter what the law had to say about the little graffiti stunts that their small group was so fond of performing every once in a while. Hitsugaya was quite aware that unlike him Renji found some strange excitement in this mild form of vandalism… it was a bit pathetic, really, and the white-haired boy had pointed that out on a number of occasions with an utmost earnestness in his tone… and yet for some reason the more he repeated his opinion on the topic, the less seriously the taller male seemed to take those words of undeniable wisdom. Sure, Toushiro agreed, sometimes it was really fun to break the rules and get away with it unharmed and unsuspected, but being a rebel and going against everything commonly acceptable just for the sake of proving yourself in front of your own unimportant eyes wasn't the reason why Hitsugaya was ready to surmount whatever obstacles in order to perform his very own and twisted form of art… No. Not at all actually, and precisely because he was absolutely certain that his friends wouldn't understand him, he neither wanted to discuss his motives and purposes with them, nor wished to drag the two into his foolish little escapades. Renji and Rukia – they were the type of people who'd revel in doing shit under the noses of authorities, sticking their feet to trip up the very people that were meant to lead them and gathering the greatest satisfaction in the fact that they would never to bear any consequences. Hitsugaya on the other hand?
He wanted to get caught.
So, Toushiro mused a tad bit more lightly, wrapping his left arm around his middle and propping his right elbow on top of it so he could properly hold his cigarette near his mouth, so destroying public property for the simplest aim to withdraw some sort of a sick pleasure from the fact that you were supposedly standing up against society…? How could that not be pitiful? Especially if you were going after the half-abandoned failures of some architectural genius and pretending that you had achieved a new criminal high of a sort or a presumably unattainable level of badassness by trespassing on deserted and unguarded territory. You could stick gum under park benches, stop in the parking spots of disabled people or scramble your name on the seat of the guy that sat before you in the bus, and the feeling would be pretty much the same. Everything else, from the idea of the valiant adventure of jumping fences, to the sneaking around at night while playing a ninja-themed melody in your head – were simple illusions. Playground games that the big kids never outgrew.
Toushiro took a deep drag from his cigarette and decided to appoint himself as the head of the operation.
"Off you go over the fence and on the other side, Renji. Someone will need to help the lady down." Hitsugaya stated plainly, already approaching the holey hindrance with a thoughtful look on his face and plenty of smoke swirling from between his slightly parted lips. Tall, but not that tall, he noticed. They had managed through worse.
"I was going to help you out even without the kind request, you know." The red-head murmured sarcastically as he came up to stand next to the shorter student with long muscular arms folded neatly over his chest. Toushiro turned his head to the person beside him and lifted his right ankle to cross it over the left one casually, the edge of his mouth twisting to the side as he skillfully produced two of those clicking sound that riders usually used to prompt their horses to move. The glare that Renji gave him was more than just a little entertaining…
Five minutes later and basically no more talking, Abarai, Rukia and the blue backpack were waiting patiently on the other side of the fence and Toushiro was swiftly climbing the obstacle himself. A lot of experience with similar situations had taught the white-haired boy how to jump without breaking his neck and he barely hesitated once he got on top of the metal wall. The only thing that made him pause with his fingers wrapped uncomfortably tight around the thin loops was the shit-eating grin that had spread across his red-headed comrade's face, hinting quite unambiguously that the taller student was going to try and pull up some kind of an idiotic joke on Hitsugaya in very near future… Throwing his friend one last menacing glower, Toushiro easily maneuvered his body so that he would not get his clothes caught in anything, and leaped off the fence.
Thud!
"Gotcha, princess!" Renji snickered knowingly as he gazed down proudly at the diminutive teenager that he had managed to snatch in his arms. The look of surprise flitted across Toushiro's face faster than the human eye could possibly follow, and then anger took over, deep, and hard, and seething, bubbling with the humongous power of a thousand thunder-clouds in this otherwise quite skinny form. Without wasting a single second to think over the morality of this all, the shorter boy narrowed his eyes and lifted his hand dramatically, swiftly slapping his friend across the face with all his might.
The effect was instant.
No carrying in the slightest about the undignified picture that he was portraying, Renji let out a pained gasp and promptly let go off his animated luggage, successfully dropping Hitsugaya on the ground in favor of clasping his palm over the injured cheek and rubbing the abused spot with the expression of a soldier that had just received a lethal wound. "Shit! What the hell was that for?"
"What the hell was that for? You just fuckin' dropped me, you dense Neanderthal, what's wrong with you?" Toushiro spat out in bristly retaliation before slowly sitting up on the ground and reaching grimly to massage the small of his back where his tailbone had collided with the rough earth surface. "I could very well jump and land on my own! And don't-" the boy warned lowly, his tenth clenched together. "for the love of God, crack another gay joke, or I swear to all deity out there, I'll slap you until you die!"
Obviously taking the threat to heart, Renji swiftly clamped his mouth shut and lifted his hands up before himself in silent surrender, still watching sullenly as Hitsugaya rose to his feet with a groan and stretched a little, the soft chuckling sound that came from Rukia's direction obviously not affecting either of them. The girl was standing with something like a condescending look on her face a couple of meters away, one hand over her mouth and the other already holding a can of spray, and she appeared to be having tons of fun at the expense of the two males. Toushiro shot her a meaningful glance, before starting to make his way towards her, only to stop dead in his track when he heard a low murmur from behind his back.
"Damn. Princess is scary."
Right. This was a good moment to prove that he definitely lived up to fulfill his promises.
Toushiro was halfway through what he was drawing, when he heard the sirens. In all honesty, he hadn't been expecting anything like that today – in fact, he had been prepared for quite a calm, uninteresting night with his two friends - so when the sound reached his ears and he felt Rukia tense beside him, he couldn't help it but fall strangely still for a few long moments. His first instinct resembled a shot of adrenalin through his whole body, a spike of heat that ignited his skin and urged him to run while he could, but the sensation of incinerating incandescence glazed over with a thin lamella of ice almost instantly. A morbid sort of a rumble shuffled inside his chest, the suede, slightly masochistic toxin that was his self-destructive nature stirring his slush-like blood and draining his desire to hide similarly to a greedy mouth that had latched its teeth into his flesh and was now drinking his liveliness in large, powerful gulps. His fingers clamped around the spray can and he allowed himself to smirk crookedly, the dull ache of a man that craved to be shot down gripping at his insides, both suffocating and invigorating his cold, ivory body. The distant noise from approaching footsteps and the rays of torches captured his attention and he pressed his lips together when Rukia grasped his forearm, hissing urgently in his ear that they needed to run.
"You go." He muttered a little distractedly, throwing the other two a certain look over his shoulder. "I'll handle this."
"What the fuck in wrong with you?" Renji ground out, pushing the girl aside to take a rather tight hold of the smaller guy's shoulder. "We're not leaving you here!"
Hitsugaya just chuckled at the audacious statement and moved to push the man's hand off of himself with the tips of his fingers.
"Do you really think that you can drag me over that fence against my will?" the boy enunciated slowly, letting the full meaning of his words sink into that thick skull. "You don't have much time, Abarai. Get going."
"Hitsugaya-kun-" Rukia began but he shook his head hastily, gesturing eloquently to the direction from which the steps were coming. The question was clear in the way he was looking at his mates now, a salient enquiry, spiced up with that lurid sort of anticipation that could both fascinate and frighten any side-viewer:
I'm staying. Are you ready to risk getting caught because of me?
…The answer was no.
And that was exactly how Toushiro wanted it to be.
...After that everything felt like slices of some intrepid dream: the flash of light in his eyes, the confusion and hesitation on the police officers' faces when they recognized who he was, the wavering hands on his shoulder, the decadent illumination of the slumbering streets as they drove him off to the station. He remembered the strange, giddy sort of content that had settled in the pith of his chest, the odd and racy thrill that such situations always brought him, the exhaustion that came like a tide of cool sea water over a battered body, and finally the deep, gnawing ache that seemed to grow to a scalding hot in the place where his heart was meant to be. Half an hour (Or maybe more. Or maybe less.) later he found himself seated on a chair in a small room, left there with no handcuffs, no guards, no company of any sort… just him sitting in front of a meager plastic table with his head blank and his digits splayed limply in his lap. The tantalizing need to move came seconds later, scratching at his sore arms and prompting them to move with the insistent stubbornness of a child who repudiated every attempt for a reasonable conversation. Fuck reason. Fuck moral. Who the hell said that he was wrong, or that he was right, who made up all that shit? He was his own damn God. His own damn owner. Why was it so that he had to depend on a whole bunch of people without even receiving anything from them, in any way, shape or form?
His fingers curled in a claw-like manner against his thighs and he found himself in an urgent, nearly unbearable need for a smoke. He was sure that other than the fact that he looked the tiniest bit restless on the outside, there was nothing that gave away even a remote hint on what was going on in his inner world. Nothing depicted in even the vaguest of limits how wound-up, how strained, similarly to a thick machine belt, his stomach and chest had become. The relief that the bitter nicotine poison promised was almost literally tickling the inside of his pocket now, inviting him for a ride that was neither too impetuous, nor very jazzy, but which would surely untie the knot in his chest with more success than any other means that he could possibly resort to. Before he could even realize what he was doing, the boy had pulled out the packet of cigarettes from the confines of his clothes and tucked one between his lips, igniting the end a bit too urgently for it to seem normal, a severe frown already knitting his brows together as though he was consuming some expensive medicine with irrelevant bitterness instead of tons of fleeting venom. He blew out a thick cloud of smoke a mere trice after sucking it in, and then sighed in relief, slumping in his chair lazily even as his eyes remained stuck on the 'no smoking!' sign that hung next to the door. If this little militant folly of his activated the fire system, all the better, he decided with a derisive twist of his features. A police-themed pool party. What other reason would there be for prohibiting a healthy habit such as smoking in the confines of a so depressing building?
It was only when Toushiro finished his second cigarette that the door opened and the officer who had arrested him an hour or so ago walked in, followed by a slim man of average height with a rigorous face, thin lips and light brown, almost blondish hair. The boy's eyes instantly landed on the new-comer, starling teal orbs meeting a pair of ones in a matching (if a little duller) colour and the teen allowed a tight smile to dissipate across his face. The guy towered over him with a good a foot and a half (not that it was that big of an achievement considering the teen's unimpressive stature) but it wasn't the physical differences the seemed to split a mile of gap between them – rather, it was some kind of an ineradicable, ancient and so incredibly putrid lack of appreciation and respect that seemed to spread deeper and more nocuous the longer those two people remained in the same room.
"Hey, daddy." Hitsugaya cooed sweetly, reaching to stub out his cigarette on the table beside him, right next to the fag he had put out about ten minutes ago on the very end of the plastic furniture. No answer came, the usual amount of antipathy between the representatives of the two consecutive generations now seeming like the most natural thing in the world. This was the beautiful prelude of an inconceivable tragedy: unspeakable masses of spite, malice in loads, muteness that drilled similarly to the tip of a blade that pierced friable soil... And why would anyone want anything to change? An oblique and elusive look was all Toushiro deigned to give his parent, stormy blue-and-green eyes now glued on his own hand as he surveyed the way the ash from his tobacco stick was now grinding against the smooth artificial surface beneath it. He didn't expect any greeting from his father – not really – but the insipid lack of recognition stung him nonetheless, the way it always did, deep inside, beyond and under his walls, and he let out a small laugh-like sound, more than anything because he was even less than unhappy. Clad in an immaculately picked suit, well-kempt and dressed smartly even at this hour, Hitsugaya Masashi made his way towards his son with a calm, self-controlled gait and without saying a single word, grabbed the back of Toushiro's collar and roughly pulled the boy to his feet.
"Sometimes I do wonder how you ended up being mine." The politician pondered briefly, not caring in the slightest about the presence of the officer (the very same one that he was probably going to stuff the pockets of minutes from now) in the room. "You're like a badly-trained half-breed dog. Neither very useful, nor too attractive… The moment I turn around, you launch into destroying every bit of decency that I have built up and it's not like I receive anything in return for trying to make amends…" The man paused momentarily before adding with a sordid kind of tone. "Of course, someone had to pick the short stick, isn't that so? Everybody needs a pebble in their shoe, just to stir things a little every once in awhile."
Toushiro arched an irritated brow, his lips curling in a similar tight line to the one his dad was now wearing.
"If you're asking me, I picked the short stick by ending up with you as my father." He muttered evenly, his temples beginning to throb in painful ache over the anger that was trying to burst free from his skin, muscles, bones, blood vessels. "You don't fucking get a dog if you don't have the backyard for it."
Allowing the side of his mouth to twist with a very odd kind of amusement, the man leaned in and whispered in his distinctively slick, algid sort of tone right in his child's ear:
"Don't make me drag you to the car, kid, spare yourself the humiliation and go by yourself while I clean up your mess."
Ignorance – courtesy of all that are powerful. Anger. Attentiveness. Impatience. The qualities of those that are far more miserable than what they would ever be able to admit to themselves.
Letting out a small and rather savage growl, Toushiro made a move to try and yank himself free from the odious grasp, but the effort proved to be thrown in vain. His father wasn't ready to release and dismiss him just yet and judging by the vaguely sadistic sheen in the depths of the man's eyes - so incompatible with the otherwise sickeningly smooth and pleasant attitude - the young Hitsugaya wasn't going to enjoy what was about to follow.
"Oh, right." Masashi added tartly, the saliently fake thoughtful expression on his face making the boy's own features crumple with barely contained frustration. "And seeing as you made me leave my house at such an hour to pull you out of the troubles you insist on involving yourself into, some gratitude could be appreciated. Even a brat like yourself should know how to retrieve a cappuccino from the coffee machine in the corridor, so why don't you hurry and get that done on your way to the limo?"
"Get your own fuckin' coffee." The boy bit back, turning his head up to look directly up at his father with excruciatingly darkened eyes narrowed with contempt and lips twisted in the most distasteful grimace he could muster without looking hideous. "I never asked you to clean up my messes."
"But that's the point of all this, isn't it?" Masashi stated calmly as he straightened his back and arched a single brow. "Causing trouble. Like the bunch of pictures that I had to keep from getting into the press the other week. There's always something-"
"You're just 'always' making a big deal out of these things! No one would care if I went to a bar, for God's sake, even if I'm seventeen, do you really believe this would affect your-"
The man's hand had grasped the back of Toushiro's head in a heart-beat, pulling back on the snowy strands with harshness that had the teen releasing a small pained sound as he was forced to look up at the completely unimpressed expression of his father.
"How many times do I have to tell you not to interrupt me when I'm talking?" he asked smoothly, tugging a bit more brutally on his son's hair for emphasize. "You know well enough how this appears in people's eyes. How can I be a trusted politician if I can't control my own impertinent offspring?"
"If I didn't interrupt, you'd never fucking notice me talking!" Hitsugaya hissed, his features twisted slightly in response to what his scalp was forced to endure. Above him, towering quite astoundingly over him, his dad just smirked unpleasantly.
"Language, Toushiro." He said smoothly. "Apologize."
"I'm not going to- Gah!" he winced when the pain in his head grew exponentially, long pale fingers twisting his snowy strands with cruelty that was beginning to feel unbearable.
"Apologize." Masashi ordered flatly, not even missing a beat. "Don't make this any harder on yourself."
"Well, sorry." Toushiro spat out sarcastically, not even bothering to try to sound honest as he made an attempt to wring free from the grip, only to wince and grow still again. The inimical growl of a wounded young wolf stung at the inside of his cheeks, but he forced it down, defiance and indelible discontent covering his eyes like an invisible foil that refused to let anything from the outside crawl in. He knew what was going to follow and he was aware that he was going to cave, just to get it over and done with, but it didn't make him feel any less sick that this would end up being yet another crumb, another sand speck in the hourglass that was his patience...
"Sorry what?" Masashi prompted easily. The boy let out an angry breath whoosh between his teeth as his fingers curled into fists by his sides.
"Sorry, sir."
"Better." The politician said before releasing his son and pushing him towards the door. "Off you go. Matsumoto's waiting for you in the car."
Clenching his jaw, Hitsugaya stiffly made his way down the now familiar corridors and out of the station, his arms wrapped tightly around his body as if the conversation from a couple of minutes ago had frozen his insides into large blocks of ice. When he got into the jet-black limo that was waiting for him in front of the building, he almost couldn't believe how disgusting the soft, luxurious upholster felt against his clothed skin. He slid in the far corner of the seat and curled there, moving to stare out of the window with such an obstinacy that he hardly noticed the barrier between the back of the car and the driver's place lower to reveal a familiar pair of curious pale blue eyes.
"Are you okay?"
Toushiro glanced up at the driver – his only friend out of all of his family's servants – but didn't bother to pretend that he was fine, swiping his gaze just once over the new uniform that Matsumoto had been ordered to wear (slick black-and silver suit and a small flat cap in matching colours), before shifting to contemplate the view outside again.
Hitsugaya wasn't surprised in the slightest when he gained consciousness and found himself in his bed, fully clothed and with the shoes still on, his mouth feeling both sticky and parched as the remains of the previous night (or rather, morning) stirred inside his belly similarly to an angry swarm of insects. The familiar holey sensation had settled loyally in the pit of his stomach and, like every other time, it made him both hungry and in absolutely no mood for eating. It didn't, however, occur to him that he could have a headache, until he lifted his head off the middle of the mattress (where he had obviously spent the night in a sprawled position, no blankets, no pillows, nothing to make his sleep more comfortable than the mere collapse on a non-rough surface) and relinquished to an explosion of throbbing pain that spread across his whole skull, temples and eyes and gripped those places in its unrelenting clutches. His ears were ringing a little – a farewell present from the RnB disco that he had assaulted a few hours ago – and his body felt sore, probably tasting the aftershocks of too much hopping and god knew what else on the dance floor.
Slinking off the bed begrudgingly, Toushiro only managed to stand straight for about half a minute before sinking tiredly to the floor, his back propped against the lower leg of the comfortable piece of furniture as he pressed his fingertips to the beginning of his brows and applied well-measured pressure. How much time he spent in this position: motionless and unwilling to move – he didn't know… but at last the sharp, piercing ring of his mobile phone cut through the air and straight to his tortured brain and he cringed, reaching blindly inside his clothes to retrieve the cruel devise. He didn't even glance at the screen to check who was bothering him at such a time, pushing the green answer button instead and pressing the gadget to his ear.
"What?" he groused lowly, blinking a couple of times till he could focus properly on his room. His eyes met dull, bare walls, elegant and modern in their silvery gray but incredibly depressing for a teenager of his age, character and interests. A couple of resilient potted plants were thriving on random surfaces all around the place – one of them standing proudly on the boy's desk, right next to a snoozing laptop, and the other one trying to catch at least a single ray of light through the thick velvet curtains that swayed gently, yet strangely glumly over the French windows. An exuberantly large wardrobe was staring right at its owner's sullen face from across the room, doors hanging open as random shoes and clothing spilled from the threateningly gaping throat like rotten teeth out of an ill mouth, while a quaintly shaped bluish chandelier hung from the ceiling, currently somnolently dark and still, resembling a black space hole that was sucking in every stray photon of illumination to feed on its miniscule warmth. God… Toushiro thought with distaste as he let his body slump even more against the bed, no wonder he hardly stood spending more than a few hours in this place. If he had to put a definition to it, he'd go for 'luxurious coffin'.
"Yo, dude! Where are you?" Renji's voice, a little too persistent and a little too loud, came from the phone's direction, successfully ripping Hitsugaya from his momentary reverie. Toushiro gritted his teeth and screwed his eyes shut, taking a trice to decipher the question in his head...
"Do you require specific coordinates?" he muttered finally, surprised when even his own voice made him cringe. Ugh. Hangover.
"You haven't left the house yet, have you?"
"You don't say? And there I was thinking: where has the freakshow parade disappeared? ...And by 'freakshow parade' I meant the school if you didn't get it."
"Drag your ass here, we're having a history test."
"Yeah? You mean on history, right?"
"You don't want to make a bad impression on the new teacher."
"…Seriously, Renji?"
"Rukia made me say that."
"Tell Rukia that I would've laughed at such a silly notion if I didn't fear head explosion."
"Ah. You're hung over."
"And Captain Obvious strikes again!"
"It astounds me how bitchy you can get even when only half of your mind is working."
"I killed a basket of kittens for breakfast."
"I thought you liked cats?"
"It could've been pups. I don't know. Everything was covered in blood."
At that point Rukia obviously decided she had had enough and tore the mobile phone from Renji's unreliable hold, starting a yelling match with Toushiro about how he was late and needed to get to school asap, how he couldn't keep skipping when it pleased him, then something about him having too many absences that were going to get him some kind of a stupid punishment – such as a month of detention – and if he wanted to have any free time on his hands, he was going to start thinking with his head and get out of bed... Hitsugaya insisted that he was no longer in bed and that she was being hysterical for no reason again and that he had no obligation to listen to her scream her head off in the speaker. Then she claimed that he was an idiot and he countered with the mean statement that she only knew how to draw bunnies. After that there was a short angry pause, till Toushiro eventually decided that the silent treatment was a very dumb thing to do on the phone and promised he'd be there right away, so she could just go back to molesting Renji while he wasn't there. Hitsugaya hung up halfway through the girl's protest, getting up and dragging himself to the full-length mirror beside his desk to take a very non-critical look at his reflection, his eyes swiping over his clothing languidly, more out of lack of desire to get going than actual intention to change. He was wearing dark, almost black jeans with nothing but a couple of metal studs along the front pockets, the high-quality fabric hugging his ass tightly enough to emphasizing on his rather impressively long and slender legs without making him look vulgar. His shirt was a mix of black with several randomly drawn strings of white across it, the collar once again rather loose around his neck, hence baring the tiniest bit more skin than what was commonly acceptable, which in combination with the disheveled hair, the mirthlessly droopy eyes and the lack of any smile whatsoever, made him look a bit like a criminal that had been unleashed mere hours ago from prison.
Toushiro clicked his tongue and glanced down at his watch. He didn't really have time to change in the school uniform, and even if he did – he didn't feel like it. If they made him go back home because he wasn't dressed properly, then all the better, because he didn't want to be in that obnoxious place anyways.
Grabbing his sunglasses from the bedside table, Hitsugaya put them on theatrically and slinked out of the room and down the staircase without hurry.
Toushiro didn't bother to knock before pressing down on the handle of the door, pushing it open with a bit more gusto and dramatism than what was probably necessary. The classes had started about fifteen minutes ago, so not only had he treaded through a completely deserted corridor till he got here but had now stumbled upon a room where silence, concentration and voiceless agony were about the most powerful rulers of all that was alive and breathing. Every head, of every student that had been focusing on their test just a moment ago, lifted up to look in his direction when he entered, but he failed to feel embarrassed, already too used to situations like this one to place such a great importance on the circumstances of his arrival.
Shifting his gaze to the front of the room, Toushiro found himself staring at the slightly frustrated, yet completely stony expression of some unfamiliar man who had apparently stood up along with the boy's (incredibly noisy) entry, and was now waiting expectantly – what for, the boy had no idea - with his palms resting on the surface of the desk in front of him. Hitsugaya tilted his head slightly to the side and took a minute to scrutinize the person before him, momentarily taken aback by how good-looking the guy really was for his age and occupation. Whether because he had never paid much attention to his teachers in general, or because the population of people working in the education usually consisted of grumpy, edgy and dry men and women with no flare for esthetics whatsoever, the short teen found himself pleasantly surprised by what he was seeing, even with his raging headache now partially messing with the accuracy of his eyesight.
Oh, wait… Maybe that was the sunglasses?
Wrinkling his nose in preparation for the blast of light that was going to assault him, he slowly pulled said sunglasses off his nose, blinking a couple of times against the bright illumination that clashed with his dilated pupils. The purely physical stress hit his wasted nerves harder than he had expected and he growled quietly, fighting honorably (if uselessly) the throbbing pain that splashed with doubled force across his forehead and temples.
"Hi." He stated plainly at last, his struggles to adjust still quite obvious for the rest of the class as he pressed the heel of his palm to his left brow for a trice before looking up again with soft and unwilling eyes. "Dammit! I never noticed how bright this place is… Everybody in favor of diming the lights to a nice romantic atmosphere, please raise your hands."
A couple of people made a move to do just that, but the way the teacher cleared his throat with unneeded loudness at that very moment convinced them to go back to their tests without a word. Turning around quite begrudgingly, Toushiro arched an unimpressed brow, the pair of sunglasses now hanging forgotten by his hip as he waited to hear what the man had to say.
"As far as I remember, it's generally accepted that people apologize when they are late." The teacher stated flatly as he straightened his back, showing fully just how tall he really was. The newly arrived student remained completely still for a moment, not even a particle of regret managing to resurface on his smooth pale features.
"You must be new here." Toushiro stated sarcastically, his eyes drifting to the pile of spare tests on the desk with a look that seemed a modicum too condescending for it to be tolerable. "Such a useless technique. Trying to startle your students with your supposed strictness by giving them a test on your first day… I've found out that it's usually the most soft-hearted representatives of your profession that resort to this strategy."
"You're not wearing your uniform."
"I already knew that." Hitsugaya noticed, switching his weight to his left foot as he lifted his hand with the sunglasses and bit down on the end of one of the temple arm absently. "Did you honestly believe you were making such a great observation by pointing that out?"
The man's mouth twisted oddly at that comment, an almost bored kind of amusement tugging on his lips as he made his way to the younger male and stood before the kid, meeting the daring, albeit tired gaze of those jade eyes with his much more mature and mellow one.
"No textbooks?"
"My pet turtle ate them. She's a sneaky little something, you know? Fast as lightening and so quiet, you can't suspect a thing until it's too late." He paused for one short thoughtful second before pointing his index finger at the older man approvingly. "Extra points for the quick and useful inspection, sensei."
"Why did you even bother to come to school?"
"I don't know. It's an inexplicable, almost magical attraction that I feel towards the building. Impossible to resist, unfortunately, so I couldn't help it."
The man seemed on the verge of chuckling, but the small, amused glint that had flashed silkily behind his dark eyes was gone almost as soon as it had appeared and he shook his head before reaching to snatch the notorious sunglasses from the brat's hand. Hitsugaya glared mildly at the invasion of his precious privacy but didn't do much more to protest, wrapping his thin arms around his waist instead and cocking his head to the side expectantly. Before him the teacher simply folded the glasses and tucked them in the front pocket of his shirt, looking strangely pleased with himself all of a sudden.
"Grab a test and I'll see you in detention after the classes." He said lowly and Toushiro scoffed, already making his way past the man of and towards the pile of paper to pull a sheet from the top.
"Yeah, that was one unexpected twist of events"
The teacher waited till the boy was seated at the back of the room with the test lying in front of him neatly before adding: "For the whole week."
Hitsugaya just smirked wearily, already circling the correct answer for the fourth question. He handed in his test before everybody else, giving the teacher a slightly haughty smile before going back to his place and sleeping through the rest of the class with the certainty of somebody who knew they had given all the right answers.
"Ah." Toushiro muttered vaguely as he strode into the empty classroom at the end of that day, the grumpy, disinterested expression still haunting his features as he looked around the place before letting his gaze land on the man behind the teacher's desk. "Not only am I the only student with detention today, but I get to do it with you, too."
The new teacher showed absolutely no signs of having been bothered by the mild insult, his eyes swiping up and down the shorter form with the faintest hint of curiosity.
"I'm surprised they didn't send you home with those clothes."
"I get away with a lot of things, Mr…"
"Sakai." The man supplied, his long, slender fingers setting off in a rhythm of soft, monotone thrumming on top of the furniture in front of him. "And you must be Toushiro, right?"
"Hitsugaya." the teen corrected hollowly before slowly making his way towards the desk that stood right in front of the teacher's one. "Unnecessary informality bugs me."
"Really now?" the teacher asked lowly, his eyes – which were following a bit too insistently the student's movements – now drilling with startling firmness in the back of the younger male's neck, almost as though he was expecting Toushiro's slick façade to crack formidably under the incisive gaze. Without even sparing the man a glance, Hitsugaya seated himself a bit sideways in his place of choice and rested one thin forearm on the surface before him. "Do your parents know you're going to be late?"
"They don't care." Hitsugaya replied without even skipping a beat, indolent, choked and lusterless jade flickering oddly at that notion even as his body and face remained in the same relaxed position. "I told my driver. That's enough."
With that said and done, Toushiro decided that their conversation had lasted plenty of time and slumped forward over the desk, eyes slipping shut as he prepared to drift off to the dreamland till the detention ended. Slumber. Pretty much the only sensible utilizing of this wasted time and also one of the most successful ways to gain back and neck pain. He'd have to swallow a whole bunch of aspirins when he got back home…
The faint shuffling of something in the desk's general direction reached his senses and his previously relaxed brows furrowed with tension and displeasure again, all in spite of his sincere attempts to ignore what was going on around him. The tap of approaching steps, then a small shifting in the air nearby, before the distinctive sound of paper being slapped on a hard surface assaulted his hearing and Toushiro tensed. Opening his eyes reluctantly, the boy sat up in his chair, his gaze now glued on the piece of paper before him with no interest or fascination whatsoever.
"What is this?" he muttered resentfully, lifting his hand to trace his fingertips along the edge of the sheet. "I thought I did my test."
"Yes, you did." Sakai nodded, taking a couple of steps backwards till he was leaning back against his desk with his arms folded in front of his chest and his dark orbs riveted with surprising intensity on the student in front of him. "In seven minutes. No mistakes, no hesitation, just clean work. I want to see what else you know."
"Why would I want to take another test?" Hitsugaya enquired rather bitterly, squaring his shouldersk to look at the man with a modicum of unnecessary belligerence. The man just smiled mollifyingly before gesturing at the piece of paper again.
"This is not a test. I want us to discuss these topics so I can gauge your creative thinking in terms of your knowledge. If all is well, I'll let you go off early."
"You'll let me go early?" the boy repeated, gaze averting to the side as he allowed the idea to roll around in his head for awhile. A trice later his lips curled into a brazen little smirk and he jerked his shoulders up in a causal shrug. "Well, then… Let's get started."
"Excuse me… Coming through… This is my house, how about you let me reach the door, people?" letting out a peevish snarl, Toushiro elbowed his way through the masses of students that were cramming the corridor, drilling his own path between his classmates (and way too many other faces that he hadn't seen before) with the expertise of somebody who knew what he was doing. It was quite a talent, really, to be able to dodge thoughtlessly flailing arms and inconveniently positioned feet (especially if you had the stature of thirteen-year-old kid), but Hitsugaya had gone through the same sweaty, smelly, ghastly scenario plenty of times to be certain that he could survive the ordeal. A step here, an agility-requiring maneuver there, evade those uncoordinated limbs… and ta-da! He had made it.
Squeezing through the last wall of closely pressed bodies, Toushiro stumbled into a miraculously opened area and finally managed to take a much necessary breath in. He was standing before the front door, mildly disheveled and rather discontented, but he was alive and well and that was the most important thing. Someone had been hitting the bell quite persistently for the past ten minutes or so and he had a fairy good idea as to who this could be, the presumption somehow failing to worry him the way it probably would've, had Hitsugaya been one of those nervous party-holders that spent their 'fun' nights jumping over every unexpected sound. Stealing a moment to fix his clothes and run his fingers through his hair, the teen cleared his throat, put on an affable face, and without much hesitation yanked the door open.
"How can I help you, officers?" the boy asked sweetly, the most amiable of smiles playing on his lips as he leaned on his left shoulder against the door-frame, looking up at the pair of men with a well-mustered innocent expression. The two policemen – both way over their thirties – shared a stern glance over the teen's head before simultaneously turning back to the white-haired student, the implacable, hard-boiled looks on their faces not softening in the slightest despite the short lad's efforts.
"We received noise complaints from your neighbors, Mr. Hitsugaya… again." The taller of the two pointed out in one of the best deadpans that Toushiro had ever heard. Twisting his eyes up in a feigned attempt to mull over such a ridiculous possibility, the boy made sure to swing the door so that it barely left any chance for the policemen to take a peek inside the house before slipping his gaze back to the adults in front of him. Somewhere behind his back the rather formidable scream of someone possibly being covered in beer (or god knew what else) rang around the place, summoning nothing but an ignorant little sparkle in the student's teal orbs.
"It's just a small friends gathering, I'm sure my neighbors are just exaggerating." The teen enunciated smoothly, biting the side of his mouth as he drew his palm down the edge of the door in a manner that was undoubtedly devoid of any possible amount of naïve purity. "It's really unfair that noxious elderly people insist on wasting the time of important men such as yourself with petty affairs like a modest school celebration…" he trailed off, waiting for the much anticipated effect of his sugar-coated voice on the two officers. When they showed nothing but complete tedium with the boy's efforts, Hitsugaya let the fake expression drip off his face, replaced rather impressively by one of hostile irritation before he tipped his head back and yelled over his shoulder as loud as he could. "Matsumoto!"
Less than ten seconds later his driver, now clad in an exceptionally sinful red top and dark skinny jeans popped beside him, a debauched little smile already tugging on her plump, pouty lips.
"Straight?" she asked lowly into his ear and when he nodded his head morosely, she just giggled pepperily before pulling him back and taking his place at the doorstep. "Leave it to me, captain. I can handle these lovely men."
Chuckling under his breath, Toushiro spun on his heel and started making his way back through the crowds, swapping the occasional impudent hand off of his behind and shoving grinning, lecherous, vodka-reeking faces away from his own one with the professional efficiency of a person who did this a lot. He passed through the main hall – a vast space with scarcity of furniture that was currently occupied by dozens of dancing and writhing bodies – and after a short search through the dimmed lights that his guests had preferred to reduce the house's illumination to, he found the table of drinks and headed straight towards it. No one attempted to grope him this time – most people around the room either too drunk to notice him or already attached to somebody else – and he reached his destination successfully, plucking a nearly full bottle of rum from the pile of other drinks, a plastic cup and a carton of orange juice, before turning around and slinking through one of the back doors, then the kitchen and right outside in open, where he could finally take a deep, refreshing gulp of air. Letting his shoulders slump with the relief of finally being away from the party, Hitsugaya stood at the threshold to his deserted, night-embraced backyard for a few long seconds before sitting down comfortably on the front steps beside his very own arrangement of colourful liquids and pulling his knees to his chest. Damn, why does it have to be so… crammed and noisy… Shaking his head as though to chase away the thought, Hitsugaya picked up his plastic cup and filled it about halfway up with alcohol, finishing the beverage with a good amount of citrus juice that would make the process of consummation much more fluent. He had already had plenty of such cocktails during the past hour or so, but he still couldn't feel the much coveted effect of dizziness that he was aiming for. For such a small guy – light and skinny, and fine, short – he could hold his liquor surprisingly well… maybe too well, in fact... And after the last week of shocks, confusion and plenty of diffidence, what he wanted was solely to wipe out all obtrusive thoughts from his head and leave it delightfully blank, serene like a stormless sky and ready to absorb whatever the world threw in Toushiro's direction afterwards…
…And there was so much that said world wanted to dump on his head recently that he almost couldn't fuckin believe it: from the fact that his parents had obviously forgotten to mention they'd be travelling somewhere away for the weekend (having him discover that precious information on his own upon arriving home from school on Friday), to the fact that his aggravating smoking habit was messing with his sports achievements, and finally to the newly developed nightmare that was Sakai Takeo, his history teacher.
Not that the last five days of detention had been all that terrible – quite the opposite actually, if he had to be completely and painfully honest – what bothered the boy, however, was that he was starting to look forward to the short after class discussion that he and the newly employed man were having during the assigned time for punishment. For the first time, after probably years of neglect, someone was making the effort to challenge Hitsugaya's analytical and logical thinking, and the teen was loving it. The questions that they picked up were always carefully selected, designed to have answers that required more than a superficial supposition and so boredom or unwillingness were never an option. Toushiro was meant to look into more than a single aspect of the puzzle to be successful in his responds, plucking clues and facts from his vast knowledge of the epoch, the rulers, the influence of numerous side factors, religions, territorial location and so on… Whenever he thought he had a statement, Sakai would prod at the theory given, pointing out weak strands in the otherwise immaculate fabric of the teen's thinking, and Hitsugaya would have to repudiate all opposing arguments till his idea was completely clear and nicely presented. Sometimes they took breaks from their history-related topics and talked about something else, the ease in which the conversation flowed always catching Toushiro off guard, simply because… because he wasn't used to speaking so lightly with people in general, let alone with adults that he knew for no more than a week. The closeness that he was suddenly feeling towards this Takeo person filled the student up with a new kind of trepidation, an anxiety that stung like a paper-cut across a delicate little finger, for no matter what kind of a rebellious, defiant attitude Hitsugaya had always flaunted about, this was his teacher. He couldn't… it wasn't right to befriend higher authority that was so directly connected to you and expect for that turn out well in the end…
…But there was nothing to worry about, right? Nothing. They were both aware of when and where to stop, were they not…?
Toushiro paused his train of thoughts, swallowing a large gulp from his drink and letting the mix of warm and cold awake and at the same time shake his body into alertness… A few stray memories nudged at his righteous, almost demure conviction about the situation he had found himself in and he frowned uneasily, because the more he went back to his detention hours from the past week or so, the more he stumbled upon simple little details that tickled his insecurity and doubts, leaving him more confused than ever… If he didn't know any better and he had to judge Sakai's behavior from a side viewer's side, he'd think that the man was after more than an innocent liaison between himself and the boy, although-… although that was, of course, ridiculous. The genial, merely half-hidden looks that the teacher was giving Hitsugaya every once in a while, the depth of those dark eyes as they watched the white-haired teen speak with unparalleled fluency and nearly vain eloquence about a certain question or the warm hand that stayed the tiniest bit too long on Toushiro's shoulder in a supposed offer for approval… those were just meaningless, unimportant things. Accidents. Nothing that the boy needed to think about now, or ever for that matter…
Glancing down at the plastic cup in his hands, Hitsugaya arched a brow, surprised at how quickly he had managed to consume his beverage without even noticing. His drink was nearly finished and he found himself in need for another one, and so he reached for the rum, taking a generous gulp straight from the bottle despite what good manners authoritatively decreed. The undiluted alcohol burned his throat a little, but other than that it went down smoothly, simultaneously kindling the familiar urge for a smoke in the boy's body along with the wake of spicy fire that the liquid left in its wake. Right… Pulling out a cigarette with a couple of frugal, terse movements, Toushiro lit the end of the stick deftly and rose to his feet, satisfied to feel a certain wave of dizziness grip at his limbs. Fuckin' finally!
Sucking in a good proportion of smoke, Toushiro started making his way across the yard, pausing occasionally to release a neat consecution of white circles in the air above his head and gaze up at the star studded sky with a bit of a dreamy smile on his face. The noises from the house seemed peculiarly dulled at the moment, suffocated under the protective, pleasantly warm blanket of the alcohol and the boy giggled oddly, noticing for the first time that he was still carrying the rum with himself. One glass bottle in hand and an ignited tobacco stick in the other, Hitsugaya reached the tall stone fence that surrounded his yard and looked up at it from below with inexplicable (and a bit disturbing) interest. The numerous sneaking-outs at night had provided him with the necessary knowledge of where it was the easiest place to climb this thing and, strangely enough, he was standing at the spot in question at this very moment, bouncing rhythmically on the balls of his feet as though the motion would somehow help him surmount the obstacle in front of him more easily. Hm…? Without really thinking much about it, Toushiro dropped the rum beside his foot and ducked under one of the thick, dark-leaved bushes nearby, emerging moments later with a foldable step-ladder. Let's see what we can do now… His fingers seemed a bit unwilling to cooperate, deriding him in their dumb, lazy hopes to get away from the situation without being used, but Hitsugaya proved that he was so much smarter than the little bastards, a victorious laughter blossoming on his lips as he eventually stretched the large piece of plastic to its original size.
"There." The boy muttered, standing up straight and dusting his hands off. "You thought you were cooler than me, but look who's defeated now."
Toushiro decided that the ladder looked plenty of ashamed of itself once he voiced that comment and it made him feel all pleased and fuzzy on the inside. Nodding approvingly to no one in particular, he took another few gulps of rum before leaving the bottle on the ground with the promise that he would be back soon, and then launched into the valiant mission of climbing the stone mountain before him, the magnificent struggle lasting for several minutes until he finally found himself seated on the top of the wall with his leg dangling off on the other side.
After that he wasn't sure how much time he spent on top of the cold stony wall, but he finished off five whole cigarettes in a lazy, monotone sequence. By the time he picked the sixth one, he had grown quite bored of sitting in one place and after failing to remember why what he was about to do was considered a bad idea, he picked himself up and stood on the edge of the fence, swaying just a bit as he tried to simultaneously keep his balance and continue smoking. The alcohol was maybe messing with his judgment, he imagined briefly, because suddenly the wall didn't feel all that tall, it just seemed a bit narrow for his walking to be very fast or very easy. No matter though, the boy decided, releasing a thin string of smoke from the side of his mouth, nothing that his ninja skills couldn't tackle with ease…
"T-… Toushiro, is that you?" the familiar voiced reached him from seemingly miles and miles below and he turned around very slowly, suspicion marring his features, twisting his face in a vaguely unaware and twice as disbelieving expression.
"Sakai-sensei." The boy muttered, pulling the cigarette away from his mouth for a trice as he stared down at the man that stood on the street side of his fence. Clad in a light beige coat and a pair of casual sky-blue jeans, the teacher had stopped on the sidewalk a couple of meters away from the teen and was staring up at his student with a mix of shock and something that actually looked like concern. "What are you doing here?"
Takeo's frown deepened at the sound of Hitsugaya's voice (possibly detecting some slurring in the usually clearly defined speech) and he tipped his head back, seemingly trying to scrutinize the white-haired genius' face without being too obvious about it. Toushiro found the scene partially amusing and partially endearing, their little tryst here making him let out a soft, watery laughter. Damn, fate definitely had its way to jeer at people's misfortune…
"I live a couple of blocks away from here, and I decided to go for a walk… Are you drunk?"
"Ah." Hitsugaya muttered contently, closing his eyes for a moment – a decision that actually nearly made him lose his balance. "I love night walks so much."
"Are you drunk, Toushiro?"
"Stop calling me that!" the boy snapped suddenly, riveting an unexpectedly angry gaze at the man beside the fence. "You don't care. You don't care like the rest of them. So stop calling me that!"
"Okay." The man breathed carefully, a benevolent crease appearing between his brows as he made a couple of steps backwards so he could have a better look at his student. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be disrespectful. Do you want to come down now?"
"No." Toushiro hissed immediately, his jaw tightening with inexplicably caustic emotion. He took a long drag from his cigarette, but oddly enough, his favourite fix didn't make him feel any better, and he pulled the stick away from his lips, giving it a rather accusing stare before chucking the thing to the side. Useless. "Why would I want to come down? It's perfect up here."
"You can hurt yourself." Sakai enunciated cautiously, his hands that had previously rested securely in the pockets of his jacket, now sneaking out to uncover slightly shaking fingers. "It's pretty high where you're standing… let's finish our conversation down on the ground, what do you say?"
"Why would I want to come down?" Toushiro repeated, this time a little more sharply, his eyes narrowing ever so slightly as he wrapped his arms around his stomach and directed a strangely unseeing gaze up at the sky. "I don't think anyone would care if I broke my neck. I assume my parents- they-" he let out a curt, dry laughter, his lashes fluttering against a weak waft of wind. "I'm pretty sure they'd be relieved. Especially my father… The way he looks at me these days… If he looks at all… It's like he would do anything to get me out of his life."
"Come now. That can't be true." Takeo insisted congenially, but the condescending tone that threaded its strand-like digits into those words made something inside the teen wring like a wounded snake with no teeth. "There is a good chance this is just the alcohol talking."
"Yeah?" Hitsugaya ground out snidely, turning around so that he was completely facing his teacher, feet perpendicular to the length of the wall beneath him as they posed a little perilously on the miniscule stone area. "Tell me then. How is it so that they hardly notice if I'm home or not? How is it that the moment I enter this fucking house I become invisible? How come they forgot to tell me they won't be home the whole weekend? Huh?" fighting to swallow the lump in his throat, Toushiro clutched his waist harder, tighter, a surprisingly vivid expression of desperation etched in that one single gesture, as the boy let his body bent a little towards the man below him in an attempt to get his point across to the teacher. "I don't get to call my parents 'mom' or 'dad', did you know that? Yes, sir. Of course, mother. Kissing and hugging are completely out of the question, showing affection to your own child is a damn embarrassment, don't you get it? If my father ever touches me, it's to backhand me or squeeze my arm so he can drag me around more efficiently… these people… they are not my family!"
"Toushiro, listen to me-" the man began anxiously, but Hitsugaya cut him off with an angry snarl, his lips pressing tightly together for a moment.
"I told you not to call me that!" he spat out, swaying once in his place with the gusto of the exclamation. The movement was too sharp though, too impulsive in its drunk-related roots, and before he could realize his mistake, Toushiro had lost his balance…
It wasn't like he hadn't expected it, deep inside, beneath the cockiness and the soothing membrane that the alcohol had thrown over his consciousness, he knew it would come to this at some point, that sooner or later his inattentiveness and frustration would push him over the edge, and yet… yet the shock and fear came nonetheless, overwhelming and powerful, hot and cold, inside and out, and he yelped as his feet started to peel off the fence and the world tilted like a cracked movie screen around him. His eyes snapped wide open, arms barely having the time to try and regain his counterpoise in a couple of chaotic flails, before he found himself in the oddly consoling gravity lapse that always came before the fall itself. A ragged breath, a cry, and then the ground was sucking his body towards its greedy embrace and he could do nothing but lift his elbows before his face. He was going to break his neck and he knew it, this was it, this was it… but surprisingly, no life-changing thoughts crowded his head, no memories, unfulfilled dreams and desires… His mind was all just a blank, white page of primal need to keep living, to survive…
Then arms… Warm, strong, welcoming arms.
He clutched them with willingness and hope that he hardly even managed to comprehend at the moment, eyes still squeezed tight shut as he buried his face in the neck of his savior, letting the words of solace, the caring shushing in his ear, slowly brush the thorns of terror from his shaking shoulders. Somewhere at the back of his mind, an amused voice pointed out how oddly familiar this scene was to that time when Renji had decided to pull a prank on him… It felt so different though. So sweet. The last thing that Toushiro wanted was to let go, to be alone again, empty, forgotten…
"I'm sorry. I didn't know." Sakai whispered in his ear, and then a warm breath danced across his cheek and Hitsugaya slowly opened his eyes to peer timidly at the man that held him. "I didn't know…"
And then that hot mouth was on his and Toushiro was falling apart, thawing like a tiny ice crystal into the kiss. Disappearing. For what he craved was a final, real forever.
Toushiro blinked slowly, once, and the thin sheen of the memories melted from his eyes, leaving them bare and him – strangely defeated. Ichigo's brown orbs – openly concerned despite what the boy had just spilled so brassily a couple of minutes ago - were glued on his with expectation, understanding, patience … and Hitsugaya didn't know how to do this. He had no idea how to explain to this person that he wasn't sure that for his nineteen years of life someone had ever managed to teach him how to be happy. Wasn't it an impossible, ridiculous, laughable mission now? Hadn't he learned that caring for someone was just a fleeting dream, a deceitful melody of a nightingale, the echo of somebody's laughter miles and miles away from here, and the shadow of a forbidden, damned smile. A lingering memory of an old, old kiss always tasted worse than the lack of any recollections whatsoever of a beloved person's lips on your anxious, eager ones, and as painful as it was to admit it, when the warm arms around you finally let go, you felt colder than ever, lonelier than ever, a pitifully, indiscernible, dispensable grey picture in an iridescent and joyful world…
"He never told me." Hitsugaya whispered finally, his eyes lowering as he bit the side of his mouth, long, slender fingers digging painfully in the sheets that covered his thigh. "He never told me he was married. I didn't know… Not until she caught us, anyways." He smiled bitterly at the seemingly ancient image that was now playing in his mind, the familiar, inconsolable ache inside his chest flaring like an awakened flame that burnt his skin, his breath, his heart… "I don't know if she came back home early that day or if he just hadn't made the right calculations. She caught us in a fairy innocent, although unmistakable position, with me on top of him, both of us fully clothed. That little detail helped me save his ass in front of the judge later on, although sometimes I wish she had seen us going at it…" taking the now finished cigarette from his right hand and transferring it to the left one, the boy stared for a moment at the place where most tobacco addicts had their skin yellowing atrociously and sighed. His was still smooth and white. At least that much he had preserved by knowing how to smoke intelligently. "I loved him so much… So much, that I was ready to do everything that he asked me to. So when he begged me to take the blame, to save his family from collapse… I didn't even hesitate. He had someone to fight for, he had kids, a wife… what did I have?"
"A name to lose?" Ichigo muttered cautiously, but the boy just scoffed, shaking his head sadly.
"Nothing that mattered all that much… So I told everybody that I had tried to seduce him. I admitted my guilt to so many things… Persistent phone calling, spying, blackmailing, stalking in general… I said that this was the first time that I had got close to Sakai, that we had never had an actual relationship and that he wasn't to be blamed for my 'innate desire to always get what I wanted '. I claimed, in front of the whole court, and in that way in front of Karakura itself, that I had been trying to buy myself higher grades by getting in my teacher's bed..." Another sneer, this one much more mordant than the previous one and then he continued more quietly, almost like a beast, hissing dangerously at an approaching invader. "Like I fucking needed better grades… Like everybody who knew me weren't aware that I didn't have to do this to excel in class… But of course, once the dirt was out, there wasn't a single soul that didn't believe it. It suddenly became incredibly suspicious that I'd always be a full A student with my escapades and whatnot constantly running at the background, and eventually nobody believed that I had a single brain-cell in my head anymore. Being a month or two away from becoming 18 saved me from so many things, but it got me into just as many problems. By the time the lawsuit was over, I was technically an adult. I got kicked out of school, then…" Toushiro paused, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment as his hands began to shake, a horrendous, overwhelming tornado of anger, disappointment and discontent suddenly pressing down on his chest. "…then the day of my birthday, my father told me to get the hell out of his house, that I was no longer welcomed there after putting such a stain on him and his family's face. He clocked me twenty minutes to pack and then he threw me out. Just like that. I haven't seen him since."
Gathering his hands in his lap meekly, Toushiro lowered his gaze, waiting quietly for Ichigo's verdict. He was pretty sure that his rather repulsive type of pallor had returned full-power, sucking every bit of colour from his flesh and leaving his skin seemingly paper-thin, insipidly greyish at places and hideously dead in comparison to the beautiful milky white that usually attracted the attention of so many people. He could recall seeing himself in such a condition more than a year ago when the media had caught a couple of pictures of him on his way out of the court, and what could be seen on those shots was a frail, queasy and ailing creature with breakable wrists and fingers, cinereous lips and the odd, forbidding radiance of a cripple. If Ichigo decided that this was the end, that they couldn't keep going, then Hitsugaya was okay with that, he was ready to gather his clothes as quickly as possible and abscond the scene. He had no choice but to be prepared for such an outcome.
No choice.
He felt some movement from the model's direction, but in lieu of looking up, her just squeezed his eyes shut, waiting for something, expecting a direct order. But instead of any words, yelling or screaming, the warmth of a large hand covering his own one awakened his senses, and then a pair of warm lips was pressing against his temple, the side of his face, his jawline.
"Thank you for telling me." The carrot-top muttered against the boy's ear and then his mouth was covering his lover's one and for the longest moment Toushiro felt as though he might cry. Chucking his long ago burnt cigarette to the side neglectfully, he wrapped his arms around Ichigo's neck and pulled the taller male closer, thinking for the first time in his life that maybe things were going to be okay… Maybe. Maybe. Maybe…
…Or were they?
A/N: Wow, congratulations if you reached the end (without skipping, otherwise no congratulations). Review! ^^ I had a birthday this week.
