A/N: This one chapter is almost as long as all my other chapters put together 0_0. Oh well, it's currently my favourite. It was a lot of fun to write :) Hope you like it as much as I do.
Happy long weekend to all those who get it!
Disclaimer: Don't own Bleach or any of it's characters.
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Chapter Seven: Milestones
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1:00 am.
When Hitsugaya had first woken up that morning, the first thing he noticed was Karin's absence.
It was strange, though at first more unusual than alarming. Karin was never one to stick to schedules, but for her to be up at… sweet Shinigami it was 1:00 am – something was wrong.
How he knew? He wasn't quite sure. But ever since he had first met her, Hitsugaya had always been very... aware of her. It wasn't intention per say, he'd just lways sort of known.
Now awake and aware, Hitsugaya slowly crawled out of his sheets and bed – better to be safe than sorry. He slipped on his black uniform, sans haori, and made his way to his door quietly as not to awake the other members of his division.
The tenth division's barracks were openly spaced; it was never crowed or cluttered with mess because they weren't usually hosts for the parties Matsumoto loved so much. The main room only ever bared the necessities of furniture: a few chairs, kitchen area, individual rooms with bathrooms, windows, couch, table, and a small back yard. Most of the officers had their own quarters with family, but for those who didn't, the building was open to any who could find a free bed.
Thankfully, most of the officers were gone on a mission and not around, so despite being careful, Hitsugaya didn't pay too much mind to playing it stealthy. He walked normally across the room, but kept the lights off. He could hear her outside even before he reached the door. There were a few shuffling noises, the sound of rocks being thrown into the pond, and many short and low curses.
Yep, that was her.
The door was already unlatched when he got there, so he just walked through it and stepped into the open air, not even noticing the slight dip in temperature. Karin was exactly were he thought she would be: in front of the pond, staring at the water like it was the cause of all her life's problems. She looked more depressed than he had ever seen her before - although, considering she was usually never depressed, that wasn't really saying much.
"Kurosaki? What are you doing out here?"
She turned and met his eyes, and the moment was gone. "Hey," she said, grinning. "Why are you up so late… or well, early?"
He shrugged noncommittally. "Just felt like it."
Karin nodded. Tension filled the air, and she began to play with the stone she had in her hands. Hitsugaya noticed, and commented on it.
"If you're trying to skip it, you'd be better off with a thinner, smoother one."
"Huh?" She looked down to the rock as if seeing it for the first time. "Oh, the rock. Nah, I'm just kind of…" she whipped it into the water and watched the splash rise up into the air, "working on my throwing arm. Pretty sweet, huh?"
"For a man."
"Shut up."
Hitsugaya snorted, a bit of an odd mixture between a chuckle and scoff. He moved beside her and bent down, muddling with his choice of stones before he found the perfect one for throwing.
"This," he began, crouching lower and getting into a stance, "is how to properly skip a stone."
His arm followed an extension, first from his back to his front, wrist flicking at the end to send the stone flying. It jumped on the surface of the water – once, twice, three times, eventually making it all the way to seven.
Karin examined the toss with a critical eye. "Not bad, not bad. My turn."
She leaned forward and picked up the first rock she saw, flipping her hair out of her face and craning back to throw.
"Woah," Hitsugya said, gaping at her posture. "What the hell are you doing?"
Karin drew back from her stance and sighed dramatically. "What does it look like I'm doing, Sherlock? Skipping stones."
"Like that? You're more likely to take out your eye."
"Really?" she said incredulously, throwing the stone anyway. It dropped unceremoniously into the water with a loud plop, not skipping even once. She scowled. "Damn. I was aiming for your eye."
Hitsugaya rolled his two –very intact- eyes, and picked up another stone before handing it out to her. "Again," he commanded.
She took the stone from him and got back into her pose. Right before she threw the rock she looked at him, "You know, just because you're my captain, doesn't mean you get to order me around all the time-"
"Now, Kurosaki."
Karin grumbled. "Fine, fine, fine." She placed her weight on her back foot and got ready to throw, and again was interrupted.
"No. No, no, no, no. Wrong."
Karin stood back up and glared. "What? What am I doing wrong?"
"Everything. Posture, balance, skill, tactic… it's horrible."
She extended her arms. "Fine then, cap-i-tan. Teach away. What do I do?"
"Firstly," he started, moving to her back and placing his hands on her shoulders. "These have to go down."
"Excuse me?"
"Your shoulders, Kuroskai. Down." Karin muttered but listen to his anyway. She dropped her shoulders and her body went with her, crouching into a lower stance.
"Better?" she asked.
"Much. See your body steadying itself on your haunches when your shoulders drop? That's your battle instincts kicking in. Now, hold the rock as if it were your zanpakutou, right before you swing it down."
Karin looked up to him. "Seriously? Like I'm going to cut the water with a pebble?"
"Just do it."
Karin complied, and got into position. "There," she grouched. "What next?"
"Remember your arm doesn't come the whole way across. It's your wrists that do the real work. Got it?" Karin nodded. "Good. Now, throw."
Karin shifted back from foot to foot, testing her weight. It didn't seem like she was skipping stones, but back in the training grounds. It was just another technique, and who knew? Maybe one day she'd need to know how to chuck a rock at a hollow.
Her arm followed in a smooth line, gliding from point A to point B, but screwing up at point C. Instead of flicking from her wrist, she released the stone on the momentum of her arm's swing, soaring the rock straight across the water and at a tree on the other side. Karin winced when a piece of bark chipped off at the power of her throw, the rock thoroughly embedded into the wood.
"That… wasn't right, was it?"
Hitsugaya sighed and handed her another pebble. "One more time."
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1:40 am.
"You're really terrible at this, you know?"
"Oh zip it," Karin growled, fishing around for another rock. "The tree will survive."
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2:00 am.
"So, why are you out here anyways?"
Karin fidgeted against the question, pulling up the defence. "Why do you want to know?"
"Just because,"' Hitsugaya answered plainly. "I mean, if you're going to be out here throwing rocks all night, I might as well get a decent explanation as to why one of my officers is going to be dead on her feet tomorrow during examination."
He looked at her pointedly and waited for an answer. Karin squirmed uncomfortably, but eventually gave in and sighed. She leaned back deeper against the damaged tree, the pair of them already having moved the entire perimeter of the lake to find more skip-worthy stones.
"It's Ichi-nii again."
Somehow that didn't come as a surprise, but Hitsugaya calmly waited for elaboration. "And…?"
"You know about him leaving for more of his 'super-secret-special-training', right? The one he can't even bring the balls to tell his own family about?"
Hitsugaya saw where this was going.
"Well, he left this morning," she continued. "No good-bye, which at least he normally does with Dad, no letter, no hell-butterfly, no anything. He just up and left."
"So you're mad?" Hitsugaya ventured, not good at dealing with people with all these emotions.
"'Course I'm mad! I'm pissed! He didn't even say bye to Yuzu who's probably all tucked away with Dad right now, crying her heart out."
Karin huffed, loosing her gaze into the ripples in the water. Hitsugaya really hoped there were no fish in the pond - it's not that he ever checked, but he still felt guilty for spearing rocks at them in an attempt to pacify Karin. He mentally made a note to buy more girl fish to make the boy fish happy.
"He… he didn't even tell me where he was going, and we're both Shinigami. I get him not telling me when I was just a kid in Karakura, but I'm not anymore. I'm one of him. One of you."
Hitsugaya held a respectful silence the whole time; something indefinable kept telling him that what she had said was important, but probably not the entire story.
"So, every one of the first nights he left when I was with Yuzu, we'd pull all-nighters. We weren't going to get any sleep he was gone, so we figured we could put all our lost sleep into one night. You know, keeping each other up 'till sunrise and just doing the odd things. It sorta became a habit."
"So that means you're not going to sleep tonight?"
"Nope. Not even if I have to tape my eyelids open."
Hitsugaya paused and looked up into the night sky. It was relatively warm, only a few clouds overhead, he was almost half-way through the night by now, and he would never get back to sleep knowing Karin was out here alone anyway…
He sighed in defeat. "Fine."
She turned away form the water and gave him a look. "Fine what?"
"Fine I'll stay up with you. You should have just asked."
"I never needed you to -"
"Just until sunrise. Neither of us sleeps. Agreed?"
He held out his hand. Karin watched his face for a few seconds, trying to figure out what was going on behind it. Eventually, she gave in. She took his hand in hers and shook it.
"Agreed."
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2:45 am.
They were having a great conversation until Karin noticed she was getting wet.
The discussion had threaded through family issues and back, eventually winding up at the kind of accommodations they kept in their room.
"So, aside from my three soccer posters and that embarrassing picture that we will never speak of again, I guess there really isn't" -Drop- "much else. But I like it better than living" -Drop- "in a home outside of the barracks." -Drop- "Hey, Toushirou, do you... do you feel that?"
Drop.
Hitsugaya furrowed his brow and looked up, stretching his hands out and turning them to face the sky, palms up. "Rain," he observed. "We should probably head inside."
"Nah," Karin replied, disregarding him and getting comfortable. "It'll pass."
Hitsugaya checked the cloudy sky. "Are you sure about that?"
"Of course I'm sure. My zanpakutou's water-type, I know this kind of stuff. Trust me, give it two minutes and you see that there's no way that-" the rain started to pour down at a faster pace.
Drop, drop, drop, drop.
"-I could be wrong."
The rain started to come down even harder then, pounding into the dirt and on their heads until they were both almost completely drenched. Hitsugaya was going to wait for Karin to say the next word, but once he got wet enough he could barely see in front of his soaked hair, he decided to take initiative.
"We should probably go inside."
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3:30 am.
"Go fish."
Hitsugaya drew another card, pulling it up to his hand. He stared at the fan of cards he had accumulated – substantially larger than Karin's was.
"Is there a method to cheating at this game?"
Karin reached out and plucked a card from him, pairing it with the last one of her own. She grinned.
"Hook, line," She slid the final match of cards on the table, flaunting them before Hitsugaya. "and sinker. Care for a rematch?"
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4:38 am.
"So… what else did you and your sister used to do to kill time?"
Karin paused and put a finger to her lips, contemplative. Then, she grinned.
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4:40 am.
"How much longer?"
Hitsugaya checked the clock on the wall. "Fifty-two seconds."
Karin squeezed her eyes shut and inhaled deeply. Her palms were starting to get the tingling feeling that happened before approaching numb, and all the blood to her head was starting to give her a seismic migraine. She groaned and pushed down harder into the floor, mustering the strength to keep her legs straight in the air in the proper handstand position.
"My face is red?"
"Like a tomato."
"How much more?"
"Forty-four seconds."
Karin groaned.
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5:00 am.
"Hey, the rain's slowing down."
Hitsugaya looked up from his fan of poker cards - he had refused to play 'Go Fish' again after loosing six consecutive games - and turned his head over his shoulder to see the window behind him. A few drops were skidding down the glass pane, sliding in paths until they hit the next, but from what he could see between the water lines, Karin was right.
He looked back at her and saw a glint in her eyes. It might've been from his lack of sleep – which was really starting to get to him- but she looked as if she was about to do something incredibly stupid or crazy – or both. He decided to cut her off before she got the chance.
"Still raining though," he replied brusquely, snapping off the longing daze she was starting to develop. "So don't even think about going outside again."
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5:25 am.
"I-I did it. I really did it. Yes!" she threw her hands celebratory into the air, pumping her fist to the still looming clouds overhead. "Take it rock! You just got skipped!"
She laughed loudly, spinning on her heel to Hitsugaya standing across form her. "Did you see that? Oh, I don't care, because I did it! Form? Perfect! Skill? Perfect! Distance? Per-fect-amundo! I cannot be beat!"
Hitsugaya calmly applauded from his place under Karin's fire-red umbrella. "Yeah, yeah, you're so great and so on and so forth. Now are you going to stand out there forever? It's still raining."
"Are you kidding me?" Karin gaped. "No way! I'm getting that rock!"
Hitsugaya's eyes widened in a moment of panic.
"Kurosaki? Kurosaki, no-!"
But it was too late. Karin backed up and ran, feet lifting off the ground into a jump that pushed her into the center of the pond. She crashed into the water and got pulled down, the splashes crashing on top of her until the ripples rolled in on themselves, then, there was quiet.
A moment where nothing moved, then, Karin's head pushed back up and broke through the water, her face it up from grinning like an idiot. She hoisted her hand up and Hitsugaya noticed the small, thin grey rock in her clutch. "I got it!"
Histugaya shook his head. "Never again am I doing this with you."
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6:00 am.
Hitsugaya came in with two cups steaming and passed on to Karin on the couch; she currently had a towel in her hands, ruffling her wet hair to fruitlessly try drying it. When she smelled the tea her head whipped up and she reached out, making grabbing motions with her hands.
"Ohhhhh, gimmie gimmie." Hitsugaya raised an eyebrow and relinquished one of the cups, watching in interest as all the features of her face seemed to calm down when her fingers made contact with the warm drink. "Ahh," she sighed. "That's sooo nice."
Hitsugaya came across to her side and dropped on to the couch next to her, taking a long sip of his own tea.
"One hour left 'till sunrise."
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6:25 am.
"Must…" Karin yawned, "…stay awake. Must… stay awake."
"You could try doing work," Hitsugaya suggested.
"Work?" Karin said, making a gagging face. "Ew, no."
Hitsugaya shrugged. "Works for me."
"That's because…" Karin started, yawning again between her sentences, "you're a workaholic. You need to learn to relax. How to have fun."
"I'm fine without it."
"Yeah well, this was fun. You and me." She picked her legs up onto the couch and tucked then under her, wiggling until she was lying down. "We should do this again sometime."
Hitsugaya watched her grab part of the blanket he had on his lap and slide it over her body as she snuggled into a comfortable position. "Maybe one more time," he said softly.
If it had come out a little too gentle, Karin hadn't seemed to notice. "I'll hold you to that," she replied with a lazy smile.
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7:30 am.
When Hitsugaya woke back up in the early morning, the first thing he saw was sunlight.
It was only a few strips lining up against the adjacent wall, but as soon as his eyes opened just enough to catch a glimpse, he jolted up. He had been fading in and out of consciousness for a while, so when he twisted his body around to the window against the back of the couch and saw the sun peeking out in the sky, he became fully alert again.
The clouds had dissipated back into blue and a light glow spread on the division's barracks, slightly tinting everything in pale orange. He found it strange; he ahd always risen early - partly by habit, partly because he always had to be at wok before everyone else - but he had never bothered to watch the sunrise before. It just always seemed like something on the bottom of his great list of things to do.
He felt a stir beside him and froze. Had he forgotten about keeping Karin up? He swore lightly under his breath and moved to nudge her awake, slapping himself in his mind for his stupidity.
And then he saw the note.
It was laying flat on the table close to them, folded it half. It was too crisp to be accidental, and he saw her writing peeking out from inside the crease. He reached for and unfolded it, scanning the words carefully.
Toushirou, it read.
You missed it. The sun rose at 7:15, or at least it's 7:15 if I can read that dammed clock of yours right. Either way, you were sleeping and I didn't want to wake you.
Thanks a zillion-and-one, you're a real friend.
Karin.
Hitsugaya smiled at the letter and fell back against the arm of the chair. He looked at the compromising position they had fallen into: both sleeping together on the couch under a shared blanket, her legs –which had somehow sprawled out during the night- laying on top of his lap, and the mess the room had become. He didn't even want to think about what would have happened if they had both fallen asleep without waking up before the rest of the division.
He grunted as he lightly picked up her legs and set them down on the couch, stealthily easing up and examining the room. Hitsugaya crossed his arms and checked the clock for the time, measuring how long he'd approximately have to clean up before the whole barracks were roused awake.
"Well," he said, trying to organize his murky thoughts and get back on pace with reality. "time to start the day."
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8:00 am. The next day.
"Taichou!" a holler came from outside. Hitsugaya sighed and rubbed his forehead, straining to fill out document without dozing off. After his long night spent awake with Karin, he hadn't quite bounced-back to a normal sleeping schedule yet; the last thing he needed now were rowdy officers.
"What?" He yelled, not even bothering to hide his grouchiness.
Apparently it didn't put off the shinigami outside, because he replied back at the top of his lungs: "Taichou, someone vandalized our tree!"
He'd swear he'd heard Karin snicker.
A/N: I spent a lot of time debating whether or not I should make this chapter it's own story, but in the end I decided to stick it in this anthology instead. What do you think?
