The Dragon's Queen
by Jo Terry
A/N: I do not own Bleach and its characters.
Chapter 9
It has been almost a month since Arisawa last spoke about the Kurosakis. Rukia doesn't bring it up voluntarily, assuming everything to be all right with them. She still goes to the dojo on Mondays and sometimes Fridays, if she gets an early day off from classes.
Her life in the world of the living has pretty much settled into a routine by now. Ever since Harukami moved to the new bar, Rukia has been the one doing the closing every weeknight, just barely catching the last train if Ishida is on night-shift. On weekends when they close later, Nichibotsu himself would come in to wrap things up so Rukia does not have to stay later than she already has. Sometimes, he would also offer her a ride home when Ishida can't pick her up, but most of the time she would call for a taxi.
Tuesday is still laundry day, where she does it for the both of them if Ishida does not get his day off during the week. In fact, Tuesday is the only happening day in the apartment, because when Ishida works day-shift and comes back for dinner, the two would spend the entire night in front of the television until it is time for her to go out on a patrol. Rukia cooks dinner on Tuesdays because the bar is closed. On the weekends, she would cook lunch.
Every day, she gets up early to prepare breakfast before she heads out to the university. Whatever meal she makes, she leaves them out for the busy doctor with the uncertain schedule for whenever he's able to take them. And he leaves her a note on a square piece of paper under the fruit bowl she bought on her fourth week there - "The dragon needs fruits to grow," she said. The note never has the word 'thank you' on it but it bears messages that carry the same weight, with the addition of a painfully lame joke that can only be expected of Ishida Uryuu.
Rukia leaves the major cleaning of the house to her neatfreak of a roommate, who does it on his days off. Other than that, she keeps the kitchen and bathroom clean after her use, and tidies up her bedroom like she always does back at the Kuchiki Manor.
She still uses Ishida's sewing machine for her projects. It seems to have earned a permanent place on the dining table since she has to submit at least one workpiece every week and sometimes a few sets of stitch samples. When Ishida is at home, he likes to sit at the end of the table, a book in hand, while she is operating the machine. It's the quietest machine ever invented but you can still hear the mechanical grind of the footer when the rest of the apartment is quiet. Rukia figures he misses that sound.
Where her major is concerned, Rukia is glad to have Ishida around all the time. He is the best person to debate with when it comes to fashion design. He would even watch runway shows with her and tell her what he thinks of the designers, the materials, and the body types that sometimes do not match the outfit. He makes studying more interesting for her. And he's a lot of help because he's the only who understands that she is still trying to get accustomed to the practice of the world of the living. Others would probably think that she's spent her years hiding in the cave before she came to Karakura. It's already quite a struggle for her to keep up, despite how many magazines she has subscribed to and all the video commentaries she has to watch to learn about how fashion has changed over the past 2000 years.
It seems the secondary part of her life is more eventful compared to her primary reason here as a shinigami. She goes out on patrol every night - and sometimes even during the day, just to make sure, as she leaves Chappy to take charge of her gigai at work or at the university - but there hasn't been any Hollow activities around. All she's been doing so far is perform konso on the souls who have just passed on. And there aren't that many in a town like Karakura. She wonders why Kyouraku-soutaichou wanted her here in the first place. He must've seen the records and heard the reports. Sending even a normal shinigami would be a waste of time and resources. And she's a captain. She could be more useful back in Soul Society.
She communicates with Renji and Ichika once a week if they are available. The little girl is having a good time at the academy, making friends and pulling pranks, and does not seem to mind that the death god she calls 'mother' isn't around all that much. Renji, on the other hand, occasionally hints to her that he misses her and wants to come down to the world of the living to see her whenever her brother lets him. Rukia chooses not to take the hint and waves it off as something that would inconvenience him. She knows of his feelings for her and doesn't want to lead him on because she only sees him as a brother, at most.
After what happened with Ichigo, she doesn't think she has the energy to even consider getting into a relationship with anyone. It's cumbersome; this whole process of getting to know someone you think you might like, letting your heart do the thinking, caring for their emotional needs with everything you've got, and then left to wonder if they feel the same way about you to whether things will ever work out if you give it a go. The problem is not the effort you put into it. It's quite the opposite because often times, the whole process happens without you being fully aware of it and when it doesn't work out, you feel spent even though you thought you didn't even do anything. It's like someone else maxed out your credit card and now you're the one who has to pay for it.
The human life is so complicated. It's much simpler being a soul. Every soul exists as long as the next. That means, all souls are of the same age. It's when you're reincarnated into a human body that all these complexities begin to take place. It's mystifying how human relationships that last only one lifetime can have a sense of permanency, while relationships between souls that last many times longer seem very flitting. Sometimes, Rukia wonders if she and Ichigo ever worked out, they would have had a 'forever' relationship. Before losing his powers, Ichigo was like her - a shinigami soul that do not need to be reincarnated. Only souls in the Rukongai gets recycled.
I guess I'll never know...Rukia sighs. That's the problem with Monday nights at the bar lately. Business is slow and there's no Harukami to keep her company anymore. So she always ends up drifting away into her own world and having senseless monologues in her head even while her hands are on autopilot with her bartending tasks.
Just as she is putting away the cleaned glasses, the door opens and she hears footsteps entering the bar.
"We're closed," she hollers over her shoulder as she comes down from a step stool - Nichibotsu got it for her because "Harukami is not going to be here to help you with the taller chores." She turns around in time to see Ishida taking a seat at the counter in front of her.
"I know," he mumbles, joining his hands as he rests his elbows on the polished wooden top.
One glance at the doleful look on his face and the slouch of his body tells her that something has upset him. "You need a drink?" she asks.
He shakes his head and Rukia thinks it could fall off if he puts just a little more energy into it.
"All right. Let me get my stuff and we can go." Grabbing her backpack, she rounds the bar counter before coming to stand before him as he gets up. "What's wrong?"
Ishida releases a long, almost laborious breath. "Yakimura-san passed away this evening."
"Oh, Uryuu…" Rukia lets her bag drop by her feet and wraps her arms around the beaten doctor's torso - a welcome and most needed gesture, it seems, as he returns the embrace, tucking her head under his chin. "I'm so sorry," she whispers, giving the man a comforting squeeze.
They stay like that for a while. Rukia is glad that he does not turn away the support she offers to him. He's spoken to her about this lonely, old man who never wanted to leave the hospital because he lived in an empty apartment. His children were all gone and he was always hoping that death would take him away to end his misery.
"Sometimes, I see myself in him. I know I'm going to end up alone. I have no plans of getting married and passing down the Quincy legacy, you know? And I'm prepared for it. But having to look at that kind of life - dying alone - in another person's life… it's kind of scary. And sad," Ishida told her once. She chastised him for having such a dark vision of his future but he just shrugged.
"Are you sure you don't want that drink?" she asks again, her voice muffled by the buttoned-down shirt he is still wearing and she notices that he didn't shower before he left the hospital like he would usually do.
She feels his chin digging into the crown of her head as he nods. "I'm fine. Just need a little time to unwind."
"Are you working tomorrow?"
"Nope."
Rukia gets off his chest to gaze up at him. "We should do something, then. I don't have any classes."
"Okay…"
"Okay," she huffs and removes herself from him. "You go wait outside while I lock up."
Picking Rukia's bag up from the floor, he exits the bar and does as he is told. The petite bartender makes sure to switch off all the lights before she leaves. She's getting a hang of all these human habits and practices that she has procured over the past couple of months. Tonight, consoling a grieving doctor being a new addition to the list.
There is only so much a man can take. And right now, Kurosaki Ichigo thinks he has reached his limit. He curses his life and everything that revolves around it. He never signed up for any of these. And yet, he has to lug them over his shoulders like he came out of his mother's womb, begging for them.
There was a time when he thought that things were looking up, that his life was starting to make sense, and that the rain had stopped. But even all that got taken away. Like his mother. And his powers. And his father. And especially her, he thinks bitterly. That was it for him. Nothing else matters after that.
After putting his son to bed, he comes out to the car porch to wait for Orihime with a lighted cigarette between his fingers. It isn't the first time she comes home late. But it is the first time he decides to confront her about her recent behaviour. She has been extremely evasive whenever he got the chance to ask her about her medication. Tonight, he is going to make her talk.
As expected, she walks through the gate of the house at 9.30 pm. He can tell she is trying to be quiet about it but when she turns around and sees him there, a gasp leaves her lips and her steps are frozen where she is.
"How's business?" he asks, flicking the stick in his hand.
One second. Two seconds. "Good," she replies with a nod. The night wind causes her knee-length skirt to flutter a little as she adjusts the strap of her handbag.
"So good you have to come back this late every night?" At this point, he really cannot help the sarcasm anymore. He has always been plain and straightforward with her because she has such a simple mind that anything abstract just goes by her… a wasted effort most of the time.
"There are some things I need to prepare overnight," she says. No witty comeback. No argument. No aggression. That's Orihime. Unlike her.
"Hajime-sensei called again."
Silence.
Ichigo inhales his cigarette deeply before letting go of barely any smoke. He doesn't like to waste. "You want to tell me what's going on?"
Silence again. The headlight of a passing car casts a shadow upon her face. Ichigo thinks she looks almost Hollow-like there. He chides himself for thinking about the spirit world when the spirit world doesn't even blink at him anymore. Only a lifetime financial support as compensation for saving the world. Pfft… it's not money that he wants. It's her.
Orihime shakes her head and starts walking towards him. "I'm tired. It's been a long day."
"You can't keep avoiding the subject."
She stops at the door and looks down in his general direction while he keeps his eyes straight ahead from where he is sitting on the steps. "I really am tired, Ichigo. Can we talk about this another time?"
"Is there ever going to be another time?"
"Of course," she stutters. "I… I just need to rest after a whole day of being on my feet."
Ichigo exhales the last of his smoke and crunches the cigarette butt under his slippers. No point pushing if she refuses to tell him anything. He gets up and slips through the door, swapping his footwear for a pair of sneakers at the genkan and goes out again.
"You're not coming in?" she asks.
"I'm going for a walk." Because going for walks is a better idea than going back into the house and climbing into bed with his son like he has been doing every night since Orihime's withdrawal from the little boy. And then, he stops for a while before he tells her without looking back, "Go and see Kazui. He was looking for you the entire day."
With that, he walks out through the gate and into the streets, with his hands shoved into the pockets of his pants. It's been years since he wandered around Karakura town on his own like this. The last time he did, he ended up at Orihime's apartment and whatever happened then changed his life forever. Only one good thing came out of it - Kazui. Everything else is just a huge mess.
As he passes by Karakura High School, he looks up at the window of his old classroom. He remembers how the midget appeared there after she returned from Soul Society. It was around that time that he knew he would live his life only for her. They never got around to saying anything to each other because of their shinigami missions that came one after the other. But he knew it was there. The connection. The bond. The feelings. Even now, he wants to believe it's all still there and he'll be able to do something about it when he passes on from this world that he doesn't want to live in anymore.
Ichigo turns away from the school and lets his feet take him to a nearby park. The park. Years ago, this was where all the memories of Hollow-hunting, late-night patrols, and arguing with a small person riding on his back came to him. And as he sits down on that exact same bench, he remembers why he keeps himself busy all the time. He loves those memories but he can't dwell on them. He's married to someone else and owes it to his family, especially his son, to leave his past behind. He cannot let those memories distract him from his responsibility as a father, because being attached to those memories that he cannot hold onto was what drove him to be the alcoholic that he was. And he hasn't touched a drink since that horrific night.
But it's not easy not to think about something - someone - that impacted his life in such a big way. It's even harder ever since Tatsuki told him she is back in town. Part of him wants to look for her because he misses the time they had together but another part tells him she is the past he has to leave behind. It won't be fair to his family if he does something brash like that.
He doesn't know how long he's been sitting here at the park. Everywhere else has quieted down. The lights of the surrounding houses have been turned off one by one. As he gets up from the bench, he feels the urge to get a drink like all those years ago. His body inadvertently moves towards the bar he used to frequent to get his fix during his days as a medical student. It was a nightly routine back then. After he left the park with a head full of memories, he would go to the place where he would drink to forget the girl he yearned for. But failed miserably every single time.
Nichibotsu Bar was a fairly new bar five years ago. It wasn't like the other izakaya that were patronised by old people. The owner was a coursemate of his who later changed his major to biochemical engineering instead of continuing with his medical studies. The bar was a gift from his rich parents because of his interest in bartending.
As he approached the place, Ichigo remembers Nichibotsu's didn't open as late as the other bars because he was a student at that time. He wonders if that has changed because the guy should have graduated a long time ago. Turning his wrist, he checks his watch to see that it is already 11.30 pm. It should be closed by now, he sighs.
But just as Ichigo is about to turn away, two figures from within the bar catch his attention. He feels the lump growing in his throat and the pain striking at his chest as he recognises them to be Ishida Uryuu and Kuchiki Rukia, locked in a tight embrace.
Going for walks has never been a good idea where Kurosaki Ichigo is concerned.
