rent
10. far away, someone sings. far away
by appleschan
a/n: if you read the error ch.10 rent, forget what you saw - it's still incoherent and stops mid-sentence and it's my final work for i/r. i mistakenly named it as rent's ch.10/11.
There is some form of dysfunctionality when it comes to living with Ichigo. He's neat, on how he dresses and carries himself when around others – he's very neat, from the absence of dirt on his shoes to his shipshape desk during classes and the seamless sharpened end of his pencil.
The dysfunctional: despite all his crisp and solid (and often dark-colored) clothes and all-cool appearances outside, at his workplace in his home, it is unexpectedly – to use his jargon – unsystematic.
However, it isn't polite, Rukia understands, one word that isn't easily said to the house owner's face.
The first time she used the word in front of him, it had been a mildly-cold, early December morning:
.
.
.
Rukia tiptoes downstairs to get a pitcher of water for her flowers.
To get to the kitchen, however, she needs to maneuver past Ichigo's mix of indeterminate stuff ranging from old CPUs to empty laundry baskets to tables to broken computer sets and some folders and scratch papers lining the hallways and his workplace.
Ichigo isn't necessarily an untidy person, he is by no means a stereotypical teenage boy who lets empty packs of chips and energy drink cans lying around - he doesn't even drink energy drinks nor eat chips. If anything, he drinks water in a glass, and coffee in a teacup and he eats slow and attentively, Rukia recalls fondly. Many times, Rukia had seen him wash his wares gingerly.
And though he lets stacks of papers and folders and computer stuff pile up, Rukia had not - never - saw a single rodent, ever - that or they just hide really well within Ichigo's mountains of indeterminate stuff.
The total lack of organizing system comes as a surprise, a dysfunction, an aberration against a neat and well-groomed Ichigo.
His house isn't dirty, sunlight and moonlight penetrate as easily, it's not like there are fungus or mold infestation or wasps settling in one of the rooms(or are there?) in his place, it's just:
"It's unsystematic here," Rukia said, hands on her waist, out of the blue, when a rustic globe model blocks her way.
Looking sideways, she saw there are offending boxes of unopened China teacups beside a basket of unfolded, clean laundry and physics textbooks stockpiled within the fireplace. That's atrocious, she thinks, it's heinous. Back at the Kuchiki manor. No such thing was ever out of place. Cold. Pristine. Forever clean. Butlers made it that way, they even had a furniture sorting system, digital, of course.
"Unsystematic, unsystematic," she repeats, knowing no one's going to hear her anyway, "it's very-"
"Messy?"
Rukia heard him from the main entrance. She looks in its direction, where Ichigo emerges from the foyer, holding a green banana on one hand. On another, he holds a plastic bag full of groceries.
She turns to him fully. Oh, she thinks, I didn't mean it that way - the dropping of her shoulders seems to say.
Rukia did not hear the rusty iron-wrought gates open, she knew Ichigo had gone into a larger grocery store this morning, not in their trusty convenience store, way, way past that. She heard him say earlier this morning, he needed to buy some specific things.
Rukia catches his eyes glancing briefly at her then lazily sweep at his messy workroom - then he shrugs, his well-practiced nonchalant shrug.
"Hnn," his starts, peeling his green banana slowly. "It's practical, I need my stuff close," he says equally lazy, but sufficient to answer her.
His eyebrows aren't furiously drawn together. He seems more relaxed today. There isn't tension on his shoulder, like in those times when they walk the absurdly long pavement leading to the University compound where other students greet him and he greets them back cold and hard and monotonous as if he were a talking wall.
Ahh, of course, of course, Rukia thinks he's more of a realpolitik guy, practicality over ideals.
Rukia keeps a smile and a little laugh which is also a bit apologetic, "right, I'm sorry you have to hear that. I just mean your workplace could use some sort of..." she pauses, tries to find a hardcore programming term, "I don't know, automagical sorting, organization? Compiling? or some such...I don't really get your language, I'm sorry."
That was rude of me, she wants to add.
Ichigo is halfway eating his unripe banana, blinking at her lazily, then, after a long pause, finishes his banana and tosses the peelings onto a nearby trash can, then looks back at her, and then, for a moment, grins.
(this, of course, takes Rukia by surprise; she always mentally catalogue Ichigo's mouth curves - or smiles - to detect his moods, and this one - this one is boyish, and head-turning, and devoid of his usual, harsh schadenfreude tendencies - he only grins when somebody tripped on his shoelaces or someone has eaten too much chili or when somebody missed the bus departure schedule and is left running behind the bus. This, Rukia doesn't know what to label it yet)
He shrugs again, placing the plastic bag on one chair, and them putting his left hand in his pocket, casually easing to a more relaxed state, staring onto the windows where soft sunlight filters, "nah, it does look like shit," he tells himself quietly.
.
.
.
"Does it still bother you?"
"What is?"
"That my place looks like shit?"
"No." Rukia's reply is immediate, and it is sincere, and she's a bit alarmed. If he's still thinking of that encounter earlier… "no, really, no."
"Hn," Ichigo's own form of reply. Hunched over his bowl, he resumes eating his convenience store-bought gyudon for dinner.
They are inside the convenience store this time, a seat apart. The lights inside are clinical, intensely pulsed, very bright, so they sat facing the smudgy glass window instead.
Outside, snowflakes form loose, knee-length, mini tornadoes. Winter sets in tonight. It has always been such a comforting thought.
Rukia resumes her own bowl of katsudon, picking out strips of carrots and occasionally peering at Ichigo through his dark reflection on the window pane.
.
.
.
The next morning, Ichigo waits for her in the kitchen.
Rukia utters a polite good morning, mildly surprised upon seeing him sitting so quietly and so early on one of the stools, looking over at the piling snow outside the windows - tinged blue and violet. A cup of steaming coffee in front of him.
He nods at her, good morning to you, too, he seems to say, but raised his eyebrows at the redness of her coat.
Like her, he's covered himself in a black jacket, black pants, and wears black gloves. Rukia likes to think he doesn't care much about what he dresses with, that he is, Rukia thinks, a natural. His sleekness in stride and style - the simplest of his ways - naturally attracts attention, but he probably doesn't know that. (He talks to most girls and boys with an amount of emotion equal to a wall, after all, and talking to him is like monologuing, she does not forget)
Excusing herself, Rukia checks her potted plants and after ensuring none of them froze to death overnight - especially the basil, she proceeds to get herself a yellow mug - with words hello, sunshine! - and makes herself a coffee - the instant one, they run out of coffee beans.
There are two sets of plates, of chopsticks, utensils, glasses, and mugs only for them. And there are only two chairs.
"Hey -" Ichigo starts, when she settles herself opposite him.
"Hm?" Rukia leans in, tilting her head.
Hesitant at first he says quietly, "I think we should clean the house, like, not shit-faced cleaning, but more like-"
"Decluttering?"
"Yeah."
(of course, of course, her comment bothered him)
.
.
.
She and Ichigo agreed on separation, she'll declutter his hallways, and he'll declutter his workplace.
Armed with her sense of systematic planning, and dust fans, and dry rugs, she sets out to declutter his hallways.
.
.
.
She would never tell him:
In the beginning, Rukia allowed herself extremely limited movement around Ichigo's house, she goes straight to her room at the top - a former, old-fashioned observatory room with huge, open windows - from the wrought iron gates at the entrance every day.
She lightly threads Ichigo's place, other than occasional trips to his library, so she could not say for certain how huge, how vast his house is.
But there is something incredibly nostalgic about it, in its oldness, timeless silence, and absence of life.
At times, Rukia can see, when the afternoon is fading, between these hours, golden sunlight would gently spill onto the windows of the rooms, into the hallway, and Rukia, looking from her room or when she's descending the stairs, could see how the place was once dearly loved.
There were memories here, that's certain, she thinks. Loved, loved, and deeply cherished.
But she could never directly ask its main and current occupant about it.
Rukia made no question of the put-away furniture, of the photo frames both small and huge, all of them were covered by thick, mismatched blankets, tucked on corners of the house when she first came across them.
Rukia never saw the pictures - they were flipped, the front was facing the inner side of the frame.
To this day, she dares not open the photo frames and look at the pictures - that would be an extreme invasion of his privacy, she's not permitted to that side of him yet.
Curiously, some of the furnitures would peak under the thick blankets – winds blow in occasionally, and Rukia would see some pink cushion sofas - clearly a young girl's, and a study desk covered by faded posters of soccer stars. And there were variations of stethoscopes and old medicine boxes, too.
But, but, she terribly wants to ask if they were family. If the pink cushion sofa and the study desk belonged to a sibling, if someone in the family had become a doctor. Or if, by chance, he just moved in and simply covered the previous occupants' things.
But that wasn't possible, Kurosaki, she knew, was an old family line, with heritage so deeply rooted in Karakura.
Some things - the more personal ones, she learns and tries to abide by, are not for her to know. She lets them be.