A/N: This story lives!
Seriously, everyone, I am so, so sorry for pulling that disappearing act on you. I have absolutely no excuse – there was just real life and a fickle muse getting in the way. But I'm back now, and I'm determined to finally put an end to this story, once and for all! We're really close to the home stretch, anyway.
Also, I just wanted to say, wow, I really had no idea this story had so many loyal fans O_O Perhaps they were all new fans, but I had about seven or eight people message me in the past two months alone, hoping that I would finally continue. You guys rock, okay? You made me feel all tingly and special (when I really had no business feeling that way OTL), and so I dedicate this chapter to you :)
Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach or any of its characters.
Recap
"Is that what you do? Take from the bad and give back to the victims?"
"Yes. I don't steal." It was something she had been trying to tell him repeatedly, and now, he could believe it.
-.-.-.-
"What's your name?"
"Aren't you supposed to be a genius detective?" she teased. "Figure it out."
"That's your clue: Karakura."
"If you figure out my name, I'll show you where I live. But if you guess wrong, the next time I get a job, you'll have to do it."
Months Later
"And so you got away in time?" Hitsugaya murmured into his partner's ear, coiling his arm around her bare waist more tightly.
"Mm-hmm..." Her answer was more of a pleased hum, but he understood.
Even after these days of spending time together, it still shocked him to learn that he could be so comfortable spending all of his free time with a wanted woman. Of course, it helped to know that she wasn't the type of person the cops made her out to be, but he had never been one to jump into anything, and spending every night with her ever since the day he met her seemed like the most rash decision he had ever made.
He'd also never had such a carnal relationship with anyone before. Being a traditional man from a small town meant he liked taking things slow and romancing a lady, but Kage was too spirited for his ways, always jumping head first into the passion they shared together. It had taken some time, but he'd gotten used to her crawling through a window late at night and viciously attacking his lips as a greeting.
What he hadn't gotten used to was referring to her as 'Kage.' It felt so utterly wrong, as if he couldn't even care enough to learn the name of the woman he was spending all of his time with. He had never been that kind of man, yet she insisted that unless he figure it out himself, her name would remain a mystery.
"Toushiro," she mumbled now, sleepily running a hand up the arm wrapped around her, "I have to go."
He grumbled under his breath as he pulled her closer, refusing to let go, and it made her squirm against his hold.
"I'm serious," she said sternly. "You know I've got another job tonight."
"Can't someone else do it?" he scoffed.
"They're all busy," she replied, shaking her head.
He pushed her flat on her back and lay himself on top. "We're a little busy, too," he retorted, leaning in for a kiss, but she purposely pulled away.
"Don't get me started, because you know I don't know how to stop," she scolded him, pushing on his chest until he sighed roughly and rolled over, allowing her to wiggle out of the bed. He watched her dress speedily under the flaming orange lamplight.
"So, this talisman you're stealing," he finally said. "Is it for someone important?"
She shook her head. "Just some archaeologist who dug it up. This man realized it was really ancient so it would be worth a lot of money, and he nicked it. He lives a little farther out east, so Renji's driving me over there on his way to work." She noticed the sudden smirk cross his lips, and it made her raise an eyebrow. "What?"
"Nothing," he replied, shaking his head. "Just that, before I met you, the idea of the Farukon no Kage needing a ride to a robbery just seemed...well, ridiculous."
She stuck out her tongue. "Well, sorry I don't live up to your expectations. We can't all be living the dream."
He rolled his eyes, amazed that she always had a come-back to everything he said, but still informed her, "Just so you know, the police did get your tip. Bastard's not turning himself in, so they should be waiting for you."
She bit her lip in thought. "Anything I need to know?"
"Not particularly," he said, stroking his chin in thought. "Only the basics. Guards at each entrance, from what I hear. They're hoping surrounding the place will help them catch you before you go in."
"That again?" she scoffed, clicking her tongue in disapproval. "Are they running out of tricks?"
"I'd say so," he answered honestly. "I think they're hoping you might just slip one of these days, and they could maybe catch a glimpse. Nothing else has worked for them, after all."
"What about the roof, then?" she asked as she zipped up her boots.
"Not guarded. I visited it this morning, and it's too slanted to station officers on for too long. It'd be safest if you can slide inside as quickly as possible rather than lingering, though. I've never trusted the tiles on a slanted roof ever since a little girl in my hometown slid off one and skinned her whole back."
Kage made a face of disgust, recoiling a little at the thought. "Poor girl. Didn't need that visual."
She bent down and kissed his lips before striding over to the window. "Well, thanks anyway, Toushiro. You know I appreciate you." With a careless wave over her shoulder, she hopped off the ledge and onto the branch of the tree planted outside, finally jumping skillfully to the ground. As stealthy as she was, there was no crunching of her boots against the gravel of the sidewalk.
It was something they'd started only a few weeks ago, him helping her out. He'd been reluctant about offering any sort of information about the case at first, and it wasn't as if she'd pushed him to do so, either; in fact, they'd kept any and all talk about her criminal career off-limits when they were together, for it was too touchy a topic when he was the detective hired to capture her once and for all.
But there was something gut-wrenching about waiting for her to show up at the scene, knowing that she wouldn't know just what she was up against. This was especially true on the days the chief decided they needed new tactics to trip her up.
He hadn't really meant to tell her, but just one night he grabbed a hold of her wrist and muttered in her ear, "I'd stay clear of the second floor."
She'd been more than just a little shocked, to say the least, but grateful for his vague advice nonetheless. It took a few more reluctant times before he began to feel comfortable with offering her information, until they had reached this point of complete non-secrecy.
He still wasn't sure it was the right thing to do, so firmly rooted in his values was he, but it comforted him to know he was at least helping an innocent victim retrieve what had been taken from them.
'Just like tonight,' he mused to himself, still in bed as he relished the way her lips had felt against his own.
Eventually, when the clock had ticked too much for him to be lazy any longer, he propped himself up. Hastily putting his discarded boxers back on, he hurried to his desk drawer to pull out his laptop and yank it open. If Kage finished quickly enough, she would return to get her fill of him for the second time that night, leaving no time for his special case.
He tapped the back of his hand with his finger impatiently as the laptop finally turned on, and then opened his Internet browser, heading straight for a search engine.
"Karakura..." he muttered as he typed it in. It was something he had been putting off for too long, the workload in the office having suddenly piled up so much since he was handed the Kage case and his nights having become repeatedly preoccupied, and it was a relief to get a chance to finally work on this mystery.
He impatiently scrolled through all the results of his search, his short temper spiraling out of control as he realized there was absolutely no useful information on the clue. All he could find were numerous advertisements for bleach products, which he didn't quite understand.
"What the hell is a Karakura?" he snapped aloud angrily. Kage had given him no further clues, and he had never even heard of such a thing. A small part of him wondered whether she had given him some sort of fake clue, just so she could remain shrouded in mystery, but he quickly brushed that aside; he had learned only a short while ago, after all, that she was not that kind of person.
'Think, damn it,' he ordered himself. If he couldn't find something through his computer, maybe he could relate the clue to something. But what?
Come to think of it...he was from a rather small, isolated town. In fact, it was so small and unknown that when he told people he was born and raised in Rukongai, they simply gazed at him stupidly, not understanding whether that was even an area in the country. There might not even have been any information about it on the computer, as it was so unimportant. He pondered over the possibility for a few moments, and then decided it was worth a shot, as he had no other trails.
Shutting down his computer, he hastily rooted through his closet, knowing he kept maps in there somewhere. It took some digging, but he finally procured a box filled with all sorts of graphs, charts, and maps – things he had set aside when he had no use for them, yet had been unsure whether he would need them in the future.
He unrolled the giant map he had of the blown-up version of Japan, and studied it carefully. Finding 'Rukongai' was quite easy, but only because he had known where to look. As it turned out, there were many small villages in the country, and they littered the map, overlapping each other and creating a mess of tiny, black words. His heart leaped every time he spotted one that started with the right kanji, and then fell again as he realized it was not what he was looking for.
Finally, impatient as always and running out of precious time, he pulled a magnifying glass out of his desk drawer, determined to find his answer as soon as possible. Running a full diameter around the major cities, he kept his eyes peeled. It seemed logical that a town might need a city close by, to export in the products it might need; that was how Rukongai had worked anyway.
And then, just as he was about to give up hope, he ran the glass around Tokyo. There, he saw it. Karakura. Just a tiny little dot on the very outskirts of the city, and yet it brought him such a feeling of joy.
"So it's a town." He peered at it more closely, as if gazing at it for a prolonged time would give him some other clue.
The only thing to do now, it seemed, was decipher its connection with Kage. Of course, the most obvious conclusion would be that it was her hometown, but he liked looking at all possible angles. Perhaps it was the area she had last stayed in, correcting crimes there; however, it didn't make sense for some place so insignificant to have high crime rates like the cities. It could be some place she planned to move to, but he doubted it.
"Hometown angle it is," he decided, rolling up his map and stuffing it back in the closet. Well, actually, he rolled it up, placed it carefully in its proper box, and then placed that atop all the other symmetrically piled boxes and containers in his organized closet.
There was no time to continue with his search when, as the special consultant for the Kage case, he had work tonight. Making progress was good enough for now, until he could revisit the mystery and finally learn Kage's well-kept secrets.
It was in a well-pressed suit that he finally made his way out of the bedroom, checking his watch constantly to be sure he would be punctual. There was still an hour until he was needed at the scene of the upcoming crime, but he'd always been the type of man to arrive early.
Until he swung open his front door, and found both Kyouraku and Ukitake on the other side, poised to knock.
"Hitsugaya!" his brunette friend boomed, easily swinging an arm around his neck. "Long time, no see!"
"Kyouraku," he grunted, instantly pulling out of his chokehold to breathe. "What are you doing here?"
"What do you mean, what are we doing here?" the man tutted, brushing past him and inviting himself into the house. When even Ukitake followed him in, Toushiro knew it was pointless to drag them back. "We haven't seen you in months, if you haven't noticed. Too busy for us?"
"As a matter of fact, yes," he replied coolly, shutting the door behind them. "I was on my way to work just now. There's some place I have to be by eight."
"Oh, there's plenty of time to talk until then!" Waving away any objections he might have had, Kyouraku did a sweep of his home, wandering through first the living room, and then the kitchen and dining area. Everything was perfectly in its place, just as he remembered it to be, and it seemed the detective hadn't been hit with any bursts of desire to redecorate in that time, either.
"We just wanted to see you, Shiro-chan," Ukitake explained delicately. "There hasn't been any opportunity for us to spend time together, especially now that you're so busy with your new case."
He sighed, because his fair-headed friend had always been good at pulling at his heart strings. "It can't be helped. There are places I have to be and things I have to keep safe–"
"And you haven't been doing a very good job of it, from what the news says," Kyouraku cut in slyly. "Which, by the way, is the only way we get to hear about anything going on in your life these days."
Toushiro gritted his teeth at the jab, well aware that the whole country thought he was slacking at his job. Unlike what his one-hundred percent success rate stated, he'd proved useless in capturing Kage so far, a fact the news stations had been gladly broadcasting to the rest of the world. It made even Soi-Fon look bad, as it was her idea to turn to him in the first place. No one else had any way to know that he was no longer trying to capture Kage, at least not to the best of his ability, and so she remained at large because of his choosing. For that reason, he kept his mouth shut even through all the slander.
But what Kyouraku had tacked on was the truth. He hadn't seen his friends for months, not even spoken to them through phone calls, so it was no surprise they relied on the evening news to know what their old friend was up to. It was enough to make him feel guilty for ignoring even those who cared about him.
"Well, all right," he finally gave in, though not without heaving his shoulders as if he was taking on some great burden. It only made them grin. "I guess I could spare some time to talk, but only for a little while."
"That's the spirit!" Kyouraku thumped him on the back, almost knocking him over from his bulkiness. "And while we're here, how about giving me back that book I lent you, hm? Just because we haven't seen each other in months, it doesn't mean you get to keep it forever."
"So you had a hidden agenda," the detective muttered sullenly under his breath as he followed them both upstairs, and they chuckled as they led the way to his bedroom, where they knew he kept all of his books.
"It wasn't our first priority when we came to see you, though," Ukitake assured him in good nature. It was impossible to stay angry when he flashed such a kind smile anyone's way. "Why don't you tell us how things have been going for you?"
"I'd rather just hear what's happening with you," he mumbled, in no mood to share anything when so many aspects of his life currently were shrouded in mystery.
But Kyouraku suddenly marched to the other side of his room with a purpose, grabbing something off his dresser and rebutting, "No, I'd rather hear what's going on with you. These aren't yours, right?"
In his hands was a pair of small, diamond stud earrings.
Toushiro froze, panic seizing him in an instant. They belonged to Kage, no doubt, and if he worked his excellent memory to its full advantage, he definitely remembered her wearing them earlier in the night. It was common practice for her to take off any accessories, usually small earrings, and leave them in his room, afraid that they would glint in the moonlight during her recovery and give away her position. He just hadn't realized that tonight she'd left them on his dresser, in plain sight.
"Was there a girl here?" Ukitake asked in surprise, but there was definitely an inkling of excitement in his voice. It had been so long since the detective had given any thought to women – aside from the murderous kind.
"That's what it looks like, doesn't it?" he answered slowly. "I had a co-worker drop by–"
"But then why is the bed messed up?" his usually kind friend, now devious in the light of the situation, interrupted.
The bed actually wasn't untidy, but it was wrinkled and unaligned enough to implicate that something had certainly happened on it. Toushiro, after all, was the kind of man who liked everything in its proper place, the first floor they'd just seen being prime evidence, and as such, had never left his bed in any state less than perfect. Now, however, it looked as if he'd roughly yanked one end of his blanket to cover the mattress in his haste – which was exactly what he'd done.
Kyouraku's eyes widened, lighted with euphoric glee as he came to an understanding. "You hooked up with someone!"
"I did not!" Toushiro tried vehemently to deny, but it was futile. His friends had already begun rummaging through his room, hoping they could find some other slip-up. "Oi, stop that!"
"Not until you admit to it," Ukitake replied with a joyous laugh, shutting one dresser drawer and opening another.
"There's nothing to admit," he insisted, the words an impatient snarl, courtesy of his temper.
"Then what's this?" Kyouraku's delighted voice rang through the bedroom, sounding extremely pleased with himself. Just like with the earrings, he held up the evidence for the others in the room to see. This time, he dangled a pair of bright red panties between his fingers.
Silence overtook the three of them. Ukitake flushed a bright red at the sight of the garment, but no one was more mortified than Toushiro himself.
"I found them hanging on the bathroom hook," Shunsui went on to explain. "There was a shirt over them. Trying to hide them from us, hm?"
"Th-That's not..." It was impossible to get the words out as he spluttered dumbly, and Shunsui raised both eyebrows.
"Oh, no. Don't think you can talk your way out of this one." He tossed the panties to the detective, leaving his hand free to wag his finger at him. "No way out of it now, Hitsugaya. We demand to meet this girl."
He ducked his head and mumbled, "It's not that simple."
"Then make it that simple." He pushed Ukitake out the door by the back of his shoulders, because the man couldn't seem to stop scratching his face to hide his blush. "We're not asking for a lot here, just a dinner. And now we're leaving because you technically haven't refused, and we're not giving you a chance to."
"Wha – I do refuse," he cried after them, sticking his head out the bedroom door.
"Can't hear you!" Shunsui hollered from somewhere downstairs. "I'll call you with the details."
"Don't get your hopes up," he snapped back. "There's no guarantee she'll even say yes!"
.. ღ ..
"You didn't have to say yes," Toushiro hissed out the corner of his mouth, his eyes narrowed bitterly on his watch as he attempted to clasp it on his wrist.
"You kidding?" Kage grinned beside him. "A night out with your buddies? Sounds like bunches of fun!"
She was dressed in clothing that was actually not black – a first in months. Instead, she had donned a deep purple dress that stopped at her knees, and she looked quite nice. If he hadn't known of her true identity, she would have just been someone he overlooked on the street, and he supposed her ability to blend into a crowd was one of Kage's strengths. There was no one who could have looked at her now, tugging on the straps of her heels more securely as they walked, and even considered the possibility that she was a criminal mastermind.
"They're going to ask you things," he warned her for the hundredth time, brooding when the restaurant came into view. "And they'll be watching you like a hawk."
"Lucky I'm very good under pressure, then." With a cheeky smirk, she grabbed his arm and dragged him the rest of the distance, so he couldn't run away like he so badly wanted to.
His friends were already at their table when they arrived, and even Nanao sat next to Shunsui's arm, looking mildly bored as they waited. All three of them stood up when their company arrived.
"So this is her!" Kyouraku exclaimed eagerly, taking one of her hands into both of his own. "And I was wondering just what kind of girl could put up with our boring, old Hitsugaya over here."
She smiled in response, but no one could have missed the twinkle in her eyes. "Actually, I find him to be not boring at all."
"Well, I would hope not," Ukitake replied with a soft smile. He exchanged polite bows with her, like she and Nanao did as well; no one else at the table was as touchy-feely as Kyouraku.
Customary to formal introductions, each of them offered their own names before glancing at her pointedly, and without missing a single beat, she smiled and said, "I'm Hayata Yukiji."
The lie came off her tongue easily. She was used to inventing new identities, and he wondered whether she had decided on a fake name since before she'd even shown up at his door.
"So it's Yukiji." Kyouraku took her hands in his grasp again. "Nice to finally have a name."
"It's very pretty," Ukitake complimented her, and as was the effect he had on even the usually-crabby Hitsugaya, she couldn't resist flashing another smile his way.
Admist the chatter, Toushiro noticed when Nanao shot her a strange look.
"You look very familiar, though," the fair-haired man continued when they were seated, the couple sitting across from the other three at the round table. With such a clear vantage point, he scrutinized her carefully, the answer at the tip of his tongue. "Have we met before?"
"I know!" his best friend boomed. "It's hard to tell since the last time we saw you, almost your entire face was covered, but there's no mistaking those eyes. You're the dancer from the Moroccan restaurant, aren't you?"
Toushiro stiffened, his heart hammering in his chest. It had entirely slipped his mind that his two college friends had "met" her before, and he silently cursed. Kage, meanwhile, looked completely at ease.
As Ukitake nodded along in agreement, seemingly astonished by the realization of who she was, Kyouraku explained knowingly to Nanao, "I told you about that night, remember? That Hitsugaya couldn't keep his eyes off one of the dancers." Leaning over, he clapped the rigid detective on the back. "Never knew you were such a smooth dog!"
Toushiro flushed under all the looks, stealthily shooting Kage a side-along glare as she smothered a laugh behind her hand. The jokes at his expense lasted them until their food arrived, and it was only when the dinner had lulled their moods that they finally settled into their chairs, relaxed in the company.
Then, the questions started. He'd known they would be coming, that both men took great pleasure in testing every girl he introduced to them, and it was something he'd warned her about multiple times since she'd agreed to the meeting.
To her credit, Kage was collected under their scrutiny, not even stumped when they pried into her childhood or her dating history, asking every personal question they could think of. She calmly made up stories about her family, of a loving mother, an overexcited father, a sullen older brother, and even a twin sister. The tale continued on to high school, where she recalled a story about receiving a confession and being unable to go on their date because of personal reasons, and how the experience had taught her that some things were more important than fickle romances. She spoke of a fun aunt who loved drinking and overprotective uncles and wimpy childhood friends whom she loved to death and looked after as if they were her own children. She created a grand tale about a normal life with a normal family and a normal past.
Through it all, Toushiro wondered just how much of the things she'd said were lies.
Kyouraku and Ukitake, at least, seemed to approve. They nodded along with her stories, laughing when she shared her brother's bed-wetting secret and pursing their lips in understanding when she relived having to study for college exams.
"What made you want to become a dancer?" Ukitake finally asked curiously, much later when their dessert had arrived.
She played the part perfectly, flushing at the question as if secretly embarrased. "Oh, that's not my real job," she admitted. "I was just filling in for a friend of mine who had hurt herself."
"What do you really do?" he asked in surprise, leaning towards her.
"I work at a museum across town." Toushiro looked at her sharply, but she paid him no mind. "I help the owners collect artifacts and date them and make them ready for show."
"Really?" Kyouraku also leaned forward in interest. "Do you get to travel?"
"All over the place." She smirked, and he knew at least that much was the truth.
"Well, tell us about it! It sounds a hell of a lot more interesting than my boring office job!"
Eyes sparkling, she immediately launched into a description of her duties, and even the types of artifacts she had seen and personally handled. She listed names and dates and facts that weren't just common knowledge, and certainly would not be information just anyone would have memorized.
Toushiro could only listen along in awe. He'd never known she had such an extensive command over history, even despite the kinds of items she recovered; it wasn't as if getting paid to steal something equated to knowing all about its ancient history, after all. Rather, she spoke like someone who had mastered the subject, someone who truly worked in the field, and there was even a certain glint in her eyes that none of them missed as she went off on a tangent. She was almost bursting with excitement over the job she'd imagined for herself.
"I don't think there's anyone who loves their job as much as you do," Ukitake teased with a kind chuckle, and if she'd been someone capable of it, she might have flushed.
"Well, I've always liked history," she admitted, and that was another fact Toushiro could now tell was absolutely the truth.
They let her carry on with her description, since she was enjoying herself so much, and leaned in to give her their full attention. Vaguely, Toushiro registered that this was the first time a woman had so whole-heartedly won over his friends, and if he hadn't been so infatuated with witnessing her love for history, he might have realized that the straight-laced girlfriend of his womanizing schoolmate begged to differ.
Throughout the entire dinner, Nanao had been silent.
...
Dinner ended without event, much to his surprise, and he could barely believe he was walking home with Kage, unscathed.
"Those friends of yours are great," she said, skipping further ahead as her heels clicked against the sidewalk. "Don't know what they're thinking, hanging out with a boring guy like you."
"You told them you thought I wasn't boring," he reminded her, picking up his pace to keep up, and she laughed.
"Obviously that was a lie so that they would like me," she teased him, nudging his side with her shoulder.
"Mmm." He grimaced. "And exactly how much of what you said was a lie, anyway?"
One end of her mouth lifted up into a soft smile, and she glanced at him from the corners of her eyes. "Maybe I'll tell you. Someday."
He tucked his hands into his pockets, tensing his shoulders when a warm breeze rushed past them. The silence that followed was nice as they both looked at the passing scenery with interest. It had surprised him to know that under all her cheeky tricks and witty come-backs, Kage was also the kind of woman who appreciated silence. She had layers, some just as insufferable and immature, and others uncharacteristically deep. There were many things he didn't know about her, it seemed.
'Speaking of...'
"Earlier..." he broached the topic carefully. "When Ukitake asked you about work, and you said you worked at a museum..."
"Huh? Oh, yeah!" She chuckled, hugging her bare arms to herself. "I didn't want them asking when they could come see my next show or something."
"Well, that's all fine. I was actually just...surprised at how knowledgeable you seemed about the job you made up. Excited, too." He raised an inquisitive eyebrow, because despite the innocent way he had phrased his wording, he knew there was meaning hidden behind what he'd observed.
She answered with a sheepish look that dissolved into a sad smile, and it took another pause before she finally shared. "Well, I thought about it once, you know – that if I ever quit being Kage, that would be the kind of job I wanted."
He blinked at her in shock. She'd never shared any of her hopes or dreams or fears with him before, or spoken of anything not strictly related to their work. So even the great Kage had days when she thought of quitting, a notion he never would have thought of himself before they'd struck up their unorthodox relationship.
"It was just something stupid," she carried on, and this time when she chuckled, it was a sound dripping in regret. "I mean, I chose this life. I've never told you that before, have I? That everyone I knew was against it, but I insisted. Just sometimes it gets to be a little much, and you start thinking about things – about 'what ifs.' I bet I would have liked that job."
He watched her carefully, while she slowly pieced back her facade and joked, "Okay, things are getting a little serious." With a wide grin, she nudged him again. "It's all in the past, anyway, so could we lighten things up a little?"
And he caved, because he didn't know how to deal with this new side of her just yet, especially when she'd made clear that she wasn't open to discussion about it. He wasn't exactly a social person, but rather a coward that ran away from uncomfortable situations until he'd analyzed every possible angle and decided on the best way to deal with the issue. Plenty of people had told him that.
"Well, my friends certainly liked you," he changed the topic, for both their sakes. "They'll be telling everyone I have a girlfriend." Hands still tucked away, he shot her a nonchalant glance. "So, are you?"
"What, your girlfriend?" She smirked, linking her arm through his. "I prefer not to put a label on things."
He shrugged, relenting easily. "Fair enough. I probably don't know enough about you to be considered a boyfriend. We're not that serious, anyway, right?"
"Right. Just a criminal mastermind and the detective hired to capture her, in a casual relationship that they have to hide from the rest of the world if they don't want to be imprisoned for eternity. But still, just casual."
She laughed again, and they made quite a pair walking down the sidewalk with linked arms.
...
Meanwhile, Kyouraku and Nanao sent a weary-looking Ukitake home in a taxi cab, waving goodbye as they claimed they preferred taking a moonlit walk after their dinner. Once the cab had pulled away, he happily took one of her hands in his own – which she promptly slapped away, grumbling about public displays of affection – and they started towards their apartment.
Kyouraku sighed contently. "Well, that was nice. I liked Yukiji."
Nanao said nothing on the matter, which prompted him to shoot her a worried glance and state, "You were quiet tonight, my lovely Nanao-chan. Something bothering you that I can kiss better?"
She expertly pushed away his face, not even needing to look after years of deflecting his attention, and pursed her lips in thought. "Just thinking about Yukiji."
"Did you not like her?"
"Oh, I liked her just fine. Under normal conditions, I think we would have gotten along splendidly."
"And tonight's dinner wasn't normal?" There was an amused smile touching his lips, but beneath it, his eyes glinted in all seriousness.
"Something about her just seemed...off." She heaved a sigh that jostled her shoulders. "Her name bothered me."
"What about her name?"
She didn't miss the lingering smile in his question, and shot him a glare. "Well, it was just a strange name, don't you think? Have you ever met anyone with a name like that?"
"Can't say I have," he answered, rubbing his chin as if in thought.
"Exactly. It's a very uncommon name, don't you think? Old-fashioned, too."
"Maybe her parents named her after someone?" he offered.
"Maybe...but don't you think that would have come up in conversation? I'm sure her parents would have told her about her namesake if they were important enough to name a daughter after, and any normal person would probably have brought it up while introducing themselves."
"My Nanao-chan is so cute when she plays detective," Kyouraku crooned, trying to plant another kiss on her.
She whipped her head towards him, eyes narrowed, and hissed, "This is serious. Even Hitsugaya-san was acting strange. He seemed to be hanging on to every word she said, just like us, as if he was hearing it all for the first time, too. And did you notice that he never once called her by name?"
"I did notice."
She faltered, dumbstruck by the confession. "Y-You did?"
He flashed her his usual sloppy smile, but now that she looked more closely at his face, she could see the gravity in the lines of his expression for herself. No matter what anyone said about his lazy work ethics, Nanao had learned long ago that he was actually much more cunning than what met the eye. He simply hid it well, so others let down their guards and allowed him to weasel his way into their hearts and spilled important secrets to a man they trusted for s split second of foolishness. He was quite frightening in that aspect.
When he said nothing more after his admission, she continued hesitantly, "I don't want to jump to conclusions, of course."
"Of course."
"And Hitsugaya-san is smarter than most people, so I'm sure he would have noticed these things for himself if he thought they were important."
Shunsui had finally taken a hold of her hand, using her distraction to his advantage so she didn't even pull away; instead, she easily leaned into his side, still lost in her thoughts.
"And it could have been for an innocent reason, but..." She pursed her lips in worry. "I think, whoever that woman was, that wasn't her real name."
.. ღ ..
It was weeks later when Toushiro finally made a break in his special case.
In that time, Kage had successfully reclaimed three more artifacts, the chief had chewed out both him and her team no less than twelve times, and both Kyouraku and Shunsui had called him multiple times to inquire about how things were holding up between him and his girlfriend.
Those phone calls usually came when he was with Kage, however, and while she thought their impeccable and probably far from coincidental timing was quite hilarious, he was less than amused by the entire charade. It was why he played off what seemed like a slightly brittle tone from Kyouraku as his own irritation; if he sounded a little too subdued, the detective simply chose not to notice.
"Stop calling," he usually snapped into the receiver, slamming the phone down as his lover smothered her laugh into a pillow beside him.
Through all the mayhem that his life had become, though, it never once slipped his mind that he had an important name he had yet to uncover. While Kage threw her arm over his waist and slept peacefully on his chest, he spent hours awake and staring at the ceiling in the darkness, running his fingers through her hair and pondering over what route to take his case next.
It tooks hours upon hours of searching personal records of all the citizens that lived in Karakura, as well as both birth and death certificates – all of which required him to use the police database available to him at the office, and then "borrowing" a computer to continue his search at home. The city library had newspapers saved that were dated years back, all of which now sat in his closet after he'd briefed through headline after headline.
It was a newspaper he flipped through now, a magnifying glass in one hand that he often used so that nothing slipped past him.
Karakura, he'd discovered, wasn't exactly a town that could support many families. It had just one elementary school, one middle school, and one high school, as well as a single grocery store and library. The more he read on, the more Toushiro was beginning to doubt his previous breakthrough; it was almost impossible to imagine a woman as conniving and disorderly as Kage coming from such a quaint, peaceful town.
But then, just as he was about to give up on himself, he came across the Kurosaki family.
There was a single newspaper article about a gas explosion that had once killed dozens of people, and as he grazed over the names of those that had died, he found himself focusing on this particular family more than any other. Neighbors had given memoirs about the lives that had been lost, and there was something familiar about the Kurosaki's: a loving mother, albeit one that had been murdered too early in her life, an overexcited father, a sullen older bother, and even a pair of twin girls.
'Such sweet girls they were, too,' someone had recounted to the journalist. 'They were always together, even though they were complete opposites. Yuzu-chan was always smiling and laughing with the others, while Karin-chan was much quieter, but they were so cute when they were together. Such a shame.'
Toushiro straightened in his seat, poring over the article. The entire family had apparently perished in the explosion, but being a detective meant he knew how easy it was for someone to tweak the facts just a little – like faking the death of someone who needed to hide from the world.
By the time Kage arrived that night, he had looked up all he could about the Kurosaki family, though most of their records had mysteriously vanished or were simply impossible to access. It only made him more sure of his answer.
She hopped through the window like always, twisting her arms around his neck and leaning against his back. "Watcha looking at?"
He shut his laptop screen, tilting back his head to smirk at her. "I've just won our bet."
"Oh?" She raised an interested eyebrow, releasing him from her hold so she could sit on his bed. "And I thought you'd forgotten all about it, with how long you were taking."
He rolled his eyes at the gibe. "There wasn't a time limit. Besides, that hint of yours was hardly helpful. It took me months just to figure out what it meant."
"But you did," she refuted. "Now I'm dying to know your answer. Remember, you only get one try."
Wind swept through the open window and ruffled the curtains as they faced each other. She sat with folded arms and folded legs on his bed, challenging him with the defiant look in her eyes. His gaze, in return, was calculating as he watched her closely from his desk chair, trying to look past her cool act to find any sense of anxiety about the situation. The whole moment was more dramatic than it had any business being.
"Your name," he finally declared, "is Kurosaki Yuzu."
There was silence after his proclamation. Kage froze at the mention of the name, which he took as a sign in his favor, but then she folded her arms and clicked her tongue in a tch.
"And you were so close," she taunted, dashing all his hopes. "Sorry, but only one of those two names is right."
He threw his head back and groaned over all his work now gone down the drain. She snickered, bouncing off the bed and making her way back over to him, where she laid her forehead against his.
"How exactly did you pick that name?" she asked.
His eyes were still closed in exhaustion as he answered. "There were two girls in that family, and from all the recounts I read, Yuzu seemed more like you; she liked to laugh and be around other people, they said."
"Ah." The sound was almost amused as she knocked her fist against his temple. "You forgot to take into account that people can change."
He finally snapped his eyes open and gazed deeply into hers, and she could see the curiosity in his depths. The Kage he'd always known was sly and playful and took great pleasure in tripping him up just to see him flustered, so it was difficult to imagine her any other way. He'd let his own personal bias get in the way. But now he wondered, just how much had she changed before she became the woman with him today?
It was not a question for tonight, however, especially when she looked away like she didn't want him to ask. Instead, he licked his lips and wondered, "So, now what?"
"Well," she mused, "I do remember us making a little wager. If you win, I show you where I live, and if I win, you do one of my jobs, remember?" She puckered her lips in thought. "The only problem is that you were half right and half wrong."
"So we do neither?" he suggested, but he knew that was too good to be true.
"Where's the fun in that?" She flashed him a mischievous grin, cupping his cheeks while their foreheads were still pressed firmly together. "We need a compromise that benefits both of us, since we both technically won the game."
He grimaced. "So we'll..."
"Yup." Her grin only grew wider. "We'll do both."
A/N: I hope you all appreciated the 'Karakura-bleach ads' joke I sneaked in there :P I couldn't help it!
So, as you could probably tell from this chapter, we've reached the part in the story where the next few chapters will focus a little more on their personal relationship. After that, I plan to finally resolve their work dilemma, and then hopefully I can easily transition this story to its end. It's really not that far now :)
And lastly, during my ridiculously long absence, this story reached 100 reviews! Thank you soooo much for the support, you guys. It's unbelievable that I went from getting six-seven reviews average for each chapter to getting twenty-nine for the last one (though that was probably because I was gone so long, haha). Either way, I appreciate each and every one of you – so let's get through this together! ):D