Author Note: Welcome to the twenty-first installment of Frozen Moments and the second part of "Silence," a ten-part drabble series. We hope you enjoy.
Summary: She is all of fourteen, and she thinks there should be rules for this sort of thing.
Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach or any of its characters. Tite Kubo-sensei does.
Chapter Twenty-One: Silence
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ii. resonance
She is all of fourteen, and she thinks there should be rules for this sort of thing.
This…best boy (SPACE—do you see this space? Because there's a space, she'll have you know) friend…thing…
It's frustrating.
She only has to qualify the SPACE because Yuzu wants the title of best friend, so Toushirou has to settle for being her best boy (SPACE) friend. She thinks it's stupid, because she can't even tell where she ends and Yuzu begins sometimes (though she knows the boundary's there, because otherwise she'd drool over cute stuffed animals and Yuzu would have been jumping up and down like a maniac when Nadeshiko Japan won the 2011 FIFA World Cup), so why should it matter if she calls someone else her best friend when it'll never come close to being her best twin? But Yuzu does mind, and Toushirou doesn't, so best boy (SPACE) friend he is.
Anyway, Karin thinks there should be rules for their relationship, and Toushirou agrees, but she doesn't like some of his rules and he doesn't like some of hers, so they end up having a fight and not talking to each other.
And that is why they should have rules, so problems like this don't come up.
…except wanting rules is kind of what got them into this mess in the first place.
Maybe they'd be better off not being best friends if it leads to this kind of confusion and indecision.
And honestly, does she want a best boy (SPACE) friend who objected to Rule #8 on her list? Rule #8, which said that the winner of all one-on-one soccer games was morally obligated to pay for both participants' ice cream cones. How was that unreasonable? His Rule #32 (and if you're wondering, she had a list of 20, he had a list of 100) stated specifically that best friends should never make deprecating remarks about each others' height!
How stupid was that?
He makes fun of how she's half an inch shorter than him all the time!
She grumbles and mutters and gripes for three days, until Yuzu finally gets fed up.
"Are you going to send that text message or not?" she says.
Karin doesn't answer, just presses "clear text" and watches her words disappear.
(She misses Toushirou. He'd know how to make her accusation/apology sound all witty and intelligent. Where was he when she needed him…? And yes, that was a rhetorical question. Don't bother answering it or she'll have to punch you.)
She can feel Yuzu glaring at her. "You can't make up rules for friendships, you know," her twin says in that overly patient voice she uses whenever she's frustrated. "They just are."
Karin says nothing, just waits until her sister leaves. Then she flops onto the bed and stares at the ceiling, sits back up again and glares at her phone, snaps it shut, snaps it open, types in i'm sorry. She's going to push send before she can chicken out again when it beeps in her hand.
One new message, her screen tells her.
I'm sorry, he tells her.
And suddenly all is right with the world once more.
A week later, they decide on five rules and leave it at that.
Rule #1: They have each other's backs and they fight for each other's beliefs. When one of them needs the other, they're there without needing to be asked.
Rule #2: They suffer together (suffering = tortures devised by Matsumoto and/or Goat-chin).
Rule #3: No major secrets (minor ones are okay and somewhat necessary—Toushirou does not need to know who gave Yachiru the key to his office last week). No ignoring each other. And they can tell each other anything and still be best friends.
Rule #4: Insults and deprecating remarks are fine as long as no one's crying (which essentially means that anything goes—them, crying? Ha. Yeah, right.).
Rule #5: After every argument, fight, and disagreement, both of them have to apologize…eventually.
(Neither of them mention the last rule on both of their original lists: No falling in love with each other.
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It's just as well, because they'll both end up breaking it.)
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Endnote: And that is part two of the "Silence Arc." Thanks to Black Rose for the cool name. ;) The third part will be posted in one week's time, and we ARE posting each part one right after the other, so please stick around. ;D
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