Okay, I was brain dead. I was going to make this one "Yo-yo" and have some story about them getting tangled up in the string and such, but yo-yo? But honestly? No creativity… at all. So I asked around and got yak, yellow, yodel, and yuck. Yeah, so obviously I'm not the only uncreative person. I was, originally, when I thought all of these out, going to name this one "Yacht" and have one get sea sick or something, but that too didn't seem creative enough for me. So I looked up the dictionary online and searched everywhere and came up with "Yen", not as a form of Japanese currency, but as meaning "to desire, yearn, and have longing for".
ALSO: I re-did "The Tragic Truth" and "Prom", Prom starts the same, ends different, The Tragic Truth was remade in a matter of seconds, so it's kinda like one of those straight to DVD movies, just not good or worth looking at, so don't even comment on how bad they are. But I remade them for the sake of fluff and so I wouldn't get any more flames and witching about them… though they were too fun to write… ANYWAY, "Learning Love Lessons" stays the same because that one was just too good of "OH SNAP!" to change.
SECOND TO LAST THING!! "Z" will be updated MUCH sooner than this one, it's just sad to see it finally end… -tear- And this one might be written a bit differently than the rest because I'm experimenting with different types of writing, so if you don't like it let me know, and it's going to be long… just a heads up. One last thing: Do you actually read all of the authors notes before the story or are you smart like me and just skip them? Maybe just with chapter stories, but I tend to do that a lot. Anyway, if you did read ALL of the above, say something random in your review. Example: I wish my face was on the penny instead of Benjamin Franklin's…
LAST THING!! READ ALL OF IT! I promise it ends happily! Endure to the end!! Anyhow, read on…
YEN
It was raining, practically pouring, and I'm in my apartment, just a few blocks away from my dad's and sisters, demanding I moved out once I started medical school and after a few rounds of fighting (verbal and physical) I was here.
I pulled out some coffee beans to grind into the addicting caffeinated drink Rukia introduced me to (damn her) when my doorbell rang.
I was surprised; I looked over at the clock and saw it ticking away into one in the morning.
"Who the hell is that?" I thought, crossing the family room to open the door to see what hid behind it.
"Hey." Rukia said, quietly looking at the floor.
I sighed, ran a hand through my hair, and opened the door wider to let her in, shutting the door and firmly locking it behind her.
---
Rukia and I had hung out just a few days ago, at the local mall, we met to grab a cup of coffee (how she sneakily addicted me to the freakin' thing) and we just talked, chatted like old times. We'd been busy lately, we talked on the phone often, but nothing was able to compare to being able to see her smile in person.
"When's the last time we did this?" She asked, finishing her laugh at a joke I told, just to get her to flash me that brilliant smile.
"I dunno… maybe a few months ago?" I said, more questioning then knowing.
She sighed, not really one of contentment, but neither of sadness…it had to be somewhere in between the two.
"Troubling, we will just have to do this again sooner!" She said, brightly, almost putting on that corny and stupid school girl act.
"Oh please, not that again!" I said, throwing my head back with a groan.
"What is it Kurosaki-kun?" She asked, knowing exactly that I didn't want her to do that, continuing with the performance, "Is something wrong? Maybe we should go to the nurse's office!"
"Ha! Anywhere but there, I swear, that's all I ever am anymore!"
After another few minutes of teasing, we decided to wonder around the mall, looking at gift shops and manga shops (practically had to drag her out of that one…who knew that after six years of high school Rukia would still be addicted to the stupid things?) all the way to the end of the mall where the candy shops and home decorating shops where.
"Hey, want to go see a movie?" She asked, enthusiastic, "There's this really good one about this guy who goes to the mall with his best friend and buys her some candy!"
"Oh really?!" I asked, feigning questioning and going along with her little game. "Because I heard about this one was out where this girl decides to pay for herself and lets the guy buy whatever he wants!"
"You can't buy a prostitute, Ichigo." She said, shaking her head and "tisk-ing" at me.
I smiled. "Besides, who says you're my best friend?"
"I do, duh! And nice job ignoring the prostitute comment." She stated, now slyly grinning. "I'm your best friend because who do you call more than me?"
"Uh…"
"Family doesn't count."
Damn. She had that one.
"Okay, fine, what chocolate do you want?"
"Oh Ichigo! Don't worry! You're my best friend too!" She said, practically yelling it to the entire mall as she ran into the candy shop.
I shook my head, trying and failing to hide the grin playing on my lips.
---
After buying Rukia half the story, it was a movie (a real one, not one of the scenes Rukia always causes on purpose), a walk around the park, and the traditional dropping Rukia off at her house, it was back to my apartment, and wait a few days and here she was, sitting on my couch, dripping wet and sniffling.
"Here." I said, handing her a coffee as she took it into as what I could feel as her icy hands.
"Thanks." She whispered, letting a few hairs falling in her face.
"How'd you get here this time?" I said, sitting myself across from her, the matching mug to hers in my hands.
"I walked; Renji took the car this time…" She said in a low tone, now taking a sip from the mug in her hands.
I looked at mine; almost matching hers except mine said "Ichigo Kurosaki", not "Rukia Kurosaki" like hers…
It was going to be another long night…
---
"Rukia, I want you to marry me, please?" I asked, on one knee, looking up to her eyes.
"Yes, Ichigo, I will marry you…" She said, her voice sounded so happy, so ecstatic, and I stood up and just hugged her, kissed her, wanted to somehow show how much I wanted to be with her, be with her forever…
So we started planning, that day, she even went and bought the mugs, with her name, my name, and what was going to be our last name.
Our…
That sounded so good to me, our last name and what was going to be our apartment and our… well… our everything.
Rukia picked out the couch, the table, even the freakin' pattern on the plates. She chose it all, gushing about how life together was going to be so fantastic.
When we told my father, (ourfather) he was so happy, joyful, and cheery…that saying even those words to describe his emotions wasn't enough. Karin glanced up from her soccer game and said "that's nice" while Yuzu ran up to Rukia, hugged her, and then promptly started to bawl.
Then it was time to tell Byakuya, and we decided to prolong that for a while… So we waited until a few months before the wedding, the only person in the Soul Society that knew was Rukia, and half the time she lived with me anyway.
I remember, something felt wrong that day, even though the news was so good, that I just wanted to let everyone know, something was off. Sun was gleaming down, heck, seemed like even freakin' birds where singing, but as Rukia lead me into the Kuchiki manner, something just felt weird. But I ignored it and continued to let me be lead by her, through the maze of the house.
Byakuya was in some kind of home office, sorting through papers and looking from one document to another. Geez, he didn't even have a computer to play Pong on…
"Byakuya…" Rukia said, hesitantly, only now did I realize how shaky she was…
"Byakuya…" She repeated after some hesitation.
"I heard you the first time quite clearly, Rukia." He said, not even glancing up. "What is it?"
I looked at her, squeezed her hand, then throwing a small grin her way, an understanding that I would be the one to tell him went between us.
"I want to marry Rukia." I said, no tact or emotion, just threw it out there, trying to make it sound as much as a statement as of a question as to not be disrespectful, but letting him know that this was going to happen.
He sighed…
"I'm sorry, Kurosaki, but that simply is not an option."
"What?" I said shocked, my eyes wide at this statement.
He exhaled, finally leaving the papers and standing to walk around the desk to stand in front of us, yet not to look at us.
"Well, why the hell not?! Am I not good enough?!" I spat at him, only clenching Rukia's hand harder in my grasp of anger, releasing that grip as instantly as it started so I wouldn't break her hand.
"Because it's not her choice to choose."
"What?! What the hell do you mean 'it's not her choice'?! Of course it is! Shouldn't she get to choose who she freakin' marries?!" I was almost yelling at this point, my anger boiling under my skin.
"Please lower your voice, we're not outside." He said dully, still speaking in that low, steady voice. "She's a Kuchiki, and as such it is my decision of who she will marry." He paused, finally locking eyes with mine. "Unfortunately, Kurosaki, you are not my choice."
"Then who is?! I'll fight him or you to get her! You know why? Because she's so important to me that I would do that! I would do just freakin' that!" I almost roared, ignoring Byakuya's request that I talk softer.
"I'm sorry, but this is just the way it is. Noble women do not choose who they marry, their patriarch does."
"We don't need your approval, come on Rukia." I said coldly, starting to lead her towards the door, only to find my hand loosing grip with hers until our hands were completely detached from each other's…
I turned to look at her, only to see her facing her brother, not even glancing back at me.
"Rukia, come on, we don't need him, everything will be fine, you and me." I was saying, hating how it sounded like I was begging, pleading with her to come with me and leave him forever.
"Ichigo… I can't." She finally managed to say, sounding like a wounded bird about to be picked apart by a falcon…
"Well…why? Why?!" I was asking, now putting myself in front of her, taking her shoulders gently into my hands, looking into her eyes, searching her face as if she were going to smile at me and say "yes, let's go, let's do."
But she didn't, didn't even bother to make freaking eye contact with me. Her eyes gazed at the corner of the room, her eyes dull and bleak.
"I can't…" She sounded hollow, like some her had died and flew away elsewhere… "I've known this was going to happen, ever since I was adopted… I just thought maybe I could change it… we could change it. I'm sorry, Ichigo." She looked at me, eyes lifeless, making me almost weep right there in front of her and Byakuya. "I'm so sorry." And then, shit, she did it, that pity grin. "I'm so very sorry."
"Just like that, huh?" I whispered to her. "Just like that, you're going to leave me? Walk out of my life? What could've been our life?" I felt my vision blurring, staring at her until the tears dried away from my eyes.
"Okay." I said, letting go of her shoulders, feeling as if a million zanpakuto's had ran through me. My head, my stomach, but mainly… my heart.
I walked past her, away from her, my eyes weren't focusing, it was amazing how I wasn't running into anything, but before I left the room, I turned, bowed low and said "Many well wishes to you, Miss Kuchiki."
And like that, I was gone, back at the apartment that used to be "ours", the plates that used to be ours where now being thrown against the walls, the floor, anywhere they could break. I grabbed a mug from the cupboard, about the hurl it against the wall with all my strength when I paused, reading Rukia Kurosaki, slowly putting it back with great gentleness, then slumping to the floor and just gave into the tears I wanted to shed back in the Kuchiki manor…
---
"What happened this time?" I sighed, taking a sip from the steaming cup in front of me.
She put the hot drink on the coffee table (that she chose) and made eye contact.
"We fought…"
"Naturally." I said, resisting the urge to roll my eyes.
"…But this was bad. Different. We fought about you…" she died off, picking back up the coffee cup and taking a long taste of the black stuff.
"Different? About me? How?" I asked, almost demanding answers.
"Because he knows, okay? I told him how you wanted to marry me, how you got to me first; you won, won my heart. And then I told him how you still have it…always will…" She faded, putting her head into her hands.
You would think that after eight years of loving the same person, even if they were married, to hear them say they still love you, would make you fly straight to them, take them away with you.
But I felt nothing.
No fluttering in my stomach.
No hope in my head.
No skipping heartbeats.
Nothing.
I did, feel however, remorse. My friend just had a fight about me with her husband. I mean, come on, I'm not that much of a jack ass that I didn't feel any empathy for her.
She raised her head, turning her bruising face towards my direction, actually smiling in an ironic sort of way.
Suddenly I was on my feet, jumping from one side of the room to the other, blood pounding in my ears, my brain working fast.
"He hit you? Shit! He hit you?!" I now almost panicked, looking carefully at her face seeing the bruising eye and check, her forehead had a cut that she whipped the blood away from, but was still there.
"Shit!" I said again, dragging her into the kitchen by her hand for an icepack. Hell, what a good "friend" I was, I didn't even ask why she wasn't showing me her face when she first came in, just acted mad that she was coming to me again after a fight with her hubby, expecting me to coo her better.
"That son of a bitch…THAT SON OF A BITCH!" I finished with a yell, opening the freezer and handing her the icepack as she took it.
Gently applying the cold pack to her cheek, she grimaced at the cold on her what must have been a flushed face.
"It's okay, it really is." She said, as I stood there glowering down at her.
"Hell, Rukia! How many times has he done this?!"
She paused, making me wait as she moved the ice from her cheek to her forehead, wincing.
"A few. So what? He's my husband, and according to Byakuya, he can do whatever the hell he wants."
"Yeah, because listening to Byakuya was such a good freakin' idea in the first place!"
She seemed to have shrunk in front of me, relaxing her shoulders and making her shorten a few inches.
"I thought you were past this…" She mumbled.
"Past this?! Why?! How could I possibly be past this?! Because the last time I saw you after talking with Byakuya about our engagement you were with Renji? Him parading you around like a show dog?! Geez Rukia! Do you know how bad I wanted you?! I freakin loved you and you threw me to the dogs!"
"I'M SORRY!" She screamed, shrill and penetrating a sound barrier we hadn't yet been loud enough to break, throwing the ice pack to the ground. "I'm sorry! Hell! I've wanted to marry you! I did! Like, shit Ichigo, what did you think I was doing? Just stringing you along for the ride?!"
"You didn't even fight for us! To be with me, you didn't do one damn thing!" I'm roaring back, my vocal cords ripping, finding myself matching with Rukia's tears.
She just collapsed onto the ground, crying, her head on her knees, arms wrapped around her legs, sobbing into nothingness.
I was always uncomfortable when Rukia cried. Upset yelling was fine, but when the tears rolled down her face, and knowing it was my fault, always made me squirm…
She raised her head, looked at me with some sort of sad determination.
"Nii-sama told me I was going to marry Renji right before you proposed. I was so lost, confused. I didn't understand where my loyalty lied." She hiccupped before continuing. "My brother had strict rules, and you hardly had any. Nii-sama said if I didn't do this, he would kill me himself."
She laughed bitterly.
"Death would be better than any of this. I could be like freakin' Juliet."
My heart, it was sinking, falling into oblivion. Rukia was strong, but Byakuya was older, stronger, more experienced… He would be one to attack her off her guard, willing to do anything but tarnish his family's honor… And Rukia… she knew that if she goes, I go…
"I just didn't want you to have the same fate because of Byakuya…"
A pause, a silence…
…And then I made up my mind.
"Get up."
I said, holding out my hand for her grasp onto, lifting her up as she pushed herself off the ground.
"What are you doing?" She questioned, watching me grab my keys and a jacket.
"More like what we're doing." Walking towards a cupboard, opening it and tossing her a blanket from the linens closet. "More like what we should have done."
She looked at the blanket in her hands, my keys in my hands, and the soft grin on my face.
"What?"
"I'm going to fight for you, and dammit, you better fight for me too this time around." I said, putting my arms into the sleeves of the jackets.
She smiled, her body shaking as she gave one last sob, running to me to throw her arms around my neck, going to kiss my check as I turned my head in time just to catch her lips.
She tasted just like she always did, vanilla and raspberries, and... It just felt so right, so good. This was how it was meant to be. I had yearned for this kiss for forever, and now it was here, and I wasn't going to let her get away so easily this time. It was always going to be me and her, together, always, and now nothing would stand in our way.
Renji and Byakuya could kiss my ass before I kicked there's.
GOSH! SO FREAKIN' LONG!! Sorry! It's almost as long as one of the short MULTI-CHAPTER stories I'm writing! Goodness! So sorry! Then again, some of it is the long introduction…And also, I've never writen from one of there's prespective exept for maybe "Journals", it's kinda different... Refreshing...
Anyways, let me know what you think! "Z" is next! We're almost done, folks! HANG IN THERE!
OH! And the alternate version of this story WAS going to be Rukia as a prostitute and charging Ichigo actual currency yen and they wouldn't know who the other was until the deed was done… which one should I have gone with? Let me know in your review!