Title: Lines
A/N: I was trying to make it come across as ambiguous as to who is right in this argument—I hope I managed to communicate that within the context of the story. Also, I've decided that in Bleach this is the family that always does things behind each other's backs despite knowing they won't like it. One more thing of note: Longest chapter yet!
Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach.
"This has to stop."
Up until now Ryuuken never gave it a terrible amount of thought but now, now he finds himself cursing his complacency as he sits at his father's kitchen table, glowering up at the old man who attends to a pot of rice on the stove, running a large wood-handled spoon through the kernels (disgustingly maggot-like, but perhaps that's just where Ryuuken's morbid mind goes) with deceptive idleness. Ryuuken can see the way the tension builds in Soken's slight shoulders like water straining against a dam.
If he is starting to feel the way someone does when caught at secrets, then so much the better.
Eyes keen and watchful, Ryuuken follows his father's progress through the tiny kitchen that's always seemed so dank and grimy despite being nothing less than spotlessly clean. Soken turns off the stove and, careful to keep strips of cloth between the ever-loosening skin of his hands and the cast-iron handles of the pot, lifts the pot off the stove.
Perhaps the pot was heavier than Soken had expected or perhaps he's tired after having started to train his grandson in the traditions and ways of the Quincy, but his left arm buckles and he nearly drops the pot to the floor before managing to get it on the countertop, betraying relief at not having spilled his supper all over his shoes. All this Ryuuken watches dispassionately, making not a single move to help him, his lips thinning all the while.
Soken's hands are not as steady as they once were, no longer earning the title of "quick" or "clever". The only way his hands are fast is through the brutality of desperation, through forcing alacrity into the fingers and feeling intense pain and tiredness to pay for it. Some might chalk it up to the arthritis but Ryuuken knows better; the only true explanation for this is age. His father is not a young man, past sixty. He's lived far longer than most Quincy have been able to claim, and more than once Ryuuken has wondered why a man so breathtakingly reckless and uncaring for his own life should live to see his silver hairs when there are others who never had that chance.
The injustice of it is something Ryuuken doesn't often touch on, but when he does, it's like a peak of bile in his throat.
A weary sigh, the memories of ages in that soft sound, makes a mockery of the air as Soken sits at the rickety little table and clasps his hands together. "What were you saying, Ryuuken?" he asks heavily.
"I want you to stop teaching Uryuu how to fight Hollows."
"Don't you think it's a little late for that now?" Having never been much of one for arguing, Soken's voice is still gentle, something that provokes Ryuuken to grit his teeth and snarl.
"I made my wishes clear—"
"You never said a thing—"
"I made them clear, nonetheless."
Ryuuken sucks in a deep breath and reins his temper back to a dull burn. Only cool heads will prevail in this sort of situation and he will not give his father the satisfaction of managing to make him lose his temper. "Please stop."
With anyone else the finality in Ryuuken's voice would have been enough for them to take a hint and not press the subject further, but Soken isn't done just yet, it seems. "Ryuuken, Uryuu is at risk the way he is now. He will attract the attention of Hollows no matter what is done and he should at least be able to defend himself in that event." His brow furrows heavily; the look of mingled pain and worry sends a spike of adrenaline shooting through Ryuuken's veins. "You know this, Ryuuken."
He does. Oh yes, he does. "Yes, I know this." If Soken takes any heart in what Ryuuken grudgingly admits, he must lose it with what the younger man follows up with. "What I also know is that in training him you are making him an even more appealing target for the appetite of a Hollow; why would a Hollow choose a human with a weak, crude presence over the focused, refined reiatsu of a trained Quincy? Why don't you answer me that, old man?" he snaps bitterly, glowering accusingly at his father with eyes like cold flame.
Never did Ryuuken want Uryuu sucked into this life. He knows he has a fool for a child, and whenever Uryuu doesn't behave foolishly it's only because he's behaving nervously or timidly instead (He's not entirely sure what he did to make Uryuu so frightened of him, but the fear is there and Ryuuken has neither the means nor the will to remove it; if fear of him is what it takes to make Uryuu obey him then so be it). He's completely intractable either way, obeying when he does only out of fear.
Still, Ryuuken never said he wanted him to die like that, alone, in the worst pain anyone can imagine. I never said I wanted Uryuu to die like… The thought is killed where it stands; it shrivels into nothingness. I never said it.
After over a minute of the most profound and yet the loudest silence Ryuuken has ever heard, full of words and yet totally devoid of them, Soken answers. "I am teaching him to defend himself," he says, quietly and deliberately, like someone taking their first steps into the world of a new language. His eyes are careful, guarded, not calm.
The sheer hypocrisy of the words is what makes Ryuuken's eyes blaze and his words come out with far less control than what he would have liked. "You're not teaching Uryuu to defend himself. You're training him in the fine art of getting himself killed in spectacularly gruesome ways!" He doesn't realize that he's shouting until his throat starts to ache and his voice cracks. Then comes the confusion. Shouting? Why am I shouting?
"We all die eventually, Ryuuken—"
Yes, and that was always what was wrong with you, that you treated death like something to be welcomed. Death is neither just nor fair, no matter what you think, and whatever insurance I can claim against early death, whatever method I can find to fight for life, I will take it.
"—You know this as well as I do, and you must know that the progress of life and death is a perfectly natural one. At least Uryuu—" At this, Soken stops, his gaze growing intense and piercing in a way Ryuuken had forgotten they could. "Ryuuken, where is Uryuu?" he asks tensely. "Is he in the car?"
Frowning perplexedly, Ryuuken shakes his head. "No, he's at home, asleep. I fail to see why that matters."
All traces of good humor, what little were left, abruptly evaporate from Soken's face. "You left him alone at night. Are you insane?"
Ryuuken scoffs indignantly. "You did the same to me throughout my childhood. If anyone in this family is insane it's—"
This would be the cue for Ishida Soken to explode.
"Your mother was there, and by the time she wasn't you were old enough to take care of yourself and well-versed in the offensive use of a frying pan!" the old man shouts, now fully irate. He springs from his chair and starts to shoo Ryuuken out of the house. "Up, get up and go home! What if Uryuu were to have a nightmare as he so often does, woke up and went looking for you and you weren't there? Or what if, heaven forbid, someone were to break into your house and found Uryuu and you weren't there? I won't have it. Now out!"
This would be the cue for Ishida Ryuuken to make a strategic withdrawal ("retreat" is too messy and "running away" too cowardly). It's been so long since the last time Soken indulged in a display of temper that Ryuuken forgot he had a temper at all.
Once again alone, Soken starts to dole congealed rice into a bowl, so tired and so slow that his hands don't even shake at all.
He sits down at the table.
The rice is stone cold and all goes to ash in his mouth. He eats it anyway.