Aww! My brother came back from uni for a night on Thursday and gave me my birthday pressie. It was so awesome! He got me a stuffed teddy bear from the bear factory (the scariest place he had ever been apparently), book 1 of Ororon manga, a tiny doll of Jigsaw's weird clown puppet from Saw that looks like a Voodoo doll or something & DVDs of 28 Days Later and Attack of the Killer Tomatoes! That is an awesome film, it's an old seventies B movie for those of you who don't know and it's hilarious. Now I have to get him awesome stuff for his birthday that's coming up! I don't know! Wahh! I am terrible at getting people presents!
Chapter 52 : A holy gathering
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"Wow, that took a long time, never thought that decorating could require so much energy"
Byakuya turned his head to the woman standing in the doorway. Kya rubbed the back of her neck as she walked into the room. Byakuya's eyes scanned her briefly. His eyebrows rose slightly at the sight.
"What?" Kya asked him in response to the look he was giving her. He stood and before Kya had time to blink he was behind her. His arms wrapped around her waist and he brought his mouth to her ear.
"Beautiful" was all he whispered. Kya shivered at the vibrations of his voice in her ear. He reached up and started playing with a strand of her hair while kissing her softly on the neck. She moaned quickly.
"We'll be late" she forced herself to tell him. He didn't stop. "...Byakuya..."
She turned around to face him, meaning he had to give up on dulling the senses connected to her neck. He gazed at her.
"I need to do my hair" she said obviously struggling to overcome temptation. She turned and went to the small mirror in the room. Byakuya watched as she started pulling strands of long purple hair up off her back and arranging them on her head. The more hair she moved the more soft skin she revealed underneath the backless dress. As her hands twisted and manoeuvred the waves behind her head the muscles connected to her spine shifted and flowed effortlessly. Byakuya stared in wonder at the pale supple skin, wanting to reach out and stroke it. A small scar could be seen at the base of her spine that she received from a mission that went too far about a hundred years prior. Apart from that it was flawless. The deep red silk of the dress didn't look half as sleek as that skin.
She placed the last pin in her hair and turned around to face him again.
The purple was restrained in a rough bun at the back of her skull. Loose strands came down at the front and framed her face. A touch of gold glimmered on her eyelids and her long dark eyelashes emphasized her deep blue eyes perfectly. The dress itself was beautiful, although in Byakuya's eyes it could never compare to her. The fully pleated bodice came down from a deep V-front, straps going over the shoulder and joining with the bodice once again. The plain skirt flowed like liquid from the waist until it hit the floor with a small train at the back. The material reflected the light and ran as if it were fluid. Red suited her. Like autumn leaves or a summer flower.
Kya stood in front of him.
"Where's your tie?" she asked, knocking him out of his thoughts. He narrowed his eyes.
"I do not know" Kya spotted the lie before it even came out of his mouth. She raised an eyebrow at him sceptically.
"Then what's that?" she smiled while nodding her head in the direction of a crumple of shredded fabric on the floor. His expression didn't change. It wasn't his fault if he had a bit of trouble with tying ties. They were idiotic accessories in the first place. Kya laughed. "Thought this might happen, which is why I got this"
She went to the bags of clothes she had purchased yesterday and pulled out a small box. She opened it and brought the contents back to where Byakuya was standing. He only grumbled while she placed the new, unshredded, tie around his neck and started looping the skinny black thing up. Why did he even have to wear a tie? Or a suit for that matter? They were uncomfortable and too restricting in comparison to his usual uniform. Byakuya realised he was behaving like a child and stopped complaining, even if it was only in his thoughts.
"There, now you look like a proper gent" she told him after completing her mission of doing up the tie and resting her hands against his shirt. He wrapped his arms around her neck. Her hands went up to where she felt a cold weight settle. She looked down at the object. "What's this?"
He finished securing the clasp and lowered his arms.
"Your Christmas present" he told her. She touched the pendant affectionately and turned it over in her hands. The gold chain shone in the soft light. When she twirled it around in her hold, the small red stone sparkled and showed deeper shades of orange and purple. The facetted teardrop shape was ideal for letting the light pass through. Red suited her.
"This stone..." she whispered in awe.
"It was an ancient Kuchiki heirloom. I had it cut and made into a necklace for you" She looked up surprised. An ancient Kuchiki heirloom? And he had it cut? The only way of doing that must have been to break some kind of unwritten law. No way could he have done this otherwise. The Kuchiki family were not known for their generosity in giving away priceless heirlooms. But Byakuya didn't break laws. To him they were serious matters.
"But-" Kya didn't know what to say. Byakuya gazed at her with warming eyes. Kya could see the fiery light bouncing off the gem being reflected in those eyes. She reached upwards and brought her lips up to meet his. He returned the kiss lovingly. When they broke apart she rested her forehead against his and whispered with her eyes still shut. "Thank you"
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Hitsugaya stood outside the place written of the invitation. He blinked. This couldn't be right, could it? Even Kya wasn't that stupid.
"Matsumoto, are you sure this is correct?" he asked his lieutenant.
"Yep, Taicho, Kya and I were here earlier to decorate" she answered happily.
Hitsugaya sighed. After waiting three whole hours for his lieutenant to change and do all the apparently necessary girly things she needed to do, they had left Orihime's apartment in search of this ball. To his surprise, Kya had invited Orihime too, something he put down to Matsumoto. Now the three of them were here. And Matsumoto seemed to be the only one who wasn't surprised by their location.
Why would Kya choose this of all places to hold something like this? How did she even manage to get the people in charge to allow her to hold something like this here? Hitsugaya had a suspicion that they did not even know about it.
"Oooh! There's Kira! Come on let's get inside!" Matsumoto pointed at her friend before rushing off towards him. Orihime nervously followed and Hitsugaya reluctantly walked up to the door.
How much of an insult was this to Christianity? Kya should think a bit more before acting.
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The inside of the church was beautiful. Well, they usually are on Christmas Day, aren't they? But this one was even more so thanks to the painful hours Kya and Matsumoto spent decorating it. The plastic chairs had all been pushed to the back of the room and stacked, meaning the wooden floor was bare. Fairy lights hung along the walls and twinkled in a way that was mesmerizing to all that cared to stare at them. The large arched windows were covered at frost at the bottom and clear at the top, giving a view of the perfectly clear starry sky above. Long sheets of white material were draped across the high ceiling and let to hang free down the walls until they touched the floor. Where an altar should have been placed stood a tall Christmas tree, the top branch grazing the ceiling. It was decorated in the same white fairy lights that covered the walls and seemed to have fresh snow resting on all the branches. Paper lanterns were dotted throughout the room, swaying on long strings from the ceiling. They gave off a soft glow that was the room's main source of light.
It had taken Kya a considerable amount of time to persuade the father at this church to give her permission to use it tonight. In the end she had to tell him it was for a special family service, because her family's private church had burnt down in the night and they had no where else to go to celebrate the birth of little baby Jesus.
Ok, lying to holy men may not have been the most pure thing Kya could have done, but what else was she to do? Besides, she was already dead and living her afterlife. Whether there was anything else after that she did not know, and frankly didn't want to think about.
She stood on the side of the doorway, welcoming the people that chose to enter. Byakuya stood next to her, not saying a word. He was obviously still not the most social person in the world.
"Kya!" Matsumoto ran through the door excitedly, her gold dress billowing behind her.
"Rangiku!" Kya in turn greeted. The women embraced while jumping on the spot. They stopped and Matsumoto looked around the half filled room.
"It looks great! We did such a great job!" she exclaimed at the sight.
"We did, didn't we?" Kya noticed the person who stepped in after Matsumoto. Orihime stood and twiddled her fingers together, looking completely terrified at the prospect of an evening with mostly strangers. The deep green of her dress struggled to contain those ample assets of hers and the top section of her hair was pulled neatly back. Matsumoto had obviously helped her get ready. "Orihime, good to see you again!"
"Oh, you too, Kya-san. Good evening, Kuchiki-sama" Orihime quickly replied. She bowed slightly. She suddenly stood upright again when those balloons almost fell out of her dress. Byakuya just nodded a greeting.
"Shiro-chan!" Kya screamed when Hitsugaya stepped into the church.
"Don't talk to me" he said before stomping off to the other side of the room to talk to someone who had kept at least a bit of their sanity intact.
Kya pouted at the rejection.
"Excuse me, Kya-san," Kya looked back at Orihime who had been peering around the room as if searching for somebody. "has Kurosaki-kun arrived yet?"
Kya looked around also.
"Hmm... I'm not sure..."
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"I'm not leaving!"
"Renji! Get your fat ass off the couch now!" Ichigo screamed at Renji while tugging at his foot. Renji was holding onto the arm of the sofa with both hands and Ichigo and Rukia were pulling his legs in an attempt to get him to let go. He refused to budge.
"I can't go now!" he whined as he gripped on to the couch for his life.
"Why the bloody hell not?" Rukia shouted
"Because Ai's about to tell Taiku she loves him!" He answered with his eyes still firmly glued to the drama on the television. Zaraki stepped into the room. Ichigo let go of Renji in a reflex that he kept in case he was about to be attacked in his own home by an eye-patched madman wielding a sword. Renji flew into the wall on the other side of the room, Rukia still clinging to his ankle.
"Ichigo, you idiot!" she yelled at the orange haired youth that was watching Zaraki carefully.
Zaraki walked over to the television, drew his zanpaktou, and stabbed it right into the centre of the screen.
Renji jumped up.
"Noooooooo!" he leapt over to the now smoking television set and wrapped his tattooed arms around it. "Ai! Now I shall never know your pain!"
"We're gonna be late" Zaraki said plainly, ignoring a Renji who was now wailing about the misfortunes of teenage life.
Yachiru jumped up from behind the television and stood on top.
"Come on, Pineapple-head, Ken-chan wants to go!"
Renji shook his head feebly with tears still leaking out of his eyes.
"Do you want Kya to cut off all your fingers?" Rukia shouted at him. Slowly he shook his head to indicate that he didn't. "Then we have to go!"
Renji sniffed before weakly getting to his feet.
"Ok, I s'pose I'll go" he whispered in defeat.
"Now get changed!" Rukia threw a suit at him. He caught it and slowly made his way towards the door to find somewhere to change. He shuffled his feet and remained looking at the ground. Then he realised something.
He spun around to face Yachiru, now looking fully alert.
"Who are you calling Pineapple-head?!"
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"I suppose they must be running late, none of the people at the Kurosaki house are here yet" Kya told Orihime. She looked slightly disappointed at this.
"Oh" was all she said quietly
"Hey! Isn't that Ishida? Why don't you go talk to him?" Matsumoto pointed at the glasses-wearing boy standing in the corner, trying to distract Orihime from her misery.
"Oh, ok" Orihime said sounding a bit happier that someone else that she could talk to was here. "Have a good night, Kya-san and Kuchiki-sama"
And with that she was off, walking across the room to where Ishida was. She tripped half way across the floor and her breasts almost flopped out again. Kya and Matsumoto both winced. Orihime recovered and looked around nervously to see if anyone had noticed before completing her journey.
"Good work, Rangiku" Kya told her friend
"Oh, it was you that invited him in the first place" she said modestly
"Only because you suggested it" Kya pointed out
"I'm a genius aren't I?"
Kya watched the orange-haired girl talk nervously to the feminine looking boy with interest in her eyes
"Yes, yes you are"
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There you are, another instalment of this boredom-preventer.
At school this week my friend Heta said something funny. My main group of friends is made up of Asian people, mostly Indian or Chinese, so she walks in and announces "All right, Asian peeps!" pause "...and rose..." and then everyone looked at me oddly. It was funny.
Well then, I better do some of my art cwk.
Review or I send your favourite pet into the world of my thoughts... and believe me, no one wants to enter there, it's a scary place... even for me...
