A/N: The idea of Grimmjow wearing a mood ring is just so freaken hilarious to me so of course I went ahead and made it a thing. Not even a crack thing, just a full on Thing with a capital T and everything.
Huge thanks to my wonderful friend and beta, MaraX6960, whose support has been so amazingly helpful and motivating. I really can't thank him enough! And the cover art was done by me!
I hope y'all enjoy this as much as I had fun writing it!
-.-.-
The Moody Blues
By MaethoMixup
Chapter One: from where the sun now stands
-.-.-
The gacha machine Ichigo slots his coins into is stacked between a dozen other identical devices outside the arcade closest to Karakura High School, where he's stuck waiting for classes to finish.
He doesn't need to be here. Hollow activity had calmed since the war's end three years ago, and his sisters definitely didn't appreciate their older brother hovering over their shoulders as if an attack was imminent every time they left the house. But on Thursdays they let him walk them home after ensuring that none of their new friends were near enough to witness his coddling. Their words, not his, because he doesn't coddle. He guards their souls from becoming Hollow snacks like a good brother should.
And he's not overprotective either — their other favorite descriptor. He's the exact right amount of protective and they both damn well know it. They hadn't experienced the worst of the conflicts, but they'd lived through it regardless. The creatures that go bump in the night have names and faces they're all familiar with now.
Ichigo twists the handle with more force than he'd intended, hearing the gears creak under his fingers. He's only doing this because they're ten minutes late and if he doesn't occupy his hands with this, he'll snag the closest vaguely weapon-like object and track them down looking like a madman. He has enough sense to realize that knee jerk reaction is born from paranoia instead of logic. They likely have club activities they'd forgotten to mention. Or Karin got detention again. Or they're being chased by a hungry hungry ghost hippo and —
He only barely stops himself from kicking the machines in front of him. Both he and Karin are stronger now, stronger than when the Grand Fisher had attacked them at their mother's gravesite. Any threats they come across can be swiftly dealt with either through the use of his shinigami powers or by any one of the many trinkets Urahara provides for the twins. They're not helpless. They can protect themselves.
It doesn't stop him from worrying. He knows what will happen if an enemy is too strong or too quick or if help is too far away.
Taking a deep breath, Ichigo focuses on the capsule that had rolled through the flap, picking it up with deliberate care. It hardly matters what prize he'd won, and he's not curious, but he needs the distraction. He peels off the tape slowly and pops it open.
If he'd had any expectations, a mood ring certainly doesn't meet them. It's a pretty thing, made of metal instead of the usual PVC plastic he's accustomed to finding in these. Ichigo assumes from the quality that he's lucked into a rare collector's item the one time he hadn't gone for an action figure. Typical. He slides it onto his index finger and watches the white stone swirl into an ugly purple.
Which is interesting, but without an instruction manual he doesn't know what it's trying to signify. Probably that he should've worn short sleeves. He hazily recalls these working based on body temperatures, and on the tail end of spring, grabbing the first clean shirt off the pile by his bed without stopping to see if it was weather appropriate was dumb. The fabric under his arms is soaked uncomfortably with sweat.
He scratches the back of his head, angling his nose close enough to his armpit to see if he smells as bad as he must look, immediately thankful he hadn't forgotten deodorant this morning. Unfortunately, his maneuver isn't as inconspicuous as he'd hoped because his sisters greet him with a chorus of giggles.
"You're a mess," Karin says, hiking her bag higher onto her shoulders. "Is this the first time you left the house today?"
He doesn't dignify that with an answer. "What took you two so long?"
"It's only been like fifteen minutes. Relax." She hooks a thumb sideways at where Yuzu stands, face buried in a stack of papers. "The student council cornered us. They're trying to convince her to join their cult."
"It's not a cult," she's quick to admonish, not looking up. "The treasurer position is opening up. They want me to volunteer and I figured since I balance dad's checkbooks already…" Yuzu shrugs, hunching further into the papers to hide her embarrassment.
She's excited and, for whatever reason, unsure if she should be. It's cute, and Ichigo can't resist ruffling her hair loose of its ponytail, laughing when she swats him away with an undignified squeak. "You should do it. You'll do great."
"You think?" she asks too quickly, brown eyes wide and hopeful. "If someone else volunteers too we'll have to hold a mini election and that's basically just a popularity contest, and. Well, I've got friends, but I'm not, like, known, you know?"
Karin snatches the information packet from her, waving it just out of easy reach. "Then we'll start a campaign, obnoxious glittery posters and everything! We can even borrow that old mascot costume Ikumi stuffed Ichigo into last year and have him hand out flyers!"
"Like hell I will," he says, but doesn't doubt for a second that Karin has blackmail prepped and ready if she deems it necessary. Her grin confirms it.
"More importantly," she continues, "Ichigo, did you get proposed to?"
He flicks her in the forehead. "Wrong finger, idiot." She uses the movement to grab his wrist, pulling the ring closer to inspect. "It came out of a capsule."
Yuzu shuffles forward too, poking the stone like it's a button and frowning when it proves nothing out of the ordinary. "Huh. Isn't that a bit too fancy for one of those?"
"And what does purple mean?" Karin asks.
Ichigo shrugs, rescuing his hand from their prodding curiosity by swinging his arms around their shoulders, dragging them away from the arcade. They've been standing still for too long. This is a conversation they can easily have behind the safety of closed doors and a layer of wards.
"Come on," he urges. "You two can plan your school-wide domination at home. It's too hot out here."
They both give his armpits a disgusted glance, so he doesn't let go of them until they reach the Minamikawase district, bathing himself in their righteous teenage anger the whole walk there.
"Men are disgusting!" Karin declares upon opening their front door. She throws off her shoes and stomps upstairs, Yuzu following her with an apologetic glance backwards.
He sniffs himself again and, yup, that had to have been torture. Deep Sea Glacier wasn't designed to disguise musk that potent.
Isshin peeks his head under the clinic's archway, a granola bar hanging precariously from his mouth. He points the wrapper at their retreating backs. "You teach them that?"
"Sure did, pops."
He nods, almost to himself. "That's my boy."
Ichigo wears the ring for a week before his suspicions set in.
The stone center fluctuates between purple and orange and he can't pinpoint what differences it's detecting to warrant either color. His temperature theory, supported by every online article he's been able to find, was busted the day he forgot to take the ring off before showering. The following ice cube experiments he'd conducted in the kitchen confirmed it: this isn't a knockoff thermometer.
His next hypothesis involves spiritual energy, perhaps sensitive to his innate Reiatsu, but when he used the badge to expel himself from his body, letting a plume of soft blue steam from the vents in his wrists, the ring stays a stubborn lavender. The only significance to note is that Grimmjow comes barreling through his window not long after, drawn like a knight to danger. Or in this case, a bored soldier to a potentially fun situation.
He surveys the room from his crouched position on the floor, tensed and ready to spring into action, jacket flared dramatically around his boots in a pool of white cloth and illuminated only by the fading light of his cero and a desk lamp. His posture deflates only after Ichigo snorts at his ridiculousness.
"The fuck you laughing at?"
"You missed the party. Shame, too. Half of Soul Society was here poppin' bottles and doing body shots." Grimmjow's frown deepens so severely, Ichigo snorts again. "That was a joke, lighten up. Nothing's going on here."
"Don't bullshit me. I'm not blind," he says, stretching to his full height and moving towards the bed. Ichigo's human body lays on top of the comforter, dead to the world without Kon there to animate him. He runs two fingertips across his pulse point and up to cup his jaw, delicate. Gentle in all the ways Ichigo never expected from a once enemy.
It should worry him, letting this man touch his prone self. Ichigo almost anticipates bruises dotting his cheek when he pulls away, but the skin is tan and unblemished, sporting only the patchy five o'clock shadow he hadn't bothered to shave this morning.
Years ago, he would've assumed this was a hallucination. Still resembles one. A strange, feverish quality laces past memories to the edges of this scene, overlapping wrongly because this is new even if Grimmjow's presence here isn't. Hasn't been for some time, with his insistence on weekly spars. Only the angry wrinkle between his brows remains familiar.
This feels closer than they've ever been, and Ichigo is only witnessing it from across the room.
Grimmjow looks between the two versions, huffs, and settles his glare on his shinigami form. "Hurry up and explain so I can murder you. I'm not wasting a trip here."
"That's not particularly motivating," he points out, but gestures to the ring anyways. "I have no idea how it works, all my tests are duds. Ever see anything like it in Hueco Mundo?"
Grimmjow holds out his hand, making grabby motions when it takes Ichigo a second too long to understand. He peels it off and he drops it into his palm. The stone fades to white as soon as it's free.
Ichigo probably shouldn't be shocked that Grimmjow's first instinct is to bite the damn thing, but he feels his jaw fall open regardless. "Dude, what the fuck."
He doesn't answer, too busy holding the metal at eye level, rotating it to examine the intricate twists in the band. There's no inscriptions to be found; Ichigo has stared at it enough to have every groove memorized, long since resigned to the fact that a manufacturer label wasn't going to magically appear. Grimmjow's eyesight is better than his, but it can't make miracles happen either. There's no visible clues here.
"What is it?" Grimmjow finally asks and doesn't wait for an answer before slipping it onto his pinky. His hands are thicker than Ichigo's own, he notices for the first time, marveling at the flex of tendons until a flash of pale orange catches his attention.
"Looks like a mood ring, but the only colors I've seen are orange and purple," he explains. "It might be broken."
"Mood ring, huh?" His brows furrow further downwards, and maybe it's the intensity of his expression, or maybe his too blue eyes are miracle makers after all, but Ichigo watches in fascination as the stone's hue deepens into a peony pink as if on command.
Or maybe it started working now just to spite him, because Grimmjow's haughty smirk is infuriatingly wide, half hidden by the sharp teeth of his mask. "Works fine for me," he says and fucking preens as the color continues to shift, darkening into a green shaded like a forest, vibrant and complex in its beauty.
Ichigo dives forward and grabs him by the bicep, mollified when he wrests the ring off without resorting to true violence. His bedroom is too tiny for two grown men to do anything more than snarl at each other. When he pushes it back onto his own finger and sees a loud, burnt orange mocking him, he quickly tugs it back off and throws it across the room. "Piece of junk!"
Grimmjow laughs and it nearly makes him rethink his stance on homegrown aggression because he's two steps away from spilling blood across his carpet, furniture be damned. He reclaims the ring from the floor without a stutter, wears it like it was made for him. Eyes Ichigo with enough arrogance to make him feel wrong footed, unsure if he's being toyed with here. It would be a characteristically asshole move to know what the hell this hunk of metal does and purposely keep Ichigo ignorant of it.
"What's wrong, baby boy? First time being rejected?"
"Fuck off with the nicknames already," Ichigo says, again, because Grimmjow has only gotten worse since he'd began regularly running errands for Urahara. He doesn't blame the older man for corrupting him, despite it being likely. Knows that Grimmjow picked the habit up on his own after the first time he witnessed Ichigo's annoyance. "What are you even doing here?"
He shrugs. "Saw you lighting up from across town. Figured I'd join in."
"Knew you were the type to bum a smoke," he says and ignores Grimmjow's confusion. Ichigo wasn't going to take responsibility for teaching an arrancar about cigarettes. "Better question: how'd you sense my Reiatsu? We have a barrier masking the area."
Grimmjow makes a face like he'd said the dumbest shit he's ever heard. "Your old man keyed me into them. Like a fucking year ago."
"What the fuck," he says. It's beginning to sound like a mantra. "Why?"
His face doesn't change, but the stone has, back to a curious pink. "Why should I know? Ask him your own damned self." He shoves past Ichigo to get to the windowsill and swings a leg onto the mattress, pausing at the sight of a pair of knees blocking his path and sneers at them. Like they're an affront to his morals, the humanness repulsive when only minutes ago he'd caressed the coarse stubble decorating Ichigo's jaw.
This is more in line with his expectations, so it only confuses him further when that bubbling frustration melts into an expression he can't place, shadowed by the poor angle of the lone light shining from his desk. Grimmjow gives him an expectant glance. "You coming?"
Ichigo doesn't need a piece of jewelry to tell him what Grimmjow's gunning for, even if the rest remains a mystery. He cracks his knuckles, steps beside him. "Hell yes. Usual place?"
He nods, and off they go, sprinting through the streets of Karakura towards the outskirts, punching and slicing each other until they're both black and blue and too exhausted to stand, ring firm on Grimmjow's pinky the entire fight. Green as vibrant as the puzzlegrass they'd overturned.
Ichigo manages to get it back before stumbling home. He doesn't put it on, tells himself it's not because he's afraid. Of seeing orange. Of not seeing orange.
If emotions truly operate it like he's beginning to suspect, he doesn't want to imagine what these ambers and violets indicate. He knows himself well enough to acknowledge they can mean nothing good. He knows Grimmjow less, but the sea of lush wildlands coloring the stone when he wears it is intensely beautiful, demanding of attention not unlike the man himself. Brazen and impossibly defiant with every swipe of his fist, every twist of his mouth around insults and nicknames and those devilishly sharp canines as he growls out Ichigo's name like it's the worse curse of them all.
He curls deeper into his comforter, Kon sleeping blissfully unaware beside him now that midnight has come and passed, and stares at the ring sitting on his bedside table like it's a spider on a web, waiting for unwitting prey. Or a panther, he thinks, prowling through the underbrush with a deadly gleam reflecting through the trees.
He'll worry about it tomorrow, he decides finally, and rolls over.
Three days later, Ichigo finds himself dragged past a white van and into Urahara's shop by the crook of his elbow, Karin leading the way. "We're back!" she yells.
Hefting a wood-slatted crate down from one of the built-ins, Tessai nods at their entrance. "I'll get him."
"No need!" A hand clasps around Ichigo's shoulder from behind, fingers pressing into his collarbone in a friendly squeeze before releasing. Urahara sweeps by him smelling of cloves and smoke and he smiles at the siblings warmly. "I would never miss a visit from my two favorite customers!"
The storefront, with fully stocked shelves stretching towards the raised genkan step, is otherwise barren of people. Ichigo leans back through the archway to peer at the street. Empty. "Do you even have other customers?"
"Business is booming," Tessai assures them as he walks around a partition and into the storeroom, but Ichigo has his doubts. Booming could mean anything from an increase of window shoppers to an influx of gigai orders from their special clientele, and while he knows the latter is likely profitable, it doesn't explain the rows of questionable candys and overpriced produce. He assumes Urahara is price gouging the hapless fools of Soul Society as petty revenge for believing in Aizen's lies for as long as they had.
Consequently, the quiet of the shop isn't unusual, but Ichigo can't help himself from straining his ears, expanding his senses. He pushes one of the sliding doors open enough to peek at the living spaces beyond. "Where's Grimmjow?"
"My, my. So eager to see him," Urahara says, voice a singsong lullaby of baseless assumptions. "Am I not enough to satisfy you?"
"You know you're not," Karin snickers into the soft plush belly of a stuffed bear. She's made herself comfortable on the step, legs extended forward. "He was all 'I need to go with you, Karin' and 'We need to hurry, Karin'. Impatient, as always."
"The hell are you two trying to say?" he asks, because she's ignoring the purpose of this trip: to restock her supply of Hollow repellents. Coddling accusations be damned, he refuses to let her stroll across town unprotected.
Urahara waves him off with a flap of his fan. "Fear not, he will return from Las Noches soon enough. His task is hardly complicated."
"That's what you said last time, too. He was gone for a month."
"Good materials are hard to come by," he bemoans, like Ichigo actually cares how gigai are made. All he's curious for is the reason why Grimmjow goes along with his shenanigans. "And I did apologize, if you recall. How was I supposed to know that the kiseki mineral deposit had already been acquired by another hopeful entrepreneur?"
"Uh-huh," Karin hums. "That sounds like corporate sabotage."
"Nothing so scandalous as that, I assure you. Though I'm flattered you hold my humble shop in such high regard." He snaps his fan shut with a slap of his palm. "Now, what brings you two here today?"
Karin throws herself back onto her feet. "Just stocking up!" She speeds by them both, disappearing into the storeroom too. There's a loud clatter, the sound of something heavy thumping onto the ground, but Tessai's voice remains even toned so Ichigo only laughs at the closed doorway.
When he turns back to Urahara, he's busy assessing him from under his hat's wide brim. Waiting.
Ichigo stuffs his hands deep into his pockets, feeling awkward beneath the knowing scrutiny. "Just, uh." He scruffs his foot against the woven straw of an tatami mat, shrugging. Refuses to look him straight on when he mumbles, "You know, the usual. Curious about what's been going on over in Soul Society with the, uh. Rebuilding, or whatever. Rukia has been too busy to keep me updated."
He doesn't admit his last three texts have been left on read. He doesn't give voice to the fears telling him that history is repeating itself, that his seventeen months without powers, without friends, was a precursor to his life to come. His destiny. Fated to be a substitute in every way that matters.
"Oh dear, you haven't heard?" Ichigo's head snaps up, presses the badge against his palm on reflex, not yet pulling it from his jeans. "It's dreadful! Tetsuzaemon was promoted to Captain of the seventh division!"
"Damn it, Urahara!" he groans. "Don't make it sound like someone died!"
"And Lisa, too! Eighth division!" He sighs heavily, exaggerated to the full capacity of his lungs. "They were all so young when I was a captain."
"Everyone's young compared to you, geezer."
"Come now, no need to exaggerate. I'm as spry as a spring chicken! Just ask Yoruichi." Ichigo makes a face that Urahara casually dismisses. Probably for the best. He doesn't need those details. "Is that all?"
Ichigo pulls his hands out, twists the ring around his finger and contemplates asking for his opinion on it. If anyone has answers, it's Urahara.
Taking a deep breath, he opens his mouth, begins to speak before he takes the time to look. To actually examine the ring and the stone at its center, glistening an innocent morning dew blue, the first sign that Ichigo isn't stuck in some hellhole of two warring emotions and it's blue.
He doesn't need a manual for this one. The empty, lonely pit hollowing his chest is clue enough.
"Karin!" He's panicking. He knows he's panicking even as the nauseous itch sinks into his gut and whirls dangerously low, preparing him for an enemy he can't fight with his fists. "Hurry up!"
"I'm almost done!" She rushes out with her bag overflowing, oblivious, looking hopeful at Urahara. "Do you have any poster board? Yuzu and I have an election to win!"
For a long moment, Urahara doesn't shift his gaze away from Ichigo, but when he does his eyes crinkle, his smile forced. "Oho, politics! Let's check the van, we may have some suitable paper hidden there." His hand finds the small of her back as he ushers her out the door. He peers over his shoulder, eyes flickering to the ring and then past him, says, "You stay here, Ichigo," before they're out of sight.
He can't ask if he knows, or what he knows. The words are clogged in his throat. Loneliness gnaws on him like a starving predator, teeth sharp, jaw locked. Flashing images of a spider's fangs, a panther's claws where the metal band constricts around him.
It makes it impossible to breathe.
It's hard not to miss Soul Society and all the people he had fought beside. There, he's respected. When he speaks, they listen. His words have meaning. His sword, his powers, his experiences — in a realm of allies who had seen everything he was and could be, they had been thankful for his existence, even if only begrudgingly, and protecting them had given him a purpose. A goal to strive for.
But without a battlefield, the door is closed between them.
Here amongst the living, he's just another man still living at home, working odd jobs and sleeping at odder hours.
Here, he has friends, but they're only one half of everybody he cares about, and both halves are moving on without him. Whether it's college or promotions or travelling the world, they're no longer within arms reach of Karakura.
The sliding doors bang open. Ichigo gasps in a shocked gulp of air.
"Kurosaki! I know you're here!" Grimmjow yells, throwing a leather case to the side. The last licks of his garganta flicker out of sight behind him, melting from inky darkness to fluorescent light. He pauses with one foot stuck in the air. "Why do you look like you shit your pants?"
He makes a show of sniffing the air, grin a feral stretch of teeth like there's something to offend him other than the random assortment of foods lining the shelves. Flaunting his opinions with a disgusted, ludic scrunch of his nose, implying Ichigo to be incontinent on top of whatever other flaws he sees in him. Then he notices the ring, eyes alight and fixating on the view. "Would you look at that?" he asks, a mocking laugh fluttering throughout. "Carrot-top knows how to be something other than orange."
"Shit, Grimmjow. Fuck," he hisses. Ichigo hides the evidence inside his pockets again as if Grimmjow hadn't already memorized the color of his imperfections. Like he can still hide himself from being known. "I thought you were busy being Urahara's good little errand boy."
"I pay my debts, Kurosaki," he says, real slow. Real mean, edged with a warning. He takes a step closer and seems to put two and two together the longer he glares. "The fuck has you blue? Jealous of my good looks? Trying to copy me?"
He runs a hand through the side of his hair and Ichigo traces the movement, watches the strands fall back into place. Grimmjow does it again, for emphasis, in case Ichigo's too dumb to understand his version of comedy.
Ichigo understands it just fine. Grimmjow, on the other hand. He doesn't know what's happening with him right now.
The third time Grimmjow does it, he's frowning. "My hair's blue," he says. Explains like Ichigo needs him to. "You get your ass beat by some shit tier Hollow while I've been away? I can knock the sense back into you. It'd be my goddamn pleasure."
"No. I don't," he attempts to say around the cotton wool stuck in his throat. Tries again, "I don't need your help."
He sounds weak. Feels it, too. Lost without a villain to use as an excuse.
Maybe this is why Soul Society's moved on without him. They knew all he's good for is war.
Grimmjow's jaw snaps shut sharply as if he's swallowing down his first reaction, sour enough to contort his features cruelly. His nostrils flare. "I pay my debts, Kurosaki. I don't give a fuck if you want me to or not." He gets closer, boots stepping on his toes, fingers jabbing into his chest hard enough to stumble Ichigo off the step. "The offer stands."
Then he's gone, slamming the doors shut behind him as he stomps through the living quarters. The wood rattles around the wicker panels.
"I remember my first lover's spat," Urahara says with a wistful sigh, suddenly near his ear, leaning onto the closest storage unit.
Karin snickers from behind them. Ichigo doesn't bother arguing; he knows it's not worth the trouble.
Ichigo doesn't take the ring off that night or the next. It's stupid. He knows better than to shine a spotlight on his inner thoughts. He'd laid himself bare for that brief moment in front of Grimmjow and it's not an occurrence he plans on repeating. By keeping it on, he's courting disaster. He knows this.
So it's stupid. He's stupid. Between random construction jobs for Ikumi's customers, he lets himself become bewitched by the colors marring the stone.
The blue doesn't disappear. It darkens, purples in splotches like a bruise, but it doesn't fade. Sometimes orange seeps through. That's more rare these days.
Once, there's red after he spots Grimmjow across the rooftops, carrying a thin package double his height towards the shop. He doesn't so much as glance at Ichigo, though they both can sense the pressure of the other's presence at this distance. The ozone burns with the weight of him.
He wonders if he's been training without him. Grimmjow has always been a powerhouse of coiled Reiryoku and lithe muscle, wide shoulders set in an intrepid line no matter the circumstances. Even while half dead, he'd been unflinching.
From where Ichigo stands on a roof half laid with ceramic tile, Grimmjow resembles a beast more than a man. A behemoth caged by skin and fury. He runs wildly through the air until the noon sun forces Ichigo to shield his eyes, and at the speeds he's going, the movement is enough to lose sight of him.
He's grown stronger, that much is certain. He hadn't noticed during their last spar and blames his lack of focus on the green. It's not a particularly angry color and that leaves few other emotions left to attribute to it. Grimmjow is expressive, sure, but only in shades of violence. Ichigo can't remember witnessing him experience anything else. The day in his bedroom, fingertips caressing his throat, his jaw, soft enough to trick Ichigo into thinking that maybe Grimmjow had been worried, notwithstanding.
Delusions are just that: a fantasy. Ichigo can't let himself become distracted by those.
But the green lingers on his mind. The pink, too. He doesn't know where to even begin with that one, though that doesn't stop him from feeling jealous. After days of endless blue, he'd give anything for a change.
He turns back to the tiles, measuring tape in hand. One of the other workers tosses him a bag of fasteners and when he catches it, that's when his wish comes true.
The red is the most disgusting color he's ever seen. Like congealed blood in a septic wound.
Ichigo trips over a horizontal batten in his haste to hide the ring behind his back, but it's unnecessary. No one here understands the significance. Only Grimmjow, and he's eight blocks away delivering another shipment to Urahara.
He finishes work in a daze, reporting to Ikumi along with the others and not hearing a single word that's said. By the time he's enclosed himself in his own room, he has several concerned text messages from her and a raging headache, but the stone is back to blue; it's almost a relief.
He still doesn't remove it.
Yuzu's kind enough to wait until Saturday to confront him.
"You wanna talk about it, or do you want to mope a bit longer?"
They're standing in the kitchen, Ichigo elbow-deep in sink water and prevented from escaping by a sponge in one hand and a plate in the other. Yuzu stands at his side, waiting patiently with a washrag.
He grimaces. "Am I that obvious?"
"Neither of us are very good liars." She takes the dish from him, smiling. "We take after mom."
Ichigo adds more soap into the water to give him an excuse to collect his thoughts. She was there the day he found the ring, and it's not like this is the most unusual phenomenon they've come across. This is hardly a blip on the radar compared to discovering Soul Society.
The suds spill over the edge of the countertop, wetting the front of his pants awkwardly. He ignores it, squirts in more soap. He doesn't want to let go of the bottle.
There's something too personal about the colors that prevents this conversation from being straightforward. Yuzu is the kindest, most empathetic person he's ever had the pleasure of knowing, and maybe that's why he doesn't want to burden her with thoughts of blue. It's not cowardly to withhold his problems when he hates worrying her as much as he does.
He apparently takes too long in his own head, because Yuzu sighs. "Is this about Grimmjow?"
"What?" It's so far out of left field that he sputters. "What does he have to do with this?"
"I was hoping you'd tell me."
"He's just an asshole. Nothing's changed." She hums in understanding and he prays that's true. She's never had the pleasure of hearing one of Grimmjow's many threats. "Look, it's not about him. I just don't know what to do without there being some sort of crisis to save the world from. How do I," he falls off and struggles around the thought, frowning. How does he tell his baby sister that he's lost without a trail of destruction and bloodshed to direct him? That her mundane, human life, the only one she's ever known, is not enough for him?
"Well," she begins, "no one said it was gonna be easy, but there's no harm in taking it slow, Ichigo. You can take as much time as you need to figure out how you feel and how to, uh," she makes a vague hand gesture, "close the gap. I'm sure there's some normal activities you can do. Like, go to the movies?"
"I'm not sure what good that'll do," he grumbles, but he doesn't argue with her. He hadn't truly expected her to comprehend, though he can't pretend she hasn't helped. His chest feels lighter, less impaired by the strain of his anxieties.
Three years since the Quincy invasion seems like a long time to still be this lost, but maybe she's right. This isn't a race. He's not competing against Grimmjow or Rukia for who can find their feet the fastest in this new, peaceful world.
"You'll figure it out. You always do." She resumes drying the dishes he passes her in comfortable silence until Isshin walks in wearing zebra striped pajamas and pads over to the refrigerator, nodding at them both.
"Don't mind me. Just getting a midnight snack," he says as he pulls out the tray of cupcakes Yuzu had baked yesterday.
"Dad," she whines. "Eating sweets before bed will make you fat."
"I don't know who taught you this blasphemy, but I won't allow it in my house!" He pauses with the icing already halfway inhaled, gaze drifting lower. "Yuzu, hunny, can you add diapers to the shopping list? Your brother's had an accident."
Ichigo looks down at his crotch and curses. "Shut up! It was the sink!"
His disbelieving jargle earns Isshin a solid spray of water from the pull-out faucet. It's the second time this week someone has accused him of relieving himself in his pants and if this starts a trend, Ichigo might consider resorting to a more severe tactic. As it is, his dad simply pouts his way back out of the room.
He snorts, imagining what Grimmjow would've looked like had he retaliated similarly the other day. Like a drowned cat, probably, and the picture makes him laugh harder than he has in weeks, folding himself over the counter, shirt soaking through across his chest to match his lower half.
"Ichigo! I just did laundry!"
Stifling his laughter through a great show of will, he wipes under his eyes. "Sorry, sorry. I'll do the next load."
"No, it's okay. I don't actually mind." She flicks more soap suds his way, leaning her hip against the cabinet to smile at him. He can't recall her ever looking so tall before. "Do you want to help me with my speech? I've still got some time before the assembly, but it's, well. I'm really nervous and I don't want to mess up in front of everybody. That would be, just, a nightmare!"
He can't stop himself from smiling too. "Yeah, Yuzu. Of course."
They store the plates and mugs away, and Ichigo begins to follow her upstairs before he stops, fingers coming to fiddle with the ring on reflex. Ichigo doesn't look at it as he slides it off and slips it into his sweatpants. He can't bear the thought of this moment being ruined by blue or orange or purple.
Or red. Please never again that terrible red.
He's not cured. His thoughts are still swirling, treacherous thunderclouds, fogging his brain with every step forward, but he can't keep worrying his siblings. That's the one thing he's always strived to avoid.
"You coming?" she calls over her shoulder, slowing her stride.
"Yeah, sorry. Just thinking."
Her smirk says she knows something she can't possibly be aware of, and it's adorable, so he doesn't give her shit like he normally would. He'll let her win this one. She deserves it.