I think I took some bad meds and reacted to them like I'd OD'd. My head is pounding, and I've been vomiting...ugh.
So if this chap doesn't look too good let chalk it up to possibly nearly killing myself this morning.
The resident's of Ryozanpaku began to walk on eggshells later that evening.
Especially after Kenichi had finally returned from searching for his sister, and found out about how she had made herself worse off than she had been. And then appropriately flipped the fuck out on them all before then scampering off to check on her.
He wound up holing himself up in her room for the night. Which wasn't totally uncalled for nor unexpected given how attached to her the boy seemed to be.
But it was somewhat worrying when Miu went up to try and feed Ichigo and change her clothing, and was promptly and somewhat rudely shoved out of the room by Kenichi. Sure he apologized for the abruptness of the action, but Miu still cried over it a little bit.
Which seemed to upset everyone just a tad bit more. After all, Miu was a good girl. And it was uncalled for Kenichi to treat her so coldly. Especially when she had just gone to Ichigo's room to help.
Akisame wound up not being able to sleep a wink after visiting the bedroom again a little while later to give the girl another dose of pain and sleeping meds. And decided to try and ignore things for the moment. Not just because of Miu's hurt feelings and Kenichi's odder than usual behavior.
But because he kept hearing Ichigo asking, "Safe?" over and over again in his head. He couldn't quite put his finger on the reasons why, but the question kept bugging him.
Almost as badly as how she'd reacted to his presence when he'd tried to talk to her yesterday.
Contrary to how he seemed able to simply shrug most things off. Her reaction to him hadn't been normal, at all. In fact it had practically screamed; danger, panic, escape, to him. Which was unusual in and of itself since normal most people tended to find his presence very calming and soothing.
It was incredibly rare for a normal person to bolt from him as if the hounds of hell were nipping at their very heels. So naturally he found this as troubling as he did curious.
Could it be a genetic thing? He wondered curiously.
After all, Kenichi ran from him all the time. But then the boy usually thought that he was trying to kill him with his weird training methods. Which he would admit, were pretty odd and incredibly dangerous. And very well may have contributed to Kenichi's fight or flight instinctive reactions to sensing danger more than just a little bit.
The house was still quiet once morning rolled around. Probably because everyone else had had some trouble sleeping as well. So no one was around when he finally decided to leave his hobby room to head towards Ichigo's room to check on her.
He was walking along the porch when he saw something...weird.
There, sprawled on the porch, illuminated by the pale pink-orange light filtering through the trees- was Ichigo. Pausing in confusion, because he couldn't possibly be seeing what he thought he was. Akisame stood there studying the girl with a slightly puzzled look on his face.
She looked as if she'd made a nest of some sort out of a nice thick blanket and was simply lying there on the wooden porch dozing in the soft, welcoming light of the early dawn.
However she was supposed to be in her room. On bedrest. How the hell did she even get out here anyways? He wondered in total bafflement as he cocked his head a little bit to the side.
It wasn't as if she'd had any time to explore the house or the grounds any yesterday. And if she had been up and moving around sometime during the night one of the others would have heard her and notified him immediately so that he could nip that in the bud before she managed to do herself anymore damage.
But since he hadn't been informed by one of the others...obviously someone had dropped the ball here. The only question that he had at the moment was who? Because that person had just earned his wrath for allowing Ichigo to place herself in danger again by letting her move from her bed to come here.
Sighing, he knelt down next to her and reached out to put his hand on her shoulder- however before he could touch her, she twisted her head in his direction and snatched his arm by his wrist in a lightening fast move that was more than just a little bit startling.
Honestly, he'd never had anyone grab him so quickly before. She moved so damned fast that he hadn't even been able to track her hand until he registered her fingers around his wrist.
He'd never had that kind of problem before with another person before. Not even when he sparred with one of the other masters. And each of them had the kind of reflexes that could only be described as god-like.
So naturally having someone who was injured and didn't seem all that threatening at first glance grab him so suddenly like that- made him freeze up and quickly try to analyze his situation just in case he'd suddenly found himself in something that qualified as 'trouble'.
Almost as suddenly as her hand wrapped around his wrist, she let him go.
Which was...puzzling.
Now don't get him wrong, he was happy that he had his arm again. Especially since under normal circumstances, he'd wind up having to fight someone to get it back. Like the last time Appachai got sick, for instance. The muay thai master had grabbed him while delirious with a fever and he'd had to actually fight him to get him to let him go.
Of course, Appachai didn't recall any of this. And he wasn't going to tell him and chance having the man feel badly for the incident.
So he didn't question the fact that she had released him too much as he pulled his arm back and simply eyed her slightly warily as she slowly pushed herself up into a sitting position while somehow managing to keep her blanket wrapped around her.
"Mornin." She muttered in a low sleepy sounding voice.
"G-Good morning." Oh god, why did I just stammer? He wondered in utter mortification as he watched her while she rubbed the sleep from her eyes before then dropping her hands again as he asked. "What are you doing out here?"
"There was a cuddler in my bed." She said the word 'cuddler' in a slightly disgruntled tone. Almost as if it were a curse. Which was weird, especially since most girls her age didn't seem to mind all that much if they were cuddled by someone close to them.
He didn't know why, but he found himself chuckling in amusement since she was obviously talking about Kenichi. Unless Nijima had somehow managed to sneak into the house under the cloak of night and mysteriously escaped Shigure and Appachai's notice.
Which he seriously doubted. So it had to be Kenichi that had driven her out here.
"I see. Kenichi chased you out of your room, huh? But that doesn't exactly explain how you managed to get out here without someone coming to get me."
"The window." She said as she tried to bite back a yawn and failed.
He frowned at her and tipped his head back a little bit as he tried to recall the exact placement of the house's windows. He knew that almost all of the bedrooms on the second floor had them. And he knew that Ichigo's room had one.
"Did you climb down from the porch roof?" Because if she had- then she hadn't gone out of her window. Which meant that she must have gone out of another one. But which one?
"Yeah. I was sort of in a hurry," He thinned his lips in displeasure because she wasn't in any condition to be climbing out of anything, much less wandering around on her own. "I needed to get out before Kenichi woke up and spotted me." She finally tacked on in an abashed manner.
"I see." He sighed as she tilted her head back on her neck a little bit and looked at the sky for a moment.
"I was thinking of cooking breakfast for everyone today," He blinked at her. Uncertain about what to say to her idea since he wasn't sure if she was telling him so that she could get his opinion or not. "But...I'm not sure what sort of stuff everyone likes to eat."
"That is a little bit of a pickle. But no one here is particularly picky when it comes to food. However, if you do decide to try cooking for everyone, then you'll need to have someone present with you in the kitchen." He said as he slowly stood up so that he towered over her for a moment.
She looked at him blankly and he quickly elaborated by saying sternly, "No heavy lifting. And no more running either. You nearly gave yourself a heart attack yesterday. So you need to take it easy as much as you can."
"Oh. Alright." She said, and then looked away from him for a moment before he asked her.
"Do you need some help getting up?"
She blushed and simply nodded her head as he reached down and gently pulled her up to her feet and then re wrapped her with the blanket since it had slipped from her grasp when he was helping her up. Once it was back in place around her shoulders he took a step back away from her and then looked at her expectantly. Apparently trying to figure out her next move when she huffed at him and then asked him where the kitchen was.
He pointed and she turned and started walking, and he simply feel into step behind her. It would seem that since he was the only person up at the moment that he was on kitchen duty.
Great.
