Sorry, I've been mis spelling Apachai's name. I'll fix it in the other chapters later. But from now on use the right spelling.


Kenichi was a tad bit late joining everyone for breakfast, so when he walked in on Apachai enthusiastically shaking one of his sister's hands- and automatically getting fussed at by Sakaki, Kensei, Miu, and Akisame for it because he was shaking it just a little bit too hard. Ichigo kept wincing and hissing while he trying to tell her thanks for resurrecting him from the dead with her cooking- so he was only a little bit lost.

But not terribly so. After all, it only took one look at the table full of foods to know what his sister had been getting up to this morning after she'd escaped his squid-like clutches.

Taking a seat on the floor next to Ichigo, he quickly made himself comfortable and cast her an bemused look as he asked, "You cooked this morning?"

She blushed and quickly ducked her head so that no one would see how embarrassed she was by his question as Kensei said, "Yes, she did. And we waited as patiently as we could for her to finish up so that we could all eat together."

Akisame snorted and muttered something along the lines of, "Patiently my butt." And sent a small glare in Hayato's direction as the elder laughed.

"Good morning Kenichi! You're sister is quite the cook, isn't she? Just look at this amazing feast!"

Kenichi nodded his head slightly as he took a small experimental bite of something and smiled as he said fondly. "Yeah, she is. Though she doesn't do it very often."

"Really?" Miu asked, looking almost shocked to find out that the other girl doesn't bother to cook often. She couldn't imagine what she would do if she didn't at least spend several hours per day in the kitchen, herself. Of course this was barring the knowledge that her grandfather and the others would actually die of starvation if she did.

"Ichigo I can't believe that you don't like cooking. Everything here is so delicious!" Miu said as she took a bite of one of her strawberry flavored awayukikan and made a happy sound, as if to emphasize her point.

"I agree." Kensei said between bites of his own food. "Being able to cook like this is a gift, my dear girl. You'll make some lucky guy a wonderful wife one day."

Kenichi paused eating for a moment at Kensei's praise and cast a look towards Ichigo who had scrunched up her nose in disgust at the very idea of marriage. Which would have been funny if not for the fact that Ichigo had absolutely no intention of ever letting herself be snatched up by some shmuck guy.

As it was her mentality towards romance was more than a little bit akin to that of a little kid that had just found out that boys had cooties. She may not run screaming from anything male, but that didn't mean that she like-liked any of them. In fact he wasn't even sure if she knew what to do with a guy who showed her any romantic interest.

She seemed to tolerate them at best. And that was on a normal day. Worse case scenario- she probably thought the lot of the world's male population of as girls with penises. Actually...that one made a lot more sense to him than the cooties thing.

However he made the mistake of mentally picturing what each of the masters would look like as women and wound up choking when he accidentally inhaled a bite of food while simultaneously trying to laugh. And wound up with it going down the wrong way.

Still, he had to admit, the mental image of his masters as girls was pretty damned funny.

Especially that of Kensei and the elder.

He couldn't help himself from wondering if the two would shave their facial hair if they were girls. But then quickly decided that they probably wouldn't.

Everyone else had caught Ichigo's brief look of disgust at the mention of marriage, and Kensei was single handedly trying to change her mind. Rambling at her that such a union was a wonderful thing and wound up having his food stolen by Apachai- who noticed that the girl looked just a bit uncomfortable by the turn of conversation- when he wasn't paying attention.

He stopped trying to tell Ichigo about marriage then, yelled and began to chase Apachai around the dinning room while the others laughed at the funny spectacle that the two made.

Apachai eating his pilfered food. And Kensei chasing him around looking like an upset monkey that had just had his banana stolen from him.

Akisame looked at her out of the corner of his eye, taking note of the frown marring her face as she slowly put her chopsticks down and quietly excused herself from the table, and then stood up and walked away. Everyone went quiet at the abruptness of her leaving and once she was out of the room looked to Kenichi for some sort of an explanation.

Kenichi however didn't have an answer for them and merely said, "Don't look at me- I don't know what that was about." Which was a lie. A somewhat terrible one.

But since he didn't want his masters to feel badly, then he figured that they didn't really need to know that.

"She seemed to dislike the mention of marriage." Shigure said around a bite of her food.

"I noticed that as well." Hayato said as he looked towards the door that the girl had left from.

Akisame made a thoughtful humming sound as Kensei frantically tried to tell them that he hadn't meant to offend her, he'd meant what he said to be considered as high praise. Not some messed up version of a hangman's noose or something.

Honestly, he'd never seen a young girl react so unfavorably to the word 'marriage' before. So he didn't really know what to do to fix it. And that made him feel a little bit bad for possibly upsetting her.

Finally, Kenichi finished eating and set his own chopsticks aside and quickly told his masters not to think on it too much. He knew that Kensei hadn't meant anything upsetting by what he'd said, and he was betting that Ichigo knew that too. She was probably feeling a little bit overwhelmed by being around so many people at once. That was all.

His masters didn't really seem to believe his explanation any, but let him leave without elaborating anyways. Which was nice for a change since they usually tortured him for specifics.

Once he was outside, Kenichi went looking for his sister and found her sitting partially propped up on the porch in a nice, warm sunny spot just...looking around.

"Ichigo," He called out to her softly as he approached because he knew how she felt about having people sneak up on her and startle her. She turned her head to look at him as he reached out and settled his hand on top of her head and ruffled her dark hair. "I'm going to be going out for a little bit. Do you need me to stop by your place later and pick up anything for you? Books? Sketch pads? Paints? Tools? Magazines or catalogs?"

"I'm not sure. I brought some stuff with me, but Nijima said that he would pack up the rest of what I might need before I left. I just don't know how much of it he's gotten done."

"I'll swing by the house later and see for myself then. If he hasn't made any progress then I'll pack up some of your work stuff myself and bring it on over."

"Alright."

"Do you need me to grab your computer and stuff while I'm at it?"

"I brought my laptop. I just haven't hooked it up yet. I've been busy, nearly dying and all."

She meant it as a joke. But he didn't see any humor in the fact that she'd actually nearly given herself a heart attack the day prior. He frowned at her choice of words and sighed as he removed his hand from her head and then knelt down so that the two of them were eye to eye.

"Don't try to joke about that. Do you have any idea how worried you had me and everyone else? I know that you aren't used to so many strange people and all, but you really upset Master Akisame yesterday. You should apologize for that. And while you're at it, apologize to Master Kensei for your behavior earlier. He wasn't trying to upset you any, and you hurt his feelings!"

"That wasn't my intention. I just wanted some peace and quiet. After all, it was pretty lively in there."

"Well he thinks that he upset you." Kenichi growled at her.

"He shouldn't be so sensitive. I know that he was giving me a compliment. So there's really nothing to be upset about."

"Well you didn't have to have such a look of disgust on your face."

"What?" She asked as she blinked at him.

"The expression that you made at the mention of the word marriage." Kenichi elaborated. She scrunched up her nose again at the word and he sighed, wondering if it was an automatic subconscious thing that she wasn't really aware of. "You're doing it again." He pointed out to her.

And earned a little growl of annoyance from her as she reached up and planted her hand on his face and gave him a small push away from her, causing him to fall on his butt.

"Shut up, jerk."

"Better a jerk than a stupid girl." Kenichi taunted. She glared at him and snarled,

"Don't make me get up and hurt you boy."

He grinned at her knowing that more often than not; she was more bark than bite. Especially when it came to her family and friends.

"Yeah, yeah, you'll get me and my little dog too." He said mockingly as he got to his feet before saying, "I'm going to go now. I'll bring you back something to occupy yourself with. Just behave in the meantime, please."

"Fine, fine, get lost already."

"Okay, see you in a little bit."

"Stay safe, brat."

"Behave savage." He called out, and then laughed as she threw something at his head. She missed him, but not by much. And with that, he was off.