If Toshinori had any fears, concerns, or worries whatsoever before about whether or not Ichigo would be a good mother to their baby.
Then those thoughts/feelings vanished the moment that she stepped through the door of the center where the children were being kept- and she automatically wound up at the bottom of a dogpile of tiny bodies.
He watched her and the children in rapt attention as they interacted with one another.
Ichigo reaching out and touching, ruffling the hair of, pinching little cheeks, and checking out little gaudily painted fingernails and grinning.
She knew their names. Their likes and dislikes. And who amongst them liked specifically flavored sweets like the ones that she'd made. The woman was born to be a mother. She was simply a natural at it, in Toshinori's opinion.
After about ten minutes or so, the dogpile slowly ebbed a bit, leaving maybe one or two little ones left. One attached to Ichigo's arm like a little leech, and refusing to let go anytime soon. And another sitting in her lap while the rest of them sat on the floor around her.
All of them were chattering away at her all at once, and though Toshinori couldn't make heads or tails of what any of the children were saying to her. Ichigo obviously understood everything being said, because he caught little snippets of conversation from her here and there.
"Yes, I missed you." and "Oh, you lost a tooth!" followed by "You're new bunny is adorable." and "Yes, I brought goodies for everyone." a happily chirped, "Happy Birthday Emi! You're getting so big!" to "No, your fingernail polish isn't bad looking."
Okay, he managed to catch that one. And it had to a be a total lie, because there was no way that neon orange nail polish and eyesore gold glitter could look pretty.
He had to blink his eyes several times just to get rid of the spots caused by the glitter picking up the light in the room. But Ichigo didn't seem bothered by it in the least. Which worried him a little bit since he couldn't recall the last time that she even blunk before he slowly realized.
The poor thing must been temporarily blinded like he'd been! Maybe he should step in now?
"Stop picking on your baby sister Shiki." She growled out, her tail twitching in irritation as one boy smacked a little girl on the leg causing her to start crying. Followed by Ichigo barking out in a sharp tone that made even Toshinori jump a little bit. "Manson, stop chewing on your hair- it isn't food!" As she reached out and used a finger to tug some of one child's spit covered hair away from his mouth so that he couldn't chew on it anymore.
Yup, definitely mother material. He thought with a fond quirk of his lips before quietly ambling over to join them all.
He managed to somehow fold himself into a small space and had several children look at him strangely, while several other younger ones giggled at the funny spectacle that he presented all huddled in on himself like he was as he gave them an awkward looking smile.
Even Ichigo couldn't help but smother a laugh at him behind one of her hands as one of the older kids asked, "Who're you?"
Toshinori blinked at the boy and smiled as he introduced himself. "I'm Toshinori. Who're you?"
"I'm Shiki. What are you doing here?"
"Well, you all looked like you were having so much fun, that I wanted to join you. Is that okay?"
"No." The boy said with a scowl.
Toshinori couldn't help his jaw practically hitting the floor even if he tried. He'd never had anyone, child or otherwise, tell him that he couldn't join in and participate in anything fun before. So naturally, he wasn't sure how to react. All he could seem to do was gape at the child and wonder why he was being so mean to him.
"Shiki!" Ichigo barked sharply, causing the boy to flinch. "Apologize to Toshinori and stop being such a bully to everyone."
The boy crossed his arms over his little chest and glared at her. "No. I don't want too."
"You'll apologize to him now or you aren't getting any goodies- I'll give them to him to make up for your rudeness- and you'll be spending time in the corner in a time out." Ichigo growled at the boy. The fur on her tail bristling and standing on end in anger.
The boy didn't seem impressed by her threat. Either that or he simply didn't think that she'd carry it out.
However that quickly changed when she held something out to Toshinori and waited for him to take it from her. Frowning a little bit as he took the small bag of wrapped goodies that he'd helped her fix up just before they had left Might Tower, and just held it.
He watched the little boy's stubborn expression melt away to one of horror just before he screamed in rage and launched himself at him. Toshinori realized in shock that the boy was actually going to attack him and quickly steeled himself to take a few hits. However Ichigo quickly caught the little spitfire around the waist with an arm, and picked him up before he could manage to even get close enough to him to do anything remotely violent to him.
He stared at her in awe as she hauled the angry, kicking and screaming boy up over one of her shoulders and then walked across the room where she set him down facing the corner. And hissed at him when he tried to leave it.
Finally once the boy figured out that he wasn't going to be leaving the corner until he learned his lesson, he rested his head against it and cried as Ichigo made her way back over to him and the rest of the children. "Are you okay?" She asked quietly as she sat back down on the floor.
Toshinori perked up a tad at seeing her back and stammered out, "H-He was a-actually going to attack m-me."
"Yeah. Sorry about that," Ichigo said in a apologetic tone as she reached out and put one of her hands against his cheek. "Shiki's one of the few kids here who actually has a temper and no fear or remorse whatsoever about using it."
"Still..." Toshinori said as he cast a glance towards the crying boy from over his shoulder before then saying sadly, "I feel badly that he won't get his goodies."
"Don't feel to badly for him. I don't reward bully-ish or violent behavior. Besides, he's nine and old enough to know better than to act like that." Ichigo said as one of the little kids from before crawled into her lap and leaned against her with a contented sigh while another couple of children chased her tail around as she moved it around in front of them.
Either playing along with them or trying to keep the sensitive limb out of their tiny hands.
"I suppose that you're right." He said reluctantly, knowing that she did have a point. The boy was old enough to know how to properly behave around others. He also knew the difference between right and wrong. There was no real excuse for him to throw a temper tantrum at his age.
"But I still feel badly for him missing out though."
Ichigo curled her tail around her waist to prevent the kids chasing it from actually catching it, earning a whine of disappointment from them. Causing them to shuffle off before she finally said, "Don't fret so much about it Toshinori. Everything will be fine. Just sit back and watch, okay."
He nodded his head, trusting her to know what she was doing since she obviously knew more about children than he did as she called everyone but Shiki over to get their sweets.
Once everyone had theirs and were happily munching on them, Ichigo called Shiki over. The boy didn't look too happy, in fact his glower as he shot him a dark look was making him downright nervous.
"Do you have something to say to Toshinori for earlier?"
The boy grumbled something and Ichigo reached out and grabbed the boy by the ear, causing him to yelp as she hissed at him, "Say it again louder. He didn't hear you."
"I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" The boy said as she released his ear. Toshinori looked between the two of them uncertain about how he should react.
"What are you sorry for?" Ichigo prompted in an impatient tone as she glared at the boy.
"For being a bully, and being mean to Mr. Toshi who didn't do anything wrong." Shiki said in a sullen tone as he rubbed his sore ear.
Ichigo's expression visibly brightened and she put a hand on the boy's shoulder and nudged him towards Toshinori and asked, "Now what do you do?"
Shiki rolled his eyes and grumbled something about 'scary girls' underneath his breath but did as he was prompted to do by Ichigo, and gave Toshinori an embarrassing hug. Toshinori looked as startled as the time a villain had pulled a gun on him as the boy wrapped his small arms around his neck.
And for a moment, he thought that he was going to die. He literally thought that the boy was going to attempt to choke him or something. Looking towards Ichigo in alarm, he noticed that she was signing to him to hug the boy back and nearly sagged in relief.
Oh thank god. He thought to himself as he slowly wrapped his arms around the boy and awkwardly patted him on the back. "All's forgiven Shiki." He said to the boy before he heard his little voice growl out,
"I hope that you know what your doing. You're girlfriend is frigging terrifying." And then abruptly released him and grabbed the little bag of sweets from Ichigo's hand and then quickly scampered off as Ichigo leaned over into his personal space a little bit and smiled as she said sweetly.
"See? I told you that everything would be fine."
He nodded his head his expression a little bit stunned as he slowly said, "So you did."