Toshiro glared at his reflection. He looked, in his opinion, completely ridiculous. Maybe Captain Kyoraku could pull off pink and flowers, but Toshiro was pretty sure he just looked like a girl. "I look stupid," he declared loudly.
His parents didn't even notice. His mother was trying to tie her own elaborate obi, and his father had gotten bored of waiting and was eating dried persimmons and reading.
"I'm changing," he said a little more loudly-still no response.
He had the obi off and was untying the kimono strings when his mother finally noticed.
"What are you doing?" Rangiku shrieked. "We've got to go! You can't change!"
"I look like a girl," Toshiro declared, dumping the silk kimono unceremoniously onto the floor.
"You do not! You looked adorable," Rangiku argued, catching hold of his arm as he headed back for a new outfit. "Put it back on right now!"
"No!" he said. It was bad enough being constantly dressed up like a doll, he was not leaving the house looking like a girl.
"I said put it back on," Rangiku commanded, grabbing the kimono off the floor and trying to force it onto his arms.
"It makes me look like a girl!" Toshiro declared, trying to fight her off to no avail. As one last desperate attempt he appealed to Gin. "Dad! Tell her!"
Gin actually looked up, more than a little surprised that Toshiro would ask him for help. He looked from the pink kimono to the panic-stricken boy and then to his frustrated wife. "Is there any reason he has to wear that one, Ran?" he asked. "Aren't there at least three more formal kimonos in that box? Why don't you let him wear the blue one; you both like blue-and he really did look like a very pretty little girl in that one."
Rangiku looked from Gin to Toshiro and back. "Fine," she said, tossing the kimono back on the floor. "You dress him." And with that she stormed out of the room.
It was a long walk out to the Shiba estate, and, dressed up in a fine, stiff silk kimono, Toshiro found it to be very uncomfortable as well. He really didn't get what the whole point was anyway. They were going to the wedding of Shiba Kaien and Seya Miyako. When he'd asked what a wedding was his parents had individually explained it as "sort of a party where two people who love each other promise to stay together forever" and "a party where your mother can get drunk for free," so all he was sure of was that a wedding was some sort of party that everyone, even his father, had to dress up for.
As they walked along the unfamiliar streets of eastern Seireitei, Toshiro was doing his best to get the whole thing clearly explained, and as far as he could tell, his parents, especially his father, were trying to confuse him.
"But what's a wedding for?" Toshiro asked as he walked between his parents, holding onto each of their hands.
"It's a celebration of love," Rangiku answered.
"It's an excuse to show off how much money your family has if you're rich and a way to make your friends give you some if you're poor," Gin added.
Rangiku shook her head. "That's not true."
"Your friends have to give you money?" Toshiro asked. That sounded more interesting than his mother's explanation of a 'celebration of love'.
"How do you think we were able to afford you?" Gin asked. "We didn't even have furniture till after the wedding, just had to keep everything in piles around the house."
It seemed to Toshiro that that was still what they did, but whenever he pointed that sort of thing out his mother got ambitious about cleaning, and he got a lot more chores for a while. "Is that why you had a wedding?" he asked.
"Pretty much," Gin agreed.
Once again, Rangiku protested. "That's not true. When we got married we were pretty broke," she told Toshiro, "But everyone wanted to celebrate with us and so they very generously gave us a wedding party. A wedding is a place to celebrate the joy of marriage with friends and family. You give money to the newlyweds because you want to help them begin their new life together. Knowing so many people loved us and wanted to help us was the best part of the wedding, not getting money."
"What's marriage?" Toshiro asked, feeling like his mother was purposefully trying to make things confusing. First it was a wedding. Then it was a marriage. And a celebration of love and joy and a new life-clearly it was a big deal, some sort of grown up big deal, and he was beginning to wish he hadn't asked in the first place.
"You know what marriage is!" Rangiku told him. It's when people get married, like me and Daddy or Captain Kuchiki and Hisana-sama or-" she bit her lip, trying to think of another married couple Toshiro might actually know. Most of their neighbors were old widows and widowers or young families with fathers who were rarely home and Toshiro probably had never met. How depressing-did Toshiro not know another complete family outside his own?
Toshiro looked up at her curiously.
"Getting married is what you do when you decide you love someone so much you want to spend the rest of your life with them, marriage makes you family forever," Rangiku said. "When you get married-" she broke off at her son's disgusted expression. "What?" she demanded.
"Love is stupid," he declared. Love was something the neighborhood kids accused each other of, the same way they might accuse them of having lice or being dumb. It did seem to be a thing girls could be fond of, especially his mother, who seemed to love most people all the time, and everything and everyone else as well when she was drunk.
"Definitely," Gin agreed, before Rangiku could protest. "Best watch out you don't get infected by such nonsense. It's nothing but trouble. One moment you fall in love, the next you've got a wife and kid to feed, rent to pay, no time, no money, and no way to keep up with all the important things in a shinigami's life. Did you realize I spend more of my time with you than on my own bankai? It's ridiculous-I really hope you never get wrapped up in anything so destructive to your own career, Shiro-chan.
"Marriage is best left to those who can afford it, the noble houses, and all of us peasant folk should be content to give our lives to the Gotei and to die unmourned and alone."
Rangiku rolled her eyes. The things he would say! She would be a lot more annoyed with him if she thought Toshiro took him seriously. Fortunately, Toshiro had long ago figured out that nothing his father ever said could be taken at face value. Even now he was looking up at his father doubtfully.
"Then why'd you get married?" Toshiro asked, narrowed eyes focused on Gin's smiling face.
"It's your mother's fault. She's far too popular. If I hadn't snatched her up, some pretty-boy, rich kid would have come along and stolen her away. I couldn't have allowed that, now could I?"
Toshiro considered that. Like most children, he considered his parents a unit. The idea that his mother could have ended up with someone else had never occurred to him.
His mother laughed, happily. "You know I would have waited for you forever," she told Gin, looking at him with one of those lovey-dovey expressions Toshiro found so embarrassing, especially in public.
He looked around quickly, and just as he suspected, people had noticed. That was the biggest problem with being the son of a lieutenant; people always noticed. They could never go anywhere in Seireitei without being watched, and that meant any time his parents did anything embarrassing somebody was going to see it.
"How much farther is it?" he asked.
"Are you getting tired? Poor Shiro-chan, it is a long walk," Rangiku said. "Gin, you should carry him."
"I don't need to be-"
Toshiro found himself on his father's shoulders before he could protest. Neither of his parents seemed to have any concept of dignity. Toshiro was far too old to be carried around, but they refused to believe it. Just because he was small they tossed him around like he was still a baby. It was humiliating, and he knew his father, at least, knew how much he hated it. He just didn't care.
Toshiro sighed. Someday, he promised himself, he really would be too big for this.