Chapter 2- Favorite Animal

Usual disclaimer

Not so usual disclaimer: While I could hold my own watching anime and stuff, I am not good with the titles or spellings in Japanese vocabulary so my characters with the exception of Ichimaru(the story's lead hero who is in a league all by himself in speech!) will sound like a bunch of Yankees(what they called white people in Samurai Champloo's baseball episode.)

On with the story...

Ichimaru Gin was not a well adjusted human being. Far as he could remember, he always had one health condition or another. He was an albino, someone with insufficient skin pigment to tolerate normal light. It made his pupils red and also extremely sensitive to light too. He remembered the lights being too bright and he remembered a really kind, well endowed lady that nursed him back to health despite his many ailments. Everyone else seemed to either fear the pale kid with the wide smile or outright hate him. The nice ones would just stay away from him. But strawberry blonde lady from that life long ago? She was the nicest. But that's all in the past. It's not like he'll find her in Soul Society.

"Ichimaru!"

"Yeh, teach?"

"It's yes, Teacher!"

"..."

"Ugh, anyway, why were you absent for a month? I tried to contact your foster family but they claimed you were with other relatives!"

"Ya' dun see lil ole me?" He held up his arms to show how emaciated his is. "Got sick, ya' see. Jus got better yesterday."

That was almost the truth. He did have a foster home when he first arrived in Soul Society. However, all the members of that little home made minimal contact with the little boy. They were decent enough folk, despite the fear, they sucked it up, got him to the local school. They did not even mind that he had to eat once in a while. But when he started eating more and more, they left the door open. The foster home did not kick him out, but if he chose to just get up and disappear one day, no one would object either. Like what he did a couple of months ago. Shortly after that, the fights began.

"Alright class, before lunch I had each of you go out and pick a favorite animal, tell me what it is and why you like the animal. Who wants go first? Little Mikey?"

"My favorite animal is the doggy. The doggy is smart, plays fetch and bites mean people!"

"Alright, very...multi-functional. Anyone else? Linda?"

"I love pigeons! They are everywhere, they fly and they poop on my neighbor's garden."

"How...spiteful. Thank you, Linda. Anybody else?"

And so the answers come in a similar nature. Dogs. Cats. Fish. One even said platypus.

"Okay, everybody went. Wait, not everyone. Ichimaru, did you find an animal you want to talk about?"

"Remembered me, thas' good. Ai gotta 'nimal no one else mentioned. S' tha snake. Quiet, hides in nice spots, no readable face, konda like me, and when it strikes, strikes fas'."

"I am sick and tired of this creep! Why does everything have to be hidden and sneaky for you? You're a weirdo and you piss me off! Does a snake strike like this, pasty!?" A fist flew from the kid beside him. -CRASH-

The action was over as soon as it started. "Mad" Jerry, the class bully was lying on the floor with his chair knocked aside and desk fallen over. Books and papers were scattered about. In a motion as smooth as fish in water, Gin took Mad Jerry's punching arm and brought it down. The rest of the momentum was provided by the attacker. The aftermath was a still smiling Gin holding Mad Jerry in an arm lock and sitting calmly on top of him.

"Oh an' teach, snakes ar' ac'rate wit' where they strike too." His smile brightened a little more as he nudged a little to the side, hyperextending Mad Jerry's right arm. He squealed like a little girl before Ichimaru let him go.

The rest of the class proceeded as normal. As the sun started to set and the children learn a little more about what the afterlife is to relay to their foster families, the children were dismissed. Education runs in the reverse you see. Children are more malleable, easier to shape mentally and thus, have fewer qualms with death whereas most adult souls, in particular those who were cut down suddenly and traumatically, have a harder time adjusting.

"Ichimaru, could I talk to you for a minute?"

"Sho', wha's goin' on, teacher?"

"Your behavior concerns me."

"Oh?"

"It seems like everyone wants to get into a fight with you-"

"Tha' who' class saw, Mad Jerry was ou' fo' blood first, teacher-"

"That maybe true this time. But haven't you gotten into a lot more fights recently?"

"Oh? Ya' dun say?"

"I do say, Ichimaru. I'm serious. You have to watch yourself. I know you like playing in the woods but two weeks ago, there's a known trouble maker stabbed through the neck. Be careful."

"Ah will, ah will. Gess' mos people dun like how ai look. Dun like happy people li' me."

"You do look different, Ichimaru. How do you see with your eyes closed all the time? And that smile, why?"

"Ai'z jes a simple guy, teach. Ai got the sight, ya' see? Dun nee' ta open 'em eyes. Ai ken see, I'm happy. Bein' happy, ai smile."

The teacher saw he was going nowhere with this child. She would like to help him, understand him, but there's no digging deeper with him! Other kids you could read like a book. This child, there's no getting through, no penetrating the mask of his closed eye and plastered smile. "I hope so, Ichimaru. That's all."

"Bye-bye!" And Ichimaru walked off.