-I really, seriously just about melted myself with this set of drabbles. Kiwi-kiwi-kii, this is probably one of the most sappy, smut-ridden things that I've done. But it's so DAMN CUTE! I had a lot of help for inspiration for this from my friends, so I owe them a lot for helping me out. Because, let's just face facts; I'm an absolute retard when it comes to romantic traditions and or things. So I had to recruit two other helpers in order to get these done. Go me! Anyway, more info on the bottom… maybe. This set is pretty self explanatory.
1: Old
"Hey! Old Man Yamamoto!"
The old man turned, about to growl something about the improper use of his name before realizing it was futile, especially in relation to the Captain that had addressed him. Kurosakis were insatiable, after all, so there was little point in wasting the energy.
"Yes, Captain Kurosaki, what can I do for you?"
The younger Captain jogged up, and for a moment Yamamoto felt a pang of vague jealousy at his spryness. But he'd had his days in the sun; so he couldn't hold it against the younger Captain all that much. When Ichigo stopped and stood next to him, he spoke again. "Hey, would you be willing to be Toshiro's "old" thing?"
The Head Captain paused, blinking slowly for a few moments. He knew that the vibrant Captain was intended for the Captain of the 10th Squad; he'd sanctioned the marriage himself before it had been made public. But he had no recollection or clue as to what the younger man meant by saying such a thing. However, he supposed it could do no harm in accepting, whatever the absurd tradition was.
"I suppose," he said. "However, I'd like to know wha-"
"Great!" the fiery man interrupted, his trademark smile bursting over his features. "Would you be willing to be the one to give him away too? We haven't found anybody yet, and I thought you might like to."
Yamamoto blinked again. At least this time he knew about the tradition that was being spoken of. "Yes, I would be honored. But Captain Kurosaki-"
"Awesome!" The young man reached out, smacking him good-naturedly across the shoulder before making to dash off to some other endeavor he apparently needed to attend to. "Thanks Old Man Yamamoto! I'll see you later and let you know when everything's arranged, alright?"
The other Captain didn't even get the chance to get a word in this time before the red head disappeared completely, a probably very purposeful flash step carrying him farther and faster than Yamamoto even cared to think about chasing him at that moment. He sighed to himself, shaking his head.
Children were so strange, these days.
2: New
"Oh Captain! My Captain!"
Toshiro felt his irritated tick before he could stop it from coming, but let out a stiff sigh as Matsumoto came skipping into the office. Akira who sat at what was supposed to be the Lieutenant's seat, doing what was supposed to be the Lieutenant's work, just looked up out of the corner of her teal eyes with a vague interest before setting back to her paperwork. Toshiro was thankful, because if the package that Matsumoto had in her hand was any indication, this was about to be a very embarrassing conversation.
"I know you haven't gotten anything "new" yet for your wedding, so I decided to go out and find something for you! I hope it's your size!"
With that she promptly dumped the contents of her package out onto his desk. A boiling rush of blood shot up to his face as his Lieutenant held up and presented exactly what he desperately wanted to un-see. Which, just for the humor of those interested, happened to be a pair of silk lace underwear (if the pathetically small amount of fabric they were made up of could actually be called that) and a frilly, be-flowered garter to match.
With a disgruntled groan he buried his face against the wooden surface of his desk in an attempt to crush his skull against it, only vaguely listening as Matsumoto attempted to explain just why she'd chosen those particular pieces, and why exactly, down to the last detail, they would look good on him.
It didn't help that Akira was chuckling into her scarf on the other side of the room.
3: Borrowed
For the first time in hundreds of years, Toshiro could actually admit to being girlishly nervous. It wasn't just a fleeting nervousness, or a pensive one. It was an actual, emotional, tremulous hesitation that sat in his stomach, flitting around like ten million butterfly sneezes. But he kept calm, knocking gently on the door to his grandmother's house in Junrinan as if it were any other normal visit. But the joyous fact was that it wasn't just any other normal visit, though telling his grandmother why it wasn't a normal visit was causing him a decent amount of terror.
When she answered the door, her old, age worn face lit up like the spring sun from behind a skiff of cloud. Her eyes twinkled as she greeted him, embracing him in a loving embrace as she always did. For a moment, he was able to forget his nervousness, instead focusing on wrapping his arms around her now much healthier form and smiling like the grandma's boy that he was somewhere deep down. Her experienced hands skimmed along his haori, proudly as they did every time he showed up in his Captain's uniform. But the pride wasn't just in her hands; he could see it in her eyes, in the way she smiled so widely at him that her face could barely contain her joy at his finally being happy and accomplished.
No one could really blame him for being a grandma's boy; with love and affection like that, anyone, even Kenpachi Zaraki would melt into a puddle of sugared butter.
He followed her in as she ushered him through the front door, having to actually slow his stride for once in order to let her keep up with him. Having grown to an actually semi-decent height, he could cross the room in a pair of strides now, rather than the half dozen steps he used to have to take. But he could tell that she was proud of that too; that he'd finally grown into the strong young man that she always knew he would be.
But now, he was a strong young man about to be married, which, in spite of being another matter entirely, was the entire reason he was there.
She sat him down at his usual place before her fire pit, scuttling about in her usual spry way in order to make some tea. His favorite kind, he already knew, because she always saved it for whenever he came. And in spite of having searched through almost the entire Soul Society and a good portion of the World of the Living, he still had not been able to find an even decent substitute for her tea. And he'd let her known that too; which made her just smile genially at him and wink in that wily way she did whenever she was getting away with something, promising that someday she'd share her only secret.
Once the kettle was set over the fire, her busy little body settled down next to his, and one of her hands found its way into his, he knew she was finally ready to talk as they always did whenever he came.
"It's so good to see you, Toshiro," she said, patting the hand that she held so delicately. He knew that she was well aware that his hands were far from fragile; she'd seen him wield his sword more than a fair number of times, and knew just how skilled he was with it. And yet every time she treated him with such great care that it used to almost irk him, but now it just calmed him, knowing that she had never changed in her insatiable urge to care for him. "I wasn't expecting you to visit. To what do I owe the honors?"
He laughed, patting her hand back and smiling down at her warmly. The butterflies were sneezing again, and he truly did have to make a concerted effort to keep his hands from shaking. "A very special occasion, Grandma. One that I've come to share with you."
He knew that her interest had been piqued, as her hand stilled in his. It wasn't a fearful silence, just an excited one, which helped to ease the tension that was knotting between his shoulder blades. "Occasion?" she asked, her voice a quiet whisper of anticipation, her smile still pulling at her face. "What is this occasion?"
"Grandma," he said, still smiling gingerly, "Ichigo has asked me to marry him."
For a moment her quietness took him by surprise. He'd been expecting either indignation or glee. It appeared he'd gotten neither. But when he mustered up the courage to look down at her, he saw that she was still smiling, but that one of her tiny hands was wiping a tear away from her eyes. He leaned down, fearful that he'd caused her some grief, but he could see that her eyes were gleaming not just because of the tears, but with that same unbridled pride and happiness that she always greeted him with.
The hand that had just wiped away her tears reached up and cupped his chin gently. "Oh Toshiro," she whispered, her voice hoarse, and yet so tilted with joy that he didn't know how he could have ever mistaken it for anything else, "I'm so happy for you." She reached up and wrapped her little arms around his neck, pulling his chin down to rest on her shoulder. He let out a sigh of relief, practically sinking into her and feeling so much like the little child that had left her house so many years ago. "I've been waiting for the day to see you smile at someone like you smile at me; and for someone to look at you like I do." Her little hand squeezed his shoulder. "Ichigo is the person who can give you that smile, and who looks at you with as much love as I do."
Toshiro didn't realize that he was crying until he felt her hands brushing the tears away from his face. He'd gone from nervous to shell-shocked in record time, but was too numb to even mentally comment about it. Instead he sat there, gaping like a cod out of water as his grandmother stood up, took the kettle off the fire, and began rummaging around in an attempt to find something.
Sometime during the middle of her rummaging, his mind finally caught back up to him, and he shook his head in an attempt to get his synapses to kick back on. They did, and he gazed after his grandmother, who had wrestled up some manner of box during the time when he'd been catatonic. She brought it over, sitting back down next to him and setting the box down on the floor with great care. She opened it, revealing a box of what was probably some of the most beautiful jewelry and ornaments he had ever seen. He hadn't even known that she had such things in her possession, but it appeared that she did. She sifted through each piece delicately, until she finally seemed to find what she had been looking for all along.
She drew out the little hair pin gently, cradling its shining white gold in her hands for him to look at for a moment. The jewels, alternating hues of blue, carved out of what was probably the most striking aquamarine and sapphire he'd ever seen, formed a lily of all things, very much like the symbol that his squad bore. The tears were back in his eyes as she reached up, gently tucking the pin onto the hair just above his temple, until she released it from her grasp, leaving it to sit almost weightless on his head.
He was tempted to reach up to touch it, but she grasped his hands in her own for a moment, preventing him from doing so. "My husband gave me that, long, long ago," she said, just as quietly as she'd been speaking before. "You are the only one I will ever allow to borrow it." She reached up, letting her hand once more gently grace his face, the pad of her thumb brushing away a tear that threatened to drip from his jaw. "Because only in second to you, it is my most precious gift."
4: Blue
"Come on, Toshiro; we have to get you something blue."
"Ichigo, everything I have is blue. My kimono is blue. What I've gotten that's old is blue. What I've gotten that's new is blue. The pin that my grandmother is letting me borrow is blue. I repeat, everything is blue."
"No, no. We have to get you something blue just for the sake of it being blue."
"Who the hell made up these stupid rules anyway?"
- This set made me unhealthily happy. My cohorts and I were howling up a storm in our dorm's basement while I wrote them. But thankfully it's late on a Saturday night, so no one is around to be mad at us. Yeah, you heard me; this is what my group of college gal-pals does on Saturday nights. We stay up and read/write fanfiction while everyone else is out partying. Epic, no? Anyway, another HUGE thanks to Kiwi-kiwi-kii for giving me these lovely prompts. I hope you enjoy the piss out of them dear, because I'm still crying from laughing so hard. Anyway, more prompts biffles, and I'll see you when next an update slithers into your grubby little mitts.
8-90s love,
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