A/N: Hey guys! You wouldn't believe the amazing amount of muse I got today! It's been AMAZING! So, onto the point of my Author's Note... This is a FILLER chapter, yes stories have fillers too, they aren't relevant to the main plot. But it is something that can pass the time and so you can get to know the characters a little bit better and so you know Tsukiko does NOT hate Izuru and Rukia! (The main point for this chapter.) ^-^ Oh, and when you're done with this chapter why not vote in my poll! ^-^
Disclaimer: For future reference I will NEVER own Bleach, Tite Kubo will probably never sell it to ANYONE. Ok? Good. Thank you and enjoy!
I outstretched my arms to the giant sun that woke me. "Free day!" I screamed to the sky and rolled over onto my stomach. A day when I had to do nothing but sleep and be lazy, just the way I liked it. I didn't have to worry about Renji, or Izuru, or the teacher that hated me, or anything to do with school! "Ah, such a lovely feeling," I said into my pillow and sighed in happiness. Nothing could bring me down now.
"Tsukiko-chan!" Momo plopped down on my bed, a stupid grin plastered on her face. She had something planned on my lazy day. Last time she dragged me meet her little friend, Toshirou. But I had enjoyed that, I willing went. Now she was going to force me to do something on a day when I just wanted to sleep. "Don't tell me you already forgot..." The look on her face told me that she had already guessed that I was annoyed.
"I haven't forgotten anything." I began to sit up when I realized, had I forgotten something? I tilted my head to one side in thought and rubbed a hand through my tangled hair. No training sessions, I didn't plan on going off to meet any of my friend's friends. I shot her a pure confused look. She sighed and her head fell. It wasn't my fault that I sometimes had A.D.D.
"We're suppose to have a picnic today! You, me, and Izuru!" Her voice picked up as she said our names while my face dropped. I had completely planned to not be around any guys today and I was forced to now?! That was when Momo noticed my look, she was always the first to pick up on my worried looks. "Is that alright?" Her voice was soft and sweet as she gave me a worried look. There was no way in hell that I could lie to such a face.
"I..." Though I was afraid about telling her the whole truth. "I had planned to sleep all day." I looked down at my bed in shame. I was a horrible friend and I knew it too.
"But you do that anyways!" Momo began to laugh at her own comment. And there was no way to stop us, for I had begun to laugh too. She had a great point, I always slept in class, I woke up late, and I was the first to go to sleep. It's only because the medication the nurse had given me made me tired all the time. But that didn't mean I was ever really awake. "You need sometime to be with friends and have some awake time." As Momo continued to talk she kept on laughing. And whenever my friends laughed I couldn't help but go along with them.
"But I'm SO tired Momo-chan!" I screamed out dramatically and fell back on my bed. "I just wanna sleep for five more minuets mommy!" I rolled onto my side and grabbed my pillow to pretend to keep sleeping.
"Darling, you can't sleep all day. You'll fall behind." She put her hands on my side and began to shake me violently. "Do you want to be a disgrace to all of Soul Society?!"
"Yes! Yes, I do!" At that I couldn't keep up my character and I rolled back to my stomach and began to laugh once more. Momo fell on top of me in laughter.
"Are you crazy? You really do?" Her words were barely audible through her laughter.
"Nah, I'm just messing with you. I'll be the best thing to hit Soul Society!" I exclaimed and began to push Momo off of me. At that moment there was a knock at the door. Both our heads popped up to look at the door. "You get it!" I gave her a final pushed that made her leap from my bed.
"Okay, okay. Just don't let your ego get the best of you," she teased at me with an innocent look on her face.
"Don't worry, I'm not Renji-kun!" I said proudly and sat up to see who was at our door.
All Momo did was laugh at me as she opened the door. "Sounds like you all are having a lot of fun before I even arrive." There stood my best guy friend at the moment. Izuru Kira. A bright smile was across his face and a bad was draped over his shoulder as he peered into our room. Everything was in order except for my bed, which I was in the middle of trying to fix. I didn't want to look Izuru in the eyes, even though I knew it would come eventually. "Did I come at a bad time?" Izuru looked down at Momo since I wasn't paying any attention to him.
"No. You're right on time. But Senta-san over here forgot about our little outing." I could feel both their stares on my back as I slowly began to turn. I smiled sweetly at them both as I tried to put on my best innocent act. Which worked for them because they knew nothing about my real past.
"I told you not to call me by my last name, Hinamori-san. It feels like you don't really know me on a friend level." I turned my smile into a frown. All my friends knew how much I hated to be called by my last time. I was a person who loved to have a lot of friends, I wanted to be friends with everyone. And when someone called me by my last name it felt like they were distant and really didn't know me at all. Momo definitely was my very best friend at the time and she knew me on a personal level. There was no reason for her to use my last name.
"I'm just kidding Tsukiko-chan!" She jumped to her defense and waved her hands in front of her.
"Just watch your mouth," I scolded her while Izuru stood there with a big smile on his face. We were apparently really amusing to him, our random little spats, and how we would randomly change characters... But that was only acting, just us messing around. I really didn't change that much. Or did I?
"Did either of you make something for today?" Izuru questioned as I finished making my bed. I stood up and gave him a confused look. Since when was I suppose to make something?
"I made some onigiri!" Momo said proudly as she held up a wicker basket. "And some Fu. Enough to feed a few people." Momo nodded her head with delight as she held on tight to her basket. Had everyone prepared something but me? It was that moment that I started to worry.
"And you Tsukiko-chan?" Izuru's blue eyes turned to me and my own eyes grew wide.
"Uhm. You see..." I had nothing to say. "I failed at being a friend."
"She hasn't made anything," Momo's voice quickly overtook mine. "Maybe we should have assigned what each person should have brought."
I sighed quickly as I agreed with her. "Maybe we should have... Maybe then I could have remembered a little bit better." I stood up from beside my bed and looked around the room for something I could do to help with our little picnic. "Well, I do have some bottles of cold tea! The nurse says its the best thing on a hot day." I continued to look around the room. "And we can use my blanket to sit on." I grabbed the blanket from a top the bed that I had just made. It didn't really matter to me if the blanket got dirty, I wasn't to picky over my belongings.
Both Momo and Izuru smiled at my sudden eagerness to take part in our outing. "Perfect." Momo stated as she began to turn to face the door, while I collected all the stuff I needed to get. "Now our picnic can begin!"
"Can you two wait for me just outside the door? I still have to get ready and everything..." I looked down to my sleeping clothes, I wasn't exactly dressed to go outside and have other people look at me. They both nodded and walked out of the room and Momo closed the door behind her. I smiled at the door for a couple moments and thought to myself,' I really do have the best friends.' I quickly turned to put on my normal academy uniform, slip on the black flats, and push my hair down to a slightly normal looking position. No matter what I did my hair would always be curly, poofy, and frizzy. The most I could do was push it down by rubbing my hands over the top of it to maybe get rid of some of the frizz. Once I finished with my hair I ran to find a bag somewhere in my room to carry my stuff in.
The moment I was finished I flung the door open, "I'm ready!" I announced my entrance with a bright smile on my face. Momo giggled at my craziness and Izuru kept smiling. "Let's go!" I placed the strap of my bag on my shoulder and marched down the hallway with my head held high. I wasn't going to let anything get my down today. It was going to be a day of nothing but friends and we would have fun even if it killed us!
I was walking ahead of Izuru and Momo with a bright smile on my face. I swung my free arm wildly by my side while my other held onto the bag that was draped over my shoulder. The bag held a few cold teas and a folded up blanket that we would use to sit on. This sudden excitement that I had was overwhelming to me and probably to my friends too. Not long ago I was being a horrible friend and forgetting about them to be too excited to stop moving. I could hear Momo whisper something to Izuru, probably about how weird I was, but it didn't phase me. My mind was still trying to figure out where my super happiness came from. It was most likely the fact that I wouldn't be spending the day with Renji.
I opened my eyes to begin searching for a spot to set our stuff down at. I knew that I had to start looking at some point, Izuru and Momo wouldn't be happy if I just kept on walking in my own little, bliss world. They both knew all to well that when I got in this kind of I mood I could run for hours, never stopping. Though the nurse always preferred for me to stay seated and locked up in a shaded world. But she had no idea who I really was, the wild and free Tsukiko, a girl who grew up in one of the lowest districts of Rukongai with no family but her friends. I didn't grow up with any guidance from parents, I grew up without rules. So it was often hard for me to follow the rules and standards that this academy had set up. I wasn't going to play a fool, I wanted to show everyone that it didn't matter where you came from and that I could be just like them too.
As the nostalgia ran through my body I spotted a familiar figure. A tiny body with slick black hair and a strand running in front of her face. She was sitting against a tree and looking up towards the sky. She looked as if she had nothing to do on this free day and my inner Rukongai child popped out on it's own. "Rukia-chan~!" I ran as quickly as I could to my old friend. Her eyes shot up like I had just woken her from a deep sleep, though her eyes were open to begin with.
"Tsukiko...?" Rukia's voice was full of confusion for she probably wondered why I was so excited to see her when the other day I turned my head and walked to other way at the site of her. But it just wasn't my day then, I could barely breath and needed to rest. Now I was fully charged and ready to show the world how happy I was. Plus, I didn't want one of my best friends to feel like I hated her.
"Want to have a picnic with me and my friends?" I squatted beside the sitting Rukia and leaned forward to look her straight in the eyes. Her head leaned back against the tree as she tried to figure out words to say to my confusing question.
After a moment of her mumbling I sighed and rolled my eyes. "Come on. It'll be fun!" I grabbed Rukia's hand and pulled her up to stand beside me.
"Wait, Tsukiko!" Rukia's voice called out to me, but had no effect. Couldn't she tell that it was either join us or join us? There was no in between. I made my way back over to the confused Izuru and Momo. This was suppose to be their day but it was also a day to spend with friends and Rukia was definitely one of my friends.
"Rukia, I would like for you to meet Izuru Kira and Momo Hinamori." I pointed to each of my friends as I said their names. They both waved slowly and Rukia waved back. All of them were trying to figure out what was going on through my head. But even I couldn't answer that. "She will be joining us today!" I pulled Rukia's hand so she slammed into my side. I flung my arm around her shoulder and smiled at Izuru and Momo. Rukia was slightly shorter than me so it didn't look too awkward when my arm hung from her shoulder. "I hope that's okay...?" My voice grew smaller as Izuru and Momo both stood there staring at me.
"Of course it's okay!" I knew the one person to save me would be Izuru. I gave him one of my sweetest smiles as I turned to look around once more.
"I guess we need to find ourselves a spot, huh?" I looked at all my friends, Izuru and Momo both nodded while Rukia stood there with a close to scared look on her face. I was sure that she was uncomfortable at the moment, I was also sure that I would fix that in no time. My eyes wondered for a nice, soft spot that would be a great place to have a picnic. "How about over here?" I returned my hand to Rukia's and sprinted off to a random place by a tree. It was perfect, the sun was shinning while a tree bent over providing enough shade for me to be covered. "This is great!" I exclaimed as I continued to drag Rukia along with me. I ran over to where I was standing right under the tree. I looked up towards to sun and smiled as I felt the warmth against my skin.
"It is a pretty good spot." Izuru's voice came up behind me and I turned to see him standing next to Momo as they both stared at the strange tree that I found.
"Isn't it? This tree gives enough shade for me! Or for all of us if anyone else wants to sit in the shade." I turned to look at all my friends who blinked back as if they waited for me to make the final mood. I figured that they were more sunny people and wouldn't like to sit in the shade with their sick little friend. "Here it is then!" I let go of Rukia's hand and set down my bag. I opened it and pulled out the giant blanket. I bundled it up into my arms and turned back to everyone else. "Izuru, come help me with this." The moment I said his name he was at my side, ready to help.
I grabbed two ends of the blanket and instructed Izuru to grab the opposite ends. We both strechted our arms and took enough steps away from each other so the blanket was all the way out. I nodded to him and at the same time we moved down with the blanket being caught by the wind so it bubbled up. As we finished setting it down it slowly fell to the ground. "Perfect!" I clasped my hands together as I stared at the blanket that sat a quarter of the way into the shade. "Come sit by me Rukia-chan!" I grabbed onto her hand again and pulled her over to my side blanket while picking my bag back up on my way.
I kicked off my shoes and jumped onto the blanket. I slid my hands down the front of my hakama as I sat down on my knees, while Rukia took a little bit of a slower approach. They all did the same actions I did as the sat down on my blanket. "Where did you get this from?" Rukia's hand patted the blanket beneath her.
"I got it from my room! It's the blanket that I use for my bed." I smiled innocently at her while she looked up at me with a blank look, not believing that I would use my blanket for such a thing. "It's alright." I waved my hand at her, "I had almost forgotten about the whole thing so I had to make up for it somehow."
"She had to make it up to us, or we would have disowned her." Momo's soft voice drifted through the air and made my heart drop. I turned my head slowly to look at her and Izuru. My eyes were wide with a shock look and my heart was racing. My best friends wouldn't really do that to me...would they? "I'm just kidding Tsukiko-chan." Momo and Izuru both started laughing at my horror.
"It's not funny to joke like that." I mumbled in a pouty voice. I looked at my hands that sat in my lap and began to play with my fingers.
"I'm sorry. Here, have an onigiri." I looked up at Momo's words to see a giant ball of white being thrown at my face. I caught it just in time before it smashed my face. As I moved it to where I could actually looked at it I noticed that it barely fit into one of my hands.
"Momo-chan! Why did you make these things so big?" I turned the onigiri around to get a better look at it. I noticed that both Izuru and Rukia were doing the same actions. We were all baffled by the giant size of the onigiris.
"I wanted to make sure I had enough, so I made them super big." She smiled at all of us as we all looked at her as if she was some kind of fool. And I just started to laugh out of no where. The site of the onigiris was just something that could make any person roll over in laughter. Especially since they were made by someone with such small hands, who knew she could make onigiris so big. "I'm sorry..." Momo looked down at her own hands in shame.
"Oh no! Momo-chan, I'm not laughing at your amazing work on these onigiris, I just think it's funny that they're so big!" I exclaimed as I continued to star at my onigiri and then I heard a little laugh come from beside. There I saw little Rukia laughing along with me. My smile grew brighter as she finally began to enjoy herself. That was my main aim for that day and I had achieved it.
"I guess they are kind of gigantic." Momo picked up one of the onigiris and looked at it for herself. Another set of laughter started to come from her own body. "I didn't realize before how funny they are." That was when I noticed that we were all laughing, laughing about the size of the onigiris Momo made.
When the laughter started to die down I saw the perfect chance to have a little bit more fun. "Hey Izuru-kun," my voice turned sly as I made a smile to match. His eyes shot up and grew wide as he grew worried about what I might say. "I dare you to put a whole onigiri in your mouth." The moment I spoke his jaw flew. He slowly lifted the onigiri to the front of his mouth and stared at it in wonder. He had no idea how he would get such a thing in his mouth.
"What's going on over here?" A strong voice could be heard from only a couple feet away. The moment it spoke I knew exactly who it was and I felt my heart skip a beat as I looked up to see Renji coming towards us. Of all days! Of all the times for him to show up it had to be on the day when I was having a lot of fun with my friends. And here he was to ruin it all. He would come over and we would probably get into a fight about something and then one of us would stomp off in anger. Which would probably have been me since he is to prideful to walk away.
"We're having a picnic Abarai-kun." Momo looked up at Renji and smiled. Renji did an overlook of our whole set-up and his eyes rested on Rukia. Then his eyes turned to me with a confused look, wondering why she was here. I simply shrugged my shoulders at him but couldn't bring my eyes to look away from him.
"Would you like to join us?" I figured that I should be at least a decent friend to Renji, he was my longest running friend...even if we did fight all the time. I scooted closer to Rukia and patted an empty space beside me. "I'm pretty sure you can fit your fat self here." I smiled up at him like I had done no wrong.
Renji glared at me while he was making his way over to the spot next to me. "I am not fat!"
"Of course not," I shrugged my shoulders innocently. "You're just big-boned, right?" His glare grew worse and his mouth opened to fire something back at me.
"You two never stop fighting." Rukia smiled and looked between me and Renji. The way she spoke really hit both of us. We never did stop fighting and if we did we weren't near each other then. It wasn't till our last years in Rukongai that our fighting had started. It was when we both started developing our true personalities and we started to clash more. But through that we tried to make our friendship work, we had moments were our friendship seemed to never end and moments when I thought I would never speak to him again. Maybe that was the beauty of our relationship, we could still be friends after all the things we've said to each other. There were still moments when I wished we could have been more for each other. But after meeting Rukia his eyes never left her.
Renji sat down beside me and I could feel his leg touching mine. I was stuck in between two people and had no where to move without embarrassing myself. I was just about to let out a sigh when I noticed Izuru about to take a bite out of his onigiri.
"Wait a second!" I screamed out and pointed a finger at Izuru. Everyone jumped back, even Renji flinched when I screamed. "Don't you dare try to sneak a bite in. You have to stuff the WHOLE thing in your mouth!"
"What?!" Renji's voice exclaimed as his face turned to that of pure shock. He wasn't here for the reason of my screaming. So, now he was thinking something very perverted.
"You disgusting pervert!" I smacked Renji's shoulder and he glared at me again. "I dared Izuru to stuff his whole onigiri in his mouth." I said matter-of-factly. Renji simply nodded as he tried not to make himself look embarrassed. Izuru looked around as if he was trying to find a way out of this. "No, no Izuru-kun. You have to do this now, there is no turning back," I said evilly as I watched him gulp. He knew that there was no getting out of this, unless he wanted me to torture him for the rest of his life.
He slowly lifted the onigiri again to his mouth and spread apart his lips. A drop of sweat rolled down his face as the onigiri began to enter his mouth. Everyone else was sitting around and watching intently as Izuru continued to stuff it in. He began to make a choking noise to tell us that this whole dare probably wouldn't work out. Once it was in he tried to close his mouth and there was no way. His hands flew in front of his mouth as some of the onigiri began to crumble out.
We all had the same reaction at the same time, laughter. The look on Izuru's face was one of the greatest things of my life, especially since rice had gone all over his face. At that moment I don't think any of us could stop laughing. My head fell against Renji's shoulder as I couldn't stop the laughter from coming. I barely noticed where my head rested till I looked up to see Renji laughing too. My cheeks grew warm and my head shot up to look at Izuru again who had finally got some on the onigiri down. I turned my eyes to look at Renji again who looked down at me at the same time. We both sat there for a moment with our eyes locked and I remembered why I felt the way I did about him. He knew me better than anyone ever could, he had saved my life countless times in Rukongai, and he was like nobody else I had ever met. I smiled sweetly at him and he returned it with a half smile. Then both our eyes turned back to continue laughing at Izuru.
ONIGIRI=Rice ball
The reason I didn't call it a rice ball is because I like the word onigiri. ^-^