Requested by The Crazy Chick In Black- thank you
Yuzu and Momo
Count
Every hug counts for something, and every smile stretches the next a little further. When that nice silver-haired boy who knew Ichigo from somewhere-or-another brought the girl around, Yuzu had chatted pleasantly with her for a while, before she realised that despite her cautious little smile there was something very wrong with her. So she sat her down with gentle, undeniable force at the kitchen table as she set about preparing lunch for her three charges for the next day.
She asked her what was wrong, and the answer was like a a tidal wave.
She spoke for hours and hours, about her friends from work and the friends she had had since childhood, and her guilt and her anger and her sorrow about the man that she had loved who had left her, it seemed, in quite terrible circumstances. Yuzu nodded, and offered advice, and listened to every word as she prepared food, now for their dinner for that night. She moved them into the living room when she was done, still listening as she dusted and wiped down the coffee table and neatened the chairs.
Karin came in from practice, and Yuzu told her that her dinner was in the oven. Isshin followed soon after and received the same instruction, as well as being told to take a plate up to Ichigo so he wouldn't forget to eat.
She gave Hinamori cookies, and made her hot chocolate, leant her a warm pair of slippers and a blanket to tuck around her knees as the night drew on. And when she started to cry- gulping, hopeless, silent sobs- Yuzu held her and petted her hair and smiled, because even though she was far younger, she knew how to look after people.
She'd been doing it for as long as she could remember, after all.