When you mess with fate
Chapter 13
A/N: I do not own Bleach and its characters. If I did... Never mind…
Abarai Ichika shoved her hand into the bag to grab a fistful of crisps and rested her legs across the coffee table without taking her eyes off the telly. She was watching a Cantonese movie with Japanese subtitle. It had a lot of huge ass sword-fighting scenes – perfect for someone like her who loved watching stuff with lots of action and some really wicked humour. She had just arrived at the apartment she was in, had broken into it with a trick she learnt from Tatsuki-obasan when she was much younger. Humans are so weird. They always manage to foul up their own security system.
Her superior hearing ability told her that her human best friend had just come out of the elevator. Turning down the volume of the TV, she braced herself for his usual overreaction. There was a pause before the knob was turned. Ichika rolled her eyes. She had forgotten to lock the door after she came in.
"For Kami's sake, would you please stop breaking into my apartment?" Kazui admonished, tossing his keys into a bowl on the console table before removing his shoes at the genkan.
"Sorry," Ichika murmured half-heartedly, turning up the volume again.
Kazui walked around the couch to have a look at her and huffed. "Doesn't Urahara-san make older-looking gigai for you? I can't take you anywhere like that. I'm going to look like a paedophile."
"So many questions," Ichika grumbled. "I'm not going anywhere. This movie is nice."
The man flopped next to her on the couch and crossed his arms. "That's such an old movie. It's older than you."
"And I'm older than you. Look how much more interesting I am compared to you," Ichika smirked.
"That movie is more than twenty years older than you. It's ancient. You're not ancient to me. Five years is like this," Kazui countered, indicating the size of a peanut with his thumbnail pressing the tip of his little finger.
Ichika looked at him questioningly. "I don't know what the point of your argument is."
Kazui opened his mouth to reply but found nothing to get back at her. "Yeah, neither do I," he sighed. "What are you doing here, anyway? Don't you have fukutaichou work to do, Abarai-fukutaichou?"
The brunette cringed at the title. "That's Renji-san. Not me. I'm just Ichika-fukutaichou. It helps clear the confusion at fukutaichou meetings," she explained.
"So he's 'Renji-san', now. You've been calling him plenty of different names," he said, getting up from the couch to go to the kitchen.
Ichika had told him once that the redhead shinigami was not her real father. She trailed after Kazui, disregarding Chow Xin Chi's Royal Tramp still playing on the screen. "I never know how to address him," she admitted.
Kazui scoffed, tossing her a can of coffee before getting one for himself. "If I can call Kurosaki Ichigo 'Otou-san', then you can call Renji-ojisan that too."
The shinigami flinched at her friend's remark. She pretended to study the can in her hand. Whoever drinks coffee in a can?
When she looked up, Kazui was leaning on the kitchen counter, arms crossed again, with a serious expression on his face as he looked back at her. "I take it your silence means you know about it."
"Know about what?"
"Don't mess with me, shinigami. You know Tou-san is actually your dad," he stated.
Shoulders slumped, she asked, "Did someone tell you?"
Kazui chuckled. "So it's true."
Ichika exclaimed in shock, "You didn't know!"
The 43-year-old shook his head and smirked. "My mum suspected it. After Rukia-obasan left last year, I finally read the letter Okaa-san wrote to me. She said she had a feeling you're Otou-san's daughter. She said she hoped I would understand if I ever found out it was true because Otou-san and Rukia-obasan were together back in the day when they were comrades."
Ichika bit her lower lip, keeping her head bowed. "I'm sorry. I only found out before my installation. That's why I haven't been visiting. I didn't know how to face you," she said.
Kazui chuckled again. "You are the last person who needs to apologise, Ichika. This whole web of lies we're caught in is our parents' doing."
They both kept quiet for a while, drinking their coffee, just letting this awkward moment pass. They had been best of friends for almost forty years. Ichika was worried this new discovery of their roots would destroy their friendship.
"You seem unaffected by it," Ichika commented.
"I've got to admit that I was mad at first. My parents kept so many things from me. It's like, every year, I would find out something new – mostly not very pleasant – about me, about mum and dad. I just want a normal family, Ichika. That's why I moved here: to look for the normal side of my life."
Ichika regarded him sympathetically. She didn't know what normal was. She had never been normal. She was a soul. She attended the Shinō Academy at the age of 12 and killed her first hollow at the age of 15. She was taught that her life's purpose was to die protecting humans, family, and friends. She practically lived to die. Sometimes, she envied Kazui because his life seemed so much purer compared to hers.
But looking at him now, she knew he didn't have it easy either. It must've freaked him out when Kurosaki-san – also her Otou-san now – left his lifeless body for the first time when Kazui was 21. This man couldn't see spirits like his mother could. Even Karin-obasan and Yuzu-obasan could sense spiritual pressure. In a world of abnormalities, he was the only one who was normal. He must've felt so alone.
"I'm sorry," she said again.
"Why do you keep saying you're sorry?" he asked. "You're also another victim of this. I don't know about you but I'm not surprised anymore when new information about my life keeps popping up. Every day there's something new. It gets old sometimes," he laughed at his own oxymoron remark.
Ichika leaned on the counter next to him. They looked odd together. Like father and daughter standing next to each other. The woman had the figure of a 15-year-old, almost like how her mother was when she first met her father. Kazui, on the other hand had the looks of a middle-aged man.
"So, what are you going to do?" she asked.
Kazui shrugged. "Nothing. What can I do? Can't change the past," he replied, taking a sip of his coffee.
Ichika sighed. "Are you ever going back to Karakura to see Kurosaki-san?"
The man pursed his lips, staring ahead of him at the kitchen clock on the wall.
"I think you should. I'm sure he's worried about you," Ichika said when he didn't answer. "Any parent would, biological or not."
Kazui nodded. "Maybe. Maybe I'll drop by for a visit. Clear things up a bit. Release him of his chains so he wouldn't think he has to stay in this world because of me."
"Kazui." Ichika stepped in front of him to face him. Their height difference wasn't much. Ichika was quite tall in stature. "I'm not taking his side just because I just found out he's my father, too. But I've seen how Renji-san is always concerned about me even though I'm not his daughter. He doesn't even live with us. The only thing tying us together is a name. I think Kurosaki-san would be even more concerned about you because the man practically raised you."
"Yeah," he snorted. "Whatever. We shall see. How's your mum, anyway?"
Ichika's eyes were downcast again. "She's upset about something. Been working like the soldier that she is. Buries herself in her paperwork. On days when her paperwork is done, she would work the new recruits off at the training ground. She's quiet during meal times. I hardly see her."
"Any idea what happened to her?"
The shinigami shook her head. "I'm here because I thought you might know something. I'm not blaming you but she became like that after she came to see you. I just want to know what happened here."
Kazui furrowed his brows. When Rukia-obasan left his apartment after they shared memories of his mother, it didn't seem like something was amiss. They even made a few jokes about how the next time she came over, she would put on the gigai of a wrinkly old lady.
"Nothing out of the ordinary happened. I apologised about how I ran out on her back in Karakura. I told her my frustration about Otou-san. We talked about mum. Rukia-obasan left on a happy note," he recalled. And then, it dawned on him: "It must've been the letter."
Ichika tilted her head. "What letter?"
"Okaa-san wrote her a letter before she died. It must've somehow upset her when she read it at home," Kazui replied. "I'm sorry."
Ichika sighed. "It's not your fault. Our parents are just so complicated. They must've done something to upset fate to be so messed up."
Another one for you, today, before I head off to a cheese and wine party my friends and I are having. It's quite amusing how I am beginning to like these two new Bleach characters after writing them.