ix.
Karin stirs.
She doesn't remember falling asleep, but she wakes to someone with dark blonde hair, who sighs at her and gives her a pitying expression. Karin doesn't have energy to care; she's too tired to feel anything at all.
Karin stirs, and her limbs are heavy useless things in the morning, have been useless ever since her sleeping patterns changed and she keeps waking up in different places. Yesterday she woke sprawled across the stairs, elbows stiff with awkward angles, the day before yesterday she woke beneath the window that overlooked the garden, a cold breeze blowing on her neck.
She takes the maidservant's hand and relearns how to breathe, relearns how to straighten her spine and steady her legs before she touches the ground and stands tall. It feels as though her shoulders are carrying too much weight, and Karin lets go of her hand, arms falling heavily to her side.
It's not just her limbs, her mind is tired. There's a fog inside her, and it's messed everything up, distorted everything into fabrics that Kisuke used to make, a pastime of his, a hobby, and soft silk shines beneath Kisuke's fingers, turns Karin cold and grey and frayed at night.
"What's gotten into you?" She says, and Karin doesn't answer, trying to think of her name, until it comes to her: the mousy looking servant boy called her Kiyone. Karin keeps the name there on the tip of her tongue, and tries to understand the frown on the maidservant's face. "This is the fourth time I've found you like this. You have a perfectly find bed. What's wrong?"
It's only then that Karin realizes that she's in the library.
"I wanted to read something." She says instead, surprised that Hitsugaya hasn't said anything. He's been more careful these past few days, frowning at her and watching her closely and it's… strangely reassuring.
"And the other times?" Kiyone's scepticism fills the spaces between bookshelves as her hands settle on her hips, and Karin can answer that easily.
"Sleepwalking." She lies, preferring not to admit that she doesn't know when it became a place she didn't want to return to.
"There are other beds, if you don't like that one." Kiyone points out in a slow speaking voice, head tilting to the side. Her dark blonde hair falls past her shoulder, cutting the angles of her cheek and her half-chewed lip, considering. "If you want to talk, though, I'll listen."
Her first instinct is to refuse. She won't break. She won't be weak. She hates Hitsugaya for seeing her reaching her breaking point, for seeing her when she was nothing but skin and bones. But at least she survived and kept her face stoic, refusing to show weakness.
"You make things so difficult." Kiyone mutters, rolling her eyes, losing patience and looks resolutely at the ceiling, before meeting Karin's gaze, and stating simply. "It's fine if you don't want to, but it's okay if you do."
Karin lets go of the breath she hadn't known she was holding.
"What happened, Karin?" Kiyone asks, softer, and still Karin can't answer.
She thinks she dreams of chasing carriages, only she can never catch up and when she wakes, her legs feel bruised and muddy and stained by grass. When she soaks in the bath, these last four days, pushing her knees to her chest, she thinks she remembers dreaming about getting lost in the woods, she sees smiling faces and then there are silent screams caught in her throat, as her legs get bound by darkness and iron chains. But her legs are fine, unmarked, unblemished, and she's confusing memories with vivid dreams with reality and washes it down the basin.
"I." Karin stops, starts again. "It's nothing." Karin says, lowering her head and emotions build within her, threatening to burst while her thoughts are muddled. She can only push people away for so long. It's worked before. It'll work again.
"It can't be, if you're like this." Kiyone says, gentle, and Karin needs one last push before she crumbles, she's certain. If she looks up, she'll break. "Talk to me, Karin."
She folds into herself, and she trembles, trying to bite her tongue, her mouth, teeth barring the emotions that threaten to break down her carefully constructed walls, and she presses her lips into an impenetrable dam. She will not break. She will not break. No one is going to hurt her here if she refuses to answer. She will not break.
… but she is tired of living like this, pushing herself to be this strong all the time.
She sighs, closing her eyes and sees hats and clogs dancing on stone slabs and Karin wonders if she can really call this living, if she's constantly closing down on herself and refusing to be anything but defensive. She'd spent her days with Okikiba in this mind-set, waiting for days when they'd let her free, and she'd try to run, take some of them with her, before they caught her, again and again. It had been a survival mechanism, and she'd settled into her skin detachedly, watching and waiting for the next time she would set free, seething in hate at anyone who looked at her.
It didn't seem to work whenever she glared at Hitsugaya or Kiyone. They seemed unfazed, sometimes patient; other times bored, occasionally becoming overtly annoyed, but never scared.
Karin has spent a lifetime not trusting people; she doesn't know how to start now.
How is she supposed to tell them that she has issues with trust, with being vulnerable around other people without seeming weak? How is supposed to tell them that the last time she trusted someone, it was the reason it was sent to the slave market in the first place.
"Leave me alone." She says, coldly, the practised monotony returning easily, as she looks up, narrowing her eyes, angry. "I don't want to talk about it."
"Fine." Kiyone shrugs, saying nothing else.
"Fine." Karin echoes, and hates that the anger quickly gives way to disappointment instead. She hates that she feels disappointed at herself more than anything else.
"Breakfast's this way." Kiyone says, refusing to leave without her, and Karin trails after her, confused to why they're not going to the garden.
"Pancakes! They can mend the heart and soul of anyone!"
Kiyone takes her to the kitchen, and Karin clumsily smoothes out her dress when she notices the cook.
The cook is burly man who likes to punctuate his words with emphasis and proud declarations that make Kiyone roll her eyes.
"If they could, life would be a good deal easier." She says sardonically, voice clipped, knuckles pressing into her hip. But she's smiling, like she's amused by him. "Is that what we're having today?"
"It's a thought." He shrugs, and Karin knows the exact moment he notices her, because his eyes widen and he leans forwards. He's a man who talks with his hands, crooked fingers waiting for the next topic of conversation to appear, drumming his fingers against his knees while he sits on a wooden table, and flying into motion as he opens his mouth. "So you're the extra mouth I've had to cook for this month."
His glance to Kiyone doesn't escape Karin's notice.
Kiyone coughs. "Don't be rude, Sentarou. This is our guest." There's an edge to her voice, and Karin flushes, despite herself. "So be nice."
"Like you?" Sentarou replies easily, smirking as he hears her huff. "I can be nice, Kiyone. I can be nicer than nice." His attention shifts back to Karin, and he takes a moment to size her up, peering at her with unbridled curiosity. "You in the mood for pancakes?"
Kiyone snorts, barking out a laugh. "You call that nice?"
"I call that being friendly." He bickers back, without missing a beat. "What do you want? Some manners? It's not like I could look to you for some pointers."
Karin stands awkwardly in the background while they banter back and forth, bemused while they grow red-faced at each other, raising their voices until they stop suddenly, regarding her.
"You know, you didn't answer the question, miss." The cook says, gruffer and more offhand than before, clearing his throat like he hadn't been shouting seconds ago.
The whiplash is jarring, to say the least.
Karin had thought they'd forgotten, blinks and remembers what the question was, then nods. "Yes."
A slow smile spreads on his face. Kiyone laughs.
Karin feels more out of place than she had before.
"Right then, pancakes coming right up." He leers, pushing himself off the table and catching the apron Kiyone tosses towards him, and together they start to cook.
Karin sits herself on a stool, and watches them talk among themselves, even though they occasionally lapse into banter. The air fills with the smell of fresh pancakes and Karin's mouth waters.
Hitsugaya stumbles into the kitchen while Karin has taken a second bite. His hair is messy and unkempt, falling past his eyes. It curls slightly at the collar of his silk pyjamas, and he all but drops onto the table, mumbling words Karin can't understand.
"Your coffee, sir." Kiyone says, pushing the coffee towards him.
"Thanks." He mutters, raising his head to glance inquiring at Karin.
She swallows the last of her pancake before another soon replaces it, and she stares at him.
It's strange.
"Is something wrong?" Hitsugaya asks, and Karin shakes her head, gazing back at her plate and stabbing the pancake suspiciously.
It's nothing.
She doesn't really listen to him when he informs her that her dress is ready, mulling over her thought too much to notice that he sounds concerned. The bickering between Kiyone and Sentarou seem to overtake his conversation, absentmindedly wondering if a certain somebody is oversleeping again. Hitsugaya reins them in with a terse comment, but a second later, the two are arguing about something else, and it surprises her to see how seamlessly Hitsugaya slips into the fast-paced bickering whenever he feels inclined to join in.
She's envious of them; Karin realizes belatedly. She's envious at how comfortable and at ease with one another, close in spite of their rowdy arguments. She wants to have something like their type of camaraderie. But right now, it seems impossible, and she'll forever be the outsider.