xii.
Karin wakes, the morning light crisp and clear and completely shadowed by the unwelcome face of another. Lethargically, she flops onto her pillow, lolling her body around as best she can so she doesn't have to see her for a minute longer.
Kiyone snorts. "Good morning to you too."
It doesn't take much for Karin to know that Kiyone is rolling her eyes.
"At least you're on a bed this time."
It is a very comfortable bed.
"Not sleepwalking, or sprawled across the library floor."
"Mm." Karin says, muffled, meaning be quiet, I want to sleep some more.
"It's a start." Kiyone mutters under her breath, perfectly aware that Karin can hear her, and sounds amused despite herself. Maybe Hitsugaya also dislikes getting up early, and she's used to behaviour like this. "Aren't you hungry?"
Her stomach rumbles at the prospect of food.
"I'll take that as a yes."
"Go away." Karin mumbles without malice, and tries to use her elbows to prop herself up. It takes a few attempts before she's successful, and by the end, she's mustered enough strength to sit up and look at Kiyone in the eye, and through mussed sleep bedraggled hair. Yawning, she says, "I'm sleeping."
"You're awake now, at least. Why not start the day with a smile?"
Karin stares at her.
Kiyone grins back, evidently delighted. "It'll do. So. Breakfast?"
Grudgingly, Karin moves, slow to make her toes touch the floor, then the heels, until she is finally standing.
"How are you feeling?" Kiyone asks, tentative.
"Like I actually had a good night's sleep." Karin says, surprised that the heaviness on her shoulder feels lighter, and her head is clearer than it has been in a while.
"I told you," Kiyone says with a good-natured huff, hands on her hips. "All you needed to do was find another bed."
"Guess so." Karin murmurs.
It's not that simple, though Karin wishes it was. A good night's sleep helped, but she still feels like a mess, her thoughts tangled and murky and grey.
She sits and stews in the bath, and the longer she accustoms to the temperature, the more her thoughts linger on how she feels different. She feels better than she has in a long time, even though she left her broken heart on the floor of Urahara's shop, and picked them up only when Hitsugaya had returned. It feels like she'd regained something she had lost, though she doesn't know what.
Karin is… happy, she thinks, to know that not everything is lost and she isn't alone as she thought she was. She never thought she'd see Kisuke and Yoruichi again, and it's because of Hitsugaya that she has.
She scowls, wrinkling her nose as she remembers yesterday's conversation, trying to guess what Yoruichi was trying to say when she asked Karin what she made of him, what she meant by that, after.
Karin keeps him at arm's length. Maybe that should change.
"You look nice." Hitsugaya says, gazing appreciatively, before continuing his breakfast. "Black suits you."
Reflexively, she looks down, smoothing out the folds as she sits beside him. "It's just a colour."
He lifts an eyebrow. "That's not what you said before."
Heat floods onto her cheeks as Karin recalls exactly what she said. That she was no one, and that he should remember that. She doesn't answer him, instead reaching out for some grapes. There's no way that she wants to tell him that she's still in the process of sorting herself out and she maintains what she said. It's the truth.
"Karin, listen to me," Hitsugaya says, earnest, insistent, as if he'd heard her think I am. "What you said when I asked the first time…" He pauses, awkward, "And it's not true. You are someone very important."
"Right," Karin says, tearing off another grape. "Because being a princess in a kingdom that dismantled their monarchy is so important."
"That's not what I meant, and you know it."
"Then what did you mean? Why am I important, in the grand scheme of things?" She leans forward, challenging him, elbows resting on the glass table. "I'm not an heir to the throne anymore."
His face twists in disgust, eyes flashing, dangerously close to snapping and Karin wants that, somehow. She wants to see him angry.
"And? You're alive, aren't you?" He says instead, folding his arms over his chest and frowning at her like he's… disappointed. Karin won't call it pity. "Isn't that the most important thing?"
She refuses to say another word to him, and eats the rest of her breakfast fuming.
"Is it?" Karin asks later at dinner, palms resting on her calves. "The most important thing?"
"I think so." He shrugs, and Karin bristles. He looks at her, stilling, teal eyes intrigued, and asks in a soft voice. "Did you want the throne?"
She flushes, and can't look at him when she answers. Her hands tremble slightly. "Not really." Maybe a little bit. There must have been a time when she imagined herself as Queen Karin once. But that part feels like a hazy dream to her still. Ichigo would have been a good king. She would have been satisfied with that.
"Then why does it matter so much?" He asks, curious.
It matters because it made her important. It matters because it made her special. It matters because it helped her grit her teeth whenever Okikiba chained her ankles and used the whip and she clung to the past because she was a princess, born to be a queen.
"I had to survive, somehow." She mutters, hands clenched, pulling the black dress towards her. "I needed something to believe in." Even if she didn't believe in any longer. Biting the inside of her cheek, she sits up straight, shoulders firm, and grabs her cutlery. Begins to eat. "Let's talk about something else."
The whole 'try not keeping him at arm's length' venture wasn't supposed to be this hard.
It was never going to be easy, but Karin didn't expect to become so frustrated with it either.
Tomorrow, she tells herself, swearing. Tomorrow will be better.
She picks up on details she didn't before. Hitsugaya eats his vegetables first, then meat. If he's in a brighter and more conversational mood, he has a tendency to eat more grapes. Karin learns that he has a preference for watermelon.
When he asks her questions, Karin gives more effort into answering them back, trying to catalogue his reactions for later, trying to see if he gives anything away, Yoruichi's words stuck in her mind.
Karin meets his gaze more often, and there's a twist of delight in her stomach the first time he gazed back in surprise, his mouth parting to wet his lips and she interrupts him to ask question about himself instead.
It's not easy, breaking her former indifference, but being attentive and watching out for tells is something she's always been good at. There was a reason why Medazeppi called her a slippery one, when he bothered to talk at all, glad to have given her to Okikiba.
It's not easy, but that's never stopped her before.
Two days later, and Karin finds herself at Hitsugaya's study, taking a deep breath and smoothing out her dress. She knocks, rapt.
"Come in." Hitsugaya says, opening the door, and Karin blinks, forgetting the words that she'd rehearsed in her mind, drawn to the open collar of his shirt. Her eyes flick back up, meeting his gaze, and pretends that it didn't happen at all.
He smiles, and it disarms her.
"This is a surprise." He says, leading her through his study, an elegant room surrounded by even more books. He makes himself comfortable on the sofa, waiting patiently for her to sit beside him.
It's more cushiony than she expects.
"What can I do for you?" He doesn't sound as surprised as she'd like, but then, Karin checks herself, maybe he's more perceptive than she thinks. Or perhaps, this is what he wanted all along.
Better they discuss it here in his study than in the garden.
Karin sits tall, back ramrod straight, resting her hands flat on her calves. "About that offer of yours," Karin begins, voice filled with certainty. "I'd like to go for a stroll."