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Hirako Shinji was often berated by the other Vizards for having ‘left them in the lurch,’ as it were, but he couldn’t much bring himself to care when the alternative to sipping tea with Urahara Kisuke in his workshop was being cooped up in a warehouse with the rowdiest shinigami on the planet. This was refined, calm, and while he’d never dare say it aloud to the other Vizards, romantic. At this point he assumed they’d all guessed that he and Kisuke were in a long-term relationship and that was why they didn’t bother coming to knock anymore.
That one evening felt like all the others, Shinji reading a book and sipping tea and letting himself occasionally smile as he watched his partner make amused sounds over his tinkering. A life so calming and happy, he was almost okay with being exiled. Even his bloodthirsty hollow couldn’t find fault with this, spending slow evenings with his mate.
When he felt the sudden presence of hollow reiatsu across town, he almost didn’t believe it at first. Shamefully he didn’t even put down his cup or his book; he didn’t tell Kisuke he’d felt anything. He presumed that if it was important enough, well, he’d tell Shinji about it.
Unfortunately Kisuke was quite wrapped up in his project and didn’t seem to notice the new presence at all. Seeing this, Shinji managed to gaslight himself that it was just paranoia. It happened sometimes, his hollow instincts sensing nothing but a false alarm.
Five minutes later he closed his eyes and sensed around again, finding that the signature was still very much there. Very much angry, a hollow moving in for the kill, across town in the general direction of—no. He was jumping to conclusions. He hadn’t even been to Kurosaki Clinic, even, to know its precise location. Kisuke himself had only been once after their son was born to check that he was in good health—or as good health as a half-shinigami child could be—and hadn’t been around since. Shiba-taicho had vehemently forbidden them from going near his family entirely. After the baby’s checkup Kisuke had refused to speak a single word about any of it. That had been…a few years ago. Shinji wasn’t sure how much time it had been, how old the kid even was. It didn’t really matter, he supposed.
He was imagining things. And if it really was a hollow, one of the other Vizards or the on-duty shinigami would take care of it.
Shinji picked his book back up and tried to read more, although his eyes kept sliding between the words with fitful focus. His mind was halfway across town, where the hollow’s reiatsu was still raging, lustful for blood and carnage.
It reached a roaring, angry peak, and Shinji realized he couldn’t keep quiet any longer.
“Kisuke,” he blurted out, setting his tea down with a slight slosh, “I think there’s a hollow.”
“Eh?” Kisuke turned around, a beaker of some unknown bubbling liquid in one hand and a pair of tweezers in the other. Shinji didn’t ask. He’d learned a long time ago that not asking was better than knowing the answer. “Let the shinigami on duty take care of it.”
“It’s been five minutes. I waited for the shinigami on duty to take care of it. It’s still there.”
“Then what about your vizard friends? I know they meddle sometimes. The thrill of the battle, right? Can’t ever give that up fully.”
Shinji closed his eyes again, feeling, confirming. “No one. Just the hollow.” There had been a brief flicker of reiatsu at the site before, but that was long since extinguished. “It feels like the assigned shinigami died.”
Kisuke’s face darkened under his hat, clearly feeling it as well. “You’re right…”
“Of course I’m right.” The joke was wooden and performative; Shinji didn’t feel like humour right then.
𝄪
The front of the Kurosaki Clinic was torn open, rubble and loose bits of wall filling the front yard. No one had arrived on the scene yet, as if the house was in a strange bubble protected from the outside world. There was no signs of life. Not even a shred of reiatsu.
“You think they’re all gone?” Shinji asked tentatively, only narrowly avoiding stepping on a shard of window.
“I hope not.” Kisuke brushed past him into the ruins of the front room, revealing that the interior walls too had been busted up and the lower stairs were bent and broken. They didn’t get very far, however, before seeing the mutilated corpse of a young woman laying sprawled across the bottom step, blood smeared into red arcs painted on the walls.
“Is that…”
“Kurosaki Masaki.” Kisuke’s voice was grave as he bent over the body. “My guess is that she tried to fend the hollow off. She was strong, too. I wonder what happened that made her lose this fight.”
“I’m going upstairs. Search for the captain.” Shinji’s mouth was suddenly very dry. It was strange, considering how many corpses he’d seen in his time; although he wasn’t really disturbed as much as surprised.
“All right.” The tone that Kisuke was using was all too familiar to Shinji: it was one that meant he was elsewhere. Preparing himself to investigate Kurosaki’s corpse, presumably, and he knew better than to get in the way.
After the first few steps, the upstairs of the house became eerily untouched. Shinji found himself sucking in a breath as he got to the landing, expecting to see something awful, but there was nothing. Complete and utter silence.
The thing he was dreading most, finding the corpse of a child laid out and disembowelled, had yet to come to pass. In fact it seemed as if the hollow hadn’t come upstairs at all, but he had to check. Confirm that the worst had come to pass.
The door right across from the landing was painted with strawberries and flowers and birds, which brought a pang to Shinji’s chest. A child’s room. Each step towards it felt like an ordeal. Thoughts of finding a tiny corpse inside filled his head, latching on and refusing to leave like a parasite.
With a soft squeak the door swung away, leading to a cluttered, but normal, child’s room. There were toys on the floor, and a bed with colourful sheets strewn with stuffed animals. From what Shinji understood, most living children enjoyed such things. It hardly warranted notice.
What caught his eyes first was a lump under the blankets, making his heart sink. Walking towards the bed, assuming he’d found another dead member of the Kurosaki family, he closed his hand slowly around it and pulled it free.
The anticipation of seeing a corpse there was at odds with the reality that it was just a pillow. Shinji blinked twice, baffled, before feeling relief flood him. It was only temporary, but when checking under the bed revealed nothing but dust bunnies it diminished again.
When he turned around to give the room one last survey before reporting downstairs, Shinji tripped on a little superhero action figure and went down hard, growling like a hollow and only just catching himself on the bed in support.
For the first time something in the deathly still house reacted in the form of a high-pitched animal like shriek coming from the closet.
Shinji’s first instinct was to pull Sakanade out of their sheath and point it towards the closet, raising his reiatsu just enough to warn someone off without serving as a beacon for any remaining hollows. The original perpetrator may have been gone, but he didn’t want to take any chances.
“Who’s there?” No answer. He hadn’t been expecting one. He tapped on the closet door with Sakanade, waiting for any sign of life. When he got nothing, waited one beat, two, three, he decided he was done waiting.
The door slid open to reveal a figure hunched over in front of hung up clothing, head down into their knees letting nothing but a shock of ginger hair show. While their reiatsu signature was null, Shinji could hear tiny whines and chirps that were all too familiar to him rising up to meet his ears.
All at once the truth hit him: this is Kurosaki Ichigo, isn’t it? Shinji dropped to his knees and set Sakanade down, reaching out to him. “Hey, kid. What’s up?”
“Go away.” The words were mumbled into the fabric of pants, but still discernable.
“You okay?”
“I said, go away. You’re scary. Like the thing that came and Kaa-chan told me to hide—”
“I’m not like that thing. I promise, gotcha?” The slight tinge of falseness to this comfort, although minor, was bitter on Shinji’s tongue. “I’m not here to hurt you. I’m here to make sure you’re okay.”
Like a flowerbud unfurling its petals to the sun, Ichigo’s head slowly came away from his knees and revealed itself to Shinji.
If asked at any point in his life before that moment, Hirako Shinji would say he wasn’t much for children. He’d never had anything against them, of course, but there was a disconnect. He had little interest in nurturing them nor spending much time around them. Kids existed separately from him, and that was fine, but he’d intended to keep it that way.
The minute Kurosaki Ichigo looked up at him with his bloodshot amber eyes and pouty bottom lip, hollowfied whimpers in his chest, that all changed.
The fatherly urge to protect this poor cub roared to life from nothing inside Shinji’s chest, overwhelming him with its pure intensity, flooding his whole being with new desires and sensations. He had to physically restrain himself from leaping in and scooping the cub up in his arms, knowing that they’d only just met and that would likely scare him even more. But staring into those pleading brown eyes made it difficult to resist. The poor thing.
“What happened?” Shinji cringed with the open question, but Ichigo didn’t seem too bothered by it.
“Something scary was coming to the house,” he stammered, licking his lips and giving the impression of a spooked animal ready to bolt at any time. “They told me to hide in here so I could be safe. I came upstairs and closed the door and waited. I…heard sounds from downstairs.” Ichigo visibly shivered, and a tear shimmered in his eye. “Angry sounds. Like monsters from a movie. I heard growling and tearing and screaming but I didn’t move. Just like they said. I wanted to go down and help but I was so afraid. I was frozen.” He whimpered again, and Shinji watched as his lips pressed together in a frown. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know when it’s okay for me to come out.”
“You can come out now,” Shinji told him, holding out his free hand. “The house is safe now.” How was he supposed to break it to the kid that his parents were gone, though? That the monster had killed them? Even with his newfound love of children—or one child in particular—he still didn’t know how to truly handle one. Certainly not how to tackle a difficult topic like this one. He knew just enough that announcing to a scared little boy that an undead monster had killed his parents was a very bad idea.
“Are you sure the monster’s not gonna eat me?”
“Kid…” Shinji’s heart twisted with the fear he was smelling off the boy in waves. “The monster’s gone now. You’re safe.”
“Do you need a hand?” He held his own out, trying to leave the offer open but not so demanding so that Ichigo thought it was expected of him. Surprisingly Shinji found his breath catching in his throat in anticipation. Ichigo was looking him up and down carefully, evaluating the situation, but evidently something good made its way to the top of his mental list as he shakily reached out and set his tiny hand on top of Shinji’s.
Immediate impressions were made: it was cold, like a gigai’s hand might be, a stark contrast against Shinji’s spirit form’s warm skin. It was tiny, slightly pudgy, which came with the unnerving realization that he could have snapped it into pieces of he made a single wrong move. His fingernails were a charcoal colour and looked as if someday they’d harden into tiny claws.
And above all else: it was the hand of a terrified child.
“There’s someone downstairs that can help us. I’m gonna lead you out of the closet safely, and down. That okay?”
With a quivering lip Ichigo nodded, and when Shinji slowly stood up he unfolded himself as well. The grip around his hand—or rather his fingers due to the size difference—tightened, and he felt the pity inside him rise. The kid didn’t want to let him go. He craved the safety too much.
“Are your legs sore from sitting there like that too long?” Shinji forced himself to smile when he asked. Just because he knew the kid was newly orphaned, didn’t mean it was okay for him to act like he normally might among adult shinigami. It seemed better to soften the blows as much as possible. Things he hadn’t known or even considered until just then: but his hollowfied paternal instincts were roaring to life after a century of dormancy and were surprisingly accurate. Ichigo trundled along behind him towards the door like a duckling after their mama, and Shinji felt his heart warm up with…something that seemed surprisingly like love, but in a different fashion.
Getting to the stairs posed a new set of problems. Shinji could clear the first two with a normal stride of his adult legs, but Ichigo was still lingering timidly on the top step, brows knitted with fear.
“Want me to wait for you?” Instincts told Shinji that cubs were to be scooped up and carried around, but he’d only just gotten the boy to hold his hand; that was moving far too fast.
Ichigo hesitated, but then nodded slightly. Obediently Shinji waited and took the next steps down slower than before.
“Kisuke. We’re coming down.” Shinji hoped the warning would give him the time to remove Ichigo’s mother’s body from the stairwell if he hadn’t already. The cub was scared already as it was, and he’d have to be told the truth soon enough, but it was better if he learned it through a gentle conversation rather than seeing his parents dead on the floor.
That much, Shinji knew about kids: don’t let them see their parents’ corpses.
“Oh? We?” He heard the sound of his mate’s voice drift up the stairs, and Ichigo’s grip on his fingers squeezed tighter.
“The kid…” The words died in his throat and Shinji cast a glance at Ichigo next to him, amber eyes shining with tears and lip quivering. “Ichigo’s here. He’s okay. Shaken, but seems to be fine.”
As they slowly curved around the stairs, coming into view of downstairs, Shinji made sure he was in front of Ichigo so that he couldn’t see Masaki’s body. Kisuke immediately ran into view, flakes of blood on his hands. It hadn’t been very noticeable upstairs, but Shinji was reminded again of how the whole lower floor reeked of blood.
The first body was nowhere to be seen, although there were dark reddish brown streaks leading into a room on the right that suggested what might have happened.
“Ichigo’s alive?” There was a definite quiver of relief in Kisuke’s voice. “Oh, that’s excellent news. Bring him down.”
“Is that really a good idea?” Lacking the hollow instincts, Shinji reflected that Kisuke likely didn’t know what was appropriate for a little boy to see at all. Rukongai brats tended to have that sort of warped view of the world. Assuming that a child was fine to see a few blood smears that had come from his parents.
“Yeah, it’ll be fine.”
“Just the last two steps. It’ll be all good.” Shinji turned around to smile at Ichigo. “I’ll catch you if you like.” But the boy was frozen, staring under Shinji’s outstretched arms to the blood on the floor behind him.
“What…happened?” His voice was shakier than before. “Is the monster really gone?”
“All gone,” Kisuke reported from behind them. “Not going to bother you anymore.”
Ichigo nodded his head. “Mama?” He ducked his head under Shinji’s arm before he had a chance to stop him, craning his neck to look around. “Mama, where are you?”
It felt like someone had driven a knife directly through Shinji’s heart.
“You should take him outside. When we’re done here he can come back home with us.”
“But…this is my home.” Ichigo had started crying, wet tears slinking down his face. “Where are you taking me? I wanna stay. My parents will be worried about me if—”
“It’s best for you if you come with us. I know this is scary, Ichigo, but I promise it’ll be the safest and happiest thing for you in the long run.”
Ichigo’s voice shifted up into a wail. “What about my parents!”
“We can talk about this later.” Kisuke opened the door, and waved his hand towards it. Shinji could read the message loud and clear: help him outside.
Shinji made for the door, tugging at Ichigo’s hand, realizing quickly and not without a guilty helping of frustration that he was refusing to budge.
“Come on, kid. Kisuke’s right. Gotta go outside. It stinks in here, right?” He hoped appealing to the child’s enhanced hollow senses might get them somewhere, especially since at this age he doubted he’d know they were any different, or why.
Sure enough Ichigo wrinkled his nose and shook his head. “Smells bad. Like…I dunno.”
“It’ll smell nice and fresh and crisp outside. We gotta clear out our noses. It’ll make you feel better. Come on.” He gave another tug, and Ichigo came forward a step.
“What about—I don’t want Mama to worry about me.”
Your mama is well beyond worrying about you, Shinji thought grimly. That was a truth for later, of course. “It’s all fine. No one will worry if you nip outside with me to get some fresh air.”
Slowly nodding, Ichigo seemed to finally be on board with it all and Shinji felt relief. He wouldn’t walk forward, however, seemingly stuck staring at the floor and the stains of his mother’s blood.
Realizing that the kid wasn’t going to keep walking of his own accord no matter how much he was coaxed, Shinji leaned down and scooped Ichigo up in his arms. He was bracing himself for a fight or complaints, but the kid seemed to almost instinctively melt into his arms. Maybe being so afraid for so long made it easy for him to give up in a safe space, but his complete trust of who was essentially a stranger was still surprising. Or it could have been the same thing that made Shinji suddenly care for this child as if he was his own, suddenly see him as his cub. Perhaps, when it came to vizards, like called like. He wrapped his arms carefully around Ichigo as if he were the most precious thing in the world, and silently slipped outside. A silent nod from Kisuke told him: I’ll be out soon. Take care of him for now. We’ll figure out what to do later.
“Ahhh. Breathe in. Can you smell that?” Shinji’s voice had taken on a perky tone that was foreign to him. “That’s the fresh air. Nice and crisp today, isn’t it? I bet it must smell good after you being cooped up in that closet for so long.” It was like some strange force had possessed his body and turned him from a strange, brooding vizard into a cheerful parent.
Next to him, he watched as Ichigo took a deep breath in and closed his eyes. “Yeah.” He nodded. “Smells nice.”
“All the grass and the leaves on the trees, yeah?” Shinji hadn’t let go of Ichigo yet. Somehow he just couldn’t bring himself to.
“Yeah. And…the flowers mama planted in the front bed.” Ichigo went slightly limp in Shinji’s arms but didn’t try and pull away. “They’re sweet smelling.”
Looking around for what Ichigo had mentioned, Shinji’s eyes soon landed upon a patch of lilies, thoroughly squashed by the hollow’s trampling feet. There wasn’t much comfort to be found there, not at all. “Anything else nice you can smell?”
Ichigo scrunched up his nose. “There’s something nasty. Bitter. I don’t like it.”
That’d be the hollow, Shinji thought to himself wryly. “We can walk a bit further from the house if you like. Get more of the nice fresh outdoors smell and less of the bitterness.” Slowly he unwound his arms from Ichigo, letting the kid stand free in the front walk. He wobbled and wavered a bit, but managed to steel himself.
“Ready?” Considering Shinji’s impressions regarding kids were usually that they had a vacant and troublesome look about them, Ichigo was shockingly expressive, dozens of half formed and barely understood emotions dancing through his bright eyes. He was able to pick up shreds of detail from the boy’s smell: apprehension, nerves, yet somehow the unmistakeable odour of trust was lingering there as well. Was he really so foolish as to trust a stranger he’d just met? Shinji wouldn’t have been like that at his age. Or were human children—not that Ichigo was one—different?
“Can I hold your hand?” Ichigo’s voice wavered uncertainly as he held out a small chubby hand.
“Why’d you wanna do that, kid?” Shinji furrowed his brow in confusion.
“Because you smell trustworthy,” Ichigo mumbled so low that a human wouldn’t have heard his words at all. It didn’t take too long for Shinji to realize, however, that it meant that he recognized their similarities, even at that young age. It was a warming and comforting thought, and Shinji took his tiny, surprisingly delicate hand in his own calloused one.
“I’m gonna walk us to that tree over there. Sound good?” Not wanting to tug or cause any damage Shinji took a few tiny steps in the direction of a pretty apricot tree at the far edge of the Kurosaki front lawn, waiting for Ichigo’s short legs to catch up with him. It was a bit frustrating, but he tried to hold instead onto the fatherly instincts that were still lurking inside his heart.
“I like this tree,” Ichigo said mildly, but he looked at Shinji with an imperative child’s stare, desperate for a response.
“It’s a pretty tree,” Shinji decided on, realizing now that the pressure of instinct was done he had no real idea how to talk to a child at all. “Did you plant it?”
“No.” Ichigo’s face fell slightly and Shinji cringed, but sighed in relief when he kept talking and seemed unbothered. “It was already here when I was born. I think it’s an old tree. But it’s pretty. I wonder if it has any stories to tell.”
Shinji cast an anxious glance back at the house, wondering if Kisuke was managing to take care of the situation efficiently. “I bet it’s a wise old tree that knows a lot,” he said offhandedly, wanting to focus his attention on the strangely fascinating child but his mind insisting on continually wandering to the disaster within.
“Its flowers are always so pretty in the springtime. I like looking at the flowers. Do you like flowers?” Ichigo scrunched up his face in confusion. “I don’t know your name.”
“Hirako Shinji.” You can call me otousan felt a bit too premature, even if he thought it.
“You have a nice warm hand, Hirako-san!” Ichigo had seemed to shed all his previous fear away, bounding right back to what Shinji assumed was his normal. Are all kids this…jarring?
“Thank you, Ichigo.” What else was he supposed to say to that? He was fairly certain that wasn’t a normal compliment to receive.
He was spared any further awkward conversation, much to his deep relief, by Kisuke coming out of the building. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to. The way his brow was creased, his heavy and sad eyes, the smell of dejected failure wafting off him.
“Hey. Ichigo, I think there’s something we need to tell you.” Shinji shot Kisuke a glance, and got a nod in return.
“What?” The look of grim seriousness had returned to Ichigo’s face, and Shinji realized with a pang that the expression suited him, even as young as he was.
It shouldn’t have.
“I’m sorry. I…don’t know how to say this.” Shinji found his hand resting itself under Ichigo’s chin without him even meaning to. While he braced himself for the child to pull away and fall into a rage, however, he leaned into the hand and looked up at Shinji with young, innocent, fearful eyes.
“I have bad news for ya, kid.”
Ichigo nodded solemnly.
“You were brave and smart and hid from the monster. But the monster was angry and went on a rampage.”
“What about…mama?”
Oh, damn it. I’m already emotionally invested and I have to tell this kid his parents got eaten by hollows. “She didn’t make it, kid. Sorry. Your dad too. They…they’re brave people.” Shinji of course had a whole litany of thoughts regarding the former captain Shiba Isshin, but none of them were appropriate to tell his newly orphaned young son. “They fought to keep you safe, with tooth and nail, and they did. They just didn’t make it through.”
Ichigo’s response was, Shinji guessed, not entirely surprising. The little kid melted into tears, face stretched into an ugly expression of anguished distress as he sobbed and shrieked and bawled. He guessed if he was in Ichigo’s position he’d have done the same, although as a Rukon brat he didn’t remember quite what it was like to have parents.
“Hey, now.” Shinji spoke the words with no idea of where he was going with them. “We’re…you can come back with us to our place for now, all right?” Ichigo didn’t say anything between his sobs, which Shinji assumed was normal. Not like he had a baseline on that sort of thing but he could hope, right?
The crying kept coming, and Shinji felt the awkward expectation that he should be saying something, but he wasn’t certain of what he was supposed to do in this situation in the slightest. When he felt Kisuke’s hand land on his shoulder, he glanced out of the corner of his eye, practically begging for guidance.
“We can carry you home, Ichigo,” he offered. “Just let us know when you’re ready.” Kisuke may not have been any better with kids than Shinji was, but at least he seemed confident and in control of the situation.
They waited again, every second seeming to stretch out to an hour as Ichigo bawled his eyes out and Shinji felt his heart tear itself into pieces for this little boy he’d only just met and already fallen in love with. Eventually the flow did fade away to a trickle and he was wiping his reddened eyes dry. Ichigo didn’t speak, only looked up at them blearily.
“You ready?”
With a quick dip of his head he nodded.
“All right.” Shinji stepped back in, letting his newfound hollow broodfather instincts guide him. “Hold my hand and we’ll walk together.”
Ichigo didn’t say much on the walk back to the Shōten, but Shinji figured that was to be expected. His head was downcast and a few silvery tears still caught the sun from time to time, but he walked quickly and held onto Shinji’s hand tight. There were more questions that Shinji wanted to ask Kisuke regarding the Kurosakis’ fate, but those could wait until later. Instead he and Kisuke started up a cheerful banter about the weather, and the butterflies they saw flittering along, the songs of the birds and the flowers in people’s yards. The expression on Ichigo’s face remained settled and grim, but he did lift his head up to look occasionally, and once Shinji thought he saw a flicker of childish wonder on Ichigo’s face when they passed a big white butterfly dancing in the air.
Ichigo was surprisingly cooperative and slipped into the Shōten without much fuss or comment.
“We’ll have to make more arrangements later,” Kisuke started, his geta clacking against the floor as he leaned against the door to a spare room, “but for now we do have an extra futon. I expect you’re quite tired?”
“Not really!” Ichigo opened with a protest that sounded well-practised and familiar to him, only to crumple immediately. “Well, maybe a little.”
“There’s no shame in being tired,” Shinji told him, giving his hand a squeeze. The whole time he was paranoid of snapping bones in Ichigo’s tiny hand, but he seemed stronger than he looked at first glance.
“Is it ok if I sleep here?”
“Absolutely,” Shinji answered without hesitation. “Sleep as long as you like. And we can make sure there’s something good for you to eat when you get up.” He couldn’t help but notice that the kid was handling everything unusually well. Was he still too young to fully grasp the concept of death and thought his parents had just…? Shinji wasn’t sure at all, but there was a steely mask of sadness on the kid’s face underneath the youthful dejection.
When Kisuke slid the door open and gestured to the soft futon inside, Ichigo hesitated for a few moments, sadness seeming to overtake him again. When the moment passed, however, he was left with a world-weary look on his face and resignment, and he collapsed onto the offered futon.
“Here.” With a sudden burst of inspiration Shinji reached for a shelf in the corner of the room and the plush shinigami doll that stood there. Neither he nor Kisuke could quite remember where it had come from, only that it was too cute for either of them to have beared to part with. “Would this make you feel better?”
Ichigo stared back at Shinji with his amber eyes blank. Does he not know what a shinigami is? The doll’s little cloth shihakusho was very recognizable. Maybe he’s just too upset to respond properly. Unsure of what to do next Shinji stepped closer, kneeling down next to Ichigo. The kid had clutched his knees towards him, staring out at the world with owlish and empty eyes.
“This doll might offer you comfort and help you sleep.” He held it out in front of Ichigo. Slowly he reached out and took it, blinking, fingers closing around the soft torso.
“Is it…can I keep her?” Ichigo’s voice was empty and meek, but his eyes were pleading.
“Of course. She can be all yours if you like.”
Seeming to believe Shinji’s words, Ichigo pulled the doll close to him, clasping it against his chest as if it were a priceless artifact.
“It’s all safe for you to go to sleep,” Shinji told him, smiling softly. The poor kid. “We’re going to make sure nothing happens to you.”
“The monster won’t come back?” A single tear rolled down Ichigo’s cheek again and Shinji thought he might have felt a tiny crack appear in his heart. What was he supposed to say to that? He couldn’t make a promise that hollows would never find them again, because that would be a lie. But Kisuke had at least killed the one that had been responsible for the Kurosakis’ death, meaning that he could say something somewhat truthful to allay Ichigo’s fears.
“The monster from today isn’t going to hurt you or anyone else ever again,” Shinji settled on finally, finding comfort in the fact that it was, by virtue of specific wording, true. “Kisuke and I—the guy with the wacky hat over there—are very good at making sure other people are safe. You can sleep in peace.”
Ichigo stared at Shinji for a long time, working over his words, but he seemed to eventually come to the conclusion that the assurance was true. His expression didn’t soften in the slightest, but he laid himself back onto the futon, doll still clutched tight, and closed his eyes.
“Have a good sleep, little Ichigo, okay?”
Hearing the murmur in response, Shinji figured his work there was done for the time being and slipped quietly out of the room on Kisuke’s heels.
“Any idea what you might make for supper?” Kisuke was trying to steer the conversation into lighter areas, Shinji could sense, and while part of him was grateful for the distraction he found himself thinking back to Ichigo near constantly, wanting to discuss what would be happening next for him.
“Mmm.” Shinji’s answer was distant and lacking any end goal. He pulled things out of the cupboard on autopilot, not even thinking about what they were and how they went together. It was simply easier to keep himself busy, and he didn’t notice what he’d taken out until Kisuke interrupted the oppressive silence.
“Peaches, caramels and canned tuna? A rather unusual combination, especially over soba noodles.” There was a slight laugh in his voice. Only then did Shinji actually look down and see the atrocious combination of foods he’d laid out in front of him.
“Yeah. We’re not having that for dinner.” He wanted to laugh along with Kisuke, but his mind was still with the sleeping Ichigo in the other room. “Let me find something else. I’ll keep the soba out, how does that sound? I can make yakisoba for three.”
Shinji turned around to put the peaches back into their bowl on the counter to see Kisuke staring at him with sympathetic eyes. There was a big conversation brewing in the air, Shinji could feel it. He decided it was best to head it off first.
“Kisuke.”
His mate nodded, wearing a sad smile on his face. “You want to adopt Ichigo, don’t you?”
“Is it that obvious?”
“I felt the same way when I first met him and put the concealing kido over his reiatsu. So yes, I understand how you feel. He’s…special, I suppose. Or maybe he’s just so different from other people, outcasts like us can’t help but feel pity.”
“When I held him back there, it was like…my hollow instincts told me to protect him like he was my cub.” The tear trickling out of Shinji’s eye was an uncommon feeling, so much so that he almost did a double take at feeling its dampness there. Almost embarrassed, he raised his hand to wipe it away. “It’s odd.”
“He most certainly is. A child like him is so far out of the ordinary, it’s no real wonder that other outcasts feel drawn into his orbit.”
“I remember when he was just a statistic to you.” Shinji remembered the parting image he had of Ichigo, laying flat on his back with eyes squeezed shut pleading silently for sleep. Cute little cub. His cub. “He was our weapon to defeat Aizen, and not a living breathing person.”
“Technically he’s neither living nor breathing, or at least not in the usual sense of the term.” Kisuke’s hand landed on Shinji’s shoulder, warm and tight and holding a silent promise that it wouldn’t let go.
“You haven’t seen Ichigo as that nameless weapon in a while, have you?”
“Not since I saw him as a baby, no. He became real then. And he’s a sweet kid. I have a sick twisting feeling in my stomach that I wasn’t able to stop this tragedy. He deserves a better life than what circumstances are giving him.” Kisuke shook his head slowly.
“Is this your cryptic way of saying ‘yes’ to me?”
“If you want it to be.”
Shinji felt a smile settle onto his lips. “You would have taken him in anyway, wouldn’t you?”
With a nervous laugh Kisuke ran his hand through his hair. “Maybe.”
“If a century of being mates wasn’t enough to let me know who you are, I’d be a poor excuse for a partner indeed.” Shinji felt his mouth tug into a smile. “You were going to take him in the instant you realized that his parents had been killed.”
“As always, you see right through me. If it were anyone else I’d be annoyed.”
“If it was anyone else they wouldn’t know what a softie you were at heart.”
“Softie?” Kisuke gasped dramatically and placed his hand against his chest, placing an expression of false affront across his face. “How dare you? There isn’t a soft bone in my body.”
Shinji chuckled and kissed his mate’s cheek before turning the conversation back to more serious matters. “You’re drawn to him—not in the same way I am, maybe, but I can tell that you feel a pull.”
“It’s strange, but I do. Something about this kid makes me feel like—”
“You need to protect him?”
“Exactly. I couldn’t leave him there. And it’s not about making him a weapon, either.”
Shinji started, remembering the boy’s initial purpose, something he’d tried desperately to forget, and felt shivers travel down his spine.
“Do you think that of me, Shinji?”
“I don’t want to. But—”
“I promise you. Any and all plans to use that kid went out the window when I saw him for the first time. If I had still harboured any ideas of that nature, they are definitely gone now, after today. He’s a kid, Shinji. I see that now. A lonely, scared kid who just lost his whole world. No one like that deserves to be a weapon.”
“I agree,” said Shinji softly, his hand resting on the soba noodles distantly, his mind filling with emotions he could scarcely understand. “Ichigo needs help. A home. Love.”
“And I can already see you’re not going to be talked down from being the one to give it to him.” Kisuke smiled. “Should we tell him the good news when he wakes up?”
Shinji swallowed, steeling himself for the words he knew he had to speak. “Yes. I think we should. We can be Ichigo’s family for him now. His pack.”
Much to Shinji’s surprise, the thought filled him with an effervescent joy and anticipation.