Romance and Rivalries

Chapter Fourteen
by Rachael

It was a real change for them to party out; they went to a lot of parties these days, most of them were held in their honour, to celebrate some sort of sponsor of theirs (one being a very strange little party held for the Over 70’s Sky Diving Association and another for the Gentlemen’s Lingerie Admiration Society) or something for other sophisticated rich grown-ups, admittedly all of those things resulted in a few laughs and good conversation… But it felt like forever since the eight of them had gone to some sort of reckless binging bash at a house party; most of their alcohol heavy nights where set out by Hiyori and Shinji drinking heavy at either apartment, or Kensei hitting the bars hard. There was nothing quite like drunken teenagers; the typical fighting lads outside, the light-weight vomiting in the corner, a broken cupboard doors, girls slapping each other violently and screeching, and the two drunks making out on the sofa.

However, as fun as those sorts of parties were, the next morning was never coming to be cherished and laughed about. It all began from the moment you opened your eyes and travelled unsuspectingly through the senses… Hiyori had woken to daylight through blinds, making an awkward and coincidental flash across her line of vision. She could smell vomit, glancing down at her clothes just to make sure it wasn’t on her clothes or in her hair… her mouth didn’t taste like vomit, but did taste like stale alcohol, a lack of toothpaste, but not cigarettes… In the background of the room she could hear a low chuntering, a little bit like a coffee machine.

Her place didn’t have a coffee machine…

That was what led to the second part upon waking up after a night out… working out where you’d woken up… She sat up, holding her head and feeling a little relieved that her first instinct wasn’t to keel over and vomit, she swung her legs onto the floor and after the room stopped spinning round and round, Hiyori began to piece together her surroundings… She’d been sleeping on a leather sofa, black leather; there was jacket over her… some damn dick-head’s jacket, because it smelt like cheap Lynx and beer. The floor her sandaled feet were on was wooden and clean… the walls painted black, a sort of stylish metallic black… she was opposite a plasma screen TV with a load of video games and cable systems attached to it.

Okay, just who the hell did she go home with last night?

She reached around for her cell phone… she’d been wearing a jacket last night, so where the hell was it? More importantly, where was Shinji? They always went home together after a night out; it wasn’t like he had some nice lawsuit firing egomaniac to go home with… Hiyori chuckled at that, getting up on the sofa on shaky legs, she spotted her jacket hanging off the front door handle, and she cast a gaze over the apartment. There were a few posters of films and expensive looking car photographs in frames… when she looked at the mantel piece, there was a nice big photo of the Vizards stood together in the picture they had taken for a paper in front of their building.

This meant either one of the Vizards, or a sports car liking stalker.

They mostly all met up at the company, or at Shinji’s, since they’d gotten richer, they spent more time at the company, off and around the country, and their apartments and houses had changed considerably… But from the décor, she attempted to guess at whose home this was… There wasn’t enough lingerie clad super models on the walls for this place to be Lisa’s, the colours were too dark to be Hachi’s, no flashing lights and pictures of Ultra Man, so it wouldn’t be Mashiro… This left either Kensei (who she doubted would take her home considering how crazy he was over that boy), and Rose (who she doubted could handle her while she was plastered). Hiyori walked into the kitchen, it was modern and shiny. On one of the counter-tops there was a black leather wallet, she flicked it open and spotted Shuhei Hisagi’s identity card…

Wow, so Kensei bought her home, even with his sexy little Toy-Boy in the house. How very considerate of him.

Speaking of which, said Toy-Boy entered the room, looking rather startled on her state of awake. He’d clearly showered and was wearing what appeared to be Super Man boxer shorts and a very tight black t-shirt; he had a cool tattoo on one muscled upper-arm. He smiled awkwardly and said in a considerately quiet voice, ‘Good morning, Hiyori-san.’ Good boy, he was risking the chance of her having a hangover.

“Yeah, morning, Toy-Boy-san,” she grumbled, climbing up to sit on one of those stupid chairs small people have to climb into, they were meant to look like bar stools… bar stools for Club de la Giants! Smooth, Kensei.

Upon glancing upwards, the young man had an embarrassed flush on his cheeks; surely he must have known that seven of eight people knew him as Toy-Boy-san? Oh well, if he didn’t, he did now. Hiyori rubbed her hands threw her hair, her feet dangling from the bar stool; she could faintly hear him moving around the kitchen quietly towards the coffee machine.

“Do you want one?”

“Yeah, that’d be great.”

“Do you want yours… with sugar?”

People always ask that question, but anyone who worked with the Vizard higher-ups would cringe upon having to get her coffee. If she remembered correctly, which seemed a little tricky considering the way her head hadn’t quite made its mind up about being hung-over or not; Toy-Boy-san had first met her in the office, while she was yelling at an assistant for asking her about sugar in her coffee. Normally she wouldn’t take offence; it was a pretty common question where coffee was concerned. But what she did take offence too was people assuming she had very sugary coffee because of her youthful appearance. It was like when she was a brat, Kisuke would always get her candy for Christmas and birthdays… in fact at the end of her first week of hard worked labour, the damn dickhead offered her a big bag of candy. Or once Shinji had everyone in the office that ‘Hiyori-san likes childish things, like candy and cake and stuffed animals’… Damn dick-head, damn, damn dick-head…

“Err, two sugars, thanks.”

Speaking of Shinji, where on earth was he? He was always up before her when they went drinking, and she hadn’t even received a mocking text message yet… unless her phone was on silent, then she’d probably have several. They must have been separated at some point; maybe he went home with Lisa or Love? What did they do last night? To find Shinji, even if he was a dick-head, she’d need to retrace her steps through last night… she rubbed her temples a little… There was the house party, she remembered that, she also remembered doing whisky shots with some effeminate guy with a real irritating voice… then she remembered leaving the party real pissed off… And some guy had tried to grab her arm – yeah it was some blue haired guy wearing a t-shirt, he looked like a mid-twenties yob. He’d been trying to say something, but she was so drunk and angry she’d whacked him one… Come to think of it, it probably wasn’t once…

Oops.

After that she remembered arguing with Shinji in front of the house the party was at again. Only Kisuke was there with a load of other adults, she recognized Rangiku-san, she was taking photos of Toy-Boy-san and some blond kid who were… naked at the time… what the hell was happening there? She could remember a teenage girl yelling real loud down her phone… something about… bald men. She could also remember a well-dressed frigid looking man walking past the drunken wreckage and muttering ‘disgusting’ under his breath.

Then she was in a taxi a little while after that. All seven of them were there (Hachi always said he was too old to tag along on their nights out), well eight, including Toy-Boy-san, who was now fully dressed and drunkenly groaning into Kensei’s shirt. It was quite a small taxi, because she was sitting on Love’s lap, something she only ever did when they were in a tiny space because she was the smallest and he was biggest. Shinji was there, but he didn’t seem very drunk, in fact he seemed irritable and on edge, so they’d dropped him off somewhere, all laughing and singing some stupid Pirate song… where on earth had they dropped him?

It couldn’t be like the time they’d call Kensei a sour puss and pushed him out of the van in the middle of the French countryside…

They were still singing the Pirate song for another ten minutes, until Rose wanted to know where they were going, then Mashiro started chanting ‘Karaoke Bar!’ over and over, it became something of a chant, even Hiyori could remember doing it, even though she hated those damn places. Well the driver of the taxi seemed to think, and she could see why, that meant they wanted to go to a karaoke bar, so he drove them to the nearest one; in truth only Mashiro wanted to go. Love argued slurringly with the driver, he waved his hand in the air, smacked Rose in the face accidentally, then fell on his ass, paid the nice man and headed into the bar.

From what she could recollect, it was full of damn dick-heads singing their damn dick-head songs. Mashiro was already up on the stage, singing the theme tune to the 1980’s version of Spiderman along with some rather nerdy looking man. But before Hiyori could comment, about to use the phrase ‘dick-head’ a lot, Lisa was handing her a shot of Sourz, and Love was cheering loudly, raising his hands high in the air to clap along to the music. The karaoke bar just seemed to slur past her in a drunken buzz, she could remember being carried onto the stage screaming and protesting by Mashiro and Love. But then next thing she remembered was howling into a microphone, swaying against Lisa to ‘I feel like a woman’ and ‘Fame’. She could remember Toy-Boy-san who’d seemed to sober up, giving her a glass of water and patting her on the back… but she was outside the bar then, on her hands and knees in an alleyway… God, she felt like a teenager again.

Back in the bar, Kensei was taking the stage. She was groaning against Toy-Boy-san’s jacket at the time, her arms wrapped around his middle, she could vaguely remember telling him he smelt nice for a dick-head… though he might not have been able to hear her over the music. She remembered hearing Toy-Boy-san groan ‘Oh God’ as he watched his lover stagger onto the stage, at one point, using Mashiro’s head to support him. The green haired woman was clearly delighted that he wanted to sing, and was working as some sort of a support beam as he took the microphone in his hand. Oh God, it was the funniest thing she’d ever seen…

“This… this is a song,” he slurred loudly, “It’s a song for a very beautiful man... I love him,” he smacked Mashiro’s shoulder hard for effect, “Shuhei – get up here, kid!”

Toy-Boy-san seemed routed too the spot, his face the same colour as drunk’s, though it was gained through embarrassment. He covered his face and muttered ‘Oh God’ again.

It got worse; Kensei broke into a loud and very slurred version of Mail Me, most of the time using Mashiro as a support stand, she was singing with him, standing very close, possibly to use the microphone, possibly to keep him from falling. When he was done singing he stumbled forwards, wrapped a muscled arm around Mashiro’s chest and declared into the microphone that he ‘loved this beautiful woman’ and that she was a ‘very irritating Saint’. Then he proceeded to sob into her shoulder for about a minute, before pulling back and holding the microphone up dramatically, he said a lot of inaudible things, before slumping off the stage and flopping onto Love, who seemed to have been attempting at stopping Rose from getting onto the stage.

Her little tight leather jacket had a vague vomit smell, and as they stood outside the karaoke bar waiting for another taxi, she remembered Toy-Boy-san giving her a jacket, She remembered falling asleep in the taxi, awakening in a violent drunken rage and asking for Shinji repeatedly, apparently she’d run away from Rose when he tried to take her keys out of her jeans back pocket. The next thing she remembered was Kensei carrying her, it was definitely Kensei because he was humming Mail Me and kept trying to bounce her up and down… it must have been Toy-Boy-san who took her off him, but he carried her like a little kid.

“Hiyori, what are ya doin’ here?” Kensei appeared out of the bedroom, he looked a little green in the face, his eyes blood-shot… that guy was in excellent shape; she’d seen how the girls at the office queued outside the gym to watch him working out shirtless. Kensei was an irritating bastard at the best of times, but in Lisa’s words ‘his muscles do the talking and they talk well’.

“You bought me here, ya damn dick-head.”

“Ah, shut-up.”

Kensei would always retort with something like that when he had no idea of what to say. This was normally accompanied by him slamming his fist against a surface beneath or around him, as he did now, making the coffee machine judder.

Sometimes Hiyori would wonder how they skipped from their average lives to this glamorous all expenses paid roller coaster. There was a time where she was skipping middle school, Shinji was teaching at university, Kensei was a bouncer with Mashiro, Lisa was personal assistant to a lazy high school teacher, Rose played guitar in an unsuccessful jazz band, and Love owned a night club, Hachi ran a small charity shop on the high street. Admittedly if any of them were given the choice to go back and have what they did ten years ago, she was positive not one of them would swap back. It was just a scary thought that so much could happen in that time.

Last year Tabuki magazine ranked her as the most successful women under 25 in the country. She got to have her picture in some classy magazine wearing a lot of pretty clothes and holding her camera. It did look pretty impressive, she’d only just turned twenty-five four months ago, and she was richer than some people who’d worked their whole lives for success. If she wanted too, she could buy a house as big as Shihoin Yoruichi’s, or a small island in the Caribbean. And what was better was that she worked hard, doing a job she loved, with people she considered to be closer than family. Sometimes it seemed like she was living a dream, a dream where a lot of boring things happened as well as the fun stuff, and eventually she’d wake up and be back as the little punk in her scroungy apartment.

Of course not everything was perfect. The last time she’d been with anyone was nearly a year and a half ago, not that her sex life had ever really been vibrant and colourful (Mashiro said it was probably her snarling that put people off, well Mashiro could go jump off a bridge!). These days the only man in her bed next to her was Shinji, the two of them having passed out there after drinking too much or Shinji feeling intimidated of the scary man who cleaned his apartment and decided the only logical place to go was Hiyori’s (they’d fight over the covers until sheer exhaustion made them placid). Even worse was that Mashiro had, the other week, referred to that damn dick-head as her soul-mate; she’d said the two of them knew each other better than anyone else did and a load of other shit Hiyori would protest too. What did Mashiro know? She dressed like a fucking power ranger.

She’d been a really anti-social little kid; her childhood days included a lot of fighting and being suspended from various middle school’s, her parents bowing their heads in shame and saying, ‘Hiyori-chan, can’t you be a good girl, for one day, just one day, that’s all we ask?’ – The answer would obviously be no. Her temper was almost infamous, she wasn’t a dumb kid, she wasn’t particularly a bad kid, but she was a very angry kid, and that always seemed to get her in trouble…

When she was fifteen, her parents adopted a new behaviour strategy; they sent her out to look for a job. It was damn frustrating… everywhere she went, the answer was no. The last place she looked was a really old looking building; it was a small store run by two men. One muscled with glasses and a thick moustache, the other was pale with blonde hair and a hat and clog shoes. Hiyori had marched right in there, slammed her hand down on the counter and told the blonde man straight up, ‘Hey, dick-head, I ain’t leavin’ without a job!’

His reaction was kind of terrifying. His puzzled face lit up into a huge stupid smile, he looked like an idiot, or one of those… ‘Dumb blondes’ she’d seen on the TV. He held out a hand in front of her and said, ‘Well that’s good. We don’t even have to put up the sign in the window.’

‘Are you… an idiot?’ she’d asked.

‘No, I’m Kisuke. It’s nice to meet you, would you like to fill out this form?’

What would have been most adult’s nightmare; Kisuke and Tessai-san took on with rose-rimmed glasses. Sure sometimes Tessai-san would put in a few words here and there, but she never minded if it was from him. He was nice smart person. Kisuke was a damn dick-head and an idiot, and what was worse was, the idiot thing was a complete act! He was just so laid-back – laid-back people always made her loose her rag… They never fired her, or even threatened too, which even a very rational boss would have at least attempted considering once she nearly broke a boy’s wrist when he stole some sweets. Not too mention that she was dangerously rude to a lot of the customers, calling everyone she found annoying a ‘dick-head’. No, the most retribution she got was Tessai telling her to ‘Watch her language’. If she thought about, she was sure Kisuke tried punishing her in less obvious ways, like forgetting she was still in the store before he locked up.

It was through Kisuke that she met any of her now closest comrades. Shinji was always visiting the shop; he still had long hair back then. He’d just been sacked and heavily sued. He often slept at the shop, sometimes in the company of that annoying beautiful dark skinned woman Kisuke liked so much. The first time she met him she’d been tending the shop, minding her own business when the idiot walked into the shop, didn’t see her behind the counter (she’d forgotten the yellow pages she normally sat on), and just tried to walk into the back of the shop. Hiyori, having never seen this man before, mistook him for an extremely stupid burglar and leapt on top of him, smacking him with one of her sandals. The fact he started screaming and pulled one of her ponytails only made her angrier. Tessai and Kisuke had to break them up, Tessai doing his lifting her up by the hips and swinging her over a shoulder, Kisuke managing to get his arms under Shinji’s armpits, explaining to him a little frantically that ‘Our shop assistant is a little protective of the store, she just loves working here’.

The two of them often chatted at the shop, well, chatted, a more positive word for sitting and yelling at each other. She never saw why a grown man wouldn’t have anything better to do then lie around in a deck chair in a small store. One time she voiced these opinions to him, and the damn dick-head threw the paper he was reading at her. She learnt later that he’d been trying to show her an article featuring some story about Shinji beating on a blind-guy for some reason, but at the time, she thought he was picking a fight…

When she was nearly sixteen she went with Kisuke to pick Shinji up from a bar. Kensei, a friend of his at the time, worked there as a bouncer, and Hiyori went with Kisuke in the car to collect the idiot. She’d thought it was hilarious; they arrived at some club, Kensei holding an unconscious Shinji over his shoulder, next to some silly chattering green haired woman (Mashiro). Though it wasn’t all bad, Shinji snuck her into a jazz club once, she didn’t like jazz music, but he bought her a beer.

Right now, as she sat drinking coffee next to her very hung-over comrade and his hot boyfriend around a 200-dollar American table, Hiyori wondered if the little girl who worked for Kisuke and Tessai still existed.

“Where’s Shinji?” she asked suddenly, rubbing her forehead with her hand, “Ya remember where we dropped him off last night?”

Kensei rolled his eyes and shook his head, “Nah, I don’t remember,” he rubbed his temples too, trying to focus on his rather sketchy memories of last night, “I was looking after this one then,” he gestured to Toy-Boy-san, who went pink. “Might’ o’ been at Yoruichi’s…”

Ah, that made more sense than she could recall… Damn it, she hated loosing things when she was drunk, let alone actual people!

“Why would he wanna go Yoruichi’s?” Hiyori snapped at him, “He’d wanna go to Kisuke’s if he was gonna go anywhere.”

“Kisuke was at that party,” Kensei reminded her, tapping her hands on the desk, “He turned up to turf out the drunken brats. I remember c’os I spoke to him and Matsumoto-san.”

Shuhei suddenly gasped as if remembering something significant, and then he looked embarrassed and shuffled nervously. This seemed to awaken something in Kensei, who howled with laughter and grabbed the younger man by the shoulders. “Yeah, it was Matsumoto-san who got you and that blonde friend of yours naked!”

Hiyori wondered if that had happened while she assaulted that guy in the street… Shinji had been mad at her for some reason, yeah, they were yelling at each other in front of the house next to the taxi. If she was too drunk to remember what they’d been fighting about, it probably couldn’t be that important right?

The doorbell suddenly knocked her out of her thoughts; Kensei groaned and bellowed ‘Coming’, before getting up and heading over to the door, leaving Hiyori sat with Toy-Boy-san, who was now clearing up their coffee mugs… what was he? A maid? She briefly recalled Kensei saying Toy-Boy-san was too polite for his own good. That made sense; he was loading the dishwasher and everything…

“I just came to see you hadn’t dropped her or anything,” Lisa’s voice snapped as she entered the apartment, she didn’t look hung-over, but she did look agitated and tired. Rose was behind her, looking very much like she had dragged him out of bed this morning and he’d napped in the car.

“Nah, I’m not bruised or nothing,” she waved from her seat at the table. Lisa walked past Kensei to sit down beside her, Rose joining them quickly. Kensei muttering about how this was his ‘house an’ not a fuckin’ bar’…

“That’s good,” Rose admitted, rubbing his eyes, “Lisa’s doing her usual safety check,” he looked over at Kensei, “Where’s your coffee machine?”

Lisa was probably the reason nobody was dead in their group. Mornings after involved answering your phone to her voice, just making sure where you were. Hiyori briefly heard her saying that Love was spending the day in bed, but Mashiro was on her way…

“No she’s not,” Kensei snapped suddenly, bashing his hand down on the desk again… really he was acting like he was a judge or something! “That woman is not coming here when I’m hung-over.”

If she was completely honest Hiyori wasn’t fond of the idea either… Mashiro didn’t really drink, or she hadn’t last night, so she had no idea that her loud high-pitched voice was nerve-wracking for everyone else. That and if they were at Kensei’s it was guarantied that Mashiro would go through his things.

“Tough shit,” Lisa sighed. “Rose, can you make me a coffee too?”

“Sure. Would anyone else like one?”

Kensei growled, “It’s my coffee machine, I don’t remember anyone asking to use it?” He let out a defeated sigh, “Yeah, make me one too.”

“Hiyori, you want one?”

“Nah just had one.”

“What about you, Toy–!” Rose seemed to catch himself before he said it, coughing awkwardly and praying nobody else had noticed.

“No thanks,” he said, gesturing with his hand to the bathroom, “I was just gonna take a shower, if you’ll excuse me?” he mumbled politely, before vanishing into the bathroom.

“He’s so shy,” Lisa chuckled once they all heard the door close.

“Probably because you all keep calling him ‘Toy-Boy-san’!” Kensei snarled, “That would make anyone feel self-conscious!”

Rose rolled his eyes, putting cups of coffee down in front of the others, before settling down opposite Hiyori, “We don’t do it to be cruel, Kensei, really it just slips out.”

“Stop it slipping out then.”

“Who started that anyway?” Lisa asked, sipping her coffee, now inspecting the apples in the fruit bowl looking for the best one, “I know it wasn’t me.”

“I think it was Hachi.”

“Hiyori, that’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard,” Kensei cut in, “Hachi always addresses him as ‘Hisagi-kun’.”

Her eyes narrowed, “Yeah, to his face.”

The four of them stayed quiet for a few more minutes, Hiyori noticed how Rose was holding his head… poor guy, how Kensei and Lisa seemed to be having some sort of telepathic war over the apple she was currently eating… Suddenly her question from earlier seemed a lot more relevant.

“Hey, do any of you remember where we left Shinji last night?”

“I already told ya, I think we dropped him at Yoruichi’s,” Kensei snapped at her, before rising to his feet, “How long does he intend to stay in the shower?” She heard him muttering as he headed to the hallway, knocking loudly on the bathroom door and calling for his lover.

“To be honest, I don’t remember,” Lisa shrugged her shoulders, “I know he wasn’t drunk when we left him… he got out of the taxi, none of us pushed him like the time we kicked Kensei out,” there was an undeniable smirk on her face as she considered that memory. It had been hilarious, the sight of his furious expression getting further and further into the distance as Shinji slammed down on the gas.

Rose cleared his throat, “It was definitely some classy place we dropped him. He was pissed off about something, you and him were yelling for a bit?”

What the hell could they have been arguing about?

Someone was at the door again, and based on the fact they were tapping it to the theme tune of some pop song Hiyori heard on the radio the other day, it was probably Mashiro. Glancing around for Kensei, she noticed he was in the bathroom now… God they couldn’t be at it again, could they? She was sure even Kensei wasn’t as bad as that! Lisa went to the door on his behalf, and instantly put a finger to her lips, hissing something that sounded a little like ‘Keep it down, or Kensei will throw us all out’. Sometimes she wondered if Mashiro had brain damage or something, she was giggling excitedly and making some ‘Sssh’ noises. What a fool.

To think they were meant to be in work today… well that was clearly happening. Maybe they’d just see Shinji at work. He probably got home safely, either at Yoruichi’s or being driven to his actual home by Yoruichi’s creepy little maid. Hiyori shrugged her shoulders and stretched as Mashiro took Kensei’s seat and eagerly snatched up a bright red apple.

“Where’s Kensei?” she whispered excitedly.

“Hopefully just talking with Toy-Boy-san,” Rose rolled his eyes, gesturing to the bathroom with his head.

Lisa and Hiyori snorted, glancing over at Mashiro who looked like she hadn’t quite understood what he’d meant but nodded happily anyway.

“Mashiro, you might remember, you only drank one cocktail at that karaoke bar,” Rose piped up, “Do you remember where Shinji got too last night, we’re all at a bit of a loss.”

She nodded her head, “Of course I remember! Shin-Shin went to Aizen’s,” she bit into her apple, crunching away as if nothing else needed to be said on the matter.

Aizen’s? What the hell… what business would Shinji having seeing that old fruit? No, that simply couldn’t be right; besides Aizen had a restraining order against Shinji, everyone knew that.

“Sosuke Aizen?” Rose blinked, and then laughed aloud, “Mashiro, I really doubt Shinji was at Sosuke Aizen’s last night.”

“What’s the supposed to mean? I remember him telling the taxi driver to stop outside that big house!” she snapped defensively.

“You’ll be thinking of Yoruichi’s house,” Lisa snapped at her, “Don’t be dim, you know, the one we go to for a rich-people party every six months?”

Mashiro pouted, turning her head away from them, “I know where Yoruichi-chan’s house is!” She put her hands out, shaking her fingers on her left hand, “This one on the left is hers, and Shinji went towards the one on the right! He had to climb across me to get out the right door!”

“I really don’t think he’d go see Aizen, Mashiro,” Lisa sighed, rubbing her forehead, “I’m pretty sure if he had, we’d have received a message by now to inform us we were all being sued.”

Hiyori laughed loudly, “Yeah, Shinji would totally gut that guy!”

“Of course he would,” Rose nodded, “He has absolutely no business with Aizen. I know he’s joked about breaking into Aizen’s house to steal back erotic photos or something like that, but he only says dumb things like that when he’s been drinking.”

Lisa smirked, “Yeah, when he’s drunk he frequently tells me I’m his first love,” she said sarcastically.

“Pfft, is there a woman he hasn’t said that too?” the blonde man smirked.

Hiyori’s eyes narrowed, “Yes.”

***

Sometimes Karin Kurosaki wondered if she was just unlucky. Admittedly to most standards she wasn’t particularly unlucky, but the embarrassment caused to her by her stupid father would probably wind her up in therapy in ten years time. She didn’t know how (and she was 100% certain Ichigo would agree with her) Yuzu could just smile and laugh about his antics!

The man was a menace! However he tricked their mother into marrying him, she didn’t know. Especially considering that upon describing the relationship he’d once shared with his wife, he said ‘I treat my children with the love and respect I showed my darling Masaki’. Which could only mean he’d chased her everywhere, and embarrassed her in front of her friends, and attempted to administer bone-crushing embraces to her as well. Good God! And they had three children?

Last night had been a sham! With a test tomorrow and soccer practice after school, Karin had gone to bed early, Yuzu around the same time. Ichigo was out at a friend’s house, so she assumed it would be a peaceful enough evening. Oh no, their father came into their room late at night to wake them up and tell them he was ‘Going out on a mission of youth’. Naturally Yuzu had gone right back to sleep, whereas it took Karin another 40 minutes… She couldn’t have been asleep for very long, when someone in the kitchen was loudly making food. Upon rolling onto her side with her pillow away from being tightly clenched around her head, she recognized the voices as Ichi-nii’s and his boyfriend with the blue hair. Yuzu may have slept through it, but she definitely couldn’t, they kept clattering around the kitchen and laughing and going ‘Sssh’ at each other. She heard them staggering up the stairs and falling against the walls of the hallway, then worst of all, slurping kissing sounds in Ichigo’s room. And she’d bagged Ichigo as the responsible one! Not by any means – if she had to make a list of things she never wanted to hear, her brother loosing his virginity would rank in the top (right next to her father singing ‘Happy Birthday’). It was one of those horrifying moments where you realize what’s going on, but are too scared to react to it. Karin had gone to great lengths to block out the sound, she covered her ears, she hid under the blankets, she held her pillow over her head, she reached around and found Yuzu’s MP3 player… for five minutes she was saved… until it ran out of batteries. Twice she thought about banging on the wall, just to let them know she was awake… twice she managed to talk herself out of doing so. It was going to be embarrassing enough to look at the pair of them tomorrow morning without Ichigo trying to have a ‘talk’ about it.

So naturally with a combination of all of those difficult factors, despite her best wishes to keep quite about Ichigo’s…erm… antics, she was so pissed off in the morning that when Yuzu said ‘How are you this morning, Karin?’ She ended up yelling about her lack of sleep and the reasons this was impossible. Not only did she embarrass Yuzu horribly, but the sight of Ichigo and Grimmjow making breakfast in a hung-over good natured kind of way made her blood boil. They clearly had a good night’s sleep after they finished! Unlike her, who’d been too mortified to sleep? Yuzu being the motherly kind of person, was too shocked to address it properly, but took her sister into their bedroom and begged her to tell their father what had happened. Of course it was against her will, but her sister had already dialled the number… The conversation had been short and awkward, but she thought she’d gotten her point across.

“Erm… hello?”

“Karin – is that the voice of my adorable Karin?”

“No, Dad.”

“Aw yes it is! My little Karin – did you miss Daddy so much you had to call!” (He went off on a bit of a rant about this, until fifteen minutes later he worked out her call had a purpose. “So was there something you wanted, sweetie?”

“Well, erm…” It was difficult enough to say. “I erm… heard strange noises in Ichigo’s room last night.”

“You heard strange noises? What kinds of strange noises, Karin?”

Idiot – idiot – idiot!

“Erm… well, they were just strange, I suppose. Erm… breathy noises…”

There was a pause. That was as far as she was going with describing what she heard, if he asks her to specify again, she’d hang up. But no, there was a long pause, then a mortified gasp. And then he just tried to stutter through a coherent sentence, “W-Well – Well, K-Karin, Daddy has to go – yes, Daddy has to go! Have a good day at school, learn a lot – Daddy loves you, give your sister a kiss from me! Goodbye!”

What an idiot. Did nobody know how to deal with this?

Naturally, with Yuzu’s guilty mind at rest, but all it did was make her feel uneasy. Karin went to school, worrying about their father coming home to Ichigo than any of her trials today.