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“Ichi-nii, Yuzu won’t come out of the bathroom.”
Ichigo pauses in making lunches and looks down at a nine year old Karin, frowning.
“Why?”
“I don’t know. She won’t let me in.” Karin sounds frustrated, so Ichigo wipes his hands and steps away from the counter.
“Your lunches are done. Take yours and go to school,” he says. “I’ll see what’s going on, okay?”
She nods, and Ichigo makes his way upstairs.
The door is locked, which is unusual, so Ichigo raps a knuckle carefully on the wood.
“Yuzu, are you okay?” he calls. “Karin said you wouldn’t come out of the bathroom.”
There’s a pause, and then a small, scared voice reaches his ears.
“I think I’m dying, Ichi-nii.”
Ichigo frowns.
“Do you want me to call Oyaji?” he asks. His father’s at a conference in Osaka, yes, but if Yuzu’s really scared...
“No!” Yuzu’s voice goes quiet again. “No, it’s… it’s embarrassing.”
“Yuzu, if you think you’re dying—“
“I don’t want— I’m scared, Ichi-nii.”
Ichigo frowns.
“Let me in, Yuzu,” he says. “Maybe I can figure out what’s wrong.”
There’s another pause, and then, the lock on the door clicks open.
He steps inside.
There’s blood on the tile, stark against the white, and in the bathtube, where she’s standing. Her pajama bottoms are stained red, thrown into the sink, and when Ichigo looks at her, there are lines of fresh blood on her legs, curving up her ankle and disappearing between her thighs.
Wait, he knows what this is… Sort of.
“Yuzu, where’s the blood coming from?” he asks carefully, going slightly pink with discomfort.
She flushes and points.
“Ichi-nii, what’s going on?”
“I… it’s perfectly natural,” he tells her, racking his thirteen year-old brain for a memory he’s done his best to block out. “Girls do it. They, um… They bleed.”
Yuzu looks pale, and Ichigo shakes his head, stepping carefully over the blood with his white-socked feet so he can touch her.
“Take a shower,” he tells her. “Don’t bother with cleaning the floor or anything. I have to look for something.”
They live in a clinic. Surely his father has something stashed away just in case, right?
It takes him five minutes to find the key to the clinic— Isshin always forgets to put it back on the hook— and another ten to find what he’s looking for.
He’s working off a relatively foggy memory from last year’s health class. Sue him.
Ichigo’s certain that there ought to be instructions for the… plugs… he has in the bag. The cardboard seems— Ichigo flushes at the thought— uncomfortable, at best.
He takes the bag with him, sets it on the kitchen counter, and goes back upstairs.
“Yuzu, are you okay?”
“It still hasn’t stopped.”
Ichigo rubs a hand over is face.
“I— okay. I’ll be right back, okay? I just need to check something.”
Ichigo is almost a hundred percent certain his father has a book about it somewhere, but it’s easier to boot up the computer and look it up.
There are… tutorials. No, no, how about no. Just directions will do.
…
There it is.
Ichigo scans the instructions carefully, squirming uncomfortably as he reads. Girls have to do this every month? Every few hours? That’s… disgusting.
Once he thinks he has everything memorized, he grabs the bag and goes upstairs.
“Yuzu?”
The shower’s off, and she’s wrapped in a towel, sitting on the toilet.
“Um, okay.” Ichigo pulls out one of the tampons. “You’re going to put this… Inside.”
Yuzu goes red, but doesn’t say anything, eyeing the tampon suspiciously.
“What is it?”
“It’s a tampon. Girls use them so they don’t bleed everywhere.” he pauses. “They have these diaper things too, I think, but I didn’t see any. Sorry.”
He goes through the instructions in his head, swallowing awkwardly.
“Um… The cardboard part’s called the applicator,” he starts haltingly, face hotter than ever before. “You hold the middle of it and… put it inside…”
It’s the worst thing in the world, explaining this, and Yuzu’s pale face doesn’t make it much better, but when he’s done, she nods like he understands and takes one.
“I… You should leave, onii-chan.”
“Yeah.”
He takes her pajamas and goes downstairs, throwing them in the wash before calling in his and his sister’s absence. It gives him time to peer into the cabinets and fridge to decide on making something sweet. It’ll make Yuzu feel better.
Yuzu comes downstairs fifteen minutes later, steps uncomfortable thanks to…
Ichigo’s not going to think about that.
“I called the school,” he tells her. “You can stay home today.”
She nods, carefully taking a seat on the stool by the counter.
“How long is this going to last?”
“… A couple of days every month.” Ichigo cracks three eggs over a bowl and adds flour. “That… The tampon is supposed to get changed every four hours, at most. If the… the bleeding’s really bad, change it more often.”
“… It hurts.”
“What, the thing, or—“
“My stomach. It’s been hurting for days.”
Ichigo winces.
“Those are cramps,” he says. “Sometimes you get them, too. It… Does it hurt a lot?”
Yuzu nods.
“Yeah.”
“Um…” he shuffles through the medicine cabinet. “Want some Tylenol?”
She takes it, peering over the counter.
“What are you making?”
“Crepes,” he tells her. “We have peach jam and grape.”
Yuzu smiles at him.
“Grape.”
Ichigo nods.
“Okay. Awesome.” He pauses.
“… When Karin gets hers, you can help her, okay?”
Yuzu huffs a little laugh, but nods anyway as he pours the batter out onto a pan and smoothes it out.
Her big brother’s the best. Awkward, yes, and prone to fighting (though he’s come home with less and less black eyes, nowadays), but he’s the best.
“Okay, Ichi-nii.”
He smiles at her, one of his real smiles, and despite the dull pain in her belly and the discomfort between her legs (she thinks she might have put it in wrong), she thinks today might be an okay day.
After all, Ichigo’s a fantastic cook.