Chapter Text
“Perhaps next time we can do something fun,” Rukia offers, lips curving into a smirk and the feathered fan in her hand twitching lazily. Her counterpart – and it’s strange, seeing her own face on another woman, no matter that this is the second time she’s met this other Rukia – offers an answering smile.
This woman is both her and not her. They share the same features, the same eyes and even the same height, but the Rukia of Karakura, of Soul Society rather than Spirit Society, has no wings or feathers, no horn marking her as an ayakashi.
Ichigo turns pale and sputters. “What do you mean by that?” he demands. The stuffed lion known as Kon is under one arm, spooked into silence for once, and he lingers close to his Rukia. He looks ready to grab her up, too, and make a run for it.
“I was only joking,” she says, and laughs so that Shinji and Lisa both stare at her. She rarely laughs, she supposes. “I don’t leave the mountain, after all.”
A strange expression flickers over Ichigo’s face before his trademark scowl returns. “Yeah,” he mumbles, and looks down at his Rukia. “Let’s go home. Thanks for sending us back, Rukia,” he says, addressing the tengu again.
“Perhaps we will meet again,” she says, and with one delicate hand she raises her feathered fan. With a swirl she sends them back, watches Ichigo linger close to her counterpart as they walk toward the portal that has opened into the park in their world.
“I told you not to worry so much about me,” Rukia says as they step up to the portal. Kon, the strange stuffed lion that can talk, is shoved into the pocket of Ichigo’s jacket.
“Che. Can’t help it when you’re always getting in trouble,” he replies gruffly. She watches Ichigo’s hand brush against the back of Rukia’s, watches their fingers twine together. “Don’t let go, okay? Just – in case.” Ichigo’s voice travels back to reach her ears. They step through onto ordinary green grass.
And as the portal closes behind them, leaving them in their own world, the Rukia of Spirit Society, wielder of a sacred fan and a powerful spirit, feels a weight settle in her chest. The orange-haired man is excitable and annoying, but he’s also – kind. Protective. This is the third time they’ve met, the third time he’s stumbled into Spirit Society.
The man is a world changer, she thinks. And he has clearly changed his Rukia’s world. Perhaps, she thinks, that other version of her has changed his just as much. He certainly treats her as if she has.
“All set here?” Shinji asks, startling her out of her thoughts. “I’ll see you around, Kuchiki-san. Watch out for that creature. Grimmjow may have defeated him, but…”
“But he didn’t destroy him,” Rukia agrees solemnly. She glances down at the fan in her hand. “He is severely injured and unlikely to be a threat, but I will be wary.”
“Good,” Lisa agrees, the twin snakes surrounding her body twining and writhing. She smirks toward the closed portal. “What interesting humans you’ve met, Kuchiki-san.”
“I don’t think she wanted to say goodbye,” Rangiku sing-songs, colorful kimono fluttering around her. “Not to him, anyway. That Ichigo’s cute.” She winks.
Rukia does her best to will away the hint of heat at her cheeks, the flush of embarrassment at her throat. “Do not be ridiculous,” she says severely. “He is a human, and he does not belong here.” He belongs with his Rukia, she thinks, suddenly and unaccountably lonely.
“I wonder if there’s an Ichigo somewhere here,” Lisa muses, and smirks at Rangiku. “We’ll send him your way if we find him, Kuchiki-san.”
She is grateful for the fan in her hand. “If you are done accusing me of having feelings for a human…” Rukia trails off, a threat in her voice.
“You heard her,” Shinji says, and there is too much laughter in his voice and his smile with too many teeth. He adjusts the stole over his shoulders. “Be well, Kuchiki-san. And watch out for that demon.”
Rukia gives an imperious nod, and bids farewell to Rangiku and Lisa too, hiding the telltale touch of heat in her cheeks when Rangiku once more teases her.
She returns to the manor once they are gone, gathering her elegant red and white kimono around herself and taking the thousand steps that will lead her into the manor grounds and then to her suite of rooms. No servants come to greet her, and she prefers it that way, prefers the quiet as she walks along the polished wood engawa. The wood is nearly silent under her feet, despite the geta she wears.
Rukia reaches the shoji doors that lead to her suite, and slides them open. One door catches along its track; she will have to remind one of the servants about that. Again. She steps into her room and slides the doors shut. The tengu removes her geta and leaves them at the door.
Her fan, returned to her now with the close of the festival, must be tended to first, and Rukia lays it in a delicate, tooled metal box. With her fingertips she combs over the feathers, spreading them so that they will not bend or crack in the case.
It is full dark outside, and Rukia sheds her many layers with care, first removing her feathered cloak and then unwrapping the obijime from her waist. The obi follows and then her kimono as well, its split sleeves dragging on the floor before she hangs it on its stand. Clad in only her white nagajuban, Rukia lowers herself onto a cushion set before a mirror, and carefully pulls the feathered pins and baubles from her hair until it flows freely, hanging down to her shoulders. A lock of hair curves over her forehead, pushed off to one side by the slender red horn protruding from her forehead.
The other Rukia doesn’t have such a thing on her face, and for the first time she frowns at it. It isn’t elegant like the crown of horns her brother wears, or as delicate as the horns that some other members of her adopted family bear. She’s never minded it before, but…
Ridiculous, she thinks, and stands. There is no honor or dignity in something so shallow as vanity.
A servant has been in her rooms recently; there is a clean, white cotton yukata draped across her unrolled futon, and Rukia removes her nagajuban and the wrappings around her breasts before she slips into the yukata instead and ties the thin obi tight around her waist.
There is a scratching noise at the door into her bedroom, and when the shoji screen slides open a servant stands in the open doorway, dark-haired and clad in a pink floral yukata. There’s a bored expression on her otherwise pretty face, and in her hands is a wooden tray. “Your evening tea,” she offers diffidently.
“Ah. Thank you,” Rukia says, and gestures. The servant steps into her room and leaves the tray on a low table before leaving without so much as a bow. Rukia lowers herself onto a cushion and pours tea for herself, restraining a faint sigh at the dark green hue, tinged with brown. The tea it over-brewed again; its smell is too astringent.
She drinks it anyway, sipping the lukewarm and bitter liquid contemplatively. It’s been a long day, here on the mountain. She wonders if Ichigo and his Rukia made it home safely, and if they will tell any of their friends about their latest adventure in Spirit Society. Given their reactions each time they’ve come, Rukia suspects that each of the spirits in her world have counterparts in Karakura, the place from which Ichigo hails.
How odd that there is no Ichigo here, she thinks. Then again, perhaps there is, and she simply hasn’t met him. But no, Rangiku and the rest all treated Ichigo as though they’d never seen his double.
The shoji screens rattle suddenly, and Rukia glances up from her half-empty cup of tea. “It must be windy outside,” she murmurs. The rattling grows stronger before it falls silent.
A low groan, the sound of a creature in agony, echoes from beyond the doors and tea sloshes over the rim of her cup as Rukia sets it down hastily. She rises from her cushion and hurries to the doors, shoving the wood-framed paper screen aside.
She stops, jaw going slack. “What,” the petite tengu asks flatly, “are you doing here?”
Golden irises, standing out from pitch black sclera, fasten on hers. “Found you,” the white demon rasps from where he has collapsed on the engawa. Blood stains the polished wood and his bone-white skin in equal measure, slashes cutting through the red markings that stretch from his chest and stomach to his back. More of his blood drips into his eye, falling from a cut perilously close to one of the smaller dark horns decorating his head.
Rukia glowers down at him, lips set in a scowl. “You’re the demon from the mirror. How did you escape Jaegerjacquez?” she demands. “And why were you looking for me?” She should grab her fan, should call for the guards, but the demon is, if not dying, so seriously injured that he hardly poses a threat.
“Che. Left the bastard i- in worse shape than he left me.” The demon coughs up blood and turns his head to spit it to one side, alabaster hair brushing across his back and soaking up more of the dark red liquid as he does it. “Smelled you on the orange haired kid and followed it here.”
“You… smelled me,” the raven-haired tengu repeats skeptically. “Did you want me to finish you off?”
He laughs and seems to regret it immediately when he coughs again, harshly, but the demon pushes himself onto his hands and knees then lurches up, grabbing for the wooden doorframe with a bloodied hand. The other presses stained, white fabric against the gashes on his abdomen. “You smell delicious,” he rasps, golden eyes meeting hers. “Thought maybe I’d try and take you as a vessel, but – heh – I think I like that smell on you better.”
CRACK!
“Ow, what the hell was that for?!” the demon whines, clawed, dark hand coming up to cradle his swiftly reddening cheek.
“For telling me that I smell,” Rukia shoots back. “And for showing up uninvited.”
“Tch. I said you smell good, little tengu.” He swipes at the blood dripping from one side of his mouth, leaving another smear on her wooden doorframe. “Like andromeda and honey.”
That’s going to be a pain to clean, she thinks. And to explain. “What do you want, demon?”
“Just told you I was looking for you,” the white demon says. He pushes himself away from the doorframe, clawed fingers biting into the wood.
“Why?”
“Heh. I’m the lord of the mountain, little tengu. I do what I want.” He smirks down at her and leans close, so close she can smell nothing but the overwhelming, coppery tang of his blood. He’s so close she can see the amber flecks in the golden irises of his eyes.
“Lord of the mountain?” Rukia asks derisively. “You were trapped in a mirror until this morning. You don’t even have a proper form without a vessel.”
“I wouldn’t say that.” But he collapses again, sliding down to the engawa as his other hand falls away from his bleeding stomach. His wounds are deep, and Rukia scowls as blood pools on pale, polished wood. She should call the guards or else kill him herself, but…
Those eyes look into hers again and there is something behind them, something more than the half-crazed demon who broke a sacred mirror. With a roll of her eyes, she bends down. “Don’t make me regret this,” Rukia warns. He’s supposed to be amorphous without a vessel, but her hands meet overheated skin. She doesn’t question it, just loops her arms beneath his to pull him through the doorway.
He groans in pain and blood stains both her yukata and the wood floor by the time she gets him into her room. Rukia lays him down on the floor and hurries into the bathing room to find towels and bandages. She has some modest healing ability, and while the demon lies on his back she kneels beside him, peeling away his kimono and sponging off the blood so that she can better see his wounds. “Stupid cat demon did a number on me,” he mutters, and hisses when Rukia puts too much pressure on a gash.
“It’s what you deserved for breaking one of the sacred mirrors,” Rukia decides. But her hand hovers over the gashes and light glows against her palm. Slowly, the wounds begin to knit together. She removes the mask – it’s cracked, anyway – that he wears over one shoulder, and sponges away blood from another wound.
One hand, much larger than hers, wraps around her forearm and sharp vermilion claws prick at her skin. “Fuckin’ hurts, tengu,” he hisses at her.
Rukia slaps his hand away and smirks when he can only give her an outraged grunt in response. “Be glad I haven’t killed you,” she snaps. “I still can. Now hold still, I’m trying to help you.” Her hands drift over him, not touching but hovering as beneath her fingertips each wound begins to mend, to lessen in severity.
She isn’t a healer, however, and before long her formerly white yukata sticks to her skin, soaked through with sweat and stained with his blood. Her breathing comes in short pants; the tengu hasn’t expended this much power in a long time. Sending the humans back to their own world was as easy as breathing, compared to this.
His hand wraps around her forearm again, gentler this time. The vermilion claws seem smaller, less sharp. “That’s enough, little tengu,” the nameless demon grunts. “Gonna hurt yourself if you keep going.”
Rukia blinks down at him, mouth open to protest, but her vision blurs ominously. A wave of fatigue washes over her and she takes a slow breath. “I have to bandage you. It’s going to hurt,” she warns when she’s blinked several times to bring him back into focus. “And you’re still going to be weak for several days.”
“Heh. Guess I’ll have to lie low,” he agrees. “Not that there’s many places someone like me can find sanctuary.”
With his help, Rukia gets the demon into a seated position and cleans away more blood. She ignores the way he sniffs at her while she wraps bandages tight around his waist and chest, around both shoulders where the jaguar-like demon slashed him, and along one leg as well. “You’re not as discreet as you think you’re being,” she says finally, when she’s bandaged every wound she can see and the demon is clad only in a fundoshi, his kimono being beyond repair.
She doesn’t have the first clue where she’s going to get a new kimono for him; she’s so much smaller than him that her clothing is practically doll-sized by comparison.
“Not trying to hide it, little tengu,” he says, white lips stretching into a smirk.
“It’s Rukia,” she finally tells him, exasperated by the way he keeps calling her little tengu. So what if she’s smaller than all of the other Kuchiki clan members except the children?
“Rukia,” he murmurs, and she wills herself, suddenly, not to flush. The way he says her name is far too intimate for a creature like him. The demon looks around. “Guess you’d better clean up all that blood before anyone notices.”
“I’d better clean it up? You’re the one who bled all over my floor!” Rukia protests. When she tries to stand, she stumbles with fatigue, and only the white demon’s arms and still-quick reflexes keep her from falling on her face.
“Che. I said you were gonna hurt yourself,” the demon grumbles. His hands, strong and large where they clasp her slender shoulders, are oddly gentle as they prop her up, claws careful not to prick at her. As soon as Rukia steadies herself he lets go, but reaches for one of the towels. “Guess I’ll help since I don’t want to get caught here.”
She watches in bemusement as her uninvited guest uses the towel to start wiping up the smears of blood on the wooden floor. Eventually, Rukia rouses herself to help, cleaning the engawa and doorframe first before any passing servants can see them. The towels will have to be burned, but that’s a problem for later.
When the mess is cleaned up and the demon’s ruined kimono is bundled away along with the bloodied towels, Rukia clears her throat uneasily. “Do you have a name?” she asks finally.
“No.” There’s a too-interested look in his eyes, for all that he still looks like he can barely stand.
“Then what am I supposed to call you?”
“Che. Planning on keeping me around long enough that I’ll need a name?” Despite the pain he must still be in, the demon grins at her, canines unnaturally sharp. “Guess you could, since I’ve got nowhere to go.”
“You have to swear not to make trouble for me,” Rukia warns, startling even herself with the words that have just come out of her mouth. What she should say is that he has until dawn to get out. Instead, she stares him down and waits for his answer.
The demon’s eyes flicker. For less than a second, she thinks they’re amber, not golden. But then his white lips stretch in a grin that’s too savage for the person they remind her of. He pushes himself onto his feet and Rukia averts her eyes when his fundoshi shifts. “Tch. I won’t make trouble for you, little tengu,” he promises. His eyes rake over her. “Think you should get out of that thing?” The demon’s grin turns into a knowing smirk.
Rukia looks down at herself and realizes that her yukata’s gone translucent from sweat where it isn’t stained red, and clings to her too-modest curves. “You…!” She crosses her arms over her chest and glares at him, a telltale flush at her throat and cheeks. “Don’t be a pervert!”
“Che. You’re the one who stripped me naked,” he teases, though he sways on his feet again.
The tengu turns away from him, cheeks even hotter, and slides open the fusuma that hide her closet from view. She grabs for a clean yukata and then hesitates. He needs something to cover himself, too, but he’s a foot taller than her and twice as broad. Any clothes she has will be comically small on him. She’ll need to steal something from the manor laundry in the morning. For now… “Wrap yourself in this,” Rukia orders, flinging a white sheet at him. “I’ll find something else for you tomorrow.”
She slips into the bathroom again, this time to strip naked and wash off the demon’s blood; when she returns, wrapped in the clean yukata, the demon still has the sheet awkwardly held in one hand. “Thought I’d wash the blood off, too,” he grunts, and steps past her into the bathroom. The fusuma shuts behind him and Rukia takes a slow, deep breath.
She’s playing with fire by offering sanctuary to this creature, but there’s something about him that pricks at her. The orange-haired man comes to mind for a moment, scowl hiding a kind heart and brown eyes. They have the same facial features, the same set to their jaw, but the demon is half-feral and destructive where Ichigo was protective.
Though he isn’t destroying anything just now, Rukia thinks, and digs through her closets to find something the white demon can sleep on. It occurs to her that if a servant comes for her in the morning, she’ll be hard-pressed to explain the demon’s presence in her rooms.
He’s cleaned up somewhat by the time he steps out of the bathing room, and without blood all over him Rukia has to look away to avoid staring at him. His white hair, nearly to his waist, is damp at the ends where he’s washed out the blood, and telltale droplets of water cling to his still-bare chest. The white sheet she gave him is wrapped around his waist, leaving his chest and arms totally bare. And –
“Do you paint your arms?” she blurts out, and stifles a noise behind her hand when the demon looks down at his arms reflexively. They’re white now like the rest of him, instead of the black and red patterns that covered them a few minutes ago.
“Che. I can take any form I want,” he says with a shrug. He looks down at her with a smirk. “Did you like the patterns, little tengu?” the alabaster-hued demon asks suggestively. He moves, sleek as a panther, crowding into her personal space until Rukia is forced to decide whether to stand her ground or take a step back.
She doesn’t move, and his fingers are suddenly in her hair, vermilion nails separating the strands. “You said you wouldn’t make trouble,” Rukia reminds him, and silently curses the way her voice sounds breathless.
“I did,” he agrees. This close she can smell him, and with the blood gone he smells… good. Like warm spice and the faintest hint of musk, mixing with the clean scent of the plain white soap she uses. He’s too close, it’s too much, and – “Ow!” He jerks back, favoring the foot she stepped on.
“I made up a bed for you,” Rukia explains with false serenity and gestures at the doors that lead into a tiny room off of her bedroom. One perk of being the clan head’s adopted sister is that she has one of the larger suites of rooms in the manor. The space is supposed to be used as a meditation space, but Rukia’s always found it claustrophobic.
“You want me to sleep in a closet,” the demon asks with an arched eyebrow. Rukia’s spare futon barely fits along the length of the room, but she’s found an extra blanket and pillow, and a lantern since the room has no windows.
“It’s not a closet, it’s a meditation space,” Rukia emphasizes. “If the servants see you, they’ll raise an alarm and, in your condition, you’re likely to end up dead. No one ever goes in there because I don’t use it.”
“Che.” He looks from her to the small space, and then to her futon, laid out on the tatami floor and covered with a plain comforter. “Fine.” He steps into the little room and his eyes glow golden as he pulls the fusuma shut behind him. He doesn’t thank her.
Rukia manages to close the sliding doors into her bedroom before she collapses onto her futon like a puppet with its strings cut. Exhaustion sweeps over her before she can so much as pull the comforter over her shoulders, and darkness takes her.
In the morning, she wakes with the comforter tucked up to her shoulders, though the doors into her bedroom are still tightly shut and there’s no hint that anyone has tried to enter her bedroom. When she turns her head, the fusuma into the tiny meditation room are ever so slightly open, and for just a second Rukia entertains the idea that perhaps he did it – but.
But he is a demon, and demons don’t tuck people in at night, Rukia reminds herself. Perhaps she roused herself in the night and doesn’t remember it.
The windows into her bedroom tell her that it’s still predawn, and there is no time to waste. She needs to dispose of the bloodied towels and get the demon a kimono or something else more adequate than a sheet. She rises quickly, groaning faintly as her body reminds her with sore limbs and an aching head just how much energy she expended trying to heal the demon, and hears a faint rustling in the meditation room. “I’m getting you some clothes,” she murmurs. “Keep yourself hidden.”
There’s no response, and she thinks maybe the demon is still asleep. Rukia leaves her futon and comforter to air out in favor of seeking out her closet for fresh garments. She’ll have to try and look the part of a servant for this errand, as dressing in her normal garb would draw too much attention to herself. She pulls a dark yukata from the closet and throws it on, followed by a simple pair of waraji that her brother would order burned if he knew about them. Rukia doesn’t bother with the normal decorations she wears in her hair but pulls it into a simple bun.
There’s nothing she can do about her horn, but hopefully this early no one will see it. She finds a large furoshiki and bundles the dirty towels – dry, now, and stiff – into it, then opens the door onto the engawa cautiously.
There is no one else around as far as she can see, and she scurries outside, hurrying to the outbuilding where the laundry is taken care of for the clan members and servants. Her sandals are nearly silent first on the polished wood planks and then on the grassy courtyard. The sun is just beginning to peek over the horizon when she reaches the laundry building, a squat wood and plaster structure from which steam ordinarily billows. But it’s silent and cold just now, too early in the day for the fires to be stoked and the cauldrons of water to be boiling, and Rukia heaves a silent sigh of relief.
There’s an enormous tub of towels waiting to be washed – the clan goes through a lot of them – and Rukia empties it almost entirely before she unties the furoshiki and drops the towels into tub. She piles the other towels back on top. That accomplished, she looks for the clean laundry and huffs in frustration. There’s less available than she expected, but eventually she finds a gray kimono that seems like it will fit the demon, along with a monpe, suikan, and undershirt that makes up the uniform of some of the manservants around the manor.
Each of these she bundles into her furoshiki and ties it tight, as though it’s a bundled present, and hurries from the building. Before she can get far, however, Rukia hears footsteps and ducks around back, hiding and hoping that the dawn shadows and her dark clothes and hair will keep her hidden.
“Did you hear?” a voice asks quietly. “There were two humans here again, during the festival.”
“Really?” a higher voice asks. Rukia thinks she recognizes the tone and pitch of one of the maidservants who periodically attends to her.
“And Kuchiki-sama’s adopted sister was seen with them again,” the first voice adds. “Associating with humans, can you imagine? Kuchiki-sama must be so embarrassed by her.”
“I’m sure he is. He already had to save her from being executed for associating with those nasty creatures once.” There’s a low snort. “Not to mention she’s hideous. So scrawny, and her horn is so plain, not like Kuchiki-sama’s beautiful pair.”
Her eyes are burning, and Rukia blinks back the sudden rush of wetness. Servants talk, and this isn’t the first time she’s heard them speak about her. It certainly won’t be the last. She waits until their voices fade and hurries along the back of the laundry and then to the next outbuilding before she reaches the courtyard and walks along the stone path back to her door. Fortunately, she encounters no one else.
She dresses once again in her sleeping yukata, hanging up the dark yukata she used for her errand and hiding the waraji in the darkest corner of her closet.
The demon is stirring again when she reenters her bedroom, and Rukia pushes the fusuma open just wide enough to push through the furoshiki. “Breakfast will be here in a while,” she says. It’s light enough outside that the morning sun casts its light in through the opening, and Rukia takes in a slow breath when she sees the demon staring at her with his golden eyes. But he says nothing, and Rukia leaves to give him some privacy.
Her sometimes-maidservant is the one who delivers her breakfast this morning, and Rukia is waiting patiently when she arrives, thirty minutes later than when she is supposed to (and ten minutes later than usual) with a tray laden with tea and breakfast dishes. If the girl, dark-haired and narrow-chinned with a powder blue yukata on today, notices anything out of the ordinary about the state of Rukia’s bedroom she keeps it to herself as she sets the tray down on Rukia’s low table with a loud clatter that almost knocks over the teacup and does knock over the jar of natto.
“Thank you, Kasumi,” Rukia says quietly when she’s righted the jar and cleaned up the mess herself – the maid apparently having no interest in doing so.
Kasumi looks over Rukia and her lip curls. She sneers something under her breath – it sounds like street rat – when she’s turned away to leave.
Rukia restrains a sigh and waits until the door onto the engawa is closed again. “You can come out now,” she calls quietly. The fusuma hiding her bedroom from view slide open and the white demon walks, still with that pantherlike grace despite his injuries, into the living area. He lowers himself slowly onto the floor on the other side of the table, grimacing in pain, and glances down at the meal that’s been prepared for her. There’s only one set of chopsticks, and she offers them to him. “I’ll eat after you,” she says.
A sculpted white eyebrow arches over a golden eye, and he looks down at the breakfast before him. It’s not really enough to share; there’s a bowl of white rice and a small piece of fish, a single fried egg and the now half-full jar of natto. “Guess I understand why you’re so tiny,” he comments as Rukia pours tea from the pot into the cup and picks it up. “They’re not feeding you enough.”
The tea’s ice cold: her tray must have been waiting for her maidservant to pick it up. Not surprising, since Kasumi was busy gossiping about her. “I’ll have Kasumi bring something more filling for dinner,” Rukia decides.
“Hn.” He mutters “Itadakimasu” under his breath and digs in while Rukia tries not to watch him too closely. She sips her cold tea without complaint, finishing two cups before the demon takes the empty cup from her hand and fills it for himself. “…This has been cold for a while,” he grumbles, and his golden eyes watch her over the cup as he swallows an entire cupful in two big sips.
“We’re quite far from the kitchen,” Rukia murmurs. She takes the chopsticks when he hands them to her and wipes them off. For a demon, he’s surprisingly considerate: he’s left her almost half the rice and the whole egg, although he ate the fish. Rukia lays the egg atop the rice and discovers that the yolk is overcooked when she tries to break it.
He eyes the way she pokes at the egg and then settles for cutting it into pieces. “The girl called you a street rat,” he says.
“Oh, you heard that?” Rukia asks lightly. She scoops rice and some of the egg into her mouth. “I’m adopted and not everyone approved of my brother’s choice to take me into the clan,” she explains when she’s chewed and swallowed. She adds some natto to the rice alongside the egg and smirks when the demon makes a face.
“Hn.” He pours another cup of tea and tosses it back. “If I were you, I’d rip her throat out to teach her a lesson.”
Rukia nearly chokes on her rice. “That’s hardly a lesson,” she protests. Wood creaks outside, and their eyes fly up in tandem to the closed door. Rukia’s heart pounds and she whispers harshly, “Go, back into the meditation room. Keep the fusuma closed.”
He rises as quickly as he can manage – still struggling, she can see by the way he moves, with his injuries – and disappears back into her bedroom.
Rukia finishes her breakfast and has just washed it down with a last sip of tea when Kasumi returns, this time with a second servant in tow. The girl gathers the breakfast dishes and hands them off to the other servant, who hurries away with them.
The tengu bathes quickly while Kasumi rolls up her futon and comforter to stow them away; when Rukia steps back into her rooms, a towel wrapped around her slender form, she ignores the look that the maidservant gives her.
“One of the clan elders will be visiting your rooms shortly,” the girl says as Rukia finishes drying herself off. There is supposed to be a nagajuban waiting for her, but Kasumi moves slowly to pull one from the closet while Rukia waits, shivering in the cool air of the unheated room.
“Who is it? Did they state a purpose for their visit?” Rukia asks.
“No,” Kasumi says indifferently. “Only that I was to see to it that you were up and dressed appropriately to receive a member of the clan.”
A fellow member of the clan, Rukia thinks, but as she does with so many things, she lets the remark go uncorrected.
With Kasumi’s help she dons the clean nagajuban and endures the way the servant ties it too tightly around her waist. Her hair is next, and Rukia seats herself before her mirror while the girl brushes her hair out for her. She isn’t gentle; in her soreness and lingering tiredness from the night before, Rukia catches herself hissing and wincing once or twice when the girl uses the brush to practically rip the knots from her hair. Eventually, however, her hair is put up properly, and feathered ornaments are clipped into it.
The white split-sleeve kimono and long obi are next, and Rukia holds her arms out to either side while the servant dresses her. The petite, dark-haired woman wraps her feathered cloak over her shoulders herself and glances in the mirror briefly. She is pale with fatigue, still, and sore, but there is nothing to be done about that. “Have tea – hot – brought for the elder,” Rukia instructs. “Make sure that the kitchen uses silver needle tea.”
Kasumi nods and slips out without another word.
Rukia hurries to the meditation space, moving as quickly as she can in her kimono. The fusuma are once again just slightly ajar, and she pushes them open further. “I told you to keep these closed,” she gripes.
The demon smirks at her. “Afraid one of your precious elders will see me?” he asks, freely giving away the fact that he was listening in on her conversation with Kasumi.
They’re hardly precious to her, but Rukia draws herself up to her full – though short – height. “If you are caught,” she warns, “I won’t save you.”
“Che. I can save myself, little tengu,” the demon says, smirk still in place. “Your elders would probably piss themselves if they saw me here.”
Her nose wrinkles at his crude language. “Just. Stay quiet and hidden,” she orders, and turns away from him.
A large hand fastens on her wrist before she can step away. “What will you give me if I do?” he asks, too close to her again.
She’s been alone for far too long, Rukia decides immediately, because even in the drab kimono she brought for him he’s… attractive. It’s a just little too short and snug around is broad chest, dipping open to display white but chiseled pectorals and the bandages that wrap around his abdomen. His white hair, much longer than hers, gleams in the morning light. His golden eyes meet hers and his eyebrows quirk up in question. It occurs to her that even his four horns are attractive; they’re far more like a proper spirit’s horns than her single red one.
But. “I’ve given you sanctuary,” she reminds him. “I could have left you to die or sent for the guards.”
“Hn. And I promised to stay out of trouble,” the demon agrees. “But you’re asking for something else, Rukia.”
His name on her tongue does… something low in her belly. “What do you want, then?” the raven-haired tengu demands. “Quickly, the elder could be here any minute.”
“One favor of my choosing.” His canines show as he grins down at her.
“As though I’d agree to give you a favor without knowing what it is,” Rukia scoffs. “Think again, white demon, I’m not that stupid.”
A shadow passes over his face, there and gone. “Books. Two of them,” he specifies when she blinks at him in near-incomprehension. “If I’m going to live in your closet of a meditation room you can give me something to entertain myself.” His eyes gleam amber again, just for a second, before they lighten once more.
“Done,” Rukia agrees. It hadn’t occurred to her that he would want to read. And the way his eyes flash amber…
She shakes herself when the shoji door to her rooms opens without so much as a called greeting. “Stay hidden,” she hisses, and the demon lets go of her with a smirk, allowing her to pull the fusuma shut. She steps out of her bedroom and pulls those dividers shut as well; she thinks she hears movement when she does, but a tall, elderly tengu is stepping into her room and she doesn’t have time to think about that.
The maidservant has yet to return with tea, and Rukia suppresses a sigh even as she bows to the elder before her. He is slightly stooped with age but still towers over her in high, single tooth geta. His black and crimson kimono sweeps the floor elegantly as he walks, and the feathered cloak he wears is resplendent.
“Girl,” he says, and his pale blue eyes glare at her. His face is lined with age but his jaw is still strong, his eyes still sharp. The stately red horns upon his brow nestle amidst perfectly coiffed, short gray hair.
Rukia bows neatly, correctly, and rises only when she hears the scrape of his geta move past her. “Elder Hisato,” she greets quietly, and gestures towards the cushions still laid out on the wooden floor. “Please, sit. A servant should be bringing tea momentarily.” She hopes.
There is a sneer on the man’s lips, but he acquiesces, settling himself on the dark cushion that she typically favors. Rukia lowers herself into seiza on the other cushion, oddly conscious of the fact that the white demon was using it only a short while ago. She swears that a hint of his scent lingers.
They sit in silence until Kasumi arrives, bearing a pot of tea and two delicate cups. She sets them down on the table and gives a shallow bow to Kuchiki Hisato before departing.
Delicately holding the long sleeve of her kimono out of the way, Rukia raises the pot of tea with her other hand and pours, filling first the elder’s cup and then hers. The tea is not quite hot enough, she can tell immediately; but at least it is the white tea she requested.
She sits in silence while the elder raises the cup to his lips and drinks. “Acceptable,” he decides a moment later.
Rukia takes a sip from her own cup of tea, and glances at the elder. He is still sipping his tea, making her wait to hear whatever he has to say. It could be anything, really: a dressing-down for assisting the two humans, an admonishment for not being refined enough; he might even be here to tell her that the clan is arranging her marriage. Out of the corner of her eye Rukia sees the fusuma to her bedroom; they are ever so slightly ajar. But the demon is in the meditation room, she thinks; he will not listen in or draw attention to himself.
Well. He said he wouldn’t, anyway, though Rukia has no reason to trust his word.
Finally, the older tengu sets down his empty cup. She lifts the pot to pour a second measure for him, but he places his hand over it and so Rukia sets down the pot once more. “You were seen,” Hisato begins, “giving aid to humans.”
Ah. It’s that, then. “I see,” Rukia says. She sets her cup down on the table and folds her hands in her lap, focuses her gaze over the elder’s right shoulder. As before, she expects he will hear no explanation or excuse.
She’s right.
“When Kuchiki-sama graciously adopted you into this clan we made our expectations of you clear, girl. I took it upon myself to watch over you, to train you to behave as a proper noble. I assigned you skilled tutors and servants.” Hisato counts his deeds on his fingers as he goes, long fingers pointing in her direction. “In return, I expected you to stay out of trouble and avoid bringing dishonor to the Kuchiki name we so generously gave you. And yet, you have twice been caught consorting with humans, with unfit spirits.”
Rukia’s hands clutch together beneath the table, but she keeps her expression placid. She wonders which of the spirits she’s seen in the last day he considers unfit. Surely he doesn’t know about the white demon. There is a creak, ever so slight, from behind her fusuma, and Rukia forces herself not to look in that direction.
Hisato doesn’t seem to notice, still wrapped up in castigating her for her perceived transgressions. “Is it not enough to keep you on the mountain? Must I confine you to your room to keep you from shaming us?” he demands.
She pays little attention; it is nothing she hasn’t heard before, a mixture of insults about her behavior and appearance, of implying that she is not grateful enough to the family that has taken her in. It hurts, of course, but Rukia has hardened herself to it after so long. “Do you have anything to say for yourself?” he asks once he has finished his rant.
Will you let me say anything for myself? Rukia wonders. “I am grateful for all that you, and the clan, have done for me, Elder Hisato,” she settles on. “The humans were lost; I merely sent them back to where they belonged. We cannot, of course, have such creatures wandering freely in the Spirit Society.”
It’s certainly stretching the truth, but the elder harrumphs and levers himself to his feet. “You will be confined to your rooms for a tenday, girl,” he decides. “Perhaps it will convince you of the folly of stepping out of place.”
Rukia bows at the waist and stays that way until he leaves. There is another creak from behind the fusuma that the raven-haired tengu ignores while she drinks the rest of the tea; it’s no use letting it go to waste, even though it’s getting cold. After a while, Kasumi comes to retrieve the tea pot.