Chapter Text
"Ichi-nii has lost his mind, hasn't he?" Karin had said this for the fifth time in five minutes, but her eyes were still glued to her phone. Multiple tabs of Google searches stared back at her.
Kuchiki Rukia, 31, was the heiress of the Kuchiki Family, the richest family in Japan with an estimated net worth of US$24.9 billion.
"Are you sure this is the one?" Karin sneered at her twin sister.
Yuzu nodded sternly. "I saw her with my own eyes, Karin-chan."
"Through the CCTV monitor," Karin mumbled, correcting her.
The tomboy ran her fingers through her dark hair, a little frustrated. "You saw this Kuchiki-something lady make out with Ichi-nii in his living room from the CCTV monitor."
Yuzu glared at her twin. "Don't make it sound like that, will you? I was just hiding in his apartment to surprise Onii-chan at midnight for his birthday," the brown-haired girl argued back.
"Thus you hid in that small room next to his living room, in which he kept his CCTV monitor." Karin rolled her eyes. It wasn't like Yuzu to put herself in a silly situation like that.
Yuzu nodded again, aware of the subtle sneers Karin kept sending her way. "That room has a comfortable chair. And a plug-in to charge my phone."
Karin was still going on with her eye-rolls.
"And it's the room he's least likely to go into if it's not necessary."
"I'm not making things up, Karin-chan! Onii-chan is seriously dating this lady!"
Yuzu pointed at a photo of a beautiful woman (Karin didn't give compliments easily, but this Kuchiki heiress-something had the most captivating eyes, complemented by really pale and fair skin, and, yeah, Karin had to admit that she was more beautiful than any other woman she knew in her life), dressed in a gray turtleneck layered by a high-end maroon blazer on her Wikipedia page. She seemed to be giving some kind of speech on a podium where Karin and Yuzu could vaguely read bold letters of "Women for Women" on the backdrop.
"But how can you be so sure that it was her?" The tomboy nudged Yuzu on the elbow. "I mean..." she was at a loss for words.
Ichi-nii couldn't be dating this lady.
Yuzu let out an exasperated sigh. "Do you want me to go over it again? I told you, I heard Onii-chan call her Rukia, and I—"
"And you went straight into full-on detective mode on Ichi-nii's Instagram followers and found her," Karin replied. "And her Instagram account is @rukia, as in Rukia K. She doesn't even name her account Kuchiki."
Karin held up her phone to her twin's face, showing Yuzu a private Instagram profile with only 38 posts, 124 followers, and 69 following. Her profile picture was a candid photo of a beautiful lady with flushed cheeks and pink lips. She had pale skin in contrast to her jet-black hair. Her face was illuminated by orange and yellow sunlight and she was wearing a scarf around her neck. Yuzu and Karin also noticed the famous Golden Gate Bridge in the background.
"I'm 100% sure they're the same person." Yuzu zoomed in on the photo of the Wikipedia page on her phone and compared it to the Instagram profile on her twin's phone. "See? She really, really looks like the lady on Wikipedia."
Karin wanted to disagree. She wanted to contradict Yuzu, who seemed kind of delusional with the idea of 'It's happening! I'm going to plan for Onii-chan's wedding!' in her head.
But certainly not their brother's wedding with some billionaire heiress?
Wouldn't that be troublesome and too much?
Karin had to admit that their family was pretty much loaded themselves, with their father being one of the most respected pediatricians in their relatively small town, Karakura, and Karin pretty much knew her brother also made loads, but.
Really? A Kuchiki heiress, of all people?
Wasn't this too much?
The tomboy currently went to one of the most prestigious law schools in Japan. She knew a lot of snobby rich girls who were born with silver spoons in their mouths, and Karin didn't like them.
She didn't want to be judgmental, but Karin had to admit she was no saint, and she thought those girls were annoying. They mostly only thought about throwing ridiculously posh parties, and expensive dresses and insanely overpriced million-dollar makeup, and lip fillers and nose jobs or a boob job and ass job they actually didn't need, and they were most obsessed with being the next Kardashians on Instagram.
God, Karin didn't get along with them.
"She's so pretty, Karin-chan!" Yuzu said adoringly.
Karin silently agreed with her twin. This Kuchiki Rukia represented very much of what Karin always thought natural beauty was.
Yuzu snatched the phone away from her twin. "And you know what, Karin-chan? Guess who resides permanently in the USA?" she started again, fingers busy tumbling on her twin's phone.
"This Kuchiki Rukia lady!" Yuzu said again and started reading loudly, "Kuchiki Rukia currently lives in an apartment in San Francisco. The Kuchiki family is also reported to have bought a home near Silicon Valley in Woodside, California that cost the family $112 million."
Karin squinted her eyes. She could totally understand Yuzu's excitement at having found out that her dearest Onii-chan was having a relationship (an affair?) with someone when all she had been doing for the last 10 years was nudging him with 'I can't wait to plan your wedding, Onii-chan! Look at all these beautiful roses and lilies! And the wedding cake! And oh my God, this dress looks so beautiful!'
But, thinking that her Ichi-nii, who really looked like he didn't give a care in the world about anything, walked nonchalantly with lazy scowls on his face, and thought everything was troublesome, dating an heiress from the richest family in Japan didn't really add up.
Yuzu started again, Karin swore she could actually see her jumping around, "and guess who spent one full year, taking a fellowship in California last year?" Yuzu's eyes glinted with excitement.
"Well, Ichi-nii did." Karin took a deep breath. "He took a fellowship at Stanford."
Yuzu nodded repeatedly. "And Karin-chan, I swear I accidentally heard—,"
Karin snorted. "You eavesdropped, you mean."
"No! Well, yes, well," Yuzu fidgeted on her feet. "It's not like I had a choice not to hear it; they were basically talking while cuddling on the couch in the living room, which just happens to be separated only by thin walls in the CCTV room."
Yuzu didn't like the way Karin made her feel bad about what she did. "And... it's not like I knew Onii-chan planned on having a visitor. I was just going along with my perfect birthday surprise plan. I baked a cake, Karin-chan! And I needed a place to hide... and I—,"
Karin snorted for God knows how many times that day. "First of all, Ichi-nii does NOT cuddle. And second of all, get to the point, Yuzu, what did you hear?"
"Onii-chan asked her to stay a bit longer," Yuzu told Karin, eyes starting to look sad for no apparent reason. "Rukia-neechan said,"
"Oh, now she's Rukia-neechan?" Karin hummed and rolled her eyes.
"Stop being rude and cutting off my story, Karin-chan." Yuzu frowned and patted her twin lightly on the arm.
"Rukia-neechan said that her flight was tomorrow morning and Onii-chan asked her to stay. With him. He said he would introduce her to our family at his birthday dinner today. He asked her to stay in Japan."
"Are you sure this isn't just some cliché drama you made up in your head, Yuzu?" Karin tried to say in the most gentle voice she had.
Yuzu shook her head and decided to let go of her twin's rude replies all this time. "And guess what Rukia-neechan said? She said she would be thrilled to meet our family. She said, in these exact same words, that she really wanted to meet 'Sweet Yuzu who makes the best onigiri of your life' and 'Cool Karin who is the only normal one in your family.'" Karin swore she could see happy tears coming out of her dramatic twin. "She knows us, Karin-chan! She knows us!"
"Yuzu, pull yourself together, alright? Or I'm done listening to your rambling." Karin felt bad, but she just had to do it. Yuzu needed some control.
"Sorry," Yuzu giggled. "Then Rukia-neechan said that she couldn't just cancel her flight, you know? But she wanted to meet us, really, to have our annual Kurosaki birthday dinner. She was sorry that she had to leave."
"She sounds nice enough," Karin mumbled. Yuzu might like someone instantly, but Karin decided it would take a lot more effort to win her trust.
"Then Onii-chan said he wasn't only asking her to stay a bit longer. He was asking her to stay with him. Onii-chan asked her to move in with him. Karin-chan, this is huge!" Yuzu squealed.
"Just how long have they been dating, exactly? And how did Ichi-nii know her? California isn't like Karakura, Yuzu. It's huge." Karin couldn't even believe that she was entertaining Yuzu with her ideas. Even though, deep down, Karin knew everything was just too much to be a coincidence.
"I did my research." Yuzu smiled, her brown eyes glinting with joy. "Remember when Onii-chan represented his hospital to cure the sick children in Somalia for a year?"
Karin nodded. "Yeah." She tried to recall things. "That's a year before he took a fellowship at Stanford." Karin chuckled, "A young, renowned pediatrician who did volunteer work in Africa. Goat-chin was in cloud nine."
Yuzu smiled back. "Okay, here's the thing, Karin-chan."
Karin couldn't even decide if she liked this Detective Yuzu or Stalker Yuzu.
"You know that Seireitei Hospital Onii-chan is working at? It's owned by the Kuchikis. Founded by this..." Yuzu started typing on Google search and showed Karin an old antique photo of an old man named Kuchiki Ginrei.
"...this man. And..." Yuzu began again.
"The head and owner of that hospital just happens to be an obstetrician named Byakuya, the heir and now the head of the Kuchiki family," Yuzu held up her phone to show a Google image of a classy man with what must be a designer suit with long and slick black hair.
"Who also happens to be..."
Karin raised an eyebrow, somehow aware of where this was leading.
"Rukia-neechan's one and only older brother!" Yuzu said in a hushed whisper to add a dramatic effect to the story.
Karin pinched the bridge of her nose. "Alright, go on."
"And if only we paid more attention to Onii-chan's Instagram posts, we would have known something, Karin-chan." Yuzu's eyes widened for the dramatic effect like in sci-fi movies.
"What posts? Ichi-nii can't use Instagram to save his life. He's got only like 15 posts in 4 years and he only follows like 15 people and has only 34 followers! And yeah, I just used Instagram as a verb and you have no right to give me that look!" Karin was on a rant.
Yuzu giggled. "That's why I told you we should have paid attention to details, Karin-chan!"
Yuzu began scrolling through her brother's Instagram page. "He only follows 17 people in total. And this @rukia is one of them. And then, look at this group photo of him with the medical team and others in Somalia."
It was a photo of their brother and his volunteer team. The orange-haired doctor was wearing a medical safari vest. They were posing with a bunch of Somalian girl teenagers with what looked like medical camps in the background. What caught the twins' attention this time was a woman in the middle of the Somalian teenagers. The teenagers appeared to hug that petite woman and they were all laughing prettily. Said woman was wearing a safari hat, and her face was bare with no makeup, and she had that familiar jet-black hair framing her pale, tiny face. And also, Karin specifically noticed those huge blue-purple-something eyes. Their beloved brother was standing on the right side, next to the Somalian teenagers.
"No way." Karin's eyes went huge. "So, they met in Somalia?"
Yuzu couldn't contain her giggles. "Isn't it adorable? And guess what I found on Rukia-nee's Wikipedia page? She's the head of the Kuchiki Foundation. She may have a business degree and has her share in that big corporate family business, but she's mostly only active in this foundation! She's a humanitarian activist who does all these amazing charities and volunteer work around the world, but mostly in Africa and other developing countries. I think she's just this truly amazing woman that loves to help people. She's so down to earth, Karin-chan!"
Karin couldn't help but agree. She had skimmed through the Google Images search of the Kuchiki heiress.
To be probably the richest bachelorette in Japan, one might expect images of luxurious lifestyles to come up on the page, something that one easily finds with most snobby rich ladies who are trying too hard to be what so-called social influencers, when deep down Karin thinks most of them are just for show. Karin didn't find those supermodel wannabe vibes from this Rukia lady. Instead, there were a bunch of images of the Kuchiki heiress doing volunteer work, images of her with kids in need, and young mothers in various underdeveloped countries. She was mostly doing charities to support women and kids in need. And there was this news of the Kuchiki Foundation getting an appreciation award from UNICEF.
Karin wanted to be skeptical about this Kuchiki heiress and wanted to think that if indeed, her brother was dating her (or having an affair with her), it was going to bring trouble to her brother and the family.
Karin loved normalcy and she slightly hoped to find the Kuchiki heiress annoying, but all these images kept proving her wrong. She really did seem down to earth.
Karin always thought her brother was bad at romance. There was this Inoue-san, who, Karin knew, was still so much in love with her brother. Inoue-san was really beautiful and as sweet as a maiden and made men want to protect her all the time. They dated briefly in high school. Ichi-nii never told them why they broke up, although Tatsuki-neesan almost let it slip that it had something to do with Inoue-san and a guy named Ulquiorra-something.
Yuzu and Karin never believed that Inoue-san would cheat on their brother, but they did witness the auburn-haired woman crying for hours in front of their clinic, and their brother only stood there, hands in his football outfit pockets, hair messy after football practice, and coolly told her that 'I understand and I'm not mad at you, I'm mad at him,' and the final 'I think we're better off as friends.'
Yuzu was pretty bummed out by their breakup. Yuzu cried about her loss of her cooking partner and their brother told them Inoue-san would still be around since they chose to remain friends. Karin wasn't being so nice and she used to tell her brother, 'You'll never impress me until you bring someone on the same level as Inoue-san to our home again, Ichi-nii.'
And then five years later, her brother was breaking that levels bullshit. Kuchiki Rukia was on a whole other level. And Karin just had to be impressed with her brother.
"You may think that she may be out of Onii-chan's league," Yuzu laughed a little as if she could read Karin's thoughts.
"But, let's not understate our brother, okay, Karin-chan. He, too, comes from a good family and he's super smart, and a successful young pediatrician who is about to take a doctoral degree at such a young age. And we may not notice it since we are his sisters, but Onii-chan is really, really handsome and charismatic." Yuzu grinned sweetly.
Karin laughed. "Hell yeah. He probably wins her over with that bad-boy persona on the outside, but turns out to be an embarrassingly huge dork inside."
Yuzu sighed dreamily. "I'm so happy for him, but I can't believe we didn't know that he has been seeing someone all this time! Look at his first post, this photo of him and Sado-san back when they were in college, backpacking all around America?"
Yuzu pointed to a photo of a younger version of their brother. It was a photo of a handsome young, orange-haired man wearing a red maroon t-shirt. A climber's backpack was slung on his right arm. He was wearing blue Adidas running shoes and khaki pants. The said young man smirked at the camera and an old man who looked Mexican, 72 or 73 years old, was sitting in a wheelchair next to him. On the left of the old man, a young dark-skinned man with curly brown hair smiled a little at the camera. This young Mexican man was huge, compared to men his age. It was a photo of Yuzu's and Karin's brother with his best friend, Sado-san, and Sado-san's Abuelo.
And it looked like this @rukia also left something on the comment section, but it was an old post, so the Kuchiki heir must have scrolled to the bottom page for this. The comment said,
@rukia: why can't we have this athletic Ichi these days?
@abarai.r: no way? Isn't he still fit now? Oh wait no. This is the guy who was panting after only 1 lap at Central Park? And dude, you're certainly getting fat.
@rukia: He's not getting fat @abarai.r
@abarai.r: yeah you would know wouldn't you rukia
@rukia: @abarai.r :O
@ichigo_kurosaki: I will be back in form if you just let me go hiking with Chado. He's going to the Himalayas, @rukia.
@rukia: yup, then, no. Chubby Ichigo is fine too.
@abarai.r: @ichigo_kurosaki why do you NEVER reply to other people's comments but hers? Whipped bastard.
@rukia: @abarai.r shut up renji :3 :3
Karin chuckled. "Well, it's an old post, so of course, we didn't notice. I don't regularly check Ichi-nii's posts' comments, anyway."
"Onii-chan is so cute." Yuzu giggled. "It's true. He always replies to Rukia-nee's comments but he really never replies to others."
Karin smirked, "Heh. I won't be surprised if we open this Kuchiki Rukia's Instagram page and find that Ichi-nii likes all her photos. He's one of those, Yuzu." Karin said with an emphasis on the word those.
"Those?" Yuzu raised an eyebrow questioningly.
The older twin snorted. "Those whipped bastards."
Yuzu laughed, somewhat knowing that it might as well be true.
The brown-haired twin started scrolling on her brother's Instagram page again. "We really didn't pay attention to his posts, did we? Last year, when he was in the USA, he posted a photo of himself and this cute dog, and since he sucks at Instagramming, he didn't put any caption on that photo hence we didn't think this post had any meaning, like, 'Oh, so, Onii-chan just posed with a random cute dog and posted it on his Instagram!'" Yuzu took a breath. This one was going to be long.
There was a subtle ";)" from @rukia in his comment section.
"A wink!" Yuzu beamed.
And also another comment from @abarai.r "God, that cute ball of fur stinks. Tell Rukia to wash him," to which their brother didn't reply.
But the orange-haired man replied the ";)" with, "I think he finally starts to like me?", and @rukia only replied with, "Kon never hated you. He's just jealous since his favorite person spends too much time with you :O".
"They're so cute!" Yuzu laughed again.
"But, really. Look at the details, Karin-chan! This..." Yuzu's eyes became so big that they started to scare her twin sister, "...is Onii-chan's messy hair in the morning. This is his bed hair. This is what he looks like when he has just jumped out of bed."
Karin zoomed into the picture and she just had to agree that her twin sister was right.
Her brother was one of those people who were graced by good looks even when they were just out of bed, but Karin was all too familiar with this spiky bed hair. And to confirm the twins' speculation, he was also wearing a white t-shirt and pajama pants. That really was how he looked when he went to bed. It was a candid photo of his brother ruffling and holding a cute little dog who appeared to be a Pomeranian.
"It's a candid photo, meaning someone else took this photo, in what seems to be a bedroom, (pay attention to details, Karin-chan, details!), in the early morning, meaning someone was staying the night or Onii-chan was staying over at someone's. But..." Yuzu added a dramatic pause and something clicked in Karin's mind.
"But, we have been in his apartment in California and it doesn't look like the one in that photo!" Karin was also surprised that she started going along with Yuzu.
Yuzu laughed a little, glad her twin was finally playing along.
Karin chuckled lowly. "God, I know it's not supposed to be strange at all, since he's a grown-up or whatsoever, but he has never brought a girl home for like forever." Karin scratched her chin. "It's weird. Ichi-nii is actually sleeping with someone. God, Yuzu, why is it weird?"
Yuzu blushed deeply, "It's probably weird because you state it loudly like that."
Karin rolled her eyes and poked her twin lightly on the forehead. "Yuzu, we are grown-ups, too, alright. You can't possibly think they're not at this stage of the relationship already."
Yuzu blushed even redder, somewhat annoyed that her twin always made her be the innocent little girl when they were clearly the same age. "Well, Rukia-nee did stay at his apartment until early morning today and Onii-chan has asked her to move in already..."
"But, still..." Karin mumbled again. "It's Ichi-nii. It's weird."
Yuzu hummed. "It's our brother, Karin-chan. It's always going to be weird."
"I mean, there was Inoue-san in high school, but they dated for only like 4 months and Ichi-nii was only 15, and he was pretty much too focused on his football captaincy crap. I don't think they did it." Karin started again and Yuzu gave her twin the look.
"And then there was that crazy Senna back in freshman year who pretty sure traumatized him when he caught her sleeping with another girl in his dorm. And why the hell did she get crazily possessive with Ichi-nii when actually she was the one who was fooling around with another girl and boy behind his back? And sleeping in his dorm, of all places." Karin laughed.
"And that Senna girl dared to humiliate Ichi-nii, saying things like 'she was just being a normal, hormonal, curious young adolescent who wanted to look for adventures since it turned out the famous and hot football captain was actually a boring goody-two-shoes!'" she couldn't contain her chuckles.
"God, Yuzu, Ichi-nii is terrible at relationships. His friends wouldn't shut up about him being cheated on twice in his life. And since then, for years, Ichi-nii has never, ever brought anyone home again. Goat-chin is actually worried Ichi-nii turns gay and he will never have grandchildren."
"Poor Onii-chan." Yuzu looked saddened. "So, that's maybe why he is keeping his relationship private now. And I'm pretty sure this one is different, Karin-chan! He asked her to move in with him! They must be on another level of relationship."
"Yeah, yeah." Karin teased. "I know you're just giddy to plan for his wedding already."
"Yup." Yuzu sang and hummed the famous wedding chorus.
She couldn't believe that it was actually going to happen, sooner or later. Yuzu had dreamed of planning the perfect wedding for her brother. It was going to be a beautiful wedding party with beautiful sunsets, beaches, beautiful dresses and delicious food, and beautiful songs and dances. But since her brother kept having bad luck with his romance and never introduced anyone to the family again, Yuzu worried her dream wasn't going to happen, ever.
Yuzu didn't mind if her Onii-chan wanted to take some time before introducing this Rukia-nee to the family, but when he did, and Yuzu hoped it was going to happen any time soon, she was almost sure she would welcome Rukia-nee happily (and probably she was going to introduce her to her famous onigiri).
For now, Yuzu didn't really care if her birthday surprise plan for her brother was ruined, that she had to be stuck hiding in her brother's apartment until morning to escape; she thought it was all worth it.
She just couldn't wait to meet her soon.