With his stupid hat and his stupid chant and his stupid flashy clothes and his stupid FANS and...
Characters: Kimihiro Watanuki and Ichigo Kurosaki
Content: People who can actually see spirits are less than impressed by flashy pop-culture exorcists and their radio shows and their stupid BOO HA HA chants. There is bonding over mutual haet of people who are DOING IT WRONG.
Setting: The Winding Way’s kitchens
Time: Mid-morning, backdated to before the qualifiers.
Warnings: Snark. Bitching. Blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moments of actual emotion followed by awkwardness and annoyance. Standard language warning. GHOSTS. Dramatics on the radio. RP-Lawyer-Friendly Avoiding Use Of Certain Characters' Names Just In Case Someone Wants To App Them. oh god someone app Don Kanonji please
Ichigo trudged along to the kitchen, wondering how long this bento business was going to go on. Surely that debt Watanuki was going on about was paid back by now? Unless the kid just really liked making bentos but didn’t want to admit it. Ichigo didn’t even want to think about the implications of that. Besides, Watanuki seemed really, really convinced that some universal force of karma would do nasty things to him if he didn’t make Ichigo food twice a week. Crazy, that.
Personally, Ichigo found the entire affair ridiculous, and was just glad that no one had found out about it yet. There would be a great deal of personal embarrassment if anyone did. He didn’t want anyone thinking that he and Watanuki were friends or anything like that, and a secret bento affair was just asking for trouble. Ichigo didn’t even want to think about what Gintoki would make out of it.
Ichigo raised a hand to knock on the kitchen door, then thought better of it and just turned the handle.
The knocking. The knocking. Ichigo had been coming in for bento for months now, and knocking was still completely beyond him. Watanuki had been finishing up preparing the aburage and packing it into the bento box (technically the boxes weren't necessary considering that Ichigo came to the galley for them now, but it was the artistry of the thing), listening to a radio news show in relative peace, before Ichigo had come and barged in yet again.
"Is it so hard to knock?" Watanuki snapped, not turning from his task.
"You're expecting me, aren't you? What's the point?" Ichigo replied, sidling inside and shutting the door behind him. It looked like Watanuki was still working, so he sat down at the small table in the corner to wait. Ichigo didn't know why Watanuki still bothered to put it in a box, he really didn't. He listened to the radio with half an ear -- some politician had been sleeping with some woman, or something. Ichigo didn't really care about stuff like that.
Watanuki placed the aburage carefully in the box, arranged the garnish around it, and carried it to the table with a scowl. "Just because I'm expecting you doesn't mean you get to--"
A voice issued from the radio.
"HELLOOOOOO, BABIES~"
Ichigo's jaw dropped. His eyes went flat. He knew that voice.
"I'll let you hear the murmurs of the spirits tonight~" it continued. "Boo ha ha ha ha!"
"Oh, dammit!" Watanuki glared hate at the radio. "Not him again! His show's on three times a week!"
"Turn the damn thing off," Ichigo growled, half-standing to do it himself. There was no reason why he had to put up with that nonsense here and now. From the looks of things, Watanuki didn't like it any more than he did. Made sense, considering Karin had never cared for the over-the-top psychic, either.
Watanuki didn't need to be told twice. He smacked the radio's switch with decidedly more force than necessary. Blessed silence filled the kitchen. "He has no idea what he's talking about," he grumped. Just hearing that had killed his mood nicely.
"You've met him?" Watanuki felt an involuntary twinge of pity for Ichigo. Just listening to that excuse for a spirit medium made him want to break things. Watanuki would rather have faced down ten malevolent spirits without wards than have to be subjected to him in person.
"I wish I hadn't." Ichigo's grimace deepened. "He seems to think I'm a fan of his." The man had sent him mail, back on the Amadeus. God knew how the man found him -- some air-courier nonsense. Luckily, since he'd boarded the Way, the persistent freak had lost track of him. It was a small comfort, now that he thought about it. Ichigo's face and tone held nothing but deep disgust and annoyance.
"What?! how could he think-- does he honestly think he knows anything about spirits?! I thought it was just a really annoying act!" It really just confirmed that the man was delusional - anyone who could think that Ichigo was happy about meeting them when he wasn't very clearly had a screw loose.
"Hey, don't ask me! Apparently, he can see them -- but he went around turning ghosts into hollows. Thought he was sending them to heaven." Ichigo glared off to the side. The guy wasn't really a bad sort, just kind of theatrical, loud, nagging, and incredibly annoying.
"What?! Anybody who goes around making more evil spirits doesn't have any place talking about them," Watanuki grumbled. It might have been just a mild annoyance for Ichigo, who had the power to clean up the bumbling medium’s messes, but Watanuki had to live with the Hollows he inflicted on the world.
"Yeah. He stopped it once he found out what he was doing, but the whole thing was a mess.” Ichigo scratched the back of his head, grimacing at the memories. “Looks like he’s still parading around the airwaves, though.” He let out a long sigh. “He’s still popular, I guess, though I really don’t know why. My family was seriously into him." The words came out before he could really stop them -- Ichigo had gotten more comfortable on this ship over nine months than he had on the mercenary ship in six years. He wasn’t sure if he should stop talking here -- he hadn’t meant to bring his family up. They'd just been on his mind recently, especially since he'd found out the Silvana was providing security. His dad was probably around here somewhere. For a moment, Ichigo wondered if Karin was, too. But probably not, he decided. If she was here, there was no way she could have missed that he was, too, and if she hadn't contacted him by now, then she didn't want to be found.
Ichigo wasn’t the only one surprised by the mention of his family. Except for a sardonic comment or two about his father, Watanuki couldn’t really remember any time that Ichigo had willingly talked about them. Feeling slightly more companionable than usual with the knowledge that something existed that they both hated that wasn’t each other, he replied in kind: “My boss was the same way. She listened to him every single time he was on the radio and dragged me to see him whenever he performed exorcisms in Bellcius.” He shook his head at the memory. “And she even knew about spirits! What’s the guy’s charm?!”
Ichigo blinked in surprise when Watanuki mentioned that his old boss, who could see ghosts, still liked the freak. "That's weird. I thought a huge part of his appeal was dealing with stuff most people couldn't see? Because my dad and little sister were the biggest fans of it, and they couldn't see things. My other sister -- the one who could -- didn't care for it." Ichigo shrugged. "Maybe your boss just liked him? She must've been pretty weird."
“Knowing her, seeing everything the rest of the audience couldn’t was a thrill for her,” Watanuki said. “She was weird. Is. Always will be.” He could have expounded on Yuuko’s weirdness for hours, but something Ichigo said caught his attention first. “…wait. Someone else in your family sees spirits? Really?” Yuuko had told him before that his ability was in his blood. Was it the same for Ichigo?
Ichigo eyed Watanuki, debating the merits of bringing up personal family details with someone who hated his guts. Right now, though, they'd found something they could agree on, and Watanuki'd brought up his past -- what was the worst that could happen? "Yeah," he replied. "Karin. She's six years younger than me, and sees them almost as clearly as I do. Well, as far as I know. Haven't talked to her in a while." Ichigo wasn't going to lie, he was worried about his younger sister, much as he told himself that she was more than old enough to take care of herself. It was troubling, not having heard from her in so long. He didn't want to get into that with Watanuki, though, so he kept talking. "Anyway, her twin sister, Yuzu, sees blurs and stuff, but nothing clear. My dad can't see them at all."
Ichigo sure didn’t seem the type to have a big, close family. Watanuki was a little surprised to hear this much about them. And much as he couldn’t stand Ichigo, he was interested enough to inquire. “My boss always told me it ran in bloodlines,” he said. “I wouldn’t know-but it sounds like it runs in your family.” He was pretty sure his parents hadn’t been able to see them. Anyway, he’d never told them that he could, and he didn’t have any siblings to confirm Yuuko’s words. He wondered briefly what it would be like to have someone related to him, close to him, able to see them, too. But, then again, two people in the same family attracting spirits probably wouldn’t be a good thing.
“Wouldn’t know?” Ichigo repeated, giving Watanuki a searching look. “What do you mean?” Did they just not talk about it? How would Watanuki not know if his family could see spirits or not? Ichigo was confused.
In a few moments, if Watanuki didn’t answer, Ichigo would put it together, but right now, he had no idea whatsoever.
"Oh-- my parents are dead," Watanuki said. He looked away with a small smile as he said it, as if brushing away sympathetic words before they could be offered. "They died when I was thirteen. I never told them I could see spirits, but I know they couldn't. I guess maybe it skips generations? I never asked them, so I just know what my boss told me." Which admittedly wasn't much, but how much did he need to know when he had spent his entire servitude trying to get rid of the ability anyway?
Ichigo was taken aback by that. He opened his mouth to say something, then closed it again. "Right. I see." He hadn't been expecting anything like that. Well, since Watanuki didn't seem to want any words of sympathy, Ichigo kept it to himself. For a moment, he wildly considered telling him that he didn't know if his mother could have seen spirits, either, since she had --
No. The seventeenth was still too recent. Ichigo was going to keep that to himself.
Ichigo considered asking how Watauki's parents had died, but he decided against that, too. It was more information than Ichigo would have been comfortable revealing about himself, so he would not ask it of Watanuki. But this was an unexpected side of the loud-mouthed, clean-freak, angry brat -- and unexpected strength. So Ichigo let it go, with just a nod of acknowledgement of Watanuki's loss. "Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. Who knows? I never knew my grandparents, so I can't say for sure if they could see or not."
Watanuki was grateful that Ichigo didn't press further. It was happened six years ago, but it was still a difficult thing to talk about, even with people he liked sharing the intimate details of his past with. "It doesn't matter, I guess," he said with a shrug. "I mean, it doesn't change anything."
"Yeah," Ichigo replied. "It doesn't." Did it really matter why? They attracted spirits, and had lost people because of it. ....well, actually, Ichigo didn't know how Watanuki's parents had died, but it seemed likely to him that it had been a result of Watanuki attracting spirits. It made sense. Did this happen to everyone who could see the invisible?
Ichigo didn't know, and wasn't really in the mood to ask more questions, rhetorical, personal, or otherwise. And things had gotten disturbingly personal here. He changed the subject back to the bento. "Are you done with that yet?" Ichigo asked, nodding at it.
And there Watanuki went with the attitude. Did he have to make such a huge fuss about everything? The familiar feling of annoyance came back. Why was Watanuki so pissy whenever Ichigo made any sort of assertion about the bento? Jeez. It was just another one of those weird things Watanuki did, like preemptive dusting and yelling over nothing and declaring that karma dictated that he make bentos for Ichigo for an indefinite amount of time. He let out a long sigh. "Fine, fine, whatever. It was just a question."
Grumbling, Watanuki arranged the food carefully, examined it to make sure it was appropriately tasteful and delicious-looking, and finally picked it up and brought it to Ichigo with a pair of chopsticks. "There," he said, setting it carefully on the table in front of him. "Now you can eat and go away." He felt embarrassed now about having opened himself even the slightest bit to this jerk. The sooner he left, the better.
Watanuki wasn’t the only one wondering what the hell he’d been thinking. Ichigo had had a moment of genuine respect for the kid, and was now more than a little irritated at himself for it, now that Watanuki was back to his usual, grumpy, flailing self. He also wanted to get out of the kitchen as quickly as possible, so he closed the lunchbox up. “Thanks. I’ll bring the box back later today.” Ichigo already knew where he wanted to go -- he was headed for the crow’s nest, to eat this in peace and quiet, and to clear his head. He stood and headed for the door without another word.
"Fine. Bye." Watanuki didn't turn to watch him go, already starting on the dishes from the preparation. Damn, that had been... uncomfortable. It was a good thing he hadn't stuck around to eat, because Watanuki's mood was now somewhere around annoyed and any further conversation would have probably been unpleasant. He scrubbed harder, determined to banish the stupid conversation from his memory before Ichigo returned with the box.
Content: People who can actually see spirits are less than impressed by flashy pop-culture exorcists and their radio shows and their stupid BOO HA HA chants. There is bonding over mutual haet of people who are DOING IT WRONG.
Setting: The Winding Way’s kitchens
Time: Mid-morning, backdated to before the qualifiers.
Warnings: Snark. Bitching. Blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moments of actual emotion followed by awkwardness and annoyance. Standard language warning. GHOSTS. Dramatics on the radio. RP-Lawyer-Friendly Avoiding Use Of Certain Characters' Names Just In Case Someone Wants To App Them. oh god someone app Don Kanonji please
Ichigo trudged along to the kitchen, wondering how long this bento business was going to go on. Surely that debt Watanuki was going on about was paid back by now? Unless the kid just really liked making bentos but didn’t want to admit it. Ichigo didn’t even want to think about the implications of that. Besides, Watanuki seemed really, really convinced that some universal force of karma would do nasty things to him if he didn’t make Ichigo food twice a week. Crazy, that.
Personally, Ichigo found the entire affair ridiculous, and was just glad that no one had found out about it yet. There would be a great deal of personal embarrassment if anyone did. He didn’t want anyone thinking that he and Watanuki were friends or anything like that, and a secret bento affair was just asking for trouble. Ichigo didn’t even want to think about what Gintoki would make out of it.
Ichigo raised a hand to knock on the kitchen door, then thought better of it and just turned the handle.
The knocking. The knocking. Ichigo had been coming in for bento for months now, and knocking was still completely beyond him. Watanuki had been finishing up preparing the aburage and packing it into the bento box (technically the boxes weren't necessary considering that Ichigo came to the galley for them now, but it was the artistry of the thing), listening to a radio news show in relative peace, before Ichigo had come and barged in yet again.
"Is it so hard to knock?" Watanuki snapped, not turning from his task.
"You're expecting me, aren't you? What's the point?" Ichigo replied, sidling inside and shutting the door behind him. It looked like Watanuki was still working, so he sat down at the small table in the corner to wait. Ichigo didn't know why Watanuki still bothered to put it in a box, he really didn't. He listened to the radio with half an ear -- some politician had been sleeping with some woman, or something. Ichigo didn't really care about stuff like that.
Watanuki placed the aburage carefully in the box, arranged the garnish around it, and carried it to the table with a scowl. "Just because I'm expecting you doesn't mean you get to--"
A voice issued from the radio.
"HELLOOOOOO, BABIES~"
Ichigo's jaw dropped. His eyes went flat. He knew that voice.
"I'll let you hear the murmurs of the spirits tonight~" it continued. "Boo ha ha ha ha!"
"Oh, dammit!" Watanuki glared hate at the radio. "Not him again! His show's on three times a week!"
"Turn the damn thing off," Ichigo growled, half-standing to do it himself. There was no reason why he had to put up with that nonsense here and now. From the looks of things, Watanuki didn't like it any more than he did. Made sense, considering Karin had never cared for the over-the-top psychic, either.
Watanuki didn't need to be told twice. He smacked the radio's switch with decidedly more force than necessary. Blessed silence filled the kitchen. "He has no idea what he's talking about," he grumped. Just hearing that had killed his mood nicely.
"You've met him?" Watanuki felt an involuntary twinge of pity for Ichigo. Just listening to that excuse for a spirit medium made him want to break things. Watanuki would rather have faced down ten malevolent spirits without wards than have to be subjected to him in person.
"I wish I hadn't." Ichigo's grimace deepened. "He seems to think I'm a fan of his." The man had sent him mail, back on the Amadeus. God knew how the man found him -- some air-courier nonsense. Luckily, since he'd boarded the Way, the persistent freak had lost track of him. It was a small comfort, now that he thought about it. Ichigo's face and tone held nothing but deep disgust and annoyance.
"What?! how could he think-- does he honestly think he knows anything about spirits?! I thought it was just a really annoying act!" It really just confirmed that the man was delusional - anyone who could think that Ichigo was happy about meeting them when he wasn't very clearly had a screw loose.
"Hey, don't ask me! Apparently, he can see them -- but he went around turning ghosts into hollows. Thought he was sending them to heaven." Ichigo glared off to the side. The guy wasn't really a bad sort, just kind of theatrical, loud, nagging, and incredibly annoying.
"What?! Anybody who goes around making more evil spirits doesn't have any place talking about them," Watanuki grumbled. It might have been just a mild annoyance for Ichigo, who had the power to clean up the bumbling medium’s messes, but Watanuki had to live with the Hollows he inflicted on the world.
"Yeah. He stopped it once he found out what he was doing, but the whole thing was a mess.” Ichigo scratched the back of his head, grimacing at the memories. “Looks like he’s still parading around the airwaves, though.” He let out a long sigh. “He’s still popular, I guess, though I really don’t know why. My family was seriously into him." The words came out before he could really stop them -- Ichigo had gotten more comfortable on this ship over nine months than he had on the mercenary ship in six years. He wasn’t sure if he should stop talking here -- he hadn’t meant to bring his family up. They'd just been on his mind recently, especially since he'd found out the Silvana was providing security. His dad was probably around here somewhere. For a moment, Ichigo wondered if Karin was, too. But probably not, he decided. If she was here, there was no way she could have missed that he was, too, and if she hadn't contacted him by now, then she didn't want to be found.
Ichigo wasn’t the only one surprised by the mention of his family. Except for a sardonic comment or two about his father, Watanuki couldn’t really remember any time that Ichigo had willingly talked about them. Feeling slightly more companionable than usual with the knowledge that something existed that they both hated that wasn’t each other, he replied in kind: “My boss was the same way. She listened to him every single time he was on the radio and dragged me to see him whenever he performed exorcisms in Bellcius.” He shook his head at the memory. “And she even knew about spirits! What’s the guy’s charm?!”
Ichigo blinked in surprise when Watanuki mentioned that his old boss, who could see ghosts, still liked the freak. "That's weird. I thought a huge part of his appeal was dealing with stuff most people couldn't see? Because my dad and little sister were the biggest fans of it, and they couldn't see things. My other sister -- the one who could -- didn't care for it." Ichigo shrugged. "Maybe your boss just liked him? She must've been pretty weird."
“Knowing her, seeing everything the rest of the audience couldn’t was a thrill for her,” Watanuki said. “She was weird. Is. Always will be.” He could have expounded on Yuuko’s weirdness for hours, but something Ichigo said caught his attention first. “…wait. Someone else in your family sees spirits? Really?” Yuuko had told him before that his ability was in his blood. Was it the same for Ichigo?
Ichigo eyed Watanuki, debating the merits of bringing up personal family details with someone who hated his guts. Right now, though, they'd found something they could agree on, and Watanuki'd brought up his past -- what was the worst that could happen? "Yeah," he replied. "Karin. She's six years younger than me, and sees them almost as clearly as I do. Well, as far as I know. Haven't talked to her in a while." Ichigo wasn't going to lie, he was worried about his younger sister, much as he told himself that she was more than old enough to take care of herself. It was troubling, not having heard from her in so long. He didn't want to get into that with Watanuki, though, so he kept talking. "Anyway, her twin sister, Yuzu, sees blurs and stuff, but nothing clear. My dad can't see them at all."
Ichigo sure didn’t seem the type to have a big, close family. Watanuki was a little surprised to hear this much about them. And much as he couldn’t stand Ichigo, he was interested enough to inquire. “My boss always told me it ran in bloodlines,” he said. “I wouldn’t know-but it sounds like it runs in your family.” He was pretty sure his parents hadn’t been able to see them. Anyway, he’d never told them that he could, and he didn’t have any siblings to confirm Yuuko’s words. He wondered briefly what it would be like to have someone related to him, close to him, able to see them, too. But, then again, two people in the same family attracting spirits probably wouldn’t be a good thing.
“Wouldn’t know?” Ichigo repeated, giving Watanuki a searching look. “What do you mean?” Did they just not talk about it? How would Watanuki not know if his family could see spirits or not? Ichigo was confused.
In a few moments, if Watanuki didn’t answer, Ichigo would put it together, but right now, he had no idea whatsoever.
"Oh-- my parents are dead," Watanuki said. He looked away with a small smile as he said it, as if brushing away sympathetic words before they could be offered. "They died when I was thirteen. I never told them I could see spirits, but I know they couldn't. I guess maybe it skips generations? I never asked them, so I just know what my boss told me." Which admittedly wasn't much, but how much did he need to know when he had spent his entire servitude trying to get rid of the ability anyway?
Ichigo was taken aback by that. He opened his mouth to say something, then closed it again. "Right. I see." He hadn't been expecting anything like that. Well, since Watanuki didn't seem to want any words of sympathy, Ichigo kept it to himself. For a moment, he wildly considered telling him that he didn't know if his mother could have seen spirits, either, since she had --
No. The seventeenth was still too recent. Ichigo was going to keep that to himself.
Ichigo considered asking how Watauki's parents had died, but he decided against that, too. It was more information than Ichigo would have been comfortable revealing about himself, so he would not ask it of Watanuki. But this was an unexpected side of the loud-mouthed, clean-freak, angry brat -- and unexpected strength. So Ichigo let it go, with just a nod of acknowledgement of Watanuki's loss. "Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. Who knows? I never knew my grandparents, so I can't say for sure if they could see or not."
Watanuki was grateful that Ichigo didn't press further. It was happened six years ago, but it was still a difficult thing to talk about, even with people he liked sharing the intimate details of his past with. "It doesn't matter, I guess," he said with a shrug. "I mean, it doesn't change anything."
"Yeah," Ichigo replied. "It doesn't." Did it really matter why? They attracted spirits, and had lost people because of it. ....well, actually, Ichigo didn't know how Watanuki's parents had died, but it seemed likely to him that it had been a result of Watanuki attracting spirits. It made sense. Did this happen to everyone who could see the invisible?
Ichigo didn't know, and wasn't really in the mood to ask more questions, rhetorical, personal, or otherwise. And things had gotten disturbingly personal here. He changed the subject back to the bento. "Are you done with that yet?" Ichigo asked, nodding at it.
And there Watanuki went with the attitude. Did he have to make such a huge fuss about everything? The familiar feling of annoyance came back. Why was Watanuki so pissy whenever Ichigo made any sort of assertion about the bento? Jeez. It was just another one of those weird things Watanuki did, like preemptive dusting and yelling over nothing and declaring that karma dictated that he make bentos for Ichigo for an indefinite amount of time. He let out a long sigh. "Fine, fine, whatever. It was just a question."
Grumbling, Watanuki arranged the food carefully, examined it to make sure it was appropriately tasteful and delicious-looking, and finally picked it up and brought it to Ichigo with a pair of chopsticks. "There," he said, setting it carefully on the table in front of him. "Now you can eat and go away." He felt embarrassed now about having opened himself even the slightest bit to this jerk. The sooner he left, the better.
Watanuki wasn’t the only one wondering what the hell he’d been thinking. Ichigo had had a moment of genuine respect for the kid, and was now more than a little irritated at himself for it, now that Watanuki was back to his usual, grumpy, flailing self. He also wanted to get out of the kitchen as quickly as possible, so he closed the lunchbox up. “Thanks. I’ll bring the box back later today.” Ichigo already knew where he wanted to go -- he was headed for the crow’s nest, to eat this in peace and quiet, and to clear his head. He stood and headed for the door without another word.
"Fine. Bye." Watanuki didn't turn to watch him go, already starting on the dishes from the preparation. Damn, that had been... uncomfortable. It was a good thing he hadn't stuck around to eat, because Watanuki's mood was now somewhere around annoyed and any further conversation would have probably been unpleasant. He scrubbed harder, determined to banish the stupid conversation from his memory before Ichigo returned with the box.