Title :: Hide and Seek
Setting :: Bleach
Series :: Raising Yachiru
Characters :: Yachiru, Kenpachi
Words :: 1103
Related Stories :: Teething Pains, Learning New Tricks, First Words, Winter Days.
Inspired by :: sophiap's 20souls post.

Yachiru had discovered a new game.

It usually involved lots of shrieks and giggles, and Yachiru knew those were a good thing and meant people were having fun. This new game - hide and seek - usually started with her going into hiding and then pouncing on the other players to start the seeking. The seeking bit was fun too and she was getting very very good at it – and today she'd be able to show Ken-chan exactly how good she was and wouldn't he be happy and surprised then?

Scurrying over the snow while leaving barely a trace behind, Yachiru gleefully followed her prey, er, playmate, laughing in delight each time he peeked over his shoulder and yelped in surprise (others might argue it was terror, but Yachiru knew better). This chasing people thing was fun and even if this one was slow, it hardly mattered now, did it? It was still chasing, just like Ken-chan did with his friends.

A muffled thud broke her train of thoughts and she tumbled to a stop in the snow, blinking up in bemusement as she realized that her playmate was now flat on his back a few feet away, unconscious. The shadow looming over them grunted irritably at the sight and Yachiru realized that somehow, the man must have run directly into Ken-chan, who was now glaring at him in the Not Good At All way. Which meant he'd not be any good as a playmate for her soon unless she did something to stop Ken-chan. Fast.

"Ken-chan!" Sitting back, she waved her arms at him, looking cute and adorable as can be, giggling up at him. His face softened a touch (a teensy itsy bitsy touch, something only ever Yachiru was able to see really) and he grunted again.

"Che. What're you doing playing with that one? You don't even know where he's been! He could have germs or something." Scowling, Ken-chan nudged the prone man with a foot, now glaring down at him in the Not Good At All And Then Some way.

"Keeeen-chaaaan!" Pouting, Yachiru crossed her arms and looking to the side, sticking her nose up in the air, knowing only too well how that would also keep Ken-chan's attention entirely focused on her. It was the 'Ken-chan said something infinitely stupid and needs to get his feet out of his mouth now or else' look, and she'd had many a chance to perfect it since he'd picked her up for the very first time. That and biting him. She was getting really good at that.

"Ah crap. What now?" With a sigh of resignation, the huge man crouched down to Yachiru height, ignoring the bullfrog croaks she started to cheerfully make in reaction to his current stance. "Quit that, brat. I don't look like a toad when I do this, ya hear?"

"Ken-chan!" And now, it was time for the new word. "PLAY!"

And with that, Yachiru twisted around so she was on all fours, and scurried off, confident that for once, there'd be someone able to be the seeker in the game of hide and seek, and thus keep up with her in return.

One startled yelp and scrambling sound from Ken-chan and fifteen seconds later, Yachiru looked around at the utterly unfamiliar surroundings, plopped down on her behind and opened her mouth wide in a wail of dismay. Ken-chan had not kept up, the rat was too slow and now she was alone and... lost. The insult was just too much to bear.

"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" And thus, a new set of words was added to Yachiru's still limited repertoire as she expressed her immense displeasure over the situation and Ken-chan in general for unexpectedly failing to keep up with her.

"KEN-CHAN NO BAKA!"

Left behind in the now abandoned clearing, Yachiru's previous prey (er, playmate) opened his eyes carefully, then started to crawl off for the rather dubious safety of his home, to warn his wife that she had to go look for the little girl. Again.

~*~

Opening the trap door leading to the basement storage space, the man peeked carefully through the opening, and nearly shrieked in terror as he realized someone was still there. The only thing that saved him from attracting Yachiru's attention once more as Kenpachi carried her away, still immensely peeved that the girl had been found by the kimono woman and not himself, was the fact that the scream sounded more like the strangled whimper of a rat than anything else. (Yachiru would have noticed it if he had sounded like a terrified rabbit, though – those were fast and quick, covering five to fifteen feet in a single leap, and Yachiru liked chasing those. A lot.)

"Dear? Relax, it's just me."

The woman's voice was warm, if a bit unsteady, and rife with amusement. The man opened the trap door a bit more and gave his wife a loving, if pitiful look.

"Are they going to be here much longer, dear?" Whispers from down below echoed the question, the other inhabitants of the house having taken refuge there along with the woman's husband when Kenpachi and Yachiru had first arrived, weeks ago. "It's getting a bit cramped in here. And every time he walks above we all get flattened to the ground."

A soft, quiet laugh answered him and the man smiled gently, forgetting suddenly all about his woes and fears as he looked up into his wife's face.

"Don't worry, dear. The bandits have been taken care of and the little one has all the kimonos she'll need for a while, now. It shouldn’t be more than a day or two, at the most." Her expression saddened, at that, and she sighed slightly, eyes falling to her hands now resting flatly against her stomach. The man followed her gaze and sobered up, smile fading. He reached to press one slightly cellar-grubby hand over hers, the trap door opening further to accommodate his motion.

"One day, light of my life. One day, somehow, it'll happen and we'll have one of our own."

She smiled at him mistily, grateful to him for allowing her the folly of the past weeks. To keep a dangerous killer under their roof, all for the time spent with the equally terrifying little girl she now knew would never part from her self-appointed guardian – she had given up on even making the offer to unburden the man of the child after seeing them together the first day, burying her hopes and dreams once more in favour of just living in the present.

"I know, dear. I know."

Current Mood: calm