jamjar

1) home

The Kurosaki family library is a mess, in spite of the best efforts of Yuzu, and even occasionally Ichigo and Karin, to impose some kind of order on it. It exists in that careful state of equilibrium where it's used so much by so many people that it can never be really tidy, but it's used too much to allow it to descend into complete chaos. The shelves only have enough space as long as a certain number of books are in use, by people's bedsides, in the kitchen or Ichigo's school bag. This is only partially successful, and there are stacks around it that are always on the verge of tipping over, but also provide useful surfaces to store your cup on, stationary and, of course, more books.

There are endless piles of manga and novels, which are kept or taken to the second-hand book shop. Cook books in Japanese, and even a few in English and Spanish with small pencil translations of ingredients and occasional instructions next to them, mostly in Ichigo's precise handwriting. Scraps of newspaper and receipts are used as makeshift bookmarks, along with snapshots. The Kurosaki family doesn't have much in the way of photo albums; what pictures they have (and they have a lot), are stored in drawers, stuck on the fridge or hung on the wall, and more usually, between the pages of whatever book needed a bookmark

Isshin keeps his old medical text books in here, the precise terminology reassuringly obscure. He keeps snapshots of Masaki between the pages, tucked in at random. Her on their wedding day, the two of them celebrating a few nights before (keep that one tucked away where the kids can't find it, here in this volume on liver disease), all five of them together at the park, just enough to make him smile when he's looking up symptoms or checking side-effects.

More. If he leafs through one of Yuzu's recipe books, he can find a shot of Masaki and himself holding a newborn Ichigo, between a recipe on turkey mole and chicken in beer. Ichigo's maths textbook from last year, on the shelf waiting for Yuzu and Karin to catch up, has Masaki and the girls standing guard at the index.

He can sit at his desk, drink his tea (kocha, milk and two sugars, because that's how Masaki made it for herself and oh, but he needed that reminder of taste sometimes), open a book and there! A picture of her, just as a surprise, like catching a glimpse of her through a window.

2) hospital

"Got you something to read," Ichigo says. "My dad says people heal better if they're entertained." He tosses it at Byakuya who catches it with one hand. "It's just one of Orihime's books that she bought along in case she got bored," he explains.

The cover is bright and ambiguous. A pretty girl or, perhaps, a pretty boy looks boldly at the front, arms crossed and grinning. Byakuya is-- not bemused, not quite, but uncertain. The world has shifted, the careful lines damaged irreparably.

The feeling is not as terrible as he once thought it would be. "She was aware of your mission before you began it?" Byakuya says. "Most people do not begin an invasion anticipating boredom." If she had, on first impressions, it could be attributed to foolish naivety, but experience could also have lead her to that conclusion.

Ichigo shrugs. "She got some books for Rukia as well. Your sister," he adds, as if Byakuya might have forgotten. "Not that she's had much free time to read them, not that that's stopped her…"

Rukia took to reading like a fish to water. She would unearth books long unread and Byakuya can picture her hands, the ritualistic way she would lay the book down and the cup of tea next to it, just so on the saucer, and then grow careless with both as she read. Appalling books, melodrama and ghost stories without the slightest basis in fact.

"She's got really bad taste in books. Stuff Orihime would be embarrassed to read," Ichigo says. He sits on the windowsill awkwardly. "I--" he looks embarrassed and then reaches into his shirt and throws him another book.

The cover is lurid, the monster unlikely, even by the standards of Soul Society. Byakuya turns the book over to read the back.

Ichigo coughs. "I thought it might run in the family," he says.

Byakuya's fingers stroke the slick cover. 585 yen. Melisande, an innocent maiden, receives a strange letter, inviting her to a mysterious castle in…

"Amazingly bad taste," Ichigo says. "Really, really bad."

"I know," Byakuya says. And, because he feels it owes it, because it is a painful relief to be able to say these things after so long, he adds, "Her sister, Hisana, was the same way."