"Thanks for the help, Ichigo," Makoto said to his companion, "I was getting worried I would run out of food soon."
"Don't mention it," his friend replied with the usual indifferent look on his face, "Besides my sister was pestering me to get some things too so it's not like you were forcing me to go." Upon hearing Ichigo's comment, Makoto smiled. He remembered the times when he would ask his mother to get specific things for dinner. Because of his unusual diet most of his family didn't eat the foods that he couldn't have though they still had some things like bread around because asking a five year old kid to eat gluten-free bread was about as easy as getting a cat to like water.
"Still I'm really grateful for you showing me around," Makoto grinned, "I even found some new ingredients that I thought I could try in cooking."
"Wait, you weren't joking about those ideas?!" Ichigo said as turning to Makoto, a horrified look on his face. "I thought you were pretending to act that way as a joke!"
"You say that like my ideas were bad," Makoto said, raising an eyebrow to Ichigo as a smirk wiggled its way onto his face.
"Did you even hear your own ideas?!" Ichigo yelled, "They sounded just as bad as Orihime's! I mean who ever heard of putting sour cream on top of noodles with cheese."
"Hey don't knock it till you've tried it," Makoto said with a playful glare, "And anyway I couldn't find the right noodles, otherwise I would have made some for you to try. But I will admit there were a few of those that I did throw out as a joke. In truth I don't know a lot about cooking and ever since I came here I haven't been able to find a lot of the ingredients I was used to and so I've been trying to come up with clever substitutes as well as learning how to make some of the common meals."
"Really?" Ichigo asked with a slight look of remorse on his face, "I'm sorry. I should have been more considerate."
"It's alright, Ichigo," Makoto replied, his tone warm as he let out a chuckle, "Even back where I lived before it was well known my choices of food were a little odd. Heck, if I wasn't eating something odd then people would question if I was alright."
"Where did you come from?" Ichigo asked, his tone curious.
"Oh," Makoto replied, a hint of nervousness in his voice, "The future."
"Yeah right," Ichigo replied, not at all impressed by the humor his friend was using, "You do realize I'm not Orihime right? Trying to show off your skills at making up stories on the spot isn't impressive, it's annoying. If you don't want to tell me, just say so."
"If I didn't know any better, I'd say you're jealous that Orihime pays more attention to my stories than to you," Makoto said, a mischievous glint in his eye.
"What is wrong with you!" Ichigo yelled, his face turning bright red as Makoto started cackling. "That's not what I was thinking at all! Stop laughing, that's not funny."
"Sorry," Makoto said in between chuckles. "I couldn't help it. But I don't mind telling you about where I came from. But you see I don't actually remember."
Ichigo looked at his friend with a confused look on his face. "What do you mean you don't remember? You lived there? How can you not remember?"
Makoto looked down at the ground. He hated having to keep making these elaborate half truths that everyone had to believe but every time he told them the truth they thought it was a joke. What else could he do? "When I was young I moved around a lot, never staying in one place that long. My parents and I would always be moving so I eventually gave up on remembering the names of the places."
"So are your parents in some other country right now?" Ichigo asked, "This is the first time that you brought them up."
"My parents?" Makoto once more looked at the ground, unsure how to answer. He lived alone at home and had no idea where his parents were, if they even existed. He tried searching it up on his laptop one day at school but he couldn't find anything about him or his family. Ichigo noticed the change in tone and quickly changed the subject.
"Hey, what are you making for dinner?" he asked.
"I'm not sure?" Makoto responded, grateful that his friend changed the subject. "I guess I'll have to get home and see what I feel like making."
"Then why don't you come over to my house," Ichigo proposed, "It's getting late and if you're as bad at cooking as you say then it could be well into the night before you actually start eating. My sister is a pretty good cook and then you won't have to worry about trying to put something together and possibly waste all the food you just got. Besides, it might give me some semblance of sanity and my crackpot of a house."
"Are your sisters really that bad?" Makoto asked in an inflected tone that meant to imply that the situation wasn't as harsh as the person answering it made it out to be.
"It's not them I was talking about," Ichigo said exasperatedly.
"Huh?"
"I'm back," Ichigo said as he opened the front door.
"Great, Ichigo," a voice said, "Bring them in so I can start working on dinner."
Ichigo stepped inside when he heard the sound of yelling followed by a man jumping out of nowhere, his foot aiming in his direction with a murderous intent in his eyes. Not again. He quickly side stepped dodging the attack of his father with ease, realizing a split second too late that he should have stood his ground.
There was a pained shout as he looked out the door to see Makoto sprawled on the ground comically with his father standing over him. "What the heck was that for?" he said in a pained voice.
"Dad, what the hell!" Ichigo screamed at his father, furious at the events that had just unfolded. "I told you to stop doing that!"
"Oh, so this guy isn't following you?" the old man replied, turning to his son.
"Of course he was following me! I invited him over!" Ichigo retorted, his voice filled with fury at his father's antics. "Now stop trying to redirect from the fact that you just attacked us!"
"It's not my fault that I hit him instead of you," the man crossed his arms over his chest with a staunch attitude, "You shouldn't have dodged if you didn't want this outcome to occur."
"Why you little…" Ichigo began only to be cut off.
"What's going on out here?" said a young girl with blonde hair as she turned a corner, "You guys know not to…" she stopped upon seeing Makoto on the ground at her father's feet and her face quickly morphed from one of a pout to that of worry as she rushed to his side, "Oh my gosh! Are you okay? You're not hurt are you?"
"I've been worse," Makoto said as he sat up, a few drops of blood coming from the corner of his mouth, "Though it feels like I might have bitten the inside of my lip."
"What the heck happened out here?" the little girl asked, looking at her two family members standing around.
"He was trying to break in and your dear old dad was protecting you, Yuzu." said the man once more trying to avoid the blame and pin it on someone else.
"I already told you that I invited him over!" Ichigo yelled as a vein in his head started to bulge, "I met Makoto in the shopping district while getting food and invited him over for dinner so that he didn't have to worry about cooking!"
"You did," Ichigo's dad responded as he turned to his son with a look of surprise on his face. "Why didn't you say that earlier?"
"Are you hard of hearing or just dumb because he's said it two times," Makoto said, growing more annoyed now by the second, "And if you were trying to hit me then why didn't you wait till Ichigo was out of the way?!"
"Because I was aiming to test Ichigo," the old man said proudly.
"So you didn't even consider the fact that someone would be coming in behind him?!" Makoto yelled furiously, "What the heck is wrong with you?! What would have happened if I had been a girl?"
"Then he would be trying to listen through the door at what you and Ichigo are talking about like the creepy pervert he is," said a voice coming from behind Makoto. He turned around to see another small girl about the same size as the blonde girl leaning on the doorway, except this one had black hair instead of her sister's blonde.
"I can't believe I'm saying this but I'm glad that I got kicked in the face," Makoto said, before he looked between the two girls. "I'm guessing that means the two of you are Ichigo's sisters and the wacko is his dad."
"What's it to you?" the blacked haired girl said in a tart tone.
"Yes. That's correct," the blonde girl replied, ignoring her sister's words and pointing to her. "I'm Yuzu and she is Karin."
"You two are just like your older brother," Makoto laughed out.
"Really?" Yuzu questioned.
"Yuzu, stop fraternizing with the enemy." Ichigo's dad tried to whisper though it came out a little louder than that.
"I'm not a burglar," Makoto said, trying to hold back his anger to not make it seem like he was a violent teenager. "Seriously, I live just down the street. Not to mention I'll walk with Ichigo to school sometimes. You can't say you've never seen me."
"Come to think of it, your face does look familiar," Ichigo's dad said, examining Makoto's face a little closer. Makoto let out a breath of relief only for it to be immediately dashed. "Ichigo, what are you doing hanging out with a burglar?"
"He is not a burglar!" Ichigo yelled before lunging at his dad and giving him a punch right in the jaw, knocking the man to the ground. After that he turned to Yuzu, handing her the grocery bag. "Here Yuzu. Come on, let's go inside before the neighbors call the police."
Everyone followed Ichigo's lead entering into the front hallway where Makoto removed his shoes. The house was smaller than Makoto expected but considering it was connected to a clinic that was normal. The main room was similar to his with a difference in the various furnishings being arranged in different ways. Once they entered the room Karin walked over to the dining table and sat down at one of the seats there.
"So what's your name?" she asked, turning to Makoto.
"Oh, did I not tell you? I'm Makoto. Makoto Tsukiyo."
"Tsukiyo? As in the person in Ichigo's class, who is engaged?" Yuzu asked, peeking over her shoulder to look at Makoto as she began taking the food out of the bag, placing it on the kitchen countertop.
"The very one," Ichigo replied, sitting down in the chair next to Karin.
"I'm not engaged," Makoto replied, irritated that he was being asked about this again.
"Engaged," Ichigo's father said, coming up behind Makoto jumpscaring him in the process.
"What the…where did you come from?" Makoto said, jumping away from the old man, not wanting to get another hit to the face.
"Oh Masaki. Isn't young love beautiful?" Ichigo's father said ignoring Makoto's comment and running over to the poster of a woman on the wall. Makoto looked at the scene astonished as Ichigo's dad hugged the poster and continued mumbling things to himself.
"Ignore him," Karin said while turning away from the awkward site at hand. "He only sees reaction. If you don't pay any attention to him, he stops."
"Really, that's a relief," Makoto replied, letting out a happy sigh.
"If only that were true," Ichigo muttered, but before Makoto could respond, Ichigo's father, Isshin, was on top of him again.
"Makoto," he said, kneeling before Makoto with tears streaming down his cheeks, "I can't thank you enough for teaching my son your ways. Please forgive me for all of the wrongs that I have done to you and continue teaching my son how to appeal to wom…"
"Knock it off!" yelled Ichigo and Makoto as they attacked him simultaneously, hurtling the man across the room into the wall.
"Stop trying to make me seem like a bigger pervert than you!" Ichigo shouted furiously. "Just because he's engaged doesn't mean that he's teaching me anything about girls!"
"I'm not engaged!" Makoto replied, "How many times do I have to say it before someone believes me?"
"I believe you," Karin replied nonchalantly as she returned to facing the seat across from her, ignoring the scene that had just unfolded. "You're to ugly to attract any girls."
"Thank you," Makoto responded to Karin, "I'll take that as a compliment."
"It wasn't meant to be," Karin deadpanned.
"I know," Makoto said in return, "I just genuinely think that most girls wouldn't be romantically attracted to me."
"Why not?" Yuzu asked from the kitchen, as she stirred a steaming pan of food. "You seem nice. I don't see why you think girls won't like you."
"Because people only care about what you look like, not how you act," Makoto stated, as he sat down in the closest chair positioning him across from Karin, "Who wants to be with the nerdy reserved guy when strong athletic guys are the ones who look the best and have the most money? Well the jokes on them because the smart ones are the guys who are able to provide for the girls later on."
The two girls stared at Makoto, digesting the words he just said before Karin finally spoke. "That's probably the single smartest advice I've ever heard from someone. Too bad no one will ever listen to you."
"Karin, that's cold," Yuzu scolded her sister, "You need to be nicer to guests."
"Actually she pretty much summed up how most of my interactions end up," Makoto sighed, "I say something and everyone continues the opposite."
"Maybe if you didn't have an imagination as crazy as Orihime's people might take you more seriously," Ichigo snarked.
"I'd rather be creative than nihilistic," Makoto shrugged. "That way at least then I can give myself a purpose rather than believing I have none."
"You must live a boring life to say that," Karin deadpanned once more.
"Normally I would agree but the last month has been anything but boring," Mokoto replied, shaking his head with a hand to his face. "Every day it's 'is your girlfriend here yet?' or 'Are you going to see her later today?' I'm about at my wits end. Man will it be nice when the end of the month rolls around."
"What happens at the end of the month?" Yuzu questioned throwing more ingredients into the pan which began to give off a delicious aroma.
"It's when the bet ends," Ichigo answered before Makoto could say anything.
"Bet?" Karin replied, "What bet?"
"Isn't it obvious," Mr. Kurosaki stated, coming up behind Makoto once more, "It's the day that he will have taught Ichigo everything, and on that day Ichigo will go up to a girl…"
Isshin was once again cut off midsentence by a kick from his son that sent him flying once again. "Shut up, that isn't what it is at all!" Ichigo yelled at his father.
"The bet is that if she doesn't show up by the end of month then everyone has to stop pestering me about her and accept that I'm not engaged," Makoto said, leaning back on the chair back. "I was against this at first but it gave both parties what they wanted, they wanted a date and I wanted them to be quiet."
"What happens if she shows up one day after the deadline?" Karin asked, seeing the obvious loophole in this deal.
"Then I would proceed to never come to school again so that I wouldn't have to deal with them," Makoto said petulantly, "The last thing I want to deal with is Keigo ranting about how the deal was unfair and I set the date on purpose."
"You know he would just show up at your house and do it anyway," Ichigo responded blandly to Makoto.
"Yeah. Though I am starting to think that there might be someone even worse than Keigo," Makoto said with a glare.
"Who might that be?" Karin asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Please enlighten us," whispered a voice behind Makoto.
"That person," Makoto said as he took a deep breath while closing his eyes, "Is you!" He whirled around in his chair, standing up and punching Isshin squarely in the jaw, sending him somersaulting backwards before landing on his back in the center of the room. "Now stop sneaking up behind me. Seriously, can't a guy just sit in peace without you sneaking up behind him."
"A true gentleman," Isshin said to himself, holding back tears, "So protective of his bride that he tells everyone to stop talking about her so she doesn't feel uncomfortable when she comes in a few months. Such a vehement display of love I feel overcome with emotion."
"If you really loved us you would stop acting like a total nutjob," Karin said with a side eye.
Makoto stared at the old man as the tears began to come down his face, unsure what he was witnessing. He turned to Ichigo before asking, "This is what you deal with?"
"Everyday," Ichigo scoffed.
"Dinner will be ready soon," Yuzu said from the kitchen. "Ichigo can you set the table?"
"I'll help you," Makoto said, standing up at the same time as Ichigo. "It's the least I can do for inviting me over to cook dinner."
"Not a chance," Ichigo replied, taking a hand out of his pocket and shoving Makoto back into his chair. "I invited you over so you could learn how to cook, not do chores. So if you're going to do anything, you're going to watch Yuzu and learn how to cook."
"You make it seem like I can't cook at all," Makoto pouted, "I'm not hopeless."
"Yeah. You're just waiting till your fiance gets here to cook for you," Karin teased.
"For the last time! I'm not engaged!" Makoto yelled.
"There, there son. It's not all that bad to be engaged," Isshin said as he patted Makoto on the shoulder, further infuriating him.
"And I am not your son," Makoto said, once again giving the old man another sock to the face only for him to block it with his hand.
"That trick won't work on me tw…" the old man once again cut off as Makoto punched him with his right hand.
"You were saying," Makoto said with a mischievous grin, before walking over to the kitchen. "So chef, what are we making?"
"Oh, uh…" Yuzu said blushing. Guess she never had anyone refer to her that way before. "Curry. But I'm already finished with most of it."
"That's alright," Makoto shrugged, "Just tell me what I missed as we go."
"Okay," she replied with a smile.
Makoto spent the next fifteen minutes diligently watching Yuzu closely and listening to her explain how to make the curry recipe, asking the occasional question when he needed a bit of clarification. It was relatively simple and Yuzu even told him about some other recipes he could try saying she would write them down for him after.
"I really don't understand why you think no girl would like you," Yuzu said as she brought dishes into the kitchen and started plating with Makoto. "Not to mention you are already engaged so you have no reason to demean yourself."
Makoto sighed. Yuzu still didn't understand what he was saying. "I don't feel I'm worthy of that kind of praise, Yuzu." He said as he scratched the back of his head. "I don't know if I'm engaged to someone or not. The only sign that I've seen this person exists is this ring and even if they do exist why would they choose me? I'm not someone special. So why would someone choose me over someone like your brother?"
Yuzu looked at him a moment before asking, "Wait so it's someone we know?" her tone was laced with surprise.
"No! That's not what I'm," Makoto sighed once more. Before he looked down at the plate he was placing food on. "Think of it this way. To make this curry taste good you need all sorts of ingredients." Yuzu nodded her head in understanding. "Well life is similar. You're trying to find someone who would complete the dish further, from meat and veggies, the rice on the side, to even the different herbs and spices in the sauce. Now those people can be anyone from a brother, to a parent, to even a close friend. Those people we share our life with are important and when you marry someone you acknowledge that person as the most important person in your life to the extent that you would even put them above your own life. So it's not that I don't think I'm capable of it but a matter of does someone else think that."
"What are you two talking about," Isshin said, coming up behind the two of them, his eyes glaring intensely at Makoto. "Nothing inappropriate I'm sure."
"Of course not!" Makoto yelled at Isshin, fighting back the urge to deck the old man once again. "It's clear that your daughters are very innocent and I would never do anything to rob them of that precious gift."
"They were just talking about food and different recipes that he could give to his fiance when she arrives," Karin said, inserting herself into the conversation from the other side of the counter Yuzu and Makoto were working on. "He was asking if there were any specific ingredients that were better than others. Now if you could leave them alone so that they can finish making dinner it would be most appreciated."
"The beauty," Isshin said, as he began to cry, "Yuzu, teach him everything he wants to know. By the end of this he must be a master chef capable of making meals fit for a goddess, for that is who he will be serving. No matter the cost we must teach him so that she…"
"We've heard enough," Makoto said, pushing Mr. Kurosaki out of the kitchen. "Now if you could leave us alone to finish making dinner it would be most appreciated." Makoto sighed before turning back to Karin. "Thank you. But you really didn't need to do that."
"Sure I did," Karin replied, waving off the comment. "If I didn't then Goat Chin would have never gotten off your back. Besides, it's getting more and more annoying to hear about how pathetic you really are so I had to tell you to shut up. If you don't like your girlfriend that much, why don't you break up with her?"
"Kinda hard to break up with someone you haven't met." Makoto deadpanned.
"You haven't met her?" Yuzu asked with stunned eyes. "Then who arranged your marriage? Your parents?"
Makoto once again looked down, his eyes becoming distant. "That would be my guess."
Yuzu and Karin sensed the change in mood, looking at each other then back to Makoto. "Makoto-san," Yuzu said, her tone clearly nervous. "Are your parents…"
An eerie silence passed over the three of them before Makoto lifted his head, a kind smile on his face though there was something lacking in it, making them unsure what to believe. "They're fine." Makoto said. "Now we should really finish, Yuzu-san, otherwise the food will get cold."
Makoto quickly picked up a couple plates and began moving them to the table. Leaving the two girls standing in silence. They looked at each other one last time, a guilty expression coming across their faces, before they two started grabbing food and moving it to the table. They had been really young when they lost their mother and it felt like their whole world had been torn apart. Did he and his parents have a strained relationship or worse?
Dinner was rather rowdy due to the continued pestering of Ichigo's father asking for more and more details on Makoto's bride punctuated with various interruptions as he would run over and talk to the poster on the wall only to return and once again disturb everyone. This eventually ended with both Ichigo and Makoto giving Isshin another couple bruises and leaving him sprawled in the center of the floor before returning to enjoy the rest of their meal.
Once dinner was over Makoto helped Yuzu clean up the leftovers before being escorted out to the door by the family. "Thanks for coming over," Mr. Kurosaki said as they watched Makoto step out into the twilit streets.
"You're acting like you were the one to invite him over," Ichigo said, rolling his eyes.
"That's because I did," Ichigo's father responded to him.
"Are you senile! I'm the one who invited him!" Ichigo yelled back, "Not to mention you attacked him and called him a burglar!"
"Was that him?" Isshin said as he scratched his head.
"Yeah," Makoto deadpanned, "It was the part right before you found out I was engaged. Anyway I'd better get home. See you tomorrow at school, Ichigo."
"See ya," Ichigo replied back.
"And make sure to pay us a visit with that girl of yours when she comes into town!" Isshin shouted after him, though if Makoto heard him he didn't reply. Isshin soon turned back into the house leaving the kids standing on the doorstep watching Makoto walk down the street before disappearing behind a building.
"He seems like he's been through a lot," Karin said to her older brother.
"Sure seems like it," he replied, continuing to gaze off at the spot where his friend had disappeared.
"Do you know much about what happened?" Yuzu asked, a hint of worry in her voice.
"I wish," he replied as he scratched the top of his head. "Whenever I talk to him I get a sense that he's always trying to hide something. He praises others while downplaying his own abilities. Maybe it's the whole marriage thing but he almost acts like he doesn't belong, or that he has no place in the world."
"Yeah," Karin agreed, "Normally kids like him would love attention like that, but he seems to absolutely despise it. Even earlier when he was trying to talk to Yuzu about his fiance he sounded like he thought that he was unlovable."
"Karin," Yuzu ground out, "He did not sound that way."
"Really then what do you think he meant by I thought he was capable of loving others but he couldn't say that about others towards him?" Karin asked abrasively.
"He said that to you?" Ichigo replied in disbelief.
Karin nodded. "Then when we asked about why his parents were okay with it he got oddly silent."
"He reacted the same when I asked him on the way home," Ichigo remarked as his brow furrowed. They all turned in the direction that Makoto ran off in wondering the exact same thing. "Who are you Makoto Tsukiyo?"
The moon was large in the sky that night as it bathed the streets of Karakura in a pale glow. Its albino surface reflected in the cool still waters of Karasu river in the motionless night, a lone butterfly as black as the sky itself crossing over the moon as it hung there in the sky watching all that unfolds. A silent guardian to all that stand beneath her gaze as she illuminates all who cross her path.
There atop a telephone pole stood a lone figure quietly observing the surrounding area, her black hair and pale skin shining in the moonlit night. Though she stood in an open area no mortal could see her ethereal presence as she waited there viewing the befalling events.
"I sense strong spirit energy close by," She said to herself, her purple eyes searching the horizon for a sign of her prey. Then in one quick movement she leaped from the pole down towards the city, her sleeves rustling as she gracefully flew through the air landing on a rooftop, before vanishing once more.