Let's keep watching Rukia.

My objective was to observe Rukia Kuchiki, not having fun with a random girl. Although rewarding myself seemed nice, in moments like this you have to ask yourself who your loyalties lie with. And as a loyal and disciplined Shinigami of the Gotei 2 I would carry out my duty.

Even if that meant being bored for a couple of hours. I walked to the door and pushed down the handle. It wasn’t locked. Entering the house the first thing I saw was a flash of orange hair. “If you want extra food, you will have to fight for it, young man.”

I first looked at Ichigo at the floor and then at the middle-aged men with black hair, balancing two rice bowls in his hand. Ichigo jumped back on his feet and angrily pointed at, what I assumed was his father.

“Are you insane, old fart?” A single chopstick flew right by me and hit Ichigo on the head. “Watch your language.” His father said and turned around. “As I thought, my son is still not man enough to…” said son stormed at the old man and roundhouse kicked him.

His father flew to the floor and crashed into a life-sized paper-model of a woman. Luckily he had already put the bowls back on the table, otherwise this would have been a huge mess. “Who are you calling not men enough? Stupid father, I will take my food now.”

And that he did, he gave me a greeting nod on his way up the stairs. Not it doesn’t take a genius to guess where Rukia was located as she wasn’t in the living room. But this was a lot to take in right now.

I looked at two younger girls nonchalantly eating their food. “Is this a common occurrence here?” I asked with raised eyebrows. “Yeah it happens pretty much every evening.” The black haired girl said. “But you get used to it very quickly.” The sister with brown hair continued.

Well, who am I to judge? A guy with a somewhat working social life. So I actually was someone to judge: This was really weird. I shook my head and followed Ichigo up the stairs.

“Rice again?” the noble Shinigami said, “Your family is really uncreative.”

“Oh shut up, you eat here for free.” Ichigo shut her down and wolfed down his food. They earlier bickering continued as they ate and I entered the room. “Don’t mind me.” I said, more out habit then necessity. They did pretty much that. Occasionally they would speak to me, confirming that I wasn’t invisible but simply there, but unless I put in effort to keep the conversation going it would die down really quickly.

“Why are you talking so much?” a lion plushie asked.

Wait what?

“I was sleeping over here.” The plushie continued, fists raised in a manner that would be menacing if they weren’t made out of cloth. “What is that?” I asked. Rukia opened her mouth in an attempt to answer but the plushie was fast. “You haven’t heard of me? I’m the great KON, artificial soul extraordinary.”

This house was crazy, honestly who puts artificial souls into plushies?

“Okay, I am sorry but I don’t know you. May I ask which model series you are from?”

Rukia picked the plushie and pushed him to the ground, face first. “He is a normal placeholder soul, nothing out of the ordinary.”

Okay, this was interesting. Besides the fact that Rukia was obviously hiding something, the interesting part was that she was actually hiding it from me. “What I can’t know?” I asked. “I’d rather you not, good sir.” Rukia said, a nervous twitch around her eyes.

So if I followed her, she didn’t mind because my presence was normal. However if I asked questions she wouldn’t answer if she didn’t want to. Yeah, that made sense, me asking the question was normal her giving it was a whole other issue.

Completely understanding these earring would take quite a while. “Okay, where do you sleep?” I asked about a less touchy subject. Ichigo butted in, apparently he didn’t like it when you talked over his head. “This freeloader sleeps in my closet.” He said and pointed at a door in the wall.

Sure enough that closet would be big enough to accommodate a small person like Rukia. So the next on the list was. “So why are you staying with Ichigo?” Before Ichige even opened his mouth Rukia slammed his head to the floor. “Because he can see me so I simply parked my Gigai here after asking.”

Ichigo was struggling pretty violently but Rukia’s grip was iron. I decided to stop questioning for now, it would only result in more pain. Anything that was important I could find out by simply following here over the next few days.

So with that out of the way there was the burning question of where to sleep and who to sleep with.