04. come the morning

Rukia and Renji take a liking to each other. It's not that it was particularly subtle before New Year's Day, what with the telltale signs of Renji not-so-covertly glancing at her whenever he thinks she's not looking, or staring at her too long that both of them end up blushing. Rukia tended to roll her eyes at him and yet be affectionate in a way she hasn't been before, at least not that Toushirou recognises — and of course with the constant rematches of snow-fights and Rukia taking advantage of this temporary stunning effect she has on him; although the one time he feigns dead was absolutely something anyone would fall for. Anyone. After New Year's Day, something's happened, and Rukia and Renji are closer than ever. Not quite girlfriend and boyfriend, Rukia admits with a rising pink flush spreading over her cheeks but with a merry smile, but getting there. Definitely getting there.

"Go for it." Momo encourages Rukia, stretching her limbs. As the sadly designated 'shrimps' of the neighbourhood, all three are determined to be speedy shrimps.

"Three." Toushirou begins countdown.

"Really?" Rukia pulls her hat over her ears. It makes her look like a pixie.

"Two."

"Yeah, you two would be cute together."

"One."

"Go!" All three chime in simultaneously, and they're off.

The path they take is suicidal and difficult, paved with ice and skittering slides of cheating, tummy diving when the ending is in sight, not quite fulfilling enough momentum to push them to finish line and when they touch the tree, crawling on their hands and knees, Momo diffuses into giggles, Rukia and Toushirou quick to follow. Ice skating has its merits.

They exchange phone numbers. And their first kiss — tentatively, Renji places his hands on her waist, Rukia's fingers toy with the red curls at the nape of his neck, she stands on her tiptoes, he dips his head, and together they kiss. Toushirou would rather watch the television, but Momo is passing him the popcorn, and they are making out in plain sight. Toushirou actually does watch the documentary. Momo audibly swoons at the romanticism of it all.

Definitely boyfriend and girlfriend then.

He needs more male friends; Toushirou revisits his reoccurring thoughts once more. The problem is that he finds it's hard to find a solution when something so easy is in fact a great deal more complicated than originally thought.

"I really like him." Rukia blushes prettily, and Toushirou helps her load her bags into the car. Byakuya should be doing this. And Hisana should be listening instead. "I'm not making a mistake, am I?"

He shuts the boot. Everything is packed and they're ready to go back. Toushirou and Rukia go one way and Renji and Momo and Izuru go another. He looks at her, and Toushirou wonders why she needs his blessing at all. "Are you?"

"You and Momo—"

"That was Momo and I. This is you and Renji." Toushirou states, crossing his arms over his chest. They're two separate things, and four very different people, as far as Toushirou can see. Like the Red Monarchy and the White Monarchy and their croquet matches with awkward flamingos and prickly hedgehogs. "If that's what you think is best, then, like Momo said: go for it. Do what you want."

"Okay." Rukia grins, and makes her decision. There's a bounce in her step. "Thanks."

"Next time, put your own luggage in the car?"

"I thought you were just being a gentleman." Rukia smiles mischievously and Toushirou should've known. He rolls his eyes, but he's smiling, if only to humour her. "Or, y'know, my best friend."

"The two aren't exactly mutually exclusive," Momo says with fondness, and her shoulders shake with silent laughter. Toushirou looks down at his feet and says nothing. "After all, he's my best friend too." And with that in mind, she ruffles his hair. This is what it must be like to have siblings, Toushirou thinks and then scowls, and hates his friends for teasing at how adorable he is. How they all fawned over his new haircut and made grabby hands and actually pulled his tousled mop of hair without asking permission. "Bye, Shirou-chan."

Rukia texts Renji nonstop on the journey and Toushirou is content to listen to music.

The first thing he hears as the door opens is laughter. Then he sees the outline of Yuzu, turned away from him as she sits on the arm of the sofa, conversational with Mizuiro's polite smile and whimsy, then Keigo snapping his fingers and drumming a beat on his knees, creating a rhythm that no one, not even himself can match, and the sound of a glockenspiel tapping away a tune that falls out of sync with the drums, and finally Karin comes into view, kneeling on the carpet floor, legs bent at an awkward angle.

"Aha, they're back!" Keigo cries in dramatic fashion, hands in the air, the lone Mexican wave that everyone pointedly ignores but grins at the brave effort nonetheless.

"Happy New Years Present!" Yuzu hands Toushirou his gift, as promised on the phone, tied neatly in bows and wrapping paper.

"You can open it now if you want." Karin strides towards them, lopsided smile playing on her face.

He sets the present on the table and carefully makes sure that the paper remains intact, he hears Yuzu hum approvingly, and Rukia stating that he does this every time.

"Like it?" Karin asks as he holds the mixed CD and moonshine bracelet in his hands.

"Yeah." He says and the twins beam, like red fireflies resting on lily pads that float on a midnight river.

That night he falls asleep to the eclectic music and feels the shadow lions roar to the serrated desert, watching the sand particles tremble but not disintegrate into dust.

Beyond the white kingdom by the sea, there is a hidden cove, sand warm, soft and white that leads away from the swirling shores into a tunnel of darkness. Toushirou hears murmurings, above the white horses and rocking-horseflies, the tapping of rocks and a duet being hummed. Curiosity propels him forward into the hollow cave, and the humming turns to singing, low crooning and an unpractised tenor. Fire burns under a cauldron, where the Mock Turtle sits, and a Gryphon leans against the wall, stone wings tucked neatly behind his shoulders, close to his neck. They give him candid smiles, and as Toushirou steps closer, the light brightens and the sound of the sea fades away.

"Sir Toushirou." The Mock Turtle begins at once, needing no introduction; he knows his name already. He blinks in befuddled manner, eyes large behind his spectacles, widening when he remembers courtesies. He's like an owl, slightly absentminded, but gentlemanlike. "Please, sit."

Toushirou sits.

"Tell him a story." The Gryphon with a mop of briar black hair suggests. He yawns and crosses his arms across his chest, glancing behind him, where the darkness obscures the path and the pulling twitch of a grimace. "Or ask a question."

"Which would you prefer?" The elderly Mock Turtle asks kindly, gazing at Toushirou patiently. The lines of his face are soft, formed by gentle smiles.

"Why am I here?" Toushirou asks. The question no longer holds as much weight as it used to, but it is still one that needs to be asked.

His mouth compresses into a thin line, considering, and eventually the Mock Turtle sighs, brows furrowing deeply. "I'm sorry. Nobody knows that but you."

Toushirou sucks air into his lungs and pretends not to feel disappointed. He'd be lying if he said he wasn't expecting that.

"Tell him about your grandson, Souken." The Gryphon decides, arching a bushy eyebrow; brash like an unpolished medal just waiting to be cleaned and changes the subject just as subtly. His hands ruffle his hair, and the talons gleam under the fire crackle, stone feathers crinkling when the fine vanes brush one another unwillingly. Mildly bored, the Gryphon asks, "How's he's doing these days?"

The cauldron bubbles and the Mock Turtle shuffles across to the edge, letting steam escape. The vapour shows images, blurred at first, before smoothing out like paint drying on watercolour, and Toushirou can see where the White King and White Queen paint the roses pink in their garden, white failing to overpower the red, blue changing the red to purple, wispy, willowy translucent figures shimmering under the reflective light. The bubble expands, and at one point, Toushirou is certain the White Queen waves at them, behind the White King's back, turned away from them unknowingly. There are stains on her fingertips and the tip of his nose, and the Mock Turtle is gazing at them with all the pride a grandfather can have.

The bubble bursts, but not before the image transfers to the damp walls, and Toushirou glances at the Mock Turtle momentarily before returning to the moving picture. Orihime is smiling and tugging on Uryuu's shirt, handprints laid bare for all to see, though neither monarch seems to notice, goofy grins catching like an infection.

"They look happy." Toushirou notes wistfully, and listens to tales told by a Mock Turtle.

The drum major turns out to be the Gryphon, bellowing his orders out and flapping his arms like they're petty replacements for the wings and therefore must flap with great effort and unintentional comical effect. Except for the times that he gawks,stops and points his finger at some beleaguered instrumentalist, who curses under their breath — instantly losing the cool composure he had held when he was silent and seemingly serious. Karin glares often, and Rukia rolls her eyes. Yuzu laughs and watches them, sitting beside Toushirou where the spectators sit, snapping her camera around whenever the mood suits her, and there's something particularly funny to see, for further elaboration to be told by a drama queen and her maid-in-waiting. But when the music starts going, and the marching band starts marching, Yuzu films the action to capture those moments, and tries to tell Toushirou to eat quietly when he sits next to her on the band stands. At least for a little while. This is the reason she's part of the university's magazine, apparently.

"Fucking Kurumadani." Karin grumbles, crushing blades of grass against her shoes, voice audible as she walks with Rukia and makes their way towards them, and puts something in her mouth. "Fucking You-Must-Respect-Me-For-I-Am-Your-Leader — 'The Great Zennosuke'."

"He wasn't that bad." Rukia complacently says, looking amused at her friend's rant.

The glockenspiel player sighs. "No, he wasn't." It doesn't deter her from scowling. "But Keigo was being an idiot."

"No more than usual." Rukia grins crookedly, and Karin laughs at that.

"Oh, hey," She lights up when she notices them, eyes resting on his briefly. She makes a bubble with her mouth and pops it with her teeth. Bubblegum. He can't help but wonder… "You came."

He nods, and hums in acknowledgement. He didn't know that Keigo was a saxophone player. Now all those comments about 'Afro-san-taichou' made sense and Mizuiro's unsympathetic replies in turn; the reason why Yuzu and Karin already knew them. Maybe he should have come here earlier — and see this oddity unfurl. He can't be sure, but he thinks he saw the sylph with the frown play on the trumpets, standing well away from most people, eyes narrowed at her sheet music in deep dislike or deep concentration.

"I brought cupcakes." Yuzu grins, Toushirou delegates and both Rukia and Karin cheer at the brilliance of having their personal audience.

One afternoon, Toushirou becomes Karin's only audience, while he drinks tea and Karin begins to perform.

Her music enchants him, be it sweetly played or a conundrum of fine frenzies, slender fingers pressing back and forth on the keyboard as easily as sliding the pads of her fingers descending on a spine, the latter occurring more often than the former, unless he persuades her otherwise. He finds himself hanging out with her, doing his homework in her house while Karin plays tunes, occasionally being altruistic and capturing his moods, but more often than not she plays bouncy tunes that amuse her and make her laugh when she makes a mistake, though it breaks the momentum. He shuts his eyes and listens, thinks of impossible things, of Wonderland and bitter rain. His pen stills in his hand, and he never gets work done, though Toushirou likes the pretence that he does. Mainly because Karin sometimes talks, and though Toushirou can multitask, he cannot when it's talking, listening and finishing homework.

"Play that again," Toushirou requests and Karin grants his wish when she's feeling indulgent. Usually she slows the tune once Yuzu enters the room, carrying the melody with pedals and crooked grins more often glimpsed on the Mad Hatter's face, lamenting that she cannot have extra arms to reach and grab the homemade food until the melody reaches its end.

"Maybe later." Karin says often, and plays another tune first before returning to the previous piece.

He falls asleep when she plays Satie's music, titled something nonsensical and the first out of six, according to Karin, and wakes to a library where books are bursting to fall from their shelves, edging forward until a frog-like man angrily pushes them back until 'they are to be used'. He reminds Toushirou of a bossy professor that is grumpily not getting his way, but is far too uncaring to raise his voice. Afar, there is a shriek, and an onslaught of presumably fallen books.

"Are you alright, Rin?" The frog-like man asks, clearly bored and thinking that his companion is an imbecile, nonetheless takes the books after all — hardback covers flapping with delight — peering through the bookcase. Hands emerge from the pile of books, and a boy with birdlike bone face, coughs and slowly appears from the wreckage.

"F-Fine." Red-cheeked and mumbling, shoulders slumped with embarrassment; Rin pushes the books away and dusts himself off. His hair is layered dust white, streaked with russet locks. "Happens all the time…" He sneezes. The open books clatter before him, and, the frog-like man takes that as his cue to put the books back in place, leaving the nervous Rin to do the same on the other side, though in much more gentler tones, as if he has to coax them to take their place and not every book is willing to listen, snapping at his hands and vindictively happy once the pages cruelly catch his fingers and he yelps.

"Incoming," A lanky boy with horns on his head says above, standing on the ceiling of books, coming into view. His feet are on the ceiling; his hair is pulled down by gravity. Toushirou jumps and everybody ignores him. "The White Rabbit's house. Nemu, if you please."

Toushirou moves out of the bookstalls and glances around him, the library both spacious yet claustrophobic simultaneously. The smell of stardust and faded ash is everywhere, settling on creases and freckles and nearly makes Toushirou sneeze. He's just in time to catch a human-sized book swing open, and a slender man emerges from the picture book, leaving the white house that folds in on itself as the book is shut. It's odd seeing paper stars twinkle before closing at the end of a fairytale. The lady — Nemu, Toushirou presumes — says in a monotonous voice, sighing to no one in particular, "No one ever takes the waterfall any more."

The man pushes his glasses and does not quite smile in response. The candles flickering doused light lets his russet hair seem almost orange.

"Can you tell me where I can find books about the Snark?"

"That depends." The froglike man with protuberant eyes answers, staring at Toushirou while Toushirou feels increasingly discomforted and needs to move away, far away. "Is he a Boojum?"

Before Toushirou can even ask, Rin tugs at his sleeve and shakes his head. It's a good hint as any, and he takes it, wandering through the aisles, and sneezing between the dusty catacombs, while the candles float on above; and the librarians shuffle on behind them. He never does hear the answer.

Rin settles himself on a beanbag, velvet blue, and Toushirou sits on a soft green one. He leans back, stretches his legs, and closes his eyelids, growing heavier with every second. The beanbag hums approvingly, and tickles his ankles, not enough to rouse him. He falls asleep, and stirs at the sound of a squeak, lids lowering blearily.

The lady from before, the one who opened the book and let the bespectacled man in, joins them and pushes at the messy strands of hair of that falls onto Rin's forehead, almost in a trance. She watches him, detachedly curious and ivory pale.

"Nemu," Rin tries, cheeks crimson; his hands uselessly waving about in any direction and does nothing to stop her. "Um, Nemu."

She ignores him and stares, dark eyes gazing through him, and she doesn't pull away. Rin eventually pats her shoulder, and surrenders to the awkwardness of it all. He smiles shyly and it's ridiculous and hilarious and terribly strange, but Nemu smiles shyly back.

He wakes up, limbs askew and his spine pressing into the sofa, and wonders why it feels like he's been rejected.

"You talk in your sleep." Karin tells him, pensive. She's never looked less like Mad Hatter, light haloing her outline, hands resting on the black and white keys. "But I never know what you say."

"Sir Toushirou, a pleasure." The floating head grins, razor blade smile glinting in the shadows, darkened by black lips and its black heart. Its ears twitch as its lone head floats and spins above him, and Toushirou decides to hedge his bets on deciding that this Cheshire Cat is female. "How are you today?"

Toushirou sits up and tries to ignore the aether birds, perched against his shoulders, cooling his spine. Their feathers tickle his skin, soft like steamed ice, before their beaks dig into the corner of his neck.

The Cat grins and draws closer, gold eyes gleaming as it examines him, hardly caring that he doesn't answer. Apparently that's answer enough.

"She's waiting." The Cat purrs, close enough for Toushirou to feel its warm breath and under the soaking sun, her sinewy-silk fur turning to moon silver. Invisible claws touch his cheek, descending on the curve, and it might be a comfort except for the fact that the nails tear his skin.

"Who?"

"One who loves," the Cat leers, and lets its grin stretch further, finding the joke in the mystery, "and the other who hates."

"C'mon," Karin says, blowing bubbles into the breeze. Spring is almost waning, caught in the pinnacle of its beauty, and daffodils surround them as they stroll in the park. "Just this once?"

Rukia smiles into her phone and turns away, cheeks glowing with happiness. Karin turns to Toushirou, appealing to him now and Toushirou quickly does not look at Karin directly, because if he does then it's certain that he will have lost the battle.

"It'll be fun!" The brunette tries with a winning smile. "And you can't be a third wheel which I will be if you don't go."

Toushirou narrows his eyes and looks at her, suspicious. "That sounds more like blackmail instead of persuasion."

"Blackmail is a form of persuasion." Rukia muses, and covers the mouthpiece of her phone, swooping in, "or is it the other way around?"

"You would know." Karin laughs, and Toushirou smirks.

"Whatever works." Rukia replies breezily, unfazed in the slightest, "I regret nothing."

"And neither will I, if Toushirou promises that he will stick around for Yuzu's date and I don't have to be the awkward third wheel." Karin tries to punctuate her words meaningfully, and Toushirou exhales, stuffing his hands in his pockets. Karin blows more bubbles, mouth glistening as she breathes life in liquidated form. "It'll be fun."

Sceptical, he lifts an eyebrow. "Will it?"

"If it doesn't, the next time you come over, you can totally pick the first song, okay? Or, I don't know, you can pick a new song, and I'll try to make it acoustic. How about that?" Karin shrugs, and Toushirou mulls it over. Rukia, oblivious, laughs at a joke heard on the other side.

"… just a movie, right?" Toushirou reasserting the supposed 'date', and watches Karin's face brighten into a brilliant grin.

"Just a movie." The musician nods, confirming, "and a snack afterwards. Yuzu is a little strange in her… courtship tactics."

"I suppose it can't get much stranger than the theme park." Toushirou sighs, and agrees to join her in the art of being not-a-third-and-fourth-wheel. He had enjoyed himself on that day out. "Alright. When is it?"

His reward would have been a chance to blow some bubbles, but Toushirou declines, and parts ways with Karin, waiting for Rukia to snap her phone shut. Rukia is quiet until they actually reach their dorms, though has her moments of being strange and grinning to herself for no reason. Toushirou simply puts it down to Renji being Renji, and Rukia being Rukia; and both of them have springs in their steps.

"You two." Rukia says out of the blue, and smiles knowingly. He catches a bit of irritation as well, the moment lasting only a second. "Yuzu's not the only one who has strange courtship tactics."

"Shut up, it's not." Toushirou brushes her words away as he opens the door his room. He knows what it is and isn't.

Rukia says nothing, but her expression is enough to tell him that he isn't fooling anybody. Toushirou rolls his eyes. She's thinking too deeply into things that aren't there.

Karin. Momo. Rukia. Matsumoto. The medic who likes wearing bunny ear hats and blowing a trumpet. The man who smiles like the sun without clunky armour after Yuzu now works there and Toushirou visits often. He keeps going wrong somewhere and all he has is a cornucopia of nowheres spiralling past pumpkin trees. Always leading him astray.

Perhaps he doesn't visit the library enough, but he's heard rumours of a librarian and her admirer spending their lunch breaks placing her chin on his shoulder and eternally bearing the curse of being taller. Yuzu laughs and gives her thanks with the gentlest of smiles, and her boyfriend, the timid and blushing Gardener, Yamada Hanatarou, stutters over his words and anecdotes and hands his fair lady a pretty flower plucked from his wallflower garden while mentioning this little tidbit. Karin grins and sticks her hip out, skinny blue jeans embracing her pose fully. She's proud to be a short brat.

"Let's move, guys, we can't keep a movie waiting, can we?" Drawling, she takes the lead, Toushirou right beside her. "We're not all romantic lazybones."

Yuzu somewhat chokes, voice high pitched and caught in her throat, and Karin snickers; pleased to see a. Yamada reaches for her hand, and Yuzu smiles happily at him.

"I don't think Rukia and Renji were ever this bad." Toushirou deadpans, and the couple flush more.

"You're teasing us!" In a pathetic attempt, the elder Kurosaki sister taps her sister's shoulder in reprimand. "Stop it."

"Of course." Karin lets her mouth quirk into a half-smile, endlessly amused. "We're all friends here."

"You don't have to chaperone us." Yuzu mumbles, gazing at her sparkly shoes.

"I'd never do that." Karin assures. "I'm just here for the entertainment."

Toushirou offers his arm and Karin takes it, the memory of rose thorns scraping their clothes and lingering with threads and broken string flashing in his mind for a just a second, before he forgets under the crescent curve of her smile. The night sky shines above them, cut up diamonds laid out for the sea, waiting to be rolled away with popcorn and strawberry milkshakes.

"You're here again." The librarian with horns on his head states, and furrows his eyebrows, frowning at him, just as unwelcoming as before. He leans on the bookshelf, spiky head mussed up by the ebony wood and intricate designs, narrow faced and pointy. "Twice could be a coincidence, but." His pen scurries on the paper, and the librarian tightens his grip on the book, holding everything in place. His spindly limbs narrow, much like a spider crawls in the dark and using minimal space to get by the tiniest of gaps; Toushirou is still unsure what makes him so uncomfortable in this section. "Are you looking for something?"

Toushirou shakes his head, a petulant boy trapped in a lost world where he can't find the floating numerical numbers who wish to float back in linear parallel lines. "I don't think so."

"Perhaps," the frogman from before intrudes, head poking from the other side, propped by his elbows, as he stares at Toushirou unblinkingly. "Perhaps there's a place he wants to go."

"Speak to him directly, there's a good man." The first librarian says with a flicker of disdain as he glances at his colleague, before returning to the visitor. He seems to take as much interest in this as a gnat, struggling to retain concentration on one single thing if it isn't interesting enough. "Is there?"

"No." In the distance, a man with spectacles and white hair sighs, and shuffles to the next stall. With a frown, the book shuts in his hand as he pushes up his glasses, and lines appear on his forehead as if he knows he is being watched and that person better stop. Toushirou does so and looks at the librarians.

"Hm." Frogman muses over this, eyes glossy as he weighs down the options, water and sodium carbonate colliding, "then there might be a place someone wants you to be."

"That might work." Akon says, head tilted sideways and fingers twisted in his hair, the tendrils messily hanging loose against the nape of his neck. "Certainly, it's possible. Pick a destination and the book will lead the way. Rin?"

The voice, as always, come from nowhere, resounding on dog-eared pages and books with open covers; squeaking slightly with the bashful meekness. "On it." Only then does he shuffle into view, nervous and knock-kneed, unkempt yet sprightly, somewhat subdued in his world of giants. "This way." He smiles like a child, seeing the world's beauty with innocence, happy to help, and Toushirou, somewhat stunned, follows him.

He stares into a big, black book, pages blotted completely by ink, and Toushirou is at a loss. He turns to face Rin, still glimpsing the text of darkness through the corner of his eye. "Am I supposed to walk into it? Just like that?" He's not sure what he's looking for, assurance, their strange Wonderland logic, something. It doesn't matter that he's seen the reverse. Before, there were stars, moonstruck flowers, a white picket house with a white picket fence. Here, there is pure darkness: midnight. Or nothing. The end of the dream, the nightmare, and the something in between. The great unknown.

Akon considers with a small shrug, though he remains sardonic, nails drumming against printed paper. "You could run if you like."

"It's easy," Rin mumbles, meeting his eyes directly with some difficulty, though his earnestness is never absent, "two steps and you're there."

Tentatively, Toushirou touches the page, not sure what to expect. The paper is cold to touch and sends him shivering, fingertips scorched and singed from the contact. But the ink remains on page, and does not drip into his skin, though it almost feels as if it did, seeping invisibly through pores and into the bloodstream. Toushirou breathes out, feels stupid, feels everyone's eyes on him, as if he's the entertainer there to please them with his disappearing act. He pushes harder, palms flat on the page, surprised when the molecules shift and his hand suddenly slips through the paper into the other side and Toushirou cannot see that part of his hand. He meets nothing but thin air, warmer now. He takes another breath, one for luck, one for serendipity, and another for serenity, and steps through. His skin compresses, tight against his bones, as he passes through and the curious sensation remains until he completely crosses over one realm to another and he can't go back.

This turns out to be a mistake.

In the darkness, Toushirou searches for light and finds nothing but brick walls, pressing against him and pushing his shoulders inwards. There's barely enough room to move, and when he tries to step back, he's unsuccessful. There's something under his feet, slippery and round, his back crashes into the brick wall and there's nothing to grip onto with his hands; and it's painful to straighten his elbows, rough walls scraping his skin. He can hear voices, muffled by the brick wall, and strains his ears in an attempt to recognise them, only just able to turn his head and press his ear against the wall that the sound is loudest. He tries to speak, produce words that the people on the other side might hear and ends up coughing, a vain effort. The voices chant in unison, and in one glorious instant, he realizes that it's a countdown. He's listening to a countdown, there's smoke in his lungs, and he's stuck in a chimney. There's a sphere beneath him. And he's stuck in the chimney. The cannonball chimney of the Duchess' house.

He knocks on the brick wall, desperately to no avail, drowned out by the voices on the other side, pace quickening with every decreasing number and the synchronized clapping. His hands scrabble across the chimney walls, groping for nooks or crannies, anything that will help him climb out of the goddamn chimney before the cannonball — and it's too late.

He flies. He soars. He screams and falls.

Toushirou never wants to jump out of a chimney again, forced upwards by a fucking cannonball and feels like a jack-in-a-box the next morning, limbs covered in soot. Everything hurts.

Toushirou buries his head in his pillow, and hopes that's it's the weekend. It's not — it might be — he can't quite recall thanks to the pounding in his foggy mind. Wait. There's someone knocking on the door and saying otherwise. For once, Toushirou closes his eyes and pretends that its simple minded mumbles instead, marbles rolling across the floor.

He opens his eyes to see the medic with the bunny hat, the one with matching eyes and pigtails, still staring at him as if he's an idiot, an angry look on her face. She opens her mouth and spits out dragonflies hovering above ripples, leaping fish that cause tsunamis; she drags her slender hands down his face and his throat, fingers brushing pathways of ash and charcoal. The sunlight is filtered by the leaves above them, and he can smell fresh water in the air.

"You," a girl with tawny hair and hazel eyes says to him, clear and sharp through her fringe, as she pulls her hair into a ponytail to one side of her shoulder, "need a heck of a lot of soap before we even think about fixing those bones. You're just lucky that Sis isn't here at the moment — she's a very careful person, and Riruka and I aren't as gentle as she would be."

Riruka brays in laughter, and Toushirou has a split second to prepare for the attack of water and soap brusquely scrubbing his skin. When he opens his eyes to his room, and identifies that it's Rukia still knocking on his door, his head hurts and Toushirou swears he can taste aloe vera in his mouth. And ash residue.

His cheeks are red and rubbed raw, and as he slowly makes his way to open the door, he can feel his entire face tingling.

"You look—" Rukia begins, dressed in blue.

"Yeah." If he's honest, he's starting to feel a little woozy. His eyes shut momentarily, nails digging into his skin so he feel that pain, use it as a lifeboat to keep him here. "I'm… yeah."

"Sleep, I've got your back." His best friend smiles, and gives him a soft push to go back to bed. He's practically boneless when he tugs the duvet and dreams of nothing at all.

"That was unexpected." Somewhat listlessly, Hiyosu — frogman Hiyosu — does not quite sigh and Akon does not quite sniff. Both remain statuesque, frozen statues that seem out of place with Toushirou, or maybe it's the other way around and Toushirou is out of place in a land of falling, flapping books, that sneeze and give birth to dust-moths because he moves constantly, never quite sure what to do. Someone else mutters quite audibly: "didn't expect you to be back so soon."

"That, um," Rin meekly says, neck sinking into his chest, and into the embrace of the willowy Eaglet, "that doesn't usually happen."

"Let's try again," Akon decides, dismissive of everything else and flicks the pages until the darkness is tucked away, and night-time exists within bright and burning stars and crinkled moons, and even that is smoothed and folded into clear daylight where trees and laughter belong together with the field of hyacinths. "How does this look to you?"

Bright. Iridescent. Wild.

"Yeah, it's good." A lesson learnt long ago: never argue with librarians. Not unless you know what you truly want.

"Well then, step through." Hiyosu snorts, and motions the path with his eyes that Toushirou duly follows in actual footsteps.

This time there is no pressure, no doubt; and when he exchanges the library for the wilderness, the sensation is as gentle as a zephyr sweeping past locks of hair. Inhaling fresh air, Toushirou carefully examines the hyacinths, asks them questions and waits for them to respond, breathing in their scent. The floras don't reply, but the trees above do, shaking the branches on the trees, rustling the leaves freely and starting the fall of an apple; wing-scuppered with laughter.

"My sister," one tree announces, voice clear and deep as the river current, "my dear sister could have been a queen."

"The Queen of Hearts, they'd have called me, instead of the Red Queen." Another tree supplies, similar yet softer, smiling in a meandering way. "But I suppose it was not meant to be."

"But then, if it were to be," — and Toushirou hides a smile as he recalls the Disney counterparts, how here would be the part where this one might say contrariwise, once on a lazy summer's delight — "why, we would hardly have to wait so long to see you again, would we?"

Heads emerge from the trees, both black-haired, both blue-eyed, both staring at him in fond amusement; hanging upside down like bats, their transition from the tree to the ground can only be described as less than graceful, and Toushirou helps both sisters disentangle the leaves from their hair with a sigh playing on his lips.

"Then again, with the rule of how courtesy goes, and how it was utterly forgotten on all parts, perhaps it's best that none of us are royalty?" Hisana says, fingertips stroking the curve of his cheek, before she glances sideways to communicate silently with her younger sister — the other Tweedle. Rukia shrugs, but she leans towards them, all the same, soft locks resting on his shoulder.

"Why didn't you become Queen?" Toushirou asks, curious. Wide eyed, he stares and waits.

Hisana exhales, eyes shuttering in the daylight. "What I had was enough." There's a sickle moon caught in her hair, as she shifts slightly, smoothing the creases of her stripy dress, distilled in sadness. "The wilderness, Rukia, the kingdom of forget-me-nots… that was more than enough."

"For you." Toushirou voices what the Tweedles do not.

Hisana nods, confirming. "For me." She lifts her shoulder, drops it, easily as if she was taking apart the petals of the flowers nearby and putting them back together. "For him — once," Hisana looks at him, and here, here, Toushirou supposes, is where dreams and realities diverge. His throat dries. "Once, I think, it could have been."

"But Kings," Rukia stands up, and stretches her limbs, reaches for the sky and the ground with her hands, fingers splayed, "Red Kings, especially, cannot abide people with bare feet."

Hisana blushes, bright red, before she bursts into a trill of laughter unexpectedly, unable to hide her sunlit grin. "You would have been an awful sister-in-law."

"To be awful," Toushirou hears the voice of the Cheshire Cat before it appears below, in askance for a belly scratching. "Is the very best in-law to be."

"Oh, be quiet, catling." Hisana smiles, deviously light-hearted, and Rukia takes it as her opportunity to catch said Cheshire Catling, arms thrown around it. Her fingers disappear into bushy electric blue fur, tickling his tummy and the Cheshire Kitten — it is too small to be a Cat — purrs, before Rukia teasingly stops, and faces the wrath of a glaring kitten who demands more attention. The Catling seems to have forgotten its ability to fade away as it pleases.

"It's Cat," the Cheshire Kitten insists grumpily, paws raised in the air and absorbing the slow submerging sun.

"Shush, catling." Rukia murmurs, legs tucked in under her dress, and the Cheshire Catling must not hear her under his pleased purr, a low rumble that could easily be misconstrued as a plea for food and Yuzu's mushroom soup.

"Alright," Renji says, on the computer screen, "from the top!"

Phone conversations and emails clearly don't cut it for these two — Toushirou suppresses a sigh, and frowns when Karin elbows him, who looks at him as if she's read his mind — and Rukia beams at her doting boyfriend, all three relaxing on Rukia's bed while Renji and Momo and Izuru sit on the other side of the screen, sheets and sheets of paper scattered upon them. Momo would have stapled the script together, but since it's the first time reading — and Renji has sworn to do accents that never last more than ten seconds, according to Izuru — it clearly calls for a mess to be made. Everyone has a part to play.

"You guys better be here when the show starts."

"Play the video again, darling, and we'll see." Renji cockily says, and Rukia rolls her eyes and doesn't until Renji is prodded by Momo, laughing and holding Izuru's arm. He rubs his neck and swears upon pinafores and cutlasses; the choice the performance should have been. "First night, first row, count us in."

Satisfied, Rukia states that she's only playing the song because she knows he loves it so much, and they'll start with reading the script properly immediately afterwards. They all agree in serious expressions, Renji doing so with an eye patch. Rukia presses play. Together, they make pirates stealthily sneak across the bedroom with catlike tread.

Toushirou wakes up, and Karin's warmth is gone. It's not that they've settled into routine, but they have a tendency to spend time in together at the strangest moments; he'll search her out when he's read this good book, or she'll find him because she'd like to go to a music shop and they're tastes in music are fairly similar with a few exceptions. (Mainly K-Pop.) They study at the library together, mostly in silence, because she likes having him around and not feel so lazy, whereas Toushirou feels more productive with her presence, and in the library is a good way to channel revising — and sporadically glimpse at the tall and short, thin and fat, librarians bickering about Freud and Jung, Dracula and Bunnicula, DC and Marvel, serious everyday conversations that librarians should know about while the other two seem to pay no attention to these arguments. Occasionally, Karin is too tired to walk back to her home, or it's the other way around, since she 'seduced' him with music, or the benefits reaped with having Rukia as a roommate and neither of them can be bothered to make the floor more comfy, so they settle on sharing the bed, too tired to care. Rukia and Yuzu have had their fair share of pictures, nothing compromising, they promise.

Yawning, there's a crick in Toushirou's neck and at that exact moment, when he sits up, the door opens and Karin is grinning sheepishly, fuzzy bed hair left sticking at awkward angles, a breakfast tray in hand.

"Awesome, you're awake." Karin says, and places the tray down on the bed; he can't remember whose it belongs to. "Thought I'd return the favour, and treat you to a breakfast in bed."

"Did you make it yourself?" He asks with a smile, reaching for the mug of coffee.

"Hey," Karin mock-frowns, and remains ambiguous on the matter. "I can cook too."

"I know." Toushirou agrees and takes a sip. When she sets her mind to it, Karin is a very good cook.

"So." Settling comfortably on her side of the bed, sitting cross-legged and in a t-shirt that might actually be his, Karin asks, "would you like egg or bacon?"

"I can't have both?"

She scrunches up her nose, and it's ridiculously endearing. "No way, not if we're sharing breakfast in my room. It's either one or the other."

"Bacon it is." Toushirou decides with authority.

"A very good choice."

Keigo calls it a 'walk of shame', pointing out his sleep-heavy clothes, as Toushirou makes his way through the kitchen that morning; Toushirou assures it is not. A walk of shame implies that something happened in the night, and nothing happened that Toushirou didn't regret, nothing more than something chaste. Keigo pulls a face like he thinks that isn't the actual definition.

"So where were you?" Mizuiro asks, grabbing pop-tarts, and glances at them with an amused expression.

"Karin's." Toushirou replies automatically, and Keigo rolls his eyes.

"And nothing happened." He sniffs, sceptical. "You know, I wake up in the morning, sometimes, and she's here making cupcakes?" Toushirou remembers that day — they were damn good cupcakes, and Toushirou had helped her make the green icing on top. He'd taken mini-marshmallows from Rukia's cupboard and added them into the mix. It was one time. "You don't even see the look on your face, do you?"

"Would that I could, Keigo." Toushirou deadpans.

"She's basically your girlfriend." Mizuiro states, and passes him a steel saucepan, and Toushirou cannot help but lift an eyebrow at. Do they want to make him cook for them? "Didn't Rukia-chan give her blessing already?"

"I did." Rukia nods, yawning, joining them, arms around her human sized rabbit and dumping it on her seat while she collects the ingredients for her protein shake. "Didn't seem to take the hint."

"Whatever." Toushirou frowns and shakes his head, suddenly overcome by a bout of sleepiness. "I'm going."

The Hatter greets him with a smile and a grin, spins around him and asks quite delightedly, where has he been.

"Does it bother you?" Tatsuki asks, sitting on mushrooms with Ichigo, long legs looped together like vines of ivy. She swipes the trilby off his orange head and spins the fancy hat in her hands. "That you never wear anything other than pyjamas?"

This is not strictly true. He has worn other clothes when falling asleep — shorts, jeans, once forgoing them altogether — but pyjama's (and by extension, dressing gowns) are the most comfortable, if at times, terribly inconvenient, clothes to wear. Never slippers or socks, unless he manages to find some before his visit ends. Most of the time, the denizens make fun of his pictured t-shirts, and Toushirou has learnt to simply ignore them. He wishes that he had more plain pyjamas.

Nonetheless, Toushirou bristles, and feels his face grow hot. The mushroom he sits on mumbles that he shouldn't move so much or he'll be eaten. "I do not!"

"You do." Ichigo flatly says, and his mouse ears twitch in agreement. Toushirou frowns and pretends that the Dormouse is Mickey Mouse instead.

"Wonderland could fix that, if you let it." Tatsuki says, looking at him, considering. She juts her chin out, places her hand on the curve of her jaw, and smirks. "Though, I kinda like your strange outfits."

Ichigo pulls a face and grumbles under his breath. Tatsuki laughs and tugs his ears.

Among other things that Toushirou knows about the bubbly Yuzu when sitting next together on the band stands, it's that he is most definitely living in the same house with her next year. It slowly starts with the build up of sudoku, which he is good at and she is not so good at, and crosswords, which neither are good at all though Yuzu usually knows a few more than he does, and then eventually house property, which can be incredibly fun — imagining a makeshift life where they chase the loud neighbourhood kids off their lawn. As the term passes, and the marching band marches to it's symphony of cacophony, the possibility seemed more ideal. Especially with having Hanatarou, Karin and Rukia as roommates. And a piano.

Still. It's Yuzu that Toushirou goes house hunting with.

"Yes," Yuzu nods as she walks into the house, smile lighting up her entire face, as her eyes sweep across approvingly, "I think this is it."

"Oh, honey, we're home." Rukia calls in unison with Karin, the door opening, and Yuzu and Toushirou walk to greet them. Karin's lent her fedora to the flustered future-brother-in-law, and given him an ascot. It's amazing how much of Beatle he looks like.

"I'm sorry I'm late." Yamada says, attempting an accent and sticking his cheeks out. Rukia is three seconds away from coddling him, Toushirou swears.

"Well." Toushirou furrows his brows and crosses his arms. "What sort of time do you call this?"

Yuzu giggles, and it's infectious; this sad case of the 'fuzzies', warm and spreading over his chest, the clapping of hands that sing like birds taking flight.

"This is definitely the place."

It's all in the metaphors.

The murder of crows. The congregation of magpies. The unkindness of ravens. All of their sorrows used in florescent amalgamation, and paint a larger than life stage — the skull, the rose, the ewe — Shakespeare crafts his words brilliantly and builds a stage that can be adapted into universal truths. Believe in the metaphors, have faith in them, and something amazing will come. It's not the story that makes him brilliant, but how he utilises it. And the words, oh, his words…

At least that's what Matsumoto-sensei believes. The cake is a metaphor, the fox is a metaphor and the scarf — especially woollen scarves — are a metaphor.

Maybe that's what Shakespeare is: a really big metaphor.

Maybe that's what Wonderland is.

And yet, if it is, then Toushirou can't understand what the crows and the magpies and the ravens represent; surrounding him as he slowly descends from the spiral staircase. Though none perch on the banister, all of them watch him. He's glad that none have three eyes. They already unnerve him with their beady two-eyed stares, even though they mean no harm. He hopes.

He is stuck in a desert, where the trees had shed their leaves for feathers, and the heat is a mixture of hot-cold and cold-hot.

The metal is fraying under his feet, creaking into a different shape with every step he takes. It doesn't matter if he steps lightly or heavily, the staircase is falling apart, he can do nothing to stop it. But with each step he takes, he remains in the exact same spot.

"Well, that's not true." A raven breaks the mould, and joins him. The silver changes to blue, once the shadow is cast overhead. After a moment of deliberation, a crow and a magpie join them, shadows red and yellow. "To go up, one must go down."

The magpie looks at the crow and caws. "But if you want to go down, you can't go up."

That's very unhelpful.

Apropos of nothing, the crow asks. "Did you ever find her?"

"Who?"

"I don't think you ever said." The raven muses, opening his wings. The outstretched feathers look navy blue, and the sand below turns to water, saline and blue, reflecting a moon-skimmed sky. Toushirou can taste the salty breeze in his mouth. The trees remain, sticking out of the water like rocks and weeds and the birds in their congregations, murders and unkindnesses continue to play the audience, scattered and settled. "But you were looking for her, quite some time ago."

"Oh." Toushirou sits down, and the stairs carry his weight, powder soft, and framed like a constellation. He recalls sunflowers striped against orange skies. "Yes, I found her."

"And?" The magpie enquires and nips at the starlight. Its beak passes through thin air.

"She didn't recognise me." Toushirou sighs, shrugs, doesn't quite know what else to say. So many words, and yet none of them are the right ones. "I thought she might, but. There are times when I think she… that maybe, there's a chance. And then. Not. It's gone." He pushes his hair from his forehead, and hates how stilted and broken up he sounds. "She doesn't remember." He sighs, and that's the simple truth of it.

"But," the crow sounds crestfallen, and hops a little nearer, "she left. For you."

"Love isn't always enough." The raven sighs, and if it was a little bit more human, it might be rolling his eyes, saying this a many times before. "Life happens."

"Still." The magpie says, a little thoughtful, "she seems to remember a little of her former life. That's something." The bird deliberates and perches itself on Toushirou's foot. "I've heard rumours, about this sort of thing." The beak opens and closes. "Theories, really. For those who believe."

"Out with it." The raven drawls.

"Fine, fine." The magpie sounds a little ruffled, but obeys nonetheless. "If she really loved you, felt that strongly, then it's possible she was reborn in your world. But she wouldn't remember you. Sure, memory and skin residue from her shape shifting self might carry through; fragments remain for her fixed form. But only in the vaguest sense. She would never get her memories back."

"Are you sure it's her?" The crow asks cautiously, tentatively. Softly.

"Yeah." The light in her eyes, the way she pronounced certain things, there's no doubt. He smiles involuntarily, more in reminisce than in pain. "She couldn't be anyone else." When the raven perches itself on his shoulder, Toushirou shrugs him off, and it moves to his pulled up knee instead.

"Well. Here's something different." The magpie decides, drawling. "Let's see if we can carry you out of here."

"Um."

"Sounds good to me!" The crow jumps at the idea, flying over his shoulders and digs its claws into Toushirou's skin. The magpie follows suit. He winces, but says nothing.

The raven is the only one who doesn't, preferring to stay where it is. "Here's how it is. Don't look down."

"Wait—"

If the magpie could smile, it would, Toushirou bets, as he hears the unrestrained joy. "Too late!" It says as it settles on his back.

As a matter of fact, it isn't looking down that's the problem. It's that the crow squabbles with the raven, and the magpie alone cannot hold on to him, with the sudden loss of help is not enough to stop the magpie from squawking and letting him go. And falling. And not catching him.

Even then, the other magpies and ravens and crows don't offer a helping hand, and prefer to pertain to their observing activities.

He wakes up, propping himself awkwardly on his elbows, and can't think of what to say. His throat feels thick and his head's spinning. There's a bruise on his shoulder.

"You alright?" Mizuiro asks, later that morning, washing his breakfast bowl clean in the sink. Keigo is rubbing Rukia's shoulders, while she tries to concentrate and recall her words and make them her own, garbling them with half-hummed notes that are meant to play from a different instrument. Keigo hums along, free hand drumming on the table.

"I dreamt that a magpie dropped me." Toushirou states, not quite certain what to make of that. What he actually meant to say was: I feel a little dizzy.

Keigo is surprisingly insightful when it comes to dream-logic. "Maybe you weren't shiny enough?"

"He's plenty shiny enough." Rukia mumbles, her head furrowed in her arms and Mizuiro nods sympathetically, and passes her the key to all solutions: caffeine. Rukia looks up and gives them all a morning hug and then a beautiful starlet smile. "You're very shiny."

Toushirou feels better and grins, a little stupidly. "Tell that to the magpie."

"Blue or yellow?" Rukia asks Yuzu, twirling in her plain white pinafore. Yuzu is sketching, and Rukia enjoys pestering her with questions about the outfits that she might design, if only that she could. It does no harm to stop mere designs, and here, Rukia is the star of the show. On paper, measuring tape, and witches and wizardry.

"I thought you're in red?" Yuzu laughs, as she shades in a doodled black fringe that falls across her face, thin lines that caricature his roommate precisely.

"Well, yes, but." She squirms, and Karin answers it, in the off chance that she has a psychic link to her sister.

"Yellow. If I was going to direct the play, I'd put you in yellow."

Marching band competitions are fierce. If Toushirou thought school marching band competitions were bad, they've got nothing when it comes to university marching bands. (They also don't have an awkward Byakuya and a cheering Hisana.)

"Hold still," Yuzu says, painting war colours on his face as proof of their undying support. He's promised to do the same to her face, after Hanatarou has snapped the photo so he can use it as a reference. "There we go."

"Thanks." He nods, and Yuzu passes the task of Supportive War Paint onto him. All three of them wait, for the marching band to assemble and for the drum major to take the stage.

For once, the 'Great Zennosuke' is silent, uncannily still. Everyone is quiet. They wait. Then — Zennosuke moves, and it's a collision of electrical chaos in control, everything moving at once. His arms flap about, stylized, precise, with purpose, and there's the result of his hard work and his marching's band dedication working in unison. They glide across the pitch, flawless with their instruments, and it's perfect. It's wonderful.

He spots Karin, spots Rukia, spots Keigo, sweating, heaving, then catches the flushed faces of each and every one of them, the audience a wild frenzy of clapping. Yuzu is beyond ecstatic, Yamada is amazed, and Toushirou has just been swept away.

All of them bear flawless grins.

"They've got to win." Toushirou says, still a little breathless, not really talking to anyone though he knows his friends are listening. "There's no way they can't win."

"It's not about winning that matters." Yuzu reminds him with a silly grin, faux-serious. "It's about being the best you've ever been."

Time is a man with his top hat punched right through and sits with a garden party directly beneath a clock tower. Time is a thief of the steampunk designer; wearing a mishmash of everyone's clothes and making it work. Time is Abarai Renji many a times taller than he is in real life, legs gangly and arms spindly. That's not right — the Renji he knows is much brawnier, more muscles than slender — Wonderland's interpretation has altered him. There are cogs on his waistcoat, broken and whole, and needle-hands scattered across his pant legs.

Time is occasionally friends with the White Rabbit and no longer with the Mad Hatter.

"Toushirou," Renji bows, and stands up from his ivory white chair, carved with plenty of ornate holes, the same gruff and boisterous man that Toushirou recognizes, grinning in his ever-so-crooked manner that Rukia constantly talks about. It's a tiny circular table, compared to insurmountable richness of other majesties, immeasurable and elaborate. This is simple, clean and white. "How is Karin these days?"

"You should ask her yourself." Toushirou blithely says, deciding to pull up a chair and sit down.

Renji chuckles, voice a deeper tenor than Toushirou recalls. "One day. Usually a simple hello is enough to warrant a teacup chucked in my direction."

"Is Karin always the one who's chucking?" He can't help but lift an eyebrow. The Dormouse is protective about his sister — a trait which the earth counterpart of Hatter shares when it comes to her twin sister, and likewise, vice versa.

Renji tips his battered hat, mutely conceding. His teeth flash white, not unlike the crescent shaped mouth of the Cheshire Cats, whatever form it takes.

"Tea?" He asks, snapping his fingers, and letting a small feast of confectionary appear onto the circular table.

"I thought that only the Hatter had unbirthday parties." Toushirou states, while pouring the teapot into his cup.

"Technicalities. But this isn't an unbirthday. This is a birthday party." Renji smirks. "Yours."

"Cheat." It's nowhere near December. But then this is Time he is conversing with; and Time can lie, like any other person.

Renji shrugs, abundantly careless. He holds out his cup, and Toushirou acts as the host and dutifully pours. His wry grin is there nonetheless. "Perhaps."

Toushirou looks at him, carefully. He's not sure why he's never asked other Wonderlandians this before, but he's asking now. "What do you want?"

"Ah." The grin lessens now, though it lingers, shrinking in size but never permanently leaving. "A trade. You have something of mine in your pocket. A friend's."

It triggers a memory in the back of his mind. Something that he can't quite picture, the images blur in his head, raging against a current of wind. Slowly, he puts his hand in the pocket of his dressing gown, not certain what to expect. It's cold, and round, and tick-tick-shakes as Toushirou pulls it out, fingers curling around the shape.

A golden pocket watch.

He has no need of it — kept it and forgot it — and so he tosses it to Renji, who catches the golden pocket watch, intersperses it between his fingers, and makes it disappear behind his ear. The reverse magician trick.

"Ta." Renji grins, and continues to lean back on his chair, far too much, but never stumbles and falls. Another trick of his perhaps, suspending the moment, if not a brilliant balancing act. "Well, if you can't give Karin my best, tell her this—"

"You should really tell her yourself." Toushirou mumbles with a weary sigh. He has no patience for being a messenger, especially when he's missed dates and places he's supposed to be, when he can't control the destination.

"Six steps sideways." He grins once more, and ignores Toushirou. "She'll know what it'll mean."

Renji tips his hat once more, a gentleman thief bidding adieu, cogs turning and whirring counter-clockwise with muscle bound memory, Toushirou can hear the strum of a cello, then silence and bleached out existence.

They christen the apartment with weekend Disney movies.

They still live in their current separate living commodes, but as Yuzu says, there's no point not making their new home comfortable in the meantime. That's good practice. Therefore, to avoid dust, spiders and phantom poltergeists, each weekend they have to clean and stay the night, camping out on sofas or sleeping bags, and watch a new movie each time.

"Tchaikovsky." Karin sighs happily as she settles into the sofa, and presses play. "This is why Sleeping Beauty is the best."

"Don't forget the dragon." Toushirou nudges her, and Karin smiles lopsidedly at him, indulgent.

"Right. Who could forget the dragon?" Karin nods, and leans into his side, as his arm wraps around her waist. He can feel her grin hidden on his shoulder. "But mostly Tchaikovsky."

He doesn't really have the heart to disagree.

He does disagree with how often Karin shifts, squirming as she tries to make herself comfortable, because he has to move as well, and Karin has bony elbows, ow, she's not meant to move like that. Eventually, she sits on his lap, his mouth on hers. Her shirt is pushed up, and she's soft and warm. Karin's hands are clinging onto his shirt instead of being looped around his neck, and their legs are knocking against each other and he's kissing her, because Karin won't shut up about Tchaikovsky, and the situation is not nearly as awkward as perhaps it should have been and is actually kind of, well, perfect.

"See?" Karin whispers millimetres away from his lips, as his knee fits between hers, and she's laughing breathlessly, then kissing him, "Tchaikovsky is sexy."

"Quiet." Toushirou murmurs lazily, voice practically a growl. It's a new delight knowing that he makes her shiver, breath hitching, and they're soon to be a desperate mess on the floor. Maybe she's right. "Um."

"Oh no." Karin grins in that mischievous manner that Toushirou has recognised all too well, settling on top of him, wiggling her hips just enough to be a fucking tease. "You are going to admit it, and then we are going to continue."

He kisses her first, pulling her close and then with butterfly soft words, tells her, pressed to her throat.

Karin does not have a problem with this.

Rukia takes to smirking insufferably after they reveal that they're in a relationship.

"We're not that bad!" Karin insists, cheeks pinkish nonetheless. "Compare us to my sister and Hanatarou!"

"Or you and Renji." Toushirou adds, and his girlfriend flashes him a grateful smile.

"I rest my case." Rukia folds her arms and smirks once more. They realize what they've done.

Karin grumbles under her breath and Toushirou frowns at his friend, and both of them refuse to talk to Rukia. Until the movie of mermaids begins playing.

"Twelve steps back, six steps sideways." The Mad Hatter knits her brows together and shares a glance with her brother. She bites the corner of her lip and then turns to face Toushirou once more, trying to not appear unruffled. "Let's go." Reaching for Toushirou's hand, they move slightly out of synch, and twirl to a new plane.

They stand surrounded in a hall of mirrors. Some are cracked, some are distorted, and others are whole. Each of them reflect something different — for a little vanity, Toushirou sees himself tall and thin, then short and stumpy. Karin snickers at the comparisons of herself.

A second later, Ichigo joins them.

"Yuzu," The Dormouse says instantly, eyes sharp and searching.

"She's here?" Karin blinks, envy showing at the bonus of having a mouse's nose, then turns, glancing at the mirror-reflections that skitter away from her. She stalks off in one direction, Ichigo another, and Toushirou tries a different path, not quite sure what to expect, or who to find. He's certain it's Yuzu, the March Hare, but whether she looks more like her brother or her sister is a mystery unconfirmed.

He wanders aimlessly, as he's done so many times before, forging new footsteps that clovers cover up. It's a maze of looking glasses, posers all around, smirking, smiling, frowning, hands up, hands down, hand standing, or attempting a new yoga position that inevitably ends with a cartwheel. All share his face.

He wonders what the Cheshire Cat would be like here, would he see only one shade? Or would the technicolour aspects grin until another moment passed, and his fur changed stripes, and then another Cat takes its place on the mirror and the field?

One reflection breathes on the other side of the mirror, and paints an arrow for him to follow. Toushirou lifts an eyebrow, but the reflection of him looks earnest, gesturing with his hands as well, in a way that Toushirou doesn't quite believe he would move, much more bohemian and emphatic than he has ever been. Other Toushirou reflections join in, aiding the original with a kind of Mexican wave follow-on, which Toushirou hastily takes to be his cue. It's not every dream that his multiple reflections tell him what to do.

The hallway becomes a maze, branching out in different directions. The reflections still tell him what to do, eventually guiding him to an open space.

Toushirou meets Ichigo there, his arms folded across his chest, mouth pursed into a thoughtful frown. His mouse ears twitch at his footsteps, and he half-turns to look who it is, disappointment visible for a spilt second, nearly a frown, before he returns to the mirror. Toushirou approaches, slowly, feet heavy. The Dormouse sighs, shrugs, and then opens his mouth to speak, hand on the mirror, pushing the surface. Unable to pass through.

"Meet the March Hare, Toushirou." Ichigo murmurs, not tearing his eyes away from his found sister.

Yuzu smiles sadly at him on the other side, slim legs pulled up to her chest like a marionette, and furry brown bunny ears flopping over head, it's a hello said over seven seas and a window pane. Her face is warm and apple soft, tilted to the side in polite interest, before changing into open friendliness, a genuine lovely smile. Her mouth parts and she tries to speak, and perhaps she does, but there's a distance between them that words won't cross. Toushirou can't lip read.

That's okay, he can guess. "Hello." Toushirou says, sitting down besides the standing Dormouse. "It's nice to meet you."

Perhaps the March Hare can lip read, because her pretty face transforms brilliantly into a shining star, and this is the Yuzu that Toushirou knows and feels at ease with. This is the Yuzu that Toushirou can imagine designing Hogwarts uniform because Rukia wants to be a Ravenclaw and Yuzu wants to be a Hufflepuff at all costs. This is the Yuzu that Toushirou doesn't know, beautiful; she's finally not alone. The March Hare glows.

"How did you get there?" Bemused, Ichigo asks, lifting an eyebrow, tapping on the looking glass and Yuzu looks down and twiddles her thumbs, wriggles her toes. Her downcast ears aren't enough to shield the spread of light pink across her fine features. The Dormouse sighs, huffing in exasperation. "Never mind."

"Oh."

When Karin the Hatter finds Yuzu the March Hare, there is stunned silence after her discovery, that neither Ichigo nor Toushirou can face, though Ichigo half-turns, expression unreadable from Toushirou's perspective. Her footsteps reverberate on the verdant clover earth, and both he and the Dormouse wait for Karin to join them, dazed as she is, falling to her knees once the March Hare looks up, eyes wide and glistening, mouth widening with a grin. The two sisters look nearly identical in that moment, their vulnerability torn open for all of Wonderland to see.

"Yuzu." Karin says inaudibly, hardly daring to believe it. Like Ichigo, the palm of her hand rests on the mirror, and on the other side, Yuzu connects them, different levels for a broken circle. "Hey, we found you."

The Dormouse crouches, and the March Hare shifts slightly, adjusting themselves for a Tea Party, and suddenly Toushirou needs to look away, his throat suddenly thick. The moment is too private, too intimate, and he shouldn't be here. He shouldn't be here at all.

"We'll get you out." Ichigo vows, and the Hatter murmurs in agreement. "I'll find a way."

Sunlight blinds Yuzu from Toushirou's vision, white darkness growing under his eyelids. He inhales peppermint fragrance and then the cold light of morning creeps through the curtains and gently rouses him awake. He doesn't move, simply closes his eyes once more, and listens to the voice of the radio.

"And then I stepped on his foot."

"Mm. You do have a tendency to do that, Momo." Toushirou nods sympathetically, and almost feels the beginning of a smirk as he glances at his shoes. Memories. "Wait. Izuru or Renji?"

"… Renji." Momo sullenly admits, and it's easy to picture the embarrassment on her face; the image of it all that is inevitably amusing. Momo's probably pouting. "I thought I grew out of that habit."

Toushirou shrugs. That's the thing he hates about phones, non-verbal actions don't transition well. "It happens. Apparently I had a hissy fit over a documentary." He never remembers it that way, but it's one of his Toushirou-isms, which always cheers his best friend up. "Anyway, would you prefer chocolate cake or peach cake when you arrive?"

Toushirou waits for Momo to process this, weigh and consider the pros and cons, and then declare the practically inevitable outcome. "Chocolate peach cake?"

The corner of his lips twitches into the very essence of a smile. "I'll figure a way to make that happen."

Twelve steps backwards, and it's possible to go anywhere he wants.

Six steps sideways, and he's somewhere he didn't expect.

He meets the rubble of a mountain that he once took apart, scattered all over a desert with a blaring sun, tries to rebuild it to no avail, finds the Korrigan girls that try to teach him how to fly and Bysen boys that teach him how to dance, and they ask him what's wrong, has he heard about the dinner between the White Queen and the Red Queen? He finds a hummingbird named Nanao, an albatross named Lisa, and discovers that if the Caterpillar — who will always be a lecherous Caterpillar with a capital smile — is not around them, it's best not to mention him. Not even in passing. Lisa narrows her eyes, and Nanao buzzes in a way that makes Toushirou become mute until he has something different to say.

He watches fish fly and sees them converse with pigs with wings, and bemusedly let ladybirds write words on the bark of trees and make patterns on his skin, crawling into the palm of his hand and skitter up to his elbows. He lets the willow trees and oak trees cover him with woolly petals and forgotten leaves, in promise of a dreamless sleep. He sometimes sleeps on the hospital gurneys or leaf beds that the healing sanctuary provides, and the morgens are delightfully deceitful when they guide him away from the spring forest and try to drown him on ocean waters. The sylph with the rabbit hat rescues him, sour faced the entire time, and the purple haired Isane teases her with a lilt of the tongue and the caw of a seagull. Riruka's apricot flush only darkens, matching her deepening frown.

"Isn't it strange," the Mock Turtle muses, wading in the shallow shore, Toushirou wading alongside him, "that avoiding someone is much harder than finding someone?"

The summer breeze warms the curve of his back, and Toushirou shrugs, preferring not to answer while the aquamarine sea glitters under a cloudless sky. If he looks down, he can see a red crab scuttling across the seabed, just daring to pinch his toes, seaweed pushing past behind that crab. If he squints, he can just about see a starfish reclining underwater, sneezing bubbles if there's too much sand tickling its sensitive pores. The Gryphon told him once that starfish can understand fey, and are excellent translators as long as his head remains in bubbly water, but lose their ability once they lose an arm.

"Oh, you think?" A familiar voice smirks, audibly smirks, his outline shimmering on the ocean waves. Toushirou blinks, not quite processing the incomplete reflection.

"Kurosaki Kaboom!" A splash and two hands push him forwards with a splash, then pull him back with a forceful grab. At least in one direction, though the other is just as steady, if more gentle.

"Always with the alliteration." The Dormouse rolls his eyes, hand at the back of his neck. There's a clockwork bracelet on his other hand; something new.

"Well, hey, I wanted Kurosaki Attack. Or, Ambush." To Toushirou's left, the Mad Hatter lifts her shoulder and drops it, laconic and lazy; as if she doesn't care that the hem of her dress is getting wet as long as the sun still smiles. There are claw marks disguised as painful whiskers on the right-side of her cheek. "But, no. Alliteration—"

"Alliteration's awesome and amazing. Karin came up with the 'kaboom' though." To Toushirou's right, the March Hare intones, a dimpled smile splayed prettily across her face and her furry bunny ears tweaked in opposite directions. "I've missed the sea!" Yuzu says a second later, and jumps about in the seabed, twisting and turning, in order to make the saline water ripple all around her, amid white horses. She scoops water in her hands and throws it up in the air, sprinkling her rabbit ears and rabbit nose with droplets.

"How did you—"

"Secret." The March Hare puts a finger to her lips, and the whiskers on her cheeks curl at the edges in a manner that usually means a half-smile, a game that no one knows the rules is about to be commenced. It's a mermaid smile that rests on Yuzu's face, illuminating without the aid of moonlight. It takes a moment longer to realize that Yuzu wears the steam punk clothes designed on a winter's day, a pretty mishmash in introverted colours, sky blue instead of grey, pink instead of black, eternal summer instead of eternal autumn. "Are you going to disappear again?"

"I don't have a choice." Toushirou sighs and recognises the prickle against his skin that happens before he disappears.

"Don't be a stranger." Rubbing her wrists, scratches mostly covered up by a fingerless glove, the Mad Hatter says. Head cocked to the side, there's something akin to concern nibbling at the corner of chapped lips.

"Yeah," he nods, and remembers balloons floating in the air and misery on her beautiful face, and how different she seems now, reunited with her family at last. Happier. "Till next time."

Everyone is hiding from Rukia, who has reached her pre-show jitters two weeks before it happens. The house therefore, has been nicknamed, the hideout, and even Momo, Renji and Izuru stay, feasting on chocolate cake, peach cake, and peach and chocolate cake. And other nutritional food. Yuzu has very nearly finished with her hats — afterwards, she can use her magic to allay Rukia's nerves, but not until then. With Toushirou, it's either hit or miss; and Karin often serves to wind Rukia up even when she doesn't intend it.

"I don't get it." Karin frowns as Yuzu talks, her head resting on Toushirou's collarbone, the night before Rukia's grand performance — they've specifically left this DVD last. Toushirou is playing with her hair, letting the black locks slip past his fingers. "Why doesn't everyone think that Alice falls in love with the White Rabbit?"

"Huh." Momo blinks and peers at Yuzu through her lashes, and Toushirou recognizes that look — always apparent before being swept away in romanticism of it all, and he feels vaguely unwell. "It makes sense. Love at first sight, right?" And Yuzu nods, says yes, that's it, relieved that someone else shares her viewpoint, tension in her shoulders lessoning.

"But she's seven." Izuru notes, tone somewhat confused. "Why would she…"

"She gave up her world to see the White Rabbit again. She followed him, and she found him." Yuzu tries to explain, cheeks flushed pink and she tucks a stray curl behind her ear, and only Momo understands. "She didn't have to chase him. But she did. That sounds like love to me. To do something following your heart instead of your head."

The silence is suffocating.

"I don't know." Renji says doubtfully. "If there's love there at all, then it's pretty twisted. They're assholes."

"They're mad." Izuru states, as if that simple explanation is enough to cancel out their deluded nature, it excuses their behaviour. "They wind up Alice because they think it's a fun thing to do."

Renji snorts. "Like I said, assholes."

Karin grins lazily, bursting her peppermint bubblegum with her teeth. "Pot, kettle."

Toushirou can't breathe. "I'm going to get a drink." Karin shifts so it's easier for him to move, and Toushirou can feel her gaze, curious and uncertain, even if he can't meet it. His feet feel heavy and sluggish as he walks to the kitchen, and if anyone notices something different about the way he walks, then nobody comments.

The door shuts, but it's not enough to muffle their voices, and so he moves further away, settling to the porch, where the night is cold and the stars are white gold.

"I thought I'd find you here." The White Knight says with a smile at the end of the harbour, bowing to the swans who bow in return, before galumphing to face him, armour clanking comfortably. "Care to join me?"

He looks genteel and elated, hair still snow bright as Toushirou remembers, and with a nod, Toushirou joins him in the rowing boat, and hastily insists that he should take the oars, partially because he remembers that the White Queen and White King would only end up in circles, partially because that is precisely what happens, and partially Toushirou isn't nearly at good at pulling the boat into the direction he wants as he'd like to be, so he abandons the oars and lets the river take them wherever it pleases, which is how the White Knight intended for their true course to take place anyway.

The sun flares, the tadpole scurry, and Knight Juushirou and he sit in content silence, waiting, because this is the twilight hour, and the river has a story to show.

Moon-faced pebbles hum underwater, and their bubbled breath rocks the boat to and fro, and silhouettes emerge from the water, the nymphs and the sylphs and the mermaids who swim in saltier waters sing, and play with shadow puppets with flowing hair hidden in darkness and castanets, while hold blue-beating hearts that glow in hues of smoke-lilac in their hands that shine softly until the dawn chorus overrides them with mist-eyed birds and morning chirps. Juushirou touches the sides of his face, and he's fifteen and seven and twenty all at once, and he wakes up with his smile fresh on his mind and his cool hands linger like ghosts, until Karin nuzzles her nose into the divots of his collarbone, sleeping soundly, and Toushirou reaches out to press play the CD player so he can listen and not get out of bed, just able to succeed by the tips of his fingers.

"I climbed up a mountain, and looked off the edge, at all of the lives that I never have led, there's one where I stayed with you across the sea, I wonder do you still think of me," Toushirou says, speaking the lyrics instead of singing along, and Toushirou tugs her close, hand curling at the curve of her hip, and still Karin sleeps, listening to his heartbeat and the bass, "I carry your image always in my head, folded and yellowed and torn at the edge…"

The night before the first ever stage performance, everyone buys Rukia roses.

"Oh, my god." Rukia laughs with tears in her eyes, and her arms filled with plenty of bouquets; mostly pink roses. The exceptions are Renji's, red and true, and Karin's, white and contrary. "You're all so—"

"Wonderful?" Yuzu says with a smile, as Momo simultaneously says, "horrible?"

"Hufflepuff." Rukia giggles, and her face is cerise-red, before it is hidden behind crimson and white and pink flowers, "no, Ravenclaw. No, you're all idiotic Griffindors."

"Hardly." Renji objects, who came up with the idea but not the colour scheme, "we're cunning Slytherins."

And Rukia, amused by this shower of affection, caressed to her ribcage, agrees.

"Here we go." Yuzu says, holding up an outfit that's half-steampunk, and half-Wonderland, designed for him and beautiful, outlined in gold. "This is for you."

"I… you don't have to." Toushirou mutters, as the clothes are pushed into his hands, "thanks."

Karin presses her hands on the kettle-piano and plays a pretty tune, while Ichigo summons a changing room, their joint effort slightly out of sync. "You're not seven anymore, you can't wear things like that here." Karin rolls her eyes and there's a shit-eating grin on Ichigo's face that Toushirou wants to take away but can't figure out how. "Like it or not, you're going to have a proper unbirthday party. Requiring proper clothes that the March Hare has made."

He smirks, because the similarities can be appreciated and not eerie; he takes the clothes and shuts the door. "Fine."

There is something different about the suit, and not just the lack of a monocle, Toushirou thinks as he slips on the sleeves, but can't figure out what. It just is, dream woven and cut. But he likes it, and with a flourish, Yuzu cheers as sheep-trees bleat and willow trees sigh blissfully, and she pulls him towards the elongated table, where Rukia and Hisana squabble over garters and glitters, and the fairy dust that floats above them all. Tatsuki arrives in a one-handed handstand in the middle of the table, and then cartwheels off to where the Dormouse is. Together they tether balloons to chairs and on the overalls of a shy gardener, who lifts off the ground, and cannot pull himself down, with just the grip of holding onto his chair. The March Hare quickly offers to help, flustering.

All things must end, Toushirou knows, although the how, the when, the why are unknown. But it's hard to remember this when Karin, the Mad Hatter, takes his arm and kisses his cheek, and sets him beside her, and Tatsuki begins to regale a tale of the house of cards and battles of chess, and Ichigo is laughing and insisting that the Duchess is in some dire need of amusement.

"Oh, shit." Karin says as she helps Toushirou with his tie, the zip of her red dress undone. "Shit, she's going to kill us."

"We're not going to be late." Toushirou assures her, although he can hear a shriek of concern through the wall. Momo, he guesses. "We're fine. Turn."

"Yeah, but can you imagine if we're not?" Karin grins, and dutifully turns, Toushirou deftly pulling the zip, and teasing her with the pressure of his fingertips on her silk dress, "then she wouldn't need to be in character. Rukia would just say, off with your heads, and be done with it."

"Guys, hurry up!" Renji calls, standing at the bottom of the stairs. "Everyone else is here!"

"Ready!" Karin yells, and nearly trips down the staircase, if not for Toushirou grabbing her arm. "Ready." She says at the bottom in a calmer voice, smoothing out the creases. Toushirou feels absolutely ridiculous and proud, and tugs at his suit. "Let's go."

He takes her hand, and all together, they traipse outside into the car to get to the theatre, bickering and armed with a single rose for the Queen of Hearts.