DEMURE
Chapter Four
Glass

Momo's Tuesday started off with a smile.

She had earned a score of 105% on the Chemistry quiz. (Not only had she provided the correct answers for the final two questions, she had additionally provided possible alternatives, securing her an above-and-beyond total of 43/41.) Momo always hit it out of the ball park with Chemistry, absolutely excelled at it, even managing to top Hitsugaya Toshiro, Seireitei High's ingenuous prodigy who was currently upholding an overall average of 99.

Toshiro had earned (only) a score of 100% on the Chemistry quiz.

"You're really smart," Momo noted, glancing at his test from behind his shoulder.

"Not smart enough, it seems."

Momo only gave him a cheeky smile and walked back to her desk.

"Friend of yours, Hitsugaya?" asked Renji, coming up from behind him.

"Not really," said Toshiro, inserting the test into a specific section of his binder. "We used to live in the same neighbourhood. I think she came over to give my grandmother some food once, though."

"Oh," said Renji, not really caring at all. "Yeah, well, about this abstract thing—"

To add to Toshiro's misfortune, he'd been stuck with Abarai Renji and Inoue Orihime for group members. Though he wasn't insinuating they were dumb or incompetent or anything of the sort – because, at the very least, neither had any learning disabilities as far as he knew – he had to admit that any other two people would make better prospects. Renji had a temper and was prone to pointless arguing; Orihime had a short attention span and was, in short, slow.

On the bright side, Orihime had a solid understanding of Chemistry and boasted a favourable mark (94), and on the less bright side, Renji was failing (37).

Toshiro sat then, in the corner at the back of the room in his usual seat, while Renji and Orihime crowded his desk trying to organize this project – and what dampened Toshiro's mood the most, probably, was that they were really trying, trying as hard as they could, and neither could agree upon a concrete idea.

"We would probably get a really great grade if we did something creative and original, like a video—"

"Well, it'd be fine if any of us could make videos, but – uh! We can't. Obviously a poster would be faster and easier to make—"

This is ridiculous, Toshiro grumbled, tuning out their debate and staring out the window. The sky looked as though it were about to rain – lately it had been wearing this expression all the time – and the grass was shadowed by clouds he couldn't see. Turning back to his fellow students, Toshiro smacked his palm on the desk and leaned forward.

"The two of you," he said in a low, intentionally menacing voice, "had better come up with some kind of agreement, because I am doing the research and the report and I will not be bothered to have to do something about our presentation."

That shut them up well. It shut them up for the rest of class, which, Toshiro realized, was even worse progress than before.

Karin's Tuesday ended with a frown.

The day had been a moist one, with a pregnant cloud looming over the entire city, and right when the school day came to a close, it tore at the seams, bursting and unleashing a rainfall heavier than the town had ever experienced before. Soccer practice was held indoors, in the gymnasium, which Karin hated more than anything, because there was just something about playing in real grass and in real air and not in some wooden container of a room with stupid walls and boundaries.

"Good job," she said wearily to one of her teammates as the other girl ran for the water fountain. Worn out and hot under the skin, Karin was actually looking forward to being doused by cold rain the minute she set foot outside.

On the walk home, Karin found her thoughts wandering to her brother. Ichigo had quite a romantic dilemma himself – and hers was nothing compared to his – so she considered, for a moment, discussing her feelings with him.

But then she stopped, and almost laughed, and realized how dense she was being for even thinking of doing such a thing.

Once home, Karin didn't see Ichigo until after she had showered, changed into pyjamas, and set up her homework bundle on the kitchen table downstairs. Although it was nine o'clock in the evening, and only a half hour away from his usual bedtime, Ichigo came roaming for something to satiate his night hunger.

"Ichi, can you do my Math homework?"

"Hell, no. Too much Physics crap to do tonight."

Karin scowled at her brother as he dragged his feet across the kitchen, raking fingers through his tousled hair and scanning back and forth for snacks that could tempt him. "If you were really bent on doing Physics, you wouldn't be looking for something to eat."

Ichigo hungrily seized a brand-new bag of double-chocolate cookies on the countertop and began tearing it open. "Sweet!" he said under his breath. "Chocolate—"

"Oh, hey," Karin said suddenly, trying her absolute hardest to sound nonchalant, "did you ask Toshiro what I wanted you to?"

"Yeah. You were wrong; he doesn't hate you." Ichigo tossed scissors into the sink. They landed with a clatter, and were immediately doused in water. "I knew you were wrong to begin with; he's even sharper with me than he is with you. You're overthinking things."

Karin rolled her eyes and ignored his last remark. "… Anything else?"

Absently, Ichigo answered, "Uh … oh, I think there was something – he said you play well. That's a compliment Toshiro doesn't give to a lot of people, so you should be pleased." He then remembered Toshiro saying Karin played almost as well as Ichigo himself, but he decided to omit that for the sake of his own self-esteem. Perhaps neglecting it long enough would simply erase the fact that such a thing had ever been said about him.

Karin bit her lip and pretended to concentrate on her Math problems. "Oh, okay. Thanks."

Perking up, Ichigo half-turned around, a double-chocolate cookie clamped between his teeth and the successfully opened box tucked under his arm. With a lighthearted tone, he asked, "Why, do you fancy him or something?"

Karin was already almost gone, having just nearly left his sight. She disappeared in a hurry, but Ichigo found his answer in the slam of her bedroom door.

By some miracle, Toshiro had managed to hand in the group's abstract by the end of class – all done by himself, naturally, since Renji was sulking over being lectured and Orihime was too afraid of irritating Toshiro further.

Chemistry aside, the rest of his Tuesday passed by uneventfully, with a dreadfully heavy Physics lesson right at the end of it all. With a bag full of homework, Toshiro trudged home in a less-than-pleasant mood.

Toshiro was greeted by his grandmother when he got home from school that afternoon, who was shorter than himself, and much more jovial.

"Did you have a good day at school, Toshiro?" she questioned absent-mindedly, in the midst of slicing watermelon.

"It was fine, Granny." Toshiro didn't miss the way her bones were protruding more visibly, or the way she hobbled, sometimes having to lean on doorframes or just on the walls themselves. Her posture was crooked now, her shoulders a little more slumped in their perpetual hunch, and the lines around her mouth seemed even less elastic, her lips opening only to a certain point before she had to force out the rest of her words in a dry whisper.

It made him wince to see Granny suffering so, but there was nothing he could do until he graduated school and settled into an occupation that might be able to fund the medical attention she desperately needed. And yet, there lived a growing fear that always gripped Toshiro's windpipe like a set of claws when he wanted to say something about it all, a fear that stopped him from asking, a fear that sometimes was even so cruel to believe that Granny might not even make it to his graduation, let alone beyond that.

"Here you go, eat up," she croaked, sliding the plate of watermelon across the table. Toshiro promptly dropped his books and took a seat.

"A letter came from Hokutan today," said Granny, touching an opened envelope on the countertop. "Addressed to one Hitsugaya Toshiro. What could it be?"

Toshiro rolled his eyes. "What was it?"

"A scholarship to Zero Division."

His blue-green eyes widened a fraction, but he didn't say anything.

Slowly, Granny's words continued to come: "So many great offers from Zero Division, Toshiro … look, it's nice, isn't it?" She picked up the letter and began to turn it over in her hands, admiring with unseeing eyes.

Toshiro scoffed. "Seriously, Granny, I'd never pursue a career like professional soccer." He paused, and then looked up at her, a small smirk on his face. "You can't get rid of me that easily."

Though he doubted she could see his expression – she was probably the very embodiment of the phrase, blind as a bat –he definitely saw the smile she wore as she filed the envelope away into one of the kitchen drawers.

Momo noticed that Aizen had eaten her entire cookie. Though she never got the chance to see him – he often left for the university fairly early, around five or six o'clock, she was delighted to see he had left a little handwritten note pinned to the refrigerator, thanking her for the treat.

And so Momo hummed a happy tune as she packed her lunch in excess for the Chemistry class' day trip. She also brought lotion, Band-Aids, some loose cash, and even a spare change of clothes – you never knew what sort of incidents might happen in a lab.

Prepared and enthused, Momo set out especially early for school under a sky that looked no more inviting than it had on the previous days of the week.

She found that Toshiro had also arrived early, earlier than herself, and was already seated on the bench outside in the courtyard. Glancing around, she saw that Renji was also here, but he was on the other side of the courtyard, arguing with a girl even shorter than Toshiro who had black hair and an irritated expression.

Momo dropped her bag on the ground at Toshiro's feet and took a seat in the grass. "Why are you here so early, Shiro-chan?" she asked curiously, removing a bottle of lotion from the bag's contents and moisturizing her hands and wrists.

"I told you not to call me Shiro-chan," Toshiro said unhappily, refusing to look down at her. Instead, he kept his gaze fixed on the school gate, watching for when anyone recognizable from their Chemistry class might arrive.

"Oh, there's no one here to hear it, anyway," Momo laughed. "So how long have you been waiting?"

Toshiro checked his wristwatch. "About twenty minutes. Kurotsuchi should be here soon, though." He inclined with a nod of the head to Renji in the distance. "We had to come early to compensate for the soccer practice we'll miss, and it takes a while to get here from my place."

"Are you still living in Junrinan with your grandmother?" Momo asked conversationally.

Toshiro turned a sharp eye down to her, but her attention was on pulling grass out of the dirt and scattering it slowly. "… Yes."

Nodding, she asked, "Do you like it there?"

While he understood that she was just trying to be nice, he would rather not talk about it. Instead of saying so, however, he responded with a harsh "None of the people there are really my friends."

Predictably, she fell quiet.

Though Toshiro felt a tiny twang of guilt, he also felt a subtle satisfaction at having said it. He knew it cut her somewhere under the skin; whether it was a deep or shallow cut, it was still a cut. Because this girl had probably had many other friends around the neighbourhood, a pleasant and upbeat girl like her, who wouldn't have been able to count on one hand the people she considered friends and who considered her a friend as well.

Toshiro remembered being young, wondering what was wrong with him, and he'd heard that adolescents experienced that insecurity and that it was common, but for a child to—? No, he'd been sure that there'd been something peculiar about him in particular, something to do, most likely, with his white hair and his blue-green eyes and the way he could only scowl, smirk or stare on a regular basis. He had seen that out-of-place fear of sorts, plastered all over the other children's faces, and even some of the adults would give him unsettled looks…

He wasn't aware quite how long he remained in a reminiscent daze of his mournfully lonely childhood, but when he came to, Momo seemed pretty bored at his ankles and several other classmates had joined them in the courtyard.

A few more minutes of silence saw the arrival of Nemu, Kurotsuchi-sensei's daughter and assistant, who immediately began herding the students onto the bus that was stationed at the far end of the road.

Toshiro glared out of the corner of his eye at Renji.

"Hold it still, Abarai," he said in a threatening tone. After a few seconds, Toshiro sighed with his eyes closed and said, "Hold it still!"

"You do it, then!" Renji shouted, trying to thrust the burette at Toshiro.

"Careful with that," scolded a passing Nemu, who chose to embellish her chide with a rap to Renji's head.

"Ow!" Indignant and frustrated, Renji tightened his grip on the burette and snapped, "I'll do the recording! You hold this stupid glass pipe, then, if you're so good at it."

"I'd like to, but I can't trust you with the recording," Toshiro scoffed. "Not only are you incapable of mentally converting litres to grams, you don't even know how to measure a meniscus."

From the look on Renji's face, Toshiro imagined he was probably correct on both counts, as well as the underlying accusation that Renji wouldn't know what a meniscus was.

Gripping the pen with determination, Toshiro narrowed his eyes and ordered Renji once more to hold still. With only pens borrowed from Kurotsuchi-sensei's research lab, each group was only given one sheet of instructions and observations to hand in, which, for Kurotsuchi-sensei, would mean no mistakes, first try.

"I'm back! I got our materials!" Orihime said, running up from behind the pair and jostling Renji to such a degree that he jerked and dropped the burette—

Toshiro practically threw the pen out of his hold in order to lunge forward across the counter for it with both hands, but he was only able to catch onto one end of the long burette, and it ended up snapping down the middle with the other half skittering across to the other end of the table.

Exhaling what felt like a forced sigh, Toshiro clenched his hands into fists and surveyed the damage. Solution was spilled in a thin trail going down to a fifth of the distance across the table from where the mouth of the burette was. Miniscule shattered fragments – thankfully not too many at all – glittered on the countertop.

Noticing that Orihime looked so frightened and apologetic that she was almost on the verge of tears, and Renji so braced for the lashing that was expected to come, Toshiro spoke before either could and said, "It's fine, I think I managed to get an accurate enough recording for that one. Let's just clean it up and move on."

Swallowing her nerves, Orihime nodded and squealed something about cleaning it up herself.

Toshiro excused himself as well, leaving Renji to reflect on his actions and hopefully safeguard the handout, and headed to find a sink to wash his hands.

There was slight blood from a cut on his knuckles, a visible shard of the burette lodged none-too-firmly inside. To add to his luck, none of the solution had gotten inside the open wound. Feeling somewhat relieved with the mildness of the injury he received, Toshiro snatched the glass right out of his skin without hesitation.

Now, if he wanted to get back to the experiment, he would have to find something to make sure his blood wouldn't be a compromising factor. Though it was unlikely, research labs – and especially Kurotsuchi's – likely wouldn't allow him to handle any chemicals with a fresh cut.

Telling the instructor was a bad idea, since the instructor in question was Kurotsuchi. His daughter Nemu might have been of sufficient help, but she had stayed behind at one of the rooms the class had passed; turned out she was the Vice-President of the Research and Development Institute, which made perfect sense considering the President was her father.

Toshiro was weighing his options with this one – whether he should make the trek all the way down to the main floor and ask around for a bandage of sorts – when he was interrupted by a familiar voice.

"Shiro-chan?"

Looking up, he realized that Momo was dead ahead, emerging from the ladies' room with pink hands that had clearly just been under the air-dryer.

"Oh, Hinamori," he said, somewhat hollowly.

"What happened to you?" Her wide eyes were fixed on his bleeding hand, a little concerned, a little curious, and more than a little repelled.

"Just a scratch from the burette, it's nothing—"

But she was already digging in her pocket, removing something – oh, it was a Band-Aid – and opening it already, but Toshiro interrupted:

"I said it's nothing, don't worry about—" He moved his hand to the left, tried to avoid the Band-Aid that was being offered to him.

"But you're bleeding—!"

"—I'm fine—!"

"You're not fine, you're—!"

"I don't need this—"

"I just want to help—"

"I don't need your help or your friendship!"

And with that, he'd managed to smack one of her knuckles away, causing her to drop the Band-Aid. It fluttered to the floor and stuck to the tile.

Oh yes, he knew what this was about. This was about earlier, when he'd said he hadn't had any friends in Junrinan, and she was probably feeling bad about it all, and reaching out to him, or whatever. But he wouldn't have any of it. She was, in fact, underestimating him. Not only had he done without friends for the majority of his life, he had done well without them. He prided himself on standing alone and standing against adversity.

Hearing her swallow in the extremely unpleasant silence that followed, Toshiro looked up, expecting to see tears or anger or even immense hurt written all over her face, but the only thing he could find in the lines of her mouth was a sad smile.

She tilted her head a little to the side, and it looked to him like a very difficult and painful thing for her to do, the neck movement so stiff and slow, still wearing that frown or smile or whatever it might've been. "Y-Yeah, sorry for being so annoying, Shiro – I mean, Hitsugaya-kun."

Toshiro's found that he couldn't make himself move. Staying utterly still, he wrinkled a brow and tried to think of something to say. His hand had stopped hurting, but his stomach felt like it was falling now. "Hinamori…"

"I understand," was all she said, with a nod that even seemed encouraging, and then she began to walk on by, even making sure to walk way to the right. "Do your best, Hitsugaya-kun."

Toshiro remained fixed in the spot for a few minutes more, and then he turned around in such a whirlwind that his shirt even made a whipping sound. He ran, then, not even fully sure what he was doing, down the corridor and almost to the end of it where she was still making her way back, only seeing the back of her head but thankfully it was still held high—

"Hinamori," he said, and his voice was deep and rough to begin with but right now it seemed especially low, and a lot coarser. "Sorry, could I borrow a Band-Aid?"

And later, Toshiro would tell himself he had done it because without a Band-Aid he couldn't go back to the experiment and that that was all, but the Toshiro who was acting in the moment was quite totally aware of the fact that he had held her back and asked for it on an impulse, and impulse that came from somewhere inside where all the pain and discomfort in his stomach had been. And almost miraculously, it was loosening up in there, his intestines unwinding, and he felt a lot lighter now, even though he was uncomfortable standing in front of her.

Momo didn't answer, but she did slip her hand inside her pocket once again and pulled out another Band-Aid, opened this one just like she had the first, and even closed the distance between them to put it on his hand herself.

She had her head down now, focusing on the Band-Aid, but he was certain he heard a smile in her voice when she said, "You're so weird, Shiro-chan."

At the end of it all, it turned out that Band-Aids wouldn't stay on knuckles very well. So to counter it, Momo was forced to plaster his knuckle with a total of four Band-Aids in a very odd-looking arrangement and thus forbid him to move the hand more than necessary.

Stepping back from Momo, Toshiro examined his hand and shrugged. It was his left hand, so it would be fine to do without for a couple days until the wound healed. In fact, Toshiro would probably just let it bleed out and then tear all the Band-Aids off the second it dried up. That would be much easier to deal with.

Even so, he still felt obligated to honour her with one of his rare smiles and, with his hand outstretched, even said, "Thanks, Hinamori."

She took it happily, and with a huge grin that outshone his smile by far, told him he was very welcome.

And although there were millions of things he had yet to know and discover about Momo Hinamori, Toshiro felt certain this was the beginning of a friendship the likes of which he had never before known.

A/N: Thanks for reading Chapter 4, folks!
And many thanks for the lovely burgunde, of whom I requested this new story cover.
Pink's not my favourite colour, obviously, but I do like the tone of it.
(She's also a HitsuHina fan!)

I always enjoy reading reviews. Hope you enjoyed this instalment.
All the best,
gobet

TBC