Chapter Text
In the beginning, Rukia tries to play wife and putter around the house. She gives up half a day later, mid-laundry, while out in the backyard with her husband. Some compulsions are hard to understand.
“Urghh!” Rukia throws the freshly laundered white bedsheets in the air in exasperation, a kind of fleeting, freeing satisfaction. Then they land on the grass. Then it starts to rain.
—and some weather patterns, harder still.
“What the hell, Rukia.” It isn’t even a question. Ichigo rushes in to move his wife out of the way first, deposits her under a shaded spot, then comes back to collect the sheets, lightly sodden with rainwater, and hastily puts them inside a wicker laundry basket.
When Ichigo, who’s wearing a white apron on top of his shinigami uniform with tied sleeves and gloves, looks back at her, Rukia starts giggling at him. She goes to sit at the edge of a wooden bench. The rain is good, light, and refreshing on a sunny day.
Rukia watches him sit beside her, still giggling.
“What?”
“This is hard,” she says when she calms down, “what you do.”
Ichigo rolls his eyes. “Being your maid?”
Ichigo is entirely caring, and unmatched with efficiency in their house and in the office.
“No, keeping everything in place. You send me to work.”
“I send you to work,” Ichigo affirms. “You have a lot of work to do.”
“Thank you,” she says sometime after, reaching out to take the basket from him. “Sorry, I’ll wash those again. I won’t throw them next time.”
They engage in some sort of a brief tug-of-wicker-basket-war.
Ichigo grimaces, but it's still something of a half-smile. He keeps his hold. “No, I know you are starting to have back aches.” At that, Rukia suddenly let go, wilts like week-old green vegetable stalks, and sags to the side, very clearly remembering her bearing concerns and back aches. He wins the laundry basket to himself.
Ichigo reaches out to one-hand massage her back, which causes her to groan heartily in approval and to lean closer to him. She forgets about the sheets.
“Why did you even come down here?”
“To h-help you, du-mmy,” she says brokenly, eyes still closed. “I don’t understand it but I…had some en-er-gy, now I don’t.”
“Some energy. Huh.” Ichigo laughs like it’s a quantifiable thing. “It’s alright.”
They wait for the rain to stop. They have the whole afternoon, they have time.
Rukia is having difficulty cutting cucumbers. Ichigo instructed her on how to make ridges perfectly well. They are making dinner together. Stupid knife techniques. Stupid Ichigo knife cucumber ridge techniques. “Grrrrr!”
Ichigo looks over her way, an easy, amused smile is forming on his lips. “Is that your little growl? Are you growling at me?”
Rukia bares her teeth. “No.”
He folds the dishtowel and lays it neatly beside the chopping board, then he walks toward her. The late afternoon sun layers him perfectly. Rukia feels a familiar flutter and wants to be in disgust—wants to punch his handsome face instead.
Ichigo is closing on her. He slips his arm around her waist, her belly bump is noticeably bigger.
“It’s terrifying,” he says, not at all terrified.
“They told me…they told me she will be here in time for Tanabata. Is that right, Rukia?”
“Yes, might even be on the day itself, but there’s no way to accurately predict that.”
“Ahh.”
Ichigo doesn’t think much of wishes, he prefers taking the reigns and making things happen—and also because how could a bamboo tree arrangement for star-crossed lovers grant a too-important wish? It doesn't make much sense to him.
Ichigo links hands with his wife and they continue on their way home from the clinic. He supposes…he will make an exception for his daughter this time.
There is almost always a strong night breeze—the kind that makes the maple tree branches incessantly tap on their bedroom window—whenever Rukia decides it’s time to spoon Ichigo. He sleeps with his shirt off sometimes. She makes him face the other direction and wraps her arms around him but they are too short to fully circle his torso.
Still, Ichigo catches her hand and keeps it there. Always in the morning, Rukia would complain of her left arm being dead-numb and that she would never recover from his solid steel arm.
“Ichigo? Are you awake?” Rukia blows a kiss on his spine. "Do you want to know what they also told me? They said it’s okay, you can still rail me if you want…”
One evening, Ichigo comes home a bit late. He goes straight to their bedroom and hastily shows her his left arm.
From their bed, Rukia scoots closer and looks at his arm, up to his face, then back at his arm, and then smirks.
“Should I call you Lord Shiba?”
“Hey!” Ichigo is frowning, and sits at the edge of their bed, like a kid having a bad day. “Ganju is an…amateur hobbyist. I shouldn’t have said yes. It’s all swollen, it’s probably infected!”
On his arm, is the Shiba clan crest, the same one Kaien had. The one Ichigo has is more comical and loopier, a crude version of the official. She thinks Kukkaku-san will hire a real ink master to correct it, but probably after strapping Ganju to a firework.
“Ichigo,” Rukia straightens her nighttime yukata and sits beside her husband, and takes his tattooed arm, an earnest attempt in comforting him. “Isn’t this…supposed to be ceremonial? And…more importantly, is that what you want?”
Ichigo looks at her, sighs, and says, “...Ganju said it’ll be nice to have something formal on my name when you…well, at least, Kuchikis can’t fully claim an heir now.”
When the weather is right and the wind isn't very terrible, Rukia would retreat to the shades provided by the fully-grown apple trees they keep in their backyard. It’s spring. The pink blossoms are in full display, and they give her a beautiful spot to nap or work. She usually has some books and work-related materials spread around her, yet on some occasions, would fall asleep in between her musings, readings, and approving requests.
She is half-dozing and half-daydreaming when Ichigo joins her under the tree, his shadow is not quite pronounced in their manicured backyard.
“Rukia.” Ichigo is looking at her and holding her hand, squeezing it lightly to wake her up.
“Oh?”
“Hmm.”
“Ichigo,” she blinks away the last of her nap and welcomes him back. He's very densely dressed in heavy black, as opposed to her, light and beautiful in a daffodil-print yukata.
. . .
They had lunch. It’s not bad, she still has rudimentary grilling and boiling skills. The fish, tamago, and rice turned out well; Ichigo ate a larger share and thanked her for successfully making food for him for the first time. He’ll remember it in his deathbed, he said.
. . .
Ichigo, Rukia laments, has grown sappier in his extended lifespan.
"Probably," shrugs Ichigo, handing her a quartered grapefruit and a bundle of papers that need her signature. “These are not urgent,” he adds, “take your time.”
“Nonsense, I’ll do it now.”
“Fine,” Ichigo thinks of letting her work before he picks a new argument with her, and resettles. He could see why his wife likes their backyard, someplace where she could think. They had a lot of visitors in the last few days, inquiries, medical visits.
Rukia, these days, is more mellow, and seems to be very concerned about something. She’s spending the remainder of her resting time at home as instructed. It won't be an easy delivery for her and their daughter when the time comes. Ichigo does not say anything else or pressure her into telling him what’s wrong (he already knows and processes his worries differently), but he remains a reliable source of comfort — a quick hand squeeze, a reassuring nod, an inquiring look.
As she starts mouthing disapprovals of hefty roof tile replacement costs and extended leave requests, he turns to the side and fishes out a small box from his sleeve, a sewing kit and sets of old tabi and handkerchief, and repairs the small tears and holes. He makes it to at least one round of stitching when his wife calls to him.
“Oh? What are you doing?” Rukia asks, looking pointedly at the needle, not at all incredulous.
“Ehh, what do you think? I don’t want to be wasteful,” Ichigo says, and shifts a bit. His Shiba arm tattoo is now polished and deserving of its name, all paid for by his clan.
“You know how you need proper tabi when practicing? Shunpo ruined a lot of my socks already, it’s ridiculous!”
“That’s because you’re ridiculously fast.”
“What?”
Rukia struggles a bit in shifting her sitting position, Ichigo reaches out to help (which she glares at him for and he shrugs in response), then finds herself beside him. She perks up.
“Your work is a bit bad,” she says objectively, nodding, but then, suddenly excited at the idea of having one domestic activity which she’s better than him.
“It’s not that bad!”
“Ishida may be better at sewing than anyone alive right now, may I?” Rukia takes the needle and tabi from him, “...but I know a few things about this, certainly, I have a better understanding than you.”
“Rukia…” whines Ichigo.
“Shh, quiet, we could not afford threads, we used to sew our clothes,” she says softly and begins undoing the stitches he made and then re-stitching them.
“Clothes were expensive for us back then, so we kind of took what we can, sackcloth, even from the dead. Renji is better than me and he likes flashier designs. We had a lot of practice. See?”
Her loops are perfect, Ichigo just stares at it, then at her, and knows how hard she will lord the knowledge over him. “Well, I'm bad at it.”
“Yes, you are.”
Rukia somewhat abandons her documents and happily takes over for him, Ichigo doesn’t resist much, is actually happily watching her enjoy the smallest of things.
Not long after, Ichigo falls asleep beside her, head on her neck and his breathing gets steadier by the minute. Rukia doesn’t wake him, this spot has such a high-sleep tendency, which is such a silly thing. Still, Rukia doesn’t wake him, they have time—all of it.