Title: Golden Pheasant Stands on One Leg
Author: Lys
Characters/Pairing: Kon, Kurosaki Yuzu
Rating/Warnings: Gen, G waff, mild spoilers until anime current.
bleach_15 Theme: #7, Learning
Status: One-shot, word count 1284





Yuzu first began to suspect that her brother was not necessarily her true-to-life brother exactly one week ago. Ichigo came down the stairs for breakfast, earlier than strictly necessary, and he said to her pleasantly as she bent over a pot of what would eventually be a seaweed and bonito broth, "Morning, Yuzu. How are you this'mornin?"

It was unusual behavior for Kurosaki Ichigo. Which was not to say that Yuzu, in her heart, wasn’t 100% certain her brother loved her dearly, but Ichigo wasn’t the sort of teenage boy who woke up early and greeted you politely, wondering about How You Feel. She made a small, surprised noise in the back of her throat, and her brother’s eyebrows instantly knit together.

“I just want some toast,” he muttered brusquely. Yuzu gave him some fresh toast and tried to forget Ichigo's uncharacteristic greeting had ever happened. Mayhaps Ichigo had just had a really good sleep last night?

~*~*~

The second clue came to Yuzu the next day. Ichigo was up early again. She could hear him moving around in the bathroom upstairs, taking a while, like he was hesitating to come down to get his breakfast. Finally, Yuzu marched up the stairs to ask Ichigo if he was alright, because really, she knew it was That Time Of His Life (their father reminded them frequently), but if Ichigo needed to talk to somebody, then he should talk to Yuzu-- she was his sister, after all. The door to the bathroom opened, a cloud of steam rolling out into the hallway. Yuzu stared up at Ichigo, expecting him to snap at her.

“Sorry,” her brother said, hitching his fluffy white towel a little further up his waist, shaking his hair. “I almost hit you with the door.”

Ichigo disappeared into his bedroom and Yuzu trailed back down the stairs, silently.

~*~*~

On the fourth day, Karin decided it was time for a continental breakfast. Yuzu stared up at her older brother’s brown eyes as he sauntered into the kitchen.

“How do you want your eggs?”

“I think,” Ichigo said, his face the exaggerated moue from a few mornings previous, “I’ll just have fruit and toast.”

“You should have protein with every meal,” Yuzu said encouragingly. Her brother shrugged his shoulders dismissively.

“I’ll have some edamame, too.”

“You hate edamame,” Yuzu said, puzzlement written on her round, young features. Ichigo sighed, sliding is thumb across his lower lip as if thinking.

“But I should have protein,” he said, his voice abnormally piping. "You said so." Ichigo reached for the newspaper on the table, falling gracefully into a chair and propping back to hold it stiffly in front of his face. Yuzu made a noise of general motherly discontent.

“If you say so. But when you remember you hate edamame, just know that you’re the one who asked for them.” Yuzu pushed a tray of already prepared citrus and melon in front of Ichigo. He ripped a packet of calorie-free sweetener over it.

~*~*~

On the fifth day, Ichigo was in a particularly good mood. Yuzu could hear him humming to himself all the way inside the house as Ichigo returned, taking the stairs three at a time on his way back up them, having brought out the trash at Yuzu’s bidding. It was all smelly and gross, after all, and she really didn't want to have to deal with it. “Brother,” Yuzu called up the stairs after Ichigo. He easily pivoted where he was on the wooden stairs in his socks.

“Will you do some Tai Chi with me?”

She may have been testing the Not Ichigo for some verification that he was, in fact, Not Ichigo. Yuzu wasn’t sure why she felt she would be more relaxed with the idea of her brother having been replaced with a fake than his having completely flopped personalities somewhere during summer vacation. The idea of a jovial Ichigo was foreign to her.

“Okay,” said Not Ichigo, putting up absolutely no argument at the idea of Tai Chi with little sisters. Yuzu made a note of this sudden willingness to ‘stand around looking like a retard for an hour.’

She considered her suspicions confirmed once they reached the end of the instructional DVD (she’d rented it from the local library). Ichigo was currently somewhere in the middle of a form, doing a terrifyingly patient and controlled rendition of Golden Pheasant Stands on One Leg.

Pheasant Kicks, Pheasant Kicks, Cross Arms, Finish Position. He smiled at her with no small measure of delight.

~*~*~

The differences were obvious when you finally looked for them.

~*~*~

That afternoon, Kurosaki Ichigo once again took the stairs three at a time, clutching a school-text on Japanese poetry and looking Kurosaki Yuzu straight in the face as he asked his baby sister in a most serious and confused voice if he needed to wear reading glasses or not.

“They’re in the cabinet in the foyer, I think. You’re not my brother, are you?” Yuzu said in a careful voice. She didn’t want to upset the Not Ichigo, after all, because even if he was a body-stealing space alien from a strange, far-away planet like in some of the manga that Karin liked to read (she was sort of a tomboy, in Yuzu’s opinion), Not Ichigo had always been nice to Yuzu.

“Who else would I be?” Ichigo’s eyes grew wide, eyebrows raised.

Yuzu could feel the tears burning at the corner of her eyes. She swore to herself, steadfastly, that this conversation would not make her cry like a little baby. She eyed Not Ichigo with a determination not usually in her character.

“I know you’re lying,” she said in a bright, clear voice. “You shouldn’t lie to people who care about you. Tell me the truth.”

“Ichigo has something very important to do,” the boy said, brown eyes suddenly dark with guilt. “It’s sort’ve complicated. Your sister already knows about it, mostly.”

Yuzu sniffled, attempting to deny the fact that Karin having not filled her in on something so big as Ichigo not being Ichigo kind of hurt her feelings. She wasn't stupid, after all. She was just young, and maybe a bit of a crybaby.

“I’m taking care of his body while he’s gone. It can’t eat on it’s own and stuff, right?”

Yuzu understood. Kind of. She didn’t have any idea what the details were, but Ichigo had always been a strange sort of boy for a brother. He had bright orange hair and he saw ghosts and things. Decidedly not normal.

“Um,” she mumbled questioningly, “I guess I should say, thank you to you for taking care of my brother while he's away.”

“Please, don’t thank me for it.”

Yuzu nodded her blonde head, raising her head to stare into the boy’s face. An important question suddenly came to her mind; she couldn’t think of him as Not Ichigo the entire time until her brother got back. It was just confusing, and the confusion in the situation was already large enough.

“What’s your name?”

“Kon,” Kon said, face relaxed, voice having jumped an octave. “I apologize for being such a big fat liar.”

“Who were you, y’know, before you were Ichigo?”

Kon appeared to consider this question with a great deal of deep, deep thought. Finally, he spoke.

“Bostafu.”

“Oh,” said Yuzu, the stuffed lion she had found in Ichigo's room which always seemed to be missing when she wanted to play with it. Realizing what this implied, horror dawned on her features. It wasn't nice to treat people like toys.

“Oh! I put you in a dress and glued a flower to your ear! I’m so sorry, Kon!”

Kon wrapped a large hand over Yuzu’s skull, staring at her with his warm, open expression. He was decidedly not Ichigo, but Yuzu was OK with this, as long as her brother came back soon.

“It’s okay, Yuzu. I secretly wanted to get that ear pierced anyway.”