Title: Pretty As I Please
Author: Lys
Characters/Pairing: Kon, Kurosaki Karin
Rating/Warnings: Completely G, genfic FTW. SPOILERZ until anime current.
bleach_15 Theme: #9, Candy
Status: One-shot, complete, word count 1172

This 'fic is probably not what you think it is.



Two days had passed since Karin attempted to confront Ichigo about his being a death god. She was surprisingly okay with the idea of Ichigo being a shinigami, noting whenever she began to feel a little uncomfortable that even she was able to sense and even see ghosts, as far back as two years ago.

She was not nearly okay with the fact that her brother, who she looked up to and respected and maybe loved just a little bit, had totally and utterly brushed her off when she’d come into his room, needing an explanation for this unfairness.

A few hours after Ichigo had leapt from the windowsill, leaving his body unconscious and drooling on his bedsheets, Karin discovered why she'd never found Ichigo's body unconscious and drooling on the bedsheets until that day, despite his tendency to leave bedroom doors unlocked.

“Kon,” Karin announced suddenly. Her brother’s re-occupied body turned to look at her from across the oversized couch with those inquisitive dark eyes it recently had. Kon set the glass of carbonated cider he was nursing down on the coffee table, where it sat sweating onto the white formica.

“Ichigo’s probably going to be gone for a little while, isn’t he?”

“Yes,” Kon said honestly, turning guiltily back to the Anpan Man episode on television, pulling a hi-chew out of the pocket of Ichigo’s jeans. Karin considered Kon carefully. Finally, she pulled something out of her own pocket, sliding across the couch toward Kon on her butt, as non-threatening as possible.

“So he’s not gonna be in his body, like, in the next two days, right?”

“Right,” said Kon, raising his eyebrows at Karin in an expression of confused innocence.

“Can I paint your toenails?”

Kon almost choked on the pineapple hi-chew on his mouth. Karin slapped him roughly on the back, reassured by the fact that (although literally choking on his own surprise) Kon was still sitting on the couch with her. He had not, in fact, run for the hills—which meant that Karin’s assumptions about the guy had been correct. He wasn’t nearly as uptight as her dear brother.

“Why,” Kon started, his face once again plastered with an exaggerated sort of confusion, “Would you want to paint my toenails?”

“Because Ichi-nii would never let me paint his toenails,” Karin replied, false boredom forced into her voice, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Kon swallowed his hi-chew. He grabbed the controller and flipped the TV off, turning in the couch so that he could face the young girl better. “Why don’t you paint your own toenails?” Karin could tell from Kon’s expression, not at all irritated or disgusted, that he was being absolutely serious with her. She wasn’t being dismissed. She moved her hand between them, holding up the glittering bottle of nail-polish and jiggling it.

“Because every time I paint my own nails, it always chips off or I bite it; besides, it’s too hard to get your own nails painted. You can’t do the ones on the right good at all.”

Kon appeared to be considering the evidence at hand sincerely, one hand stroking his chin. Finally, he shrugged his broad shoulders and pulled his feet up on the couch, knees pressed together, wrists resting across his knees loosely.

“Okay.”

Delighted, but not planning on showing it at any point in time where she was alive and incriminating evidence could be snapped by a shinobi hiding around the corner with a camera for use when the neighborhood boys didn’t want her to kick their pathetic butts, Karin curled her own knees under her, unscrewing the cap.

“Hi-chew?” Kon asked.

“Thanks,” Karin said, taking the strawberry one. She set the nailpolish on the table while she unwrapped the fruit-flavored confection. Kon eyed the bottle of very pink nail-polish sitting beside them with no trepidation evident.

“What color is it?” Karin blinked at him.

“Candyfloss Pink,” Karin said, pronouncing the capital letters happily.

“Oh,” Kon replied, “That’s catchy.”

“If you shay sho,” Karin snorted. The room was cold in the air-conditioning, but the chews had warmed in Kon’s pocket. The strawberry stuck her teeth together, hurting her roots if she tried to force them apart. She dipped the tiny brush into the nail-polish bottle, sliding it along the edge carefully to remove the excess. She moved the bristled end slowly and carefully over the right foot’s largest toenail. It was pleasantly smooth, and Karin enjoyed the way the incandescent lighting in the Kurosaki residence family room played off of the surface. Kon jumped visibly, a shiver running along his spine.

“Cold,” Kon muttered.

“You’ve got monkey feet,” Karin announced, amused. She’d never noticed the long, nimble toes before, as Ichigo usually wore socks around the house, refusing to remove them in front of people. Ichigo had serious issues. Kon, on the other hand, had informed Karin that he liked his feet to be free and bared to the world. It may have been what started her on her current train of thought, the one concerning boys and Candyfloss Pink. The lack of socks on monkey feet was obviously a powerful psychological catalyst.

“I do not,” Kon replied with disdain, “Your brother has monkey feet. If they were my true life feet, they would be stunning.” Karin plowed along, mindfully coating each toenail on the entire right foot. When she began working diligently on the left one, Candyfloss Pink drying slowly to semi-permanent on the right, Kon looked at her seriously, one side of his mouth pulled downward.

“I think, if you told Ichigo you really wanted to paint his nails, he would have let you, Karin. Just once. He's your big brother, after all. That means you get to boss him around.”

“I couldn’t ask Ichi-nii something like that,” Karin said, small lips setting into a thin, worried line. “I have an image to uphold in town, you know. Why do you think I’m such a tomboy, anyway?”

“I don’t know,” Kon replied, voice soft. “It’s not like I really thought about it too awfully hard. Not that I don’t care about your image.” Karin knew Kon cared. He’d told her himself, it was his official purpose in life to care about her. For Ichigo’s sake. It meant that she and Kon had something quite important in common.

“Ichi-nii always wanted a little brother, you know.”

“Really?” the boy replied, in a sad voice.

“Yep. But it’s okay now. You’re sorta his little brother. So he's making sure we're both okay, I guess.”

Kon smiled at her beatifically, positive emotion finally reaching his eyes. Kon hadn’t smiled like that for Karin the entire two days she'd known who he was.

“Thank you,” the boy said, tenor voice serious and pleased. Karin went back to work on the left foot, trying to force the water that was threatening to well up in her tearducts into submission.

“Karin-chan,” Yuzu’s bright voice called from around the corner as she pulled into the room, honey-colored eyes wide. “What are you doing to our brother?”

“Ichi-nii asked me if I could paint his toe-nails for him,” Karin replied, matter-of-factly. She held up the bottle of Candyfloss Pink for the world to see.