sirenspull_logs | The rules of soccer are very simple, basically it is this:

Who: Hitsugaya (

icy_heavens) and Ichigo (

blackmoonrising)
When: Afternoon of September 17th
Where: Some random Sector 4 park
Summary: Hitsugaya is not-moping in the park. And somehow gets dragged into a soccer game with Ichigo and a bunch of kids.
Warnings: Probably not much. Maybe a little bit of language, maybe a little bit of Hitsugaya kicking the ball at Ichigo's head. Y'know. Tame.

It was actually a decent day outside, which he couldn't always say for this time of year. But he'd had to get out of the house anyway. With all the electronics going crazy lately, he had to be in a place without them for a while or he'd go mad himself.

Unfortunately, with the day being as nice as it was, he couldn't exactly get a perfect quiet. He could hear the noise of children playing some game not too far away. But it wasn't terribly disruptive to his thoughts, so he ignored it.

He just sat on a bench, not looking at anything in particular. His brain just wouldn't leave him alone today, it seemed. People were arriving again. Matsumoto's birthday was coming up. Why should he even bother thinking about that, anyway? Both times she'd been here, it hadn't been long, and she'd been sent back around this time of year.

And then there'd been Hinamori . . .

Hitsugaya might have reflected on that longer, but a soccer ball to the head tended to disrupt one's thought processes. He caught the ball when it bounced off, and scowled. Damn stupid kids. It hadn't hurt, but this kind of thing was highly irritating.

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The little girl who came sheepishly up to the brooding Shinigami after being ordered to ask for the ball back was rather a shy one; her hair was mousy brown and tied in two tiny tufty excuses for pigtails (she was growing her hair out), and her eyes were big and doe-like as she made a shy approach. However, upon seeing the scowl on the white haired boy's face, she immediately lost her resolve and went tearing back towards the small group of kids in a panicked flutter.

This of course duly led to a tantrum, and a squabbling match, which was eventually silenced by the designated responsible adult with a loud "Oi! Knock it off or you're not gonna get to play when I get the ball back."

Ichigo, being their karate teacher and a Cool Grown Up, was not one to be argued with. He sighed, chastised them all with a quick 'this is why you need to look where you're kicking before you kick, you better hope you didn't hurt the guy', and hurried over towards the bench.

"Yo, sorry about- Toushirou?" he blinked and then huffed in annoyance. "Hah, don't tell me the little punks beaned you with their soccer ball. You okay? Sorry about them."

Well, that didn't stab at him or anything. Nope, not at all. A shy little girl that looked so much like Hinamori when she'd been younger running away from him. What was there to get to him?

Nevermind he almost looked apologetic after he watched her run off in a panic. Tch. Great.

He was about to at least kick the ball back toward the group -- because what was going up and apologizing? -- when he heard a familiar voice rise up and smother the squabbling.

He just sighed when Kurosaki came up to him and lightly tossed the ball for him to catch. "It didn't hurt."

"I figured as much."

He caught the ball with one hand, bounced it easily and caught it again.

"Still, they shouldn't of been kicking towards the benches anyway, next time they might bean someone who's not gonna be so resilient against soccer balls. C'mon, I'll get them to apologise to you properly and you can glower at them in person. Think of it as your contribution on their road to becoming responsible people."

Ichigo shot him an easy grin before he tucked the ball under his arm, and then took in the situation. Toushirou, sitting alone on a park bench, and not spewing insults after getting knocked in the head with a spherical object.

Something was a miss.

"Oi, you okay?"

The real red flag was that he hadn't even thought to correct the term of address. It didn't matter that the correction was futile and he knew it; that was just how things were supposed to go. That was how things went with people in general.

"Unnecessary." He couldn't glare at that little girl again. Too much like Hinamori, save for the fact that Hinamori had never run from even his darkest scowls. "And I'm fine."

Honestly, did Kurosaki expect a different answer? He didn't talk about things. It just wasn't in his nature.

"Y'sure about that?"

Ichigo took to the bench beside him. He could see the kids he was in charge of looking perplexed but hey, they could deal with it for a while. Toushirou seemed to be moping.

"You wanna not talk about it and kick a ball around to get your mind off whatever it is you're not thinking about? We could use an extra player. It's kinda fun, and who knows, you might be able to smack the ball in Jack's head- he's the kid who got you earlier by the way."

He was not moping, thank you. Captains did not mope. He was . . . being reflective. Because he said so.

"I'm aware of the game."

It was played in Soul Society, even among some of the shinigami. He never partook of it these days, as he was no longer a child and had far more important duties to attend. This had been more of a thing from his younger days . . . not that he ever had many other kids to play against, considering popular sentiment in the district.

Jack, hm? If he knew who that was, he could smack the kid in the head with the ball from here. There was no maybe about it.

But it wasn't that easy to get him to go play a game at all, much less with a pack of children. "You should get back to them."

The rules of soccer are very simple, basically it is this:

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