Bleach Fan Fiction ❯ Bleach Ficlets: Dare To Live ❯ 38 Dirty Laundry ( Chapter 38 )

Authors Note: I don't own Bleach and make no claims on it. If I did, there'd be a whole hell of a lot of kinky shit going down.

 

38Dirty Laundry

 

Karin said I spoiled the men in our house. I thought I was just saving myself time, effort and embarrassment so they never appeared in public in less than clean clothes. If I was to wait for Dad and Ichigo to bring their laundry to me, they'd be walking around in mismatched socks and pants that could probably stand up on their own before the thought that laundry needed to be done even crossed their minds. Karin said I should just worry about our own stuff and let the two idiots go naked when they finally ran out of semi-clean things that they could get away with wearing.

 

I placed the clean laundry on Dad's dresser before I started to put it away. I'd learned that if I just left it on his dresser, it'd stay there or get knocked to the floor and trampled on. At least Ichigo put away his clean clothes when I brought them to him. I frowned when I thought that recently, he'd started to pick up his clean clothes from the laundry room before I had a chance to drop them off in his room. He'd also been bringing his things to the laundry room without my having to ask him or go hunting for them in his room on my own. I was glad that Ichigo was making an effort to help out more, but it seemed a little weird given the way he'd been acting lately. Then again, I wasn't about to look that gift horse in the mouth. Help was help.

 

A quick look around Dad's room for stray items that needed to be in the wash paid off and I sighed softly when I spotted a sock half hidden under the edge of the blanket hanging off the unmade bed. If there was one sock lurking under the bed, it was nearly a guarantee that there was going to be more things under there that needed washing. I got down on hands and knees, flipped the blanket up onto the bed, and hoped there wasn't going to be an entire load of socks scrunched into stiff little balls under the bed. It wouldn't be the first time I'd found something like that and probably not the last.

 

I breathed a small sigh of relief when I only counted five balled up socks, a crumpled shirt and a single shoe with dried mud on it. I was about to take the newly discovered laundry and leave when something else under the bed caught my eye. A small silver tin with scroll work on the edges seemed caught between the wall and headboard. A bit of tugging got it free and I turned it over.

 

A grinning death's head stared at me and I almost dropped the tin in surprise. I'd seen that symbol before in a couple of really different places. Rukia had one on a glove she'd once put into the laundry by mistake. That very nice shopkeeper with the pretty black kitty had one on the end of his cane. Ichigo had one on some kind of metal badge that I'd found by accident one day when I was putting away his laundry. Now this one on a tin in Dad's room. If I'd found it on something of Karin's, I could have assumed that it was maybe some kind of new fad, but finding this in Dad's room shot that idea down.

 

Something very strange was going on in my house and with the people in my life.

 

I opened the tin and frowned when I saw tobacco inside. Dad didn't smoke except for that one time a year when we visited Mom's grave. Even when he did smoke, he smoked cigarettes not the loose stuff that was in the tin. It couldn't be his, so who did it belong to and how had it ended up in Dad's room wedged between the wall and the headboard? I heard a door close and lifted my head up to peer over the edge of the bed.

 

My Dad walked into the room wearing a bathrobe and humming softly. His back was to me and I started to stand to let him know he wasn't alone in the room when he undid the sash and let the robe fall to the floor. I blinked rapidly; my eyes taking in information faster than my brain could process it as I was treated to the naked view of my dad's backside. I must have made some small sound because he whirled around quicker than I'd ever seen him move and he had that funny look in his eyes again. The one where he looked like a completely different person, and not like my silly, funny Dad at all.

 

His turning around so quickly also showed me several things I'd rather not ever see or notice about my Dad. The image seemed to burn itself into my brain. I couldn't help it. A muffled little scream slipped past the hand I slapped over my mouth. My face felt so hot from my blush that I was surprised I didn't burn the hand I had over my mouth. Dad yelled in surprise when I did. He scooped up his robe after a few stunned seconds of just staring at me and held it to his front, but it was too late. I'd seen things I should have never seen. His face was just as red as mine.

 

I stammered out an apology, placed the tin on the bed and almost ran from the room. I heard Dad swearing in a low voice as I banged the door shut behind me and raced for my room. Karin looked up from her book when I barrelled into the room and slammed the door shut. I probably looked shell-shocked as I just stood there with my back pressed to the door, my eyes wide and a fiery blush on my cheeks.

 

“Yuzu? What's wrong?” Karin asked concern written all over her face.

 

I shook my head, the sight of my Dad in all his naked glory seared into my eyes. I really hadn't needed to see that. Ever. I closed my eyes hoping that would make the image go away, but it just brought certain details into sharper focus and I gasped in surprise, my eyes popping open.

 

“Dad has a nipple ring.”

 

Karin's eyes got impossible wide. Her mouth opened and closed several times as she tried to make sense of what I'd just said. The nipple ring wasn't the only thing I'd seen but not noticed at the time and I felt my face burn even hotter.

 

“I think Dad has a girlfriend. He had hickies all over his chest and on his…” I swallowed hard, “on his thighs.”

 

“How the hell would you know that, Yuzu?” Karin finally managed to get out.

 

“Dad came into his room while I was searching for dirty socks under his bed and didn't know I was there. He dropped his robe and I saw him naked. All the way naked. From the front. I saw our Dad's….” I couldn't finish the sentence but Karin thankfully understood.

 

“Ewww. Okay, that's so much ewww. Dad has a nipple ring? And a girlfriend? Are you sure? I mean, could those marks have been something else? Maybe that wasn't a nipple ring you thought you saw. Are you sure you remember what you saw?”

 

“I'd rather not try and remember what I saw, Karin. Those were hickies and he definitely had a nipple ring. Why wouldn't Dad tell us about having a girlfriend? Mom's been gone a long time and, well, he is a guy and….”

 

The image of my dad, naked, flashed across my vision again and I trailed off. Even if I was talking to Karin, I was still sort of discussing my Dad's sex life and that was just weird and uncomfortable. I didn't even want to think about him getting the nipple ring or why he'd done it.

 

“Dad and Ichigo are hiding stuff from us; probably thinking they're protecting us or something. I know it. I was going to try and find out by myself but if you're getting suspicious, too, then maybe we should team up and see if we can figure out what the hell is going on together. What do you say, Yuzu?”

 

The light of battle was in Karin's eyes now and I had to grin. Ichigo and Dad weren't any match if Karin and I teamed up to find out just what it was they were hiding from us. We weren't some little kids anymore than needed to be protected from… whatever they thought they were protecting us from. I was sure we could deal with whatever the big secret was.