tampered | → Log; Ongoing

When; January 21st, evening.
Rating; G/PG
Characters; Kuchiki Rukia [

juicebox_woes] & Kuchiki Hisana [

be_coming]
Summary; Wherein there is a Kuchiki!reunion.
Log;

If there was a rulebook on the proper etiquette to greeting a twice-deserted sister (the second time being an unintentional death), Hisana would have gladly sacrificed another life for it.

This particular reunion had never been far from her mind. She remembered spending hours of several days mulling over every nuance of action. Perhaps she would smile – just as she had been taught years ago – something soft, polite, demure. A cant of her head would follow, then a sigh, and all the while, her sister's name would be on her lips. They would laugh together, rejoice, brew tea, and do whatever it was that sisters did. It was, essentially, the ideal situation, and it was far more appropriate than taking Rukia by the shoulders and clinging onto her as though either one of them would fall through the ground. Or so, she imagined, the supposed rulebook on proper etiquette would say.

To her knowledge, such a book had never been written, and the chance that she would come into possession of one in the ten seconds before she knocked on the door was slim enough. ...which left her standing still and silent before a shut door.

Building five, apartment fifteen.

Never before had a set of numbers sounded so emotionally daunting. There was one exception, of course; but that number belonged to a room, and that room to a man, and that man just happened to be the husband she had not seen in little over fifty years.

But one person at a time.

Idly smoothing the front of her kimono, she took a moment to steel her nerves, then raised her other hand, finally, and knocked.

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Rukia glanced up at the soft knocking from the door. Face paling slightly, she gulped and rose to her feet, softly moving across the still-damp carpet towards the slab of wood and metal that stood between her and the person on the other side.

Kuchiki Hisana. Her only sister.

Who she wasn't sure what to say to. She swallowed again, standing in front of the door and tucking a strand of black hair behind one ear. She'd snuck back into the apartment, ironic as it was to be sneaking into one's OWN apartment. But, Ichigo was trying to help Nell, and Nell never liked it when the dark-haired shinigami was around. And even though normally she might have stuck out her tongue and glared and stubbornly refused to move out of HER home, she had relented in light of the events surrounding Hinamori-fukutaichou's death. But that meant that the petite girl might have to find another venue for this impromptu reunion with her sister. Byakuya's, next door? No...somehow she didn't feel as though that would necessarily be the best place. And...she wanted to see her sister alone, at least for now.

With a deep breath, she reached out and turned the knob, pulling the door open.

If it was another face, another stature beside her own that she had expected to see, she was wrong.

The moment the door slid open, Hisana found herself startled into an almost awkward sort of silence. Standing face-to-face as they were, many would have been hard-pressed to argue against their relation. From the similar trim of black tresses to the almond-shaped eyes – however different the shade – their resemblance was undeniable. It was striking. She was striking.

All those years of searching – fruitlessly and endlessly and finally, now, here. It had culminated to one moment.

Despite herself, she took a hesitant step forward, made as though to reach for the younger female, but stopped.

"Rukia."

She stared, violet eyes locked onto eyes that though different in hue and colour, mirrored the set and shape of her own. Hair cut nearly identical to her own, only a tad longer, slightly taller, angles of face mildly different.

But...it was almost as if she were looking into a mirror. Not the same sort of mirror that hung on the back of her closet door inside the apartment. No, this mirror was of a different sort, showing her what she herself would look like, could look like, years down the road. She swallowed, frozen in place by the sheer breadth of the moment itself.

Her sister. The sister she had never met, never seen. Standing here. Not 2 feet from her. Real, tangible. Something she could see, could touch, could speak to. Not a memory conjured from stories and mentionings gently coaxed out of a mind that still felt pain at those same stories and memories.

But something real. Fixing Byakuya's words in her mind, she took a deep breath as though to steel her nerves, and stepped forward, wrapping arms around the other woman's waist in a hesitant hug.

"Onee....san."

There truly was something to be said about meeting one's own sister after sixty – bordering seventy – years' worth of absence. However terrible it made it her feel to recall the time period, and however much guilt blanketed her shoulders in a stifling grip –

– it was something she cleanly forgot the moment warm arms wrapped around her waist. Words escaped her; they always did. Articulation and grace and every other ingrained lesson it took to be recognized as a Kuchiki was what she consciously ignored when she returned the embrace in full.

In the haze of emotion that swept through her thoughts, she felt the thrum of excitement and joy and sense of family as strongly - more strongly - than any other. Rukia, this is Rukia, finally, Rukia, my little sister, her mind supplied.

Outwardly, she glanced down, sliding her cheek to rest gently against Rukia's hair.

"I have waited so long."

Thin arms tightened around her torso shakily at first, then with a firmer grip. She buried her face in the fabric of the kimono in front of her, shoulders trembling slightly from the sheer surge of emotion that threatened to overpower her.

This is...my sister. My sister..

All she could do in response to Hisana's words was to simply nod. She didn't know what else to do.

How long the embrace lasted was hard to tell, least of all to Hisana. She'd spent so long a time harboring the secret want of being able to see and touch her sister again, that when she finally, reluctantly, pulled back, it took a far greater willpower not to blink and rub her eyes out of disbelief.

"I'm glad - so glad Byakuya-sama found you," she murmured softly, then shook her head, and amended, "Found us."

Hisana wasn't the only one who had to remind herself that it was real. When the embrace ended, Rukia couldn't help but want to pull her sister back into the closeness. It was...nice, comforting. It felt..right. The same way that being held by Ichigo the other night had felt right and fitting. Looking up into her sister's face, she nodded, faint smile curving her lips.

"I'm glad too, Onee-san."

Looking up at the other woman, she studied the features that were eerily familiar.

"Nii-sama was right. I really....do look like you.."

It was the first thought that came to mind at Rukia's words, and half-heartedly, Hisana smiled a cross between wistful and apologetic. "Do you mind that you do?" She made a vague gesture towards herself, then wove her fingers together. "It must be unsettling to look so similar to another person," she added, though she herself hardly felt that sentiment at all.

It was warming, in the unusual sort of toe curling feeling. More than sharing the same features, it was a sign of their relation, and even something as minor as that could have been so easily lost. If someone were to ask her to explain why she felt so strongly about it, she wouldn't be able to – simply enough, it made her feel closer to the sister she knew had been shaped and changed by time.

She shook her head, black tresses shifting around her face with the motion.

"No! I....actually...I'm glad that I do..."

And it was true. Indeed some might have found it disconcerting to resemble so closely the visage of another, but at the moment, the pervading thought in Rukia's mind was that very similarity. A likeness, a joining. A connection...

Perhaps some wouldn't have understood the weight of such a simple thing, but to someone who had never known true family, the sight of someone who, at a merest glance was identifiable as such...As like mimics like, a sameness that, more then anything, drew her to Hisana, tied them together. They were family, in a way that she and Renji, or even she and Byakuya would never be. Cut from the same cloth, two different pieces in different shapes, nonetheless created from the same mold.

"It's...I don't know how to explain it. I...because I look like you....it makes it that much more...it's like..."

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