𝐬𝐮𝐛𝐥𝐢𝐦𝐞

⇝ The cousins around your age and even your older aunties and cousins all notice how attractive he is, giving him various once overs when you aren’t paying attention.

⇝ Though not long after arriving, you are whisked off to the kitchen, since your mother loves to have you help out. Left alone, Ichigo keeps to himself somewhat, avoiding all of the flirty conversation starters your cousins and aunties are giving him until the children get ahold of him.

⇝ He finds himself, like Sado, playing with the kids. He’s pretty good with kids, having younger sisters of his own. And he’s actually kind of glad for it since he knows these kids won’t be trying to break him and his S/O up.

⇝ He’s able to answer their questions, asking about his hair and if he can speak Japanese, or about video games and manga easily and he plays with them outside, giving the adults a reprieve from the children running around.

⇝ When he can get a moment away from the children, he tries to help out in the kitchen, just to be near you, though your mom ushers him out since he’s a guest, though you do take the time to sneak him out some of the food and eat a small plate together in another room, away from prying eyes.

⇝ Since his time is taken up by the children, your family is initially off-put by Ichigo, since it seems as if he’s outright avoiding them by being outside with the children, and you argue the opposite. Of course, nobody wants to start anything serious with you, since you, your mother and father (and any siblings you may have) are known for nipping things in the bud–nothing bad will be said about anyone you’re dating while you’re around.

⇝ At any moment that you have free from the kitchen, you introduce Ichigo to your favorite cousins and together, all of you clue Ichigo in on the family drama and who to avoid, and Ichigo is surprised when you tell him that family drama like this is normal at any family gatherings.

⇝ At the dinner table, Ichigo and you sit side by side and since you’re one of the newly formed couples, the family holds nothing back when asking you guys a lot of different questions. Ichigo easily answers them for you, surprising the family with his quick quips and amusing anecdotes about your relationship or just stories in general.

⇝ Despite how he initially came off, Ichigo does know how to command the attention of the room and everyone is definitely surprised, though they do find that the way he talks about you and how you two banter is endearing.

⇝ After all, is said and done, when the family leaves and you two are helping your parents clean up, Ichigo admits to you that he didn’t think things would go over as well as they did. Not surprising to you, he tells you that he was nervous about the whole thing.

⇝ You’re glad things worked out, but you scold Ichigo for being so charming since one of your not so favorite cousins hardly took her eyes off of him all night, and you don’t need that kind of drama in your life.

⇝ Ichigo just manages to rile you up and make you blush when he (quite seriously) says that you’re the only thing he needs in his life, so forget your cousin. In the end, you’re glad that Thanksgiving went so well, but you’re definitely gonna keep eyes on your cousins to make sure they know this man was yours.

𝐒𝐚𝐝𝐨 ● 𝒇𝒕. 𝑻𝒉𝒂𝒏𝒌𝒔𝒈𝒊𝒗𝒊𝒏𝒈

⇝ Sado is a little more familiar with the concept of thanksgiving than Ichigo is, but he still has never experienced one. Being somewhat of a loner, he’s a bit skeptical about whether or not he’d enjoy this type of event, but for you, he’s willing to go and meet your family.

⇝ More than anything, he’s nervous about meeting your extended family, since you hardly talk about them. Whether it’s because you don’t like them or they don’t often come up, he doesn’t know. Family is a touchy subject for Sado, being that he’s on his own, aside from you.

⇝ You give him small details about your family, but the main thing that comes out of your mouth is “you’ll see when you meet them”. This doesn’t make Sado feel any better about anything that’s going to happen today, but still, he loves you, so this really is the least he can do, in his eyes.

⇝ Upon arrival, Sado sticks to you almost like a heavy heat wave in the summer. Wherever you go, he goes. Of course, this doesn’t bother you, but you can see that his general quiet, almost brooding nature is putting off some of your family members, though none of them can deny that Sado is very attractive, and many of them ask you questions about how you met.

⇝ Of course, despite you wanting to be near him all the time, your duties are also to help out, since Thanksgiving is hosted at your family’s house this time around. Surprisingly, Sado is not that good in the kitchen despite living alone and your mother, not wanting a repeat of a previous dinner, banishes Sado from the kitchen.

⇝ At first, Sado spends his time lurking around right outside of the kitchen, until he gets in the way of your mother, and in her nicest ‘we’re in front of guests’ voice that she can manage, she makes sure he doesn’t set foot anywhere near the kitchen again. The sad look on his face (that only you can seemingly tell apart from his usual stoic look) is enough to make you want to leave the kitchen with him, but you have to settle for a tearful and dramatic goodbye while he finds somewhere else to exist, away from the ire of your mother.

⇝ He spends time in the living room, watching the uncles play cards and talk nonsense, and when he’s invited to join, they’re surprised at how easily he dusts them in card games he’s never actually played before.

⇝ Sado, however, doesn’t stick around them for long. It’s not that soon after he’s gotten a little bit comfortable that the children being asking him all sorts of questions, like why he was so tall, why his hair was like that, or divulging information about their family members (“did u know, um… my momma ain’t got no car we hadda ride with my brother’s dad”) with no real prompts given.

⇝ The children instantly take a liking to him because he’s large and they can exploit him to be tossed around into the piles of raked up leaves outside. Cause kids love to be tossed around.  At first, he’s a little hesitant to do so because he doesn’t want anyone to get hurt, but the kids insist on it and slowly it becomes a game.  You knew that you couldn’t start your younger cousins with something because then they wouldn’t want to stop. Unfortunately, you forgot to mention that to Sado and he ends up tossing them for almost an hour.

⇝ When you find Sado again, he’s just standing outside with children climbing all over him. Although everyone else couldn’t tell, you could see that Sado was exhausted and you ushered your smaller cousins away from him to give him a break.  Upon further inspection, after you two had been left alone for a few minutes, you noticed a set of small teeth marks and you comment that you think one of them bit him, and Sado himself can neither confirm or deny whether that happened.

⇝ At the dinner table, Sado is still somewhat awkward with your family. He doesn’t speak much aside from giving short sentenced answers or one-worded replies.  Although his answers are said with high respect, after a while, the family moves on to other topics of discussion. He feels bad, but you don’t seem to mind. If anything, you’re relieved that they’ve gotten bored of interrogating him.

⇝ You’re not one to accept disrespect from anyone, but various looks from your parents to calm yourself and Sado’s hand on your back are the only things that stop you from saying anything. Snide comments from your aunties as they make their exit does get under your skin, but you ignore the comments about how some guests were rude, and how they wouldn’t let their children date such rude people.  You keep telling yourself that it didn’t matter, since your parents absolutely adored him, but you knew that if another one of your family members said something smart, you would have to respectfully put them in their place.

⇝ When it’s finally time for you and Sado to leave, you apologize to him in the car, citing that your family is a little bit tougher to deal with.  You tell him how thankful you are that he came with you and that him being there made this Thanksgiving one of the most enjoyable.  You jokingly mention how you wanted to start some family drama of your own if they kept messing with your man, but you mention your mother had told you to calm down.  However, you do reiterate that you would’ve come for your auntie’s poorly secured wig, or her dumbass children if she continued talking crap.

⇝ Sado is amused by your words and is just glad that you seemed to have a good time. He himself apologizes for not speaking up, but you don’t mind, since you don’t want your family to know how particularly amazing Sado is.  Call you selfish, but you like keeping all those small, precious moments to yourself.

⇝ Sado tells you that next time around, he’ll speak up more if it really bothers them.  Making a joke, but still deathly serious, you explain to him not to worry because if it bothered them next time, you would nip it in the bud real quick.  You know a lot about family secrets and know the best time to use that information. Sado is amused but also afraid of what that might entail.

𝐁𝐲𝐚𝐤𝐮𝐲𝐚 ● 𝒇𝒕. 𝑻𝒉𝒂𝒏𝒌𝒔𝒈𝒊𝒗𝒊𝒏𝒈

⇝ Byakuya has to have the concept of thanksgiving explained to him. He doesn’t know what it is, why you do it or anything about it. At first, he is opposed to it, but for some reason, he has the hardest time saying no to you (although he would never admit this), and with some pleading on your part, he agrees to attend.

⇝ Of course, your first obstacle is getting him to not dress up like a feudal-era lord. He insists on wearing high-class clothing, but really, all he needs is a nice sweater and some jeans. It takes a lot of convincing, but in the end, Byakuya manages to look like a business casual CEO, and of course, you can’t be shown up. You both appear, much to your family’s surprise, as a nicely dressed couple.

⇝ Polite and distant to a fault, your family is rather put off (some are impressed) at Byakuya. No matter where he is, or where he goes, he always gives off the feel of someone high class.

He doesn’t not like children, but he’s a little awkward around them. It’s like all rational part of his brain shuts down and he’s unsure what to do when he’s around them. Does he pat them on the head? Why do they keep staring at him? Why do they keep poking him? And they’re so messy. The children, however, want his attention, so even as he awkwardly moves around them, they start to follow him around asking him random questions.

⇝ The other adults are amused by the children bothering Byakuya, especially since the man doesn’t seem to have anything like a smart device on him, and yet the children still follow him.  The family finds this a little odd, however, since Byakuya is dressed in such a business casual that they all assume that he would at least have two phones on him at all times.  Although, the question of “Do you have any games on your phone?” still comes up and this leaves Byakuya confused because what’s a phone and why would there be games on it?

⇝ Eventually, your family members are curious (or noisy) about what he does for a living, and his responses are extremely vague. His answers of ‘law enforcement’ give off different impressions. Some assume he’s a lawyer while others think he’s some sort of undercover cop, either way, they continue to press him for details that he can’t give out.

⇝ When Byakuya finds you again, he has news and rumors that you’ve never even heard before that he learned from the children. You make it a point to make sure he stays away from the children so that nothing old comes up and starts any drama at the gathering.  Children like to talk and fill new people in on the life they’ve missed, and apparently, Byakuya easily gets this information out of them without wanting to or even trying.

⇝ Not much for small talk, Byakuya would hold a slight conversation with the older members of your family. However, being much older than them and not keeping up with human events, it’s hard for him to find common ground.

⇝ Being a noble, Byakuya does know how to entertain with some timeless tricks, such as opening a champagne bottle with a knife or even using Kido to do magic tricks to entertain the children. So, where he lacks in conversation, he makes it up with graceful tricks.

⇝ He’s also very good at playing checkers, chess, and surprisingly dominoes when they bring those out. He shows up your grandfather, who is the best player in your family.  Your grandfather gets highly competitive and starts to try and bet money on the games, but your aunts soon stop him explaining to him that he’s about to lose all his money while Byakuya isn’t even breaking a sweat.

⇝ Wants you to enjoy your holiday, being stress-free, so tries his best to fit in and enjoy the close knittness of your family. Though the concept is so unfamiliar to him since he only has Rukia and they are not as close as you may be to your cousins or siblings.

⇝ During the dinner, your family sees how he looks at you and treats you and realizes that he’s not all bad. Just a little awkward & bougie. The children have already started calling him ‘uncle’ or ‘cousin’ and the cousins your age have started referring to him as ‘cousin bougie’.

⇝ After the dinner, your grandmother, who was particularly taken with Byakuya states to both of you directly that she thinks you’re a very good couple and would like to see Byakuya at the next family event. Of course, Byakuya agrees, because he saw this woman smack someone with a wooden spoon one minute and then give a child some extra dessert in the next second.

⇝ When you’re alone, you poke and prod at Byakuya to give you details on how he felt about the family event. Of course, he doesn’t at first give you many words to go off of, but you manage to get out of him that it wasn’t terrible.