Various requests for IshixIchi and also my own urge to write some. Also to one of the reviewers...erm...KimiKodoku: you made me laugh and now I shall steal your word Quinceh. Yes. Thank you. (steals) >.>
Argh, this thing is too bloody humorous. Especially the flashback. Think chibified, people.
Bear in mind here, Ishida is terribly OOC. Not that I mind, I think he's quite funny like this XD
---
-------Three Kisses and a Sprinkle of Stars: START--
---
It's 9 p.m. A little windy, maybe 30°C. Stars are out. The house lights are on, street lamps glaring at the ground. Ichigo kicks up dust as he walks and watches it spiral into darkness in front of him. He looks up. The next street lamp's broken, about four or five houses cast in shadow. He remembers he's not supposed to run anymore, like when he was a kid.
The riverbank's right after the street lamp. He decides to run anyway.
On the other side, he makes his way over to his usual spot, his usual view – looking right across into the quiet highway. Only there's someone already there, sitting down, half-turned around, matching his surprised expression.
"Aren't you staying over, Kurosaki?"
Ichigo stares at him, (ignores the question). "What're you doing here?"
Ishida smiles slightly. He turns back around to face the river. "Do I not have a right to be here?"
"In this spot? No."
A shrug. "Find somewhere else."
Ichigo pauses for a few moments, then finds a spot a few metres away and sits down.
"Alright, let me guess," Ishida says, breaking the silence. He looks towards Ichigo, glasses catching the light. "She wasn't ready, was she."
Silence. "No, that wasn't it."
Ishida stretches himself out on the bank, hands behind his head. Looks up at the stars. "Come on. You seduced her, right? She totally fell for you, right? So what happened?"
Ichigo says nothing. He straightens his shirt collar, only just realising his tie is missing. An unwelcome reminder
(gentle, insistent tugging at his neck, evidence of her impatience)
and he tries to distract his mind. His buttons are mismatched too, a marked contrast to Ishida's habitual neatness. He starts to set them right.
"Kurosaki." Ishida again, in exasperation. "Don't tell me you're going for a swim in this river."
The retort is on the tip of his tongue. Then Ichigo decides it might not be a bad idea after all. He's halfway through undoing the rest of his buttons when Ishida stops him again.
"Kurosaki."
"What?"
"Did you do it?"
More silence. Dammit, you really don't get this at all. "I stopped it." Then, "Moreover, I don't think I kissed her right." His voice is as careless as he can make it – not very, under the circumstances.
Ishida sits up and stares at him. If he had been anyone else, he would have shrieked, but he sounds instead only slightly indignant. "You've got to be kidding me. Am I a bad teacher or are you just an idiot? Why, what did she say?"
"She didn't say anything." I think the glazed eyes were enough.
"Honestly." Ishida lets his breath out in a huff. He turns to face Ichigo. "Well, since you aren't willing to tell me about it, then show me."
---
"Kissing's not that hard."
"Uh-huh." Ichigo's voice is sarcastic. "And what would the top nerd – not to mention Quincy - of Class 3 know about it?"
Ichigo doesn't know what could have ever brought up this conversation. Here they are, walking in broad daylight, two males discussing kissing, on a thankfully bare street.
Well, to be fair, the whole discussion had really started off with Rukia.
"Girls. Elementary school. You know." Ishida paused, then looked pained. "And I'm the only Quincy in Class 3, you idiot. Possibly in the whole world."
Ichigo stares in disbelief, shoes scuffing the pavement as he makes an awkward stop. Sensing the change, Ishida stops also and turns around, eyebrows raised.
"What kind of elementary school did you go to?" Ichigo finally says. "No, wait. You did these kind of things in elementary school?!"
Ishida doesn't say anything for a moment or two. "Well," he says, lips curving slightly, "I was apparently quite cute as a child."
Ichigo narrows his eyes. "I see." (hardly a justifiable excuse.)
"Anyway," Ishida continues, when they've resumed walking again, "if you're really so worried about it, then you should just get someone to show you."
It takes a full minute for the remark to kick in. For the second time, Ichigo stops walking abruptly. "Waitwaitwait," he says, shocked, "You? Me? But you're – I mean we're – both –"
"Oh, I've kissed plenty of guys," Ishida says cheerfully.
Ichigo winces. (I swear I've never seen a scarier smile.) "That's not the point!" he howls. He points an accusing finger at Ishida. "You – you – how do I know you're not going to rape me while you're at it?!"
It's Ishida's turn to stare. "What kind of elementary school did you go to?"
(A normal one?) Ichigo says nothing.
Ishida sighs, putting a hand to his head. "Honestly. Just because I have no objection to males does not indicate any repressed desires for you in particular." He gives Ichigo his most cheerfully scary smile of all. "But this is all in your best interests of course"
Ichigo looks at him suspiciously, trying to gage what he's really thinking. "You're really serious."
"Only if you are."
"This is solely as a guide."
"Yes."
"Here in this street."
"Yes."
"Okay," Ichigo says, pointing upward, "Then what about them?"
Ishida looks up. On the second floor of one of the houses, a nosy middle-aged couple are looking out the window. The minute he sees them, they start to roll down the blind.
"Oh?" Ishida says. "I didn't notice them before."
Ichigo puts a mocking hand to his forehead. "You're not at that level of understanding and yet, you're a Quincy?"
He's rewarded with a cutting glance. However, Ishida's expression is amused as he turns to the two peeking through the blinds. "Please don't mind us!" he shouts upwards. "We're about to do something interesting!"
"You – what are you doing?!" Ichigo says, alarmed.
"I'm Ishida, and this is Kurosaki!" he continues, smiling, pointing at each of them in turn.
"You maniac, did you have to give them our names?!"
"Well, I think they're definitely going to be watching now," Ishida says, and laughs, pocketing his glasses. "Is there anyone else around?"
"No, thank God."
"Okay."
Without warning, Ichigo feels himself being pulled closer. Ishida's eyes are bluer than he's ever seen them, free of their usual framing.
"It's too late to back out, isn't it?"
"It is now." Ishida half-suppresses a smile. "First things first, something simple."
Ichigo tenses. There's something predatory in the way Ishida's gaze fixes on his mouth.
(I can't believe I consented to this in the first place.)
For a moment they're both still. Then, a slight hesitation, and Ishida leans forward to press his lips against Ichigo's.
It's a short kiss, only a second or two, and then Ishida breaks away. He blinks, then smiles. "See, that wasn't so hard."
Ichigo tries to think of something to say, but his mind is completely blank. Something else hits him. "Ishida!" he howls. "You stole my first kiss!"
"Eh?" Ishida says, in almost comical surprise.
"You – you – you of all people!"
"Oh well, I don't think it matters. After all," the Quincy adds, smiling cheerfully again, "my first kiss was with a guy too! Of course, I think he was about to rape me at the time –"
"Argh, I'm not listening!" Ichigo says in exasperation. "I really didn't need to hear that, you know?"
"Okay, sorry, sorry." However, Ishida's smile remains undiminished.
Ichigo folds his arms. "Done yet?"
"No, not yet." Ishida glances upward, perhaps looking for any shocked faces at the window. "We're up to step two."
---
Show me.
Ichigo doesn't move for a moment. His gaze flickers away from Ishida and back again. There's something in the way he said it that irritates Ichigo to no end.
Arrogant, clueless bastard.
Well, if Ishida thought it was nothing more than a demonstration – then Ichigo would make it nothing more than a demonstration. Which is going to be easier said than done.
Ichigo approaches as slowly as he can, kneeling and drawing level with Ishida. "You should take those off," he says quietly, indicating Ishida's glasses.
Ishida blinks and complies. His expression is all too innocent, and Ichigo hates it. He rests his hands on Ishida's shoulders and hesitates.
"Just make it exactly the same," Ishida says, shrugging.
Exactly the same. If only I could. Because Ishida is not Rukia, and Ichigo doesn't know what will happen this time. It feels like his nerves are screaming from tension. He acts on impulse, decides to get it done and over with.
The differences hit him all at once. Rukia is shorter, cuter, and undeniably female. Even now, as Ishida's mouth tentatively opens under his, it tempts him in a different way. Ichigo tries to remember what it was like kissing Rukia, tries to fight the urge not to tighten his fingers in Ishida's shoulders, to bring his hands down in a caress at the base of his neck. So easy to kill him, end it here and now. Ichigo tears away.
He remembers that he was going for a swim before, and it sounds like a good idea to do it now, to cool the flush on his cheeks caused only partly by the warm air. Ishida says something inane, but he doesn't hear it. His shirt, socks and shoes are left on the bank while he takes to the water.
The river, though admittedly brown, is still cold. Ichigo brings his head up out of the water and shakes his hair out of his eyes. It takes him a moment to notice that Ishida is still watching him, amused.
"You know you won't be able to wear your school pants tomorrow."
Ichigo shrugs. "Then I won't go to school." He shoots Ishida a half-glance. "Do you have to watch me?"
"Well, there's really nothing else to watch," Ishida says, gesturing with spread arms.
"The stars," suggests Ichigo.
"The clouds are out."
"The highway."
"You're blocking my view of it."
Ichigo smiles reluctantly, despite himself. "Well, I'm not moving."
Ishida settles back in a half-seated position, hands backwards against the grass. "I'll just watch you then."
Round in circles. Ichigo glances again at Ishida and receives only a smirk in return. But as he turns back to the water, he feels he's being closely watched.
"I'm not jealous of you, if that's what you're worried about," Ishida says suddenly, after a short silence. He's frowning slightly. "I mean, Rukia's nice at school, but she can be seriously patronising."
Ichigo keeps silent, trying not to betray his tension, trying not to laugh at the absurdity. Does he really have no tact?
"She's also kind of short," Ishida adds thoughtfully, still eliciting no response except quiet ripples of water. "But Inoue's a really nice girl – weird and scary, but nice. She'd probably be –"
"Shut up," comes Ichigo's voice, much closer than before. Ishida glances up to see him standing on the edge of the riverbank, looming from above, the shadows flickering across his face making him look very much like a demon from Hell.
"Oh no," Ishida says in alarm, "No way, Kurosaki. Don't come near me. You are wet and dirty."
Ichigo pins him down, wrapping his hand in the folds of Ishida's shirt. "I said shut up."
Ishida's hands give way and both of them fall the rest of the way to the ground. Ishida winces, acquires a pained expression. "Kurosaki, please stop straddling me or I'll put an arrow through your eye."
"You don't get it, do you? You don't get it at all."
"Get what –" Ishida's eyes widen. "Shit," he says, putting an arm across his forehead. He starts to laugh. "God, now of all times."
"What?" Ichigo says, suspicion still evident.
"Nothing." Ishida's smile is mocking and bitter. He doesn't look at Ichigo. "I just don't consider it particularly healthy to be trapped under a male who, admittedly, has a very nice body."
The words hit Ichigo like a kick in the chest. He gently prises Ishida's arm away, forcing him to meet his eyes. "It's just that," he says quietly, a question and a statement. "It's just that, and not because it's me."
Ishida looks away. He's silent for so long Ichigo wonders if he should ask again. When he speaks again his voice is controlled and equally quiet. "I tried so hard not to show it," he says. "Because I thought you were with her."
Ichigo tilts Ishida's head towards him, puts his glasses to one side. He wishes the muted pain in the other's eyes would go away. Damn you, Ishida.
"Kurosaki –" Ishida begins, but Ichigo stops him. He doesn't want to think about it. He leans down and kisses Ishida for the second time that night, refusing to think, clearing his mind.
And by the time Ishida gets over his shock enough to respond, he isn't able to think at all.
---
--Three Kisses and a Sprinkle of Stars: END-------
---
-Broken Coda
If there were such a thing as a 'scraps' gallery, I'd put this in.
Along with all my other fics, of course.