Loving Your Shell- part 1

"Oi, Ishida. Sit with us at lunch."

The head turns, ice-blue eyes pierces into hard brown ones.

"Is that a challenge, Kurosaki? Or perhaps a trap?"

The creases between the furrowed brows deepen in irritation.

"Don't read so deeply into everything. It's just an invitation."

"Then I refuse. You needn't degrade yourself by pitying me."

Raven strands graze the pale cheek as he turns away, seemingly unwilling to associate with anything around him. Ichigo didn't stop to decipher his reply before beginning to protest angrily. He dashes forward but is pulled back by his grimacing companions.

Ishida pauses at the turn of the corridor, feeling the other's turbulent reiatsu grow gradually fainter. His lips refuse to pronounce it, but the name spirals in his mind.

Ichigo Kurosaki.

Ichigo Kurosaki.

Ichigo Kurosaki.


Ishida awoke to the familiar silence of his isolation. He slowly raised his head from the desk where he fell asleep, straightening his crooked glasses. The apartment was comfortingly dark except from the neon-white desk lamp. 20 inches of needlework remained unfinished on top of hastily completed homework. The clock read 6:25, but approaching winter, the sky was already a smoky dark grey.

He stood up, stretching his stiff limbs as he approached the window. As he looked out at the scene-less suburban landscape, his heart clenched at the sudden flare of a familiar reiatsu. It seemed that tonight's hollow was an exceptionally powerful one. Ishida slipped his feet into his shoes and left the house via the window. He leapt aimlessly along the rooftops that were damp from the chill of the night. A cat watched him calmly from the top of a fence, its green eyes unblinking.

He retreated into the shadows of the clouds as he watched Ichigo fight down below, his orange hair a maroon-brown beneath the night air. His eyes followed his every movement: the colour of his hair that seemed to flicker from black to red as he moved, the furrowed brows, the methodical, almost dance-like strikes of his weaponed arm. There was something unreal about watching him as a spirit, in battle from such a distance. Ishida's eyes widened slightly in realisation. He remembered to check his reiatsu, and gave the battle-engrossed teenager a final glance before slipping away into the darkness, moving in sync with the gusts of wind.

It was seconds before he was crouching, bird-like, at the open window of Ichigo's room on the second storey. Underneath the sky blue covers lay the empty shell of the teenager's body, perhaps too carefully positioned into the appearance of a peaceful slumber. The way the arms with its slight curled fingers were laid on top of the blanket that covered him from the lower chest downwards, and the completely relaxed face, held more resemblance to the dead body that Ichigo was attempting to conceal.

Ishida removed his shoes and carefully closed the window behind him, before seating himself cautiously at the foot of his bed.

It took a few minutes before he found the need to suppress the urge to laugh, because he only then realised how ridiculous he was being. He looked up from his feet to the motionless body, and reached out to brush the teenager's long fingers. He was surprised to find the hand lukewarm in its comfortable weight inside his own cold one. Tightening his hold, he climbed timidly over the body and looked down at the still face. He always imagined that Ichigo frowned even in his sleep. He leaned down, gasping as his hair touched the other's cheek- then he remembered that Ichigo was not inside. He tried to stop his shaking body as he tilted his head to the right and parted his shaking lips over chapped, unsmiling ones. He brushed then with his own lightly before darting backwards, his heart pounding.

Disgusting.

He chuckled softly. The hands he still held on to desperately only accentuated his self-repulsion. Yet he couldn't stop holding that warm hand against his cheek, down his neck, collarbone, chest, abdomen. A fire was compressing his heart and churning in his stomach, growing uncontrollably while he pressed those fingers against his tongue and across his nipples through his thin shirt. He could not- would not- stop himself. The pleasure built up in darkening layers behind his eyes and out from his mouth. It was disgusting, but he craved it.

He hated himself.


He let himself drown in the illusional ecstasy of Ichigo's empty body that he leaves behind almost every night. He imagined, at first, that seeing him and pretending that he was tactile in his "fantasies" would be enough. Then gradually, it became the sound of his voice that he reproduced in his dreams, calling out his own name, his accidental touches that remained as the fiery caresses on his untameable body. The motionless Ichigo lying beneath him did not for one moment relief him from the reality that he was trying to mindlessly stumble through. He was somehow at the mercy of the soulless shell that imaginarily responded to his desperate confessions and soiled touches. Now that it was there every night to assure him that he was alive and sane, even a little, he depended on its presence to momentarily fill up the blackness that was endlessly caving in on him.

Some days, he would simply sit by Ichigo's side, watch his "sleeping" form and talk to him softly.

"You tried to force me to sit with you at lunch today, again," he tried. His voice sounded hollow in the cold darkness. He imagined Ichigo's frown on the peaceful face.

"Don't look at me like that," he said, chuckling quietly, "what do you want me to do? Stop trying to force me into it. Don't' feel sorry for me."

Let that four-eyed loner be, Ichigo! He could tell Keigo was only half joking at that time, but the orange-haired teenager's concerned expression had hurt him more.

I don't understand you, Ishida. Why are you doing this?

Stop playing the hero, Kurosaki. Does it damage your ego to turn you down?

Don't be an ass, Ishida! Don't turn away from me- hey!

He wondered how far he could be able to push him before Ichigo finally gave up. He gained a sickening satisfaction from Ichigo's tireless patience, as if he had a special place in the teenager's ideal to protect everyone around him. Only when he was being obstinate, Ichigo would notice him. Even if it was only in the form of his anger at being ignored, Ishida craved his attention. It was demeaning. It was repulsive.

"Why are you doing this to me?" he choked out through the hot wetness that threatened to stream out from his eyes. The reply was made in the undetectable breathing and soundless heartbeat.


Kon coughed as he sat up, slowly adjusting to Ichigo's body.

"Don't go anywhere this time, alright?" the shinigami warned, preparing to exit through the window. "That hollow almost got you last time. Hide your reiatsu, idiot."

"That's not fair! The only time I get your body I have to pretend to be dead?" he protested.

"Either that or playing doll-house with Yuzu. Your choice," Ichigo grinned, leaping into the night as Kon groaned and fell back onto the bed. He thought of rummaging through his junk or stealing his laptop to look for porn, but that might distract him from putting a check on his reiatsu.

Better not risk it.

As he was settling for an outdated shounen jump that lay nearby his head, he caught a faint flare of a vaguely familiar reiatsu. He replaced the magazine and hastily slipped under the covers as the reiatsu was lost again, replaced by a fleeting white shadow in the near distance.

Kon tried to breathe as little as possible, so to disguise the rise and fall of his chest. His eyelids twitched slightly at the soft thunk of the window being opened. He didn't dare to peek. As he felt a light weight at the foot of the bed, he attempted to calm his nerves. There was a rustle of cloth before the weight settled. Kon tried to pick up the hint of the reiatsu, but he couldn't grasp to whom it belonged.

A strung out but enigmatic voice began to speak.

"Did you finally give up, Kurosaki? How disappointing. Does that mean you're admitting defeat to me?"

Kon wanted to frown, but he didn't know if the intruder was watching.

"I'm glad, actually," he continued, "be anymore crueller to me and then I can finally wake from this and give up. Perhaps I'll leave after this. Or perhaps I'll just die."

His muscles tensed as the young man seemed to shift and move closer to him. Feather-soft hair whispered on his cheeks and he smelt the gentle scent of soap coming from a faint warmth above him

"I wish I could just hate you, Kurosaki."

Kon almost let go of the hold on his reiatsu entirely when a pair of shockingly soft lips pressed against his own. Yet, the other man seemed to realise immediately, darting back with a gasp.

"Wait!" Kon called out, pulling away the covers and grabbing onto the pale arm. A pair of shocked, startlingly sapphire eyes met his own, the imprisoned limb trembling in his tight grasp.

"Uryuu?" Kon said slowly, loosening his hold, "Ishida Uryuu?"

Those soft lips parted, but only a shuddering breath came out.

Kon was at a loss. Wasn't he that Quincy? That guy who hated all shinigami and Ichigo especially? His mouth was still tingling, and he realised then that his heartbeat and breathing had become irrational.

"I'm sorry. I didn't realise," Ishida said in a shaking voice, "Please, let me go now."

Kon opened his mouth but he didn't know how to reply. He kept his hand enclosed around the bony wrist. The once controlled and hidden reiatsu was now fluttering up and down like soundwaves, as if the teenager was struggling to conceal it.

"Can I help you?" he asked lamely, then cursing himself for it. He watched Ishida's expression that was torn between fear, anger and despair. It was almost laughable if only they were in an alternative situation.

"You might as well sit down," Kon added with more confidence, "cos I'm not letting go of you in case you run off somewhere."

To his surprise, he complied silently, sitting cross-legged in front of him with his eyes downcast and darkening

"I guess you don't really hate that guy, do you?" he guessed, scratching his head with his free hand, "you love him or something?"

He felt Ishida flinch at his last comment. He softened his tone.

"Hey, I won't tell him. Why don'cha let me help you? Uryuu?"

The jewel-like eyes shifted upwards to look untrustingly into his own before lowering to his lap almost immediately afterwards.

"Nobody can," the low voice said quietly after a long hesitation.

"That's cos you need to let someone help you first, Uryuu."

He knew that he had struck something when the captured arm tensed momentarily. Kon set his jaw, searching the sullen face.

"Try me," he said.


Kon never knew what it felt like to be needed by somebody. Perhaps it was his desire to stop being the one who always relied on others, that he was so determined to pursue the Quincy. At least, it was what encouraged him to do it, because Ishida was exasperatingly determined as well.

The first time that they accidentally met, it took almost five minutes of him asking before Ishida had replied with three words, at most. Soon after he had to leave before Ichigo returned and discovered them.

"I'll be here every time he leaves, so come over and talk," he had said.

Ishida hadn't looked back at him as he recovered his almost-perfect concealment of his reiatsu and disappeared into the dim-lit streetscape. As expected, the teenager didn't come. So he searched him out by himself and snuck into his apartment, almost being nailed to the wall with arrows in the process. He had threatened to kill him if he didn't stop sneaking in, but knew that he wouldn't do it after his fourth, sixth visit.

"You shouldn't come here just to argue with me anymore. It's more dangerous for you than it is for me," Ishida had finally said. The just-detectable blush under the single, harsh light source from the desk lamp, told him that he had given in.

After that, Ishida came every few days- when he pursued again, almost unfailingly. At first they only sat beside each other at the far ends of the bed, Kon doing most of the talking and Ishida sometimes answering, but unwillingly. They talked about Ichigo only occasionally; most of their conversation was irrelevant and just for the sake of filling up the heavy silence. Ishida avoided the topic, and Kon found that he increasingly did the same out of a strange sense of possessiveness. Sometimes Ishida's timid replies made Kon laugh, and sometimes he imagined that underneath the Quincy's displeased expression, he was smiling back.

As the gap between their make-shift seats lessened, the teenager began to relax a little and responded to him more naturally. He found his heart fluttering when their fingers or shoulders brushed, when they happened to look up and turn to each other at the same time. He tried once, twice, to deliberately touch his hand, and had felt the other's reiatsu waver in a not-unpleasant shock that was in sync with his own quickening heartbeat. Then, he had finally asked Ishida if he could kiss him. He had looked back silently, but with eyes that had an almost pleading look in them. When their lips met shyly, Ishida's were as soft as he had remembered, and his skin was a delicate as he had imagined. Each time he kissed him a little longer, exploring his body bit by bit, wanting to forever carve the scent and touch of Ishida into his mind so that he could slowly become his own.

He found that he no longer remembered, or cared to remember, who it was that Ishida really longed for at the beginning. He painfully pretended not to hear Ichigo's name that sometimes slid out, just audibly, from Ishida's lips when he touched him. He convinced himself that if he tried hard enough, Ishida would no longer need him as playing the mere replacement. Yet they both knew that with each avoidance, each kiss, each caress, the two-way lie would only become deeper and deeper imbedded.


Ichigo's eyes snaps open. As he stares up at the oppressive grey ceiling, his feels his heart, now beating unnaturally quickly, angrily knock against his ribs as he flexes his stiff fingers, beads of sweat rolls down his temples as if in slow motion. They feel strangely cold against his skin that is itching with a suppressed, sticky warmth.

He turns to gaze out the window, squinting against the blue-white moonlight that burns into the monochromatic darkness of his room. The glass seems warm against his hand, and he fails to notice the single strand of smooth black hair that rests on the windowpane.

The compressed heat that nags at his body travels from his chest down to his stomach and limbs, tingling like poison at his fingertips. His half-conscious mind barely comprehends the tightness that squeezes enticingly at his lower body for attention. His breath hitches in his chest as his right hand unconsciously slips over the already hardening bulge between his legs. Seemingly out of nowhere, he begins to masturbate, but feeling as if it is somebody else who is touching him.


Altogether, they've been secretly meeting for so many nights that it had almost become a routine. It was that one time where Ishida almost stopped at Ichigo's window when he was sitting at his desk, that he angrily reminded himself not to completely discard his cautiousness. Other than that, Kon would unfailingly wait for him there. Like some sort of unloved, abandoned puppy, his presence was unconditional.

As Kon greeted him like any other night, Ishida pretended not to see that shadow in his eyes that grew darker every time they met. He knew he was hurting, and it made him feel lower than dirt for being the cause.

"How was school?" Kon asked, making space for the Quincy on the bed.

"As always. Well, Inoue made custard onigiri today. She forced everyone to try it," Ishida replied, then instantly regretting it. He knew he had forced too many words out, and they came out awkwardly, heavily, like stumbling blocks of concrete.

"That doesn't sound too bad," Kon chuckled, "it's just like rice pudding."

He could tell there was something strange between the today, but didn't know how to say it. Ishida wasn't looking at him. the slightly clenched fists at his sides told him that he didn't want to talk today.

Kon carefully put his arms around the smaller body and pulled him down beside him, so that they lay next to one another on the bed. He took off the other's glasses and placed them on the bedside table.

"Are you okay? You're a bit weird today," he said uncertainly, running a hand down his black hair.

"How long has this been?" Ishida asked quietly. The body beside him tensed.

"I don't know. A month and a half," he answered, hesitant.

"Why are you letting me do this to you?"

Kon knew what he was referring to, and Ishida knew the answer.

"Do what? You're not making any sense."

Before Ishida could wind up the courage to protest, he forced him to raise his head and pressed his lips against his shivering ones. He drew the body tightly against his, holding him still until the raised shoulders relaxed. Kon pinned down the body below him, slowly removing the thin white shirt and planting kisses over the equally white chest. A gentle tweak at the dull pink nipples sent a string of tingles down Ishida's spine and an arch hooking through his back.

His eyes were shut tightly like the guilty thoughts of his mind as lips and tongue and hands lit up the dull and neglected nerves of his body. He was half blinded by the pleasurable warmth of his body as he watched the orange haired teenager discard pieces of their clothing silently and unhurriedly, his expression one of carefully concealed pain. Ishida reached for him and drew the warm body against his own, not ready to deal with the unspoken words between them.

"Lets do it right this time," he whispered, ruing his hand down the small of his back.

Kon shivered from the heat that the simple touch sent own his body. He wanted to ask, "why tonight?" but the tone of Ishida's voice was almost pleading.

"Stop me if I hurt you," he answered, his words ironic to Ishida's ears.

The silence in the dark room was almost tangible. Everything seemed to stop, as if eager to witness the tell-tale pounding in the Quincy's ears, the low rumble of suppressed moans as he consumed, and was consumed by the body that was not truly Ichigo's, and not truly his. He tried to shut out the weak light that seeped through the drawn curtains and illuminated their intertwined bodies in a foreboding, deathly grey. The pleasure was as intense as the burning of pathetic confessions and lies on his tongue and in his chest. They threatened to seep out of his very pores and incinerate the half-reality in his arms that he so depended on.

The thud of the sliding window seemed miles away as he tried to lose himself beneath the security of the body's heavy flesh and hot skin. Yet, the brightness that spread into the black room was glaring like a neon-white spotlight as the curtains were jerked open.


to be continued


A/N: sorry, this is my first ichiuri fic. I didn't mean for it to be kind of depressing. It'll get worse. I'm sorry! I hope you guys enjoyed it, and are willing to wait for the second half, despite my bad writing (it's kinda bad?) anyways, i'd be very happy if you reviewed! thank you and goodbye for now!!