AN: Hello there! Okay so I'm really proud o- Wait a second what's that? Is that a pitchfork? OH MY GOD IT IS! I'M SORRY I KNOW I SHOULD BE UP DATING MY OTHER STORIES BUT YOU HAVE TO UNDERSTAND THAT THIS PARTICULAR STORY HAD TO HAVE BEEN WRITTEN!...Anyway as I was saying I'm very proud to of this story. It took me only a little over a day and a half to write. But a good minute to type, I will admit that I am not the most enthusiastic person when it comes to typing. Besides all that I thought it to be time to expand the collection of IchiTats on this website with a piece of my own. I really love this pairing! To me for them to be romantically involved wouldn't be far fetched what so ever. This story is set in the future, it's romantic and wise ass through and through. Don't like don't read. And if you don't like this pairing, and yet you choose to read, fine by me. Oh and flamers be warned, I don't care if you do your flaming thing just don't be a punk and review anonymously so I can't PM you, all I would do is try to discuss our difference in opinion. If you do punk though I will troll you on my blog, not by name of course but still troll none the less. So if you want to just give me shit to blog about be my guest :)
And as a last thought, this was 17 pages hand written on college ruled paper, and I write tiny, 8 pages in Microsoft word...don't say I don't love you...
Warning:Slight OOC-ness even though in my defense Tatsuki's character isn't exactly considered "deep" in either the anime or the manga, and in regard of Ichigo he's older okay? No smut no lemon just pissed off fluff...I don't know how to word it just read and you'll understand...
Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach or any of the bad ass characters...
Title: You're Lucky, You Know That?
You know those moments in life when you realize you were a dumb ass.
Yeah.
I'm having one of those moments now.
Why in the seven hells do I live in a walk up apartment?
On the fifth floor.
Five flights of stairs is not what I need after back to back shifts in the Ramen House. Who ever said being waitress isn't hard can shove a very large, preferably a very pointy, object where the freakin' sun don't shine. Everything hurts, my arms, legs, back, feet even my cheeks hurt from smiling so much.
All I want to do is sit down on my couch, and never get up.
Almost there girl, you're at the fourth flight.
As you can tell, after high school things changed.
What can I say? Shit happens.
Rounding the corner I see the most beautiful sight I can possibly see. My apartment door. I rummage through my messenger bag for my keys. Finally I grasp the elusive little suckers. I unlock my door and step into my fortress of solitude.
My messenger bag slips off my shoulder landing on the floor with a dull "thump."
I feel my shoulders sag and my remaining energy seemingly deplete to zero. I look at my couch from the door way.
So close, yet so far away...
Oh Kami-sama give me strength.
Ugh my legs feel like lead, but I'm almost there. I'm just going to crash. I'll shower and eat tomorrow, I also have to do laundry, and clean, and go food shopping, and visit my family, and go to the dojo, and-
No!
No stressing about tomorrow, today.
I plop myself down on the couch.
Mmmmmm...sleep...
…
What's that sound and why is it there? Doesn't the universe understand that I need sleep?
Wait...sound...is that a shower?
I sleepily stand up to turn my shower off.
What the fuck. I didn't turn the shower on...
All grogginess disappears.
Did someone get in when I was sleeping?
Did I lock the door behind me when I got home?
Or were they here the whole time and I was just too tired to notice?...
Kami-sama, this really sucks you know that?
Crap all my weapons are at the dojo! Time to improvise...
Broom, that will have to do. Even though when it comes down to it I could just drop kick their ass into the next dimension. Still, the risk of them, whoever the hell they are, throwing scalding water at me is enough reason for a weapon. With my luck they'll use my hairspray as a flame thrower.
Yeah that would be my luck.
With weapon in hand, the brave warrior makes her way towards her enemy. In the process of doing so, the brave warrior realizes how stupid she is for narrating in her head.
I turn the broom around in my hands so the tip of the handle is in front of me. I inch closer to the bathroom door. I can faintly hear, humming.
What a psycho.
Easing the door open with my broom I peak into my small bathroom, and see the intruder actually in the shower.
They must really be stupid to actually be taking a shower.
I open the door completely, allowing myself an escape route in case they can actually fight.
Feeling my adrenaline flow, I force myself to slowly begin to open my Bruce Lee shower curtain. Bit by bit the curtain is slowly opening and they don't even realize it, thanks to their psychotic humming.
Okay that's as far as the curtain can go without them noticing. I pull back my broom and flip it around so when I hit them they can get a face full of dust bunnies of doom.
They turn and look at me.
"Oh, hey Tats-"
"HYYYAAAAA!" I swing with all my strength and hit 'em right in the kisser. " Who do you think you're messing with! Get out of my home you psycho freak or I'll..." I lift the broom to swing again.
"Wait! Tatsuki, it's me!" they shout. I look at them properly. Tan skin, taught over defined muscles. A shock of bright wet orange hair that falls over alluring brown lion eyes.
"NO way. It can't be..." I breath incredulously.
"Hey Tatsuki." he smiles at me, a smile I haven't seen since our last summer break together.
"Ichigo?..." after all these years the name feels foreign on my lips.
"Yeah. I'm sorry for dropping in like thi-OW! What the fuck!"
I just hit him again.
And I want to keep hitting him.
I want to so badly my hands are shaking.
"You BAKA! For all I knew you could have been a serial killer whose M.O. is to bathe in their victims bathrooms, before killing them!"
My adrenaline rush abruptly stops, and my body slumps against the wall due to the initial stress of the situation. To think the psycho humming in my bathroom is Ichigo. Who'd have thought? But still after all these years, he just shows up. I glance at him again to make sure I'm not seeing things.
Yep, he's still there. For the most part he looks the same. Nothing crazy, no big tribal tattoos, no feathers in his hair, no new found scars as a result of scientific experimentation, he doesn't have any piercings let alone enough to be considered a human pin cushion. Just Ichigo, older, with a little stubble, but still Ichigo. The same Ichigo I know is standing next to me in my shower...
...In my shower...
...Naked...
I can feel my eyes widening exponentially as heat rises from my neck and spread along my face and ears. Holy crap how did I not notice that?
"U-um, I'm going to let you finish up." I say as I turn away from him, "Do you, erm, need clothes?" Well now this is awkward.
"Ah no. But thanks Tatsuki." He murmurs, probably realizing the situation. With that I briskly exit the bathroom, broom in hand. I go into my cramped kitchen and return the broom, and new found lethal weapon, to its rightful corner and put a kettle with water on the stove for tea. I notice the time.
So much for sleeping.
It's 3:18 am.
I go over to the cupboard and pull out not only the tea leaves but my small coffee maker. Tomorrow is definitely going to be a coffee fueled day.
Then again with Ichigo they usually were. I sigh to myself, as memories of that summer escape the self-imposed confinement I like to call my subconscious and bubble to the surface teasingly slow. It feels as if those care free, naïve times were a life time ago. Almost as if they should be in black in white.
I fight those memories down hoping to prevent the pain that occurs, like a bitter after taste. But some slip through my mental barrier.
I get snippets, vignettes even.
A laugh in a festival.
A kiss by the river.
Wrestling in the dojo.
A moan in his room.
Two families coming together.
An argument.
A slip of the tongue.
Her tears.
His lies.
My crying.
Him gone.
Kami-sama no! No more! I've had my time to bitch and complain, no more! My life may not be turning out exactly how I thought it would, but what's done is done, I don't want to dwell on what could have been.
My thoughts are cut short by the screech of the tea kettle. Ichigo is out of the shower now. He's watching me from the doorway. Don't ask me how I know I just do when it comes to him. I always have.
"Tea?" I ask, before he can say anything. There is so much we should talk about, but I just can't bring myself to want to.
"Yeah, sure." He says simply. I motion towards my small kitchen table and he sits. I bring over the two cups of tea and reach across him and pull back a small honey bottle. I feel him watching me as I pour a teaspoon of honey into his tea and set the bottle next to his cup. With that done I take my seat across from him.
He smirks at me.
"You remembered." He teases as he drizzles honey onto his pinky.
"What can I say? Old habits die hard I guess." I shrug nonchalantly. "What brings you to my shower anyway?"
He blushes red. And he still makes that same face, like he's a little kid being introduced to porn for the first time. I can't help but giggle at the familiarity of the moment.
Well sort of a familiarity.
"What brought me here was you." he says flatly. I stop giggling.
"And how did you find me, may I ask?" I keep my tone neutral. He chuckles and gets that devious glint in his eye. That's never a good sign. He sips his tea and eats the honey off of his little finger before responding.
"You'd be surprised how willing Uryu can be with a few drinks in him." He smirks and winks at me.
I nearly choke on my tea. Uryu may be thin, but he's no light weight when it comes to drinking. I swear, the things that guy learned in medical school…
"I'm kidding." Oh, yeah that would make a lot more sense. He goes on, "I tracked you down through Urahara when I found out you had left Karakura. He's worried you know…"
"No I don't." I don't like where this is going one bit.
"He's say you've been over working yourself. Again apparently." He sips his tea all casual, like I'm not getting pissed at all.
"Please, please tell me Ichigo that you did not just reappear in my life after being gone for eight long years, JUST to lecture me about my work ethic." I put my head in my hands. He would do that to me too and not even realize what he's doing.
"No Tatsuki," he sighs "That's not why I wanted to see you." He looks at me through his bangs with those eyes. Those damn eyes. "I just, well, I just felt like saying hi."
I stiffen in my seat.
Hi, that's all he wanted to say to me. I let out a frustrated growl and give him a hard look.
"Kurosaki Ichigo, for someone as smart as you are, you are such a dumb ass." He opens his mouth to retort but I cut him off. He's not leaving here without hearing what I have to say.
What I've had to say, for eight damn long years.
"Do you know what you did? Do you have any idea of what I went through when you left, when you left Karakura. Do you know the way I was looked at? How about the way put families were gossiped about? No you don't! You knew what I was going through with her. Did you think that by leaving it would fix everything? Well it didn't! It made things even worse! Do you realize how much I," I feel the tears coming and I fight them back. I'm not going to let him see me break so easily, "I-I needed you…"
He doesn't say anything.
He won't even look at me.
"Eight years," I go on, "eight years later you show up out of no where and expect me to be okay with 'I just wanted to say hi.'"
He looks at me now with guilt ridden eyes.
"It wasn't easy for me either Tsuki," he reverts back his old nickname for me, "I didn't want to leave you. That was the last thing I wanted to do. But with what was happening with, Orihime," we both cringe at the name and the memories that come with it, "I thought that if I left, her anger towards you would be redirected at me. I thought she would resent me for leaving. I never meant for things to turn out the way they did, Tsuki." He reaches out for my hand.
I pull back. As much as I want to say it's okay, as desperately as I want to throw myself into his arms that I once considered home, and say "I forgive you for everything!" I can't.
And he can see it in my face clear as day.
I can tell from his expression that he's hurt. I would be too if I hadn't already been hurting inside, myself all these years.
"Tsuki you have to know I never meant to hurt you."
"At first I did." I say breathlessly, "I thought you would come back. Do you know how I found out you went to live in Seretei? I went over to your house a week and a half after you first left. Karin and Yuzu were both at soccer practice, so I went around to the clinic to ask your dad where you were. He of course didn't realize you hadn't told me. So when he answered my question thinking I was playing around, he jokingly said, 'Probably settling in to his new barracks with my adopted daughter.' Well I was of course confused and asked him what the hell he was talking about. He said, 'Seretei of course.' Do you understand how alone I felt? How stupid? You told me you weren't taking their offer to live there. But it turns out you accepted it. Not only that, you had been preparing for months, all the while lying to my face!"
His face hardens.
"I didn't tell you because I knew you would be upset. You never liked it when I performed my duties as a Shinigami!"
"Of course I didn't! Why would I 'like' watching you go out every night, to fight hollows. Always worrying whether or not you would come back in one piece!"
"How was I supposed to tell you when you were against it form the start!" He yells.
"Simple, you just freakin' tell me! Would I have disliked it? YES! But I would have gotten over it you baka!" I shout back.
"No it wasn't simple! And it still isn't! I didn't know how to tell the girl I love that the 'career' I was going to pursue was the one job she hated me having! All I wanted was to give you what you wanted, and being in a relationship with a Shinigami was not what you wanted in life!"
He's standing now, and we've both managed to piss each other off in record time. Deep down I know he didn't want to hurt me, and in his mind, his reasoning is valid. But the baka just doesn't get it.
He just doesn't understand why I'm peeved.
"Ichigo," I look up at him tiredly, "do you want to know what I wanted?"
I get up, leaving my tea at the table. Setting myself back down on the couch, I wait for him to follow before I continue. He slowly exits my kitchen only to stand at the other end of the couch. As he waits for what I have to say I take in his appearance again. White wife beater pulled taught against his broadened chest, spiky yet shaggy tangerine hair falling forward slightly, and those pants.
Oh, those pants. Those baggy, olive green cargo pants with matching suspenders hanging limp by his sides. The lack of suspender usage allows the pants to fall lower on his hips, revealing a sliver of plaid boxers to be seen. I love these pants on him. They just look so good.
No get a grip.
Shut up hormones. Shut the fuck up before I kick your hormone-y asses.
Yeah I thought so! That goes for you too sexual frustration!
Now, back to the matter at hand.
He's still waiting. I look up at him and let my walls come down, letting him see just how tired and worn down I really am.
"All I wanted was you." I bring my knees to my chin, "That's all I wanted, to be with you. Even if that meant having to deal with the fear of losing you every time you went out on patrol."
He's on the couch pulling me to him like old times. He wraps his arms around me and holds me tight. Like he's holding on for dear life. I remember telling him this a long time ago, he just laughed and said, "Maybe that's because you are my life." It was so cheesy but I knew he was being honest. I just freakin' new. I wonder how much that's changed over time.
He leans his head down on mine and nuzzles my hair. We stay like this for a few moments of sheer silent bliss. He then gently kisses the top of my head, causing me to look up at him.
"I know I fucked up," he grimaces, "I really fucked up. But I still love you so damn much. That's why I came Tsuki, I couldn't take it any longer, I had to see you. I had forced myself for so long to stay away, to try and let you live your life. I thought by now you would've moved on and forgotten all about me. It wasn't even until I got to the world of the living that it dawned on me that you might not want to see me. So I put off seeing you. I went to Uraharas found out where to find you, then I ran into Uryu, we had a couple drinks, conversed, reminisced, got caught in the middle of a bar brawl. But when I saw you walking home from work I figured there was no way I could live with myself if I punked out and didn't talk to you. I never meant to scare you by using you shower."
We both chuckle at that. I let my knees fall in order to lean fully on Ichigo with my arms draped over him. Kami-sama I've missed this so much.
His arms.
His hair.
His musky scent.
Him.
I've missed him.
"What happened to her?" he asks. I know he means Orihime. Just the thought of her and I tighten my arms around him.
"She left a year after you did. She blamed me, wouldn't even be in the same room with me after a certain point. She went with Chad, back to Mexico where he started his youth center. He told me she stayed with him for anther year before moving to the United States and settling there, Uryu has visited her a couple times, he says she opened a successful restaurant." I snuggle closer as my eyes droop.
"You still keep track of her." He says relieved as he gives me a sad smile.
"Of course I do, she's my sister you baka!" I say playfully, I try my best to stifle a yawn. Too little too late, he noticed.
"It's late, you've probably had a long day I should go." He sighs as he begins to detangle our limbs.
"No!" I cling harder. My ears burn from the desperation in my voice. "Stay, please?"
He smirks at me in a way only he can. Somehow, expressing love through a facial expression that makes me usually want to smack him. With love, but still the urge to smack him is there none the less.
"Of course."
I feel myself drift back to sleep.
All thoughts of yesterday and tomorrow forgotten.
You know why? Because Ichigo is here, he still loves me and whether he's aware of it or not he's not going anywhere.
Ever.
"I'll never leave you like that again Tsuki." he whispers.
"You better not. If you do I'll kick your ass into the next dimension. You're lucky I just love you so damn much."
AN: Thanks for reading! Soooooooo how was it? Good? Okay? Bad? Crap-muck-awful(Yeah I read that too)?
P. are my other two new one shots if you're interested :)
Title: Perfectly Out Of The Way
Genre: Angst
Character: Hyuuga Hinata
Rating: M
Summary: "As much as I try it's just never enough is it?" Through the years Hinata has become accustomed to her fathers opinions of her, letting those opinions fuel her actions in hopes of achieving greater heights. But every once in a while her thoughts lead her some place else in her mind, some where much more dark and desperate.
Title: The Plan
Genre: Humor
Character: Hyuuga Hinata
Rating: M
Summary: "I didn't think it'd end up like this, but I guess things don't always go as planned."-Hyuuga Hinata
P.S.S. Thanks again for reading and hopefully reviewing!
-Hinata-Rae