A/n: For those not following me on Tumblr, this was originally posted as one of the entries to Roses by another name which I've taken down to edit and post as separate stories in case I ever feel inspired to expand them.
This entry has been edited a little, but is ultimately the same. This entry is also complete as it is, and any "crime families/gang" AUs I come up with next will be posted separately.
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Not your type
(but I can make you sway)
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Rukia has no time for normal.
She's inherited a shady family empire upon her graduation from boarding school, and her stoic older brother pulls no punches about the reality of it. It's something she appreciates after so many years of being in the dark about how exactly the Kuchiki name stayed so prominent over the years.
The decision is made that she studies under a name that isn't Kuchiki, and she does everything in her power to lay low – to learn what she can about what she needs to in the dog eat dog world of finance, business and politics; something that surprisingly enough her fancypants All Girls Boarding School for Scheming Rich Girls did not cover, but all of which she desperately needs.
She has no time for normal things like making friends or falling in love.
Inevitably, both happen.
Rangiku is a pain in the ass, but she's Rukia's pain in the ass. And honestly, the rowdiness of the Rukongai apartment complex just off West campus was a definite culture shock to what she was used to, something her brother showed little sympathy for (the bastard). Yet somehow Rangiku kept a strange, almost refined control of the chaos in the building.
As for Nanao, she really is the only sane one besides Rukia herself, and what else was Rukia supposed to do when she found out that the other woman was in almost all her classes at the university anyway?
As for the love part, that's a bit more complicated because Rukia had relied almost entirely on her lack of sex appeal and her too-good-for-you nose-in-the-air act that her fancypants All Girls Boarding School for Scheming Rich Girls did cover which would usually deter normal guys.
Unfortunately for her, Kurosaki Ichigo is not a normal guy.
The first time they meet is definitely no fairytale. Not by a longshot.
He doesn't pull up in some horse-drawn carriage, and she isn't decked out in some enchanted dress.
In fact, he was bleeding on the ground behind the Starbucks a block away from Rukongai. And she was wearing sweatpants that she wasn't sure were clean, a shirt that had several holes in it around the one armpit, yesterday's makeup, while holding an Americano she didn't want but needed because mid-terms are coming and Jesus, why does it feel like she didn't know anything after half a year –
And her response to finding him there – looking valiantly like he wasn't in pain and holding his bleeding side with an equally bloody hand, was, "I thought I looked like hell."
She's actually quite charming when she wants to be; she gets it from her brother. (Seriously.)
To her credit, Bleeding Guy's reply isn't any better: "You're fucking loud, you know that?"
"I'm sorry, I wasn't aware indoor voices were required in back alleys," she retorts.
He grumbles something in reply, and she backtracks on the bitchiness because the dude is bleeding, and asks, "Do you need help?"
He huffs through his nose, jaw is clenched, and his eyes narrowed in suspicion, but she's not really in the mood to wait for him to settle on the probability of him dying here as opposed to accepting help from some strange girl he met behind a Starbucks, so she stoops down to his level and offers a hand. "No hospitals, I'm guessing?"
His eyes are amber, and they glint like a cat's, and she should run away right now because – you shouldn't talk to strangers, least of all strangers you meet bleeding in alleys. But she's already waving her offered hand impatiently and complaining, "Hurry up, my coffee's getting cold."
"Why are you helping me; I could be a serial killer for all you know."
"Maybe," she muses, "but what are the chances we're both serial killers?"
And that's the line that gets him because two minutes later, he has his arm over her shoulders and her arm around his waist supporting him as they hobble towards her apartment.
It being four in the afternoon, Rukongai is unusually quiet.
Everyone is still nursing hangovers from Rangiku's latest party which coincidentally coincided with Rukia visiting her brother in the city, and the aftereffects just happened to result in a quiet environment for her to study upon her return. (Rukia couldn't help but chuckle at Rangiku's incessant winks and nudges of, "Get it?" when she told her of the initial plan, and lamenting how, "You won't be there to see the fun part, but you'll thank me, you'll see.")
The apartment is clean when they enter save for the state of her desk slash dining room. Rukia's been careful, though to keep it sparse of anything to give Bleeding Guy too much of an idea about who she is, even as she dumps him on the couch and goes to the kitchenette to grab the First Aid kit.
His hair is bright and warm like a halo of flame, the cords of his muscles defined and his chest broad – his shirt ripped and ruined enough that she can easily spot the tattoos that crisscross his skin between the blood and – "Don't worry, most of it isn't mine."
Her hands shake a little, but her fancypants All Girls Boarding School for Scheming Rich Girls were filled with people who talked a load of shit just to get a reaction. Maintaining a neutral expression, she asks, "Who the hell did you piss off?"
He bares his teeth, caught between a grimace and a grin. "You should see the other guy." He looked so weirdly proud that it's her turn to snort.
"You're such a cliché."
"And you." His gaze flickers briefly into hers, sharp and unnerving in its intensity, even as he trails, curious and amused, "You're something else."
She finds out a few hours after he leaves that Rangiku, half dead herself by her own doing, still knows everything that goes on in the building and – "I did not K.O everyone for you to get laid," the blonde scolds. "Not that I wouldn't, but I like to know in advance, you know; full disclosure, total honesty would be nice!"
"There's nothing to be honest about, I didn't get laid."
"Obviously," the busty woman waves off, "you're way too grouchy and confused. What's going on?"
"Nothing," she lies, and at least that is something she's good at, but Rangiku is annoyingly persistent.
"Then who was the guy I heard whispers about being here?"
Drying the coffee cups that they had used after she had cleaned up the stab wound that had grazed his rib, cutting through the tattoo of a storm to turn the watercolour ink bloody, Rukia sighs. "Why do I have the feeling you already know who it is?"
"Because I do," Rangiku declares. "But I want to know if you know who it is."
Rukia rolls her eyes. "I found him in an alley. He was hurt, why on earth would I know who he is?"
"So, you just invite strange bleeding men into your apartment?" she asks, more amused than anything before she laughs and declares, "I can't believe you took him in like a stray kitten."
"Well, that's definitely not accurate."
"Either way, trust me when I say, he doesn't need the help. I'm sure his men would have gotten to him eventually. Lord knows he'd ream their asses otherwise."
Now that gets Rukia's attention. "What?"
Her jaw hangs at the blatant shock at the admission. "So, you really don't know him?" At Rukia's silence, her companion declared, "You're so dense! Everyone knows him, Kurosaki, ring any bells?" Her blank look answered that question efficiently enough, and with a long-suffering sigh, Rangiku tries again, "How about Shiba?"
Rukia's eyes widen. "Like, the crime family? That Shiba?"
"The one and only," Rangiku confirms. "Word is that Ichigo's extending territory, making the old guys around here antsy, you know how it is."
She does, her family is one of those old guys, and Rukia bites back a curse. Of course, this would be the kind of shit she gets involved with.
But she comforts herself. This thing was nothing but an inconvenience. No one has to know. Hell, Kurosaki would've forgotten the whole thing by now.
Except, he doesn't.
Three days later, he shows up in her class.
Everyone notices, of course, because apparently people have been noticing him for ages and she'd been laying so low the only thing she'd been seeing were the words in her textbooks. Her oblivious nature, however accidental, concerns Nanao, "He's been looking at you."
"And what do you want me to do about it?" Rukia demands; teeth gritted as she repeats the mantra of study, study, study even as she could feel his eyes boring into the back of her head.
"You've heard about him, then?"
"I have," she eventually admits somewhat begrudgingly.
While she'd intended to keep Kurosaki out of sight and out of mind, he was making it painfully difficult. Fortunately, Rukia wasn't left with only rumors to sustain her curiosity, and her decision to ignore him.
Though her brother had agreed that having her own security detail would be counterintuitive in her quest in being invisible while she completed her tertiary education, she knew there was at least one of his men watching her, and so she had gotten him to give her intel on one Kurosaki Ichigo.
Renji had delivered.
Everything from surveillance of his dodgy dealings, to fights he was involved in, to businesses that went under or rose to prominence under his control as his influence grew, Rukia felt, for an instant, at a loss of how shady her life actually didn't look compared to his.
Renji, regardless, side-eyed her hard. "You need to tell your brother."
"And what will that do? Make him pull me out of school?"
"No, but he should know. He could do something."
"Like what?"
"…I don't know."
"What are you going to do?" Nanao asks for what feels like the third time in this hour alone.
Sighing, Rukia asks, brow arching sharply, "Can I do something about it?"
Her companion adjusts her glasses on the bridge of her nose. "If you do, I'd love to know. This is a lot more entertainment than I gave you credit for."
She snorts because Rukia is the most boring person ever, honestly, she had been before she found out about her own family's past, present and future, and she's intent on being so now. "Whatever it is that he wants he won't get it from me."
"Is that so?"
Nanao coughs.
And, though Rukia felt like she was being drained of all the colour in her face and going blood red at the same time, she remained composed because she's Kuchiki Rukia, damn it. She did not survive heiress etiquette classes and her fancypants All Girls Boarding School for Scheming Rich Girls to be sent off kilter by some boy.
Tilting her head to take him in, one hand in the pocket of his pants and the other resting on the table right beside the textbook she was trying to absorb through osmosis, Kurosaki was a combination of suave and dangerous.
To his credit, he didn't look like some gang banger.
His bright orange hair was about the only thing that screamed delinquent, but the rest of him was all tanned, toned, lean muscle and chiselled jawline. He didn't walk around in baggy pants accented with chains; his jeans are tight enough around his thighs to be considered sinful, and none of his tattoos are even visible. Well, except for the ones on his torso, the outlines of the black bands she can just make out from the white shirt that stretches enticingly snug across his broad – her eyes widened – Oh my god, no.
"Kurosaki," she greets, neutrally, if not hastily.
"Rukia."
I didn't tell him my name. She's too invisible to know off hand; she isn't a Kuchiki here and the university has more than a thousand students in this part of the campus alone. Why do you know my name?
"Is there something you want?" she asks instead.
"Matter of fact, I do," he replies, a smirk tugging at the corner of his lips, and clearly, he wants something – maybe he might even know…Hackles raised, she dryly continues, "Does it have something to do with you eavesdropping on my conversations, or do you just make it a habit to be nosy?"
"I like to know what goes on in my school."
"You think awfully big of yourself."
His shrug is nonchalant. "I know what I am, what I'm capable of, and what I want."
"I'm still waiting on what that has to do with me," Rukia remarks, her defensiveness simmering to a churning sort of annoyance as she casts aside her pencil and crosses her arms. She tilts her head just so in an almost mocking acquiescence of acknowledgement, but his smirk only widens.
"You'll see."
And that's what he leaves her with.
Beside her, Nanao exhales, "Jesus" and Rukia can't disagree because what was that?
She still doesn't tell her brother.
Even when Ichigo sits beside her in class, arm propped up on the back of the bench like that cheesy move guys did when they were at the movies except there's nothing really romantic about it – if the half-lidded gaze he casts around the room says anything at all it's that no one should come near them.
Their audience complies but they pay the price in whispers.
Rukia isn't having any of it. "Can you not?" she hisses.
"Do I make you uncomfortable?"
She can tell he wants her to say yes so instead she retorts, "You're more annoying than anything." Unfortunately, that seems to amuse him even more.
At the end of the lecture, he takes her books from their shared desk and walks her to her next class, and even though she wants to fight about it, she forgets because they end up talking instead:
"The Republic is a load of crap," because he's good at distracting her.
She splutters, "Are you kidding me? It's like the greatest book on leadership ever written, it's still relevant hundreds of years after the fact."
"So is Shakespeare, and the majority of his work consists of dick jokes and sword fights, pun only partially intended."
And she forgets that she has no time for him and the inconvenience he brings because, without fail, she laughs. "Are you actually an idiot or do you have to work at it to convince people you are?"
He rolls his shoulders and smirks again, almost warm, always affectionate. "Depends if it makes you like me more or not."
And she doesn't know what to say to that, so she just doesn't.
It's a routine she unwittingly gets into, like having coffee with Nanao after their study sessions and sneaking in episodes of the latest K-drama during lunch breaks and talking shit between lectures. Or, day drinking in her pyjamas on her days off with Rangiku as she regales Rukia on her latest escapade and experimenting in the kitchen because they're hungry and bored.
Ichigo with his weird puns and love of Shakespeare and getting so easily ticked off by her to the point where the Big Bad Wolf on campus is pulling his tongue at her and teasing the hell of out her for kicks regardless of whose watching.
Ichigo with his weirdly gentlemanly-like habit of opening doors for her and walking her to class and carrying her books. And so, what if he has two noticeably large men following them – him – at a distance or that when their attempts to irritate each other get physical, she never tries to touch him because what if he got in another fight recently and I don't know, and its healing and –
He notices, of course, he notices everything.
"Afraid I have cooties or something?"
"I'd be disinfecting myself constantly if that were the case," she retorts before sucking on the straw of her juice box.
She'd never had a juice box before she started university, before Ichigo. Kuchikis drank out of glasses, and Rukia certainly couldn't picture her brother drinking out of a box. Ichigo had taken too much pleasure in the mere idea that he was getting to introduce her to something new – that he was popping her juice box cherry.
Swinging her legs from her perch on the railing of the Engineers' Building, the tallest building on campus because – "I like high places." – He huffed. "I hope you aren't thinking of jumping." – She snorted. "If I wanted to kill myself I'd choose something a bit more graceful than ending up like Humpty Dumpty on the sidewalk. Besides, the view's amazing." – "And you wanted to share it with me? I'm honoured," he teased, and she almost walked all the way back down just to spite him, but she couldn't because she actually really did want him to see her favourite place.
"Then why is it," he begins, his hands branded on the railing beside her thighs, abdomen pressed against her knees, "you won't touch me?"
Slowly she detached her lips from the straw, making a show of blinking at him innocently before reaching over to flick his forehead with her index finger. "Satisfied?"
"Not even a little," he murmurs, nudging his forehead a little against hers until they're practically breathing each other in, lips just barely brushing as he coaxes, "Tell me."
"What's there to tell?" she challenges, her eyelashes practically tangling with his.
"I'm not the only with secrets."
"You don't have secrets," she reminds to mock, "Everyone knows what you are and what you're capable of."
They're close enough that she can feel the way his jaw clenches, his breath harsh against her lips even as he withdraws, "So that has something to do with why you won't touch me?"
Rukia tilts her head enough for their noses to skim, forehead to forehead she poses, "What if I did touch you…"
"And?"
"And you're hurt," she continues, "like the first day we met. What if I jokingly punch you, and not realize that you broke a rib or something during a fight? What if I touch you, and I hurt you?"
She expects him to laugh as if this girl could possibly hurt someone who ran a gang, but he looks almost comically shocked, eyes wide before they narrow, intense and focused and piercing enough that Rukia can feel her blood pressure shoot up, and she's demanding against the beating of her heart in her ears, "What?"
"You don't want to hurt me."
"Didn't I just say that?" she asks, rolling her eyes, mentally chanting play it off, play it off, play it off –
"Rukia," he exhales, and her name is like a caress on his tongue, "you really are something."
Snorting unconvincingly, she shoves him a little but does it too quickly that she teeters dangerously on the edge. Fortunately, his reflexes are faster than hers, and he brings his arms around her, tucking her head beneath his chin.
His next words ruffle through her hair with the breeze, "I don't want to hurt you either."
And that's the day and the conversation she realizes that she's lost the plot on this entirely.
But whatever it is – was – it ends. Not in the obvious way, he still sits with her, carries her books, teases her relentlessly, but now-now there's a distance. They don't go back to the Engineers' Building.
"Shimizu-san."
Rukia looks up from her lunch, her conversation with Nanao about a group project temporarily put on hold at the sound of her fake last name, and the sight of Inoue Orihime.
"Oh, hello Inoue-san," she greets, "may I help you?"
They don't really know each other outside of the one class they share – the one with Ichigo. Though they have worked together once or twice throughout the year for presentations, Rukia can't claim to know Inoue any more than she would any classmate.
"I just wanted to say that I'm sorry."
"About what?" Rukia asks, genuinely confused. They have a presentation in two weeks' time, did Inoue mess up somehow because there was still time to fix it –
"About you and Kurosaki-kun," she says, and Rukia and Nanao must have looked pretty comical, blinking in unison as Rukia says lamely, "I'm sorry?"
Inoue nods in confirmation. "Yes, I'm sorry you broke up."
Nanao makes a sound of disbelief, but Inoue isn't done, "We dated in high school you know, briefly, and we were just kids then and didn't know what we were doing. And I know it's only been a few days, but I hope you don't mind if we give it another try?"
What. What. What?
"Huh?"
The other woman makes to bow. "Of course, we don't need your permission, but I thought it would be polite to at least let you know, ne?"
Nanao's trying so very hard not to start making dying whale noises. She might actually be dying. And Rukia can't blame her because her blood pressure spikes for an entirely different reason to when she's around her orange haired idiot.
Luckily Inoue isn't waiting for a reply, and leaves immediately after, probably to that same class they both shared with him. Fuck.
"Well."
"Don't say anything," Rukia orders slowly, rubbing her forehead, her lunch forgotten on her lap. "I'm still trying to process."
What was that 'we' Inoue had used? If Ichigo really was getting back together with his ex, why was he still spending so much with her? When did he even have the time to –
"So," Nanao begins, dragging the word out with all the innuendo that could possibly be layered in a two-letter word, "you and Kurosaki, hm?"
"No!" It doesn't matter, I shouldn't care. "Of course not!"
"Sure."
"Well apparently not," Rukia retorts, "we're hypothetically broken up and his ex-girlfriend is getting in there."
Humming, Nanao wiggles her brows. "You wanna go claim your man?"
"Shut up."
But yeah, she kind of wants to because love was an inconvenience that affected proper brain function because she's actually anxious about this, what the fuck.
During the lecture, Rukia can feel Inoue looking at them, biding her time for the class to end so she can –god, why is she so pissed it isn't like they're a thing –
Ichigo presses his hand against her thigh to stop her leg from nervously jigging, under his breath he tells her to stop.
"I can't," she hisses back.
"Why the hell not?"
"I'm irritated," she blurts instead of the lie she prepared when she inevitably messed up and let him know that Inoue had bothered her with something so stupid, oh my god, what have I become?
Asking above the hum of students getting up to leave around them, he considers her, "Do you wanna to talk about it?"
She can see Inoue moving in for the kill out of the corner of her eye, and with a strained exhale and a message to whatever gods were listening to make this quick, she answers, "You'll see in a second."
But he doesn't because instead he gets distracted by a message on his phone. Inoue's standing right there – and he's only looking at Rukia. "I promise this isn't just a convenient cope out, but can you tell me later?"
"What?"
"Something came up and I need to go," he says and there's something that's shifted, it's that clench in his jaw and the furrow between his brows, and he's withdrawing – instinctively, she doesn't like what that means.
On top of that, the warmth of him by her side and the weight of his hand are gone so fast she's left cold. "What's happening?"
He, honest to god, leans in – with Inoue still standing there – and kisses her nose in a tease. "Don't worry, it'll be quick. We'll talk later, I promise."
Rukia forgets about Inoue entirely then because she's following Ichigo out of the lecture hall. "Wait, what? I'm seeing you later?"
"Yeah, don't worry I'll text you," he says, nodding at the two men that followed him about to go ahead, and there's a frantic voice in the back of Rukia's head telling her that something is going down, something dangerous and Ichigo could –
She doesn't realize that he has his lips pressed against hers until she's engulfed by him, his tall frame acting as a buffer between her and the people around them. He isn't even touching her, not really, but Rukia can feel the heat of him sinking into her pores, his cologne surrounding her like a cloud. When he finally pulls away, his eyes are butterscotch yellow and his mouth curls in a smile so soft she aches.
"I'll be back, I promise."
The odds of him keeping it aren't good.
It's two minutes to two and he still hasn't shown up. Hasn't even texted her. Her phone has been fully charged for hours, and she's been pacing the length of her small apartment for about the same time. She'd studied, revised and covered an entire wall in course material, telling herself that she wasn't waiting, she was studying.
When her studying is interrupted by a knock on her door, she ignores it, glancing at her phone instead. Not even Nanao has tried to distract her with memes, though Rangiku has been checking on her periodically since she'd gotten home so when the knock on the door becomes more insistent, she calls out, "I'm busy Rangiku."
"But I brought food."
That's not Rangiku.
Throwing open the door, Ichigo is standing there filling the frame – a box of pizza in hand and a bluish bruise on his jawline. "What the hell happened to you?" she demands, gaze zeroing in on his chest, looking for the telltale crimson stain that she's become accustomed to seeing sticking his shirts to his skin. Whetheit'sts his blood or someone else's always remains to be seen.
"The line at Donatello's was brutal."
"Don't talk shit," she snaps. She can't see anything wrong with him, but she can't stop the hysteria from edging her voice. "What happened, it's almost midnight – you said –"
"It's two, actually, but I'm sure you knew that," he interrupts, sliding the box of pizza onto the coffee table and sitting onto the couch gingerly. "Were you waiting for me?"
"You said you'd text," she defends, before getting right back on the topic at hand because if he thought for one second, she would forget –
"I'm part of a gang," Ichigo reminds. "This," he gestures, "tends to happen."
"Oh my god," she exhales, not for the first time wishing it didn't have to be like this – she didn't, or he didn't, and they could just be two dumb kids being whatever it is they are without – "Are you hurt anywhere else? Bleeding maybe?"
"Nah, I'm starving though." Popping open the box, he adds, "I wasn't in the mood to pick out the pineapples this time, hope you don't mind."
Seriously? Was this her life now?
"You give me anxiety," she declares, practically collapsing beside him.
"Were you worried?"
"Don't be a jerk, of course, I was." Rukia can practically feel him smiling, and she points at him with her eyes closed. "You better be happy because that pizza is amazing and not because you're taking pleasure in giving me grey hairs."
"That, and I won."
She huffs out another breath and they spend a few minutes in silence, Rukia on the cusp of sleep as she listens to Ichigo move about her apartment before she feels a considerable weight on her lap. Peeking down between her lashes, she warns, "I swear to god, if you put the head of the person you beat on my lap, I will stab you."
"It's my head."
"Knew it felt pretty empty," she notes to his snicker.
"Careful, I'm starting to think you want to hurt my feelings."
Again, Rukia huffs, venturing to ask, "Are you going to tell me what happened now?"
"Work," is his simple, complicated reply. "It rarely happens that I get involved with physical stuff, but I wanted to do it myself."
"Why?"
"It was important, and I wanted to see it through in person."
"Cryptic," she declares with a roll of her yes.
"Hey," he makes an attempt at a protest, even if he sounds so relaxed that he's practically dozing on her lap, "I think your brother liked how dedicated I was to getting it done."
Rukia jostles him in surprise. "What?"
He shrugs like he didn't just flip her world around. "Your family is old and traditional as fuck, I figured if you had to date someone from another crime family, the least I could do was be polite about it."
She doesn't know if the scandalized huff is for the fact Ichigo had apparently known all along who she was, or because he'd been so presumptuous. Rukia decides it's the latter. "Who said I wanted to date you?"
"Fine," Ichigo sighs like he's greatly aggrieved, "court you, then."
Making an exaggerated expression of disgust, she declares, "Ew."
He snorts in reply before bringing their mouths together. The angle is awful, but his lips brush against hers like he means it – nothing fleeting or furtive about it as he rights his position so that he's sitting just to the side of her, palm cradling her face, thumbing at the sensitive skin below her ear; forehead against hers.
Her hand is clutching at his shirt, fisting the material. Beneath her knuckles, she feels his heart stumble.
Between their exchange of breaths, lips brushing in a tease of another kiss, he murmurs, "You deserve a city, and I wanted to be the one to give it to you" to which she whispers back, the anxious lick of her lips sending him chasing after to follow until they finally part enough for her to ask, "Why, why me?"
"Because," he says, eyes golden like the sun, smile soft enough to melt, "You're something, Kuchiki Rukia."
A/n: *singing* I'm trash trash ichiruki trash. Honestly tough guy Ichigo with a soft center is the only Ichigo I recognize.