A/N: In honor of Barry Gibbs and the other Bee Gees.
The first time Rukia saw it, she didn't quite believe it. It was just too horrific to comprehend, and so crazy no one would have just taken her word for it if she hadn't had proof and a signed contract along with it. Not Keigo, or Orihime, or even Chad for that matter- not even Ishida. The words would have been
too stupid for even the hearing impaired to have comprehended. The words she said at lunch long after the weekend of Hollow bashing and kicking ass with her partner in crime. The words-"I saw Ichigo DANCING!" she cried, panting as she stood over her friends. The truth had just slipped from her mouth; keeping it secret had been too much for her to hold in by herself. She had to tell someone...just so she wouldn't feel like a lunatic in a mental institution.
Luckily, their orange-haired friend with the perm a-frown was currently nowhere to be seen. If he had caught her saying that, especially when it was true, he would have hauled her off to Hueco Mundo in a second. That, or he would have flayed her alive with Zangetsu. If Ichigo found out and the news spread, including the rumors, it could be assured that his social life and his so called "bad-ass reputation" would be forever tarnished. Really, though, it hadn't been her fault that she had happened to walk in on him in probably one of most embarrassing moments of her life. Rukia was just fortunate she had disappeared and skedaddled before she died right there on the spot. Honestly, it's not everyday you see someone as anti-social as Ichigo dancing, no less to music- yep, actual music. And she hadn't even know he listened to the stuff like that, nor had she thought he could dance, or be as content as he'd appeared at that time.
It had been getting dark outside, the sun slipping behind the horizon while Yuzu cleared the dishes from the table after dinner. Karin had been watching television and Isshin had vanished to who knows where while Ichigo had slunk off to his room in peace. Earlier, the day before, when Friday had just been dismally slipping off into Saturday, he had caught Keigo and Chad huddled together on the school roof. When he had approached them up front, they had immediately stopped conversing and had looked at him as if they had been talking about something about him behind his back.
"Hey, guys. What are you doing?" he asked. They both gazed at each other for a second, and then Asano shrugged his shoulders. "It is his turn. Pass it to him." Chad stayed tacit as ever, and slowly brought out something from behind his back before throwing it to Ichigo. He easily caught it with swift agility, and recognized it to be a cd, and a nice cd at that. The cover was pristine white, with a rainbow colored 1 on the front, picturing three guys and the bold letters "Bee Gees" on it. "Who are they?" he queried, turning it over in his hand so he could observe the back. Keigo laughed. "They're some foreign band. But, dude, you should listen to them! They're incredible. We've been passing it around for a few days now and every time you listen to it, it makes you wanna dance."
The perverted idiot closed his eyes, as if hearing something only he could and visualizing the way the Bee Gees would dance, and started to doing what Ichigo assumed to be reminiscent of choreography.
"Yeah right, I'd be caught dead before I did that. But thanks anyway," Ichigo said, rolling his eyes heavenward. "Here." Ichigo attempted to hand it back to his friend and comrade, but Chad shook his head. "Take it. It belongs to Kisuke, so you can give it to him on Monday." Oh, lovely. He should have known that the gay hippy would listen to old 70s music in his free time. Just another pain in the ass he had to shoulder, as always.
Now, one day later, the orange-haired teen stared at his problem as it seemed to look at him from his desk, begging to be played. Finally, he gave out a ragged sigh and pulled out his CD player from a drawer in his desk, cursing Keigo the whole time as he popped the disk in and pushed play.
On the first two songs, he didn't think much of it because the music was too melancholy, not to mention the guys singing sounded like women when they raised their voices those few octaves. But he began to think different when he came to the end of the track. It just sounded so hip, and even though Ichigo hated to admit it, Keigo was right when he said you could dance to this stuff. It was when he arrived at track 16 that he came to a new light, one that made something click so that you just couldn't sit there and listen. It was called "Tragedy", and at first, Ichigo just sat there with his legs kicked up onto the desk while he moved his head to the beat. When the lead singer started verbalizing the lyrics, though, he just forward and furrowed his brow in concentration.
Then, at that time, Rukia happened to stride by and heard the music that Ichigo happened to turn up so that it could be heard through his door.
She halted in curiosity, putting her ear to the door before she twisted the knob and walked in. "Hey, Ichigo?" She paused in disbelief, mid-sentence when the singers reached a high point and their voices rose before the spiky-haired boy jumped up onto the chair he had formally been sitting on. He didn't even notice her as he swung his head to the side, following the tempo and causing Rukia to nearly choke on her words as she saw him lip-syncing, actually lip-syncing!
"Tragedy!
When the feeling's gone
and you can't go on
It's tragedy
When the morning cries
and you don't know why
It's hard to bear
with no one to love you
you're going nowhere
Tragedy
When you lose control
you got no soul
It's tragedy
When the morning cries
and you don't know why
It's hard to bear
With no one beside you
you're going nowhere."
Ichigo twisted around, eyes half-closed as he danced like he'd done it his whole life. Rukia, officially perturbed and scared for her sanity, closed the door behind her as she put her hand to her mouth and fled the scene. Ill-fatedly, she wasn't the only one; inside Ichigo's inner world, his Hollow stared at the ever bright sky as it heard the music coming from somewhere above him. Zangetsu, not being fazed by it at all, cracked a smile and seemed to sway a little on the pole he was positioned on. "Dammit! Damn music is freakin' annoying!" the Hollow screamed, clapping his hands over his ears. "Graaaaah! His eye twitched as he turned to shoot a comment at Zangetsu, when the saw the sword moving slightly to the beat. "What the hell are you doing?" He screamed at the sky, and stood up, only to hear the music change to a different track.
He had to admit, it was better than the last, but he felt like dragging Ichigo back into this hellhole so he could chop him into pieces for his ignorance; that was, until he realized he was following the words he was hearing without knowing it consciously.
"Well now, I get low and I get high
And if I can't get either, I really try
Got the wings of Heaven
on my shoes
I'm a dancin' man and I just can't lose
You know it's alright, it's okay
I'll live to see another day
We can try to understand
The New York Times'
effect on man
Whether you're a brother or whether
you're a mother
You're stayin' alive, stayin' alive
Feel the city breakin' and everybody shakin'
Stayin' alive, stayin' alive."
He twirled around, his white shihakusho fluttering around him, and performed moves he didn't even know he knew as he lip-synced.
The traumatized Hollow only managed to stop just as Zangetsu turned to watch him amusement. "AAAAAH! What's happening to me? Dammit, Ichigo, I'll kick your ass for this!" he screeched. "Me and my fuckin' impulses. It's your fault!" He jabbed an accusing finger at the sideways clouds, catching a particular beat that came from the song above as the last one ended. Acting on what came purely from Ichigo's mind, his counterpart moved his hips from side to side and started to react on impulse again.
"Here I am
Prayin' for this
moment to last,
Livin' on the music so fine,
Born on the wind,
Makin' it mine.
Night fever, night fever."
This went on for some time until he was petrified, Zangetsu not even offering to help him during this tragic dilemma. Ichigo was hardly even aware what he was doing that whole time because he had been responding to what the music told him-as stupid as that may have sounded. In the end, he was breathing hard from fatigue, so he immediately retired without contemplating what he had done. Nobody had seen him, that's all he needed to be assured in. As long as that true, then he needn't worry about the rest. When Monday came around, he would go to Urahara's shop and give him the cursed disk so he wouldn't be possessed into dancing like that moron Keigo again. Little did he know about who had witnessed his feats. Of course, even despite her continuous protests and rants, no one ever believed Rukia. Uryu said that Kurosaki would roll over on his mother's grave- a very intense remark that betrayed how serious he was- before he would ever dance. Orihime said that Ichigo was to sophisticated to do that, which was a load of bull-crap on the sophisticated part. Keigo and Chad, however, were the only ones to share the last laugh, because they knew something no one else did:
Ichigo Kurosaki could, in fact, dance.
