Disclaimer: Nothing belongs to me.
Chapter One: It Begins
"I don't know, Taichō," Matsumoto Rangiku said doubtfully, half bent over to stare at the neat row of boxes on a lower shelf in front of her. "Which Pocky is the best?"
On the redhead's left, a tall white haired man rolled his eyes and resisted the urge to sigh. On her right, a dark haired woman did sigh, lacking the restraint that the man possessed.
"Chocolate," Hitsugaya Tōshirō answered shortly, at the same time Kurosaki Karin said, "Strawberry."
Teal and onyx eyes met in a mutual glare over Rangiku's back.
"Chocolate," he repeated, ignoring the challenge in her eyes.
"Strawberry," she replied frostily.
"Chocolate."
"Strawberry."
"Chocolate."
"Strawberry."
"What about orange?" Rangiku asked innocently.
The response was simultaneous and instantaneous.
"No."
Karin and Tōshirō stopped glowering at each other just long enough to focus the solely on Matsumoto, having apparently agreed upon their mutual dislike of any flavor other than chocolate or strawberry.
She stood up and raised her hands defensively.
"Okay, okay," she said hastily. "Not orange. Then what?"
"Strawberry," Karin answered immediately, watching the pair of teal eyes opposite her narrow dangerously.
"No."
"Yes."
"No."
"Yes."
"No."
"For the love of sake!" Rangiku cried, looking from side to side and scowling at both of them. "I'll buy them both."
"You're only wasting your money," Karin warned, flipping inky tresses over her shoulder with a twitch of her hand.
"Not my money," Rangiku corrected. "It's Taichō's credit card."
"Then by all means—"
"Matsumoto!" Tōshirō interrupted, indignant. "You will not waste Tenth Division funds on those nauseating sticks!"
Rangiku paused, arm poised to dump as many of the tiny boxes as she could fit into the basket at her feet.
"'Nauseating sticks?'" Karin repeated, eyebrow arching incredulously. "Those nasty brown colored chocolate ones you eat that look like they were dipped in shi—"
"Don't finish that."
Their fierce scowls all but ignited the air between them, with Rangiku unfortunately caught in the middle. It didn't take much, though, for Rangiku to decide to side with her taichō; it would end the conflict sooner and she had, after all, known him far longer. She picked up a box, scrutinizing the candy on the cover.
"Taichō, I don't think Karin-chan's description is right," she informed them. "This shade of brown is slightly too dark to be considered as human shi—"
"Matsumoto!"
Karin smirked triumphantly at Tōshirō's horrified expression. "See what I mean?" she drawled smugly. "They look utterly disgusting."
"At least the chocolate ones don't look like they were dipped in a flamingo's liquefied remains," he defended darkly, drawing twin looks of revulsion on both of the women's faces.
"Eww, Taichō!" Rangiku protested, wrinkling her nose and looking at the light pink box clutched in her other hand.
"That's just disturbing, Tōshirō," Karin declared, a touch of grudging admiration in her voice.
"It's Hitsugaya-taichō, Kurosaki," he snapped automatically.
"Of course, Shirō-chan," she continued breezily, waving her hand dismissively and grinning when she saw him twitch. It took Tōshirō only an instant to conclude that pressuring her even further would only lead to new and inventive (and almost certainly degrading) nicknames.
"I think we're ready!" Rangiku announced, hefting the basket full of Pocky boxes. Tōshirō eyed the basket warily, mentally calculating the cost of the mountain of Pocky. Karin, on the other hand, delighted in the fact that Rangiku was buying so many—the older woman certainly wouldn't be able to eat all those strawberry Pocky and that meant free Pockyfor her.
As they walked to the register of the tiny corner store, Rangiku gestured with her hand to Karin, trying to get her to distract Tōshirō so she'd be able to use the credit card without his interference. Karin interpreted Rangiku's message as 'Don't marry the gopher.' While good advice, she realized this probably wasn't the intended meaning, if only because she couldn't ever see Rangiku encouraging nuptials.
What? Karin mouthed at the busty redhead. Rangiku's icy blue eyes rolled and she attempted the hand signals again, all the while juggling the full basket uncomfortably.
'Distract the gopher,' was the next message that Karin received. She assumed that by 'gopher' Rangiku meant Tōshirō (she also assumed that she was probably mixing up the hand signals for 'Tōshirō' and 'gopher,' but that couldn't be helped) and she realized that Rangiku was probably concerned that Tōshirō might follow through on his threat to prevent her from using his credit card. They needed a distraction, and she had to act quickly.
Option One: Look, a Hollow!
It wouldn't work. He'd be able to sense if there was one or not. The old Hollow trick really only worked on those with zero reiryoku or Ichi-nii, anyway.
Option Two: Ooh, shiny!
It'd never work. Tōshirō wasn't easily distracted by shiny things, although the technique did work well on small children and Ichi-nii.
Option Three: Shirō-chan!
Starting another argument wouldn't work, especially since she had already called him Shirō-chan earlier and gotten away with it. He wouldn't notice anything different from their usual banter, anyway—although that trick did work on Yuzu and Ichi-nii.
Option Four: Karin as a hoochie mamma.
Distracting him with her womanly wiles was laughable at best. The extreme version of this tactic—flashing him—would have no effect because Rangiku-of-the-Head-Sized-Breasts had rendered Tōshirō immune to one of the cornerstones of Karin's arsenal. For most males, she just had to lower her shirt a tiny bit and voila, instant slave. Not that she had anything approaching Rangiku's endowments, but she certainly wasn't what one would consider "flat-chested" by any means. She hadn't ever tried that one on Ichi-nii, and she wasn't ever going to, either.
Option Five: Drastic measures.
She considered jumping him and pinning him to the floor while Rangiku paid or resorting to other, similarly drastic measures. Since the likelihood of five foot six Karin pinning down a five foot ten Tōshirō was about negative twenty to a thousand, that left drastic measures.
Rangiku started unloading the pile of boxes, amazing the small man who ran the register at the sheer quantity of Pocky. Karin dipped her hand into her pocket, turning around and startling Tōshirō who had been intently eyeing the tiny plastic card sticking out of the back of Rangiku's pocket.
"Gopher," Karin said lowly, hand already leaving her pocket, weapon tightly clasped.
Tōshirō looked confused.
"Wha—" he began, opening his mouth, and Karin took this opportunity to shove her weapon of choice inside.
He didn't seem to comprehend just what she had shoved in his mouth, but then the taste gradually hit his tongue and his eyes widened and his mouth fell back open. He reached up, lightning quick, and took the strawberry Pocky out of his mouth.
"How childish of you, Kurosaki," he commented, examining the offensively pink biscuit in his hand. "But revenge is far sweeter than this death stick of yours."
"Revenge?" Karin asked, smirking. "As if you even know the meaning of tha—"
She was cut off by a disturbingly familiar taste in her mouth. She nearly gagged, spitting the biscuit out into her hand.
"Gross!" she cried, confirming that it had been a chocolate Pocky that he'd shoved in her mouth, just as she'd done to him. She glared at him, her fury rising when she realized that his face was expressionless, almost bored with the proceedings. He gave a tiny shrug.
"Payback's a bi—"
Not even bothering to get another strawberry Pocky (she did not intend to waste another good Pocky on him), Karin shoved the offending chocolate Pocky right back into his mouth.
Tōshirō had been unprepared for the right-handed assault. He had been keeping a wary eye on her left hand, knowing that she'd use it to draw her next weapon because her right hand had been preoccupied with his chocolate Pocky. The first thing he noticed was that the Pocky was already slightly damp—a direct result of having already been in Karin's mouth. The next thing he noticed was the very faint taste of strawberry.
He tried to delude himself into thinking that it was a echo of her last weapon, but he knew it was probably from the more obvious source of Karin's mouth. Instead of spitting out the Pocky as she probably expected him to do, he closed his mouth and sucked on the Pocky challengingly.
Karin stared at him in disbelief, eyes narrowing as her competitive spirit rose. Onyx eyes sparking violently, she snatched the strawberry Pocky out of his hand, nearly stabbing the back of her throat with the force she used to shove her Pocky into her mouth. I can do that, too, she thought viciously.
Tōshirō arched his eyebrow at her, but she merely continued to scowl at him, hands on hips. Teal on onyx—chocolate versus strawberry—neither of them was willing to back down from the standoff they had marched into so daringly.
"All bought!" Rangiku announced happily, turning around with bags in her hands. A brief assessment of her companions revealed that they were locked in a silent battle, and she resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Instead, she separated the bags into two groups and shoved one group at Karin and the other at Tōshirō, letting go when they automatically latched onto them as she breezed on by.
Dammit, Tōshirō thought, narrowing his eyes in response to Karin's triumphant look. She distracted me.
"Rangiku-chan, try the strawberry first!" Karin said cheerily, skipping ahead to catch up with the tall redhead. The woman happily obliged, pulling out a box and opening it, munching on the stick contemplatively. Neither Karin nor Tōshirō could look away, eager to hear the results of the sampling.
"Hmmm," she finally uttered. Karin looked irritated.
"How did you like it?" Karin asked impatiently.
"Chocolate next," Rangiku announced, ignoring Karin in favor of diving into one of Tōshirō's bags and withdrawing a red box. The chocolate Pocky was out in a flash. Again, both of her companions eyed her intently, hoping that she'd give a sign of either pleasure or distaste.
"Hmmm," she said again, finishing off the Pocky.
Karin was seconds away from strangling her, and Tōshirō wasn't that far behind.
"Well?"
The woman gave a tiny shrug.
"They're okay," she decided, anti-climatically. "Nothing to write home about."
"'Nothing to write home about?'" Karin repeated incredulously. "You've got to be kidding me!"
"Matsumoto," Tōshirō questioned, teal eyes scanning her face for any signs of illness. "Are you feeling well?"
Rangiku huffed, crossing her arms underneath her chest (a considerably feat).
"What? Just because I don't think they're an orgasm on the tongue I must be feeling sick? Orihime-chan's cooking is far better than those little sticks! I honestly don't see the appeal."
Karin and Tōshirō exchanged glances behind Rangiku. Differences in taste or not, they were united in at least one thing: they both believed that Pocky was the best thing that one could ever eat. Someone who didn't see that as an obvious truth then was clearly a misguided soul.
"Don't worry," Rangiku said, exasperated as she caught sight of them giving her their patented, 'Are you crazy?' looks. "It just means you now both have a month's supply of Pocky."
Karin visibly perked up at this pronouncement, willing to forgive Rangiku's transgression now that she had free Pocky.
Tōshirō, on the other hand, calmly examined the Pocky in his bags before looking up gravely.
"They won't last the week."
A/N: The idea of this strawberry-chocolate vendetta sort of thing does not belong to me. I was reading a Vampire Knight story by Shanna1003 titled "Beauty x Blood" and one of the drabbles has an outline very similar to the first bit of my story (the chocolate-strawberry no-yes exchanges in particular). So the basis for this goes to her.
Beta'd by the extraordinary RukiLex who helped me with cleaning this baby up and used the term "hoochie mamma" in relation so Karin's plans.
This story is outlined at seven little "battles," so it'll be cute and charming. Between this one and Threads, I might be able to write enough for a chapter of my normal length. x)
Thank you for reading!
Roma