Notes: For crunchy_salad's request "Keigo gets jealous of all the time Ichigo is not spending with him, Ichigo makes it up to him". Title from the September 8, 2005 prompt for the lj community 31_days.
It was late when they got out of the arcade, and for once Keigo was at a loss for words. Neon still burned happily in his eyes, and Ichigo clutched the little stuffed dog Keigo won out of the UFO catcher (for Yuzu, he had said). Keigo couldn't remember the last time he'd been out with anyone, most of his gaming he accomplished in his room. This was the awkward end to the date, the parting of the ways, the moment of truth, the goodbye kiss. Except that this wasn't a date, this was what guys - friends - did together. You know, when one of them wasn't moonlighting as a glorified ghostbuster.
Ichigo was looking over Keigo's shoulder, eyes narrowed and searching in the dark. He visibly relaxed when a cat crept out of a trash can down the street. Keigo wondered if one appeared, what Ichigo would do. He missed his friend, the one who wasn't always running off to fight monsters and never telling anyone about it, who wasn't vanishing for weeks or months on end and reappearing with bad injuries and worse excuses. Not that Keigo minded shinigami Ichigo, he had always thought Ichigo was kind of badass and this only heightened his cool factor, but shinigami Ichigo really minded him.
That was the reason they had gone on the date (whatever) in the first place. Keigo had been on a late-night soda run for Mizuho and what did he stumble across but a big ugly monster and Ichigo beating the crap out of it. He backed away slowly, being sensible and deathly afraid, sort of awestruck by Ichigo slashing through the air. Ichigo, oddly enough, didn't seem to notice him and quickly dispatched of the awful screaming thing.
"Appearing more frequently," he muttered, pulling out some weird device from his kosode and poofing it in Keigo's face. He turned and was gone before Keigo could even blink. His brain went fuzzy for a moment; he couldn't wait to tell the guys about the hurricane he saw- wait a minute, Ichigo had tried to wipe his memory! Oh, that was low.
Keigo may have been ignored by his friends at school before (actually it was a pretty regular occurrence, usually because of a few bad jokes at the wrong time) but he had always understood that to be a loving "oh, Keigo" response. Ichigo freezing him out like that was just mean. He had always turned Keigo down when he wanted to hang out after school but that had been because he was busy studying (that nerd) but that wasn't anything personal, Ichigo never hung out with anyone unless you counted the thugs he beat up. Now his grades were slipping and he barely came to school at all anymore, and when he did he ate lunch with Ishida, Chad, and Orihime. And they would speak in hushed voices and sometimes Ishida would adjust his glasses and Orihime would imitate his mock seriousness and they would all laugh.
Mizuiro was always getting one of his girlfriends or another to pose as his aunt and sign him out of school, and Arisawa still had the other girls to eat lunch with (and damn if he'd be welcome there). He admired them, Mizuiro for pretending none of it bothered him and Arisawa for having the (metaphorical) balls to not let Ichigo off the hook. He still wondered if Ichigo didn't hit her back out of pity, guilt, or a twisted sense of honor; he wondered which was worse.
So since Keigo had nowhere to go and nobody to miss him, he faked sick and skipped school for a week. Ichigo showed up on his doorstep on the fourth day, bringing Yuzu's home cooking and an offer to hang out once Keigo felt better. It was all three: pity and guilt and pride, Keigo decided, but the look of genuine concern on Ichigo's face surprised him. The soup was really good and Keigo did want to go to the arcade, but he was still a long way from forgiveness.