The culmination of an exceptionally painful fortnight had been to wake and see Ikkaku entwined with Kira on the mat beside him. Both had been sleeping, Kira's head resting on Ikkaku's shoulder just where his own head should have been. The sight of blond hair against Ikkaku's skin made him feel sick.
The thought of them coming in late at night and making love as he slept - of Ikkaku seeing him lying there, defenceless and vulnerable and doing this to him. Choosing to do it. It made a hard black ball of pain and rage inside him that every muscle in his body clenched against. He couldn't bear to watch them wake. He'd got up as quietly as he could and gone into the bathroom.
He locks the door and sits down on the floor in the early morning light. Slowly the rage which had previously been dominated by the pain begins to rise to equal it. Yumichika can think now, and he begins to consider what he should do.
It had all begun when he and Ikkaku had quarrelled about something very trivial on their way to meet their friends for a drink. Ikkaku had not been in the mood to be placated, and when all Yumichika's efforts had met with stony taciturnity he had become bitchy and vicious in return. And they arrived to find that Shuuhei and Kira had also had some kind of fall out. Something rather more serious than their own.
In such a situation it might be expected that Shuuhei and Ikkaku would pair off and drown their sorrows together with loud laddishness. And Yumichika and Kira would complain about them and amuse their female friends and Yumichika would get Kira very drunk, and in the end Shuuhei would've had to've taken him home to stop him drooling over Yumichika's hakama.
However, Yumichika didn't like Kira much. He didn't like the way the irises of his eyes were so small, and he didn't like his hairstyle, and the broken way he always looked irritated him so much that he wanted to scream. And particularly when those horrible eyes were brimming with tears. It made him want to hurt the man more, not comfort him. So he'd gone off with Shuuhei instead. And then everything had gone wrong.
He has to admit now that he made a serious miscalculation there. But at the time he just wanted to annoy Ikkaku, and pay him back for being so mean and stubborn. And make him jealous. And not have to talk to that irritating Kira. So he'd flirted outrageously with Shuuhei, and been very charming and amusing and exceptionally good company. Shuuhei was very receptive, and he'd begun to feel quite a lot better. Only then he'd looked over to see how Ikkaku was reacting to his performance, and Ikkaku wasn't paying any attention at all, and Kira Izuru was weeping into his shoulder.
Yumichika remembers how even then this had provoked an irrational (he thought then!) burst of rage in him. Kira's performance had seemed something to rival his own, and he had resolved that it should have absolutely no affect on Shuuhei. He recounted his quarrel with Ikkaku as an amusing anecdote, and rolled his eyes as he implied that it did no harm to take these minor disagreements with a pinch of salt. He allowed Shuuhei's hand to linger on his thigh. When he looked round again Ikkaku and Kira were gone.
Somehow he had got through the rest of the evening. Shuuhei was very hard to get away from, and tried to get it on with Yumichika in a back alley when they did finally leave. Yumichika had only escaped by using shunpo and hiding his reiatsu. He'd arrived back at the 11th flustered, disorientated and angry and all but ignored the reproachfully (and unusually) sober Ikkaku he found waiting.
It had transpired in the morning that Ikkaku had just walked Kira home, and then gone home himself. Yumichika had made some bitchy remark about fukutaichou's who couldn't get themselves home, and Ikkaku had been angry. Then he'd gone to see Kira at the 3rd later that day. Since then they'd been visiting each other all the time, and Ikkaku got a horrible tender, serious look on his face every time Kira's name was mentioned. And somehow Yumichika just couldn't stop sniping at him. Both of them got more and more fed up with each other's company and nothing could be resolved between them as every time Ikkaku addressed Yumichika he got a sarcastic, biting reply, and every time Ikkaku got one of those he'd entirely clam up.
And now there is this. Ikkaku had gone out last night and not come back. Yumichika had of course assumed the worst was happening, but had eventually got himself to sleep. And woken up to this.
His back aches where he leans against the bath. He decides a bath might be the only way to start this day, which promises to be a shocker. He wonders if he'll even be able to speak to Ikkaku. Possibly it would be better not to until he's thought through exactly what he wants to say. But waking Ikkaku and Kira while he's in here and not able to see definitely seems like a good plan. He gets up and turns on the hot tap, relishing the noise it makes as it splashes onto the enamel. He hopes they haven't had much sleep.
He trails his hand in the stream of water while it warms up. It takes a long time. He'd had this bathroom put in when he and Ikkaku first gained high rank in the 11th. Most squads seemed to have very primitive washing arrangements, and the 11th had been no exception. He puts in the plug. Plans slowly begin to form in his head. Somehow he has to stop Ikkaku before he goes in too deep. And that seems a very real danger here. But Yumichika and Ikkaku's relationship has always been technically an open one. Technically, Yumichika has no right to be angry. But he is. And he know's it's with good reason.
This is very different from Yumichika's chaste conquests all over Seireitei, or Ikkaku's occasional drunken shags with girls. Or the things they'd done together. He remembers how he told Ikkaku all about his single beautiful kiss with the beautiful Byakuya. He can still make Kuchiki Taichou blush just by twitching an eyebrow. Or even that time with Renji and Iba when they were in the 11th as well, and they were both feeling horny and frustrated. Yumichika and Ikkaku had taken pity on them. Yumichika is slightly addicted to making people fall in love with him, but for himself, he'd only fallen in love once. With Ikkaku. He suddenly realises he's crying. 'Che', he thinks. 'This is behaving like Izuru.' He turns on the cold tap and stops the hot one. The thing is that Ikkaku's new relationship is excluding him entirely. That's never happened before.
He can hear voices in the other room now. He's glad not to be able to hear what they're saying. He pours lavender oil into the bath and swirls it round with an elegant hand. It's nearly the right temperature now. He turns off the tap, but keeps swirling to drown out the voices.
It's slightly too hot, but he gets in anyway. He lies back slowly, as his body gets used to the hot water. Now he feels better physically he's able to think more clearly, but his mind is still a blank. Has he really been so awful that the soft and gentle Kira is a relief? Or has Ikkaku just fallen in love? He shuts his mind to the thought. He puts his head under the water as he hears their voices again. 'Maybe it's just an infatuation and it will be over soon,' he thinks. But somehow he knows that's not the case.
He washes his hair, and considers that surely Ikkaku can't find Kira more sexually attractive than him. But no sooner is that thought comforting than it is torture, because then surely there must be some other factor. Love. Maybe Ikkaku never really loved him. Maybe it was always just convenience... He lies in the warm water and listens to their voices. Kira is enthusing about their having a bathroom. Yumichika hates the way Ikkaku doesn't refer to him at all - after all, isn't he the reason they have one? Kira says they only have showers at the 3rd - surely Ikkaku must know that by now. Although, maybe not. Really it's only Yumichika's influence that keeps him clean. He doesn't really have much instinct that way. And now Kira is expressing a desire for a bath! Yumichika feels his stomach boil with rage and hate. And all too soon there's a tap on the door.
'Yumichika!' comes Ikkaku's voice, distressingly impersonal. 'Are you going to be long? Kira wants to use the bath.'
Before he can consider at all what he wants to say, Yumichika has answered. 'Ikkaku, I won't be out until he's gone.' He's pitched his voice so that it rings around the room. There's no way Kira can't have heard. Now things are in motion.
He hears Ikkaku make an exasperated sound, and it seems as if he's about to speak again when Kira's quiet voice chimes in with, 'Never mind, Ikkaku, it doesn't matter - you shouldn't fight with him - I'll go back now, I've probably stayed too long anyway.'
He hates him. He resolves to force Ikkaku to fight with him. How dare that insipid blond try to prescribe their relationship. He can't hear Ikkaku's reply - it's too low a murmur. After a few moment he hears the outer door open. He leans out and unlocks the bathroom door. Then he lies back and waits. He's not even sure what he wants to happen, or how he wants Ikkaku to find him, but he definitely wants to be found. The worst thing would be Ikkaku not coming back. He pictures himself lying there waiting, and the water becoming completely cold.
He hasn't gone with Kira though. Yumichika can hear him moving around in the room outside. Then, 'Yumichika? Can I come in?'
His voice is gentler than Yumichika expects. He manages to keep the venom that he's feeling out of his voice as he replies, 'It's not locked.'
Ikkaku opens the door and Yumichika opens his eyes. He knows they're probably not the ambery violet that he likes Ikkaku to see. They're probably a slaty grey. But perhaps that will actually work better. He doesn't say anything, just looks at Ikkaku with a blank, noncommital expression that he hopes will make him angry.
It does. 'What the fuck, Yumichika!' he says, and the words echo around the bathroom making Yumichika's head ache. He relishes the pain. 'Did you have to be so rude?'
Yumichika doesn't reply, leaving Ikkaku's words hanging. Then he says quietly, 'Did you really fuck him with me asleep beside you?' He doesn't take his eyes from Ikkaku's, and Ikkaku can't quite meet his gaze now. But, typical alpha male, he reacts to reproach with anger, not apology. Just as Yumichika had planned.
'So that's what all this is about!' He would've denied that he was shouting, but in Yumichika's opinion he is. 'Is this why you've been such a bitch to me all week? I thought we were allowed to do this kind of thing if we wanted! This is supposed to be an 'open relationship', isn't it?'.
Yumichika stands and gets out of the bath in one fluid motion. 'Yes, but it's still possible to be unfaithful, even in an 'open relationship'. He mercilessly mimics Ikkaku's inflection. He wraps a towel around his hips and begins to dry his hair with another. 'I've never gone this far. I never thought you'd want to either.'
'Well, if there are all these subtle distinctions you should have said beforehand - I can't be expected to - '
'You needed a pre-nup?' Yumichika sneers. 'If you can't see the subtle distinctions for yourself then this obviously doesn't mean anything to you at all. This isn't opening a relationship, it's destroying one!'
'It's your choice whether it's destroyed or not - you're the one who's - '
'Fuck you, Ikkaku,' Yumichika snarls, 'You know I don't have any choice in this matter at all. Go after your broken little fukutaichou and tell him he can suck me off next if he wants to be part of this relationship - '
'Leave Kira out of this!' Ikkaku grabs Yumichika's shoulder and thrusts him up against the wall. Yumichika continues breathlessly,
'Though with his submission complex, he'd probably quite like that,' - This is going perfectly now, he thinks. All that's needed to complete the scene is some blood - 'not that I'd be able to bear it with his horrible tiny pupils staring at me. I suppose you want to mend his broken heart! Do you think you can do that by breaking mine?!'
Ikkaku slams him back harder, and a glass that somebody (probably Kira) has left on the sink is dislodged. It smashes and meets Yumichika's arm as it swings out with the force of Ikkaku's movement, slicing a long gash down the inner side of his wrist. It immediately starts to bleed hugely. Yumichika dimly registers the sound of the rest of the glass shattering on the floor, and Ikkaku's horrified expletive as his knees begin to give way.
'Fuck, no, Yumi don't move, there's glass everywhere!' Yumichika loses interest in the glass and drifts immediately into an intensely involved dream in unusually vivid colour. Fuji Kujaku is there, but he isn't really himself, and Yumichika is using him to cut his feathers into smaller and smaller pieces... It feels like an eternity, though he can't have blacked out for more than a minute, really. He comes round feeling cooler air on his face. His head is filled with strange menacing fairground music. I didn't mean quite this much blood, he thinks. Ikkaku is carrying him out of the bathroom, and gently laying him down on a futon.
He lies back and shuts his eyes as Ikkaku roughly binds the wound in one of the towels, and then goes for bandages and water. He begins to shiver, and makes an effort to elevate his wrist.
'Don't move!' Ikkaku is beside him again. He washes the cut, and Yumichika cranes his neck up to look at it. It's very clean and straight, and not hugely deep - the excessive bleeding was probably due to his raised body temperature. Ikkaku bandages it tightly.
Yumichika sits up and accepts the water that Ikkaku feeds him. 'Perhaps I should take you to the 4th,' Ikkaku says. 'They'd deal with it in seconds.'
Yumichika shakes his head. 'I'll deal with it myself as soon as my reiatsu's got a bit higher. It's not worth going to 4th for.' The corner of his mouth twitches and he knows if he meets Ikkaku's eyes he will burst out laughing. Of course you want it erased in seconds, he thinks, because that would erase the guilt you feel as well. And I need that to stay. 'Lets see the carnage.' he says lightly, getting up (only slightly unsteadily) and walking to the door of the bathroom. Ikkaku follows him. There's blood and glass all over the floor. Yumichika is quite surprised at the amount of blood. It actually makes him feel a little queasy, but he refuses to show it. Ikkaku takes his arm anyway and makes him sit down at the table by the window.
He brings him tea and sponges the rest of the blood of him and puts a kimono around his shoulders (one of Kyouraku taichou's pink ones that they had found in their possession after a night of drunken debauchery that neither of them quite remember). Yumichika knows that the trouble is not over yet, but in spite of that he feels better and his reiatsu starts to rise. Ikkaku brings out some rice and they eat in silence, regarding each other, neither knowing quite what to say. They seem to have an uneasy truce, and neither wants to violate it. Neither wants to go back to the sniping and silences that they've endured for the last two weeks.
'Your eyes are going purple again,' says Ikkaku at last.
'Violet...' murmurs Yumichika protestingly.
Ikkaku's stomach twists as he watches the colour of Yumichika's eyes intensify. He knows too well that Yumichika's eyes only go that slate grey colour when he's feeling really low. Did he really hurt him that much? Even after all these years together he still finds Yumichika's emotional range quite frightening. Perhaps that's why he's finding it so soothing being with Kira, whose emotional compass seems to swing only between calm and desolate.
They set off on patrol together about half an hour later, and around mid-morning they run into Kira leading a group of new recruits to the 3rd. Ikkaku feels Yumichika's reiatsu spike murderously, and it's only at this point that he notices that he's left off his characteristic orange arm protector. The slightly bloody bandage is on plain view, and Kira sees it at once.
'Oh, Yumichika.' he says with concern in his voice, 'What's happened to your arm?'
Ikkaku could have strangled Yumichika as he says airily, 'Oh, we had a bit of an accident in the bathroom after you left. It wasn't really Ikkaku's fault, though...'
Kira's (small-pupilled) eyes turn to him questioningly, and he looks away. Yumichika is still talking.
'It's nothing really, though it did bleed rather a lot... someone had left a glass on the sink.'
Kira blushes, knowing that he had left it there, and Yumichika probably knows that too.
' - probably me,' Yumichika prattles on, cold eyes boring into him, 'I was in such a state last night I don't remember half of what I did...'
Some of the new recruits are sniggering now, sensing their fukutaichou's discomfort, and Ikkaku hastily grabs Yumichika's upper arm and leads him away, muttering a gruff 'see you later' to Kira. It's a very familiar gesture, and Kira feels alone and left out. He wonders if Yumichika is going to be very troublesome. He resolves to speak to him when they all meet later that night.