Technological Difficulties

Note: Written for the Homemade Theme Challenge I started with denimlacedream on livejournal, with the theme 'Problem Exists Between Chair and Keyboard'. This was the first piece I did for the challenge, and it all sort of fell together the night I got the themes. Enjoy.

Disclaimer: Bleach is owned by all the wonderful creators of the anime, manga, and games, and this is a fanmade work. I make absolutely no material gain from this.

"What the hell do you mean by… by…" Rukia gestured hopelessly at the computer screen in front of her. "Whatever. Why can't you just show me what to do?"

"It's the monitor, Rukia, and if you can't name the basic parts of a computer, I can't teach you how to do anything on it." Ichigo was, to his credit, trying very hard to keep his impatient temper in check while trying to explain the basics of using a computer to the irritable shinigami in front of him. Since starting at Ichigo's high school, Rukia had until that moment avoided any interaction with technology any more complicated than her soul phone, which hardly counted in the long run as far as Ichigo was concerned.

"Well, then teach me already. You're really terrible at this, you know?" Rukia shoved back from the desk with her feet, crossing her arms over her chest. "I could always ask Ishida or Inoue to help me out with this. You're making this hard on purpose." She jutted her chin up and glared at him defiantly, daring him to tell her otherwise.

It took more patience than Ichigo credited himself with to try and teach Rukia how to operate a computer, but his valiant efforts continued with a suppressed growl of frustration and a pounding headache. He finally unburied his head from under his arms and returned the glare.

"I'm not the one making this so hard." He gritted out, before standing abruptly and kicking his chair aside. "Look, I'm trying to help you with this, but you're impossible."

Rukia opened her mouth to protest, but Ichigo's glower warned her that discretion and quiet complacence was probably in her best interest if she wanted to stay in his good graces, or even if she wanted to learn how to use the godforsaken machine humans relied on so much. It wouldn't be so bad if she could only find the power switch, or distinguish the monitor from the keyboard for that matter.

After a few shaky breaths, Ichigo leaned over Rukia and carefully guided her through the names of the individual parts again, before showing her the most basic of applications she might use. After another half-hour of patient explanations, Ichigo finally felt confident that Rukia couldn't destroy the delicate and atrociously expensive machine in the span of a few minutes, while he ran to get some juice for the both of them.

A muffled scream greeted him as he returned and he threw the door open in panic, looking for any sign of danger. He only found Rukia staring inquisitively at the computer screen and felt his heart drop straight through his shoes.

"What do you think you're doing?" He cried, but it came out half-choked and desperate as he tried to simultaneously block her eyes and navigate away from the explicit page Rukia had found.

"I don't know!" She retorted hotly, pushing him away as he finally flipped off the monitor. "I think I accidentally clicked something, or it was there or… I don't know!"

Ichigo didn't have the heart, or the courage, rather, to tell her that it was likely she had clicked on an unfortunate link to a pornographic website visited earlier in the week. Instead, he tugged her out of the chair and bustled her out of the room, face warming more and more with every moment. "Just… don't do that again!" He cried, slamming the door shut with an air of finality.

Rukia nodded numbly before pausing and looking over at Ichigo with a faint smile of understanding and amusement, but didn't say anything for several moments, until his heartrate had dropped and he appeared calmer.

"So, why don't we do things like that?" She asked innocently.

Ichigo glowed in mortification, stuttering out an answer and wishing fervently that Rukia had somehow destroyed the incriminating machine.

End