Cockroach!
A sweet weekend afternoon, and Rukia melted under the warm streaks of the sun. Sitting on the floor, she stretched and yawned before leaning against the bed in the room. She's flipped through all those manga books and magazines available and didn't feel like doing anything else, including cleaning up the little mess she's made.
Heh, once the owner of this room returns, he'll be mad with all of these.
Speaking of the devil, there he was, crouching at the window. The Substitute Shinigami tapped the glass a few times, asking her to open the closed window.
"Welcome back, Ichigo." Rukia said as he jumped in. "How's the Hollow?"
"It's so damn easy, as usual—" The teen grumbled after getting back into his physical body and took a glance around him. First, he bore a blank expression, staring at the space in front of him. His scowl deepened, knitting his brows together.
"Say, Rukia," He started in a calm voice. "I'm sure this is my room, right?"
"Sure as hell, of course!" The petite girl said unbelievingly with a raised brow. "What, you can't even recognize the place you're living in? That's pathetic of you—"
"—if my memory doesn't fail me, I remember that just about half an hour ago I've cleared a mess before I went off to exterminate that damn weak Hollow—"
"—uh-huh, you said that right enough. Oh my, time does fly past quickly—"
"—and I've told you to take good care of my body as well as my room—"
"—ah-ha…now that I recall it, I do remember you said something like that—"
"—and now that I've come back, I'm welcomed by a bedroom which seemed to have gone through an atomic explosion with all the mess AGAIN!" Ichigo yelled.
"Hey, I did look after your body as asked to," Rukia retorted, jabbing his chest angrily. "You should thank me for you're still fit as a fiddle. And for your information, I'm not your personal servant who, as you may expect, cleans and keeps your room spotless; that's your responsibility. Therefore," She gestured to all his belongings lying everywhere in the place. "You, the owner, should be the one to do the tidy-up."
"You're the first one I'd ever met to be able to say such an unreasonable thing!" Ichigo said with a throbbing vein on his temple and a twitching eye. "It's always the one who makes the mess does the tidying! That's how it should be fair!"
"No, that's not!" Rukia exclaimed with a glare. "I am the guest of the house and you are the owner! It's always the owner who does all the labour work of tidying!"
"Well, do you know that the guest aids the owner with some of the chores as a sign of gratitude for the hospitality?" Ichigo knew that he's going to win this. Seeing how the member of the 13th Squad gag, trying to make an argument, his smirk grew. Since it's his first victory of the battles of tongues and wits, he'll make good use of it.
"Go and fetch a broom and a dustpan. You'll start with sweeping the rubbish, and I'll get the other things back in order. No complaining, so just get to it."
"Yes, sir…" Rukia seethed through her gritting teeth and stormed out, but not before kicking his shin to release part of her frustration. She went down the stairs to the storeroom, where the household cleaning utensils were stored. She's about to retrieve the broom and the dustpan when she met one of the Kurosaki twin sisters, Yuzu, with the vacuum tailing behind her and a bucket and a cloth in her right hand.
"Oh, Rukia-nee-chan," The brunette said. "What are you looking for in here?"
"Your brother's dispatched me to fetch something to clean his room of a landfill, while he's up there to put away his personal articles." The raven-hair replied, finally found the two targeted objects in the crammed and dark little room.
"Do you need some help?" Yuzu offered. "I'll help to mop the floor."
"I think we'll be fine up there, thank you." Rukia smiled. "I believe that other than having some bruises, both of us will deal with the cleaning without problems."
"Okay, but feel free to ask for help; I'll be in the living room." Yuzu said, as Rukia retreated back upstairs to the strawberry's bedroom with the broom and the dustpan. By now, the books and magazines, which were scattered over the place before, were put back into their original positions. Ichigo's now tending to his clothes, the cleaner ones on his right while those need to go through a good washing on his left.
"I thought you're crushed under the things in the storeroom." He smirked.
"You wish," She growled, swinging the broom to hit his head, if he didn't dodge it; damn reflexes. Grouchily, they worked on their own task. Just when Rukia's about to whack the nearly-empty potato chips packet into the dustpan, she spotted some tiny movements about it. Curiosity kills the cat, and someone pays the price "dearly".
"Something's in it!" Rukia shrilled at the top of her lungs, scrambling away from it. The packet, in her hands just now, dropped onto the floor. An innocent creature crawled out and stuck out half of its body, revealing itself to be identified as…
"NOT A COCKROACH!" Ichigo hollered, leaped onto his bed and stared at the beetle with terror in his wide eyes. Little by little and most obviously, the "big tough" boy edged away as far as he could from the horror to the corner of his bed. Rukia, though frightened by its sudden appearance, raised a brow as she watched the scene with some sort of muse – how she found this amusing is an interesting unknown.
"Do something than just running away from it, Ichigo!" She cried with a slight whimper in her voice. "You're not intimidated by the God-wannabe Aizen's crushing powers, yet of all things in this world you're frightened by a cockroach?"
"Shut up!" He yelled back, shivering as a bad memory made a comeback.
"What's going on here?" After a soft knock, the other twin sister came in. Karin scanned the room, and saw her pre-adult brother cowering on his bed and his female roommate crouching on his chair, looking as if she's found a soul's saviour.
"Dear Karin-chan!" Rukia exclaimed with moved tears welling up in her eyes. "Please help us to get rid of this monster and knock some senses to your brother!"
Karin raised a brow and her eyes followed to where Rukia's trembling finger's pointing to. She gave a small yelp of surprise when she saw the cockroach, switching its two long antennas. Taking a deep breath, she silently closed the distance between her and the insect. When close enough, she raised one of her legs, readying to stomp on it. The three people in the room stared intently, readying to witness its doom…
But the cockroach suddenly spread its wings. Its actions startled the three.
"What on earth—" Rukia whispered and then broke out into a piercing shriek with the Kurosaki siblings. In only a split of a second, the girls lunged towards the bed and crashed into a bundle with Ichigo. After a fight of arms and legs, they hid behind the citrus head, pushing him to the front. With a howl, Ichigo threw his blue blanket over himself and in turn leave the girls uncovered. With no choice, the screaming dark-haired girls curled up to protect themselves from the flying cockroach.
"What's with all the—" The door opened, and this time it's Yuzu. She saw the three heaps of shivering people on the bed and caught a glimpse of something black. The brunette froze of a moment as the cockroach hovered above her head and broke out into another feat of shrieking as she lunged at the largest blue heap on the bed.
"OUCH! Look where you're scrambling to, Yuzu!" Because of her frantic waving of arms and legs, Yuzu hit Ichigo on his head wildly; and hard, too. Seeing a "cover", Yuzu yanked the blanket off from Ichigo's torso and used it as a screen to cover all the females up. The brother, of course, was not happy with the loss of his "shield" and was about to protest, but then he's lost sight of that flying devil in the room.
"Hey, come out, all of you," He said, lifting up the blanket. "It's gone."
After some pushing and squabbling, they tiptoed to the door, with Ichigo in the lead and the girls clinging tightly onto him. They poked their head out to see where the pest was, with Yuzu at the bottom, then Karin, Rukia and Ichigo. They spotted the cockroach on the wall at the furthest end of the corridor, a place where they're out of its "harm". Just when they're about to heave a sigh of relief, it's airborne again!
All the four of them broke out screaming again, and Yuzu scurried out of the room frantically. Karin bumped at the wall as she dashed out. Rukia, shrilling, simply clutched onto Ichigo, as if her life's depended on him, as he rushed out of his room as well. They pushed each other out of their way and all of them scrambled downstairs.
Their danger's not over yet, since the cockroach, most unluckily for them, flew down and followed them to where they're. Everything got very lively as the four of them ran in circles in seek of a hiding place. Whenever they found a hiding spot, the insect would follow them to there. Therefore, the train of people ran about the living room like lunatics, screaming at the top of their lungs. Yuzu's in the lead, then Karin and Ichigo, Rukia still clinging onto him. Of course, the cockroach's hot on their tail.
"Hey!" To get things worse, or to get the four out of this dilemma, the Kurosaki patriarch chose to return to the house at this moment. "What's with all these n—?"
"That's it!" Ichigo cried as his bulb blinked on. He reached out to drag his sisters behind him, making him now the one in lead and ran to Isshin's direction. Just before he crashed into his father, he made an abrupt turn and avoided a hard collision. The hollering sisters followed suit. Isshin's stunned and never got to fully understand the situation, and got the flying cockroach, which didn't make the sharp turn, on his face. All the father only knew at the moment was that something's on his face, and he's now the one squealing like a pig and running about in circles in the messy room.
Just as the father blindly ran to his son, though still scared of the pest, Ichigo hoisted up a slipper and whacked it at Isshin's face. Upon the impact, the cockroach, at last, met its end and stuck on Isshin's face, while the man's knocked unconscious.
The Shinigami, having a night-out in one of the bars in Seireitei, couldn't control their howling after hearing last week's story from Yachiru, the one who pulled this prank secretly on the Kurosaki. Ikkaku and Yumichika banged the table, roaring, and Rangiku wheezed. Izuru and Shuuhei clutched their aching stomach, with tears rolling down their slightly flushed cheeks from the sake. Ichigo, who's forcibly dragged to be there, growled with his scowl in embarrassment while Rukia's as red as a tomato.
"To think that THE invincible Kurosaki Ichigo has this humorous weakness…!" Renji said through hiccoughs. Looking at the citrus head, he burst out laughing again.
"Shut the hell up now or you'll regret it." Ichigo seethed a threat, but it seemed to be in vain. He turned to glare at Rukia, who's sitting next to him and still blushing, for telling such an embarrassing secret, so as mentally blaming his family for telling Rukia the story of his cockroach-phobia. Well, imagine that your beloved mother's bought you a piece of lovely cake that is rich in chocolate. Due to a nasty and greedy cockroach and its sudden appearance on it just before you're going to take a bite, you never got to have that heavenly cake. Who wouldn't be upset with such a great loss?
Enough was enough, but before Rukia could give them a piece of her mind, the childlike 11th Squad Vice-Captain giggled. She took something from her Shihakushou, which revealed to be a jar with something black in it. She dropped the "something" into Renji's empty cup. The red-head didn't saw that and still poured sake into his cup. Just as he raised the cup to his lips, he felt something tickling him, which's a pair of antennas…of a live cockroach! This freaked the hell out of the Shinigami as the insect took flight and they ran about, knocking things over. It didn't affect Ichigo, Rukia and Yachiru, as they watched the scene with roaring laughter inside Rukia's Kidou barrier.
"It's always good to be the witness of a good joke!" Rukia giggled nonstop.
"Yeah," Ichigo grinned. "But when you're the victim of this joke, you'll always be haunted by the thing, which startles you for a moment, for the rest of your life!"
I really detest those creepy-crawlies, esp. COCKROACHES! They really scare the creep out of me whenever they come out from the corners of the house. But this time, I have to give them a little credit, as they inspire me to write this fic.
Well, I'm in fact a bit bored with my other ongoing fics, and I really don't have much idea of how to continue them, so I decided to do some one-shots first. These little distractions certainly help, as after I've done with them, I can easily get back on with the others. Hopefully I'll get all of them done very soon, but with the hectic life in here, it'll take some time. I know you're aching to see them, but for now, please forgive and bear with me.
Last but not least, a thousand thanks would be given to those darlings who review!
Kuroi Kokoro 09