Disclaimer: I own nothing of Bleach, but the other characters such as Cogdill and Tony, I do own. Well not really; they pwn me.
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Six months.
Six months of pure, unadulterated, undeniable HELL.
It had been six months since April. It was now October.
And Ichigo hadn't made any progress, at all. With Rukia, with school, friends (in the sense that he couldn't get Keigo or Mizuiro off his back), or this new type of agony he had been forced to take up;
Marching Band.
Jesus, and he thought fighting Hollows was bad! At least with them you were perfectly allowed to kill the beast that stole souls. With a band director or drum major, they get off with your soul SCOTT FREE. And what was worse, it seemed like they, the B.D. and the D.M., only preyed on one person in the marching band. That one person, as you might have guessed, was Ichigo. But that was irrelevant. That's not why Ichigo felt like pounding heads into the concrete. No, it wasn't the insane Band Director or the Obsessive Compulsive Drum Major, no, it was someone far, far, FAR, worse.
It was Rukia.
Ever since that day at that little run down convenience store, Ichigo had been trying to forget about her. (This was irrational, though, because she still lived in his closet.) In the corner of his mind, he saw her framed against a scenic winter background, looking cute as a button, and he hated it. And whenever Ichigo mentioned it, merely the thought, she would immediately deny any acknowledgement of what he spoke of, if they were in public. Otherwise, she'd just give him another pretty color of purple on his cheek, promising worse punishment if he said anything at all. ("I will kill you, make no mistake. It didn't happen, so shut up about it.")
And after that, life had just gone smoothly, taking out the occasional Hollow, kicking ass in general, you know, the usual Ichigo thing. But then, a sick twist of fate occurred. That innocent, gullible principal of Karakura high school was fooled into getting the one thing that this school didn't need. A marching band. And what was worse, they were from America. Like they needed a bunch of bloody yankees dirtying up the band building Ichigo hadn't known about!
And the band director needed fresh blood.
He had, of course, brought his own faithful gang of... about fifty people. Compared to the hundred something kids in American marching bands, it was pathetic, so he decided to leech off the local population; kids that were remotely talented in music. If you could hold out an F note on a wind instrument for eight counts, you were in. If you could hit a string of eighth notes on a snare drum, you were in. If you could play "Mary Had a Little Lamb" on the xylophone, bass, or electric guitar, you were in. So, naturally, every junkie and their grandmothers came in to audition for the band; it could be counted as community service.
And of course, just about everybody got in.
And when the author says just about everybody, they mean everybody that Ichigo wished hadn't auditioned.
Orihime, Tatsuki, Keigo, Mizuiro, Ishida, Chad and, of course, Rukia, had all auditioned. And they all got in. Orihime was the most cheerful and excitable, so naturally, she played the flute. Next, Keigo and Mizuiro played the clarinet, quite possibly the most homosexual instrument for males to play, bested only by flutes. After that, was Ishida, who played the saxophone with surprising intensity.
Ichigo wasn't aware that a Quincy could do anything right, let alone play music with feeling. What a shocker.
Next on the list, and probably Ichigo's most favorite person in band, Chad. Chad played the drumset for the pit, which was a truly frightening thing, though Ichigo'd be pretty hard put to admit it to anybody. Half the time one was afraid for the drumset, the other half one would be afraid for the rest of the pit crew, who would be within four or five feet of drumsticks flailing wildly in the air when a drumset solo came around. Then, the drumline, which was mostly comprised of American boys and one American girl, Tatsuki and Ichigo had been forced to join. Neither wanted to, but neither had a choice. This was an 'easy' way to get a good excuse for missing all those worthless detentions. So, accordingly, Ichigo played the tenor drums (also called the quads) and Tatsuki played the snare drum.
Easy his ass. Marching band was ridiculous, and it only got worse as things went along.
Now, as we all know, Rukia couldn't just settle for a trumpet or a flute, no, she had to play the most out there, least known instrument in all of marching band. The Mellophone. It looked something like the bastard son of the marching baritone and a trumpet: silver, smaller than the former but bigger than the latter, and was, in actuality, a french horn gone terribly wrong. It had a forward facing bell, so that the sound could project to the audience, and was pretty much a useless piece of junk metal, in Ichigo's opinion.
And so, for the last six months, everyone had been learning their respective instruments because, HEAVEN FORBID one of the musicians be ill-prepared for the competition that was in... what, one, two... SEVEN MONTHS. Throughout the winter season, when it was just colorguard- who sucked, by the way, but would cry if they were ever told outright- the band director would have after school practices with the entire band. During these practices, Rukia and Ichigo would most likely be found fighting Hollows, but regardless, they miraculously found time to learn their parts. So now here Ichigo was, after six months of HELL under the complete tyranny of the percussion section leader, the only American girl in the drumline.
She was worse than Rukia.
To say her fuse was short would be to assume that she had a fuse at all. No, she was more of an explode on contact nuclear warhead. Say the wrong thing, do the wrong thing, miss a beat, and she was all over you like white on rice. And she wasn't above using physical violence, though she stood below five feet. She had complete and absolute control over the section, all except Tatsuki and Ichigo. But Tatsuki liked this dictatorship; finally, a woman was in charge. So she had no problem with it. Ichigo was still unhappy with the arrangements, though, so he mouthed off whenever he got the chance.
Suffice to say, Ichigo became well acquainted with the track that ran the perimeter of the school.
Anyways, it had been six months, three different band camps, seventeen Tuesday and Thursday practices, a hundred and some-odd times around the track, and at least twenty-eight pairs of concert drums sticks (and two pairs of marching drum sticks) when Ichigo found himself watching the other band members lounging around the band hall, talking about band stuff that he didn't give half a rats ass about. Some were playing around on the Glock, and some were playing their electric guitars on amps in a far away corner of the large square room. Rukia, who was seated only a few feet away from Ichigo was absentmindedly fingering along to the halftime show music, occasionally checking her primitive cell phone for an update on a Hollow attack. Anything to get out of this place.
And then, with no prior warning, the Band Director, known as Mister Cogdill, came marching through the doors with the most terrifying grin on his face that anyone had ever witnessed. It reminded Ichigo of a Hollow's ivory mask. A lot. And the way he marched up to the door of the empty uniform room was just as disturbing, if not more so. But Ichigo soon found out what had Mister Cogdill so worked up and excited; following the tactful path through boxes that Mister C had, was a long rack of what had to be uniforms, pushed by some poor schmuck of a bass drum player.
And, even though he sulked like nothing had changed and scowled like the devil, Ichigo felt a small spark of excitement within himself at seeing the uniforms. They looked almost...
Cool.
Almost.
They were all black, except for the gray gloves. On either side of the jacket, there were silver buttons, which were attached to chains, which were, in turn, attached to a silver line that went directly down the jacket front, where the wearer's sternum would be. The shoes were rolled heel, as to make marching easier, and the gauntlets, which were worn around the forearm using velcro on the inside, had chains that dangled from the wrist and connected to the end that was closest to the elbow. The shakoes, which were the hats with plumes (feathers) were black also, but with the kanji for Karakura in white. Now of course, the drum majors' uniform was different, but that was to be expected. He was the drum major, after all.
As the many band inhabitants crowded around for a closer look, Ichigo heard the sound of Rukia's sugar coated voice, which made him want to puke. Shortly thereafter, he heard the sound of Keigo groveling at Rukia's feet, and him getting trampled for it, and that cleared all the nausea away pretty quickly. Being one of the taller kids in band, Ichigo got a pretty good look at the uniforms over the small crowd, and he grudgingly admitted that no, they weren't the lamest things he had ever seen, but still, it was marching band. It was made to be lame, wasn't it?
So, still scowling because a good majority of the kids were glaring at him for not drooling in awe at such works of fine precision and beauty, Ichigo made his way into the locker room to shove his drumsticks in his locker. Upon turning around, he found that Rukia was directly in front of him, shushing him and pushing him against the thin bars of the lockers. Unexpected? Yes. Frightening? A little. Turn on? For the very unfortunate Ichigo, yes. She was close enough to his face so that he felt her breath on his chin, and she had her hand on his chest. It was obviously not a sexual advance on her part, though; the look in her eyes was much to serious.
"A Hollow. I don't know how strong it is, so we have to hurry."
But, almost as soon as she said those words, a flash of light erupted from the rooftop, headed somewhere opposite the sun. And suddenly, the Hollow was no more. It was that damn Quincy, Ichigo thought. Always interfering. Didn't he know when to put down those damn toys of his and let the shinigami do their work? But Ichigo let it slide this time. After all, it had to have been a pretty damn weak Hollow to die from one arrow. Soon after the flash, Ishida walked in behind the kids who were staring in awe at how cool their new uniforms were. Rukia still had her hand on Ichigo's chest, and he glared at her to bring this to her attention, but she was distracted. Someone in the throng of people had called her name, and, putting on her high pitched, sugary-sweet voice, she waltzed into the crowd. Immediately, Keigo began working on his groveling.
Ichigo stood there, his expression still retaining the shocked quality he had when Rukia had been so close, so suddenly. He saw her trying on her shako, perplexed as to why it kept falling off without the strap. He also saw her, looking so confused and helpless, and was once again annoyed with himself for thinking she was adorable. How was he going to manage it all?
This was going to be a long, long season.
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Nothing against Clarinet players, I promise. If I named the instrument, I love it. ESPECIALLY the Mellophone. Anyways. Continue? Or just leave this as a band nerd's one-shot?