Kitten in the Closet, or Cat Catch a Break

"Hey Rukia-chan!" Ichigo burst into his room and threw open the closet door. With a surprised yelp, Rukia fell from her perch onto the floor.

"Ouch…" She shot to her feet and glared at him. "You better have a very good reason for coming in here so suddenly, Kurosaki-san."

Ichigo grinned impishly. "You mean besides it being my room?" Rukia glared harder at him, but Ichigo just chuckled at her. "Fine then. Actually, I have a favour to ask you."

"Hmpf. And why should I help you, after you took my powers?" Rukia glowered at him. He just waved that off as well.

"Come on, don't be like that. I saved your life, right? And besides, I'm a sight better at this whole 'kill the evil souls' thing than you."

"Except that your strategies are just as stupid as you are."

Ichigo shrugged at that. "Hey, I don't need a good strategies. I just need to hit whatever it is harder, right? I mean, you're pretty smart, but you got rekt by that hollow."

"...What is rekt?" Rukia tilted her head at him in confusion, anger momentarily forgotten.

Ichigo looked down at her in pity. "Wow, that's sad. Do you not have television or computers in Spiritia, or wherever you came from?"

"Idiot!" And there was that anger again. "I don't know what a computer is, but I can tell you're looking down at me!"

"You bet I am! This travesty cannot stand. Here," Ichigo began to dig through the closet which Rukia had been lying in. "Just give me a second and I'll see if I can dig out my old computer."

Rukia groaned and threw her arms up in exasperation. "Didn't you come here for some reason? Just tell me what you want so I can go back to sleep."

Ichigo popped out of the closet and slammed his fist into his palm. "That's right! I wanted to ask you for a favour!"

"No." Rukia turned away and started to climb back into Ichigo's closet.

"Hey now, you don't even know what it was going to be!"

"Knowing you," Rukia glared balefully at him, "It would be something stupid or embarrassing."

Ichigo rubbed his head in embarrassment. "Well, you're not wrong."

"See? That is why I won't do any favours for you." Rukia slammed the closet door closed in Ichigo's face.

"Come on Ru-tan. Just this one thing, and then I'll go and kill a few souls or something. How about it?"

The closet door slammed open. "What. Did. You. Call. Me?"

"Ru-tan?"

"Call me that again and I'll stab you."

"With what, Ru-tan? I mean, it's not like you're a Soul Eater anymore."

"You mean Soul Reaper."

"Soul Raper?"

"I swear to all the gods, I will kill you Ichigo!"

"Then how about we make a deal." Ichigo smiled. It was not a nice smile. "You do this one thing for me, and I'll stop acting like I don't know anything. I mean, there are some things which I really don't know anything about, but I'll actually pay attention to what you say. Oh, and I'll stop calling you Ru-tan. How about it?"

Rukia glared at him.

"Time's a tickin', Ru-tan. Ten seconds to choose."

"How about you take your zanpakuto and…"

"Nine!" Ichigo yelled, ignoring her.

"What about…"

Ichigo put his hands over his ears. "Eight."

"Let's compromise. How about I listen to what you want me to do, then decide."

"Seven, six, five."

Rukia screwed up her eyes and thought. On one hand, she really didn't want to have to do whatever it was that Ichigo wanted help with. On the other, it wasn't as if it would be anything perverted. Ichigo wasn't that kind of person, at least from what she had seen. Oh sure, it would be embarrassing, but not actually that bad considering. And she would probably go insane if she had another person calling her by some dumb nickname. Yachiru was bad enough, and she had only ever met the little brat twice. She shuddered at the memories.

"Four, three, two, one…"

"Fine!" Rukia shouted. She had made her decision. After all, either she lost a little, or she lost a lot. "As long as it isn't perverted, then sure."

Ichigo moved his hands away from his ears and smiled at her. "It's a deal."

She shuddered. "Why do I feel as if I just made a deal with the devil?"

"It's not like that," Ichigo protested. "I'm no Maou. Just a Shinigami."

"That's not much better."

"I didn't say it was better. Just more accurate." Ichigo's smile widened even further.

Rukia gulped. She was beginning to regret this.

.../\..¸../\

..(=•_•= )

"So let me get this straight. You want me to put on this garbage, and then meow." The way Rukia said it made it very clear that it was not in fact a question. Nor was she at all amused by Ichigo's 'favour.'

"Not quite. I want you to put on that stuff, and then I'm going to say 'I say Rukia, you say nyan.'" Ichigo was nodding in satisfaction. "And then I'll say 'Rukia,' and you'll say 'Nyan!' It's a rather simple plan, I think."

Rukia was still looking in disbelief at the outfit. It was pretty basic, just a few accessories that went on over her clothes. A headband with some black cat ears on it, a black cat tail that attached around her waist, and a pair of black gloves made to look like a cat's paws. And Ichigo expected her to wear it? It wasn't perverted, at least not enough for her to complain, but it would be highly embarrassing. And yet, she had agreed to do it. With a sigh of acceptance, she picked up the headband and placed it on her head. The tail was soon attached, and the gloves followed suit. After a minute or so, she sat on Ichigo's bed, glowering at him. As usual, he was completely unperturbed.

"Okay, you know what you have to do, right?"

If looks could kill, Ichigo would have died a thousand times over. Unfortunately, though I could conceive a Shinigami being able to kill with just a look*, Rukia was not one of them, even if she had possessed her powers. Which she didn't.

"Well then, let's start!" Ichigo's grin stretched across his face. "I say Rukia, you say nyan!"

Rukia let out a low growl, glaring even harder at him, even as she tried to shrink into herself, her cheeks turning pink.

Ichigo continued, unperturbed. "Rukia!"

"...n-n-nyan." Rukia quietly managed to stutter out, all her anger having left her, replaced only by embarrassment.

Ichigo fiddled around with his phone for a few seconds, before giving her a thumbs up. "That was great, Rukia-san! You might even say it was… purrfect!** Ah well, a deal's a deal. How about we go kill some hollows, hmm?" Ichigo pulled out one of the soul candies and popped it into his mouth. His shinigami form materialized and his body fell limply to the ground.

He threw himself out the window with reckless abandon and Rukia just sighed, even as she pulled the costume pieces off.

"You really are a simple person, Ichigo." There was still a light dusting of pink upon her face, as well as a small smile. She set Ichigo's motionless body on his bed, before climbing out the window after him, albit much slower. There were limitations to the Gigai, after all.

.../\..¸../\

..(=•_•= )

"By the way, Ichigo. What were you doing on your phone?" It was a few hours after the 'Neko Incident' as Rukia had taken to calling Ichigo's blackmailing. And it was most certainly blackmail.

"When?" Ichigo tilted his head in confusion even as he slumped on his bed, in his body once more.

"You know, after I said… A few hours ago, in your room." She refused to even speak of that incident again.

"Oh that. I was just sending the video to someone I know." Rukia nodded in understanding.

"Yes, that makes sense… Wait, did you say recording!" She spun to face Ichigo, who just shrugged lazily.

"Well, yeah. Ah, don't worry, it's not like they'll tease you." He had already preempted her thought process. "It was an old friend of the family. Her name's Kate. My dad introduced me a few months ago. Honestly, I had forgotten about her, until she posted a video that had her trying to get her cat to meow. Her cat's name is Ryuka. Well, she didn't manage it, but it gave me the idea. And I figured that your name is close enough to Ryuka. That led to this, which led to those, or something like that. I sent her the video because I thought she might find it funny or something. But I also asked her not to spread it around, so don't worry."

Rukia sighed. At least the video wasn't in the hands of anyone who would try to blackmail her… Except that Ichigo totally would, she realized.

"Hey Ichigo?" She tried to put on her most innocent face. "Could I see that video?"

"Sure," he said, tossing her his phone.

She took it and looked at it for a few moments, before hurling it against the wall and stomping on it. Ichigo just gave a sigh at her antics.

"What, did you think I didn't expect you to do that? I saved the video to the Cloud. All I have to do is buy a new phone." Rukia paused in her stomping of the phone to stare at him wide-eyed. "Yeah, you're not going to get rid of it that easily. But don't worry, I'm not even mad. After all, it was fun seeing you act so cute today, yeah?"

And then, all Ichigo knew was pain. A few feet away, Rukia was panting from the exertion of throwing a very heavy piece of furniture. Ichigo's desk now lay onto of him. Of course, he still had that video, which Rukia was really regretting, but at least she felt better now. With a yawn, she climbed into his closet and curled up to go to sleep. Maybe she had gotten lucky and he had been hit so hard he forgot all about today. She could only hope.

.../\..¸../\

..(=•_•= )

Th-th-th-that's All, Folks!

This fic was set before the Saving Rukia arc, sometime after Rukia lost her powers. Don't ask when, just go with it. The title is a reference to Rukia's sleeping in Ichigo's closet. Also a pun. Cat Catch a Break = Can't Catch a Break.

Funny story on how this came about. Actually, it came about almost exactly as Ichigo described. I watched a video on YouTube by KateLovelyMomo, the wife of NorthernLion. In it, Kate was trying to get her cat to meow. And that was in inspiration. Thus, this fic was born. I apologize if any of the characters are OOC, particularly Rukia. I haven't seen Bleach in a few years, so I quickly went back and speed-watched the first 3 seasons of Bleach in about two days. Skipped quite a bit, so…

But then again, this was just meant to be a casual little humor fic, so I don't really care. Oh, but please look up KateLovelyMomo and NorthernLion. Kate is a pretty good musician, and makes some nice videos with her husband.

If you want to watch the video this was based on, look up: Ryuka - I say Ryuka you say meow - YouTube

*Note: Some of those Bankai make no sense. I mean, look at CrazyClownScientist-taicho. Or Unohana-taicho. She summons a bloody giant flying manta-ray for Moon's sake. There is no logic to some of those Bankai.

**Okay, technically they're talking in Japanese, so that wouldn't be a viable pun. But I am making it because PUNS.

More notes: Just pretend Kate's video is in Japanese, because it's actually in English. Either that or that Ichigo can speak English. Thinking about it, probably the later, though I think Kate can speak some Japanese.