A/N: This fic is AU. All the characters are human!
Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach, except the kind in the bottle.
Chapter One:
Butterflies tumbled around in her stomach. She normally didn't get nervous, but today was different. Today was February 14th...Valentine's Day and she was about to slip a scroll, decked in pink ribbon, into her beloved's mailbox. Rangiku Matsumoto did not get nervous; she was too popular for that. With her long beautiful long hair and what the boys described as a "hot" body she never had to be nervous about a boy. Every boy wanted her, except the one she wanted—her mysterious silver headed friend. So there she was, with her hands trembling, making the paper shake—standing in front of the mailbox labeled Gin Ichimaru…
Rangiku shook herself out of her memory from last years Valentine's Day. This year was no different from last year. After receiving no response from Gin last year there was no love note placed in his mailbox this year. However, Rangiku's mailbox was an entirely different matter. It was filled to the brim with everything to a simple piece of torn notebook paper to shimmering gold cards with their very own chocolates included. Not to mention all the messages that would be delivered to her throughout the day.
This Valentine's Day student council had decided to get some of the seniors with free periods throughout the day to hand deliver personal messages to students. It was a great hit to see all these senior boys (and of course it was boys) in pink tights and wings. One, an extremely disturbing sight, had even worn a red thong that was clearly visible above shorts that rivaled Daisy Duke's in their ability to reveal everything! Rangiku fully expected to get rafts of them, even from some seniors. But she did not expect to get one from Gin. He didn't do that sort of thing.
"Yo! Rangiku!! Come on we are SOOO gonna be late to English!! Mr. Zaraki will kill us! And I am NOT kidding!!" The urgency in Rukia's voice brought Rangiku out of her ramblings. She was right; Rangiku had no doubts that Mr. Zaraki would indeed kill a late student.
"Omg! You're right! We have to run!" The two girls sprinted down the hall and slid into class just before Mr. Kenpachi Zaraki slammed the door on them. Rumor was he had once slammed it with a student halfway through the door. Mr. Zaraki did nothing to dispel this rumor. He seemed to like the attention he got and the fear he could squeeze out of freshman who didn't know that the dark stain on the door and the door frame was not blood. No one knew what it was, but most were sure that it wasn't blood…at least they liked to think that way. It did help the boys who slept in the same hallway as him in the boys doors sleep at night.
"Everyone take your seats!!" Mr. Zaraki boomed across the room, despite the small size of it. "I know this is supposed to be a day of love and shit like that and frankly I find it rather ridiculous." The class waited in silence to see if he was going to go on. He didn't. It seemed like he was going to be difficult and make someone ask.
"W-Why sir?" Momo's voice quivered when Mr. Zaraki turned his eyes to her.
"I'm so glad you asked that question Momo!" He looked glad, very glad, and Kenpachi Zaraki only got that happy when gore was involved. Momo didn't look glad she had asked that question. "Now, have any of you heard of the story of St. Valentine?" No one nodded. "Damn. You all celebrate a holiday honoring his sacrifice and you don't even know who he is! Dumbasses." Mr. Zaraki rolled his eyes.
"Well, I'm thinking…." Renji paused, delaying the moment when he had to say the word "sir"; he knew it annoyed Mr. Zaraki which is precisely why he did it. "…sir…that he was a saint." Mr. Zaraki smiled at Renji in a pleasant way that made Renji want to piss himself. Kenny did not like smart asses. Slowly walking around the room, still smiling, Mr. Zaraki picked up a hefty text book on the way. Renji gulped and his eyes darted around the room, searching frantically for an escape route. Unfortunately for Renji, Mr. Zaraki was blocking the only way out of the room. Kenny leaned over Renji and smiled a sweet smile that made Renji's blood run cold, and then…
WAM!!!!
"OW!!! FUCK!!! OW!!!"
WAM!!
"WHAT THE HELL?!?!?"
WAM!!!
"WHAT THE FUC…OW!!!" The class was dying. Renji was cowered in his seat and every time he let out a swear word he was walloped on the head again with Kenny's book, the Oxford Unabridged Dictionary. Ouch.
"You know dumbass, he might stop hitting you if you stop swearing, 'cause if you hadn't noticed every time you swear, he hits you. But that just might be me." Renji looked through his arms to see the girl sitting next to Rangiku smirking at his misery.
"Oh shut up."
"No." Another smirk.
"Listen to the girl, unlike you, she has brains." Said Mr. Zaraki but Renji just growled.
"What you're a tiger now?" The blond girl next to Rangiku smirked again. And Renji just gaped like a fish; he was running out of come backs that didn't involve swear words and Kenny was still dangerously close to his head with that dictionary.
The arrival of one of the pink clad seniors probably saved Renji from hitting the girl across the table and consequently getting his ass handed to him. A tall wrestler walked in with pink running tights with red hearts on them. He had a white under amour shirt on and he or someone had put pink glitter all over it and to top it all off he had a pair of bright pink wings and a fluffy tiara on. The girl next to Rangiku made a gagging noise in response to all the pink.
He grinned at all the attention he was getting, even though it was mostly looks of revulsion.
"Here's one for a Rangiku Matsumoto. And it comes with something special too." He pulled a pale pink slip of paper out of his bag and handed it to an extremely embarrassed Rangiku. And then he produced a single red rose from behind his back and handed it to the stunned girl. She had been expecting to get messages, but never had she expected to get a rose.
Looking down at the pale piece of paper she received another surprise. In a neat, clear hand was written what looked like a poem.
"It's a poem…" She whispered to Rukia. But everyone had heard, the room had fallen into a stunned silence at the appearance of the senior and so everyone had heard her whisper.
"A poem eh? Well, read it aloud! This is English class after all, maybe we can analyze it." A grin spread across Mr. Zaraki's face as he envisioned the embarrassment this would cause poor Rangiku.
"I uh…I…n-no…i-it's private! You can't read it!" A bright red spread across Rangiku's face at the prospect of her love poem being analyzed but the ruthless Kenpachi Zaraki. It was a horrifying idea.
"I don't care. Hand it over!"
"N-no!!"
"Now."
"Please don't make me!" Mr. Zaraki opened his mouth to tell Rangiku to give him the poem or else when the girl sitting beside her opened her mouth.
"Oh give it a rest Kenny. Weren't you going to tell us something about St. Valentine or something like that?" The class was shocked, the girl was new and apparently she didn't yet know that you do not talk back to Mr. Zaraki nor do you call him Kenny. It was rumored that the boy Mr. Zaraki had squished had called him "Kenny".
"You have a point. How come none of you spineless morons ever stand up to me? Cowards…anyways, on to Saint Valentine." Leaving the class in shock, Mr. Zaraki went on to describe the bloody story of Saint Valentine. Apparently he married couples who were forbidden to marry and when people found out he was not celebrated…he was killed, with much gore. Depressing story really, but Rangiku didn't listen to a word of the gory tale. She was to busy staring down at her poem. When she finally summoned up to read the neat handwriting she was transported into its beautiful words and rhythms. Whoever had written it had a wonderful talent.
Rangiku read it through several times, each time losing herself in its phrasing and the words the writer had employed. It was beautiful and it had been written for her. Rangiku wanted to jump up, yell her heart out and sing with joy that someone liked her for her, not her boobs. Then the elation was popped by the pin of missing information when she realized there was no signature. She had wanted to find this person, see how they were like, to try to like him. But she had no idea who the author was.
The bell rang, and entire class period had gone by without Rangiku paying attention to hardly any of it. She was the last out of the room, dazedly packing up her books. On the complete opposite side of things Renji had rushed out of the room, guarding his head with his bag when he ran past Mr. Zaraki. Normally Rangiku would have found it as hilarious as the rest of the class—but she had other things on her mind. Rukia was the only one who waited for her.
"So what does it say?!?!?!?" Ah… thought Rangiku…that's why she waited. She wants to know what my note says.
"It's a poem, here read it." Rukia read quickly, her eyes devouring the words on the page of pale pink.
"We need to find out who this is!" Exclaimed Rukia before pulling Rangiku out of the classroom and then out of the English Wing.
A/N: Please Review!!!
