This may be super out of character, and I'm sorry if it is, but I wanted to write something where it's addressed that they didn't see each other for ages when it obviously bothered Ichigo instead of dancing around it. But then it occurred to me that there must be a reason they haven't addressed it in the canon. So I talked about that instead. I just hope it's still understandable even if you haven't read Much Ado About Nothing - which you definitely should if you haven't! It's insanely good for a four hundred year old romcom.
This is just going to be a series of one-shots now, I think. The updates will be sporadic, but I've just been feeling this insane urge to write at the moment so I'll ride it out until it's over! Enjoy and review (and thank you for the reviews for the last chapter!).
When it began, Rukia wasn't exactly sure what to make of it.
"I have no idea what's going on," she whispered in his ear, her voice careful not to carry in the evening air and disturb the other viewers.
"You're old, you should get it," he whispered back quickly, smirking, not wanting to miss a moment of his favourite work of Shakespeare.
He'd dragged her along after she'd quietly suggested that they spend a little time together after the seventeen months they'd spent apart. She'd self-consciously ducked her head, worried that he'd interpret it the wrong way and tell her where to go. He hadn't though; he'd smoothly mentioned the outdoor Shakespeare play he'd wanted to go see. She'd agreed.
Rukia felt that she was treading very lightly on Ichigo's right side. At any moment he'd break and yell at her and tell her he never wanted to see her again and she couldn't exactly blame him. She didn't seem like the best friend at the moment. She had abandoned him, for God's sake.
She shifted her weight to her left butt cheek, already going numb on the picnic blanket they'd brought along. She quietly sighed and tried to pay attention again but it seemed pretty useless. All she could gather so far was that some soldiers had returned from a war, after that it was just nonsense to her.
An eyebrow raised as her interest was perked when the cast on stage reduced to just two: she thought they were called Beatrice and Benedick, and they didn't seem to be the main couple of the play.
"I wonder that you will still be talking, Signoir Benedick: nobody marks you," the brunette actress slyly commented after the man had been ignored by his group. Rukia smirked.
"What, my dear Lady Disdain! Are you yet living?" he replied.
They bantered back and forth for while, and though she didn't understand the meaning of most of what they were saying, she could see still see the humour between the two.
She sighed a little again and took a sip of the tea in her portable mug that she'd brought, warming her from the slight breeze in the night air. Benedick and Beatrice were separated again, and the men were talking about a hero, or, as she realised, the blonde actress named Hero and her boyfriend Claudio. She wasn't as interested in that couple. They were all lovey-dovey and obvious for each other.
They seemed pretty boring.
At the break in the middle of the play, Ichigo turned to her.
"So what do you think so far?"
She was frowning ever so slightly.
"I'm not really sure."
"You don't understand what's happening?"
Her eyes widened slightly and she shifted on the blanket.
"No, I think I do, it's just..." The frown was back on her face as she looked to him. "All it takes for them to fall madly in love was for them to think that the other one was in love with them first? Even though they seemed to hate each other before?"
He smiled at her condensation of the plot, the previous boyish-ness of years past replaced with an intimidating handsomeness. He put his hands behind him and leaned back.
"They've always been in love, see? That's why they were having this 'merry war' in the first place. They're both just too proud to admit it to themselves. That's why they argue so much, because they're frustrated."
But her frown showed she wasn't sure, so he quickly went and got her an pot of ice cream from the vendor walking between the patrons to appease her.
Ichigo felt like he was treading on eggshells with Rukia. She'd be gone the entire time he'd been powerless, and that wasn't something to be taken lightly. He wasn't sure if there was something he was supposed to have done, but realistically he didn't think there was anything he could have done. He couldn't have gone to see her. He just didn't know why she hadn't come to see him, and he didn't want to upset her anymore. He'd even complimented her drawings the other day just to try and make her smile, but she'd seemed even more on edge afterward. It seemed to him that at any moment she was going to bolt to Soul Society and they'd spend the next thousand years ignoring each other.
He didn't want that.
He didn't exactly know how to stop it either, though.
He thought she might like the play, his favourite, Much Ado About Nothing. Rukia seemed a lot like Beatrice, independent and sassy. But she'd sighed a few times during it and he began to wonder, as he sat back down and handed her her ice cream, if maybe it was a bad idea.
Girls were hard.
She looked thoughtful as she took her first lick from the spoon, so he tried to work out what she was thinking again.
"What did you think of the other couple? Hero and Claudio?"
"Eurgh," she noised, rolling her eyes. "They're so obvious. One-dimensional and boring."
He nodded, looking away again, and towards the sky. It was going pink in the sunset.
"I just don't understand how they can be getting married when they have no trust in each other."
He looked back to her, surprised. "Huh?"
She shrugged, and turned her attention to him and away from her dessert. "One guy tells Claudio that the woman he's in love with has slept with someone else and his immediate thought is to believe him and humiliate Hero on her wedding day in front of everyone she knows? That's not love." She looked back down and fiddled with her spoon. "Love is having absolute faith in someone, even in the bad times, I think." A tiny smile tugged on the corners of her lips. "That's why I like Beatrice and Benedick. Even when they hate each other, they still understand one another."
Ichigo kept looking at her. "So you think Beatrice and Benedick are the better couple?"
"I think they'll be happy."
The actors reappeared on the stage, the second half began, and Ichigo didn't look away from Rukia.
As the final applause died down, Ichigo and Rukia stood. He gathered the rubbish to throw away as she shook out and folded the blanket, and put it in her bag.
They turned to talk to the road.
"So, what did you think of the end? Did you still like Beatrice and Benedick the most?"
"I think so."
They kept walking in the quiet for a little while.
"You know, when we were studying it in class, most of the girls liked Hero and Claudio better."
She sniggered lightly. "Of course they would. That scenario is all about the knight in shining armour, isn't it?"
He raised one eyebrow at her as she kept facing ahead. "And you don't like that?"
"I don't think it's real." She tipped her head to one side thoughtfully. "The other couple... they wouldn't proclaim their love for each other every day of the week, but that doesn't mean they don't love each other. They just don't need to. They trust each other enough to just know." She smiled again, that tiny smile that he couldn't stop looking at. "I like that." She looked at him. "I like that they can be independent but still love each other."
He looked ahead, swallowed lightly and took a deep breath.
"You know... we haven't talked about... when you were away."
She was still smiling. "I know, I thought that earlier."
She looked to him again. "But I don't think we need to, do we?"