Green as a strawberry
It was amazing how boring history could be. The history teacher last year was interesting and exciting but this year, the teacher just sat in front of the class and talked and talked and talked till everyone was either asleep or halfway there. Ichigo looked around the class in boredom; Rukia, Chad and keigo were asleep, Orihime was almost asleep, Mizuiro was doodling in the margin of his notebook, Ishida was the only one who seemed to be paying attention but Ichigo strongly doubted if even he would last the whole of the double lesson, Tatsuki was… doing something else…
He sat up straight and focused his attention on the dark haired girl. Tatsuki looked out the window, then back at her notebook; she scribbled something on it, folded the paper and, with a smile, tossed it out the window. Ichigo, who was sitting about three seats behind her, looked out the window on his right and surely enough there was someone standing outside. "Can I be excused?" Ichigo said as he leapt to his feet, he did not wait for an answer and was out of the class before the teacher could answer. The saddest thing was that was probably as exciting as the class was ever going to get.
He practically kicked open the front doors of the school and marched outside. He stormed towards the side of the building where Renji was standing and dragged him away. "What the hell do you think you're doing here?" He seethed, "shouldn't you be out looking for something? You know, doing your job?"
"Keh, since when was that your business Ichigo?" Renji said as he pried Ichigo's hands off him, "plus I'm taking a break; I can't work all day."
"What are you doing here?" Ichigo demanded again, "and what is you're business with Tatsuki?" For almost two weeks now, with Renji, it had been Tatsuki this and Tatsuki that. He spent almost every waking hour either around her or talking about her and it was pissing Ichigo off to high heavens.
"I'm just making plans with her; she's interesting - I think I like her." Ichigo's eyes narrowed at that statement and suddenly everything became much clearer to Renji. "She's cute" he smirked. "I don't know how or why you stopped hanging around her so much, especially sparring with her; she is sexy as hell even with that whole 'tomboyish' thing of hers." Renji grinned blissfully as he walked away. Ichigo watched the red-haired shinigami with all the hate and venom he could muster; running through his mind were all the wonderful, exciting ways in which he could slowly and painfully murder Renji.
His anger rolled off him in such obvious, furious waves that no one said a word to him when he returned to class. Renji was doing a great job of squeezing his name onto Ichigo's hit list. He was tapping his pen irritably on his desk when a crisp white, folded sheet of paper landed on his desk; he picked it up and unfolded it:
'Hey strawberry, are you alright? Why do you look like you could commit murder any second from now?
'Tatsuki'
"Because I'm seriously contemplating it." Ichigo through darkly as he looked at his long time friend three seats ahead. He sighed before quickly scribbling down a response:
'It's nothing.'
As he folded the paper and passed it forward he could not help but be plagued by the fact that he was lying and she would know, but then again he had lied to her so many times in this past year that it did not matter anymore. He noticed that she did not bother to look back at him – of course she knew it was a lie; a year ago he would have passed her a full detailed account of who he was planning to murder, how he was planning to murder the person and why, but this year, it was 'nothing'.
When the bell rang for lunch, his choice of action was not to go to Tatsuki and speak to her; he went to Rukia so she could explain exactly why he should not go Bankai on Renji.
"He's just pushing your buttons for fun; don't take him seriously." Rukia said as she opened her juice box.
"No, you didn't hear him." Ichigo insisted. Rukia rolled her eyes,
"Renji has his – what I term – 'Ichimaru moments' and I'll say this is one of them. He can tell that you obviously care about her, he's bored and irritated by the mundane task of searching for senbonzakura and so he's pissing you off for fun – he wants you to share in his misery."
"Well this is not funny."
"Not for you, but for him it's hilarious – I grew up with him, remember?"
"Yeah, well-"
"Well do what you want." Rukia groaned in annoyance, "I don't even know what you asked for my opinion then. When you return more pissed off and frustrated that you are now, don't say I didn't warn you."
Ichigo had seriously thought about Rukia's words and he had actually arrived at the shocking conclusion that she was right; Renji was probably doing all this just to let off some steam so he was not going to bother himself by getting worked up by it. But when Ichigo bumped into Tatsuki on the way out, at the end of the school day, he could not help it.
"I see you've met Renji." He said in a careful slow tone.
"Yeah, your cousin's fun, he's probably a lunatic though." Tatsuki laughed,
"Tatsuki I just think you should be, um…" he was stuck; what was he going to say? 'careful'? No, that was not it. He knew he wanted to say something but had no idea what it was much less how to say if.
"Oi, Tatsuki!" Renji voice sliced through his thoughts and he turned murderous eyes in the red-head's direction, murderous eyes Renji completely ignored but not without some degree of inward satisfaction. He was standing there so satisfied with himself, it caused Ichigo's scowl to deepen. Now that he had traded his colorful abomination of an outfit for the white trousers of a gi and a black wife-beater, the girls around him were whispering excitedly amongst themselves – maybe it was his tattoos or his hair – but he did not even notice them. He had eyes only for Tatsuki and that was driving Ichigo even further up the proverbial wall.
"Sorry Ichigo, I have to go." Tatsuki said as she ran towards Renji, Ichigo reached out and grabbed her hand in an attempt to stop her but it slipped out of his grasp so quickly that he was not sure he had caught her in the first place. He did, however, catch that self-satisfied smirk Renji cast at him and was forced to restrain himself by slowly repeating to himself: 'Murder is wrong'… several times.
A/N: Readers do not worry - Byakuya is coming. soon. Writing Byakuya is difficult, he's so... annoying.
