Disclaimer: I claim no ownership to Bleach in any way, shape, or form.

-- TwinShadows

Love Potion Version 9.0: Chapter 3

When the girls reached the roof, they opened the door to see strange sight. Ichigo was sitting with his back against the wire fence with a water bottle in his hand, his face contorted in annoyance and an eyebrow was twitching violently. The reason for his frustration was obvious: the other guys had formed a semi-circle around him at a wide radius.

"What's with the perimeter, boys?" Mahana asked, grabbing the male half's attention.

"Unfortunately, this is as close as we can get to Ichigo without passing out from the smell," Mizurio replied through his hand, earning a glare from the perpetrator.

"For the last time," Ichigo growled out, "I do not stink; you're all just imagining it."

"Interesting that you mention that Ichigo," Ryo said stepping forward. Ichigo just stared blankly at her. "You don't know who I am, do you?"

"No, but I can tell you're a snob." This made an angry vein pop out of Ryo's forehead before she took a deep breath to calm herself, ignoring the quiet snickering beside and behind her.

"It's Ryo, and regardless of what you think of me, you might be interested in Chizuru's theory about what happened this morning in class." Hearing this, Ichigo went red and looked away, Tatsuki's cheeks got a red tinge, and Chizuru covered her ears to block out the topic.

"Why don't you just drop it?" he muttered, taking a sip of his water.

"I second that! Now let's go back and I can cuddle with someone!" Chizuru called from behind Michiru who stepped to the side away from the red-head. Ryo ignored her and continued.

"You see, she believes that the cologne you're wearing is some form of mind-control drug and we both know you lack the intelligence to assemble such a creation," she explained, blatantly disregarding the angry glare sent to her in reply to her not-so-subtle insult.

"How many times do I have to tell you people that I do not wear any kind of cologne? So will you just get to your point already?!" he groused at her before tipping his head back to take a big swig of water.

"The only way for her to realize how ridiculous she sounds is if those of us who haven't already smelled you, do so to confirm it." Hearing this, Ichigo choked on the water in his mouth before spitting the mouthful back into the bottle coughing violently.

"WHAT?!?!" he yelled in astonishment.

"WHY WOULD WANT TO GET NEAR SKUNK-BOY AT ALL?!" Keigo hollered, making sure that he wasn't close enough to Ichigo to smell him or get hit by him.

"No offense to you Ichigo, but I'm kind of in agreement with Mr. Asano," Mizurio added, ignoring Keigo's expected, "Why, Mizurio?! We're supposed to be friends!!" Next to him, Chad just looked down, indicating that he didn't like agreeing with the two and Uryu simply pushed up his glasses, ignoring the whole thing.

"Rukia, Chizuru and I all smelled him and we didn't smell anything like you're smelling guys," Tatsuki replied coolly (though her cheeks did redden with the thought), resulting in Chizuru starting to rock on her heels tears in her eyes, and Rukia glancing off to the side to avoid the angry 'You-told-them-that?!' glare coming from Ichigo.

"So now," Ryo continued, keeping her gaze fixed on Ichigo, "I assume that now you will agree to this experi--"

"The hell I will!" The interruption made her twitch all over with rage, though thankfully she was able to keep it all hidden from her audience. "I don't care what those guys over there think of me," Ichigo carried on, jabbing his thumb at the male half-circle around him, "But I refuse to let myself be poked and prodded just because you're bored!"

"Well Ichigo," Rukia said sweetly, sidling up to him, "If you really don't care what people think of you, then you should be secure enough to get this out of the way. After all," she added, bringing her head down to meet Ichigo eye-to-eye, still talking in a honeyed voice, "We could keep this to ourselves or tell everyone we meet; it's all up to you."

Ichigo growled at her, eyebrow twitching. He knew exactly what she was doing. She was playing on his need to keep his image intact by threatening to make him out to be either: a) a wimp who was afraid of girls or b) a player who toyed with women's emotions. 'And knowing Rukia,' he thought bitterly, 'She'd probably find someway to make the two fit together.'

"Fine," he grumbled. He didn't get how the other students around could miss the triumphant smirk that was on Rukia's face. Lifting his hand to drink from his water bottle, Ichigo and everyone else was startled when Rukia snatched it right out of his hands.

"Why thank you, Ichigo. How thoughtful of you," she stated happily, raising the bottle to her lips.

"Uh, Rukia--" Orihime started.

"Orihime, could you wait until I'm done? I'm terribly thirsty," she waved at her friend before trying to take a drink.

"Rukia, maybe you should--" Chad tried this time.

"Just wait a minute please, Chad."

"Seriously Rukia, just listen to--" Ichigo attempted in an attempt to spare her dignity (and himself a beating later).

"Everyone," she replied, waving her hand above her head, "Whatever you want to tell me, I'm sure that it can wait until after I've had a sip of water." With that, she put the mouth of the bottle to her lips and started drinking the water until the bottle was half full. "Ahh," she sighed.

"NOOOOOO!!!!!" Keigo cried, tears streaming comically down his cheeks. "HOW COULD YOU, RUKIA?!"

"What did I do, Keigo?" she asked innocently, and this time she was being sincere.

"I'm with him, Rukia," Mahana interjected, moving to stand right in front of Rukia and look at her in the eyes. "How can you claim to be 'just friends' with Ichigo when you'll drink his spit?" Rukia just blinked.

"Huh?" she asked, too stunned to say anything else.

"When Rhonda here told me you guys were going to smell me," Ichigo spoke jerking his thumb at Ryo, who muttered, "My name is Ryo."; "I had water in my mouth, which I spat back into the bottle."

"And since there's only one way for the water to go out and you used it, there's only place that it's gonna be going to now," Tatsuki put in, smirking.

"That's why we tried to stop you," Orihime said.

"Well," Rukia said slowly, almost losing her acting face, "Since it was an accident, I think there's no need to delve into this any further; and Mahana," she added, turning to look at the mentioned girl, "I didn't notice that he spat into his water, so you can't claim anything by it." That was what she said out loud, at least. On the inside, however…

'When there aren't any witnesses, Ichigo is so going to pay for this!' she thought angrily, as her mind had put Ichigo at blame, since technically it was his saliva she unknowingly drank.

"Enough of this useless prattling," Ryo interrupted before lunch time was over, "Now then," she continued turning to look at the other girls next to her, "Who will volunteer to be the first one to smell him?" At this, the other girls all took a giant step back, Tatsuki pulling Orihime by the back of her shirt, leaving Ryo the closest, since Rukia had sidestepped to stand beside Michiru.

"We-we figured that since it's your experiment, you would like to be the first one to participate," Michiru answered, with everyone nodding in agreement.

"Well if all of you insist," she muttered sarcastically, turning and walking towards Ichigo who was staring at her warily.

"She's the bravest person I've ever known if she can get that close to that disgusting creature," Chizuru said in a hushed tone.

"Yeah, it's like his bad smell is starting to get worse," Mizurio commented, slightly pinching his nose.

"What smell? All men are disgusting creatures," she replied automatically.

"You didn't think he was so disgusting when you grabbed his butt and his chest," Keigo said suggestively.

"Tatsuki grabbed him too," Chizuru complained, pointing at the aforementioned black belt. "Why aren't you saying that to her?!?"

"Because as dumb as Keigo is, even he's not stupid enough to push Tatsuki's buttons," Mahana interjected, causing Keigo's jaw to drop wide open.

"She's got you there, Mr. Asano," Mizurio said, making Keigo cry as he said, "WHY, Mizurio?! WWWHHYYY?!?!"

"I've finished," Ryo announced as she leaned back from Ichigo's head, sitting on her legs. "My personal assessment is that his aroma, while strangely attractive, has not disturbed my cognitive reasoning skills."

"Thanks," Ichigo said, frown deepening as his face started reddening, "Now can I have my leg back?"

Stunned at this question, Ryo looked down to see that her left arm was extended and her hand was slowly stroking his thigh. Cheeks starting to dust red, Ryo stood up and went back to the group of girls who were smirking at her, sans Orihime who looked slightly sad.

"Well? What do you say to that, Ryo?" Chizuru said, oozing with cockiness. At first Ryo said nothing, simply glanced to the side blushing.

"I still say that, since I retained my consciousness during the act, it's definitely not mind-control," she finally said stubbornly.

"Yeah, you just wanted to take a turn with feeling him up," Mahana said plainly. This unintentionally got Chizuru back into her fetal position.

"I will concede," Ryo said hesitantly, "That with those, um, well-developed leg muscles," and here she started to shift uncomfortably, "He might have a chance at Track & Field. So, who next?" she added hurriedly, trying to change the subject.


"I'm sorry," Ichigo said slowly, eyebrow twitching. "Who are you, now?"

"I'm Mahana" she replied from behind, leaning forward to smell the base of his neck. "You know with the way you smell, if ya smiled once in a while, you'd probably get a girl easily."

"Seriously, would you get off my back?" The way he said it made her frown before putting her face into his peripheral vision.

"Hey, you knew we would get personal with you," she said angrily. "You can be annoyed, but you don't have to be rude."

"I don't mind the personal space issue," Ichigo answered before he stood up…and Mahana found herself hanging from his neck by her arms, her body pushing against his muscular back. "I just want you to get off my back."

"Oh," she replied, dropping down before moving to the front of him. "Well, that's enough for me. Thanks." Turning on her hell, she quickly moved to face Rukia. "You're sure that you and Ichigo are just friends, Rukia?"

"Absolutely," Rukia nodded smiling. Mahana sighed in relief.

"Sweet," she replied. "Because it wouldn't feel right to me to ask him out myself if I knew he was in a relationship already." Apparently, this wasn't the response that anyone, male or female, had expected from the looks she was getting. "Hey," she responded, putting her hands on her hips, "He's a hot guy, and I need some lovin'!


"No, please don't make me, guys," Michiru whined, pushing the heels of her shoes into the roof tiles as Ryo pulled on her arm and Mahana pushed her in the back. The whole thing made her feel like she was being forced to become a human sacrifice.

"You're just as much a part of this experiment as we are," Ryo explained apathetically. "As such, you are required to participate."

"But he could eat me!"

"Could you guys not talk about me like I'm not even here?" Ichigo put in; naturally, he was ignored.

"Michiru, if he wanted to hurt us for this," Mahana reassured, "He would have done something when Chizuru grabbed him twice, Tatsuki going for his front, Ryo rubbed his thigh or when I was draped on his back."

While this statement was meant to be comforting, all it achieved was the guys gawking at the bluntness of her statement and most of the other girls (Tatsuki and Ryo among them) to go red with embarrassment. The only exceptions were: Chizuru, who had decided it was safer to stand next to Uryu (claiming that he was the most feminine to his annoyance) and had simply settled into going into her "happy place" to escape reality, Orihime, who was anxious from having to go after Michiru and possibly ruining the relationship she already had with Ichigo, and finally Rukia, who upon hearing Mahana's comment, unconsciously let out a noise that sounded like a growl, shocking herself.

Chad heard this and turned to looked at her. "Are you okay, Rukia?"

"Um, yeah. I just had a bit of a cough is all," she replied hastily. 'Where did that come from?'

"WHOA!!" Michiru cried as she was heaved hard enough to make trip over her feet and crashed on top of Ichigo's chest. She lay there perfectly still, hands on either side of Ichigo's body, making sure to breathe slowly in fear of angering him. If she wasn't so terrified, she would've noted the scent he was giving off. Then, she felt him tap her gently on top of her head.

"Hey, you okay?" he said, curious at why she hadn't moved since she landed. Carefully, she lifted her head up to look him in the eyes before she started shaking nervously.

"I-I'm sorry," she stuttered. "I-I tripped y-you see a-and PLEASE DON'T HURT ME!!" She screamed before ducking her head back down.

"Why would I want to hurt you? I don't even remember your name," he said plainly, putting two fingers under her chin to make her look at him. "Besides," he added, getting a good look at her, "You look so much like my baby sister, Yuzu. It wouldn't feel right to me to hurt you." Letting go of her chin, he glanced down before continuing awkwardly. "So…this hug have a time limit?"

Realizing that her arms had wrapped around his torso, Michiru's face went nuclear red before she jumped up and ran to stand behind Orihime, her head poking out from the strawberry-blonde's shoulder.

"See Michiru," she said smiling happily, "I told you Ichigo wouldn't do anything bad to you."

"Now that he said it," Tatsuki added stepping to look closely at Michiru, who was feeling uncomfortable again, "I can see it myself. You do look a lot like his sister, minus the hair color, skin and the clip."

"G-good to know," the smaller girl replied, moving away to hide her face, but not before sneaking a peek at Ichigo.


Finally, it was Orihime's turn. This was where everyone went quiet with anticipation. After all, since the other girls had shown no romantic interest in him before now and all had physical contact with him in the same day, it was nerve-wracking to see what the girl with real feelings for him would do.

"Sorry about this, Ichigo," she said sadly, keeping her head down.

"It's not you're fault," he muttered, face red again.

"Perhaps we should stop this," Uryu said to the other guys.

"Why didn't you suggest we stop it when it was with the other girls?" Mizurio inquired, digging out his cellphone to text his girlfriend now that there was a break in the action.

"The other girls have gone uninterrupted, Uryu," Chad put in.

"Yes, because unlike Orihime, none of them have shown any indication that they were interested in them; and look what they did," he answered, pushing up his glasses in annoyance. "Now, take what's happened already, apply that to Orihime's feelings for Ichigo and tell me that there isn't a problem."

"Or maybe," Keigo said suspiciously, holding a magnifying glass in front of his eye as he leaned in to Uryu's face, "You're upset because you secretly love Orih--". He got cut off by Uryu striking him in the throat, leaving him on the ground gasping.

"I don't know what you're implying," he said, eyebrows furrowed.

Everyone stood still in rapt attention as Orihime slowly leaned forward, eyes closed and took a few tentative sniffs. Opening her eyes, Orihime leaned back and blinked before getting to her feet and walking back to stand in front of the other girls.

"Um," she said before giggling nervously, scratching the back of her head. "I'm sorry guys, but I don't smell anything." This made the girls stare at her in astonishment; though Tatsuki was secretly glad that Orihime didn't do anything which could be used by someone else to make fun of her.