A/N: Another update. Weekend has done me good. :D Thank you again for the wonderful reviews, you guys are such sweethearts. This one is for you guys. Hope everybody likes ;)
Terminology:
Scoliosis – deformation of vertebral column (English: backbone)
Disclaimer: Still not playing scrabble.
"Dammit, Kuchiki. Why don't you just write a book?" Ichigo asked sarcastically, shaking his head at the long list of so called pre-lease agreement. It would take him at least a month to finish going over them.
Rukia crossed her arms in front of her chest. "Don't tempt me. Just be grateful I didn't step over 40."
"Yeah. How thankful I am. I feel like lighting a candle in the church just for you," Ichigo retorted. He turned his attention to the ridiculous document. "No loud music at night and early morning. No loud sound, of all sorts, applicable at all times." He wrinkled his forehead. "What's so much different about loud music and sound that you have to put them in separate entity, pray tell?"
Rukia rolled her eyes. "Loud music is those rock bands that guys your type usually listen to. Loud sound refers to any type of audible sounds, be it coming from you, or your furniture, or your screaming girlfriend. Got it?"
"Why don't you just spell it out clearly? It's called loud SEX. Geez. What juvenile." His eyes ran to the bottom of the page. "Violation of privacy is strictly prohibited. The connecting door is severely off-limits. What connecting door?"
Rukia sighed. She motioned lazily to the apartment, as if the connecting door, which was located inside, could be seen from where they were standing in the lawn.
"I'm sorry for not being a mutant. I don't have x-ray visions."
"It's that door inside your apartment, next to the toilet, which leads down a staircase directly into my apartment," she explained.
Ichigo frowned. "Meaning to say, you got one of those things yourself too?"
"Duh. That's basically how connecting doors work, genius."
Raising an eyebrow, he purposely struck a finger at the paper. "Then I want my part of security arrangement on the agreement too," he demanded.
"What are you talking about, loser?"
"If you're putting the connecting door as off-limits on my side, then I should state it be the same on your side too. I don't want you creeping up the stairs to peek at me while I'm sleeping or showering!"
"First of all, I'd rather be caught dead than peeking at you! Second of all, since when does this agreement take two sides?!" Rukia yelled, blushing furiously.
"Are you sure? Last time a girl peeked at me in prep school, I lost my boxers. Those were silk, and they were kinda expensive, you know."
Rukia stopped herself from pulling hair off her scalp. It's only 10 am and she was already wishing that the day would end soon. "Are you mentally-challenged?? Rest assured, your boxers are safe with you, stupid. What kind of a gay wears silk boxers anyway??"
"Heyyy, what's this about calling me stupid? I demand to be treated with equal respect!"
"The day I'm treating you with even a little amount of dignity is the day you graduate from kindergarten."
Ichigo shook his head. "You're impossible, woman."
"Whatever. I'm off." Rukia turned on her heels and began walking to her front door.
"Wait!"
"What?"
"Who's going to help me carry all this stuff up?"
Rukia arched an eyebrow. "Certainly not me."
"Come on! I'd have scoliosis by the last box. Can't you pretend to be that friendly neighbor for awhile?"
Rukia ran her eyes across the lawn. Almost ten boxes of various sizes were trampling her perfectly manicured carpet grass. A lone tall bedside lamp stood by the staircase. A complete ensemble of human skeleton hung next to it. Some rolled-up posters. A CD rack. A TV. A hi-fi set. "You got so much stuff for a guy. Where did you get most of these junks?"
"I don't know, Rukia. One day I farted, and all of them came crashing down from the sky."
"I refuse to climb that stairs with all these heavy boxes."
Ichigo exhaled noisily. "Fine. You just have to hand me the boxes at the landing. Alright?"
"Why do you have a freaking bedside lamp for? Isn't it a little sissy-ish?" Rukia inquired, running a finger along the lamp dome. And cringed when her finger was coated with dust.
"Sissy-ish," Ichigo scorned under his breath. "My sisters gave it to me." He lifted a box marked 'text books' and struggled to keep his balance. Damn his dad for sparing him with medical books enough to supply the whole JNU's medical faculty. He looked over his shoulder at Rukia who was obsessing over his skeleton. "Hey. Mind if we start getting my stuff up sometime this year?"
Rolling her eyes, Rukia pulled up the sleeves of her sweatshirt. "Hold your horses, dude."
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Rukia balled her fist and resisted the urge to pounce a certain lanky orange-top living upstairs. She watched as the murky water dripped mercilessly onto her bedlinen, which was hung neatly along the laundry line.
"Kurosaki!"
"What?" Ichigo peered down from his balcony. His orange head was a mess. "Do you have breakfast for me?" he asked cheekily.
"Breakfast my ass!" Rukia shouted. Does that asshole think I'm running a lodging or something? She pointed angrily at her drenched laundry. "You let your laundry water drip down! Again!"
"What do you want me to do about it, Kuchiki? Not like I can fight gravity," he called down. "Come on, it's just water mixed with Tide. Nothing to fuss about."
"Nothing to fuss about?? God knows what died in that laundry pail of yours!"
"Hey!"
"Don't hey me!! Don't you know how to wring them dry??"
Ichigo rolled his eyes. For somebody so small, she had a voice audible to the whole 5-km radius. "Excuse me for have never worked in a laundry shop before," he replied dryly.
"Wring them dry before I throw them into the drain," she threatened before stepping back into the house.
Rukia plopped herself down onto the couch, sighing heavily. It's been roughly one month since that boy moved in and so far they've been managing well to keep out of each other's lives. Well, except for that time when he came down with food poisoning in campus.
"Student Rukia Kuchiki, you are requested to be present at the campus sickbay now. I repeat…"
Rukia's step died in her track. Nanao and Matsumoto followed suit. "Was that my name?" she inquired, almost to herself.
"Well, if there's another Kuchiki Rukia in campus, which I highly doubt to be, that was certainly referring to you," Matsumoto concluded.
Rukia gulped. Being summoned to the sickbay only means very few things. Usually people are not summoned to the sickbay, they either voluntarily pay a visit due to health reasons or being sent involuntarily when the health reasons get out of control. When she woke up that morning, she was feeling dandy as usual, minus the fact that she was being pulled out of bed by the speaker cranking Metallica from the second floor. Other than that, she was peachy.
To be called to the sickbay only means two things; either you're a health personnel involved with volunteering around clinic, or you're being summoned to collect your lab test result. Underlined for pregnancy test.
And she was certainly not known around campus for being a medical personnel. This only left to one conclusion for the rest of the JNU population to speculate: is that petite bartender getting some action, and therefore paying for it?
Shit.
Matsumoto was grinning some hardcore cheese on her. "When did that happen?" she asked, poking Rukia's ribs in the process.
"That, has never happened," Rukia answered cattily, all the while trying to dodge the amused looks people have been throwing her way.
"What has never happened?" Nanao inquired, obviously oblivious to what 'that' meant.
Matsumoto laughed, her ample bosom, which was the source of attraction to both males and females alike, shook lightly. She patted her innocent friend on the shoulder. "Trust me, Nanao. You'd feel better if you don't find outt."
Nanao looked puzzled. She clutched her books a little tighter to her chest. "So, are you going, Rukia?"
"Do I look crazy to you??" Rukia muttered. "There's no way they were calling my name to the sickbay. Maybe they got it mixed up with another girl."
"Righhhht."
"Maybe they were just calling you in to help them with flyers. You are always very talented with designing them," Nanao reasoned.
Nanao's explanation had somehow calmed Rukia down a hell lot. She was at the merge of spazzing out. She let out a small cough, trying to get rid of the stammer in her voice. "Right."
After much debating with the girls, she finally made her way to the eastern part of the university, feeling a little bit stupid herself. She for one, knew she was nowhere near doing 'that', at least that she was aware of. She didn't even dare sleeping naked on her own, how could 'that' come into the picture? She shuddered. Whatever's shattering her reputation in the clinic should be good.
So when she was told a Kurosaki Ichigo in Bay 2 was calling for her, she was puzzled. What was that idiot doing calling her on the PA system to the freaking sickbay?? A series of innovative profanities was forming in her head. She pulled the curtain open and was ready with a verbal assault when a sickly white face greeted her. All words fled her mouth.
"Hey," Ichigo croaked hoarsely. His lips were deathly pale. Or so she thought.
Rukia clamped her mouth shut. She stepped in, peering curiously at the orange-top. "Are you dying?" she asked, words came out in a sudden rush.
Ichigo managed a chuckle. "I hope not. Damn. I paid a fortune for that apartment. At least I'm gonna make this month's rent worth. It's barely been a week."
Rukia raised an eyebrow. For somebody who resembled closely to dying, he sure was eloquent. "Then, what's wrong with you?"
"Nurse said it's food poisoning. Got a sick leave and was requested to go home," he explained slowly, although it seemed he was struggling a bit for words.
Rukia smirked. "Lucky ass. Don't let me stop you or anything," she joked.
"Right, about that." The guy suddenly turned all shy. His pale-stricken face changed into a light pink. "I forgot my keys," he spoke shyly.
Rukia couldn't believe her ears. "How on earth did you forget your keys?"
"I slipped them into Mizuiro's bag when rushing to the toilet just now and that stupid idiot just left."
"How was he the stupid idiot when you could have slipped that key into your own bag??" Rukia argued.
"Excuse me that grabbing my bag wasn't the first thing that comes to mind when my rectum was almost exploding," Ichigo retorted. "Plus you got the spare key, right?"
"Yeah, which happens to lie in my closet AT HOME," Rukia replied. "I'm not about to give you my key for you to go ransack my place. No way." She crossed her arms in front of her chest, emphasizing her point.
"Rukia!" he whined. "I'm dying here. I need to go to the toilet every twenty minutes!"
"Then you wouldn't even make it down the bus stop."
"Please restore my faith in humanity and bring a sick child home," Ichigo begged.
"But you wouldn't last twenty minutes without the potty! I refuse to be around when you stain your pants!"
"Gosh, Rukia. Why don't you alert the whole Japan?" Ichigo muttered under his breath. His shade then was the abnormal hue of scarlet.
In the end, virtue won over pride. Guilt prevailed ignorance. With the man's arm slung around her shoulders, the two were a sight as they left the university's compound together. She even burned extra yen for the cab ride home. After a dozen more trips to the toilet and a bowl of homemade chicken soup and porridge later, some natural color returned to Ichigo's cheeks, much to Rukia's relief.
Nursing the boy had been pure torture.
Now as she watched the water dripped onto her bedlinen still, she wondered if she should have just left him alone to die of severe dehydration.
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