Sometimes In The 11th... (Memories Came Back)
*insert time-of-day-appropriate greeting*, everyone! Today, Yumichika takes a stroll down Memory Lane... and Ikkaku's Terrible Secret is outed.
Yumichika sighed, inhaling the dust of Rukongai with something akin to a nostalgic allergy attack. It was gentle at first, but held the promise of a ferocious onslaught of reminiscence - like the tickle of an impending sneeze, which quickly grew from there into a snotty, teary-eyed, red-nosed nightmare.
There, to the left of the dango shop with the battered red sign, was their old hovel. At least in this district, anyway - they'd had several over the decades, spread out over the breadth of Rukongai in a network of poor, dilapidated buildings, which had once been... average. In this district, Yumichika had learned the truth about his best friend, Ikkaku.
There, in the haze of a damp, silver dawn, Yumichika found himself looking over Ikkaku as he slept off whatever drunken revelry he had partaken of the night before; it was clearly a good one, judging by the goose egg riding above the bald man's left temple. If the light spilling in from the broken shutters had been better he might have seen the road map of a damn-good brawl written across Ikakku's face even better - it didn't matter, though; Yumichika already knew it was there, just as well as he knew how much worse his opponents were going to look when the sun had risen.
That wasn't the important part, though. Nope. There, in the floorless shack that smelled of bean curd and dirty laundry, Yumichika's truth smacked him full in the face.
Ikkaku used to sleep back-to-back with Yumichika when they had been small children in the outer districts. Usually, their resting spot would be misappropriated by someone stronger toward the wee hours of the morning and the two would flee, wide-eyed despite being recently shocked out of sleep. Until Ikkaku got sick of it, that is. At some point he started fighting back - usually with less than desirable results. But, over time, Yumichika realized that he was beginning to win more often than he lost. And then Ikkaku fell ill, and Yumichika had to fend for both of them.
But, then, Hozukimaru. Then, Ruri'iro Kujaku. Then... Seireitei. Zaraki. Ichigo. Aizen. Time raced before Yumichika's eyes as he stared down the road, fixed on the faded red sign.
There, on a raised platform that jokingly called itself a bed, a woman in a wrinkled yukata looked back at him with pleading eyes. Yumichika snorted to himself and carefully extracted her from the position she had foolishly gotten herself into... then he kicked his friend's limp form, sending him rolling over onto his right side, facing the chapped, wooden wall of the shack. Ikkaku grumbled something in a thuggish dialect that Yumichika didn't approve of at all, as it was the epitome of ugliness, but he ignored it.
As the woman - more of a girl, really - scampered out of the place with enough noise to wake the whole neighborhood (if you could call it that), Yumichika settled himself delicately, his back pressed against Ikkaku's in a familiar position, replacing the silly thing that had been trapped in the dangerous stranglehold of Ikkaku's grip.
The surface of the truth was that Ikkaku never stayed with his women. If you looked a little more closely, you would realize that it was because none of them was strong enough to survive a Madarame who liked to cuddle.
But, he was.
Aww. Tee. I know this may sound fairly Ikkachika (did I just come up with that term on my own? It has a better ring to it than Ikkayumi, IMO), but it wasn't intended that way. After doing something so silly with Yumichika last time I wrote him, I felt obligated to depict him with a little more depth.
As for the early history between Ikkaku and Yumichika... I'unno. Pulled it out of my ear, to be honest.
Sorry it's another short one. Next one will be longer - Promise! (Next Time: Sometimes In The 11th... Visitors Turn Up)