Title: First Meeting
Author: Ansela Jonla
Fandom: Bleach
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: violence, language
Summary: Ikkaku meets someone in a rough bar who looks a little out of place.
Word Count: 2379
Notes: My first attempt at first person present tense in a long while. Beta'd by agenttrojie
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The inn's a shithole, the sort of place that's filled with rough bastards that make their living fighting on the streets and in the fields of Rukongai. The potential for a fight always simmers in the bar area, fuelled by cheap drink, short tempers and clashing personalities, but upstairs in the rooms is a clearly defined truce zone. No matter what district I go to, I've never once encountered a fight in the lodgings I've sought out, even when the bastard sharing your room snores like a herd of stampeding boars.
The bar in tonight's shithole is charged with a different sort of tension though. I can sense it as soon as I step across the threshold. Quite a few of the thugs in here are focused on something that isn't the usual menu of hard drink and even harder blows. Glancing around, taking stock of who's already here for when the inevitable fight breaks out, I notice what they're all pretending not to be looking at.
Most of the people in here, myself included, are dressed in simple clothes that only cover what they need to and are dull enough to be forgettable. It doesn't help to draw unwanted attention to yourself, after all. Rukongai is lawless, after all, and the more memorable your clothing the easier it is for someone to identify you to a gang boss for whatever reason. I'm tough, but some of those bastards are rumoured to keep Hollows as attack dogs.
This person, I can't tell the gender from this distance, their face is so fucking ambiguous but I'll go with male for now, though, they seem to want to stand out. He's wearing a pristine, ankle-length white yukata, with red and green flowers printed on, tied by a dark green sash. The way he's sat, perched on a grimy barstool with one leg hitched over the other, shows that he's wearing a decent pair of tabi and zori, rather than going barefoot like most of the poor bastards in here. Black hair, tied back with a plain ribbon bow, reaches almost to his waist. All considered, he looks like a rich brat who's accidentally wondered into this rundown area and doesn't realise the danger he's in.
Most of the bastards in here are looking at him hungrily, which is quite understandable. If I hadn't had a good score today, escorting some high-class whore to and from a nobleman's fucking country estate for cash and a meal, as well as a quick go with one of the stableboys on the side, while I waited for her to finish her business, I'd be the same. Not all of the thugs look like they're after the guy's money, not exclusively anyway. I glare at the ones nearest me who are guilty of the second kind of hunger, feeling some satisfaction when they duck their heads and stop looking at their would-be victim. I'm a thug, but I have somewhat of an honour code, and that means I don't rape anyone, or let someone get raped if I can help it.
On that thought I cross the room to where the oblivious bastard is sitting. There are two seats either side of him free, probably vacated due to fear that stupidity is catching. Close up the mug is definitely more beautiful than I'd thought from across the room, far above the level of the whores you get around here. I can see how those that are into that kind of fun might be tempted by such a face. The sword leaning against the bar is a nice hint though. Maybe prettyboy, although I'm even less sure about the boy part now, might not be in so much trouble after all.
I sit down next to him, grinning at his shocked and annoyed glance. "Oi, can I have whatever's strongest and whatever this bastard's having," I call, before turning to face him. "What's a rich, pretty thing like you doing in such a dump?"
"Having a drink, alone," he, oh, so definitely a he with a voice like that, said snarkily. I grin even wider and accept the two drinks that are slammed down in front of me. I raise my glass to him and gulp most of it down in one go, noticing that he's actually drinking the same thing. "That means that I don't want any company, especially not that of a stranger whose name I don't even know."
"Madarame Ikkaku, toughest bastard in this district." I glare at everyone nearby, daring someone to argue with me. No one does, making this crowd smarter than the one from last night. Course they could all be waiting to see what I do with this prettyboy. Wonder what he'd do if I tried to smash that perfectly straight nose of his. I resist the urge to find out, for now at least.
"Ayasegawa Yumichika," he replies, after he downs most of the drink I'd bought for him. I stare at him in surprise, caught off guard for a second. He originally came from a district only five away from mine, if he'd named himself the way I did, one which was about three districts behind us now. And here I was thinking he was some rich boy from the safer inner districts. "I'm just a wanderer."
"Where you wandering to?" I watch the creeping bastards get closer, some of them having got enough drink in them now to be bold enough to try something even with me sitting right here. My sword is resting against the bar by my left leg, where I can easily snatch it up if I need to.
"Nowhere in particular. I'm just going wherever there's money to be found." He seems to have noticed the creeps as well, and his metaphorical nose goes up in the air as he turns to face one of them.
I mostly ignore the conversation, knowing that it won't come to much, and look for trouble from the other side. Itachi isn't going to start a fight by walking up to Yumichika and insulting him. He got his name because he's a sneak, a cowardly runt who uses lies and misdirections to leech off of others and get himself a bit of the loot in return for spying and other crappy things like that. If prettyboy does find himself overpowered and dragged into an alley, Itachi won't be the first one to get a piece of him, but he won't be the last either.
"I mean it. I'm not interested in your friends' protection," Yumichika says as I focus on the conversation again, all potential threats from behind him scared off. It's amazing what a few glares and meaningful looks at my sword can do.
"You have more friends, Itachi? Last I saw you, you were running away and leaving your buddies to die on my sword," I remind him. I'd been working for a brothel owner at the time, a fairly wealthy woman who owned brothels in several districts. He'd been spying for a gang boss whose attacks on her couriers were the reason why I'd been hired. The little sneak pales as he remembers the same incident, and he scowls and scurries off towards a dark corner of the bar. I gave him a cut that day, and I can see the scar it left running down his arm as he turns his back on me. Maybe tonight I'll get to finish the job.
"I didn't need your help, Madarame-san." Yumichika stands up and places several worn coins on the bar, which the barkeep snatches up almost as soon as they touch the wood. Collecting his sword, Yumichika starts to stride across the bar, but his path is soon blocked by a group of thugs that close in around him and block my view. They're all bigger than him, and I realise that they came from the same corner that Itachi had fled to. So these were his new friends then, low level thugs that only had two swords between the ten of them.
I put my own money down, less than his since I only bought the two drinks, and slide off the stool. As soon as my feet are on the floor I'm dodging a flying body, sent my way by Yumichika. I prowl around them, keeping the rest of the bastards away, as the prettyboy deals with the other nine the same way. The two big guys with swords don't even get chance to draw, not with their heads knocked together in a move that I miss completely while fending off a pair of lumbermen with axes.
The fight is over too soon, and I'm staggering up to the sleeping rooms with blood dripping from where a whore stabbed me in the leg with his knife, Yumichika's arm slung around my waist and mine over his shoulder to keep me from falling down, or up, the stairs. We'd ended up back to back in the fight, protecting each other as what seemed like the entire bar ganged up on us. I wonder how I can convince this deceptively fragile looking fighter to stick with me. On my own I can earn enough money to keep myself in food, booze and whores. Together with a partner like this, oh the things I could do with a bit more money.
"Ikkaku, which is your room?" Yumichika's voice brings me back through the fog surrounding my senses. One of the bastards had had a club, at least until my sword removed the arm holding it. I sway as I try to remember the number I'd been given.
"Fifteen, right at the end of the hall," I eventually reply. Yumichika nods and half drags me there. My left foot doesn't want to work for some reason, probably because that stab wound is deeper than I thought it was. I hope the bastard doesn't wake up for that. The last person whose neck looked like that after I slammed them into a solid object didn't.
"Oh, that's my room as well. That makes it a bit easier then." Yumichika's strong. He gives up on dragging me when my leg buckles, and instead picks me up, and I'm not lightweight here, and literally carries me to our room. The change in perspective is interesting, and not just because I get to stare at his very nice ass at close range. Suddenly ending up doubled over and upside down when drunk and with a fresh head injury isn't a good idea, I think.
"Er, Yumi," I can't say his name fully, not if I want to avoid painting his yukata with my vomit. "I think this is-" I don't get to finish my sentence as he drops me on the floor just inside the room, managing to make it so I land on my uninjured leg, which I'm thankful for. He leaves me there while he sets the futons out and finds the basin and medical supplies normally in these places.
I look anywhere but my leg as he cleans and dresses the wound. It's weird, but I don't like looking when I'm being patched up after a fight. I can handle it when bits of body, preferably someone else's, are being scattered around in a fight, but I can't stand the sight of my own inside stuff laid bare to the world. Yumichika's hands are steady on my leg though, and he's soon finished, dragging me over to the futon and covering me over, the basin by my head in case the desire to empty my stomach resurfaces. Sleep comes slowly as my leg and head throb in unison, but eventually I slip off into blessed sleep.
I wake up in the morning feeling like I've been in the middle of a boar stampede. My whole body aches and I roll to face away from the light streaming in the open window. Yumichika is nowhere to be seen, his sword gone from the stand by the door, and I sigh. Figures that a guy like that would want to move on as soon as possible. I pull myself out of bed and grab my sword, glad that he didn't take that with him as well. I don't know why, but I feel some sort of attachment to this weapon.
It hurts to go downstairs, but I manage somehow. Festering in bed like some sort of invalid cripple isn't going to help me. I can only afford to stay here one night, maybe two. The dark look the owner gives me as I make my way out the front door tells me not to expect an offer of breakfast or a drink for the road. I wonder how many people I managed to kill last night in that brawl.
It's when I get outside that I see him, sitting on a barrel over the road with a bag of fruit in his hand. He waves at me as I step into the light, and I walk over to him. Wordlessly he offers me a crisp red apple, and I accept just as silently. Food like this is hard to come by down here, and he must have been up early to be able to raid the gardens of the nearby manor and get back here in time. I throw the apple core on the ground and walk off once I finish it, letting the scraggly kids that come from nowhere fight over the last few remaining bits of flesh on it. Yumichika falls in step beside me, a bright smile on his face.
"Why you following me?" I grunt eventually, once the town is far behind us. "Thought you didn't want company."
"That was last night, when I thought you were another one of those thugs, after only one thing. You look interesting, Ikkaku, and I like interesting things," he replies, looking at something further along the road than I can see. "Besides, you were quite beautiful in that fight last night, so I wondered what you would be like in a real battle. If you're not beautiful I might still leave you."
He dashes off towards a dust cloud on the horizon and I grin. I'll just have to show him how beautiful I can be then, won't I.