"Ichigo, we heard you've finally gotten over your sickness! Welcome back," Orihime greeted. Ichigo kept a scowl for a moment, as if the thought of her voice annoyed him, before forcing a smile on his somewhat tired looking face. He was still paler than normal, and there was a heaviness to his limbs he wasn't used to. Numerous times he almost dozed off in class, but the teacher cut him some slack noticing he didn't look fully recovered. After school ended she kept him back. The others hesitated, but a quick glare had them scurrying away.
"Kurosaki-kun, are you feeling alright? I noticed you still seemed a bit under the weather," His teacher asked, worried.
"I'm fine, I still feel a bit off, but I'll be alright. Besides, if I missed too many days I'll never catch up," Ichigo answered easily, hiding his slight discomfort. He was fine, really, it was just the lingering adjustments his body had yet to make.
"If you say so, you run along now," The teacher sighed, but smiled as Ichigo left the door.
The one thing he wasn't expecting was Rylen waiting for him outside the gates, dressed in casual clothing and wearing sunglasses that covered his amazing eyes. Ichigo wished he would take them off.
"I would tease you, but he is pretty hot," Shiro muttered in his brain.
"What are you doing here?" Ichigo asked curiously, completely ignoring his hollow for a moment as he took in Rylan's appearance. "Not that I'm not happy to see you or anything,"
"I had some free time and wanted to see if you'd like to go get something to eat before I take you to meet the others, "Rylen answered easily, 'I understand that last night was a bit sudden when you hardly know anything about us." Ichigo sighed in relief, offering the man a grateful smile.
"I'd love to, just let me put on something that's not a school uniform first," Ichigo led him towards his house, chatting idly about things. "Do you want to wait inside? Nobody should be home at the moment so you won't have to deal with dad…" Ichigo trailed off when Rylen finally took his glasses off, revealing those shocking blue eyes and a smile.
"Of course, unless you'd prefer me to wait outside that is," Ichigo just blushed slightly and opened the door, motioning to the couch. Rylen made himself comfortable, gazing around the room at all the pictures. Ichigo headed up to his room to pick out an outfit, realizing belatedly that he just let the enemy into his house just like that. Oh well, it's not like everyone didn't already know where he lived anyway.
He was just reaching for his shirt when he heard movement and turned to see Rylen had wandered upstairs. His gaze met Ichigo's and a frown settled over his face when he saw the scars covering Ichigo's torso.
"Those aren't from being a soul reaper, scars don't stay," Rylen crossed the threshold of his room and looked closely at the various scars on his back, "Where did you get them?"
"It's not that interesting, really," Ichigo answered, buttoning up his white shirt, "People pick fights with me because of my hair, I take care of them but sometimes they get lucky shots in,"
"They make fun of your hair? I think it's beautiful," Rylen grabbed a lock of it between his fingers, "If you grew it out a bit more it would be even better," Ichigo felt a smile tugging at his lips.
"That was the plan," Ichigo answered, "before losing my powers I trained for three months in the dangai and my hair grew out a bit. I was thinking of letting it stay that way,"
"Shall we go?" Rylen asked, finally letting go of his hair in favor of letting a hand run across his cheek.
"Sure, where did you have in mind?" Ichigo replied, leading the way downstairs. He locked the door behind him as Rylen began describing a cafe he knew.
"It has the best chocolate cake I've ever tasted," he grinned, 'You have to try it!"
"Sure thing, one can never resist chocolate," Ichigo laughed lightly, "Especially if it's cake."
They were approaching the cafe when Ichigo's phone rang, making Ichigo pause and pull out his phone. "It's my dad, you go ahead and grab a table and I'll join you in a second," Ichigo told him easily, staring at the caller id.
"Don't take to long," Rylen answered as he went inside. Ichigo flipped open his phone and restrained himself from growling.
"What do you want, Urahara?" Ichigo failed to keep all of the anger out of his voice,
"Sorry, sorry," Urahara apologized, "Just wanted to check up on you. Have you been contacted yet?"
"Yeah, late last night," Ichigo sighed, "I'm with him now so if this drags on any longer he'll probably come to get me," He hesitated, "I'm not sure what the soul society thinks of him, but he seems...normal at the moment."
"Normal? What do you mean by that," Urahara asked, "According to Rukia and the others, he launched an attack a few days ago and heavily injured a few of the fifth division members,"
"I'll look into it, but right now he's acting more human than I've ever seen a soul reaper act," Ichigo hung up before Urahara could respond and made his way into the cafe.
He just wanted to enjoy today.