Yo. Here's the corporate AU as requested by Ichiruki 4vr, and rightly inspired by Tituba3's classic Odalisque. If you haven't read it, you are missing out (while I'm recommending, go read the recently completed Bleach Emblem by Saij Spellhart because it is to. Die. For.). When I first started writing this, it was the angstiest thing I'd ever written - Ichigo and Rukia sleeping together and her falling in love with him and him ignoring her for a while - and I may return to that storyline eventually, but I found it difficult to write so instead I rewrote it and turned it into this (admittedly odd) fluff-fest. I'm not going to lie, I have NO IDEA where any of this came from, the corporate bit only facilitates my weird idea, and it is CHEESY TO THE POINT OF CRINGEWORTHY, but I've been having a bad few weeks so I wanted to do something just so cheerful and cute to make me feel better and this is what I produced, so please read and review and let me know if this is so strong it's blue cheese. But it's sort of nice in a way, because to me, I felt like I was introducing Ichigo to what I thought should have been, but you'll see. Please send requests and I will make them slightly less cheesy and weird. Maybe.
The two heads of marketing at the popular but expensive underwear multinational company did not get on. In fact, they had only met each other three times previously. Once had been in a strategy meeting, and it had ended in a rather heated disagreement. The second had been in a boardroom meeting, and had ended with an all out screaming match. The third had been at a company gala. They'd drank too much, gone back to his and had sex, and he'd woken up alone the next morning. All the money in his wallet had gone and there was a passive aggressive note on his desk explaining that she'd taken it to buy the morning after pill because he'd been out of condoms.
This was around two years ago. Since this event, all communication between the two had been limited to secretaries messaging thinly veiled threats to one another from the two different cities their bosses worked in, and the marketing campaigns for women's lingerie and men's underwear were drastically different. The tones clashed: how could the lingerie shorts be advertising a strong, independent woman looking good for herself when the men's adverts focused on how to get the women in the lingerie by wearing the boxer briefs?
This, of course, was pissing off both the CEO and the CFO. Women of all sexualities were buying themselves the lingerie, enjoying the theme of empowerment, but were alienated from purchasing the male line if they had boyfriends or husbands. Straight men were buying the male line, and this consumer was split on buying the women's line if they did or didn't appreciate the feminist theme of the lingerie ads, but this was the sole consumer base.
As such, Ichigo Kurosaki's sales were down due to his marketing techniques compared to Rukia Kuchiki's.
This did not a happy man make when he wished he could tear the head of the rabbit-loving bitch who fucked like a Duracell bunny and had ruined every sexual encounter he had had with a woman since because they just weren't quite as good as she was.
So she was ruining his career and his sex life.
And today he was finally going to see that slut when she came from her building in Karakura to the main site in Tokyo where he worked so they could have a meeting with the CEO, an old guy called Yamamoto, the CFO Ukitake and a senior Director, Kyoraku. He was going to make her look like the absolute fucking stupid bitch she was, get her out of his system, then go out and find the nearest hot chick to fuck that he could, and then this depressing saga would be over.
And yet when he walked into the boardroom on that Friday evening in his dark grey work suit and white shirt, he realised belatedly that he'd matched his deep purple tie to the colour of her eyes, and only realised when she was staring right at him from her place at the other end of the table.
He managed to tear himself from his place in the doorway before he looked odd standing there for too long, and removed his eyes from the woman across the table from him as he shook his bosses' hands. He didn't approach her even as he saw her reach her own hand out, but saw her daintily move it back to her side when she realised he had no intention of taking it, and clench her fist twice before relaxing.
They sat, and he purposefully kept his eyes away from her.
As it turned out, he had no opportunity or courage to chew her out when he could feel her gaze on him intermittently throughout the meeting, and instead kept focussed on what his CEO was telling him - that they needed to work more coherently, they needed to communicate more, they needed to be in sync, and that to facilitate that, Ms Kuchiki would be setting up base in the Tokyo office building.
"You have got to be fucking kidding me."
He could barely get himself off because of this woman, other chicks thought he had some kind of erectile dysfunction, and now she was going to be right on his doorstep?!
"I assure you, Mr Kurosaki, we do not kid," Ukitake said, smiling warmly from his spot to Kuchiki's left. "We think this would be an excellent opportunity for Ms Kuchiki to spread her fundamentals and coordinate with your own brand of, uh, machoism in order to further the potential sales of both of your product lines, though particularly the men's lines. I'm sure you agree that this is an effective route to solve our problem?"
He sighed, leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. "I guess."
"Then it's settled!" Kyoraku raised his arms in excited victory. "I guess it's a good thing Ms Kuchiki moved into her office today, then!"
Ichigo rolled his eyes and lightly groaned, turning his head to the ceiling.
He contemplated throwing his head against the wall and ending it all when, about a few hours later, he found himself in Kuchiki's office, and still as totally confused as he'd ever been as the woman he was sure he hated stood there, holding the extremely lacy new season teddy in her hand.
"So, how do you think you would market this to your target audience, carrot top?"
What was more confusing and frustrating was that she had a playful smirk on her face and never moved her eyes from his as she fingered the scraps of white lace and silk in her hands. He was sure he hated her. He couldn't really get himself off without her there, but he was still pretty sure he hated her. He hated her pointed heels with the red sole, the black pencil skirt, the lavender blouse and buttoned suit jacket over flared hips she wore, the loose bits of hair that escaped her ponytail and framed her face.
He had been so sure he hated her.
So why was he stuttering when he told her he'd market it towards the male gaze?
Was it because she looked at him like he was pure dirt?
And she was now narrowing her huge fucking purple eyes at him like he'd really fucked her off?
"I think you've missed the point of why your sales are down."
Ichigo shot up from his seated position at his desk, slammed his hands onto the surface, and found the will to glare right back at her. "You know what, then? You fucking tell me what you'd do. Because I'm incredibly interested to know how you'd market that slutty little thing to a mass market of men."
Her eyes widened slightly again, and her mouth dropped to a pout.
"It's only 'slutty' because you say and think it's slutty," she cocked her hip and put a hand on her waist, and used her other hand to unbutton her suit jacket. "I hate that word, and besides, I actually think it's looks classy on."
He scoffed, sat down, and tried to turn his attention to his laptop instead of the woman he had spent two years fantasising about and who was holding lingerie. "I highly doubt that tiny thing could ever look classy. Chicks would only wear that to get one thing."
He saw movement out of the corner of her eye as she responded. "I don't know... I happen to think it just looks pretty..."
He glanced up to see her pull away the top of her blouse, a few more buttons open than there had been a few seconds ago, so he could see the black version of the teddy she held on her hands covering her left breast.
He swallowed thickly. He checked the time quickly. 4pm on a Friday was a reasonable time to leave, right?
"Do you uh, um, want to- want to come back to mine?" He stuttered his words and then they all came out in a rush like he was 15 again and trying to lose his virginity.
She smirked again, and raised her hands to rebutton her shirt. "Sure."
Three months later, Ichigo found himself jealous and suspicious.
They'd been sleeping together very regularly - very regularly - the whole time, and hadn't exactly been out on a date or gone official like they were sixteen years old or even said they vaguely liked each other, but Rukia's inability to be tracked down for over half the week every week was getting on his nerves.
She only came to the office two or three days a week, and worked from home the rest of the time. The days she did come in, she'd leave with him, go back to his, sleep with him, and always made sure she left before 10:30. She never stayed the night. She never told him where she went. She kept an emotional distance that implied it wasn't his place to ask, using him only for sex when she felt like it. The closest they got to a date night was when she would sometimes show up on a Saturday evening with a wicked smile and a kinky idea.
It would be the perfect set up for a guy like him, but Ichigo just couldn't get over the fact that he liked her. Not just like. He had a serious, serious thing for Rukia Kuchiki and, frankly, he'd had this thing for over two years now.
But the evidence was adding up, and Ichigo had to admit that he knew he wasn't the only guy in the picture. He couldn't be. She had a man living with her - boyfriend or fiancé, not husband or he'd know from the gossip columns considering her family's status. She gave him very little of her time outside work, she left early, and she was staunchly resolute on the importance of protection, to the point that, the first time they slept together again, she sent him out for condoms before she'd even let him take her blouse off to get to the lingerie beneath.
The evidence was mounting up. He wasn't happy about it, but if he was going to fall in love with a woman to the point he couldn't get sexual gratification without her, then she damn well was going to fall in love with him too and that would be the end of it. He wasn't the type of man to end up in second place.
Because, unfortunately, it wasn't just the sex. Before she'd come to work near and with him, he could tell himself it was just that, that she was the best he'd ever had and he'd only had her once and he'd been drunk, but actually spending time with her meant her personality was actually just as appealing to spend time with as spending time in her. He'd actually once or twice tried to slow her down when they were kissing and she was trying to move things along so he could talk to her, but that didn't seem to interest her.
Actually, he didn't seem to interest her.
Outside of his dick, anyway.
She was finding out things about him though - she knew about his sisters, that one each called on Wednesday and Thursday nights, that he read Shakespeare, that he tried to go to the gym at least five evenings a week even if it meant hoping she'd still be in his bed ready for another round when he got back, that he didn't go out on Saturday nights anymore in case she came over, that he wasn't sleeping with anyone else because he told her every time he put a condom on since he'd seen her take a birth control pill regularly with her lunch, that he'd been trying to get her number from her secretary, that it was easy to get him to do his job her way if she essentially had his dick under her thumb.
She just didn't seem interested in this information.
She didn't actually even really like looking at him if she could help it. She was always looking away, or closing her eyes, or getting him to take her from behind so she couldn't see his face.
So she probably had a boyfriend.
And Ichigo was determined to meet the guy diverting Rukia's attention.
This evening, his tactic was a level of control he wasn't aware he had. Sex with Rukia wasn't exactly controllable - she was wild and feisty and he physically couldn't get enough of her, he was constantly trying to keep moving and keep going and start again and get closer and make her feel so good she orgasmed so hard he could feel her muscles around himself. So he was pretty self-congratulatory when he managed to get her on her back, arms and legs clasped around him, whimpering and squealing as he changed his rhythm, when he suddenly stilled.
It felt like he was holding onto a rock face with one hand, but he was managing it.
Her eyes flashed open. "Wh-what are you doing?" Her voice was weak and quiet and strained as she tried to move her hips, but he pressed his weight down so she couldn't.
"Who's the other guy?" He forced it out quickly - the quicker the conversation was over, the quicker he could fuck her into oblivion again.
"What?"
"The one you're living with?"
She sighed shallowly and gave her hips another try, but it was useless. "What are you talking about?"
He growled, and pressed his weight down further until her torso was pushed into the mattress, the pressure against her abdomen making her whimper. "The one you spend all your time with. He's living with you, right? That's why we never go to your place and why you're always busy?"
Her nails dugs into his biceps as she growled in annoyance. "Do we have to do this now? I'm so close..." she trailed off, her voice taking on a seductive lilt that on a normal day would have Ichigo trying to mount her. But he was determined.
"Yes. We do."
She stared into his eyes for a couple of seconds frowning, then frowned harder and pushed him away from her body. He acquiesced, pulling out of her and sitting up on his knees. She didn't give him time to catch her before she stood and started grabbing clothing and shoving it on.
"Rukia."
She ignored him as she dressed.
"Rukia, I gotta know."
She turned to look at him as she buttoned up the white blouse she'd worn to work that day.
"I don't live with a guy. I don't have a boyfriend."
He felt and looked relieved for a second, but his frown returned quickly. "Then where do you go all the time?"
She walked out of his bedroom to the living space, and he stood and followed her, and leaned against the doorway and folded his arms as she found her jacket on the sofa, and put it on, flicking her hair out over it and not looking at him as she replied.
"To look after my children."
This had not been the reply Ichigo had been expecting, and as such, he nearly managed to fall over from a stationary position, falling to his left and hitting his knee against the door frame and swearing loudly.
She turned her head to look at him, her chin up, shoulders back and eyes steeled for a fight as he righted himself and tried to ignore his throbbing limb.
"You- you have kids?"
She nodded tersely. He struggled to close his mouth and make his eyes less wide, and did not succeed.
"How m-many?"
"Two." She nodded, posture unwavering. He didn't understand why she looked so defensive. This wasn't necessarily a bad thing. He was kinda in love with her, and two mini Rukias couldn't be that bad. She shrugged a little. "They're twins."
"Oh."
"Twin girls."
"Right."
Ichigo became vaguely aware that he was still naked with a semi, but he was sort of struggling to process thought outside of 'children' and 'Rukia'. What was the most captivating of all his thought processes however was that she didn't take her eyes off his. She hadn't done that before. It was distracting in a weird way.
"They're young."
"Okay." He was stepping towards her.
"Still babies, really."
"Right," he repeated. He walked until he stood right in front of her.
She swallowed, gaze unwavering. "They're eighteen months old now."
Somewhere in the back of his head, alarm bells began to ring, but he ignored them. This was more important.
Rukia was still staring into his eyes.
He nodded lightly.
Her eyes narrowed.
He was still staring, trying to process.
"As in, I gave birth eighteen months ago."
He didn't move, but the alarm bells got slightly louder.
"So I got pregnant two years and three months ago."
He still didn't move, but his inner conscience started to quizzically wonder why this information was important.
Rukia was looking at him like he was stupid.
His inner conscience donned a pair of glasses, and put his hand on his chin.
Rukia was starting to look incredulous.
His inner conscience produced a white board and pen, and started to do some sums.
She folded her arms, cleared her throat, and looked at the floor. Moving her eyes from his meant that some higher brain functions were restored, and his inner conscience produced a conclusion on the white board.
His brain blanked for a second.
"Are you fucking kidding me?"
She unfolded her arms and looked sternly at him. "Do I fucking look like I'm kidding?"
"You've had my fucking children and you didn't fucking think to tell me?"
She growled, and got on her tip toes to yell at him. "You were too busy fucking every girl that passed you by the time I found out, what was I supposed to do?!"
"You're supposed to fucking tell me you complete psycho bitch!"
She looked thunderous for a second before she whirled around and headed for the door, threw it open, stormed into the corridor and ran down the stairs of the apartment block.
He was following, yelling her name, until he realised his dick was out and his apartment door was closing.
Pants- Rukia- pants- Rukia- pants- Rukia- pants- ... pants.
"FUCK!"
By the time he had his pants on, she was long gone.
This was extremely unfortunate. He didn't know where she lived, and it was a Friday evening, so he had no way of going to the office and bribing someone to give him her address.
There was only one thing for it.
It didn't take nearly as long as he expected to be honest. It was the fourth door he knocked on, at about 1 am. He fished through every single apartment listing online that had been rented in the last three months in a decent vicinity from the office, that were at least two bedrooms and in the same price range as his or above - who knew whether the aristocratic Kuchiki's were helping to fund her - and made a shortlist of ones he thought Rukia would mind being caught dead in. He then visited them.
And lo and behold, either the Kuchiki's were helping her out a little or Rukia's commission was incredibly higher than his. There was no way she could have this apartment, have two kids and keep herself in the constantly changing Louboutins he saw wrapped around his neck on a regular basis on his salary.
He was pretty sure the silk thongs he kept biting through were a drain on her expenses too.
Now was not an appropriate time to have an erection, he thought as Rukia stood in her doorway, make up-less, messy hair, bleary eyes and in full white flannel pyjamas decorated with bunny rabbits.
"What are you doing here?" she asked unceremoniously and unenthusiastically, rubbing her eyes like a child.
"Our conversation wasn't over."
"But can't it be for now? It's like really late-"
He pushed passed her, and she was too slow and half asleep to stop him.
There were dim lights in her apartment, but he could still make out a toddler play pen, high chairs, bottles and various other child paraphernalia tidied up neatly around the immaculate living area of her own apartment.
"Our conversation isn't over," he repeated boorishly, and she winced.
"Will you be quiet?" she hissed.
"No, I think I've earned the right to be mad-"
"I didn't say you couldn't be mad, I said will you keep your voice down-"
"- and I think I should be allowed to know more about my offspring without you trying to brush me off-"
"Ichigo!"
"So stop-"
And then there was a baby's cry.
She glared at him as she hurried off.
He stood stock still until she returned with one tiny toddler on her hip, coming from the darkened room that must be their nursery. She was in a purple onesie, a tiny black plait in her hair, her thumb in her mouth and her big, brown eyes watering.
"This is Hisana." Rukia walked towards him, smiling between them. "She's about half an hour older than her sister, and she likes to cry a lot," she laughed lightly, and kissed her forehead. Ichigo couldn't look away. The baby smiled, her cheeks went pink, and she hid her face in her mother's neck. "She's also shy. Any idea where she gets that from?"
"Me," Ichigo choked out and lightly cleared his throat. "I was a cry baby," he rasped.
The little girl peeked out from her mother, and pointed at Ichigo.
"Orange," she enunciated clearly. "Masaki," she tugged on a stand of Rukia's hair, and he felt like he had been punched in the gut.
"Yes, like Masaki's hair!" Rukia beamed at Hisana as the baby nodded in agreement.
"The... the other is named- is named..."
Rukia busied herself looking at her daughter's fingernails. "I, uh, had my family run a background check on you when I found out I was pregnant. And uh, I read the reports? By the police. About your mother. And I wanted them to have something of yours, so... I named Masaki after your mother."
His brain went blank again, and even his inner conscience started pouring out a large glass of scotch and slumping in an armchair looking shocked.
She was staring into his eyes again. "Would you like to meet her now, too?"
He nodded, and she stepped towards him and began disentangling Hisana's finger from her hair.
"Baby, will you stay with Ichigo while I get Masaki?" Hisana nodded solemnly as she was handed over, and Ichigo suddenly found his arms full of a wriggling toddler who he tried to put down before she fell, and who began leading him by his finger to a toy on the coffee table while Rukia snickered.
The toy was a doctor Ken doll, and Ichigo have the sudden brainwave that he hoped his daughter wasn't going to follow in her grandfather's footsteps or he'd never hear the end of it.
But he sat down with her and stared at her, and she paid him no mind that way toddlers do as she toddled around, with his eyes and his nose and his chin and his ears and his eyebrows.
A whine came from beside him as another toddler was plopped down beside him, clearly just woken up, looking every single inch her mother except for her blazing orange hair and his own mother's unmistakably plump lips. She rubbed her eyes in a very familiar way and her mother sat beside her and rubbed her back through her pink onesie and Ichigo stared.
He didn't really speak. He couldn't. Babies handed him toys and talked in short sentences and smiled and got tired and grouchy and were put back to bed, and he was tugged up and led to a bed as well and he lay there staring at the ceiling fully clothed and tried to be mad that this had been withheld from him, and he was, but he couldn't articulate it just now. There was tomorrow when he could get angry and show his frustration and demand answers that he suspected he already knew but didn't fully understand, but that was tomorrow.
So he turned over, and saw the woman he was in love with and who happened to be the mother of his children staring at him like he may not be fully cognisant, and he kissed her.
Then he made love to her while she kept her bunny pyjama shirt on, because it was true love and she looked tired.
She did have twins, you know.
Yeah this was weird and fluffy, I'm aware.
There's a recurring theme in my fics, but I feel I should clarify. I don't think that having children is necessary to fulfilment - I actually plan to adopt if I ever have any at all. However, there's something about Ichigo and Rukia and their relationship and their childhoods and how they act towards their siblings that just screams good parenting (and I don't mean, not knowing where their children are like 'canon', I mean legitimately 10/10 parenting) and that I sort of think would be really fulfilling to them - Ichigo seeing his soulmate and wife as mother to his children and he'll always protect her and them to heal from being unable to protect Masaki, and Rukia having babies with Ichigo and giving them stability that she wishes she had and she saw Ichigo having, and they both have fulfilling family lives with the person they trust the most. Their children would grow up to be 1) hot, 2) powerful and 3) with excellent morals. Also, I just imagine their co-parenting as a tag team, and Ichigo as an actual daddy just seems adorable. So that's why this theme appears a lot, and also why I think Ichigo is painfully out of character at the end of Bleach because I can't imagine him being a father and not being horrendously overprotective of his wife and child, and Rukia having to slap him out of it when he goes too far and wants to walk between her and the road or something stupid so she's safe and a baby in her arms giggling and trying to slap him too. That's my head canon.
