Saturday, September 21, 2002
Rukia and Ichigo were situated opposite one another at a compact table for two in a rather small French bistro in Naruki. It had apparently been founded by a chef who had gone to France for classical training and decided to come back home. They'd dressed up only a bit for the date, deciding to stop short of formal attire. She had on a colorful one-piece dress with medium-length sleeves that went up to the base of her neck and down just past her knees and had on a light scarf against the unseasonably cool weather. He wore dress khakis, a nice polo that he'd tucked in, and had a snap-collared black leather motorbike jacket with red and white accents draped on his chair for the same reason. The place's focus was Burgundian, and the former was finishing her order of beef bourguignon while the latter was idling, his dish of coq au vin already gone.
She set her fork down as she finished and took a long sip of the Grand Cru class pinot noir they'd picked out to accompany the meal. It was a bit dry for her taste but had interesting hints of fruit to it. Their waiter had explained that the appropriate pairing of food and wine was important, and she found she liked it more after having had her meal, although she wondered if that was just the alcohol getting to her. She set her glass down and looked at Ichigo levelly. "Given any thought to what you might want to do next week?"
"Hmm?" he asked, looking to her.
"About school clubs or work," she said, her tone chiding.
"It was a vague question," he retorted, before asking "What would you like to do?"
"I asked you first," she stated.
Ichigo adopted a put-out expression before taking a moment to think about it. He'd sort of contemplated it before but not in that much depth. "None of the sports clubs really interest me, to be honest, and they all have demanding schedules anyway," he eventually said, before rubbing the back of his head and adding "I figured you might want to try the art, dance, or ikebana clubs, but I've got no real talent at any of that. There's no singing club and maybe we could put one together but considering we're almost halfway through the year . . . I kinda feel like maybe it'd be best to try and look for work—just something part time. I know what Byakuya said about our funds being a gift and all, but . . ."
Rukia considered him as he spoke and smiled a little at what she thought was under his conclusion, even if he was wrong about his skill at dancing—he was just untrained. He might genuinely want some token financial independence, but . . . she decided to see if she was right. "Looking for a charity case that needs help making ends meet?" she offered warmly. It was always the same: he always wanted to help more than anything.
He blinked and looked to her in surprise before scowling and crossing his arms, glancing aside. "I just don't want to have to rely on your brother for everything," he lied.
Her smile became knowing as she extended one of her legs, letting her ankle brush his as she took another drink of wine, only withdrawing it once she'd finished. "I'd like that. Two pairs of hands are better than one, right?" she asked, as if he hadn't said anything.
"Yeah, I guess so," he eventually said, looking back to her.
"How about we start looking for openings tomorrow?" she asked. They'd finished most of their homework the night before and the rest that morning, and everyone wouldn't be over for karaoke until the afternoon of the next day, so they'd have time.
He nodded at her before picking up the wine bottle and pouring what was left out for both of them. "Let's finish this and head home."
"Still a true romantic," she taunted with a small laugh. They hadn't had time to share a bath since she'd proposed it on Wednesday and had agreed to do so that evening.
He only halfheartedly glowered at her before taking up his glass to sip at it.
"I'm home, sorry I'm a bit late," Isshin stated with a hint of apology as he entered the Kurosaki household.
"We've been waiting for you, you know," Karin called out irritably, glancing toward the door. She was starving.
"Didn't you say there were going to have two guests tonight?" Yuzu followed up with a bit of confusion. He seemed to be alone.
Isshin glanced back out the open door and waved in whoever was with him.
Both of the twins blinked at the man and woman who entered, Yuzu continuing to just look perplexed.
Karin began to assess them critically. The man was bulky and rather rough looking. The woman was pretty, curvaceous, and looked both exceedingly proud and bossy. They were an extremely unlikely pair, the clothes they were wearing just looked off somehow, and the contrast with their dad made it even weirder. "Who are they?"
Isshin was about to say something when Ganju began to declare "Hello! My name is—" only for Kūkaku to turn and slug him in the face with a left hook.
"You're being disrespectful," she declared.
"S—Sorry, nē-chan!" he immediately replied through the hand he'd clasped over his face following the blow.
Karin's expression became suspicious both at the casual violence and its delivery. Why had the woman turned and used her left arm instead of just bringing up her right? She kept it limp by her side, as if she wasn't used to using it . . .
"These are Kūkaku Shiba and Ganju Shiba," Isshin said with a bit of amusement, gesturing to each, "Ichigo's already met them; they're your cousins!"
Yuzu's face immediately lit up while Karin's turned completely incredulous.
"Yo!" Kūkaku said with a bit of mirth, looking at the two young girls for a second before her eyes settled on the light-haired one and she said "So you must be Yuzu-chan," and then moved to the dark-haired one as she added "And you must be Karin-chan, right?" The former looked sweet and innocent and the latter looked leery and irritable. Her perennial smirk became a small grin as she decided she liked them already for their expressions alone.
Rukia leaned forward and brought her arms up to rest on the side of the tub, laying her head on them to give Ichigo easier access to her back and neck and murmuring her approval as he started to really massage her. His grip combined with the hot water was impossible to resist and she was soon slumped forward, totally relaxed.
He kept a bit distant from her and tried to just focus on her muscles, not really wanting to let his mind wander or to think too much. They'd soaked in the tub next to one another for a good hour after showering before he'd started to idly massage her and she'd turned into it without resistance or comment. He found himself peering down through the water and abruptly flushed, glancing aside before shutting his eyes. He gave away nothing through his touch. Not trusting himself not to keep looking, he took to reminiscing. It wasn't long after that his mind turned to about a month prior.
Eventually she quietly asked "What's on your mind, Ichigo?" Her tone was lazy.
"Nothing," he replied absentmindedly.
"You're not looking at my butt again, are you?" she asked, letting both playful and critical notes into her voice.
"No," he muttered defensively.
"It's alright if you are. Or were," she said, becoming sincere-sounding. Her cheeks became only a touch pink. She liked knowing she had his attention . . . that he liked looking at her, especially in that way. She'd been looked at lecherously before, and she knew that wasn't what was ever in his eyes.
Ichigo screwed his face up a bit before exhaling. What he'd been remembering was the morning of the day they'd first told his family they were dating. He'd promised himself that he wouldn't try and think his way through interacting with her, and he'd promised her that there'd be no rules. He'd qualified that to whatever we've done up to now then but there was no good reason to limit it that way. She'd told him he could ask to try things, she'd always leaned into his touch, and she'd just said . . . he still wasn't comfortable with doing that yet, but . . . it was difficult to properly massage her given both the water and the fact she couldn't stretch out. "I can't really do this right if we're still in the tub," he said with a hint of frustration.
Rukia blinked her eyes open and slowly turned her head to look over her shoulder, considering him.
He was already looking at her, somewhere between sheepish and confident, and gave a small smile when their eyes met.
She stared at him for a second more before her eyelids dropped slightly and she smiled back, languidly pushing herself back into a sitting position and turning to face him. "We could dry off and lay out a towel in here," she suggested primly.
"Wouldn't you be more comfortable on your bed?" he asked.
"Are you sure you're okay with that?" she asked, not taunting.
"Don't say it like that." He frowned slightly and looked aside, adding "We can put on some—" only to stop as a finger was pressed against his lips. His eyes widened a bit as he looked back to her.
Rukia was giving him a confident and trusting look. "You never have massaged my arms," she redirected, teasing a little as she remembered the morning after he'd first massaged her. She knew there was nothing to worry about with him, no matter what happened.
Ichigo flushed slightly but didn't avert his eyes and eventually just kissed her finger.
She withdrew her hand and brought it underwater, finding one of his. "Let's go then, strawberry," she said with a smile.
"Ready when you are, peach," he shot back affectionately, taking on a moderately arrogant look.
She blinked and blushed before looking aside as she figured out the source of his new nickname for her. "Fool," she declared with a touch of acid, putting on a show of appearing irritated as she found his other hand.
Ichigo didn't want to move at all as Rukia finally finished with his neck. He'd led off and although he'd still kept his hands off her inner thighs and chest, he'd otherwise been as thorough as he could, even with her rear. Afterwards she'd asserted it was her turn to massage him. They'd had the lights off from the start and he was right on the verge of falling asleep. She'd massaged him more than he had her by that point and he felt it showed. She knew exactly how much force to use to disable, calm, and relax him. He stayed still for long seconds, mind empty, until he realized she was carefully moving him. "What . . ." he murmured.
"Shhh," Rukia shushed, gingerly pulling him onto his side on the bed proper and tossing the towel they'd been laying on back toward the bathroom. She lay down on her side facing him, keeping her body apart but bringing her head and limbs forward to contact his.
"Rukia," he whispered.
"Shhh . . ." she repeated, pulling the covers up over them. She wasn't concerned, couldn't be bothered to put anything on, and she was almost as tired as he clearly was. She brought a hand up and pressed his head down into the crook of her neck, burying her face in his hair. "It's okay," she said soothingly.
He moved a hand onto one of her sides and surrendered, falling asleep against her.
She inhaled deeply before likewise letting go.
Sunday, September 22, 2002
Ichigo only woke up slowly, resisting the incidental sunlight that made its way to him. He hadn't moved much with Rukia and kept his face where it was for a long time, just breathing in the scent of her skin. At last he slowly pulled back from her, bringing his head fully up onto the pillow she was using.
She was still asleep and was turning her face into the pillow after being deprived of his hair.
He felt his chest clench around his heart at the sight of her and carefully brought the hand he still had on her side up, cupping her exposed cheek with it and caressing it.
Her eyes opened fractionally then, already locked onto his as if by instinct.
"'Morning," he whispered.
She just made a small noise of affirmation.
"Sleep in," he said quietly, moving his hand up and brushing her forehead.
Rukia watched him for a second before closing her eyes, seeming to acquiesce.
Ichigo continued to stroke her for a time and made sure she was bundled up before carefully slipping out of the sheets and standing. He was about to head for the bathroom to retrieve his boxers at least when her voice stopped him.
"Ichigo," she called sleepily.
He looked over his shoulder at her with some surprise, finding she looked every bit as tired as she sounded.
"You've got a cute butt and a nice ass too," she said, smirking a little before closing her eyes again.
He couldn't decide whether to frown or smile and finally just let out a "Tch," before going to do what he'd intended.
"I'm not working for a private investigator," Ichigo said flatly, holding his hands up in an X shape. It was never going to be as glamorous as it might look on TV.
"You're no fun at all," Rukia declared with disappointment.
He chose not to lecture her on how romantic her idea of the profession likely was and went back to considering the newspaper in front of him. After getting dressed he'd gone out to pick up things that might list job opportunities before he'd started in on making brunch for them. She'd only come downstairs once he was near done with it.
"What about this one?" she said after a time, reading: "'Looking for workers of many talents and open minds to do a wide variety of jobs—offering flexible hours with reasonable pay and benefits. Please contact the Unagiya Shop at . . .'" before giving a phone number.
"Why would we want to work at an eel-specialist shop?" he deadpanned.
"'Unagiya' not 'unagi-ya', one word," she replied with a touch of irritation, enunciating the difference more clearly.
"What's an eel, pyon?" Chappy asked in the background.
"It's like a water snake," Kon replied.
"Huh?" she said.
Ichigo frowned a bit, ignoring their commentary, before asking "Why would what sounds like 'do a bunch of odd jobs' require an 'open mind'?"
"Who knows, but 'flexible hours with reasonable pay and benefits' sounds look a good fit," Rukia replied. There was no guarantee as to exactly how often or reliably they'd really be able to show up.
He shifted his jaw from side to side as he considered it before waving a hand and saying "Fine, write it down, we can at least call," and going back to considering the listings he had.
Ichigo had coordinated with Yuzu on splitting the workload for the day in terms of food and was deep into preparation, Rukia at his side. She had demanded he let her take a more active role given what was expected of her in her home economics class and he was doing his best to instruct her at some of the simpler tasks while continuing to do the bulk of the work. She knew how to boil water and was good with a knife, at least. He was showing her how to julienne vegetables properly when the doorbell rang. "We can get back to this in a moment, would you go get that?" he asked.
"What's the magic word?" she asked, putting her hands on her hips and looking a bit irked.
"Please," he added with a smidgen of annoyance.
She lifted her eyebrows in a 'was that so hard?' way before leaving the kitchen and going to the front door, opening it up and saying "Hey!" in greeting automatically. She didn't actually look outside, not thinking anything of it.
Immediately Karin and Yuzu filed in carrying plastic containers, greeting her with "Rukia-nē!" and "Nē-san!" in turn.
Isshin followed carrying far more containers, saying "Rukia-chan, looking radiant as always!"
Rukia gave a look of abashed embarrassment before she started to move to close the door, only for a hand to appear on the edge and stop the motion with ease. She immediately blinked before it withdrew and its owner stepped into view, already looking her way with a cool turquoise-green gaze. Her eyes went wide at the familiar shade even as she processed who it was.
Kūkaku instantly made a calculation from the look on the short Shinigami's face and let her smirk back onto her face. It was so obvious she still felt guilty, and that just wouldn't do. "Yo, been awhile . . . Rukia," she greeted with a hint of warmth, her eyes swinging away to the interior of the house as she added "Nice place!" before stepping out of her shoes and into the interior. Ordinarily she would've asked permission, but Yoruichi had brought Ichigo and his friends into her house without asking, so she reasoned it was just a reciprocal gesture.
Rukia continued to track the elder Shiba sibling in shock before another voice drew her attention back to the door.
"Oi, oi, Rukia, hey! Say, that's a nice haircut, you look good!" Ganju offered with what seemed to be genuine candor as he entered with two bags in hand.
The petite Shinigami took a moment before shutting the door and following after them, not immediately sure what to say.
Ichigo hadn't missed the new but familiar voices and momentarily abandoned his work to look through the breakfast bar to confirm what he was hearing, calling with some disbelief "Kūkaku-san . . . Ganju?!" as if his senses were playing tricks on him. He immediately looked to Rukia and then to his dad for confirmation.
Isshin gave his son a look that was a strange mixture of serious, amused, and ever so slightly apologetic but said nothing. It was technically a faux pas to bring uninvited guests unless that was explicitly allowed by the hosts, but when it came to family, all the normal rules didn't really apply.
"Dad brought them home last night because apparently we're having a family gathering," Karin deadpanned, not just referring to that evening's activities.
The future substitute blinked before beginning "Ah, Kūkaku-san, your arm . . ." as he finally figured out what was off other than seeing her in normal clothes and without all the bandages.
"Yeah, yeah, and you're taller and Rukia cut her hair," Kūkaku said dismissively, still looking around. Urahara had said something about gigai not being able to account for 'large physical aberrations' and she'd just punched him for putting it in such a way rather than hearing whatever else he had to say on the subject. It had gotten a laugh out of Yoruichi, at any rate.
"You're not going to say anything to me, dandelion?!" Ganju called out with incredulity.
"What's to say!?" Ichigo shot back with a scowl.
"Onii-chan, you can't get distracted when you're cooking things," Yuzu scolded, abruptly drawing his attention back to the kitchen as she began to make sure that nothing burned.
"Yeah, sorry," he replied, turning around and returning to the work at hand.
Rukia soon rejoined him, still looking a bit lost and surprised.
He watched her for a second before asking "Yuzu, could you . . . please . . . handle that for a second? I was helping Rukia with a cutting technique for her class."
"No problem!" his lighter-haired sister replied, immediately conciliatory.
Ichigo gave his girlfriend a reassuring look under the guise of returning to the impromptu lesson.
Rukia replied by mouthing 'it's okay' as she took the work back up. She'd just been caught completely off-guard.
"Hey, what did you mean about her arm?" Karin whispered from behind them.
"Nothing," Ichigo said dismissively.
Karin frowned before leaving the kitchen, deciding to just be direct about it.
Kūkaku was continuing to survey the ground floor of the house, finding it looked rather tasteful but sort of flummoxed by the juxtaposition of the traditional rooms and the more Western-looking ones. She'd been confused by the Kurosaki household as well and still wasn't sure whether she liked the permanent fixtures or not. It was as she was looking about that she noticed a tiny reiatsu signature and her eyes wandered up the stairwell to find a stuffed animal looking at her.
Kon stared at her, enraptured, the only thing that stopped him being his complete disbelief at what he was seeing. She put even Inoue and Yoruichi to shame and it'd been a long time since he'd seen Matsumoto. Right as he began to decide to take action he was put into a headlock by Chappy, who immediately dragged him off.
The Shiba clan leader raised an eyebrow before Ganju's voice interrupted her thoughts.
"Nē-chan, this is a really nice place!" he whispered, looking at her with wide eyes. He didn't know what half the things were, but he knew they were nice.
"I said that already," she stated.
"Byakuya will only accept the best," Isshin offered, joining them.
Kūkaku frowned slightly before she was suddenly aware of Karin beside her. The girl was looking up at her fearlessly and questioningly. "What?" the elder Shiba asked with a bit of amusement, the expression once more reminding her of more than she'd admit.
"So what's with your right arm . . . Kūkaku-itoko?" she asked.
The Shiba woman became a bit critical looking before smirking again and kneeling down so they were face to face, saying in a conspiratorial way "Normally I don't have it."
Karin blinked.
"From here down, gone," Kūkaku almost-bragged, tapping her left hand against her right bicep.
"So you're not used to using it? That's gonna make it hard to play video games," Karin immediately replied.
At that the Shiba clan leader blinked.
"So how'd that happen? her young cousin continued.
Kūkaku stared for a fraction of a second before smiling and saying "Well, that's a bit of a story . . ."
By the time everything was finished being fixed the living room was full, with Yoruichi, Urahara, Ishida, Inoue, Chad, Keigo, Mizuiro, and Tatsuki having joined them. The only one missing from the first time was Renji; there hadn't been enough advance notice to get him time off. They'd all been tasked with bringing various items, from soda to tea and from games to the karaoke DVDs they'd be using.
Ichigo assessed the crowd while transferring food to the trays they had. Counting himself and including Chappy and Kon—although they hadn't yet seen fit to interact with the others—there were 17 of them present, which was a bit crazy to think about. It was too many for the dining room table and so they'd set up their traditional rooms with multiple connected kotatsu, forming a single long table everyone could eat at.
Yoruichi, Kūkaku, Tatsuki, and Karin were all playing some sort of tag-team fighting game while laughing and taunting one another while Inoue watched their match closely, Isshin and Urahara appeared to be chatting, and Keigo and Mizuiro seemed to be trying to bullshit Ganju about something or other while Chad and Ishida were countering them.
The would-be substitute gave a small sigh of relief. Only he, Rukia, and Yuzu were in the kitchen. It was a miracle a fight hadn't broken out yet—it was inevitable Mizuiro or Keigo would try and hit on Kūkaku and then everything would go to hell. He blinked as he felt a hand on one of his wrists and turned, finding Rukia smiling at him. His eyes met hers and he smiled back as they shared a moment.
Yuzu gave them a bit of time and privacy before saying "Well, looks like we can start to move it all!" cheerily.
Dinner was raucous and mostly occupied by Isshin, Kūkaku, Yoruichi, and Urahara, exchanging stories of their interactions with one another in their youth as a kind of entertainment for the younger parties present. They got a lot of laughs at any rate.
Kon and Chappy joined them afterwards, the former looking rather disgruntled at whatever the latter had said or done to get him to behave. The only one really surprised was Ganju—Yuzu had heard about the origins of 'Bostoff' long ago, and she was far more interested in how cute Chappy looked at any rate.
Fully assembled and fed, they started on karaoke.
It was after many hours, dozens and dozens of songs, a few token fights that were mostly settled by Tatsuki and Kūkaku abusing Keigo, and more than an hour of video, board, and card games to wind down that all the couple's friends had left for the night and Ichigo's family were getting ready to leave.
"Oi, Ichigo," Kūkaku said, coming up alongside him, "Would it be alright with you if we stayed here for two nights? Uncle's house doesn't have that much space for guests."
The orange-haired teenager blinked at the request and rubbed the back of his head for a second in thought. Why two nights . . . ?
"If not it's fine, it's your house after all," his cousin continued, glancing to Rukia and making it clear she understood it was a plural 'your'. Just as she wouldn't accept being told what to do in her house, she wouldn't tell someone else what to do in theirs, even family . . . even family technically under her leadership.
"We've got a guest bedroom on this floor and . . . my bedroom is basically free and the bed hasn't been used since the last wash. My room's got more space, a bigger bed, and a bigger bathroom, but . . . well, it's your choice which you want," he responded. His room was probably more befitting of her but he didn't know if she had any problems with that kind of thing.
Kūkaku ignored the seemingly obvious conclusion of what he'd said and replied "Fine, I'll take your room." She didn't care who'd last used a space if it was clean. "You sure she'll be okay with this?" she added, looking to Rukia again as she said it.
Ichigo followed her gaze and thought for a moment. He felt he knew why Rukia wanted to celebrate ohigan and had wanted to celebrate obon, and if he was right that reason encompassed his cousins too. "You're going to go with us tomorrow, right?" he asked.
"Yeah," she replied.
"I think she'll be fine with it," he assessed, thought his tone was confident.
Kūkaku surveyed him for a second, silently judging him positively for not automatically assuming his choice would carry the day. "I'll ask her too, just to be sure," she said cockily, giving him an out and going to ask before he could say anything more.
Ichigo exited the bathroom to find Rukia sitting on her bed in pajamas, still looking through job ads. He made his way over and sat down beside her, looking at them with her for a few seconds before collecting them up and dropping them off the side of the bed.
"I wasn't done yet, jerk," she said without any venom.
He said nothing and gently pulled her to him.
She moved closer without complaint while also pushing and pulling him so they wound up together on their sides.
He turned out the last light and pulled the covers up before bringing a hand up to caress her face as he had that morning, whispering "Hey."
"What?" she asked in response.
"You're beautiful," Ichigo said quietly. He felt he should've said it after massaging her.
Rukia reached her own hand up to stroke at him and replied "You're tired," coyly.
He lightly nipped at her hand for her dismissive attitude but settled with her, relaxing.
She waited until she was sure he'd closed his eyes before smiling broadly and doing the same.
A/N: Special thanks go out to Dark Inu Fan for a good suggestion, micromys and NieveDrop for extended feedback, and all of you for 50,000+ views!
