"Dammit, Rukia! Where'd you put my chapstick?"
The small tube was quickly flicked at him before its thrower returned to her languid position on the couch, draped across its length with her legs in the air, one arm resting securely under her chin while the other dangled off the cushions with a book in hand. He caught the small piece of plastic and frowned, noticing it was still warm in his palm. "...Were you holding onto it?"
Rukia shrugged without bothering to look up from her manga, violet eyes continuing to scan lazily over the pages. "I lost mine."
"Then go freaking buy a new one!"
"Yeah, yeah."
Ichigo gritted his teeth and resisted the strong urge to kick her off the couch. His couch, he should mention, which she had all but merrily claimed as her own over the course of her frequent visits to his place. He'd barely moved in a month ago and already her shit was everywhere: her comics, her coats, her mugs—anything but her own damn chapstick, as she'd made an irritating habit of stealing his whenever she lost hers. Which tended to happen a lot.
He huffed through his nose and settled instead for swiping the book out of her hands, holding it above her head as she jerked and growled at him in annoyance. "Hey!"
Ichigo only glared down at her, watching as she scrambled to push herself up and stand upright on the seat cushions, swiping angrily at his hand but still falling short despite the extra boost from the couch. "Give it back, dummy!"
"Only if you stop 'borrowing' my chapstick and not giving it back. I keep having to buy them twice as often since you use so damn much!"
She ceased her jumping for a minute and crossed her arms as she remained standing on the couch, returning a stubborn glare. "It's not my fault my chapstick always goes missing. How do I know you're not stealing mine?"
Ichigo let out an irritated growl. "The last thing I'd ever steal is your dumb Chappy shit."
Yes, the only chapstick Rukia would buy was none other than the awful cartoon bunny's strawberries-and-toasted-marshmallow-flavored lip balm, ever-so-creatively branded "Chappystick." Never mind the terrible packaging, the flavor was so revoltingly sweet that Ichigo was fairly certain even an elementary school girl would blanch at the taste.
And how would he know? Because a certain dumb midget had "accidentally" grabbed his mint chapstick and left hers in his room instead one day.
As he had settled in for bed that night, he'd switched off the lamp on his nightstand before reaching for the small tube placed next to it, reflexively popping off the cap and giving it a practiced swipe across his lips without a second thought. He'd immediately gagged.
Sitting up and leaning over quickly to turn on the light, he was surprised to see the wretched rabbit's face smiling blandly up at him, though not surprised in the least considering who the culprit was. Grumbling as he got up, leaving the precious warmth of his bed to wipe that crap off his mouth, Ichigo cursed the woman who by his luck happened to be both his best friend and the bane of his existence.
His lips had felt even drier that night after all the furious rubbing.
Now the little unrepentant demon was kicking his shin as she demanded her manga back.
"Ow, quit doing that! Here's your stupid comic!"
Rukia snatched the book out of his hand as soon as he lowered his arm. Satisfied with her victory, she flopped back down and began to make herself comfortable again, but just as she was about to find her page her phone lit up from its spot on the armrest. She glanced down at the screen and sat back up. "Shoot, I gotta go. I told Renji I'd meet him for dinner."
Ichigo dropped onto the other side of the couch, rubbing his sore shin. "You forget about your dates so often it's a wonder he hasn't dumped you yet," he muttered, quickly shutting up as he saw Rukia nastily eyeing his leg again.
She clapped her book shut and stood up, adjusting the front of her T-shirt as it had come untucked from her jumping up and down. "It's not a date, and we're not going out," she corrected calmly. "We're just catching up on everything that's happened since he got back to Karakura."
Ichigo grunted. "Try telling him that."
Rukia ignored him and leaned over to pick her jacket up off the ground, shrugging into it. "The restaurant isn't that far so I won't be late. It's, what, four blocks away?"
"Pretty sure sooner or later he'll catch on," he said with a sigh, releasing his shin as he stood up as well to make his way over to the living room window, tugging the cream curtain to the side to peer out at the gray clouds veiling the sky. "It'll probably rain on your way back so take an umbrella with you."
"Okay, Dad."
Ichigo rolled his eyes and grabbed a small foldable umbrella off the coat rack by the front door, kicking his heels into his gray Vans as he waited for her to finish tying her own white Converse. Straightening up to accept and slide it into her bag along with her manga, she followed Ichigo out the door and down the hallway toward the apartment building's elevators.
They stood in peaceful silence in front of the polished metal doors while they waited for the elevator to arrive, watching the numbers light up above the door as it neared his floor.
Suddenly, he was caught off guard as he felt her small body knock into his, nearly losing his balance as Rukia's arms shot out to circle his waist from behind, lingering for barely half a second before they retreated back to her own sides.
"What—"
"Thanks for the umbrella!"
The doors rolled open with a small ding and she stepped around him into the elevator, turning back to face him while smiling apologetically, "And sorry about your chapstick."
Before he had the chance to ask exactly why she was apologizing now, of all times, the elevator dinged again and the silver doors rolled smoothly shut.
Ichigo stood there for several seconds, blinking at her afterimage on the other side of the doors, before turning to head back toward his apartment.
Freaking weirdo. Always pulling weird shit with no explanation. Not like she'd ever apologized for stealing his chapstick before, although honestly he was more than used to most of her inexplicable habits by now.
He sighed, shoving his hands in his pockets as it was chilly and he hadn't bothered to put on a jacket for the short walk to the elevator.
That's when his fingers closed solidly around nothing and he realized his chapstick was nowhere to be found.
He came to a stop in front of his door and groaned.
That woman was going to be the death of him.
"The simulation just went bad, but you're the best I ever had—"
Ichigo groaned and rolled into his pillow the minute the familiar melody pierced through the air, bringing the serene—at least til now—moment he'd been enjoying lazing in bed to its untimely demise.
"—like handprints in wet cement, she touched me, it's permanent—"
Using both hands to pull the sides tightly over his ears, he buried his face deeper into the pillow in an attempt to muffle the loud audio—his fingers twitching with the urge to chuck the offending device straight into his closet doors as it continued to ring—but eventually he sighed and rolled over, releasing his death grip on the poor pillow to press the small green "answer" button on the screen, before bringing it up to his ear.
That ungodly sound could only be the ringtone his pain in the ass of a best friend had lovingly assigned to herself on his phone years ago in college, where they'd met the week after midterms in their third year, when Keigo had tried to drag him out to the university's gymnasium, hoping to catch a glimpse of the women's volleyball club's spring tryouts.
"Oy, Keigo. Knock it off!"
Keigo only started pushing his uncooperative friend forward harder as they exited the campus cafe where they'd just finished eating lunch. "No can do, it's starting soon! We gotta get front-row seats!"
Ichigo scowled harder. "You have problems."
His overenthusiastic friend stopped pushing for a moment to take a step back, pretending to weep dramatically. "At least I'm not soulless, like you! Meanie!"
Ichigo decided to take advantage of the sobbing boy's lapse in shoving, quickly sidestepping him to walk in the opposite direction back toward his apartment, lifting a hand in the air without looking back. "Gonna head back and study. Say hi to Tatsuki for me."
"No need," came the voice of the very person in question from behind him. "Studying on a Friday night, really?"
Ichigo turned around to see his oldest friend from childhood walking toward them, a bulging sports bag slung over each shoulder. "Yo, Tatsuki. Shouldn't you already be there as team captain?"
Tatsuki shrugged nonchalantly. "I put Mahana in charge for warmups. It's fine."
"Guess that makes sense. Wouldn't want to scare off the new recruits before they even joined."
Tatsuki shot him a glare while sliding off the strap on her left shoulder and shoving the bag into his arms, causing him to stumble backward slightly. "Just shut up and help me carry these damn balls. You owe me for covering your ass last week when your dad came to visit."
Ichigo gave a heavy sigh but complied, slinging the bag over his own shoulder and changing his route to join her to walk in a different direction toward the gymnasium.
He did owe her for that. Last week, he'd barely started reviewing his final set of notes before his metaphysics midterm when a loud banging on his front door had jolted him from his studies; not a second later, a booming voice through the wood announced the arrival of the older Kurosaki. "Ichigo, m'boy! Let me in! Come give your old man who came all the way to see you a hug. Unless you've got a nice young woman in there with you and you two are busy—"
Ichigo gritted his teeth, strongly tempted to kick down the door and send said old man flying; his midterm was early in the morning, and he'd be damned if he ended up having to pull an all-nighter, simply because he'd had to spend the evening fielding his father's idiotic questions about any cute girls he'd met or if he'd lost his virginity yet—
To his surprise, the pounding stopped abruptly and he could faintly hear the voice of his childhood friend, and hallmate, speaking. Though he couldn't quite make out what they were saying, he silently thanked his savior as a minute later he could hear his father's loud footsteps walking away from the door.
"Still, did you have to tell him I was out on a date?" he sighed again, slightly annoyed but mostly thankful as he stepped in sync with the athletic spiky-haired girl. Keigo had magically disappeared when they'd turned back to check, most likely having sped ahead with the extra motivation of seeing girls stretching in spandex at Tatsuki's reminder about warmups.
She shot him a sideways look as they rounded the corner of the main gym building, cocking an eyebrow. "Like any actual excuse would've made him leave? Worked, didn't it?"
"True." He frowned, remembering the tens of nosy, horrifyingly triumphant-sounding voicemails he'd received daily over the next few days, but he did have to admit at least his grades had remained intact. Having reached their destination, he followed behind her as she opened the heavy doors and went inside.
"All right, well, thanks for helping me carry these. Time to see what these pipsqueaks can do." Tatsuki took back the bulky bag as he offered it to her and gave him a quick salute before exiting the lobby toward the locker rooms. Returning the wave, Ichigo turned back toward the front doors, ready to get back to the sanctuary of his apartment and study in peace, when—
A hand shot over his mouth in a counterproductive attempt to draw less attention, the other around his arm, tugging Ichigo toward a pair of doors down the hallway. Ichigo easily swatted the hand on his face away. "Keigo, the fuck—"
"Shhhh, you're gonna scare away the chicks!" The brown-haired boy furtively pressed his index finger to his lips, eyes gleaming in uncontained excitement. "They're in here."
Before Ichigo could retort that the women inside were more likely to run screaming when they saw Keigo's drooling face, the latter had eagerly cracked open one of the double doors to the gymnasium, only to find himself face to face with—
"Come out now."
The heavy tip of a wooden shinai pressed firmly against the juncture of his neck and jaw, making it difficult to swallow as he soon learned in an attempt to gulp. His eyes traced the sword's body down to its hilt, and back up the muscular arm grasping it, to look into the face of a tall, wild-looking boy with unruly red hair tied up, who looked incredibly pissed.
Keigo was ready to drop to his knees and plead for his life when another voice rang through the air.
"Renji, what is it?"
Ichigo and Keigo looked up to see a short, slender girl with glossy black hair tied in a high ponytail walking toward them, a few messy bangs falling between her large eyes, gazing at them suspiciously as she approached.
Renji growled, not taking his eyes or sword off Keigo's throat. "I think they're from Naruki. Probably came to spy on our practice before the match."
Keigo held up both hands and waved frantically. "W-We go to Karakura! We just heard that there'd be g-girls here for volleyball tryouts—"
In a single swift motion, the small girl moved her teammate aside, grabbing the stuttering boy by the collar to pull him inside the gym, and had him pinned to the wooden flooring beneath her sword menacingly. She narrowed her violet eyes down at him. "So you came to peep?"
"I'll never do it again! Please don't kill me!" Keigo sobbed hysterically.
She hesitated for a moment before lifting her weapon and rising, though she continued to closely scrutinize the traumatized boy's tear-streaked face, as he had started lightly foaming at the mouth.
"Get out of here."
"Yes ma'am, I'm so sorry, thank you so much!" Her former captive immediately leapt up to book it as fast as he could out of the gym's double doors, pushing past his abandoned and irritated friend without a second glance.
There was a pregnant pause as the three students remained standing by the entryway. Ichigo scratched his head, unsure of what to say after that. "Sorry about that. Well, guess I'll be going too," was all he finally said, turning and starting to leave as well.
Neither of the pair said anything or made any move to stop him, but as he walked away he could feel curious violet eyes following him down the hall.
It was Monday morning, which meant it was time for his first lecture of the new term. He yawned loudly as he walked up the steps to the old brick building, having missed out on a good chunk of sleep over the weekend due to his traitorous jerk of a friend repeatedly calling him in the middle of the night to complain about what had happened on Friday. Ichigo didn't know whether to be more ticked off or impressed by his sheer level of idiocy sometimes.
Once he had realized it was just another one of Keigo's unimportant, self-proclaimed "super super important" calls, he had listened groggily without really registering anything the brown-haired boy was saying as he wept loudly on the line about his near-death experience, without having even gotten to see any spandex. Though he did remember the abrupt switch in Keigo's tone as it suddenly became wistful and dreamy, praising the delicate beauty of the kendo girl while sighing that he wouldn't mind if she pinned him down again.
Ichigo had hung up on him then and gone back to sleep.
He tried to stifle another yawn as he walked through the large, open oak doors of the lecture hall. At least Shakespeare was a nice way to start the week—he'd been looking forward to this elective ever since entering university, and felt fairly confident he could stay awake through this period. Locating and starting to walk toward an empty desk in the middle of the room, he slid his messenger bag off and dropped it on the ground next to the seat, about to sink into it when he unexpectedly met the eyes of his seat neighbor.
It was the girl from the kendo team.
Whom he'd lost sleep over having to listen to a certain idiot wax poetic about for several hours.
"You're one of the perverts," she stated simply.
Ichigo scowled. "Don't lump me together with that guy."
"Why were you with him?" she asked curiously.
"I was forced."
Before she could respond, their professor walked in, placing a tall stack of syllabi on the desk at the front of the room.
"Good morning! Welcome to the new semester. All right, let's get started with attendance." She walked around the desk to the podium and readjusted her glasses, which had begun to slide off her nose as she looked down at the roster in her hand. As she began to read it off, he noticed, coincidentally, that she had called the kendo girl's name right before his—so her name was Rukia.
"Great, all of you who showed up today get an A for attendance! Which is only ten percent of your final grades, so nothing to celebrate about. All right, without further ado, welcome to the best class at Karakura: Classical English Lit!" their professor announced jubilantly, capping her pen after she'd called the last student's name.
The girl next to him blinked twice. "This isn't Classical Japanese Literature?"
And that was how he'd met Rukia Kuchiki.
...Whose lovely voice was now ringing in his ear a little too loudly, far too early in the morning for his liking. "Are you up?"
Ichigo groaned and fell back onto his pillow, clutching his phone slightly farther from his head. "I am now."
"Let's get brunch."
Brunch at their usual weekend spot did sound nice, he supposed, compared to whatever he'd find in the empty pantry he still hadn't gotten around to fully stocking; his stomach grumbled softly at the thought and he sighed in acceptance. "What time?"
"Meet you there at ten. And don't forget to bring a jacket, it's windy," came his friend's voice, before she ended the call with a small beep.
Windy day, huh? Well, the reminder was nice of her—
Ichigo glanced back at his empty nightstand, and groaned.
His lips felt so dry.
A/N: Hello! Thanks for stopping by to read the first chapter of Chapstick, inspired by KurosakiLove's Telephone. I really don't know where it's going, to be honest, but this chapter I wanted to share some of the backstory of how Ichigo and Rukia met before becoming as close with each other as they are now. Don't worry though, more bickering and cute moments to come soon :)
For context, I am a bit of a chapstick freak in real life and like to keep one on me and one on my desk at all times, though thankfully I don't lose them as much as Rukia. I will say that cold, blustery days without chapstick are the worst. Poor Ichigo, haha.
-itspillowtime