Chapter 1 – the "maiden carry"
Kurosaki Ichigo was currently sitting in his homeroom classroom, puzzling over his near-overdue Chemistry homework and trying to cram two day's worth of lessons into one intense study session. The sun was resting on the edge of the horizon as the hot afternoon drew to a close, and the school bell of Karakura High pealed one last time, heralding evening and the ending of after-school sports practicing. However, it wasn't just Ichigo and the desultory soccer team that made a practice of staying after normal hours; other especially studious pupils (or those socially inept enough to have nowhere else to go) often remained as well.
Though he stayed in his desk long after bell nearly every day now, Ichigo's status as an especially studious student was in jeopardy. It wasn't for lack of effort on his part, oh no; in fact, lately he had been throwing himself into his work with something approaching desperation. It was just that, as his grades attested, he didn't have the time anymore.
If it wasn't Hollows, it was those twisted not-Hollows that were presumably Aizen's abandoned experiments left to roam. If it wasn't them, it was Allancar, and if it wasn't them, it was his fellow Shinigami having some sort of crisis. Toasters, microwave ovens, the supermarket—all of these, and other manifold new threats the human world possessed in spades, gave them trouble on a near-daily basis. You'd think it would get better with time, but no—as they became more informed about modern life they just got more adept at getting themselves into even weirder predicaments. The memory of sitting down with a roomful of battle-hardened, wide-eyed Shinigami and attempting to explain the Internet surfaced momentarily, but he pushed it down.
And then there were the two most insufferable ones. How had he gotten tied up with them? Rukia on her own gave Ichigo almost more trouble than he could handle, but with Renji to share in her escapades it was like their combined idiocy had achieved bankai. And he was saddled quite firmly with them both; their stupidity concerning traffic (Renji was going to be a smear on the pavement someday) and their eternal wonder at television besides.
Thinking back, Ichigo blamed alcohol. After all, alcohol was usually blamed in such situations—wasn't it the number one date-rape drug in the world, or something?
Not that any part of that evening had been rape.
Well.
Except for the statutory kind…but Ichigo certainly wasn't complaining.
He stared vacantly into his desk, then realized what he was doing. Or, more precisely, not doing.
Oh, no. No, no, no! Chemistry, Ichigo, Chemistry! …Not that kind! School, school, school. This is freaking due tomorrow, I can't afford to slack off now.
"Oi. Ichigo." Ichigo twisted his head around at the familiar voice, looking up from his school desk and his school work. He squinted into the slanting afternoon sun, frowning irritably at a large blobby shadow which, in short order, leaned down into his face and repeated itself—slowly and with added volume. "Oiiii. Ichigo." An impatient Renji resolved himself from the glare of the sun as soon as his shadow passed over Ichigo's face.
"What?" Ichigo snapped. He was having a hard enough time concentrating on his formal Chemistry lab paper as it was, and adding Renji into the mix did not bode at all well for the report's prospects. Right on cue the fiery literally-red-head gave Ichigo an impatient open-handed blow to the back of the head.
"Fuck! Ow! The hell'd you do that for!" Ichigo nearly jumped out of his seat, but, constrained by the limitations of his physical body, his smooth and graceful retaliation became an undignified tumble to the floor—accompanied by his desk, which crashed along with him and tangled in his legs to boot.
Ow.
Renji leapt back adroitly, then stood apart from the mess and crossed his arms imperiously over his high-school-uniformed chest. "Bastard, don't tell me you forgot already?"
Ichigo rubbed the back of his head and stared up at Renji blankly. Climbing to his feet with a scowl, he turned his back on the Shinigami and righted his desk, trying valiantly to ignore the titters of other late-staying students. Mulishly, he collapsed back into his seat, mentally shuffling through periodic tables and diagrams of the atom in search of anything to do with Renji or Soul Society that he had possibly forgotten.
"You did?" Renji was staring at Ichigo in open disbelief verging on anger, one elaborate eyebrow twitching ominously. "You bastard!" he roared, but was interrupted by a flying piece of chalk, which bounced off of his head.
Up at the front of the classroom, Ochi-sensei (arm still upraised) grinned victoriously at her good aim, then coughed and tried to regain some vestige of professionalism. "Renji-san! Language! This is a high school, not a street corner!"
"A-aa. Sorry," said the offending "student", who nevertheless looked completely un-cowed and ready to jump on Ichigo again at a moment's notice, perhaps to physically pound recollection into his head. He restrained himself and bent down to lean on Ichigo's desk, elbows carelessly scattering the chemistry papers (which had no hope in hell of getting done now, Ichigo reflected) and growling at the orange-haired boy. "Rukia. You. Me. Gate. Five minutes ago. Theater. Ten minutes from now." Message delivered, he stared expectantly at Ichigo, features twisted into the sneer of the totally devoid of patience.
Suddenly, Ichigo remembered.
Oh, fuck.
"Oh, fuck!" The young Shinigami's yell was punctuated by the sharp whish-crack of flying chalk and Ochi-sensei's delighted laughter at her impeccable aim.
"Ahaha-ah?" she stopped laughing as she saw Ichigo scramble out of his desk and bolt for the window. But before she could do anything besides choke out a token "Hey!" the teen had flung the window open wide and had a foot on the sill.
The homeroom teacher might have been limited by human reflexes, but Renji, even in a gigai, wasn't. Thus, about halfway to the ground, (as soon as Ichigo realized that he was not, in fact, in Shinigami form and just in time for the remaining drop to seem both too long and entirely too short) strong tattooed arms closed around him.
Renji.
Ichigo was all set to feel grateful, until he realized how Renji'd actually caught him. The vice-captain landed with barely a jolt even with the added weight of Ichigo in his arms, and Ichigo took a moment to process the facts.
Hmm, that was stupid. (this one had been foremost in his mind since he hit the half-way mark)
Glad Renji caught me.
Wait.
This isn't right.
Oh no.
Oh nonononono. He didn't.
But he had. One of Renji's muscular arms encircled Ichigo's knees, the other gripped Ichigo's shoulders and upper body to his chest. It was the classic "maiden carry". Now, Ichigo might have let this blow to his masculinity slide, had Renji released him as soon as he yelled and thrashed. But the great lumbering idiot only grinned wider, and, with a nonchalant flare of reiatsu to augment his gigai's already formidable strength, nearly crushed Ichigo to his chest. With a wheeze, (and a few cracking noises from his ribs) the orange-haired boy fell silent—asphyxiating condition not putting even the slightest damper on his murderous glare.
"Che. Idiot! You'd be a smear on the ground if it wasn't for me, and then you'd really be in for it from Rukia." Renji appeared satisfied that the application of force had shut up his companion, and didn't even appear to notice Ichigo's lack of air. The young Shinigami felt a sudden and acute pang of empathy for Rukia, on that long-ago day on Soukyouku hill.
"L-let me go. You idiot." Ichigo managed to choke out, wiggling and kicking as Renji began walking towards the school gates. He cursed his soft, breakable human body, and wished vehemently that he could reach the Temporary Shinigami badge hanging at his side. But his arms were pinned firmly, and not all the strength in his teenage body would budge the grip of an Urahara Shouten gigai. Ichigo could still count the number of times he'd been so totally and utterly outmatched on his fingers, and he was not in any way pleased to add today and the loudmouthed redhead to the list alongside said redhead's stupid taichou and Aizen.
Renji was so dead, as soon as he could get his hands on that shiny silver medallion.
On the upside, Ichigo was so occupied with his futile struggles that he was largely spared seeing the interest his undignified exit generated among his peers and passing faculty members. The incredulous faces of Ochi-sensei and a few others of Ichigo's classmates looked down at him from the homeroom class window too. But Renji sailed on across the echoing courtyard with utter nonchalance, despite the open stares and general hilarity he and his fuming burden left in their wake.
"Oi! Rukia!"
At the school's gate, the diminutive girl looked up from where she crouched doodling in the dirt, shooting Ichigo and Renji an impatient indigo gaze. She swept her hand across her impromptu canvas as she rose. "You laggards! The moo-vee is going to begin soon, and we need good seats!" Despite her irritation, a smile was twitching insistently at the corner of her mouth. Ichigo, flushed with both asphyxiation and embarrassment, glared at her accusingly from Renji's arms, but his affronted look was enough to send her over the edge. She grinned and gave in to her laughter, leaning helplessly on the concrete gatepost. His face! It was the funniest thing she'd ever seen.
"R-Renji…and stop squashing Ichigo," she managed to gasp out, catching up with Renji and reaching out to thump his shoulder. Renji smirked and dumped the boy unceremoniously onto the grass by the side of the road, but before Ichigo could do more than flail to his feet Renji was halfway down the block, dragging Rukia behind and whooping. It degenerated from there into a pell-mell race to the theater seven blocks away, a red-faced Ichigo shouting dire threats and imprecations at the backs of the two totally unrepentant Shinigami all the way.
As he hurtled through the streets of Karakura, the tiny non-furious part of Ichigo reflected on how good it was to hear Rukia laugh like that. And as for the umpteenth time he barely stopped himself from trying to leap over a startled pedestrian instead of darting around, he decided he needed to work a little harder on differentiating between his human body and his Shinigami form.
In the dirt by the school gates a corner of Rukia's little doodle still remained. Most of it was obscured, but what was left of it appeared to be a bunny, a strawberry, and a dogs' head. There was a blobby line about the three that might have been a heart—or perhaps just part of the larger lost composition.