Title: To Be or Not To Be
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairings: very, very slight IchigoxRukia
Word Count: 980 (Another long one… hmmm…)
Warnings: Random Shakespeare ramblings
Summary: Rukia discovers a very interesting little green book.
A/N: The quotes are from: Romeo and Juliet, act 3, scene 5 and act 1, scene 5 and Hamlet, act 3, scene 1. Go read Shakespeare, kiddies. It's good for you.
----------
Rukia shuffled through Ichigo's nightstand. She was sick of homework and thoroughly restless, a deadly combination. She was convinced that Ichigo did indeed keep porn in his room; she just needed to find the evidence. After discovering the stuff in Renji's quarters that one time, she was convinced every boy on the face of the planet owned a dirty magazine. She needed proof that Ichigo was just as normal as everyone else. Plus, it also meant she could tease him mercilessly.
She came across a green leather-bound book in the mess of junk, eyes gleaming mischievously at the thought that it could be his journal.
"What the hell are you doing?"
Busted. Rukia turned around slowly, plastering on the innocent smile that won over so many others, but never seemed to work on Ichigo.
"What are you talking about?" she trilled, giving him her best eyelash batting. No one could say that she ever went down without a fight.
He scowled, giving her that look of his that never boded well for Rukia. "I said, what are you doing?" It was almost as if it pained him to keep his voice level. His fists were balled at his sides, his stance set to defense mode.
"Oh," she cooed. "You mean this?" She held up the leather-bound book, smiling impishly at the look on his face. It had gone from aggravated to anxious in 2.3 seconds flat. Rukia waved the book in front of her mockingly.
"Rukia—" He was backed into a corner and both of them knew it.
"Ah, let's just take a look at this, shall we?" Rukia flipped open the book with a snap, smoothing a page down and skimming the letters before Ichigo had the chance to react. Then she noticed the writing. "What the hell?"
Ichigo tensed, looking more and more like a cornered animal by the second.
"What is 'Shock-es-pair'?" Her eyes widened in realization. "They're poems!"
"It's a play," he growled.
"'Art thou gone so? love, lord, ay, husband, friend / I must hear from thee every day in the hour / For in a minute there are many days / O, by this count I shall be much in years / Ere I again behold my Romeo!' This is a love poem!" Rukia looked overjoyed to find out Ichigo was a closet romantic. Now she could taunt him without remorse.
"It's a play," he repeated, striding across the room and snatching the book out of her hands.
"Oi! Give that back!" She lunged for the book, her voice taking on a sardonic tone. "I want to see what other love poems you have in there."
He held the book over his head and hopelessly out of her reach as she leapt for the book without avail. "It's a play! It's Shakespeare, the greatest playwright of all time! His works are masterpieces of rhyme and meter! His use of false wit, puns, and ambiguity is genius!"
Rukia stopped in the middle of his tirade, blinking up at him in disbelief. He just peeled back a lot of layers right then, not even realizing he was doing it. She was intrigued, tilting her head to the side in silent question.
"Nani? Don't give me that look, Rukia." He turned away, lowering his arm and putting back on his scowl.
Rukia took the opportunity to seize the book back. "So, what others poems are in here? Any good ones?" She flipped the pages, backing away nonchalantly from Ichigo.
"I said, they aren't poems!"
"'If I profane with my unworthiest hand / This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this / My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand / To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.' Looks like a poem to me. A love poem."
"That's because it's Romeo and Juliet, here, give that to me."
Rukia, having achieved her desired goal, passed it over coolly, watching him inquisitively while he flicked through the pages, his trademark scowl becoming one of concentration over anything else. She didn't mention the fact that he knew exactly which play she was reading from, choosing to tactfully ignore it until a later, more opportune moment.
"Here, you'll get this one from Hamlet," he said, taking on an erudite look Rukia had never seen on Ichigo before. It was… nice. How odd. "'To die: to sleep; / No more; and by a sleep to say we end / The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks / That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation / Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep; / To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub; / For in that sleep of death what dreams may come / When we have shuffled off this mortal coil / Must give us pause: there's the respect / That makes calamity of so long life.'"
Rukia was so entranced by the sound of his voice, smooth and deep and clear over the intricate words, that she didn't really notice he had stopped until long seconds after the fact. Ichigo gave her a hard stare, lifting the daze he had put on her.
"Ah, what was that about?" she asked, scrambling for something to cover her momentary stupor.
He sighed. "Death," he said, as if it was the most obvious answer in the world. "Hamlet wants to kill himself, but he's is too afraid to, because he doesn't know what will happen to him after he dies. His point is that no one knows what happens after death. It's one of the most famous passages in literature."
"Oh." This new side of Ichigo amazed her. He was… deep. Weird. And strangely… alluring. She never truly acknowledged before that she had only struck the surface with Ichigo.
He flicked her nose teasingly, snapping her out of whatever fantasy she had fallen into.
"But we know better, ne?"
----------
END
