Normally, I write IshiHime fics; in fact, almost all of my Bleach stories are about them. I am a strong fan of that pairing. However, a friend of mine asked me to write an IchiHime story, so here it is. You'd better be reading this, Tim!
This was inspired by a random song I heard while at a restaurant, which sounded like they were killing the instrument that they were playing. Maybe Ichigo was playing it…
Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach, although I now have all the mangas that are out in English! Wait, that doesn't have to do with anything…
Ichigo was musically challenged.
He had never been able to play any type of musical instrument without sounding like he was torturing the poor thing. He had taken some sort of music class in Elementary school, but had only succeeded in throwing his flute against the wall out of frustration. It wasn't his fault the damn thing wouldn't play without making this annoying squeaking sound, was it?
So, when he decided to learn to play the saxophone, everyone was surprised. When asked why, all he said was, "I heard that that damn Ishida can play it, so I want to learn, too." Yes, Ishida could play the saxophone, though he could sew better than anyone in the crafts club and you didn't see Ichigo trying that.
Of course, Ichigo had an ulterior motive to learn to play the unique instrument of the woodwind family; one that very much had to do with Ishida. Ever since they had returned from Soul Society, he could sense that the Quincy was becoming very friendly with their female Hollow-slaying friend, Inoue Orihime. It made sense; after all, they were alone together for quite some time during their journey. Still, he refused to lose to anyone, especially Ishida. So when he heard Orihime squealing about how well Ishida could play the saxophone, he immediately decided that he would learn to play, too.
When he asked his father to get him the instrument, Kurosaki Isshin immediately went to the music store (that is, after he got knocked out the second story window by his son for somehow turning Ichigo's sudden interest in the musical arts into some sort of sex story). Of course, he bought the cheapest one there, remembering Ichigo's last encounter with anything that was supposed to make music: It had been a harmonica. Now, you'd think that most people wouldn't be able to murder a harmonica, but somehow Ichigo managed to do so. When he blew into it, the sound that was produced was even more horrible than the flute; at least that particular instrument didn't make your eardrums bleed. In the end, he had smashed it with Zangetsu. He may have gone a little overboard on that one, but as he put it, "The thing deserved to die."
Needless to say, most people had developed a fear of being around Ichigo when he had a musical instrument in hand (it was called Ichimusicaphobia, and it was really quite common among those in the Karakura area). Thus, when Ichigo announced that he was going to start practicing his new saxophone, the other family members in the Kurosaki house instantly made up an excuse to be elsewhere: Yuzu needed to go shopping, Karin was going to go play soccer with her friends, and Isshin was needed at the office. "What office?" Ichigo had yelled after him as he ran out the front door. "We live in a freaking clinic, for crying out loud!" Still, he couldn't exactly blame them; even he was afraid of what horrible sounds might come out of the large object that some called an instrument.
He opened the musical textbook his father had gotten him (entitled An Idiot's Guide to Saxophone Playing), and sat on his bed, just staring at it for awhile. He wasn't sure what to do next. Why are there random letters written everywhere? He wondering, referring to the musical notes written on the pages. Yes, he indeed was musically challenged. He stared at if for a bit longer before tossing it out the window. "Screw this!" he yelled as he watched it flutter to the ground, tempted to pull out his Zanpakuto and give it the same treatment as the harmonica. That would require him to become a Shinigami, however, and he was too much of a lazy ass to make the extra effort. So he decided to just let it trampled by passerby while he attempted to play the saxophone on his own.
He stared at it awhile longer, as if expecting it to play on its own. It didn't, however, and he was forced to play it on his own. He took a deep breath, placed his mouth on the mouthpiece, and blew. Out came a noise to horrible, he could have sworn there was a Hollow inhabiting the thing. It was worse than the flute and the harmonica put together! Now that took talent.
Ichigo had had it with the world of music. He marched over to the window and threw it as hard as he could, hoping it would land on the textbook and kill it as well. That would have to do until he could get the proper equipment to dispose of it. He scrolled through a list of possible weapons in his mind. A torch, random heavy objects, a chainsaw…Yes, the chainsaw would do nicely, he decided.
"Ow!"
Ichigo froze. The single word had come from outside his window. He thought he recognized the voice. Oh, please no…He slowly walked back to the window and looked down, already dreading what he would see. His guess had been right: Orihime was sitting on the sidewalk outside his house, the fallen saxophone lying beside her. She was rubbing her head, a pained expression on her face.
Shit. "Inoue?" he called down, thinking that maybe he was seeing things and that the carefree fairy-wielding Hollow Slayer wasn't really down there having just been hit by his instrument. She looked up at her name, however, and he knew that it was the real thing sitting below him. On the bright side, he now had another reason to add to his list of reasons on why he hated musical instruments of any kind.
Orihime smiled. "Hello, Kurosaki-kun!" she called up happily, seemingly oblivious to the fact that she had just been hit on the head by a large falling instrument; she acted as if she always saw random objects fall out of people's bedroom window. For all Ichigo knew, maybe she did; she wasn't exactly known for being normal.
"Um, Inoue, are you aware that a saxophone just fell on your head?" Ichigo asked, concerned that the object had caused her even more brain damage than she already had. It was then that her gaze drifted to the musical instrument lying beside her. Her smile only widened into a large, goofy grin when she seemed to realize what had happened for the first time.
"Oh, so that's what it was!" she said with a giggle. "I was wondering what had hit me!" A sudden realization entered her already-damaged mind. "Oh, Kurosaki-kun, do you play the saxophone?" she smiled happily to herself, as if she had just figured out what E equals MC² meant (after all, does anyone really know?).
Ichigo sweatdropped. If he had actually played the thing more than once, why would he have thrown it out the window? He didn't say anything, though, since Orihime looked so happy about her discovery. "Wait there," he called. "I'll be right down." Orihime had sudden thoughts of him jumping out of the two-story window and landing majestically in front of her. To her disappointment, however, he used the front door like everyone else.
"Are you alright, Inoue?" he asked, noticing with some disappointment that she had kept the instrument from landing on his textbook. He would have to light it on fire later. In the meantime, however, he helped Orihime to her feet, who then proceeded to brush herself off.
"Yup!" she said, her voice surprisingly happy for someone who just realized that she had been hit on the head with a saxophone. "I'm fine!" She seemed to bounce slightly as she talked, causing her giant bosom to bounce with her. Where does she get all her energy? Ichigo wondered. His gaze drifted down to Orihime's legs, where he noticed that her knee was bleeding, probably from falling down after having the large object land on her head.
"Crap! Inoue, you're leg!" he cried, pointing down at her injury. Great job, Ichigo. First you drop a freaking saxophone on her head, then you practically give her a fatal injury! Ok, he was seriously exaggerating, but when your brain goes into panic mode, you can't really control it anymore. Not that he could control his in the first place, but you get the idea. "Come on inside, I'll get you a Band-Aid or something." He gently grabbed her wrist and began dragging her towards his house (even though the door was a grand total of about 5 meters away).
Orihime blushed as Ichigo pulled her along. "W-wait, Kurosaki-kun! I'm fine!" She called, but either Ichigo was ignoring her or he had extremely bad hearing, because he kept pulling her until she was sitting comfortably on the couch. She fidgeted nervously as he went to the bathroom to get something for her knee. I can't believe I'm in Kurosaki-kun's house! She thought excitedly. It was obvious that she had a not-so-secret crush on the orange-haired Shinigami; about everyone from Karakura to the moon could tell. It seemed the only one who didn't know was Ichigo himself, but he couldn't even remember what people looked like, and had even harder time thinking of their names, so it really wasn't surprising (after all, he couldn't even remember Ishida's name after he had fully introduced himself. He had thought it was Ernie instead).
"Sorry for the wait, Inoue," he said, coming out of the bathroom holding a roll of bandages. He began wrapping them around her wound. "I would offer you tea or something, but Yuzu banned me from the kitchen a long time ago for setting off the smoke alarms while making toast. Besides, I doubt I could make the tea without burning the water or something."
Orihime couldn't help herself; she laughed. Ichigo looked at her for a moment before joining in. He really didn't think that burning water was possible, but he didn't really want to find out, either. And, now that Orihime was inside his home, he didn't want to make a total fool out of himself. Well, ok, he already had by dropping the saxophone on her head, but she didn't really seem to mind. At least it hadn't been a piano or something. He laughed harder as he thought of himself trying to play the piano. He knew that the thing would end up with a worse death than the saxophone, which he would take the chainsaw to later.
"You know, Inoue," he said, figuring he should at least tell her why he had dropped large instrument onto her head, "I don't really play the saxophone. I mean, I was trying to, but, well, things didn't go so well." He didn't want to come right out and say that he was trying to kill the thing, since that would make him sound like a psychopath and he really didn't want to have her thinking that he always went around throwing random objects out of windows.
Orihime smiled. "I kinda figured," she said. "I mean, I didn't think that you would throw it out of your window if you were really into playing it." Wow, so her brain did work after all! Ichigo silently applauded her for usingit for something other than school, where she got surprisingly good grades. "But you know what's weird? I head this really awful noise earlier from around here! It sounded like a dying cow or something! Do you know what it was?"
Ichgio blushed awkwardly. "Erm, that was my pathetic attempt at playing the saxophone," he said quietly. They looked at each other and burst out laughing. "Oh, that reminds me. I think I left it lying on the sidewalk. I guess I should go get it." He secretly hoped that, while he had been inside, someone had stolen it to be used in bomb testing or something of the sort, but unfortunately for him, it was still there. It was also in pretty good condition, considering it had just fallenfrom a two-story building. He carried it inside, holding it as far away from him as possible.
"You really don't like that thing, do you, Kurosaki-kun?" Orihime asked, noticing the look of disgust on his face. Ichigo dropped it to the floor, where it landed with a loud THUD. "Is it that obvious?"
Orihime suddenly clapped her hands together. "I know! We should have funeral for it!" she squealed. "I mean, anything that sounds that bad has to be dead already, right?" She looked at Ichigo, and she looked so excited about it that he couldn't say no. So, about fifteen minutes later, they were in his backyard, standing in front of the grave. The 'grave' was a hole in the ground that had taken all of5 seconds to make with his Zanpakuto. Technically, he should only use his Shinigami powers to fight evil, but in his mind, that saxophone was about as evil as they got. Ichigo not-so-slowly dropped the thing into the hole, and they started the funeral.
"Here lies Fluffy, the saxophone," Orihime began. Fluffy? She named the damn thing? "He was a good saxophone." And it's a HE? "He may have sounded like a dying cow, but we will never forget him." She seriously looked like she would cry over the poor instrument. She elbowed Ichigo in the ribs. "Say something, Kurosaki-kun!"
"Um, yeah, he was a good saxophone," Ichigo said, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. Yeah, good and dead! They then filled the hole with the dirt, adding a small cardboard tombstone at the top that Orihime had made. It read: Here lies Fluffy, the saxophone. Ichigo really hopped that no one was watching them at that moment.
Soon after that, Orihime left, muttering something about needed to stop and get leeks, butter, and bananas for dinner. Ichigo didn't even want to think about what she was planning on making. At least Fluffy was good for one thing, Ichigo thought, calling it by the name Orihime had given it. I got to spend time together with Inoue.
He made a mental note to dig the thing up later and give it the chainsaw treatment. It was only then that the killing of the saxophone would be complete.