To say that Ichigo's mind had been thrown into chaos by everything that had happened over the past few hours, would be a gross understatement. Yet it was also a very apt way of putting things.
She couldn't recall the absolute last time she'd ever been so damn confused before. Which was saying a lot since she had a more than a few confusing life experiences to draw on.
Things like, what the differences between men and women were, and the bizarrely informative sex talk that Chad had given her when they had been twelve. As well as the fact that he tended to occasionally update the information that he'd given her at random for absolutely no reason whatsoever without even being asked.
Ever since Rukia had left her after their little 'heart to heart' she had been alternating between pacing around, fidgeting, and freaking the fuck out.
It had gotten so bad about an hour ago that she had actually created a thunderstorm overhead. It came with all the thunderstorm bells and whistles.
Lightening, and thunder loud enough to rattle the walls and windows of her home- and don't even get her started on the rain. It was pouring outside. And if one took that into account along with the fact that the feast was now over and everyone not too drunk to make it home had run for cover hours ago and well, you had a very decent, celebratory mood ruining rain.
What a pain in the ass. She thought to herself as another bolt of lightning split the sky, the glow from it illuminating the darkened room that she currently stood in with her hands tightly fisted at her sides in an effort to try and reign in her temper a little bit.
But it was proving to be harder than she expected it to be.
God, she felt like an idiot! Even more so than usual thanks to Rukia enlightening her about Rimuru and some of his behaviors.
So now all she could think was of how could she have not noticed something so...obvious? It wasn't as if she didn't take note of various things. Contrary to what some people thought, she did pay attention. She couldn't afford not to anymore.
She knew some of his habits. Like how hard he was worked.
The fact that despite how much shorter he was compared to her; he had the confidence of a man far taller than she. She knew that he was really well mannered and polite. Gentlemanly even. She knew that he was easy going, playful, and mischievous.
And then there was also the fact that he worried about his people and tried his absolute best to be a kind and compassionate ruler to them.
So again, how could she not have noticed the oddly affectionate actions? Sure, she had noticed the whole touching thing. He did it pretty much constantly, so it was incredibly hard to ignore it. But not knowing about how she had missed everything else was slowly driving her crazy!
And then there was the fact that she was now engaged to be married to him. So, she had absolutely no idea what to do with that either.
I mean, it wasn't as if she didn't see the appeal of being married to Rimuru or anything. She did. He was a monster, not a human- so he would have a better grasp and understanding of certain...things about her. Her power, her occasional temper spikes that caused weather changes, and the fact that she could do things that others would never be able to.
Then there was also the fact that as long as she kept an eye on him- and didn't allow him to get too reckless, that he was likely to live hundreds maybe even a few thousand years. Which would be nice since she didn't think that she'd like being alone for such a long time.
But despite all of those things, there were also simply too many variables telling her that he was way in over his head here. And to be totally honestly, she was worried that she was going to eat the man alive or something. Not literally, but metaphorically.
In fact, she was actually pretty worried that it would be during their wedding night.
She'd never been with a man before. But she'd slept with Yoruichi a couple of times.
And every time she had, the woman had sworn up and down that she must be part succubus or something. Especially when the older woman had been unable to do more than talk for about a week straight because Ichigo had really, really worn her out.
She'd sort of steered clear of anything sexual after that because she kind of started to think that Yoruichi may be right about the succubus thing. And since she hadn't wanted to suck the life out of the woman during sex again- she had told her that she was pretty sure that she was going to avoid any more romps in the bedroom.
Yoruichi had been disappointed, but she hadn't judged her poorly for it since the extreme lethargy that she had experienced had kind of freaked her out a bit too.
If she could do that to someone as experienced and worldly as Yoruichi- then what chance did poor Rimuru have?
Rimuru had to put his ink pen down on his desk as a sneeze made its way past his lips, forcing him to stop his writing. It had been several hours since he'd left Ichigo's home after negotiating a marriage contract between himself and the girl. And in that time, he'd been working diligently to write out wedding invitations to his friends and allies within Tempest and outside of it.
So far, he'd gotten the invites for King Gazel of Dwargon since he knew that the other king would be upset if he wasn't present for such an event. Besides, Rimuru had decided that he would ask the other king to marry he and Ichigo since he thought that Gazel would get a kick out of that.
He'd already written out invites for Rigurd and his son, Rigur. Some for Kaijin, Dold, Myrd and Garm. He was going to ask Benimaru to be one of his best men. So, the rest of the ogre invites were mainly for Shion, Souei, Princess Shuna, and Hakurou.
He intended for Ranga to be another of his best men since the wolf had more or less decided that he was his pack and would be utterly devastated if he didn't include him somehow.
Fuze, the guild master.
He would like Toreinī to attend the event since she was one of the other representees of the Jura-Tempest Alliance. He also wanted Geld there since it didn't feel right to make him work even on his wedding day. He wanted to include the trio of troublesome adventurers too. But wasn't really sure how to find them.
And then last but not least...he decided to invite Milim since he knew that if he didn't- she would pitch a fit and disrupt the ceremony. Or worse, his honeymoon.
Which would just be horrible of her since he wanted to have some quiet time alone with his bride.
He would have to make another announcement so that everyone else would be able to attend if they wanted. But if Ichigo wanted anyone else outside of her three friends to attend, then she would have to write to them herself to invite them.
Sighing, he sniffled a couple of times just to make sure that he wasn't going to sneeze again, and then picked up his pen and finished writing out what he'd been working on and then upon finishing it, set it aside with the rest of the wedding stuff.
His mind had been working at warp speed ever since he had finished securing Ichigo's consent to marry him hours ago. Since then, he had been working out various plans to have the most incredible, and epic wedding ever.
He wasn't really sure why, but he wanted everything to be as perfect as possible for such a milestone in his life since he wasn't certain that such an event would ever happen again. At least he hoped that it wouldn't since he had no intentions to ever remarry if things went horribly awry between Ichigo and himself after they tied the knot.
Mostly because of his insecurities and the depression that would follow afterward. That and he was pretty sure that he would probably loathe himself quite a bit if his marriage to Ichigo failed in any way. So, there would be that too.
But for the moment, he was oddly optimistic about the upcoming event.
He was happy about it. Downright giddy even.
The emotions that he currently felt were somewhat difficult to place. But the closest that he could come to putting them into words would be something along the lines of- he felt as if he'd just won a huge lottery, just asked a super model out on a date and got a 'yes' and was going on a trip to Japan's Disneyland all in one.
It felt fantastic!
Glancing around his desk to see what else he could do to tackle the wedding stuff, it occurred to him that he hadn't picked out a ring to give to Ichigo yet. He'd have to fix that first thing in the morning. In the meantime, he figured that he'd begin planning out a menu, and what sort of flowers would be used for the ceremony.
He knew that he would have to keep things a bit vague so that Ichigo could add her own wants to the nearly endless list or things- but for the time being he was content to do as much of the planning as he could so that his bride-to-be wouldn't have to worry so much about being overwhelmed by any of it.
It took him a few hours to get the other self-appointed tasks out of the way before his mind wandered to slightly forbidden territory- the honeymoon. It was around the time he was trying to decide on what sort of honeymoon he wanted to have when his inner pervert decided to spend the next hour or so torturing him.