Toshinori didn't have to wait long for a response to his question. Which only seemed to confirm his thoughts on Ichigo's 'untouched' status. "Well...I've never dated anyone before," The thoroughly stupefied man couldn't help but let his jaw drop open in shock. "I've never even kissed anyone before." She said awkwardly as her face turned a fetching shade of pink before she semi hid it in the crook of one of her arms.
If he could get anymore floored then he'd likely become one with the actual floor.
Holy fucking hell- how could she still be a virgin? He wondered in bewilderment. She was freaking gorgeous! Practically a goddess! She was more stunning than any model or actress that he'd ever seen before in the entirety of his life! And no one had snatched her up? Not even once? Really?
Were the males she surrounded herself with stupid? Blind?
Were they dead from the waist down maybe? Damned idiots.
Who in their right mind would pass up a chance to get with her? He wondered idly. He wasn't sure what else to think. He'd never been remotely close to the position that he found himself in at the moment. And she still didn't even know that he'd offered to help her through her heat just yet.
"I-I see." Was all that he could think to say when Shota got fed up with them both and walked over and clapped him on the shoulder hard enough to nearly knock him down as he said.
"Well then you're in luck. This dumbass has volunteered himself to be at your absolute disposal- if you're willing to give him the chance, that is." Toshinori's face turned a peculiar shade of red as he slowly turned his head to glare menacingly at the dark haired man who merely grinned, showing just a bit too much teeth and hissed at him. "I'm trying to help you both. Now, Don't. Fuck. This. Up."
Well okay then, Toshinori thought to himself as he turned his head back around and pasted on a awkward looking smile. He was going to get Shota back for this regardless of whether or not she accepted his offer.
Waiting with bated breath, he started to get the feeling that she was going to reject him and his offer. And how could she not? He was pitiful and weak and disgustingly ugly- His thoughts cut off rather abruptly when she stood up and suddenly latched onto him like a little koala bear and started to purr.
The sound vibrating in her chest as Toshinori finally seemed to shake himself out of his funk and slowly lifted his arms up to hug her to his chest. She accepted the contact without any protest, which he supposed was a step in the right direction.
Several moments later he felt Shota pat him on the shoulder in an encouraging manner as he said something about collecting the baka's hiding behind the desk and leaving so that they could have some privacy.
Toshinori nodded his head and gave the dark haired man a grateful look as Ichigo busied herself with burying her face in his shirt, rubbing her cheek against the fabric and inhaling his scent. Toshinori tries to suppress the small chuckle that he can feel bubbling up as he glances down at her doing so. But isn't able to.
The sound has her ears twitching as she tilts her head back to look at his face before she slowly and reluctantly released him from her grasp and awkwardly rubs at the nape of her neck with one hand while looking away from him in embarrassment.
She didn't know what had just come over her. She usually wasn't quite so keen on physical contact.
In fact, she usually barely tolerated physical contact of any kind on a good day. And that was usually from her dad and closest friends! So the fact that she could so easily attach herself to someone that she didn't know all that well- especially someone that she was likely going to wind up fucking at some point- was more than a tad bit disturbing to her.
But dammit- she felt weird and moody... Her skin felt like it was itching and tingling in the weirdest places. Her nipples and pussy both ached. She could still feel that disgusting slimy stuff sliding down her legs again, and she still wasn't totally convinced that she hadn't pissed herself at least a little bit.
She felt gross and uncomfortable.
And her frigging cramps were starting to get worse! So dammit all if she wanted a frigging hug- then the man had better be totally prepared to deal with an utter hug monster! Because she felt insatiable.
And since he'd offered...well, she'd take what she could get.
"Are you alright?" He finally asked after several minutes of silence. He'd been busy studying her face to gauge her thoughts on the situation. Especially after she'd detached herself from him so suddenly.
She made some pretty nice faces. Her embarrassment was understandable given that she hadn't been born with animal parts and all. Her irked temperament was difficult to place. Was she upset with herself, the situation, or him for seemingly taking advantage?
Then there was her glower. He didn't know why she had suddenly glowered, but hopefully she wouldn't always wear such an expression. And then there had been the predatory look that had flitted across her face.
She had been thinking about something briefly that had started to wind her up. But just as quickly as it had crossed her mind, it had gone again. And she was just standing there looking...disturbed.
"I'm fine." She muttered quietly as her tail twitched.
He hummed and grabbed the chair on the other side of the desk and dragged it over so that he could sit in it while reaching over and patting the seat that she'd occupied previously. Getting the hint, she sat back down and carefully arranged her body so that any of the sticky liquid that kept coming from her couldn't easily be seen by him.
"I know that something like this can be somewhat overwhelming to you... But I thought that since we still don't know each other well and we might have a little bit of time before the effects of your heat really hits you; then maybe we could talk and get to know each other a little bit better. Possibly lay some ground rules for how to proceed before we...uh- go lock ourselves away for a while."
"Sounds okay. What do you want to know?"
"Well, how about we start with your childhood. What were you like as a little girl?"
"I smiled a lot," She said, thinking of how things used to be before her mother had been killed. "I don't really think there were any real instances where I wasn't smiling and laughing about something." Toshinori smiled at hearing this. He could easily imagine her as a child, running around doing things little children do. Getting herself into mischief.
"It didn't last though," She said after a heartbeat or two, his smile faded somewhat as dread filled him at her words. Please don't have let her have a terrible childhood. Please, please, please- he mentally chanted to himself, wanting desperately for her to tell him otherwise. "Everything sort of seemed to fall apart at the seams on the day that my mom was killed. I can still remember sitting in the mud next to her body, trying to wake her up for hours when a couple of neighbors finally found me."
His heart clenched in his chest at the mental image of her as a child, sitting next to her mother's body. She didn't elaborate about how she died. So his mind had to supply the means. And given the horrors that he'd seen before during his career as a pro-hero, his mind had much to draw on.
Each death was more bloody and disturbing than the last.
His stomach churned as she kept talking, "After that, dad was sort of lost... And things kind of snowballed. I wound up being a mom, dad and sister to my baby sisters. I took care of them, my dad... He just sort of checked out. He threw himself into his work as a doctor and didn't really have any time for us for a while. So I wound up doing everything. The cooking, cleaning, the errands, making sure that Karin and Yuzu both got to school. I walked them back and forth to make sure that nothing happened to them. Because if anything had- it really would have killed us."
"We had a few occasions where I had to take on odd jobs for grocery money because I couldn't get hold of dad. He'd been spending more and more time away by then and had been gone for months and months on end. The bills stopped being paid and after the electricity got turned off in the middle of winter and Yuzu got really, really sick- I finally got fed up with him and his shit and took action."
"I grabbed her and Karin and took them both to the hospital that dad had been holed up at, and I made one hell of a scene, screaming at him for being an absentee dad when he found out that Yuzu was in the ER. And finally came down to see what was up."
Toshinori hummed, trying to imagine how scared she must have been at the time and wondered how her dad had taken being called out on his shit. Given the level of grief she hinted at him going through considering how he'd practically abandoned them, he was betting that he hadn't taken being screamed at very well.
"He stopped ignoring some of his responsibilities after that, but he still beat the hell out of me for embarrassing him at work."
I knew it. He thought glumly as she decided that she was done talking about her childhood. "How about you? What were you like as a kid?"
"O-Oh, well...I was raised by my grandmother in America after my parents died. She was nice. She had this cozy two story cottage with a huge yard that was bordered by some woods with a creek. I would run around there all the time playing. I'd splash around in the creek when it was warm out, and then go and track mud on her nice clean floors because I kept forgetting that I was supposed to hose myself down before going inside."
"I bet she fussed at you a lot huh." She said with an amused smile. He gave her a small grin.
"Just until I was old enough to remember to clean myself off first. She died around the time I entered junior high. Of course by then, I was already an exchange student here in Japan. I pretty much took care of myself after that and worked hard towards my goal of being a hero."
"That's admirable. Hero work isn't for the faint of heart." She said as she rested her cheek in her hand. He grunted in agreement.
Hero work really wasn't for the faint of heart. Nor was it for anyone who was weak. Hero's had to have enough strength to shoulder the burdens of the masses. If you weren't capable of doing that, then you weren't cpapble of helping much of anyone.
"What kind of work do you do?" He asked all of a sudden, curious to know if she needed to inform anyone of whether or not she would need to take an extended leave of absence. After all, if she had a dangerous job- then she couldn't do it while she was pregnant.
"Hn? I'm...sort of a jack of all trades. I can do a little bit of everything. But from time to time I like to indulge in one specific job for an extended period of time." She said as it occurred to her that she couldn't tell him that she was a fighter. She wasn't sure how he would react to the information.
"Really? Like what?"
"Well, I can fix and build things. Nothing big or terrible. Appliances mostly. Occasionally computers. I like music too. And can play just about anything that I get my hands on. I even do mini concerts sometimes. Lately I've been making a steady paycheck by ghost writing for upcoming authors. I've already written and finished editing my own original work and submitting it for publication. I can work on cars. I know enough about teaching self defense that I've done that a little bit too."
He let out a small whistle. "You really are a jack of all trades..." And then suddenly asked, "Have you ever done secretarial work?"
"No. But I understand enough about how it's done. So maybe I could do it if someone were patient enough to spend a few days showing me the ropes."
"Good. I think I'll have a job opening in a week or so if you're interested." He said excitedly. She blinked at him but otherwise didn't really react to his words at all before then asking about what ground rules they should lay out for their...uh...coupling.
He scrunched his nose up a little bit at the odd use of words, wondering if she were trying to be polite. As he tried to think of what do's and don'ts to lay out for her. Turned out, he had very few things that he didn't exactly like in the bedroom. He'd try just about anything once. As long as it was within reason.
But mostly he just didn't want her to be caught unaware by his scar.
So after telling her those things, he sat back and waited for her to lay her own rules out. Her rules were fairly simple.
1) If he knocked her up she expected him to stick around and help raise their kid. No excuses.
If he left her once she was out of her heat, she made sure to tell him that he wouldn't like what might happen to him. Which sounded terribly ominous to him. And given her current state, he really didn't think that she was kidding. And he wasn't about to tempt fate any. Not after the way she'd nearly taken him out once already.
2) No anal sex.
He was fine with that too given the fact that he was pretty sure that he would end up hurting her pretty badly given how proportionate his...privates were to the rest of his body. Besides, anal was bloody and messy. Literally. And he wasn't really a fan of it.
3) Once her heat was over; baby or not- she expected to be able to get to know him a little bit better.
He smiled a bit when she mentioned him being a permanent fixture in her life. So apparently she already knew that he'd be around to make a nuisance of himself for as long as she would put up with him.