Chapter 5: Love Paint
~Rukia~
Damn him for thinking he had a say in the wall colours just because:
A) He claimed to be her best friend.
B) He's the only guest in her house who actually slept in her guestroom.
C) He hated Chappy and the colour pink. Pink? Can you imagine! The fool had no taste.
Wait- what's going on with Ishida-san?
... Never mind.
Ding!
XXX
Expensive Italian-made loafers stepped out of the elevator in La Belle. Obsidian beads darted instinctively to the wristwatch on his left hand as Uryuu Ishida emerged- cool and composed as ever while wearing an immaculately ironed button-up and a pair of grey slacks.
The shoes tapped against the parquet flooring as the bespectacled raven-head took measured and precisely-timed steps across the hall.
His eyes swept across the hall, and with a keen, observant nature- quick to take note of the various elaborate symmetrical ornamentation decorating the plush six story apartment building.
From the mosaic-like parquet flooring under his feet to the burgundy linen draperies that found themselves adorning the large window overlooking the parks and streets, there was little doubt that La Belle had lived up to its reputation- offering occupants and visitors alike, the distinct blend of the old Baroque grandeur and of modern chic elegance.
With every step he took, he hugged in turn, the package tighter against his chest. He was on a special delivery service today and inside the package was a little cocktail dress.
Styled with Victorian-style black and cream color combinations, the bodice of the short dress was made from chiffon while layers after layers of the flowing tulle tiers added volume to the skirt. Figure hugging lace trimmed the waist, neckline and shoulder straps of the smocked ivory-hued bodice with the ending, a little above the knees.
Being both a part-time tailor with a guaranteed client-satisfactory reputation and an attentive psychiatrist working at the Seattle Grace Mercy West, Uryuu Ishida had an uncanny ability of 'reading' people. He could tell what their preferences were, how they behaved, what their choice of apparels were and sometimes during the process, he could even dig out their darkest and best kept secrets.
It was this ability coupled with the years he had spent befriending and tailoring the clothes for this particular client and future owner of one of his best creations yet, that gave him all the assurance he would ever need regarding her interest in the dress sealed inside the package he held.
He had no doubts at all that Rukia Kuchiki would love his flawless design. His two-month labour and the sleepless nights he spent on finishing it will not be in vain. Taking a swift turn to his left, apartment 0211 came into view.
XXX
He stopped.
Intimidating oaken double panels stood before him as he reached his destination. Shifting the package, he was just about to push the doorbell when he couldn't help but overhear something coming from behind the doors.
He strained his ears- pressing himself against the door as the muffling grew louder and soon became audible.
XXX
You're doing it all wrong, Rukia!
Shut up, strawberry! You're not the one stretching yourself beyond the human body limit!
Well it's not easy for me either, you witch! With your tight s–
Don't you dare finish that sentence, Ichigo! I demand we take a break!
Fine then! We'll take five.
XXX
The psychiatrist almost dropped his parcel. W-what exactly were the two doing?
Could it really be -
He leaned in closer.
XXX
God, my body's so sore and worn out! I can't even lift a finger! But my walls aren't even pink yet! Ichigo, this is all your fault!
XXX
Uryuu turned red. Dear God, must they be so graphical?
And Rukia-san, who would have thought that she would be so explicit and um… hardcore?
Dr. Ishida adjusted the lenses sitting on the bridge of his nose. His thoughts trailed off, leaving his face alternating between a shade of green and white as he resisted the urge to simply bolt and run off to the same direction where he came from. He always thought Orihime-san was being too imaginative in saying that there was something going on between Kurosaki and Rukia-san.
He shuddered. Well, he stood corrected. There was definitely something going on between those two.
Something loud, extremely non-platonic and ends with '-ex'.
XXX
Oi! Don't go blaming everything on me, you sadistic midget! As I recall, you were the ones who talked us into it in the first place!
So now you're accusing me of pressuring?
Well, you were the one who brought it up!
I thought we'd enjoyed doing it together!
XXX
He winced as a loud and sure to be, violent scene interjected the conversation. He shuddered at the scenes playing in his mind.
Uryuu readjusted his lenses. He was never ever going to look at them the same way ever again.
XXX
Okay, fun's over. Come on, on your feet!
Ichigo, we just did it minutes ago! I'm still tired.
Well a few minutes ago, you were all about to pull off my hair and threatened to actually punish me so painfully that I'll beg you to stop if we didn't finish it on time!
Ichigo! Stop it! It hurts.
ICHIGO!
XXX
Outside, Uryuu visibly paled. The knuckles were clenched so tight that they appeared colourless. He was trained since young to obey a certain code of honour among men. He made it his point to be chivalrous and assist anyone, especially poor, defenseless women in distress.
Damn that Kurosaki and his libido!
And his inability to keep quiet!
A determined gleam entered his eyes. This was all Kurosaki's fault!
Quickly surmising the situation, he assumed the best plan of 'rescue' was to first break down the heavy oak doors in front of him.
Looking at the intimidating size of the door, he couldn't help but gulp. It would also probably take him a few hard throws before the door would even budge by an inch. And it was definitely going to leave stains on his clothes and bruises on him.
But for Rukia-san's sake, he steeled himself to be brave and stared the obstacle down.
Popping the knuckles and doing a light stretch, Uryuu took in a deep breath as he focused his attention on the looming task. Cradling the package protectively against his chest, he threw himself against the wooden door- slamming his full weight against it.
XXX
Now, Uryuu Ishida was by all means a practical man.
And upon his first decision to break the door down, there had to be at least tens of thousands of possibilities and outcomes going through his mind.
Among these carefully formulated plans and workings, he had not however, expected at first try to find the door unlock and slightly ajar.
So imagine his surprise when he found the doors swinging open unresistingly to his strong push-
And his embarrassment as he found himself lying prostrate on the wooden flooring with two pairs of eyes staring unabashedly at him.
XXX
"Ishida-san? What are you doing down there?" asked Rukia curiously.
The question effectively knocked him out of his embarrassment-induced state. Recovering to his senses, he immediately picked himself up, ready to save her from the clutches of evil itself, but of course that was before he saw the layers of newspapers and buckets filled with paint covering the floor tiles in the empty guestroom.
A ladder was propped up by the sides while the left side of the guestroom wall was coated with pink but the other side remained stark white- the original wall colour.
He glanced around him.
Unsurprisingly, all the furniture that used to belong in the guestroom were moved and spread out in the living room. To his right, there was a plain single bed with the nightstand beside it while the antique armoire was laid next to it.
He gulped and finally forced himself to look at the pair. He had fully-expected them to be frantically disentangling from each other and scrambling for abandoned clothing. But of course as with what had happened to his earlier 'deductions', instead of two individuals, naked as the day they were born scrambling for clothes, he was greeted by the sight of fully-clothed man and woman who wore additional white aprons that had dirty blotches of pink stain.
Kurosaki stood tall and surprised. His fingers were pinching or rather pulling Rukia-san's rosy cheeks. Both of them turned to stare at him- amazed and shocked.
Two and two made four.
Uryuu had immediately opened his mouth to speak out what he had assumed but no words, coherent or otherwise came out. He just stood there gaping, repeating the motion of opening his mouth, frowning, shaking his head and more frowning.
No words could be said, he realized without indirectly causing grief or discomfort to all three parties.
"Oi, four-eyes! Stop standing there with your mouth open! You look like a goldfish!"
Uryuu was just about to give a snappy retort when he saw Rukia-san turned and with a nasty scowl, kicked Kurosaki in the shins.
Rubbing his bruised shins, the brazen haired doctor grimaced before snarling. "What the fuck is your problem now, midget! What was that for?"
"You forgot to lock the door, you idiot!" she hissed as she glared hotly at her best friend.
"So?"
Rukia rolled her eyes in exasperation. "SO? So what if instead of Ishida-san, a burglar came in!"
"Che! I could take him down with just one karate-chop," answered Ichigo dismissively.
"Not if he's pointing a gun to your head!" she argued.
He scowled. "Well then, I'm sure Mr. Burglar would scare himself to death just from the sight of the goddamned ugly pink abomination called your wall before he could even pull the trigger."
"Pink," Rukia replied indignantly, stomping her feet, "is NOT ugly! It's Chappy's favourite colour!"
Ichigo scoffed. "Yeah, and the fact that he's about the gayest thing in the world next to your stick-in-the-ass brother, makes it all so reassuring."
"If I could just point out that-" interjected Uryuu hopefully-
"How dare you insult Nii-sama and Chappy! They're manlier than you would ever be!"
Ichigo snorted, amused by her comment. "By whose standards, midget! Yours?"
"Why you little-"
Snarling, the petite and lithe Rukia-san somehow managed to tackle a grown man twice her size onto the newspaper-covered floor and proceeded to straddle his hips. Uryuu adjusted his lenses. It was a good thing that she was wearing pants then because Rukia-san had her hands spread on the front of Kurosaki's chest and both pairs of gazes were interlocked.
Uryuu gave a dry cough. That looked way too much like the beginnings of passionate sex scenes in movies.
Of course instead of a sensual X-rated scene of porno-styled foreplay between two passionate lovers playing out before his eyes, Uryuu was greeted by the sight of the woman raining down tiny wrathful punches down on the straddled doctor.
A doctor who made little hesitations in expressing his displeasure.
"Get off of me, midget!"
"Don't call me midget!"
Standing by the sidelines, Uryuu couldn't help but stare at the interaction between the two friends, as they began to issue each other death threats and traded insults over a pink wall.
He was completely ignored by both of them!
He shook his head. He had originally wanted to point out the fact that La Belle offered a security tighter than Gitmo and the chances of a thief- much less a burglar breaking and entering was pretty much close to zero.
But-
Oh well. Never mind.
Kurosaki and Rukia-san were practically inches away from each other. Any normal pair of platonic friends as they claimed themselves to be would have noticed that and flinched due to the severe lack of personal space.
But apparently, the bespectacled doctor narrowly dodged a flying ball of crumpled newspaper as the two began arguing back and forth with each other, these two had no problem being so invasive and intrusive of each other's personal space.
He caught sight of yellow post-it notes and a pen lying on the coffee table. Creeping past the arguing couple, he made his way over. Uryuu calmly tore a post-it and left Rukia-san a message before sticking it on to the parcel. After that, he simply left the parcel on the table and made his way towards the door.
Sighing, the much-ignored psychiatrist shot another glance at the fighting pair before giving a wry smile as he shut the door properly and walked away. And as the door shut, he wondered exactly how long it would take for the pair to finally notice him.
He smirked.
Probably never. With luck, they won't even remember him showing on Rukia-san's doorstep and stumbling over his own words.
He nodded to himself. They definitely need to resolve the overwhelming sexual tension between them.
Soon.
Or they'll probably set themselves on fire from the intense emotions or worse-case scenario, suffocate to death from it. He paused, tapping his finger against his chin while he waited for the elevator. That wasn't such a bad idea. Maybe he should start a paper on them:
UST: How it affects an heiress, an idiot and the ones around them.
XXX
"PINK!"
"Burgundy!"
"PINK!"
"Mauve!"
"Damn it, stop arguing with me already!" snarled Rukia venomously. Her bundled fists showed no signs of retreating as she began to stage another full frontal attack on the enraged doctor trapped underneath her.
"We've already painted half of the room pink. You want to undo our efforts-" she checked the clock- "for the past six hours!"
Ichigo gritted his teeth together as he forced out his next sentence and at the same time fended himself from another incoming punch. "You think that's hard? I've been trying to get a point through that thick midget head of yours for the past six hours! How do you think I feel?"
Rukia scowled. "It's MY house. I can paint it any colour I want!"
Ichigo changed tactics, managing to grab hold of both her wrists and avoid her sharp clawing fingernails before answering.
"Well I'm the live-in tenant!"
She stilled her fists. "Excuse me?"
"You heard me," he gritted out as he held on to the wrists.
She proceeded to give him an incredulous glare before resuming the attacks. "That doesn't even make sense! I don't see your name on the property lease! Nor do I have one as a matter of fact!"
"Rukia," he said, "I practically live here. Not stick-in-the-ass Byakuya, not Renji! ME! I sleep here. I wake up and eat your food. There's a wardrobe here for my clothes. Heck, you even do my laundry and I have my own toothbrush here!"
"Well then, Kurosaki," Rukia spat out from the clenched teeth as she tried to free her wrists. "Maybe I should consider letting you pay me!"
He unwittingly loosened the tight hold when he saw the welling tears in her eyes. Guilt festered inside him.
"Rukia," he started. "I'm your best friend, not just a tenant! Doesn't that entitle me to at least some choice in choosing the wall colours?"
"NO!" she said forcefully as she wriggled and squirmed against him, rubbing herself against him unintentionally with her constant struggle to free her wrists. He scowled. It was bad enough that the air conditioner was out of commission for today and they had to do the painting without any cooling system, his best friend- the annoying little twerp she is now decided to aggravate his situation by practically sticking herself on to his sweaty skin.
And not to mention, her movements making several dangerously close calls to his crotch. He shut his eyes and counted backwards from 10, resisting the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose as he tried to make sense of the stupid ridiculous stirrings starting from the pit of his stomach and nether regions.
He growled menacingly, but she apparently paid no heed to his warning.
"Stop that, midget!"
Rukia's eyes flashed angrily. "Make me!"
That's it. Ichigo could take it no more from the pint-sized authoress as he glared at her.
"You know what, Rukia," he growled, "I am sick of this! This is a Saturday. We should be watching a movie, catching up with the others, working; not painting this goddamned ugly room in that fucking pink abomination!"
With that, he picked himself up from the newspaper-covered floor, releasing her wrists and ignored the almost non-existent weight of his best friend pressing against him, causing her to drop onto the floor as he rose to his feet.
Landing ungracefully on her butt, Rukia didn't even bother to disguise her underlying anger as she fumed from his unjust treatment of her.
"What kind of friend drops their best friend on the floor?" she muttered as she rubbed her sore wrists before turning to face Ichigo. "Anyway, you can't do that because you promised to help me paint the room. And according to my schedule, I'm only free on Saturday!"
He snapped. He didn't want to, didn't mean to; but the mention of the word 'schedule' triggered a deep, malicious outburst from him. Boiling rage burned him as the callous words came out with no forms of restrain and control.
"Fuck your schedule, Rukia! It's always your schedule these days! You can't call because you're so goddamn busy. You won't even pick up the phone after I called you and left over fucking 27 messages. You won't answer the bloody door when I stood outside with the take-outs because you aren't even home! On a Sunday! Rukia! You're always home on Sunday nights. And you know what else, Rukia! I'm fucking leaving!"
Ichigo left her standing with her mouth agape and body frozen from the heated outburst as he made his way to the door. Dainty fingers clenched and unclenched themselves as the words made their impact, indenting themselves in Rukia's heart and soul.
She recovered just as he was about to set his foot outside. Taking one shaky step in front of the other, she broke into a run as she speeded towards the door, managing to grab hold of Ichigo's sleeve before the door closed. He froze but didn't shake her off. She took it as a sign for her to continue.
She cast her head down, ashamed as she pulled harder at the sleeves. Tugging it childishly, she asked in a quiet voice. "Are you sulking?"
He growled, a deep rumble coming from his chest as he refused to meet her gaze. "No, I'm not!"
She chuckled at his response; while it may sound threatening and scary to others, to her, it simply proved to her that her best friend was being a big baby and throwing another one of his childish tantrums. God, he can be such a pain and a whiny baby, but well she supposed that's what friends; no, she corrected herself, that's what best friends are for!
And lately, she hadn't been a very good one. The raven-haired authoress concentrated her line of vision on the floor, biting her lips- afraid of pushing him too far before steeling her resolve and proceeded to pull harder at the sleeves, forcing him to step back into the condo while she silently shut the door behind him.
Lifting her head up, Rukia tilted her head high to get a better view of him. The evening sun highlighted his mop of neon orange hair, casting a golden sheen on his charismatic features. The most prominent feature being of course, his warm eyes that glimmered softly under the light.
She sighed.
He was so much taller than her that sometimes it was a wonder to herself how she managed to make him do her bidding. She curled her delicate digits around his callous ones and felt him flinch from the sudden contact- a sharp involuntary intake of breath as he did.
Her lips formed a thin line. To be perfectly honest, Rukia didn't like it any more than he did. Between them, intentional skin against skin contacts were sparse and few because every time they did touch, she herself felt a tingle, a rush of some unexplainable excitement running down her spine that burned- something so indefinable that it frightened her, but this time she didn't drop the gaze or the hold.
In a calm voice, she commanded him to look at her. He faced her gaze levelly.
She held on to his hand. Her cold hand melted against his warm palm, giving her the push to continue.
"I'm sorry I haven't been much of a friend lately. And I'm sorry. I guess I got pretty caught up in my work, being new and all at Meow!Meow!. I'm sorry, Ichigo."
He snorted, but she tactfully ignored it.
"I'm sorry that I was being such a jerk and ignoring you because my schedule. I know you would never ignore me unless of course you're on call or attending to some emergency." She paused, taking a deep breath before continuing.
"I promise that I'll call you at least once a day, bake you muffins at least once a month and-" she smirked playfully- "reply every single voice mail you left me. So next time you better think twice before leaving 27 voice mails, okay strawberry?"
He gave her a thin smirk and she returned it with her mega-watt grin.
"Does that mean that I'm forgiven?" she prompted.
He scoffed and instead of answering her, wrapped his arms around her slim waist as he pulled her into a hug. Her heart beat rapidly as she was lifted in the air by his arms. She gasped and unwittingly took in a strong whiff of cinnamon, coffee and sanitizers- something she had come to associate with Ichigo over the years.
She should know how sweaty they both were after spending so much time painting. And the last thing she needed was to get coated in someone else's sweat, but as of the moment she couldn't care less.
Rukia gave only a few seconds of hesitation before leaning back against him. Despite not being much of a physically affectionate person, she let the moment slide as she boldly rested her head on his shoulder and sighed contently.
His broad shoulders were really comforting and whenever she felt that the Kuchiki elders were draining her brain cells or that her work and writer's block started getting out of hand, she would find herself greeted by the sight of his shoulders. He's the shoulder for her to lean on, always.
Rukia shut her eyes, feeling as though time had frozen. She could stay here forever.
XXX
"Does this mean we get to paint the room in another colour?"
She rolled her eyes. Of course Ichigo being the idiot he is, just had to choose that exact moment to spoil the heartwarming scene by inserting a completely unneeded interjection.
The spell was shattered as she began to disentangle herself from his embrace, feeling slightly miffed about the sudden plunge in temperature as she made her way back into the empty room, closely followed by the lanky doctor.
"Don't you ever know when to give up?" she asked in a mildly annoyed tone as she grabbed a brush and began to ascend the ladder, balancing herself precariously on it.
Ichigo sniggered. Mimicking her actions, he grabbed both a bucket of pink paint and a discarded paintbrush on the floor. He was just about to dip the brush in the pink dye when he sudden remembered something, causing him to drop the brush onto the newspapers.
"Ishida!" he exclaimed suddenly, startling his elfin best friend to almost miss her steps.
Regaining her balance, she turned and asked sourly. "What about him?"
He frowned. A deep thoughtful look on his face was evident by his scrunched up eyebrows. "Wasn't he here just now?"
Her eyes widened. "He was?"
Hese's corner:
Edited.
Uryuu's note:
Rukia-san,
Included within the parcel is your dress. I hope that you will enjoy yourself thoroughly at the 'Kuchiki Corporate 175th Anniversary Party' next month. Since dress code is black tie optional, I think the dress will fit wonderfully. We should schedule an appointment soon to discuss the details of payment.
P.S. You should match the dress with the pearls and that red Gucci clutch you just bought.
Sincerely,
Uryuu Ishida
PPS. Chocolate chip cookies for those who guessed correctly what 'tight s-' is.
(Don't be naughty, you guys!)