Title: The Devil's Plaything, Chapter 2 - Contact
Warnings: AU, het (IchiHime, lots of other pairings eventually), blood, guts, testosterone, ANGST
Disclaimer: These characters belong to a lot of Japanese people, namely people like Tite Kubo and Shonen Jump. You'll notice how none of those are me. This will probably be updated weekly, until I eventually drop it like every other project ever. Not responsible for epileptic seizures or allergic reactions. May contain eye-and-brain-bleeding levels of radioactive ANGST and/or peanut products (really, in this chapter!). Please sit a reasonable distance from your computer screen.


The handle of the door jiggled once. Then twice. Then it finally swung open, as if kicked, hitting the wall behind it with a loud bang.

Ichigo frantically looked around his family's dimly-lit living room. No father, no sisters; his first instinctual thought was 'Good'. Then his second thought was that no, it was not good, and that he needed his family's help to take care of the girl who was currently bleeding in his arms. He could save the kicking himself for later, though; right now, Inoue needed help.

For her part, Orihime had been completely still on the way home, at least as far as Ichigo could tell. His mind had stayed preoccupied with fighting the weird urges he'd had ever since that fight. Part of him, though, was worried that she might be concussed, or worse. If moving her had injured her further, he believed he might just hate himself forever. Before he could argue with himself any longer, though, a set of footsteps pounded towards him.

"I-CHI-GO!" a deep voice boomed, causing the boy to crouch instinctively as a large arm sailed above his head. "You're late! You know the penalt- Eh?" Ichigo's father, Isshin, stopped mid-clothesline, and looked down at his son. He was glaring up at the older man through blood-flecked hair. In fact, most of his body had blood caked on it. His school shirt was ruined completely beyond salvation between the blood and the gashes, and it was fairly clear that he had some deep cuts on his upper arm and back. All in all, Ichigo looked like he'd just been dragged out of hell screaming.

It was then that Isshin saw what he held in his arms. The girl looked worse than his son, especially considering that she wasn't conscious at the moment. That was probably a good thing, too, he mused, taking in all the blood that had left the gashes on her throat. As he took in her wounds, a glimmer of recognition flitted across his face. A hand instinctively rose to his nose; the scent of her blood was quickly filling the room. This was incredibly bad.

"Ichigo," he started to reach for the girl but stopped short when he saw his son's expression. The teenager's eyes flashed as his lip curled - most likely involuntarily - to expose his teeth in a quiet snarl. It was a very clear warning: This is mine, do not fuck with me. Yes, this was very bad.

"Karin! Yuzu!" Isshin yelled, changing tactics as he called for his daughters, "Prep the treatment room! Ichigo, meet them there." He watched his son's features relax from their earlier defensiveness to a state closer to confusion. He knew that whatever had happened, his sisters' presence would calm him. He also wasn't quite keen on leaving Ichigo alone with the injured girl in his obviously disoriented state. "Now! Get moving!" he barked, slipping easily into professional mode. When Ichigo still didn't move, he thumped him soundly on the back, breaking his stupor and causing him to run towards the treatment room in the back of the clinic.

Silently, Isshin took a deep breath. Whatever had just happened, his son was going to be in deep trouble, and it wouldn't be with him.


Karin had been the first to arrive, as her sister had been putting away the dinner dishes. She'd just prepared the examination table when Yuzu entered, drying her hands on a dish towel.

"What happened?" Yuzu asked, pulling a rolling cart over to her. She then opened the cabinet above the sink and pulling out clean towels and bandages, alcohol, swabs, a blood pressure cuff, and a stethoscope. She set the items on the cart and began pushing it towards the exam table.

"I think Ichi-nii brought someone in," Karin replied, her brows knitting together. Something about their father's tone had told her that something incredibly bad was going down.

Then, as if on cue, Ichigo entered the treatment room, nearly stumbling as he did so. Karin's jaw dropped at the girl he held in his arms as Yuzu ran around the cart to guide him to the table.

"Here! Put her down here!" the little blonde girl ordered. Ichigo complied reluctantly, his eyes looking slightly glazed. As dazed as he seemed to be, he was careful not to jostle his charge as he laid her down. As soon as Orihime's back hit the table, Yuzu bustled between the two bloody teenagers, applying a wet towel to the injured girl's neck. Ichigo let himself be pushed back a few feet as his sisters worked, still looking as though he were lost in a fog.

Karin watched her brother out of the corner of her eye while she wrapped the blood pressure cuff around the injured girl's arm. Aside from being obviously wounded, there was something else deeply wrong with him. They could wait to find out what that was, though; right now, they needed to concentrate on making sure the girl before them was going to be alright.

"Ichi-nii!" Yuzu finally broke the silence as Karin began pumping air into the blood pressure cuff. Ichigo's head snapped up as he heard his name, to see his blonde sister staring expectantly at him as she placed the stethoscope into her ears.

"What?" he asked numbly, not quite comprehending what she wanted.

"We have to take her shirt off so we can listen to her breathing!" Yuzu replied as though it were the most obvious thing in the world, "So you should go stand outside." Karin released the pressure on the cuff and counted out her blood pressure; it was just a bit low, but not abnormally so, which was a good sign. She briefly looked up to see her brother flush bright red before he began to stumble towards the door.

"While you're at it," Karin piped in, "Change your own clothes and bring back one of your shirts for her. I don't think either of ours will fit her." She smiled a bit as her brother sputtered before heading out the door of the room.

Finally alone with the injured girl, Karin grabbed an operating gown from one of the cabinets behind her as Yuzu began unbuttoning Orihime's shirt. She unfolded the paper shift with a flourish; meanwhile, Yuzu slipped the round metal probe between the redhead's large breasts

"She's not having trouble breathing," she said thoughtfully, plucking the earpieces out of her ears.

"Help me get her out of this shirt," Karin replied, pushing the edges of the blouse apart to expose the older girl's plain pink bra. Yuzu laid the stethoscope aside, then helped her sister pull the stained school shirt off Orihime's arms. In short order, they'd removed the blood-soaked garment and tied her loosely into the paper gown Karin had brought out.

As soon as the last string was tied on it, Yuzu turned back towards the door and cupped her hand around her mouth. "Daddy, you can come in now! We're all decent!" As if on cue, Isshin's head popped into view through the door frame. Stepping into the room, he cast a glance at the cart his daughters had prepared for him, nodding his approval.

"What are her vitals like?" he asked Karin, slipping on a pair of gloves.

"Her blood pressure's at about 80 over 55, pulse and breathing are normal," Karin replied automatically as she brought out a few rolls of bandages. Isshin, meanwhile, gingerly lifted the towels at her neck; there was plenty of blood, but it fortunately seemed to be slowing.

As he began sopping the blood from her neck with the towels, a glinting blue light caught his attention. Orihime was wearing only one hairpin, on the left side. He thought it was a bit odd that there was nothing on the other side, and following a hunch, quickly looked the girl over. Sure enough, her right hand was balled into a tight little fist at her side, clenched shut for dear life.

"Aha" he said softly, temporarily abandoning the bloody towels and reaching over to take her closed hand. As gently as he could, Isshin pried the curled fingers open, finally spying the prize he sought - a matching blue hairpin. He quickly slid it from her hand, allowing it to drop back down to her side when he was done. With a serious expression, he pinned the bangs on the right side of her head behind her ear with the pin.

"Shouldn't have taken that off," he said under his breath, too softly for Karin and Yuzu to hear as they bustled about, a crease forming between his eyebrows.


Upstairs, Ichigo had practically flown to his room as fast as his legs would carry him. He was still fighting the part of himself that wanted to allow no one to separate him from Inoue, but as he slammed the door behind him and slumped against it, his heart slowed and his thoughts eased. As he breathed slowly, steadily, the fog seemed to lift from his brain and he could think coherently again.

Once his father had patched Inoue up, he could work on answering some of the questions that swirled around his now-clear head. What the hell had happened in that alleyway? Was he actually one of them? And why in the world had he been thinking all those things about his classmate?

Looking back on it, he couldn't think of a single, logical reason that he'd have had such an animalistic reaction to Inoue; she was just a girl he knew from school, right? Sure, she was pretty - you'd have to be blind not to notice she was well-endowed - but so were a lot of his friends. They hadn't even talked to each other all that much; when they had, she'd been somewhat soft-spoken and prone to flights of fancy. Hell, it wasn't even like he was that interested in girls! He had his hands full already with settling fights with assholes that thought he was a punk because of his hair; he hadn't even had time to entertain the thought of dating.

'Then what the hell was that?' he thought, pushing himself off the door and moving to unbutton his ruined shirt. As he slid the last button loose and pulled at the sleeves, the back of the shirt stuck to the dried blood on his back. Wrinkling his nose and giving the fabric an extra tug, Ichigo winced as it pulled at his wounds.

The fact of the matter was, he reasoned, that he was a potential menace to the girl downstairs. He wasn't even sure he could trust himself around her anymore. Would he go nuts every time he saw her from now on? What if the next person to tear at her throat was him?

As if in answer to his thoughts, he raised an eyebrow as he noticed an odd stain on the front of his tattered shirt. "That's where Inoue..." he thought out loud, staring pointedly at the red mark left where, unbeknownst to Ichigo, Orihime had bled against him. He felt his willpower strain as he brought the shirt to his face and gingerly gave it a short sniff. It was the same overpowering, maddening scent that he'd first smelled in the alleyway and that had later filled the front room downstairs. It was her scent.

His pulse sped up as he felt that delicious fog encroach upon the edges of his consciousness. He fought the urge to bury his face in the ruined shirt and inhale deeply, to let desire overtake him again. Instead, Ichigo stared at the bloody fabric with a look of disgust and something bordering on fear etched on his face. Finally, he wadded the shirt into as small of a ball as he could get it, making sure that one particular blood stain was well inside the folds of fabric, and threw it with a frustrated roar towards the wastebasket by his desk.

As his heart rate declined back to normal, Ichigo realized that it was Inoue's blood - or rather, its scent - that was driving him mad. Why? Living in a clinic, he'd seen his fair share of blood; why was hers doing this to him? Or was it because of whatever had happened to him in that alley? The thought that he might react this way to all blood from now on was certainly chilling. Did demons drink it? Ichigo mentally slapped a palm to his forehead. He wasn't a demon. He and his whole family were human. There was simply no way.

Gritting his teeth, he left his chest bare until it could be bandaged, opting instead to snatch two t-shirts out of his chest of drawers. A slight blush rose to his cheeks as he silently wondered whether his shirts would fit across Inoue's chest. Then he mentally kicked himself for even worrying about it as he headed back out the door of his room, dreading having to face what was downstairs and feeling as though there was a lead weight in his stomach.


"And you say a gang did this?" Isshin asked incredulously, perhaps being a bit rougher with his son's wounds than was absolutely necessary.

"Yeah - fff!" Ichigo hissed as his father cleaned the gouges on his back with alcohol, hoping he'd never seen those kinds of wounds before. Of course, it was a long shot considering how many different kinds of cases they had on a regular basis, but it was worth the shot if he could keep his dad from asking any worse questions about what had happened.

"Did you just stand still while he cut you five times in the same spot?" Isshin retorted suspiciously. Ichigo knew he'd forgotten something. Crap.

"The... The guy had - sss! - he had a bagh nakh or something, I don't know!" He slouched forward, hoping his father was buying this.

"You didn't even see what they were fighting with?" came the indignant reply. "I thought I'd taught you better than that!" Ichigo looked up through his orange bangs; he thought his eyes might roll right out of his head at this point. Couldn't his dad just be happy he'd taken that errand on his way home and kept a girl from being maimed - or worse?

"No, it was dark," Ichigo snapped back, "Besides, something like this was - ngh! - just a matter of time! I've been getting in fights for years, I'm surprised it took 'em this long to bring weapons!" Isshin had just literally slapped some cold ointment onto the clean cuts, causing Ichigo to come abruptly to attention. Another second passed by before he felt bandages rolling across the rent flesh.

"Well, you two were lucky tonight," Isshin replied seriously, "Neither of your wounds were too deep, although Inoue's look much worse." Ichigo understood; his father was telling him to be more careful. A momentary pang of guilt ran through Ichigo's mind. What if she scarred? She didn't seem vain by any stretch of the imagination, but having a huge scar across her neck seemed like a damn shame.

"Yeah," he answered absentmindedly. And anyway, what was he going to say to her the next time he saw her? Don't talk, or else? Damn.

"More importantly..." Isshin kept his serious tone as he tightened his son's bandages, perhaps just a bit too tight, "Since when did you hang around with girls? You've been holding out on us, haven't you?" Ichigo's face turned nearly as red as his hair.

"What?" he sputtered indignantly, "It's not even like that! I was just walking home and I saw her! Besides, I've had Tatsuki over before!" This was all he needed; he had enough problems without his crackpot dad insinuating things!

"Oh, Masaki!" Isshin addressed his deceased wife, "Do you hear this? Our boy has finally found a cute girlfriend and he won't even tell his dear old dad about it! I could cry from the shame!" Before he could lament any more, though, Ichigo had elbowed him in the face with his injured arm.

"Looks like it's in good shape anyway," Ichigo muttered, rotating his arm at the shoulder and testing the bandages as he stood. After another second, he looked back at his father, who was gingerly rubbing his chin. "She awake yet?" he asked, his tone softening. Isshin nodded.

"She was a bit dizzy, but fine otherwise," Isshin noted, jerking a thumb back towards the treatment room, "Karin and Yuzu have been keeping her company since she woke up. She was asking about you." Ichigo nodded his understanding before trudging back towards the room Inoue had been placed in.

As soon as Isshin was sure his son was out of earshot, he pulled his cell phone out of his shirt pocket. A quick scroll through its phonebook, and a call was placed. After a few dull tones, the party on the other end picked up.

"Hey," Isshin started bluntly, "It's Kurosaki. ...Yeah, I think it's pretty bad. ...No, that won't be necessary. Let's just do what we already discussed..."

Meanwhile, down the hall, Isshin's conversation went unnoticed as Ichigo hovered just outside the treatment room. His heart was racing again. Even though he knew she was no longer bleeding, even though his father had done something to get the smell out of the house, he still couldn't help but worry that he was going to have a reaction to her like he'd had earlier.

Finally, he steeled his nerves and slid the door open. Sure enough, his sisters were sitting around the bed Orihime'd been moved to and were chatting the older girl up. Yuzu was holding dinner dishes and Orihime had one of her schoolbooks on her lap. Hearing the door slide open, though, the three girls fell silent and looked up at Ichigo.

"Hey," he started, bringing a hand to the back of his head and ruffling the hair there. Yuzu cast a knowing look at Karin before clearing her throat and standing.

"I should get started on these dishes," she said, turning back to her sister, "Karin, come help." Karin looked as if she was about to protest before giving her brother a curious glance; instead of arguing, she sighed in defeat.

"Yeah, sure," Karin replied, following Yuzu out of the room with a doubtful look back at Ichigo.

For his part, Ichigo studied the floor as they went. After the door snapped shut again, he pulled up a folding chair. The legs skidded across the tile floor as he straddled it, sitting backwards so he could fold his arms over the back rest. The metal was cold against his skin; he'd failed to pull his t-shirt on before coming back to see her.

'Maybe that's what she's staring at,' he thought, suddenly a bit self-conscious. The girl before him looked better than the last time he'd seen her. The wounds on her neck were swathed in bandages, for starters. She'd also at some point replaced her missing hairpin; her hair was now brushed and straight. For another thing, she was wearing one of his old t-shirts, the fabric across her chest pulled taut and distorting the design on the front. Ichigo silently kicked himself for even noticing that; of course it would look different on her, she wasn't built anything like him.

It was then that it hit him; he was able to think normally around Inoue again. There was no bloodlust, no madness, no weird thoughts. He hadn't even had a hint of his previous insanity since entering the room. Even now that he was alone with her, he still hadn't thought anything untoward or perverse. Ichigo smiled inwardly; that was one less thing to worry about.

"Umm," Inoue started, looking down at the book in her lap, "I just... wanted to thank you... for before." Ichigo's head snapped up as her faltering words pulled him back into the present. He'd almost forgotten about that. Suddenly, a new worry cropped up in his mind; what if she told someone? Worse, what if she thought he was dangerous or a monster?

"About that..." he replied, looking off at an incredibly interesting spot on the wall, "You're not... gonna tell anyone, are you?" Orihime's eyes widened as she looked at him.

"N-No! No, of course not!" she replied quickly, waving her hands in front of her chest, "I-I won't tell anyone that you're..." She trailed off, unable to finish her sentence. Secretly, Ichigo was just the tiniest bit grateful for that. "U-Umm... H-have you... Have you always..."

Ichigo shook his head. "No," he replied quietly, hoping his family wasn't eavesdropping, "It's never happened before. I don't even know what it was. It's not like anyone in my family is even..." He trailed off again, unable to finish the thought. Before he could stumble over the words some more, though, he noticed Inoue smiling at him.

"It's alright, Kurosaki-kun," she said softly, "I'll keep your secret." Her expression caused Ichigo to relax a bit. He favored Orihime with a tired smile.

"Thanks," he said softly, looking down at the floor again. He was sure his face was a bit warmer than it had been a moment ago.

"A-Aah!" Orihime suddenly exclaimed, startling him, "What happened to your shoulder?" Ichigo raised an eyebrow; had she just noticed it?

"It's nothing," he remarked through a wobbly, encouraging smile, "The guy that was roughing you up got me back there is all."

"Is it really alright?" Orihime asked, moving the book off her lap and looking as though she wanted to get up and inspect the wound. Ichigo straightened up at that.

"It's fine!" he insisted, the smile leaving his face, "Just stay there! You lost a lot of blood, you shouldn't be up yet!" Orihime looked a bit embarrassed at his admonition.

"Y-Your father said it only looked bad," she said sheepishly, looking up at Ichigo from beneath thick eyelashes.

"Why are you even doing homework right now?" he asked, rubbing the back of his head and looking away, "You should just take it easy. It's not like you have to go to school tomorrow like that."

"A-Actually, he said it would be okay if I wanted to," Orihime corrected him shyly, "And I don't want to miss any days." Ichigo thought he might be developing a headache.

"That old goat," he grumbled. Wasn't he worried about her at all? What if she got attacked again? What if she was anemic now?

"It's okay, Kurosaki-kun," Orihime interrupted his internal litany of complaints and held up her schoolbook. "Besides, it's an interesting lesson!" Ichigo noticed she was reading her history lesson.

"The Sengoku lesson?" he asked, raising an eyebrow at her enthusiastic nod. "Anyway, you should get some rest, especially if you're going to school in the morning." Ichigo unfolded himself from around the back of his metal chair and stood, moving toward the door.

"U-Umm..." Orihime haltingly spoke up, "Again, thank you, Kurosaki-kun. You were... really brave back there." Ichigo reached for the handle of the door, turning back to glance over his shoulder as he did. The girl in the bed was giving him an adoring look, one that made his face heat up. He quickly turned back to the door, hiding the blush that was beginning to stain his cheeks.

"It was nothing," he said quietly, his mouth beginning to feel dry, "I just couldn't stand to see someone get mauled like that." He didn't have to turn back to know that she was still smiling at him, regardless. "Night, Inoue," he said abruptly, needing to get out of the confines of the room.

"Goodnight, Kurosaki-kun," she replied softly, her voice warm. As the door clicked shut behind him, Orihime continued to smile to herself, a warm feeling spreading from her chest to her cheeks. Another few seconds passed before she huddled down into her borrowed t-shirt, inhaling Ichigo's scent from it. She giggled softly, feeling safe and warm as she snuggled into her borrowed bed.


Ichigo's night was anything but safe and warm. His wounds prevented him from sleeping on his back or his right side, which made tossing and turning inevitable. And when he had managed to eke out a bit of shut-eye, it had been intruded upon by strange and disturbing dreams. Worse yet, he couldn't remember exactly what had happened in them. Images of the demons from the alley, a great, white, horned demon, screams, claws, swords, blood, all mingled together to break him from his hard-won slumber on more than one occasion. One bizarre interlude had even featured Inoue, a popsicle, an alien ray gun, and a bag of talking peanuts giving him advice.

So it was that he ran his hand over his face, trying to clear the sleep from his eyes. He'd hardly said anything this morning, even to the eternally cheerful redhead at his side, as they'd walked to school through the spring chill. Not that she had minded; Inoue spent most of her time humming quietly to herself, for which Ichigo was fairly grateful. If she had said too much, he likely would've snapped at her, and that wasn't something he really wanted to do at the moment.

He silently eyed the collar of her shirt, wondering at Yuzu's handiwork. Somehow, his younger sister had gotten the bloodstains out of Orihime's school shirt, leaving it clean and pressed for their trip to school the next morning. 'I wonder if it's the same thing Dad used to get rid of the smell,' he thought, inwardly wincing at the memory of the scent of her blood. Whatever it was, it was a life-saver; the only indication of what had happened the night before was the gauze and bandages wrapped around her neck.

Before he was even aware of what was happening, they stood before the door of their homeroom. Ichigo hesitated as he reached for the knob, casting a wavering look at the girl beside him. Noticing his gaze, Orihime lifted her head to him and gave him a bit of a nervous laugh, rubbing the back of her head.

"Don't forget," he said softly, trying his best not to sound threatening or angry with her. Not that she seemed to mind; Orihime looked a little pink around the cheeks, but she didn't look scared or worried. In fact, she seemed to be looking intently at his face, a vague shadow of confusion crossing her eyes for a second before she spoke.

"R-Right," she answered, "It was just a mean dog and your father treated me. I didn't forget!" It wasn't that Ichigo was worried she'd forget; it was that he was worried she'd insert an alien abduction or sumo wrestlers or yakuza into the story somewhere. He gave her his closest approximation to a reassuring smile; admittedly, on Ichigo's face, it came off a bit strained and odd-looking, but he was trying and that was what mattered, right?

"Right," he assured her with a nod, "Our little secret." That worked like a charm. Orihime nodded, a determined look on her pink-stained face. Ichigo had no doubts that she wouldn't intentionally breathe a word of it to anyone; after all, she'd kept mum about it to his family.

Finally looking away from the girl beside him, he reached for the door to the classroom and slid it open. It was much the same scene that greeted him every morning before class; Mizuiro was texting with his cell phone, Keigo was flailing at him, Chad sat quietly at his desk, Tatsuki was chatting with Ryo, Michiru, and Chizuru. That changed rapidly, though. One by one, they turned to stare at the young man coming through the door with his book bag slung carelessly over his shoulder and the red-haired girl that emerged from behind him. He wondered briefly if he had something on his face before he noticed that they were attracting the attention of the entire class.

"Morning," he waved, ignoring their stares and heading towards his desk. Keigo and the girls rushed over to Orihime, fairly well ignoring Ichigo as they cooed over her bandages. He unpacked his homework and books for the morning, watching dispassionately as Chizuru and Keigo fought to comfort Orihime in her time of need. Ichigo vaguely felt that spark of defiance burn briefly in his chest at the spectacle before him; he flinched for a second, irritated that it had returned in some measure. Whatever that thing was, it had better not happen in class, or he was done for.

"Where were you last night, Orihime?" Tatsuki asked, pushing Chizuru back and favoring Keigo with a threatening look, "I dropped by your place, but you weren't home." Orihime laughed awkwardly at the question.

"I-It's okay, Tatsuki-chan!" she dismissed her friend's concern, "I got bit by a dog on my way home and Kurosaki-kun's father treated me! So I stayed the night there! I-it's no big deal!" Ichigo breathed a sigh of relief. 'Good girl, Inoue,' he mouthed silently. His relief was short-lived, however, as the scandalous news began to filter through his lively classmates' heads.

"A-At Ichigo's..." Keigo began, staring in disbelief at his spiky-haired friend before slamming his hands on the desk beside Ichigo. "How could you, Ichigo? I thought we had a pact of bachelorhood! I thought we were going to be single together until we both found girlfriends! But now you've betrayed me, and with the most beautiful girl in class! How could you leave me behind?" Ichigo glared darkly at his overly dramatic friend before knocking him away from his desk with a solid fist.

"Shut up, Keigo," he grumbled, calmly massaging the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger, "It's not even like that." A shadowy figure hovered over his right arm, which he'd leaned against his desk.

"You're right 'it's not like that'," the barely-recognizable voice ground out, glasses glinting threateningly above Ichigo's red hair as a pair of knuckles cracked from somewhere close to his ear, "Because if you ever did anything dishonorable to our Hime-chan..." Before the statement could come to its proper climax, however, Tatsuki's foot collided with the aggressive figure's head, sending Chizuru sprawling sideways into the floor.

"Oh, can it," Tatsuki ordered, arms akimbo, "Like Ichigo would dare. Besides, you're one to talk about being 'dishonorable'." Ichigo looked past Tatsuki to notice the rather awkward-looking girl she was defending. Orihime had a nervous smile stretched across her face as her hands waved in the air in front of her.

"Please don't fight, you two!" she pleaded as the morning bell rang. All conversation was suspended as the students made their way to their seats and the teacher entered.

Ichigo propped his cheek against his hand and sighed. That had gone about as well as one could hope for. As he looked toward the front of the classroom, however, he noticed something odd. More specifically, he noticed four sets of eyes on him for the briefest of moments... and none of them looked particularly friendly.

Before the others, the girl with the long, black hair turned away, her face dispassionate as always. Ichigo had a hard time remembering anything specific about her; she was always quiet, wasn't she? He wasn't even sure of her name. She and the black-haired young man beside her turned away, one after the other. What the hell was their problem? The bespectacled young man had given him an especially dirty look; it wasn't like he'd ever spoken to either of them! He didn't even know their names! He crossed his arms with a huff as he watched the backs of their heads.

He noticed the other pair of onlookers a brief moment later. If the first pair had been odd and unsettling, the look in the new red-haired student and his black-haired companion's eyes was absolutely chilling. They'd only transferred in a few weeks ago, right? Ichigo ran through his memories, trying to think if he'd done anything deserving of the combustible death glare each of them was currently giving him. It was so intense he almost thought for a second that the red-eyed boy across the class from him might burn a hole through him with his gaze.

Instead, the tattooed redhead pushed his goggles a bit further up on his forehead and turned around to face the chalkboard. His companion's icy stare lingered a second longer before she followed suit. Ichigo leaned back in his chair, glaring daggers at their backs. As the teacher started her lesson for the morning, he almost hoped the redhead started something after school. Apparently, he hadn't gotten the urge to pummel someone out of his system well enough last night.

And as it turned out, he didn't even have to wait that long. The uneventful morning drug slowly on until the lunch bell finally rang. Before Ichigo could even pack his books up for the break, a large, firm hand seized his good shoulder and held him fast. His eyes narrowed as he thought that it was a very good thing that the larger man hadn't grabbed his bad shoulder; he might've snapped completely at that. As it was, his left eye was starting to twitch uncontrollably.

"Hey, Kurosaki," the tattooed redhead said from between teeth clinched into a predatory smile, "Me and Rukia were going to have lunch on the roof. Why don't you join us?" The two standing above his desk didn't look like they would take no for an answer; by the same token, though, it wasn't like Ichigo was just going to let them order him around. If they thought they could, they were in for a very rude awakening.

"Sorry," Ichigo snorted, "I don't have time for midgets and punks with a tattoo fetish." His derisive tone seemed to only make them angrier. 'Good,' he thought, scowling up at the man whose grip had just tightened on his shoulder, 'I could use a little stress relief.' Before either could lunge at the other, though, a tiny foot slammed down into his, causing his eyes to bulge as pure pain shot up through his leg.

"Oh, but we insist, Kurosaki-san," the petite, black-haired girl said sweetly as she ground her foot into Ichigo's, "After all, today is such a lovely-" and she punctuated the word with more pressure from her heel, "-day that it would be a shame to spend it inside, would it not?"

Before he could protest, the girl stepped off his foot as her companion practically dragged Ichigo by his shoulder out of his seat. Before he knew it, they were herding him towards the door, the small girl waving to their classmates as they headed out.

Unbeknownst to Ichigo, two sets of concerned eyes watched him go; a pale amber pair peering from beneath auburn bangs, and a heavily-lidded brown pair watching from beneath messy brown curls.