Title: The Devil's Plaything: Extra! Kon Gaiden
Warnings: AU, het (IchiHime, lots of other pairings eventually), blood, guts, testosterone, ANGST... Kon.
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 (never) 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. Please sit a reasonable distance from your computer screen.
Author's Note: Thanks for the well-wishes, everyone! The car situation has been smoothed out and I'm the proud new owner of a Mini Cooper! I've been spending so much time on it that I've hardly been able to write except in small bursts! But here this is! A bonus chapter for getting 50 subscribers! I think after another three chapters or so, we'll have covered enough ground to look for another bonus chapter, so look forward to that, too!
"And don't make a mess while I'm gone..."
The small lion flipped the pages of his girly magazine. He knew his master had no idea where he'd gotten it, and it bugged him that he'd brought it into his room - "What if my dad finds this?! He'll never let me live it down!" - but somehow that just made the nearly-naked girls all that much sweeter.
"Yeah, yeah."
"Don't 'yeah, yeah' me! And stay quiet while I'm at school! If my dad or sisters catch you, we're screwed!"
Well, no, not exactly. But didn't Kon wish! He briefly thought of all the hotties Ichigo surrounded himself with - the two black-haired girls with the flat chests, the hot blonde with the J cups, and that ditzy redhead with the killer rack. If he were Ichigo, he'd be hitting it in three different directions every day! And a fourth on Sundays!
"Yeah, yeah."
If he were Ichigo...
"Just... Don't move until I come back. Alright?"
"Whatever you say, boss."
Kon flipped another page. The boring redhead he called his master stomped out of his bedroom, slamming the door behind him hard enough to rattle the pictures on the wall. Kon looked up a few moments later, a wicked gleam in his eyes.
If he were Ichigo...
Had Ichigo had any other familiar, they might have told him a few things about familiars. First and foremost being that most of them had humanoid forms. Some of them could even alter theirs at will; Kon was one of these familiars. He could take on the shape of any human or demon that he'd laid eyes on.
So it was no surprise that Kon had decided to take on Ichigo's form, really. He had lots of hot friends! One of them had to want to get freaky with him, right? He might've been the most boring demon Kon had ever met, and always had an ugly look on his face, but from all indications, that somehow attracted chicks. And if it attracted chicks, Kon wouldn't question it.
"Yosh!" Kon said to himself, preening at the mirror on Ichigo's wall, "This is my best idea ever! While the loser's away, the cat will play!" He was a spitting replica of the red-haired boy, right down to the messy hair and school uniform. Best of all, Ichigo had left almost half an hour ago - sure, he might be late to school, but that gave him a better chance of accidentally running into a cute girl that was also late!
He gave himself one more good look over before heading out Ichigo's door and down the stairs. He'd have to avoid his family, but that would be a piece of cake, wouldn't it? Ichigo had said they were all human - Kon figured his dead mother was probably the demon out of the bunch - so there was no worry they'd detect him, right?
"BANZAI!"
Kon was disabused of that notion rather violently as both of Isshin's feet met his face, sending him rolling first up, then down the stairs. He landed in a crumpled heap at the bottom. Kon thanked his lucky stars he was a familiar; if he had been a normal human, or even a demon, he might've broken something important! As it was, he sprung readily to his feet, fist raised for a confrontation.
"OI!" he yelled, not even bothering to conceal his temper, "What the hell was that for?! I was on the stairs! What would you have done if that had really hurt me?!" Isshin scratched his cheek and looked unconcerned.
"Well, I am a doctor," he said with a shrug, coming down the stairs towards his 'son', "I think the more important question, though, is why you're not on your way to school! You know the penalty for playing hooky, young man!" Kon inwardly cringed as Isshin cracked his knuckles. This wasn't going as planned at all.
"I wasn't playing hooky!" he quickly amended, hiding behind his hands, "I was... I had a stomachache!" Isshin stopped moving forwards and looked as though he was thinking for a moment. Then, as if he'd been hit with a brilliant idea, his face lightened and he began moving forward again.
"Oh, I get it," he said, moving past Kon and grabbing him by his shirt to drag him towards one of the treatment rooms, "You're constipated! Don't worry, son! I've got just the thing for you!"
"That stupid old man..."
Kon clutched miserably at his stomach as he trudged down the sidewalk to school. Luckily he was running behind the people that normally saw Ichigo, because no one bothered talking to him or even acknowledging his presence. Good thing, too; he felt as though he'd eaten a live octopus. The castor oil Isshin had given him tasted horrible and felt even worse going down. And once it reached his stomach, it had only gotten worse from there.
The only up side to this was that he was almost to school. He hadn't missed the bell yet, as there were still tons of cute girls milling about the schoolyard. The sight of them perked him up at once; his stomach could wait - right now, there were girls that needed his attention!
As he approached them, though, Kon began to notice something weird. Whichever direction he stepped in, the girls would step aside as though they'd been repelled by a magnet. He even tried walking towards two or three different groups! They all did the same thing - for every step he took forward, they'd take two back!
'Don't tell me,' Kon thought, irritated, 'I bet all these girls like Ichigo as much as I do!' Damn it all, that stupid boss of his! Of course he'd waste whatever looks nature had given him and scare all the girls away from him! How annoying!
"Ichigo, are you not going in?"
Kon turned around and came face-to-face with the petite black-haired goddess he'd met at Wrath House just the day before. And she was talking to him! What luck!
"R-Rukia!" He was fairly sure that was her name, anyway. Time to lay it on thick. "Rukia, I missed you! Give me a hug!"
Before he could wrap his arms around the startled girl in front of him, however, a large shadow fell over him. Kon blinked and looked up. And when he did, his stomach flipped at what he saw.
It was the scariest damn demon he'd ever seen in his life. Even though he had an inhibitor on, Kon could tell that's what it was. He had hair and eyes the color of blood, and those eyes were glowing like embers. The jagged black tattoos covering his eyebrows and upper arms only made Kon want to run that much more.
"Why don't you get a hug from me?" Renji growled, cracking his knuckles. Kon froze in horror, and a second later Renji's fist hit his jaw like a ton of bricks. He was driven hard into the pavement of the schoolyard and left there to twitch as Renji took Rukia's hand and stomped off. As they left, Kon was vaguely aware of the stares he was getting from everyone in the courtyard.
"I thought you hurt your hands from all those toilets Nii-sama made you scrub?" Kon heard her ask earnestly as Renji led her off to class.
"That was just my fingers and... Dammit, Rukia! I don't want to talk about that!"
"You are touching me with them!"
Kon vaguely felt a pool of blood form beneath his nose. He barely cared as he heard the bell chime and Renji stalked off to class with Rukia in tow.
"Stupid baboon! Just who does he think he is?!"
Kon gingerly twisted another piece of bathroom tissue and jammed it into his bleeding nose. As soon as he peeled himself off the courtyard pavement, he'd run towards the first bathroom he could find in the building. And naturally, it had some weird character he couldn't read on the door, which just figured with his luck.
So there he sat, angrily nursing a bleeding nose and a bubbling stomach inside one of the stalls, thankful for the privacy. Once his stupid nose stopped bleeding, he'd go out and find a girl that wouldn't run away and didn't have some crazed ape ready to punch him out for looking at her sideways.
As he propped his chin on his fists and his elbows dug into his knees, Kon heard the bathroom door open and a pair of footsteps pitter-patter softly into the room. And as he heard a pair of female voices, Kon began to think his luck had really changed.
"Come on, Michiru-chan~!" a sing-song voice said, "It'll be fun!"
"Chi-Chizuru-chan! It's the beginning of the school day! Can't it wait?"
"You know you're so cute that I can't wait! Besides, it's more fun if we might get caught!"
Kon's ears were wide open now, his eye pressed to the crack in the stall door. Sadly, all he could see was a pair of school skirts and some legs. He didn't need to see to know what was going on, though.
"I-I guess... But we should hurry, or Ochi-sensei might come looking for us!"
"Don't worry - I'm Karakura High's Number One Speed Queen!"
Kon couldn't help but blush. He'd stumbled onto heaven in a school bathroom. All those kinky scenes from the magazines he'd read came rushing back to him in a gush. He was so engrossed in imagining what might be happening on the other side of the bathroom stall that he didn't notice when it started to swing open. In fact, he didn't notice until it swung away from his face and he was staring right at a bespectacled redhead putting mascara on a shorter, plumper girl. They both stared openly at him for a beat before...
"AHHHHHHHHH! K-K-Kurosaki Ichigo!"
"Don't worry, Michiru-chan. I know how to handle perverts."
The redhead with the glasses stepped towards him, her eyes glowing with an inhuman light. Her knuckles cracked with evil intent.
"First Hime-chan, now this?" she said, towering over Kon in a way that made the blood rush from his face, "Hime-chan might be too good-natured to see you for what you really are, Kurosaki Ichigo, but I'm not as nice as she is! I won't allow you to pluck the delicate blooms of this school any longer! This bathroom is girls only!"
Those two words had never sounded more terrifying to Kon.
"Goddamn, what is wrong with this school?! These humans are more violent than demons!"
Kon made his way down the school hallway, clutching his nose and trying his damnedest to avoid any more of Ichigo's crazy classmates. At this rate, he just wanted to get off the school grounds before another of them beat the hell out of him. He could go somewhere fun until school let out and then try to see if he couldn't score one of his hotter classmates.
But first he had to get out of the hallway. It was already hard enough, considering he had to lean on the walls for support until those bones in his ankle snapped back into place. He silently prayed he wouldn't run into any more crazy students, or worse - a teacher.
Releasing his nose and sniffing gingerly, he found that it was no longer bleeding. Good, that was one less thing to worry about. And as soon as that ankle popped back into alignment, he'd be as good as new!
Admittedly, Kon was a bit distracted, because he suddenly found his face smacking up against something soft and yielding. He looked down, but hardly believed what he saw; so just to test and see if his luck was really about to turn around, he brought his hands up and gave them a squeeze. Yep, sure enough, there was a magnificent pair of breasts underneath a taut school shirt. Kon grinned happily as he gave them another squeeze for good measure.
"Wow, nice and firm," he mumbled, his cheeks lighting up. Surely the demon king had blessed him with this amazing pair of breasts!
"Thank you, Kurosaki-san," a melodious monotone droned at him from above, "But I was under the impression that you would have preferred Inoue-san's breasts." Kon looked up to see the passive face of a green-eyed beauty, her long, black hair braided down her back. She cocked her head to give him a quizzical look.
"That's funny, Nemu-san," a masculine voice said from behind Kon, accompanied by the small 'clink' of a pair of glasses, "I was under that exact same impression." Something about the tone of the black-haired boy's voice suddenly made Kon feel very, very cold.
"Stupid... crazy... demented... insane..."
Kon mumbled to himself as he limped down the sidewalk, leaning heavily on a chest-high wall for support. He'd finally escaped the madhouse Ichigo called his school, only to wander the streets aimlessly. He didn't dare go back to Ichigo's house until school let out - there was no telling what his psychotic father would do if he thought he was cutting classes - and he didn't know any good places to hang out in this town yet.
'That loser probably doesn't even go anywhere after school,' he thought ruefully, cursing his luck once again. He didn't expect Ichigo to take him anywhere with him when he got out of school. The years stretched dully in front of his face, a boring life cooped up in some dull clod's house with just a sock drawer for company...
"Augh! I can't think about that! It's too depressing! I have to..."
Kon trailed off as he looked up and noticed the gate in front of which he'd wandered. The cast iron grating, the starkly manicured lawn... Well, at least they'd welcome him at Wrath House, right?
"Kira, Kira! Have a drink with me!"
"Rangiku-san, it's only half past noon..."
"That's even more reason - we're getting started late!"
Kira sighed, placing the paperwork he'd just completed into the outbox on his desk. As Lieutenant of Wrath House, Rangiku should have had just as much paperwork as him, if not more. But somehow hers always got lost, stained, spindled, mutilated, or shoved into couch cushions. Kira was almost always the one to fix the missing paperwork, but it was usually quite a task. Today was no exception.
"Maybe later," he said wearily, "I'm very busy right now, especially with filing the forms for the two new recruits. I have to send forms to the Immigration Board for the Mexican one, too, since they didn't realize he was half-demon, so..." Kira could tell that Rangiku's attention was wandering as he spoke, so he had to act quickly.
"Why don't you ask Hisagi-san if he's not too busy?" Rangiku's face lit up like a firecracker.
"Ah! That's a great idea, Kira!" she said with a wide, disarming grin. She pushed herself off Kira's office chair and traipsed towards the door of his office, cupping a hand over her mouth as she went. Sometimes Kira really could see what other guys saw in Rangiku; even though she was irresponsible and flaky, she really did have a sweet, open disposition most of the time.
"Shuuhei! Shuuhei! Hey, Shuuhei, let's go out for drinks!"
And then she would open her mouth and Kira would remember why he personally could never fall for her.
Instead of leaving his office, though, she stopped half-way to the doorway and looked at something just beyond. Curious, Kira craned his neck to look around her willowy frame. Coming towards Rangiku through the door was that new recruit, Kurosaki Ichigo.
No, not Ichigo, Kira realized, crooking an eyebrow.
"Nee-san! How I've missed you!"
He seemed to be launching himself right towards Rangiku's ample cleavage, her long black dress leaving it on full display. Faster than Kira could see, Rangiku walloped the boy on the head, sending him sprawling to the floor. She placed a foot on his back and leaned into it, giving him a quizzical look.
"I thought I told you to bring Orihime-chan with you when you came back," the leggy blonde said, stepping squarely into the middle of his back with both feet. The boy groaned and Kira almost thought he heard a sob.
"She's in class!" he explained quickly, looking up at Rangiku with watery eyes, "I had to come here because I kept getting beaten! Have some pity, Nee-san!" Rangiku smushed his head against the floor with her foot.
"I don't have any pity for weak little boys that let their human schoolmates bully them," she said, placing her hands on her hips as she bent over to look at him, "And for smelly boys who don't bring me their cute, non-smelly girlfriends to talk to when they come over."
As she was lecturing him, a scarred, tattooed figure filled the doorway, a curious look on his face. Kira could swear he heard a muffled sob as Rangiku looked over to the doorway to greet their sempai.
"Shuuhei!" she said cheerily, hopping off the broken boy beneath her and grabbing the confused, taller man by his bare arm, "Let's go!" Kira noted the light blush spreading across his friend's face as Rangiku began to lead him away.
"Go where, exactly?" he asked, not exactly skeptically. This didn't keep Rangiku from pulling him out of the room.
"Out!" she chirped happily, "We're going to have a long lunch! A long, liquid lunch! Your treat!" Kira sighed as he watched his friend's face light up. Well, he did suppose that the Master-At-Arms had far less paperwork than a Yeoman. Presently, the two left him alone with the boy who was still twitching in the floor.
"Does your master know you're here?" he asked, looking over the edge of his desk at the redhead currently sprawled across his office carpet.
"I don't know what you're talking about," he mumbled almost unintelligibly, apparently unable to pick his head up off the floor.
"You do realize that most of us can sense that you're not Kurosaki-san, right?" Kira asked, casting him a dubious look. All this elicited was another groan.
Once again, Kon found himself walking the streets aimlessly. He was headed vaguely in the direction of Ichigo's house now, most of his wounds, scrapes, and bruises healed. That couldn't help his countenance, though; he felt thoroughly beaten, trounced by the injustices of the world.
He had taken on a decent-looking form. His voice sounded nice enough. He had smiled! He even smelled good! So then why had every girl he'd laid eyes on today either run away from him or beaten him within an inch of his life? What rotten luck!
Kon was so busy cursing his crappy luck that he paid no mind to where he was kicking rocks as he scuffed his feet along the sidewalk. In fact, he was kicking them solely to relieve his frustration. He got some good momentum with one rock in particular, which sailed straight over the sidewalk before bouncing off something black, soft, and yielding.
"Do you mind?" a deep voice floated up from the ground to Kon's ears.
The familiar looked down to see a sleek black cat licking one graceful paw and looking up at him as though it was regarding a pile of refuse. Kon's eyes narrowed as he looked over what was clearly another familiar.
"Beat it, fleabag," he grumbled, rearing back to launch a kick towards the cat, "I'm not interested in shrimpy familiars like you." The cat seemed to grin.
"Shrimpy?" it asked, the corner of its yellow eyes twitching, "And I'll have you know, I take good care not to catch fleas." Kon adopted a look quite similar to his own master.
"Well, take your fleas someplace else anyway!" he yelled, no longer caring if anyone saw or heard him arguing with what appeared to be a normal feline, "You're interrupting my walk home, asshole!" And with that, he sprang forward with his leg and launched an impressive kick at the offending cat.
Except that when his kick landed, the cat had vanished in a large puff of smoke. Instead of connecting with a small black cat, his leg was now being held at the ankle by a smirking black-haired woman with dark skin, long hair, and yellow eyes. Horror fought with curiosity as Kon noticed that this familiar was also completely naked. Under any other circumstances, he might consider this his lucky day. But he knew that wasn't going to be the case.
"Asshole, huh?" she said, her voice now perfectly feminine, "That's no way to talk to a lady." The dark-skinned familiar gave Kon's leg a sharp twist, causing pain to shoot straight up his leg and into his spine. There was a sickening snapping sound to accompany it, to make matters even worse.
"Maybe I should teach you some manners, young man," she continued with a toothy, sinister grin.
It was official. This was the worst day of Kon's life.
Granted, it was only his first full day outside of the infernal realms and his first full day as Kurosaki Ichigo's familiar. But already he wanted to throw in the towel. This human world was simply too harsh and unforgiving for a gentle soul such as he. Maybe he could ask the white-haired kid for a reassignment? Maybe he could beg and they'd take him back through the portal. He'd wait a little longer if it meant the chance to live in a place that wasn't hell on earth.
With these morose thoughts in mind, Kon trudged down the street towards his current home. His battered body was already well on its way to healing, but that meant nothing against his bruised and battered spirit. He was so disillusioned with women and the human world in general that he thought he might never recover.
So it really was a stroke of luck that he collided with what - with who - he did.
By that point, he'd even lost the will to be angry. Instead, Kon bounced backwards and landed flat on his back on the sidewalk. He no longer cared. If he just lay there, whoever it was couldn't accuse him of being a pervert, right? Maybe if he pretended to be dead, they'd leave him alone?
"Kurosaki-kun?"
Kon looked up to see a girl - no, a goddess - staring down at him. Her long auburn hair was framed with a halo of golden afternoon light, casting shadows over her sweet face. And those glorious breasts were dangling just in front of him, like ripe fruit waiting to be plucked. And he would have reached up and done just that, except that she spoke again.
"No, you're not him," Orihime said, blinking as she examined him closely, "You're... Kon-kun?" He looked over to see her sitting back on her knees, staring at him quizzically.
"Yes, I--" Kon said with a smile before realizing he really shouldn't be telling her he was an impostor. He couldn't help it, though; just her calling him by his name was enough to make him deliriously happy. Not only was a beautiful girl talking to him and smiling at him, she also wasn't trying to beat the tar out of him. That last part was very important in any relationship, Kon reasoned.
Before he could say anything else, though, a dome of golden light surrounded him. Orihime looked started for a moment, her hairpins twinkling with the new light. She then started looking left and right to see if anyone else was watching.
"Shh," she said seriously, bringing a finger to her lips, "Don't tell anyone, okay?"
Kon could only watch in stunned silence. As he lay beneath the light, his aches and pains vanished, the visible wounds vanishing along with them. And after a few minutes, he felt good as new. As he lifted a hand to his face and made and unmade a fist, the light vanished, zipping back to Orihime's hairpins.
"How did you do that?" he asked, stunned. This was definitely some new type of demon magic.
Orihime rubbed the back of her head, laughing nervously as she shrugged. Oh well, it wasn't as if it really mattered to him anyway. He was way more concerned with the rest of her body than with her hairpins, anyway.
"Umm, I don't really know," she said simply, smiling sheepishly, "But please don't let on like you know. Kurosaki-kun will worry if he knows that you know, too."
It was then that the wheels in Kon's mind started turning. Orihime definitely wasn't human; what she was wearing had to be a special kind of limiter like the demons he'd seen so far had. What confounded him was that she felt completely human; not like a demon with a limiter on, but like a human. No, not even that. In all honesty, he realized she felt like something just slightly different; like a human, but better.
Beyond that, Kon felt a pang of jealousy. This girl had taken his boss, that good-for-nothing, weak, scowling loser, into her confidence. It was painfully obvious just by looking at him that Ichigo was smitten with this girl, but it was galling to find out that she was just as crazy about him.
But then Kon realized that she'd also let him see her secret, too. So it wasn't just Ichigo's and her secret anymore - he was in on it, too! A surge of satisfaction swelled within his breast as a grin split his face. Take that, Ichigo!
"Don't worry, milady," he said, putting on his best serious face as he looked up at her from the ground, "Your secret is safe with me!" Orihime giggled in a way that made Kon want to melt into a tiny little puddle.
"Alright, here," she said, extending her hand to help him up, "I'll walk back to Kurosaki-kun's place with you." As Kon rose from the ground, he didn't consider that it might not be the brightest idea to walk back to Ichigo's place hand-in-hand with Orihime. In fact, he was too busy being elated at his change in luck to think about much outside of the warmth of Orihime's hand and the way her hair smelled like grapefruit and soap.
So really, it should've come as no surprise to anyone, Kon least of all, that the first thing he'd see upon approaching the front glass door of the Kurosaki household would be Ichigo's furious face staring at him from the other side of the glass. Ichigo's furious... bruised... bloodied face.
Before Kon could run, speak, or even attempt to hide, Ichigo was through the door and had him by the collar, shaking him violently over Orihime's protests.
"Do you have any idea what I had to put up with today because of you?!" he ground out between clenched teeth, "Were you peeping in the girls' bathroom?! Looking like me?! Are you insane?!" All the while, Orihime was tugging at Ichigo, trying to get him to release Kon - or at least to get him to stop shaking him so hard.
"Kurosaki-kun!" Orihime pleaded, "Please don't hurt him! He was already hurt when I found him!" He turned to look at Orihime, some of his anger draining just from the sound of her voice.
"But he--" Ichigo protested, finding his resolve cracking under Orihime's plaintive stare. "Oh fine," he huffed finally, no longer shaking his prisoner, "You. House. Now." With that, he released Kon - probably harder than he absolutely had to - and stalked behind him towards the door. As soon as the familiar was through it and heading towards his bedroom, Ichigo turned back to look at Orihime, who was giving him a concerned look.
"He didn't bother you, did he?" Ichigo asked softly, not meeting her eyes. Orihime blinked once before shaking her head and smiling softly.
"No," she said, matching his tone of voice and giving him a faint smile as well, "Please don't be hard on him, Kurosaki-kun. I think he just wanted to get out." Ichigo suppressed a snort as he scratched the back of his head.
"He could've done it without impersonating me," he grumbled, "Now everyone at school thinks I'm a crazy pervert." Orihime gave him a puzzled look.
"I don't think you're a... you know," she said with a small blush. Ichigo raised an eyebrow as he noticed Orihime studying her hands in great detail. "But... Umm... You're hurt, so..."
"Yeah, Honshou did a number on me," Ichigo grumbled, ruffling his hair with his hand, "And it's not like it'd be fair to fight her back, either." Orihime looked up at him with watery, honey-colored eyes, causing Ichigo to wish he hadn't said anything.
"Please go inside, okay?" she said, "If we stand out here much longer, I might start healing you without meaning to..."
Kon watched with a sigh as the two teenagers disappeared back into the house. He was sitting in Ichigo's bedroom window, already back in his familiar form. He slid down the sill, flopping down onto the bed.
This was it. As soon as Ichigo got back, he was going to get it. He'd heard of masters who killed their familiars for less than he'd done today. And even if he didn't kill him, he was probably going to beat the stuffing out of him; Ichigo was a Wraith, after all. And if he didn't do that, he might even send him back to the nether realms and just get a new familiar. The perfect end to the perfect day, really.
These depressing thoughts swirled through Kon's head like a thick, dark fog, causing him to sigh until he heard the door downstairs shut and footsteps on the stairs leading up to Ichigo's room. From the sound of the footfalls, he could tell it was him. Well, here it was. This was the end.
A second later, the door swung inward with a sharp bang, revealing a freshly-healed Ichigo, scowl firmly in place. Much to Kon's surprise, though, the redhead ignored him, stomped over to his desk, and flopped into the chair. He didn't even make eye contact. Kon sat up, half in curiosity and half in indignation. He'd just gotten him beaten up by a girl at school, wasn't he even going to say anything?
"Oi!" Kon exclaimed, waving one paw, "Don't just ignore me! Aren't you going to punish me? Hit me? Yell at me? Anything?" Ichigo turned back in his chair, draping one arm over the back, to look at Kon with a bored, irritated expression.
"Why, do you want me to?" he snorted, turning back to his desk to start his schoolwork, "Guess that explains what you were doing today." Kon jumped up to his hind legs, aggravated.
"Not by you," Kon replied, his tone growing heated, "But if you're gonna do it, get it over with! I'm not afraid of you!" Ichigo didn't even turn to look at him as he rolled his eyes.
"I promised Inoue I wouldn't hurt you," he grumbled as he opened one of his schoolbooks, "So just sit there and shut up while I do my homework."
Kon fell silent, stunned, and simply plopped down onto his bottom. The bedspread beneath him rustled as he sat quietly, staring at his new master. He wasn't going to hurt him? Kon felt something stir within him; something close to grudging respect. Goodness knew his new master wasn't that smart or strong or good-looking. But there was something about him that Kon knew was different.
Maybe working for Kurosaki Ichigo wouldn't be so bad after all.
