A/N: Somebody asked where Rukia, Renji and so on were. I'll be totally honest and say that I only just decided that this fic takes place between the end of the Fullbringer arc and the beginning of the Thousand-year-bloody-war arc. I'll just say that the Bleach-wiki site is a godsend. Thank you for the wonderful reviews, and please keep them coming! Merry Xmas everyone!
What're you thinking?
Chapter 3
Ishida saw himself as being considerably good at strategy.
Strategy was about staying at least one step ahead of his opponents. It was maintaining his straight-A's so that he could keep his tertiary and employment options open; so that ultimately he could stop having to depend on his father.
It was also about getting to the bakery five minutes earlier than that lady who liked to test the softness of every loaf by squeezing them with her meaty hands.
Yes, strategy was everything.
So he didn't know what had come over him when he had taken a big mouthful of Ichigo's bait, like a family goldfish that had suddenly been thrown into the ocean.
Speaking his mind –it was a strange request, but probably not one inspired from ill intentions. Ishida didn't know Ichigo well enough, but at least he had known him for long enough to judge this.
He knew that his classmates often worried about him.
Orihime, with her small, sad smile; Chad, with his gentle but question-laden silence. Even Keigo, who often accused Ishida of 'wooing the girls by playing the intelligent bespectacled tsundere who hides an inner fragility with an icy demeanor '–whatever that meant.
And that was friendship. A banal but warm thing, like the dry coolness of tatami beneath his feet, or the stretched-out sweater found at the back of his wardrobe when he hadn't brought in the laundry in time.
He was sometimes afraid that it would unexpectedly turn around, sink its teeth into his ankle and drag him to the floor.
Thus no one could blame him for being on his guard when Ichigo had almost forced friendship onto him like a one-man game of dodge-ball.
He was too busy avoiding those dead-accurate throws to do any better than crude retaliations that merely glanced off his adversary.
Well, Kurosaki might be right –all he was good at were definitions, cryptic language and analogies.
But when the zanpakuto had pierced clean through him, Ishida could find no metaphor as he sat there, looking at that thing-that-wasn't-Ichigo and thinking,
I didn't expect it to hurt so much.
Ishida sat back and nodded in satisfaction at his handiwork.
Those sewing magazines, insisting that keyhole buttonholes were usually done by machine due to their intricacy, obviously did not know what amazing things a Quincy could do with his bare hands.
He usually devoted lunchtimes to flipping through new editions of Cucito, but yesterday he had instead spent half of the day being chased around the school by a definitely insane substitute shinigami.
If the guy spent the same amount of effort in tracking down hollows, then he wouldn't have had to make a fool of himself during math class.
What was worse, Ichigo made them both five minutes late for Chemistry class, and after school Keigo had given them a puppy-left-out-in-the-rain look and embarrassingly wailed, "you two are gonna walk home together next, aren't you!?"
And walk home together they did.
Ichigo's question had first scorched him like a heated blade.
He was mad –of course he would be.
So he was taken back and utterly perplexed when he had not been enraged by Ichigo's simple, spontaneous words.
Instead Ishida had felt a small amount of relief, as if the weight on his shoulders had slightly dissipated –even though he did not understand completely what those words meant to him.
Judging by Ichigo's expression, neither did he.
But today, Ichigo had not barraged him with questions. He had kept his distance, although Ishida would often feel his eyes on him. At one stage Keigo had demanded to know why Ichigo had preferred the company of 'tsundere-chan' (which made even Ishida want to punch him) to Keigo himself. As he mumbled an excuse Ichigo had unintentionally caught Ishida's eyes, and had looked away as if struck.
As Ishida pierced the needle back into the pin cushion with a sigh, his phone began to demand for attention in a swelling arpeggio.
He picked up the receiver and said, "Hello?"
"Hey Ishida. It's me."
Ishida started. "Kurosaki?"
"Was I interrupting something?"
"Not particularly, no. Why are you calling me all of a sudden?"
"Uh, I… nothing. Maybe I should hang up for now if you –
"Don't be daft. Just say what you have to say."
There was a pause."Have you eaten yet?"
Ishida blinked, momentarily at a loss for words.
"No I haven't –why?"
"Uh… I was going to ask you… if you wanted to come over for dinner?"
"Why…" Ishida quickly corrected himself. "No. Thank you, but I decline."
"My sister's a damn good cook, you know."
"I don't doubt it, but –
"We could do homework together, maybe?"
"I finished mine half an hour ago."
"What, all of it?"
"Kurosaki, who do you think you're talking to?"
"Uh, right, my bad. Well, let's study together, yeah?"
"As in a test of my patience and your endurance? Or an opportunity to be dazzled by the sheer brilliance of your intellect?"
The silence on the other side of the line made Ishida feel a little guilty and he added, "Anyway, your sister will have done the groceries already. I don't want to trouble her."
He could almost hear the grin in Ichigo's voice as he replied, "That's no problem at all! Hey, Yuzu – Ishida's coming over for dinner!"
Ishida's protest was ignored as he heard the little girl cheerfully answer that she would whip up another dish.
"You're not allergic to anything are you? Is there anything you don't eat?"
"No, but Kurosaki –
"Cool. See you in a bit!"
Ishida was left staring at the phone dock speechlessly as the line went dead.
He and Ichigo's place were on two extremes.
The apartment in which he lived was quiet, sparsely furnished and awkwardly dotted with knick-knacks that he had received from his classmates (his favourite being the sewing needle-shaped chopsticks, a Christmas present from Chad).
Ichigo's house was a cacophony of laughter and argument, with neatly arranged furniture that were somewhat over-zealously decorated with photographs and memorabilia. Hints of gracefully aged wood and bath salts were interlaced with the promising smell of cooking.
Since Kurosaki-senior was 'sparring' with a reluctant Ichigo in the garden, it was Karin who had apologetically answered the door. The moment that Ishida had stepped into the house Yuzu had tugged him into her room, begging him to help her sew a lace trimming onto the hem of a peplum top. That left Karin with the jobs of plating up, setting the table and dragging father and son back inside.
"It's Chinese cuisine today," Yuzu said to Ishida as they approached the dinner table. "I find it a very healthy way to cook."
There were steamed fish in black bean sauce, chicken cooked in a rich combination of dark soy and Chinese sweet vinegar, lightly beaten egg mixed with small dried shrimp then steamed to a smooth fluffiness, and an Asian leafy green called Gai Lan, blanched and drizzled with oyster sauce.
The food was served on large plates, placed at the centre of the table instead of the usual style of dividing each dish into separate portions for each sitting. Karin said that this helped with washing up, Yuzu suggested that it was more fun (fun being watching Ichigo and his father battle it out for the chicken wing), while Mr. Kurosaki claimed that it heightened familial love by increasing the intimacy of the communal meal.
In response to all of this, Ishida unthinkingly said, "For me dinner is more of the issue of deciding what to make when I only have to cook for one person."
Straight away he realized his mistake –he could feel Yuzu, to his left, looking at him with possibly a saddened concern. Across the table Karin's eyes were downcast in discomfort, while the unfathomable flicker between guilt and anger on Ichigo's face made Ishida want to flee.
Suddenly a hand clapped onto his shoulder with such force that, despite being seated, his knees slightly buckled.
He turned to his right, and he saw Isshin's gentle, reassuring smile for an instant before the man rose to his feet and assumed a theatrical pose.
"No worries, Uryuu-kun! You'll just have to come over more often to enjoy our meals –unbeatable and fabulous in nutrition, presentation and taste! That is our Kurosaki promise!"
"Don't brag if you didn't do any of the cooking," said Karin, then ignoring her father's offended babbling.
"Oh yes!" Yuzu exclaimed. "Ishida-san, have you tried the chicken?"
Ishida started. "Sorry, I haven't yet –
"Can you reach?" Ichigo asked, and then he picked up a drumstick from the plate before him and placed it into Ishida's rice bowl.
The gesture had been so spontaneous and natural that the archer muttered his thanks before they both realized that –
"You used your own chopsticks to serve other people again, Ichi-nii! That's how you ended up infecting me with your cold last time, remember?" reprimanded Yuzu.
"What? Getting sick once in a while is good for your immune system," Ichigo mumbled, but clearly embarrassed.
"Good thinking, Ichigo! Because Karin-chan won't let papa kiss-kiss her anymore, papa can indirectly kiss her with his chopsticks!" Isshin beamed, and with lightening speed he sent a stalk of Gai Lan flying into her bowl.
"Don't speak of yourself in third person, it's gross," she said indifferently, and transferred the vegetable to her brother. Ichigo, like Ishida, was too busy blushing over Isshin's remark to notice.
"AGH!" the man cried. "She calls me a gross old man already! Imagine what contempt she will treat me with when she gets a boyfriend!"
"That's stupid –I'm never going to get a boyfriend," Karin scoffed.
"Really, Karin-chan?" said Yuzu with a disappointed pout. "But I thought you liked that boy from the baseball club who always talks to you…"
Karin flushed a brilliant red. "WHAT? No, that guy's just a friend!"
"The nerve of him!" Isshin boomed. "What kind of older brother are you, Ichigo? You should've done a background check on this little punk and reported to me first thing!"
"Hell no. Even the yakuza doesn't do old fashioned crap like that anymore," Ichigo snorted.
"It's probably illegal, too," Yuzu earnestly added.
"It's terrible!" Isshin wailed. "Uryuu-kun, it's up to you to deal with my Karin's mystery boyfriend!"
"He's not my boyfriend!" she raged, while Ishida politely refused.
After a delicious but dramatic dinner, Ishida and Ichigo went upstairs to study. They started off helping Ichigo memorize math theorems by making up acronyms that got increasingly entertaining and useless. Hurting from silent laughter fifteen minutes later, Ishida realized that he had been tricked and smacked his student across the head with a textbook.
Another few hours later, Ichigo was plodding along with his essay while Ishida sat on his bed and sleepily flipped through a magazine.
The distant screech of fighting cats, the smooth rumble of a gushing tap, slipper-softened footsteps on wooden floorboards, and the occasional exhalations of frustration from Ichigo's lips between the sandy scrape of pencil on paper –noises that were being gently stirred together into a lukewarm pot of sound. They came into Ishida's ears with the indistinctiveness of a melody that had been bouncing along the inner walls of a glass dome.
It was so warm, so soft, that Ishida let the magazine slide out of his loose grasp, and allowed his head to droop to the side. When he felt a large, gentle hand on his arm and another in his hair, he was so blissfully somnolent that he almost asked to be put to bed.
At that moment, he felt something that made him wake with a start and jump to his feet with such speed that he almost fell over.
"There's a strong hollow coming –it's heading straight into your street!"
He flew down the stairs without waiting for an answer, and Ichigo clapped his badge to his chest before following suit in his shinigami form.
"Cover me Kurosaki, I'll try to lead it to an open area," Ishida commanded as he kicked on his shoes.
Ichigo unlocked the door, but he put a firm hand on his classmate's arm and said, "No, stay here. I can take care of it."
Ishida fumed. "What the hell, Kurosaki? I –
"No," he repeated, eyes ablaze. "I want you to stay here with my family. If anything happens, you and my dad can protect the girls and each other."
Ishida opened his mouth, but the grip on his arm tightened, and Ichigo's startlingly vulnerable expression silenced him.
"Please, Ishida. Just this once."
He did not want to.
But he wrenched open the door and shoved Ichigo outside.
"Then you'd better defeat it before I have to intervene."
Ichigo gave him a weak, grateful smile and went.
With his back against the wall Ishida waited, sliding his finger along the bracelet on his wrist. At the end of the chain that had been warmed from his flesh, the heavy coldness of the Quincy cross questioned him in a faltering whisper.
If he so detested watching at the sidelines even when he physically could fight no more, how could he remain here now?
But something in Ichigo's eyes had told him that if he hadn't complied then something between them would have been broken with an irrevocable finality.
What could possibly be between them? thought Ishida with a disbelieving chuckle.
A more often than not reluctant camaraderie, an awkward friendship, and stupid, endless arguments.
Moreover, by skill and instinct he knew that Ichigo's father was not merely a doctor and a family man –rather, if it became necessary he would be more than capable of guarding the household.
So he could not understand what could be so important for him to stay behind that Ichigo had to beg.
Ishida could only wait there, keeping his senses alert to every fluctuation of both the hollow's and Ichigo's reiatsu. Every time that he felt the shinigami's spirit pressure climb with impossible speed, he had to anchor himself to the front porch because his fisted left hand ached to take action.
He told himself that if the hollow stepped so much as one foot into this street then he would make his move.
But it never did, and almost half an hour later it gave its final shriek and dissolved into the night like luminescent grains of salt.
There was a whoosh of air before he found Ichigo standing before him, the exhaustion evident in his tense shoulders.
"You should go to bed before you drop," Ishida said tersely.
A gust of wind, faintly redolent of rust and blood, artlessly disrupted the play of light and shadow as it swept through Ichigo's hair and robes.
As the shadows resettled Ichigo quietly asked, "Did you hear what it said to me?"
Ishida unconsciously squeezed the cross in his fist. "That shouldn't matter. You know that all hollows were once humans. I try to let this remind me of why I fight."
As he watched Ichigo's tired eyes aimlessly scan the streets he added, "You did well, Kurosaki."
The shinigami looked startled, but there was a small quirk to his lips. "Did you just compliment me, or is it too early to say thank you?"
"You must be so spent that you're hallucinating," Ishida coolly replied.
"It took a ridiculously long time," Ichigo admitted.
"If you had let me, I could have shot it down from a distance before it could even enter the precinct."
When Ichigo's eyes flashed with a weary anger, Ishida knew that he had mistook his words for arrogance.
"Why does it always have to be about who takes the hollow down first?"
"Don't jump to conclusions, Kurosaki," Ishida snapped. "I was just saying that it could have been done with more efficiency."
"How could efficiency be more important than protecting my family?" he snarled back.
"And you think that I don't know anything about family?"
"Stop turning everything I say into a personal insult!"
"Don't you dare accuse me when you were the one who misunderstood me!"
"Then why don't you just say what you mean for once so that I won't misunderstand you?"
"Forget it."
Ishida shifted, but before he could step away he felt the weight of Ichigo's hand on his shoulder, and the chilled roughness of brick against his back.
Ichigo's voice was soft. "I meant it, Ishida."
He smelled traces of the battle on him, woven with that indescribably subtle and calming scent he had picked up whilst in Ichigo's room. Warmed from adrenalin Ichigo's body heat seeped out from the fabric of his uniform with a tactility that enveloped Ishida like a winter fleece.
He was so close that when Ishida turned, he could see the thrum of a pulse at his neck, the befittingly bold bands of white-bordered black against tawny skin, the rise and fall of his chest between the open v of his robes.
Ishida breathed out slowly, and thought he felt Ichigo shiver in response.
"If we had fought it together, it would have taken half the time, and you wouldn't be so tired. Your family's safety wouldn't have been compromised in the least."
The hand on his shoulder squeezed.
"I'm sorry, Ishida."
He was so close that Ichigo's mumbled apology reverberated in his ears, its remnants tingling on his skin like condensation.
"Then why didn't you let me fight?" Ishida demanded.
Ichigo paused, then: "It was too close for comfort. I don't know, I…"
"What? What was?"
"I had to fight alone tonight."
Suddenly he was pinned by those copper eyes that pleaded unspoken words, and Ishida realized that Ichigo's reply had been completely selfless.
He looked away again and dimly became aware of a warm thumb straying across his collarbone.
"You're cold."
"You would be too if you had been waiting here for half an hour."
"No one told you to wait outside."
His blood hummed in content in Ichigo's proximity, and Ishida wondered why he felt the urge to take a step forward.
"I should go," he said, as if suggesting to himself.
"It's late," Ichigo seemed to agree, but he did not lower his hand.
"I might actually freeze if I keep standing here."
"Oh. Sorry." And then Ichigo did let go and move back, he face boyishly abashed under the porch light.
"Thanks for dinner. Will you pass on my thank you to your dad and your sisters?"
Ichigo nodded. "Hey, wait a second."
He reached behind the front door, and tossed him a zip-up hoodie of faded orange and red.
Ishida hesitated, but he shrugged it on nevertheless. He tried not to smile at the overhang of the sleeves.
"Ishida, you're not angry, are you?" Ichigo's voice was so quiet that he almost did not hear him.
He glanced back, eyebrows knitted together quizzically.
"About what I asked you yesterday."
"Is that why you stopped bombarding me with questions as if it were a 24-hour interrogation?"
Ichigo sheepishly shrugged. "I thought I had crossed a line."
"Well. You could have had two more questions, but it was your loss."
Ishida smiled at the surprised raise of Ichigo's eyebrows.
Then with his hands thrust deep inside the pockets of the borrowed jacket, he turned and left.
To be continued