A/n: Well, to be honest, this was sort of a random chapter that took three months to write…but phantoms and apparitions do what the please when they please, don't they? Anyways, I felt the need to explain the 'phantom romance,' although I guess the haunting has already revealed itself. Plus, I felt guilty for not updating in so long.
Thank you for your patience. Um, R&R please?
The Phantom Romance
Great thunder gods, they were blasted. Plastered. Nailed. Three sheets to the wind. Whatever the Captain called their state of utter crapulence.
"So," Shunsui slurred. "Not that I really care, but tell me again what it means…" He lifted the flask to take another swig, and hiccuped mid-swallow. Wine was sprayed all over the table, but nobody really noticed.
Matsumoto's arm flapped dismissively in the air. "How many times must I say it?" She leaned forward, trying not puke or fall out of her chair for that matter. "Phantom romance is exactly what it says…the romance itself is a phantom."
Shunsui shook his head; his cheeks were almost as flushed as Matsumoto's hair. "I still don't get it."
The thing about wine was that after the third or fourth bottle, a person's level of comprehension began to deteriorate, fall a part brain cell after brain cell, and the ability to speak properly was also disoriented. The cup was slammed roughly onto the table. A little bit of precious wine drizzled down the ceramic sides.
"The romance is exactly like a haunting," she said a little too loudly. "At first when you move in, you dunno it's even there, until a lotta little weird crap starts happening. You hear a weird banging noise, suspicious gestures, the whispery conversations…none of it ever makes sense…" She swallowed a lump of air. "And you don't have enough proof to say there is one until one day, you walk around the corner and whoosh!"
Matsumoto threw her arms in the air, a dramatic gesture that nearly threw her off the chair. "And there it is the phantom romance! It swoops down from the rafters and scars the boobs out of your nightshirt! But before you can do anything, it's gone— disappeared like it ever existed."
Then she reached over, snagged the last flask, and took one final swig.
- - -
To think that something like that would have happened to him on the front lawn of a public pool. If anything, it was half Rukia's fault for being the evil little magician she was, and half the city's fault for choosing to include a pool in its geography.
That was where Ichigo found her, sitting at the pool's edge, dipping her feet into the cool water. Her eyes were lost in thought, lit up by silver moon beams refracting off the pool's silent surface.
"What the hell are you doing here," he asked, making her jump a little. "It's almost midnight."
She whirled around and then refused to look at him as he sat down beside her. "I was just thinking," she said, lifting a slender ankle out of the water. Inoue had been late, with traffic and what not, but she had arrived eventually.
"About what?"
Rukia shrugged. She had that lost look in her eyes again, like she wasn't quite sure what to do with herself. She had been wearing that expression off and on all day, ever since Inoue brought up the subject of college.
Since he couldn't stand Rukia all chocked up on that angst lump of self pity, he decided to fix it. Do something totally outrageous to make her scream at him, slap him around a few times, and maybe get answer out of her.
Reaching around, he placed the flat of his palms over her kidneys. He felt her tense against his touch as he slowly slid his hands down along her back, fingers cupped around her waste as they smoothed the seams of her yellow dress, slowly and gently traveling south.
Down and down and down.
He could have slid his hands past her hips and along the inertial walls between her thighs, like he was tempted to do. Even though she really would have slapped him for that, it would have defeated the purpose. So he stopped at her hips, paused, twisted the cotton hems in his fingers, and with a single heave he shoved her into the pool.
Rukia hit the water's surface like a nuclear bomb— loudly and with a mushroom shaped splash.
Ichigo watched her gurgle under the water, burst through the surface open mouth and gasping, and laughed.
Rukia whipped around. Dark stringy hair clung to her face. When she was done coughing and sputtering, she glared at Ichigo. "What the hell was that for?" she demanded.
"That's what we call drowning your sorrows," he answered bluntly. "Midget."
"You asshole!" Still floundering around in the deep end, she grabbed onto the edge.
Good, it worked. He had her complete, cursing, and undivided attention. He folded his arms over his chest. "At least now you're too pissed to mope around in that stupid pity party."
"Pity party? Pity party?"
She slapped her hands onto the concrete and pulled herself up, fuming. "You jerk," she said, "I wasn't having a pity party, stupid, I was thinking about you."
"Wait, what—"
She raised her fist and yanked it back to smash her tiny knuckles into his nose, but she stopped herself. "You're not even worth hitting." She lowered her hand.
That was about as good as a punch to the face. Ichigo threw her into the pool and this was the thanks she gave him? "You ungrateful little—"
"Midget," Rukia finished, standing up. "Can't you come up with a better insult? You've been calling me that for years. It's almost become cliché."
Well, that was another slap to the pride!
Rukia walked past him. "I'm tired, are you coming?"
He followed her across the lawn, only half reluctantly. Was there really a choice in the matter? If he stayed behind then he would be moping and that would contradict throwing Rukia into the pool. Besides, if he didn't follow she might change out of those wet cloths without him.
Stupid little…little…little…
Damn it, there had to be a heavier insult than midget. Oh, bingo!
"Hey, Kuckiki, wait up will you?"
A crooked smile crept over his lips as Rukia stopped dead in her tracks. She turned without moving her feet. "What did you call me?"
"You heard me, Kuchiki."
Who had been slapped now?
"Y-you just called me by my…"
"You're surname," Ichigo finished. "Would you like some san to go with that Kuchiki? Or how about a sprinkle of chan? Maybe—"
It ended when Rukia calmly raised two fingers to his forehead and shouted, "First restraint, obstruction!"
It was just like last time, on the evening of their very first encounter. Ichigo was instantaneously rendered immobile as invisible hands twisted his arms together, locked uncomfortably behind his back. His ankles clicked together and he stumbled awkwardly to his knees.
"You know what's funny about this, Kurosaki? Even on your knees you're still taller than me." She smiled wickedly, cradling the rim of his jaw with her fingers. Her hands were damp, deathly cold, and she smelled of icy water and wet perfume. "But even so, your arrogant ass is still at my mercy."
She leaned in, as if to kiss him, but stopped as if changing her mind last moment. He could feel the warmth of her breath on his lips, and the touch of her cold cheek brush against his own. Her eyes twinkled brighter than any two stars strewn across the velvet sky. Ichigo's face burned as he noticed that the slope of her breast was even more pronounced under the wet, translucent yellow fabric.
"Unfortunately, the mood has yet to strike me," she whispered before smirking and stepping back a little too quickly. Then she pinched his nose and patted his cheek roughly. "Come one," she said, "don't look so depressed. I'll come back for you in an hour or two."
Way to kill the moment.
"An hour?" he said as she began to walk away. "You're just going to leave me here? Rukia! Hey, come back here! I can understand if you're mad, but at least let me go! Rukia!" He tried to hobble after her, but only ended up toppling over face first into the grass.
Her laughter filled the empty courtyard as she stepped into the street, illuminated in the eerie orange glow emitting from a lonely streetlight. "Don't be silly, Ichigo," she called and laughed. "The sprinklers don't come on for another twenty minuets."
"Evil little witch," he muttered.
Clever, seductive little witch. She already had the evil cackle and the demon magic. Slap a few warts across her face and all she needed was a broom and a crooked black hat.
- - -
And before you can do anything, it's gone— disappeared as if it had never existed.
