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There was an old philosophy, and it had been told to Ikkaku one hundred times in one hundred ways, but it said basically this; You can't enjoy a sunny day if you've never endured a rainy one.

It wasn't just a philosophy, however. It was a truth. Or at least, it seemed to be such to Ikkaku. He was so blatantly content and without a single exception, happy with the way his life was going he was nostalgic about the times when he'd go out each and every night only to get drunk, have one night stands with women he'd never remember the names of and fight any and everyone who looked at him any way less than ideal.

Days used to seem more like weeks, trudging by slowly and uneventfully as he went through the cycles he'd become accustomed to. The days would even blur together to the point that he'd long forsaken the idea of keeping track of what the date was, and for all he knew he could walk out when it was snowing or when it was dreadfully hot. Time had meant nothing, a true week could have felt like a year while he lived it all in the bars and streets doing whatever he wished.

Now, days felt like minutes. Four weeks had passed since the troublesome beauty moved in, and each day seemed to hold something special. Not one repeated itself, they were all uniquely incredible in their own way. There wasn't much that he could predict would happen the next day, anymore. Cycles were abandoned.

It almost made Ikkaku feel nostalgic about when he got drunk and took on scores of brutes all at once every night, or constantly had one night stands with women he didn't even remember the next day.

Okay, it really did make him feel nostalgic. Perfection, as Yumichika had always said, was such a labor to keep. Ikkaku wondered maybe if it was a two way street, though. To abandoned his friend for more than an hour was practically unheard of between them.

After a heated spar between himself and his roommate, he decided to go. The problem was, telling Yumichika he would be going alone.

"You haven't went out to the bars since I moved in," Yumichika complained. "In fact, you haven't even gotten drunk either."

"Don't be a nag," Ikkaku said, brushing the man's comment off as groundless whining.

"I'm not, I'm just saying it's an ugly habit to want to return to."

Ikkaku shrugged. "Just let me do what I want."

"I didn't have any intention to stop you. I just wanted to let you know, it's an ugly life to want to go back to. Am I such bad company?"

"Don't be stupid, not everything I do has to do with you."

Yumichika smiled a bit. "Well, go on then. Don't get beat up before I get there to drag you back home."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"You're going to get ten times more drunk then you did, since not only do you not really care about paying for your bills, but you haven't been drinking in quite awhile."

"Tch."

"See you later, I'm going to do something productive."

"Since when did you do anything useful?"

"Don't say such things. I always do something useful with my time. Today, for instance, I'm going to spend catching up on my beauty rest."

"You're a vain piece of work," Ikkaku said with a chuckle and shook his head.

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Poor lighting, brunt and expired foods, cheap liquor. Ikkaku felt almost as if he were a kid returning home after a long vacation. He almost expected a little more but a familiarity was incredibly inviting. Even the bartender greeted him like a parent might, asking where he was and what he had been doing since they'd last seen each other.

The conversation, however, wasn't long. Ikkaku didn't want to go into specifics, else people would expect something perverted since everyone knew Yumichika as a prostitute in the particular bar he used to frequent. The only thing that even hinted he had a new roommate was when he said he was busy taking care of someone.

The bartender, knowing Ikkaku's violent tenancies thought he meant that in a way of "putting someone six feet under", kind of taking care.

Quickly, the bald man ordered as many bottles of rice wine as he believed would take in order to get him tipsy. He downed most of the bottles in only a few gulps.

"You act like that's the only thing in weeks you've been given to drink," the bartender chided while cleaning a glass. Ikkaku wasn't one to rush in order to get drunk. Rather he was the type of person who came at noon, beat up anyone who had money on their person and paid for a day's worth of slow paced and constant drinking.

"Might as well be," he answered.

"I know I shouldn't ask, but who were you taking care of that took damn near five weeks. I thought you were dead."

Ikkaku glared and the bartender nearly dropped the glass he was polishing. "It doesn't concern you. I doubt you even know the man's last name."

"R-right. How careless of me to ask something so personal," he said and excused himself to take care of someone who had just walked in. He always was afraid of Ikkaku's eyes, and if looks were able to kill, nearly anyone whom he laid eyes on would die.

"I have no money," Ikkaku grumbled to himself. He had a good reputation at this bar, of keeping his tab somewhat under control. After all, anyone who walked in was pretty much free game for him to kill and steal their wallets, like walking banks that he never had to pay into.

He was too tired for that, after fighting with Yumichika earlier and already being tipsy enough to feel really dizzy. He hadn't fought in that condition for so long, he wasn't sure if he'd still be able to win against anyone half-way decent.

"Oh, Ikkaku. You look like you've been working hard," some sultry voice said and proceeded to push herself against him. Ikkaku remembered the voice distantly as some fling he'd had nearly a year ago, but she never was more than a hot chick who was stupid enough to believe him when he said he was in love with her. He didn't even remember the name anymore, although he did recall a few good memeories.

"What makes you say that?" Ikkaku replied, trying and failing to not slur his words.

"You look so much stronger," she said wantonly, wrapping her arms around his neck and pressing her large breasts to his back. "I didn't know it was possible for you to become even more attractive."

"Is that so?"

"How would you like to come back to my place?" She whispered into his ear.

Ikkaku turned, and although she was wearing revealing clothes, showing her cleavage nearly fall out, with long raven hair cascading over her breasts, and her skin was tanned with sharp contrast to icy blue eyes, Ikkaku swore for a minute he saw Yumichika standing there for a minute, posing provocatively.

He shook his head in disbelief, and when he looked back he saw her, scowling. "Why not? I never knew you to be one to turn down someone with no strings attached throwing themselves at you. What the hell happened to you?"

"I-i-"

"Forget it. It was only flattery, by the way. You look as bald and ugly as you did when we were dating, I only heard from the owner of that sword shop you like so well that you happened across some serious money. I'll find someone else, idiot," she turned on her heels and left, knowing no one else in the bar had more than enough for a few cheap drinks.

Ikkaku, against his will, was becoming hard at the thought of the raven haired man back at his apartment, already forgetting the greedy woman who just left.

Thinking about him sleeping, curled up and so adorable it shouldn't be legal. Or maybe, him fully awake, kissing and rolling around in order to get in his favorite position. Begging for Ikkaku to stop teasing, to just do it-

"No, I'm not thinking of Yumi that way," Ikkaku mumbled to himself and put his head down between his crossed arms, resting on the bar surface.

"Mad about the one who got away?" The bartender, only daring to come back and speak to the dangerous man because he saw the bottle laid over on it's side, empty.

"Shut the hell up."

"I'm sorry, please forgive-"

"Fuck it," Ikkaku growled and walked out, trying to hard his semi-hard member until he got back to the apartment. He knew the bartender was too afraid to stop him and make him pay his tab, and was glad for that.

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God, Ikkaku thought. He looked so perfect when he slept, and Ikkaku was sure he was asleep this time. If he weren't, he'd never allow himself to be in such a position. He was sprawled out across the bed, half covered with a blanket and his mouth was slightly ajar. His chest was rising a falling.

"Ikkaku..." Yumichika said softly.

Shit, he is awake. Does this man ever sleep? Ikkaku wondered as his heart skipped a beat.

The man turned slightly in his sleep and let out a seductive moan. "Ikkaku," he repeated.

"He's having a dream," Ikkaku hesitated, hardly believing what he was hearing. "About me?"

"Mm, Ikkaku," Yumichika moaned out again.

If Ikkaku had any doubt about the dream being perverted, they were erased. And if Ikkaku had any doubt about what he was getting ready to do before, they disappeared.

He stumbled over, in a drunken stupor and climbed over top his sleeping beauty.

Yumichika's eyes fluttered open when Ikkaku kissed him passionately, but he wasn't surprised. Or rather, if he was, it wasn't an unpleasant surprise. That was all the encouragement Ikkaku needed, if any at all was required, to continue.

Ikkaku's clumsy drunken hands began to peel the clothing off the man under him, taking a minute to drink in the perfect beauty of the man. Even while completely and totally without clothing, he had no flaw.

With less grace and more anticipation, Ikkaku pulled out his now erect member, forsaking the romantic idea of skin-on-skin contact. He just wanted to do this, nothing else mattered.

"W-wait," Yumichika said. He looked around timidly. Suddenly, he realized his dream had ended some time ago. "Ikkaku?"

"Just shut up and lay down, got it?"

"W-what?"

"Shut up, and lay down."

Yumichika, scared and completely unaware of what was wrong with his closest friend pushed the man away from him and pulled his pants on. "Ikkaku, what the hell is going on?"

"Oh come on, stop acting like that when you were just moaning my name, would you?"

Although Yumichika had an awful habit of developing feelings quickly, and the awful occupation of selling himself to anyone who would pay enough, he refused to let his first time with his crush be so ugly. So awful and ugly, with one of them half asleep and the other so drunk.

"Ikkaku, you're drunk."

"No duh, idiot."

Just as usual, the beautiful was only taken advantage of. He was thought to only be a toy, and Ikkaku had kept him for so long so there would be an illusion of trust. Yumichika cursed himself for thinking at one point that something real could have ever existed between the two.

Using the very fighting moves that Ikkaku had been teaching him all the time he'd been there, Yumichika gave a quick and solid blow to the drunken man's head, effectively knocking him out. After the man was unconscious, Yumichika gathered his things, or what he could carry, and ran as quickly as he could with silent tears pouring from his eyes.

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It wasn't fair. Even the forest, Yumichika saw turned from an ugly, muddy and bland wasteland into something that he considered pretty. White flowers were just budding, a few were early ones in blooming, on the short and impossibly thick trees.

He made it back to his hollow, carrying only a blanket, piece of mirror and katana. The very same one he spent an hour of picking out bugs was re-infested, but he was so upset that he couldn't even find enough interest to pick them out before he sat.

Why? The forest hadn't become beautiful. It wouldn't, either, but it was better, prettier. The most beautiful person in the entire Soul Society was only subject to something that had begun in a beautiful and wonderful way, only to end in the death of what could have been.

For something beautiful to become ugly, it's easy. Accidents and sickness could without effort take everything that had been worked for. But for something ugly to become beautiful, it takes nothing short of a miracle.

His ugly struggle was never to blossom into a wonderful or beautiful thing. Even a caterpillar that goes through it's early life struggling to turn into a butterfly does not become beautiful. If anything their body goes black and becomes more ugly, with flashy wings to adorn itself now, like an ugly person in expensive clothes.

Was it too much? Yumichika wondered. Too much to ask for happiness and to be beautiful as well? He knew all too well, the beautiful only attract the ugly and envious. The perverted and ill-intended masses to pray on the most beautiful of all the flowers.

It was so strange, though. He compared himself to the most beautiful flower in the field, being taken at the height of his perfection. He went willingly, though. He didn't die as a flower whose stem was cut would, but he thought maybe he'd prefer death over being returned to the field he'd been plucked from.

Maybe if he could, he'd want to go back. Convince himself that even as he sat thinking now he was subject to some horrible and ugly dream.

Fooling yourself, though, was an ugly thought.

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Perfection. Did it exist outside the abstract? Ikkaku had thought he had a piece of perfection living with him, but as all great things that came to an end. His drunken stupidity chased away the greatest thing that happened to him. The sad part was that when most people lost happiness, it was due to their gripping it so tightly that it slipped like an oiled marble.

Ikkaku just let go of his grip and let the marble, which he was sure wanted to stay more than anything, and it bounced away, all the while he did nothing to chase after it.

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I expect to add a sequel to this. Maybe. (Yeah, I've said that for all three of my stories... I'm so bad at ending things.)