-October 31st, 2010-
Ichigo was scowling.
Not that it was a rare occurrence, but on that particular day he could feel his eyebrows etched so tightly together it was almost uncomfortable. His arms were shoved tightly into the pockets of his jeans as he stood, seemingly invisible, against the wall. Around him, too many people for his taste were shuffling about in costumes ranging from the elaborate to the ridiculous, most of them carrying drinks that were most likely not child-friendly, and practically yelling in order to make themselves heard above the obnoxiously loud music. The people showed no concern or preference for personal space as they alternately shoved and grinded against each other; Ichigo an unfortunate casualty among the crowd despite his best efforts to fuse himself with the wall.
He hated parties. Four years of college life and all he'd learned about such activities was that it was always better to avoid them. Now, when he was supposed to be too old to be coaxed into attending them, there he found himself.
'You've had a rough month', Rangiku had said.
'You should have fun once in a while!' Orihime had said.
'That constipated look on your face is going to become permanent at this rate.' Ishida had not-so-helpfully observed.
'It is for your own good.' Chad had spoken.
It was the latter that convinced him. His almost seven-foot-tall friend was not one to waste words, and when he expressed his opinion, Ichigo had decided that he should concede to his friends' concern for once.
Of course, at the time, he had assumed they were inviting him to go along to said party as a group; he hadn't counted on each of them bailing out at the last moment. Ishida claimed he had to work late, and Orihime decided that she would accompany him. Meanwhile Chad didn't bother to show up at all without so much as an explanation; when Ichigo called his friend to rant about the betrayal, Chad had replied with a clueless: 'Sorry, didn't know I was supposed to go.'
So there was Ichigo, manipulated and then ditched by his ever-charming friends. Why did he put up with them?
"Because you love us?"
Ichigo jumped as a female voice answered the question he had unconsciously voiced. "Rangiku!" He exclaimed her name, glaring at her for catching him off guard.
The buxom blonde was the only one who actually showed up at the party, if only for the reason that she was the one throwing it in the first place. But being the hostess didn't exactly mean much in Rangiku's case. Put her in a room full of lust-driven men and alcohol, and you might as well accept that she's lost. In fact, at the moment she seemed to be attached to some baboon-faced delinquent with the most shocking, gravity-defying hair Ichigo had ever seen -which was saying a lot considering his own hair-, and an array of excessive tattoos swirling over all segments of his exposed skin. The guy didn't even seem to notice Ichigo as his attention was lost on the nearly uncovered chest of the hostess.
Ichigo scoffed. "Don't be so sure." he retorted to her earlier remark. "Surprised to see you still on your feet." He commented, half sarcastic, half honest.
Rangiku giggled loudly, signaling that it probably wouldn't be for long. "I'm disappointed to see you on your feet. You should be getting wasted off your senses now, or at least pretending to have fun. There's plenty of single, willing ladies here." The scantily clad blonde said with a suggestive wink. "Some just willing."
He didn't even bother looking around the room to assess these 'willing ladies'; most consisted of Rangiku look-alikes, each one wearing nearly identical costumes- half-naked nurse, half-naked princess, half-naked angel, half-naked devil, half-naked animal… among others; and most looking more than a little intoxicated at the moment. Ichigo was less than thrilled by the prospects.
Rangiku herself, dressed as a half-naked witch, seemed to read something in his expression that gave his line of thinking away because she suddenly snorted a laugh and said, "Right, I forgot you were such a prude. Really, for someone as fine-looking as yourselves, I wouldn't be surprised if you were still a virgin."
He felt his ears burn with embarrassment and he opened his mouth to chew out the woman before her attention was taken away by the red-headed guy, who seemed finally to have finally grown bored of his 'view'.
"Hey, are we going to head to the restrooms or not? I left a friend waiting for me, she'll be pretty pissed by now that I disappeared." said, the tattooed- pirate captain?
"Oh- right." Rangiku seemed to be reminded of the reason she had a guy latching onto her at the moment. "Let's get going then!" she turned to look at Ichigo before heading off through the crowd, presumably to find the ladies room, "Later, Ichigo! Try to have at least a little fun." With that, she was gone.
And Ichigo was left in a mood more sour than before. "Prude…" he muttered bitterly. "Like hell I am." he went on, not sure for who's benefit. "I am not a virgin!" He suddenly declared, a little too loudly because just then, a girl dressed as a half-naked butterfly turned to him and giggled before raising her eyebrows in a suggestive manner that made him shudder.
Thoroughly annoyed and with his pride recently wounded, he decided that maybe it was time for a little bathroom break of his own- albeit not one of the same kind that Rangiku was taking. Using his fair height and his generally intimidating expression to cut through the crowd of drunken dancers, Ichigo started in the direction where he'd seen Rangiku and her latest victim heading to.
The place Rangiku had rented out wasn't that huge, but it was still big enough for the more-than-decent turn-out she had, and the tightly-packed crowd didn't make it very easy to navigate. Ichigo was relieved when, after what felt like an endless, fruitless search, he finally spotted a promising door. Without stopping to knock, he opened it and rushed inside to close it behind them, being granted the first moment of blessed solitude and relative quiet since he had arrived at the damned party.
It took him a moment to realize that the room he was in was in fact not a restroom. Judging by the contents of the cramped little area, it was some sort of a supply closet.
Thinking that a closet of any kind was not his first choice spot to hang out in, he still decided that it was preferable to the jumble of people outside. He sighed as he scanned the small area, before moving towards the back wall in resignation and settling down with his back against it.
It only took him a couple of minutes to find himself relaxing and leaning his head against the wall, letting his eyes close as he pondered his options: stay in the random closet for a little longer, or exit to make an escape from the dreaded party. He reasoned that any sane person would obviously choose the latter, but he hesitated. Deep down, he knew there was a reason he'd accepted the invitation in the first place; he didn't want to go home.
The realization hit him with a wave of shame; the feeling that, despite all his bravado, in the end he was more affected by his recent -fruitless- goose chase than he was willing to let on- even to himself. He almost felt like laughing at himself. He wasn't as invincible as he liked to think, apparently.
So it was that, in a moment of embracing his own weakness, Ichigo decided he'd stay hidden away for just a little bit longer. Hiding from a rowdy party; hiding from his own, bitter life… He wasn't sure which, but it didn't matter. If only for a few hours, he would just close his eyes and…
"Oi!" The person who had just slipped inside the closet tensed, suddenly aware of his presence. "Get your own closet!"
"Sorry," a deep female voice, slightly muffled by a cheap plastic hockey mask spoke. "I didn't know this was occupied-" she said as she started to open the door, preparing herself to leave before suddenly shutting it again and turning back towards him.
"What's the deal-" Ichigo started to complain, frowning at the unwelcome interruption on that solitary time of peace away from reality he had just obtained.
"Can I stay here a minute?" the girl asked, her voice carrying just the slightest amount of desperation.
Ichigo was not impressed. "Look, if you want to get wasted or stoned in private, do it somewhere else. I'd like to be left in peace for a moment, okay?"
"I don't want to get stoned or anything like that!" she retorted in an insulted manner, the slight meekness that she'd shown before miraculously vanished. "I just want to escape the party for a few minutes, just like you."
…Well, he hadn't expected that. Probably out of all the reasons he would have thought to come up with for why this girl would be sneaking into a closet in the middle of an insane party, the last would have been to assume that it was for the exact same reason as himself.
That was probably due to the fact that he hadn't known many people who would ever choose to do such a thing in the first place, but hey, he'd been wrong before (despite his best efforts at proving otherwise). Finally, he shrugged. "Go ahead, then."
She nodded and didn't waste another second before flopping down on the spot, leaning against the door in the same manner as himself. Ichigo watched her curiously for a moment, before realizing what it was about her that seemed out of place- other than the fact that she was in a supply closet in the middle of a party, of course.
The girl wasn't half naked. In fact, with her dark jeans, long-sleeved black sweater, and the toy hockey mask she wore, the only visible skin was that of her hands and a glimpse of her neck. Her midnight-colored her only served to further complete her attire, seemingly meant to camouflage her in the night. He imagined her outside with the hordes of Rangiku look-a-likes and couldn't decide if she would have been entirely invisible or would have stuck out like a sore thumb. Even more curious: which one had she intended?
The questions hovered on the tip of his tongue, but before he could give voice to them, the girl removed the mask from her face and exhaled in apparent relief before she started fanning herself with her hand. Ichigo blinked as he saw her face for the first time. She was… not outwardly unpleasant. He didn't allow himself to pay any more focus to that particular aspect of his unexpected companion and fixed his face back into something closer to his casually bored expression, except for a slightly quirked eyebrow to betray his mild curiosity.
"Hockey mask killer?" he spoke up, calling back her attention to himself. "Original."
"And what are you supposed to be?" she questioned sharply, clearly not appreciating the sarcasm in his voice.
He answered without missing a beat. "I'm a mysterious stranger." His own created name for his so-called costume, which consisted of a plain black mask that ended at the bridge of his nose, was as much of a half-assed effort as the costume itself.
The girl snorted. "More like too-lazy-to-get-an-actual-costume."
"Guilty." he said, feeling his lips quirk up in amusement at getting caught by the still nameless girl.
"So, Mysterious Stranger," she said, taking it upon herself to solve the issue of names without bothering to ask him for one. "What does the orange hair entail?"
He raised a hand up into his disarrayed hair in a knee-jerk reaction. "Oh this? This is natural."
"You can't expect me to believe that."
"Believe what you want." he shrugged, more than used to people's skeptic reactions when it came to his brightly colored hair. Unlike most people though, the girl didn't fight him anymore on it than that, and looked almost like she was actually accepting the fact. It was refreshing not to be accused of being a wanna-be punk because of his hair, for once.
They lapsed into a few minutes of silence after that, before Ichigo decided that he hadn't had enough of the conversation.
"So how'd you end up here?"
"I'm hiding from the party." she told him for the second time, shifting to bend her knees and wrap her arms around her legs as she looked back at him with large, unusually colored eyes.
"I'd figured that out on my own." he said flatly. "I meant, how'd you end up in the party in the first place?"
"I got dragged here by a so-called friend." she answered with no small amount of annoyance coloring her voice.
He felt himself nodding, understanding her feelings all too well. "Same. I can relate."
She smiled then, the action seeming to subtly alter every feature on her face, melting away the rough-esque mask she'd worn and making her glow in a way that just seemed to radiate warmth.
"Great." she said through her smile. "Misery loves company."
Ichigo couldn't really stop the grin that made its way unto his face then, especially when the raven-haired girl widened her own smile to match his. Maybe it was because he felt a connection to her because of their similar -if not identical- circumstances, or maybe it was because he was still trying to escape his own reality for a little while and talking to this girl somehow made that much easier… He wasn't sure why, but for the first time in a long time he felt entirely at ease with someone else. So he talked.
They fell into an easy conversation that gave him the feeling of reunited with an old friend. They bantered back and forth, and talked without that usual awkward feeling that usually strained the air between two people who had just met. It was like they had simply skipped over those awkward stages.
Ichigo actually found disappointment when he noticed a change in the atmosphere, and quickly realized what the difference was.
"Does it sound quieter to you outside?" he asked suddenly, moving his gaze to the closed door before them- the girl had found her way to his side at some point, and now sat with such proximity that their arms brushed together; something that oddly enough did not bother him at all.
"Hm?" she seemed confused by his sudden change of subject.
"I think the music is lowering…" he noted.
"Do you think the party is over?" she asked, and Ichigo was suddenly aware of what a definite answer would mean.
"…Maybe…" he said instead. "I think we should wait it out a little longer just to be sure."
The girl's expression turned wary for a moment as she looked at him, like she was trying to see something past his words… But after a moment just gave in. "Okay."
That was enough mutual agreement for them to pick up right back where they left off, but Ichigo knew that they couldn't put off the inevitable forever. Eventually, the lack of music or any noise in general from the other side of the door became too apparent to be ignored.
"I think we should probably leave before someone finds us in here and thinks we were smoking or something."
Ichigo felt his eyes snap to hers, then towards the still closed door, then back to her. "Yeah, I think you're right." he said, though he made no move to so much as stand.
Not yet… he thought; he didn't want to go back yet. He felt like he could see a similar line of thought in the depth of her eyes, which, upon a closer look, he was startled to find were actually a violet color.
He held her eyes, feeling the urge to pull the girl even closer like a gravitational pool.
"I better go. My friend will be looking for me by now…" And she broke the contact with that, leaving him with the feeling of having something dangled in front of you only to have it pulled away before you could take it.
"…Right." his voice came out unexpectedly choked, his disappointed now very evident.
Trying to push back that feeling, he forced himself to his feet, almost automatically reaching a hand down to help the girl to her feet… When he felt her small, cool hand settle into his larger one, like the piece of a puzzle sliding into place, he didn't know if he regretted his polite act or was very glad for it.
The feeling of her smooth skin on his calloused palm was something that sent a jolt of electricity through his skin. Closing his hand around hers had felt so natural that he almost wasn't conscious of his action.
Once she was on her feet as well, Ichigo was surprised and somewhat pleased to see that she only came up to his chest -barely-; like she would fit perfectly against his body for him to rest his chin over her head if he pulled her into an embrace. He didn't do that, however- pull her into his arms. But he didn't let go of her hand.
And before he'd had time to stop it from happening again, their gazes were locked together again, his pulse suddenly quickening significantly as he became very much aware of how close she was. It wasn't an uncomfortable feeling though, like he would normally feel when a woman got too close; it was the opposite. It was the fact that all reason and logic, all the fiber of his being and gut instinct told him that he should erase that remaining distance.
Ichigo was typically described as a rash, impulsive man. He tended to go with what he felt.
Which is probably why, he would reason later, he threw all his carefully built walls and facades into the wind and just went with his gut.
Her lips were so tantalizingly soft as she'd pressed them gently against his. He thought he could feel his stomach dissolve into fluttering particles -because he would never feel something as unmasculine as butterflies- as the contact was made.
Then her hand had found itself around his neck and she was suddenly pressed entirely against him, Ichigo reaching the hand that wasn't occupied still holding hers to take a firm hold of her slender waist as he felt her parting her lips against his, deepening the kiss with slow and deliberate movements that seemed to understand his every desire. The sensation of kissing her left Ichigo weak at the knees, and yet somehow stronger as well; the taste of her was excitingly new and still naturally welcoming to him. He thought he'd never felt such a rush of different feelings all at one, but above all was the unconstrained warm joy that he felt as he moved in perfect sync with her.
He didn't notice when her hands ended up entwined around his neck, or when both his hands settled on her waist to hold her securely against himself, but that was how they stood when the need for oxygen finally made itself known and they pulled back from the kiss, their eyes opening accordingly and boring into each other.
Feeling like time had slowed, Ichigo watched as the woman slid her arm from around his neck and reached up to touch his face; her fingertips left a trail of tickling warmth as they made their way upwards, the sensation enough to make him close his eyes. She didn't say anything as, with meticulously slow movements, she took his mask and lifted it away from his face.
He opened his eyes then, feeling strangely naked as his face was completely exposed to her for the first time. Her eyes seemed to be drinking him in, but there was no judgment or appraisal in her gaze. He felt his lips parting in expectation, eager to meet hers now.
To his utter disappointment, however, she pulled back. "I have to leave."
He wanted to protest, but instead allowed her to gently push his hands away from her, nodding once. "I understand." he told her; and he did. In fact, he should be thankful that she had managed to stop things from going too far. Still, it didn't feel like anything he wanted to celebrate. "Will you tell me your name?" He asked, fighting to keep a note of hopefulness from entering his voice.
She shook her head, her violet eyes regretful. "I think it would be better if I didn't."
He found himself grinning at that. "I guess you're right." he admitted out loud. 'This was never supposed to be for me…'
It was another moment longer before the still nameless, violet-eyed woman offered up the black mask still in her grasp. "Here, this is yo-"
"Keep it." he cut her off, closing her fingers around the object for emphasis.
"But-"
"I don't need it." he said with a smile. He didn't need it. Ichigo had worn the mask for one night and had pretended… To be someone else? Or perhaps just to live someone else's life… It didn't matter. Come tomorrow, he would be himself again, and that mask meaningless.
As he allowed his hands to slide off hers, he gave her another smile; at least someone could keep the memories of his night's pretending. For some reason, he was glad it was her.
"I'll see you around." she said behind him just when he'd reached the door to exit, and her words carried an implication that made him feel both nervous and hopeful.
Perhaps…
Halfway out the door already, Ichigo turned his head to steal one last glance at the woman before leaving.
"…Maybe…"
Or at least, he thought-
-x-
"Ichigo!"
Reality came crashing down on him, in the form of a rather thick volume of the works of William Shakespeare. If he was going to have a book-related concussion, it might as well be from a literary masterpiece, right?
"The hell?" he grabbed the book-turned-weapon and did a quick examination to check that it hadn't suffered any severe damage from landing against his head, and came to the conclusion that his cranium had indeed taken the worst of the blow. "What do you think you're doing, you pint-sized little devil?"
Rukia's violet gaze flared. "Waking you from a coma, apparently!" she barked at him from the opposite end of the couch they were sharing. "We're going to be late for work."
"Wha-" he blinked, taking a moment to process his situation; he was in his living room, with Rukia, dressed in his nightclothes, and judging by the clear light filtering into the area, it was morning.
What day was it again…?
"Shit!" Ichigo scrambled to get off the couch, the images that had been filling his head before being forced into consciousness being entirely forgotten as he stressfully sped back to his room in hopes of somehow making it through at least half of his morning routine and be able to make it to work on time.
Rukia was left standing in the middle of the living room with her arms folded over her chest, shaking her head as she muttered, "Idiot."
A record less than ten minutes later Ichigo returned to the living room mildly refreshed and half dressed, with a piece of dry toast dangling from his mouth as he worked on buttoning his light blue shirt. The petite raven-head took the sight in with a single quirked eyebrow, whistling appreciatively as he came to sit beside her.
"That was quick." she noted casually.
Ichigo, noticing that she was already dressed and seemingly ready to go narrowed his eyes at her. Once his hands were free, he removed the bread from his mouth and gulped down a bite. "You look like you've been ready for a while. Any particular reason why you didn't wake me earlier?" he asked in a tight voice, his eye twitching in annoyance.
"Personal enjoyment?" she offered in response, to which he corresponded with a heavier glare. Unperturbed, Rukia smirked tauntingly before letting her expression soften slightly and saying, "You didn't get a lot of sleep last night."
"Ah-" So she knew about that? But… "How'd you know?"
"I'm a light sleeper, stupid."
He couldn't help but scoff at that; he'd had more than one experience to prove otherwise. Rukia ignored him and added, "I heard you."
Oh.
In what felt like an action as common as breathing whenever he was around her, Ichigo reached up to scratch behind his head. His eyes strayed over to that Shakespeare volume that was at that point laying on the coffee table, and he fought back a smile as he remembered the previous night. Rukia wasn't a big fan of the classics, and he had taken it upon himself to prove her wrong when she claimed it was all just 'a bunch of stiff and boring excess of fancy words', in her own words. So they'd taken their place on the couch, and he'd started reading some of his favorite passages. At one point or another, he wasn't sure when and didn't particularly care for such details, his arm had ended up around Rukia and she had leaned against him as he read out loud. His original plan didn't prove to be very effective, as at one point he'd looked down only to find that the person he'd been trying to impress was in fact fast asleep on his chest. Upon realizing that, instead of admitting defeat he simply held her as he went on reading until sleep claimed him as well.
"You should thank me, then." Ichigo said, before all but shoving the last of his hasty breakfast into his mouth, swallowing heavily before going on. "Thanks to me you are now a more literate person."
She gave him a skeptical look. "The only thing I have you to thank for is a rather disturbing dream sequence of men dressed up in tights and committing suicide for each other."
His insulted retort to that fell short on his lips as her words jolted his mind back to the memory of his own dream.
That's right, he thought. I dreamt of that day…
"H-Hey…" Rukia looked at him warily. "What are you making that weird face for?"
"What weird face?" Ichigo instantly replied, only then noticing that he had been smiling to himself. He attempted to compensate by making his scowl extra pronounced now.
"The one with the perverted grin." she declared, causing his eyes to widen as he shot up from his seat in shock.
"Perverted?" he repeated, thinking that a little overreaction was more than warranted when she described him in a way that he usually described his father; it was below the belt. "I wasn't thinking of anything like that!"
"What were you thinking, then?" she challenged.
He paused, his first instinct being to make a snappy remark but deciding against it. After a moment of hesitation, he leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees and look up at Rukia almost shyly. "You remember the day we met?"
Surprise masked her face for a moment before she let out a laugh. "How could I forget?" she gave him a sly smile. "You took advantage of me after just meeting me."
"Wha-?" he all but screeched. "Why you little…" He growled, but relaxed as he caught on to her joking mood. A few beats of silence passed before he reclaimed his previous train of thought. "You know, people call that kind of thing serendipity."
Beside him, Rukia regarded him with a look that was a mixture of surprise and amusement. "How poetic of you."
"Shut up." came his immediate response. "You're such a-" the rest of his less-than-polite response was cut off as a pair of impossibly delicate lips pressed into his without warning.
His train of thought was lost as his eyes shut of their own accord and his hand came up to hold the side of Rukia's face as their mouths molded together for the first time that morning. The kiss was short but lingering, and Ichigo could feel his pulse quicken as he once again opened his eyes and was met with a pair of twinkling violet orbs.
"We're going to be late." she reminded him, effectively ending the moment.
Ichigo's stream of curses was all that was heard as the two made a frenzied beeline out of the house.
-x-
The last week had gone by in a seeming daze for Rukia. Ever since that new year's day she had found herself spending a large chunk of her time in the company of a certain orange-haired coworker; of course, referring to him as a 'coworker' was quite the understatement at that point. Whether it was simply going out to dinner or spending the evening at his house, that plus the added time that they spent in their vicinity at work; Ichigo a big part of her days. And if she was being honest with herself, she couldn't complain.
It was like their relationship hadn't changed at all, and yet it had. Sure, they had moved to a stage where mutual romantic feelings were expressed -and by expressed, it really meant acted upon, since neither of the parties involved was particularly keen on discussing their feelings verbally; which actually worked out rather conveniently- but he was still the same Ichigo, and she was still Rukia. She was still as comfortable simply being with him as she was trading insults with him… For that, she was grateful.
"Is she daydreaming again?" a female voice cut into her own inner musings.
"Eh?" Rukia whirled in her chair to face the busty blonde woman who seemed to always have too much spare time on her hands.
"Is she?" Popped up a familiar head of dark spiky hair from her next-door cubicle.
"What are you two talking about?" Rukia looked from Kaien to Rangiku, her annoyance ill-concealed.
"You, obviously." answered Rangiku, her blue eyes glinting almost deviously. "You've been living on Cloud Nine since last week."
"What?" she immediately showed her undignified response.
"So I'm not the only one who noticed." Kaien said pensively. "I'd been wondering what's gotten into her."
Rangiku's lips curled into a definitely devious smile. "I bet I have an idea of what's been getting into her." She raised her eyebrows as she looked at Rukia.
It took the raven-haired woman a few moments longer than it should have to catch the insinuation, and promptly flush up to her ears. "Rangiku! T-that's-!"
"Relax, relax." The blonde waved her arms in what was supposed to be a calming gesture. "We're all friends here, no need for secrets."
Rukia felt her eyes widen despite her efforts to maintain a neutral expression. "I have no idea what you're talking about."
Rangiku answered with a dramatic roll of her eyes that was mirrored almost identically by Kaien.
"Your nose is looking pretty big there, Pinocchio." he teased.
Rukia had to resist the urge to reach up and cover her nose self-consciously. "Seriously, you two are acting stranger than usual. Which is saying a lot."
"Stop playing dumb, Rukia." Rangiku said simply. "I'm a reporter, it's my job to know these things."
She wanted to remind her that her job was not actually harassing her coworkers, but people out there, but decided against it, in favor of concentrating on saving her own image from whatever her nosey friends were speculating. "I think it's part of your job description that you're not supposed to fabricate a story."
"There's nothing fabricated about the goofy look of happiness that you've had on your face lately." she countered. Kaien nodded his agreement.
"What exactly are you insinuating?" Rukia finally decided on a more direct approach.
"You really have to ask?" Rangiku blinked, looking genuinely surprised for an instant. When Rukia didn't say anything, the blonde sighed, resting a hand on her hip and pouting in what could have been mistaken for a pose for a picture. "Here's a hint: there's one other normally grumpy guy that's been looking pretty happy-go-lucky these days."
Shit.
"Huh?" Play dumb, she told herself. Just play dumb. "I don't know what you're getting at."
"Ruuuukia," the elder female dragged out her name in dramatic exasperation. "You really don't need to hide it, it was only a matter of time for you and Ichigo."
At the explicit mention of his name, Rukia felt her ears go hot. "Rangiku," she all but hissed in a tone that undoubtedly held a warning.
"Didn't I tell you to relax?" The woman responded, unfazed.
"You're going to pop an artery looking so tense." Kaien pitched in, earning himself a quick glare.
"We're not idiots." Rangiku said, then, with a glance towards their male friend she added, "At least I'm not."
"Hey!"
"We're not going to tattle." went on the blonde looking at Rukia, completely ignoring Kaien's protests. "No one but us will know."
Rukia wanted to argue, to keep denying and lying her brains out… But she could recognize a lost battle when she saw one. In a rare display, she let her shoulders sag slightly as she admitted defeat for once. She took a deep, steadying breath before eventually asking, "How?"
How did you know?
Rangiku's smile softened somewhat at that. "Let's just say, I recognized the look."
Somewhat unsatisfied with the answer, Rukia turned to Kaien, only to see him wearing a rare solemn smile not unlike Rangiku's; he nodded to her unspoken question. "It's obvious to anyone
who knows what it's like to be in love."
At those particular words, Rukia felt a jolt through her body.
…Love?
-x-
Ichigo tore his eyes away from the road to sneak a glance at his passenger, who had barely spoken a word since they'd gotten in the car.
"Rukia…" he started tentatively, still watching from his peripheral vision as he drove. "You okay?"
The woman turned to him with a dumbfounded look. "Why do you ask?"
He felt his eyebrows creasing and he kept his narrowed gaze on the road. "You've barely said a word since we left. You look pretty distracted." He noted.
He could just notice Rukia biting her lip and shrinking slightly into her seat. "Well…" she hesitated for a moment, contemplating whether or not to tell him what was on her mind, he guessed. "It's something Kaien and Rangiku said today."
Not exactly what he'd expected, but he could deal with that. "What did they-"
"They know." she answered before he could finish. "About us."
The car nearly screeched to a halt, provoking a loud concert of honks and angry yells from the traffic behind them before Ichigo regained some control over his driving.
"They what?" he shrieked. "How the hell did they find out? Did you-"
"Of course I didn't tell them, idiot!" she barked. "They figured it out on their own."
"But, we were so careful!" Ichigo was trying to keep from panicking. "I was so careful!"
"What are you insinuating?" Rukia's eyebrow twitched.
"Damn it!" he finally cursed. "Why are you so calm about this?" Hadn't she figured it out? If Kaien and Rangiku could figure out what was going on, it was only one step further for someone like Aizen to notice. And yet she'd merely looked distraught over the fact! "How did they figure it out?" He finally settled for asking.
Rukia inhaled a sudden breath, her eyes becoming slightly unfocused like before. "They…"
Though he was still forcing his gaze forward, he could see from the corner of his eye how she turned her head to look out the window before she spoke.
"You can calm down." she unexpectedly said at last. "I doubt Aizen will have any way to know."
So she did know their predicament. But… "Why not? If they could, then-"
"Trust me," she interrupted. "We're safe."
Ichigo wanted to protest, wanted to point out all the reasons why she could be wrong, but in just one moment he let his gaze wander to hers and he saw a reassurance in his eyes that he couldn't argue with. He felt his hands relax on the steering wheel as he, reluctantly, decided not to push it any further. "Want to grab a quick bite before we head home?"
He saw her smile and relax in response. "Sure."
They ended up at Urahara's.
It would never be their first choice for any occasion, but it was still the closest place to Rukia's apartment and she'd insisted they stop there first so she could at least grab a change of clothes before heading back to his place. Normally she'd take care of those details in the morning, but seeing as that day they'd slept late and barely made it to work on time in his car, dropping her off at her house so they could arrive at Seretei separately as they had done the previous days had been out of the question.
Of course, it was only a matter of time before they both started regretting that decision… And by 'time', they would mean from the moment they walked through the door.
"Ruuukiaaaaahh!" The overly-chipper blond owner of the establishment sang as soon as he spotted the pair. "And Ichigo! My, what a surprise!" He was at their side in an instant. "What brings you back to my humble little restaurant?"
"Surprising lack of common sense." Ichigo muttered, loud enough to be heard, however much the other man pretended not to have heard.
"Just give us a table, Urahara." Rukia cut in with her business-like voice.
"Ah, so cold Rukia…" the man lamented. "That brother of yours may be rubbing off on you."
"Urahara…"
"Right, right." he smiled appealingly. "You may seat wherever you like." He said, lifting his striped hat in a gesture of respect before stepping back to allow them to walk past him.
"I'm surrounded by insane people." Ichigo declared once they had slid into a booth.
"I resent that." Rukia commented.
"Some are slightly more tolerable than others." he said back teasingly.
Rukia responded with a smirk that he copied soon after. He really did marvel at their relationship… Just when did it all become so easy?
"Damn I hope you're not hungry, with the damn prices here you're going to have to settle for the kids menu." he paused in the process of scowling at the menu to look up at the woman across him. "Actually, that's kind of appropriate."
Ichigo learned one lesson that day: mocking Rukia while his shins were oh so susceptible to her surprisingly strong feet in the conveniently hidden area under a table was a bad idea.
-x-
They opted to walk back to Rukia's apartment. She'd swore all she'd be bringing back was a small bag with a change of clothes, so it was nothing they couldn't carry back to the car. Ichigo already knew the way well enough to know at which building to stop, but was surprised when Rukia paused on the steps of it to look back at him expectantly.
"You don't have to stay out in the cold, you know." she said with a smirk, but Ichigo recognized the invitation. He merely grunted in response, but followed after her nonetheless.
Once they'd entered the building through the set of glass doors, they crossed the lobby straight towards the elevators. While they waited, Ichigo let his eyes stray around the area; it wasn't very large, but there was a vending machine, a small round table with folding chairs around it, and some scattered old magazines laying over it. To his right he saw the doorman sitting behind his desk, feet propped up on the chipped wood and head thrown lazily over the back of his chair as he slumbered away.
Ichigo looked at the sleeping man with a blank face. "Is he supposed to be…?"
Following his line of sight, Rukia gave him a quick shrug. "That's just Stark. The only time I see him awake is when his niece comes down. The girl is pretty loud too, so she kind of makes sure the entire building is awake when she's in a mood."
"Sounds… Really annoying." Ichigo said, thinking of how irritating his own loud father could be.
Rukia grinned. "You get used to it. I got used to you, after all."
He didn't get to shoot back his own retort as the elevator doors chose that moment to open and the two wasted no time going inside. Rukia pressed the button for the third floor and they rode quietly the rest of the way. When the doors opened, he followed her down a short narrow hallway of identical white doors -aside from the rising numbers-, until she stopped near the end before the one marked '342'.
"Here we are." Rukia said as she swung the door open and motioned for him to go inside.
It was really… plain.
White and pale cream walls, only one or two simple paintings decorating them; white cabinets in the small kitchen on the left; a glass dining table bare except for a single placemat, and chairs with white cushions around it; there was a futon further along on the small area of the living room, facing what looked like an out-of-time TV set… All in all, it was remarkably unremarkable.
Ichigo frowned as he tried to connect the vision before him to Rukia, but failed to see any similarity to her. Rukia was…
"Help yourself to a drink or snack if you want, I'm going to take a quick shower." she looked at him and, presumably misreading his expression, she added, "Won't be long, I swear."
"You live here?" Ichigo wound up blurting out.
Rukia blinked. "We're not breaking and entering, I do actually live here." she said flatly, somewhat confused by his question.
Realizing how he must sound, Ichigo scratched behind his head and uttered a quick apology. "Sorry, it's just that… This doesn't suit you at all."
"Huh?"
He shrugged. "It's nothing particular, it's just not how I imagined it would be."
"So you'd imagined the place where I live?" She couldn't resist the teasing comments.
"No!" came his rash denial, probably only serving to spur her on.
She laughed him off though. "It's not my dream house, exactly. But it's what I could get with what I saved up in college. I don't really need much more than a place to sleep."
It took him a few seconds before something occurred to him. "I'm surprised Byakuya hasn't moved you to some fancy penthouse."
Rukia looked down at her shoes. "Well, this wasn't really his idea. But he paid for my studies, and he's done so much for me already… I refused to let him do more."
Ichigo stared at her, but found that he wasn't really that surprised. Of course Rukia would be too proud to accept charity, even from her family. He'd tease her for it but a little voice inside him reminded him that he was exactly the same way.
"Hn." was what he settled for responding. "Just hurry up with that shower… You could just do that back at my house, you know."
"I'm already here, and I want to get the office smell off me. A couple of minutes won't kill you."
He rolled his eyes, letting the battle that he knew he would lose anyway go and heading over to flop down on the futon. "You can be such a girl sometimes."
He really should have seen that blow coming… But he wouldn't have expected it to come in the form of a shoe this time; she was getting creative.
-x-
'A couple of minutes' turned out to be nearly half an hour… Which he suspected was for no reason other than to annoy him.
During that time, Ichigo had tried and given up on finding something good to watch TV, and was trying not to drift off sprawled across the futon as he was. It was the feeling of having a bag of clothes dropped on his chest that brought him back into a more alert state, and his eyes soon met those of a satisfied-looking Rukia.
"I'm ready to go now." The smugness in her tone left him no doubt that yes, she had definitely taken longer for the sole purpose of messing with him.
He clicked his tongue in annoyance as he straightened into a sitting position and let the bag fall in his hands. "Right away, boss." he muttered sarcastically, only succeeding in making Rukia's visible satisfaction increase. "Actually, you know what? I don't feel like going anymore." He grinned inwardly as he saw the smug look on her face morph into surprise. He put on an especially childish scowl that looked almost like a pout… If Ichigo Kurosaki did such a thing as pouting, which he didn't.
Rukia was silent for a long moment, sensing his game, before shrugging. "Suit yourself. I'm out of here."
Before she could get more than two steps away though, she found herself yanked back by the wrist. This time Ichigo's grin appeared on the surface as he pulled Rukia back to fall back on the futon, conveniently landing right between his legs. "I don't think so. It's about time I get some power in this relationship." he spoke over her head, his arms coming around to form a cage around her.
She scoffed. "A little late for that, don't you think?"
"So annoying…" Ichigo complained into her ear, his warm breath causing her to pause in her struggling. She stopped completely when he lowered his lips to press against the exposed flesh over her collarbone.
Instead of fighting back for once, Rukia allowed herself to melt into him, tilting her head slightly to allow him access to her neck. He kissed the smooth ivory flesh before allowing his tongue to slip out and taste the tender flesh. Rukia's quick intake of breath told him all he needed to know about how she felt.
"Ichigo…" she near whispered his name, the sound sending a thrill through him and urging him on.
He nuzzled her neck for a moment before moving his mouth upwards, stopping to brush his lips along her jaw before moving further up to press a lingering kiss on her temple. All the while, Rukia's hands had settled themselves over the his own, only managing to cover a portion of his significantly larger ones. As Ichigo started to slowly pull away, she turned to look up at him with half-lidded, clouded eyes. He didn't have enough time to decipher the emotions swirling on the indigo orbs when he felt one of her hands come up to the back of his head and pull him down to meet a pair of eager lips. The kiss was slow but it made him feel like fire was running through his veins down to every part of his body, until he was sure she could feel his want for her in their delicate position.
Just as the kiss began to deepen, Rukia pulled back. Ichigo's eyes flew open and he was stopped short by the look she was giving him. He'd never seen her expression so utterly soft and vulnerable. But her eyes… Her eyes were-
"Ichigo," she repeated his name, more firmly now. "I-"
The shrill sound of a cell phone ringing interrupted her.
"Don't-" Ichigo started to say, but she was already disentangling herself from his arms and taking the device out of her jeans pocket to take the call. He cursed under his breath as he tried to get his pulse back under control, his eyebrows etching close together with obvious frustration at the interruption.
Rukia had disappeared into her bedroom and he couldn't make out a word she was saying, so he settled for sulking by himself while wondering what the hell could be so damn important that she couldn't just let it go to voicemail. He was about to ask exactly that as the petite woman emerged from her room, cell phone still in hand and wearing an expression he couldn't quite decipher.
"That was my brother." she beat him to the punch.
"He had to choose now to be a doting sibling?" He made it a point not to disguise his annoyance.
Rukia began chewing at her lip again- a nervous habit that he'd only started seeing a lot pretty recently.
"He called for something important," she explained. "A favor I asked him."
He was getting a weird vibe, his gut telling him there was something he was missing. "What kind of favor, exactly?"
She seemed to struggle for a moment before forcing herself to meet his eyes.
"We've got a lead on Aizen."
A/N: ...That awkward moment when you haven't updated for an entire semester... Hehe, on the upside, I'm not dead and I haven't given up on this story :D
Okay, this is the part where I say that I am deeply and genuinely sorry that it took me so long to update. It's not that I didn't have time, exactly, I just didn't have the time that I would have -liked- to dedicate to this story. And the last chapter that I forced myself to update in a rush resulted in me rewriting and re-updating the whole chapter, so I decided to just wait until I had time to do this the way I wanted to. Yes, I'm an ass for just dropping off the radar like that, you can be as annoyed with me as you want, but give the story a chance! It's not her fault :) As always (and especially now) many thanks to all those who reviewed:
po, Premus, Furimaindo, francis, pen-Aine, ca, Aralana J'Lee Lovings, PercyJackson13, tired of waiting (you get points for being up-front xD), KOS-MOS20, CrossroadsofLife, MN, RyuInnersoul, wickedliz, Shaybo27, AnimeFanx3, Alyssa, kazuo-sempai, Prizz, TruantPony, sweetieebunny, 1999, UPDATE (more honest brutality points!XD), Black Sun Upon An Icy Sky, Dividing Line, whatever. you. love., thehgirl13, Poisonfish, Rukie Martinez, shnizlefritz, Mokimoki-chan, chineschopsticks, xXSonamyloveXx, Mae Snapdragon, lizzyytx33, IchirukiLullaby, broken emerald, Kuroi-cho-tsuki-shiro, IchiRuki2.0, pamianime, allylalina, Fire331, OnepieceX3, and KitElizaKing
I hope at least half of you were patient enough to be reading this xD To those of you who waited (patiently or not hehe) thank you so very much! I'll try never to go mia for this long again :P
...On the upside, I'm pretty sure the last was the most reviewed chapter for this story XD