RUMORSby junkdog
Genre: Humor, A Little Drama, Rated PGish
Characters: Hints of Ichigo/Rukia, Kurosaki Family, Kon, Mizuro, Chad
Spoilers: None, really. I do make allusions to things we've found out in recent chapters, but unless you know what they pertain to, you won't be spoiled at all. ^^
Summary: Rumours at school and home are sort of cramping Ichigo and Rukia's daily life.
Notes: I couldn't help but make it sort of mooshy in the middle. It gets more interesting, I promise. Tried not to make it too omg romance and more fluffy... er... see for yourself.
Challenge:![[info]](http://stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
rukia Pre-Soul Society Arc. Comedy, hopefully. Rukia & Ichigo are busy taking care of Pluses and Hollows in town, but sometimes their odd circumstances puts them into... embarrassing situations (for Ichigo at least). Story must begin with the line:
"Hey Ichigo, I could've sworn I saw a girl climb into your window last night!"
SPRRRRTTTT
Ichigo slammed his fist into his chest, coughing from inhaling his juicebox down his windpipe.
"Wh-th-f--wh-what?" was his reply to Mizuro. The petit playboy only blinked innocently and finished a bite of his sandwich.
"I swore I saw a girl, I did..." he protested.
"What were you doing near my house?!"
Mizuro rolled his eyes and shook his head. "I live near you, remember? I was walking home from Keigo's house, since he's been sick this past week. Lucky thing he isn't here, he'd be having a fit if he saw that too." His pretty eyebrows knitted in a sulk. "You really shouldn't keep that from us, you know."
Ichigo smacked his hand into his face, frustration and panic bubbling up in his chest. He didn't want to bite his friend's head off, but at the same time he realised he couldn't back out on this subject. He'd reacted too much like he was keeping a secret. Which he was, but that was not the point. Keeping a fellow classmate in his closet wasn't easy to handle, let alone keeping a *girl* in there.
"From the back, it sort of looked like..." Mizuro started accusingly.
"Kuchiki." Chad raised his head, being the ever-silent type. He knew very well who slept in Ichigo's room and stole Ichigo's little sister's clothing. He'd used her as a human canonball once. And there she was, climbing up the stairs for lunch on the roof, though she usually ate with the other girls now.
"Hey, Ru... Kuchiki," Ichigo greeted her, calming down. Certainly with Rukia here, Mizuro wouldn't continue talking about the whole issue. The girl strode over quite purposefully, and sat down. The redhead boy noticed a certain tension in her shoulders, and she unpacked her lunch with sharp, mechanical movements.
"Ahh, nevermind," Mizuro waved his hand and stood up to take away his trash.
Ichigo took a breather and leaned over to the dark-haired shinigami.
"Hey, Rukia, you okay?"
Chad made a small "mmm?" noise from deep in his chest. 'Are you okay?' he seemed to say.
She slammed the straw so hard into the juice box that it practically burst.
"Tatsuki saw me going into your window last night," she clipped.
SPRRRRTTTT
Chad nodded solemnly, making a concerned noise as he slapped a choking Ichigo on the back.
-
They spent the rest of the day in uncomfortable silence. It wasn't that they were angry at each other, or the other students, it was simply too hard for them to field so many questions about their "relationship". Both of them were awful liars, so trying to cover it up was almost impossible.
As they reached the house, Rukia checked her cellphone. "Seems like a quiet night."
"Uhh-huh."
"Well, I'll ... just find another place to stay that's close by, just in case a Hollow shows up..." She turned away from Ichigo, starting to walk further down the road.
"H...hey."
Ichigo put his hand on her shoulder, and she stopped walking, but didn't turn to face him.
"It's all over the school, Ichigo." The words were short and ripped out of her. "You're just becoming more and more of a gossip topic. I don't care about me, I won't be here..." Rukia didn't finish her last sentence, as if that'd make this situation worse than what it seemed.
Ichigo sighed and stomped his foot, shoving his free hand through his hair as he tried to find the right words.
"Look ... it'd be pretty shitty of me to let you do that, you know?" He growled in his throat as he stumbled over the conversation. "I can't just let you walk out. All that yelling and kicking me into work I won't miss, but..." But what? Rukia turned around at him and gave Ichigo one of the most pathetic looks he'd ever seen her wear. It seemed to go beyond worrying where she was staying that night.
"What's with that look?" he said, rubbing the side of his face.
"I am... nothing but a burden to you," Rukia's voice was tight, slipping back into her old vernacular very subtly. He noticed her hands clenched and shaking at her sides. "I am simply taking up space and ruining your reputation at school."
Ichigo had to laugh, despite the tenseness of the scene. "Reputation? Don't worry about that. I don't have one to worry about." He clapped her shoulder again, trying to be comforting, then reached his hand up and ruffled her hair as if she was one of his sisters.
Rukia froze, ram-rod straight, and raised her moon-wide eyes to him as if she was seeing a ghost. He couldn't understand her expression then, but he attempted to smile for her.
"Shut up, okay? You're not any of that. A burden or whatever. You can be loud, but who's gonna shut Kon up if you leave?" The last line made her break from whatever reverie had taken hold of her, and she smiled a painful smile for him.
His eyebrows knit tighter. "Stop making that face! Cheer up!" He furiously scrubbed his hand on her scalp as if that would make her smile wider. She appeared to recover with the rough treatment, as she then reached up and bit his hand sharply, then barked out a laugh as he snapped his injured palm away with a curse.
"You little...!"
"Hah!" She carefully smoothed out her bangs and looked as if nothing was troubling her. She began to stride to the wall she scaled to get into Ichigo's room.
"I'm not letting you get away with that!" he yelled, and began to charge her. Rukia began to sprint, clamoring up the wall, trying to contain the sudden surge of laughter that was threatening to come out. Her feet had barely touched the floor when he reached the window himself. She tossed her bag at him and began backing up against Ichigo's bed, launching herself head-first into his stomach before he had time to get his bearings. She knocked him to the floor, pinning one arm with both her hands and the other with her knee.
"Hah! You fool," she mock-sneered, "don't think because I'm little I can't fight back with you. I've wrestled with boys your size before. I'll get you for messing up my hair like that."
Ichigo's lips curved in a half-smirk at the challenge, a small part of him glad to see Rukia in better spirits. "Don't think I don't know how to handle girls your size, either!" He twisted his body around and for a good few minutes, they mock-wrestled, trying to use every single trick they'd learned against their siblings on each other.
She finally tickled him into submission (she wasn't ticklish, much to Ichigo's dismay), and had him pinned all over again.
"I win." She smiled with all her teeth, triumphant. Ichigo let out a defeated grump, hands sprawled out over his head.
There was an odd sort of tension for a brief moment, and something uncomfortable and unfamiliar flared in his chest. It constricted his breathing for a moment, and his face twisted in a confused grimace.
"What?" Rukia questioned him, leaning forward to get a better look at his face. She breathed too close to his neck, and his leg jerked in response.
"H-hey," he began weakly, trying to push her warm body away from him (but not really wanting to), when he heard someone clearing their throat.
They both froze like statues.
"I told you I saw the girl from the graveyard coming in his room last night," Karin's voice declared. Ichigo turned terrified, wide eyes to his doorway.
Yuzu had Kon pressed tightly to her chest, squeezing him (and by the looks of it, choking him as well). Karin looked victorious, rubbing her chin slyly. His father looked very serious for once, an unreadable expression on his face.
"Onii...chan..." squeaked Yuzu. One of Kon's arms twitched.
Karin looked as if she was going to say something rather witty when Isshin cracked his fist against the wall.
"Ichigo." Isshin's voice resonated in the room.
Rukia shrunk away, scooting off of Ichigo and curling her legs in front of her beside him. Ichigo sat up bolt-straight, fingernails digging into his palms as he readied his body for his father's next move.
"I'm disappointed in you, son," he said sternly, eyes narrowing a little. The boy felt his heart sink. Now they know that Rukia's here...!
"Dad, I... I can explain, it... it isn't what it--"
Something sharp but none too heavy smacked him upside the forehead. For a moment he was dazed. The object fell into Rukia's open palms. It was a small, wrapped box.
"A son of a doctor can't forget the most important part of courting!!!" bellowed his father, "And that's PROTECTION!"
Yuzu hugged the stuffed lion tighter, going red to her ears. Kon's gagging was covered up by Karin's snickering. Isshin opened his mouth to begin a tirade on safe sex, when a loud *PAMPF* sounded in the room.
"Ichigo!"
Rukia looked up from unwrapping the curious box, not sure when Ichigo had located the Memory Modifier from her bag. He was standing, half-panting in panic, the little duck head flopping back and forth on the spring. The teenager stomped over, shoved his dazed family out of his room, and shut his door with a slam.
He let his back hit the door with heavy sigh, eyes wandering over to where Rukia was on his floor. She was picking up her things and putting them back silently into her school bag. Ichigo handed her the Memory Modifier, rubbing the back of his neck as he stared at his door.
"That was close," he said awkwardly.
"Aa." She had a slight flush on her face from embarrassment; he had the same. She poked his stomach cruelly for a moment.
"I certainly hope that was the right thing to do. You don't know what sort of memory that thing put in its place," she said.
"I'm sure it'll be fine." With that, he yawned, suddenly very, very tired. Tomorrow was going to be a looong day.
-
Yuzu knocked on his door very carefully the next morning, not looking him in the eye as she told him breakfast was ready. Ichigo groggily pulled himself out of bed, hearing the customary clatter in the closet as Rukia got dressed. After a very, very careful inspection of the outside, she made her way to the street.
Ichigo made his way downstairs, rubbing his eyes and tugging on his uniform. He had very fitful sleep last night, not aided at all by the embarassing scene that had "not" happened last night. Karin was looking at him curiously, and Isshin looked unsually pensive.
"Huh? Why is everyone giving me the cold shoulder this morning?" he complained, the silence getting on his nerves more than any morning chatter would have.
Yuzu dropped something in the kitchen. Karin cleared her throat, and Isshin looked up.
"Son ..." he began, very carefully, as if his words would break as they came out of his mouth, "we need to talk about what happened last night."
"What do you mean, what happened last night?" For a brief and fleeting moment, he'd forgotten about how he'd erased the memory of what they'd seen. His heart seized up. What had they seen in its place?
"I'm your father, and these are your sisters ... and even though it's hard to talk about such things ... well ... you can always tell us. We love you, you know."
"What's with all this mushy bull--"
"Oh, oniichan!" Yuzu cried from the kitchen. She ran in and dug her face into his stomach, clinging to his shirt.
"Yuzu...?!"
"It's okay, son." Isshin's eyes welled up in tears.
"You know," began Karin rather scathingly, sounding severely wounded, "you could've just told us that you had a boyfriend, instead of us having to find out like that." She sipped her juice and didn't meet his eyes. Yuzu began to cry, and Ichigo, stunned stupid by his sister's words, felt his father embrace him as well.
"It's okay, Ichigo!!!! Your whole family loves you, me, your mother, Karin, Yuzu... even if you've chosen this path in life!! It's okay that you're ... you're..." He began to choke on his fatherly tears.
"Gay," Karin finished, then yawned, having made her point.
-
"Kuchiki-san!"
Rukia looked up to see Mizuro coming up the street. She smiled, waved politely, and turned her attention briefly back to what she had been doing previously.
"How are you this morning?"
"Just waiting for Ichigo," she said neatly, "I heard a lot of rumours started about us at school, and I wanted to take care of them today."
"That's good..." Mizuro seemed uncomfortable for a moment, as if he was guilty of something, but Rukia didn't notice his change in demenour.
"What's taking him so long?"
"I... think Ichigo is taking care of some rumours himself." With that, she continued to fiddle with last night's mystery box, opening it up to shift through it. She had unwrapped some last night to divine the contents, and she picked out the used wrappings as she began to thumb through the remaining product.
Mizuro's eyes grew very, very wide.
"Where...did you get those?" He seemed to choke on his words.
"Oh!" She gave him a pleasant smile, unaware of what she was holding. "These?"
"Y...yes."
"Ichigo gave them to me... the... other day... as a gift." She looked pleased with her answer. Mizuro could only nod wordlessly. It was then they heard a blood-curtling scream resounding from the Kurosaki household.
It was going to be a very interesting week.
Genre: Humor, A Little Drama, Rated PGish
Characters: Hints of Ichigo/Rukia, Kurosaki Family, Kon, Mizuro, Chad
Spoilers: None, really. I do make allusions to things we've found out in recent chapters, but unless you know what they pertain to, you won't be spoiled at all. ^^
Summary: Rumours at school and home are sort of cramping Ichigo and Rukia's daily life.
Notes: I couldn't help but make it sort of mooshy in the middle. It gets more interesting, I promise. Tried not to make it too omg romance and more fluffy... er... see for yourself.
Challenge:
rukia Pre-Soul Society Arc. Comedy, hopefully. Rukia & Ichigo are busy taking care of Pluses and Hollows in town, but sometimes their odd circumstances puts them into... embarrassing situations (for Ichigo at least). Story must begin with the line: "Hey Ichigo, I could've sworn I saw a girl climb into your window last night!"
SPRRRRTTTT
Ichigo slammed his fist into his chest, coughing from inhaling his juicebox down his windpipe.
"Wh-th-f--wh-what?" was his reply to Mizuro. The petit playboy only blinked innocently and finished a bite of his sandwich.
"I swore I saw a girl, I did..." he protested.
"What were you doing near my house?!"
Mizuro rolled his eyes and shook his head. "I live near you, remember? I was walking home from Keigo's house, since he's been sick this past week. Lucky thing he isn't here, he'd be having a fit if he saw that too." His pretty eyebrows knitted in a sulk. "You really shouldn't keep that from us, you know."
Ichigo smacked his hand into his face, frustration and panic bubbling up in his chest. He didn't want to bite his friend's head off, but at the same time he realised he couldn't back out on this subject. He'd reacted too much like he was keeping a secret. Which he was, but that was not the point. Keeping a fellow classmate in his closet wasn't easy to handle, let alone keeping a *girl* in there.
"From the back, it sort of looked like..." Mizuro started accusingly.
"Kuchiki." Chad raised his head, being the ever-silent type. He knew very well who slept in Ichigo's room and stole Ichigo's little sister's clothing. He'd used her as a human canonball once. And there she was, climbing up the stairs for lunch on the roof, though she usually ate with the other girls now.
"Hey, Ru... Kuchiki," Ichigo greeted her, calming down. Certainly with Rukia here, Mizuro wouldn't continue talking about the whole issue. The girl strode over quite purposefully, and sat down. The redhead boy noticed a certain tension in her shoulders, and she unpacked her lunch with sharp, mechanical movements.
"Ahh, nevermind," Mizuro waved his hand and stood up to take away his trash.
Ichigo took a breather and leaned over to the dark-haired shinigami.
"Hey, Rukia, you okay?"
Chad made a small "mmm?" noise from deep in his chest. 'Are you okay?' he seemed to say.
She slammed the straw so hard into the juice box that it practically burst.
"Tatsuki saw me going into your window last night," she clipped.
SPRRRRTTTT
Chad nodded solemnly, making a concerned noise as he slapped a choking Ichigo on the back.
-
They spent the rest of the day in uncomfortable silence. It wasn't that they were angry at each other, or the other students, it was simply too hard for them to field so many questions about their "relationship". Both of them were awful liars, so trying to cover it up was almost impossible.
As they reached the house, Rukia checked her cellphone. "Seems like a quiet night."
"Uhh-huh."
"Well, I'll ... just find another place to stay that's close by, just in case a Hollow shows up..." She turned away from Ichigo, starting to walk further down the road.
"H...hey."
Ichigo put his hand on her shoulder, and she stopped walking, but didn't turn to face him.
"It's all over the school, Ichigo." The words were short and ripped out of her. "You're just becoming more and more of a gossip topic. I don't care about me, I won't be here..." Rukia didn't finish her last sentence, as if that'd make this situation worse than what it seemed.
Ichigo sighed and stomped his foot, shoving his free hand through his hair as he tried to find the right words.
"Look ... it'd be pretty shitty of me to let you do that, you know?" He growled in his throat as he stumbled over the conversation. "I can't just let you walk out. All that yelling and kicking me into work I won't miss, but..." But what? Rukia turned around at him and gave Ichigo one of the most pathetic looks he'd ever seen her wear. It seemed to go beyond worrying where she was staying that night.
"What's with that look?" he said, rubbing the side of his face.
"I am... nothing but a burden to you," Rukia's voice was tight, slipping back into her old vernacular very subtly. He noticed her hands clenched and shaking at her sides. "I am simply taking up space and ruining your reputation at school."
Ichigo had to laugh, despite the tenseness of the scene. "Reputation? Don't worry about that. I don't have one to worry about." He clapped her shoulder again, trying to be comforting, then reached his hand up and ruffled her hair as if she was one of his sisters.
Rukia froze, ram-rod straight, and raised her moon-wide eyes to him as if she was seeing a ghost. He couldn't understand her expression then, but he attempted to smile for her.
"Shut up, okay? You're not any of that. A burden or whatever. You can be loud, but who's gonna shut Kon up if you leave?" The last line made her break from whatever reverie had taken hold of her, and she smiled a painful smile for him.
His eyebrows knit tighter. "Stop making that face! Cheer up!" He furiously scrubbed his hand on her scalp as if that would make her smile wider. She appeared to recover with the rough treatment, as she then reached up and bit his hand sharply, then barked out a laugh as he snapped his injured palm away with a curse.
"You little...!"
"Hah!" She carefully smoothed out her bangs and looked as if nothing was troubling her. She began to stride to the wall she scaled to get into Ichigo's room.
"I'm not letting you get away with that!" he yelled, and began to charge her. Rukia began to sprint, clamoring up the wall, trying to contain the sudden surge of laughter that was threatening to come out. Her feet had barely touched the floor when he reached the window himself. She tossed her bag at him and began backing up against Ichigo's bed, launching herself head-first into his stomach before he had time to get his bearings. She knocked him to the floor, pinning one arm with both her hands and the other with her knee.
"Hah! You fool," she mock-sneered, "don't think because I'm little I can't fight back with you. I've wrestled with boys your size before. I'll get you for messing up my hair like that."
Ichigo's lips curved in a half-smirk at the challenge, a small part of him glad to see Rukia in better spirits. "Don't think I don't know how to handle girls your size, either!" He twisted his body around and for a good few minutes, they mock-wrestled, trying to use every single trick they'd learned against their siblings on each other.
She finally tickled him into submission (she wasn't ticklish, much to Ichigo's dismay), and had him pinned all over again.
"I win." She smiled with all her teeth, triumphant. Ichigo let out a defeated grump, hands sprawled out over his head.
There was an odd sort of tension for a brief moment, and something uncomfortable and unfamiliar flared in his chest. It constricted his breathing for a moment, and his face twisted in a confused grimace.
"What?" Rukia questioned him, leaning forward to get a better look at his face. She breathed too close to his neck, and his leg jerked in response.
"H-hey," he began weakly, trying to push her warm body away from him (but not really wanting to), when he heard someone clearing their throat.
They both froze like statues.
"I told you I saw the girl from the graveyard coming in his room last night," Karin's voice declared. Ichigo turned terrified, wide eyes to his doorway.
Yuzu had Kon pressed tightly to her chest, squeezing him (and by the looks of it, choking him as well). Karin looked victorious, rubbing her chin slyly. His father looked very serious for once, an unreadable expression on his face.
"Onii...chan..." squeaked Yuzu. One of Kon's arms twitched.
Karin looked as if she was going to say something rather witty when Isshin cracked his fist against the wall.
"Ichigo." Isshin's voice resonated in the room.
Rukia shrunk away, scooting off of Ichigo and curling her legs in front of her beside him. Ichigo sat up bolt-straight, fingernails digging into his palms as he readied his body for his father's next move.
"I'm disappointed in you, son," he said sternly, eyes narrowing a little. The boy felt his heart sink. Now they know that Rukia's here...!
"Dad, I... I can explain, it... it isn't what it--"
Something sharp but none too heavy smacked him upside the forehead. For a moment he was dazed. The object fell into Rukia's open palms. It was a small, wrapped box.
"A son of a doctor can't forget the most important part of courting!!!" bellowed his father, "And that's PROTECTION!"
Yuzu hugged the stuffed lion tighter, going red to her ears. Kon's gagging was covered up by Karin's snickering. Isshin opened his mouth to begin a tirade on safe sex, when a loud *PAMPF* sounded in the room.
"Ichigo!"
Rukia looked up from unwrapping the curious box, not sure when Ichigo had located the Memory Modifier from her bag. He was standing, half-panting in panic, the little duck head flopping back and forth on the spring. The teenager stomped over, shoved his dazed family out of his room, and shut his door with a slam.
He let his back hit the door with heavy sigh, eyes wandering over to where Rukia was on his floor. She was picking up her things and putting them back silently into her school bag. Ichigo handed her the Memory Modifier, rubbing the back of his neck as he stared at his door.
"That was close," he said awkwardly.
"Aa." She had a slight flush on her face from embarrassment; he had the same. She poked his stomach cruelly for a moment.
"I certainly hope that was the right thing to do. You don't know what sort of memory that thing put in its place," she said.
"I'm sure it'll be fine." With that, he yawned, suddenly very, very tired. Tomorrow was going to be a looong day.
-
Yuzu knocked on his door very carefully the next morning, not looking him in the eye as she told him breakfast was ready. Ichigo groggily pulled himself out of bed, hearing the customary clatter in the closet as Rukia got dressed. After a very, very careful inspection of the outside, she made her way to the street.
Ichigo made his way downstairs, rubbing his eyes and tugging on his uniform. He had very fitful sleep last night, not aided at all by the embarassing scene that had "not" happened last night. Karin was looking at him curiously, and Isshin looked unsually pensive.
"Huh? Why is everyone giving me the cold shoulder this morning?" he complained, the silence getting on his nerves more than any morning chatter would have.
Yuzu dropped something in the kitchen. Karin cleared her throat, and Isshin looked up.
"Son ..." he began, very carefully, as if his words would break as they came out of his mouth, "we need to talk about what happened last night."
"What do you mean, what happened last night?" For a brief and fleeting moment, he'd forgotten about how he'd erased the memory of what they'd seen. His heart seized up. What had they seen in its place?
"I'm your father, and these are your sisters ... and even though it's hard to talk about such things ... well ... you can always tell us. We love you, you know."
"What's with all this mushy bull--"
"Oh, oniichan!" Yuzu cried from the kitchen. She ran in and dug her face into his stomach, clinging to his shirt.
"Yuzu...?!"
"It's okay, son." Isshin's eyes welled up in tears.
"You know," began Karin rather scathingly, sounding severely wounded, "you could've just told us that you had a boyfriend, instead of us having to find out like that." She sipped her juice and didn't meet his eyes. Yuzu began to cry, and Ichigo, stunned stupid by his sister's words, felt his father embrace him as well.
"It's okay, Ichigo!!!! Your whole family loves you, me, your mother, Karin, Yuzu... even if you've chosen this path in life!! It's okay that you're ... you're..." He began to choke on his fatherly tears.
"Gay," Karin finished, then yawned, having made her point.
-
"Kuchiki-san!"
Rukia looked up to see Mizuro coming up the street. She smiled, waved politely, and turned her attention briefly back to what she had been doing previously.
"How are you this morning?"
"Just waiting for Ichigo," she said neatly, "I heard a lot of rumours started about us at school, and I wanted to take care of them today."
"That's good..." Mizuro seemed uncomfortable for a moment, as if he was guilty of something, but Rukia didn't notice his change in demenour.
"What's taking him so long?"
"I... think Ichigo is taking care of some rumours himself." With that, she continued to fiddle with last night's mystery box, opening it up to shift through it. She had unwrapped some last night to divine the contents, and she picked out the used wrappings as she began to thumb through the remaining product.
Mizuro's eyes grew very, very wide.
"Where...did you get those?" He seemed to choke on his words.
"Oh!" She gave him a pleasant smile, unaware of what she was holding. "These?"
"Y...yes."
"Ichigo gave them to me... the... other day... as a gift." She looked pleased with her answer. Mizuro could only nod wordlessly. It was then they heard a blood-curtling scream resounding from the Kurosaki household.
It was going to be a very interesting week.