Ikkaku half-stands in his seat, duels Matsumoto across the grill for a piece of meat. Yumichika thinks Matsumoto should just let Ikkaku have it-- he doesn't care about the meat anymore and just doesn't want to lose to her. His pigheaded stubbornness, while occasionally cute, got old pretty fast when he regarded every little action as a challenge and refused to back down from any of them.
Yumichika sighed, and settled instead for admiring the way sleeveless shirts really highlighted every hard curve of Ikkaku's biceps. He really did have the best taste in clothes.
"Ladies first, baldie!"
"Only lady I see here's Orihime-chan!"
Orihime blushes and laughs quietly as Tatsuki springs up to join the fray; "Are you implying something?!"
Captain Hitsugaya sighs and finishes his rice.
Ikkaku wonders if, under any other circumstance, he would be happy about being double-teamed by two girls.
Yumichika eventually piles some meat into Ikkaku's plate and tells him to sit the fuck down.
He takes the chance offered for him to back off honorably and sits the fuck down.
Seconds later, he and Matsumoto are back to their friendly banter and Tatsuki's complaining to Orihime. When the waitress comes by again, Ikkaku glances at the menu and orders three cups of shochu. Tatsuki's eyebrows go up at that, but he grins and flashes the waitress a fairly well-made fake ID.
Matsumoto leans across the table and kisses Ikkaku on the cheek, just to make Yumichika fume; "Aw, you're even thinking about me!"
Ikkaku refuses to react, and thus be dragged into her sick little mindgame.
Tatsuki thinks that Keigo's head would have exploded if he was present, and sitting in her space, especially with the way Matsumoto's chest had just very nearly spilled out of her shirt.
Yumichika huffily claims a glass as the waitress returns and offers Orihime a sip. But only a sip, 'cause they're still minors. Ikkaku holds his glass out to Tatsuki with a smirk (and it drives her up the wall) and while she usually doesn't drink, she takes a big sip just to spite him, and pretend-hacks most of it up. She never did like the taste of alcohol.
Captain Hitsugaya turns down Matsumoto's offer before she has a chance to make it, and Tatsuki jokes that middle-schoolers probably shouldn't be drinking anyway. Ikkaku snorts alcohol up his nose but makes a mental note to explain a bit about Soul Society next time they had time to talk.
One glass each isn't enough to get even Yumichika buzzed, but Ikkaku and Matsumoto visibly mellow out. When they leave, Yumichika and Hitsugaya argue briefly over who gets to pay, but Yumichika wins out in the end by virtue of eating out being his idea. And besides, after all the destruction and repair costs the 11th Division would have to pay anyway as a result of the hollow attack on their first day, dinner would hardly make a dent in their mission budget.
It's a ten-minute walk back to Orihime's house, and Tatsuki leads the way. She's restless, a little bored, and had eaten way too much. She walks ahead of everyone, then backtracks, then speeds up to yoyo between half-a-block-ahead and right-beside-Orihime. Back and forth. Back and forth.
Back and forth.
It drives Ikkaku insane.
It couldn't be that hard to walk with everyone.
Right?
Yumichika sounds more amused than anything when he suggests that Ikkaku could just ask her to stop, and doesn't she remind you a little bit of Abarai-kun when he first joined the division?
He finds that sort of hilarious and true at the same time and instantly forgets about how. Damn. Annoying all that back-and-forth is and speeds up himself to intercept her on her way back. Yumichika also speeds up a bit to keep pace with Orihime while Ikkaku ruffles Tatsuki's hair up ahead. She punches him playfully in the arm and Orihime-chan, look! They're totally flirting~
Orihime knows that Tatsuki knows a lot more about guys than she ever let on. Even though her closest friends were always girls, Tatsuki's casual guy friends outnumbered them. She could strike up easy conversation about sports and games, argue cheerfully, bandy around playful insults. And give advice about Kurosaki-kun, most of which involved very subtle cues and a lot of beating him up.
Physical trauma aside, Tatsuki was usually right, not that Orihime ever had the courage to follow through. Boys were always crushing on Tatsuki-- the judo club guys who weren't scared of her, anyway.
Yumichika squeezes Orihime's shoulder to get her attention and smiles. "Something on your mind?"
"Nothing! Tatsuki-chan just looks like she's having fun."
Up ahead, Tatsuki and Ikkaku stop on the edge of the sidewalk and talk until Hitsugaya and Matsumoto catch up, then take off again. When they reach Orihime's house, Matsumoto leans on the doorjamb after Hitsugaya and Orihime have already headed back in to talk to Ikkaku.
"We need to get Renji and take him out drinking with us sometime! It's just too bad Kira and Shuuhei aren't here, hm?"
"And Iba-san."
Ikkaku enthusiastically agrees that they should all go drinking sometime (whether in Karakura or back in Seireitei) and they briefly shake hands before Ikkaku and Yumichika take off to walk Tatsuki back. She insists that she'll be fine on her own, and only came with them to see Orihime home, but they trail her until she gives in and walks between them the rest of the way.
They bicker over her head most of the way, until they arrive at her house.
Before Tatsuki heads inside, she and Ikkaku high-five and then pull each other in for a quick shoulder bump.
Which was the same greeting Ikkaku sometimes met Renji with, and Yumichika takes it to mean that they were pretty damn comfortable with each other after a full afternoon of mutually inflicted physical pain.
Keigo's in the living room playing video games when they arrive back. He manages to pick up the scent of Matsumoto's perfume under the smell of charcoal and yakiniku and starts spazzing out. Yumichika decides to ignore him and goes to take a shower and change his clothes while Ikkaku joins Keigo on the couch to watch the game progress.
After Keigo's third death against a boss (who Ikkaku would sort of like to have a go at himself), Yumichika finishes his shower and comes out of the bathroom. Keigo mentions offhandedly that Mizuho had set up a cot and a futon in the guest room (finally) and they could sleep there instead of crashing on the couch again.
Ikkaku takes the floor by rote, but Yumichika thinks he's going to sleep oddly early. He figured it was just because he planned to pre-empt Mizuho and head out early the next day to go running or training or something.
Ikkaku parries a blow from Yumichika's wooden sword, knocks it out of his hand, and whaps him on the shoulder for good measure. "You're not even trying."
Yumichika was, in fact, trying. He rubs his shoulder in exasperation and makes it very clear to Ikkaku that the only reason it seems like he isn't trying is because his gigai is much weaker than Ikkaku's (because too much muscle mass would be sort of ugly) and then he suggests they go train at Urahara's shop. With Captain Hitsugaya and Rangiku-san.
They do.
There is a relatively minor hollow attack.
Ikkaku thinks that Yumichika gives the worst suggestions ever and wonders if training with Captain Hitsugaya and Matsumoto will always end up with them all being ambushed by hollows.
He's's fine, except for a few broken ribs, and Yumichika's only a little worse off because he had decided to try and take on two small ones on his own. They aren't hurt so badly that it would take more than a day to heal completely, but they stay clear of the school and spend the night at Urahara's shop anyway.
Mizuho totally spazzes out when they get back. She'd been worried about her darling guests. Ikkaku's expression of utter horror has Yumichika almost rolling on the floor and when she finally gets tired of doting on him, Ikkaku flees to the guestroom and stays there until the house quiets down.
(He thinks of it as a 'tactical retreat'; Yumichika calls it 'running away with his tail between his legs'.)
Yumichika joins him later that evening and sighs as he comes in on Ikkaku doing one-handed pushups. "That doesn't carry on into your spirit body, you know."
Ikkaku somehow shrugs, but he gets up and looks a lot more refreshed anyway. And now he's not tired and they should do something and Yumichika immediately comes up with several things that could possibly tire him out that he would never, ever say out loud. He suggests cards.
They somehow procure a pack of cards and spend the next few hours trying to throw them into one of Mizuho's really cute berets. Which Yumichika thinks he will need to borrow sometime. It looks better on him, anyway.
When they finally get bored of that, Ikkaku's still not tired, so they sit around and talk.
Well, Yumichika talks.
Ikkaku occasionally answers and when Yumichika finally falls asleep in the middle of a really groggy sentence, Ikkaku rolls over and meditates. Hoozukimaru's always happy to waste hours doing nothing with him, but it does take enough effort to maintain that he tires himself out.
Ikkaku wakes up to Yumichika glancing out the window the and declaring that it's going to rain, then reminding Mizuho and Keigo to take their umbrellas.
The sky gets steadily cloudier on their patrol, and by late afternoon it really looks like it might rain. They head back to the Asano house; Keigo tells them he left the umbrella in school, and Yumichika very sweetly asks Ikkaku to go fetch it (and doesn't judo club practice end right about now?).
Ikkaku thinks he has the worst luck ever. And wonders that the hell judo club has to do with anything.
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baroqueworks2009-08-01 11:43 pm
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