Bleach Fan Fiction ❯ Reminiscence ❯ 01 -- Meeting ( Chapter 1 )

Title: Reminisce

Author: La Loba de Mibu

Rating: PG

Characters: Ikkaku and Yumichika

Warning: None

Summary: When Ikkaku starts reminiscing with Yumichika about how they first met over a round of sake, he gets a little more than he bargained for.

Disclaimer: Tite Kubo owns all things Bleach.

 

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“Ufff! . . . Watch where you are going you bald headed brute!”

 

Those were the first words Yumichika ever said to him. Ikkaku recalled them aloud one warm summer night as he and Yumi sat drinking on the veranda of the 11th Division compound.

 

What had struck Ikkaku at the time, aside from the realization that the very feminine person who had just barreled into him was anything but female, was the confident, entitled manner with which he'd been yelled at. It wasn't often people dared speak to him that way.

 

By the time he'd opened his mouth to bellow back an insult, the slight young man had been half way down the street zigzagging through crowd and disappearing out of sight. But the encounter had stayed with Ikkaku for several days. Every time he thought about it, it only served to tick him off further; perhaps because he had not been allowed the last word, or rather even a word in at all before the other had vanished.

 

Whatever the reason, when he was attracted by the sounds of a scuffle coming from a back alley a few days later, it didn't take him long to realize that the effeminate man getting pummeled by two large thugs was the very same one from his encounter days prior.

 

Ikkaku had dispatched them both quickly enough; he never did like seeing anyone picking on those weaker than them. He was going to leave it at that, walk away and leave the three to bleed where they lay, but his conscience had nagged him until he picked up the slightest of the three forms and slung it over his shoulder like a stack of potatoes.

 

He didn't know why he had expected any thanks; he should have known that when the other came to, he'd be just as snarky as he'd been days earlier on the street. But for some reason, it relieved Ikkaku to be wrong as it eliminated the awkwardness of having to explain why he'd played hero to the not-quite-damsel-in-distress; although he could have done without the wake-up kick to the gut.

 

“Put me down!” Another kick had followed soon after.

 

“Ow! Fuck, quit that!” Ikkaku had grabbed his burden's obi, pulled him off his shoulder before the next kick could land and deposited him abruptly onto the dusty dirt road.

 

“Uff! You savage! Is this anyway to treat a delicate beauty?!”

 

“What the hell are you going on about, ya twit!”

 

They'd argued on in that manner until Ikkaku had turned and left with a dismissive insult; he'd gotten the irritating man out of a tough bind, his conscience couldn't nag him any longer. But Yumichika had followed him, unwilling to let Ikkaku have the last word in.

 

“Would ya quit following me!” he'd all but snapped, the throbbing veins on his bald head clearly emphasizing his annoyance.

 

“Ugh! Don't make such an ugly face, I'm not following you! I'm merely heading in the same direction!” Yumi had barked in return.

 

It wasn't until centuries later, now drinking on the veranda with Yumichika that the beauty confessed over a bottle of sake that he had been following Ikkaku. It took quite a few more bottles to get him to reveal that the two men that had been beating him were pimps he'd stolen from in an effort to escape them. An effort which would have proven sadly futile had Ikkaku not decided to step in that day, or allow Yumichika to shadow him throughout Rukongai those first few months.

 

Yumichika went drunkenly somber afterward, face pinched in a resigned pout, waiting for Ikkaku's disapproval.

 

“And all this time I thought you'd followed me for my rugged good looks,” was the only thing Ikkaku said through a wry grin after digesting the new information.

 

He watched bemused as Yumi blinked in surprise before the alcohol made him dissolve into peals of relieved giggles, and he swayed as he turned to face the man beside him. Ikkaku ended up with Yumi's giggling dark head on his shoulder, and he unconsciously wrapped an arm around his shoulders, steadying the laughing form. Ikkaku offered him another sake bottle, but Yumichika refused.

 

“Mhmm, I've had enough for one night,” he pushed the offered bottle away.

 

Ikkaku shrugged and took a drink himself. A comfortable silence settled over them as Ikkaku continued drinking, Yumichika warm against his side. After a long while, he'd thought the other man asleep until he broke the silence.

 

“Ikkaku . . . ” there was a strange tone to Yumi's voice.

 

When Ikkaku looked down at the head on his shoulder, there was a warmth in those violet eyes he'd never noticed before. Yumichika's cheeks were tinted pink from the alcohol, and there was a very soft, almost fragile smile on his lips. Moments like this never failed to make Ikkaku think that the other had good reason to be so vain.

 

“What?”

 

The soft touch of a hand on his cheek almost distracted him as Yumichika leaned up and briefly brushed their lips together in a chaste kiss.

 

“Thank you,” Yumi said seriously, before giggling at Ikkaku slack-jawed expression.

 

“Che . . .” but Ikkaku quickly covered it up with a scowl as he turned away, knowing he wasn't nearly drunk enough to blame the heat on his face on the sake he was drinking.

 

Thankfully, Yumichika said nothing and only smiled before bidding good night, standing up with a slight sway, and making his way on mostly steady feet back to his room. Ikkaku stayed, swirling the sake bottle in his hand idly before taking a sip.

 

Eventually, he spoke quietly into the night.

 

“You're welcome.”

 

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~*Owari*~