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"Ichigo!"
Kurosaki Ichigo sighed and dropped his face to his textbook. She was never going to leave him alone, was she?
"Ichigo!"
Great. Her voice was getting closer and closer. He debated hiding, but then just slumped his shoulders over more. Maybe she'd leave him alone if she thought he was sleeping.
"Ichigo!"
The door burst open and small hands clamped down on his arm and yanked him almost halfway out of his chair. Ichigo stumbled, then shot to his feet, glaring down at the smirking black-haired girl.
"Rukia, what do you want?" he snarled. "I'm doing homework right now-"
"I require your assistance immediately," she said seriously, her hand slipping down his arm to curl around his wrist, pulling him towards the door of his room. "Come with me."
"This isn't going to be like that time when you got me to get out fifteen different mangas from the library on MY card, is it?" Ichigo groaned, allowing her to lead him through the doorway and down the stairs. Her hand was uncomfortably warm on his skin, and he resisted the urge to either slip his arm out of her grasp or slide his hand up into his fingers could twist around hers.
Rukia had a tendency to awaken contradicting desires in Ichigo. He constantly felt like punting her out the window or grabbing her and holding her in his arms. The first desire made perfect sense to him, but the second confused the hell out of him, so he simply ended up doing neither.
It had only been a month and a half since she'd started living in his closet, but already he had gotten used to it.
"I have discovered another one of your contemporary teenage rituals," Rukia said, glancing over her shoulder at him. "And I wish for you to teach it to me."
"Contemporary-Shit, this isn't something Keigo told you, is it?" Ichigo exclaimed, feeling like his head would explode. "You know not to listen to anything that guy says-"
"Don't be foolish," she snapped in response, dragging him into the living room. She had already pushed the couch to the side of the room, leaving open a wide space in the middle. She let go of Ichigo's arm and skipped over to the cd player sitting on the bookshelf in the corner. "Can you pass me that CD on the chair next to you?"
Ichigo picked up the CD and passed it over to her.
"Isn't that one of Yuzu's?" he asked. "From that American musical TV show she likes to watch?"
"I believe it is called "Glee"," Rukia responded, enthusiastically popping out the CD and placing it within the CD player.
"And what exactly does it have to do with this ritual thing I'm supposed to teach you?"
"You are going to teach me how they dance in the human world," she said decisively, planting her feet as though preparing for a battle, her violet eyes flashing.
Ichigo crossed his arms over his chest. "No way. No way in hell."
"But this is part of my research!" she protested, even as he started to back up. "Are you so selfish as that you can't even help me in my understanding of the average teenage psyche?"
"I have homework to do!" he shot back, bounding up the stairs. "You just do that on your own, okay?"
"Stingy!"
Ichigo rolled his eyes as he closed his door behind him, hearing the muffled sounds of music start up below him. Whenever the rest of his family was gone, Rukia had a tendency to run around the entire house, exclaiming about the freedom of being out of his tiny room. The first time all three of his family members had been gone, he had been forced to give her a tour of the house, and show her how to work the television, the oven, the dishwasher, the microwave, the toaster, the cheese grater, and his dad's electric razor. Living with Rukia was a mess sometimes. It almost irritated him how easy it felt, how normal.
My life is not normal, he reminded himself, wincing as he heard a slight crash from downstairs. Dang it, hollows usually seemed to show up at all the worst moments possible, but they couldn't show up now? Just his luck.
After a few songs had gone by, accompanied by sporadic thumps, Ichigo couldn't take it. He got up and slowly moved down the staircase. The words of the music became clear, and he recognized some. It was a cover of an English song he'd heard a long time ago.
"-you run over there without a second to lose, and what comes next, hey, bust a move!"
He stuck his head around the corner and froze at the sight in front of him.
Rukia was in the middle of the room, and she was...
Well, she was...
She was busting a move.
Her arms flailed, her elbows jabbed out like weapons, her head bobbed up and down, and her torso twitched like she was on acid. She spun and jumped, punching the air, her face screwed up in concentration, then she kicked backwards, accidentally knocking over a small table. She was oblivious, she was in the moment, she was definitely busting more moves and furniture than Ichigo had ever seen anyone do.
He burst out laughing.
Rukia froze, turning halfway to see him hunched over in the doorway, seized in a fit of laughter, barely able to breathe.
"What..the...hell?" Ichigo wheezed, clutching the wall for support. "Are you dancing, or attacking the music?"
He ducked automatically, and her kick of retribution soared over his head. Rukia rounded on him, snarling, her cheeks spotted with pink, as he backed up into the room, still trying to control his amusement.
"That's why I wanted you to teach me!" she snapped, stamping her foot on the carpet. "I can dance the Soul Society way very well, but I do not know how to move to this kind of music! Stop laughing!"
Ichigo glanced up at her, and grinned, suddenly having way too much fun to stop.
"Yeah, fine, I'll teach you," he conceded, beckoning her with a hand into the centre of the room. He might as well, right? It wasn't like there was anyone else around to see him dancing. Just Rukia, and she had already proved how much of a failure she was.
"You don't flail like that, alright?" he said, gesturing for her to stand in front of him. "Here, just start off with moving your head to the beat. Yeah, like that."
He snickered slightly, and Rukia shot a death glare up at him, blowing her constant bang piece out of her eyes.
"I thought I told you not to laugh at me," she said.
He ignored her.
"Now move your hips to the music."
She started swivelling them in huge circles, and Ichigo busted up again.
"That's not what I mean!" he exclaimed. The sight of her frustrated expression made his grin just grow larger. God, she was cute.
Cute? He decided not to analyze that thought.
"It's not fair!" she said, trying valiantly to imitate him. "You are good at this, and I am not."
"Then don't try to be good," he laughed, enjoying this too much to care about his reputation. Funny, but he'd never cared about his public image when he was with Rukia. "Just have fun."
He danced in a circle around her, singing along with the song.
"They're lyin' on the beach perpetratin' a tan, so that a brother with the money can be their man."
Her scowl faded, and she actually smiled, her movements becoming less jerky as she turned to face him.
"I didn't know you could sing," she said.
"I can't," he answered. He reached out and took her hand, pulling it up and spinning her. She closed her eyes and laughed, flowing into the turn, her hand grasping his naturally.
"That's something that they do in the Soul Society dances!" she said excitedly. "I did not know that they still danced like that here!"
"Sometimes." He shrugged and spun her again. Her dress flared slightly, the material fanning out and hitting his legs. She spun out of his reach, her hands up in the air, head tipped back, and, to his surprise, started to sing.
"If you want it, you got it, huh, if you want it, baby, you got it."
She twisted, and stopped trying to dance properly, or to imitate Ichigo. She started kicking her feet and dancing in circles, looking ridiculous. But she was grinning, so he figured it was okay to start laughing again, abandoning himself to imitate her stupid dancing style.
"JUST BUST A MOVE!" They shouted together, high-fiving with a roar of laughter.
Ichigo snagged her around the waist and pulled her to him, raising on eyebrow at her flushed face.
"If I want it, I've got it, eh?" he teased, bending towards her.
Her lips curved upwards, and her fingers touched, ever so gently, against the corner of his mouth, startling him.
"You should smile more often," she said. "You never smile like this around other people."
Ichigo felt his smile grow in response, and he was about to say something back when a realization hit him.
They were laughing and smiling and dancing together.
This seemed suspiciously like...flirting?
He jumped back away from her, feeling heat rush to his face. Stupid song, stupid dancing, stupid rumours at school. This was all their fault.
"Ichigo?" Rukia said in confusion as he backed away, then dashed towards the stairs.
"Sorry, I really should get back to that homework!" he called over his shoulder.
He shut his bedroom door behind him and slumped down in his chair at his desk. Already his weird thoughts downstairs were fading. What had he been thinking? Rukia was an obnoxious, uninvited guest, who liked bunnies, stole his sister's clothes, and forced him to help her with her job.
Yeah, him and Rukia were nothing more then friends. The very thought was alien.
Still, he couldn't remember the last time he had laughed like that.
Maybe he should find the video camera.
Rukia dancing would probably be a hit on youtube.