There was a light knocking on the window.

It was the third thing that Ichigo registered as he was pulled into the waking world, though it really should have been first.

The first thing that he had registered in his sleep-filled mind was that it was way earlier than normal for him to wake. The second thing was that he really should just ignore this brief moment of consciousness and fall back into a dream. The third thing was the tapping- rather like someone knocking on the door, he thought vaguely.

Once he realized that that was exactly what he was hearing, he immediately thought of Rukia, and then dismissed her because she never knocked and just walked through the wall. No one else coming to mind, he sat up blearily to look through the window, only to turn away a second later and scrub furiously at his eyes because the light of the moon and the street light were absolutely blinding.

Once he felt that his eyes wouldn't burn through his skull if he looked again, he turned to the clear glass to find a very familiar figure sitting on his windowsill, the picture of nonchalance. The figure smiled at him and waved.

Beyond incredibly annoyed, Ichigo yanked open the window and allowed the other male into the room. "What on earth are you doing here, Shinji?" he demanded. He had to admit the effect of annoyance was somewhat ruined by his yawn mid-sentence. "It's," he glanced at his clock and felt his eyes widen further, his annoyance increase, "3:28 in the morning, you ass!"

Shinji shrugged from his place on the end of Ichigo's bed, seemingly unconcerned about the time. "I wanted someone to talk to, and I wanted to take a walk, so you were the most logical choice."

"Really, Shinji?" he asked tiredly, "You couldn't go talk to hat-and-clogs?"

The blond blinked as if this had just occurred to him. "Ha," he laughed, "I could've I suppose. Hadn't thought a him, Ichi-kun."

Annoyed at the nickname but too tired to really care, Ichigo just leaned back on his pillow with a sigh. "You're hopeless, Shinji," he informed the Visored.

"Ah, he'd probably just be asleep anyway," he heard a moment later, and Ichigo really felt like hitting the former captain. So he settled for the next best thing- the one that wouldn't make him move too much. He reached around and found his lunch tin from his desk and flung it at Shinji. From the quiet yelp and scrambling at the end of the bed, he'd succeeded, too.

All was quiet for a few minutes. Ichigo had just about fallen asleep, too, when he felt the bed shift and something suspiciously like hair touching his face. He opened one eye to find Shinji peering down at him curiously, his blond hair framing his face. If Ichigo hadn't had some idea of what to expect, he might've cried out. As it was, Ichigo had had some idea that Shinji would be there, so he just shoved the other away and rolled over.

"I guess we're sleeping now?" Shinji's voice asked.

Ichigo grunted in the affirmative, nearly asleep again. Another moment, and he felt cool lips touch his for a moment, and his eyes snapped open in surprise.

Shinji pulled away and settled on the end of the bed, still looking entirely unconcerned, as he had all night. "Goodnight, then, Ichi-kun," he said cheerfully.

As Ichigo lay back down, he closed his eyes once more as he thought of a hundred different, creative ways to kill Hirako Shinji for waking him in the middle in the night.

A thought occurred to him, and he opened one eyes to check the clock. It was only 3:31. The whole thing had barely taken five minutes, Ichigo found. Five minutes didn't really matter anyway.