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Love, Quarantine

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When classes have to be shifted online, students around the country who've witnessed their professors struggle with power point on a daily basis, collectively shudder.

But those under the tutelage of Professor Kurosaki are spared the dismay for his classes.

Professor Kurosaki Ichigo is not like other lecturers. He's young, he's good looking, and thank every god above, Professor Kurosaki is also good with technology.

With him, classes aren't all that different to real life lectures which is a relief, but some students bemoan the lack of his physical presence. Though that has less to do with the quality of education as much as it does the purveyor himself.

Professor Kurosaki has a bit of a reputation.

He's one of the youngest educators on campus, and practically inhuman given his meteoric rise to academic stardom especially since, as the rumors go, Professor Kurosaki isn't some prodigy, he's simply a workhorse who's too stubborn to quit.

It's a work ethic he pushes onto his students, and they shoulder it admirably.

Though, not for nothing.

Besides being the youngest professor, he also happens to be the most good looking, a feat that isn't just attributed to youth but also to pure magnetism. There's something very. Attractive. About Professor Kurosaki.

It's obvious even through a pixelated screen.

He's confident, but quiet about it. Serious, and sharp. He's always direct and doesn't dance around a topic, and he has a way of making you feel important when his attention is on you – which is perhaps one of the best things about having lectures through a screen, it feels like you are.

Until, of course, you realize you aren't.

That day is today: pausing for a moment to take a sip of water, Professor Kurosaki glances just above the camera and smiles.

And the private group chat collectively loses its mind, and it spills out into the group chat accompanying the stream for the lecture itself.

Pausing to glance down at the screen again, Professor Kurosaki's eyes narrow, his expression shifting to his more familiar scowl as he dismissed the deluge of question marks (and some braver "What are you smiling at?") with "That's enough, you know better by now than to ask about my personal life."

Which is perhaps, the only caveat to Professor Kurosaki: him being intensely private that the only thing anyone in the student body knows about him that isn't shrouded in rumor is what's on his profile on the university website. The bare bones. The minimum. It's agonizing. Not even the most advanced of internet stalkers among them can get anything more than that, and if not for an incredibly locked down Instagram account, they'd think their beloved professor simply appeared one day fully formed from the ether.

As it stands Professor Kurosaki is standing before the camera looking unimpressed, and the class' curiosity is punished with another load of essays due.

This doesn't stop the more persistent of the class from trying to gather intel from wherever they can get it: starting with what can be gleaned from Professor Kurosaki's home. While he usually shares his screen when he lectures, there's the in between moments when he's just sitting before the camera or pacing in front of it as he talks, or simply setting up or shutting down the stream. It's a goldmine of moments.

One person in the private group chat reports framed photographs on the shelf. The light always hits the glass so they can't make out the faces, but they're sure a later or earlier lecture could yield results if someone looks. It's on the left corner, is the instruction . If you've got a morning or late afternoon lecture, keep an eye out!

Another says, "I saw some kind of pet bed in the corner once too, when he was still setting up. Does Prof have a dog?"

Then, "I saw a lady's shoes on the ground when he was still setting up. Did you see them? AM lecture yesterday? Is Prof married?" which is followed by vehement denies because of course not and we would've noticed a ring by now and then, "women in the photographs are his sisters, maybe one of them is staying with him during quarantine?" And yes. Yes, that's feasible.

Except the next time, thanks to a student who'd read the time wrong and arrived too early to the stream, spends it listening to Professor Kurosaki set up for the lecture with the screen tilted onto the keys; they catch snatches of conversation between the professor and someone who very clearly isn't one of his sisters:

"You look tired."

"Thanks, that's exactly what a woman wants to hear," a female voice says, sarcastic and fond. And while there isn't much of a view, lacking in faces for one, the student can see the two bodies standing close enough to touch without actually doing any touching, a gravitational pull that's being resisted by sheer force of will. Then, voice softer than they've heard it ever, Professor Kurosaki tells her, "Go back to bed, the court documents can wait."

"My name's on the door," is the response that sounds like a whine which makes Professor Kurosaki chuckle. "It's Byakuya's too, he can sort it out. I'll make you breakfast when I'm done with class."

There's a sigh, dramatic and long suffering. "Promises, promises, Ichigo."

By then, there's more people in the stream logged in and listening, the private group chat is a mess of epic proportions: Professor Kurosaki has a woman in his life. He cooks her breakfast. She works with court documents, is she a lawyer? Who's Byakuya? We need answers people!

Whoever Byakuya is ends up being the key, though this is only realized later because the class is side tracked by the momentary affection on Professor Kurosaki's face, a tenderness so breathtaking no one says anything for awhile. Which is all well and good because Professor Kurosaki is not pleased with the direction of the conversation in the steam's chat. To the questions of "is that your wife?" He scowls and says, "That's none of your business."

And in his defense, it's not.

Until it is.

The quarantine is getting to everyone, Professor Kurosaki included. The woman doesn't appear again, though there have been reports of a woman's shoes in the background and a cardigan that looks too small to be Professor Kurosaki's, and if his class is disappointed, so must he. Except, "They must be in quarantine together…did they have a fight?"

Which thus begins the great advice giving of May 2020 wherein everyone throws in some casual dating wisdom about apologizing for whatever dumb thing you did, and how to compromise, and what to do to get out of the dog house and stop sleeping on your couch.

Professor Kurosaki must think it's some kind of late April fool's joke or something because he's kind of pissed about it for awhile.

Right until he forgets to end the stream, and few stragglers witness him resting his head on his arms and moaning as he mutters, "What the fuck is wrong with me?"

The audio picks up a growl, and Professor Kurosaki dismisses this with a, "I know, Kon, I know."

When he starts to bang his head on his desk, the students still on the stream start to worry, though thankfully the woman appears.

No one had really known what to expect, but it certainly wasn't her.

Where Professor Kurosaki has cut a famous figure in his jeans and a leather jacket, this woman is soft as a watercolour painting: she is a sunrise in a sweet, misty yellow sundress, what remains of the night sky clinging to her black hair and space blue eyes. Her voice is alarmed, but grounding, "Ichigo, what the hell?"

Professor Kurosaki is so startled he vaults up from his seat behind the desk, completely missing that the livestream is still on his screen. "What? No, I'm fine."

There's a scoff. "You've been acting weird for days, don't lie to me."

"Rukia…"

"Is this because of Saturday?" Is the question. "We were drunk, and ridiculous, and."

"Rukia -"

"Other people sleep together all the time" she says affecting a calm tone though there's a hint of desperation beneath it, "It doesn't have to mean anything."

The private group chat buzzes. The chat on the stream stays mercifully silent.

"We're not other people, at least not to each other," he finally says.

A sigh. "No, we're not."

Almost like a reflex, Professor Kurosaki absently reaches out to his laptop screen, and says quietly, just before they're all shut out, "And I want it to mean something so. What now, Rukia?"

The search for who Rukia is ends twenty minutes later: Kuchiki Rukia, lawyer, philanthropist and university alumni; she's the shining star of Sereitei's highest social circles, the only daughter of the Kuchiki family and the proud dog mom to a pit bull named Kon.

The intrigue continues.

By the time classes resume in person, Professor Kurosaki has revealed nothing. Rukia does not appear in the following streams.

There's a temptation to ask, but there's no doubt the professor will deny it.

Which is why when a student spots Rukia on campus, the group chat lights up.

A student still in Professor Kurosaki's lecture hall slows in packing away their things as Rukia enters, and it feels like Professor Kurosaki's entire class is holding their breathes.

Rukia and Professor Kurosaki, however, don't notice, and with an exchanged kiss in greeting as natural as a breath exhaled, the group chat lights up again.

The student is sufficiently embarrassed when, called forth by Professor Kurosaki about what they think they're doing, and show me your phone if it's nothing, then the last message insists: pics or it didn't happen!

Rukia laughs so hard, her happiness all but lights her up, and oh, the student can see how Professor Kurosaki could be so in love with someone. And from his expression to the one Rukia returns to him, amused and fond and tender in one, the student wonders why no one's seen it before at all.

A/n: For an anon who requested an outsider perspective fic which I'm Not Great At so I took liberties.