happily still roaming on her obsession

Warnings: minor SPOILERS up to arrancar arch. Shonen ai.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

After the run

The shinigami stepped through the window and into the almost empty classroom. Only two seats were occupied. On the nearest, a boy with bright orange hair seemed to be slepping soundly, head resting on his folded arms. Only on a closer examination you could tell he was not breathing at all. Some seats beside, a much taller, dark skinned boy looked up from the book he was reading and greeted the new arrived with a silent nod.

"Yoh. Took me longer than I thought." Ichigo sighed, scratching his head. He glanced around the classroom.

"How have you pulled through it?"

"Ochi-sensei thought you were sleeping, and decided she could leave you here to find you were given the cleaning shift."

"Nobody else got suspicious?"

"Tatsuki was going to wake you up but Inoue dragged her away."

"I see… thank you for waiting for me, Chad." Ichigo grinned at his best friend, then he sighed. "So I guess I have to do the cleaning too…"

"Mh."

Chad watched as his friend pulled back the chair and sat into his own body, the lines of his shinigami outfit merging with the school uniform till no difference was visible. Ichigo stood up and stretched, raising arms over his head. He glared at his deputee shinigami badge.

"I'm starting to hate this thing, seriously… If tonight I don't get a whole night of sleep I'm going to throw it into some bloody hole, I swear it. Shinigami have nothing else to do… I have school too!"

Chad couldn't help but smile. Actually, there was another shinigami guy patrolling the Karakura area, they fond out about him when they came back from Soul Society (quite a weird guy, thinking about it). Point was Ichigo just couldn't bring himself not to jump in action everytime he knew somebody could be in danger because of Hollows. Ichigo complained loudly a bit more before falling silent. He sat down, eyes fixed on something invisible in front of him, his frown deepening.

Chad waited. He knew there was something more, could tell it from the moment Ichigo entered the room. Something in the tension in his shoulders, in the thinner than usual line of his mouth.

"This time I was late." Ichigo muttered, finally. "He ate a soul. I arrived just in time to see her disappear, it was an old lady. Maybe that Hollow was her husband, who knows"

Chad didn't comment. There was no point in saying things like "It wasn't your fault" or "There was nothing more you could do", 'cause Ichigo perfectly knew it wasn't his fault if Hollows killed people. It was something dumbly obvious. But to him it was his responsibility to prevent it from happening. By running just that little bit faster than his forces allowed him to do, by fighting anytime just that little bit over his limits.

Ichigo shrugged and grinned again, making a gesture with his hand, as to say "nevermind, it'll pass". His smile was tired, and this time, suddenly, that scowl of his, so blatantly denying everything his smile could tell, hit Chad in an almost painful way. It was so… unfair. Ichigo wasn't going to let his friends share the burden he chose for himself… and sometimes Chad had to wonder if Ichigo really remembered their promise. Putting their lives on the line for each other's sake. He knew, with the same certainty he knew he was alive, that he would always be beside Ichigo in every fight. But… that could work only if he was strong enough to fight on Ichigo's side. He almost smiled. Being strong enough… that was something he never thought he would have doubts about. But since things had got on that whole new level… hollows, shinigami and now… those others…

It was useless to ramble about those kind of things, and Chad had never been the type to lose himself into complicated musings. Truth to tell, things were simple enough. If he was going to be a burden to Ichigo, he just had to get stronger. Nothing more. Just… to be useful to him.

That didn't change the fact that, at the moment, Ichigo was upset and was going to shrug away his problems again. If just…

Chad stood up and moved behind Ichigo's seat. The orange-haired boy looked up at the figure towering over him.

"What?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I…" Chad pondered explaining what he was thinking about for half a second, then he gave up. "Let me try a thing."

"…ok." Ichigo said, puzzled, and turned to look in front of him.

Chad raised his hands and, after a little hesitating, placed them on Ichigo's shoulders. He felt the other boy stiffen his already tense muscles, then relax again. After all he was together with somebody he trusted enough to put his own life into his hands, and the other way around. Chad started working on his friend's shoulders, kneading the muscles, doing his best to work the tension out. He was seriously wondering what the hell he was doing. He had never been quite easy with casual physical contact… when he was a kid physical just meant "aimed to hurt" and later, his simple massive presence was enough to keep people away, left alone casually touching him.

This felt just awkward… he was going to stop when a well aimed thumb-pressure on an especially tight knot elicited an all but displeased groan from Ichigo, who arched his back, giving in the massage just a little. This was enough and Chad just turned completely to the task at hand.

"…since when you learnt to do massages?" Ichigo asked.

"I'm improvisating."

"Well, you're fucking good at it. Don't worry about going harder." The huge boy could sense the grin in Ichigo's voice, and it made him smile too.

He worked for some minutes more on Ichigo's shoulders and neck, feeling the muscles loosen, then he moved his hands up, going for his original meta. Ichigo almost let out a disappointed sigh at the loss of warmth on his back, but he stopped, surprised, as Chad placed his fingers right over the root of his nose. He exercited a light pressure, tracing two lines from the centre of his eternal scowl to his hair-line, right above his eyebrows, then he moved back the fingers and did it again, a little higher. On and on he slowly and thoroughfully smoothed the stress's marks on his friend's forehead. Ichigo closed his eyes and let his head fall back, as a satisfied breath escaped his slightly parted lips. Chad swallowed, and did his best to concentrate on his work alone. That was not the moment to go into those kind of thoughts. He was just trying to be useful. Yeah, keep focused on his fingers, right. On the way his big hands were… caressing Ichigo's face… so close… No, not going into that!

Still… this was the closer he was most likely ever going to be to him…

Taking advantage of his friend's closed lids, he bended over, just to look at him more closely. Without realizing it, he had stopped the massaging and was just holding him, close enough for his chin to brush against the points of Ichigo's wild hair. The scowl, the thin lines marking him, was still there, but it was almost invisible now, and for once Ichigo's face looked peaceful.

Even more beautiful than usual.

Ichigo opened his eyes, probably wondering why he had stopped, and Chad's head shot up. He straightened, embarrassed and angry at his own stupidity, and pulled his hands away. Quickly, Ichigo reached up to catch Chad's right hand into his own, freezing him. The smallest boy opened his mouth to say something but no words come out. He just stared at the hand he was holding, as he didn't know what to do of it anymore. The silence stretched until he finally let it go. Chad pulled his hand away, letting it fall down to his side.

"I… thank you… uhm, this felt really good." Ichigo said at last, without looking at him.

"Mh." For once, Chad was grateful to his own inhability to speak easily thoughts, preventing him from saying something stupid like "To me too".

"Yeah…" Ichigo seemed lost into his own thoughts for some other seconds, then he turned to look at his friend. The scowl was already returning to his place, but his smile was bright all the same.

"I'm hungry. Why don't we get over with this cleaning shit quickly and we go to eat something?"

"…ah."

FIN