Title/Author : FER [feat. St Valentine] – cocoa / Bunnisteffi
Rating: T
Words: 2,948
Genre: Romance/Comedy
Summary: An AU IchiRuki one-shot with Ouran-esque-prestigious-high-school / Animorph elements, in which Rukia decides to gift Ichigo tea mix for his Valentine, Ichigo thinks that it isn’t enough and thus the usual mayhem with a critter-y twist unfolds.
Written for BA IchiRuki FC Be My Valentine Contest. 2009.
Theme 1. Rukia got the best idea for Valentine! But is that really a good idea?
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FER [feat. St Valentine] - cocoa
It did seem easy.
Ingredients – Bergamot Orange Infusion
Dried peel of bergamot orange
1 tsp black tea leaves
Spice blend (to taste)
Sugar (to taste)
Water, boiled (add to prepared mix)
She had everything needed; fragrant bergamot orange peel... check, tin of imported
The problem was Rukia had no idea exactly what 'to taste' meant. To an average person's taste buds, or to that of the specific drinker's? She had only a faint impression of Ichigo liking his chocolates sweet and his curry spicy. Sweet and spicy, huh…
With swishing sleeves, the girl pulled out compartments from a spice cabinet she had brought from home. They contained hand-harvested dried herbs prized by the Kuchikis for their particularly potent flavours. (In truth, when Rukia had left the mansion on her last visit, no one had found anything amiss in the spice room, and she very much hoped that it would remain that way. If the elders were to find out about the theft taking… ) She dumped in heaped spoonfuls of seeds and ground leaves from each chosen compartment into a wooden bowl. After a moment’s consideration, she let loose clouds of powdered cocoa and sugar onto the concoction.
There. She eyed the mixture with a sense of self-gratification. She didn’t have to shed hair fretting about her Valentine’s gift; the whole lot of chocolates from the patisserie in town - a Valentine’s cliché - had long been reserved by the other females and it would be a pain to make her way down to the shops. The recipe for the tea infusion had come in good time. Besides, her kind had been famed herb-mixers in the region for centuries.
Since her inclusion into the family ages ago, the elders had taken pains to school her in the art of concocting mixtures. It was also a part of the family business, of which she was the supposed heiress of. Well, with her years of training, whatever that came out of her hands would be far superior to the bonbons made by Kurosaki Ichigo’s fangirls…
But will Ichigo like this? The cavilling thought bothered her. She knew that he did not object to the scent of herbs that clung perpetually to her, even often burying his nose into her hair, claming (once, awkwardly) that it calmed him, doing that. Still… she had no clear clue of what his kind liked.
Rukia’s soft black curls fluttered in one short, shuddering motion, as though she was shaking off the niggling doubt. Whatever it was, she still had to give him something. The mixture was passed through a paper funnel into an ornamental glass bottle, sealed with a metal cap embossed with her family emblem and deposited into a silk carrier which she slung on her wrist.
Heels clicking softly on the parquet flooring, she left her room for his.
-
She eyed the rays of light playing across the vast ceiling. Really, he did not deserve having such a lovely space when he hardly ever entered the place. But Rukia supposed that it was partly her fault; he snuck into hers most nights, considering how inattentive the instructors were, it was really…
Rukia straightened up on the canopy bed, having heard the approaching muted thud-thud thud-thuds. She pelted forward to sweep open the door as a sleek black ball hurtled in.
That is, a black ball of fluff with an orange-tipped tail that started spitting and hissing upon entering.
She turned her back on the animal, her cheeks suddenly tinged pink, as she could very well imagine how he looked while making the change. She may have been sharing her bed with him, but she had never seen him in the nude, save once. And if once was enough to have frazzled her mind so thoroughly…
To her dismay, she was to blush even harder when she heard the first human words that he uttered –
“ –sssStrip! ” Ichigo’s voice was frantic as he rushed to throw on some clothes.
“Wha–?!” Pulling on his jeans took only a fraction of time that when he turned to spin her into his hold, he managed to catch her red face, a half-and-half of indigence and – what was that? He would save it for later, as he launched into the second part of his rather bold commands.
“Hurry up strip and shift, Rukia! It’ll be my pelt if your brother hears that you’d suffocated while shifting. The White Coat’s after you again– Just got word from Getaboshi-sensei, said that I’ve a couple of minutes to get you out to his hide-out– Oi Rukia!”
She was shaken out of her momentary stupor, hastening to climb onto his bed. Ichigo pulled shut the gauzy draperies around her as he continued, “Getaboshi’s almost found out why the creepy White Coat’s been trying to catch you alone all this while.”
He tried not to stare through the sheer cloth.
“…‘diot... mean Urahara-sensei… ‘rotsuchi-sensei, don’t you?” Her retort came out rather spoiled.
She was unable to see the grimace that accompanied his snort. “ ‘Sensei’, Rukia? Much as you trust your honourable Byakuya nii-sama, you can’t still think that this is some school for the privileged; we’re practically caught here as lab rats – You’re done?”
“…”
It usually took her longer than anyone he knew did to shift to her core form. So he took a couple of precious seconds in an attempt to preserve her dignity (and save himself from needless agony) before inching the drapes open.
A sigh of relief: Perched atop her neatly folded garments was a white dwarf-sized rabbit.
Ichigo held open the pack he had secured earlier. Rukia leapt off when his hands reached out for the pile of clothes; a well-aimed indigo glare deterred him from slovenly dumping them in like he had done his. As he was about to lift her into the bag, she avoided his hands, darting to one side to grip the silk carrier between her teeth.
She jumped into the pack with Ichigo’s valentine without sparing him a further glance.
Then darkness enfolded as he strapped down the cover while muttering aggrievedly under his breath. “Here I go now, Chappy-san,” he told the rabbit in the pack strapped around his torso. “Enjoy the ride.”
Rukia felt herself being plunged to the ground as Ichigo sprang forward, having switched as he fell upon his paws.
-
He slipped out through a flap in the door, into a hallway that had been magically filled with several dozen pairs of maidenly legs.
“Kurosaki-sama!” Crap. He had forgotten about the fangirls while making his getaway plans. “Ichigo-senpai!” Had they been lying in wait of him they moment someone sighted him in this form? He considered turning his flashing his claws at them, they and their bedamned chocolates. But he would get hell from them later, as most of who were of his crowd.
So – flight. He eyed the converging fleshy columns and then looked through them; that was his escape route.
Ichigo yowled, plunging into the suddenly excited foray of legs. The heavy pack (it has been lighter earlier) walloped against his torso while his sides bumped on shin after shin. Apparently, they did not take his mrraaooow! to mean Open sesame. And at some point, he felt a pair of strong somethings kicking and digging into his spine. Damn Rukia. This, even though she knew that he was helping her!
He could not grit his teeth nor curse in the human tongue, and so he did his best to ensure that she felt every part of the bumps and the jumps which followed thereafter. As he left the chorus of anguished shrieks and headed down the corridor, he made sure to add an extra spring to his steps; he bounced down the long stairway to the back entrance; he squeezed through the smallest of all possible entry holes out of the school grounds.
It was all lost on Rukia, of course. She probably had felt only a fifth of all that he had put her (mostly himself, really) through since she was cushioned safely among her clothes. There had been no movement from her other than the painful kick she had dealt to his spine a while ago. It did help, though, as he was sure that the route he had taken would have shaken off the White Coat’s underlings.
Ichigo had at last brought them to the entrance of Urahara’s hideout (one of them, anyway – new ones popped up whenever they were needed). This one was located rather out of the way, in a clearing a great way from the compound. No one would be able to find it, Getaboshi-sensei had assured him.
And he would love to see Rukia’s face when he got her out after this.
Without further ado, Ichigo plunged into the algae-infested pond. He had to rise twice for air, before managing to find the large protrusions some way down on the far bank. The pack on his bag squirmed a bit while he did so; he felt sorry for her. But he had finally found the hideout – the sandy wall pulled itself apart when he rubbed his torso against the knobbly button things.
The wall proceeded to engulf them.
-
It wooshed them down a tunnel, sliding out into a room at the end of it.
… A room, if one should choose to be lax with the definition of that. It was an arena of intricately carved stone walls that would have been artistic masterpieces if completed. Interconnected stone structures trailed all around to form a crazy maze that came with hidden stone seats and high perches. Light came from glass globes that were adroitly hung around the structures.
Ichigo refused to let his jaw drop, nor gaze at the stone wonder around him in wonderment. He was certain that the architect of this ‘humble hideout’ had installed video and voice recording features in here, and he had no wish for him to gain an ego boost. Moreover, this was from experience; Urahara had recently dropped the bombshell, revealing that he had enough blackmail material gained from those other recordings. A Valentine's recording would certainly render him insufferable for weeks.
Instantly shifting back to his human form, he snapped off the uncomfortably tight elastic strap of the pack and stretched his tense muscles. Ahhh… There were also the several sore spots on his back to be accounted for.
He dropped down onto a low bench nearby (that really was a hole in the wall), placing the sodden bag onto his lap.
“We’ve reached, Rukia. Gonna get my clothes out first.”
It was either that she had not heard him, given that her ears could have been water-clogged, or that she had felt so relieved at being released from the bag –perhaps both – that she had crashed right out the moment he lifted the flap.
Right out into his chest.
His bare chest, she was aware of that much. A strange wheeze escaped her as her limbs swiftly lengthened and her pelt became patchier. She would have lost her grip on that form entirely, had the following not happened:
“Kurosaki-sama and Rukia-chan!” They both froze.
“Welcome to Kisuke’s Hideout XV: The Stone
Yours truly,
Urahara Kisuke"
P.S. This Hideout was created specially with this special day in mind. Perhaps it would please Kurosaki-sama for Rukia-chan to remind him exactly what this lovely occasion is.”
In the time lapse of which this message boomed upon the two of them, Rukia successfully became rabbit again and threw herself off Ichigo’s naked lap, leaving behind long gouge marks in the process. But Ichigo had anticipated this move and managed to catch her midair, holding her out as she struggled in spite of the stinging pain on sensitive flesh. He ground out, “What’s the matter with you?”
In that moment, Rukia stopped violently trashing. What was the matter with her? She shut her eyes, breathing in deeply. Why was she suddenly so evasive about changing in Ichigo’s view? Why was she fighting against the one who cared the most for her? And then she remembered something she had noticed earlier, that had slipped her mind when Ichigo had caught her up in his manic actions. In her current state, she would not be able to get what she wanted out of him.
Ichigo realised that her almost limp form meant that she had calmed down considerably. He glanced over before passing Rukia over his shoulder to set her down on the ground behind. “I won’t look. Honest, Rukia,” he promised.
He placed the thoroughly soaked garments beside Rukia without turning back. She heard him rummaging through the bag. Cautiously, she looked up at the stone bench; it was empty, so he was probably off putting on his clothes in some corner.
Shuddering violently to shake moisture out of her coat, she moved someway past the hole in the wall where she would not be seen regaining her form.
-
Meanwhile, Ichigo had come upon a bottle shrouded in fine silk, which Rukia as her lapine self had insisted on bringing along. He supposed that he was entitled to open what that would be his, sooner or later.
His nose picked up the different notes in the blend of scents; camomile, bergamot… cocoa… Just how much of it had she added to the mix? What exactly was this thing?!
-
She had settled down on the floor where he had left her, her head visible at the top of the stone bench. Rukia was combing through her wet raven-black hair with her fingers, her back facing him. Good – she was unaware of his approach.
Just metres away, he uncapped the glass bottle. The concentrated scent dispersed and, like fishing bait, turned her attention to him. In that instant, Ichigo promptly upturned the bottle’s contents onto her damp hair.
“…!”
She was startled into non-movement. He reached down to pull her into his arms, turning his tongue first onto her hair, and then onto her earlobes. Her widened eyes narrowed, indigo expressing shock, then annoyance, then her eyelids fluttered shut. She was acting very much like a kitten being groomed now. She could not focus enough to remain dumbstruck, not when was doing he was doing his best to send the sensitive spots on her neck into a flurry. She forgot that she ought to be angry with him, for he had just turned her gift to him into some sort of dry shampoo. And then the scent of the herbs that now engulfed her senses… frenzied her senses.
At some point, Ichigo spoke into her hair, something inaudible.
“… nn…?”
He removed his lips from her head. “I said: I am exacting payment from you. For kicking me, twice.”
“… This is what you call ‘payment’?” Rukia’s voice was tart; inwardly, she was confused. She turned in his loose hold and looked up into his face, trying to find answers to his strange behaviour there. Ichigo’s eyes were dilated. Something shifted in his gaze, but she could not tell what it was. “I… I…”
The uncertainty in his tone took a sudden twist.
“Bergamot, Rukia?” He questioned, a smirk appeared on his lips. Just where was he going with this? She nodded, eyeing him suspiciously. He kept doing and saying these things that threw her off guard.
“The bergamot citrus, used in control spells in folk magic,” he recited, as if by heart. “You can’t really have been jealous all this while?”
He knew. He might have made this insight from the wrong source, but the fact was, he actually knew. She had not known about the control thing, that was an unexpected coincidence. She put it at the pungent scent of she-cats on heat in the hallway just now, which she had also noticed when he she was changing form in his room. That was why she had kicked him there and then. All this while, she had feared losing him, afraid that…
Ichigo, noting how lost she looked, enveloped her into his arms. His eyes were soft, expression flitting between exasperation and relief as he guessed the reason she’d been acting as she had, once again hitting upon the right nail.
“I won’t go running off with some she-cat, idiot kit.”
“… I knew that.”
He planted a kiss firmly atop her herby hair.
-
A while later, Rukia and Ichigo had tucked themselves in a strange gondola-like structure. Urahara Kisuke had yet to show up.
“What is this herb blend supposed to be? Since when have the Kuchikis dealt with shady things like love potions– ”
“What? It’s a bergamot orange tea infusion! I made it from a time-honoured clan recipe.”
“And who would put sugar into tea mix?! It’s a pain getting it out of your hair.”
“Only an idiot would have thought of pouring that over someone’s head. Idiot.”
“…”
-
And a little while later-
Rukia remembered something, "'Love potion'?"
“… No one has ever told you what chocolates do to me, Rukia?”
She denied knowing what.
“Well, you saw how I’d acted just now…”
Tense silence followed.
“If you ever have to, uh, seduce me, it’s that easy – OW!”
-Finis
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A/N:
This is the Valentine’s chapter of a yet to be written multi-chapter series, tentatively titled FER. I hope that you have enjoyed feline!Ichigo and lapin!Rukia (if you haven’t already figured out what they are) as much as I have writing them. I was told by someone that Ichigo’s more like a dog than a cat, but I can’t kick the image of a cat-Ichigo outta my mind. I suppose it must have been the influence of a couple of cat-Ichigo/Rukia fanart that I’ve seen around the place.
There’s definitely a running plot that I can’t seem to incorporate into this standalone chapter; therefore, I’ll like to know how interesting you folks find this first, as well as any ideas that you have. FER will be the first multi-chaptered AU fic that I am trying out, and I do hope that you guys will like it.
