AN: A little fluffy one shot I felt like writing at 5 in the morning. It's a carnival cliché, but what can you do? Ichigo and Rukia just fit so nicely together in this environment. Haha, Guety, this is just to prove that I can actually write one shots. Set before the Soul Society arc. If you like it, review!
Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach
Her First Time
He had to stop himself from gaping. Really, he should have been immune to the kinds of things Rukia told him by now – after all she had had problems over where to put a straw in a juice popper. At least this time it was a bit more understandable, he told himself.
Rukia was sitting cross-legged on the bottom of his bed, while he was leaning against his headrest. She had just been telling him about the daily conversations of the girls in their class – he acted like he didn't care, but really, this kind of thing was what every guy secretly wished for. And since Rukia was naïve, she basically told him everything they said – everything. She didn't leave anything out – that could have been bad or good, really.
Like the time she had been talking about the merits of tampons over pads to him, and vice versa. That had been slightly disturbing to Ichigo. However, he learnt to live with it (it wasn't that hard), and today she was talking about 'first times'.
He was thankful he wasn't drinking anything at that moment. Like that time he was taking a sip of his water bottle, and she casually asked him what 'getting a room' meant. She had cocked her head, asking him why people had snickered whenever she mentioned 'getting a room'. He had to make up a long and slightly embarrassing explanation after that. It was not good.
So now, when she told him that the topic of today's lunchtime discussion was 'first times' he immediately braced himself.
He was thanking God and every other person under the sun, when he found out she was talking about first times on roller coasters. After silently thanking his luck, he asked her to continue.
So she did. She told him that, from what she had gathered, a roller coaster was a big metal thing with wheels, and went had a tendency to go downhill when you screamed. Ichigo had shaken his head at that. That was the worst definition he had ever heard of a roller coaster in his life. Because Rukia had felt that her definition of a roller coaster was basically official, just by relying on her fantastic listening skills, she felt that she didn't have to confirm with the girls.
There was no way he could possibly explain to Rukia once she thought she knew it all. Well, he couldn't explain it himself, but he had seen in the paper that a carnival was coming that weekend. What perfect timing.
- - -
The weekend came, and mercifully, Rukia did not press him with any more embarrassing questions or statements. Well, nothing too extreme. Hardly anything could be as bad as the time when she had asked him about condoms, he thought, pulling on his brown cord jacket. That was even worse than the tampon explanation. Ichigo thought that by the time he had had kids, he would have no problem in giving them 'the talk' because he must have explored many different aspects of 'the talk' with Rukia. Even though she was so much older than him, he sometimes felt that he was the older in the relationship.
It seemed that, because she had eased up on the embarrassing questions over the week, she made up for it as they were walking to the carnival. Ichigo had made some excuse to his family that he had to go 'out', but didn't explain where. His father had talked to him later that night in the doorway of his room, at which Rukia had scampered into his closet rather quickly – and his father had told asked him in hushed tones if he was going on a date. Ichigo nearly sent his father to the neighbours with his fist, but controlled himself enough to tell him that yes, he was going on a date, and yes, he was going to the carnival that was in town for the weekend, and yes, he did not want to see any members of his family present at that carnival.
His father made a sly comment and suddenly was embedded in the hallway wall, smirking. Though, Ichigo didn't hear anything out of Rukia that night.
When Ichigo had told her about the carnival, the day after, she had been delighted, not to mention relieved. She had overheard Ichigo and Isshin's conversation and her thoughts immediately turned to who Ichigo was going on a date with, and why hadn't he told her about this carnival thing. She didn't respond when he knocked on the closet door – she was too busy thinking on who the girl was. Orihime, she placed her bets on, rather sadly. After Ichigo had told her about going to the carnival, her thoughts changed to – 'I'm going on a date?' – with Ichigo none the less. She didn't need to ask Ichigo what a 'date' was – she had already asked him that a long time ago – plus, with his sisters' collection of manga, she had gotten a pretty good idea of what a date was. Basically, it was a meeting between two people, usually male and female (she had accidentally read a male and a male date, and she couldn't sleep for two days – why Ichigo's sisters' had those types of manga's, she did not know. Although, she was a bit worried – in every date she had come across in her extensive collection of mangas, there had always been a kiss. Did Ichigo expect a kiss on their date? When she had asked him what a date was, he had merely turned a bit red, and told her that it was just when two or more people hung out. Her manga's didn't necessarily agree with that. Maybe he was just trying to hide the fact that kissing was a prerequisite of going on a date.
Even with this thought in her mind, she had still been so excited, that she had forgotten to ask him what a carnival was, and asked him to explain to her as they were walking to it. Ichigo had sighed, ran his hands through his hair, grunted – anything to stop him from explaining, but Rukia had simply stopped walking, and waited. He couldn't very well just blurt out what a carnival was – it was something people had to experience. He told her this, and she had eyed him skeptically, probably thinking that he was hiding something from her. She seemed to accept his explanation though, only because they were rounding the corner to where the carnival actually was – she had already seen the tops of the roller coasters – Ichigo had pointed them out, and she was terribly excited.
When they reached the entrance, he paid for their tickets, and then asked her a strange question – 'Which ride do you want to go on?'. She had told him that she did not want to ride anything; she wanted to go on the roller coaster. For some reason he had sighed quite loudly and then started walking in the general direction of the roller coaster. She had followed him, but of course, it wasn't long before the colourful stalls, noises, and attractions had, well, captured her attention. She soon forgot about Ichigo, and started ogling at the fairy-floss stand. The person behind the stand had smiled politely and asked her what she wanted. She had replied – 'Can you can eat that?' with an expression of wonderment, mixed with amazement. It blew her mind to think of how a person could consume such a big and fluffy…well, pink thing.
Being Rukia, she asked for the biggest he could give her, and was presented with a gigantic pink cloud on a stick. When she had tried to walk away, she was immediately shouted at, by the angry vendor, who had told her that she needed to pay, before she could take it. Thankfully, Ichigo showed up at the right time, worked out the misunderstanding quite fast, and paid the poor, flustered man his due cash.
He was planning to get angry at Rukia, but when she looked at him with grateful big eyes, he just shoved his hands in his pockets, and grunted a mere 'come on', grabbing her free hand so that she would not get distracted by any other attractions, and possibly get arrested for stealing. Yes. That was definitely the reason. Rukia had been happy enough to allow Ichigo to take her hand – she had seen that done in manga's as well (though they were always accompanied by the blushing of both sexes – she didn't know why) – while she tackled the job of trying to eat the 'big pink thing' that the man had gave her. After several attempts of failing, Ichigo finally noticed when they were standing in line for the 'roller coaster'.
She was so intent on trying to eat her fairy floss, that she hardly noticed the insane turns, the flips and the steep drops that the ride in front of her had to offer. Ichigo had to admit, he was slightly disappointed. He would have been glad to see Rukia just a little frightened – the girl that slew hollows was frightened of a measly roller coaster. Unfortunately, the girl that slew hollows was too busy slaying her fairy floss.
Ichigo had opted to stand behind Rukia in the line, lest she wander off again, though he hadn't let go of her hand. She didn't let go either, which was rather pleasing to him, though he didn't allow his mind to elaborate any further. When he noticed the obvious frustration she was having with the fairy floss (the universal issue of eating fairy floss, but not getting sticky), he sighed again, for what seemed the fiftieth time that day.
Since he was a lot taller than her, he had casually reached over her shoulders and held her other hand, so that now they were in a position, similar to the 'spooning' position. Though, Ichigo didn't have those intentions – not at all – all he wanted to do was help out Rukia. Holding both her hands now, he guided her in the correct way to eat the fairy floss, without having the unpleasant stickiness all across her face. She wasn't good at it at first, but bite by bite, she was getting better. He reluctantly let go of one of her hands to reach into his back pocket and give her a hanky. After wiping her face, and finishing the fairy floss, she tugged her hand away from his. Then, she turned around, now very close to him and placed the hanky in his back pocket, leaving Ichigo dangling his arms around her while she was doing so.
Things would have turned out rather awkward for them, if it were not for the angry comments made by the people behind – Ichigo and Rukia hadn't moved, and it was now their turn to get on the roller coaster. Such was their rush, that Rukia did not have time to look at the track of the roller coaster. But, seeing only a harmless metal compartment with wheels, and seeing as she already knew the correct definition of a roller coaster, she unhesitatingly took the front car, which was surprisingly empty. Ichigo had grunted in surprise, but there was no way he was going to be outdone by a mere girl, Rukia none the less, and he took his seat next to her.
The roller coaster was a pretty standard one, went around a short, slow bend, before ascending. Rukia, Ichigo noted, after looking around during the slow ascent, had settled down, looking bored. She told him, rather loudly, and amidst the chatter behind them, that roller coasters must be quite boring, and that she didn't know why on earth the girls at school were so afraid of them. That was when they reached the top. Ichigo, by this time was rather annoyed that Rukia wasn't scared of heights, or roller coasters at all – he had hoped to get some sort of reaction out of her, maybe be a little afraid so that she would cling to him.
When they dropped down, almost all of Ichigo's wishes came true. Rukia didn't even have time to scream, rather, on the way down, Ichigo noted, rather pleased, she had grabbed onto his arm for dear life, and turned deathly pale. When the ride had smoothed over a bit (but yet still had a fair amount of ascents and descents left, pleasing Ichigo) she had told him – or rather, stuttered to him that he was the most cruellest person in the world for not explaining to her that it fell down at an alarming rate. Ichigo didn't really care, because she was still clinging on to the 'cruellest person in the world', and he enjoyed it. He found that he enjoyed the ascents, more than he enjoyed the descents – since the descents were over too quickly, and the ascents now seemed a lot scarier to Rukia, meaning she would clutch his arm tighter, and lean in closer to him.
On the last long descent he had pried his arm away from her, to his amusement and her horror, and she had remained deathly silent when they walked off. Ichigo started to wonder if his joke had gone a bit too far. They, well, Ichigo walked to another a bench, away from most of the people, and she followed him, silently, and legs wobbling. He let her sit in silence for a while, and waited for her outburst.
It came, as soon as she got her legs to stop shaking. 'Ichigo, why did you let go of me?', 'Ichigo, I can't believe you did that', 'Ichigo, that was so cruel of you', 'Ichigo…'
Ichigo rolled his eyes, and tried to stop grinning. She was being quite serious about the issue, but it really was quite funny. She started talking about all the extreme dangers and possibilities that could have happened because she wasn't holding on to his arm – she could have fallen off! She continued to talk about how he should never, ever, do that again, and to start explaining things to her in more detail, so that she wouldn't have to deal with these types of things ever again.
"Ichigo, what possessed you – mmphh…"
She was silenced by his lips on hers, kissing her rather abruptly albeit softly, while cupping her face gently in his hands. She was glad she read manga's – they were truly a guide to life. She had been reading about it the night before, just in case, she told herself – she had agreed to go with Ichigo on this 'date' so didn't that mean indirectly consented to kiss him. She recalled upon all the kissing scenes in her manga's and found that it was quite necessary for the female to put her arms around the male's neck, while his arms was around the girl's waist. She had recited this in her head – arms around neck, not around waist – she was quite scared she would forget, and Ichigo would look upon like she had no experience whatsoever – something that shouldn't happen when she was ten times his age. The chant she had recited in her head was useful, and she wound her arms around his neck. Upon doing so, she noted with some pleasure that his arms were around her waist, just like the manga had said would happen.
When Ichigo pulled back, he had expected to see her angry face, demanding why he had done that – he never had thought about what would happen if she kissed back. Instead, she had given him a smile, a genuine smile that he had only seen vary rarely of these days, and said that she had been waiting for that, it was nice, it was her first kiss and that this was, after all, a date, wasn't it?
Ichigo had sighed, yet again, because he would have to explain these things to her. He assumed that she probably had read some manga that had a date, with kissing, and expected them to do so. He ran a hand through his orange hair, and simply pushed the issue to the back of his mind, as he pulled her gently closer to him. He supposed he could live with her misconception. It was after all, her first time.
End…